Tarquin and Genre Savviness as a Personal Trait

[Parallel Pain]

I recently ran across a Giant quote that says Tarquin is not actually the charismatic, political, tactic, and strategic genius as he piped himself to be. Instead he simply knows the structure of stories, and uses his knowledge to prevent his allies from making classical villain mistakes.
And he exists in a world where such knowledge would bring about successes.

In other words, he's genre savvy. Nothing more, nothing less.

And I started wondering what this trait, and by extension what Tarquin, would be like in real life.

Genre savviness in general seem to be knowledge of the type of story that is currently being told, and knowing the various method of telling the story. It's probably gained by knowledge of previous stories. After all, a genre is created by lumping stories with similar points.
And this also seem to be the case with all the emphasis on bardic lore and story telling and stuff by both Elan and Tarquin.

An equivalent of a genre-savvy character in the real world would therefore probably be someone incredibly well versed academically in said subjects. Someone who has seen/heard/read about all the previous actions in politics, tactics, and strategy and is able to apply those incredibly well to real life by recognizing a situation as it unfolds and remembering what he has learned from books/classes/teachers/observation of others is the best course of action to take in the circumstances.

In short, Tarquin is book smart.

While, like Giant said, his "book" wouldn't apply to our world, it applies to his. Considering what he has managed to pull off with his party, and considering that Geoff and Ian said he conquered 11 nations in 8 months when solo, and it took a coalition of 26 countries to bring him down, we can probably say that most people in OotS world would consider him the genius he says he is, and really he has had little reason before the present to not believe in his own story.
If someone was able to pull off in real life what Tarquin did in OotS world, he'd be considered a genius as well.

So Tarquin is a genius level book smart.

Then we see the situation of Tarquin's fall.
It is essentially the genre-savvy character being presented with a problem from a different genre and/or one that defies established genre. The originally genre-savvy character is now either not, or is wrong genre-savvy.
A real life equivalent would be a book smart person being presented with a problem he hasn't learned about.

Tarquin's response is to try to fit this problem into the genre he already knows. And he becomes increasingly frustrated, and finally distraught and insecure, that he couldn't.
Tarquin is therefore falling into the trap that many book smart people fall into. They over-estimate the value of their "book" knowledge and tries to fit everything in the world to their "book". And gets frustrated when they can't.
They can copy very well. They've copied what other people used to achieve success and make sure they don't copy what lead to failures. But they are so used to doing this that they are unable to use what the situation has actually presented them and come up with a solution themselves.
The thought of improvisation probably didn't even cross their minds.


So to sum up. Genre Savviness in fiction is like Book Smarts in real life. And Tarquin in real life would be the equivalent of a really book smart person, but one who's not actually smart. He can memorize, spew out, and use what others have already discovered. But he can not come up with solutions himself.

It's interesting that this parallel's Xykon's gripe with wizards in SoD. Wizards learned their spells from years of copying off books, and treats Sorcerers as inferiors when the spells comes naturally to Sorcerers. Wizards are book smart yet look down on Sorcerers who actually are smart.
So in a sense we can say that the arc-villain Tarquin is book smart. But like real life, book smart only takes you so far. Meanwhile the villain of the entire story is someone who actually is smart, as general intelligence in general trumps book smarts.

What do you think?

[Keltest]

I think there isn't much I can offer to follow up on this, except that comparing a Sorcerer's abilities to actual intelligence vs wizards who aren't is a bit unfair. Sorcerers get the same (or at least close enough for this conversation) end results as a wizard, they just put in less work. A better comparison would be a book smart person who learned things the old fashioned way, versus someone with a photographic memory who can just read a textbook and know everything that was in it.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Very interesting analysis. The only thing I have to add on is that, like Keltest, I disagree a little with the part about Sorcerors. The main difference between Sorcerors and Wizards is that Sorcerors don't put in much work in their casting of spells, unlike Wizards, who have to study rigorously, and this means that a lot of Sorcerors are lazy as a result. Their use of magic doesn't come from general intelligence, but having inborn magical talent. In fact, Sorcerors don't really need to have good Wisdom or Inteligence, only good Charisma. So, it's not that they have general knowledge so much as it is that they don't have any knowledge, and aren't necessarily smart.

[Parallel Pain]

Not knowing D&D rules, I see your point.

