Is OOTS even trying anymore?

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Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c

Where was that? (Not doubting it happened, to be clear, just can't remember it at all)

GW

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Start of Darkness, page 43. I see I misremembered a little, actually; he's smiling but his mouth is closed (Dorukan is frowning and Soon isn't in the panel at all).

Nevertheless, I will be quite surprised if it turns out that Girard, or any member of the Order of the Scribble, thought much about "goblins=kill" during their time traveling together, or later came to think "I don't trust Soon because he treats goblin life too lightly."

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Originally Posted by eggynack

Whatever standard of evidence I'd theoretically require, your current main evidence is simply not liking Nale, rather than anything all that high in order. Either way, I think we can agree that there were at least a bunch of payoffs, however you'd judge them. The core issue claimed with this sequence, broadly speaking, seems to be that it is in some fashion irrelevant. Whatever you think of Nale, he is not irrelevant.

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Yes, but the claim here is that the airship sequence and Bandi/Andana are going to totes pay off big time in some fashion down the road. I have no opinion on the airship sequence either way, but it is at least possible that it won't.

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She was paralyzed because she felt responsible for the Azure City resistance, and because she didn't know about the divination block. Her Elan worries are pretty strictly secondary. And Elan being key to her development doesn't mean said development wasn't largely internal or driven by her agency.

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Originally Posted by Keltest

I'm with Lacuna on the importance of Nale to the story. Until the very end, he served mostly as a vessel to physically move the characters from one place to another, and his relationship with the characters was largely unexplored and unchanging. The fact that he was Elan's brother went almost entirely forgotten save for the fact that it allowed for another avenue for Nale to move the party. You could replace him in the story with any number of other generic threats that forced a reaction and you would end up with the characters in much the same place until BRITF.

I don't agree about Haley though. Her relationship with Elan is important because it shines a spotlight on her own character growth, not because she's a shallow damsel in distress for Elan to save. She is moving away from the self-destructive mistrust that her father instilled in her, and her relationship with Elan is a symptom of that in the same way that her loyalty to the Order and its goals is.

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I wouldn't say that Haley is shallow, exactly, just that a lot of her ostensible character traits are much more told than shown. Would anyone describe Haley as especially self-reliant, for example, if a floaty disembodied voice hadn't said she was? Because I certainly can't recall her striking out and doing things solo outside of Origins.


EDIT: ...Anyway. Whatever about the rest of Haley's arc, my point is that having Elan swoop in to rescue her from Nale is pretty nakedly damsel-in-distress territory. That doesn't automatically make it bad and awful, but I see no reason to celebrate it either.

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Originally Posted by Kish

Given that Girard showed up in one panel, slaughtering goblins without hesitation while he laughed about Kraagor's bar tab, I take leave to doubt the objections he had to the Sapphire Guard actually related to the Guard's real problems.

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Sure, but I think Girard's hypocrisy is not entirely the point.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

She wasn't nagged.

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She had to be told 6 times to clarify an incomplete order, by increasingly shrill reminders. That is nagging. And it does not reflect well on her, whether you characterise it as a full order or a clarification.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

She gave orders before being asked.

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This is clearly false. Helmsman had to ask for directions before she even bothered to look forward to see that her previous order was taking them towards a mountain.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

The order she was eventually asked about did take some time to make a descision, but that's not relevant to anything.

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False. It is central.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Nobody is saying she's a super-great captain, the question is whether she is better than no captain.

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Which she obviously is not. Without a captain, the helmsman would've continued on the known path towards the exist. Her interference made everything significantly worse.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

It was not a "vicious assault".

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Punching someone in the nose is not a vicious assault. Hitting someone in the back of the head with a heavy wrench is vicious.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Her snapping could not have been based on Bandanna not doing her job as Bandanna only decided to tell her what job to do after screaming in her face.

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The head engineer of a ship should not need to be told to fix things during battle. Nor is it the engineer's place to spend her time in said battle bothering the captain.

