So the gates conveniently contrived?

[Wolfman42666]

As red mage pointed out, for different reasons, in 8-bit theatre, why would you include objects that, should they be destroyed the whole world ends, if your not going to:
A) End the world, or
B) Have the heroes hold of whatever it is that's going to destroy the world until someone, usually a wizard can cast/make a spell to stop said disaster.

Now there's been a lot of speculation about the gates being destroyed, but I don't see how oots are going to hold off the Snarl.

Or barring that what relevance or good ending the story could have if they fail to hold back the "god-killing abomination".

...Discuss

Edit: apparently I wasn't clear. In the comic after the flashback sequence V openly says to shojo that "and you believe that if all five of these gates should be destroyed, the stress would release the Snarl from its prison leaving it to undue the world once again" to which shojo replies "correct", while this implies that it would be immediate, I agree it is possible it wouldn't be instantaneous. Also I only used the term Artefacts because I didn't know what else to put.

[Green Bean]

Well, the gods didn't actually have a choice when they created the world. The whole universe is essentially a prison for it. The holes came later, and were obviously not part of the gods' original plan. Remember, the world held together for many years before the Order of the Squiggle sealed the rifts; we aren't talking about instant death here in any case. So even if all the Gates are destroyed, it could easily turn into 'find a way to seal the rifts before the Snarl manages to free itself'.

[factotum]

I think the implication is quite clear that, left alone, the rifts in reality that the Gates were built to close would have eventually freed the Snarl anyway. So, you're in a no-win situation--if you don't build the gates, the world ends; if you build the gates, then all five of them get destroyed somehow, the world ends. Which path would you take?

[Ithekro]

One troubling thing. We've seen two gates destroyed, and know of the third being destroyed before the events of the comic. What we've not seen, it any evidence of the rifts after the gates are destroyed. They seemed fairly obvious, at least in the backstory history comics, as being visible. That might be a fail reasoning as the history would need to show them to mean anything, and they are not normally visible.

It is said that the gates were made to keep the rifts sealed, and protected. The rifts coud not be destroyed by the earlier adventurers, but it is assumed that the seals were not the gates, so the seals may still be in place for a time. I'm assuming the tale suggests that once the last gate falls the seals are broken and the rifts reopen.

I wonder if instead the rather violent destruction of the gates is actually destroying the rifts? Doubtful, since that seems to be the build up in the story so far.

Irony would suggest one of the following:

a) The destruction of the gates is actually sealing in the Snarl forever and the unnecessary destructions will benefit the characters in the end.

b) Their doomed by their own hands.

[evileeyore]

...Discuss.It is the clearly (even Xykon refers to it directly) "The Macguffin" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macguffin).

The Giant has been parodying roleplaying game tropes since day one, this is but one more aspect of his parody. The "Over the Top World Ending Plotline".

However , I suspect you want to discuss this within the the story itself, not the meta story. SO...



I doubt it is anything like a quick or speedy thing. Each portal being smashed back open is likely restressing the fabric of reality, but reality is pliant. It can some tearing at before splitting asunder.

However I strongly doubt we'll see all 5 gates destroyed. No, I have a feeling this will end in a massive climatic scene over the last gate and leave the OotS maybe 10-20 comics to wrap up before we have curtain fall.

[JaxGaret]

The destruction of the Gates is almost certainly destroying the rifts themselves; otherwise Xykon & Redcloak would have simply used the rift at Lirian's Gate after the Gate was destroyed.

However, it is either not a good idea to destroy a rift in this fashion, or no one is sure if it is a good idea or a bad idea, and don't hope to find out if/when all the Gates are destroyed.

[Tredrick]

The destruction of the Gates is almost certainly destroying the rifts themselves; otherwise Xykon & Redcloak would have simply used the rift at Lirian's Gate after the Gate was destroyed.

However, it is either not a good idea to destroy a rift in this fashion, or no one is sure if it is a good idea or a bad idea, and don't hope to find out if/when all the Gates are destroyed.

Not necessarily. The gates might be needed to control the power of the Snarl. Without them, the rift could be too wild and uncontrolled to allow Xykon to do whatever it is that he wants to do.

[comicadv]

I think we'll see one more gate distroyed and on the next one Xykon with win and harness the power and there will be one final awsome battle in which...Something will happen!:smallmad:
My farsight isn't good enough to tell what though...

[JaxGaret]

Not necessarily. The gates might be needed to control the power of the Snarl. Without them, the rift could be too wild and uncontrolled to allow Xykon to do whatever it is that he wants to do.

Then why was Xykon so keen on Elan touching the Gate, thereby (probably) destroying it? That would run counter to your theory.

[TheNovak]

I think that was a particular ward Dorukan built into his Gate, not a standard feature for all of them. Someone of Pure Heart had to touch the gate to disable it; that kept it out of bad guy hands.

If it was something built into every one of 'em, Soon's was disabled the moment Shojo or his father stood up and lost their balance :smalltongue:

[JaxGaret]

I think that was a particular ward Dorukan built into his Gate, not a standard feature for all of them. Someone of Pure Heart had to touch the gate to disable it; that kept it out of bad guy hands.

If it was something built into every one of 'em, Soon's was disabled the moment Shojo or his father stood up and lost their balance :smalltongue:

Ah. I thought that the touching of the gate by one of pure heart would lead to its destruction; this was probably an error on my part.


Excellent sig, btw. :smallsmile: