None of that rules out the possibility that the Hill Giants are a remnant of a larger contingent that was once in the service of the missing king.
Well, it also doesn't rule out that they Hill Giants are the remnant of the honor guard sent by the Princess Ponies of Rainbow-Unicorn land, either. You lack evidence to prove your point; insisting I find evidence to prove the negative is ridiculous.
Why does that matter? No argument I've made depends on the plots of the two works having any similarity at all. It's as if you can't conceive of a work of narrative fiction being inspired by another without imitating its plot in some way.
I disagree -- there needs to be some point of comparison to the plot, if a similarity of events in parts or a similarity of character or a similarity of continuity (in the case of a follow-on story). None of that is evident outside of a 1) King, who doesn't divide his kingdom and doesn't hold a flattery contest and so is nothing like Lear except for his kinginess, 2) two elder daughters that are not-nice(tm), but who don't conspire against their father and are not granted lands and power by him and do not engage in any betrayals at all in the story and so are nothing like Goneril and Regan; and 3) a youngest daughter, who ascends the throne as part of the established succession when her father is kidnapped by an evil dragon and who rules both in name and truth but is being deceived by the same evil dragon, and so is really nothing like Cordelia.
Again, hanging your assertion on scant comparisons of familial relations is very, very weak. But, then, you're unfamiliar with one of the works you're trying to compare, so this is a patently ridiculous conversation to begin with.
No, Lear always favored Cordelia. That's why he went off the rails when she wouldn't fawn over him like her sisters. In his own words:
I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery.
This is after he disinherits her.
Yes, the point where he banishes here because he's decided he doesn't like her anymore, and favors his eldest with his kingdom because he believes they love him more?
I don't think my argument rests on any kind of comparison. My point is if we assume the adventure is inspired by Lear (because it is), then the possibility opens up that some of the writing decisions are informed by the source material in ways that aren't readily apparent from the adventure itself.
Wait, are you now saying that you cannot tell if one thing is inspired by another in any way because the inspiration may just be well hidden? Huh, I guess then Harry Potter really is inspired by Tarzan, and there's no argument that can defeat this because no evidence of such inspiration in the work is necessary.
Again, a patently ridiculous claim.
I don't think it would be a good use of word count for the writers to explain their decisions in the body of the text. That approach would be best reserved for some footnoted version marketed to readers interested in such things. Standard adventure presentation is to let such decisions speak for themselves and to let the reader draw his or her own conclusions about why they were made.
Who said anything about explanation of writing decisions? I'm talking about a single sentence to explain the reason the hill giants are there as part of the plot of the story. They spend lots and lots of words on the story plot all over the place, so it's hard to claim they suddenly became parsimonious about this one detail for reasons.
No, but at least one of them could be described as 'foolish'.
Which has an entirely different meaning in that context. And 'foolish' is not in the description of the hill giants.
Again, ridiculousness. I'd perchance to take you seriously if you even made an effort to know the material you're attempting to compare. As it is, I figure you're only in it for the XP.