Another thing that makes me hopeful for Redcloak's potential for positive growth is the fact that his confrontation with Durkon happened so early in the story (i.e. right at the beginning of book 7).
If you compare this with say, Elan and Tarquin, and you see that the big reveal about Tarquin’s delusional mental state comes right at the end of his narrative. He flies off the handle, is appropriately punished and left standing impotently in the desert. The story leaves him no time for reflection and positive growth (I doubt he’s capable of it).
Redcloak’s flaws have now been more thoroughly exposed (for the particular benefit of those who never read Start of Darkness) but Rich chose to do it right in the early stages of the final installment. This leaves room to take him in a different direction….
Something that I’ve noticed about OotS as we head into the final installment is the apparent abundance of redemption-esque plot lines. At the start of book 7, Vaarsuvius, Belkar and the Monster in the Dark are all making moves toward the shallower end of the alignment pool (as Belkar might put it), and we can expect to see them continue in that direction throughout the final stages of the story.
It’s interesting to contemplate how far along this path each one of them will get and in what ways their stories might enrich, parallel or subvert one another. It’s also interesting to me to speculate on what this might mean for Redcloak (because I am a tad obsessed with that damn goblin). It almost seems like it’d be too much to have yet another redemptive/evil-to-less-evil plotline going on in the final stages of the narrative. But the thing is each of these characters and their stories are very unique:
The Monster in the Dark’s story is about the importance of independence of thought and action, and having the courage to stand up for one’s convictions.
Belkar’s is a story of change via a subtly growing sense of empathy, as well as the sometimes transformative power of true selflessness/goodness. He is gradually starting to care for a larger and larger group of people outside of himself and learning to act better with regard to those people, but he is yet to express significant remorse for his past actions or seek to make amends.
Vaarsuvius is the character who best matches the true meaning of redemption, as defined by Soon in strip 464. V has expressed a profound sense of remorse, fully acknowledged how wrong they were in both thought and action, and is now actively seeking to do what they can to make amends.
All of these stories are interesting in their own right, and have the potential to play off each other in interesting ways. Redcloak’s ability to change – or lack thereof – is no different.
(The speculation I reblogged a while back that Belkar might be the one to help Redcloak change his mind is just one example of how these narratives could interact.)
So basically, I’m not writing Redcloak’s potential “redemption”/capacity for positive character growth off just yet (though honestly I could see it going either way). I am deeply curious about Rich’s choice to have so many subtly different plays on the same theme going into the final stages of the narrative though.
1) Pretty sure he’s actually going to die. I don’t really put much weight in any theories that he’ll somehow subvert the prophecy by jumping into Rift-World, or being resurrected as a different creature type, or whatever other workarounds people have come up with. The Oracle’s prophecy was pretty unequivocal, and the Oracle himself has far too many reasons to be happy at the prospect of Belkar dying. He’s not trying to trick the reader; he’s gloating about the fate of a hated enemy.
2) I sometimes wonder if he’s going to die in heroic fashion but still end up in an evil or neutral afterlife? I see this as a subversion of the trope of villainous characters achieving redemption by a single act of sacrifice, typically at a plot crucial moment. Especially if they’re dying due to feelings of love/caring toward a specific person, rather than a wider acknowledgement of their crimes and desire to serve the greater good.
I’m not sure how likely this scenario is, but I do think it’s quite in keeping with some of Rich’s own statements and plot points with regard to redemption and villainy. Because villains can care about individual people and still be villains. The Black Dragon was evil, but she still loved her son. If she died protecting him, it still wouldn’t make her good, it’d just mean she wasn’t purely selfish.
If we refresh our memory on what Soon said about redemption:
“True redemption requires that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds. That you atone for the actions that caused the Twelve Gods to turn away from you. That you even acknowledge that you could, in fact, be wrong.”
Thus far, Belkar has shown a desire to protect people he cares about (Mr Scruffy, Durkon, maaaaybe Vaarsuvius?) and a capacity to say sorry for small infractions against those he has come to respect (Durkon). He’s started to think about things, and gets occasional pricklings of his conscience, which is a huge deal for him. He’s willing to cooperate and be a better team player and is not as quick to provoke fights with everyone he meets – in fact he’s even pretty decent sometimes. But there is still little wider acknowledgement of a lifetime of murder and criminality, or genuine remorse for all the people he has harmed. He’s not there yet, in terms of a full redemption arc. Maybe he’s on his way and could get there with enough time? Or then again maybe not. But time is not a thing that Belkar has a lot of anymore...
I don’t know if we’ll ever find out what his real name is, but still it’s fun to speculate on the circumstances that might prompt him to reveal it. The first scenario that springs to mind is that he could say it to Xykon in a moment of self-assertive rebellion, which certainly makes a decent amount of sense. But I actually like the idea of him saying it to O-chul even more. Far-fetched and implausible? Well, possibly. But still I find it quite thematically appropriate and not beyond the realms of possibility…
But discussing why would require analysis of both Start of Darkness and Good Deeds Gone Unpunished. So… behind the link for spoilers:
Xykon is an obvious candidate for being the person Redcloak would reveal his name to for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Xykon is the person who prompted Redcloak to come up with it in the first place, when he realised that trying to get Xykon to remember his actual name would likely result in a lightning bolt to the face.
