look, maybe it's just my bias for melee fighters bleeding through but porter wasn't wrong about gorgug's rage. yeah, he's evil; yeah, he's a shitty teacher; yeah, he was manipulating gorgug. yeah, he was wrong about a lot of shit.
but he wasn't wrong about gorgug's rage.
gorgug's rage is a holy thing - and gorgug is afraid of it.
more than any other class, a barbarian is built to deal damage in close combat. to carve through enemies. they are meant to be up front, in the thick of it. they are the tank, the meat shield, the wall. they take hits, they stay up, they keep going, they hit back. barbarians endure. they are the mad dog that is sent first, too high off its own bloodlust to realize that its body is being rent asunder. that is, in fact, their only job.
this is why the 5e gods created rage. it is the barbarian class feature; it defines them. i would argue that it is perhaps the most intrinsic class feature of 5e - what healing is for clerics, what sneak attack is for rogues. a barbarian lives or dies by their rage - literally.
but gorgug has been up against a wall with his class feature since he was born. his parents' method of handling their half-orc barbarian son's rage? tell him to sing about it. they tell him, in essence, to swallow it. to bury it until it becomes something more palatable. these peaceful, creative, sweet little gnomes - they have no idea what to do with gorgug's barbarian side. they don't understand it, they don't engage with it - i mean, they don't even try. it's his heritage, it's the source of his power, it is a fundamental part of who gorgug is. but wilma and digby are afraid of it. they fear the very thing that makes their son strong, and that fear metastasizes inside of gorgug.
so what does he do? he makes himself small in every way that he can. he tries not to move too much, tries to be still and fit himself painfully into spaces he's not even welcomed into in the first place. think of freshman year! gentle, meek, weird, awkward gorgug, who speaks softly and can't stand up for himself, carrying a metal flower around on his first day and trying to make his first friend.
and what does he get for it? fabian punches gorgug on the first day because he's a rich kid trying to cause a scene, and it's only because gorgug goes into a rage that they get detention. during his second interaction with zelda ever, gorgug scares her because he flies into a rage to protect himself from ragh. in fact, for most of his freshman year, his primary exposure to another character's rage ability is (bully!era) ragh, who weaponizes it to torment gorgug and his friends.
one of gorgug's pivital moments, a beat that he returns to over and over and over, is dying in his first combat. he dies, and he goes to "orc heaven," which is a desolate and terrifying forest that drives its denizens mad with anger. when brennan asks zac what gorgug is most afraid of, that's zac's answer. gorgug is most afraid of his rage. or more specifically, that his rage has damned him to that terrible, sharp, dark afterlife. although it's not a direct manifestation, i think this is what his challenge with the sphinx ultimately boils down to - you are afraid of this thing that you are, and even worse, you are afraid that it is all you will ever be. because this thing that you are is not good enough, and you will always let your friends down.
and then! junior year. just to really drive the nail into the coffin, brennan builds a plot that ties rage to intrinsic evil. to some of the worst, most horrible, no-good-very-bad shit that the bad kids have been through. an evil, warped god of rage? are you kidding me?
for his entire life, and especially during his time at the academy, gorgug has lived under the thumb of a narrative that has told him that his rage is a terrible, scary thing. it is embedded into the ethos of fantasy high itself - a moral value that is prescribed and reflected by the world and the plot and the characters. and it inflicts immense emotional, social, and physical punishment upon gorgug over and over and over. i can't emphasize this point enough - gorgug is afraid of his rage because the story tells him to be afraid of it.
compare this to fig, who is continuously (exclusively, really) rewarded for embracing her devilish heritage. she gets a father, she gets a title, she gets a domain - hell, she gets a god. fig leans into the thing that makes her scary, and she gets called the archdevil of rebellion. gorgug leans into the thing that makes him scary, and what does he get for it?
he gets porter, who looks him in the eye and says, you don't know the first thing about how to get mad. he gets porter, who says, what were you gonna do, unless i dragged you outta that stupid fucking tree? who wants to kill him so badly in that final fight that he drops gorgug three times. he hates gorgug so much that he doesn't notice as the bad kids unmake the plan he has been working towards his entire life. he is so driven to prove - in the most primal and brutal way - that gorgug doesn't know how to get mad, that he turns a blind eye to the battle and uses the weight and momentum of his rage to crush this poor fucking half-orc kid's skull in.
and ultimately - porter is right. gorgug doesn’t know how to get mad right. the one thing that he’s good at, and he’s afraid of it.
i am glad he took levels in artificer. i think gorgug had to prove it to himself, that he's more than just a meat shield. that he is smart kid who can build beautiful and powerful things. he’s been torn in half his whole life - half-orc raised by gnomes, too weak to be a good barbarian, too strong and stupid to be a good tinkerer. gorgug is - has always been - a stranger in his own home: too big, too soft, too much, too little. abandoned by his biological parents. left to live in spaces that cannot fit him, raised by people who love him but do not understand him. pushed around, knocked down, made fun of, killed. the kid in the parking lot who catches backpacks. artificer was the right move because it gave him the grace to be more than one thing. to find something worth salvaging in the halves of him. he’s always been the odd one out, always been a study in contradictions disguised as inadequacies.
but man, i’m so glad he didn’t lose his rage.
because here’s the last bit of the equation: the bad kids need gorgug to be their barbarian.
their party is fundamentally balanced around it. between a dex-based fighter, a rogue, a wizard, a cleric, and whatever fig feels like being on any given day, there is simply no one who can stand up to heavy damage. i can't think of a fight that they could've won without gorgug’s strength and endurance, without his rage and resilience. gorgug is their ringer, their only strength-based character. they need his rage to stay alive. it is demanded of him by the people he loves most.
and maybe gorgug is afraid of his rage, but nobody, not even porter, can say that gorgug is a bad barbarian. i mean, with the help of his friends, the kid solos a purple worm. it’s not even the first monster he downs in that fight - they’ve been going for rounds before the thing shows up. what other measure of competency do you need?
gorgug is at his best when the bad kids need him. he is in his element when his strength and violence are used in service of his friends. he loves his party, and he would do anything for them. his life, his body, his rage. sacrifice and bravery: if that is what they ask of him, that is what he will give them. this is what makes a good barbarian, this is what gorgug is at his core - gentle and strong and angry and brave. such a brave kid. it takes so much courage to be the thing that you are afraid of, to stand at the front of the line and wield your anger like a shield.
this is the exchange that a barbarian makes. this is the gambit provided by the mechanics of the game.
put yourself in the thick of it, over and over and over again. put your body on the line, put yourself between your friends and monsters, and you are rewarded with will power strong enough to halve the damage that you take. you get knocked down? keep your feet. you can keep swinging at one hit point, and so that's where we'll put you. get back up, kid. find your feet. your friends need you. they'll die without you. you take the hits that they can't handle, holding your guts in with your hands, so soaked with blood that you slip in it. you love your party so much that you’ll die for them. it's what you're best at. it’s what you were made to do.
so get up, kid! stay mad, kid! it's gorgug - keep fucking going.
