Grrl Power #389 – Interview to a kill
There’s been some debate as to whether Deus is actually evil or not, I would suggest giving it a few pages before deciding. In my mind, good and evil can’t be absolutes, they exist on a spectrum. Is killing always an absolute wrong? In a hypothetical situation, killing one person to save two is objectively the better choice. Some people might debate that, to me it’s clear the best path is the one that does the least harm, so taking X lives to save X+1 lives is a no brainer. Of course there are rarely such clear cut choices in real life. What about killing two junkies to save one doctor, four kidnappers to save one scientist, or every televangelist to save one… anyone who isn’t a televangelist?
A Lawful Good Paladin kills a bandit, does that make him evil? What if the bandit only wanted the saddlebag of apples to feed his family? If the Paladin knew the bandit’s intentions and killed him anyway, then probably yes, if not, then no, at least not from the Paladin’s point of view. The son of the bandit might feel differently. Not only are good and evil not absolutes, they are relative values depending on the observer. That’s why bad guys rarely think of themselves as bad guys. Stealing from a bank that shattered the economy and took thousands of people’s homes, and the CEO not only didn’t go to jail, he got a massive bonus? Fairly easy to justify. The cops are working for the government which works for the banks and their job is to maintain the status quo. Are they good or bad in this situation? Robbing the CEO of his bonus would be easier to justify, and possibly more ethical, but does that then shift the value of the cops’ actions?
This is usually how Deus works, by miring people in semantic debates and inching their position ever closer to his, and I should add, with considerably more skill that I can legitimately muster. That’s why it’s difficult to write smart characters. There’s almost no chance the person writing them is smarter the character. An inventor or scientist, sure, throw out some technobabble and then show the thing they invented, but writing a genuinely intelligent character is tough. One of the few really good examples I can think of is Hannibal, or at least the first two seasons. Hannibal approaches situations in that show with forethought and planning that borders on Batman level absurd, but if you were really 65 IQ up on everyone else around you, things that seem like ridiculous foresight to someone else might come as second nature to you. Deus hasn’t really displayed this yet, since doing so either takes a lot of text or a long plot in which characters can reveal their machinations. I think that’s part of the reason why most smart characters come across as intelligent but unwise. They have flashes of brilliance but no long game.
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Prolly less evil, more ‘screw the rules I have money’. Which some can pretty well interpret as evil, but oh well.
I’m with DaveB on this. If you’re doing more harm than benefit your actions are evil. I can’t see any other interpretation as being valid. It only gets murky when you have trouble quantifying the amount of harm and benefit with enough accuracy to know which one is greater in a given choice.
So if someone’s “screw the rules, I have money” attitude is leading to the death of innocents for no (non-selfish) gain… then that’s obviously evil. If it’s leading to a worldwide reduction in poverty without hurting anyone… then that’s obviously good. It’s when that attitude leads to the death of innocents to reduce global poverty that things can get difficult.
I Have to disagree with you though, I feel that good/evil is dependent on intentions. In this case Deus is being more neutral, uncaring about improving the infrastructure, but actually about just making himself some money. He really doesn’t care about that country either way, but the profit he could make off of it is enticing. If he were good, he would be doing it without taking money from their country, if he were evil, he would have hired an assassin to kill off the king. Here his bodyguard was just protecting him. Deus is, in my mind, a rather true neutral character, caring about himself in the absolute, as we have seen so far.
the world is full of shades of gray. and sometimes figuring them out just sucks.
To me, the relational good vs evil of an action is able to be determined by the following algorithms…
Good = (Number of original choices available to those affected/New number of choices available to those affected) * (approval of those affected/disapproval of those affected).
Evil = 1/Good
When breaking something down, one must be sure to use equivalent units in order to get things to cancel down to a flat number (for example, one life’s worth of choices for one person versus a choice that a person will make that will affect one hour of their life, but affects 700 Thousand people would be roughly equivalent.)
Hmm… we could have a bit of fun with “intent” and “harm done vs number of people who benefit”.
Would a doctor who hunts people down and kills them, specifically because their organs can be used in transplants to save the lives of more than one person, be evil? The intent is honourable (preserve as many lives as possible) and while it’s directly harming one person it’s a life-saving cure to a number of others…
I personally think it’s pretty evil, and would be surprised if I was the only person that thought so. But I can’t put my finger on what precisely makes it evil rather than a perfectly logical course of action.
I prefer the moral absolute system that would say Deus is evil. … of-course, under that system, no one is good.
There is no innocence, only degrees of guilt…
I see an argument for “Self Defense”. The King threatened Deus, and Deus’ bodyguard acted to protect his employer.
Deus gave him a chance to work with him, Indinge chose not to.
Is Deus evil? I’d say he’s more Morally Ambiguous with an Unhealthy dose of Megalomania and the smarts to pull it off without getting caught.
“The King threatened Deus, and Deus’ bodyguard acted to protect his employer.”
The king’s threat was ‘Leave or I’ll have you killed’.
Deus could have left. The king wanted nothing to do with him or his offer. It was the king’s house. I’m not all up for killing people when they don’t listen to one’s requests to get out, but Deus was given a choice from the guy who owned the house and didn’t take the peaceful option.
Had he TAKEN the first option, went to leave, and the king then attempted to kill him, I could totally see the Self-Defence argument…but that’s not the case here.
