View Full Version : Crayons = Unreliable Narration?
This latest comic has strengthened a feeling I've had ever since we learned about the Snarl-Planet inside the rift. Namely, that crayon sequences don't actually represent the past--they represent a just an illustration of the story that is being told, possibly with an unreliable narrator.
Specifically, note the first crayon panel of #704. Two things are incorrect: Jirix's narration states that the tower was attacked by elven wizards, when we know it was attacked by exactly one elven wizard. This tells us that the voice-overs for crayon sequences may be lying. Second, the image does not show us Xykon's phylactery, as the original panel did. This tells us that the images may not be accurate to what really happened. Taken together, we can come to the conclusion that crayon art is only a representation of what the person is saying, rather than a representation of the truth.
If this is true, it opens up a lot of possibilities for things to be different than we think they are.
ScottishDragon
2010-02-21, 07:06 PM
This latest comic has strengthened a feeling I've had ever since we learned about the Snarl-Planet inside the rift. Namely, that crayon sequences don't actually represent the past--they represent a just an illustration of the story that is being told, possibly with an unreliable narrator.
Specifically, note the first crayon panel of #704. Two things are incorrect: Jirix's narration states that the tower was attacked by elven wizards, when we know it was attacked by exactly one elven wizard. This tells us that the voice-overs for crayon sequences may be lying. Second, the image does not show us Xykon's phylactery, as the original panel did. This tells us that the images may not be accurate to what really happened. Taken together, we can come to the conclusion that crayon art is only a representation of what the person is saying, rather than a representation of the truth.
If this is true, it opens up a lot of possibilities for things to be different than we think they are.
This is jirix's memory,he might have forgotten some things,so they are not drawn.
Morquard
2010-02-21, 07:09 PM
I always thought the crayons just represent the view of the storyteller, they're not 100% correct flashbacks or anything.
The crayons during the trial were told by Shojo who got the story from Soon (or from his father as an intermediate even), which is why not everything in it can be taken at face value, but how a paladin would tell it instead.
And yes, the pictures definitely show less details too.
Vaarsuvius4181
2010-02-21, 07:10 PM
No, jirix was killed when an elven wizard, which shows that he probably assumed multiple wizards were attacking, and that is what he recalls, not an unknown narrator.
Ryuuk
2010-02-21, 07:10 PM
Hmm, maybe not necessarily unreliable narration, but more towards myth. All the Crayon we've seen have involved the gods in flashback to some extent. Then there the order of the scribble and Ochul...
The Crayon may simply be the Legends (which by nature are unreliable and may differ in detail from the truth) of the OotSverse being told.
EDIT: Legends or Legends in the making.
This is jirix's memory,he might have forgotten some things,so they are not drawn.
Why would he forget things that happened before he died, about a week ago?
I think Jirix is deliberately lying when he says it was more than one elven wizard, so as to not let anyone know that just one wizard did all that damage. And he is leaving out any mention of the phylactery because it is secret.
What I find interesting is that we, the readers, are seeing the same scene with the phylactery missing. Even though we know for a fact that it was there.
It's as if the author is telling us that what we see in crayon pictures is not always the truth, by showing us an exact panel we've seen before but with one crucial change.
No, jirix was killed when an elven wizard, which shows that he probably assumed multiple wizards were attacking, and that is what he recalls, not an unknown narrator.
Not what he recalls. What he says he recalls. Huge difference.
Ted The Bug
2010-02-21, 07:21 PM
I think Jirix is deliberately lying when he says it was more than one elven wizard, so as to not let anyone know that just one wizard did all that damage.
Backed up by RC as well (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0702.html), it seems to be the story that the new leaders are pushing.
Ryuuk
2010-02-21, 07:22 PM
It's as if the author is telling us that what we see in crayon pictures is not always the truth, by showing us an exact panel we've seen before but with one crucial change.