Grey Wolf

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Originally Posted by Lacuna Caster

I wouldn't say that Haley is shallow, exactly, just that a lot of her ostensible character traits are much more told than shown. Would anyone describe Haley as especially self-reliant, for example, if a floaty disembodied voice hadn't said she was? Because I certainly can't recall her striking out and doing things solo outside of Origins.

...Anyway. Whatever about the rest of Haley's arc, my point is that having Elan swoop in to rescue her from Nale is pretty nakedly damsel-in-distress territory. That doesn't automatically make it bad and awful, but I see no reason to celebrate it either.

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She organized a resistance to Azure City's occupation and made strides to get Roy resurrected. She attempted to break her father out of jail as soon as she learned where he was. Even as far back as DCF, when she got separated she started slaughtering her own way to Xykon's throne room. She is a poor leader for the Order, but that doesn't mean that she can't operate on her own.

And since Haley's distress was mostly caused by her own character flaws rather than any actual threat from Nale, I don't think describing her as a Damsel in Distress is especially accurate either, though Elan certainly envisioned it that way.

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Originally Posted by Keltest

She organized a resistance to Azure City's occupation and made strides to get Roy resurrected. She attempted to break her father out of jail as soon as she learned where he was. Even as far back as DCF, when she got separated she started slaughtering her own way to Xykon's throne room. She is a poor leader for the Order, but that doesn't mean that she can't operate on her own.

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Where did that happen in DCF?

My sense is that the AC resistance got organised largely by accident after Thanh and scruffy walked in at the right time, almost despite her involvement, and I tend to give Celia primary credit for Roy's return ticket.

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And since Haley's distress was mostly caused by her own character flaws rather than any actual threat from Nale, I don't think describing her as a Damsel in Distress is especially accurate either, though Elan certainly envisioned it that way.

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My memory is fuzzy, but wasn't Sabine about to kill her around that time?

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Originally Posted by eggynack

Some of the crew seem sorry for doing something way way way less bad than what Andi did. Andi, by contrast, doesn't seem like she feels bad at all for the way way way worse thing she did, only acting put down specifically when she was pushed into giving in. Feeling sorry for your actions does not make you bad. It has the inverse effect, because it means that you are identifying your own actions as wrong and are willing to change. Recall, Ian apologized. Tarquin never did, not really. Your metric would have Ian as the worse character.


Depends on how it plays out. A lot of the development might land directly in the hands of the Order, in their reaction to it. Maybe it'll be super straightforward. "Not everyone is like this. Some people are deserving of your trust." Maybe it'll be, "You don't have to be an evil vampire subservient to a Goddess of death and despair to be a kinda crappy person." We don't have to learn a precise lesson here. We learn about how Durkula is precisely when we see all of the ways that Andi acted here, and then the way Durkula acts later, and have the ability to contrast them. If you can't identify a clear and useful distinction in the way they've acted, it's primarily because you haven't likely seen the full arc of either character. In the same way, we couldn't see the Ian/Tarquin connection as well in the moment as we can now.


Andi's job, unless stated otherwise, is to fix things that are broken. She knows best which things are broken, and which things are most necessary for the airship to run. That's why she's the engineer and Bandanna isn't, just like Bandanna is the leader and Andi isn't. You may notice that she was questioning leadership decisions on limited basis instead of fixing literally any of those things. She also obviously didn't ask what she should fix first.

And then Bandanna woke up, and Andi didn't untie her. At that exact moment, the flopping around thing became effectively a lie.

Their following her wasn't really a problem. They're in the middle of a crisis. It's not the time to be attacking people, or overthrowing order, even problematic order. You may take note now exactly what Andi did in this crisis situation.


The decision that Andi overturned, right at the start of her mutiny, was based on knowledge that was explicitly given to her: "We'd have to eyeball our path the whole way, and there's no promise we could get through it all. We might end up in a dead end, hemmed in by mountains we can't fly over." Bandanna's eventual solution, which would have been unnecessary if Andi had just continued following Bandanna's plan, did rely on knowledge Andi didn't have. But Bandanna had that knowledge because she actually knows more about the topic of overall ship leadership, the very thing that Andi was baselessly questioning.

