Kaurne
2013-04-12, 11:18 AM
In this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=14842223#post14842223) post, The Giant says that:
If someone wants to make the argument that the Order hasn't had enough character growth to beat Xykon, that would be a wholly different conversation.
So? What character growth do the Order of the Stick need? Here are my thoughts.
Roy: Roy has so far seen his goals and views on those goals transform quite drastically. Initially, the OotS were simply a means for him to fulfil the Blood Oath, which was his reason for fighting Xykon; the only one he could be said to actually like and respect was probably Durkon. Over time, he has changed so that now, he's stopping Xykon because the guy is a threat to the whole world, not because of the Blood Oath. He's also become more appreciative of the Order as a team.
However, I think Roy still sees it as his job to stop Xykon, with the rest of the team helping. Roy needs to come to understand that it will be the entire group stopping Xykon; he might be the leader of the team but he's still only a part of the whole, and its that unified whole that will stop Xykon.
In addition, Roy needs to change his attitude towards Elan. He has, over time, come to trust Haley to act in the interests of the team rather than her own interest. While previously she was only nominally second-in-command, now she definitely is. He now needs to come to trust that Elan, within his own area, is just as useful to the team as other members. Roy still regards him as an amusing hanger-on who helps the team more through being lucky than through skill. And yes, Elan is lucky; but he's also a decent fighter (especially with Dashing Swordsman), a capable spellcaster, and can use his knowledge of tropes and cliches to great effect. Roy needs to acknowledge all of this.
I think this will start coming soon. Elan is the only spellcaster that the team has left. If they need healing, he's going to be the one to do it. Perhaps his skill with illusions will enable the team to survive their next battle. I certainly expect him to once again beat his brother in a fight, but he needs to do more than that; he needs to be both integral to the teams short term success in the coming fight and to their strategic success in preventing either Tarquin or Xykon seizing the gate. This, in turn, will make Roy start to appreciate him better.
Durkon: I'm not going to comment on Durkon, because too much of it depends on the exact circumstances of the finale to this arc. I personally think Malack is going to get killed and that Durkon will be an independent vampire, but his exact alignment, whether he immediately rejoins the order or follows them to the Dwarven homelands... these things make predictions impossible.
I will say that I think that Durkon does need SOME character growth before the final battle, where he will presumably be on the side of the Order. What that is, I don't know.
Haley: I'm not really sure what character growth haley needs. She's had a lot, so far, so maybe she doesn't need much more. I think what remains of it needs to be to do with her father, but I really don't see how she can change more. Perhaps she has to convince him that Elan is a good person, but I don't see how that changes her too much. To be honest, I think that Haley is almost done in terms of character growth.
Vaarsuvius: V is an interesting one. Originally True Neutral, [s]he has taken a strong turn towards Evil recently. The remorse [s]he is showing over this will certainly lead to character growth. Recently she has realised that the flashiest, most powerful solution is not the best. Now I think [s]he's going to understand that actions have consequences, but we can also deal with those consequences. Essentially, V is at the point where [s]he may well be, strictly speaking, 'Evil' now, but [s]he's also the closest [s]he's ever been to becoming truly Good.
I cetainly think [s]he'll learn, possibly in the next few strips, that [s]he cannot simply allow remorse and self-pity to overcome him/her; [s]he needs to go out an act to prevent more bad things happening. Shortly after, she'll realise that she could, possibly, atone for what she has done; spend her life helping out the families of those she killed and, if Familicide allows ressurections, paying for said ressurections.
I can see this going hand in hand with V become an even more versatile and strategic comabatant, but we've already seen most of that development, as we have seen him/her learn that being the most powerful member of the team doesn't make the rest of the team beneath him/her or less useful. That development is ongoing, almost finished, and will take a backseat to other developments.
