Quote Originally Posted by Anarchic Fox View Post
It's strange. Normally the "awful people being awful to each other" style of comedy doesn't work for me, but it did here. 8-Bit Theater's cast consists of a psychopath, a kleptomaniac, three idiots (each stupid in a different way), and one last person who's both good and intelligent. Most of the humor is these six playing off each other. Similarly, almost all of the side characters are either stupid, evil, or both. I think it works because it's setting is so artificial (it's RPG-land) that their various awful deeds don't really register as such.
Part of why it works, at least for me, is the same basic trick that It's Always Sunny routinely pulls off. For one thing, no one in 8-Bit Theater is the voice of reason. It is very possible, in a given strip, to have all four of the main cast be reasonable at one point and then be completely unreasonable moments later as one of their own ridiculous assumptions bubble to the surface. As a result, you never get the sense of one person having repeated and exhausted responses to problems; you get to simultaneously laugh at someone pointing out how ridiculous the situation is while also not feeling bad that they're frustrated, because hey, if Black Mage is upset, we know that Black Mage is a sociopathic monster who deserves to be miserable no matter what.

The other element is that their opponents are just as bad when they're given any kind of characterization. They're either doing awful things to non-people (that is, individuals who aren't characterized in any fashion) or to people who absolutely deserve what's happening to them. And frequently they're the victims of their own hubris in that process.

"So, you didn't get any spells?"
"In the sense that being stabbed gets you a blade, man, I got spells."