This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Eponymous Kid: Okay, what gives? I was trying to give a little more information (Nale, Sabine and Thog are all pretty big charactrers in the series, for one thing), and... It's gone? Why? Shouldn't there at least be a little character summary? I mean, this page is for people unfamiliar with the series, right?
Halfling Daniel: My mistake, I was editting to add more information and for some reason that canceled your edit. Try to restore it, I'll try to hold off from editting this article.
Halfling Daniel: Bah, forget that "holding off from editting this article" nonsense. I restored the accidentally deleted content. Once again, sorry about that.
Ex Ottoyuhr: I added a more favorable interpretation to Miko's description, to go with the unfavorable one. "Teach the controversy" and all that. I hope this doesn't bring the civil war to TV Tropes...
Nerdorama: I'm all for a balanced approach to Miko here, but can we work together and rephrase it into something that isn't obvious Thread Mode? Not deleting Ex Ottoyuhr's This Troper stuff yet because I'm treading carefully, but I think the entry as a whole needs a less personal rewrite.
Diddgery: Edited Elan's "The Chick" example to remove the pronunciation of his name part, since it's pronounced "EE-lin," not "EL-en." Eponymous Kid: Huh? The pronunciation guide said it was pronounced "Ellin"...
Doctor Worm: We should probably add Celia and Therkla. I'm both a little busy and not particularly creative right now, but I think they've both become important enough to include.
INH: Just wanted to point out that Barbarians don't have to be chaotic. They just can't be lawful, though they often are chaotic.
The Recreator: Could an argument be made that Celia isn't completely Too Dumb to Live, but rather simply given the Idiot Ball on occasion? She is a "friggin' paraelemental" after all, is reasonably competent in the first story arc, and her outright stupidity hasn't been a factor until the Greysky City storyline.
Hmm…now that I think about it a bit more, she seems more like a Genius Ditz, rather than a Bunny-Ears Lawyer or Too Dumb to Live. Discuss?
Mr Death: A Bunny-Ears Lawyer is someone who's good at what they do, and therefore unusual quirks are forgiven. A Genius Ditz is someone who, again, is very smart, but is clueless on occasion. Celia's a competent lawyer, but she's not exceptionally smart, and she's won all of one case, against Those Two Guys that she couldn't lose because it was rigged.
Too Dumb to Live is someone who, when told in no uncertain terms by someone with direct personal experience in the area in question, that someplace is too dangerous to visit, and she won't find anyone willing to help them, declares, "Well, I know better!" and goes there anyway, without telling the smarter, more experienced, and stronger person what they're doing.
Look at the comic where Celia starts bringing Roy to Greysky City: Haley tells her exactly how bad the place is, that people will try and kill her, and that any clerics there won't be willing to help. Celia, hearing from an adventurer, who, you know, might know something about this sort of thing, decides to flat out ignore everything but the tenuous fact that there may be clerics in the city.
This is after she's seen and admitted that she doesn't know how this world works, and that Haley does. Celia has every single reason in the world to believe Haley, and proceeds to do the single dumbest thing she could possibly do in the circumstances, and if it weren't for the fortuitous rainstorm, she'd be dead, and Roy gone forever.
And then she goes and renegotiates Haley's membership in the guild, callously promising the guild money that Haley doesn't have, without even discussing it with Haley.
The Recreator: I think Genius Ditz means somebody who is extremely stupid/ditzy, except in one area, as opposed to someone who is only exceptionally stupid on occasion. As you have put it, Celia's has definitely acted Too Dumb to Live, but the only examples of her directly putting herself into danger would be during her stay in Greysky City. To quote the entry, "If a character becomes Too Dumb to Live for just one event or episode, often at odds with their normal behaviour, the writers have passed them the Idiot Ball." Her spurts of competence (the courtroom, in which Shojo needed the defense to question the basis of the trial without showing his hand, her negotiations with the Thieves' Guild, where she successfully stopped a conflict (if temporarily) between two parties out for each others' blood) punctuate her stupidity enough to push her away from being consistently Too Dumb to Live and into Genius Ditz territory.
I think I can best summarize this with a quote from Haley
: "How can you be so smart sometimes and still be such an…an AIRHEAD?" Naturally, emphasis will be on her most recent stupidity, but still…
I'm gonna chalk this one up to Alternate Character Interpretation.
A Random Serf: I think we have evidence of Sabine being Chaotic Evil. Granted, she isn't mentioned by name, but we've seen her answering to the fiendish trio before (can't remember what strip), and she's encountered Vaarsuvius multiple times.
The Recreator: You want #380. Also, given that she reports to Director Lee, I'd say that she's Lawful Evil. Check it out:
- Lee: Lawful Evil
- Nero: Neutral Evil
- Cedrik: Chaotic Evil
Peteman: Sabine in that comic never struck me as being particularly lawful (maybe Neutral). However, we do have evidence that she is indeed a Succubus, even if she is a mold breaking one. And just because she reports to Lee doesn't necessary mean she's Lawful, since they're trying to foster inter-fiend goodwill.
