What do female readers think of Hilgya Firehelm?

[martianmister]

Part of utilitarianism is that you don't get to call humans not-persons. For that matter, if we were to discover sentient aliens , the utilitarian position is that they deserve moral consideration the same as a human would. Utilitarianism doesn't say "that doesn't count" when it comes to the suffering of sapient beings, but that good can outweigh the harm. And the negatives for huge populations of thinking people means it seems extremely unlikely that the positives of slavery (slave owners get richer) outweigh the harms.

So, according to utilitarian position, a community with more numerous population should destroy the minorities and take their stuff?

Slavery is loss of freedom, forced labor, corporal punishment, and forced marriage. (And occasional death by mistreatment or beating.) It is not the eternal and constant physical torture which is described in Omelas. Nor is it a guaranteed utopia for the non-slave class. Slavery is morally and ethically wrong, but not the binary extreme depicted in Omelas.

Sounds like you're just nitpicking to undermine Omelas' point.

Note that I don't refer to it in the past tense. Slavery is still practiced in many parts of the world.

What a weird thing to say.

[Fyraltari]

So, according to utilitarian position, a community with more numerous population should destroy the minorities and take their stuff?

Only if that community's increased happiness from the new stuff is superior to the sufferring of the minorities killed.

It's hard to quantify happiness or suffering but I am confident that most utilitarian theorists would say "no, they should not".

Also basically everything azaph said so far.

[georgie_leech]

So, according to utilitarian position, a community with more numerous population should destroy the minorities and take their stuff?

Only if it gives more utility than it does harm. And what with the large groups of people hurt/displaced/killed as a result, and the fact that twice as much stuff doesn't actually make people twice as happy or better off, it doesn't.

[King of Nowhere]

*snip for brevity*

ok, I see that our disagreement arise because we were actually talking about different concepts.

You were interested in the factors determining how much people actually get paid. In that case you are right, of course worked time is not the main factor. Tech level, demand/offer, and on which side of social inequalities you are matter much more.

I was interested in the metaphorical meaning of money for people, and that is exactly what I described, they spend time doing something that benefits others and in turn they can access other stuff that was made by other people in their time. In fact, since most people have a fixed wage which changes only moderately during their life, most people can draw a direct parallel between an amount of money and how much they must work for it.

[DaggerPen]

I am mostly checked out of this thread and the many interesting and spiralled paths it's taken, but I did just want to say -

OK, there's our biggest disconnect. I would never agree that dwarven society is Good. It is extremely Lawful, certainly (with the caveats above about lack of actual choice in the matter), but I don't think it concerns itself with the Good/Evil axis. I wouldn't even call it Neutral, it needs a different orthogonal axis for Honorable/Dishonorable, which does not and cannot be mapped to Good/Evil.

Ah! Yes, I think that's probably a large part of the disconnect. Dwarven society in OOTS is deeply twisted by the requirements of the bet/honorable death, and I wouldn't be surprised if we find out that Hilgya's arranged marriage was tied into that somehow. I can fully accept the argument that it's not Good, just not arguments that start on the premise that it's Good and then try to backfill in justifications for the twisted stuff.

They/them. Or GW/GW's, like with V.

Can do! As either is acceptable, I will probably use they/them for you.

I'm sorry: I was completely out of line here, and I should've removed it on edit. I myself wasn't posting from the calmest possible position, but that is only an explanation, not an excuse. It was hyperbolic, and worse, stupid of me to say this. Please do accept my apologies.

Apology accepted, and no hard feelings. Looking forward to seeing you around again in calmer threads, like the MitD thread, or, uh, most of them.

[Lord Joeltion]

Ok, so... Happy New Year (?) I suppose it's already 2018 on every corner of the world by now...

Here, I'm someone that believes arranged marriage is bad and the system is screwed up. No straw man, I believe the system of honor the dwarves practice victimized Hilgya and those like her of both genders. You are not going to hear me argue that anything Hilgya did meant she "deserved" to be forced into a marriage she didn't want unless the comic points out otherwise; speculation is insufficient evidence on that front.

I still think blaming the clan for Hilgya's actions is inconsistent and that ascribing all of her actions to them is robbing her of agency.

This is basically all I was trying to endorse on this thread.