Although the similarity I see is one gets the ability "naturally" and just comes up with the spell/solution on the spot. The other copies others and perhaps spent great efforts memorizing all the right answers.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Although the similarity I see is one gets the ability "naturally" and just comes up with the spell/solution on the spot. The other copies others and perhaps spent great efforts memorizing all the right answers.
This is essentially true. However, I think that the problem lies in calling the former method actually being smart, because for the most part it is just having a special talent for magic where you know how to cast things instinctively, not because of any intelligence.

[Nilehus]

A Sorcerer knows that they can cast Fireball, and it'll hit this many squares for around this damage. A Wizard knows that they can cast Fireball, hit so many squares for so much damage, the exact time the Fireball burns for, how hot it burns, etc.

This doesn't apply to all Wizards and Sorcerers, but it does for the majority.

Other than that, it was a very good read. Sooo does that make Elan the smart Wizard? :smallwink:

[Sethala]

I think that's not very accurate for sorcerers and wizards as well, not just how they're portrayed in the comic but also game mechanics as well. Wizards are capable of learning to cast any spell, the only limitation is that they need to either create it with a lot of research or find a book or scroll with the spell in it first. Beyond that, they can select any spell to cast, though all those selections need to be made at the start of each day, so they're limited by how prepared they can be. If a wizard only prepares one Fireball spell, he can only cast one Fireball that day, if he needs to cast another one he's out of luck. Sorcerers, on the other hand, are very limited in how many spells they can know and cast, but they can cast any of those spells whenever they want; a sorcerer of a certain level may only be able to learn two third-level spells, but if one of those two is fireball, all of his third-level spells that day can be fireball.

[masamune1]

If anything, Tarquin would be the Sorcerer in this example, and the other guy would be the Wizard. Tarquin is not "book smart" at all- book smart implies that you study and learn and relearn and so on. Tarquin has probably studied stories of course, but he still lies closer to natural talent and inclination. Actually I'd say the whole "book smart" analogy doesn't really work that well, since that implies that Sorcerers don't bother learning anything about magic at all or that Wizards, who study all their life, aren't actually all that smart...which doesn't really ring true.

You are basically saying that natural talent trumps hard work every time. This would also imply that an actual military genius is someone who has never studied strategy or military history in their lives, or at least not bothered too much with it; they are just someone who instinctively knows how to win wars. Which isn't how it works at all. Most successful military strategists are very book smart, at least in their particular field.

Xykon is smarter than most people think he is, but he isn't the main villain because he is actually smart. Its made quite clear that he is lazy, short-sighted, hedonistic and easily bored. This, in fact, is what makes him so dangerous- he has tremendous power, and very little sense of responsibility or restraint; that, in fact, is why Tarquin is dangerous as well. Both Tarquin and Xykon want the story to go their way, and both throw murderous temper tantrums when it doesn't. Tarquin is just more likely to try and force it to go his way, probably because - unlike Xykon- he is personally invested in the fate of one of the heroes.

I think the Giants' stance on this is that truly evil people might have high Intelligence but usually have low Wisdom. Redcloak becomes a bit less of a **** (to Hobgoblins, at least) once he realizes he's becoming more like Xykon and shortly thereafter receives a Wisdom boost; Belkar actually stops being a homicidal maniac once he temporarily gains a Wisdom score. Tarquin, while he was presented as an unholy combination of David Xanatos and Darth Vader, is- as far as the Giant is concerned- not actually as hypercompetent or brilliant as he made himself out to be (though the Giant faltered a bit here, I think, not realizing that it was more than just Tarquin's word we had to go on about how cool a villain Tarquin actually was); Xykon is basically a malicious kid with way too much power. Both, I should add, think in genre savvy and story terms- Xykon, too, enjoys playing the part of the villain as much as Tarquin does, and knows full well that's what he's doing. The only difference is that, being Chaotic Evil, he's much more laid back about it.

[jedipilot24]

What do you think?

Tarquin is an example of Wrong Genre Savvy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WrongGenreSavvy). Tarquin thinks that the story is about the struggle between him and Elan and that Xykon is just a side-quest for Elan to level-grind in until the Final Showdown. Tarquin doesn't understand, and wouldn't believe it if someone told him, that HE is the side-quest. That goes against everything Tarquin believes in and, in fact, would be an interesting way to defeat Tarquin's scheme to be remembered as a legend even after he's dead.

"Tarquin? Who's Tarquin?"
"Oh, he's that other villain that the Order of the Stick defeated after they destroyed Xykon and saved the world."
"Oh right, that guy."

Tarquin's defeat will likely just be a denouement and I can't think of anything that he'd find more humiliating.

