parallel stories

[HamsterOfTheGod]

So without Roy...

Chaotic good Haley leads Celia, a lawful good sylph who doesn't understand how Haley leads, and Belkar who is getting sicker and sicker. Haley has to save them from a bunch of mindless golems. Haley is heading away from Azure City. She was trying to help the resistance inside Azure city. She was hunted by a crazy spellcasting chick.

Chaotic good Elan turns out to be the leader of Durkon, a lawful good dwarf who doesn't understand how Elan does things, and V who is getting sicker and sicker. Elan had to save Durkon and others from a bunch of dumb barbarians. Elan is heading away from Azure City while trying to help Hinjo and the refugees from Azure city. He is being stalked by a crazy ninja chick.

[JohnnyPsycho]

eh... it's a stretch, but I do like the symmetry at least...

[Kish]

:roach: Elan was never the leader. Really.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

:roach: Elan was never the leader. Really.

Haley needs some management classes too...

[Chronos]

Chaotic good Elan turns out to be the leader of Durkon, a lawful good dwarf who doesn't understand how Elan does things,So far as I can tell, Elan and Durkon both accept the leadership of Hinjo. Elan was sent to the orcs to get them to agree to a peaceful arrangement, but it looks like it was Lien who actually handled the details of that arrangement (on Hinjo's behalf, of course).

[HamsterOfTheGod]

So far as I can tell, Elan and Durkon both accept the leadership of Hinjo. Elan was sent to the orcs to get them to agree to a peaceful arrangement, but it looks like it was Lien who actually handled the details of that arrangement (on Hinjo's behalf, of course).

It seems like Elan was the "team leader"in 553...and Hinjo gives management approval in 563...

[Liwen]

Let's have a classical D&D anwser to this. Elan has the highest charisma score of the actual party, and without Roy's decent charisma score and far greater experience in leadership, he becomes the most probable and sensefull choice has the new leader of the team, well at least half of it. As always, one must never assume that Chaotic means unfited to lead.

Hovewer, Elan,'s intellect (Should I say absence of intellect?) works against him in his role of leader. That is why Hinjo has been making the big decision lately, leaving Elan to carry out his orders by leading his group into carrying them out.

Haley's Charisma is at least 14, according to memory, though I cannot remember where I picked that info, but she also have the second best leadership experience in the group, that is why she leads her group.

As to the symetry of the two stories, which is the main topic of this thread, I'll admit this : Yes, they have lots of points in common, but not exactly enough to make them perfection reflexion of each other. On Haley's side, there's no paladin leading in the background or a backstabing noble allied with an imp, and on Elan's side, there's no newly founded villages with odd yet hilarious names and agonizing gnomes.

Plus V is getting sicker and sicker on his own will, while Belkar had truly little choice in the matter (that triggering was foreseen for crying out loud.)

[Tricia]

Hovewer, Elan,'s intellect (Should I say absence of intellect?) works against him in his role of leader. That is why Hinjo has been making the big decision lately, leaving Elan to carry out his orders by leading his group into carrying them out.So, in other words, Elan and company are being lead by a puppet leadership?

Clearly, Banjo is the true leader of the Order of the Stick!

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h87/osiris32/banjosmiley3-1.png This post has been brought to you by Sleep Deprivation. Thank you, and good night.

[David Argall]

It is more precise to say neither group has a leader. Certainly nobody who knows Elan would be led by him. And neither Belkar nor Celia have shown much interest in obeying Haley.

The parallels are pretty much what you expect by chance.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

It is more precise to say neither group has a leader. Certainly nobody who knows Elan would be led by him. And neither Belkar nor Celia have shown much interest in obeying Haley.

The parallels are pretty much what you expect by chance.

If it was up to chance, then how could you expect anything? Chance might have Belkar joining Team Evil or Elan setting off on his own to find Hayley.

Except it wasn't up to chance. It was up to the Giant. And I think the Giant through in some parallels into the two story lines along with other story elements.

You can say writing is like cooking...

[Linkavitch]

That is kind of neat, though I do think it is kind of a stretch to actually think that it was on purpose.

[Underground]

It is more precise to say neither group has a leader. Certainly nobody who knows Elan would be led by him. And neither Belkar nor Celia have shown much interest in obeying Haley.

