What if... Miko never killed Shojo?

[Peelee]

The relevance is that the "CEO comparison" doesn't hold up as an analogy

Sure it does. It's not a perfect analogy, but it doesn't need to be; it only nerds to address what we're applying it to, which is whether paladins (analogous to floor workers) have the God-given ways of talking directly to their gods (analogous to having the CEO's phone number). That CEO's and deities differ in other ways is irrelevant; you may as well say that CEOs have Rolexes while the deities can manipulate time itself. That, like your argument,has no bearing on paladins talking directly to their gods, so it doesn't matter that the analogy doesn't fit there.

[Keltest]

The relevance is that the "CEO comparison" doesn't hold up as an analogy, and thus these analogies themselves are irrelevant for discussion (yet are brought up again and again).



I screened your post and still couldn't find an example of a god answering a prayer by Miko (something they CAN, be it an exception or not).

Thus, still [citation needed] for Miko disregarding information from the gods.

Note that even during her fall, there is communication.
Of course Miko SUCKS interpreting this very obvious signal from the gods, but the point remains that she didn't get concrete, direct information at any point before her death, not as an answer to a prayer and not otherwise.

We have a frame where she sits in a circle of candles, praying to the gods for answers.
They don't answer, at least not in the online material.
Thus she is left figuring out divine will all on her own and looks for indirect signs.
And sucks badly at that.

The only sign she DOES get is that her paladin powers work - to a point.
So, up until she loses her magic, her only semi-reliable indication of how she's doing comes from her getting magic juice every morning, so it is an easy deduction to make that her superiors (gods) don't have a problem with her performance.

I think youre missing the point. The gods don't answer Miko's prayers. That's why she prays the way she does instead of seeking out a cleric to establish an actual verbal communication. She isn't actually interested in talking to the gods, because then she would have to adjust her thinking every time they told her something she didn't agree with. When she Fell was the only actual time they Twelve have actively communicated with her in any way, and she ignored them.

So when Miko uses a faulty method of interpreting their will in favor of more official and accurate methods, and when she ignores the most direct communication the gods gave her, what is it exactly that we can conclude? That she isn't actually interested in their will except that it is a potential way to validate her actions.

I don't understand why youre so confused here, or why youre expecting me to provide an example of something ive explicitly said didn't happen multiple times.

[woweedd]

I think youre missing the point. The gods don't answer Miko's prayers. That's why she prays the way she does instead of seeking out a cleric to establish an actual verbal communication. She isn't actually interested in talking to the gods, because then she would have to adjust her thinking every time they told her something she didn't agree with. When she Fell was the only actual time they Twelve have actively communicated with her in any way, and she ignored them.

So when Miko uses a faulty method of interpreting their will in favor of more official and accurate methods, and when she ignores the most direct communication the gods gave her, what is it exactly that we can conclude? That she isn't actually interested in their will except that it is a potential way to validate her actions.

I don't understand why youre so confused here, or why youre expecting me to provide an example of something ive explicitly said didn't happen multiple times.

Because Lacuna sympathizes with Miko. I don't get it, myself. More sympathetic then 3/6ths of the main cast? Sure, at least, as of NCFTPB. Actually sympathetic? Nah.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Because Lacuna sympathizes with Miko. I don't get it, myself. More sympathetic then 3/6ths of the main cast? Sure, at least, as of NCFTPB. Actually sympathetic? Nah.

Keltest isn't answering Lacuna, he's answering Mightymosy whose argument, as far as I can tell, is "Miko did nothing wrong. It's the gods' fault that they didn't answer her prayers". This is despite the fact that gods don't answer prayers for anyone except in rare occasions (and then only through other means than kneeling in a circle of candles and cradling your sword), and thus it is Miko's fault that she took lack of answer for affirmation of her actions.

Mightymosy also seems to be arguing that a massive light show from the gods does not count as the gods telling Miko that her actions are wrong, because that wasn't in response to her prayers.

The whole thing makes no sense.

Grey Wolf

[Kish]

I think it's, rather, that Lacuna fundamentally rejects "yes, that character took a logically suboptimal action because of their character flaws" as a valid answer in toto--which, combined with Rich's statements about Storytelling 101, mean he can't not object to the death of every developed character who dies in OotS.