Our objection to forced marriage is to the "forced" part, but we are often forced to do things in today's enlightened society. An analogous example is that people are forced to pay child support. It is analogous because a person chooses to have sex, knowing that a child is a possibility, and when a child results it would be unfair for one person to bear the entire burden of that, so we force the other person (again usually the man) to share the burden by paying child support.

Whether Hilgya's case meets the above justificaiton (or a different one), we don't know, we simply don't have the backstory. Did she do something (sex or otherwise) which would have stigmatised her future husband if not for the marriage? Your guess is as good as mine (but probably no better).

This too. "Bringing something upon mysekf" isn't the same as saying "I deserved it". It just makes me share some fraction of the blame (as tiny as it might be) with the rest of the people who I may argue "are to blame" too. Doesn't make me any less of a victim, of course. But it makes me less of an "innocent" at the same time. Because I took a risk (knowingly or not) that wasn't really called for.

Hilgya's situation might be just this: She doesn't deserve to be forced into marriage; but that doesn't exclude any blame on herself for getting involved in such a situation*. Specially not when her first real act of rebellion (as far as we are concerned) was attempted murder.

*That is, given the likely probability that she may have done something wrong at some point before getting involved in the arranged marriage. Even if her fault was simply not running away before the whole forced/arranged marriage thingie.

I have been listening to the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan, and I feel to state that this has NEVER turned out to be the correct answer to avoid war, death of thousands, or installation of a new ruling class not significantly different from the previous. The idea you can "avoid war" by overthrowing a established political system is naive to the point of ignorance.

It's also self-defeating as a justification. You are basically trying to avoid "a war" you don't agree with by starting a whole new "war" against your own Government/system. You are simply fighting a different war, not preventing going to any war at all!

Darth Paul explicitly denied believing that Hilgya was actually forced into marriage at one point, with a weird analogy about his having to go to a job in the same post. Since he ditched the thread I don't believe anyone has done that (nor have I seen anyone but him deny the crossbow's actual existence ever, though someone once tried to argue it wasn't actually being pointed at Hilgya, a long time ago).

That may be me. And if it was, my argument wasn't that Hilgya was not a victim of the crossbow; quite on the contrary. My point was that there was a fair chance she wasn't the ONLY victim. That maybe her family was also coerced into coercing her child by the pressure of the clans (either). Because I was actually arguing against Weirdo's "radical" position that EVERYONE in the clan should be killed for limiting Hilgya's freedom. Nothing suggests every single Dwarven is as much as a victim as Hilgya because of oppressive rules. It's unfair to consider Hilgya the only one to get a pass because she is a direct victim (of the forced marriage), but NOT to every other Dwarven that doesn't quite disagree as strongly as she does. I doubt she is the only Dwarven ever to have an opinion against forced marriages. They probably do, but still find "consolation" that following The Duty would save them an eternity of suffering (see Durkon).

[azaph]

ok, I see that our disagreement arise because we were actually talking about different concepts.

You were interested in the factors determining how much people actually get paid. In that case you are right, of course worked time is not the main factor. Tech level, demand/offer, and on which side of social inequalities you are matter much more.

I was interested in the metaphorical meaning of money for people, and that is exactly what I described, they spend time doing something that benefits others and in turn they can access other stuff that was made by other people in their time. In fact, since most people have a fixed wage which changes only moderately during their life, most people can draw a direct parallel between an amount of money and how much they must work for it.

Are you saying I could stand to be a little less verbose?
I think the main issue is that we are using 'people' differently - I was talking about 'people' as a group, as in all of the several million/billion/trillion in whatever setting. You are talking about 'people' as in for each individual person there's a correlation?
Sorry, then .
I think Grey Wolf needs a relationship between money and time/labour to work on the group level to make 'taxation = jail' work, yes? AFAICS GW needs it to work on every level, because of the transitivity of identity.

Only if that community's increased happiness from the new stuff is superior to the sufferring of the minorities killed.

It's hard to quantify happiness or suffering but I am confident that most utilitarian theorists would say "no, they should not".

Oooh, a chance to show off! I'm normally so humble and quiet.
Uuuuuuusually.
There's the case of the sadistic guards, who really enjoy torturing prisoners.
Like, enjoy it way more than the prisoners enjoy 'not being tortured'.
And then there are utility monsters, who feel so much happiness that everyone else gets drowned out and stops mattering.
Both of them can beat up minorities as much as they want.
Without anything weird going on, though, yeah, they'd just say that wealth has diminishing marginal utility and that actually taking it would create disutility, so it's net-negative.
Don't tell them that happiness isn't measurable, you'll break their hearts the poor things.
Utilitarianism says that making someone sad by debunking utilitarianism is morally wrong.