[Parallel Pain]

If anything, Tarquin would be the Sorcerer in this example, and the other guy would be the Wizard. Tarquin is not "book smart" at all- book smart implies that you study and learn and relearn and so on. Tarquin has probably studied stories of course, but he still lies closer to natural talent and inclination. Actually I'd say the whole "book smart" analogy doesn't really work that well, since that implies that Sorcerers don't bother learning anything about magic at all or that Wizards, who study all their life, aren't actually all that smart...which doesn't really ring true.

You are basically saying that natural talent trumps hard work every time. This would also imply that an actual military genius is someone who has never studied strategy or military history in their lives, or at least not bothered too much with it; they are just someone who instinctively knows how to win wars. Which isn't how it works at all. Most successful military strategists are very book smart, at least in their particular field.

Xykon is smarter than most people think he is, but he isn't the main villain because he is actually smart. Its made quite clear that he is lazy, short-sighted, hedonistic and easily bored. This, in fact, is what makes him so dangerous- he has tremendous power, and very little sense of responsibility or restraint; that, in fact, is why Tarquin is dangerous as well. Both Tarquin and Xykon want the story to go their way, and both throw murderous temper tantrums when it doesn't. Tarquin is just more likely to try and force it to go his way, probably because - unlike Xykon- he is personally invested in the fate of one of the heroes.

I think the Giants' stance on this is that truly evil people might have high Intelligence but usually have low Wisdom. Redcloak becomes a bit less of a **** (to Hobgoblins, at least) once he realizes he's becoming more like Xykon and shortly thereafter receives a Wisdom boost; Belkar actually stops being a homicidal maniac once he temporarily gains a Wisdom score. Tarquin, while he was presented as an unholy combination of David Xanatos and Darth Vader, is- as far as the Giant is concerned- not actually as hypercompetent or brilliant as he made himself out to be (though the Giant faltered a bit here, I think, not realizing that it was more than just Tarquin's word we had to go on about how cool a villain Tarquin actually was); Xykon is basically a malicious kid with way too much power. Both, I should add, think in genre savvy and story terms- Xykon, too, enjoys playing the part of the villain as much as Tarquin does, and knows full well that's what he's doing. The only difference is that, being Chaotic Evil, he's much more laid back about it.

I agree with you. But I think you misunderstood me.
I mean book-smart in it's purest form: knows what the book says.

Many people are both smart and book-smart, since one often requires the other. Without some intelligence it's hard to take in knowledge, while without some knowledge it's hard to work intelligence.

But there ARE people who are ONLY book-smart. People who learned to solve algebra not by learning how to work with equations but by memorizing the correct answer. People who can recite to you the Cambridge History of X, but when asked what they think Mr. Y should've done in the situation can not give an answer not written in the books. This is the person I think Tarquin is.

I'm not saying natural-talent trumps hard work every time. I don't believe that at all.
I'm saying blindly repeating other people's actions only gets you so far. And this is what limited Tarquin.
Xykon's philosophy on proper action is on the other hand "whatever works".

And we can also contrast their motivation in this sense. They both know story and genre points and both like playing villains. However Tarquin's motivation is "things must follow the rules!". Xykon is "as long as I have fun." Tarquin, in his evil ways, only cares about copying the means from other stories. Xykon says if the end is reached screw the means.



And I concede on all Sorcerer/Wizard points, not being a D&D player.

[Parallel Pain]

Tarquin is an example of Wrong Genre Savvy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WrongGenreSavvy). Tarquin thinks that the story is about the struggle between him and Elan and that Xykon is just a side-quest for Elan to level-grind in until the Final Showdown. Tarquin doesn't understand, and wouldn't believe it if someone told him, that HE is the side-quest.

I agree.

I think the real life equivalent of such a trait would be a book-smart person applying the wrong "book" to the situation. And refusing to accept that and switch out.

[Keltest]

I agree.

I think the real life equivalent of such a trait would be a book-smart person applying the wrong "book" to the situation. And refusing to accept that and switch out.

Its not about book-smarts per se. Its that you genuinely lack relevant information allowing you to make correct decisions. Even a legitimately intelligent and adaptable person could very easily make mistakes if they lacked necessary information to make an informed decision.

[Parallel Pain]

Its not about book-smarts per se. Its that you genuinely lack relevant information allowing you to make correct decisions. Even a legitimately intelligent and adaptable person could very easily make mistakes if they lacked necessary information to make an informed decision.
While true, Tarquin was presented with (and acknowledged) the fact that there's someone bent on world conquest/destruction. And he still thinks he's the main villain of the story.

