Kore Discussion / Speculation

[kida]

If you look at Kore reveal, you'll see he has blue eyes.
Forgath has brown eyes.
They are not the same dwarf.

[Glemp]

If you look at Kore reveal, you'll see he has blue eyes.
Forgath has brown eyes.
They are not the same dwarf.

I haven't seen eye colour in anyone in Goblins, just pupils with a sheen on them...but then, I may just be unobservant.

EDIT: That said, Kore's eyes do look blue in the reveal.

[Liesmith]

Like I said in my rambling post earlier, it's also possible that Kore is an entirely separate dwarf, but has still bonded with a holy-energy Klik in the way I described. It's also possible that I'm completely wrong and energy Kliks don't work that way...but I'm really keen to find out.

[Random_Short_Guy]

[*]My theory is that Kore will save the world in the end by taking the axe back to hell. It will be the classic evil character redeems himself by sacrificing his life to save the world

I'm basing it on big ears and complains conversation about how hard it is to get down to hell and only high levels characters have a chance (http://goblinscomic.com/comic/11022016-2) Kore is probably very high level.

Ooh he is redeemed when someone cast remove curse on him, because he is cursed. (http://goblinscomic.com/comic/08132016-2) last panel)

Forgath is going to learn that next level (http://goblinscomic.com/comic/04122015) second panel.

Finally, these are the holes he uses to get down to hell. (http://goblinscomic.com/comic/01302017-2)

[crow76308]

I accidentally started a second thread about this, and annoyed a certain Lego Maniac (I'm not sure if he was Zack or Jack), so I'll post here. I also didn't, at first, state my theory because some people prefer to have fun theorizing themselves and might not want to read it, so I waited until people responded with a query, if this was wrong, then I do apologize. That said, my theory is that Kore is using Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill's philosophy of Utilitarianism, possibly Consequentialism, but I think the first is the correct answer. That theory states that the only moral actions are the ones that bring about the greatest good. Preventing a Demon Lord from taking over that plane of existence is a concrete, definable greater good, not nebulous as some people might say. Kore is a rat bastard, he is a monster, he commits horrific crimes, but, as the flea demon said, he is not evil. Why? The Axe of Prissan. If an evil creature got hold of it, it would bring forth an unstoppable Demon Lord who would claim dominion over that world.

My theory is that for years Kore guarded The Axe as a right and true Paladin for a number of years, and somehow lost it, and that's when he, well, lost it. If any evil found The Axe, well, then a Demon Lord takes over this plane, making it, literally, Hell on Earth, so how do you prevent that? You eradicate evil, all evil, even potential evil. No matter what dark deeds you do in the pursuit of this is justified, because if you don't, Darker Deeds will follow. Torture? A Demon Lord will torture everybody for a thousand eternities if you waver in your duty. Killing an innocent? Better that than they be under the cruel attentions of said Demon Lord. No matter how it stains your own soul, it is to prevent a great evil from claiming not a soul, not a town, not a county, not a kingdom, but a world. It's his only moral choice.

I, personally don't think he should be of Good Alignment, but I'm not writing the comic. If you can find a hole in my theory, please, respectfully point it out, if you can't do it respectfully, find some bricks and wall yourself off from me.

[MinesData]

I accidentally started a second thread about this, and annoyed a certain Lego Maniac (I'm not sure if he was Zack or Jack), so I'll post here. I also didn't, at first, state my theory because some people prefer to have fun theorizing themselves and might not want to read it, so I waited until people responded with a query, if this was wrong, then I do apologize. That said, my theory is that Kore is using Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill's philosophy of Utilitarianism, possibly Consequentialism, but I think the first is the correct answer. That theory states that the only moral actions are the ones that bring about the greatest good. Preventing a Demon Lord from taking over that plane of existence is a concrete, definable greater good, not nebulous as some people might say. Kore is a rat bastard, he is a monster, he commits horrific crimes, but, as the flea demon said, he is not evil. Why? The Axe of Prissan. If an evil creature got hold of it, it would bring forth an unstoppable Demon Lord who would claim dominion over that world.

My theory is that for years Kore guarded The Axe as a right and true Paladin for a number of years, and somehow lost it, and that's when he, well, lost it. If any evil found The Axe, well, then a Demon Lord takes over this plane, making it, literally, Hell on Earth, so how do you prevent that? You eradicate evil, all evil, even potential evil. No matter what dark deeds you do in the pursuit of this is justified, because if you don't, Darker Deeds will follow. Torture? A Demon Lord will torture everybody for a thousand eternities if you waver in your duty. Killing an innocent? Better that than they be under the cruel attentions of said Demon Lord. No matter how it stains your own soul, it is to prevent a great evil from claiming not a soul, not a town, not a county, not a kingdom, but a world. It's his only moral choice.