Also basically everything azaph said so far.

That last bit is getting sigged if that's OK.

[martianmister]

Only if it gives more utility than it does harm. And what with the large groups of people hurt/displaced/killed as a result, and the fact that twice as much stuff doesn't actually make people twice as happy or better off, it doesn't.

Let's imagine a country called Zilsav. Zilsav's southeastern areas populated by a ethnic group called Fsals. Fsals are just 13 percent of Zilsav's total population, but the area they live is important for Zilsavian economy for some reason. Fsals and Zilsavians are not living in harmony and there is a push for Fsal independence. There is several organizations aimed at creating an independent Fsal state and some of them wage war against the government. That area Fsals live is important for Zilsav's prosperity, so they can't let it go. Zilsavian Army is unable to defeat rebels, because they are supported by foreign rivals of Zilsav and local Fsal population. Civil War is going on for almost twenty years and rebels' attacks are hurting Zilsav economy and its military resources. In that case, according to utilitarian position, is it right call to kill or exile Fsals?

[Fyraltari]

Oooh, a chance to show off! I'm normally so humble and quiet.
Uuuuuuusually.
There's the case of the sadistic guards, who really enjoy torturing prisoners.
Like, enjoy it way more than the prisoners enjoy 'not being tortured'.
And then there are utility monsters, who feel so much happiness that everyone else gets drowned out and stops mattering.
Both of them can beat up minorities as much as they want.
Without anything weird going on, though, yeah, they'd just say that wealth has diminishing marginal utility and that actually taking it would create disutility, so it's net-negative.
Don't tell them that happiness isn't measurable, you'll break their hearts the poor things.
Utilitarianism says that making someone sad by debunking utilitarianism is morally wrong.

for the sadistic guards thing wouldn't the fact that torture has lifetime long consequences (trauma, diminished physical capacities, etc) while the pleasure of the guards is only temporary (and already has to outweigh the temporary immediate pain of thetortured) means that the utility will be negative anyway?

That last bit is getting sigged if that's OK.

As you wish.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Let's imagine a country called Zilsav. Zilsav's southeastern areas populated by a ethnic group called Fsals. Fsals are just 13 percent of Zilsav's total population, but the area they live is important for Zilsavian economy for some reason. Fsals and Zilsavians are not living in harmony and there is a push for Fsal independence. There is several organizations aimed at creating an independent Fsal state and some of them wage war against the government. That area Fsals live is important for Zilsav's prosperity, so they can't let it go. Zilsavian Army is unable to defeat rebels, because they are supported by foreign rivals of Zilsav and local Fsal population. Civil War is going on for almost twenty years and rebels' attacks are hurting Zilsav economy and its military resources. In that case, according to utilitarian position, is it right call to kill or exile Fsals?

1) You have to consider the negative utility that actions will have beyond the immediate situation. Making it more acceptable to use violence against ethnic minorities is bad for the world as a whole.

2) You have to consider options beyond a false binary. Even if you were to grant that killing the Fsals would be better than letting the situation continue as it is, those aren't the only two choices. Making peace with the Fsals would obviously be far better than either.

[Darth Paul]

Darth Paul explicitly denied believing that Hilgya was actually forced into marriage at one point, with a weird analogy about his having to go to a job in the same post. Since he ditched the thread I don't believe anyone has done that (nor have I seen anyone but him deny the crossbow's actual existence ever, though someone once tried to argue it wasn't actually being pointed at Hilgya, a long time ago).

I'd like to see where I said that, because I don't remember denying she was forced to marry Ivan. I think I argued whether she saw herself being pressured as the same thing as being forced, which is a matter of degree. I do know that I wondered if the crossbow was as metaphorical as the poison bottle in the sandwich.

There's a difference between ditching and going back to work.

[KorvinStarmast]

The negative utility of building a society where people are randomly murdered for their organs outweighs the positive utility of occasionally saving some extra lives.

An assertion that my emotions agree with, utterly lacking the measurement system that would show the balance between the negative and positive utility that you refer to.

1. This thread demonstrates three things nicely:

a. What happens to the discussion when there's no new strip for about two weeks.
b. How badly some people grasp philosophy, ethics, and social systems.
c. That any number of participants will attempt to attribute to a poster's viewpoint or attitude what is being used as a neutral observation.

