"Roy is the Glue that Holds the Party Together"

[Admiral_Kelly]

This is a nice concept, however it is still only theoretical. Some site the current story arc as evidence of this but with the remaining party split two ways does the title's statement really hold water? Would the party stick together and remain effective as a team had Haley and Belkar made the boat in time? I am of the opinion that if the five were not split up after the Battle for Azure City arc Haley would effectively take Roy's place as leader and they would pull through (that is assuming Roy would be unable to be resurrected).

Haley is already being seen as an effective leader (her share of bad luck aside) and the remaining party is still keeping to the cause. As a matter of fact; the only "glue" Roy is in my estimation is for Belkar (even now he plays this roll; cannot be a mile away from his body?). Mark of Justice aside "the glue" is not Roy specifically; so long as he has some Lawful Good type to annoy and things to kill he will remain with the Order.

[Oeep Snaec]

I think Roy should be made into paste.

[DreadSpoon]

Some site the current story arc as evidence

Normally I wouldn't do this, but... it's "cite" with a c. It took me a couple tries to figure out what you meant. :)

sight: ability to see, something seen
site: a place
cite: to reference a source, fact, or quote

[bluish_wolf]

The problem with Haley is that she is used to stealthily attacking from the shadows, not ordering people around in combat. She seems to just let everyone fight on their own. So, out of combat, she's a great leader, in combat, not so much.

[Jimblee]

"Roy is the Glue that Holds the Party Together"

The evidence:

Roy was with the group
The group was together
Roy died
The group fell apart


Oh sure, bring specifics into the matter, theories, postulations, I don't care. Proofs all here

[Aquillion]

But the group didn't split up until a while after Roy died. I propose a much simpler theory: Miko was the glue that held the party together.

Miko existed
The group was together
Miko died
The group fell apart a few moments later.

[The Extinguisher]

I have an even better theory! It's Hinjo's junk!

The junk was on the dock,
The order was together.
The junk left,
The order was seperated.

It makes so much sense!

[Yoritomo Himeko]

Well, like it or not, Roy is the most important character in the strip. The Order of the Stick wouldn't even exist without him.

That said, yes, Roy is the glue that keeps them all together. While some of them might do well enough on their own, there is no way they could all work together without his leadership.

Sorry, but the strip is missing something without him. He had some great chemistry with all of the main characters. And no one can keep Belkar in line and put up with Elan's antics like Roy can. Haley's doing great, but Roy is still better at it.

[bluish_wolf]

I have an even better theory! It's Hinjo's junk!

The junk was on the dock,
The order was together.
The junk left,
The order was seperated.

It makes so much sense!

Wow, that's one NICE BOAT. *gets killed for reviving and old meme*

[Admiral_Kelly]

The evidence:

Roy was with the group
The group was together
Roy died
The group fell apart


Oh sure, bring specifics into the matter, theories, postulations, I don't care. Proofs all hereOnly that is not proof at all since you are not applying all relevant factors. The biggest irony in that statement is that the group fell apart only after Belkar and Haley went off to get the guy's corpse. Technically, V was already separated at that point but V separated from the group before Roy died. Not that it mattered since Elan, Durukon, and co. later met up with him on the boat (along with Haley and Belkar has they not split); although it is valid to say that V did not anticipate this.

Keep in mind I am not saying that Roy is not vital to the party; I am only saying that the current story arc does not show this.

[The Wanderer]

While Haley does ok as a leader, I think that a flaw is that she can be a little too chaotic and loose in terms of looking after people and keeping party discipline. The previous time she had to take up leadership, when they attempted to rescue Elan during the bandits arc, she wasn't able to keep Belkar in line and it cost the party. This time around she let her group get spread out all over the place with the enemy about, leaving them open to the possibility of getting picked off one by one.

So she does ok, but not, I think as good as Roy, who usually sees to things like making sure that nobody is caught alone by a bunch of the enemies. (Such as in his first battle with Xykon he makes sure the casters are protected, etc).

