What's the deal with Celia?

[Schroeswald]

I'm pretty sure that was just a joke between friends.

It plays to me as them being serious, neither of them are smiling, but without that it does show that Roy sees Haley as greedy enough that not wanting to lose any money is her legitimate reason for being worried about the deal, no matter what she’s a greedy miser who doesn’t want to lose money (and that’s what I love about her), and that is the core of the conflict relating to the Thieves Guild deal, she doesn’t want to spend money to raise the casualties, while Celia will do just about anything to raise them, that makes her a bad para elemental for Haley, but it’s an understandable and well-written characterization (wait, forgot we were mostly on the same side here, oh well ).

[Keltest]

Again, maybe it's the Lawful side of me, but I feel like Haley is in no position to be angry one of her party members stole form her, given...Ya know. Being her.

Lawful or chaotic, its a massive breach of trust to speak for somebody and then agree to something that you know they would not approve of on their behalf. There is no situation where this becomes ok. Doubly so because Celia was previously getting deeply upset that Haley was trampling on her own moral code earlier.

[Squire Doodad]

Lawful or chaotic, its a massive breach of trust to speak for somebody and then agree to something that you know they would not approve of on their behalf. There is no situation where this becomes ok. Doubly so because Celia was previously getting deeply upset that Haley was trampling on her own moral code earlier.

This. Just because you stole stuff and someone unrelated is using it without your permission doesn't mean it is right. It might be ironic, but it is still wrong for someone to take your stuff. (As in, the person doing it is doing something wrong)

Celia doing so is hypocritical. And a terrible act of haggling because she only got the Thieve's Guild to let Haley keep 50%, and not 90% or something.

[Forum Explorer]

Lawful or chaotic, its a massive breach of trust to speak for somebody and then agree to something that you know they would not approve of on their behalf. There is no situation where this becomes ok. Doubly so because Celia was previously getting deeply upset that Haley was trampling on her own moral code earlier.

True. Mind you, I think Celia knew that, and didn't care about Haley's feelings. Likely because Haley went around trampling on Celia's moral code earlier. And as far as she's concerned, it's not really Haley's money anyways, because it's stolen.

[Keltest]

True. Mind you, I think Celia knew that, and didn't care about Haley's feelings. Likely because Haley went around trampling on Celia's moral code earlier. And as far as she's concerned, it's not really Haley's money anyways, because it's stolen.

That makes it worse. She's giving away the money of complete strangers, to known thieves, and in the process trampled all over Haley's trust (to say nothing of her own alleged principals as a lawyer) because it makes her feel better. At least when Haley broke Celia's code, it was out of actual necessity.

[Forum Explorer]

That makes it worse. She's giving away the money of complete strangers, to known thieves, and in the process trampled all over Haley's trust (to say nothing of her own alleged principals as a lawyer) because it makes her feel better. At least when Haley broke Celia's code, it was out of actual necessity.

The principles of the job don't trump her principles as a person. But other then that, yeah. I'm not trying to justify what she was doing there. In her mind, sacrificing her friendship with Haley was worth saving those lives, but just because Hank would hold up a deal doesn't mean Bozzack would. Attempting to make the deal wasn't a mistake, but Haley never should have accepted it.

Anyways, I do like Celia as a character, and I do like her time in the story. I feel she gets a lot more flack than she deserves. That being said though, she is very much an antagonist to Haley. She's a pacifist who does not respect Haley's leadership at all, and much like Belkar, needs to be actively managed on an adventure. Just instead of murdering people and setting things on fire, she makes bad deals and gets herself into trouble. Unlike Belkar, she doesn't have the some 500 strips needed to actually get the character development to change out of being a problematic adventurer.

[Morgana]

I really don't understand why it would need to be explicitedly said that Haley in fact did not trust the people that she hated her whole life, tried to kill her, where murderous psycopaths and had were extremely self serving and vengeful. And I honestly can't wrap my head around how not botching the deal was a mistake, but making the deal in the first place wasn't.

[KorvinStarmast]

1. Strip 669 establishes that Roy's love interest will not be traveling with the Order. Her exposition on how she just doesn't get it ("it" being adventuring) is (as I read it) meant to be a way to underscore that point.

2. Roy and Haley and that 10 GP - that was part of a running joke that goes back a few hundred strips.
I think sometimes people overlook the Haley = Greedy bit as having a powerful anchor in "I need 200k GP to get Dad back."

Spoiler: OotPCs bathus interruptus reference

Show

(Granted, the OoTPCs exposition on that score may not be as readily apparent to those who have not read that prequel)

. But she was also established as greedy in the first 100 strips.

3. Seven weeks from Roy and company leaving on a boat for Western Continent, not sure how many days in BRitF, and about a week since Durkon got vamped, and Belkar's demise arrives.

