OOTS #1259 - The Discussion Thread

[Vikenlugaid]

What the hell are you on about? No one has said this joke refelcted poorly on Haley. All that people are saying is that the joke doesn't land very well, calm down for pity's sake.

Well, people are talking really serious about real life love relationships just for that joke, if that's not overanalizing... And I don't think that we the "don't take too serious a joke" team are precisely the ones who need to "calm down for pity's sake" XD

[Fyraltari]

Well, people are talking really serious about real life love relationships just for that joke, if that's not overanalizing... And I don't think that we the "don't take too serious a joke" team are precisely the ones who need to "calm down for pity's sake" XD

People discussed that joke and used that to talk about a wider cultural/social trend rather than staying focused on the comic. That's not overanalysis that's the conversation drifting.

[Vikenlugaid]

People discussed that joke and used that to talk about a wider cultural/social trend rather than staying focused on the comic. That's not overanalysis that's the conversation drifting.

But is not only that, people is using that to criticize Haley x Elan relationship, and I think that IS overanalizing.

Like I said that is like if we see the "raw materials" joke and start saying "Roy is a bad friend, friends shouldn't do that, I don't like where this is going...". I mean, is a joke in a comedy parody world, of course that would be bad behavior in real world, but we shouldn't judge these characters for their jokes, specially cause when they are not making jokes they act very differently.
Haley doesn't treat Elan like a baby unless is for a joke.

[dancrilis]

Elan had some character growth back when the party was separated and for a moment, as Dashing Swordsman, looked pretty competent. But over the last book as Roy has taken center stage he's stepped back from heroism back into his more accustomed role as comedy relief character. I have to wonder if there's a certain psychology at play -- to what extent Elan's stupidity is still what it was in book 1, and to what extent he's outgrown the role but still plays it because it meshes well with the team. Elan is not a natural leader. I have to wonder how much of his incompetence is still real and how much of it is -- not so much feigned but more like a 'comfort zone' he lives in, so that Haley and Roy can take center stage. Elan would rather be the goof-off than the serious person making serious plans.

I don't really agree and even if I did I don't really see how any of that is glorifing stupidity.

Why I don't agree - if we look at the fight with Serini.
Elan was not tricked into chasing his lute he was magically compelled (not his fault), he should have likely warned about being paralyzed earlier then he did (and he mentioned that), he figured out a way to turn the tide against Serini by getting Sunny to blink, then he was charmed again (not his fault), and when that was broken he immediately went to help Vaarsuvius who could dispel most of the stuff that was going on, then when he was felt alone with Minrah and Sunny (who had been shown to be able to beat their saves easily) he was able to get them onside, and allow for the rest of the team to be helped.

He is not taking center stage but he is not shown as incompetent or a liability in my view, he is more a nice guy who has little time for discussion of strategy and tactics (and I still think it was a mistake to send him away - for a host of reasons).

[Seward]

It's a bit hard to take seriously a woman whose go-to move, the moment she thinks she's not getting the attention she deserves, is to flash her boobs.

Julia's a wizard. Cha is normally a dump stat.

She's probably like Roy. High cha for a XXX (fill in Fighter or Wizard).
So in a school packed with wizards she'd be queen bee.
Outside, not so much.

(I was similar in college. In a place full of wanna be engineers and scientists with 1 woman for every 7 men I usually had some kind of dating thing going on and managed a couple steady girlfriends. Most of whom didn't go to my school, although some were associated with the school in some way - worked in a non teaching capacity, or volunteered for the drama club or had prior relationships with other students there and were interested in dating somebody. By Sophomore year I had noticed how much unwanted attention all the women had to beat off and noticed there were plenty of other women elsewhere that wanted attention so....

In grad school in a place whose student population took things like communications majors seriously and had a fair proportion of people raised either in privilege (where social graces were expected in all children) or wanted to join that life I didn't do as well. It wasn't as bad as high school, I'd gained some skills, was more attractive, had no trouble joining groups and being seen as "normal". But I was forgettable. The only place I had success dating was in people I met online, and traveled to meet. Ie other nerds where I my "average in most places" social skills shined. le. One of whom I eventually married - you don't let somebody into the same geeky stuff as you where there is also mutual attraction get away easily...who knows when that chance might ever happen again)

Also teenager. Most people don't take teenagers very seriously.

And yes, Elan is pulling his weight. He also finds meetings incredibly boring and would rather play with his new friend, with which he has a lot in common. Hell, stodgy adults often unbend and behave like kids around kids or kidlike beings (say Dogs). I certainly would always rather play with my dog than participate in a meeting where my input was unlikely to be needed or valued.

