OOTS #1251 - The Discussion Thread

[KorvinStarmast]

He would have found a gate somehow, regardless of the diary, and one might even argue that deciphering the diary wasted time he would not have needed had he simply had Redcloak ask The Dark One.

But TDO doesn't talk to him.

She's sort of the in comic personification of us in the forums. Utterly convinced were right and unwilling to see anyone else's side. It's my belief that's why she pisses so many of us off so badly. She personifies what we dont like about ourselves.

*golf clap* Well played.

[Nymrod]

She's more responsible for the ones she's blaming. She was the one that made the rule that Lirian was going to be there by herself. As others have noted most of the Paladins and the Order were unborn or children at the time. That said I think the "Your had 4 chances" comment is really just hyperbole. She's sort of the in comic personification of us in the forums. Utterly convinced were right and unwilling to see anyone else's side. It's my belief that's why she pisses so many of us off so badly. She personifies what we dont like about ourselves.

Eh the alternative to Serini negotiating some detente at that point likely was that half the Scribblers would end up dead.

[hungrycrow]

Eh the alternative to Serini negotiating some detente at that point likely was that half the Scribblers would end up dead.

I think until we know more we should just peg the breakup as a collective failure for the Scribblers as a whole. Serini's fix was flawed but we don't know how salvageable the situation was or what else she tried before that. As you say it could easily be that there was nothing else Serini could have done about the situation.

[Peelee]

I think until we know more we should just peg the breakup as a collective failure for the Scribblers as a whole. Serini's fix was flawed but we don't know how salvageable the situation was or what else she tried before that. As you say it could easily be that there was nothing else Serini could have done about the situation.

Crayon drawings show that they were close to coming to blows. Girard left a booby trap intentionally designed to kill Soon.

I do not think the situation was salvageable by the time Serini suggested they split up.

[hungrycrow]

Crayon drawings show that they were close to coming to blows. Girard left a booby trap intentionally designed to kill Soon.

I do not think the situation was salvageable by the time Serini suggested they split up.

Sure, but what happened before that point? Was she just ignoring the growing tensions until it was too late? Did she do everything she could to play peacemaker but fail because everyone else was too stubborn? Did the fighting pop up out of nowhere after Kraagor's death? We don't know; we've only seen the end result.

Roy didn't think the Crayon drawings were sufficient to explain why Girard would resort to murder, so I think we'll learn more about the break-up eventually.

[Aquillion]

Theories on Serini and Belkar being related resurrecting in 3... 2... 1...

"Not all halflings know each other, Roy!"

[KorvinStarmast]

I do not think the situation was salvageable by the time Serini suggested they split up.

I'll offer a bit of support to this position with the assumption that at that point in her epic rogue career, before the troll transformation and some other trauma, she had enough points in social skills that she was the party's only resource as a reliable diplomat/negotiations facilitator.
(Yes, that's a bit of a guess on skill point assignments, but rogues seem to have a lot of those)

[Metastachydium]

Spoiler: SoD Lirian

Show

Didn't she die when Redcloak blew up the Gate by accident?

Spoiler: SoD

Show

Nope. Xykon breaks her neck a few rounds after the Gate shatters. She's way outside the blast radius, apparently (much unlike Redcloak and Right-Eye; I'm not sure how those two lived).

For the record, you can absolutely be frustrated with someone who doesn't act like you. Such as if you've interacted with people who very much act that way.

So true, so true!

[Peelee]

Sure, but what happened before that point? Was she just ignoring the growing tensions until it was too late? Did she do everything she could to play peacemaker but fail because everyone else was too stubborn? Did the fighting pop up out of nowhere after Kraagor's death? We don't know; we've only seen the end result.

Roy didn't think the Crayon drawings were sufficient to explain why Girard would resort to murder, so I think we'll learn more about the break-up eventually.

Oh, I'd like that quite a bit. I'm just bristling at "this whole thing is Serini's fault because [whatever contrived reason that most likely stems from disliking Serini]".

