It was unintentional to begin with, noticed it, debated keeping it in, and finally decided ‘what the hey’. This is a rough and tumble discussion board, no wimples here. And I haven’t seen any inclinations toward censer-ing posts.
A couple days of torture and the threat of having your person molded into a puppet are extenuating circumstances. Not like they could leave her behind with the sisters under her influence, she is clearly evil as evil comes.
In D&D terms I’d still put Frigg on neutral (before and after). Payet would be a hell of a lot closer to evil after throwing those kids overboard.
bah..Payet never MEANT to kill anyone(who wasn’t a properly labeled Bad Guy)…not even the so-called berserker when he lost his temper. .it just didn’t occur to him they MIGHT get killed. Frigg, on the other hand, is all about the Chaotic neutral with evil tendancies.
See, i’d go the other way. Frigg is clearly chaotic good. Really chaotic good, to be fair, but she’s not out to kill anything that isn’t evil. (and you can’t say what she’s doing now is evil, even Paladins are allowed to smite those they know are in the opposing alignment). Everything else can be explained by the “chaotic” part.
Best, on the other hand, does things that reek of sociopathology. He’s neutral with evil tendencies, and one could easily see him going full evil under the right circumstances.
didn’t say he wasn’t deluded….just that he thought that as the “promised hero” it would make for a flashy, dramatic solution. and for whatever reason, he was completely RIGHT.
@Joe: Moral Event Horizon? Pfeh, I’ll never understand that concept, really. I will note that the one thing that Dungeons and Dragons 4.0 did right, in terms of the game, was remove the concept of alignment for all but those that truly dedicated themselves to the concept of alignment. The rest of humanity/elfmanity/whatevermanity are, as Firefly would put it, ‘just being folk.’ Frigg just got vengance for a long period of torture, and for the person planning to break her mind and turn her into a handpuppet. Can you honestly say you would do different after that? I know I’d sure make a nun-powered bonfire.
@chaotik: Payet isn’t deluded. The only reason that he keeps up the “promised hero” guise is that he is ultimately self-centered and it is a very useful tool for him to use to further his own interests. Did he deliberately try and kill those children? No. Would he have cared if they died? Also no.
Funny, that’s a part of 4.0 I hate. They didn’t really remove the alignment system, they just made it “This is much less accurate now and we can’t be bothered to fix it, so deal with it”. The main problem wasn’t the system, it was so many people having no idea how the system actually worked. But then, that’s sort of the problem/point too – some people fervently prefer the old system, some like the new. I prefer to be able to be specific about character’s alignments instead of having to shoehorn them into others that don’t fit right.
That said? Frigg is a SHINING example of Chaotic Neutral. Shining, textbook example. Particularly the free-spirited part, here – that fantastic setup leading to “Nah, no controlling orders of soldiers for me” and horrible burn-y death. Chaotic Neutral. And so gloriously so I could get misty eyed over it.
Also, @Joe – Not a moral event horizon. Just a creative, *unpleasant* coup de grace.
ehh, im gonna have to agree with kagato23 here. Frigg tends to show a outright hatred for evil. she may not be a shininig example of good, but what CG character is? Member when those trolls(or orcs) were enslaved? she was effing pissed.(or is going to be.. thats in the time skip isnt it?)
Where has Frigg shown an outright hatred of evil? Also most normal people do not care for evil, that doesn’t make them good necessarily. A chaotic neutral character could hate slavery as much as chaotic good. What defines the deference is what actions a person is willing to take and reasons why. I’m not sure if we have seen enough to make a judgement call on either way of her being Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good. What makes this a questionable action is how she gives a speech on how things could be changed and be better, but does not allow it to happen. It could be because she doesn’t think head nun can change, but she gives the nun hope that it can.
It is generally the case where anything Good or Evil is regarded as someone else’s problem until it directly hinders the self… and matters of Law are almost always a hindrance.
Naturally, there are personal quirks. Certain things that a person can hate or love regardless… but the greater context of such things is usually irrelevant. If a Chaotic Neutral character hates slavery, it doesn’t necessarily mean they give a toss about the slaves themselves in any given instance… It probably just reminds them of an unpleasant experience of their own.
