Hero Thread

I think I actually love this picture

They were defending their people from genocidal maniacs. That's heroic even if you don't agree with their politics.

This

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Notice how the princess is smirking.

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I don't really see it. I think her lipstick is curled up at the ends, but she definitely seems to be frowning.

Gotta love Winmatar

> They were defending their people from genocidal maniacs
> still buying the "genocidal maniac" meme
Hitler wasn't about to let the Soviets invade Europe if he could do something about it. He attacked in order to preemptively halt the invasion that Stalin was preparing. There was nothing heroic about the red army raping half a continent in service to a communist tyrant.

>posts patriarchy
>calls it heroic

Hey, user, we need to talk...

Plus, were it not for FDR having Patton killed, the US would have invaded the USSR and stamped out Communism when we were still strong.

As the princess climbed into the carriage, trying to shut out the jeers of the angry crowd, the knight, cape and shield caked with produce, turned to the crowd.

Some withered at once, even though his gaze was concerned by his armor. Others jeered all the louder.

"SLAVE!"

"MURDERER!"

He stood there, glaring. He did not heft his shield to block more produce, he did not draw his sword.

Eventually, they realized they could not provoke him, and the jeers and yelling quieted until they had died altogether.

Then, he spoke.

"Today was her 13th birthday." he said, hardened voice cold as a December morning. "Her father should have been here. As you all know, he is not. He took ill and died, as did her mother, for he would not rest as his physicians told him to. He wanted to make sure that, even as the plague wracked him, he could do all that he could to make sure this country would be run as smoothly as possible after his death..."

"RUN INTO THE GROUND!" finished a protester, looking around for more rabble to join him, but a silence had fallen on the crowd.

"I know why you are angry. Your sons have been called to fight. Many paid for your safety from the hordes with their lives. Many sons who were due to return after two years have been reconscripted for four, eight, ten."

"You would ask why I am here, then. Why I am not braving arrows and wizard-fire with the rest of my brothers? Because the king asked me to stay. To guard his little girl from those who would pass judgment on her for things she never had a say in."

His gaze lowered to the ground. "Tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage. Crops bountiful and plentiful, ensured safety by your fallen king, and you hurl them at his daughter. It is good that the man who took me in is dead. Yes! It is good that the man who took me in when the hordes took my parents from me, had me trained to paladinhood, knighted me himself, and cried tears of joy when he handed me my sword is dead, for this would BREAK HIS HEART!"

This shit right here. This shit is why I love paladins. Hats off to you, user. You have won my heart and, dare I say it, the thread.

I prefer the vampire story.

"You think me unfeeling in this armor? You think I do not pray that my brothers and sisters in arms return home safely? You do not think it pains me when I go one day to their mother and father to tell them they died valiantly on the field of battle, and they care NOT for the pay they will receive, but for the fact their flesh and blood is dead, and I remember how we played at knights with sticks and boards?!"

"The hordes gather. They are led by greedy men and women who care nothing at all for who they trample on. If they make it here, they will take everything in one maddening frenzy of gorging and feasting and leave not even dust to fill our bellies. The men will be slain, of course. I will not speak of what will happen to the women and children. I will not speak of what my few friends tell me, by shaken and fearful messengers, what they have seen done to the women and children that have the ill-fortune to fall under the horde. It would be merciful, yes, much more merciful, for each of them to be slain by the sword than to suffer the grotesque and diabolic horrors the horde inflicts for common pleasure."

Silence.

"Princess Verina has not even had time to mourn. Already it is expected for her to lead. She is a child. One day, if she survives this, she might lead as great, or, dare I say it, even greater than her mother and father! But now, she is a child. And a child raised with scorn and blows surely grows into one who uses scorn and blows as gospel."

"Do you want to know WHY your sons and daughters remain, past their time? Past their tour of duty? I will tell you."

"Your sons and daughters- bowmen, mages, clerics, soldiers, paladins, medics, cooks, horsemen, assassins... they have seen the horrors of the horde. They had seen what they do for sport."

"By the light that shone on me when I swore my oaths, I swear to you this is true. Each and every one of them, when the day their time was done came, was given a writ of service and pay, and told to go home and rest, for weary soldiers are dead soldiers sooner than later."

Silence.

"They. Refused."

Gasps, muttering.

"My friends, many of whom are now dead, tried to convince them. With offers of the quiet of home. When that failed, more pay to leave. And when that failed, beating them cross the face to make them leave. AND NOT REST, NOT GOOD, NOR FEAR OF PAIN WOULD MAKE THEM LEAVE, FOR THEY LOVE YOU ENOUGH TO MAKE A SHIELD OF THEIR LAST BREATHS SO THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE ONE MORE DAY OF PEACE!"

His voice, ragged and angry, echoed off the walls like a cannon-shot.

"Your sons and daughters died not because the king demanded it, not because his daughter pouted and demanded it, but they died so that you might live. But go ahead. Waste the fruits of the land. Spend your days hating a little girl trying to learn sums and letters to serve you. Curse and spit on me, stuck here by my oath to my adopted father, to watch and protect his most precious earthly treasure."

Only now did the Paladin seem tired, as if some fire in him had dimmed.

"I hope you'll excuse me. I have a funeral to arrange and a girl to comfort."

He walked off to his horse, uncaring that his armor was covered in produce, gave his steed a nudge, and set off.

It would have hurt less, many conceded, if he had simply taken a mace and dealt everyone there a blow to the gut.

Stay mad stormfag

gr8 b8 m8

I remember that story.

It was sweet and sad.

Didn't they rape most of Berlin while doing that?
Didn't they end up being even more genocidal?

Was not genocide as they weren't targeting a particular genetic group.

Body count was way higher though.

Still lower than Mao.

Maybe its too late at night or maybe I'm a birch but I got misty-eyed contemplating this one

>Hitler wasn't about to let the Soviets invade Europe

Hitler was happy to split Poland and Eastern Europe with Stalin. The only reason he declared war on The Soviets, against all his commanders advice, was to free up Japan to attack the US, despite being utterly unprepared to attack Britain, much less the east coast of the US.

Hitler was an utterly incompetent, amphetamine-induced megalomaniac, and everyone of his nazi followers was a cucked bitch for allowing him to go through with his inane schemes.

>Hitler was happy to split Poland and Eastern Europe with Stalin.

Ah, the Danzig Corridor lie. They teach you to be ignorant to race in school, but you cannot understand the Germans only taking what they did of Poland without it.

He took a chunk of Poland because he wasn't about to just sit back and let the Poles continue massacring the German-speaking minority that Poland got through the Treaty of Versailles.

Uh... wat? Hitler had been building to the invasion of the USSR since before he canceled Operation SEA LION in late 1940. His desire for eastern Lebensraum didn't have *shit* to do with making life easier for the Japanese, and the Japanese motivations for attacking the US and SEA didn't have *shit* to do with supporting the German war.
Seriously, bro, do you even history?

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