[Skull the Troll]

Oh, I'd like that quite a bit. I'm just bristling at "this whole thing is Serini's fault because [whatever contrived reason that most likely stems from disliking Serini]".

Oh I agree that it wasn't salvageable, and I don't particularly think that she's responsible, most particularly over the fall of Lirian's gate. I just think she's more responsible that people who weren't born yet. I think one of two things is going on. She doesn't actually know anything about how the other gates fell (Maybe because she got her info from the paladins, maybe not) or she's being facetious with her accusations.

Personally I like the idea that she got a few chances to ask the paladins some questions. It explains why she really has no patience with their answers, she's heard it before. Now she just gets to live every rogue's dream and taunt the helpless paladins a bit. She makes herself sound super in the know, but seeing as O'Chul doesn't have the faintest idea how Lirian's gate fell, and could report that the Order directly blew the other gates on purpose, she doesnt really know that much. It makes her attitude a lot more relatable. She has direct testimony that 3 of the 4 gates were directly destroyed by the Order and their "Allies" if you assume she doesn't see much of a difference between Miko and the Azure Guard.

It would require that she had a lesser dose of the amnesia potion that only erases a few hours, but that seems reasonable. It also explains why she doesn't hit them with the big stuff before heading off to the Order. She might need to keep asking them questions and doesn't want them forgetting info beyond the questioning.

[Peelee]

Oh I agree that it wasn't salvageable, and I don't particularly think that she's responsible, most particularly over the fall of Lirian's gate. I just think she's more responsible that people who weren't born yet.

Serini has, to date, destroyed 0 Gates. The Order of the Stick has destroyed 2 Gates, and the Sapphire Guard has destroyed 0 Gates (though not for lack of trying).

I would hesitate to call her responsible for any of their destructions.

[Skull the Troll]

Serini has, to date, destroyed 0 Gates. The Order of the Stick has destroyed 2 Gates, and the Sapphire Guard has destroyed 0 Gates (though not for lack of trying).

I would hesitate to call her responsible for any of their destructions.

Me too. I think you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to get across.

[Peelee]

Me too. I think you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to get across.

I think I must be.

[Skull the Troll]

I think I must be.

I'll admit I'm not a very good writer. Let me use an example from other fiction.

Walter White didn't save Jane. He did nothing to kill her - she did that to herself. But he didn't help her when he could have. Because of her death the airplane crashed when her bereaved father wasn't concentrating on his job as an air traffic controller. Is Walt responsible for the deaths of the people on the plane? I'd say not really. But if you ask me whos more responsible- Walt or a child who will be born in 4 years in France, then yeah, Walt is more responsible than the child.

[Fyraltari]

I'll admit I'm not a very good writer. Let me use an example from other fiction.

Walter White didn't save Jane. He did nothing to kill her

Technically he did. Trying to wake Jesse up, he knock her out of the safe position she was in and on too her back, which is why she drowned when she started vomiting.

So, in addition to doing nothing to help her when it would have been trivially easy to save her life (which may or may not be technically murder depending on where you live, but is definitely murder in my book) he accidentally killed her as well.

[Peelee]

I'll admit I'm not a very good writer. Let me use an example from other fiction.

Walter White didn't save Jane. He did nothing to kill her - she did that to herself. But he didn't help her when he could have. Because of her death the airplane crashed when her bereaved father wasn't concentrating on his job as an air traffic controller. Is Walt responsible for the deaths of the people on the plane? I'd say not really. But if you ask me whos more responsible- Walt or a child who will be born in 4 years in France, then yeah, Walt is more responsible than the child.

In this case, though, the four year old French kid got into the tower and directed the two planes into each other. The Order and the paladins are not complete bystanders here, they took a very active role in battling Xykon for the Gates. Serini is, at absolute worst, indirectly responsible, while the Order is inarguably directly responsible.