The funny thing is… a Good character will generally kill someone just for being “Evil”. A Lawful character may kill someone for doing something illegal. But if a Chaotic Neutral character kills someone, it is almost always personal.
I prefer my evil priestess grilled to a nice medium rare. You’ve gotta make sure the flames kiss the fillets just so. Then you serve it up with a baked potato and a melange of peas and baby carrots, or perhaps some green beans or broccoli florets sauteed in garlic butter. Choosing the appropriate wine to accompany the meal is also important. The correct red can bring out the flavors of hickory smoke and damnation.
But you never, ever ask for burnsauce. Burnsauce is like A-1. If you use it, it shows you a gastronomical philistine, who doesn’t appreciate the inherent qualities of a good cut of meat.
Oh lord, such wonderful fire. But one wondering at panel three, it would seem like grammar-wise the line should read “…none of the sisters are quite sure what they believe anymore… are they?”
Ah, so it was sorcery then? That’s a bit disappointing, I’ve always been a fan of “OUR COLLECTIVE FAITH SUMMONS THE DUUDDDDEEE”. To think that the uh… council thing? Could’ve been fooled so easily.
i’m a little confused. she killed the sorcerer and turned him/her into an empty suit of armour? or she paid a sorcerer to make the empty suit of armour and controlled it? (after killing him?/her?)
I don’t know what you animate, but after the dastardly crime has been revealed by a group of inquisitive kids, and your tragic fate is known to the world, those animations ought to be worth quite a lot. That’s how the art world works, right?
As a crusader, Frigg indeed used the proper force to carry out this execution. Burning away the lies with the fires of truth and that rot. I suppose it remains to be seen if the remainder of the team isn’t too scared to work with her ever again. Perhaps they should also check around and see if Gravedust has a yardstick stuck in his head.
When i read ‘It remains to be seen, if the remainder of the team’
I actually thought you’d written the whole statement in Rhyming couplets, and had to go back and read the whole thing to see if you had..
Man, nuns sure go up a treat. Having so many in a convent must make it hard to get fire insurance. One idly-thrown cigarette butt and it’s instant Ash Wednesday.
I’ma point this out now, as I really felt it in this strip:
Frigg so far is the only character I can’t attach a voice to. Any kind of voice, for a moment even. I’ve made up one for Byron, Dusty, Syr’Nj, Bandit wasn’t that hard… but Frigg I’m just reading and thinking ‘she ain’t a cutesy one’.
Does that say something about her writing or me?
actually, i have an ex who is pretty much like a short frigg. right down to coloured hair and use of internet memes in regular speech. so i guess i just hear her voice.
Same here. I’ve basically been using Jennifer Hale’s ME2 voice, because she’s been in everything and it’s easy to mentally insert. For fun you could just pick one that doesn’t fit to a hilarious degree, like Wendy Hoopes’s interpretation of “Jane Lane” from Daria.
Hmm, voices for the characters? I don’t know if I mentally assign voice actors or not, since I generally am terrible at recognizing voices…but for Frigg, strangely, I *do* have a notion of what her voice would sound like.
Guilded Age is quickly becoming one of my favourite webcomics. Which is really surprising to me for two reason: I’m not a fan of any other T. Campbell’s writing, though I checked all of them out, and I’m already fairly established in what my favourite webcomics are and there hasn’t been much fluctuation in the past three years.
That said, I pointed today’s comic out to a large variety of people, and kept reading Frigg’s speech. The writing, the timing and the bad-assery is perfect. Just perfect.
To the authors: there is an underlying theme in a lot of literature – comics, novels, and short stories alike – that in order to show a female character truly beaten down (as close as Frigga ever was to that) that she must have sex forced on her as part of it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for avoiding that path. Frigga was brutalized, and that is terrible… but not in such a stereotypical way that can, in spite of itself, further the rape culture that so dominates too many parts of the world today.
That you make these strong women characters (thanks, Joss) and then give them struggles without needing to rely on that terrible crutch is only part of why this is now one of my favorite comics on the web.
Thanks a lot, SongCoyote. That means we’re accomplishing the goals we set out to fulfill!
