If you can't take the squick...

[Joxer t' Mighty]

...stay out of the playground.

No, don't really go, that was just too poetic to pass up.

Still, am I really reading posts by folks saying Implosion was pushing the PG-13 rating? Seriously? They look like Picasso paintings.

We have creatures exploding out of the bodies of others (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0638.html), mountains of bloody, gutted carcasses (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html), hanging 'pigs' (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0361.html), and friends/comrades destroying each other with happy grins and committing suicide after discovering what they did (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0448.html).

Not even to mention the salsa (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0358.html).


I mean, c'mon. How is that Implosion scribble-scrabble even on the radar?

[martianmister]

Death is cheap :smalleek: *runs*

[Beowulf DW]

I think it's more the implication of feeling all of one's internal organs crushing themselves, that's making people sick, rather than the display of that effect.

[CoffeeIncluded]

I think it's more the implication of feeling all of one's internal organs crushing themselves, that's making people sick, rather than the display of that effect.

Basically. It looks so much messier than the other deaths.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Simply saying the word 'Implosion' is enough to make some sick and challenge the rating? I 'm not buying that either.

Let's say that [the mental image of a word] isn't ludicrous to get squicked over and point out other visuals of equal or greater value:
Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion
Bathing in their blood with a loofah
Listening to Celine Deon.


Basically. It looks so much messier than the other deaths.
How? It doesn't show anything. There are dozens of much bloodier panels throughout the comic. The polymorph spell was messier looking by far.

[rewinn]

Still, am I really reading posts by folks saying Implosion was pushing the PG-13 rating? Seriously? They look like Picasso paintings.
...I mean, c'mon. How is that Implosion scribble-scrabble even on the radar?
While I basically agree with you, there is an emotional component to the implosion as shown. I'm not saying it's inappropriate, but since you asked, I think the greater emotional reaction is because we see bodies being contorted while still conscious; the Commander has time to gasp out something.

This is different from the bloody work that happens after the eyes have been x'd in that dead persons feel no pain, and different from the death-by-exploding-dragon in that the latter was almost instantaneous.

Again, I'm not saying that this is inappropriate in a work of heroic fantasy, featuring the slaughter of thousands, the whipping of a zebraman and so forth; I'm just trying to explain why the emotional reaction is different. And I would guess not unintended; The Giant seems to have a pretty good grasp on what evokes a reaction.

To my mind, the very horribleness of the implosion is helpful in reasserting RC's evilness; otherwise, it is too easy to transmute sympathy for his championing of the goblinoids into sympathy for his monstrousness.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Implosion is just as instantaneous. He wasn't even in pain in that panel, just like, 'Whoa, what is going... crshhh'

My first reaction was awwweesoome! I didn't feel any real horror from it.

Nothing like the bouncy ball with a symbol of insanity. That gave me the heebie jeebies. It was a hundred times more psychologically affecting. Even if you don't agree that it was worse, but equal, still, not being PG-13?

There has just been so much worse in almost every aspect in this comic, psychologically and artistically.

Edit: In fact, nailing escaped slaves to logs after crushing hopes of freedom and setting them alight with oil and torches to become human bonfires. You have to admit that's even more horrific. Didn't hear any complaints about it.

[Ancalagon]

I like how the Implosion likes a 3rd dimension was added and then stuff suddenly warps into that 3d dimension in unhealthy ways.

[The Pilgrim]

The fact that this very thread exists, means that the Giant has done his work well. :smallamused:

[Joxer t' Mighty]

The fact that this very thread exists, means that the Giant has done his work well. :smallamused:
I agree, he did, but I disagree that said skill has anything to do with this thread. Quite the opposite. I'm wondering why people are reacting to something so much less than has been done in the past.

A swallowing a camel but straining on a gnat kinda conundrum.

[pendell]

...stay out of the playground.

No, don't really go, that was just too poetic to pass up.

Still, am I really reading posts by folks saying Implosion was pushing the PG-13 rating? Seriously? They look like Picasso paintings.

We have creatures exploding out of the bodies of others (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0638.html), mountains of bloody, gutted carcasses (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html), hanging 'pigs' (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0361.html), and friends/comrades destroying each other with happy grins and committing suicide after discovering what they did (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0448.html).

Not even to mention the salsa (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0358.html).


I mean, c'mon. How is that Implosion scribble-scrabble even on the radar?

I am the person who posted that it was pushing the PG-13 rating originally. I stand by my statement. As with pornography, this isn't the sort of thing you can easily quantify by logical standards but respond to on an intuitive level.

If I had to quantify it logically, I would say because it spent two whole panels focused on the person as it apparently happens in slow motion. That and the visuals is what made it gross.

