OOTS #943 - The Discussion Thread

[Grimly Feendish]

I suppose as he wanders the outer planes Julio might happen across Xykon's purpose built Citadel/Dungeon and return to the Order just in time to tell them how to get there. Or would that be too far fetched?

[Jay R]

I suppose as he wanders the outer planes Julio might happen across Xykon's purpose built Citadel/Dungeon and return to the Order just in time to tell them how to get there. Or would that be too far fetched?

It's not too far-fetched, just completely irrelevant. His real phylactery isn't there; Redcloak has it.

There is nothing of value in that fortress.

[ORione]

Interesting. Now that I think of it, I don't think Durkon or Roy have seen Blackwing before. And Elan and Belkar are stupid enough to forget him, so I guess that explains that.

[Tragak]

Which would be what we had with Scoundrel the last time, and far stronger reason to believe he was not coming back.

I found it!

[Grimly Feendish]

It's not too far-fetched, just completely irrelevant. His real phylactery isn't there; Redcloak has it.

There is nothing of value in that fortress.

But only Redcloak knows that so the Order might go there following wrong information. Also if Xykon gets hurt he may retreat there to lick his wounds.

[brionl]

Heh, I've read the start of darkness.
Great book. Perhaps a mistake to read it before I read the main OOTS comic, because now I sympathize with redcloak too much
EDIT:
But really, how did he voice the tilde? I'm interested because it interupted the monologue in my head

Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bpIbdZhrzA

[Doug Lampert]

Heh, I've read the start of darkness.
Great book. Perhaps a mistake to read it before I read the main OOTS comic, because now I sympathize with redcloak too much

Spoilered due to TSoD discussion.

Spoiler

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Redcloak, in TSoD, murders his own brother in cold blood so as to save the single entity that kills more goblinoids then anyone else in the comic.

He does this in the name of goblin liberation and rights.

He claims that he needs to commit crimes of this magnitude so as to save goblins from things like, himself. Right Eye gives a fine example of a goblin community living at peace with the surrounding humans prior to the future Wrong Eye showing up and leading Xykon to it.

That would be the same Right Eye he murders to preserve the same Xykon so Xykon can presumably FINISH murdering the rest of his relatives and their friends and neighbors.

Based on the comic I might foolishly assume that Wrong Eye actually HAS a workable plan and a real chance of success rather than simply being insanely committed to the sunk costs fallacy. But thanks to TSoD I know better. It killed my sympathy to read it, as it's obvious that RC is his own cause's second worst enemy. (The Dark One gets to be number one since the Dark One is the source of Wrong Eye's plan, power, and longevity and will probably repeat the whole fiasco if he has the chance after Wrong Eye gets what's coming to him.)

He's willing to risk the destruction of the souls of every goblin to "better" the goblin's fate. He conspires with someone who murders goblins out of boredom to make things "better" for goblins. He finds a kingdom of goblinoids living in reasonable security, and ONLY gets 10,000 of them killed as part of his quest to help goblinoids PRIOR to coming to the STUNNING epiphany that Hobgoblins are Goblinoids too!

I save my sympathy for Red Cloak's victims, who are quite literally legion, and will only grow in numbers until he is stopped.

[ORione]

^You might want to put that under a spoiler.

[Amphiox]

It's not too far-fetched, just completely irrelevant. His real phylactery isn't there; Redcloak has it.

There is nothing of value in that fortress.

If it's completely irrelevant, why did The Giant devote time to describe and draw it? After all, even the Polearm merchant got a callback.

I assume that, as a bard, he is refusing to let Haley's reveal interfere with his "I was too late to say good-bye" monologue.

Julio is using that can for a reason.

The can is, obviously, Julio's new sidearm. It's actually a +6 Can of Chaos Whoopass (turns into a hand cannon when you flip it around.)

Would a Chaotic Neutral scoundrel give away is primary weapon if he didn't already have an equal or better replacement?

[orrion]

He made exit plans before. Didn't stick, did they? Why should these stick?

I think all those reasons were debated and put to rest long ago, such as Elan contacting Julio for specifically countering Tarquin.

Everything is a plane in D&D. Some planes vary in size, but we start with the prime material, and work out from there. As to access, a lot of planes are inaccessable, until... Scoundrel finds a sign saying "do not enter. Very dangerous", or "Keep out. Private harem/treasury of Lord Jerk the Rich/lusty." or we just have an accidental wormhole leading into it, or ... We just need a magic dohickey and in he goes.