Time line wise, where are we now as of strip 1178?

[Morgana]

And like, why are you even continuing to use the 10 gp thing as evidence? It's a joke, based entirely around a hyperbole of a character's existing character traits, just how there are jokes about Roy being Lawful Stupid even though he is one of the more sensible Lawful types we see in the comic and at points barely even qualifies as Lawful to begin with. A character trait being subject of a joke doesn't tell you anything other than "yeah, that sure is a trait that character has", hell there was a joke where Durkon's mom thought Roy was Elan because he was clueless about something, would that be evidence that Roy is extremely dumb? No, because jokes by their very definition aren't accurate portrayals of reality, which often the reason why they're even funny in the first place.

Also, yes risking her life for other people when she has nothing to gain is an evidence that she values innocent lives more than gold, as you know...it's generally agreed upon that being dead is not really good for your financial health. Unless you're trying to imply that she values gold more than her own life?

[Forum Explorer]

I really don't understand why it would need to be explicitedly said that Haley in fact did not trust the people that she hated her whole life, tried to kill her, where murderous psycopaths and had were extremely self serving and vengeful. And I honestly can't wrap my head around how not botching the deal was a mistake, but making the deal in the first place wasn't.

Making the deal likely saved Celia's life. She was pretty much at the mercy of Hank and his goons, and she didn't actually have any magic items with which to bribe them. What's more, it did reveal a subset of thieves that you could trust to honor the deal, namely Hank.

But Haley should know, and pretty much did know, that Bozzack would never honor said deal. She should have killed him, and negotiated a different deal with Hank.

[Morgana]

So Celia could complain even more about her being a cold blooded killer?

[Forum Explorer]

So Celia could complain even more about her being a cold blooded killer?

You say that like Haley isn't a cold blooded killer. But Crystal would say otherwise.

More seriously, it's not like Haley cared particularly much about Celia's opinion, nor did Celia really complain about her behavior all that much. Besides, it's not like the two have to get along. Characters are allowed to dislike each other. For that matter, you can like two characters, even if both of those characters dislike each other

In short, maybe Celia does complain about Haley being a cold blooded killer. Why is that a problem?

[Morgana]

Cause permanently damaging your relationship with the leader of your party's girlfriend is messy, and is generally an annoying thing to deal with? And she did complain, constantly, even while they were in life threatening situations for that matter. And that was when Haley didn't actually do anything other than constantly save her ass

[hamishspence]

"Failing to keep Belkar in check, or punish his crimes" was the main complaint early on.

[Forum Explorer]

Cause permanently damaging your relationship with the leader of your party's girlfriend is messy, and is generally an annoying thing to deal with? And she did complain, constantly, even while they were in life threatening situations for that matter. And that was when Haley didn't actually do anything other than constantly save her ass

And she did that anyways.

Reread the fight, Celia doesn't complain once during the rogue fight, and in escaping Grubwiggler, her only complaint is that no, law school doesn't teach her the strengths and weaknesses of flesh golems. Before that, she wasn't in any life threatening situations. For that matter, Haley saves her once from Grubwiggler, and Celia saves her from Bozzack's coup de grace, so I'd call them even on that front.

[CriticalFailure]

And she did that anyways.

Reread the fight, Celia doesn't complain once during the rogue fight, and in escaping Grubwiggler, her only complaint is that no, law school doesn't teach her the strengths and weaknesses of flesh golems. Before that, she wasn't in any life threatening situations. For that matter, Haley saves her once from Grubwiggler, and Celia saves her from Bozzack's coup de grace, so I'd call them even on that front.

Yeah people are seriously exaggerating how much Celia complained and seriously diminishing how much she helped.

[Darth Paul]

Another way to look at Celia is in terms of the "civilian caught up in a military operation" trope. What usually happens is one of two things- either the civilian realizes how out of their depth they are and accepts the leadership of the elite special forces commander (see Tears of the Sun), or the civilian proves to be better than the military at negotiating the situation, by virtue of their special knowledge, and effectively takes command (Aliens is an excellent example). The Giant's genius is to avoid either of these resolutions and maintain both characters as individuals to the end, making their own decisions.

It would be disappointing to see Celia just go along and do everything Haley says. She would be a cardboard NPC, the flat character of too many campaigns. Instead she's a real person with her own ideas and motives. The kind that frustrates the PCs no end.