Mileage may vary.
Also, the bodyguard didn’t act to protect Deus. He didn’t do anything until Deus told him ‘Yeah, kill the king.’
I’m not a lawyer (not that it matters, since they aren’t in America so different laws may apply, the king may have the authority to have anyone he wants killed, though he already said his land isn’t recognized as a country currently, so we are in a sort of legal limbo at the moment), but I’m pretty sure that were this to occur on American soil, the moment Deus’ life was threatened, he would be within his rights to defend himself. True, he had the option of leaving (assuming the king could be trusted not to have him killed anyway, which is certainly not a guarantee), but the fact remains that the king issued a death threat. If someone threatens to kill you, and you feel your life is in danger, I’m pretty sure you are allowed to respond with lethal force. If someone with armed guards threatens to kill you, and you shoot them first, I’m pretty sure that legally you are in the right (definitely not what I would have done first, but technically the law would support him, I think).
Deus was given a choice – LEAVE or die. Rather than leaving and saying ‘We can talk about this later’ or whatever, he chooses ‘no, I’ll kill you.’
Nobody is pointing guns (the dudes with guns have been there the whole time, they’re his security force). Up to this point, it’s words. And those words are ‘leave or I’ll have you shot’. Not ‘Guards, kill this guy’ or ‘I’m going to get you for this’ (which probably wouldn’t be taken as self-defence either), or anything of the sort.
On American soil, if you’re in a bank and the bank manager says ‘This is my bank, leave or I’ll have you shot’ (the guy wouldn’t, but let’s say he does…), and there are a bunch of security guys watching you (with guns, holstered), and you pull out a pistol and gun the manager down…that’s not Self-Defence.
Or if you’re on Private Property, say, and the owner of that property says “Leave or I’ll have you shot” and he has a bunch of security guards with pistols – holstered – standing behind him, and you go all Rambo…that’s not self-defence.
Heck, even if the guards pull out their pistols and point them, I doubt it’s self-defence because you’re on his property and he’s giving you a choice – leave or I’ll have you shot. Now, maybe him having you shot is against the law but I doubt any court would recognize the self-defence aspect if you – after hearing this – pull out your own pistol and gun everyone down.
And if we’re still taking that as a threat, what about Deus himself?
‘You can profit from them alongside me, or…not.’
The king even takes this as a threat (which really it is), and Deus makes no move to dissuade him. The king’s ultimatum is coming in response to threatening behavior from Deus himself.
I don’t dispute you on this, just saying that Deus set the situation up so that, either way, he would win. The King takes his offer, that’s a win. The King threatens to kill him…that’s another win. Deus can call it self defense and get away with it.
Evil, probably. Smart, definitely.
Oh, Deus can CALL it self-defence, I get that.
Anyone there knows the truth, but then, Deus is the guy writing the history books at this point, so.
…as it is, he seems to be going with ‘And he had a heart attack!’ ^_^
Actually, Indinge is in the process of giving the order “Throw him from the…” palace? balcony? cliff out back? The world will never know. :D
That would be AFTER Deus:
1. Threatens him;
2. Refuses to leave after being given a choice;
3. Tells someone to ‘abdicate the king’.
So, Deus has actually given the order to kill the king before the king even decides ‘okay, he’s not leaving so kill the dude’.
I don’t know about anyone else (mileage, as always, may vary), but this, to me, does not smack of ‘Self-defence’.
^_^
Additionally states ‘This was not unexpected’, and he came with an invisible killer at his side.
So, premeditated.
Is the king dead, though? There’s no reason why killing him is necessary, since he could force the king to “step down for health reasons” such as a newly-discovered heart ailment in lieu of his son, who would be one of the few people to know that the “heart ailment” either wasn’t real, or was induced. Leaving the king alive but incapacitated would be better than killing him outright, for reasons that should be obvious.
I guess we’ll find that out… :)
Still harm applied at Deus’ orders, by Deus’ minion. Deus (& his minion) acted to the detriment of Indinge, impacting his health, because Indinge refused to cave to his (frankly) demands. I gotta say, leaning toward an ‘evil’ label here.
Deus appears to be a Master of Prep, along the lines of Batman [but evil]. He probably considered everything before he even met with the King, and made sure that every outcome was twisted to his advantage.
Should probably remind people that the King was a warlord. He got to his position over a mountain of bodies. From that angle, Deus would have been justified to kill him regardless. It could easily be claimed that he gave the King a chance at redeeming himself in a test to see if he’s willing to sacrifice power to assist the people under him, and he refused, failing Deus’s test.
Would you have taken that chance in his shoes? I like to trust people, but Deus doesn’t say anything slightly beliveable, doesn’t try to back it up in any way and doesn’t offer any concrete plans. At best, I’d guess he’s a tremendously naive narcissist with delusions of charity.
To paraphrase Ash: “Good… bad… I’m the one with the super powered henchmen. ”
To me using old school D&D terms Deus would be Lawful Evil. I always used the definitions from an old Dragon magizine article. Rather than just Evil doing bad for the sake of being bad Evil is selfish. Whatever is best for me and mine is the right thing to do. So Deus’ building infrastructure which helps the people still fits into this because the only reason he’s doing it is for his own profit and power. Lawful is having order and structure. So becoming partners with the local king follows the established order. Even if he has to remove the current King and replace him with someone more in line with his plans is still considered Lawful for alignment purposes, even though regicide is usually quite against the law in any country with a monarchy.
So even though some of what Deus is doing would be considered good I would still peg him as Lawful Evil.
Personally, I can respect certain Lawful Evil actions, and this series of events is one of them. That sed, one could make an argument for Lawful Neutral.
I get more of a Dr. Doom sort of feel. Evil, but not EEEVVVIIILLL. He’s arrogant but not insane. If the country grows then it benefits him as well.
He’s a LITTLE arrogant. I mean he IS a selfmade what, BILLIONAIRE? there is usually a little arrogance that comes with that.
I’d say way more than a little.
He is – but it’s justified arrogance, which as long as it’s not unreasonable, isn’t really a problem. That sed, Deus seems like he has a bit of a complex and atm it seems like his weakness.
Shoulda followed Tuco’s advice in Good Bad and Ugly. “If you’re going to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
Instead of making his threatening statement, in panel three, he should have drawn a gun and shot Deus. Cthillia might have still killed him – never know what a bodyguard might do when you take out their principal, but at least Deus would be dead.
Awesome quote. :D
I figure Deus has some kind of ‘protection’, though. Dude like him WILL have contingencies against snipers and other such things, if he isn’t metahuman already.
Or maybe not, we still don’t know if Deus is a super…….
You don’t need to be a super to have some protection like a bullet proof vest
Anyone notice how that bodyguard is calling Indinge Jnr ‘sire’? o_O
Yes, and Indinge was calling himself “king”. Par of the course that he should insist on “sire” on top of it, and it’s pretty clear that Junior’s about to succeed his father in a matter of moments.
Regarding “it’s hard to write intelligent characters”, this series of articles has some great thoughts on the matter. I’d highly recommend it.
I’ll check it out.
He’s not _necessarily_ evil. But it is in my experience that (a) people who use complicated moral arguments to justify assassinating people executing a coup in a different country “for their own good” to make lots of money and (b) people in superhero comics who have a giant scar on their forehead spelling out “SUPERVILLAIN” usually TURN OUT to be bad guys, even if the official evidence is still being gathered :)
I’d discount the stereotype reason, given that we’re reading this, which actively makes fun of stereotypes, even though it often follows them.
Interesting.
Deus is practically the brother of the main NPC in my RPG-World. If you combine his name, scar and corporation, you would even get the name said NPC chose. Must be some kind of alternate reality…
If you are ridiculously rich, powerful, intelligent and have a vision how to make the future better for everyone, is it really evil to kill people who do not share your foresight?
Absolutely, if they are farmers or other citizens. If they are in a position to actually stand in your way? Meh…
This King actually said: “Give me your money, so i can build a new palace for myself and go away so you don´t have to see that my people are still starving. I like being corrupt and don´t want to change anything”.
There is only two differences between this Deus and mine.
1. In my world, the king wold have died a little sooner.
2. My Deus Ex Machina would have done it himself.
It is necessary to ridiculously overpower main NPC´s, since Shadowrun and D&D proved: If it has stats, it can be killed by your Players, in some way you never predicted.
He really, really didn’t. He said history has shown us not to trust white men in suits who promise the sky. And he was completely correct. Deus murdered him rather than negotiate a compromise, or accept the King’s refusal. This was a conquest by blood. Less blood than usual since he started at the top, but still conquest by blood. Note that there is not the slightest chance Indinge will be the only one killed. Many of the other power players in the country, notably generals, will not blithely accept the transfer of power.
One thing. He said “Abdicate the King”, not kill the king. The last panel has the king pissed off and in pain, but not dead. Put the king in a coma, make his son rule, knowing that he could be dropped just as easily. Let the king be a living reminder that Deus is NOT a man to mess with, and when he offers you a deal, take it.
Actually there is a reasonable chance nobody dies. As has been noted, a bedridden king has several uses. He may now decide to be “reasonable”, since he now realizes he is vulnerable. More likely, his heir or replacement will be. [Deus can threaten son or dad.] As to the generals, etc, a merely incapacitated king is confusing. If you declare yourself the new king, you risk the old king recovering and firing you with extreme prejudice, not to mention some of the other generals insisting all orders must come from the old king, etc. And while you wait to figure out
Then we have the behavior of the bodyguard. Holding junior back may be a good idea, but it seems odd. The guard really only knows this likely dangerous stranger has appeared and the king looks to be in trouble. The automatic response would be to charge and deal with the threat, unless Deus has done some other “preparation work” by bribing some or all of the guards [who are quite likely open to “reasonable offers”]. Since Junior will likely be a useful tool, keeping him from doing anything “foolish” would be a reasonable part of Deus’ plan. [Another reason to keep Dad alive. Some of his guards may be squemish about a murder plot.] The statement “Sire, No” is odd, if the guard doesn’t know Dad is “retiring” and he shouldn’t unless he was part of the plot.
So we have a possible picture of the king being carted off to the hospital [paid for and run by Deus] and Junior is told Pop will be fine, as long as Junior is a good boy and a “proper” acting king. The other officials are used to being minions anyway [The king was likely removing all who showed signs of ambition.] So when they get orders signed by Junior, there is a good chance they will fall in line [those not doing so may of course have sudden “health” problems, but there may not be enough to worry about]. So if we assume Deus is as smart as he thinks he is and he has prepared for this, everybody may survive [not that Deus likely cares beyond the point that dead slaves don’t do much work for you, but…]
It’s entirely possible that the bodyguard holding the son back was specifically assigned to be the son’s bodyguard. If so, then rushing to the defense of the king (leaving the son unguarded) would be a betrayal of his duties. As would permitting the son to rush into apparent danger. And if he’s so carefully adhering to his duties out of loyalty to the father who gave him that order, then “Sire, no!” is merely a request for the king to not die or become ill.
“Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi
Most people are talking about Deus so I thought I’d chime in on intelligent characters. First, been loving the comic. I’ve been reading since I think the bank robbery, but have only now emerged to comment. As for the intelligent character problem, I think you might want to read this. After reading it, my character creation improved dramatically. The guy who wrote it is a huge figure in the rationality scene, and is a leading expert on AI safety. Also, he wrote the 121 chapter fan-novel Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres and the Methods of Rationality. So, you know, he probably knows what he’s talking about. Hope you find it interesting if not helpful.
Well that’s what I get for not testing my html knowledge. The first link is to a really interesting guy’s ideas on writing intelligent characters, the second is for his super long Harry Potter fan-novel that tackles all the plot holes and what-ifs that occur if you apply logic and science to the hardy potter universe. To be honest, I can’t remember if I originally found that novel through you or elsewhere, so if you already knew about it sorry.
And it would be great if my phone could spell a name correctly for once.*Harry Potter
Fixed your links. Someone else suggested the blog so I’ll definitely check it out. The fanfic sounds right up my alley, unfortunately I haven’t read any of the HP books and I’ve only seen 1 or two of the movies, so a fanfic that extends the HP universe in a logical way would largely be lost on me, unless the fic was severely annotated.
I see this as similar to an online game I’m in. My character is chaotic good and lectures the temple occasionally on situational ethics: how committing an evil act can serve a greater good by saving the Kingdom and maybe life in general. I think the high ups understand, in character, that a sorcerer isn’t to be held to their standards! I think Deus and my sorcerer would understand each other, although she would probably end up in his employee!
So, totally off topic, but I didn’t see your name on the VDSD2016 site. Are you participating this year? Your submissions are always my favorite.
*laughing and laughing*
Dude, I AM 65 IQ points up on most people around me–literal genius here–and I gotta tell you, it don’t mean SHIT in terms of long-term machiavellian planning. As far as I’ve ever been able to tell, it means that I make more connections and faster connections between random bits of data. It ALSO tends to mean that I can easily get lost in the middle of all those connections and wander off on total side-tracks and never make it to where I intended to go in the first place.
I’ve also found, not only from myself but from watching others, that the smartest people usually are capable of the most monumentally DUMB shit. To give an example, I have a permanently marred fingerprint on my left pinky finger. Why? Because when I was 12 or 13, I pushed in the cigarette lighter in a car, then pulled it out again almost immediately. Then I promptly stuck my finger into the lighter to see if it was hot–I mean, the element wasn’t red, so it could still be cold, right? This caused a bad enough burn that the marks are still present more than a quarter of a century later. DUMB. SO DUMB. Smart people often get so focused on “getting experimental results” that they completely overlook “consequences of the results.”
It is entirely possible for a person with a lower-than-average IQ to be better and more intelligent about “the long game” than someone of very high intelligence.
I would also say that the most successful highly-intelligent characters I’ve seen in comics, especially among villains, have tended to fail not because they have a lack of a long-term game plan, but because of egotism. It’s very easy for the smartest guy in the room to fall prey to the rabbit-vs.-hare syndrome, where they are so assured that they’re too smart for everyone else that they get lazy and sloppy. Their long-term plan may have included “take care of that detail” but when they got to the point where they should have done that, they just decided it wasn’t necessary. Or they fail to allow for enough flexibility to handle the unexpected things that ALWAYS pop up. Or they underestimate the determination to succeed on the part of the heroes. A lack of empathy–in the technical sense, ie, a lack of ability to understand the feelings and motivations of others–is almost always what really brings the villains down.
That’s why I like to spend time talking to anyone and everyone, regardless of intelligence. It constantly reminds me that being “smarter” doesn’t make me superior, it just makes me faster at coming up with ideas–and that my ideas aren’t always, or even usually, the BEST ideas, they’re just fast ideas.
I agree with this view on ‘Evil’. In my opinion the only ‘Evil’ person is one who does it for no reason at all or for the laughs (Joker anyone?). Even those that kill and harm only for a selfish reason with no ‘greater good’ considered at all sees it as a good thing for them so from their perspective there is nothing evil about it. Hence we cannot really use labels such as evil or good and instead we must go with criminal or innocent as these terms can be defined within the letters of the law of (X) country.
for me either everyone is a certain degree of “evil” and any view of “holier then thou” or “safer world for X” is really a lie to themselves to justify consequences of actions that would have negative impact on others (or in the case of the last century: everyone) or there is no good vs evil and that was a system created by people who couldn’t either understand or comprehend that everything is against you no matter what aka “survival of the fittest” but more abstract which with this view allows for there to be actually “good” people
personally i created a “alignment” graph for the latter
You didnt think your supposedly simple logic through, Dave.
“taking X lives to save X+1 lives is a no brainer”
edge cases are usually the best proof or disproof of stuff like this. So here’s an edge case.