[danielxcutter]

The deva did say that Roy could have made a Cleric or Paladin work with his stats, so they probably aren't that low.

[Seward]

The deva did say that Roy could have made a Cleric or Paladin work with his stats, so they probably aren't that low.

Roy and Julia's mom was way hotter and into social stuff than her husband. It's reflected in her kids. Your average wizarding family doesn't have a parent that encourages social skills, grooming etc in their children. A 13-14 cha compared to an 8 is "pretty hot" when most of the population has an 8 in that stat.

And while CHA is not supposed to be just attractiveness, in OOTS it is presented absolutely as if it is, at least for humanoids, that the other elements of charisma (leadership skills, mechanical advantage with certain classes) while also present aren't what people notice first about high cha people or entitities.

[InvisibleBison]

And while CHA is not supposed to be just attractiveness, in OOTS it is presented absolutely as if it is, at least for humanoids, that the other elements of charisma (leadership skills, mechanical advantage with certain classes) while also present aren't what people notice first about high cha people or entitities.

While OOTS does present high Charisma people as being attractive, I don't think it ever establishes that attractive people necessarily have high Charisma. So I don't think we can conclude that Julia has high Charisma simply because she's attractive.

[danielxcutter]

If I had to guess, I'd say Julia probably doesn't have super high Wisdom. Likely lower than Roy's, at least.

[Ionathus]

Ok let's talk then about Haley's change of alignment to straight evil.
...
Then Roy is evil for doing the joke about the "raw materials" in #1237 when his friend was in a live or dead situation? because if we analize that the sane way that Haley's joke in last chapter, Roy is totally a horrible person there.

Well, people are talking really serious about real life love relationships just for that joke, if that's not overanalizing... And I don't think that we the "don't take too serious a joke" team are precisely the ones who need to "calm down for pity's sake" XD

But is not only that, people is using that to criticize Haley x Elan relationship, and I think that IS overanalizing.

It is profoundly frustrating to have gone out of my way multiple times to say "this isn't a critique of Haley & Elan's relationship, I just didn't like the vibe of the individual joke" only to now be depicted as making broad judgments and calling main characters evil. Please either address my position, as it stands, or leave me out of your accusations.

Haley doesn't treat Elan like a baby unless is for a joke.

Which is precisely my problem: I don't like the joke itself, and it affects my enjoyment (however slightly) of their dynamic.

It is not that we can't criticize a work of comedy, it is just that we shouldn't take any dialogue as a serious thing in a work if comedy (and parody). You can criticize that you don't like a joke, but overanalizing that joke to the point that you are even judging the character who is doing it is a bit too much.
...
This is a goid story, yes, but thus story has jokes on it that are "outside" of the "serious story", and it is ok because this is a parody too. Haley's joke in the last chapter has absolutely 0 trascendence in the story being told, the story is the same good with or without that joke.

Jokes matter, my dude.

Jokes aren't some protected class, insulated from the rest of a fictional work, immune to any discussion of how they change its tone or message. Jokes are part of that story, and they affect how the story is told - and how the audience experiences it.

This isn't a new discussion. Rich has talked multiple times about how he regrets individual jokes he made earlier in the comic's run - many of them at Haley's expense. This forum thread is particularly insightful about Rich's feelings about how jokes are absolutely important to the story and its message. You could argue the author of this comic is wrong, and that the jokes don't "matter" like the rest of the work does, which is a separate debate. But that wouldn't change the fact that the author of the jokes we're discussing is on record stating that they are 100% important to this work.

Also worth noting that the 5th post on that linked thread is saying "I recommend you enjoy the joke for its face value." As I said: this is not a new discussion. "It's just a joke, bro, don't take it so seriously" has a long history of being attached to topics that a lot of people (almost always marginalized) do take very seriously.

And for what seems like the hundredth time, because I have already been misrepresented on this thread so much, I'm going to re-state this disclaimer: the "Haley treats Elan like she's his mom" jokes are not my favorite, but they're not horrible. They're much, much milder than the jokes in that "Tactical Question - Haley" thread I linked. This is not a condemnation of Haley/Elan or OotS as a whole. It is a minor quibble...about a very major topic.

[bunsen_h]

Eh, I don't think we can extrapolate too much from one incident, especially since Julia is a teenager-- I wouldn't call her a woman yet. (And with the teachers, I imagine it's more for trying to get them to raise her grades than for sheer attention. And what kind of teachers do they have over there that this works on, anyway...)