That to me means he misinterprets or even chose to ignore the information because it didn't fit into his book.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Parallel Pain: You are correct that memorization is distinct from analytical thinking and creativity. Even a relatively dumb person can memorize very long pieces of text or trivia, provided they are taught proper memory techniques. This can be witnessed by how, in many third-world countries, there are illiterate people who can still recite, say, all of Quran from memory.

Tarquin is much the same, having memorized all story tropes to the point of obsession. His other characteristics point towards narcistic and antisocial personality disorders. Which is a long way of saying he's an insufferable, selfish know-it-all.

[Keltest]

While true, Tarquin was presented with (and acknowledged) the fact that there's someone bent on world conquest/destruction. And he still thinks he's the main villain of the story.

That to me means he misinterprets or even chose to ignore the information because it didn't fit into his book.

That's because hes a maniac with an ego the size of his empire. He is literally incapable of handling the idea that he is not the main antagonist of the story. Its a personal flaw, not one that comes from his genre-savviness or anything.

[masamune1]

I agree with you. But I think you misunderstood me.
I mean book-smart in it's purest form: knows what the book says.

Many people are both smart and book-smart, since one often requires the other. Without some intelligence it's hard to take in knowledge, while without some knowledge it's hard to work intelligence.

But there ARE people who are ONLY book-smart. People who learned to solve algebra not by learning how to work with equations but by memorizing the correct answer. People who can recite to you the Cambridge History of X, but when asked what they think Mr. Y should've done in the situation can not give an answer not written in the books. This is the person I think Tarquin is.

I'm not saying natural-talent trumps hard work every time. I don't believe that at all.
I'm saying blindly repeating other people's actions only gets you so far. And this is what limited Tarquin.
Xykon's philosophy on proper action is on the other hand "whatever works".

And we can also contrast their motivation in this sense. They both know story and genre points and both like playing villains. However Tarquin's motivation is "things must follow the rules!". Xykon is "as long as I have fun." Tarquin, in his evil ways, only cares about copying the means from other stories. Xykon says if the end is reached screw the means.



And I concede on all Sorcerer/Wizard points, not being a D&D player.

Alright; I just bring it up because that's not what the term "book smart" usually means. "Book Smart" means someone who is scholarly and academic and very well read, but may or may not have much practical real world experience. The correct term is that Tarquin is simply narrow-minded.

UND YOU VIL UZE ZE CORRECT GRAMMER ON ZIS FORUM!

Also, the difference between Tarquin and Xykon is not one of "ends vs means", nor is it really one of adaptability (Xykon simply feels that's he's yet to meet a problem where adaptability ever trumps blasting meteors out of your fist). Tarquin just has more rigid and specific ends than Xykon does- his end is that he wants the story to follow a certain pattern. Xykon does too; his pattern is just much more simple ("I blast things, I kill people, I win" etc.). Again, the reason Xykon is the main villain has nothing to do with Xykon somehow being smarter than Tarquin; Xykon is the main villain because that's just how the story is written.

- masamune1, ZE GRAMMAR NAZI


While true, Tarquin was presented with (and acknowledged) the fact that there's someone bent on world conquest/destruction. And he still thinks he's the main villain of the story.

That to me means he misinterprets or even chose to ignore the information because it didn't fit into his book.

To be fair, their are many, many stories out there- usually Monster of the Week stuff- where the world is threatened every other day yet the actual Big Bad of the story isn't really much more of a threat in the grand scheme of things than they were; sometimes they are indeed less.

Not to mention, the fact that Xykon legitimately is the main villain of the story proves Tarquin at least partially right- the world really does run on genre conventions; his problem is that he got the short end of the stick. Hell if the let the Order defeat Xykon first (as he was going to, albeit on his terms) then he would indeed end up the main villain of the story, by virtue of his biggest rival being dead and him still being alive (or at least, he'd be the villain of the spin-off / sequel). In the real world the insanity would be to think that either Tarquin or Xykon was somehow the main villain, or that Tarquin couldn't make himself the main villain by somehow manipulating or forcing events to turn out in his favour.

As it is, we can complain about Tarquin's gigantic ego all we want (and its very real, indeed), but ultimately, the reason he isn't the main villain is simply because he isn't, because that isn't the story the Giant wants to tell. What ANY character thinks is irrelevant to that, but Tarquin is only wrong because he's living in the wrong story. Even then, he's still a major villain, and will surely have some impact on the plot later on.

