Why are the called "Gates?

[Jay R]

If you are building something to be always closed, you build a wall or a fence or a barrier. You only build a gate if you intend to open it occasionally. And nobody intended to open these.

So I guess my question boils down to this:

Gate? What gate?

[WalkingTarget]

My guess: because the original one (back in comic 96, appropriately titled "Gate? What Gate? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0096.html)") actually had a gate (by which I mean the doors) as part of the design. After that it was probably just easier to continue to use "gate" as the general term for the snarl-containment constructs.

[NerdyKris]

I'm positive he's responded to an identical question before, and the answer was "Because gate sounds better than wall". You're covering a doorway, you build a door. Even if it's a locked door that isn't supposed to open.

So basically, semantics.

[RMS Oceanic]

Consider the spell Gate (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0833.html), which is a passageway to another plane deliberately opened. By that logic, these Gates also control a passageway to another plane, only the passageway was opened accidentally.

[NerdyKris]

Here we go. This isn't the exact quote, but it explains what parts are what:


The gem reinforces the Gate; the gem is NOT the Gate, and the Gate is not the seal, and the seal is not the rift. The gem is the deadbolt, not the lock, or the door, or the doorway. The "door" is a complex spell that is not actually visible but is what Dorukan and Lirian are casting in the first panel of the second page of #276. The "lock" is the Gate, a tiny magical object that later had a throne crafted around it; it's about the size of a raisin in the case of Azure City. The "doorway" is the rift itself, and it is not really inside the gemstone, it's just that the gem (and Gate) are translucent and we can see through it (because it's a visual medium and it made it easier to understand). The gemstone is an enchanted object that further seals and reinforces the Gate; thus, the "deadbolt."

When Soon hands over the Sapphire to Shojo's father, he is essentially giving the last piece of the Gate's security system over so that it might be put into place. Think of the Sapphire as an additional seal that Soon and his followers came up with. The Sapphire does not NEED to be in the same place as the Gate in order to seal it, because it's magic, but moving it around is risky. There's a chance that it will just fail and the Gate will swing open. Before the panel shown, Soon likely kept it somewhere else safe, but chose as he was dying to consolidate the protections (because that's where he was going to be hanging out as a ghost-martyr). I guess the magic might have been stronger being in the same spot as the Gate, too.

So, no, the Gate or the rift could not have been physically moved. The Sapphire could be moved, and Xykon would have been obligated to track it down and undo its magic before he could perform his ritual, but there would be a risk in doing so, and it wouldn't really have stopped Xykon from sieging the city at that point (because he still would have needed the immovable Gate).

The use of Redcloak's magic ritual to shift the Gate into another plane is entirely unrelated, and in fact can only shift a Gate to another plane—not to another place in THIS plane. Think of it like moving a Bag of Holding from the Prime to an Outer Plane: you've moved the entranceway to an extradimensional space, but opening it still leads to the same interior.

Hopefully, that clears the issue up.

[veti]

I'm positive he's responded to an identical question before, and the answer was "Because gate sounds better than wall". You're covering a doorway, you build a door. Even if it's a locked door that isn't supposed to open.

So basically, semantics.

Another way of looking at it is:

"Reality" is the wall. There are holes in the wall, called "rifts".

Ideally, you'd want to seal the rifts by building more wall, with closely fitted stones or bricks and mortar. But that is very difficult - it may only be possible for the gods, and even they may be unable to do it without knocking down substantial portions of perfectly good wall to start over.

So as a second choice, you build a gate across the gap. Then put a huge deadbolt and padlock on it, and do your very best to make sure it never gets opened. That seems to match what we see.

[Gift Jeraff]

More accurate terms would've been corks (for the initial sealing spell Liriran and Dorukan cast) or adhesives (to secure the corks).

[NerdyKris]

More accurate terms would've been corks (for the initial sealing spell Liriran and Dorukan cast) or adhesives (to secure the corks).

That would just sound silly. A group of heroes on a quest to protect the 5 corks? Sometimes you have to go with what sounds more impressive.

[Fale]

In Shari's(sp?, The Order of the Scribble's halfling) diary, she refers to them as "magical holes" IIRC.

[Reddish Mage]

That would just sound silly. A group of heroes on a quest to protect the 5 corks? Sometimes you have to go with what sounds more impressive.

Ah but the quest for the 5 corks would not have the cliche factor.

[Mollez]

In Shari's(sp?, The Order of the Scribble's halfling) diary, she refers to them as "magical holes" IIRC.

Serini Toormuck (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0195.html). :smallwink:

[Fale]

Serini Toormuck (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0195.html). :smallwink:
Thanks. With that, I see that she actually called them "magical doors".