The scene is accurate almost completely, its just missing the tiny golden necklace that O-chul had dropped behind him. I don't know, it seems like discrediting all of the crayon panels from this discrepancy is a large logical leap.
With regards to the wizards, wasn't there a panel comics back about an elven strike force heading into the city? It might just be that they saw V as part of them.
V was soul-spliced when she attacked. So in a sense, it's quite reasonable to describe the attackers in the plural. And Jirix knew that.
Clearly the attack has been "spun" to exclude any mention of the phylactery (the last thing Redcloak wants is to make Xykon even angrier than he already is, by publishing that little fiasco to the world), and probably also to make the attack sound bigger and more threatening than it was (to lessen Reddy's own embarrassment at the damage it did). But I don't think Jirix is directly lying, here.
"Unreliable narration" - isn't all narration inherently unreliable? On the other hand, there are places (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0501.html) where (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0290.html) we see narration that isn't in crayon.
But maybe the crayons are, as Ryuuk said, there to add a more mythic dimension - these are simply things that far transcend the experience of the ordinary listener/viewer.
The scene is accurate almost completely, its just missing the tiny golden necklace that O-chul had dropped behind him. I don't know, it seems like discrediting all of the crayon panels from this discrepancy is a large logical leap.
It is the fact that it is so accurate, down to the placement of the wounds on each combatant, that makes me believe the absence of the phylactery can only be intentional.
slayerx
2010-02-21, 07:37 PM
For the "wizards" comment... this goes along with redcloak's line of Elvan Insurgents
Essentially, the official story that Redcloak and Jirix are operating on was that V's attack was an attack run by a larger elven force; even if those other elves did not take part in the attack, RC and Jirix include them as being part of the attack... RC and Jirix are either spinning the story of V's attack, assuming the worse, or just plain do not believe that a lone Elven wizard would just attack Xykon out of the blue like that
But i do agree, if the crayons strips are just being told from someone elses point of viiew, then they could be subject to unreliable narration... we do not get an accurate representation of what happen, but only what the storyteller knows and is telling us
derfenrirwolv
2010-02-21, 07:45 PM
I can't see why Jirix, a priest of the dark one, would lie about something his god told him. As to why his memmories are better than roys, he's a priest. He's been spending his entire life training to deal with theological revelations. Roy, as shcmart as he is, has spent a lifetime learning to hit things with large heavy objects.
slayerx
2010-02-21, 07:58 PM
I can't see why Jirix, a priest of the dark one, would lie about something his god told him. As to why his memmories are better than roys, he's a priest. He's been spending his entire life training to deal with theological revelations. Roy, as shcmart as he is, has spent a lifetime learning to hit things with large heavy objects.
The point is not that Jirix is lying about the dark one, but just that we can't 100% trust everything that happens in the crayon strips... namely what we heard about the snarl and the order of the scribble. There could be any number of inaccuracy's in that story
derfenrirwolv
2010-02-21, 08:49 PM
Well, what can't we trust? Jirix isn't about to lie to redcloak, and i doubt even the other gods can interfere with a God collecting his clerics soul, so the chances of him being fooled while dead are near nil.
TriForce
2010-02-21, 09:04 PM
Well, what can't we trust? Jirix isn't about to lie to redcloak, and i doubt even the other gods can interfere with a God collecting his clerics soul, so the chances of him being fooled while dead are near nil.
you... havent read the origional post have you? the point is that if in crayons things are different from the truth ( like we saw in this strip ) the other stuff in crayons ( THE STORY ABOUT THE SNARL ) could also be different from the truth.
all that stuff about jirix actually going to the dark one is pretty obvious, and in not a single post here has anyone doubted that, so i dont see why your thinking otherwise
Thursday
2010-02-21, 09:31 PM
Namely, that crayon sequences don't actually represent the past--they represent a just an illustration of the story that is being told, possibly with an unreliable narrator.
