OOTS #1130 - The Discussion Thread

[crayzz]

On another note:

Greg and Belkar both being unable to deal with new emotions wrt Durkon is a really cool parallel.

[braveheart]

F*** yeah durkon for the win!!!

[Resileaf]

Someone should really answer warmachine's post.

It's not my fault posts move at the speed of light!

[jwhouk]

First of all - seven pages, and the strip's only been up for what, two and a half hours????

Secondly - heh, two guesses come true at the same time. Durkon essentially "Turn Undeads" Durkula, while Mr. Scruffy rubs the "Protect from Evil" medallion on Belkar.

The obvious thing to happen next strip, of course, is Durkon killing Belkar - unless of course Hilgya does it for him?

[Going Hereward]

I don't think I've ever waited so long for a page.

RIP Ponchula. If Minrah ain't getting out of this fight alive, you shouldn't.

Unalive.

... Whatever.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Someone should really answer warmachine's post.

I laughed when I saw that parade.

Was a fun parade to march in, too.

[Alsadius]

This is a fantastic strip, but everyone else has said that already, so I'm going to throw a theory out here.

Compare Belkar in #969 to Belkar in this one when his Protection from Evil clasp activates. In #969, he's obviously in pain from it - he's evil, and thus Protection from Evil hurts him. If I'm reading his facial expressions right, he's not in pain in #1130. He's angry, but he's not hurting physically. And that anger seemingly comes from Durkon - Durkon who acted selflessly, Durkon who made him think and feel. He's reacting to a moment of emotional stress, so he's still cranky, but he's not being harmed by Protection from Evil - it is only preventing the domination effect. The yellow glow is still there, but it's not causing the effects it did back in #969.

Belkar is in the middle of an alignment change.

[Turin_19]

This is so beautiful.

[Lkctgo]

This is one of the thread's crowning moments. This was epic.

[Askthepizzaguy]

So, it's official.

Durkon can kick a vampire's butt with both arms and legs tied behind his back.

[AutomatedTeller]

that is awesome. The funny thing is, I STILL don't know how this ends!! I mean, Durkon is still a vampire. Does he stay one, just with a different personality that is working with the order? Does he get killed? Does Belkar get killed?

Great comic!! Answers a couple of questions.

[Doug Lampert]

Really, Ponchella? What good would Harm have done there?

"I'm going to make you have 1 HP for real real, not just 1 HP for play play". GREAT use of what could've been your only action.

Try, I'm going to heal all my damage so your dagger fails to do enough to take me down me. Harm is pretty useful to undead.

[Perficio]

I don't understand what selflessness Belkar had to think about. Vampire domination allows issuing commands, not sharing experiences. And I'm also surprised Belkar cares. He always struck me as a sociopath who dismisses altruism as foolish.

Belkar isn't sharing in any of Durkula and Durkon's experiences, he isn't seeing or hearing the memories or even knows they're being exchanged. He's still talking about something that's been on his mind, the selflessness that Durkon displayed when he stopped resisting and just asked for his friends' lives.

Belkar is bothered by the way Durkon helped him, in a way not unlike Durkula's confusion.

On another note:

Greg and Belkar both being unable to deal with new emotions wrt Durkon is a really cool parallel.

(yes, this)

[Darth Paul]

Oh, I'm not expecting it. It's just a nice show of respect to other forum members to refrain from spamming your posts with the same text every time. That's what the sig file is for. And the avatar. And the location, biography, interests and all the other parts of the user profile. We've got plenty of room to express ourselves. But some of us feel we have to display status in public by doing even more and repeating the same dang thing over again. I've seen this on other forums, too. It's like conspicuously putting your name on a building.

Obviously you don't like signatures, since your own signature is all about how to turn off other people's annoying signatures (which in and of itself is a sort of annoying signature). But I can think of a lot worse things to sign with than "Respectfully". That you find a gesture of respect disrespectful, strikes me as odd.

And that's the last I have to say on the subject.

[hroþila]

This is a fantastic strip, but everyone else has said that already, so I'm going to throw a theory out here.

Compare Belkar in #969 to Belkar in this one when his Protection from Evil clasp activates. In #969, he's obviously in pain from it - he's evil, and thus Protection from Evil hurts him. If I'm reading his facial expressions right, he's not in pain in #1130. He's angry, but he's not hurting physically. And that anger seemingly comes from Durkon - Durkon who acted selflessly, Durkon who made him think and feel. He's reacting to a moment of emotional stress, so he's still cranky, but he's not being harmed by Protection from Evil - it is only preventing the domination effect. The yellow glow is still there, but it's not causing the effects it did back in #969.

