“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain”. Thog revels in violence and is perfectly willing to kill innocents without remorse for the sheer joy of it. He’s Chaotic Evil.
Exactly. Evil is as evil does.
:dubious:
While it works, the English major in me can’t help but point out that, in context, that quote refers to the opposite situation–a Lawful Evil manipulator who keeps up a jolly public ‘face’ while secretly scheming.
Then he’s nothing more than a rabid dog that needs to be put down.
You thus advocate executing 5-year olds who don’t yet have a moral compass?
Those who go around killing people with axes, and who will never grow up? Yes.
Thog kills people because Nale and Sabine tell him to, and they never taught him that it’s wrong to go on a murder spree because you’re bored. The Linear Guild is for all intents and purposes Thog’s parental figures, and, like the other parents we’ve seen in OOTS, royally messed up.
Thog just follows the lead of whoever the grownup in charge is. When he was looking for Nale with Elan, he didn’t kill anybody. Elan is relatively sane compared to his, well, relatives, and Thog went along with him. Reunited with Nale and Sabine, Thog reverted to Linear Guild morality and started hitting people.
What I’m saying, really, is that if the order had Thog instead of Belkar*, Roy would probably be able to set some brakes on him. (“Thog, see all those people? They have puppies at home, cute puppies, and if you kill them the puppies will be sad.”) I find myself agreeing with Der Trihs- Thog is more fundamentally Chaotic Neutral, or maybe Chaotic Easily Suggestible. He is whatever his companions are.
*I’ll admit, Thog plus Belkar would be a bit trickier. Thog does have innate violent tendencies, and a single companion who encouraged those tendencies would have a stronger hold than Roy and his hypothetical puppies. Probably.
No, I don’t think so. I mean, the “Don’t make the puppies sad” argument would probably work on him, but that doesn’t make him not evil. It just means that he likes puppies and he’s easily tricked. But you’re not appealing to his moral sense. Just his love of puppies. He’d be just as eager to kill them and take the puppies for his own. Nale and Thog are, as was mentioned, the evil George and Lennie.
When they were searching for the runes, Thog killed unprompted, so I mark him as Evil.
What all that boils down to is that Thog has reasons for being evil, and if you put yourself in his shoes, they’re understandable reasons. That doesn’t make him any less evil, though.
Meanwhile, I’m still confused about how Thog can be the Champion. I mean, Tarquin knows Thog, and knows that he’s one of Nale’s cohorts. He should at least strongly suspect that if he has Thog, then Nale must be close at hand. And it’s not like Thog would be hard to question. So how does it come to pass that Thog is in the arena, and Nale is still (presumably) at large?
Either Tarquin counts on Nale showing up to rescue his buddy, the better to capture him ; or he’s just trolling Nale by killing his best henchman, knowing it’s not a big loss but it’s going to irritate him to no end anyway.
Meantime, Thog entertains the masses. Bi-winning !
What could Thog possibly know? Nale’s secret hideout? His plan? Please.
Surely he was prompted beforehand.
Well, at least, where he last saw Nale.
Not really. Remember why Thog was gagged. Because he makes no damn sense and anyone short of Elan will go insane listening to him.
I think Rich must be reading this thread, or similar arguments about Thog elsewhere on the 'net.
“It’s weird, no matter how many people he kills, the audience still thinks he’s lovable.” Little meta-comment on the readership there, I think…
EDIT: Scooped, I see.
One free sneak attack with a presumably sharp sword and the battle isn’t over? Is this some kind of D&D thing?
Thog’s got HP up the wazoo. A single hit, even at max damage, isn’t going to bring him down.