The Order of the Stick

RE: The vampire discussion:

What if a Vampire possesses some evil guy—someone like Tarquin, or a serial killer—and, rather than give control back to the guy, chooses to do good? Would that be inherently, "Evil?" ^note  This isn't a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

I mean, sure, it's depriving someone of their free will and chance at redemption or whatever, but...

edited 25th Jul '14 7:58:53 AM by Rem

This is the first book that didn't start with a whole series of breather episodes. Remember the last one? The thiefs in Sandsedge and the problems of finding a sextant. Or before that? With Roy in the afterlife, some important stuff happened, but mostly just exposition. Or the New Year Fest in Azure City? Or the "Adventurer Town"?

This book? It started deep in the middle of the plot with Durkula being an imposter and trying to kill Belkar. I think it's OK to take a little break. Let's see what the others are doing. What is V up to?

More importantly: how sick Blackwing still is...

Using Evil means to accomplish Good goals tends to get classed as Neutral, though I don't think that's a hard-and-fast rule.

I'd say it's Evil but not necessarily evil, if you see what I mean; under the objective D&D morality system, it would still register as Evil, because Vampire are inherently bad, but those (pretty unlikely, to be fair) circumstances makes it's existence morally acceptable.

You can't "use Evil" to do Good. If what you're doing is Good, then you're doing Good. If what you're doing is Evil, then you're doing Evil.

The exact same act can be classified as any of the three classifications based on the context surrounding it. Unless you're talking about one of those things that is pretty absolutely evil, like stabbing babies or something, but those things are pretty much classified as ALWAYS evil. If you're committing genocide or something for the best intentions, you're still evil.

edited 25th Jul '14 9:12:44 AM by TobiasDrake

Of course you can. What if you killed a bunch of zombies by locking them in an orphanage and burning it down?

If you deliberately and knowingly locked a bunch of zombies in a building full of helpless children and then killed them all, that is an evil act, no matter your intent.

If you were unaware it was an orphanage, and the children's deaths was a genuine accident, then it was a good act with unfortunate consequences, and you should pay more attention in the future. No evil act here.

If you got the children out first, then you locked a bunch of zombies in a building and burned it down to kill them, which is not an evil act at all, so you are not using evil to do good.

edited 25th Jul '14 9:16:05 AM by TobiasDrake

I was making a distinction between Evil, the objectively measurable force in D&D, and evil, the frequently subjective moral status that exists in both D&D and the real world.

Your vampire's meatpuppet would cease to really exist after awhile. Durkon won't be there watching what Durkula does forever.

At which point, arguably, you're no longer actively performing an evil act any more than an adventurer who kills one person for selfish reasons remains evil forever. Most people would agree that you can't keep performing an evil act and claim to be good because you eventually intend to reform, but if your evil act is in the past, you have the opportunity to pursue redemption.

You're still using the meatpuppet, though.

I think it'd depend more on what, specifically, you're having it do and how much good stuff comes from that. Also, there's the issue of consent, if there was anything like it.

All this just kinda needs to counterbalance the inherent evil of taking over a person's body and using it for your own purposes while their soul just watches and eventually withers away. It's a pretty high (low?) bar to clear, but I think it's a conceivably forgivable act, depending on the circumstances and the... utilitarian value... of the work to which the corpus is put.

EDIT: Really, the very concept is utilitarian in the extreme. Ain't nobody doing this and keeping their neck above the invisible line of Good and Neutral. Rising above that between Neutral and Evil would be the first and last hurdle. If the meatpuppet were discarded and properly buried, and then the perpetrator atoned in additional ways, they could get back to Capital G Good.

EDIT 2: Just reread the pagetopper. If the victim were somebody on the level of Tarquin, this would take a great evil out of comission. Given that, the act would probably start in Neutral, and maaayyybe go up to Good. Bonus points if the process manages to rehabilitate the victim, although given what I've heard about how A Clockwork Orange ends, they might not be happy about it.

edited 25th Jul '14 1:56:47 PM by Knowlessman

Doing Evil to Evil is not Good. And since Tarquin would be dead without the vampire there anyway, it can't really be argued that you're keeping him sealed away either.

I didn't interpret the situation to mean that you put the zombies there yourself.

Let's specify this scenario... You and your ragtag team of survivors discovered this orphanage while in the process of clearing the streets of the zombie menace (at the expense of much time and ammunition), so that you can safely transport your several wounded and ill to an hospital. The orphanage is filled with zombies, and you were relieved you could just torch the place and move on until you noticed someone waving frantically from the an inside door. At least a couple of orphans have locked themselves in a room, but without direct access to the outside. You don't have the resources to effectively quarantine the building while attempting a rescue; if you go in, you can be sure zombies will escape, and that will set back Operation Streetsweeper long enough that some of your injured will probably die. On the other hand, you can't just burn down the entire building except for one room, and the building is large enough that if two kids are still alive it's possible there may be other survivors inside somewhere as well.

What options can you consider, and where do you rank them as far as good, evil, and "neutral"?

Making a distasteful decision out of necessity for the sake of the greater good is not an evil act. It's not necessarily a good act either, but there's a reason that one of the more frequent types of Good Is Dumb involves people taking blatantly excessive risks to save innocents, often causing collateral damage in the process.

This is one of the grey areas where motivations matter. If the hero anguishes over rescuing the orphans and has to be restrained from trying to save them while being told that it will only cause more harm, then he's still well within the good side of the spectrum. If the hero coldly turns his back, knowing they can't be saved without unnecessary risk and unwilling to make the attempt, he's flirting with neutrality.

If the "hero" lures the zombies into the orphanage with the intent of trapping them there, regardless (or in spite of) of the children present inside, then he's well into the evil side.

edited 26th Jul '14 9:51:23 PM by Fighteer

Why is it necessary that Good be emotionally flamboyant?

It's just an example. But a truly Good (or even Neutral) character would experience moral conflict about saving the children. You can't have a conscience and not regret sacrifices of that nature. Only a truly Evil person would act with complete disregard for collateral damage, regardless of the necessity.

Is this a derail yet, or does it only count when it spills over onto the next page?

These are the situations where it usually falls to the resident Anti-Hero to Shoot the Dog. Our perception of heroism revolves around saving innocents even if it involves taking unnecessary risks. Putting yourself at risk for saving even one person, let alone several ones, that's heroic, sure. Putting everyone else in risk, that's more like the Good Is Dumb / Honor Before Reason territory. Sometimes even heroes have to compromise, and we are likely to stamp them as antiheroes for this, or there are some "real" antiheroes there to do the deed.

But it's not only true in fiction, but in Real Life as well. Take the trope No One Gets Left Behind. If you read the Real Life examples of that trope, you'll see that armies tend to risk the entire mission and lose even more people just to try to save a few ones.

Unfortunately, there are more pragmatic individual who exploit that trope to kill more targets and it is a valid strategy if not cruel.

Let me explain what being Good means

Um, yeah, four new figures

edited 12th Aug '14 2:10:48 PM by Michael

Shame on you. Shame on you for making me believe there was a new comic.

SHAME! *goes to cry*

Actual update this time.

About time things kind of go Belkar's way, plus it's nice to know what V thinks of the situation.

edited 13th Aug '14 2:27:41 AM by DamascaRamza

Good old V didn't buy it, but is still taking note of her past failings and not judging Durkula due to his undead nature. That's why she's my favourite character.

It was interesting to see Belkar turn to his most hated Order member.

edited 13th Aug '14 4:25:40 AM by LogicDragon

If V begins to suspect that something is up, the others would be more likely to listen to him/her.

So I'm interested in how things will play out.