Granted, there's also the

Miko probably has several mid-level clerics under her direct command

bizarre insistence on grossly inflating Shojo's resources, which I started out typing this post planning to say I couldn't see how it fit in, but by the time I got here, I had: it would be suboptimal for Soon to build an organization around a Tier 4/5 (which are paladins again? I can't remember. And don't actually care, this is rhetorical. Please don't bother to tell me) class, suboptimal for Shojo to maintain an almost-entirely-paladin order, suboptimal for anyone to object if Shojo stuffed the Sapphire Guard with clerics, so the Sapphire Guard must actually be full of clerics.

[Peelee]

Tier 4/5

That simplifies to Tier 0.8, which is even better than Tier 1!

[Resileaf]

That simplifies to Tier 0.8, which is even better than Tier 1!

In WoW terms, that's a dungeon tier!

[Grey_Wolf_c]

That simplifies to Tier 0.8, which is even better than Tier 1!

Please, please tell me that in the US you don't actually consider conversion from fraction to decimal "simplification". Simplification is the process of removing extraneous common factors from a fraction - thus you simplify from 16/20 to 4/5. But not the conversion to decimal notation.

Grey Wolf

[Jasdoif]

Please, please tell me that in the US you don't actually consider conversion from fraction to decimal "simplification".

In the context of mathematics, no. In the context of emphasizing an intentional misreading of "slash as either-or" as "slash as division operator" for the sake of comedy, only when it's funny.

[Peelee]

Please, please tell me that in the US you don't actually consider conversion from fraction to decimal "simplification". Simplification is the process of removing extraneous common factors from a fraction - thus you simplify from 16/20 to 4/5. But not the conversion to decimal notation.

Grey Wolf

Well, simplification was a poor term, I agree. I was really converting the Imperial 4/5 to the metric 0.8. And if this still isn't dumb enough for you, I'll go to U.S. customary units. Don't think I won't!

[Mightymosy]

Keltest isn't answering Lacuna, he's answering Mightymosy whose argument, as far as I can tell, is "Miko did nothing wrong. It's the gods' fault that they didn't answer her prayers". This is despite the fact that gods don't answer prayers for anyone except in rare occasions (and then only through other means than kneeling in a circle of candles and cradling your sword), and thus it is Miko's fault that she took lack of answer for affirmation of her actions.

Mightymosy also seems to be arguing that a massive light show from the gods does not count as the gods telling Miko that her actions are wrong, because that wasn't in response to her prayers.

The whole thing makes no sense.

Grey Wolf

Maybe because you are *grossly* putting words in my mouth, that's why?

I know you can be grumpy, but this approach (twisting words) is new to me, and leaves me baffled. No matter your personal *style* of communication (grumpy, at times condescending) I don't remember seeing you arguing with such.....I'm missing words here........"bad faith"?

I'd rather leave this unanswered, because it won't lead anywhere good anyway, so count me out of this discussion from now on.
If even the usually reasonable people go mad, it's time to leave.

@Peelee: non-analogous analogy does not work well as an analogy, was my statement. Make of that what you want.

@Keltest: The most important part I am missing is the one at which you give an example where the gods answer Miko's prayers with concrete information.

This comes from you saying Miko doesn't even WANT information, to which I still say [citation needed].

There is one strip in which Miko is being told by someone "in the know" that she was wrong.
Verbally.
What is her reaction there?

With this I leave for now.
This forum is like smoking: doesn't bring joy, yet is strangely addicting.
I have had enough toxic stench for today, so see you all until the next Tarquin discussion or whatever.

[Peelee]

@Peelee: non-analogous analogy does not work well as an analogy, was my statement. Make of that what you want.

It is analogous at what we're talking about. That you want it to be analogous in every facet speaks more about you than about the analogy.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Maybe because you are *grossly* putting words in my mouth, that's why?

I encourage you, then, in the future, to be more clear about your argument. If I misrepresented your argument, such as it was, it's because I could not make heads or tails of it.

This comes from you saying Miko doesn't even WANT information, to which I still say [citation needed].

Miko obviously doesn't want information since the one time she most definitely did get information directly from the gods in the most obvious way possible, she immediately rejected said information in exchange for a delusion of her own making where the gods were in fact approving of her actions when they were most obviously not.