Imagine the inverse situation. Andi is making her repairs in a certain way. Bandanna goes over to her and says, "Nah, I know more than you about repairing engines. You should repair it like this." Then Bandanna clobbers Andi and takes over engineering. Would you really expect Bandanna to know everything necessary to do the engine repair? Would it be unfair if Andi has engine knowledge Bandanna doesn't have, because she's trained a ton regarding that exact issue? Of course not. It would be ridiculous for Bandanna to take over as engineer solely on the belief that Andi is doing her fixing stuff job in a way that Bandanna naively assumes is wrong, and we would never expect Bandanna to have all the knowledge regarding the ship's mechanical upkeep. In the same sense, Bandanna knows things about stuff the ship can do, and that's why she's captain. That's why you don't bonk her on the head, because maybe she actually happens to be good at her job.

And let's not forget some really basic things Andi never did, as captain. Ask, and listen. When people with expertise in what they were saying gave Andi information, she never listened to what they said. When she was trying to get over the mountains, she never asked, "Hey, is there anything we can do to ditch weight? Any ideas anyone has would be greatly appreciated." Keep in mind, this information wasn't only Bandanna accessible. People on her crew knew about the gun release capability. But Andi never asked, and Andi never listened, which are two things that made her an awful captain.


It's still not good. Again, working on the engines is only good to the extent it helps the crew, and to the same extent it helps the crew it also helps herself. It's "good" in the sense that it's the right thing to do. It's not good in the sense that it indicates she's a good person.


There are always people that support every character. It's not a writing problem. It's a fact of life. And people aren't hostile to Andi because she's bad or evil, exactly. They're hostile to her because she's being a frigging idiot, and folks tend to find that kinda thing frustrating.


I've listed a ton of possibilities. An important question in the aftermath is whether Bandanna should get rid of Andi in some fashion. It's a question similar to the one Roy faced. That alone gives thematic connection.

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Whatever standard of evidence I'd theoretically require, your current main evidence is simply not liking Nale, rather than anything all that high in order. Either way, I think we can agree that there were at least a bunch of payoffs, however you'd judge them. The core issue claimed with this sequence, broadly speaking, seems to be that it is in some fashion irrelevant. Whatever you think of Nale, he is not irrelevant.


She was paralyzed because she felt responsible for the Azure City resistance, and because she didn't know about the divination block. Her Elan worries are pretty strictly secondary. And Elan being key to her development doesn't mean said development wasn't largely internal or driven by her agency.

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Andi seems just as contrite as the rest in the most recent comic. Am i reading her expression wrong?

Andi doesn't know Bandanna's secret plans and obviously doesn't know what part of the airship needs to be prioritised. I don't think she should be expected to need to say the magic words "what should I fix first?". They were not in a normal situation where she ought to be expected to simply guess herself - just as the steerer didn't when Andi was captain, however despite having more pressure being both captain and engineer Andi still chose not to scream in her face. Uncoincidentally, Andi remained conscious.

Although, Andi did not untie Bandanna when she awoke you're ignoring that 1) the accidental mutiny already happened 2) Bandanna did not know the current situation immediately on waking 3) Nobody else descided to untie her when Andi went away to fix the engines 4) Andi had other things to do of arguably greater importance

If andi had baited Bandanna into knocking her unconscious and then Bandanna ignored their lack of engineer. I would consider that a bad thing. I think on the basic become-captain fron Andi made the best of a bad situation (of Bandanna's creation, but that's a distraction around Bandanna's reaction)

I think the "People on her crew knew about the gun release capability" capacity is misleading. One person knew. And that was after being explicitly prompted by name.

Fixing the engine does not help her as much as it helps the crew since she struck the captain with a wrench.

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Originally Posted by Lacuna Caster

Where did that happen in DCF?

My sense is that the AC resistance got organised largely by accident after Thanh and scruffy walked in at the right time, almost despite her involvement, and I tend to give Celia primary credit for Roy's return ticket.


