OOTS #1250 - The Discussion Thread

[Darth Paul]

So now "a tv show that went on so long that the writers ran out of good ideas for it" is one that has "jumped the shark."

Like Supernatural.

The Indiana Jones films gave us "nuking the fridge". It's the film series' equivalent to shark jumping. YMMV on which films have nuked the fridge, but I nominate the Fast & the Furious series.

[RMS Oceanic]

I beg to differ:

True, but here's how I see it: The Order genuinely expected not to have any of Serini's information when formulating their plan to defeat Xykon. The information would definitely be nice, and no doubt Roy (and Durkon maybe) could incorporate it. But if Serini denies them that information they're no worse off than they were before she attacked. Therefore Haley feels like she has nothing to lose by going all in.

[danielxcutter]

The Order was probably expecting Serini to be dead or at least unavailable given that Serini hadn't responded to any of the Sendings so far and four of the five Scribblers were dead by the time the OotS was even founded.

[dancrilis]

I like Serini but I think Haley had the better of this one - unfortunately it looks like Razor is about to forget everything they know and so leave The Order and Serini having to deal with an amnesiac shark.

[Darth Paul]

Yeah! This Azurite trial Halley's aphasia Roy's afterlife Azurites at sea Godsmoot Andi/Bandanna airship Dwarven council Serini plotline has gone on too far too long!

I spilled my coffee reading this one . Well played indeed.

[Shoelessgdowar]

Thank you Lien, everyone is Friggin Done^TM with Serini being as humanly hobbitly/halflingly frustrating as possible without being actually Evil a Lawful Stupid Paladin and I don't think a shark to the face will actually kill her anyways.

Fixed it for you

Serini's tactic is kind of a "hold yourself hostage" thing - like in Blazing Saddles. Nice.

Except Haley and V aren't "just people of the land, the common clay of the West. You know … morons." jury is still out on Belkar (let a Kobold outwit him), Durkon (trusted a Vampire), Roy (engaged in aerial combat without Feather Fall and Flying , and Elan (equates nudity to invisibility)... V's moron moment required a confluence of terrible events which were literally orchestrated by a faction of pure evil (who we haven't seen the last of, as they have at least one if not two more rounds of Chekov's Gun to trigger).

you imagine the day order of the stick becomes a cartoon?

I have a feeling it will end up very Dragon Ball or Game of Thrones, with the series catching up with the author too fast and many filler episodes being required to compensate for the story not being completed and/or the production company wanting to milk it for as long as they can. Might even go a little One Piece, with entire episodes or even a season of cross-genre what if, dream sequence, rehashing, or historic reenactment (like a season of the Order of the Stick being cast as the Order of the Scribble to tell the unwritten tale of how Soon/Roy, Lirian/Haley, Dorukan/V, Kraagor/Durkon, Serini/Belkar, and Girard/Elan first met and some of their adventures along the way).

I think potions can be used as splash weapons actually.

Pretty sure that requires a feat, but since I have played a halfling that had that feat before level 4, it is very possible that Serini does possess it. That said, fairly sure Razor does not have that feat, so since it would be Razor triggering the splash, not Serini, it would not apply here.

What's a Ray-zergo?
With the pokeball and the question Serini is giving off powerful "every old person in tv" energy. Like my grandma trying to understand pokemon when I was 12.

I was taking it as a joke off of things like Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Frost, and other Ray spells, so spellcasters would by default think anything starting with Ray is a Ray Spell or Spell-like ability (Serinai was just riding around on a Beholder non-intellectual property infringing Argus-like eyeball thingie also to not be confused with the Big Trouble in Little China Eyeball Thingie... which incidentally may be returning in a coming soon sequel or remake).

Conjecture: Serini is actually winning the bluff-off here.

Because she is not actually bluffing about the potion. She is stalling by bluffing about the potion.

But isn't Haley actually winning then, because she isn't actually bluffing but actually stalling to coax Serini into monologuing and allowing the Paladins to have a chance to escape, thereby getting the info they were intending to get (from the Paladins) and the info they didn't intend to get (Serini) at the same time while appearing to be bluffing while calling Serini's stalling bluff as a bluff?

[KorvinStarmast]

I am very much enjoying Haley wield her +5 knife of BS cutting,

Yes, and your point in self awareness is agreed.

True, but here's how I see it: The Order genuinely expected not to have any of Serini's information when formulating their plan to defeat Xykon. The information would definitely be nice, and no doubt Roy (and Durkon maybe) could incorporate it. But if Serini denies them that information they're no worse off than they were before she attacked. Therefore Haley feels like she has nothing to lose by going all in.

Yep. problem is, Serinis/Sunny attack has cost the party resources to deal with ... and when does the encounter with Xykon happen?

The Order was probably expecting Serini to be dead or at least unavailable given that Serini hadn't responded to any of the Sendings so far and four of the five Scribblers were dead by the time the OotS was even founded.

Yep.

[Riftwolf]

I like Serini but I think Haley had the better of this one - unfortunately it looks like Razor is about to forget everything they know and so leave The Order and Serini having to deal with an amnesiac shark.