If your entire argument is predicated on the basis that "Miko did want to listen to the gods", and you are trying to get us to disprove it specifically by finding a prayer that in ootS cannot happen, then no wonder your argument fails to make any kind of sense. First, you are asking us to prove a negative. Second, you are asking us to find evidence that the OotS doesn't run on D&D rules. Third, you are shifting the burden of proof even after you were told to prove it by effectively saying "no, you find the citation". Fourth you have now decided to use ad hominems rather than defending or explaining your argument. Toxic indeed, but that was neither Keltest nor my doing.

Grey Wolf

[hroþila]

This comes from you saying Miko doesn't even WANT information, to which I still say [citation needed].

There is one strip in which Miko is being told by someone "in the know" that she was wrong.
Verbally.
What is her reaction there?

As far as I can tell, her reaction was "Dear gods, please tell me what that sign meant because obviously you can't have meant what it would seem you meant." To which someone could have replied, "Say, Miko, why don't you subject yourself to the Atonement spell then? That explicitly works as intercession between you and the gods, and it'll help you figure out their wills." No, wait, Hinjo proposed just that and Miko refused.

[Keltest]

@Keltest: The most important part I am missing is the one at which you give an example where the gods answer Miko's prayers with concrete information.

This comes from you saying Miko doesn't even WANT information, to which I still say [citation needed].

Remember that time when Miko Fell, and then immediately decided it was some kind of mistake or test by the gods, and not at all something she did wrong?

[Peelee]

This comes from you saying Miko doesn't even WANT information, to which I still say [citation needed].

You know what, fine, citation ****ing given. You want the Cliff Notes?

The gods have a plan for me, I know it! I am special, the most powerful paladin in the Sapphire Guard! They wouldn't do this to ME without a reason, I just need to figure out what it is!

[Jasdoif]

Well, simplification was a poor term, I agree.

I think it works, you were getting them to common terms; and comparing 4/5 to 1/1 wouldn't be as funny. Unless you then substituted "0" for "/", in which case you'd have a 405 for a 101; and that's HTTP's "method not allowed" for having a dog in this fight (even if it's not a centurion Dalmatian).

[Peelee]

I think it works

Hold on now, you already said it only works if its funny, so now you're just being inconsistent!

[Kish]

As far as I can tell, Mightymosy's argument is:

Hilgya got information from Loki by her prayers. Therefore, Miko could have gotten information from the Twelve Gods by their prayers.

I see two pretty huge differences there and one difference of uncertain size. The uncertain-size one is that Hilgya is not depicted praying, so whether she means the same actions Miko was depicted as taking is questionable. The huge ones are: Hilgya is a cleric, not a paladin, and Miko was addressing her prayers to "the Twelve Gods," not "Dragon." It does not strike me as counterintuitive that a direct servant of a god gets an answer where an agent of Law and Good does not, nor that a prayer effectively addressed "To Whom It May Concern" winds up in the circular file while one addressed "Loki" gets an answer when Loki feels like answering it. (Especially if, in this analogy, the Twelve Gods' general mailbox got emptied by a non-Good god when Miko's prayers were in it, which is statistically likely.)

Beyond that, though, I think nitpicking such fine details is a bad look for Mightymosy in particular. For reasons that are very unlikely to matter to any significant character in the story, Hilgya got a response (aimed at blatantly manipulating her) while Miko got no response at all and constructed her own imagined response from what real-world people might have considered omens. Handwave the difference; you've certainly done it before.

[Jasdoif]

Hold on now, you already said it only works if its funny, so now you're just being inconsistent!

It works because it was funny! And because 4/5 can be represented as 0.8, it's not irrational either!

[Ruck]

I think it's, rather, that Lacuna fundamentally rejects "yes, that character took a logically suboptimal action because of their character flaws" as a valid answer in toto--which, combined with Rich's statements about Storytelling 101, mean he can't not object to the death of every developed character who dies in OotS.

Logically, sure. But only Miko gets this treatment. I think the problem is more as I described here, that Lacuna seems to believe the story should have gone in a way to validate Miko's worldview, up to and including characters taking out-of-character actions, because that would have ended in a better result for Miko.

