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Thread: How do we feel about Therkla?
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2019-10-01, 08:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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2019-10-01, 11:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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- Olympia, WA
Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
To clarify what I said earlier about Rigoletto:
I don’t think Therkla’s arc is badly written, inasmuch as the dialogue or the plotting or the characterization goes. I just don’t think the character conveys a good message for the comic overall, or says much of value about female characters (of which, at the time, there were precious few good ones).
Think of the known-to-be female characters at the time:
Haley (Elan’s girlfriend and main character)
Sabine (Nale’s evil girlfriend)
Hilgya (Durkon’s evil kind-of girlfriend)
Samantha (Elan’s evil kind-of-ex-girlfriend)
Miko (Roy’s kind-of-evil sorta-ex would-be girlfriend)
Celia (Roy’s girlfriend)
Julia (Roy’s sister)
Tsukiko (Xykon’s wanna-be evil girlfriend)
Lien
The pregnant Azure Guard woman I can’t remember the name of
A witch that hexes Vaarsuvius
Assorted shopkeepers, victims, and bystanders
Mentioned and barely seen: Lirian, Roy’s mom, Serini
...and Therkla. Another female character whose arc revolves around her attraction to and/or relationship with one of the main male characters.
Had Therkla been an evil ninja assassin, and the group had killed her, it would have allowed her more independent agency and depth. Instead, she was an appendix to Elan’s tale.
Back to Rigoletto:
Gilda is the daughter of the court jester, Rigoletto. He forbids her to leave the house, in an attempt to protect her from the prying eyes of the Duke (a notorious womanizer) and his equally unruly courtiers. But the Duke has been secretly posing as a poor student so he can woo her, not knowing her identity. The courtiers abduct Gilda (and presumably assault her), delivering her to the Duke as a prize. Rigoletto is heartbroken and humiliated and vows revenge, hiring an assassin to kill the Duke. Gilda is still somehow in love with the Duke and sacrifices herself so the Duke can live.
That’s messed up. Tragic a little, sure, but more than a little messed up.
What’s worse: the Duke gets a famously catchy song (seriously, you’ll know it and hum it: La donna è mobile) about how much he loves women. Rigoletto gets a song about how depressed he is than an old man cursed him. And he gets a song about how he can’t find his daughter. And a song about how terrible it is for him that his daughter was abducted. And a song about how sad it is that she’s dead. Gilda gets one good aria about how she’s in love with the man who’s lying to her, and another about how she still loves him so much that she’ll die for him.
Don’t get me wrong. Rigoletto is well-written and has beautiful tunes. It’s just got a very antiquated look at female agency. Therkla is cut from a similar cloth; a little more modern, but not much.The Giant says: Yes, I am aware TV Tropes exists as a website. ... No, I have never decided to do something in the comic because it was listed on TV Tropes. I don't use it as a checklist for ideas ... and I have never intentionally referenced it in any way.
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2019-10-02, 03:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
Well, I'd say Hamlet is reasonable to waffle, not correct. In the same sense that Walter White was reasonable (at first) to cook meth to pay for his cancer treatment, if not exactly right.
Hamlet isn't Kill Bill where the correct answer is just to kill them; and it isn't Law and Order where the answer is just to find (and prove) who dunnit. Hamlet doesn't know what genre he's in; he's in a legitimately complicated situation where a normal person would struggle deciding how to act.
Also, there are no witnesses. Shakespeare's plays were explicit about minor characters/extras and there were only two people in the Church at that time.
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2019-10-02, 03:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2006
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- Mangholi Dask
Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
Also, you've left out an important piece of the story. Hamlet enlisted the Players to act out a murder similar to his father's, and Claudius ran away in fright, confirming his guilt. The scene in the church is immediately after this.
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2019-10-04, 12:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2011
Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
Loved her as a character. Wouldn't want to know her in real life.
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2019-10-04, 04:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
One of my favorite supporting characters.
As for Elan's thoughts on her - she would have made a pretty cool girlfriend, too.
Maybe some of that is guilt - but it does appear that if Haley wasn't in the picture, Elan would have been open to it.
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2019-10-06, 10:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
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- Ottawa, Canada
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
I liked her in DSTP and I like her better after the short story “Spoiler Alert” (which shows her being a decent person, and also shows the romanticism that made her fall for Elan and the social isolation that drover her attachment to both Kubota and Elan). It retroactively improves her DSTP characterization.
However, I do disagree with Rich’s view that Evil done “as a day job” is fundamentally less bad (or less Evil) than Evil done for other motivations.Last edited by LadyEowyn; 2019-10-06 at 10:59 PM.
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2019-10-06, 11:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-10-07, 12:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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2019-10-07, 01:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
The way I've sort of seen it is, I don't think the Evil done is less Evil, but Neutral characters tend to be more molded by their circumstances than the other way around. (Given that Rich has said, when he describes a character's alignment, he describes the perspective he wrote them from, not the evaluation of the actions they took during life.) If Therkla had found a Good mentor, she probably would have been acting on the side of Good.