What has been lost was the (perhaps vain) objective of getting a good read on the title question.

Regarding the last 8-10 pages: at what point does the forum rule against moralizing get triggered?

[Koo Rehtorb]

An assertion that my emotions agree with, utterly lacking the measurement system that would show the balance between the negative and positive utility that you refer to.

Yeah, real life often unfortunately lacks easy optimal solutions that one can always follow while expending minimal mental energy.

[azaph]

for the sadistic guards thing wouldn't the fact that torture has lifetime long consequences (trauma, diminished physical capacities, etc) while the pleasure of the guards is only temporary (and already has to outweigh the temporary immediate pain of thetortured) means that the utility will be negative anyway?

Yeah, but they really enjoy it.
You can justify anything, you just have to enjoy doing it enough.

1) You have to consider the negative utility that actions will have beyond the immediate situation. Making it more acceptable to use violence against ethnic minorities is bad for the world as a whole.

The problem with all arguments like this is that the conclusion isn't 'don't do it'. It's 'do it secretly and make sure noone ever finds out you did it'. If you can't hide the fact that there don't seem to be any Fsals around any more, hold their fate up as the most terrible thing ever, so that any violence against a minority group will be compared to the fate of the Fsals and will be even less acceptable than before.
Reasonably certain I've read something with that plot, actaully.

b. How badly some people grasp philosophy, ethics, and social systems.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

Regarding the last 8-10 pages: at what point does the forum rule against moralizing get triggered?

Isn't it a ban on real world politics and religion?
That's what I've been trying to work from, in any case.

[Koo Rehtorb]

The problem with all arguments like this is that the conclusion isn't 'don't do it'. It's 'do it secretly and make sure noone ever finds out you did it'. If you can't hide the fact that there don't seem to be any Fsals around any more, hold their fate up as the most terrible thing ever, so that any violence against a minority group will be compared to the fate of the Fsals and will be even less acceptable than before.

I think you'd find there would be severe logistical problems with this. But really the fundamental problem here is that you have very little control on how this would play out in practise. At best it's a complete gamble on your part. And you're still morally responsible for the results of that gamble.

Let's shift to another example. There's a spaceship with 100 people on it and it's running out of air. If 50 people don't die in the next day, no one will reach the end of the voyage alive. So maybe first you ask for volunteers. People volunteering to die is probably somewhat less bad than people dying unwillingly. But let's say no one volunteers, everyone wants someone else to do it. Now you're in a position where I'd say it's fairly obvious that some people need to be killed in order to maximize utility. Now let's say 50 of those people are civilians and 50 of those people are engineers who are needed to keep the ship running. If the engineers die the chances of the ship reaching its destination go way down. Again, it seems like a relatively straightforward choice of what to do in order to maximize utility.

[Lord Joeltion]

Let's shift to another example. There's a spaceship with 100 people on it and it's running out of air. If 50 people don't die in the next day, no one will reach the end of the voyage alive. So maybe first you ask for volunteers. People volunteering to die is probably somewhat less bad than people dying unwillingly. But let's say no one volunteers, everyone wants someone else to do it. Now you're in a position where I'd say it's fairly obvious that some people need to be killed in order to maximize utility. Now let's say 50 of those people are civilians and 50 of those people are engineers who are needed to keep the ship running. If the engineers die the chances of the ship reaching its destination go way down. Again, it seems like a relatively straightforward choice of what to do in order to maximize utility.

The latter sounds more like an argument in favour of Elitism* rather than an Utilitarian question. I don't think you would need that many engineers for whatever argument you are trying to make. Having said that, are you the Joker?

*Do I need to point out that Elitism is poorly regarded under most modern views of morality? I shouldn't, but then again... *looks at the thread...*

[Koo Rehtorb]

The latter sounds more like an argument in favour of Elitism* rather than an Utilitarian question. I don't think you would need that many engineers for whatever argument you are trying to make.

You're quibbling over details and it's unseemly. It's an enormous spaceship that's old and breaking down (which is why it's venting air). 50 engineers is a skeleton crew that can barely keep it from falling apart if they're all working around the clock.

[Lord Joeltion]

You're quibbling over details and it's unseemly. It's an enormous spaceship that's old and breaking down (which is why it's venting air). 50 engineers is a skeleton crew that can barely keep it from falling apart if they're all working around the clock.