Fighteer: Ugh. I know this is everyone's favorite Trope Overdosed webcomic (mine included), but stop trying to nail V over the Moral Event Horizon until he/she actually crosses it. The trope requires that the character become irredeemable in the eyes of the audience. Deal with the Devil and Pay Evil unto Evil do not automatically cross that line. Now, if V were to slaughter his/her family or something... but that properly belongs in Wild Mass Guessing until or unless it actually happens. ... Although I have to admit that, had the site allowed me to read #639 before posting this (damn server issues), I might have reconsidered. I still think V is one tiny step away from the line, though.
Rogue 7: Genocide'd!!!. That's a pretty big step if you ask me, probably enough to take him over the line.
Fighteer: One could make an argument for Brainwashed and Crazy here, since he/she's possessed by the spirits of three evil archmages. I point again to the in the eyes of the audience requirement of the trope. As long as there's a possibility of V having a Heel Realization or a My God, What Have I Done? moment without looking like a Karma Houdini, he/she hasn't crossed the line completely.
The Recreator: I think an important point to remember is that Moral Event Horizon is a subjective trope. Now, while there's still plenty of good reason to think that Vaarsuvius is still redeemable (Soul Splice ends, he/she gets a My God, What Have I Done? moment and atones for his actions while demonically possessed, etc.), as long as the audience finds him irredeemable at this point, regardless of reason, then it's Moral Event Horizon. Let me ask all of you: are you ready to forgive Vaarsuvius for his/her actions?
Addendum - Consider this quote from the Moral Event Horizon page description: "[…] if a character is Not Himself or under the influence of mind control, the person can't really be considered to have crossed the horizon because they weren't doing it of their own free will." Even if Vaarsuvius is the one in control, there's no doubting that there's some evil influence from the evil souls. This might not be good enough for some people, but it's worth noting.
Fighteer: It seems that the author has gone out of his way to give V a potential mitigating factor for his/her actions: that being the aforementioned Demonic Possession. Most of the posts I saw on the forums agreed that V has done something pretty awful, but nobody was calling for V's damnation, evisceration, or the usual things you get when someone has crossed the line permanently. I just don't agree that we should jump all over the Moral Event Horizon bandwagon yet.
The Recreator: New comic's up. Remember that Demonic Possession stuff? Subverted - it looks like the voices in V's head are no more than voices (with cool powers, granted). I'd still defend Vaarsuvius, but I don't know how many others would.
Ramidel: Okay. I've slashed out the Moral Event Horizon and "full blown villain" lines. Vaarsuvius hasn't lost the sympathy of the forum hivemind yet; accordingly, he's just gone Anti Hero until proven otherwise, and in so doing, Paying Evil Unto Evil. I agree that the Familicide was a major Kick the Dog moment, but that's it.
IRBlayne: I think its pretty clear that he ambush of Crystal pushes her into Chaotic Neutral territory as someone who is still good-ish but can do bad things. A better way to think of it is would any of the following CG paragons do it: Kurosaki Ichigo, Elan, or Drizz't do what she did unless it was Absolutely Necessary? Considering she had 2-5 seconds flat to think on it implies that she couldn't have come up with a particularily good reason to justify it as a necessity. Even moreso considering she will be Raised anyways.
Taelor: If Mal Reynolds can get away with kicking unarmed people into engine turbines and still be Chaotic Good, then I think Haley can get away with killing Crystal. I guess it comes down to your definition of morality. In my view, killing someone who has attempted to kill you before, and has every intention of doing so again is acceptable good behavior. As Capt. Reynolds said: "You have as much a right to live and kill people as anyone else. So, if someone ever tries to kill you, you try and kill 'em right back."
Fighteer: My argument goes as thus — it's a D&D webcomic that explicitly references the official alignment rules. Haley is Chaotic Good by Word of God; therefore she is not any other alignment until Word of God says so.
IRBlayne: Technically there was no word of God for her current alignment and I think he comments very rarely on such leaving it up to us the reader to determine it by their actions.
Fighteer: See here - the translation of one of Haley's speech bubbles reads, "I'm Chaotic Good! Ish!". If you don't count that as canon, then I can't really help you, except to say that you should probably take it to Wild Mass Guessing rather than pollute the main media page with personal opinions.
Peteman: I want to make an addition to Crystal, putting together her complete idiocy with her dangerousness, but Dumb Muscle is about being a big hulking guy serving as a meat shield and Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass is about someone that goes from stupid to asskicking in a surprising manner. But Crystal parades around with that dagger and no one makes any indication that they don't know she can't or won't kill them if given the chance. Any suggestions?
How is Therkla "probably Chaotic Neutral"? She was, in Elan's words, "big on loyalty". I would say she was Lawful or maybe True Neutral at the end of her life and Lawful Evil before Elan came into the picture. She killed out of her loyalty to Kubota and used verbal loopholes to avoid killing Elan. EDIT: Just noticed someone put in True Neutral. But I'm not so sure Word of God confirms her being Neutral on the Law-Chaos axis. He was talking about Therkla's views on Good versus Evil in that commentary.