Lacuna's objective is proving the men made a duplicate key, that's how they got the strawberries that Miko actually is every bit as chosen and special as she thinks she is, that the narrative has failed her by not complying, and therefore, there must be some flaw in the narrative that proves this is true. (And, by extension, some flaw in all of us who don't agree, since clearly we're simply not seeing the issue properly, unlike Lacuna.)

Other people have answered mightymosy satisfactorily, but it's, like, extremely obvious how little Miko cares for the actual will of the gods and how much she is rationalizing whatever she wants to do already.

[Lacuna Caster]

I'm gonna try to revisit the other posts later, but for now I'll just touch on this...

You'll eventually have to accept this, because she is being painted that way, at least if you want to take the comic seriously and logically follow through - which I would advise against, personally. This is parody, especially during the golden and silver age of OotS. The robustness of the worldbuilding was constructed on the level of "Please don't touch or it might crumble! Here, enjoy some really funny jokes instead of thinking too hard!". And it worked REALLY well on that level, if you ask me...

...But I get the notion that the comic is supposed to be taken seriously, now, with all the ethical lectures and stuff, and now it establishes stuff that retroatively makes other stuff from before look inconsistent.

Mosy, I realise that your position here is that, "yes, plot holes exist in OOTS, but I enjoy it anyway because teh funniez", and, yeah, okay, I understand and respect that. (I think hrophila made a similar argument.) To some extent, I can even agree. The problem is that- for reasons I don't really understand at all- I tend to get swarmed by posters who will indignantly insist that the worldbuilding of OOTS is utterly ironclad and not susceptible to crumbling in the least, and see them fielding an array of flimsy, mean-spirited rationalisations to try to defend it.

So to the extent the comic retroactively paints Miko as some kind of brainless slashing machine who doesn't know that Teleport or Planar Ally exists, I am going to call this out as a defect in the comic. (Because Miko's early behaviour is clearly not this stupid. She is, for example, quite happy to use tanglefoot bags to neutralise casters and call in carpet-bombing from V/Durkon vs. the Ogres, rather than relying exclusively on her own class abilities to get things done, despite various protests that she's too hur-hur-dumb-dumb to use anything else. She's actually pretty astute, tactically speaking, and certainly not ignorant of the benefits from having full casters on-staff.)

If the broader forumite population was saying what you are saying... well, I think the various ethical lectures introduced in the later text would still be somewhat tonally incongruous, but I would at least be less generally exasperated with this segment of the fanbase.

[Peelee]

So to the extent the comic retroactively paints Miko as some kind of brainless slashing machine who doesn't know that Teleport or Planar Ally exists, I am going to call this out as a defect in the comic. (Because Miko's early behaviour is clearly not this stupid. She is, for example, quite happy to use tanglefoot bags to neutralise casters and call in carpet-bombing from V/Durkon vs. the Ogres, rather than relying exclusively on her own class abilities to get things done, despite various protests that she's too hur-hur-dumb-dumb to use anything else. She's actually pretty astute, tactically speaking, and certainly not ignorant of the benefits from having full casters on-staff.)

The comic also pointed out that inns exist, yet Miko's instinctive reaction was to sleep outside in a muddy ditch with sharp rocks to use as pillows. Could it be that your assessment of even Miko's early behavior is shockingly wrong?

[Lacuna Caster]

Logically, sure. But only Miko gets this treatment. I think the problem is more as I described here, that Lacuna seems to believe the story should have gone in a way to validate Miko's worldview..

Ruck, first let me say that I am exceedingly tired of having to deal with these bulverist strawmen you've constructed out my arguments, and explicitly calling me a liar while you snipe from the sidelines is not helping either. Peelee made an ill-constructed argument, and I pointed out why it was ill-constructed. That is all that happened.

Secondly, I've been perfectly happy to point out that, for example, Redcloak should logically have been getting regular performance reviews from the Dark One via Commune for all the same reasons that Durkula did. The difference is that the readership, for some reason, is less likely to flail around claiming that Redcloak is too stupid to know this spell exists, or otherwise just lets this kind of observation drop. The forum has a long-standing problem with acknowledging perfectly innocuous observations that Miko was not, at all times and in all places, a seething mass of self-destructive lunacy, or that other agents in her general vicinity could have been at fault, and I therefore wind up responding to that.

