Yet another Familicide question

[Sunken Valley]

Small little question about the most evil spell ever. The Giant said anyone who directly had kids with a draketooth was killed in the 2nd step. So Tarquin if he had a kid with his 9th wife would be safe.

However 843 raises questions (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0843.html). in one panel, a turbaned king and his family die. Did they all do a draketooth or are they killed by association with a child from another family. Bigger example is the family at the table. some of them are only connected by marriage and if Tarquin can be safe, some of them should be as well. Unless they all did a drake tooth.

Anyone have an explanation?

[Gift Jeraff]

Turban Guy's daughter and son are killed. Not sure about the table family, but we know nothing about these people. Maybe they're running a scheme similar to the Draketooths. Maybe it's a blood family reunion.

[RMS Oceanic]

I assumed the person in the Turban family who affiliated with a Draketooth would be a junior member of the family. Step two of Familicide essentially tracks the oldest living ancestor of someone killed by step one and kills everyone they are responsible for creating. In this case the Turbanite who conceived a Draketooth allows the spell to trace up to their Father or Grandfather and thus kill their parents, siblings, children, nephews and nieces. Does that make sense?

[Zerter]

I am going to go with ... magic!

[Kish]

some of them are only connected by marriage
This is an assumption. Assuming you mean the group of people in the third-from-the-left upper panel...I think a better one would be "the grey-bearded one is the father of all the others," and still better would be, "Clearly all the people in that panel are blood relatives but we should make no assumptions about exactly how they are."

[137beth]

Then the assumptions you made about their relations to the Draketeeth are wrong. All humans killed by the familicide were either blood relatives of a Draketooth, or a blood relative of a blood relative of a Draketooth. If you saw a bunch of people killed by familicide, they all fall into one of those two groups.

[Mordae]

They don't have to be terribly closely related to a Draketooth, either. Consider that they just need a drop of black dragon blood from the ABD's line, and the familicide showed lots of half-dragons. The Draketooths are a small part of a big tree; they just happen to be a (mostly) human part that we (for plot reasons) care about.

[Grey Watcher]

Admittedly it's just being overly concerned with details, but I always took the route the spell takes through the panel to be indicative of the connections the spell uses. So it hits King Turban first (who at some point was seduced by a Draketooth, I assume a long time ago when he was just Prince Turban) and, just as Vaarsuvius states that a hypothetical child of Penelope and Tarquin would've been killed, King Turban's own non-Draketooth children (and grandchildren, if any) also die. (I had always assumed that the head barely visible in the bottom of that panel was actually a small child, presumably the offspring of the dark-haired princess)

In idle moments I've tried to piece together the relationships in the family sitting down at a table, but it just gets too difficult to track which line is going where.

[SaintRidley]

Look at how the bolt comes down in each panel and who it strikes first. That person had a kid with a Draketooth.

Turban guy and (presumably) his daughter and grandson - Turban guy had a child with a Draketooth woman, and thus he and his relatives are subject to Stage 2 - kill all who share blood with those born from Stage 1.

Family table shows Balding Middle Aged Guy struck first and through him the rest. He had a kid with a Draketooth as well, and so his (I'm guessing the woman next to him to be either his mother or sister, the oldest guy at the head of the table to be his father, the rest to be his children and nieces/nephews) family also goes. Again, they are victims of Stage 2.

Let's number the table, going clockwise from the bottom left, as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

3 seems to be our entry point. From him we have an arc which appears to go all over the place. I'll do one possible tracing. From 3 we go to 6 (his daughter, most likely), from 6 we go to 4 (family patriarch, probably father of 3), from 4 to 5 (probably a grandson to 4), from 5 to 1 (a brother), 1 to 2 (possibly 3's mother, if she's dying her hair), and from 2 to 7 (another of 3's sons). And there you have it.

[Grey Watcher]

Look at how the bolt comes down in each panel and who it strikes first. That person had a kid with a Draketooth.

Turban guy and (presumably) his daughter and grandson - Turban guy had a child with a Draketooth woman, and thus he and his relatives are subject to Stage 2 - kill all who share blood with those born from Stage 1.

Family table shows Balding Middle Aged Guy struck first and through him the rest. He had a kid with a Draketooth as well, and so his (I'm guessing the woman next to him to be either his mother or sister, the oldest guy at the head of the table to be his father, the rest to be his children and nieces/nephews) family also goes. Again, they are victims of Stage 2.

Actually, it gets really weird in that a bolt seems to go AROUND the lady with the graying hair next to Balding Middle-Aged Guy to hit the younger man on the other side of her. She doesn't get hit until it goes through some people on the opposite side of the table. Unless there's a bolt we can't see because it's behind her. Like I said, it gets a little weird trying to figure out which way the magic is going as it bounces around that table.

[SaintRidley]

Actually, it gets really weird in that a bolt seems to go AROUND the lady with the graying hair next to Balding Middle-Aged Guy to hit the younger man on the other side of her. She doesn't get hit until it goes through some people on the opposite side of the table. Unless there's a bolt we can't see because it's behind her. Like I said, it gets a little weird trying to figure out which way the magic is going as it bounces around that table.

I read your first post and went back to contemplating the path - I think there's a single path with no forks happening, it's just hard to tell because of the way it intersects itself. I edited my post to account for it.

[Mando Knight]

It's also possible that this is just V imagining what happened, as opposed to what actually happened.

[Kiraxa]

They don't have to be terribly closely related to a Draketooth, either. Consider that they just need a drop of black dragon blood from the ABD's line, and the familicide showed lots of half-dragons. The Draketooths are a small part of a big tree; they just happen to be a (mostly) human part that we (for plot reasons) care about.

Per word of Giant, the draketooths are the only humans to ever mate with black dragons in the Stick verse.

[Grey Watcher]

It's also possible that this is just V imagining what happened, as opposed to what actually happened.

But where's the fun in that? :smallbiggrin:

[Grey Watcher]

...

Let's number the table, going clockwise from the bottom left, as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

3 seems to be our entry point. From him we have an arc which appears to go all over the place. I'll do one possible tracing. From 3 we go to 6 (his daughter, most likely), from 6 we go to 4 (family patriarch, probably father of 3), from 4 to 5 (probably a grandson to 4), from 5 to 1 (a brother), 1 to 2 (possibly 3's mother, if she's dying her hair), and from 2 to 7 (another of 3's sons). And there you have it.

Actually, maybe 1 is the entry point for the spell? Of course, that only works if there's an arc we can't see from 3 to 2, but it still seems to work out. (Honestly, that loop going behind 2 is a surprisingly tricky ambiguity. :smallconfused: )

[SaintRidley]

Actually, maybe 1 is the entry point for the spell? Of course, that only works if there's an arc we can't see from 3 to 2, but it still seems to work out. (Honestly, that loop going behind 2 is a surprisingly tricky ambiguity. :smallconfused: )

Yeah, that arc I'm reading in that possible path as going from 1 to 2 (into her neck) and out her chest to 7. About the only way I could make sense of the path there. But yeah, 1's head is in the way and makes things a little ambiguous.

1-5, 5-4, 4-6, 6-3, 3-2, 2-7 would also work.

[Reddish Mage]

Per word of Giant, the draketooths are the only humans to ever mate with black dragons in the Stick verse.

I thought the quote was that there was only one mating between a human and a black dragon in the history of the world. That human was the ancestor of the Draketooths, not a Draketooth herself, necessarily. That would allow for hundreds of human decendents.

[hamishspence]

The family tree depicts it as Girard's grandmother:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0842.html