Hu ?

Celia just stated differently in the current strip #578.

And Haley seems to have decent leading skills and often manages to push them to do something.

[Ironwolf172]

As said before, it's a stretch. It's an interesting thought though.

[NENAD]

Elan may not be much of a strategist, but he makes a decent field leader, if only because of his high Charisma, and Haley's leadership skills, while clearly sub-par, aren't exactly abysmal either. None of them are anything like Roy was (*sniff*), but both could probably be considered team leader.

[David Argall]

If it was up to chance, then how could you expect anything? Chance might have Belkar joining Team Evil or Elan setting off on his own to find Hayley.
Chance is not just 50-50 shots. Some are 99-1, and are still chance. A quick look around shows that switching sides is not easy or automatic. In fact, it is rather rare. So it is hardly a shock that Belkar fails to change sides.

However, the point is that we would find parallels in that case too. We would start noticing a parallel between Belkar and Therkla, both being tempted to the "dark side".
With Elan, we almost never see him leaving people. In fact, he seems to stick to others like glue. People try to leave him. Again the chance that Elan would leave the fleet to get Haley seems quite low.
But again, we would see a parallel. Elan leaves the fleet. Haley leaves Azure city.
And so forth. There are scads of possible parallels. They are going to happen no matter what the PCs do. There is no need for any intent to have them. They will just be there.


Except it wasn't up to chance. It was up to the Giant. And I think the Giant through in some parallels into the two story lines along with other story elements.

But why? There are a variety of reasons for a writer to put in a parallel, so which one applies here? A lot of them obviously don't work here. We might see one in the story for a quick laugh. But that doesn't fit this case. Nor would it do to provide some moral instruction. So what motive would behind putting in these parallels? Besides that they pretty much happened by accident?



Celia just stated differently in the current strip #578.
Not really. "You're the boss." doesn't mean you are anything like the boss. It means the speaker is going to do things your way because you really insist, but you are taking all the blame. Celia had just gotten thru ignoring an order from Haley, and she did not wait for one a moment later. So the statement had a very limited meaning.

[Kaytara]

Let's have a classical D&D anwser to this. Elan has the highest charisma score of the actual party, and without Roy's decent charisma score and far greater experience in leadership, he becomes the most probable and sensefull choice has the new leader of the team, well at least half of it. As always, one must never assume that Chaotic means unfited to lead.

Hovewer, Elan,'s intellect (Should I say absence of intellect?) works against him in his role of leader. That is why Hinjo has been making the big decision lately, leaving Elan to carry out his orders by leading his group into carrying them out.

Yes, Elan has the highest CHA score in the party, but the group sent to contact the orcs wasn't limited to just the party. Between Elan, Daigo, Durkon and Lien, it ought to have been Lien to handle the negotiations. She's obviously more intelligent than Elan and as a paladin, should have a CHA score to rival his.

The comic pretty much says it was Elan who handled all the negotiations, but I just wanted to point that out.

Regarding the OP, I disagree that Elan can be seen as a leader. He isn't really sent to LEAD the mission, he's sent as the representative to the orcs, because of his high CHA. That is, if diplomatic skills weren't needed, he probably would've been ordered to stay on the boat in the first place, leaving his more responsible team-mates handle the situation.
I wouldn't call him the party leader. He does not possess the INT, and therefore the means, to come to any sort of decision.

I DO agree, however, that both Haley and Elan have adapted the role of being the mediator for their respective teams. That argument between Durkon and V might have escalated into something ugly without Elan. (For the record, I think Durkon's approach was unreasonable and V's personal issues did not make hir argument any less valid, but I digress...) Similarly, I can't imagine Belkar or Celia standing each other's company on the road for more than a minute without Haley.

