Dr. Seuss hates retribution paladins.

I've given it some thought, and it seems to make more sense than GC hating retribution paladins. Of course by GC I don't mean Ghostcrawler, but the more recognized Gaheeeeezus Christ, though Ghostcrawler isn't far behind, he just wants to nerf us into the ground. Dr. Seuss is the one that is really out to get us retribution types, and I think it was foretold in one of his stories entitled "The Lorax".

Now, for those of you that aren't fans of Dr. Seuss books (how could you not be? It should be required reading for all first grade children), "The Lorax" is essentially Ted Geisel's (that's the real Dr. Seuss) take on capitalism, expansion, and how those impact our environment. For lack of a better term, it's Geisel's "green" story.

The narrative centers on the interaction of two characters: the Lorax and the Great Once-ler. The Once-ler is your typical American kind of guy: clever, good with his hands, and more than willing to cut another man's legs out from under him to make a buck. The Lorax, on the other hand, is more of a tree-hugging Wilford Brimley that has the interests of the local flora and fauna foremost in his mind.

These two characters come into direct opposition when the Once-ler finds that the local truffula trees are the most amazing things, indeed for making his precious thneeds. Why...what's a thneed you say? Well, everyone needs a thneed. It's a sock. It's a hat. It's a box for your cat. Why yes, a thneed is a most amazing thing. And what a market there is for this thneed, everyone does need a thneed.

Regardless of the details within, there is one speech that resonates with me as a retribution paladin. In the story the Lorax confronts the Once-ler and states that he, "speaks for the trees--the truffula trees, and the brown barbaloots in their barbaloot suits, and the swammi swans, and the singing fish."

Now then, if one looks a bit at each of the items that the Lorax speaks for...the trees, the brown barbaloots, the swammi swans, and the singing fish, something becomes eerily apparent. The Lorax speaks for the druids. He speaks for the trees (tree form), the brown barbaloots (bear form), the swammi swans (flight form), and the singing fish (aquatic form is a stretch, but the fish have cat whiskers, check it out sometime).

The Lorax speaks for the druids...so that leaves me, the retribution paladin, as none other than the Great Once-ler. Now then, this doesn't pose much of an issue at first, I love making money, and I love cutting the legs out from another man more than just about anything else, that's just the way I am.

Let me try to bring together the narrative of "The Lorax" with my own experiences as a retribution paladin, or at least those experiences that pertain mostly to cases where I am dealing with druids: PvP.

I hate druids.

I hate restoration druids most of all.

Given the cleaving power that is SoC, I usually have no problems bursting down most classes, save for discipline priests (ABSORB ABSORB ABSORB) and restoration druids. Now, discipline priests I can at least respect, they look serious as they're eating my two-handed axe, but tree druids, man...it's just a slap in the face.

Last night we were working through our arena games for the week, and we did fairly well for not having a competitive team make up. I won't lie, holy paladin, retribution paladin, and a feral druid/rogue won't usually break any banks. There was this one match that we had, though, where I was literally on this one tree druid for at least two minutes straight. And nothing happened. If anything, I think he was mocking me. His hunter pal dumped a slowing freeze trap at my feet and the druid proceeded to bobble and weave his way through the trap back and forth as I dumped at least 300,000 points of damage into him. Now, did his mana bar move at all? I couldn't even get him below eighty percent.

Okay, so maybe he was in full PvP gear and was a really good player and all that jazz. I can put up with that. But come on, the hand waggle as he walked around? The druid looked like he was listening to the Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and throwing his hands into the air like he indeed, just didn't care, as opposed to getting his face cleaved in the likes of which even Paul Bunyan couldn't produce.

If anything, it was more insult than anything else. We still won. After we killed everything else and the druid AFK'ed out.

With my inability to utterly dismantle the restoration druid, and druids in general in mind, let's look back at the narrative of the Seuss story. The story ends with the Great Once-ler having chewed through all of the natural resources of the truffula trees, therein causing the brown barbaloots, the swammi swans, and the singing fish all to leave for...greener pastures as it were. The thneed economy dries up, and the Once-ler becomes a recluse, living in a darkened tower at the top of an all too abandoned hill, only coming out when called upon to retell his story to the young at heart and warn them of his failures.

I am that Great Once-ler.

I've spent my time chewing through healers, through the natural resources of the battlegrounds, and I'm left with what? The tree druid. I am left with something I can do nothing with. I waggle my axe, and he waggles his hands, and we deadlock for a good three minutes. Sometimes we win, but more often than not, we don't, and that damned tree is still there, shaking his roots in an all too mocking gesture.

So I retreat to the top of the Kirin Tor tower to brood, and like the Great Once-ler, I only come out when called upon to share the errors of my ways--or to get that summon to ToC.