OotS 406

[Elf Witch]

A paladin can still be Lawful Good and fall; she doesn't have to be evil.

One evil act not changing people's alignments, and all that.

Yeah I know which is why I am surprised at all the people who are saying that she is now evil or chaotic.

 

[Gez]

They're saying she's been Chaotic Evil for a long time, but has only shown it now.

By the way, I'm amused how this thread is still going, nine pages and one strip later. Tomorrow we'll get OotS 408 (barring unforseen problems)... Will the thread be dead by then, or will it, like Chronos, devor its youngs and survive the OotS 407 discussion thread and even the OotS 408 thread?

 

[Elf Witch]

They're saying she's been Chaotic Evil for a long time, but has only shown it now.

By the way, I'm amused how this thread is still going, nine pages and one strip later. Tomorrow we'll get OotS 408 (barring unforseen problems)... Will the thread be dead by then, or will it, like Chronos, devor its youngs and survive the OotS 407 discussion thread and even the OotS 408 thread?

It has occured to be that not only are we debating the morality of a cartoon figure but a stick figure at that.

 

[Loincloth of Armour]

It has occured to be that not only are we debating the morality of a cartoon figure but a stick figure at that.

Is there any higher calling?

 

[PallidPatience]

Just because most people agree on something does not make it right. Most polls showed that Americans thought OJ was gulity but a jury found him innocent.

Because of a technical mistake by the police, which caused the damning evidence to be inadmissible in a court of law. I'm not saying that most people agreeing on something makes it right. I'm just saying that most people agreeing on something doesn't make it wrong, either, and that sometimes, it really is simple enough that most people can see it clearly.

I think a lot of people are using knowledge that Miko does not have access to. As the readers we are aware of everything that has happened she is not. I also think that some people are judging her actions based on a dislike of stick in the rump paladins and the fact that the OOTS are the good guys and we have been following their adventures from the start.

It is true that we know a lot of things that she does not. However, we have been present for every interaction she has had with the OotS, and Xykon. Therefore, we have a good idea what she knows about those two entities. At the same time, we have a good idea what she knows about Shojo (through analysis of what others know of Shojo, especially within her own order). We also know all the clues that she has been given to leap to this conclusion. These clues follow.

1. Xykon is still around, despite the fact that the OotS claims to have destroyed him.
2. Shojo lied in order to get the OotS to perform a task which the paladins, due to a dead man's oath, are incapable of doing.
3. Belkar may or may not be evil, and does not like having Detect Evil cast on him.

Her conclusion is that the OotS and Shojo have been working with Xykon all along. Is that reasonable? No one is judging Miko for not being omniscient. We are only saying that she is filling in large gaps of facts with her "theory" in order to satisfy her version of the world. She is not making an effort to verify her facts, or even find out what in the Nine Hells is happening around her. She merely assumes large portions of things are true, and then acts on it. That's not very WISE, and Wisdom is one of a Paladin's required high ability scores (as it is for a Monk, which is her other class).

I have read that she should know more about Lichs because she has knowledge relgion so that would tell her that the OOTS was not lying when they said he was destroyed. But she is a multiclass paladin so how do we know that she has enough ranks if any in religion to know this.

If Miko does not know how lichs have to be destroyed then it is perfectly reasonable for her to form an opinion that the OOTS lied about destroyed him. And then wonder why did they lie what possible purpose could lying hold. Except as a cover to hide their allegience with the lich. And can Lich's be raised with spells?

She is a Paladin/Monk, both of which have Knowledge (religion) as a class skill. At the same time, she is a member of a Paladin Order which we can reasonably assume would have some knowledgeable people about, and probably some books on common or particularly dangerous forms of undead. Therefore, her not knowing about a lich is entirely her own fault, because she made no effort to find out, even KNOWING that Xykon IS a lich.

And, yes. True Resurrection would restore a destroyed lich to life, and his phylactery is still intact.

Miko was told to bring them back for trial if Shojo really wanted to talk to them why not send a messanger with an offer of a lot of gold for them to come instead of the ruse of a trial. So there was a trial that now Miko knows was rigged. Why is it such unreasonable thought that she might wonder why Shojo did this. He had other ways to get them to come to Azure City so is it possible that he wanted a cover becuase he is indeed working with evil.

That has been covered. He sent her to bring them in to the trial because that was the only way that he could tell them about the gates, which he wanted them to investigate and defend. While it is possible that she would assume that the reasons were unsavory, does that assumption really excuse her method of dealing with him? She cut him in half in anger, despite Hinjo's pleas for reasonability, and his lack of self-defense.

The point I am trying to make is simply this while I think Miko acted rashly and this lead to her paladin powers being stripped I don't think her reasoning is totally out of whack based on what she saw and heard.

The point we are trying to make is that this kind of rashness is not a quality conducive to paladinhood. Risking one's own life rashly is one thing, and, while foolish, will never leave one stripped of paladinhood. Rashly striking down someone that one is convinced, despite the facts or lack thereof, is evil and in league with greater evils is an entirely different story. Paladins are supposed to be WISE, as I've said before.