The second reason is more complicated.
When it comes down to it, Xykon’s role in Redcloak’s identity loss is pretty incidental. Redcloak’s name symbolises his unyielding devotion to the Dark One and his cause. The Crimson Mantle is the badge of office for the Dark One’s High Priest, a role and a mission that Redcloak has allowed to consume him to the point where even he seems to have forgotten that’s not his actual name (strip 1205). In Start of Darkness, Redcloak readily complies with the new title, despite his brother's protestations that it's demeaning. He even allows himself to be called Redcloak by the other goblins because he says it's more convenient – and Xykon has nothing to do with this decision. Redcloak is a complacent, even active participant in his identity loss because he embraces the role the Dark One has set out for him to the detriment of everything else in his life.
This means that in order to rediscover his old identity, Redcloak needs to actively reject the Dark One and his Plan. But Redcloak’s thrall to the Dark One’s cause is now deeply tied up with his alliance with Xykon. So depending on the exact circumstances, rejecting Xykon could be synonymous with breaking away from the Dark One…
(I say “could be” because I can also think of scenarios where Redcloak lashes out at Xykon even though his devotion to the Dark One and the Plan have not changed.)
Still I’m not sure that revealing his name to Xykon would be that significant for either one of them. For one, I don’t think Xykon would care that much and would probably hilariously misunderstand (it's not like he ever put any effort into policing what Redcloak called himself in the first place, and he might not even realise Redcloak ever had a different name). Redcloak’s relationship with Xykon is abusive and degrading, but it's not the reason he allowed himself to become a tool of the Dark One, and so I'm not sure that asserting his original identity to Xykon would be that liberating for him… I mean it could be, because (as discussed) it also carries the symbolic weight of rejecting the Dark One’s mission and standing up for himself…
But thinking about how Redcloak did become a tool of the Dark One brings us to the Sapphire Guard. Not only are they responsible for the events that led to Redcloak first donning the Crimson Mantle, the Sapphire Guard also primed him to become extra receptive to the Dark One's message. He was essentially promoted to High Priest, brainwashed and radicalised in the middle of the most traumatic event of his life – watching nearly all of his loved ones be destroyed by people claiming to be the righteous favoured of the gods. It set him on a path of prejudice and hatred against humans, PC races and gods alike – but especially the Sapphire Guard. That was the start of the process whereby he lost his original identity and became Redcloak (the end was the day he killed his brother).
And this brings me onto O-chul.
It’s almost poetic to think that while the abhorrent actions of O-chul’s predecessors may have triggered Redcloak’s creation, another (much more worthy) representative of the Sapphire Guard might be present to witness him reclaim his previous identity. It seems quite far-fetched, because it presupposes a huge amount of growth on Redcloak's part. But that is precisely what is required for him to get to the point of reclaiming his old name in the first place...
I think that rediscovering his old self would take more than just rejecting his Redcloak persona (and all that entails). Not only does he need to destroy who he was, he also needs to take steps into becoming someone else. Doing so would be a painful process, since he would also have to confront the horror and futility of all the terrible things he did in service of the Dark One. Whether he could go from there to forging a new and better path or just self-destruct/lash out in despair is for Rich to determine (if he even chooses to send Redcloak down that route at all). But say he did try and do something to make a difference, to correct his wrongs, to find another way of helping his people…
Despite all the bad blood between them, O-chul is exactly the kind of person who could look on such efforts with compassion. Good Deeds Gone Unpunished shows that O-chul is someone who cares about and respects individual goblins – to the point where he remembers their names when others don’t bother. He also makes clear that he believes in giving people a shot at being better, and treats people based on their behaviour, not their creature type.
He represents what the Sapphire Guard should be and should always have been, not what they were.
If Redcloak could ever learn to acknowledge that, that would show remarkable character growth, and a lessening of the prejudiced mindset that O-chul’s predecessors first fostered in him.
Could Redcloak ever realistically get to that point? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem highly likely, but still I like the idea – and I don’t think it’s completely outside the realms of possibility.
(If nothing else, it makes an interesting concept for a fanfic.)
1) It’s hard to see a ‘happy’ resolution to the story that doesn’t involve an improved situation for goblinkind
2) As the most prominent goblin character by far, it’s difficult to imagine that happening without some involvement from Redcloak (narratively speaking)
3) Redcloak’s current extremely hardline position makes it difficult to see how points one and two would realistically coincide
The most obvious possibility is that the goblins somehow end up in a better situation almost in spite of Redcloak’s fanaticism, rather than because of it (and Redcloak himself is doomed to die as a deluded villain and my heart gets ripped to little bitty pieces at the great tragic mess that is his life)
OR
Redcloak somehow manages to have a change of heart and realize the error of his ways and actually finds a way of working with the Order. Which may or may not involve him dying, and my heart will probably still get ripped to pieces, albeit for different and hopefully more uplifting reasons
AND/OR
Rich Burlew is actually planning to introduce/better develop other goblinoid characters over the course of book 7, to unknown effect