In the case of 'chunky salsa' it happened off panel. In most of what you mentioned, it was an incidental of the scene and not the major focus. Or in the case of 'sexy shoeless god of war' , I didn't believe the violence was gratuitous because it was part and parcel of a close-in fight with melee weapons.

In regards to spiked tentacles -- the squick happened *off panel*. It was implied. It left something to the imagination. All I saw on-panel was a bunch of tentacles, a creature saying 'wait, what?' , and the next panel shows characters with sick faces. How could that be a gratuitous visual?

ETA: Another component is that the elf looks more like a human being than, say, the chimera or the kobold did. Seeing a human being ripped to pieces is far more upsetting than seeing the same thing happen to an octopus. That's why a game like Kingdom Hearts is "E" for everyone while Metal Gear Solid is "M" for mature.

This is my opinion. I wrote it and stand by it. But that's all it is .. my opinion, not objective fact. You can agree or disagree at your pleasure. On this board, I'm free to express my opinion, and you're free to disagree :).


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

* It looks gross.
Grosser than my examples? Grosser than ripping yourself out of a creature's bowels in flying chunks of blood and flesh?

* Psychologically disturbing.
More disturbing than being burned to death slowly? More disturbing than a spell that rapes you to death? More disturbing than suicide after being forced to murder your friends?


I'm not saying that the most recent comic might not squick folks out, nor that it might not be disturbing to some, but that such an opinion isn't consistent unless you find a goodly portion of OotS to also be too strong for a PG13 rating. The comic is full of masterfully done scenes of mental, physical and spiritual violence and torture, both obvious and implied, to humanoids and non-humanoids alike.

Btw, you are not the only one to have made the statement that it's too strong of a scene, so it was not focused on you.

[pendell]

Having thought about this a bit more, I think I'll try again to quantify my viewpoints on what does and does not 'cross the line'.

Again, this is solely my opinion, worth every cent I pay for it. It is not intended to change anyone's existing opinions but to inform.

To my mind, 'crossing the line' with violence requires four things:

1) It must involve a human or semi-human character.

Psychologically, I respond differently to the site of a human being, say, chainsawed in two than I do an octopus or a treant or a dragon. This is because I can much more easily identify with a humanlike creature. The more I identify with the subject of violence, the less happy I am with it.

2) It must be explicit.
I.e. leaving nothing to the imagination. "Spiked tentacles' was almost entirely off-panel and suggested, so it is not explicit.

3) It must be gratuitous.
"gratuitous" in the sense of "unnecessary". If a person sticks a sword into a goblin and the goblin gets Xs in his eyes, blood comes out, that's not gratuitous. In a swordfight, it's what you'd expect.

On the other hand, if it spends four panels as the person chops up the goblin, with no camera cutaway and the goblin screaming and fountains of blood everywhere, then it's gratuitous.

4) It must be the main focus of the scene.
A person being chopped in two in a corner of the panel is not the main focus and isn't really disturbing because it is not what the eye is drawn to. For example, I wasn't disturbed the tableau when Redcloak first appeared in this sequence because the focus is on him.

Bottom line: If you have to play "where's waldo" to find a disturbing image, it's not that disturbing.

Putting it front row center as the main focus of attention, especially for multiple panels? THEN it is the main focus.

===========

Putting these things together, I would say that the implosion of the commander fits all of the defined characteristics except 3: Gratuitousness. Redcloak IS using implosion, so it is necessary for the artist to show it happening up close *once* to let us know what is happening. Otherwise it's cheating.

Once you've demonstrated it once, it can then be safely moved to the panel background or even off panel altogether, as happened in the strip.

So, on afterthought, I can say that the implosion strip was necessary and therefore not gratuitous violence.

Of course, if the giant took it upon himself to show each and every one of the resistance members being ripped to shreds, in living color, front row center, for panel after panel, then this would be violence porn and not a comic strip. But the giant has no history of doing that and he didn't do it here.

So I argue that the panel was not over the edge but, based on the criteria I have outlined, was nonetheless close enough to the edge to be personally disturbing to me.

These are my personal criteria subject to change if new information is received. I'm not telling you this to persuade you that my criteria are *right*, only to inform you so that you can have an answer to the question posed at thread beginning.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[FatJose]

I'm not saying that the most recent comic might not squick folks out, nor that it might not be disturbing to some, but that such an opinion isn't consistent unless you find a goodly portion of OotS to also be too strong for a PG13 rating. The comic is full of masterfully done scenes of mental, physical and spiritual violence and torture, both obvious and implied, to humanoids and non-humanoids alike.

I think many people have felt that this comic pushes past PG-13 at times. I base this mainly on the huge feeling of Deja Vu coming from this thread. I think it's because people actually think of what is being shown in the comic. Their imagination is what causes it. Just like how people reading this comic have an internal idea of what they think the characters look like, even though they all have identical heads with color swaps, seeing the bloody end of characters make them think of just what that would actually look like.