"It's as if the author is telling us that what we see in crayon pictures is not always the truth, by showing us an exact panel we've seen before but with one crucial change." (sorry haven't figured out how to quote multiple posts yet)
Er, well, Yeah.... but haven't we been told this already? In every case the crayons are used its clearly a character describing the past to someone else. In SOD, where as I'm sure you know, the fact that the narrator was lying in a crayon sequence is explicitly called out by one of the listeners...
(sorry for the creaking language, I haven't figured spoilers out either, I suck)
-He doesn't need to show us using small changes in panels what he has a character flat out tell us, (admittedly in a prequel book which many won't have read.)
Plus now in 704, Redcloak straight out asks if what Jirix is describing happened or not..
So.. To be honest I thought that stuff in crayon may or may not be the whole truth was pretty well established...
CrimsonAngel
2010-02-21, 09:34 PM
Team Peregrine.
Team Peregrine.
What's with the free-floating proper noun? :smallconfused:
CrimsonAngel
2010-02-21, 09:36 PM
They were elves who attacked the tower, also.
They were elves who attacked the tower, also.
Did Team Peregrine attack the tower at some point? It seems unlikely, but we can't say "no."
Are all the members of Team Peregrine wizards, such that it would make sense to talk about "elven wizards" attacking the tower because of them? It seems even more unlikely.
Did Team Peregrine attack the tower in conjunction with O-Chul's escape? Definitely not.
Nimrod's Son
2010-02-21, 09:39 PM
They were elves who attacked the tower, also.
Must have missed that strip then. :smallconfused: I could have sworn that we haven't seen what happened to them yet.
CrimsonAngel
2010-02-21, 09:39 PM
They had a wizard. She/He teleported them there.
Nimrod's Son
2010-02-21, 09:43 PM
They had a wizard. She/He teleported them there.
Off-panel? I very much doubt it.
They were given an impressive introduction right in the closing moments of the last book. They surely have more of a role to play than killing a handful of hobgoblins before getting taken down off-camera.
Bogardan_Mage
2010-02-21, 10:38 PM
They say there were multiple elves because they want to make it look like it was an act of aggression by the Elves rather than just a lone attacker who happened to be an elf. As #702 says, it was this that influenced Cliffport to recognise and start trading with them. Team Peregrine definitely didn't get there until afterwards (I rather suspect that today's crayons are there to clarify that Redcloak was not talking about some off-camera actions of Team Peregrine when he mentioned an Elf attack). It's just political spin.
slayerx
2010-02-21, 10:47 PM
"It's as if the author is telling us that what we see in crayon pictures is not always the truth, by showing us an exact panel we've seen before but with one crucial change." (sorry haven't figured out how to quote multiple posts yet)
Er, well, Yeah.... but haven't we been told this already? In every case the crayons are used its clearly a character describing the past to someone else. In SOD, where as I'm sure you know, the fact that the narrator was lying in a crayon sequence is explicitly called out by one of the listeners...
(sorry for the creaking language, I haven't figured spoilers out either, I suck)
-He doesn't need to show us using small changes in panels what he has a character flat out tell us, (admittedly in a prequel book which many won't have read.)
Plus now in 704, Redcloak straight out asks if what Jirix is describing happened or not..
So.. To be honest I thought that stuff in crayon may or may not be the whole truth was pretty well established...
First off, you have to recall not everyone has read SOD
Second of all, while we knew the crayons was someone else telling us a story, many people treated the crayons as flashbacks... they showed us in crayon form EXACTLY what happened, and not just what the story teller personally knows... we assumed that the storyteller had accurate knowledge on the subject. It's the difference between looking at the stories as flashbacks, and just looking at them as stories (subject to personal interpretation to characters telling the story)
They were elves who attacked the tower, also.
No they did not...