[Emanick]

I would say that Serini bears a very small but nonzero amount of responsibility for the fall of Lirian's Gate, whereas the Order, O-Chul and Lien bear no responsibility for it at all.

Serini's contribution to the safety of Lirian's Gate was basically positive, in my opinion. She seems to have prevented what would likely have been a destructive battle that might have prevented the Gates from ever receiving defenses (or possibly being built at all). However, responsibility is a two-way street; you're responsible for both the positive and negative consequences of your actions. Serini's proposed fix for her team's feud - which seems to have been unanimously agreed to, at least on paper - was that the Scribblers each split up and defend their own Gates, with no interference or communication whatsoever. This was almost certainly an improvement over what would have happened if she'd just sat down, taken out her pipeweed and blown smoke rings while her teammates slaughtered each other, but it still caused problems - namely, it prevented cooperation that might otherwise have been possible, even with feelings as tense as they were. Soon and Girard were never going to collaborate productively, but Dorukan and Lirian easily could have. I doubt Team Evil could have taken a Gate that was defended by both of them, let alone one that boasted defenses from Serini and maybe even Soon or Girard (although it's probably stretching plausibility that any four Scribblers could still have productively worked together).

Is it asking a lot of Serini to have proposed a better (and workable) plan than she did? Yes, absolutely. But, of the people currently at the North Pole, she is the only person who had any chance of doing anything to make Lirian's Gate more secure. She could have contacted Dorukan and Lirian a few years after her team scribbled itself out of existence and said "Hey, I know what I said, but I miss y'all. Can we maybe hang out sometime and work on shoring each others' Gates up a bit more, and just not tell anybody?" It could have worked. It's not obviously a terrible idea.

Now, to reiterate, I am not saying that it's Serini's fault that Lirian's Gate fell. (And I'm not trying to badmouth her because I don't like her character; I don't dislike her at all, even if I was initially frustrated by her actions when her beliefs were revealed, and I still find her logic a bit irritating.) But I think Skull the Troll is right that she bears a (very small) amount of responsibility for it, simply because she could plausibly have done something to prevent it if she had been both smart and lucky, even if her overall contribution to the safety of reality has been easily positive.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Five set of coordinates is really little to break a code. Granted, I'm no crypto-communication expert, but just ten data points with no underlying logic doesn't sound like it'd be enough if you don't have the translation for one of them.

Numbers are much harder to decrypt that words; this is because generally any other number is possible, whereas most other letters aren't possible.

Consider the coded phrase "she ate 6 glapes", one number and one letter have been switched. There's only one possible letter switch in, but it could be literally any number.

I'd expect Serini to maybe have left context clues that could narrow down the possibilities (Girard's gate is in the western dessert rather than the other 90% of the world), but it's not that hard to make a cypher that's uncrackable if the other-side doesn't start with information they shouldn't have.

[Liquor Box]

Ah, yes, if not for that bad stupid Serini the Scribblers would have stayed together and been a nice happy family. Man, she just had to ruin everything.

Not a nice happy family, but perhaps a group that could work together.

What we've seen of the Scribble isn't that different from what we say of the Order. Plenty of occasions the Order argued, threatened one another, appeared to be about to come to blows, or actually did.

I don't know if this is the way it will turnout, but working together may be part of the lesson here.

I think until we know more we should just peg the breakup as a collective failure for the Scribblers as a whole. Serini's fix was flawed but we don't know how salvageable the situation was or what else she tried before that. As you say it could easily be that there was nothing else Serini could have done about the situation.

Agreed

Now, to reiterate, I am not saying that it's Serini's fault that Lirian's Gate fell. (And I'm not trying to badmouth her because I don't like her character; I don't dislike her at all, even if I was initially frustrated by her actions when her beliefs were revealed, and I still find her logic a bit irritating.) But I think Skull the Troll is right that she bears a (very small) amount of responsibility for it, simply because she could plausibly have done something to prevent it if she had been both smart and lucky, even if her overall contribution to the safety of reality has been easily positive.