[Morgana]

Creating a frustrating character is not really genius though, firstly cause there's plenty of characters that fit the antagonist civilian in a situation of danger to the point where it's a trope of it self, second that this is becoming ever less common for the reason that is not very fun to read about honestly. It's not really entertaining to read 2 characters bicker for an entire book when that doesn't really lead anywhere and none of them ever come to any compromise and grow from it in any sort of way. Especially when one of the characters is someone no one is terribly invested to begin with, and displays behaviors that we literally had an entire book to show why they were dangerous

Even worse when we later find out that their whole nonesense plan did indeed backfire horribly and got a bunch of innocent people killed during Crystal's rampage

[hamishspence]

Every member of the Order displays "dangerous behaviour" in different ways.

Celia's way is different from the rest of the Order, and from Miko's.

[Morgana]

Yeah, but when they do it they're actually held accountable for it, Celia just poofs away and isn't even there during the whole Crystal ordeal

[hamishspence]

Even worse when we later find out that their whole nonesense plan did indeed backfire horribly and got a bunch of innocent people killed during Crystal's rampage

Crystal would not have been a golem to go on the rampage, if Haley had not first killed her, as revenge, and to "send a message to Bozzok".

Had Haley simply not bothered with killing Crystal in revenge for Crystal's attempts to kill her, and decided "settling accounts with Bozzok can wait till after the world is saved" - then chances are, all those thieves would have been resurrected.

So, in a sense, the reason the plan "backfired horribly" is because of Haley's intervention.

[Morgana]

Bozzok didn't cared at all for any of his minions, and they were all too low level to even be worth the gold it would take to ressurect them in the first place. The only thing that could have stopped him from doing anything of that nature was not giving the NE criminal warlord more gold than several nations have in their treasury

[Forum Explorer]

Creating a frustrating character is not really genius though, firstly cause there's plenty of characters that fit the antagonist civilian in a situation of danger to the point where it's a trope of it self, second that this is becoming ever less common for the reason that is not very fun to read about honestly. It's not really entertaining to read 2 characters bicker for an entire book when that doesn't really lead anywhere and none of them ever come to any compromise and grow from it in any sort of way. Especially when one of the characters is someone no one is terribly invested to begin with, and displays behaviors that we literally had an entire book to show why they were dangerous

Even worse when we later find out that their whole nonesense plan did indeed backfire horribly and got a bunch of innocent people killed during Crystal's rampage

You don't like Celia. That's fine, but try not to let that warp your view of the character too much. I don't find Celia frustrating at all, and I do think Haley grew from the experience. I don't think she would've learned to become more honest without her failures to communicate with Celia blowing up in her face so dramatically. For that matter, their bickering directly lead to Belkar's curse activating and prompting his own, quite frankly excellent, character development.

Also again, put the blame where it actually belongs. Crystal only began a half-golem because Haley killed her, and Bozzack ordered it done. Yeah, Bozzack would've still ordered Crystal to go after Haley, but that would've been more of just a straight up fight between the two of them. There would've been no rampage in that case.

Yeah, but when they do it they're actually held accountable for it, Celia just poofs away and isn't even there during the whole Crystal ordeal

It's funny, because you keep complaining about this, but the only way for this to happen is for Celia to join the Order as a full time member.

[Morgana]

I mean, he only did it cause he had the gold to pay for it, and nothing would be stopping him from just using the gold in any other way that would lead to a similar result. And there is another way of fixing that, which would be well, not having it be a consequence of Celia's actions in the first place

[Forum Explorer]

I mean, he only did it cause he had the gold to pay for it, and nothing would be stopping him from just using the gold in any other way that would lead to a similar result. And there is another way of fixing that, which would be well, not having it be a consequence of Celia's actions in the first place

Oh sure, like I said earlier, Haley accepting the deal was a mistake. She should've killed Bozzack anyways. Attempting to make the deal saved Celia's life, and likely saved Hank's life too. Plus Hank's goons. So I can't say that was a mistake.

[hamishspence]

Attempting to make the deal saved Celia's life, and likely saved Hank's life too. Plus Hank's goons. So I can't say that was a mistake.

The alternative was that the war with the Thieves Guild continue, and that Roy's body remain with Grubwiggler.

[Morgana]

Considering everyone was clawing for power, people would honestly be glad he was dead, and worry much more about trying to fit the power vacuum he left off and trying to restore any semblance of order. And it's not like there weren't other ways of getting Roy's body

[hamishspence]

Exactly what could Celia have offered:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0617.html

that would not have resulted in her dying?

[Forum Explorer]

The alternative was that the war with the Thieves Guild continue, and that Roy's body remain with Grubwiggler.

With Bozack down, who was even left to fight? Getting Roy's body back from Grubwiggler would've been a problem, true. But not an insurmountable one.

[Morgana]

Well, she didn't needed to continue with the arrangement, just enough to get to Haley and Belkar. The thing is that she made the deal only partially to save her skin, but her primary goal was that she thought that was a preferable end to their situation