Millions of people in Africa starve to death every year, because there isnt enough food.
Therefore, you can save hundreds of thousands of lives, by simply kiling off half of those people who are likely going to starve to death anyway. The food left over, will be enough to keep people alive. People who would otherwise die of starvation. So you save lives, by killing the other people.
It’s a “no brainer” solution for sure.
:-/
The difference here is the difference between “the end justifies the means: any means which will accomplish the end” (pure sophistry) and & “the end justifies the minimum means necessary to accomplish it” (a hard choice & a gray area).
I stand by the math, but it only works in abstract. In the real world, there are obviously solutions to starvation other than killing half a population. The more abstract a real world situation you come up with, the more contrived it becomes, like a scene from SAW where someone has to push one of two buttons that decides the fate of X number of people in 2 rooms.
The blog text reminds me of something I heard not too long ago.
Say there’s a train speeding towards a junction. The north branch has four people tied to the tracks, the south branch has one person tied to the tracks, and there’s only enough time to pull the switch to choose the branch. Many people would send the train south because if somebody is guaranteed to die, it should be the 1 instead of the 4.
But what about a similar situation, except that instead of throwing a switch to indirectly doom one person, the only way to save the four on the northern branch is to push somebody onto the tracks in front of the train? It still produces the exact same end result (choosing for one person to die instead of four), but FAR fewer people would be able to bring themselves to do it.
The text makes it sound like Deus would not hesitate to push the person onto the tracks. Finding out WHY he wouldn’t hesitate is something that makes me eagerly anticipate the next few pages ;)
The third option being, instead of pushing someone else, jumping onto the tracks yourself – just thought that no-one ever brings that one up
The fourth option being, derail the train in as safe a manner as possible. Say, leave the switch in between the positions, so the train tries to follow both rails and hops off when it can not. Nobody said there was anyone on the train; it could be a totally automated and currently empty freight hauler on its way for decommissioning (which might explain the malfunction that lead to it being unable to brake in time).
The fifth option being, cut whatever’s tying the people to the tracks and pull them off. If you have a sharp enough blade, an accurate enough swing, and time enough to pull a railroad switch lever, you may have enough time for this too.
And then there are all the options that having supers around presents.
Option 6 – just blow everything up?
Daniel the Human says there’s an option 7, select 1 person track & cut then free, followed by the other 4. Eh, I guess it works, tho it is pretty close to #5…
All options then neutralized when hidden villain who rigged the situation up just pushes the detonator, killing everyone, earning the “Evil Monster Psychopath” title…
…as well as the “Darwin Award” & “Idiot” titles for including himself in the Everyone… :p
Nice! Lol
I love “third option” thinking – box? What box? Lol ;)
Hey, got to grind those achievements, no? (What do you mean, he can’t respawn and go on a run for Hero titles this time?)
As a fat man, this occurred to me as well….
…Of course, in the moment, I would be (probably more) likely to freeze, either in panic, or because my brain shifted into overdrive, and not be able to act at all…
With a name like Cthillia, I don’t want to know what’s under those wraps.
“I’ve seen enough Hentai to know where this is going”?
All of my yes.
Killing someone to advance you’re megalomaniac plans generally puts you in the evil side. Even more so when you have a big gnarly scar. Besides who you trying to kid? If a billionaire could make money in this small sliver of land with out this info structure that would benefit the populous they would. They usually care about the bottom line profit for them everything else is only a means to an end. They certainly don’t mean for the people’s benefit. Though I completely agree with the anti bank statement.
And what the hell is Cthillia suppose to be? Some sort of evil strobe light?
While the details are unclear, the idea of the “evil eye” that can kill with a look is widespread,
Maybe some sort of gorgon monster?
A subtle one no doubt. Nothing so crude as a full body petrification, this guy’s an artist. He can petrify any part of you he wishes and leave the rest intact. This time, he went for the left ventricle for a fast kill.
Sometimes the boss wishes for his victim to suffer before death, so he goes for the liver. Or just to be crippled, so he does finger joints at random. Then there was the guy that hit on the same girl at a bar that boss-man was eyeing. Boss-man had to respect that, however grudgingly, so said cockblocker involuntarily gained literal balls of brass.
Here’s one of my favorite monologues ever, author-comment related:
“You’re like me. For you, good is a rational act. It’s rules, it’s calculations, it’s your choices plugged into a grand equation added up into evils vanquished, ideals upheld,Civilizations saved! How the worth of a few lives pales before such greater goods! What is three, two lives, one life weighed against the world!
“The world is nothing! Nothing! Why couldn’t we see this, you and I? We burn the present for the sake of a brighter future, and act surprised when all it holds is ash!
“No, if our minds decide the sum of small evils is a greater good, then it is our hearts that are rational.”
This guy is a sick and twisted bastard. He’s Dr. Doom levels of corrupt, and it turns my stomach just thinking about it.
And before someone starts in on that he’s doing the right thing, no. Just no. He’s got ulterior motives up the wazoo. He went in expecting Indinge to say no, and was fully prepared to murder him on the spot.
He’s all too happy to kill a man so his plans can succeed. He’s going to use Indinge’s death to manipulate Jr. with fear and intimidation.
Kinda like how Maxima also acts. Power, intimidation, and fear mongering. Only Deus is being more subtle about it than Miss Nukes.
Which makes him the more dangerous of the two.
Yes, he has a black twisted, sadistic heart that enjoys the very idea of killing Indinge to get his way and will probably threaten Junior and company to get his way.
That said, if it makes the country better then I don’t care if he’s juggling babies over a lion’s pit while singing the national anthem. There’s been many examples of people rotten to the core that prove to be good leaders that take care of their people through history. Evil does not necessarily mean cruel and horrible. And sometimes that ego can make someone be a great leader as they decide to prove everyone they’re better by being the best damn leader they can be.
I had an NPC in one of my campaigns, lawful evil, worshiped a god of fire, was waging a campaign of violence and blood. So a monster of epic proportions right? Wrong. He was taking over the country that he felt was his because his father was this weak man that was being ruled by his own court. This man watched the people suffering because a corrupt court was more interested in taking care of themselves and it disgusted him. As for the fire? Well, it was also a god of creativity, so while he would allow the citizens to still worship as they wished, he would fill their towns with art showing his dominance over the area. As the campaign progressed, people just stopped trying to stop him and surrendered without a fight. Which was his ultimate goal for when he expanded. Then the true conquest could begin.
I agree, but you should keep ‘necessary’ in that ‘necessary evil for the greater good’ equation. Also everyone is making the assumption that this is super-powered murder and not super-powered induced coma/mind wipe. Wiping Indinge’s mind and having him live as a civilian in his old country as it’s uplifted does have a certain karmic appeal.
Plus, while cutting off the head may sound like a clean solution this is a country wracked with civil war. If Deus if going to be using an existing regime he’s still going to have to deal with whatever the rebel element is (unless he’s already cut a deal there). He’s also going to need to hustle with relief and infrastructure improvements if he wants to deal with the underlying reasons for unrest.
Still, ‘Deus’s end-game.youtube’ video:
https://www . youtube . com/watch?v=o_CyMqQBO8w
That’s my thing about the phrase cut off the head and the body will die. That so rarely happens. When you start a coup like this, it is so rarely clean. You have to be prepared for the long haul, making allies where you can, placing puppet regimes, and killing the people that get in your way. The best puppet regime is one that has legitimate connections to the previous regime and take out that puppet’s enemies. Like say, get the son on board.
However, I think he has the right idea to use a modified breads and circuses strategy. Take care of the people’s infrastructure and they’ll largely be grateful, and outside nations ask less questions. Though he’ll probably use the regular breads and circuses strategy as well. Provide for the basic side needs of the masses and you get less murmurs.
So the tl;dr version of this is we both agree absolutely. And that it won’t be clean, he’ll come out of this caked in blood. And he doesn’t seem to mind.
Miss. Daisy Cutters.
Also, more to the point… Maxima wasn’t playing a fear-mongering game in that event. She was issuing a warning, not making a threat. Her display of power had a specific targeted goal; dissuade smart villains from crossing lines that could hurt people, and direct stupid ones to come at her, rather than squishy civilians. She’s acting like someone trying to check people drunk on power.
Conversely, Deus’s game is to use persuasion wherever he can get away with it, and resort to power plays where persuasion doesn’t work. He’s acting like someone with power who’s trying not to get drunk on it.
The fact is that there’s going to come a point where his commitment to efficiency will be outweighed by his sense of his own sovereign authority, and when that point comes Maxima is going to be compelled to put him in check… and knowing the way Deus thinks, it’ll probably be while he tries to hand her the keys to a shiney new Australia.
“writing a genuinely intelligent character is tough” Yeah I had to drop one book series that I liked because the author tried to make one character look smart by making every other character an idiot.
Good and evil exist in absolutes, very easily, the difficulty in knowing is simply a matter of knowledge. If you have perfect knowledge, it is easy and obvious, but we never have that, so we can never be completely sure apart from small scale short time periods. That does not mean that the absolutes do not exist, it is simply a failing of knowledge on our parts.
If you hold that absolute god and evil exist you must also believe that absolute neutral exists. If there’s a spectrum or range you’re by definition admitting that things exist within that range. Perfect knowledge or understanding of the context will help you place things along that range more accurately. What it won’t do is change your distribution into more categorically ‘good’ and ‘evil’ lumps.
I’m sure you know this, I’m just saying that people who spend too much energy trying to forcefully categorize things as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ invariably end up sacrificing understanding. This is how we get the crazy zealots who want to purge you with fire.
Someone better pick up that phone…
Because, I fucking CALLED IT!
*groan*
I’ve seen quite a bit of the “intelligent, but unwise” persons. Since intellect is actually a composite of many functions of mental ability (8 or 9 categories), it really isn’t surprising: one function is ramped up at the expense of another. Many LD students are actually very gifted in an area other than their disability. The stereotypical idiot-savant exemplifies an extreme of this phenomenon. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of supers (hypothetically speaking, of course) had some LD issue as well. We already know Heatwave has a slow processor speed (although, she did get it, finally), Dabbler has compulsive behaviors, & Anvil has body image issues. Max might even be borderline Asperger’s….
Please don’t ban me Dave, I’ll be good.
Deus is demonstrating he’s a villain but a pragmatic villain, he saw no reason to kill the king and take over when he could offer to share good fortune with the guy letting him remain king but when he refused to give him what he wanted Deus promptly murdered him as an impediment to his plans. Deus is unquestionably evil but he’s not an evil for evil’s sake sort, so he didn’t just go in, kill the king, and take over due to not seeing a reason to kill the guy when he could bring him over to his side to help instead. He didn’t hesitate though to have him murdered when he refused to go along with Deus’ plan.