Elan: Elan, simply put, needs to learn to stand up to Roy more. He respects and likes Roy; in fact, he considers him a brother. But this view means he simply accepts Roy not trusting him to be a contributing member of the team. Elan needs to both prove he can contribute to Roy and then demand that Roy use him to his fullest potential.
Elan also has to deal with his father. This, I think, will be a plot development more than a character one; but it will also include Elan rejecting his familial ties in favour of his ties to the Order, his surrogate family.
Belkar: Belkar is simple; he needs to die. He is doomed to die anyway, but he needs to die for the order to succeed. Despite his 'faking character growth' seemingly becoming real, the simple fact is that Belkar is far too evil (not the alignment kind) to be a proper part of the Order as it faces Xykon for the final time. This leads on to...
The Order: The Order needs to be a close knit team of memebers devoted to the task at hand. On one level, this means wrapping up Haley's and Elan's subplots with their fathers so that they can enter the final battle not worried about other things. On another level, this means they need to remove any internal conflict. This is why Belkar needs to go; him being a foil might be good comedy and all, but its preventing the group from fully uniting. Durkon's whole vamnpirism thing needs to be worked out one way or another, but like I said that's still up in the air.
The Order will have to come to terms that they are the closest thing each of them have to a family. Roy, while he does love his sister, isn't really connected to her and the rest of his family has passed n (although he does have his girlfriend Celia). Haley is now, even if not in his mind, estranged from Ian, and while she might make decisions for his good, and might even convince him that Elan is a good man, she has closer ties to the Order than to him.
Elan needs to deal with his concern over fighting both Nale and Tarquin, which will likely happen as one or both of them is defeated by the end of the book. Vaarsuvius has already accepted Inkyrius taking the children; now [s]he must accept the Order as another family. Durkon, again, I'm not sure about, although it may be that even if he becomes a Good vampire (can those even exist?) he will be rejected by his family in his homelands.
The Order, essentially, needs to become far more close-knit than it currently is to achieve victory. The current trials they are facing will probably be the catalyst that prompt this development, leading to their eventual success.
That's just my thoughts. Anyone else got anything they wish to refute/discuss/suggest?
If someone wants to make the argument that the Order hasn't had enough character growth to beat Xykon, that would be a wholly different conversation.
So? What character growth do the Order of the Stick need? Here are my thoughts.
Roy: Roy has so far seen his goals and views on those goals transform quite drastically. Initially, the OotS were simply a means for him to fulfil the Blood Oath, which was his reason for fighting Xykon; the only one he could be said to actually like and respect was probably Durkon. Over time, he has changed so that now, he's stopping Xykon because the guy is a threat to the whole world, not because of the Blood Oath. He's also become more appreciative of the Order as a team.
However, I think Roy still sees it as his job to stop Xykon, with the rest of the team helping. Roy needs to come to understand that it will be the entire group stopping Xykon; he might be the leader of the team but he's still only a part of the whole, and its that unified whole that will stop Xykon.
In addition, Roy needs to change his attitude towards Elan. He has, over time, come to trust Haley to act in the interests of the team rather than her own interest. While previously she was only nominally second-in-command, now she definitely is. He now needs to come to trust that Elan, within his own area, is just as useful to the team as other members. Roy still regards him as an amusing hanger-on who helps the team more through being lucky than through skill. And yes, Elan is lucky; but he's also a decent fighter (especially with Dashing Swordsman), a capable spellcaster, and can use his knowledge of tropes and cliches to great effect. Roy needs to acknowledge all of this.
I think this will start coming soon. Elan is the only spellcaster that the team has left. If they need healing, he's going to be the one to do it. Perhaps his skill with illusions will enable the team to survive their next battle. I certainly expect him to once again beat his brother in a fight, but he needs to do more than that; he needs to be both integral to the teams short term success in the coming fight and to their strategic success in preventing either Tarquin or Xykon seizing the gate. This, in turn, will make Roy start to appreciate him better.