[warrl]

My problem with this analysis is that Tarquin remained genre savvy. He wasn't wrong-genre-savvy, either. His sole difficulty was that he misidentified the major story (hint: it wasn't about the Western Continent) and therefore the major characters (hint: he wasn't one of them).

Which was understandable at first, considering that he WAS a major character in the story of the Western Continent and that was all he'd had any knowledge of. But he kept on dismissing evidence to the contrary. He kept on to the point that it arguably verged on insanity.

But he was correct about the genre of the major story.

As for applying the concepts to the real world: the problem is that you never know if the trope is going to be played straight, or lampshaded, or subverted, or parodied, until after the fact. If then.

[ti'esar]

But he was correct about the genre of the major story.

Not exactly. He consistently argued in favor of a Classical view of fiction in which stories "must" go a certain way, whereas in reality Rich (both on the forums and through Elan) has made it clear that he doesn't have nearly as prescriptive a view of writing. I'd say that mistake hurt Tarquin almost as much as his belief about who the main characters are - if he wasn't so fixated on the way things were "supposed" to go, he probably would have behaved in a more rational fashion during the climax.

[Bravo]

Tarquin's a guy who's noticed that the Universe seems to work in a particular way and adjusts his decisions to exploit this. Like a pick-up artist, all his decisions are calculated by very narrow criteria with very formulaic thinking. His major problem is that he's a textbook case of Histrionic Personality Disorder. Exaggerated emotions and excessively fond of drama, narcissistic, flirting even when confusingly inappropriate to a given situation, the desire to turn every situation into an opportunity to manipulate others into reacting to him in a particular way, the belief that the world revolves around him...

[Kish]

But he was correct about the genre of the major story.
"Genre" is a nebulous concept, but I'd say either "no" or "yes, but it was too obvious to be any credit to him."

That is, everyone in OotS knows they're in a fantasy story, so if by "genre" you mean "fantasy," it's "yes, but no credit to Tarquin." On the other hand, he presumed he was in a grim drama, a legendary epic of a terrifying villain being defeated at great cost by his heroic son after brutalizing a continent for decades--not a humorous story.

[SavageWombat]

Tarquin's a guy who's noticed that the Universe seems to work in a particular way and adjusts his decisions to exploit this. Like a pick-up artist, all his decisions are calculated by very narrow criteria with very formulaic thinking. His major problem is that he's a textbook case of Histrionic Personality Disorder. Exaggerated emotions and excessively fond of drama, narcissistic, flirting even when confusingly inappropriate to a given situation, the desire to turn every situation into an opportunity to manipulate others into reacting to him in a particular way, the belief that the world revolves around him...

#notallstories

[veti]

As for applying the concepts to the real world: the problem is that you never know if the trope is going to be played straight, or lampshaded, or subverted, or parodied, until after the fact. If then.

That's because the real world is much less predictable than fiction, even well-written fiction. Events in the real world don't break down neatly into "stories", "plots" and "subplots", or "tropes". It's not until after a sequence of events is over that you can even coherently fit them into a story, let alone decide what tropes apply to it.

Trying to do that in the real world probably qualifies as some kind of insanity.

[Parallel Pain]

That's because hes a maniac with an ego the size of his empire. He is literally incapable of handling the idea that he is not the main antagonist of the story. Its a personal flaw, not one that comes from his genre-savviness or anything.Surely that is evidence to call him not smart.


Alright; I just bring it up because that's not what the term "book smart" usually means. "Book Smart" means someone who is scholarly and academic and very well read, but may or may not have much practical real world experience. The correct term is that Tarquin is simply narrow-minded. Except that is what I am arguing Tarquin is. Or rather would be if this were real life. He's extremely well read with tonnes of academic knowledge. And his specialty is "story conventions". And he just so happens to live in a world where that knowledge gets you very, very far.
But when the story finally deviates from his knowledge, he craps out. Yes he's narrow-minded. But his narrow-mindedness is presented as inability to deviate from his learned (read memorized) knowledge. Therefore he's book smart, but not actually smart.

I also want to point out that this is not a grammar problem. This is confusion over definition of a term that had an imperfect definition to begin with.