Deus is evil. He didn’t kill the king because he felt morally compelled to remove an obstacle to helping a destitute and war-torn nation; he killed the king because he has Big Plans Of His Own which only incidentally help a destitute and war-torn nation. Someone else may try and justify it by pointing out that the king was MORE evil (probably), but Deus didn’t kill the king because the king was evil; he killed the king because the king stood in his way.
As to the question of the ethical math, weighing good outcomes against the evil done to achieve them and asking if an act which results in a preponderance of good can be evil, then you are getting into the dubious zone in ethical studies carved out by consequentialism. For a moving and disturbing illustration of consequentialist ethics, read Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”
Cthillia induces an epileptic fit with her strobe effect that stops the heart. It leaves no marks, the victim simply dies of heart failure.
Think of Omelas as having a tax system which is uneven. Some people (specifically the suffering child) pay more in taxes than they gain in benefits; other people (everyone else) gain more in benefits than they pay in taxes.
Under the current system, the number of people who pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits is quite large. (It’s a matter of math–if some people get more than they pay, it follows that other people must pay more than they get.) In Omelas, it’s reduced to one.
When you look at it that way, and I’m sure LeGuin would be horrified at looking at it that way, it points out that even people who object to doing a bad thing for the greater good really accept doing bad things for the greater good. Our system runs on that. It’s not just taxes–for instance, the justice system has a certain error rate, but we accept the fact that innocent people will be in jail (some of whom will be never discovered and therefore cannot be compensated), since in order to put the guilty people in jail, we have to put a certain number of innocent people in as well. The only real difference in Omelas is that you can directly look at the taxpayer in the face. You’ll never be able to figure out which innocent people your justice system puts in jail, and taxes, well, we’re just soaking faceless corporations anyway.
Forget the systems, forget the rules! There all too hopelessly flawed and pander to the corrupted to ever be fixed. Chaos is truly king as the only natural order is one without human imposed oppression.
Chaotic evil all the way!
Chaotic Evil aka Chaotic Stupid
Since it is intelligence plus information then how they are used for the smartness of it. Here It is like in chess, the pieces on the board only one side knew where all of the pieces were and checkmated the king anyway. Even though he has conventional armed guards. The King’s mistake. Not having agents watching from a distance and even better if he has been recruiting Supers too. As in chess, this King has lost the game to a better player.
It seems this new piece hidden piece has a power to will someone to die. And all the rest is window dressing to play up peoples fears. Nicely handled as along as you have no moral qualms about murdering those that are in your way then you can win more than lose.
Indinge sounds like the normal sort of dictator. Deus sounds like a practical dictator with a view towards the long term. Both evil, one petty, one grandiose. The sad thing is, Deus is probably the better choice for the majority of the population because he will crack down on corruption and push infrastructure, education, and development.
If we are talking 1st through 3rd/Pathfinder Paladins… that’s why they’re given Detect Evil for free, that they can use at will. It’s also why it’s one of the harder classes to roleplay well. If the bandit is Neutral (the majority human alignment) and just after food for his family, the Paladin is obliged to not kill (non-lethal damage is always an option) and attempt to rectify the situation. Getting any “Good” local temples/clerics involved is an option. Killing the Bandit out of hand without regard of circumstance is what we GM/Players call “Lawful Stupid” or “Stupid Good”, neither alignment is allowed for the Paladin class. Play a Fighter and put a holy symbol on your shield.
Taken to this example in the comic, a Paladin comes across a local Bandit lord who’s claimed a small chunk of territory out of a country already in the grips of a Neutral civil war (neither side is wholly Evil). The Bandit has the nominal support of the locals but is not treating them well, favoring his “Gang,” and does Detect as evil (extreme selfishness). Unlike Dues, the Paladin would not work with the Bandit. He would seek a non-evil person in a position of authority and work with them to 1) reform corrupt institutions, 2) depose the Bandit lord (doesn’t mean kill). A Paladin who walks up to an Evil King and *swoosh swooshes* without any in-between steps is also a candit for “Lawful Stupid” or “Stupid Good.” Again, play a Fighter (permission is granted to call your sword Justice). If you want to be a Fighter with magic powers, play a Magus or build into a Spell Sword (also called as a Gish). Paladins are hard work to play well.
Asking, “what would a paladin be forced to do in X moral dilemma” is usually a bad direction to go. Unlike reality, the editions named above do not support moral relativism, partly because of actual Extraplanar entities that are physical manfestations of ideals.
Unless Pathfinder drastically changed it from D&D, Detect Evil doesn’t mean “I know that you’re a bad guy”. It means “you ooze evil so much that I can feel it by standing next to you (or by casting a minor spell)”. Garden-variety criminals don’t show up under it.
Good always defeats Evil.
Corollary: the ones who won are the Good, and the ones who lost were the Evil (no matter how many good or bad deeds any of them actually did).
That’s like the old saying “Treason never prospers” because if you win it isn’t treason.
…for if it prosper, then none dare call it treason.
You either die the Hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the Villain…
Re: Author’s blog…
Writing for people more intelligent than you…
When it comes down to it, intelligence isn’t as magical as some would have it believe, but it is an exponential effect. I’m speaking from experience as someone who has been tested to have kind of a ridiculous IQ.