Belkar is in the middle of an alignment change.

Nah. Compare it to 996, where Belkar was already expecting the pain so it didn't catch him off guard. His reaction there is undistinguishable from the one in this comic. The lines around his eyes are a sign of pain and discomfort.

[pendell]

Which of course started off in my head:

He is the very model of a G-I-T-P posting man,
He signs off posts politely as a Playground forum poster can,
He's very well acquainted with the Order and IFCC,
And lots of other characters we read about quite frequently!

In short in matters Wizards of the Coast-er
He is the very model of a GITP-Poster!

Now that song is going to sit in my head.

Thanks to Darth Paul and others for your support :). As towards the matter of my signature, I will consider it -- but no promises.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Rrmcklin]

Welp, that's it.

My prediction was correct, this was the most obvious, hackneyed, and an ass-pull of storytelling. If I, as a DM, ever did something like this to my PCs, they would call me out on this cliched BS.

I am no longer invested in the comic and no longer care what happens to the characters. I want to see how the story ends - too bad there's going to be another thousand strips before we come to what will be a probably unsatisfying conclusion.

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.

[Unoriginal]

On other subject: music to read this strip with:

[Dagny]

This was amazing and immediately took its place as one of my favorite pages. The story has been building up to this payoff for so long, and it delivered. It's everything I could have hoped for in a payoff. The character development in OOTS is the best thing among the many great things about it.

Edited to add:

If I, as a DM, set up a situation in which all my PC could do was talk and show memories when asked, and they managed to work out that overwhelming two weeks of memories with fifty-four years of them to obliterate or suppress their opponent's sense of self was a valid play in that situation and that they needed to set up a point where the opponent was feeling vulnerable enough to ask for that to happen, and they then went and did that... fair play and a solid win to them.

I think this is the best description I've seen so far of what happened. It really sums up how this isn't just the result of Durkon being a solidly Good person, but of him being a solidly Good person who executed a carefully-devised strategic play.

[Jubal_Barca]

Welp, that's it.

My prediction was correct, this was the most obvious, hackneyed, and an ass-pull of storytelling. If I, as a DM, ever did something like this to my PCs, they would call me out on this cliched BS.

I am no longer invested in the comic and no longer care what happens to the characters. I want to see how the story ends - too bad there's going to be another thousand strips before we come to what will be a probably unsatisfying conclusion.

If I, as a DM, set up a situation in which all my PC could do was talk and show memories when asked, and they managed to work out that overwhelming two weeks of memories with fifty-four years of them to obliterate or suppress their opponent's sense of self was a valid play in that situation and that they needed to set up a point where the opponent was feeling vulnerable enough to ask for that to happen, and they then went and did that... fair play and a solid win to them.

I certainly don't think we should see this at all as "good talks evil out of being evil". Durkon hasn't talked Greg into or out of anything, he's engineered a situation where he's defeated Greg by psychologically stomping his personally into mites of vampire dust. And getting the Vampire to invite him to do so. I would've found it a little hackneyed if it had been a soppy "Greg has turned to the light now because he's seen what good is like", but that's definitely not my reading of this comic.

[Alsadius]

Nah. Compare it to 996, where Belkar was already expecting the pain so it didn't catch him off guard. His reaction there is undistinguishable from the one in this comic. The lines around his eyes are a sign of pain and discomfort.

Good catch. You may be right. That said, it was Belkar's words that got me thinking about this, and I only compared faces afterwards. I think he's heading from CE to CN before his story ends, but you're right that I might be over-stating the case here.

Also, secondary theory I've been thinking for a decade or so now - Belkar will die near(but not at) the end of a lengthy strip. The last panel will involved someone uttering the line "Happy new year".

[Ralanr]

This reminds me a lot of Spiderman and Doctor Octopus.

[RichTF]

Regarding “things that make Durkon’s situation special”, i.e.: why doesn’t this sort of thing happen more often? Wasn’t it also mentioned in an earlier comic that it’s pretty rare for a high-level cleric to succumb to vampirisation?

So if we’ve started from an already unusually powerful cleric host, and combined that with Durkon’s “worst day” being connected to an act of pure altruistic self-sacrifice, in addition to Greg being a very young vampire AND raised artificially-quickly… Yeah, I can totally buy this being an exceptionally rare occurrence, possibly even a one-off in the entire history of OOTS-world.