I, personally don't think he should be of Good Alignment, but I'm not writing the comic. If you can find a hole in my theory, please, respectfully point it out, if you can't do it respectfully, find some bricks and wall yourself off from me.

One problem is the Paladin Code which is more restrictive than just being Lawful Good.

Even if you want to push this maximum potential good argument to the limit, it would mean Kore shouldn't waste his time with lesser evils and delaying himself for one combat round to kill the child (or any of his other opponents in comic) isn't the optimal use of his time in combating the greatest evil and so his actions aren't the most optimally good action possible. The theory that Kore is compelled by the concept of always acting toward the greatest good is clearly false. Even Bentham didn't advocate the killing of children, although his theories do lead to equally bizarre conclusions.

The Paladin Code doesn't allow for evil actions "for the greater good". Break the paladin code and you are an ex-paladin, even if you still ping "good". One wilful evil act and you lose your paladin abilities. Kore has broken the paladin code many times. Killing the Dwarf child is an obvious example of this, Kore has the option to take (or find someone who can be trusted to take) the child to the honourable Bladebeard clan (a legitimate authority, see paladin code) for judgement instead of summarily executing an innocent child (which he should be protecting, see paladin code). Under which authority does "potentially might become evil later in life" demand a death sentence without trial and can anyone consider this authority to be legitimate?

Taking the expedient route of slaughtering a child to avoid a journey is neither lawful nor good and certainly not the behaviour of a paladin. Nowhere in the Paladin Code does it say "unless it's inconvenient, in which case be as evil as you like, we're cool with that sort of thing yo!". If as a Paladin you feel you need to commit an evil act in order to save the world, then you suck it up and save the world without your Paladin class abilities and hope that it counts as an Atonement.

It doesn't even matter if you believe the action to be good. If you are tricked as a paladin into wilfully killing an innocent, you become an ex-paladin, although you could well remain Lawful Good and be eligible for Atonement at a later date. One thing which might explain it is a compulsion where Kore has NO free will, Even a spell like Geas would require a paladin to suck up the damage for not following the Geas if they wanted to continue to be a paladin. Even under Geas a paladin still has free will so finding a mechanic which compels Kore to kill everybody where evil != 0 will be tricky.

If anything he is acting like a really poorly written AI with a greedy heuristic. See evil, kill evil, repeat until no more evil. (if a target is 0.00001 evil and 0.99999 good, then killing it is optimal as there is now 0.00001 less evil in the world). He's shown no level of planning or prioritising in terms of combating the greatest evil but simply moves from one target to the next in a very simplistic manner. He's obviously given up on using detect evil as there are so many "evil" creatures out there which show up as "not evil". His interaction with Kin was interesting in that it showed he had more interest in Minmax than the axe. I suspect Kin has now replaced Minmax at the top of his list with the Demon in the Axe (as the oldest target) being the last item on his list. I suspect his targeting system is a simple stack (First in, Last out). Right now, we would have Kin > Minmax > GAP > Demon.

I think the key is that it only seems to be a paradox because we have incomplete information. In a way, this setup is quite alike Asimov's Robot Stories, in which a seemingly impossible behaviour is shown and until the underlying reasons are uncovered the mystery remains. I suspect Kore has no will and so cannot commit any wilful action (and so cannot fall by the rules) and the source of this is a curse where a simple "rule" gives rise to this unexpected behaviour. It's clearly linked to the Axe and as we learn more about the axe we might learn more about the effect it had on Kore.

[crow76308]

Good counterargument. Superficially, mine holds up, but you pointed out how it doesn't in closer inspection.

[RayRay]

I've searched far and wide, but as a great noob I still have no answer to this burning question:
can there be a curse to NEVER stop being a paladin? Never... till maybe all evil is vanquished from the world. But until that day, do as you may, you are the one guaranteed paladin there.
Or maybe not a curse but a wish. There are rings of wishes messing up other realities, so those are narratively valid. But they seem to override laws of universes, not make exceptions fron the rules for someone.

[BadgeAddict]

Actually, Rayray, you may be on to something. What if someone is making him do this. Then he would be covered by the umbrella clause. Being forced to do an evil action against your will doesn't make you evil.

So what if Kore is the one being tortured, being forced to watch as something controls him by doing all of these horrible things, but not allowing him to stop.

[Aegis J Hyena]

I had an odd thought and I don't know whether it's been mentioned before since I haven't read the thread. But what if the souls or faces or whatever that are stuck to Kore are the paladins and priests that died when the axe was created? And that he carries them with him to make sure the demons don't get them?

[Krulle]

Well, at least Chief is present too, so there are more faces in the IME than just the paladin and priests from the time the Axe was created.