Also, if the Order were all together, there would be quite a set of different personalities at work: Elan's childlike nature and overwhelming concern for people vs Durkon's grown up traditional and conservative nature and belief in doing the right thing, even if it costs people as individuals vs V's quest for supreme power and intellectual arrogance vs Belkar's lack of conscience and bloodlust. There's a lot of room for conflict there, and we've already seen a small bit of it when the plot was focusing on the boats.

I think a big part of the reason it hasn't been a problem so far is because of Roy. I'm not sure it would work without him.

[Demented]

I have an even better theory! It's Hinjo's junk!

Clearly, Hinjo's junk has the power to separate Haley from Elan.
Elan just can't hope to compete with Hinjo's junk.

[Forias]

While Haley does ok as a leader, I think that a flaw is that she can be a little too chaotic and loose in terms of looking after people and keeping party discipline. The previous time she had to take up leadership, when they attempted to rescue Elan during the bandits arc, she wasn't able to keep Belkar in line and it cost the party. This time around she let her group get spread out all over the place with the enemy about, leaving them open to the possibility of getting picked off one by one.

So she does ok, but not, I think as good as Roy, who usually sees to things like making sure that nobody is caught alone by a bunch of the enemies. (Such as in his first battle with Xykon he makes sure the casters are protected, etc).
I'm not following your logic, mate. Roy didn't succeed in making sure the casters were protected. Varsuvius got isolated and eliminated. Sure, Roy ordered Belkar to protect the casters, but that just shows that he can't control Belkar entirely - to quote your criticism of Haley, Roy 'wasn't able to keep Belkar in line and it cost the party'.

As for Haley showing bad tactics by sending out her team in groups, there are numerous examples of Roy splitting the team up when there are more than one objective to be followed. Isn't there an example of that in the second or third strip, accompanied by the Elan 'pick me!' gag? He also splits them up when dealing with the elementals, which ends up with Varsuvius being isolated and alone, once more, and only being saved from a crispy demise by an absolute fluke.

I'm not criticising Roy, by the way. I just don't see how Haley is doing noticeably worse than him.

[Jimblee]

The biggest irony in that statement is that the group fell apart only after Belkar and Haley went off to get the guy's corpse.

So what your saying is that Roy is the corpse which broke the party apart? :smallconfused:

[Roderick_BR]

Well, the groups didn't really break apart, they got split up.
But I think that Roy really is the one that keeps the group focused.
Without someone to give orders, or at least point everyone in the same general direction, everyone tries to do it their way (see V's attempts at finding Haley and Belkar, for example).
Haley IS a good leader (she was the 2nd in command, after all), but as it was pointed out, she's more comfortable doing her rogue-ish stuff, not being the party's leader.
In a worst case scenario, Roy is the leader because someone has to, and he was good at it.

[North]

Haleys only second in command so she can get more treasure:smallwink:

[Niknokitueu]

Well, Roy is a bit gooey, and if you were to touch him your fingers would be a bit sticky, but I think that you are stretching things too far when you call him 'glue'... :smallbiggrin:

The strip, like it or not, is based around Roy and his quest. In that sense he is the glue, as there is no story to be told without him.

As to him being leader, I think that at the beginning, he remained leader because no-one else wanted the job (given the party behaviour in the early strips, would you want to lead them?).

By the time he had whipped them into shape, and made a party that could be effectively 'led', everyone realised that he was the best person to be party leader (They all quite willingly followed him against Xykon when he tore up their contracts).

Any bets that when/if he gets raised, Haley will be ever so glad to hand over the reins of leadership...

(Kept the 'if' because Rich may decide that keeping Roy dead works as a storyline)


Have Fun!
Niknokitueu

[Charles Phipps]

The strip, like it or not, is based around Roy and his quest. In that sense he is the glue, as there is no story to be told without him.

As Peter Jackson proved, when you create an interesting ensemble cast, really the storyline continues without them.

