OOTS #1130 - The Discussion Thread

[Dausuul]

Count me in the "something like this happens to all vampires, but Greg is an extreme case" camp.

Rereading this strip, I notice that Malack does not distinguish between his living self and the being he is now: "I had seven brothers, you know. In that dim other life so long past. I remember the taste of their blood far more vividly than any fraternal bond, though."

Notice how Malack phrases it: I had seven brothers. In that dim other life so long past. He's describing these things, not as the recollections of a third party which he happens to know, but as his own memories. He has fully absorbed his host; in his mind, he is his host. (Malack is talking to himself at this point--Durkon's already dead--so he has no reason to deceive anybody about his true nature. Unless he was staging the whole thing for Belkar, which seems like a stretch.)

As I said, however, Greg is an extreme case. If his original claim is to be believed, this process usually takes several months. So the vampire spirit would absorb the memories one by one, processing each. The result would be the original persona, but deconstructed and rebuilt in the vampire's image. Greg asked for--and got--the original persona dumped whole into his mind.

Did not expect this. Though I did get this much right: Mr. Scruffy revived Belkar, who is now in the process of helping to save the day. (I expected Mr. Scruffy to use Roy's healing potion, but evidently the clasp works too, and also explains disabling the domination gaze.)

[Emperor Time]

This went better than I could have hope for from the previous update.

[LunarDrop]

YOOO! Belkar's up! Mr. Scruffy MVP 2018
Durkon, my boy, that was phenomenal. I didn't expect to get this emotional today but I didn't know a new page was coming out. Wow. That splash panel is fantastic... I'm sorry for the rambling, I cant put my thoughts together cohesively on this.

[Sloanzilla]

Dude

Golf clap

[Rrmcklin]

For some reason, I'm now convinced that Minrah is related to the blond Dwarf of Durkon's Family. (can't remember her name either).

It was explicitly stated that those five had no living family members, so that's a no go. If they were related, she and Durkon would know each other, but she told Hilgya she's never meet Durkon before.

[resound]

There's no "bloodied" concept in 3.5ed D&D. Is what you found from 4ed or 5ed?

I think it's a 4th edition rule. Is OOTS 3.5e?

[Crœsos]

How could you not think about how your selflessness would affect ME?!?

This seems like one of the most Belkar things Belkar has ever said.

[LadyEowyn]

Well, this isn't what I was expecting, but it's a great moment and I find it convincing.

My answer to the question of "Why doesn't this happen to vampires more often?" is that not only does it require a fairly specific type of host (strongly Good-aligned, whose character and emotions are built around experiencing a specific moment of extreme altruistic self-sacrifice), it also requires a very large difference in the ratio of vampire memories:host memories.

I would expect that most vampires take many years to absorb all their host's memories, and by the time that has happened the vampire's own personality is pretty firmly established as something different from the host's - the vampire has all the host's memories, but it also has many, many memories of being a vampire and doing evil vampirey things. I expect that the sequence in which it views the host's memories also has an effect on vampire's personality.

But Durkula's memories now include maybe a week or two of being Durkula and 50+ years of being Durkon, which is enough to overwhelm his Durkula-ness.

EDIT: Dausuul said it better than me.

[Kish]

I think it's a 4th edition rule. Is OOTS 3.5e?

Yes, except when Rich makes occasional jokes about other editions (the reptilian woman with breasts, for example).

[Sebastian]

*slow clap*

[Grey_Wolf_c]

As towards the matter of my signature, I will consider it -- but no promises.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Please don't. The argument against signing is spurious. Your name - i.e. the string of letters that you'd prefer to be referred to by - is NOT posted next to each of your posts, since "unique login username" is not necessarily equivalent to "name". Neither is it next to mine (though mine is closer, it is also still not accurately so). Furthermore, the very ability to hide the signature block means that anyone intending to transmit this information must NOT use it.

More crucially, signing a post is like signing an email or signing a letter. Yes, you can pretty much figure out who wrote something most of them time... but most of the time is not all of the time. I have occasionally posted my SO's thoughts or our combined thoughts and signed as such. Alternatively, I have occasionally quoted those that expressed an idea better than I could, and did not sign such posts since they were not mine in any significance. And of course I have occasionally participated in games were I was pretending to be someone I am not in these very forum, and in such occasions, not putting my screenname was further indication of the "voice" behind the post.

In short, there are very good reasons to sign your posts, and despite our disagreements over the years, I have always appreciated that you do.

Grey Wolf

[Jay R]

And ye know who else ye are?

Ye are also who ye are on the day y'read tha best webcomic o' yer life.