Serini is no more responsible for the fall of Lirian's gate in the same way the rest of the Scribble (other than Lirian herself) is. That is they could possibly have made different choices which might have more successfully defended it. They still did more than the rest of the population of the world. They made the choices that seemed best to them at the time, and none of those choices was obviously stupid at the time. In those circumstances i don't think we should steer much blame her way.

The other gates were slightly different because I think she did make a stupid decision to record the coordinates, which is what led to Xykon finding them.

[Peelee]

Not a nice happy family, but perhaps a group that could work together.

If you believe that then I'm not certain we have been reading the same comic, and I am certain that we will not be able to come to an agreement.

[brian 333]

Who's responsible? Or who's to blame? Not the same question.

Collectively, the Scribblers assumed responsibility for patching and maintaining the patches on the rifts. They chose, as their best option given their situation, to individually assume personal responsibility for one gate each.

The question of the optimum defense of any one gate or of the gates collectively is not relevant. None of them were gifted with prescience and none of them had any knowledge at the time that would have made other options better than the one they chose.

(Reminds me how my mother worked to separate me from my girlfriend when I was 17 because she liked the girl I dated when I was 16. 39 years later the girl my mom liked is celebrating her 25 anniversary with her wife and I'm going to spend the weekend making lasagna and French bread with the girl my mom hated.)

Things certainly could have gone otherwise had the characters made other choices. Not knowing the future, the choices they made can only be construed as good or bad in hindsight. That is assigning blame.

[Emanick]

Serini is no more responsible for the fall of Lirian's gate in the same way the rest of the Scribble (other than Lirian herself) is. That is they could possibly have made different choices which might have more successfully defended it. They still did more than the rest of the population of the world. They made the choices that seemed best to them at the time, and none of those choices was obviously stupid at the time. In those circumstances i don't think we should steer much blame her way.

The other gates were slightly different because I think she did make a stupid decision to record the coordinates, which is what led to Xykon finding them.

Yeah, I agree with all of this, with a couple of caveats. First, I'm not sure it was stupid to record the coordinates and not destroy them later - Serini may have had a good reason for doing so. If she didn't need the record for anything, though, keeping it so was a needless (tautologically so) security risk that she can certainly be blamed for incurring.

Second, to the extent that the other Scribblers were responsible for burning their interpersonal bridges, they bear additional responsibility for the Gates' failure because they helped to scuttle the possibility that the Gates could be collectively defended. So I actually think that, among the five surviving Scribblers, Serini is probably the least responsible for the destruction of Lirian's Gate.

Who's responsible? Or who's to blame? Not the same question.

This is very true. Blaming someone is not the same as holding him or her responsible. I don't blame Roy for destroying Girard's Gate, because I think he made the correct decision (under enormous pressure and while in an extremely tight spot, too - his fictional self has my immense respect). However, I hold him partially responsible for the fact that the Godsmoot was called and ended up almost putting an end to the world, because that was a direct consequence of his actions and it was, if not necessarily foreseeable, not exactly out of left field either.

Sometimes making a mess is the right thing to do. But you still have to help clean it up, or else you're just unfairly foisting that job onto other people.

[Skull the Troll]

In this case, though, the four year old French kid got into the tower and directed the two planes into each other. The Order and the paladins are not complete bystanders here, they took a very active role in battling Xykon for the Gates. Serini is, at absolute worst, indirectly responsible, while the Order is inarguably directly responsible.

The context of the original post (admittedly like 4 pages back) was that Serini blames them for the destruction of Lirian's gate, when presumably none of them were alive, and none of them have any knowledge of the events around it. The French kid can't get in the tower and direct anything. He hasn't been born yet. Plus he's in France not ABQ.

[Liquor Box]

If you believe that then I'm not certain we have been reading the same comic, and I am certain that we will not be able to come to an agreement.