Can sharks drink? Does breathing alcohol make a shark drunk?

[Hurkyl]

True, but here's how I see it: The Order genuinely expected not to have any of Serini's information when formulating their plan to defeat Xykon. The information would definitely be nice, and no doubt Roy (and Durkon maybe) could incorporate it. But if Serini denies them that information they're no worse off than they were before she attacked. Therefore Haley feels like she has nothing to lose by going all in.

I would expect Haley to be more pragmatic than that.

I'm not trying to argue against the idea going back to where they were before Serini interrupted them is a fine outcome (and they get freed paladins as a bonus). It's certainly better than alternatives such as surrender.

And I would expect Haley to be able to recognize when to cut her losses -- in fact, I think she's generally a little too eager to do so.

I just don't think Haley is the type that needs to trick herself into thinking she has nothing to lose before she can accept that result.

I do think she's the type that might trick herself into thinking she can't win to rationalize taking the loss... but she's much better about not doing that than she used to be and I doubt she's doing that here.

[gatemansgc]

okay absolutely was not expecting razor the shark!

the new art style changes the pokeball colors, no longer red and white like the old comics

[Doug Lampert]

Serini's tactic is kind of a "hold yourself hostage" thing - like in Blazing Saddles. Nice.

Except when Bart holds himself hostage it's funny. Partly because he lampshades just how stupid it is for that to work.

I'm with others, I think that here, Serini is intended to be annoying, not funny.

[Psyren]

Yeah! This Azurite trial Halley's aphasia Roy's afterlife Azurites at sea Godsmoot Andi/Bandanna airship Dwarven council Serini plotline has gone on too far too long!

I spilled my coffee reading this one . Well played indeed.

"Would you stop pointing out the repetitiveness of the B-Plots and hurry up??"

[Crusher]

I'm trying to think of ways that this *isn't* a bad bluff by Serini. She's an Epic Rogue and smart, so, yes this is going badly and she's stressed but you still wouldn't expect her to come out with a bluff that falls apart that quickly and I've thought of a couple ways in which this makes sense from Serini's point of view. Conveniently, they kind of work together.

1 - Serini went into this ambush thinking the Order thought she was alive and badly needed information from her. The Order (and the readers) know this isn't the case, but Serini might not. She knows the Order tried to contact her with Sending many many many times, has been to a bunch of other Gates, has done major research on the Scribblers and the Gates (they clearly know a good bit of the history behind the gates, even stuff that was a cosmic-level secret), and skipped the initial trap apparently on their way straight to Serini's hideout.

From her perspective, sure, they might think she was dead and were just being both thorough and lucky, but the more paranoid take was that the Order knew she was alive, already knew some of her tricks, and were on their way to get the information out of her that she had been unwilling to share with them.


2. As has been mentioned, Serini isn't bluffing at all. She's stalling. Before heading into her base, Serini felt things weren't going well but that she still had the situation in hand and she just needed a little more time. The Order was closer behind than she thought, but maybe she's still trying to buy that time. What she's stalling for, I'm unsure.

My best guess is she has a xorn or earth elemental friend who is on the way (maybe from an ambush in another tunnel Serini didn't end up taking) to... um, lets say grab the Order's feet so they can't get away (which is why Serini wanted them on the ground) and then knock the cauldron over hopefully splashing the party members and wiping their memories. Serini might be planning on jumping to safety or she might be immune to it somehow (thought probably not, seeing as how she wore gloves when mixing it).

This is kinda nice in that gives Serini multiple ways in which her bluffing makes sense. She thinks *Haley* is bluffing about the Order not wanting the information, plus Serini has no intention of wiping her own memories anyway. However, being surprise-grappled by Razor would be a serious problem, as it would stick her on the ground where she can't get away from the cauldron full of amnesia potions.

[gnomish dwelf]

There was a popular tv show in the seventies called "Happy Days" that went on for muuuuuuuuuch longer than it really should have. Looking back on the show, many fans speculated that the official downturn point of the show was an episode where the main character, Fonzie, does a daring water ski jump over a shark. This actually happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahxG3iPeVcU

So now "a tv show that went on so long that the writers ran out of good ideas for it" is one that has "jumped the shark."

Like Supernatural.

nope, supernatural never jumped the shark.

[Jan Mattys]

It comes from an episode of Happy Days where one of the characters, while riding a motorcycle, jumped over a water tank with a shark in it. That episide is largely seen as a definitive point where the show was more bad than good, so "jumping the shark" as a phrase was born.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahxG3iPeVcU
Inaccurate. There was no motorcycle, nor a water tank.
The rest is on point though :D

[TRH]

2. As has been mentioned, Serini isn't bluffing at all. She's stalling. Before heading into her base, Serini felt things weren't going well but that she still had the situation in hand and she just needed a little more time. The Order was closer behind than she thought, but maybe she's still trying to buy that time. What she's stalling for, I'm unsure.