He's retiring or at least on vacation. Even assuming such a sign exists, why would he care? It's not like his alignment compels him to fight the good fight.

Besides, you yourself posited the scenario as the Order encoutering "the retried Scoundrel [who is just touring the planes..]." He'd hardly be retired if he saw any of those signs and decided to act. This is the problem with your arguments here. You're trying to hard to BS a way for Scoundrel to show up again that you're contradicting yourself from post to post.

When Elan has to identify it in text as foreshadowing, it is rather feeble foreshadowing.

Redcloak identified his lampshade hanging to the point of bringing in a physical lampshade, and that wasn't a feeble lampshade at all. Elan points out tropes and techniques all the time, and he's not the only one. In short, such naming or pointing out is a common element in OOTS and doing so is not indicative of the strength or weakness of said technique.

Which would be what we had with Scoundrel the last time, and far stronger reason to believe he was not coming back.

I seriously doubt many others were as blindsided as you appear to be about it, and I similarly doubt many others are as fanatical on the subject.

Not really. I don't expect him back, just like I didn't before.

Oh? Does this mean you're revising your previous stance that Julio is definitely going to come back and wreck the narrative? You were arguing that for several weeks.

What I am saying is that there is no valid reason to say he is not coming back.

There are plenty of valid reasons. Some of them relate back to the stance that Julio showing up here was for a specific reason and it was set up as such. All you're doing here is randomly throwing out ways for him to show up for no reason whatsoever.

If it's completely irrelevant, why did The Giant devote time to describe and draw it? After all, even the Polearm merchant got a callback.

I think you're going to have a hard time if you want to take the stance that anything mentioned in the comic is going to get some mention in the future. There's all kinds of one-offs that haven't gotten call backs (like, everything else in that town, Haley's gemstones, Elan's wizard outfit, the 5 worthless rocks that Haley suckered the party into taking, etc, etc, etc, etc).

Besides, the fortress isn't completely irrelevant to Xykon. Just for the party.

[zimmerwald1915]

If it's completely irrelevant, why did The Giant devote time to describe and draw it? After all, even the Polearm merchant got a callback.

Possibilities include, but are not limited to: to attract fan speculation, to just make a pretty image, and to explain where Xykon had buggered off to in the early chapters of Blood Runs in the Family. None of these possibilities requires that anybody visit the fortress ever again.

[DaggerPen]

Poor Julio, living in a time before advanced sound effects and recording devices.

I love your icon.

Spoiler

Show

Redcloak, in TSoD, murders his own brother in cold blood so as to save the single entity that kills more goblinoids then anyone else in the comic.

He does this in the name of goblin liberation and rights.

He claims that he needs to commit crimes of this magnitude so as to save goblins from things like, himself. Right Eye gives a fine example of a goblin community living at peace with the surrounding humans prior to the future Wrong Eye showing up and leading Xykon to it.

That would be the same Right Eye he murders to preserve the same Xykon so Xykon can presumably FINISH murdering the rest of his relatives and their friends and neighbors.

Based on the comic I might foolishly assume that Wrong Eye actually HAS a workable plan and a real chance of success rather than simply being insanely committed to the sunk costs fallacy. But thanks to TSoD I know better. It killed my sympathy to read it, as it's obvious that RC is his own cause's second worst enemy. (The Dark One gets to be number one since the Dark One is the source of Wrong Eye's plan, power, and longevity and will probably repeat the whole fiasco if he has the chance after Wrong Eye gets what's coming to him.)

He's willing to risk the destruction of the souls of every goblin to "better" the goblin's fate. He conspires with someone who murders goblins out of boredom to make things "better" for goblins. He finds a kingdom of goblinoids living in reasonable security, and ONLY gets 10,000 of them killed as part of his quest to help goblinoids PRIOR to coming to the STUNNING epiphany that Hobgoblins are Goblinoids too!

I save my sympathy for Red Cloak's victims, who are quite literally legion, and will only grow in numbers until he is stopped.

Yes, but at least he doesn't post spoilers outside of spoiler tags.

(More seriously, while a lot of people have been SOD spoiled by this point - please use the spoiler tags for those who haven't been.)

[orrion]

Spoiler

Show

Redcloak, in TSoD, murders his own brother in cold blood so as to save the single entity that kills more goblinoids then anyone else in the comic.

He does this in the name of goblin liberation and rights.