My point wasn't trying to sound smart, but to point out that you aren't presenting much of a moral question at all. If you need specifically all 50 engineers in order to salvage at least SOME of the crew, then there is no moral choice to make at all. It's a necessity. Where's the Utilitarian part in there?

Or maybe I just didn't get your point, in which case, my bad

[SilverCacaobean]

That any number of participants will attempt to attribute to a poster's viewpoint or attitude what is being used as a neutral observation.

There may be a misunderstanding here, at least when it comes to me. I've expressed some sentiments here that might be interpreted as this, so I'm replying to it. I speak for myself, but maybe other people with similar attitudes may have also been misunderstood: I consider misguided neutral observations quite potentially harmful on their own, unrelated to what a poster's viewpoint is. I'll explain in what way they are harmful.

Something that happened to me a while ago might be helpful before I say any more. Anecdote time:

Spoiler: Anecdote

Show

There was this place I frequented without posting too much. There were some nice people, I thought, there. One day someone, who I can't say was in good standing there, said something entirely misguided about a certain group I belong to. In the interest of not giving away information about myself, let's call it [group]. I'm not sure how much of a parallel it is with what has been said here, it was more malicious than a neutral observation, but it doesn't matter too much in the end. I was quite surprized to see all the nice people there let it pass completely unchallenged more or less. I mentioned that the someone who said this was not in good standing for this reason. This person had been called out for much lesser things. So at that moment I could jump in and enlighten them about [group], but instead I just left that place. I left because, I didn't feel like arguing, especially considering there are a lot of places I won't have to explain anything about [group].

Back to what I have to say. I don't think that anyone here made anything more than neutral observations. I don't think that what they've said reflects their own beliefs or they had malicious intent. Neutral observations that miss the mark widely aren't harmless, though, and my approach when I deal with them might be mistaken for what I've quoted that I'm replying to. I will explain promptly what I mean by "harmless" and "harmful" but first something else.

Spoiler: Something else that can be skipped about should/must

Show

The words "should" and "must" may have been thrown around here too much and I believe I'm as guilty of this as anyone here, but the way people use them has a problem, which I'll try to avoid in this post. Their problem is that they go hand to hand with some sentence that justifies their use, as in: "You should do this [justification].", but this [justification] is often left unsaid, because most humans are used to talking to people who are close enough to them who can figure out what the unsaid justification is on their own. It could be "You should/must do this because you have a moral obligation." which could cause disagreements about both the morality of this obligation, or its being an obligation at all. It could be "You should/must do this if you want to get that result." Disagreements here might arise about the validity of the logic. Or it could be something different than both those examples. The point is the above disagreements are normal and good for a conversation but when disagreements arise out of a misunderstanding of the unsaid sentence the result is a mess. My sentences usually have the second structure and they don't even assume that you want to get that result. I very rarely argue from a moral standpoint, at least not directly.

So back to the bolded sentence and to explaining what I mean by "harmless" and "harmful". To avoid everything I've said above about should, I won't continue the bolded sentence with: "People should avoid making neutral observations unless they know what they're talking about". Instead, I'll say the following based on my experience demonstrated above, other experiences not demonstrated and observations[not as in statements. The other meaning] I've made:

If you make a neutral observation[statement] dipped in ignorance, most people it concerns are not going to stick around to enlighten you. Especially if it's obvious you have put no effort in educating yourself. Neutral observations that are ignorant act as a filter to the people they concern, leaving behind only the confrontational ones and the trolls, the rest leave and go to a place friendlier to them. What this implies about humans is irrelevant. I don't know what kind of impression my posts have given, but I'm actually quite practical. Statements like "People shouldn't just leave so easily" and similar are pointless to me, as is trying to find out whose fault it is. People do leave easily, so if you want to keep them around it's best to think through both your endorsements and your neutral observations if you don't have intimate experience with the subject. Otherwise, you will be left only with confrontational ones and trolls.

The above is not meant to be confrontational, and "you" is used in the general sense. I do have some people here in mind that I could direct the above to, but I won't and don't bother trying to figure out who they are, I doubt you can. I certainly won't name anyone. But let me make sure to mention I don't consider GW among them, since GW was named earlier in a post I actually quoted because I agreed with the general sentiment. Glad that misunderstanding was settled, by the way.