Jirix and Redcloak, despite speaking in plurals, were both talking about V's solo attack on Xykon... The reason they spoke in plurals is because Redcloak has chosen to believe or spin V's solo attack as part of a grander scheme by an unknown group of elves... As such when they refer to the attack, they include the unknown members speaking in plurals... kinda like how in real life, if one man conducts a terrorist attack, the victim will claim they were attacked by "Terrorists" despite the fact that the attack was conducted by one man
derfenrirwolv
2010-02-21, 10:55 PM
ou... havent read the origional post have you?
Yes.. i have. And that's against the rules and insulting.
all that stuff about jirix actually going to the dark one is pretty obvious, and in not a single post here has anyone doubted that, so i dont see why your thinking otherwise
My thinking is that the crayons may be for flashbacks rather than unreliable narration. Since Jirix's flashback should be reliable, if the crayons indicated unreliable it wouldn't have been in crayon.
You dig?
mr_pathetic
2010-02-21, 11:10 PM
I think more stories of resurrection should be told with crayon... Lazarus totally could have been more memorable. :smallwink:
Thursday
2010-02-21, 11:18 PM
First off, you have to recall not everyone has read SOD
Granted. I sounded more like I assumed they had than I meant to. If that makes sense?
Second of all, while we knew the crayons was someone else telling us a story, many people treated the crayons as flashbacks... they showed us in crayon form EXACTLY what happened, and not just what the story teller personally knows... we assumed that the storyteller had accurate knowledge on the subject. It's the difference between looking at the stories as flashbacks, and just looking at them as stories (subject to personal interpretation to characters telling the story)
I guess, it's just it seems to me that the fact that the narrator of the first crayon sequence in SOD actually admits that not everything he says there is true is better evidence for the OPs point (Which I agree with.) than the changes in panels in #704. I am undecided on if those are significant or not.
I do conceed that if you don't have SOD, then it isn't so apparent at all, and they might read as flashbacks. (Redcloak asking Jirix if his story is true or not is a hint though.)
I guess I always read them as the stories told by the characters who have their own agenda, (subject to personal interpretation as you put it) not as flashbacks by the same, main narrator, and It didn't actually occur to me to think otherwise until this thread. (-not that that makes me right or others wrong.)
slayerx
2010-02-21, 11:42 PM
My thinking is that the crayons may be for flashbacks rather than unreliable narration. Since Jirix's flashback should be reliable, if the crayons indicated unreliable it wouldn't have been in crayon.
You dig?
except as the OP points out their is a very slight inaccuracy in the crayon story, namely the lack of RC's holy symbol... if the Crayons were supposed to be flashbacks (which are 100% accurate in nature), then why was the holy symbol not included?
Essentially, the Crayons accuracy falls anywhere between 0 and 100%
The crayons can be totally true, missing info, have inaccurate info, or be all out lies... essentially, Jirix's crayon story is only like 98% accurate, as such it is not a true flashback, But just his own story which happens to be almost entirely true. This is what makes the crayons subject to being unreliable narration, we can never be certain if they are 100% true or if the story teller is just getting the story wrong.
Optimystik
2010-02-22, 12:24 AM
They had a wizard. She/He teleported them there.
But not to the tower - the Cloister would make that impossible.
derfenrirwolv
2010-02-22, 01:39 AM
Or perhaps they're for character narration rather than narrator reparation?
Porthos
2010-02-22, 01:45 AM
Or perhaps they're for character narration rather than narrator reparation?
Nope. In SoD...
We have Eugene narrating a flashback, and not in Crayon form
Morthis
2010-02-22, 05:10 AM
But not to the tower - the Cloister would make that impossible.
Actually based on Celia's description of cloister it appears teleporting within cloister would work fine, you simply can't breach the cloister from the outside. Not that this implies Team Peregrine actually teleported into the tower, since that seems insanely unlikely.
Edit: And we've seen Tsukiko teleport within cloister.
Agi Hammerthief
2010-02-22, 05:39 AM
Taken together, we can come to the conclusion that crayon art is only a representation of what the person is saying, rather than a representation of the truth.
is there a philosophy forum to discuss what constitutes "truth"?
