Should V try to regain Inkyrius (now)?

[Asta Kask]

Fairly straightforward: Yes or No. Please motivate.

[Delorges]

No.
He hasn't got the time for that now. Stop Xykon and save the world, then you can go trying to repair your relationship.

[Lvl45DM!]

Yes, love should conquer all

[Rustic Dude]

Nah, it should go for Aarindarius. :smallwink:

[Ron Miel]

He should use every shred of his not inconsiderable arcane power to fight for his love.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0385.html

prediction
Sabine will help them reconcile, thus repaying the debt

[King of Nowhere]

Not at the moment. After Xykon is dealt with, then yes.

[Bat Bear]

Can't Durkon use Sending? Couldn't V try and contact Kyrie that way, rather than just letting the divorce go ahead without a struggle? It's not like the only way to save his marriage is to go haring back to the elven lands.

[factotum]

I'm sure V could cast a Sending, if necessary (it's in the wizard spell list), but that's only 25 words...I doubt our favourite elf would even be able to get past the customary greetings in that many words, much less convince his other half to not go through with the divorce.

[Shale]

S/he could take Nale's approach and prepare Sending in thirty spell slots.

[Scarlet Knight]

No, great wizards are meant to be solitary. It's hard to raise a family when your experiments keep escaping or going *boom*.

[Warren Dew]

No - not now, and not ever.

It has become clear that Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius should never have gotten married in the first place.

Inkyrius somehow seems to have expected Vaarsuvius to completely change from an adventurous and ambitious person to become someone who would be happy settling down and living a life of quiet anonymity. This is a fundamental mistake in a relationship: one should never be expecting to change the other person, no matter how much one thinks one is willing to change oneself.

Vaarsuvius seems to have been blinded by a long lasting crush - I guess they last longer for elves - and never have recovered enough to see the fundamental differences in Inkyrius's outlook. Vaarsuvius is the type to want to save the world; Inkyrius is the type to let some stranger do it instead.

While they had a relationship, it might have made sense to try to work out their differences, difficult as it might have been. Now that they've broken up, though, why would they want to repeat their mistake of getting together?

[Conuly]

Inkyrius somehow seems to have expected Vaarsuvius to completely change from an adventurous and ambitious person to become someone who would be happy settling down and living a life of quiet anonymity. This is a fundamental mistake in a relationship: one should never be expecting to change the other person, no matter how much one thinks one is willing to change oneself.

Gosh, how strange, Kyrie wants V to be like V was when they got married - living a life of solitude and study and, presumably, scrabble when bored. The adventuring thing is new, anyway.

[Warren Dew]

Gosh, how strange, Kyrie wants V to be like V was when they got married - living a life of solitude and study and, presumably, scrabble when bored.

According to this theory Inkyrius must have been overjoyed when Vaarsuvius chose to take Inkyrius's carefully prepared anniversary truffles alone in the library - without Inkyrius.

[veti]

V has made her choice: to dedicate herself to the larger Cause. It would be quite wrong, and out of character (I still believe she's LN) for her to change her mind now.

When Xykon is defeated, and V is ready to retire not only from adventuring, but also from the single-minded pursuit of Ultimate Arcane Power (having sampled it once, maybe that'll cure her obsession)... then maybe she can go back and try to make things right. But there's a lot to do before she reaches that point. Then she can retire into a comfortable life as a research mage, or maybe a teacher, and live happily ever after.

Obviously her chances of that ending aren't that good at the moment. But it's traditional that the hero should be in deep doo-doo in the middle of the story, that's what makes the ending so happy. :smallbiggrin:

[Sewblon]

Yes, but after the world is safe from Team Evil.

[Souhiro]

I want to know... A wizard can read scrolls or use magic items that cast spells from his barred schools?

I mean, great teleport is a must-have spell, and V tasted the power of teleporting with the Epic Teleport. I think that a bunch of Teleport / Greater Teleport Scrolls would be a great addition to the Sacred Order of Stick.

The Base Price of a Greater Teleport can be 325 GP. That isn't really expensive for a Lv>10 party.

[Kaytara]

No - not now, and not ever.

It has become clear that Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius should never have gotten married in the first place.
(snip)

While I find myself hoping that they'll overcome their differences and come to the understanding they should have reached a long time ago, I kind of agree. They both had false expectations of what the relationship would be like. On the part of Kyrie, I can imagine that the whole studious and oblivious part of V's personality was incredibly adorable to her when they met, but she failed to consider the implications of what it would be like in a spouse. Being in love or having a crush tends to royally screw up one's perceptions of a person.

I still don't get their relationship, though. As someone else said, Kyrie doesn't seem the type to tolerate being taken for granted for more than five minutes. If she was unhappy with V, it's odd of her to have put up with him so completely. If she didn't put up with him so completely and instead called him out on it, then how come he's so oblivious as to what her complaints about their marriage may be?