The "this always works" establishes clearly that she's got a pattern of doing it.

I can remember two examples of grad-student colleagues of mine dating students that they were TAing, and vaguely recall that there were one or two others though I can't bring the details to mind. I always thought it was a terrible idea, for the obvious reasons. I can think of a couple of profs who were married to former students of theirs, though I don't know if the romantic relationships began while they were still in the prof/student relationship. At the time, there wasn't anything in the universities' codes of conduct that would have forbidden it. It would be nice to think that they've fixed that in the intervening decades, as more attention has been brought to the potential abuses of such relationships, but I don't know.

I remember an incident one of my colleagues told me about, when one of her first-year lab students out-of-the-blue offered her the key to his apartment if she'd raise his lab marks. She thought it was pretty hilarious. "C*ck-sure" was the phrase that came to mind for me.

As for "what kind of teachers"... such behaviour is likely to be effective for getting attention pretty generally. The nature of the attention will vary, as will the consequences.

If I had to guess, I'd say Julia probably doesn't have super high Wisdom. Likely lower than Roy's, at least.

That's my impression as well, though I admit that other posters have a point when they say "meh, teenager". None of the teenagers I've ever hung out with pulled the kind of stunts that Julia did. (We got into somewhat more intellectual kinds of trouble.) But I keep hearing about teenagers doing really stupid stuff on social media, etc., so I'm aware that it's not unusual.

[KorvinStarmast]

I don't think it's too far of a reach to conclude that without the jokes this strip wouldn't exist, since that's how it started. Jokes matter.

[danielxcutter]

That's my impression as well, though I admit that other posters have a point when they say "meh, teenager". None of the teenagers I've ever hung out with pulled the kind of stunts that Julia did. (We got into somewhat more intellectual kinds of trouble.) But I keep hearing about teenagers doing really stupid stuff on social media, etc., so I'm aware that it's not unusual.

To be fair, the Internet does a very good job at giving minorities a voice. Whether that’s good or not tends to depend on what the minority is doing, but the minority called “teenagers doing incredibly stupid things” probably falls firmly under “not”, if that makes any sense.

[brian 333]

To be fair, the Internet does a very good job at giving minorities a voice. Whether that’s good or not tends to depend on what the minority is doing, but the minority called “teenagers doing incredibly stupid things” probably falls firmly under “not”, if that makes any sense.

As a teenager I can attest to doing many stupid things that I knew were stupid at the time, generally on a dare or to get the attention of a teenaged girl. We didn't even have an internet because Al Gore hadn't invented it yet.

[danielxcutter]

Well yes, but the most stupid things teenagers do are not exactly the average for teenagers.

[Seward]

While OOTS does present high Charisma people as being attractive, I don't think it ever establishes that attractive people necessarily have high Charisma. So I don't think we can conclude that Julia has high Charisma simply because she's attractive.

The fact that she is the center of the social scene at that school (the "cool kid" who is leader of the "cool kids") is a pretty strong argument she's got a significant charisma advantage on your typical wizard-nerd student. Plus the fact that teachers seem to raise her grades when she shows her chest. Both pieces of information are useful.

Outside though, she's an attractive teenager who isn't able to manipulate the adults around her very much. That police chief probably had above-average charisma, Durkon's high concentration skill and probably sense motive helped keep him immune to whatever she tried etc.

None of the teenagers I've ever hung out with pulled the kind of stunts that Julia did.

And um...I guess you knew different teenagers than I did or than I was. What I remember is most of us (and yes, that includes me, intelligence and wisdom are NOT the same) were overconfident snots who did really risky things with no sense of how much they could screw up our lives if they went wrong. And I was the "good kid" in my family. The stuff my sister's friends did got several killed by various accidents over the years. She describes one guy doing stuff right out of Dukes of Hazzard. He'd soup up muscle cars, then roar up behind a police car, flash his headlights and literally outrun them. As a HOBBY. It was astonishing it took till his mid 20s till he got jail time, but she said he was incredibly smart, just had nothing to do with it, so I guess he had elaborate escape plans or something. Although honestly, while police usually have no sense of humor about high speed chases, I think some must have at some level enjoyed the rivalry since he wasn't usually punished with more than tickets/loss of license. He was of course white, but from working class background.