So yes, I can appreciate THAT symmetry. And it's truethat Belkar's and V's conditions seem rather similar. Both of them brought it on themselves with their approach to things. With his stabby outlook on life, it was in Beklar's nature to stab the Oracle. Similarly, it's V's issues with arcane power that make hir take such an obsessive approach to the problem of finding Haley, rather than taking it level-headedly.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

Chance is not just 50-50 shots. Some are 99-1, and are still chance.
Normally when you say something is by chance you mean that it is random, not as in statistically random but as in anything can happen. For to speak of the "expectation of chance" then we must have probabilities as to what is going to happen and I don't see how this applies to web comic. More importantly, it is a web comic, so the story is not written by chance obviously but by an author. Certainly the Giant is trying to "flesh" out this world so in-story something may happen by chance, like Celia running into the killer dragging the body down the street. At the same time, the author makes some things happen not by chance but for a reason, for example Celia acting naive. But the author can and does weave in literal elements such as irony or parallel. I'm not sure what your argument is but how does what you "expect by chance" negate that the author has put in some parallels into this story arc? Certainly he's done it before, OotS / the Linear Guild, OotS / Order of the Scribble.



However, the point is that we would find parallels in that case too. We would start noticing a parallel between Belkar and Therkla, both being tempted to the "dark side".

You seem to imply that an author could write anything and it is only we the readers who would draw parallels. Yes, many movements in literary criticism have emphsized the subjective but you're taking it to an extreme that I think few people would agree with. In fact, to take your example, I can see no parallels between Belkar and Therkla though there are certainly plenty between Therkla and Hayley.



With Elan, we almost never see him leaving people. In fact, he seems to stick to others like glue. People try to leave him.

Like who? Roy? Dorkun? Haley? Therkla?



But again, we would see a parallel. Elan leaves the fleet. Haley leaves Azure city.

How is that a parallel? A parallel would be: Elan leaves the fleet and Hinjo and V and Dorkun to find Haley and Haley leaves Azure city and the resistance and a pre-MoJ Belkar to find Elan.



There are scads of possible parallels.

Who says there ain't. I only observed the ones the Giant put in. It would be pointless to talk about the parallels in events that did not happen.



There is no need for any intent to have them. They will just be there.

Again this is an argument of the extreme.




Not really. "You're the boss." doesn't mean you are anything like the boss. It means the speaker is going to do things your way because you really insist, but you are taking all the blame. Celia had just gotten thru ignoring an order from Haley, and she did not wait for one a moment later. So the statement had a very limited meaning.
Sorry but none of that made any sense to me. Celia does not always follow orders but how you can argue that Celia does not see Haley as the leader of their small group in any way is beyond me.

Anyway that is irrelevant to the major point. You don't want to see any parallels, that's fine. I was not trying to start an argument on aesthetics. I was just posting my observations. We obviously differ on what we see in the story...or any story.

[NENAD]

There's no real way to prove that Hamster is wrong, since we'll never know if the parallels suggested by David Argall would've been drawn if those events had happened instead of the ones that did...But I think it's safe to say that David is right this time. The parallels are coincidence and we could draw parallels between the two groups so long as there are two groups, unless a lot of time in effort was put into to ensuring there are no parallels.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

There's no real way to prove that Hamster is wrong, since we'll never know if the parallels suggested by David Argall would've been drawn if those events had happened instead of the ones that did...But I think it's safe to say that David is right this time. The parallels are coincidence and we could draw parallels between the two groups so long as there are two groups, unless a lot of time in effort was put into to ensuring there are no parallels.

Did you guys ever take a lit class? Did you think it was pointless? It's OK, many people did.

But there is another point of view. That it is enjoyable to talk about lietrature or art or, yes, a D&D web comic from an analytical point of view.

I don't have to give an exhaustive proof of the parallels. This is not rocket science.

I am just posting an observation of mine that the Giant has made the split parties stories somewhat parallel. I found it interesting. I found the symmetry rather enjoyable. No one flat out agreed with me. Some said they found some parallels but they did not feel that stories were strongly paralleled. That's fine. I'm not imposing my subjective experience on others. But the fact that at least some parallels are observed by other shows that there is a common language between us. That we see the design patterns in the story though each may have a different opinion.

Now you and David, deny any parallelism. David seems to imply parallels don't exist in any story or if they do, they are simply products of the readers mind. You seem to imply that a story parallel must be proven like some statement in geometry or worse yet in some brute force algorithm whereby we disprove any other parallels.

It seems to me that you two do not like this sort of literary analysis. By your statements you imply that all literary analysis of all literature is useless. You are entitled to your opinion but I think what you are claiming is far and beyond out of the scope of this forum. What's the point of coming to a thread on parallelism in a story and denying that any such analysis can be done at all?