Anyway, I think we should try to rerail this thread.
The latest strip makes it easier to see to what direction Rich is going to take Hilgya. I think she might be to chaotic what Miko was to lawful.

[Koo Rehtorb]

My point wasn't trying to sound smart, but to point out that you aren't presenting much of a moral question at all. If you need specifically all 50 engineers in order to salvage at least SOME of the crew, then there is no moral choice to make at all. It's a necessity. Where's the Utilitarian part in there?

Well, it is a moral choice. Some philosophies hold it would be inherently evil to kill innocent people regardless of context. This is supposed to be a fairly clear example that no, really, it is in fact sometimes okay to kill innocent people in order to maximize utility. It was supposed to be a clearer example than the above discussion on Zilsav and the Fsals because that one gets muddied by there clearly being other better options available and other assorted problems.

And just for fun, let's say one of the non-engineers on the ship is a diplomat and the ship is on the way to a war zone. She's the only one who can understand the language of the Giant Alien Spiders who's closer than years of travel away. If she dies the the chances of peace die with her. If you save her life instead of one of the engineers then the chances of the ship surviving to make it there intact go down, but if she does make it to the destination it would be much more beneficial to the galaxy as a whole.

The point is every different bit of information changes the calculus and trying to figure out what would be the best thing to do is what morality is.

[The_Weirdo]

The latest strip makes it easier to see to what direction Rich is going to take Hilgya. I think she might be to chaotic what Miko was to lawful.

Doubtful. She was already stated as Chaotic Evil by the Giant, so, even at a weak Evil, she's already someone we shouldn't identify as Good and whose behavior (at least after she left the dwarven lands for the first time) we shouldn't identify as desirable or acceptable. Whether or not she WAS (Chaotic) Good before her clan committed that crime against her is irrelevant to what we've seen of her.

Miko is how Paladins SHOULDN'T be played and always was: LAWFUL good. Paladins are at LEAST as Good as they are Lawful.

Hilgya is/was Chaotic Evil (but weaker on Evil than on Chaotic) SHOULD be played. IF she's Chaotic Neutral now, she's still pretty much how Chaotic Neutral should be played so far: she cares about her freedom and the wellbeing of precious few people close to her; she makes rational decisions that, nonetheless, are out of touch with society and/or norms (the baby thing; she had her reasons, whether the decision was correct or not); and, while she's very much deluded about (or pissed off at) Durkon, that kind of impulsive thinking isn't exactly unheard of in Chaotics much like believing your word should be law isn't unheard of in Lawfuls.

Miko was Lawful Stupid and was undone by the fact that she believed she was some sort of Chosen One.

Hilgya is Chaotic Evil/Chaotic Neutral, but so far has only one major flaw: lashing out at convenient targets, which is nowhere near as dangerous or troublesome as Miko's megalomania.

[Chives]

That said, "Hilgya is the new Miko" still seems like a pretty solid prediction to make.

[eilandesq]

That said, "Hilgya is the new Miko" still seems like a pretty solid prediction to make.

Doubtful, as if she is the entire world will be as dead as THAC0 before the next sunrise. The fact that she's focused on the right goal (dead and thwarted Durkula) puts her way ahead of Miko on the usefulness scale and way lower on the threat scale even if her loss of grasp on reality (reflected by her dialogue since her return) rivals or exceeds Peak Miko bats**t crazy.

[The_Weirdo]

Doubtful, as if she is the entire world will be as dead as THAC0 before the next sunrise. The fact that she's focused on the right goal (dead and thwarted Durkula) puts her way ahead of Miko on the usefulness scale and way lower on the threat scale even if her loss of grasp on reality (reflected by her dialogue since her return) rivals or exceeds Peak Miko bats**t crazy.

Her disconnect with reality has some grounds, albeit shaky, and is on a MUCH smaller scale than Miko's.

It's "The one-night stand that dumped me is a jerk that won't take responsibility" vs. "The Gods chose me". Both are wrong, but only one is a psychiatric condition...

[Chives]

Doubtful, as if she is the entire world will be as dead as THAC0 before the next sunrise. The fact that she's focused on the right goal (dead and thwarted Durkula) puts her way ahead of Miko on the usefulness scale and way lower on the threat scale even if her loss of grasp on reality (reflected by her dialogue since her return) rivals or exceeds Peak Miko bats**t crazy.