Our more "mild" activities

I remember winning a regional orchestra festival with nearly all of us drunk, from freshmen to seniors. Some on other substances. But when the music started we kicked ass. We also won the other 3 years, but the average blood alcohol was lower.

Um...lets see...just from my "mostly good grades, mostly college bound, mostly lower middle class friends"...shoplifting, driving without headlights, driving down the wrong side of the road, making home-made explosives, setting off explosives, underage drinking, pot long before it was legal, underage smoking (we were good about not driving when impaired. We just did stupid stuff stone cold sober). Towing (as in holding it by reaching out the window with hands and holding onto the cart, not a tow-tie in hte back) shopping carts with people inside. Doing doughnuts in parking lots while towing shopping carts with people inside. Skipping school because it was somebody's birthday (and my senior year doing it to the face of one instructor, my friend said "Seward's not going to be here today" "he's sitting right here". "Yes but I'm not going to be here either". (we were the two A students in his class, and didn't really need to do any more work that year to keep getting As). Storing birthday cake in lockers....ok that's a minor one... um... usual stupid things trying to get dates. Trying to work up the nerve to hire a prostitute after failing to get dates and never quite succeeding (thank god in hindsight). Then there was that period where we actually experimented with various forms of real world magical rituals. (the divination tools like Tarot worked to some extent. The rest not so much, although we did replicate table tilting and finger-levitation. Physics). Oh yeah and that time when me and 2 friends actually crossed the border into Canada on our own via a cruise ship/ferry thing, and when border patrol stopped us (as we were unaccompanied 12 year olds) we lied and said we had parent permission, they called my home and my sister pretended to be my mom....then we ran out of money because the campsite was closed and we got a very sleazy hotel room (pretending to have only 1 occupant, sneaking the other 2 in) and pooled our funds (a few dollar remaining) for a box of cereal to tide us over until the ferry arrived to take us home.

We also played D&D, Traveler, Champions, Call of Cthulu. Most of us also tried to date, the only one actually good at it kept her very adult sex life completely hidden from the rest of us till we all came back from college....(and those who didn't go to college had begun their own sexual misadventures. Was a groomsman for a wedding that lasted less than 6 weeks, my best friend had an accidental kid with his 17 year old girlfriend etc etc etc etc.....)

I look at teenaged me and just roll my eyes. Honestly it isn't till I was about 25 that I stop thinking "wow, past me was an idiot" fairly often when reviewing things I did.

The only thing I'd like back from my youth is the energy and ability to eat anything I wanted and have trouble putting on weight. I would want to keep my life experiences and hard earned wisdom and I would never EVER want to be an actual teenager again, barring reincarnation when I forget between lives how foolish and insecure I'm likely to be in that period.

[Liquor Box]

It is profoundly frustrating to have gone out of my way multiple times to say "this isn't a critique of Haley & Elan's relationship, I just didn't like the vibe of the individual joke" only to now be depicted as making broad judgments and calling main characters evil. Please either address my position, as it stands, or leave me out of your accusations.

I don't think anyone specified that you did. But a few people have made comments that could have been read as critical of their relationship:

t I can never really get behind the relationship. I know it's exaggerated for humor purposes but... like, what does Haley get from the dynamic? Elan is the sweetest person in the world but I've never seen a romantic relationship that could be powered by sweetness alone.

Personally I find any relationship where one lover pseudo-parents the other and appears to view them as little more than "makes me feel good to be around them" and "great sex toy" to be a very-uncomfortable turnoff, regardless of whether it's the traditional stereotype or an inversion.

Not that I think there's anything wrong with commenting on it. It was a joke, but it still reflects (in an exaggerated way) the dynamic of their relationship.

Julia's a wizard. Cha is normally a dump stat.

She's probably like Roy. High cha for a XXX (fill in Fighter or Wizard).
So in a school packed with wizards she'd be queen bee.
Outside, not so much.

I think Julia is presented as more attractive than Hayley. She's presented as being one of the most desirable people in her school, she refers to her charms working on her teachers, and seems genuinely surprised when they don't work on Durkon (suggesting that is uncommon). We don't see anything like that from Hayley.

[Vikenlugaid]

It is profoundly frustrating to have gone out of my way multiple times to say "this isn't a critique of Haley & Elan's relationship, I just didn't like the vibe of the individual joke" only to now be depicted as making broad judgments and calling main characters evil. Please either address my position, as it stands, or leave me out of your accusations.

I am sorry but... Why did you quote me then? If my post was obviously not meant for you, but for the people that are doing what I say. I never said that you did it, I don't see the point you saying that you didn't do that when I am not saying that you did that.

