OOTS #1041 - The Discussion Thread

[TurboGhast]

Actually... if they end up with all doors marked, they can just begin anew with a new system.

Team Evil might assume that the doors are a bluff, and start searching other places in vain in this scenario.

[spike668]

New comic is up.

As time goes by i'm coming to the conclusion that the author himself is actually the "Monster in the Dark"

SLC

[Kish]

Team Evil might assume that the doors are a bluff, and start searching other places in vain in this scenario.

There is still a nonzero possibility that the doors are a bluff, or at least the Gate isn't in one of them. So it might not be in vain. But "Redcloak would definitely immediately know the marks got messed up somehow and be able to communicate this compellingly enough that his master wouldn't tell him 'cram it, Wrong-Eye, we're wasting no more time on these red herring doors'" is, of course, insupportable.

[Mandor]

....
The probability that he will paint over the correct door is therefore (Y/X), where Y << X , correct?
The probability that he has painted over only false doors, by contrast, is (1-Y)/X. If Y << x, then 1-Y/ is much, much closer to X. In other words, a much higher probability.

So the probability that the MITD will mark the correct door as false is very low -- the probability that he is eliminating additional false doors is very high. Thus, absent some truly remarkable fortune, he is inadvertently helping team evil.
....

You mean, it would be like a One in a million chance that he's accidentally helping Team Evil? OK, no, i don't expect Probabilty to service Drama in quite that way here, but I don't think we should so blithely ignore it, either.

Also, we still do not KNOW for certain than the MiTD is painting the extra X's. It's quite likely that it is him of course.
But for all we know there could be some invisible levitating gremlins who hang out in this canyon.

[Shed Some Skin]

So, lots of discussion about probabilities and such, which is always fun, but not much mention of what this implies narratively. This is obviously building up towards a pay off, but I think there's a few possibilities as to what it could be...

First possibility, out of pure chance MitD inadvertently helps Team Evil by eliminating a bunch of unimportant doors, and they find the right one quicker than intended. This has the benefit of not revealing MiTD's deceit and there fore not endangering him (assuming either RC or Xykon is any threat to him. The fact he's compelled to eat RC if he betrays Xykon implies he isn't much threat but Xykon himself might be), holding him back for a heroic turn at a more dramatic moment. Presumably if they do find the gate ("huh, I'm sure we didn't go though as many doors as we marked, but I guess you can't argue with results") there will be some further wrinkle. Either the Gate requires some other activation, or they're going to release the Snarl while the Order are off in the Dwarven lands. I can see some narrative sense, here. The Order stops Durkula and swings the vote so the gods don't destroy the world... and then we immediately cut back to Team Evil finding the gate and releasing the Snarl. Oh ****. In this instance, O-Chul and Lien are there to witness this going down so they can get the info back to the Order.

Second possibility... MitD is going to get caught at some point, RC and Xykon are going to realise that the search so far has been a complete waste of time and have to start again, and the Order now has a heap of time to catch up before the gate is opened. The problem with this, as I see it, is that I don't see a way for MitD to play dumb and stay with Team Evil. OK, maybe RC and Xykon will notice too many doors are marked and theorise that Serini put some magic in place that screws with you if you try to mark the doors, but... eh. That might feel a bit handwavy. And if MitD gets caught, I don't see a way Xykon stands for that, which assuming MitD doesn't end up dead (unlikely) then a load of stuff isn't going to pay off the way we expected. If he leaves Team Evil then O-Chul is there for him to run to, but it feels like the reveal of what MitD is is building up to be the moment he openly turns against Xykon, and if he's running around with the good guys before that moment... Well, it's possible, but it feels kinda wrong. If he's not still being held back as Xykon's dramatic reveal, why would he stay in the darkness? I guess you could have him reveal himself to O-Chul off panel but decide to stay under the umbrella cos he likes it, but given how keen he's been in the past to come out of the dark that would seem out of character. Unless he's coming out from under it much earlier i the plot than we expected and he's going to spend the whole last book running around in the light. That would be somewhat subverting expectations, to say the least...