My memory is fuzzy, but wasn't Sabine about to kill her around that time?

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Starting Here.

Anyway, Thanh and Scruffy united the three factions, but Haley was the leader of one of the three, and the most open to cooperating with the others. Celia was, if anything, actively hampering efforts to resurrect Roy (I don't like her much, in case you were wondering), and Sabine was about to confront Nale, which would have blown his cover and allowed Haley to react.

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Originally Posted by Lacuna Caster

Hang on a second. You don't know the first thing about what the OP has or hasn't created. That's uncalled for.

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I wholeheartedly agree.

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Originally Posted by Lacuna Caster

Secondly, I would say that anyone, for any reason, is perfectly entitled to criticise a work, regardless of whether it's free or paid for, regardless of whether they like or loathe any or all parts of it. The only criterion that should apply is the cogency of the argument, and whether it's redundant or not.

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And again, I agree. Taste is subjective, and people should always be allowed to criticize works for what they perceive as flaws, even if their criticisms seem utterly nonsensical to others.

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Originally Posted by Lacuna Caster

Eh, Nale's introduction arguably had a payoff in the sense that he finally got 2 pages of dramatic development 800 strips later, but that's a pretty lousy return on investment.

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Case in point.

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Originally Posted by Lacuna Caster

Yes, but the claim here is that the airship sequence and Bandi/Andana are going to totes pay off big time in some fashion down the road. I have no opinion either way on the airship sequence either way, but it is at least possible that it won't.

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Sure, the story could crumble into a pile of crap. Always a possibility. My point is that not only is that unlikely from a broader perspective, the standard inductive line of reasoning that dictates that things have pretty consistently paid off in the past so they're liable to continue paying off in the future (even if you may like or dislike various payoffs) it's especially unlikely in this specific context, because we can already identify some clear cut ways that it can pay off. For it to not pay off at all would almost require that they just kinda not address Andi's betrayal at all, because addressing said betrayal is itself a thematic connection.

The criticism of this arc is predicated on an unlikely future, and that makes no sense. I'm not saying, "This arc is amazing because it will definitely go in this way I'm describing, and that narrative path sounds cool to me." I'm saying that we can already see some evidence that it will go down an interesting path, and the claim that it's bad on this stated basis wouldn't even make sense in a vacuum.

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...Anyway. Whatever about the rest of Haley's arc, my point is that having Elan swoop in to rescue her from Nale is pretty nakedly damsel-in-distress territory. That doesn't automatically make it bad and awful, but I see no reason to celebrate it either.

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That precise moment was Elan's triumph though. If we celebrate it, it's because it was the payoff to a lot of great Elan character stuff, noting that it has basically nothing to do with any agency on Haley's part. Which is fine. Not everything has to be dependent on the decision making and capability of everyone, and sometimes an arc can favor one character over another. But, at the same time, the part immediately following that, where Haley broke out of her aphasia, thus ending the suggestion spell and turning the tide of battle, was the payoff to a lot of great Haley character stuff, and had nothing to do with any agency on Elan's part. In a very real sense, Elan was the damsel in distress in that exact moment, saved by the force of Haley's truth telling from attacking a team member and granting possible victory to the enemy. That scene is the culmination of two arcs in one. It feels like you're focusing unduly on the part of the scene that's empowering Elan, and ignoring the part that's empowering Haley.

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Originally Posted by eggynack

Whatever standard of evidence I'd theoretically require, your current main evidence is simply not liking Nale, rather than anything all that high in order. Either way, I think we can agree that there were at least a bunch of payoffs, however you'd judge them. The core issue claimed with this sequence, broadly speaking, seems to be that it is in some fashion irrelevant. Whatever you think of Nale, he is not irrelevant.

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To address this for a moment, you cant prove a negative like "Nale hasn't been good for the story", so if you want complete proof one way or another, it pretty much has to come from you.

Besides that though, id like you to point out a few scenes before Blood Runs in the Family where you think Nale personally is integral to the way the scene played out, and where replacing him with some other, similar threat would result in the characters developing differently. The only one I can think of is the "Damsel in Distress" moment currently under the knife. That's... not a lot, considering how often he has appeared.