But there are people here critizising Haley x Elan relationship, and that critics came from that joke, and that is what I am talking about when I say the word "overanalizing". And I think is reasonable to use that word in that case.

[Ionathus]

I am sorry but... Why did you quote me then? If my post was obviously not meant for you, but for the people that are doing what I say. I never said that you did it, I don't see the point you saying that you didn't do that when I am not saying that you did that.

But there are people here critizising Haley x Elan relationship, and that critics came from that joke, and that is what I am talking about when I say the word "overanalizing". And I think is reasonable to use that word in that case.

Please correct me if I've missed something, but I believe you actually quoted me first, in this post, which included some significant hyperbole for effect. Fyraltari then said "What? Nobody is judging Haley" and your response was: "Well, people are talking really serious about real life love relationships just for that joke, if that's not overanalizing... And I don't think that we the "don't take too serious a joke" team are precisely the ones who need to "calm down for pity's sake" XD"

Given that you quoted me in your original response, and then didn't clarify in the follow-ups, hopefully you can see how that thread of conversation felt like an accusation of me specifically. Thank you for clarifying that it was not.

[KorvinStarmast]

As a teenager I can attest to doing many stupid things that I knew were stupid at the time, generally on a dare or to get the attention of a teenaged girl. We didn't even have an internet because Al Gore hadn't invented it yet.

I also did many foolish things as a teenager, and I am fortunate to have survived a few of them.

[Precure]

I guess one thing I'll say is that I think the Haley that originally fell in love with Elan felt more like an equal match for him. Sure, she was still smarter than him, but she could also be immature, had her own weird quirks like talking to her treasure, pinched stuff from other party members, and later turned out to be quite neurotic. We haven't seen that Haley in a very long while.

Pretty much this. Compared to the time before Azure city battle, Haley grown into a more serious type of character, which somewhat made them maturity-wise less equal in this relationship.

I think this strip is a good example of other ways Elan can impress Haley. He really is a skilled and savvy people person when he needs to be! His trick with Sunny also impressed her.

...is it a bad thing that the first thing comes to mind after I read these is what a mother would say to his son?

[Ionathus]

...is it a bad thing that the first thing comes to mind after I read these is what a mother would say to his son?

No, I don't think you're way off base or anything. I do disagree personally - many couples I know, including my partner and I, will congratulate or affirm each other like this, including talking about how proud they are of their partner.

But being proud is also a common trait for parents and their kids so I can see the connection, particularly with the first example. The second one feels a bit more clear-cut "congratulating a teammate on a smart move."

[Precure]

The second one feels a bit more clear-cut "congratulating a teammate on a smart move."

It helps that they were paired against Serini and Sunny at that point.

[mjasghar]

Sorry but I must add this - it’s overanalysing(or with a z). The current spelling in this discussion is making it difficult to take the arguments seriously.

[Vikenlugaid]

Please correct me if I've missed something, but I believe you actually quoted me first, in this post, which included some significant hyperbole for effect. Fyraltari then said "What? Nobody is judging Haley" and your response was: "Well, people are talking really serious about real life love relationships just for that joke, if that's not overanalizing... And I don't think that we the "don't take too serious a joke" team are precisely the ones who need to "calm down for pity's sake" XD"

Given that you quoted me in your original response, and then didn't clarify in the follow-ups, hopefully you can see how that thread of conversation felt like an accusation of me specifically. Thank you for clarifying that it was not.

I quoted you for other reasons, I was answering to the "comedy shouldn't be taken so serious" thing. If someone tell me "people arent taking it so serious" I answer "yes, there are people doing it" (because there are), if you aren't one of those I am not talking about you.

I mean, if you think people should take it so serious say it, but if you don't think that and you are not doing that, then why keep the quoting unlesh we talk about anything else.

[arimareiji]

Sorry but I must add this - it’s overanalysing(or with a z). The current spelling in this discussion is making it difficult to take the arguments seriously.

I used to be a spelling and grammar fiend, but nowadays I'm happy as long as I can get the gist of what someone means. And you never know, maybe they spelled it overanil because they were worried about being overanal. (^_~)

Edit: Ah. My memory was playing tricks on me, and I thought the stray "i" I remembered must have been "overanilizing" to provoke a correction. Looking back, 'twas "overanalizing". (It may have also been because I wondered if "overanilizing" would be using too much aniline in a chemical synthesis.)

[mjasghar]

It was the nsfw aspect that is distracting