So my money is on the first option. MitD is trying to do something good, but he's going to accidentally help Team Evil and they're gonna find the Gate right as the Order stops the gods destroying the world. The Order doesn't reach Kragoor's Tomb in time to stop them, Hel's mad gambit possibly dooms the world by dragging the heroes off on a sidequest at a crucial moment.

[hroþila]

Also, we still do not KNOW for certain than the MiTD is painting the extra X's. It's quite likely that it is him of course.
But for all we know there could be some invisible levitating gremlins who hang out in this canyon.

And we don't KNOW that this is not still Girard's illusion either, but somehow I feel quite confident in saying it isn't.

[Roland Itiative]

Let's look at a small sample, shall we? Ten doors, numbered 0 to 9. Team Evil picks a door, opens it. They have 1/10 of chance of succeeding. If they fail, MitD picks 3 doors. They have a 3/9 of chance of marking the right door (they pick 3 out of a total of 9, since Team Evil already eliminated one door).

Next night, Team Evil picks one out of 6 doors. But their chance to succeed is not 1/6 this time. They only have a 1/6 chance assuming MitD failed last turn, a completely independent chance of 6/9. When you have two independent events, and you need them both to happen at once, you multiply the probabilities. (1/6)*(6/9) is 1/9, exactly the same probability Team Evil would have to find the right door on this night had the MitD not interfered before.

Why is that? It doesn't matter that the MitD is reducing the choice pool, but that they aren't increasing the amount of information available. Team Evil will not make a more informed choice the next day because of the MitD, so their odds of success should not, and are not, any greater.

Interestingly enough, for each night the MitD keeps doing that, they are getting increased chances because of Team Evil. Team Evil's actions give the MitD extra information about a door, and increases the MitD's odds (similar to the Monty Hall problem), but the reciprocate isn't true. Both groups are playing the game by different rules, and have different effects on each other.

[Synar]

As some said before, it's painfully obvious that unless they run out of doors, the MitD will not have had any influence whatsoever on the probability of finding the door. What he IS doing though, is speeding up the process of running out of doors and creating a probability of doing so without finding the right door.

However, he might still be helping Xykon by accident. Sure, if they decide to start the search from scratch, they will have lost precious time. But knowing Xykon temperament, I think it's unlikely. What's more likely to happen is either a fight if he's discovered, an outburst of anger of Xykon, or them trying a different approach - which could potentially lead to positive results - or something completely different. All those could have positive or negative consequences, depending on a lot of unknown parameters. And there's still the possibility of the Gate being behind none of those doors.

So yes, even if not for the reasons that some of the less mathematically-inclined posters brought up, what the MitD is doing is not a safe sabotage but a risky gambit with terrifying odds.

[Ruck]

Also, we still do not KNOW for certain than the MiTD is painting the extra X's. It's quite likely that it is him of course.
But for all we know there could be some invisible levitating gremlins who hang out in this canyon.

Rich probably chose to show MitD with paint and a bucket, planning to paint an X, then showed several Xs being painted, then showed MitD holding a paintbrush dripping with fresh paint, because it wasn't actually MitD painting the Xs. That's how Rich's storytelling usually works.

[Kish]

MiT

MiT?

....

[nonamearisto]

Is it just me, or do the new "goblin shoes" revealed in the art upgrade suggest that goblins in this setting have reptilian feet? I know that may be an odd thing to bring up, but all of the good points are taken.

[inuyasha]

Rich probably chose to show MitD with paint and a bucket, planning to paint an X, then showed several Xs being painted, then showed MitD holding a paintbrush dripping with fresh paint, because it wasn't actually MitD painting the Xs. That's how Rich's storytelling usually works.

to be fair, my theory is there could be some sort of magic going on preventing normal marking, in this case it would be true that he painted the first X, but perhaps the magic (if my theory is correct, though it probably isn't) creates additional Xs on unmarked doors. Also the gremlin theory isn't a terrible one, just think of the movie Labyrinth with the lipstick marking, maybe it's like that.