Durkon: I'm not going to comment on Durkon, because too much of it depends on the exact circumstances of the finale to this arc. I personally think Malack is going to get killed and that Durkon will be an independent vampire, but his exact alignment, whether he immediately rejoins the order or follows them to the Dwarven homelands... these things make predictions impossible.
I will say that I think that Durkon does need SOME character growth before the final battle, where he will presumably be on the side of the Order. What that is, I don't know.
Haley: I'm not really sure what character growth haley needs. She's had a lot, so far, so maybe she doesn't need much more. I think what remains of it needs to be to do with her father, but I really don't see how she can change more. Perhaps she has to convince him that Elan is a good person, but I don't see how that changes her too much. To be honest, I think that Haley is almost done in terms of character growth.
Vaarsuvius: V is an interesting one. Originally True Neutral, [s]he has taken a strong turn towards Evil recently. The remorse [s]he is showing over this will certainly lead to character growth. Recently she has realised that the flashiest, most powerful solution is not the best. Now I think [s]he's going to understand that actions have consequences, but we can also deal with those consequences. Essentially, V is at the point where [s]he may well be, strictly speaking, 'Evil' now, but [s]he's also the closest [s]he's ever been to becoming truly Good.
I cetainly think [s]he'll learn, possibly in the next few strips, that [s]he cannot simply allow remorse and self-pity to overcome him/her; [s]he needs to go out an act to prevent more bad things happening. Shortly after, she'll realise that she could, possibly, atone for what she has done; spend her life helping out the families of those she killed and, if Familicide allows ressurections, paying for said ressurections.
I can see this going hand in hand with V become an even more versatile and strategic comabatant, but we've already seen most of that development, as we have seen him/her learn that being the most powerful member of the team doesn't make the rest of the team beneath him/her or less useful. That development is ongoing, almost finished, and will take a backseat to other developments.
Elan: Elan, simply put, needs to learn to stand up to Roy more. He respects and likes Roy; in fact, he considers him a brother. But this view means he simply accepts Roy not trusting him to be a contributing member of the team. Elan needs to both prove he can contribute to Roy and then demand that Roy use him to his fullest potential.
Elan also has to deal with his father. This, I think, will be a plot development more than a character one; but it will also include Elan rejecting his familial ties in favour of his ties to the Order, his surrogate family.
Belkar: Belkar is simple; he needs to die. He is doomed to die anyway, but he needs to die for the order to succeed. Despite his 'faking character growth' seemingly becoming real, the simple fact is that Belkar is far too evil (not the alignment kind) to be a proper part of the Order as it faces Xykon for the final time. This leads on to...
The Order: The Order needs to be a close knit team of memebers devoted to the task at hand. On one level, this means wrapping up Haley's and Elan's subplots with their fathers so that they can enter the final battle not worried about other things. On another level, this means they need to remove any internal conflict. This is why Belkar needs to go; him being a foil might be good comedy and all, but its preventing the group from fully uniting. Durkon's whole vamnpirism thing needs to be worked out one way or another, but like I said that's still up in the air.
The Order will have to come to terms that they are the closest thing each of them have to a family. Roy, while he does love his sister, isn't really connected to her and the rest of his family has passed n (although he does have his girlfriend Celia). Haley is now, even if not in his mind, estranged from Ian, and while she might make decisions for his good, and might even convince him that Elan is a good man, she has closer ties to the Order than to him.
Elan needs to deal with his concern over fighting both Nale and Tarquin, which will likely happen as one or both of them is defeated by the end of the book. Vaarsuvius has already accepted Inkyrius taking the children; now [s]he must accept the Order as another family. Durkon, again, I'm not sure about, although it may be that even if he becomes a Good vampire (can those even exist?) he will be rejected by his family in his homelands.
The Order, essentially, needs to become far more close-knit than it currently is to achieve victory. The current trials they are facing will probably be the catalyst that prompt this development, leading to their eventual success.
That's just my thoughts. Anyone else got anything they wish to refute/discuss/suggest?