Well we might if the comic makes it clear that they would have, but if not, ok.

Serini may have had a good reason for doing so. If she didn't need the record for anything, though, keeping it so was a needless (tautologically so) security risk that she can certainly be blamed for incurring.

I agree with this, but will also say that the comic has given us no hint that there was such a reason, and it is hard to imagine a good reason for recording them when she could have simply remembered.

Second, to the extent that the other Scribblers were responsible for burning their interpersonal bridges, they bear additional responsibility for the Gates' failure because they helped to scuttle the possibility that the Gates could be collectively defended. So I actually think that, among the five surviving Scribblers, Serini is probably the least responsible for the destruction of Lirian's Gate.

It may be that the inter-personal conflicts between Soon and Girard were a bigger cause of the breakup of the group than Serini's suggestion. But I still have trouble assigning blame to a group that did more than anyone else in the world, despite that not being enough. So I think none are to blame (Serini's diary and attack on the Order and paladins aside) for the risk to the world through the snarl escaping. But this may boil down the nebulous difference between responsibility and blame that you and Brian discussed.

[brian 333]

I agree with this, but will also say that the comic has given us no hint that there was such a reason, and it is hard to imagine a good reason for recording them when she could have simply remembered.

Because people never die or forget, and the amnesia trope never occurs when a single important fact is desperately needed to save the world.

Besides, it's not like there was a group of fanatics bent on erasing all knowledge of the rifts even if it required the mass murder of innocents along the way.

[Ruck]

Well we might if the comic makes it clear that they would have, but if not, ok.

The comic shows the Scribble nearly coming to blows before Serini intervenes.

[Skull the Troll]

The comic shows the Scribble nearly coming to blows before Serini intervenes.

They can both be right. Sometimes physical fights are the end of friendships, and sometimes they aren't. We don't have any idea.

[hungrycrow]

They can both be right. Sometimes physical fights are the end of friendships, and sometimes they aren't. We don't have any idea.

As Peelee pointed out, Girard was setting booby traps for Soon afterwards. Hard to believe he was feeling less murdery when they were pointing swords at each other.

Having thought on it, it is unfair to leave any blame on Serini for not resolving that situation better. It's not like I'd blame Elan or Durkon for failing to talk sense into V during the split-the-party arc.

[KorvinStarmast]

I would say that Serini bears a very small but nonzero amount of responsibility for the fall of Lirian's Gate, whereas the Order, O-Chul and Lien bear no responsibility for it at all.

I agree with that, and the share that Serini bears is related to her being one of the Scribblers. As a group they put the gates in place which is a positive thing - yay scribblers! world gets saved/protected by mighty adventurers! But even though they are a successful team, they have some self centered issues that creates conflict. They forget how good they are as a team as they focus on petty disagreements (petty in proportion to the world saving thing they did as a team). As a team they have a collective responsibility to keep the gates intact/safe. So Serini has a share of that.

To then arrive at a protocol where they do not, as a team, keep all of the gates protected and intact is a bizarre course of action (even though the initial friction leaves that as an acceptable short term solution.) It is the absolutism of their decision to not talk to each other again (and here Girard is the biggest culprit) instead of 'let's meet in 10 years when we have more perspective and see if we can heal this wound' (the way effective adults do) that is where the Scribblers, as a whole, are all at fault. All of them. Soon. Serini. Lirian. Dorunak. Girard. "I'll never speak to you again" is a stubborn and selfish way to deal with someone with whom you have a deep/shared bond. (And any adventuring party that has been together from 1 through epic will form some profound bonds, even if there are intra group disagreements).

Conflict resolution: it's not a button that you switch on and off once. Serini's truce was a good first step. The Scribblers treating it as "OK, we never have to lift a finger to resolve our differences ever again" is mind-numblingly foolish and irresponsible...though I suppose it is a predictably human behavior if you ascribe to the Scribblers the emotional stability and depth of teenagers playing D&D in the basement. (From one of Rich's posts or notes, I thought that the Snarl was supposed to model that).

