OOTS #1230 - The Discussion Thread

[Primeone]

This is the kind of page that is so different to read in a webcomic - where it's raising a lot of tension because we need to wait for the next page to see any resolution, compared to a book, where it's completely different pacing.

I doubt I'd be so tense reading this for the first time if I knew I'd be reading the next page immediately.

[Psepha]

Aww, that was sweet. Though I wonder what Durkon's casting...

[dancrilis]

Though I wonder what Durkon's casting...

Personal guess: Commune.

But I suppose a planar ally spell wouldn't go amiss (or something else).

[Edreyn]

I am terrified! When people talk like that, something horrible must happen soon!

[Pory]

Awww what a wholesome conversation...they are going to take a serious beating now, aren't they? I hope Serini and Orange are listening invisibly to this and they hold back a bit.

[ziproot]

The calm before the storm. Elan sure knows his dramatic conventions.

[dancrilis]

...they are going to take a serious beating now, aren't they?

Possibly not - Belkar is frowning in the last panel, it is possible he has noticed something.

[Peelee]

Yeah, yeah, Vaarsuvius has fly, yada yada. I think she casted fly on herself in the frost giant battle too. I for some reason forgot she had it.

I suspect it was because V tried to barter for Z's houseruled 3.0 Fly, which might have morphed in memory as a simplified "V doesn't have Fly". I know when you asked about it, I assumed it was the wand because that's exactly what happened to me. At least until dancrilis pointed out they knew Fly already.

[Rrmcklin]

It seems many of you are taking it as a given that Serini (and whatever help) will just defeat the Order and take them back to the same place as the Paladins, but I'd bet more either on 1) them overcoming her or 2) Serini's actions themselves giving the trick away and thus endangering the Gate. But either way, something of consequence has to come from this and "things go smoothly for Serini" isn't that high up in the cards, to my mind. Possible, but certainly not a given.

[CountDVB]

Well, V, you still need to apologize for threatening to kill Elan back when you were in your trance-deprived state, but Elan doesn't you were doing that.

But the character development is so delicious!

And the genre savvy is a wonderful touch too. I wonder if this lack of awareness was what doomed the Scribblers XD

[TRH]

Elan, "remember when" is the lowest form of conversation.

He's in a hurry to get this character moment going before Xykon gets back, there's no time for an artful segue. You know, if artful segues were his thing to begin with.

[dancrilis]

I suspect it was because V tried to barter for Z's houseruled 3.0 Fly, which might have morphed in memory as a simplified "V doesn't have Fly". I know when you asked about it, I assumed it was the wand because that's exactly what happened to me. At least until dancrilis pointed out they knew Fly already.

There are a couple of panels that stick out to me in the comic - one set of them ends in 'I am still a dragon'.

So it was easy enough to remember that they could Fly, the Geekery topic just gave me a (presumed) first instance of it.

He's in a hurry to get this character moment going before Xykon gets back, there's no time for an artful segue. You know, if artful segues were his thing to begin with.

They are* - panel 3.

*your milage may vary.

[ti'esar]

"I should've know, Roy. I should've known."

God, I love Elan.

[Kantaki]

Well, V, you still need to apologize for threatening to kill Elan back when you were in your trance-deprived state, but Elan doesn't you were doing that.

The advantage of not dumbing your threats down to the other guy's level.
Not that I think V could do that.

Or that Elan would've understood it either way.
”My teammate- friend - seriously threatens to murder me“ doesn't seem like something he'd get.

[The4bestgame]

I got chuckle.

Edit: Panel 2 would be when Durkon had to prepare spells - but Elan could be forgiven for forgetting that.

I believe its regarding to when V was turned into a lizard.

[dancrilis]

I believe its regarding to when V was turned into a lizard.

Yes is it - that is when Durkon needed to prepare spells to undo the 'being a lizard' problem.

[TRH]

It seems many of you are taking it as a given that Serini (and whatever help) will just defeat the Order and take them back to the same place as the Paladins, but I'd bet more either on 1) them overcoming her or 2) Serini's actions themselves giving the trick away and thus endangering the Gate. But either way, something of consequence has to come from this and "things go smoothly for Serini" isn't that high up in the cards, to my mind. Possible, but certainly not a given.