[happycrow]

Rich probably chose to show MitD with paint and a bucket, planning to paint an X, then showed several Xs being painted, then showed MitD holding a paintbrush dripping with fresh paint, because it wasn't actually MitD painting the Xs. That's how Rich's storytelling usually works.

=)

Conversely, what if MITD just likes painting Xs?

[Synar]

Rich probably chose to show MitD with paint and a bucket, planning to paint an X, then showed several Xs being painted, then showed MitD holding a paintbrush dripping with fresh paint, because it wasn't actually MitD painting the Xs. That's how Rich's storytelling usually works.

Else, why would he purposely decide not show the MitD painting those Xs? Who waste perfect foreshadowing like that?

The gremlins, though, I'm not buying. Too late in the books to introduce such crucial characters. However, there have been some fine introduced characters with no real purpose yet, including some who could cast invisibility... For example, I do recall at some point Trigak fought some raven wizard and his pointy eared ungendered elven familiar...

Coincidence ? I think not.

[Mandor]

Rich probably chose to show MitD with paint and a bucket, planning to paint an X, then showed several Xs being painted, then showed MitD holding a paintbrush dripping with fresh paint, because it wasn't actually MitD painting the Xs. That's how Rich's storytelling usually works.

You're almost certainly correct and I'm wildly overthinking it. But at the same time, the brush is shown affecting the doors, and Rich goes to great length, using small teeny frames to avoid showing that paintbrush being connected to the MiTD. We don't even know for sure it's the same paintbrush. Yes, yes, OK, I know, I'm being silly, it is of course the same paintbrush, but when an artist who has done Very Sneaky Things before makes a point to not explicitly showing the monster drawing the x's, just a super-zoomed-in paintbrush and a board or two of wood, I get suspicious.

[Ruck]

to be fair, my theory is there could be some sort of magic going on preventing normal marking, in this case it would be true that he painted the first X, but perhaps the magic (if my theory is correct, though it probably isn't) creates additional Xs on unmarked doors. Also the gremlin theory isn't a terrible one, just think of the movie Labyrinth with the lipstick marking, maybe it's like that.

To be fair, there is no evidence your theory is right and plenty of evidence it is not. For starters: There is no evidence for even the existence of some kind of door-painting magic or of hidden gremlins we've never seen. There is also no evidence the MitD is surprised that the other doors were painted somehow.

You're almost certainly correct and I'm wildly overthinking it. But at the same time, the brush is shown affecting the doors, and Rich goes to great length, using small teeny frames to avoid showing that paintbrush being connected to the MiTD. We don't even know for sure it's the same paintbrush. Yes, yes, OK, I know, I'm being silly, it is of course the same paintbrush, but when an artist who has done Very Sneaky Things before makes a point to not explicitly showing the monster drawing the x's, just a super-zoomed-in paintbrush and a board or two of wood, I get suspicious.

But I don't think Rich does "Very Sneaky Things" in that fashion, and certainly not that require elements that haven't been introduced yet.

In my experience, Rich doesn't create scenes in a way to intentionally trick the readers in that manner. In fact, he wrote in the BRITF commentary that one reason he showed right away that the Order was in an illusion in #886 was so that the Order eventually snapping out of it wouldn't invalidate the previous strips for the reader. I think he's very conscious to not write the story in the fashion of "What I showed you didn't actually happen."

[hroþila]

an artist who has done Very Sneaky Things before

Such as? ......

[Sermil]

Wow, just wow... MitD is officially, consciously working against Redcloak & Xykon.

Also, HOW is this comic not named Double Cross?