Also, the difference between Tarquin and Xykon is not one of "ends vs means", nor is it really one of adaptability (Xykon simply feels that's he's yet to meet a problem where adaptability ever trumps blasting meteors out of your fist). Tarquin just has more rigid and specific ends than Xykon does- his end is that he wants the story to follow a certain pattern. Xykon does too; his pattern is just much more simple ("I blast things, I kill people, I win" etc.). Again, the reason Xykon is the main villain has nothing to do with Xykon somehow being smarter than Tarquin; Xykon is the main villain because that's just how the story is written.

To be fair, their are many, many stories out there- usually Monster of the Week stuff- where the world is threatened every other day yet the actual Big Bad of the story isn't really much more of a threat in the grand scheme of things than they were; sometimes they are indeed less.

Not to mention, the fact that Xykon legitimately is the main villain of the story proves Tarquin at least partially right- the world really does run on genre conventions; his problem is that he got the short end of the stick. Hell if the let the Order defeat Xykon first (as he was going to, albeit on his terms) then he would indeed end up the main villain of the story, by virtue of his biggest rival being dead and him still being alive (or at least, he'd be the villain of the spin-off / sequel). In the real world the insanity would be to think that either Tarquin or Xykon was somehow the main villain, or that Tarquin couldn't make himself the main villain by somehow manipulating or forcing events to turn out in his favour.

As it is, we can complain about Tarquin's gigantic ego all we want (and its very real, indeed), but ultimately, the reason he isn't the main villain is simply because he isn't, because that isn't the story the Giant wants to tell. What ANY character thinks is irrelevant to that, but Tarquin is only wrong because he's living in the wrong story. Even then, he's still a major villain, and will surely have some impact on the plot later on.
Xykon is adaptable and has done far more than meteor storm. Like energy drain, dispelling, and bashing a wizard's skull in with a trophy when he can't win in spells.
Of course meta-wise Xykon is main villain because Giant made him so. But Giant, like the good writer he is, makes his main villain-ness justified by making him more dangerous than Tarquin in more ways than one.

And Tarquin stated himself that his end is to either a) live out life comfortably as a ruthless iron-fisted dictator or b) be killed while doing so and become a legend. That's his end. He's simply using his knowledge of story convention as a means to that end. When he found out someone's out to rule/destroy the world, the correct course of action to his end is to help OotS. And he was going to do that until his book smarts got in the way.

When he initially sets up the fight between OotS and the Vector Legion, he's operating on the false assumption that the story revolved around him and Elan.
Here he's already taking a great risk. His fight with OotS slowed both of them down so that the gate was destroyed just in time before Xykon could get at it. Since he had always planned on destroying the gate, he should've helped, not hindered OotS. Of course on top of the false assumption there were a lot of things he did not know, and he had the ulterior motive of maneuvering Nale back into his fold, so this mistake could be let slide.

Then he sic his division on OotS. Even his team mates call him out on him wasting resources.
Then he goes after them himself with his team mates.
Then after Julio's arrival, along with an entire airship and crew, and he down to one spell caster, he still pursues.
And even after he has absolutely no chance at victory, he still will not give up and keeps at it, though through manipulation instead of force.

Like warrl said he just kept ignoring all the evidence that his conventions are wrong. He keeps insisting they are right and keeps trying to force the Order and the story to follow conventions, until he breaks down and looses his facade of the calm charismatic leader and becomes an insecure wreck.
This entire sequence of event is detrimental to stopping Xykon, and therefore to the existence of his empire.
But even with his secondary goal, his action makes no sense. All he needs is for someone to topple his empire and kill him, or at least get really close, and he will be the legend he wants to be. Elan is the icing on the cake. But Tarquin was so set on that icing he lost sight of the cake.
And his entire goal for those action was to let Elan get away and come back in the future to try to topple the empire. Elan and OotS were getting away. Many. Times. And there's no indication that they wouldn't come back and try to topple his empire. Tarquin already achieved his goal. But then he blew it all by chasing after them even after they got away, insisting that the story has to follow conventions.
He isn't even angry at Elan for trying to get away. He's angry at Elan for not doing it properly. According to story conventions (at least, those Tarquin abides by) Tarquin is supposed to kill someone important on Elan's team, likely a leader or mentor or a love interest. This loss will make Elan brood, and then change into a hardened hero that comes back with the additional motivation of revenge.

After each and every failure his response is to become more frustrated -and desperate- and then try again. Even with diminished resources and lesser chance of success, Tarquin tries to force the story to follow his conventions. This is the sign of someone who is not analyzing the world, but who is trying desperately to fit the world into his neat "academic" knowledge, and failing.