He claims that he needs to commit crimes of this magnitude so as to save goblins from things like, himself. Right Eye gives a fine example of a goblin community living at peace with the surrounding humans prior to the future Wrong Eye showing up and leading Xykon to it.

That would be the same Right Eye he murders to preserve the same Xykon so Xykon can presumably FINISH murdering the rest of his relatives and their friends and neighbors.

Based on the comic I might foolishly assume that Wrong Eye actually HAS a workable plan and a real chance of success rather than simply being insanely committed to the sunk costs fallacy. But thanks to TSoD I know better. It killed my sympathy to read it, as it's obvious that RC is his own cause's second worst enemy. (The Dark One gets to be number one since the Dark One is the source of Wrong Eye's plan, power, and longevity and will probably repeat the whole fiasco if he has the chance after Wrong Eye gets what's coming to him.)

He's willing to risk the destruction of the souls of every goblin to "better" the goblin's fate. He conspires with someone who murders goblins out of boredom to make things "better" for goblins. He finds a kingdom of goblinoids living in reasonable security, and ONLY gets 10,000 of them killed as part of his quest to help goblinoids PRIOR to coming to the STUNNING epiphany that Hobgoblins are Goblinoids too!

I save my sympathy for Red Cloak's victims, who are quite literally legion, and will only grow in numbers until he is stopped.

Actually, I think Redcloak himself has killed more goblinoids. He was killing off hobgoblins left and right before the march on Azure City and thousands more died than needed in the actual battle because he didn't rush the broken wall to start with.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Oddly to our ears, the Poop deck is at the other end of a ship. (Insert your own joke here). This could provide plenty of material for a pun battle, but somehow I don't think The Giant will go there.

"Poop" comes from the same Latin root as pulpit--Roman naval commanders used the place to harangue the troops.

[Ramien]

Plus if we never see it on-panel those of us who want to can pretend it never happened, and that Roy's obvious reactions to it are just based on observations and deductions he made on his own

Really? I thought you were going to go for 'V phrased it in the most self-serving way possible so as to make Roy aware of the threat without directly acknowledging guilt or wrongdoing of any kind in order to save his/her precious dignity in front of others.'

That's mostly because I'm actually interested in seeing how much guilt V publicly admits to, and why I'd like to see V explain it to Roy it on-panel.

[zimmerwald1915]

Really? I thought you were going to go for 'V phrased it in the most self-serving way possible so as to make Roy aware of the threat without directly acknowledging guilt or wrongdoing of any kind in order to save his/her precious dignity in front of others.'

That's mostly because I'm actually interested in seeing how much guilt V publicly admits to, and why I'd like to see V explain it to Roy it on-panel.

We'll see how it plays out

[Link]

I love your icon.



Yes, but at least he doesn't post spoilers outside of spoiler tags.

(More seriously, while a lot of people have been SOD spoiled by this point - please use the spoiler tags for those who haven't been.)

there are still people who havent been spoiled yet? huh.

[Doug Lampert]

Actually, I think Redcloak himself has killed more goblinoids. He was killing off hobgoblins left and right before the march on Azure City and thousands more died than needed in the actual battle because he didn't rush the broken wall to start with.

I'll give you that he's responsible for more deaths,

Spoiler

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especially since he's fairly directly responsible for X's existence,

but I think X has probably actually killed more. However, I'll freely put Wrong Eye above the big X on the race for the goblinoid kill title.

I think we can agree that this does not really improve his standings in the "uplifter and savior of the goblinoid peoples" sweepstakes. Which is the one he claims to want to win and to have made all those sacrifices for.

Of course those sacrifices are of his fellow goblins and goblinoids, the one and only goblinoid Wrong Eye has consistently not sacrificed is himself, but that's to be expected since he's an evil hypocritical cowardly scum who can't face what he's done and become.

[Kolero]

Wait a second... When have I heard about Jolio Scoundrel having something to do with a soupcan before...?

SSDT Spoiler:

Spoiler

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Wasn't he suppose to be searching for a "cosmic soupcan"? Didn't the giant say something about having to write in the soup can as part of a kickstarted reward story? This strip would make a great setup for a later story involving it.

Also, while a voiceover in a mundane can is all fine and good. Imagine what his voice would sound like through a cosmic soupcan. Suddenly it makes sense that Elan doesn't see him.

[J's]

Not that it will go that far, but I'm 90% certain they are discussing what V did that fateful lunchtime, and that 944 will cover it.

The long dark teatime of the soul(s)

What, you're not looking forward to it?