[MightionNY]

* lets out a high pitched scream only audible to dogs, wolves, and keyboards (for the purpose of posting to a forum) *

[HandofShadows]

That was awesome. And I think there is more to come.

Oh, yeah. A GREAT demonstration of the trope "Evil does not understand Good".

[mikeejimbo]

How literally do you mean the phrase "it wouldn't be the end of the world"?

Pretty literally actually. With the vampire out of the picture they may be able to stop the vote.

[Kish]

I believe Alsadius is suggesting--and if they aren't, I am--that it may in fact be the end of the world if Belkar destroys Vampire Durkon now, because without him, the Exarch will continue trying to enact Hel's will unless and until he has a comparable epiphany of his own, whereas if Vampire Durkon walks away from this, he can simply order the Exarch to stop.

[Jay R]

Is "What are you talking about" a thought?

Belkar's thoughts, feelings, and words are all Belkar's.

Yes, absolutely. They are also paralleling the vampire:

:How dare you make me think about things, Durkon?
:How could you not think about how your selflessness would affect ME?

While he's saying this, Durkon is making the vampire think about things, and dealing with how his mother's selflessness affected him, and is affecting the vampire.

I'm sure Belkar's not doing this on purpose. But I'm equally sure that Rich is doing it on purpose. This is one of the many layers of the comic.

[Crœsos]

It was explicitly stated that those five had no living family members, so that's a no go. If they were related, she and Durkon would know each other, but she told Hilgya she's never meet Durkon before.

Well, they had no living family members around the time Durkon was born. Since then a lot of them have had kids, like Cousin Logann, or the younger dwarves we see in today's Durkon Thundershield memory retrospective. Logann's mom is the one who worried about her family line almost ending with her, and since Logann seems pretty close to Durkon's own age she must have addressed that worry pretty quickly.

But you're right that Minrah would probably know Durkon if she were related to his family, though she's young enough that she joined the Temple of Thor after Durkon was exiled. She does know Sergeant Sigdi (Durkon's mother), but it's not clear how.

[SunnyFox]

I am aware. This is how I sign my name on these forums since my join date in 2006. I review every post I make to ensure I can sign that signature truthfully. If I can't, I usually use another adjective.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I realize, and fully admit, that style is style, and I have no right to demand that you do otherwise, but this sort of redundant signing of one's name to a forum post where your prefered sobriette is already displayed every time you post, wastes time. For you, having to type it, for me (and everyone else) having to read it, that's time we could better spend actually thinking and then expressing thoughts that may actually be of use to, and generate, useful discussion of the story we're all here to read.

That said, I don't need a war breaking out over an ultimately meaningless matter of style.

Call it a pet peeve or whatever, if you feel you gotta add junk to your post because (paraphrasing: "that's just how I roll, y'all"), feel free to do so. Just ask yourself why you feels it's necessary, cos' it seems like it ain't. That's all.

[Ruck]

Looking at your other posts it doesn't seem like you called this. Honestly it just seems like regardless of what happens you just want to complain about how "obvious, hackneyed, and ass-pull"ey it is. Which I'd imagine is a form of trolling but, I don't get to make that call.

Looking at his other posts, it looks like he's hated the comic for a long time, since he only posts about things he hates about the comics. And looking at the thread for #1074 reminded me that I've been to this rodeo before with him, and I'll pass this time.

[JumboWheat01]

And this is why you never underestimate a halfling. You never know when one is gonna rip your head off with a small dagger.

[Fish]

Holy crap, what a great comic.

Spoiler

Show

You know, if only Belkar were a non-breathing semi-undead construct who didn't eat birthday cakes, he could get into that anti-life shell. Just sayin'.

Not that I think it'll happen. I'm just kicking the dead trope while it's down.

[The_Weirdo]

"I am a shadow, the true self." Does this mean Durkon has a Persona now?

All of these posts and just ONE reference to Persona IV?

I am so disappointed in you all.

Also...

PONCHULA! NO!!! She was so hawt!

[Perficio]

Rereading a bit, and I appreciate how Durkon's gambit here is a bigger and fuller version of something Durkula did before; catching a time when the other's off-balance and unsure, calling up memories to wedge into that confusion and doubt, until he can't deny the truth of it anymore. The earlier accusation (why wouldn't he believe this of you, if you went evil you'd have plenty of motive to do this) hit Durkon hard because he was denying those memories and trying not to base himself on them... and they were blind spots he could get tripped up on and hurt afresh.

But what Durkon's done now, bringing ALL his memories to fore and giving the full context of who he is, can't be fought back with those selective painful memories. He's won that tug-of-war.