The final nail is what Tarquin said after his defeat.
"Where's the growth? You didn't lose anything! Nothing has changed! You get back here and give this plotline a satisfying resolution this instant! Elan! Elan, there's no sense of closure! I don't know what happens next! This is a terrible ending!" Notice that in reality, everything except the line he says about himself is false. The loss and growth he wants to effect on Elan he already did by killing Nale and showing how evil he himself is.
And it's really telling that, like when a book-smart but actually dumb person who's finally forced to own up to the fact that reality doesn't follow his neat academic knowledge, he breaks down. And he breaks down because he's now faced with the realization that his knowledge after all can not perfectly predict the real world. He doesn't know what happens next. And because he has not the ability to think and come up with a solution by himself, he doesn't know how to proceed. So he freaks out.

[Bravo]

#notallstories

How is that a tall story?

[Keltest]

Surely that is evidence to call him not smart.

Define smart. Plenty of maniacs and lunatics are incredibly intelligent, its just that the logic they apply to the world doesn't make sense.

Most people go "If A then B, if B then C, so if A then C." They go "If A then B, if B then C, so if A then cucumber." That doesn't stop them from doing things like inventing a flying machine or painting some world famous painting. Or, on the less happy end of things, hurting a lot of people through elaborate plans, like Tarquin is doing.

[veti]

Thinking further about Tarquin...

His story is actually a good illustration of why his "trope-based analysis" approach doesn't work in the real world. See, when we sit around airily discussing why he's "wrong" or "mad" or "egomaniacal" or "narcissistic" (all of which he is, of course, and more besides)... we're doing so on the basis of information that he doesn't have.

He knows there's a "scenery-chewing villain bent on world domination". But what he doesn't know, and we do, is when the story started, and what it's been about so far, and the hints that the Giant has dropped about what's still to come and how long it's expected to take. That's all-important, because it's what determines his place in the story. If Tarquin knew that (a) Xykon is way more powerful than he is, (b) he wasn't introduced until more than half-way through the story, and (c) Elan has been almost completely passive in the story so far, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be mis-analysing the situation the way he is.

But that's how real life works. When did you last see someone looking sad, or angry, or happy, or surprised, for no reason that you know of? Probably within the last 24 hours, if you get out and about a reasonable amount. That right there was a story, but you'll never know what it was, or when it began, or when it will end. And that's how stories work, in the real world. To imagine that you can just step into the middle of one and just know immediately what it's about, without any of the relevant background, is - insane.

This approach worked for Tarquin as long as the story he was analysing was his story, and by extension his team's - because he knew everything he needed to about that story. He was, in a word, a PC. Now he's an NPC, and the story isn't "his" any longer - but he hasn't adjusted to that fact, or realised that it needs adjusting to.

[Snails]

I disagree with the OP.

Tarquin, Xykon, Roy, and V fit a more simple pattern: "smart, but not as smart as they think they are".

Roy and V are destined to outgrow this failing. The villains are not.

Xykon is the main villain through luck and the fact that his opponents underestimate him. The one foe that did not (Soon) cleaned his clock in a fair fight, and Xykon needed a lucky rescue (Miko). Having already put both Roy and V "in their place", those two PCs will be best placed to turn the tables on Xykon.

[Keltest]

I disagree with the OP.

Tarquin, Xykon, Roy, and V fit a more simple pattern: "smart, but not as smart as they think they are".

Roy and V are destined to outgrow this failing. The villains are not.

Xykon is the main villain through luck and the fact that his opponents underestimate him. The one foe that did not (Soon) cleaned his clock in a fair fight, and Xykon needed a lucky rescue (Miko). Having already put both Roy and V "in their place", those two PCs will be best placed to turn the tables on Xykon.

Xykon does not strike me that way. While he is certainly not leagues ahead of every other character ever mentioned in the comic, he is quite powerful. Lirian cleaned his clock before he got a power upgrade as a lich, which made him immune to the primary weapon she had against him. Dorukan likewise was giving him problems until Xykon threw a curveball at him that he could not possibly have prepared for. Soon was flat out immune to most of Xykon's attacks, which is why he was able to do as much damage as he did.

Granted, he needed luck to get out of a couple of those situations, but he never knowingly walks into a fight without something prepared to give him the edge. That symbol of insanity on a bouncing ball trick he pulled for the Sapphire Guard was nothing short of inspired.

