Mollez
2013-08-21, 01:54 AM
I have to say, I think my very favorite part of this comic has to be the characters. More than the jokes or the plot, more than the cool artwork. The characters are the best thing about OOTS, because Rich keeps turning one-dimensional characters into three-dimensional characters without warning.
Redcloak, some random goblin cleric, turned into the snarky center of Team Evil, and a very "human" (species-ist phrasing?) character. His backstory and his motivations have turned him into my favorite character, and at this point I think I'm rooting for him to win.
Miko seemed like your average stick-up-your-butt paladin, but when we got to Azure City and suddenly met other paladins, we realized that she was the outlier. That being good forever doesn't also mean being mean, she just happened to be both. In this case, her one-dimensionality became her primary character flaw. The comic showed us how people like that don't actually work well in society. Miko didn't have any friends, and the other paladins avoided her, even sent her away to get some peace from her. We also see how genuinely crazy she is, how unstable and delusional she can be. That's a dimension, too. A negative one, but still.
And now Tarquin is quickly gaining dimensions. (Not that he started out particularly flat.) When he first showed up, I thought he was just your average Affably Evil Dictator. Quirky, interesting, but not very deep. But his plan to rule the desert was inspired, and now all this talk of helping his sons and avenging his best friend is really making me think. I feel like Rich has done a lot of deconstruction of what "good" and "evil" mean in the roleplaying parlance, (although that's a whole different discussion to be had,) and this is some of the best of it. Tarquin is evil. Very evil. Round-up-the-slaves-and-set-them-on-fire evil. Send-death-ninja-to-kill-television-host evil. Make-people-fight-to-the-death-for-you evil. But he also seems to really care about his family, and his scenes with Elan give me a very conflicted feeling of heartwarming.
At the end of the day, seeing the characters grow and evolve and reveal their depths is a lot of what I read this comic for. That and the jokes.
What do you guys think?
Redcloak, some random goblin cleric, turned into the snarky center of Team Evil, and a very "human" (species-ist phrasing?) character. His backstory and his motivations have turned him into my favorite character, and at this point I think I'm rooting for him to win.
Miko seemed like your average stick-up-your-butt paladin, but when we got to Azure City and suddenly met other paladins, we realized that she was the outlier. That being good forever doesn't also mean being mean, she just happened to be both. In this case, her one-dimensionality became her primary character flaw. The comic showed us how people like that don't actually work well in society. Miko didn't have any friends, and the other paladins avoided her, even sent her away to get some peace from her. We also see how genuinely crazy she is, how unstable and delusional she can be. That's a dimension, too. A negative one, but still.
And now Tarquin is quickly gaining dimensions. (Not that he started out particularly flat.) When he first showed up, I thought he was just your average Affably Evil Dictator. Quirky, interesting, but not very deep. But his plan to rule the desert was inspired, and now all this talk of helping his sons and avenging his best friend is really making me think. I feel like Rich has done a lot of deconstruction of what "good" and "evil" mean in the roleplaying parlance, (although that's a whole different discussion to be had,) and this is some of the best of it. Tarquin is evil. Very evil. Round-up-the-slaves-and-set-them-on-fire evil. Send-death-ninja-to-kill-television-host evil. Make-people-fight-to-the-death-for-you evil. But he also seems to really care about his family, and his scenes with Elan give me a very conflicted feeling of heartwarming.
At the end of the day, seeing the characters grow and evolve and reveal their depths is a lot of what I read this comic for. That and the jokes.
What do you guys think?