Thirdly, if various major characters have to operate on the same mental plane as the pre-development Monster In The Dark in order for the plot to unfold as depicted, then you have a characterisation problem as well as a plot problem. How is this my fault?

[Peelee]

Ruck, first let me say that I am exceedingly tired of having to deal with these bulverist strawmen you've constructed out my arguments, and explicitly calling me a liar while you snipe from the sidelines is not helping either. Peelee made an ill-constructed argument, and I pointed out why it was ill-constructed. That is all that happened.

A.) You claimed it was ill-constructed. Since you put zero effort into establishing it, I eventually put zero effort into replying to those claims.
2.) You openly said that I was the one who compared her to Roy, which was demonstrably false. That is what Ruck is responding to. Don't try to gaslight and you won't get accusations of gaslighting. Well, I can't guarantee that, but certainly you won't get accurate accusations of gaslighting.

[Lacuna Caster]

The comic also pointed out that inns exist, yet Miko's instinctive reaction was to sleep outside in a muddy ditch with sharp rocks to use as pillows. Could it be that your assessment of even Miko's early behavior is shockingly wrong?

What is your argument here, Peelee? Is sleeping in an Inn (or not) going to be tactically relevant to Miko destroying her enemies? She explicitly points out there are no rules about sleeping. Why is this random-overreaction-for-the-sake-of-humour suddenly a show-stopping rebuttal of Miko's capacity for rational thought, especially when, with a mild degree of prompting, she shortly afterwards pays to stay there, and helps calmly evacuate civilians from a fire? Where is the evidence for intransigent myopia here?

[Lacuna Caster]

A.) You claimed it was ill-constructed. Since you put zero effort into establishing it, I eventually put zero effort into replying to those claims...

Peelee, this is not complicated. You tried to imply that Miko's career choice of paladin meant that she must have zero interest in, or capacity for, talking with the Gods. I pointed out that Roy, despite having no related class feature, is perfectly capable of having, say, traps disarmed by delegating to other members of his team. Similarly, there is nothing to prevent Miko talking to the Gods via Commune or Planar Ally simply by talking to the clerics on her team. And this has nothing to do with either's motives for becoming fighters or paladins. It's simply a thing they are trivially able to do. Stop pretending otherwise.

[Jasdoif]

Don't try to gaslight and you won't get accusations of gaslighting.

Wait a minute...do you think Shojo's senility ruse constitutes gaslighting the Sapphire Guard? Or would it need to make them question their own sanity (rather than just his) for that to be the case? I think I'm behind on my connotations, here.

[Peelee]

What is your argument here, Peelee?

Two arguments. Argument the first: Miko readily makes seemingly suboptimal choices over significantly easier alternatives for ascetic reasons. Or, if you want to apply that sentence to a very specific example, "no Miko not grabbing a wizard to teleport her is not a plot hole."

The other one is much simpler. Argument the second: You have a very poor grasp on Miko's established character, and your claims are made entirely on this poor grasp.

Wait a minute...do you think Shojo's senility ruse constitutes gaslighting the Sapphire Guard? Or would it need to make them question their own sanity (rather than just his) for that to be the case? I think I'm behind on my connotations, here.

If he interacted with them after dark in anti-magic areas, he probably conducted his business by gaslight, at the very least.

[hroþila]

Mosy, I realise that your position here is that, "yes, plot holes exist in OOTS, but I enjoy it anyway because teh funniez", and, yeah, okay, I understand and respect that. (I think hrophila made a similar argument.)

I don't think the argument I made was actually similar. I said that OotS is not the kind of story that puts the in-depth exploration of the universe's inner workings at the forefront, and therefore that it's not a flaw that those inner workings are left for the reader to infer rather than being presented explicitly in the comic (since you were dismissing valid theories that would explain the behaviour of Miko, Shojo and/or the Twelve Gods because, in your opinion, those theories should have appeared in the comic). I didn't say that the universe isn't supposed to make sense, or that its internal rules fall apart if you look at them with any degree of scrutiny, or that there are any plotholes worth mentioning, or that if they existed they wouldn't matter because comedy.

(also, hrothila)