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Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c

She had to be told 6 times to clarify an incomplete order, by increasingly shrill reminders. That is nagging. And it does not reflect well on her, whether you characterise it as a full order or a clarification.

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I count two ("Which way...this mountain" in 64 and "ANDI!!!" in 65). Are you counting every single balloon?

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This is clearly false. Helmsman had to ask for directions before she even bothered to look forward to see that her previous order was taking them towards a mountain.

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Gave an order in 63. 'Nagged' in 64. Whatever way you slice it, an order came first.

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False. It is central.

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How?

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Which she obviously is not. Without a captain, the helmsman would've continued on the known path towards the exist. Her interference made everything significantly worse.

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Then why did they listen to her at all? If no captain is better than Andi-captain then why listen to her?

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Punching someone in the nose is not a vicious assault. Hitting someone in the back of the head with a heavy wrench is vicious.

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Not when you immediately turn your head after an unreasonable provocation of someone carrying a heavy wrench in their dominant hand.

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The head engineer of a ship should not need to be told to fix things during battle. Nor is it the engineer's place to spend her time in said battle bothering the captain.

Grey Wolf

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Fiddling while Rome is burning is not a good use of the engineer's time. It was perfectly reasonable to expect explicit instructions on what to prioritise. Just as the helmsman desired explicit instructions also.

She may not have a right to know what the plan is, but surely she has a right to know her part in it. I have a hard time thinking that if Andi had gone down and fixed the gas when they needed the fins, that Andi-haters would be at all forgiving.

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Originally Posted by Keltest

Starting Here.

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Hmm. Maybe. She's not really striking off solo, since she got captured by an external party, but I guess she at least gets herself out of the jam.

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Anyway, Thanh and Scruffy united the three factions, but Haley was the leader of one of the three, and the most open to cooperating with the others. Celia was, if anything, actively hampering efforts to resurrect Roy (I don't like her much, in case you were wondering), and Sabine was about to confront Nale, which would have blown his cover and allowed Haley to react.

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One can argue about sub-optimal decision-making on Celia's part, but in her absence Haley would've stuck around AC for Gods know how much longer. I don't think one can reasonably dispute that.

Can someone link me to the actual Elan/Haley rescue scene?

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Not when you immediately turn your head after an unreasonable provocation of someone carrying a heavy wrench in their dominant hand.

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Other way round - Andi was the one engaged in unreasonable provocation - not doing her job + insults like "brat" and "Little Miss Junior Captain"

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1062.html

Bandanna responded not with violence but a sharply worded reminder that she was wasting time - which contained no insults.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

I count two ("Which way...this mountain" in 64 and "ANDI!!!" in 65). Are you counting every single balloon?

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http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1063.html
"Anyone have any strong feelings which way?"

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1064.html
"Port or starboard?"
"I kinda need a decision here"

then "Andi!"

and "Which way?"

and then some more requests for Andi's decision in 1065.

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Originally Posted by hamishspence

Other way round - Andi was the one engaged in unreasonable provocation - not doing her job + insults like "brat" and "Little Miss Junior Captain"

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1062.html

Bandanna responded not with violence but a sharply worded reminder that she was wasting time - which contained no insults.

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Bandanna was also not doing her job by repeatedly interacting with Andi but resolutely not telling her what to do.

Focusing on 'insults' is also rather comical. he didn't even insult her. All she did was scream in Andi's face that all their problems were down to her since if she wasn't moaning they'd be all fixed up.

Quick question, as this might point to a crucial difference of how we read the start of this saga, are the rest of you taking the "if you spent half.. two whole ships by the end of this pass" as an accurate statement of fact?

Edit: Plain didn't notice those small balloons in 64.

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Originally Posted by Lacuna Caster

Hmm. Maybe. She's not really striking off solo, since she got captured by an external party, but I guess she at least gets herself out of the jam.