Serini's contribution to the safety of Lirian's Gate was basically positive, in my opinion. She seems to have prevented what would likely have been a destructive battle that might have prevented the Gates from ever receiving defenses (or possibly being built at all). However, responsibility is a two-way street; you're responsible for both the positive and negative consequences of your actions. Serini's proposed fix for her team's feud - which seems to have been unanimously agreed to, at least on paper - was that the Scribblers each split up and defend their own Gates, with no interference or communication whatsoever.

It's applying a band aid where some stitches were required. Good to stop the bleeding now but it doesn't heal the wound effectively.

if she'd just sat down, taken out her pipeweed and blown smoke rings while her teammates slaughtered each other, but it still caused problems - namely, it prevented cooperation that might otherwise have been possible, even with feelings as tense as they were.

Well, if Soon dies at the hands of Girard and Dorukan, the Sapphire Guard is never formed and from that change Redcloak as we know him does not arise. (Yeah, I am playing counterfactual here). Maybe Serini should have just sat back and watched the train wreck.

Soon and Girard were never going to collaborate productively, but Dorukan and Lirian easily could have.

Heck, they were lovers who could have joined forces to support each other. Agreeing not to as a nod to that band aid agreement is careless, given that the stakes are the security of the whole world.

I doubt Team Evil could have taken a Gate that was defended by both of them

SoD shows us that

Spoiler: sod

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Team Evil was unable to even take one gate before Lirian got careless.

Further that point of how stupid "we'll never talk to you again" is, had Lirian advised Soon about a Goblin wearing a red cloak

Spoiler: sod spoiler

Show

that she had in custody,

Soon or other Sapphire Guard members could have come and ended that threat to Azure City

Spoiler: sod spoiler

Show

long before Xykon the prisoner became Xykon the lich.

Anyway, all of those counterfactuals would prevent OoTS from becoming a quest to solve the gate problem, and likely left it in the realm of a few jokes a week about D&D.

Oh I agree that it wasn't salvageable, and I don't particularly think that she's responsible, most particularly over the fall of Lirian's gate. I just think she's more responsible that people who weren't born yet.

Her share of responsibility is a pie slice of the Scribblers' collective responsibility pie.

Who's responsible? Or who's to blame? Not the same question.

True. I have a friend at work who has a sign at his cubicle that says: "I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was going to blame you".

(Reminds me how my mother worked to separate me from my girlfriend when I was 17 because she liked the girl I dated when I was 16. 39 years later the girl my mom liked is celebrating her 25 anniversary with her wife and I'm going to spend the weekend making lasagna and French bread with the girl my mom hated.)

I very cleverly met, dated, proposed to, and married a lady I met about 1500 miles from where my parents lived. Yes, I invited my family to the wedding.

Things certainly could have gone otherwise had the characters made other choices.

And we'd have no story, or at least not the same story.

Second, to the extent that the other Scribblers were responsible for burning their interpersonal bridges, they bear additional responsibility for the Gates' failure because they helped to scuttle the possibility that the Gates could be collectively defended.

Close enough to my position to evoke agreement.

[Peelee]

The context of the original post (admittedly like 4 pages back) was that Serini blames them for the destruction of Lirian's gate, when presumably none of them were alive, and none of them have any knowledge of the events around it.

Ah, sorry. I still disagree with Serini being at fault here to any degree, though. No matter what, the Scribblers would have fractured. She just got them to do it with everyone being alive and unharmed (well, except Kraagor). I would say that Girard's (and possibly to a lesser degree Soon's and Dorukan's) inability to put differences aside and get along for the sake of the world is at fault, if you want to peg anything other than Xykon and Redcloak.

I, for one, don't see much use in putting that on anyone but Xykon and Redcloak.