[Banderwock]

No, I don't think this was inevitable. Consider the differences here between Durkula and the other vampires we know a bit about, Malack and Ponchula.

Malack slowly absorbed memories over a long time, during which he was making new memories as a vampire. The memories of his shaman template were fainter and vaguer than those drinking the blood of his once-relatives, and easily dismissed.

Ponchula wasn't so much absorbing the memories of a struggling host as working together with somebody who was down for being an evil vampire. They probably had an easy flow back and forth, but the conversation kept their identities somewhat separate... for now. Maybe they would have blended over time.

Durkula described himself as made-to-order for the holes in Durkon's heart, meaning he was fundamentally shaped around Durkon's self image from the start. He's had only a couple of days to operate, during which he's been pretending to be Durkon and surrounded by people Durkon knows - continuing Durkon-memories, instead of really making his own. He's had nowhere near the amount of time or distance needed to establish his own identity. And now Durkon took advantage of that, getting Durkula off balance with the emotions that he - as Durkon on his worst day, with some additional shaping by Hel - would be susceptible to... and overwhelmed him with memories to the point that Durkon's identity is now most of who Durkula is. I don't think it's 100%, but there's so little anything else in him - besides some knowledge of the plans Hel laid out - that he's now basically what he'd claimed to be before - Durkon, but a vampire and probably some alignment shift.

I don't think this is normal for a OOTS vampire at all. I think it's the combo of custom-made soul, the work of going incognito... and most of all, Durkon having the exceptional insight, wisdom, and stubbornness to figure out how to reframe Durkula's identity and make it happen.

Particularly agree with the above. I have interpreted it as Greg/Durkula being essentially a mirror of Durkon's personality, with vast differences in perspective. Durkon in his stubbornness and selflessness has "ne'er let go" of the possibility that he could eventually do something to help his friends and everyone he cares about. Although he had no control of his body, inside his head Durkon has maintained his identity and systematically revealed this perspective to bring about change. After accepting Durkon's memories and viewpoint, any differences between them are trivial (probably, unless they're no longer separate at all, or something).

Pre-Malack, like most vamped souls, certainly witnessed horrible things very early (his family, etc), and lacked the strength of will to resist effectively. The Evil maintained control, so the former perspective was ignored and former identity/memories selectively absorbed. IMO.

[factotum]

It does make sense with the way the Giant decided to handle vampirism; if the original soul is trapped inside (and by the rules it must be, else you could raise the soul with True Rez even without killing the vampire first)

Um, no? A person who has been turned into *any* type of Undead (even mindless ones like Skeletons) cannot be resurrected by any means, not even True Resurrection, unless the undead creature is destroyed. There's no requirement for the soul to be captured.

[Ironsmith]

On other subject: music to read this strip with:

Spoiler

Show

*flashbacks to cumulative years lost playing Civ IV*

[The MunchKING]

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.

Well to be fair to him, when asked to describe what he thought it was going to be, he said

yah im totes not gonna b evil anymore bcuz self sacrifice is gud and im gonna throw away my service 2 hel bcuz my host showed me sum sad story

And now we have Durkula turning into Durkon (Presumably to not be evil anymore) because of the sad story his host showed him about goodness and self-sacrifice and all that. So while I think he's not giving it credit for being well told and incorporating the whole 'other good memories' bit, it does seem like he got the broad outline correct.

[Kish]

Durkon's worst day was being kicked out of dwarven lands.

What was connected to an act of pure altruistic self-sacrifice was his mother's worst day.

Lord_Drayakir predicted that Greg would turn to good because of "sum sad story[sic]", which is, in my view, rather different from "would realize he is actually Durkon after all." More to the point, I simply don't believe that he was ever invested in this story except to tear it down and try to make it into something it's not, which would have been entirely contrary to the themes of what it is and always was.

[Finagle]

Obviously you don't like signatures, since your own signature is all about how to turn off other people's annoying signatures (which in and of itself is a sort of annoying signature). But I can think of a lot worse things to sign with than "Respectfully". That you find a gesture of respect disrespectful, strikes me as odd..

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.

[The MunchKING]

Um, no? A person who has been turned into *any* type of Undead (even mindless ones like Skeletons) cannot be resurrected by any means, not even True Resurrection, unless the undead creature is destroyed. There's no requirement for the soul to be captured.

Although "soul being trapped" would be a good explanation for WHY True Res can't just magic you up a new body and stick your soul in THAT. I mean it does it if you got your body completely annihilated, so you would think "Something else using it" wouldn't be a hassle either.