I really hope we learn how the two actually met and married at some point. Should be comedy gold.

[theinsulabot]

a guilt stricken, soul blackened man who is not only under a geis he doesn't understand, but right in the middle of both an epic quest to save the world but a far newer and more personal one of redemption, is not the man who can rebuild a marriage. while this would normally be the best time to attempt to save the marriage, rather then after the divorce is finalized and inky begins to move on without him, for v, it is not. v has to work through his own issues before he can have even the slightest hope of solving the very real underlying issues that caused his marriage to fail.

[Mugen Nightgale]

I'd love to see V getting over the "Ultimate Arcane Power" thing and getting back to Kyrie by the end of the comic. But we all know that wizards don't usually do that. Once the guy experiments with true power he just wants it more and more. Not saying that the quest for the Ultimate Arcane Power is going to last forever, just saying that "with great power comes great responsibility" wizards become slaves to their own powerful minds and I think thats a one way road.


Heck most wizards after a certain level go to other planes just to have more challenge for their already bigger than necessary intellect.

[Water-Smurf]

Not now. Maybe not ever.

Right now, Vaarsuvius has been beaten to a bloody pulp intellectually, physically, and emotionally. In the Feminine Journey*, Vaarsuvius would be at the 'death stage', ie s/he has hit rock bottom. S/he's leased her soul to fiends, embarrassed hirself, lost hir family, realized that hir entire ideology (that ultimate Arcane power can solve all) has crumbled at hir feet, realized that s/he can't fix everything, and all on top of months of accumulated exhaustion, guilt, and probably PTSD, and s/he doesn't have the adequate support needed to heal from this. S/he doesn't have the strength to fight anymore for now. S/he is just trying to come to terms with all that has happened without dealing hir pride another shameful blow by revealing all to hir comrades. S/he can't deal with the divorce and the family right now. There's just not enough of hir left over--too much is going into the healing and the fight to stay above the water.

Inkyrius, in hir defense, doesn't know any of this and I suspect that the summons and divorce papers were just a desperate gambit to get Vaarsuvius back home so they can talk. S/he just wants the family to be okay and for Vaarsuvius to come home without the evil. S/he doesn't know the trials V has had to go through and s/he doesn't know how broken s/he is, how s/he needs to sit down and slowly build hirself up again.

Even without all that, there is the objective reality here: the entire world is worth far more than one marriage, no matter how painful it is to admit it. Love between two people can't come before the safety and well-being of the Earth. Two children who are probably going to spend the rest of their childhood either switching between parents or just raised by one person with little to no memory of the 'Other-Parent' that once watched them, no matter how cute or innocent or undeserving they are, can't be put before stopping Xykon from taking over the world and keeping the Snarl from destroying everything (or whatever it really does). Vaarsuvius, being the objectivist that s/he is, understands that. And while I'm sure that it hurts, s/he made the logical and moral decision.

I doubt that this rift will heal up, and maybe it shouldn't. From what we've seen (which arguably isn't much), the marriage would have eventually faded on its own. Inkyrius would give up trying to make V pay attention to the family, Vaarsuvius would be too oblivious to notice the dying love, and they would drift apart, either ending up in an unhappy/strained marriage or a divorce. Unless Inkyrius spontaneously decides that s/he doesn't need closeness with V to be happy or Vaarsuvius makes a huge turnaround with a core character flaw and starts paying loving and at least semi-constant attention to Inkyrius and the kids, the marriage won't live for long, even if V manages to patch this up.

Inkyrius needs someone who will take care of the kids and be engaged in their relationship with hir. Vaarsuvius needs someone who understands hir aloofness and tendency to take people for granted--someone who is willing to accept that and won't be bothered by it. I'm just worried about the kids.


*The Feminine Journey is a gender-neutral internal character development storyline that's been used since the story of The Descent of Inanna. The term is coined and the archetype is talked about in '45 Master Characters' by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, which I think is the only book that goes on at length about it. (By the Gods, I've read that thing too many times.)

[Atronach]

I do concur. Vaarsuvius has done a lot to enrage Inkyrius, and if s/he was filing for divorce to get Vaarsuvius' attention then that would explain a lot. Perhaps we shall know soon...

[Kaytara]

Wow. Great post, Water-Smurf. That's exactly how I see it, as well.

Can you tell a bit more about this 'feminine journey' archetype? I haven't been able to google it with any real results...

[Carisbourg]

a guilt stricken, soul blackened man who is not only under a geis he doesn't understand, but right in the middle of both an epic quest to save the world but a far newer and more personal one of redemption, is not the man who can rebuild a marriage. while this would normally be the best time to attempt to save the marriage, rather then after the divorce is finalized and inky begins to move on without him, for v, it is not. v has to work through his own issues before he can have even the slightest hope of solving the very real underlying issues that caused his marriage to fail.