Not that it's "good wins, happily ever after." Durkula already hurt everyone in the room, Belkar and Hilgya in particular are unlikely to work with him for any purpose but killing him, and Roy's been personally hurt enough that he's not likely to be convinced of anything. I'd love if this is the point where Durkon goes home - back to Sigdi - to retreat and assess what to do now. And, y'know, to see his mom after a couple decades away.

[Finagle]

I thought Brian started signing his posts because his username was similar to someone else's, so he began using his real name. But it has been about a decade so my memory is fuzzy on those details. (I also seem to remember him singing?)

Oh, sure. Sign your posts, absolutely. But put it in the signature file. That's literally what it's there for.

On USENET there were newsreaders that would strip away signatures, and thankfully this forum software has the same function. However it can't work if people put their signatures into the message body. It's a disrespectful thing to do to other people, it's just spam.

[Jay R]

So who else besides me is looking through the time-capsule of Durkon's memories for anything important that might be hiding there?

Nope. But I'll look through the forum threads for anything important that might be hiding in Durkon's memories.

I chose the word deliberately. By spamming "respectfully" in the message body instead of in the signature file where it belongs, it's disrespectful to everyone else who has to read the same thing, over and over.

It's not disrespectful to me. I don't mind reading politeness over and over.

I'm bemused by the notion that expressing explicit and sincere respect on a constant basis could be inherently disrespectful.

Satisfying though it might be to watch, I feel like this scene only works because it violates what was previously well-established about how vampires and their bodies' native souls operate. We were both told and shown earlier that the discussions and reactions the vampire and Durkon had were instantaneous from the perspective of outside time, which precludes the first half of this strip. Perhaps the "flood of all memories at once" works slightly differently, but that only applies near the end.

I don't think absorbing the memory took any time at all. I think trying to understand it (while being completely unprepared to do so) is what took the time.

Showing memory? Instantaneous.
Talking to Durkon? Instantaneous.
Understanding something completely outside your experience, knowledge, and philosophy? Ah, now that can take awhile.

[Perficio]

All of these posts and just ONE reference to Persona IV?

I am so disappointed in you all.

Also...

PONCHULA! NO!!! She was so hawt!

I don't see Durkula Suddenly And Magically having a Change Of Heart out of nowhere. But I keep wondering how much of his earlier jibe, that he's shaped from pieces of Durkon on his worst day, was true. Because if that's the case, then he might - and only might - have vulnerabilities in his psyche patterned after Durkon's. This whole arc of Durkon forced into unwanted passivity and reflection, rethinking who he is and what shaped him, could be coming down to a classic confrontation with one's inner shadows (as bolstered by negative energy and the magic of his race and god's ancient foe).

they've been here but subtle. no worries man, we got it

[Dausuul]

In panel #5, Mr. Scruffy casts some sort of healing magic on Belkar, but it has a green aura - did Roy's sword empower Mr. Scruffy? What's going on?

It's Belkar's magic clasp of protection from evil. Most such items require a command word, but when Belkar got the clasp, it was established that rubbing the clasp is what activates the magic. Mr. Scruffy was thus able to activate it by accident.

[The Troubadour]

To turn surrender into victory not by overwhelming force, but by overwhelming understanding. That was so perfectly Durkon.
These last few strips have been nothing short of wonderful.

[Ironsmith]

I am aware. This is how I sign my name on these forums since my join date in 2006. I review every post I make to ensure I can sign that signature truthfully. If I can't, I usually use another adjective.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I realize, and fully admit, that style is style, and I have no right to demand that you do otherwise, but this sort of redundant signing of one's name to a forum post where your prefered sobriette is already displayed every time you post, wastes time. For you, having to type it, for me (and everyone else) having to read it, that's time we could better spend actually thinking and then expressing thoughts that may actually be of use to, and generate, useful discussion of the story we're all here to read.

That said, I don't need a war breaking out over an ultimately meaningless matter of style.

Call it a pet peeve or whatever, if you feel you gotta add junk to your post because (paraphrasing: "that's just how I roll, y'all"), feel free to do so. Just ask yourself why you feels it's necessary, cos' it seems like it ain't. That's all.

If I understand Pendell's post correctly, part of it is that typing "respectfully, Brian P" at the end acts as a reminder to review the post and make sure he's being... well, respectful. It being a deliberate action (as opposed to something the website does for him automatically) makes it work better that way. After doing it for so long, it might not be strictly necessary, but I gotta say, that's still more self-control than I demonstrate on this forum.

...Not that mine's any good, as evidenced by the fact that I'm jumping into a discussion which I have no connection to whatsoever other than just being here, too.

I'll admit, I was weirded out a bit when I saw it first, too (hell, part of me wanted to shoot it down as pretentious and self-aggrandizing) but honestly, it grew on me after a while. Hopefully, it does the same for you.