The payoff to this strip

[Kamunami]

I remember quite a while back being excited by strip 963 (lol can't post links yet because I don't post much), wondering for a long time when whatever it was Durkon realized would pay off. But with the Durkula/HPoH/Greg arc over, I feel like I must have missed it. I personally can't see any connection between that setup and the eventual defeat of the vampire. Am I just being as blind as a vampire spirit right now?

[Rrmcklin]

The setup is that that's when Durkon first realizes that his memories can influence the Vampire, and the vampire doesn't realize it. Emphasis is placed on Durkula slipping into Durkon's accent for a moment. There are other such moments like this, but that's the first one.

[The_Snark]

It also demonstrates that the vampire is incapable of understanding how that memory from Durkon's youth influenced him later in life. Durkula might have a higher Int score than Durkon, but he's still pretty new to personhood and there's a lot he doesn't understand yet. Basically, it's setting the stage for Durkon outwitting him in some way (probably to do with memories, emotions or personal growth).

[martianmister]

It also demonstrated that Durkon was really stupid in the past. It lulled the vampire and the readers into a false sense of security, which then will be revealed as wrong and shocked them with Durkon's cunning abilities.

[Wizard_Lizard]

i remember quite a while back being excited by strip 963 (lol can't post links yet because i don't post much), wondering for a long time when whatever it was durkon realized would pay off. But with the durkula/hpoh/greg arc over, i feel like i must have missed it. I personally can't see any connection between that setup and the eventual defeat of the vampire. Am i just being as blind as a vampire spirit right now?

vampire!!!!!

[martianmister]

vampire!!!!!

I don't think so.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I don't think so.

are you sure?

[martianmister]

are you sure?

I'm pretty sure.

[hroþila]

I never have the faintest idea what you're talking about when you two engage in conversation.

[Kamunami]

The setup is that that's when Durkon first realizes that his memories can influence the Vampire, and the vampire doesn't realize it. Emphasis is placed on Durkula slipping into Durkon's accent for a moment. There are other such moments like this, but that's the first one.

I only have a slight, very tenuous idea of what you're referring to, very skeptical but you might be on to something. Like, are you suggesting that the vampire wanting to see a "big, slimy monster" was directly influenced by the earlier memory, despite Durkon not havig been aware of the connection? And taken separately, neither the vampire using the word "somethin'" or Durkon emphasizing it himself don't seem to raise any flags, both make perfect sense on their own without any connection between them. And yet, they are both present right next to each other, so maybe it's related? These both seem to be extremely strained connections, but I can't dismiss them outright...

[martianmister]

I never have the faintest idea what you're talking about when you two engage in conversation.

We're talking about whether Kamunami is a vampire or not.

[Rodin]

I only have a slight, very tenuous idea of what you're referring to, very skeptical but you might be on to something. Like, are you suggesting that the vampire wanting to see a "big, slimy monster" was directly influenced by the earlier memory, despite Durkon not havig been aware of the connection? And taken separately, neither the vampire using the word "somethin'" or Durkon emphasizing it himself don't seem to raise any flags, both make perfect sense on their own without any connection between them. And yet, they are both present right next to each other, so maybe it's related? These both seem to be extremely strained connections, but I can't dismiss them outright...

So, here's the breakdown.

Durkula asking to see a big slimy monster was a lucky coincidence - Durkon just happened to summon that memory. However, the pairing of the two memories makes Durkon look at them in a way he never had before. His upbringing caused him to be too passive, which caused him to be too passive later in life.

However, Durkula does not make this connection, despite it being plainly obvious. Durkon realizes from this that the vampire does not (yet) have the ability to process multiple memories and make emotional connections between them. This is due to how "young" the vampire is - he hasn't had time to leisurely absorb Durkon's memories and is instead grabbing only ones that are immediately useful.

From this, Durkon forms a plan - introduce the vampire to the memories of Durkon's childhood, but only doing so in a selective way that highlights the most formative moment of Durkon's life: the moment when Durkon learns his mother decided to resurrect five random strangers instead of his father. Durkon has managed to adapt to that moment because he has had 30+ years of living with that knowledge. The vampire Durkula has no such experience - in essence, he is a small child when it comes to emotions.

Durkula slipping into Durkon's accent is foreshadowing what happened when Durkon dropped the Emotion Bomb on him - he couldn't process the memories fast enough and Durkon and temporarily turned into Durkon himself. Durkon is then able to reassert control long enough to commit suicide by halfling. All of this only worked because Durkon had been laying the groundwork for it with every single memory since this particular strip.

[Fyraltari]

There are two parts to this:

1) The slip in Durkon*'s speech, tells Durkon that Durkon* is indeed changing, becoming more and more like him, if ever so sligthly, which coupled with the fact that Durkon* did not ask for all of Durkon's memory at once made Durkon realize that if he did, he would turn into a copy of the true Durkon, having both his body, mind and all of his memories. So, now Durkon needs to find a way of tricking durkon* into aking for precisely that

2) Durkon* not understanding the link between the two memories made Durkon realize that Durkon* wasn't able to understand them precisely becuase he only has so few, unlike regular people who create memories in order, using the older ones to understand the present. This is reinforced when Durkon* expresses the belief that people don't change, that they are who they are on their worst day: as he himself hasn't experimented change, he cannot understand it and so assume it doesn't exist.