Still. They're stick-figures. Graphic Violence has to be...graphic. Stick Figures are not. Unless, a stick figure explodes into badly Photoshopped medical pictures of a cancerous colon, it isn't really pushing anything. I've seen worse stick figures in an elementary school textbook.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Nope, still can't see the question answered.

I gave examples of graphic, humanoid-related scenes that surpass a scribble, even if your imagination fills in the scribble.

If it makes you feel better, think of it as a black hole in his gut. I doubt the guy felt anything. Unlike the humanoid that killed her family and then committed suicide out of regret, in full panel, surrounded by her loved ones.

Said person is then brought back as a ghost only to be destroyed by the one who forced her to kill shortly before her entire city is taken over.

That is a real, in your face, unapologetic heart clencher that far surpasses a surprised look and a jumble as a guy get crunched. Which is no different than being stepped on by a big monster.

[Paseo H]

Nope, still can't see the question answered.

I gave examples of graphic, humanoid-related scenes that surpass a scribble, even if your imagination fills in the scribble.

If it makes you feel better, think of it as a black hole in his gut. I doubt the guy felt anything. Unlike the humanoid that killed her family and then committed suicide out of regret, in full panel, surrounded by her loved ones.

Said person is then brought back as a ghost only to be destroyed by the one who forced her to kill shortly before her entire city is taken over.

That is a real, in your face, unapologetic heart clencher that far surpasses a surprised look and a jumble as a guy get crunched. Which is no different than being stepped on by a big monster.

Well said.

Yeah, that moment really brought home just how vile Xykon is. It was his "Elan in lights" moment, one could say.

[rewinn]

This may be an issue that cannot be resolved, merely described.

If the question is "WHY DO YOU FEEL THAT WAY?" you have to accept first that people feel that way; feelings preceed reason - that's why they're feelings. We can then ponder reasons why our glands work the way they do, but it's not going to be helpful to tell our glands that they are wrong. It don't work that way.

Certainly T's burning alive of prisoners was more horrible, in an objective sense, because there were more suffering people, it lasted longer, and it was more gratuitous (...Commander Jerkelf was ripped apart horribly, but it was in battle, not for entertainment.) However, the burning was depicted merely as points of light; we not only could not see the suffering, it was T's intent that no-one could see the suffering - he's so evil that he used living people even when the exact same visual effect would occur with corpses or with wooden pyres. The emotional effect is very different because it's arrived at not visually but through intellectually processing the text.

The Madball (symbol of insanity) scene was indeed poignant and disturbing. If it is asked why it is not as visually upsetting as the ripping apart, the first thing to note is that for many people, it just wasn't. *Why* it wasn't may be an interesting discussion, and is probably related to the relatively clean deaths (neat cuts) the Guard inflicted on each other. Remember the very first panel of OOTS? goblins are being chopped up but we don't feel sympathy for them because the artwork is aimed at making us feel something entirely different.

Occasional slashscenes like this one, and like Haley-and-Elan's sex scenes, remind us that OOTS is adult literature. Like Huckleberry Finn, it may be read by children (...and if The Giant's lucky, maybe it'll get banned somewhere!), but they won't get some of it until they're older, and that's just as well. I think most kids would go "Euw! Gross!" at the implosion and move on, having seen a lot worse elsewhere, but there's no denying that it has a different impact than some other deaths. Indeed it would be of greater concern if we felt nothing at the scene.

[Paseo H]

Well, some people hate paladins. And elves, for that matter. Honestly, it was the seppuku at the end that really capped it off, if it weren't for that I would have found it amusing and badass, rather than horrifying and badass.

As for me, I have no real feeling about the implosion, it's just "Oh cool, Redcloak is getting serious now."

[Castamir]

Listening to Celine Deon.
Now you've crossed the line :smallamused:

[FujinAkari]

I don't really understand it either, I found it awesome and I even like the elves. What I found pushed the rating level is all the jerks posting about how the only good elf was a dead elf... that is hate speech and isn't appropriate in a PG-13 environment! :P

[Sunken Valley]

The real question is, how would this translate if OOTS ever made the big screen. If it ever did it would likely be live action. Would this mean that the Order of the Stick movie would hit R?

[Kish]

OotS is not going to make the big screen.

If it did, considering Rich deliberately draws stick figures because he thinks it fits the story best, I'd say it's a safe bet that Rich would insist on the movie not being live action, but animated. Probably animated stick figures.

Even so, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this very-hypothetical movie was rated R right out of the gate.