[eilandesq]

Though I doubt the MitD intends it that way, the most obvious way this is helpful to the good guys is the probable chaos resulting from the moment that Xykon and Redcloak discover that there are extra Xs:

Spoiler

Show

--catch MitD in the act, or correctly conclude that MitD is the culprit: Xykon and Redcloak are forced to take the time to deal with the traitor. This might be trivial, or it might be a difficult fight (Start of Darkness suggests that at least back in the day MitD was vulnerable to certain magic from Xykon, but this might no longer be true). After the fight, they would probably decide to start over, adding an indeterminate amount of time to their search (they could safely and quickly abandon doors where they found corpses already present);

--decide that someone else is sabotaging them: not unreasonable, given that anyone can paint a red X on a door and that Xykon and Redcloak (well, at least Redcloak) know the OotS is out there and actively opposing their efforts (also, that they probably view MitD as incapable of this sort of treachery unless actually caught at it). Probable reaction: take a few days to regroup and post guards at the entrances, then start over as with the prior scenario (perhaps marking doors in a new way that can't be easily duplicated), with MitD remaining as a possible ace in the hole for the good guys.

[Takver]

You're almost certainly correct and I'm wildly overthinking it. But at the same time, the brush is shown affecting the doors, and Rich goes to great length, using small teeny frames to avoid showing that paintbrush being connected to the MiTD. We don't even know for sure it's the same paintbrush. Yes, yes, OK, I know, I'm being silly, it is of course the same paintbrush, but when an artist who has done Very Sneaky Things before makes a point to not explicitly showing the monster drawing the x's, just a super-zoomed-in paintbrush and a board or two of wood, I get suspicious.

A simpler explanation for the teeny frames / close-ups is that they were for the surprise reveal in this strip: that MITD was drawing Xes on more than one door.

Edit: Oh yeah, plus it avoids showing whatever limb, appendage, or power MITD used to do the painting. Still gotta keep things ready for that big reveal.

[Kish]

I think Rich is indeed hiding something--specifically, how the creature in the darkness, whose true identity is an established secret, paints those Xs, which he may be flying to paint, using telekinesis to paint, or, most simply, not bothering to stay under the umbrella to paint.

Suggesting that he actually didn't paint them, though...No. This has all the validity of, "Is the Half-Blood Prince Tom Riddle? You only said it wasn't Voldemort. Ha ha, she evaded my question (by saying, 'Tom Riddle is Voldemort and I said it's not Voldemort'), it's going to turn out to be Voldemort!"

(Yes, this is a thing that happened when the title of the sixth Harry Potter book had been released--along with the information "the Half-Blood Prince isn't Harry or Voldemort"--and the book wasn't yet out.)

[DaggerPen]

There is still a nonzero possibility that the doors are a bluff, or at least the Gate isn't in one of them. So it might not be in vain. But "Redcloak would definitely immediately know the marks got messed up somehow and be able to communicate this compellingly enough that his master wouldn't tell him 'cram it, Wrong-Eye, we're wasting no more time on these red herring doors'" is, of course, insupportable.

Pretty much this. It's entirely feasible that, upon coming to the end of it, not having kept a scrupulous count of every possible door compared to how many times they've done this and almost certainly having done more than one door per day several times (compare the timeline to the number of x'd out doors - unless MitD has been getting away with this for a while, sometimes Redcloak is good for another go or two) in a way as to make the math harder, they will decide either-

A. "It must be a double-bluff! Quick, let's go look for the real way into the Gate!"
B. "Crap, we checked all the doors and didn't find it? It must be well hidden in one of them - or maybe there's a lever you have to pull in one to open another or something? Double crap! Fine, ugh, let's start all over."

Wow, just wow... MitD is officially, consciously working against Redcloak & Xykon.

Also, HOW is this comic not named Double Cross?

... you're right, that would have been better.

[Elkins]

A simpler explanation for the teeny frames / close-ups is that they were for the surprise reveal in this strip: that MITD was drawing Xes on more than one door.