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2019-10-07, 04:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2015
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
It's worth noting that Therkla presumably saw herself as Evil. We know self-evaluation can be wrong and in this case it was, but it says something about her moral compass, I think. It's consistent with alignment being used by the Giant more as a descriptor of a synchronic moral outlook and a predictor of future actions and attitudes, rather than as judgment for past actions, just like in the case of V.
Last edited by hroþila; 2019-10-07 at 04:40 AM.
ungelic is us
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2019-10-12, 09:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
*Branded for double posting*
Sometimes, being bad feels so good.
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2019-10-12, 10:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
That’s literally one singular thing of both of their lives, how would that be enough to make them evil or not? I think it’s been well established that evil characters are entirely capable of doing some good and vice-versa.
We also don’t know what their relationship was like. Did he try to kill her before or did she spent the entire curriculum faking friendship so that she could kill him at the last second?
In any case I don’t consider fighting to the death within a school for professional killers any more evil than joining one in the first place.Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2019-10-12, 11:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2009
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
*Branded for double posting*
Sometimes, being bad feels so good.
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2019-10-12, 11:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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- France
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
Last edited by Fyraltari; 2019-10-12 at 11:19 AM.
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2019-10-12, 11:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2009
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
Bon
(filler for message length filler for message length filler for message length)Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
*Branded for double posting*
Sometimes, being bad feels so good.
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2019-10-19, 12:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2009
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2019-10-19, 03:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-10-20, 03:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Singapore
Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
There's still a lot of context that your question assumes. "Ninja school is kill-or-be-killed, so you may have to kill other students (who also signed up for this)" is very different from having full, complete knowledge of what the profession means.
Like, hypothetically, if she thinks that that's just the way the world works and that she'll be working with someone who, if not good, is at least reasonable and won't be killing people indiscriminately, I could see it as neutral. There's a huge difference between signing up for kill-or-be-killed training-from-hell in order to eventually serve as a soldier or enforcer for someone you respect (which can, in some situations, be neutral) and signing up to be a blank-check murderer-for-hire (which we can gather in retrospect was what actually happened, but which may not be how she saw it at the time.)
Remember that D&D morality is intentionally designed to make killing somewhat more acceptable than in real life (because it's a game with a lot of killing and you're not supposed to have to enter a full moral decision point for every enemy you fight just to avoid being Evil.) Killing people who are clearly willing combatants - and even intentionally entering a situation with a bunch of willing combatants and then killing them - isn't evil. Murdering noncombatants for Kubota is more evil, but, again, she could reasonably have been under the impression that this was part of a larger game where everyone she went after was trying to murder her and Kubota, too.
(And given the Deadly Decadent Court nature of Azure City society, this was probably not always wrong.)
I mean, remember, Enor and Gannji are neutral, too, and they're basically killers-for-hire (well, kidnappers for hire, but they seem willing to kill) along the same lines. And I'd read their outlook the same way - eg. as far as they know, the OOTS are just another group of criminals and killers. The game is designed to let you play Boba Fett without having him be evil.Last edited by Aquillion; 2019-10-20 at 03:28 PM.
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2019-10-20, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2019
Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
SpoilerDidn't she try to not kill people who she was sent after in Spoiler Alert? Showing that generally she tries to avoid murdering her targets if she can, which strikes me as a Neutral attitude, I'll kill people I'm sent after if I have to, but I'll try to avoid doing it.Arrrgh, here be me extended sig!
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2019-10-20, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
That, too. Generally speaking "I work for the highest bidder" or "my master, right or wrong" characters with occasional hints of conscience and some sort of implicit code that places limits on what they'll do (even if it doesn't often come up) are characterized as True Neutral (or Lawful Neutral, sometimes, for the ones heavily devoted to serving someone.) I'd put Thurka, Enor and Gannji into that category.
Last edited by Aquillion; 2019-10-20 at 03:32 PM.
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2019-10-21, 01:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
1. Note I was asking whether Fyra agreed, specifically.
I don't care whether the game thinks therkla, enor and ganji are evil or neutral.
2. But I can tell you that: if the game says Boba Fett is neutral, the game is wrong.
3. Likewise, if The Giant says Enor and Ganji are neutral, he is wrong as well.
Wrong in the sense of real world definitions, I mean. Maybe he is right in D&D terms, but then I would hope he is aware of the discrepancy and is trying to make a point with his comic how much the alignment system sucks.Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
*Branded for double posting*
Sometimes, being bad feels so good.
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2019-10-21, 02:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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- France
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
She helped orchestrate monster attacks on the fleet that wiped out entire civilian ships. Rationalize that.
Oh and she was willing to let Shaman Vrukle sacrifice her love interest’s friends too.
And given the Deadly Decadent Court nature of Azure City society, this was probably not always wrong.
Still unsure why my opinion matters, frankly.