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So your definition of self-reliant requires that she leave the Order and pursue her personal goals alone? :smallconfused: By that criterion, Vaarsuvius is the only self-reliant member of OotS.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Andi seems just as contrite as the rest in the most recent comic. Am i reading her expression wrong?

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I don't see her ever having downcast contrition face in that comic. It looks like she always has wide eyed shock face. Her, "Yes, captain," face in the strip before arguably shows contrition, but I dunno that it makes sense to read it that way.

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Andi doesn't know Bandanna's secret plans and obviously doesn't know what part of the airship needs to be prioritised. I don't think she should be expected to need to say the magic words "what should I fix first?". They were not in a normal situation where she ought to be expected to simply guess herself

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Andi knows way more about what needs to be fixed. Unless Bandanna has really specific need for the functioning of a particular thing, and her "secret plans" absolutely didn't, she should just be fixing things. Same reason the pilot doesn't need to be told, "Don't stop piloting the ship, and avoid crashing into mountains." Fixing stuff that it seems like a good idea to fix should be Andi's neutral state. Berating Bandanna about how she should do her job differently, even after having it explained to her why it's being done the way it's being done, should be her basically never state.

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- just as the steerer didn't when Andi was captain, however despite having more pressure being both captain and engineer Andi still chose not to scream in her face. Uncoincidentally, Andi remained conscious.

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The pilot explicitly asked for direction. That's a normal thing to do. Andi failed to do her job and complained about the job Bandanna was doing. That's not a normal thing to do. You want to know what Andi looks like when someone comes even marginally close to questioning how she did her job? Read comic 965. And, hey, if you want to see how much not yelling Andi does when people actually question her, check out strip 1064.

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Although, Andi did not untie Bandanna when she awoke you're ignoring that 1) the accidental mutiny already happened 2) Bandanna did not know the current situation immediately on waking 3) Nobody else descided to untie her when Andi went away to fix the engines 4) Andi had other things to do of arguably greater importance

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She could always undo the mutiny. The rest of the crew were arguably mistaken in not undoing it, but that doesn't put them on nearly the same level. There's a ton of stuff Andi could do if she weren't absolutely taking the actions she was taking in order to enact the plan she had been talking about. For example, she could have just done exactly what Bandanna said she was planning to do.

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If andi had baited Bandanna into knocking her unconscious and then Bandanna ignored their lack of engineer. I would consider that a bad thing. I think on the basic become-captain fron Andi made the best of a bad situation (of Bandanna's creation, but that's a distraction around Bandanna's reaction)

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Baited. When Andi has spent strip after strip berating Bandanna over her basic decision making, even in the face of explicitly stated reasons, yelling at her for it is baiting. That's just an utter misreading of what went on.

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I think the "People on her crew knew about the gun release capability" capacity is misleading. One person knew. And that was after being explicitly prompted by name.

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We'll never know how close to mind it was for the crew, because Andi literally never asked a single time regarding anything even close. If Andi had asked even a single time, sure, vaguely secret knowledge that was only necessary because Andi failed to make use of freely available knowledge. But she didn't. Because she's a bad captain. Also, there were at least two people who knew about the capability, the person who recalled the existence of said capability and the person in charge of the guns.

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Fixing the engine does not help her as much as it helps the crew since she struck the captain with a wrench.

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I have no idea what this means. Fixing the engine helps the ship not go down. If the ship goes down, she probably dies, to the exact same extent that everyone else probably dies.

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Originally Posted by ORione

So your definition of self-reliant requires that she leave the Order and pursue her personal goals alone? :smallconfused: By that criterion, Vaarsuvius is the only self-reliant member of OotS.

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...Yes, that's a fair definition. You can argue about the extent to which self-reliance is a good thing, but it does mean relying on self rather than others. (One could also cite some of Belkar's escapades, and a good deal of Celia and Miko's behaviour. Those characters are self-reliant.)

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Not when you immediately turn your head after an unreasonable provocation of someone carrying a heavy wrench in their dominant hand.