[RayRay]

Actually, Rayray, you may be on to something. What if someone is making him do this. Then he would be covered by the umbrella clause. Being forced to do an evil action against your will doesn't make you evil.

So what if Kore is the one being tortured, being forced to watch as something controls him by doing all of these horrible things, but not allowing him to stop.

Fiend of Posession? It is stated in this description that the fiend can have access to all of its victim's abilities. But why would it behave like this, posing as a crazy-ass paladin of prejudice?

But what I thought about, was a condition - like a wish/miracle/curse "Kore stays being a paladin (until something something that isn't likely to happen soon)". Which in the end makes Kore overstep the line and never recognize this. If he knows about it, the deal might be a botched phrasing, and he doesn't realize it has been twisted long ago. If he doesn't know, he consideres it some godly gift of being more right than everybody else. But he seems to know)

[BuildsLegos]

Rayray, this is what I've been saying for years! Toothy the 1st all but confirms that the last survivor from the Battle of Prissan is "the one we cursed", and Kore (the paladin) at least recognizes the Ax of Prissan.

It's a trillion times better theory than "All of Kore's actions are for the greater good".

[RayRay]

BuildsLegos, well, it looked to me like the most logical idea)
Also I like the storytelling element to this - a study on what it means to be a paladin and how much negative feedback means for establishing your moral grounds. The tragic reality of what could become of a person who has absolute faith in their own infallability - and any posessor doesn't even need to do much. Thunt loves moral lessons, it would be right up his alley.

PS

Toothy the 1st all but confirms that the last survivor from the Battle of Prissan is "the one we cursed"

I got to that place while re-reading. He actually confirms. The curse and Kore being the guy who sealed the big evil.
I remember now why I chose not to guess further back then. It was a mindmess. Too many guesses to handle.
At least, now I know that all those moral relativity theories are kinda based in canon. The demon said so, who are we to disbelieve? XD

[Krulle]

Are we ever going to get the Full Kore backstory Elli?

Yes we are. All those nagging questions about Kore will be answered, including "How the heck can this guy be a paladin?"

[Tofu]

I'm wondering how many stacked bonus's Kore has given his age - and how his Wisdom is at the moment. Could a stupidly high Wisdom answer some of his behaviour? (hmm, that's probably an oxymoron, but I will let that stay)

If Wisdom stacks, what else stacks? Intelligence? I can imagine experience gives a lot of wisdom enhancers? How about all those eyes, do those give greater situational awareness of his circumstances and improve his DEX?

And - has anyone noticed that all the links to pages have changed now, the archive does not work to give accurate links. Is there an effort anywhere to repair or re-compile the links?

Link to Paladins and being good - http://goblinscomic.com/comic/06242016-2

[Krulle]

Ellipsis knows about the "broken" archive, and may be working on it.
I intend to update the links in the transcription thread, but don't find time to go through it....

Urgh, real life is such a drain sometimes. ;)

BTW: most pages work if you enter a "comic/" before the date.
e.g. the old first page (introduction) was URL
http://goblinscomic.com/06252005
the new URL is
http://goblinscomic.com/comic/06252005

From there you can guess most of the links.
Sometimes you'll also need to add a "-2" at the end too. (Especially in the times where Thunt posted and later updated the page, Ellipsis has not yet done so)

[Tofu]

Ah, that's very helpful. Thanks Krulle!

[Krulle]

But you reminded me that I need to go through my transcriptions, and so I've started today.
I'll just skip some tea breaks for that.

[Krulle]

Hey there, just noticed that most of the links on the Goblinscomic/Archive page work again (single links lead to a dead page for whatever reason, you'll need to selet the next or previous chapter and scroll from there then).

Also: Book 4 of the transcriptions thread is also done by now. Checking most links, that's why I'm rather slow in doing it.

[RayRay]

...Did anyone try to figure if Shattered Self would somehow figure in the situation?

[JeriSummers]

I don't get Kore, the supposedly good paladin who does such evil acts. Could someone please explain what is happening to Kore with the glowing gash in his head, moving mouths all over his head and face and what that "K K K" thing is all about? Any illumination would be greatly appreciated.

[Krulle]

kkk KKK...
He has been attacked by the GAP, and Big Ears threw the Axe of Prissan through Kore, destroying his larynx.
Since then, Kore's speech is ...laboured.
Expressed through the ...kkk... kkk....

Chapter "The Axe and the Rope", starting here, although the fight starts a few pages earlier.


The rest is also speculation, and unknown to us/not disclosed in the comic yet.
As a spoiler, the head split is a portal to hell, as Elli once blabbered during a drawing session online.
The faces are likely, like the faces of his I.M.E., a representation of the souls bound to Kore through him having killed the bodies.