2. But I can tell you that: if the game says Boba Fett is neutral, the game is wrong.
3. Likewise, if The Giant says Enor and Ganji are neutral, he is wrong as well.
Wrong in the sense of real world definitions, I mean. Maybe he is right in D&D terms, but then I would hope he is aware of the discrepancy and is trying to make a point with his comic how much the alignment system sucks.
Actions are good, evil or without consequences. People are not. How would you even determine that? You cannot know who anybody that isn’t you (and even then...) truly is, you don’t know what they do 99% of the time. I mean you lack any way to measure the evilness or the goodness of an action (is killing two adults worse than killing one child? Is adopting an orphan better than digging wells in water-deprived areas? How do you weight intent against consequences? The **** if I know, and I don’t care) and the necessary threshold below which one counts as evil. Much less ones that would be objectively viable or generally agreed upon.
But more importantly: what does it matter if this person or that person are evil or not? What are you gonna do about it?
In a game like D&D that’s a quick and dirty guide to the actions of a particular character (wether player or not) and in works of fiction where characters’ personalities are simpler and less contradictory than real-life people (not to mention, they only exist when we see them) it can make sense to call them evil or good (and even then there are still disagreements). But don’t talk to me about someone being good or evil ‘by real world definitions’.
Edit: [/rant]Last edited by Fyraltari; 2019-10-21 at 02:15 AM.
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2019-10-21, 03:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-10-21, 05:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2019
Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
If we’re gonna discuss Fett’s alignment, I’ll throw my hat in the ring as “ignore the movies because the man has no character there”, and say based solely on the LotF series I found him to be LN, albeit significantly closer to Evil than Good.
Also I feel like leaving a few of Rich’s thoughts on alignments here, as an explanation for some thought processes:
So maybe look at it this way: Throughout their life Therkla, Gannji and Enor have more (or about equal) situations where they convinced their target to flee, or avoided killing them and instead captured them, or even broke a contract every once and awhile, than just came in and killed them to death. Also Gannji and Enor are currently working to overthrow an Evil Empire for free, their reasoning isn’t perfect but it definitely isn’t Evil.
And one final quote from a TN character we haven’t argued about but I think gave a good understanding of how most TN people we’ve seen see killing
Originally Posted by HankArrrgh, here be me extended sig!
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2019-10-21, 09:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
As presented in the comic and without using GDGU, I found her somewhere between a tad meh and okay. I enjoyed her interactions with the Imp the best; the combination of unconvincing lies and even more unconvincing acceptances she had with Elan*/Kubota weren't my cup of tea. I felt sad that she wasn't emotionally healthy enough to make good decisions about her position in life and that the one time she didn't try to compromise was her death, but also exasperated at how long it went on. Also, not that it hugely bothers me, but I think if the Giant was aiming to satirise any elements of the weird romance subplots we see in fiction, he sailed a little too close to being than to satirising.
As a person... I'd feel some sorrow for her, because she went through traumatic experiences with nobody good to help her put herself back together, but its difficult to feel that sorry for someone who's so casual over killing people just to fit in/be popular.
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2019-10-21, 11:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
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How do we feel about Therkla?
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2019-10-21, 03:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
Ehhh.
The game, like I said, has to allow you to play sword-swinging adventurer types who often cleave first and ask questions later, without having the typical adventuring party be evil. Some people want deep moral questions to come up constantly in their games! But many people do not; I've totally seen eye-rolling at the table when one player wants to talk to the enemies and find out their motivations, and another just wants a cool fight scene. Tying "wants a cool fight scene" to "whelp, you're evil" is a problem, especially in editions where many classes are locked by alignment. (One of the reasons they eliminated such mechanics in 5e, I think, is because of the dissonance it created when players wanted different things out of the game.)
And OOTS is partially a game with a D&D setting. I think Rich often wants us to view characters through tabletop morality more than real-world morality. (eg. Roy's explanations for keeping Belkar on the team don't hold real-world water; they're handwaves for the fact that everyone knows the party must stick together.)
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2019-10-21, 10:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
I think Rich's comment is instructive because his concept of alignment when he talks about his characters is prescriptive, not descriptive. That's the perspective they are coming from, not the sum total of the evaluations of their lives. If Therkla had been born into a different society, or taken in by someone Good instead of Evil, the distinction might be clearer. Similarly, if Enor and Gannji found themselves in a Good country and were used to hunt down violent criminals and others who caused genuine harm.
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2019-10-23, 02:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2009
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Re: How do we feel about Therkla?
1. Why you matter
Look around you (or rather above and below, in this case :-))
Sometimes I just need to sooth my sorrow with this world and the crap that is humanity.
Specifically, sometimes I need to assure myself that out there there ARE still people who *get* ethics. In the way you do. Thank you for living.
2. I don't know much Star Wars EU. For me Boba is a guy who willingly delivers people to the evil empire. Like Enor & Ganji. As long as I don't have more information, I judge them (as literary characters) by this information I have. And that's solidly evil in my book.
3. Yes actions are evil. But thoughts can be as well (although not quite as harmful in a direct way).Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
*Branded for double posting*
Sometimes, being bad feels so good.