My best guess is she has a xorn or earth elemental friend who is on the way (maybe from an ambush in another tunnel Serini didn't end up taking) to... um, lets say grab the Order's feet so they can't get away (which is why Serini wanted them on the ground) and then knock the cauldron over hopefully splashing the party members and wiping their memories. Serini might be planning on jumping to safety or she might be immune to it somehow (thought probably not, seeing as how she wore gloves when mixing it).

The thing she mentioned in the last strip was needing to get more stuff from her "bag of tricks" that she had been saving. That could possibly refer to more monsters, but the only specific she mentioned was a replacement crossbow, and she stopped in front of a cabinet, presumably to retrieve additional items. I'm pretty sure she was here for items and can no longer retrieve them now that the Order has reached her sooner than expected.

In any case, in the event she had summoned more monsters to help out, I'm not sure how they would know to meet her in her sanctum and not at the site where she made contact, since it doesn't look like she's had time to communicate remotely since then.

[Psyren]

The Order was probably expecting Serini to be dead or at least unavailable given that Serini hadn't responded to any of the Sendings so far and four of the five Scribblers were dead by the time the OotS was even founded.

Not to mention Xykon having her diary - with no signs of anyone coming after him for it - and (usually) leaving no witnesses.

[Thermophille]

I guess the question about Chekov's Cauldron from the last strip has been answered.

[KorvinStarmast]

Can sharks drink? Does breathing alcohol make a shark drunk?

Can sharks use pogo sticks? Would a pogo stick make a shark jump?

Not to mention Xykon having her diary - with no signs of anyone coming after him for it - and (usually) leaving no witnesses.

This. Finding her alive is a bonus unless she's not persuadable, in which case finding her makes her a liability since dealing with her consumes resources and there's a High Level Cleric and and Epic Level Liche on the prowl looking to end their quest for the gate sooner, not later.

[Peelee]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahxG3iPeVcU
Inaccurate. There was no motorcycle, nor a water tank.
The rest is on point though :D

Well dang, memory is a helluva thing. I could swear I vividly remember him jumping a shark in a tnak on a motorcycle, and in the parking lot of Al's, no less! Crazy how we can fool. Ourselves sometimes.

[The MunchKING]

the new art style changes the pokeball colors, no longer red and white like the old comics

As I pointed out earlier, I think it closely resembles a Dive Ball thrown upside down.

A fitting choice for an underwater predator like a shark.

[toapat]

I never thought I would see a "bluff off," and I am not eager to see it again.
Serini is making no sense, and I have no idea where this is going. Seems like an odd cliffhanger.
Also, where does Lien keep the Pokeball?

same place all the paladins keep their steeds, its just a manifestation of Celestia magic. they can maintain the Pokeball indefinitely but the Pokeball can itself be dismissed.

I guess it's official we can confirm O-Chul doesn't have one (yet) cause if he could bring a horse or something, it sure as heck would have been useful now.

If O-Chul gets to pick his mount, it would be a horse.

if the gods pick it, it would be a Living Construct Apparatus of the Crab.

[Shining Wrath]

Well dang, memory is a helluva thing. I could swear I vividly remember him jumping a shark in a tnak on a motorcycle, and in the parking lot of Al's, no less! Crazy how we can fool. Ourselves sometimes.

What made it epic fail was that he kept his leather jacket on.

[Wraithfighter]

Count me as being on Team "Lien is just the best".

I mean, who hasn't wanted to solve their problems by chucking a shark at it? :D

[Metastachydium]

I mean, who hasn't wanted to solve their problems by chucking a shark at it? :D

O-Chul, I'd presume.

[schmunzel]

For those of us who are not perfectly familiar with English idioms, what's the meaning of this one ?

Nowadays its more or less synonym with nuking a fridge ...

jumping the shark means that .... <edit> Pelee had the better explanation

sch

[MaverickMopete]

Pro Tip For Serini (from another oldster): when you decide to play the bluff game, know who you are trying to bluff. Underestimating the opposition in the game of bluff and counterbluff can get really expensive when you are at the poker table. Likewise in other scenarios.

You can't con a con artist. And if you're going to try, you'd best be better than them.

Remember how quickly Haley saw through Xykon's (or rather, Redcloak's) "con" back in the Battle of Azure City?

[TRH]

You can't con a con artist. And if you're going to try, you'd best be better than them.

Remember how quickly Haley saw through Xykon's (or rather, Redcloak's) "con" back in the Battle of Azure City?

She got conned pretty hard by Bozzok, though, handing him a ton of money to raise his dead thieves that he decided to pocket and use for an assassination attempt on her. Although I suppose one could blame Celia for that, but Haley doesn't seem to have been any wiser to that particular bit of skulduggery.

[PontificatusRex]

Well dang, memory is a helluva thing. I could swear I vividly remember him jumping a shark in a tnak on a motorcycle, and in the parking lot of Al's, no less! Crazy how we can fool. Ourselves sometimes.

You're not that far off actually - you're conflating two separate episodes. Fonzie did do a big motorcycle jump in Al's parking lot fairly early in the series. The later episode was basically the writers saying "Hey, remember that time with the motorcycle jump? Let's do that again, but in Hawaii! On waterskis! With a shark!"

[Jay R]

Now my wizard wants to research a ray of zergo spell.