I agree in a way, but Vaarsuvius needs to tell Inkyrius what the situation is. Maybe have Aarindarius tell Inky what's going on, or talk to Inky's parents or mentor, but communicate. This whole emotional seperation thing was caused by lack of communication. If V leaves just signs and doesn't communicate the reasons behind signing it's just proof (to Inky) that V is a hard-hearted, arrogant, distant prick who only takes from their relationship. Truth is V was that way, but no more. The children will be raised to believe this about <other parent>, and V won't have a chance with them either.

I also don't really think the whole "I've got to save the world" line of reasoning is any good either. There are a lot of mages out there in the wide world, some of them even LG and idealistic enough to pick up the quest with only information backfill. To paraphrase "What profits it an elf to save the whole world if he loses his soul." If V finishes the quest and then gets back together with Inky it will set up a pattern of "My work is more important than you, Inky dear, but I love you too."

From a meta fiction point of view I don't think it would hurt the story too much to have V disappear for a while. They just had a long stint without Roy, so being without V would be a chance to act with a different hole in the party. Also, depending on Durkon as a caster would give them a chance to appreciate his as something more than a medic (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0006.html). It would also be a chance for Durkon to get his major side quest out of the way, since he's only had a minor one so far.

edit clarified something

[Meg]

I agree with several of the above posts. In my opinion, V is similar to the Greek heroes. Always meant to be questing, always unhappy, and eventually felled by their fatal flaw. I know that seems harsh, but it's been my opinion for a long time V simply isn't meant to be happy, and will die sometime before the end of the comic.

Note that V is, of course, one of my favorite characters, I'm just of the opinion that their death is a long time coming.

[Janmorel]

No. Although sending an apology along with the legal paperwork might be a good step.

[Water-Smurf]

Wow. Great post, Water-Smurf. That's exactly how I see it, as well.

Can you tell a bit more about this 'feminine journey' archetype? I haven't been able to google it with any real results...

Thanks!

I doubt you'll find anything. Schmidt actually dedicated a huge part of her introduction to how difficult it was for her to find anything on the Feminine Journey. Everything is about the Masculine Journey--a part of our traditionally patriarchal society, I guess.

Basically, in a nutshell, the Feminine Journey is a journey to earn something within oneself, a journey for strength, independence, and growth outside of society's boundaries (huge character development, in short) to prove oneself to oneself, while the Masculine Journey is about outward growth within society's expectations to prove oneself to others or to a group.

Feminine Journey works like this: you have the first stage, starting with being inside a little glass bubble where you think everything is perfect (V's confidence in hirself and hir abilities), getting knocked to your senses somehow by a betrayal or sudden clarity (not being able to fend off the army or save the soldiers), and then getting ready to start the journey (V started obsessively trying to find a spell and get powerful enough to find Haley).

Something that makes the Feminine Journey distinct is that society specifically does not want you to do it, the same way society would be overall disapproving if a woman tried to fight for her rights (apparently, even now, the first word men statistically think of when they hear the word 'feminist' is a word that should mean 'female dog') or if she wanted to join the army or something and become a high-ranking official in the Marines or the Air Force or something. In V's case, it wasn't so much as people actively trying to stop hir but people not understanding why s/he was doing all this. Durkon and V clashed in their separate opinions of what should happen, Elan and V clashed with their argument over Kubota, and Inkyrius and V clashed over what should be done right after the death of the dragon. Because of their ignorance of V's precarious mental state, they inadvertently shoved hir closer to the edge and yet, in a way, allowed hir to understand hir own deep flaws much more intimately and change because of it.

Then you have the second stage: starting with facing your flaws, fears, and guilt in their rawest form (in a way, the dragon threatening V's family when their was nothing s/he could do about it exemplified that, but this underlying stage stretched throughout the arc until the MitD teleported everyone out of the castle), going on to what is called 'The Eye of the Storm' in the book (when everything seems like it'll be okay for the character--this happened when V had destroyed the dragon, before Inkyrius made hir feelings about all this known, and it looked like V would be able to go on and fix everything), and then there is 'Death.' (Rock bottom. Flaws, fears, and guilt come back with a vengeance and crush you. You get knocked down into a deep dark hole and you don't know how to get back up. You get beaten up by a lich and you lose all the power. Sometimes, you actually die at this stage, which luckily didn't happen this time.)

I feel that the death stage has been stretching a little for V, especially with the divorce, but at the same time, s/he's been moving along the journey.