[Velaryon]

This sort of reminds me of the reaction to Comic #780 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0780.html), with the intestines and all that. I can understand that a little more than I can with the Implosion spell. But as has been said several times in this thread already, reactions to this sort of thing are entirely subjective and emotionally-based, which means not necessarily rational.


I don't really understand it either, I found it awesome and I even like the elves. What I found pushed the rating level is all the jerks posting about how the only good elf was a dead elf... that is hate speech and isn't appropriate in a PG-13 environment! :P

Then how do you feel about the quote to which they are referring from #707 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0707.html)? Was that over the PG-13 line as well?

[Ancalagon]

I think this stick-figure violence is harmless. Ok, ok, with 780 mostly harmless.

The implosion is nasty if you think about it but the display itself is more comic-like than anything else and not worse than rolling and piked heads or other stuff we have seen.

[theinsulabot]

for those saying its worse because it was on screen, how is this possibly worse then Mr. scruffy disemboweling that one gladiator?




A: its not.

[DrBurr]

All the complaints are probably rooted in fact that this happened to the hero characters in Azure city, in all the previous examples this violence all happened to nameless mooks or villains, people you aren't suppose to get attached to too and are either their to fill the scene or help you root for the hero. Team Peregrine we're the heroic characters though and I'm sure some people we're attached to them even though they lacked names and we're only in a handful of strips, so when seeing one of the characters they identify with implode they react more then seeing the gladiator get disemboweled.

This is all just my opinion though so feel free to disagree

[ti'esar]

Personally, I find the comparisons that are being made to the infamous "bouncing ball" strip to be very apt - that strip was the one that finally moved Xykon from an amusing quasi-parody of a villain to the real deal. He remained funny afterwards, but there was no longer any doubt that he was the Bad Guy. Similarly, this strip seems to be establishing Redcloak for once and for all as a serious threat in his own right. His actions are nothing as evil as Xykon's bouncing ball trick, but they are quite visceral, and that's the point.

[Harr]

Edit: In fact, nailing escaped slaves to logs after crushing hopes of freedom and setting them alight with oil and torches to become human bonfires. You have to admit that's even more horrific. Didn't hear any complaints about it.

...........bbaaaahhhahahahahahahahahahahhh :smallbiggrin:

Must not have been on the forums at all that day then.. or the rest of that week.

[CrimsonAngel]

They were some of my favorite characters and I was only upset for a moment...

I don't want to say your feelings are irrelevant, but they really are just stick figure characters in a comic where we've seen countless others get killed.

And why isn't anybody upset over the guy who is ripped in half at the end of the comic?

[Anarion]

I find it a bit hard to believe that we need to come up with a logical explanation for an emotional reaction. Grossing somebody out could be related to anything from a consistent type of harm that bothers someone to a particular coloration and shape that an individual finds especially evocative.

This is a stick figure comic, sure, but it has well-developed and interesting characters. When you do harm to those characters, particularly in a way that is well-described and evocative, the human mind is fairly good at figuring out the rest.

I'd personally put the implosion in the top 5 grossest strips for the comic and I did find it a bit disgusting, although that feeling only lasted for 2-3 seconds when I first saw the strip.

[Zeitgeist]

In regards to spiked tentacles -- the squick happened *off panel*. It was implied. It left something to the imagination.

It's a stick figure comic. Everything, including implosion, leaves it up to imagination. Yes, we did "see" the implosion, but all we saw was a jumble of sticks and colors. The actual details of implosion are left to our imagination.

Just like the salsa. And tentacles. While he didn't attempt to show them, it still requires just as much imagination to think about how gruesome it would be.

Maybe you're just disturbed by the idea of someone being imploded, which is fine, but it's a spell, so it's naturally going to get used.

[Raistlin82]

So... this is a thread about fighting over which scene was more gross?

Nobody ever claimed it's THE WORST, CREEPIEST SCENE EVER. It just happened to hurt somebody's sensibility. If it doesn't work for you, well... lucky you.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Nope, still can't see the question answered.

I gave examples of graphic, humanoid-related scenes that surpass a scribble, even if your imagination fills in the scribble.

If it makes you feel better, think of it as a black hole in his gut. I doubt the guy felt anything. Unlike the humanoid that killed her family and then committed suicide out of regret, in full panel, surrounded by her loved ones.

Said person is then brought back as a ghost only to be destroyed by the one who forced her to kill shortly before her entire city is taken over.

That is a real, in your face, unapologetic heart clencher that far surpasses a surprised look and a jumble as a guy get crunched. Which is no different than being stepped on by a big monster.

Very well said. And I agree with you.


The real question is, how would this translate if OOTS ever made the big screen. If it ever did it would likely be live action. Would this mean that the Order of the Stick movie would hit R?

If it did become a live action film - it would have hit R long ago, in terms of violence.