More in a forum sense, I'll try the paragraph thing:


Hilgya may be the new Miko in the sense of forum discourse. Historically, conversations surrounding generally marginalized and initially simplistic female characters who are also generally marginalized in a story sense, tend to focus on the marginalized female characters themselves, regardless of their part in the story. When acted upon, this discourse tends to divide forums into two sides and Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. These two sides sit inevitably on the axis of 'for' and 'not for'; bringing discourse on a larger-than-average scale in relation to these generally marginalized female characters and their unique, and generally sympathetic; although not necessarily good views of the world, how those views affected them, and whether or not they are justified in those views and their actions. To that extent, discourse is proffered on the aforementioned higher-than-average scale and speakers from both the 'for and not for' axis come out in for favor or fore for favor for not for. This breaks down occasionally, in favor of the Giant; who appears occasionally in the form of moderator to further enlighten engaged readers on the topic and discussions and to enhance our knowledge of the world and characters. In essence, Miko was a character with an apparently shallow personality who was actually rather deep, and that brought a lot of forum discussion. I believe Hilgya will probably follow the same pattern, in both shallow base personality, hidden depths, and discussion.

[SilverCacaobean]

I actually like Miko as a character. I don't think she's bat**** crazy. If you go back and check all the suspicions she had about OotS, they're pretty solid. When she killed Shojo she had heard him talk to Roy about tricking the paladins and saw Belkar, who had disemboweled a guard, out of jail with his permission, for example. Her problem is the way she acts on her suspicions as if they're confirmed facts. This stems from the fact that she believes to be chosen by the gods, which is apparently not a case of psychosis but a thing that's been said to her since she was a kid if I recall correctly.

The way I read her is she's someone with severe social problems who's isolated socially and doesn't know how to deal with it. She'd been told that she had been chosen by the gods, but her life which is miserable doesn't really support it, so to avoid cognitive dissonance, she has to tell herself that she's the only one who's doing things the right way. As a result she treats her suspicions as facts.

But I wouldn't call her bat****. She has reasonable suspicions.

I also didn't know that her reason of existence was to show how not to play lawful. That seems like a bit of a silly reason to write a whole character.

Anyway, yeah I don't think Hilgya is a carbon copy of Miko for chaotic alignment. She can actually be likeable for one. But they do share the important trait of making up a story about someone and then believing it and acting on it without making sure they're right.

[hamishspence]

This stems from the fact that she believes to be chosen by the gods, which is apparently not a case of psychosis but a thing that's been said to her since she was a kid if I recall correctly.

Shojo called her "chosen" and "special" when he took her out of the monastery after she'd been orphaned:

Shojo dies because of a lifetime of lies and deceptions, the most important of which was telling a random orphan girl that she was Special and Chosen.

However, a point is made of how this was the cause of many of her positive traits as well:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...0&postcount=39

If anything, I attribute most of her positive traits to the way she was raised by Shojo and her subsequent membership in the Sapphire Guard. Which is not to say that he did a perfect job, but he recognized that she needed discipline in order to function, and gave her life meaning and purpose that it wouldn't have otherwise had. I've always felt that someone who had come to him with less underlying issues (whether due to her inherent personality or the trauma of losing her parents and getting sent to a monastery) could have been raised the same way and not turned out to be like Miko. Likewise, if Miko had never met Shojo, she probably would have left the monastery as an angry unstable loner with no purpose. Shojo's guidance was the tape that was held her together for so long, which is why she went to pieces when it was ripped off.

[SilverCacaobean]

Shojo called her "chosen" and "special" when he took her out of the monastery after she'd been orphaned:



However, a point is made of how this was the cause of many of her positive traits as well:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...0&postcount=39

I see, thanks for the quotes. So based on this I'd guess her underlying issues were an inability to function socially and maybe violent tendencies.

[hamishspence]

I see, thanks for the quotes. So based on this I'd guess her underlying issues were an inability to function socially and maybe violent tendencies.

In How the Paladin Got His Scar, we can see that a previous military leader of the Sapphire Guard (Miko's mentor) was even worse than she was - and I'd say he contributed to her intolerance of "ordinary human moral failings".

[KorvinStarmast]

More in a forum sense, I'll try the paragraph thing:
Hilgya may be the new Miko in the sense of forum discourse. {snip}

Thoroughly enjoyed your post. *golf clap*

I actually like Miko as a character.

As do I, and that little snippet from Rich's insights is helpful in me appreciating the character as he created her.