Unfortunately, the alternative to "things go smoothly for Serini" is "things don't immediately go FUBAR for the Order," and since when is that a winning bet?

[CountDVB]

The advantage of not dumbing your threats down to the other guy's level.
Not that I think V could do that.

Or that Elan would've understood it either way.
”My teammate- friend - seriously threatens to murder me“ doesn't seem like something he'd get.

True, but still... I wonder what V is thinking, given how they gotta deal with not having much of a life after all of this, trying to seek atonement. I suspect Elan would give them a touching speech.

I am wondering how Minrah will deal with all this

[Alexandrite]

The advantage of not dumbing your threats down to the other guy's level.
Not that I think V could do that.

Or that Elan would've understood it either way.
”My teammate- friend - seriously threatens to murder me“ doesn't seem like something he'd get.

I always thought maybe Elan did understand it, and was just doing his usual Elan thing to deflate V's threat. That would probably make him much smarter than he really is, but one can dream.

On a different note, I wonder if Durkon is channeling the planar ally he was going to summon back at Girard's gate. That would be fun to finally see, though with Serini about to make her move it might not pan out.

[Wraithfighter]

Possibly not - Belkar is frowning in the last panel, it is possible he has noticed something.

Odds are the thing he noticed was Elan going back to the (annoying to him) Narrative Theory Of Destiny stuff :D.

Also, I do like that the strip does call out Elan's early attitude. His antics were fun and silly for the audience, but there was also this theme of "being silly at the expense of people who understand how serious a situation it is", which is suuuuuuuper aggravating when you're trying to, you know, stop an evil monster and there's this annoying bard making themselves a pest, and then complaining when you voice your frustrations in a less-than-diplomatic way.

Particularly in an RP setting. Being the person playing a somewhat serious character and you've got this person that refuses to take things serious can reaaaaaaaally grate on things. Behind every stick-up-their-ass Paladin type, there's an insufferable comic relief character that provides no relief...

[understatement]

Aw, this is sweet. They're screwed.

It's the equivalent of "I'll meet you on the other side!" No, no you won't.

[JonahFalcon]

Rich just showing off continuity porn now.

[Goblin_Priest]

This is the kind of page that is so different to read in a webcomic - where it's raising a lot of tension because we need to wait for the next page to see any resolution, compared to a book, where it's completely different pacing.

I doubt I'd be so tense reading this for the first time if I knew I'd be reading the next page immediately.

I'd like it better in book format, though, because the pacing is already slow on webcomic, and pages like this, though they aren't, /feel/ like filler. I wasn't expecting another strip today, and thus the plot to move forward, but now that we got it, then it resets the timer and the time needed for the action to resume, or the lore to be elaborated upon, is all that much farther away.

Pages like these definitely have their place in the story, but I can't say I feel tension right now. Yea, the epic rogue is on her way, but while we could have learned something about the dungeon, or about Team Evil, or about anything else going on, instead we got a bunch of reminiscing. It showcases character growth, but that's mostly it.

[drazen]

Personal guess: Commune.

But I suppose a planar ally spell wouldn't go amiss (or something else).

I am also curious what he is casting. Looks like it takes time, and they may not have time.

[Blue Dragon]

Another brilliant piece, that confirms what I've been saying for a while, now:

• The Order of the Stick is one of the best comics in this century. Not one of the best webcomics, one of the best comics.
• You don't skip strips. Ever. You start at #1 and read until reach the end and start waiting for the next one, while reread it.

It's what I have been doing since 2005 or something, maybe before. I don't even know how much times and have been doing alone since 2010, when the only other person that accompanied it that I knew passed away.

Going like that, I don't see any character of the strip as "characters" anymore. For me, they are persons that I will miss dearly when their journey end.

Aside the help with my own (poorly) self-taught English, The Order of the Stick makes me feel feelings at the point of absurd, as when I did read one of the comics to a sweet, quite depressive ten years old girl to teach her something about good and bad days with great difficulty, because I couldn't stop crying. Terrible reader, I know.

I also used it to show my little artist how artists improve through the time and how consistent a style can remain and be good. She started learning English now and I hope (being a broken-a$$ guy who can't buy the cheapest pdf) to read online for her when she gets older, until she can read for herself and laugh and cry how I did.