Why should Jirix mention the minor detail of the phylactery dropping to the ground in a speach?
as for the Elves ... well he probably got the story streightened out with RC to add legitimacy.
I'd say the narration is as reliably as the person (in comic) telling the crayoned story, I'm actually surprised that anyone would think otherwise.
Yiuel
2010-02-22, 08:29 AM
To me, Jirix is clearly lying about the whole thing, or Redcloak lied to him and he tells "the truth". There is some deception somewhere, though not necessarly by the narrator himself. (Redcloak's comment makes it obvious, at least to me.)
The same thing might be said of Soon's story. A paladin may not lie, or so does O-chul's experience seems to imply, but a paladin may well be deceived, and about many things, we've only received second-hand explanations (and Soon himself only received second-hand information about the rifts : the Gods' story certainly cannot be know first hand by anyone, even elven Lirian.). So far, our best view of the rift and what may be inside has been given by Blackwing, and he (she/it?) revealed us clearly what he (she/it?) saw : a planet. And he clearly saw it. V was intensely foreshadowing our current doubts about Soon's story :
Vaarsuvius, to Blackwing : Perhaps we do not know everything we ought to regarding the tast which we are undertaking.
hamishspence
2010-02-22, 09:05 AM
Is it really plausible that Jirix would lie to Redcloak as well as everyone else, in this kind of situation?
Though he might have left something else out, as well as The Dark One's warning to Redcloak.
Optimystik
2010-02-22, 09:10 AM
Vaarsuvius, to Blackwing : Perhaps we do not know everything we ought to regarding the tast which we are undertaking.
That statement applies to everyone in the strip, including the IFCC and Xykon.
Yiuel
2010-02-22, 08:21 PM
That statement applies to everyone in the strip, including the IFCC and Xykon.
Indeed. But also to... us :smallbiggrin:
Elfich
2010-02-24, 11:00 PM
My read on it is this:
Jirix and Red Cloak are telling a sanitized version of the truth to the population. Red Cloak and Jirix agreed on what the "truth" would be ahead of time. It is no secret that the top of Xykon's tower was blown off. Red Cloak and Jirix are just repackaging the events of episodes 650-600 to fit their needs.
The goblins do not know about team Peregrine at this time. The author has been good about showing important things on screen.
multilis
2010-03-01, 02:48 PM
What can be trusted?
The Giant may be under a suggestion spell to distort the truth even in normal OOTS strips. Perhaps Nale is really a good guy and Roy is a fiend pawn.
Nale - A reluctant super-hero, Nale originally was a lab assistant to an evil warlock. Disgusted by the atrocities he saw, he rescued Sabine and fell in love with her, and the two have worked together as Celestial secret agents ever since. Nale is the brains behind the heroic "Linear Guild"...
Sabine - A half-elf princess forcibly turned into a succubus, Sabine has used her new life to seduce evil villains while she desperately searches for a way to return...
Thog - The poster child for "Tall dark and handsome", Thog spends his days running a puppy orphanage, while at night he fights crime with whatever weapons he can improvise...
Big Hungry Joe
2010-03-04, 05:09 PM
I don't think the "wizards" line is a mistake -- both he and Redcloak seem to assume that there's an entire elven plot behind V's attack, and Redcloak compares it to a bunch of druids attacking them at one point. Given the vast change in V's appearance (and powers) at the time it's not surprising they don't recognize him from earlier OoTS encounters and rather assume he's part of something larger. Sort of like someone saying they were attacked by "the British" after they have a fight with James Bond. Since Bond is an agent of MI6, it's fair to equate his individual acts to the organization and ah you get my point.
At the same time, it wouldn't surprise me if there are ambiguities or omissions from crayon strips, simply because they're usually hand-me-down stories or old memories. For example, I think it would be a lot of fun if the Snarl is no longer just the mindless killing machine it's made out to be.
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