I think Rich is indeed hiding something--specifically, how the creature in the darkness, whose true identity is an established secret, paints those Xs, which he may be flying to paint, using telekinesis to paint, or, most simply, not bothering to stay under the umbrella to paint.

What? What form of madness is this? Those both seem rather far-fetched and improbable speculations, don't you think? I want to hear more about the likely scenarios. You know, like how the artist cleverly designed this page to trick us all into thinking that those red Xs had something to do with the MitD and his dripping red paintbrush, hoping that we'd somehow fail to notice that we never actually see him painting them! Oh, sure, we see a dripping red paintbrush painting something or another, but that could be anyone. It could even be happening miles away, for all we know! After all, it's not as if there can only be one paintbrush in the world. And in a world with magic, who knows what might cause red Xes to spontaneously appear on doors? Ha! Thought he could fool us with that one, eh? Checkmate, Mr. Burlew.

[stsasser]

Can levitate and uses an umbrella?

Better look up Marypoppins in the Monster Manual.

[Rodin]

Six pages and no mention of the most important thing in this update.

...The continuing philosophical musings of Greyview the Worg.

Bitter fruit of eternal despair - it's what's for dinner!

[hroþila]

Six pages and no mention of the most important thing in this update.

...The continuing philosophical musings of Greyview the Worg.

Bitter fruit of eternal despair - it's what's for dinner!

Every time Greyview speaks, he sounds less like a philosopher and more like an edgy faux nihilist teenager.

[DaggerPen]

Six pages and no mention of the most important thing in this update.

...The continuing philosophical musings of Greyview the Worg.

Bitter fruit of eternal despair - it's what's for dinner!

It's for lunch, actually

[mantisshrimp]

Except look at the paint can, its being held up by the handle which is straight up.. if you use telekinesis on a bucket of paint, wouldn't you use it on the actual bucket and not the handle? That would point to some limb holding the handle up instead of a telekinesis or psionic ability. Plus the opening curtain scene with a rope makes no sense unless the MITD has limbs. That or a telekinesis that is limited to a 1 foot area around the monster.

You make a compeling argument unless he doesn't know he's doing it. oooh! Okay now I'm just grasping at straws.

[Goblin_Priest]

Team Evil might assume that the doors are a bluff, and start searching other places in vain in this scenario.

As has been said, the doors might be a con to begin with. Think of when Team Evil assaulted Azure city: they presented three Xykons to force the good guys to divert their forces and pick the wrong one. Except they were all wrong ones, because the true Xykon was invisible. These doors might be the same thing, it may be that none that we see lead to what they want.

There is still a nonzero possibility that the doors are a bluff, or at least the Gate isn't in one of them. So it might not be in vain. But "Redcloak would definitely immediately know the marks got messed up somehow and be able to communicate this compellingly enough that his master wouldn't tell him 'cram it, Wrong-Eye, we're wasting no more time on these red herring doors'" is, of course, insupportable.

Really? I don't think so. Redcloak has occasionally bossed Xykon around, though it is usually the other way. That being said, the math here is simple... they seem to be doing 1 door per day. They have an idea of how many doors there are. The number of doors painted in this script was considerably higher than the number of doors visited (1). It really doesn't take a genius to figure out that "hey, we didn't do hundreds of doors in less than a month..." Even Xykon would realize this.

[LadyEowyn]

I had to open this comic and #1039 at the same time to be sure it was showing the MITD painting multiple doors. The green double doors are the ones the team went through; the small door above it already had an X in strip 1039, and the green and yellow doors the left are out-of-panel in strip 1039 so we don't know if they had Xs before, but the brown double door to the right was definitely painted by MITD to trick the others, since it didn't have an X before.

EDIT: Just realized that there's an earlier panel in this same strip to compare the last panel to. Overthinking it. So MITD did paint 3 false Xs.