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That makes sense. The assault on the soft spot of a person's head with an iron tool wasn't that bad because the person was looking away in order to do her job properly, after having told the assaulter to do their job properly instead of uselessly standing around throwing out insults.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Bandanna was also not doing her job by repeatedly interacting with Andi but resolutely not telling her what to do.

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"Now get off my back and see if you can get on of those control fins unstuck or something."

And again, interesting how the assault is less severe just because the assaulter believed the victim was underperforming at her day job.

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Originally Posted by Keltest

To address this for a moment, you cant prove a negative like "Nale hasn't been good for the story", so if you want complete proof one way or another, it pretty much has to come from you.

Besides that though, id like you to point out a few scenes before Blood Runs in the Family where you think Nale personally is integral to the way the scene played out, and where replacing him with some other, similar threat would result in the characters developing differently. The only one I can think of is the "Damsel in Distress" moment currently under the knife. That's... not a lot, considering how often he has appeared.

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One of the main elements of Nale's character is the fact that he tends to command really high levels of team loyalty, and how they're really well organized. The degree of plan complexity is also pretty important, especially for the way it ties into his pride. His particular presence was thus rather important for the whole Cliffport sequence and setup, going a long way to justify a single act, switching with Elan and having Elan in prison, preceded by a plan that covers large swaths of the city and like three or four different sub-plans. Everything about him was the linchpin to everything that went on there. And we must always keep in mind the way his tendency towards intense dramatics plays against Elan's tendency towards narrative structure. They're kinda the same in this way, with few other characters out there liable to design their team thematically.

That's really most of his presence before BRitF. He has a couple of obvious moments in DCF, but everything else is setup for that one big scheme, or in that newest book. So, he seems rather vital for much of his presence. A totally different character wouldn't likely compliment the nature of Elan and Roy alike as he does, or have their role in the team structure quite so connected.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Bandanna was also not doing her job by repeatedly interacting with Andi but resolutely not telling her what to do.

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Andi left her post in strip 1055:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1055.html

and again in 1057:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1057.html

she should have been repairing, not trying to give Bandanna instructions, or complaining about the Order. It took Bandanna a long time to tell her what to (go back to her post) - but she was kinda busy.

And when she specifically told Andi what to do, the person now charging her with not telling Andi what to do prior to that claimed that as a justification for the following vicious assault (which made it somehow not a vicious assault). This looks like a textbook example of "not arguing in good faith" to me; it's downright ludicrous to suggest a problem with Rich's writing is demonstrated by his failure to convince someone this determined not to be convinced.

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Originally Posted by Cizak

That makes sense. The assault on the soft spot of a person's head with an iron tool wasn't that bad because the person was looking away in order to do her job properly, after having told the assaulter to do their job properly instead of uselessly standing around throwing out insults.

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That panel simply does not show someone being 'told' someone. It shows someone being screamed at. That's not ambigious.

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"Now get off my back and see if you can get on of those control fins unstuck or something."

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Is what Bandanna could have said before or instead of her disgusting jab about that if she spent half..etc. but she instead chose not to. Andi then reacted as most people would have done if in the situation Andi was in.

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And again, interesting how the assault is less severe just because the assaulter believed the victim was underperforming at her day job.

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If Andi not doing her day job is provocation then so is Bandanna not foing hers. I never said either was.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Is what Bandanna could have said before or instead of her disgusting jab about that if she spent half..etc. but she instead chose not to. Andi then reacted as most people would have done if in the situation Andi was in.

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What's "disgusting" about it? It's hyperbole - but it's a reasonable thing to say in the circumstances after multiple instances of Andi talking instead of working.

Bandanna is patient - but even a patient person can have their patience tested to the point of breaking.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

If Andi not doing her day job is provocation then so is Bandanna not foing hers. I never said either was.

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Bandanna was doing her job. She was coordinating the efforts of an entire crew full of people to get them through the pass as painlessly as possible. Her job isn't spending strip after strip babysitting Andi. And it's not just Andi not doing her job that's a problem. It's her not doing her job and berating Bandanna about the job she's doing.

