I don’t think there is such a dichotomy.
I don’t think that’s how alignment is meant to work. If a vampire went out and dedicated himself to doing good works, he would be good aligned. But vampires never do that. By their nature, they are uninterested in altruism, selflessness, or aiding other people. This is reflected in their alignment being fixed at one flavor of evil or another.
I disagree - I think Miko is an example of a shitty paladin played well.
Well, then we disagree about RAW, I guess :). SRD says :
The same is true of every undead template, BTW. Per the rules, you simply cannot be undead and Good, or even create undead and still be Good (or even Neutral). Because necromancy’s Bad
And I’m speaking from experience - I currently play a Lawful Neutral Witch in Pathfinder, specialized in Necromancy, with a Voodoo Puppetmaster-like template. I keep telling my CG, NG, LN friends that them zombies be just fine, they’re just bones and leftover meat, their soul is wherever souls go and using their physical shell as magically animated constructs is fundamentally no different from crafting a sword or armour out of dragon bone, they don’t buy it. Bigots ! 
Naturally, the DM’s word is the local Voice of God, but still.
Hmmmmm. I do see your point.
Yeah, I had the misfortune of being in a campaign with such a character (he wasn’t a paladin per se but was the “chaotic good” version or somesuch)-and since the essobee was in the pocket of the GM, he got to dominate every aspect of the campaign even as he actually played the character as lawful neutral. When I dared to do something slightly chaotic (neutral good bard), it was me who was called on it.
Or Hinjo, or Lien, or (though we don’t see as much of him) Thanh. And the fact that they can all be the same race, class, and alignment, and yet still be very different well-developed characters is a tribute both to Burlew’s writing ability and to the breadth of possibility available to characters.
New one up
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0929.html
This seems to be as bad as it can get for the Order. Comeback starts in 3…2…1…
Last 2 titles have been “Go” and “Through”. I’m thinking that he’s making a meta-title one word at a time.
“the” “rift”? I hope not, I’m sick of that notion.
Son of a bitch. Now Elan’s going to have matching scars from his twin brother and his father, one starting in the back and one starting in the front.
I hope Durkon can get his protection back up before the sun smokes him. Where’s Haley?
ETA: For that matter, where’s Mr. Scruffy? And boy, what a sign of contempt towards Belkar – Tarquin could have stabbed him with his dagger, but just couldn’t be bothered. Ouch!
That’s gotta hurt, hit points or not.
I just noticed the whip handle got some Laurin-glow to it when Tarquin let go of it. Weird.
Laurin’s doing what Tarquin said and keeping the casters down with it. From here:
[QUOTE=The Giant]
It’s Laurin taking the whip using telekinesis; Tarquin instructed her to keep the casters down in the prior panel and she’s doing so partly by grabbing the whip that is around V’s throat. I just didn’t have room to show her in panel 7 without shrinking the rest of the art down smaller than I would have liked. I didn’t want to cheat anyone on Belkar-being-punted action.
[/QUOTE]
He knows what we want!
Man, if there was ever a cavalry moment, this is it.
Tarquin is really wiping the mat, isn’t he?
Well… the whole comic is a meta-joke and characters are allowed to game the system. My take is that as long as the paladins had plausible deniability, they could let Roy do the dirty work. Just like Miko has no problem killing a Dragon that isn’t shiny: she thinks this is fitting and proper and if she did it while the creature slept, would suffer no alignment-related problems. 207 Now If Only We Could Organize the Fiends Somehow - Giant in the Playground Games
So Paladins can kill goblins while they sleep and goblins can kill paladins while they sleep because goblins are irredeemably evil and paladins are irredeemably good. That’s fine in D&D but flat-out evil in other contexts, largely because genetic irredeemability is thought to be offensive and basically wishful thinking or bad writing.
For fairness, I’ll consider another thought experiment. Consider a good-aligned Mind Flayer. He was born that way. Is it a good idea in D&D-land to kill him on sight, while sleeping if necessary? Probably yeah: they feed on sentient brrraaaains after all. And Mind Flayers are intelligent, operate in groups and read each other’s minds: the poor fellow could be a patsy. But you don’t kill him because he’s evil, you kill him because you can’t afford to keep someone like that alive. It’s necessary, though unfortunate.
(Can mind flayers eat sheep’s brains? That might change matters.)