I have played in games where I have gotten the DMs clues wrong and based on what I saw and heard I formed the wrong opinion. This is what I think the case is for Miko she based her opinion on the information that she had and yes on her emotions. I think her emotions colored a lot of her actions.

She had feelings for Roy and he rejected her so that had to co,lr how she felt. And to find out that her leader and someone who she really looked up to had lied, broken faith with the paladins that he himself had brought her to serve with had to feel like the ultimate betrayal. Even Hinjo felt betrayed by Shojo. Taking all these feelings into consideration and what she had heard I do not find it unreasonable that she would come to the conclusions that she did.

This is far more than getting the DM's clues wrong. She invented her own clues, and made up a story for it and everything. This isn't a situation where she got a road map, and just knocked on the next door of the proper answer. She ended up on another planet.

And you've hit the jackpot of most of the problem. She didn't act based on facts or on reasonable suspicions. She acted based on the fact that she was ANGRY. Roy had had the guts to reject her, and that made her angry. Xykon merely toyed with her and let her go, and that made her angry. Shojo had been lying to her, and that made her angry. So she concocted a story based on her rage that would justify her striking the man down. She took out her anger on Shojo. There was no justice involved. That's not something a paladin does.

While she is free to have emotions, it is not her perogative to act based on them. She, being an agent of divine Law and Good, is supposed to be above such petty actions. But she succumbs to them, and how!

[QUOTEWhere she made her mistake was not in gathering evidence to support her conclusions.[/QUOTE]

Where she made her mistake was in acting solely out of anger and a need for vengeance.

 

[Felix]

Yeah I know which is why I am surprised at all the people who are saying that she is now evil or chaotic.

I had thought you were arguing that the act of executing Shojo was not an Evil act, instead of arguing the current state of Miko's alignment.

Oh, and something I had meant to write earlier; a paladin can commit Chaotic acts without reprocussion until their alignment shifts. It is only an Evil act which causes an immediate revocation of power.

Thus, her fall from grace would not have been due to the circumvention of the law in making herself judge/jury/executioner unless: that act shifted her alignment towards Chaotic or that act was also Evil.

I do not believe one act can shift alignment, nor do I think Miko the type to go around doing enough Chaotic deeds that this act would shift her.

I can see how the bestowal of authority on herself could be Evil, so we're back at Miko commiting an Evil act. Loss of Powers.

 

[Wilphe]

Man, good catch!

And it demonstrates one nice feature of the zealot -- they can always find some way to rationalize their prejudices, even if it takes 106 (edit: 108) strips.

I expect she has been doing that for at least an hour a day ever since then...

 

[Wilphe]

But I will accept that something is seriously out of joint here - Roy's father isn't Lawful, and doesn't seem particularly Good. Therefore, his answering a call for a Lawful Good celestial doesn't fit. (Although, don't the Fiendish Codices make mention of Lower Planar powers sometimes hijacking such summons, much as Roy's father was seen to do? If so, it stands to reason that a Chaotic Good power could do likewise.)

His Lawfulness was established in the prequel strips.

 

[jeffh]

I can see why she did what she did and I have said if this was game and not a comic I would think the DM was doing a pretty lousy job of DMing that he was railroading the paladin into falling. Which is why I have not really liked this whole Miko storyline.

This would make sense, if the conclusions Miko came to were, despite being wrong, the most reasonable ones possible given the evidence available to her. But she fails that standard miserably at virtually every turn; in particular, the leap from "Xykon is still active" to "The OotS are working with Xykon" is a huge one that nobody who wasn't determined to find fault with the Order would make. At every turn, she grasps at straws to justify her preexisting prejudices; as a result she acts rashly and irresponsibly. This is the opposite of how a paladin should behave.

I also believe if Shojo lived or was brought back to life that he should also face charges for violating the law. It does not matter that he was doing it to save the world he still violated the law and needs to face the consquences of his choice of actions.

So he should have been prepared to sacrifice the world because of a poorly thought-out law that obviously failed to anticipate the situation at hand? Preposterous. Absolutely preposterous.

 

[wingsandsword]

So he should have been prepared to sacrifice the world because of a poorly thought-out law that obviously failed to anticipate the situation at hand? Preposterous. Absolutely preposterous.

Yeah, when the choice is between a law made by a mortal over a matter of pride, and between saving the world, only the most insanely Lawful people would see upholding the law to be more important than saving the world, then again (it makes me remember Rufus's line in Dogma: "It's not a matter of pride, stupid!" ). I've been saying that Miko has been on the edge of an alignment shift to Lawful Neutral for quite a while.

I won't say that she's Chaotic, or Evil in alignment from what she's been doing, but I will say that it may have pushed her over the line down to LN if she was on the threshold and commited a major evil act (like she did with Shojo). She's caring only about the "law" in how she sees it, she doesn't so much want to do good as she wants to destroy "evil" but now to her "evil" is just anything she doesn't like or agree with and will go to any lengths to justify it (will she now see the Twelve Gods as "Evil" for stopping her and seek out a way to bring them "Justice"? A rationalization for her becoming a Blackguard perhaps?).