The last stage is when the character actually claws their way up out of the dark hole they got into. Other people show up to support them (Durkon's conversation and Blackwing hanging around were examples of V's support stage, and maybe that's enough, but I feel that V will probably need more), they understand what has happened, they learned their lesson, they understand that this isn't a perfect world, they're at peace with the fact, and they're changed for the better (V is still in the throes of this) and finally, the character goes back to the forest of glass bubbles to help along someone else with their journey.

The stages in the archetype are flexible, but the fundamental truth remains the same. I'm actually pretty glad to see it somewhere--people are usually more concerned with the Masculine Journeys.

And credit for actually articulating these literary character strategies goes to Schmidt.

[Kaytara]

Wow, that's all pretty deep. Thanks for the lecture, Professor Water-Smurf. :smallsmile:

[Atronach]

I do not agree with all of that in the case of Vaarsuvius. Especially the "second stage". I suppose you have made a few good points in general, however.

[Mugen Nightgale]

Hey thanks for the insight Water Smurf. I knew about stuff like the "Hero's Journey" witch was glorified by writers like Tolkien. The Feminine Journey makes a lot of sense and now that I look back I see references of it in other famous characters.
Feels good to learn something in this forums.

[Water-Smurf]

Thank you. Because I'm totally a professor of writing elements. :smalltongue:

The journeys are pretty flexible with how you label them. I drew the rough 'this-stage-happened-here' sketch the best I could. You can find the Feminine Journey in things like Thelma & Louise, Titanic, American Beauty (for a male version), The Wizard of Oz (the book, not the movie so much), The Awakening... The Masculine Journey pops up in places like Star Wars, The Long Kiss Goodnight (for the female version), Moby **** (Seriously? Is that seriously censored?)...

They're literary archetypes that people don't know they're using.

And that, children, is your lesson on writing for the day. Any questions? :D

[BatRobin]

No. Although sending an apology along with the legal paperwork might be a good step.

"Inkyrius,

I am sorry. Included are your divorce papers, signed by me.

-Vaarsuvius"

[Nimrod's Son]

Moby **** (Seriously? Is that seriously censored?)...
Annoying, isn't it? To get around it, type "Moby ****" (or similar) and it comes out as "Moby ****". Longwinded, but it works.

Usual disclaimer about how no one should use this cheat to say genuine naughty words. :smallwink:

[Asta Kask]

"Inkyrius,

I am sorry. Included are your divorce papers, signed by me.

-Vaarsuvius"

And you seriously expect V to be able to keep it that short?

WaterSmurf, is there an AmbiguouslyGendered Journey? :)

[Water-Smurf]

Annoying, isn't it? To get around it, type "Moby ****" (or similar) and it comes out as "Moby ****". Longwinded, but it works.

Usual disclaimer about how no one should use this cheat to say genuine naughty words. :smallwink:

Thanks! I'll use that next time I go on a long-winded lecture about literary devices. :smalltongue:


WaterSmurf, is there an AmbiguouslyGendered Journey? :)

Both journeys are technically ambiguously gendered--a woman can go on a Masculine Journey and a man can go on a Feminine Journey--but women tend to the Feminine and men to the Masculine, mostly because traditionally, people try to keep women in a glass bubble to be saved by men on their Masculine Journeys and try to keep them away from their own Feminine Journey while everyone wants a man to take his Masculine Journey. When men take Feminine Journeys, like if they start challenging the notion that they have to work forty-plus hours at a job they hate trying to get promotions they're not sure they want for a family that doesn't appreciate them, they also face the same discrimination as women and the people around them will do their best to make sure they don't make their journeys. In American Beauty the man on his Feminine Journey (the main character) was shot and killed by another man who was terrified of going on the same journey. If the first man didn't survive the journey, then no one would feel as though they should work against society as well.

In short, Feminine Journeys, while fascinating, tend to be the most painful and dangerous roads to take. And men can take them as well as women.

[Kid Dynamo]

*snip*

So basically what you're saying is that V is a female...

In all seriousness though, thanks for the info, both as for insight into OoTS and hopefully into my own writing abilities.

[Water-Smurf]

In all seriousness though, thanks for the info, both as for insight into OoTS and hopefully into my own writing abilities.

You're welcome! Without trying to sound like a TV ad or something, I suggest reading the book. It has way more information than I give it credit for. I have an entire list of books that have more information than I give them credit for.

[Tyger Vendebta]

The Oracle did say to Elan that not all of the party members will get a happy ending, so V won't get a happy ending, so V won't get back with Inkyrius. Ever.

[Cracklord]

The Oracle did say to Elan that not all of the party members will get a happy ending, so V won't get a happy ending, so V won't get back with Inkyrius. Ever.

I think you missed a logical step or two.

[hamishspence]

yes "For you, at least" implies, but does not prove, that some the others won't but not how many, and even with that implication, the idea that none but Elan (what about Haley?) wouldn't is a stretch.