Well if we follow current momentum first panel of #944 will involve a watercloset, so I could skip it too.

[MrMercury]

Eh, I actually support redcloak. Like I said, I read the start of darkness before the main comic, but yeah. Go redcloak.

[oppyu]

All hail Redcloak! I'm still kinda hoping that this story ends with Redcloak successfully enabling the Dark One to blackmail the Gods into giving the goblins better stuff, the world remaining intact, and the Order shrugging and going off to do something else after destroying Xykon.

[factotum]

I suppose as he wanders the outer planes Julio might happen across Xykon's purpose built Citadel/Dungeon and return to the Order just in time to tell them how to get there. Or would that be too far fetched?

Xykon's citadel isn't in the Outer Planes--it's somewhere on the Astral Plane, which is a different location entirely.

[HeeJay]

Well, of course Julio will return and solve all their problems!

With his finely tuned dramatic instinct, he will choose just the right moment to check on Elan, using Arborea's epic scrying pool, and will plane shift to save the Order as a lame Deus Ex Arborea. Really, Giant's writing is just SO bad!

Are you really sure you are kidding? We had much better reason to think we had seen the last of Scoundrel last time.

We were most certainly joking when we wrote that post.

[The Shadow]

A lot of people are taking Haley's words about Blackwing at face value, but I find them very suspicious.

Not that I think Haley is lying. I think she's rationalizing. She is now remembering Blackwing and her subconscious has to come up with a reason why she didn't recognize him before.

Why is she now remembering him? Because she, and the rest of the Order, have now looked into the rift as well. (Apparently they weren't affected the same way as Blackwing, probably because they made their saves.)

The one flaw I can see in my theory is that V never forgot Blackwing, but then he IS on V's character sheet. :) And the alternative is to think that the Giant deliberately drew attention to Blackwing's status at the start of this book, only to lamely drop that mystery with a thud at the end. Not buying it; he's a better storyteller than that. Mark my words: Even if my theory is wrong, there's still something more going on with Blackwing than this strip implies.

[Porthos]

Not buying it; he's a better storyteller than that.

Not really gonna address the rest, but I do want to point out that as I look at your Join Date you should know as well as I do that whenever that card is pulled out of the deck, it is almost always wrong.

Might want to re-examine your stance in light of that.

[dakameleon]

Late to this, but had to pop in to say: oh dear god, best laugh out of OotS in a while with those last few panels . Can't wait for the Kickstarter Julio Scoundrel story!

[oppyu]

Not really gonna address the rest, but I do want to point out that as I look at your Join Date you should know as well as I do that whenever that card is pulled out of the deck, it is almost always wrong.

Might want to re-examine your stance in light of that.

So a Pixie says that Rich is a better story-writer than that, and your response is that people who assume Rich is better than something are almost always wrong?

[Dracon1us]

Who says there's going to be a vote? The only time I can remember the Order do anything resembling voting, the point was to legitimize and let them all buy into a decision Roy had already made and wasn't going to change.

well the V. situation is pretty huge.

I don't think Elan would be comfortable without a proper atonement

[Storm_Of_Snow]

I always assumed it would be off-screen. Because we, the audience, don't need to see V describing what she did, as we've already seen it, and we also don't need to see V describing the aftermath with respect to his own feelings and character growth, because we've already seen that too. All we need to see is Roy's reaction, and that can be seen in the panels after the off-screen reveal.

Me too - although I thought we'd end a strip with V saying something like "I must tell you all something...", and the next strip opening with everyone's reactions (V looking contrite, Roy and Belkar open mouthed with shock, Haley and Elan comforting each other, Durkon probably being stoic).

I suppose as he wanders the outer planes Julio might happen across Xykon's purpose built Citadel/Dungeon and return to the Order just in time to tell them how to get there. Or would that be too far fetched?

Xykon's fortress is on the astral plane, not any of the outer ones.

There's a possibility he might go past it on his way to Arboria - if he chooses to go via the Astral plane and gets "win the lottery every week for the next decade" lucky. Even then, he probably won't know what it is, who owns it, or what it's significance compared to all the other astral plane fortresses built by other people is.

The only way the Order's getting there is if they follow Xykon through a gate that lands them there, Xykon retreats there and they get the exact location from someone, say, The Oracle, or Elan uses his "the scene calls out to you" feat (the one he used on the Mechane to find Haley before Nale could kill her), that allows the hero(es) to arrive at the dramatically correct point and time, even if they don't know where it is when they start, or why they need to go there.