# Order of the Stick General Discussion Thread (Open Spoilers and Speculation) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 2, 2009, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096 "2009-02-02T07:39:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/161 "2009-03-02T13:49:18Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > I am not certain that these are \*the \*four words. In the first place, Vonly said three words, with a stutter. More importantly, he didn’t say them \*to \*any being. My thoughts exactly – this fails to meet the Oracle’s prediction on two counts, strip title notwithstanding. Rich is messing with us yet again. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/162 "2009-03-02T14:21:09Z")
> [@Garula](#): > > I must say, those fiends had a pretty clever alternative strategy. I also noticed how they didn’t mention that strategy until AFTER V made his/her speech about parental self sacrifice. They wanted to make **sure** that V chose damnation out of pride, and not nobility. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/163 "2009-03-02T17:25:37Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > And the title is “The Wrong Reasons” just so no one mistakes what is happening. I figured that some expectations would be subverted on this one but I guess not; it’s time for things to head downhill. Booyah. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/164 "2009-03-02T17:51:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I also noticed how they didn’t mention that strategy until AFTER V made his/her speech about parental self sacrifice. They wanted to make **sure** that V chose damnation out of pride, and not nobility. This is one of the best “sell your soul to the devil” plots i’ve ever read. No small print, no eternal damnation, they even provide an alternate solution to his problem along with a seemingly price for their services and yet hes no less damned than if he had been tricked. Genius. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/165 "2009-03-02T17:55:42Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > This is one of the best “sell your soul to the devil” plots i’ve ever read. No small print, no eternal damnation, they even provide an alternate solution to his problem along with a seemingly price for their services and yet hes no less damned than if he had been tricked. Genius. Absolutely. The fiends have perfected an approach that is absolutely defensible on appeal…no tricks, no traps, pure unadulterated truth in every bite. So they forgot to mention a few small details…it’s not like V probed very far. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/166 "2009-03-02T18:12:43Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > …no eternal damnation… That very much remains to be seen. But yes. Ingenious maneuvering ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/167 "2009-03-02T19:05:04Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > This is one of the best “sell your soul to the devil” plots i’ve ever read. No small print, no eternal damnation, they even provide an alternate solution to his problem along with a seemingly price for their services and yet hes no less damned than if he had been tricked. Genius. My guess is that the reason for offering a Plan B was to insure eternal damnation. V will now have no excuses for the gatekeepers of any non-Evil afterlife. Making a deal with fiends to save h\*\* family might be accepted as the lesser of two evils (like Roy associating with a certain sociopathic halfling); making a deal with fiends to save face is right out. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/168 "2009-03-02T19:27:54Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > That very much remains to be seen. > > But yes. Ingenious maneuvering Well, i meant no damnation specified in the deal, letting him damn himself is the beauty of it. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/169 "2009-03-02T19:46:20Z")
I think ye be reading too much into it. The Fiends don’t want V after he _dies_. They want something from him while he is _alive_. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/170 "2009-03-02T22:20:15Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > My guess is that the reason for offering a Plan B was to insure eternal damnation. V will now have no excuses for the gatekeepers of any non-Evil afterlife. Making a deal with fiends to save h\*\* family might be accepted as the lesser of two evils (like Roy associating with a certain sociopathic halfling); making a deal with fiends to save face is right out. I don’t want to dig too deeply into D&D theology (that way lies madness) but V is neutral and so some evil acts are going to be tolerated by whoever does the postmortem interview. I have to say that the fiends plan wasn’t a good one; it could easily take half an hour or more to complete. The dragon is at V’s house now and the plan requires things to go exactly right. What if they shoot the imp down over the ocean? What if everyone is too busy crying over V’s head not to notice the note? What if V’s master can’t help immediately? ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/171 "2009-03-02T23:25:47Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > I don’t want to dig too deeply into D&D theology (that way lies madness) but V is neutral and so some evil acts are going to be tolerated by whoever does the postmortem interview. I’m not disputing this, but where in the series is V’s neutrality explicitly stated? He always seemed kind of neutral good to me. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/172 "2009-03-02T23:29:29Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > I don’t want to dig too deeply into D&D theology (that way lies madness) but V is neutral and so some evil acts are going to be tolerated by whoever does the postmortem interview. True, but dealing with fiends when the justification of dire necessity has been undercut would be quite a camel to swallow. > [@](#): > > I have to say that the fiends plan wasn’t a good one; it could easily take half an hour or more to complete. The dragon is at V’s house now and the plan requires things to go exactly right. What if they shoot the imp down over the ocean? What if everyone is too busy crying over V’s head not to notice the note? What if V’s master can’t help immediately? Plan B doesn’t have to be certain – just good enough to undercut V’s ability to claim lack of any other choice. In fact, it’s better that it is flawed; the fiends don’t want V to actually **take** the alternative option, just dangle it out there to make V’s choice to deal with them more unambiguously evil. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/173 "2009-03-02T23:33:52Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > I’m not disputing this, but where in the series is V’s neutrality explicitly stated? He always seemed kind of neutral good to me. > **[633 Where Do You See Yourself in Five Million Years? - Giant in the...](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0633.html)** First panel, the only way I can think of to take “you have the good, or the neutral as the case may be” is that good isn’t anywhere on his alignment chart, he doesn’t have any good, he just has neutral “as the case may be”. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/174 "2009-03-02T23:46:48Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > [633 Where Do You See Yourself in Five Million Years? - Giant in the Playground Games](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0633.html) > > First panel, the only way I can think of to take “you have the good, or the neutral as the case may be” is that good isn’t anywhere on his alignment chart, he doesn’t have any good, he just has neutral “as the case may be”. And given that V has throughout the strip done some less than good things made me take his/her alignment as likely to be True Neutral. Executing an unarmed prisoner to avoid inconvenience, for example. Really the whole alignment system in D&D is just as ludicrous as the theology; Burlew has skewered both and I think it’s a safe bet that more skewering is coming just using this incident. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/175 "2009-03-02T23:50:40Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > And given that V has throughout the strip done some less than good things made me take his/her alignment as likely to be True Neutral. Executing an unarmed prisoner to avoid inconvenience, for example. > > Really the whole alignment system in D&D is just as ludicrous as the theology; Burlew has skewered both and I think it’s a safe bet that more skewering is coming just using this incident. I always play with house rules that say “alignments are only vague templates.” We undo class alignments entirely since it’s perfectly reasonable to have good versions of some classes (mind-bender, for instance, cannot be good). Every once in a while we ALMOST start arguing about it now and then, until we realizes it’s worse than a bad freshman philosophy course when you get to D&D alignment definitions and leave it alone. The only time we preserve alignment are for such obviously evil-necessary things like blackguard (and even then, if you have a really solid RP reason for manipulating the class system for an opposite alignment blackguard we won’t stop you). ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/176 "2009-03-03T00:17:47Z")
But in [scenes like this](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0128.html) I see a basic goodness in V. It comes up pretty often (although less and less of late.) Belkar is being manipulated, so his reaction doesn’t count. I’ve never believed that he was Chaotic Evil in the first place. More like Chaotic Neutral. Maybe Neutral Evil. CE? Nah … he’s got neutral in him somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Silophant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Silophant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silophant)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/177 "2009-03-03T05:37:25Z")
I don’t have a link right now, because the site’s being all slow and stuff, but Belkar’s hallucination with Shojo not too long ago makes it pretty clear he’s CE. ETA: It’s slow because there’s a new Erfworld up. Only a couple days after the last one, no less. Excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/178 "2009-03-03T06:19:51Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > But in [scenes like this](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0128.html) I see a basic goodness in V. It comes up pretty often (although less and less of late.) > > Belkar is being manipulated, so his reaction doesn’t count. I’ve never believed that he was Chaotic Evil in the first place. More like Chaotic Neutral. Maybe Neutral Evil. CE? Nah … he’s got neutral in him somewhere. Yes, but in the grand scheme of things V is neutral, he may have a SLANT towards good, but he’s still neutral. And doing good deeds doesn’t necessarily = good if you do them for other reasons (like pursuit of arcane power and knowledge just for that sake of having it, a neutral goal if there was one), just like doing evil deeds doesn’t make you evil if there’s a specific reason behind it (there’s a wonderful book I’m trying to find called Villains By Necessity where the world has finally been taken by good and evil is almost nonexistent, a druid senses the balance of the universe deteriorating which is necessarily going to cause the end of the world so he rounds up a gang of vagabonds to wreak havoc and cause general mayhem in order to save the world). ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/179 "2009-03-03T07:05:49Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Yes, but in the grand scheme of things V is neutral, he may have a SLANT towards good, but he’s still neutral. And doing good deeds doesn’t necessarily = good if you do them for other reasons (like pursuit of arcane power and knowledge just for that sake of having it, a neutral goal if there was one)… In the link I provided, V does good for the sake of doing good. He doesn’t care if he alienates Belkar, but he does care if he upsets Elan. There are lots more examples. I don’t buy buy V being purely neutral. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096/180 "2009-03-03T07:11:49Z")
Alignments aren’t absolute, they’re sliding scales. There can even be differences in outlook among characters with the same alignment. Take Roy versus Miko - both were LG, but Roy was more good than lawful, while Miko was a lot more lawful than good. A neutral character doesn’t have to always do something out of self-interest - they can certainly do good out of pure altruism, alternated with acts of selfishness and pettiness. “Neutral” is what you get when you examine their actions as a whole. > [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I think ye be reading too much into it. The Fiends don’t want V after he _dies_. They want something from him while he is _alive_. True, but they also believe in corruption for corruption’s sake. Comes with being a fiend. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-general-discussion-thread-open-spoilers-and-speculation/484096.md?page=10)