I never really got that anyway. Isn’t a savage beating suffficent? Must one go full rape? It’s like… going that direction invalidates their ability to fight, or be seen as one of the strongest fighters because it renders the fight part meaningless by reduces them to their sexuality in yet another way.
Or in this case, another author would turn the wicked nuns into some sort of lesbian sex cult. Let’s… let’s just keep it at evil nuns who muscle their way into control.
Never knew nuns couldbe that flammable.
The ones who tote around ether on a regular basis might be.
But I think that qualifies as a bad habit.
I applaud you for that pun, sir, whether it was intentional or not.
It was unintentional to begin with, noticed it, debated keeping it in, and finally decided ‘what the hey’. This is a rough and tumble discussion board, no wimples here. And I haven’t seen any inclinations toward censer-ing posts.
True! I completely forgot about the ether. That would explain it.
I didn’t remember about it ether. (In fact, I still don’t remember it.)
There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a nun in the depths of an ether binge.
She was full of fear and loathing too…
Hmm, must be like cars in grand theft auto games.
Moral Event Horizon?
Or…pure, unadulterated badassery?
I’m going with schtroumpf’s explanation.
A couple days of torture and the threat of having your person molded into a puppet are extenuating circumstances. Not like they could leave her behind with the sisters under her influence, she is clearly evil as evil comes.
In D&D terms I’d still put Frigg on neutral (before and after). Payet would be a hell of a lot closer to evil after throwing those kids overboard.
bah..Payet never MEANT to kill anyone(who wasn’t a properly labeled Bad Guy)…not even the so-called berserker when he lost his temper. .it just didn’t occur to him they MIGHT get killed. Frigg, on the other hand, is all about the Chaotic neutral with evil tendancies.
Throwing kids tied to a heavy chain at the ground from a great height … what are the odds something serious happening to them?
As I remarked on my last run-through… the kids were safer on that chain than on the ship. Payet did them a favour by throwing them over.
See, i’d go the other way. Frigg is clearly chaotic good. Really chaotic good, to be fair, but she’s not out to kill anything that isn’t evil. (and you can’t say what she’s doing now is evil, even Paladins are allowed to smite those they know are in the opposing alignment). Everything else can be explained by the “chaotic” part.
Best, on the other hand, does things that reek of sociopathology. He’s neutral with evil tendencies, and one could easily see him going full evil under the right circumstances.
True, true.
If these were normal nuns and she set them all on fire, I think it would be a MEH.
didn’t say he wasn’t deluded….just that he thought that as the “promised hero” it would make for a flashy, dramatic solution. and for whatever reason, he was completely RIGHT.
@Joe: Moral Event Horizon? Pfeh, I’ll never understand that concept, really. I will note that the one thing that Dungeons and Dragons 4.0 did right, in terms of the game, was remove the concept of alignment for all but those that truly dedicated themselves to the concept of alignment. The rest of humanity/elfmanity/whatevermanity are, as Firefly would put it, ‘just being folk.’ Frigg just got vengance for a long period of torture, and for the person planning to break her mind and turn her into a handpuppet. Can you honestly say you would do different after that? I know I’d sure make a nun-powered bonfire.
@chaotik: Payet isn’t deluded. The only reason that he keeps up the “promised hero” guise is that he is ultimately self-centered and it is a very useful tool for him to use to further his own interests. Did he deliberately try and kill those children? No. Would he have cared if they died? Also no.
Funny, that’s a part of 4.0 I hate. They didn’t really remove the alignment system, they just made it “This is much less accurate now and we can’t be bothered to fix it, so deal with it”. The main problem wasn’t the system, it was so many people having no idea how the system actually worked. But then, that’s sort of the problem/point too – some people fervently prefer the old system, some like the new. I prefer to be able to be specific about character’s alignments instead of having to shoehorn them into others that don’t fit right.
That said? Frigg is a SHINING example of Chaotic Neutral. Shining, textbook example. Particularly the free-spirited part, here – that fantastic setup leading to “Nah, no controlling orders of soldiers for me” and horrible burn-y death. Chaotic Neutral. And so gloriously so I could get misty eyed over it.