[Deliverance]

Granted, he needed luck to get out of a couple of those situations, but he never knowingly walks into a fight without something prepared to give him the edge. That symbol of insanity on a bouncing ball trick he pulled for the Sapphire Guard was nothing short of inspired.
It is certainly something that no wizard would have done, since a wizard would understand the spell and hence know that it is explicitly impossible to use a symbol offensively*, which is what Xykon did. :smallbiggrin:

It was funny, it was awesome, and it ought not to have worked, but rule of funny prevailed, just like it has done in so many other situations (my favourite remains Thor's weather control back in Cliffport), as this is not a story about D&D rules. :smallsmile:

I'm half with you on inspired, but only half, because it damn well ought not to have worked, and where would he have been then? :smalltongue:

* according to the SRD - the prohibition is stated "You can’t use a symbol of death offensively" and examples are given for touch/strike activated symbols (e.g. if you put a touch-activated symbol on a stick and then poke somebody with the stick bringing them into contact with the symbol, the symbol doesn't affect them), but as the prohibition is general, it must also cover sight-activated, and you don't get much more offensive than putting the symbol on a superelastic bouncing ball and bouncing it all over a huge room in order to affect everybody.

[Keltest]

It is certainly something that no wizard would have done, since a wizard would understand the spell and hence know that it is explicitly impossible to use a symbol offensively*, which is what Xykon did. :smallbiggrin:

It was funny, it was awesome, and it ought not to have worked, but rule of funny prevailed, just like it has done in so many other situations (my favourite remains Thor's weather control back in Cliffport), as this is not a story about D&D rules. :smallsmile:

I'm half with you on inspired, but only half, because it damn well ought not to have worked, and where would he have been then? :smalltongue:

* according to the SRD - the prohibition is stated "You can’t use a symbol of death offensively" and examples are given for touch/strike activated symbols (e.g. if you put a touch-activated symbol on a stick and then poke somebody with the stick bringing them into contact with the symbol, the symbol doesn't affect them), but as the prohibition is general, it must also cover sight-activated, and you don't get much more offensive than putting the symbol on a superelastic bouncing ball and bouncing it all over a huge room in order to affect everybody.

As a rule, when I see some description that says "you cant use it offensively" I take it to mean that you cannot cast it in the middle of a fight and expect it to work for whatever reason. Even a trap can be used offensively if you trick an enemy into walking into it. Im reminded of a book I read where the protagonist used a repositionable door trap to kill a dracolich, by sticking it above a door and getting the heck out of there before the thing went off on the dragon. Poor thing got smacked with red dragon fire.

[Deliverance]

As a rule, when I see some description that says "you cant use it offensively" I take it to mean that you cannot cast it in the middle of a fight and expect it to work for whatever reason. Even a trap can be used offensively if you trick an enemy into walking into it. Im reminded of a book I read where the protagonist used a repositionable door trap to kill a dracolich, by sticking it above a door and getting the heck out of there before the thing went off on the dragon. Poor thing got smacked with red dragon fire.
And when I see that for instance you can't put it touch-activated on a stick and touch somebody with it to get around the touch restrictions and this is given as one example of the general statement about the inability to use it offensively - something that goes much beyond your idea that the prohibition merely is about casting it in the middle of the fight - and one of the other ways of activating is by sight, I read it as taken that you can't put it on something sight-activated and then move that into the sight-range of others to get around the sight restrictions either.

EDIT: Either way, it was very funny in the context of the story.
EDIT2: But I'll insist that Redcloak had it right when he swore it would never work. :smallwink:

[Keltest]

And when I see that for instance you can't put it touch-activated on a stick and touch somebody with it to get around the touch restrictions and this is given as one example of the general statement about the inability to use it offensively - something that goes much beyond your idea that the prohibition merely is about casting it in the middle of the fight - and one of the other ways of activating is by sight, I read it as taken that you can't put it on something sight-activated and then move that into the sight-range of others to get around the sight restrictions either.

EDIT: Either way, it was very funny in the context of the story.
Right, I think were on the same page here. Lets use Explosive Runes as an example for consistency. I don't think that V could write "I prepared explosive runes" on a wall, and have it explode on whatever was attacking them, because something about the nature of the spell makes it so that either people wont read it, or the magic wont take effect, or he simply cant afford to stand there writing on the wall for a round in combat. Doesn't matter what, something would stop it from working properly on those monsters. Were he, however to do it before battle and lure the monsters into the area with the runes, it could work because it was prepared before combat, even though it was used in a manner designed to hurt them (offensively, if you will).