IQ is literally a measure of how fast the brain processes information. So a person with an IQ of 160 thinks twice as fast as a person with an IQ of 80. It doesn’t say the *information* you know is good or bad, just that you process it faster. The advantage of this comes from education. A person with an average IQ of 100 goes through school k-12, they’ve effectively been in school 13 years. A person with an IQ of 150 goes through school k-12, they’ve effectively been in school nearly 20 years. If they both studied and worked just as intently, they both come out with the same information, but the “smart” person effectively spent seven more years studying it.
So, in short, if you want to write for a smart person, figure out how much smarter they are than you (in percentage).
However long they’d spend planning, bump up your time figuring out their plan by the same percentage. The time they spent researching, bump your time up more.
If it’s not feasible to do either, start a conversation online with people smart on the topic and say, “Hey, what if I did that” and let numbers of people debating make up for lack of time to study and analyze, and basically take it as the smart person’s internal dialogue, and the author decides based off of that what the “smart response” would be.
Also note, IQ is not the primary indicator of a successful planner, which is also a trait in a mastermind. Success is usually correlated with the capacity for delayed gratification, and the longer a person is able to delay gratification, usually the higher their payouts. So, for example, a dumb and unsuccessful warlord would ask, “How do I conquer the world” while a smart and thoughtful warlord would think, “Okay, how do I conquer the world in such a way that I’m happy with the conquored world? What do I want to do after I conquer it.” Always think a few steps further along, because that changes the plans that may be done… and they often get more convoluted in order to avoid problems arising that the more simple plans would cause.
“My favorite three questions are, ‘What do I want?’, ‘What do I have?’, and ‘How can I best use the latter to get the former?'”
— rationalist!Bella, Luminosity
I feel that Dues fills the rare role of Anti-Villain. He does terrible things in the name of a ‘greater good’
The problem I have with most ‘intelligent’ characters is that the far less ‘intelligent’ writers often make their characters appear ‘smart’ by having them predict the other characters’ action and call it ‘foresight’, but it is usually more like prescience than careful forethought.
No matter how smart you are you can’t predict everything, especially in detail, and doubly so when it is a random thing out of people’s control. You can’t predict that someone will accidentally do something (good or bad). Or one of your minions will make a mistake. Or one of their minions will make a mistake. Or whatever.
More than one real world plan has failed because someone made an error at some point. Or a fluke derailed things.
Smart people know this, which is why in the real world smart people very rarely do these complex schemes with oodles of moving parts that you see in fiction all the time. Instead they work with trends, their plans rarely have crucial ‘everything hinges on this’ pieces (and if it is necessary they do everything in their power to mitigate random chance and ensure the people involved are likely to be able to perform their tasks, and even then bed prepared for it to go off the rails). Precise timing only works with a few skilled people. And never EVER assume the other guy will play according to your script.
There is a saying; no plan survives contact with the enemy.
And Eisenhower said; “plans are useless, but planning is everything.”
Basically it means that life will not work according to you plan, and thus your plan will quickly become worthless. But without planning you have nothing to work from. Plus logistics, organization, basic concepts, and so on need to be planned in advance – or again – you have nothing to start from.
So that is what smart people plan; broad concepts, general goals and strategies, how to support the broad plan, etc. But the hyper detailed plans? Unless they are small in scope and with few random elements (such as a night time break-in at a bank) the plan is likely to go off the rails quickly.
I was always fond of the Xanatos gambit style of plots most useful for creating at least the illusion of an intelligent character. Of course that tends to lead into magnificent bastard territory when done with a charismatic megalomaniac type of character.
Here’s a thought exercise
What do people see?
Indinge’s son sees a man having his father killed to line his own pockets.
His guards see their employer dead, and a new order about to head in.
A mother sees her children going to school and possibly getting a chance at a life she never had.
A Pan-african sees yet another white man cutting up africa.
A man in the US sees a warlord disposed and a new country.
A merchant sees less corrupt guards demanding bribes and better roads to transport his wares on.
Footnote: And indinge sees Cthilla looking him in the eye.
A somewhat megalomaniac-type billionaire buisness man sees the pathway to completed plans starting to clear up…
What? Deus had Indinge killed so he could line his own pockets… with his own money? o_O
Umm, it was a Pan-African that was doing the carving to start with, unless you are saying that Deus is the one that put Indinge up to carving out his own kingdom (what the Hael does ‘Pan-african’ mean anyway? o_O)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Africanism
It’s like nationalism on a contiental level.
To someone like that, this is just another white man exploiting a nation for profit.
By providing solid infrastructure, access to higher learning and a better future? Exploit away!!
You are ignoring the fact that it was a Pan-African who carved up the country for his own greed and at the costs of his new ‘people’, the ‘white man’ wanted to provide for the people, so what if it netted him a nice tidy profit in the long run, the people were going to benefit as well, way more than with a murdering warlord in power who only wanted to line his own pockets
Those are both true. But obviously Pan-african “Contientalists” would mostly just be hung up over the white man bit.
Never said all those viewpoints were rational
Ah, the old debate of “can evil actions bring about good?”. One of the many great unanswered questions of humanity.
It’s not unanswered, the answer is plainly yes – ANY type of action can have good consequences. Weather or not that justifies the action itself is the academic question.