Amazing work, Giant. Thank you so much.

If happen sometime that you are going around the hole I am stuck, you have a beer on me.

Godspeed!

[Quercus_Arbor]

Leave it to Elan to blame himself for not metagaming (metabooking?).

EDIT: Also I just noticed Vaarsuvius levitating. She isn't trancing, so I guess she has fly now?

[I]Fly[I] doesn't last long enough; more likely https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/overlandFlight.htm

[Robots]

Ah, new update. Nicey.

To be honest, we really have come a long way. Also, Belkar's (sort of) apologizing of his own accord! Man, the Belkar all those years back never would have done that. It really is a reflection of how far these silly little stickdudes have come. Also, Roy apologizing to Elan is sweet. :)

[TaiLiu]

Very glad this is getting addressed in-comic, even if only marginally. The party has tossed a lot of verbal abuse Elan's way.

[arimareiji]

Final Fantasy VII heart-to-heart just before the last boss, for the win. (^_~)

It seems many of you are taking it as a given that Serini (and whatever help) will just defeat the Order and take them back to the same place as the Paladins, but I'd bet more either on 1) them overcoming her or 2) Serini's actions themselves giving the trick away and thus endangering the Gate. But either way, something of consequence has to come from this and "things go smoothly for Serini" isn't that high up in the cards, to my mind. Possible, but certainly not a given.

It's entirely plausible I skimmed straight over (or even spaced) forward-looking speculation in the last thread, but I don't recall much of it happening. Without going back and reading the whole thread (oh please no), I don't remember anyone else elaborating on why Serini has to win (e.g. because otherwise the Order jumps out and shows Xykon exactly what's been concealing Serini's shell game), or mentioning it much at all. Mostly what I recall is people calling Serini an evil coward who wants Xykon to win, or saying Serini is making a logical decision given the limited set of facts she knows.

In this thread, I'm pretty sure Shale and Pory are the only ones asserted (before your post) that Serini will TPKO the Order.

The advantage of not dumbing your threats down to the other guy's level.
Not that I think V could do that.

Or that Elan would've understood it either way.
”My teammate- friend - seriously threatens to murder me“ doesn't seem like something he'd get.

"Is it just me, or is he actually more useful the LESS he understands what is going on?
"Och, aye. He has 'Ignorance' as a class power source."
(Plus I have other reasons for wanting to believe this, see footnote in reply below.)

Also, I do like that the strip does call out Elan's early attitude.

Spoiler: collapsed for space

Show

His antics were fun and silly for the audience, but there was also this theme of "being silly at the expense of people who understand how serious a situation it is", which is suuuuuuuper aggravating when you're trying to, you know, stop an evil monster and there's this annoying bard making themselves a pest, and then complaining when you voice your frustrations in a less-than-diplomatic way.

Particularly in an RP setting. Being the person playing a somewhat serious character and you've got this person that refuses to take things serious can reaaaaaaaally grate on things. Behind every stick-up-their-ass Paladin type, there's an insufferable comic relief character that provides no relief...

I don't want to go within a mile of whether his discourse indicates he would say that his "Oopsie, I blew up the gate just to see what it would do" was just a silly little mistake anyone could make and don't make such a big deal out of it. Whether it's "right" or "wrong" or somewhere in between, I think that would go over really badly with Serini, and I don't want Shale's prediction to come true ("...Elan is so getting stabbed before this is over, isn't he.").

It might just be me, but there were a few times I thought early Elan was Sheldon-from-TBBT-level-aggravating (i.e. extremely thoughtless of others, but without malice^*). One that stands out to me is the Elanicalicus incident... I thought Elan's mockery of wizards/V warranted an apology every bit as much, if not more, and was a bit puzzled that it seemed like V was treated as the only wrongdoer.
_{* - Or at least I really want to believe Elan's ignorant of what he's doing. What Elan does to coerce the goblin teenager (third row of panels in 101) almost seems like a prediction of what he does to V, just 26 strips later.}

[gatemansgc]

and this is why i always check multiple times per day <3

elan definitely has grown as a character. dating haley probably helped!