:-)

[Lissibith]

I like Haley and don't particularly like Roy, but I'm with The Wanderer. Haley's not turning out to be near as good a leader as Roy was. Maybe it's a chaotic nature coming out, but she doesn't seem like she thinks about the people she's leading per se. She never had to before. She knows they're not PCs and therefore, unlike Roy's deployments, they have a much lower chance of surviving singly, but still splits them up seemingly without any sort of contingency plan. She's learning the ropes as a leader and she's doing a passable job, but if it weren't for Belkar's timely return with the cat, she would likely have been dead or captured too.

It's somewhat interesting to note, for me at least, that while Roy's absence seems to be negatively affecting Haley and V (Obsessive much?) Elan seems to be doing okayish without him. And Durkon is... well, Durkon.

[Spiky]

As Peter Jackson proved, when you create an interesting ensemble cast, really the storyline continues without them.

:-)

please tell me you don't think PJ wrote the most famous fantasy saga of all time.

[dutch508]

Roy has been dead so long that I am pretty sure it should be:

"Roy is the GOO that holds the party together."

[dutch508]

please tell me you don't think PJ wrote the most famous fantasy saga of all time.

I think what he is saying is that the acting cast did a good job of not &^%$*&^# up JRRT's work.

[Spiky]

I think what he is saying is that the acting cast did a good job of not &^%$*&^# up JRRT's work.

I'm reasonably sure that my comment was based on Charles' ability to completely ignore the foundation of OOTS' story, so I was wondering if that spreads to other stories, as well.

[The Wanderer]

I'm not following your logic, mate. Roy didn't succeed in making sure the casters were protected. Varsuvius got isolated and eliminated. Sure, Roy ordered Belkar to protect the casters, but that just shows that he can't control Belkar entirely - to quote your criticism of Haley, Roy 'wasn't able to keep Belkar in line and it cost the party'.

As for Haley showing bad tactics by sending out her team in groups, there are numerous examples of Roy splitting the team up when there are more than one objective to be followed. Isn't there an example of that in the second or third strip, accompanied by the Elan 'pick me!' gag? He also splits them up when dealing with the elementals, which ends up with Varsuvius being isolated and alone, once more, and only being saved from a crispy demise by an absolute fluke.

I'm not criticising Roy, by the way. I just don't see how Haley is doing noticeably worse than him.

Roy has split the party up many, many times, however it is seldom in groups of less than three and, most times, with everyone so close together in a melee they have all the opportunity needed to come to one another's aid. The closest things to an exception I can think of were the encounters with the Linear Guild in Dorukan's Dungeon, (where grab your counterpart and kick their ass was the plan), and in Cliffport, (where the group was still operating in pairs, Elan and Belkar, V and Durkon, Roy going into the warehouse while Haley was watching his back), and when Haley and Elan were sent to rescue the old man. They were pretty far from the rest of the team, but still at least in pairs.

By contrast, by the time Haley is walking towards Tsukiko, Thanh had continued fighting alone after the orders to get back to safety, after Belkar came to help him Belkar wandered off and Thanh prepared to leave him behind, and to rescue him Haley in turn had to leave Isamu alone. So, four members of the party, each separated and on their own, despite the fact that, (unlike when Roy was splitting up the Order) two of the four are low level NPCs facing wights who can make mincemeat out of them. (And did).

Maybe things would have gone exactly the same way had Roy been there, but I have a hard time believing that we wouldn't have also had, at least, a "buddy system" in place, or that he would have allowed two different party members to alternatively ditch the party and then each other when facing a dangerous encounter.

Just like your posts isn't bashing Roy, this is Haley bashing, but I do think things would have been a little more tightly planned and controlled had it been Roy in charge.

[chibibar]

I think Roy is the glue that keep the team together. Roy has the training and experience to be a leader. Being leader is hard work. Sure you get to order people around BUT also the result of the action is blame upon you. Roy is willing to take responsibility of his teammate's action including Elan and Belkar (yea.. when Elan is nuts... Roy will still cover Elan's butt)

Origin of the PC do have some interesting background info that show that Roy makes a good leader :)

[Charles Phipps]

Eh.

Roy was a great leader but they're all friends now and heroes individually. They'd go after and defeat Xykon even without Roy. That's the greatest thing that can happen to a leader, not being needed anymore.