Also, @Joe – Not a moral event horizon. Just a creative, *unpleasant* coup de grace.
ehh, im gonna have to agree with kagato23 here. Frigg tends to show a outright hatred for evil. she may not be a shininig example of good, but what CG character is? Member when those trolls(or orcs) were enslaved? she was effing pissed.(or is going to be.. thats in the time skip isnt it?)
Where has Frigg shown an outright hatred of evil? Also most normal people do not care for evil, that doesn’t make them good necessarily. A chaotic neutral character could hate slavery as much as chaotic good. What defines the deference is what actions a person is willing to take and reasons why. I’m not sure if we have seen enough to make a judgement call on either way of her being Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good. What makes this a questionable action is how she gives a speech on how things could be changed and be better, but does not allow it to happen. It could be because she doesn’t think head nun can change, but she gives the nun hope that it can.
I know Chaotic Neutral.
It is generally the case where anything Good or Evil is regarded as someone else’s problem until it directly hinders the self… and matters of Law are almost always a hindrance.
Naturally, there are personal quirks. Certain things that a person can hate or love regardless… but the greater context of such things is usually irrelevant. If a Chaotic Neutral character hates slavery, it doesn’t necessarily mean they give a toss about the slaves themselves in any given instance… It probably just reminds them of an unpleasant experience of their own.
The funny thing is… a Good character will generally kill someone just for being “Evil”. A Lawful character may kill someone for doing something illegal. But if a Chaotic Neutral character kills someone, it is almost always personal.
Flame on
Sorcery?
BURN THE WITCH!!!
We found a witch may we burn her?
SHE TURNED ME INTO A NEWT!……But i got better >.>
I like how Bandit says “I’m hip.” pretty much directly into Byron’s… hip.
I prefer my evil priestess grilled to a nice medium rare. You’ve gotta make sure the flames kiss the fillets just so. Then you serve it up with a baked potato and a melange of peas and baby carrots, or perhaps some green beans or broccoli florets sauteed in garlic butter. Choosing the appropriate wine to accompany the meal is also important. The correct red can bring out the flavors of hickory smoke and damnation.
But you never, ever ask for burnsauce. Burnsauce is like A-1. If you use it, it shows you a gastronomical philistine, who doesn’t appreciate the inherent qualities of a good cut of meat.
The power is in the sauce. The burning sauce, the burnsauce. Burninate to great victory!
Oh lord, such wonderful fire. But one wondering at panel three, it would seem like grammar-wise the line should read “…none of the sisters are quite sure what they believe anymore… are they?”
Aww, man…
The Order of Frigg had such a nice ring to it, to…
That’s hawt.
Ah, so it was sorcery then? That’s a bit disappointing, I’ve always been a fan of “OUR COLLECTIVE FAITH SUMMONS THE DUUDDDDEEE”. To think that the uh… council thing? Could’ve been fooled so easily.
They’re at a crossroads, fire better or worse.
—
Anyone receive their chapter 0.5s yet?
Dude, if you haven’t, write me directly.
Most people received theirs quite a while ago. I’ve heard from a very few who haven’t.
Yeah. That… was just awesome.
i’m a little confused. she killed the sorcerer and turned him/her into an empty suit of armour? or she paid a sorcerer to make the empty suit of armour and controlled it? (after killing him?/her?)
and then rolled in some chemical accelerant?
Dude that really wasn’t a torch Frig was holding…
It was a craftily disguised Molotov
those dungeon torches never seem to go out. some kind of napalm paste?
I tend to think of it as ‘Magic goo’
The same fuel that bums and hobos burn in Oil drums in street alleys
Stuff lasts forever.
I think it’s, the priestlord died (see the last panel of the previous strip), she bribed a sorcerer to animate his armor, then killed the sorcerer.
man, i do some freelance work as an animator…after reading this, i’ll have to be more careful about clients.
I don’t know what you animate, but after the dastardly crime has been revealed by a group of inquisitive kids, and your tragic fate is known to the world, those animations ought to be worth quite a lot. That’s how the art world works, right?
Bartender I’ll have a Flaming Nun please, hold the revelation.
Certainly sir. Would you like that served with a twist of plot? Or a slice of malicious satisfaction perhaps?
I want that wit so dry there’s *dust* on the olive.
Bad. Ass.
All I can say is, Frigg’s got a history of burning churches anyways. But still…daaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmn
What an oddly well delivered monologue by Frigg.
Oh snap, shit just went down.
As a crusader, Frigg indeed used the proper force to carry out this execution. Burning away the lies with the fires of truth and that rot. I suppose it remains to be seen if the remainder of the team isn’t too scared to work with her ever again. Perhaps they should also check around and see if Gravedust has a yardstick stuck in his head.
When i read ‘It remains to be seen, if the remainder of the team’
I actually thought you’d written the whole statement in Rhyming couplets, and had to go back and read the whole thing to see if you had..
Damn you…
Man, nuns sure go up a treat. Having so many in a convent must make it hard to get fire insurance. One idly-thrown cigarette butt and it’s instant Ash Wednesday.
I’ma point this out now, as I really felt it in this strip:
Frigg so far is the only character I can’t attach a voice to. Any kind of voice, for a moment even. I’ve made up one for Byron, Dusty, Syr’Nj, Bandit wasn’t that hard… but Frigg I’m just reading and thinking ‘she ain’t a cutesy one’.
Does that say something about her writing or me?
actually, i have an ex who is pretty much like a short frigg. right down to coloured hair and use of internet memes in regular speech. so i guess i just hear her voice.
not that i’m hearing voices…(shifty eyes)
Same here. I’ve basically been using Jennifer Hale’s ME2 voice, because she’s been in everything and it’s easy to mentally insert. For fun you could just pick one that doesn’t fit to a hilarious degree, like Wendy Hoopes’s interpretation of “Jane Lane” from Daria.
And now you will never not hear that.
Hmm, voices for the characters? I don’t know if I mentally assign voice actors or not, since I generally am terrible at recognizing voices…but for Frigg, strangely, I *do* have a notion of what her voice would sound like.
Uma Thurman.
Eh, probably weird but yeah.
Kill Bill era Uma Thurman? Totally works. Especially on this page.
And they would’ve gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for that blasted gnome.
Noooo, I meant to say “pesky gnome”. :(
Where was there a gnome?
Bandit be of the gnomish persuasion.
I’m betting Frigg’s gonna have a couple of annoying tag alongs even for all her attempts to wash (burn?) her hands of the Order.
Class change to Paladin anyone?
Guilded Age is quickly becoming one of my favourite webcomics. Which is really surprising to me for two reason: I’m not a fan of any other T. Campbell’s writing, though I checked all of them out, and I’m already fairly established in what my favourite webcomics are and there hasn’t been much fluctuation in the past three years.
That said, I pointed today’s comic out to a large variety of people, and kept reading Frigg’s speech. The writing, the timing and the bad-assery is perfect. Just perfect.
Make that “yesterday’s comic which I only managed to get around reading today”. :)
Note to self: Nuns grill pretty well getting the hot sauce….
Incidentally….
To the authors: there is an underlying theme in a lot of literature – comics, novels, and short stories alike – that in order to show a female character truly beaten down (as close as Frigga ever was to that) that she must have sex forced on her as part of it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for avoiding that path. Frigga was brutalized, and that is terrible… but not in such a stereotypical way that can, in spite of itself, further the rape culture that so dominates too many parts of the world today.
That you make these strong women characters (thanks, Joss) and then give them struggles without needing to rely on that terrible crutch is only part of why this is now one of my favorite comics on the web.
Light and laughter,
SongCoyote
Thanks a lot, SongCoyote. That means we’re accomplishing the goals we set out to fulfill!
I never really got that anyway. Isn’t a savage beating suffficent? Must one go full rape? It’s like… going that direction invalidates their ability to fight, or be seen as one of the strongest fighters because it renders the fight part meaningless by reduces them to their sexuality in yet another way.
Or in this case, another author would turn the wicked nuns into some sort of lesbian sex cult. Let’s… let’s just keep it at evil nuns who muscle their way into control.
I love when a plan comes together in the spur of the moment :D