I hate to say this, but Roy is being a dick to our short, little pointy guy.
It’s not very LG/leader to just be assuming the worst about Belkar all the time when he’s shown real character growth over the last little while. Roy had better learn to cut him some slack and revise his own opinions before he finds himself leaning OUT of the lawful side of the game back into neutral. He’s already straddled that line (according to on-high).
Seriously, if Roy keeps this up he’s going to owe Belkar some real sincere apologies one of these days.
Roy’s being a real douchebag. He was a jerk to Elan a few panels back too.
And his dream was really pathetic, contrasted to Belkar’s. “Oh, Mr Greenhilt - you’re such a hero. I want to grow up to be a Fighter. Can we take a picture in front of this magnificent statue of you.”
Meanwhile Belkar’s just chilling with Shojo and the cat, doing some cooking.
This isn’t a new development. Roy has always been this way. He’s a genuinely lawful good person but he’s always been too sure of himself and his beliefs. And Burlew has lampshaded this throughout the series.
Your usual choices are either Lawful Stupid or Lawful Dick. I don’t see a TV Trope listing for Lawful Dick, but there should be one. Maybe Lawful Dick is a sub-trope of Lawful Stupid.
In fairness to Roy, our “short, little pointy guy” is a psychotic mass murderer. If circumstances somehow forced me to hang out with Jeffrey Dahmer for extended periods of time, it would take a lot more than learning he had dreams about cute lil kitty cats before I stopped automatically assuming the worst about him.
My daughter pointed out that it’s the same room (or at least the same table and Twelve Gods wall-hanging) that we saw in War and XPs, in bonus comic 310A, “Clearing the Heir,” where Shojo and Hinjo share a meal on New Year’s Eve and discuss life, love, and all that jazz.
I don’t think it’s so much that Roy’s a dick. It’s just that he’s completely non-introspective. (One of the foreshadowings I mentioned was Burlew ironically casting Roy as Hamlet, the most introspective character in all literature.) Once Roy thinks he knows what’s going on, he never stops to wonder.
So Roy decided long ago that Belkar was a simple evil killer - and he doesn’t look to see the signs that this is no longer true. Which may also be cause for irony. A more sensitive Roy would have noticed the changes in the way Belkar’s been acting and would have concluded Belkar had changed. But Roy still sees him and treats him like the same old Belkar he was in the past. So if Belkar’s faking his change of heart, then the way Roy is ignoring the surface changes is enabling him to see the real unchanged Belkar.
Was a ruse, you mean. It started as a ruse, now it seems to be something else, but we don’t know quite what. Except that Belkar’s happily-ever-after now includes him peacefully cooking fish for his cat and Shojo, where I’d totally buy his old ever-after including stabby whores. And don’t forget he saved Gannji and Enor.