From that Durkon hatches a plan, giving Durkon* choice memories, underlying the hardship he and Sigdi went through and then hitting him with the reveal that Sigdi could have avoided all that but didn't by selflessness. He (Durkon) has spent decades struggling with that, so he knows that he (Durkon*), with his very little understanding of human depth will be at a complete loss. Unable to understand why Sidgi did that, unable to understand what he feels about Sigdi doing that, he will be completely lost, desperate for an answer, for a way, any way, to make sense of it.

And then Durkon will offer to give him the memories that helped him understand, ie his whole life, and he will have control of his body again. Well, a copy of him will at least, which is the very next best thing.
He can't be sure that it will work, he can't be sure there's some safeguard of vampirism that will stop it, or make it temporary. So it's a pretty desperate plan, but that's all he can do.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Wow. Things I didn't notice my first read through for 2000 please. I never realized he spoke some accent there!

[Squire Doodad]

We're talking about whether Kamunami is a vampire or not.

Look, I got some holy silver pellets or whatever, let's just sneak one into his hasenpfeffer or mouthwash or whatever and see what happens.

And yes, I guarantee these pellets are pure silver.


Alright this is a very good and not bad idea, so...

[Wizard_Lizard]

I never have the faintest idea what you're talking about when you two engage in conversation.

to be fair, neither do I.

[MartianInvader]

It's definitely somethin' I missed the first few times I read the comic. I remember all these theories at the time that Durkon was smug because the vampire couldn't see the connections between memories or somethin'. Nope, it was that he saw the vampire adapted some of his personality when he absorbed memories.

[Plus_C]

He realizes that for all of the spirits cunning, it is incapable of reading between the lines and lacks the ability to draw context from stories.

He uses this to overwhelm him later on.

[Chronos]

It may even be that no vampire, no matter how old and experienced, can properly process emotional connections (at least, not those relating to positive emotions like love), on account of being dead. Given time, the vampire would eventually have constructed some sort of negative-emotional framework to make sense of Durkon's whole life, but it would have been a very different framework than Durkon constructed.

The whole thing reminds me of conditionally-convergent series. Those are infinite series that can sum up to anything at all, including positive or negative infinity, by just adding up all of the same terms in a different order. Durkon can sum the series of his life to converge on a positive total, while Not-Durkon can sum the same terms, in different order, to converge on a negative total.

[Squire Doodad]

It may even be that no vampire, no matter how old and experienced, can properly process emotional connections (at least, not those relating to positive emotions like love), on account of being dead. Given time, the vampire would eventually have constructed some sort of negative-emotional framework to make sense of Durkon's whole life, but it would have been a very different framework than Durkon constructed.

The whole thing reminds me of conditionally-convergent series. Those are infinite series that can sum up to anything at all, including positive or negative infinity, by just adding up all of the same terms in a different order. Durkon can sum the series of his life to converge on a positive total, while Not-Durkon can sum the same terms, in different order, to converge on a negative total.

Less on account of being dead and possibly more because of their usual manner of obtaining memories, which leads them to get those based on information versus emotion. Emotion is irrelevant for them, so they have difficulty processing it when there isn't much else left. Whereas living beings typically get all the emotions and knowledge simultaneously.

[NerdyKris]

The issue was very clearly that he didn't have the connecting memories and context, not that he didn't understand the emotional content. Durkon was specifically picking memories that would read a certain way without the knowledge of why his mother made the decision to give away the gold. All of the memories centered around them being broke and her struggling to get by with one arm, so when he revealed that she was at one time incredibly rich but gave it all away, it came with the same sense of betrayal that Durkon originally felt, allowing for a short moment where he could overwhelm the vampire.

A regular vampire, as Rich pointed out in a post on the forum, would have been absorbing the memories in order over three days with no immediate outside threats to be distracted by. It would have been the equivalent of binge watching a TV show versus someone yelling out a major revelation while you're struggling for your life. The reveal about the money would have had less impact because the vampire would have already had the years of memories of being a family.

The original connecting thread Durkon noticed was that the vampire didn't realize that Durkon breaking the dish because he tried to help when it wasn't needed had a ripple effect on the rest of his actions in his life.

[a_flemish_guy]

the reason why the vampire is so upset with that memory is because in it's eyes finding that out should have been durkon's darkest hour

as far as he knew all of durkon's motivation for becoming a cleric and thus exile and his poor childhood could all have been avoided and what he wants to know is why durkon isn't resentfull over it

look at the memories durkon is flooding him with, all of them contain his extended family, a lifetime of fond memories with people who either wouldn't exist or he'd never meet if his mother hadn't sacrificed the money


also good point on the passiveness earlier, when durkon creates the bridge he doesn't ask wether or not they need his help getting in with a better way, he now has full confidence that they want to help him and that he's the person who can help them help him