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Originally Posted by hamishspence

Andi left her post in strip 1055:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1055.html

and again in 1057:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1057.html

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Staying in her post while everything was goind down is not what you want your cheif engineer to do. You want her to tell you and to get your priorities. (I have a hard time beleiving that if the ship went down because Andi was repairing this, and she should have been preparing that, that the Andi-haters would be at all forgiving)

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she should have been repairing, not trying to give Bandanna instructions, or complaining about the Order. It took Bandanna a long time to tell her what to (go back to her post) - but she was kinda busy.

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If she wasn't too busy to argue at Andi, then she wasn't too busy to say "fix this".

Kish: If I was the only person not to be convinced I'd agree that you had a point, but I wasn't. She also didn't actually tell her to do unti after - or (if you count the first ballon, which Band presumably didn't as she went on to give actual orders) while - goading her into a blind rage.

The real question is why none of you are willing to answer whether you taking Bandana's attack on Andi as being an accurate statement of fact.

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Originally Posted by eggynack

One of the main elements of Nale's character is the fact that he tends to command really high levels of team loyalty, and how they're really well organized. The degree of plan complexity is also pretty important, especially for the way it ties into his pride. His particular presence was thus rather important for the whole Cliffport sequence and setup, going a long way to justify a single act, switching with Elan and having Elan in prison, preceded by a plan that covers large swaths of the city and like three or four different sub-plans. Everything about him was the linchpin to everything that went on there. And we must always keep in mind the way his tendency towards intense dramatics plays against Elan's tendency towards narrative structure. They're kinda the same in this way, with few other characters out there liable to design their team thematically.

That's really most of his presence before BRitF. He has a couple of obvious moments in DCF, but everything else is setup for that one big scheme, or in that newest book. So, he seems rather vital for much of his presence. A totally different character wouldn't likely compliment the nature of Elan and Roy alike as he does, or have their role in the team structure quite so connected.

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Those traits seem largely told rather than shown to me (except for the unnecessarily complicated planning). Thog and Sabine are personally loyal to him, but Z's motives are never expanded on, and most of the rest of the Linear Guild members outright abandon Nale once they no longer have a personal stake in the group's success.

Which is beside the point, because I'm not contesting that he isn't a complete character. I would venture that the length of the buildup for getting Nale in position by Haley is largely unnecessary, by virtue of Nale's plans being unnecessarily complicated, and that while it is consistent with his characterization, it is also very low on the story-to-number-of-strips ratio.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

That panel simply does not show someone being 'told' someone. It shows someone being screamed at. That's not ambigious.

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Being screamed at after electing to stand around insulting her superior instead of doing her designated job. But sure, you go ahead and just try to desperately squeeze out any justification for assault. It's pretty disgusting, though.

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Is what Bandanna could have said before or instead of her disgusting jab about that if she spent half..etc. but she instead chose not to. Andi then reacted as most people would have done if in the situation Andi was in.

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I choose to have a little more respect for "most people" than thinking they would respond to being verbally told off with "physical assault". The reason assault is a crime in the first place is because the majority of lawmakers believe it's not a justifiable action.

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If Andi not doing her day job is provocation then so is Bandanna not foing hers. I never said either was.

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And one person being provoked chose to tell someone to be productive instead of wasting time, and the other provoked person chose to commit physical assault. But sure, let's continue to keep pretending these responses were equally bad.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

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Punching someone in the nose is not a vicious assault. Hitting someone in the back of the head with a heavy wrench is vicious.

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Not when you immediately turn your head after an unreasonable provocation of someone carrying a heavy wrench in their dominant hand.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

Andi then reacted as most people would have done if in the situation Andi was in.

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Most people don't respond to being yelled at by knocking the yeller unconscious, and no reasonable people do.

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Originally Posted by Emperor Demonking

If Andi not doing her day job is provocation then so is Bandanna not foing hers.

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Hey, check it out. Bandana doing her job. And again (bonus: also Andi not doing hers).

Do you wish to contend that that Bandana must be issuing constant orders to be doing her job?