| “ | What I'm trying to do here is move beyond those ideas into a world where no one has any reason to fight one another. But you can't make an omelette without ruthlessly crushing dozens of eggs beneath your steel boot and then publicly disembowelling the chickens that laid them as a warning to others. | „ |
| ~ Tarquin attempting to justify himself. |
| “ | I'm sorry, Elan, it's too late for that. It has become clear to me that the only way you will accept your proper role is for me to utterly crush you here and now. So I am going to murder your lowlife girlfriend, burn this ship and everyone on it to ash and chop off your hand. BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THESE THINGS ARE DONE! And when you are off brooding and healing for our inevitable final duel, I want you to remember one thing: That you forced me to do this. Just like Nale did. | „ |
| ~ Tarquin to Elan after breaking Haley's arm. |
General Tarquin is a major antagonist in The Order of the Stick, serving as the main antagonist of the "Blood Runs in the Family" arc. He is the leader of the Vector Legion, the father of Elan and Nale and the de facto ruler of the Western Continent who uses his manipulation skills and knowledge of narrative tropes to achieve his aims.
His Evil Ranking[]
Debated Validations[]
- He decided to honor his deal with Laurin, but he may have done so because Laurin asked him before she teleported him back to his palace.
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- He murdered an entire tavern because one of the men groped his wife and turned them into fertilizer.
- He doesn't care about most of his friends and family and only sees them as means to an end.
- While he claims to care about Elan, he clearly doesn't as he's perfectly willing to kill all his friends and maim him to get him to do what he wants and only doesn't kill him because he needs him to survive for his plan to work. He also implies in one scene that he would be willing to kill him if he saw no way to make him do what he wanted, warning him that he was "beginning to sound like Nale" a few minutes after killing Nale for this reason.
- Through a careful system of manipulating various nations and tribes to attack each other, offering conquest and then liberation, he forces them into alliance with one of his empires. Every few years he helps somebody else to take over and kill whoever was in charge before, then begins manipulating them as well.
- He regularly tortures women until they agree to marry him. He's also implied to have killed some of his wives, as many are said to have died from "mysterious circumstances."
- Despite claiming to be an extremist, he was willing to let Malack kill a thousand people every day as a sacrifice to his god, taking no moral objection to this as long as he got a bigger statue.
- He throws Haley off a balcony to force Vaarsuvius to use their last spell to save her, thus trapping themself and Elan.
- When Enor and Gannji ask him for more money for their efforts in the mission he sent them on, he has them both arrested, sent to Bloodstone Arena and forced to fight each other to the death. When Elan begs him to stop, he orders his guards to kill them both, with only Belkar's intervention saving them.
- He orders 23 slaves burned alive in order to make a public display of Elan's name, believing it would make him happy.
- He has Ian Starshine confined to Bloodstone for life in return for payment from Bozzok.
- He arranges for Amun-Zora's husband to be killed in battle before throwing her in prison until she agrees to marry him.
- He teams up with Nale and the Linear Guild to kill the Order of the Stick and capture Girard's Gate just to see if Nale can do it, planning to allow Malack to kill him if he fails to prove his worth by capturing it.
- He murders Nale in front of Elan, partially as punishment for rejecting his authority, though his comrade Laurin also wanted him dead.
- He sends Jacinda to kill Ambassador Gourntok for knowing about his scheme before framing Ian for the crime because he spoke to him like they were equals, justifying it to Ian's daughter Haley by telling her that he's giving her the opportunity to save her father because he needs to know that "someone of such lowly stock" is worthy of dating Elan.
- He orders his men to kill the trapped Order of the Stick so Elan will be forced to do things his way.
- He stabs Elan when he gets between him and Roy, justifying it by telling him "You'll live."
- He attempts to murder Haley, burn the rest of the Order alive and chop off Elan's hand to force him to do things his way. While he later reconsiders and decides to bargain with Elan when Elan has him at his mercy, this is enough to make him realize that Tarquin is beyond redemption.
- While he has comedic moments, he is still taken seriously by the narrative.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- He genuinely values his friendship with Malack, citing Nale's murder of him as one of his reasons for killing him (the other being that he defied him and did not care about him).
Trivia[]
- Tarquin is one of two villains in Order of the Stick, the other being the High Priest of Hel, to be Near Pure Evil.
External Links[]
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 Near Pure Evils
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Critical Role Forgotten Realms Others | ||