Incidentally, the preceding reflects a thinly disguised distaste for black and white thinking, something that there’s rather a lot of in Hollywood exposition and somewhat less in anime, for example. My interpretation of Oots-ville may or may not be the best one (there are other valid ones, and they may even make more sense) but I think I can safely claim that Burlew at least is fully cognizant of these sorts of issues.
Not sure where you’re getting “while sleeping” from. I’d consider that an alignment violation for a Lawful character.
I don’t think that’s necessarily indicative of bad writing. I don’t think, for example, that Shadow over Innsmouth would have been improved by having some sensitive, caring Deep Ones creeping around in the background. Mind Flayers are a particularly Lovecraftian sort of creature. I don’t particularly care to imagine a good aligned Mind Flayer, for example, because I think the idea removes some of the essential horror behind the concept.
On reflection, I guess I’m assuming that the end justifies the means which isn’t a lawful trait, even if the execution occurs outside of a legal jurisdiction.
Heh, well they are certainly pulpy creations.
I imagined two proud and influential mind flayers who only want the best for their unholy offspring. Before birth, they decided that the little tentacled ones should only dine on the highest quality sentients. No goblins or drow for them! So they hire a cult to creep out of the underworld and raid the nearest university, located 150 leagues away. (For some reason mind flayers measure distances in leagues.) They capture the department of philosophy and bring them in chains to their lair. Sure enough little Billy Flayer grows up bright and strong. But he has some odd ideas…
This storyline is exhausting with the constant twists of fortune bouncing between OOTS and Team Tarquin. And every time I think Tarquin has outdone himself in cruelty, he pulls something new out of his bag. Poor Elan–he’s such an incredibly sweet character who just wants to be loved and be part of a family; to think he’s been stabbed by his brother and his dad now… ugh.
I’m hoping V’s cloak will somehow shield Durkon from the sun. Even if V is being strangled by the whip and presumably can’t utter spells, can V use magic silently?
It does seem likely that Haley’s gonna come to the rescue here–she and the foolishly-ignored Belkar are the only ones free to wreak havoc. I suppose Blackwing and Mr. Scruff could do something, although of the two I’d say only BW is likely to act on his own.
But y’know, even if it’s what Tarquin really wants, I want Elan to DESTROY this scumbag himself. If not kill him, then embarrass him, belittle him, show him up, and then leave him behind only for the bastard to get killed by Sabine.
As an aside–and I would love to bring this up over at GITP but I’m afraid I’d get lynched–I find it ironic that the whole arc has been about Elan claiming that Roy is the hero and we’re supposed to find Tarquin foolish for not seeing that. Because to me, Elan has been the real emotional center and protagonist of this strip since Nale first stabbed Elan and became a recurring villain. Aside from V’s descent into darkness, every main storyline involving important personal dramatic beats focuses on Elan. (Even Haley’s cryptogram speech impediment involved her love for Elan.)
Yeah, Roy’s the leader, he’s the action hero, and the overall plot started out from his own quest. But this began with a bog-standard revenge plot that wasn’t even his own! The revenge vow had nothing to do with anyone Roy cared about, it’s for someone his father cared about. As such, I’ve never felt interested in Roy completing this question–well, aside from the whole saving-the-world thing, but that became everyone’s quest, not just Roy’s. Otherwise, what is supposed to connect the reader to Roy as a character? He’s had no major emotional arc throughout the strip. There was the touching reunion with his brother, but otherwise, I just don’t give a damn about Roy. He’s barely even shown any character development over 900+ strips, aside from one that resolved ages ago (his learning to be less obnoxious to his teammates such as Elan, and not getting angry with his father).
So yep, he’s the leader of the group and we keep getting that point hammered home, but to me, it seems that Burlew’s more interested in Elan’s story than anyone else’s. Elan has the classic Hero’s Journey storyline, whether Burlew wants us to think it or not. Starts off naive with few skills, has reality hit him in the face, teams up with more experienced others, learns how to hone his talents, and most of all, his personality deepens through multiple losses and moments where he has to face the truth about himself and his life (Roy’s death/absent Haley/Therkla & Kubota/Nale/Tarquin). He may not ever be Luke Skywalker or Frodo or Harry Potter, but Elan, the character his creator keeps telling us is not a hero, has IMHO turned into a hero.
Anyway that’s what I think. Frankly I’m kinda glad I like Elan so much, because at least he’s supposedly guaranteed a happy ending. My ultra favorite character totally seems headed for a sacrificial death by the end of the strip. Sigh.