Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
I didn't mean to imply I thought you, personally, were speculating Lien and her boyfriend were nonmonogamous. Just that if someone did, it would still fit better than the O-Chul/Oona ship.
Something's bothering me about this, Kish, and that is the phrase "nonmonogamous".

Obviously, a lawful good paladin will keep a freely given oath (as opposed to under duress) for a good purpose (an oath to kill all silver dragons, for example, could not be kept) once given.

However, if Lien has a boyfriend, as opposed to a husband, no such oath has been given.

So if Lien decides on a hookup, or even to terminate the relationship and start up a new one with O-chul, there is absolutely nothing in OOTSworld standing in her way.

OOTSworld is a lot freer about such matters than the real world is. We've seen that Roy's parents have each taken different sexual partners in the afterlife, because their own vows were only "till death do us part", and death has parted them. Likewise, a feature of Celestia is a tent of never-ending sexual gratification. Lien herself claims to have lost her virginity in high school, and while I suppose it's possible that is the same as her current boyfriend, the dynamics of high school relationships do not make that a certain conclusion.

This is something I disagree with Rich on, by the way. He is writing his comic strip partly to educate young people. Well, a lot more young people have a motive and opportunity to indulge in premarital sexcapades than have the chance to commit familicide. It takes no magic to wind up between the sheets with another young person. Why, there was this time on a band trip to Myrtle Beach...

... but we're getting off-topic!

*Ahem*

Anyway, it's kind of an odd thing. All of our good characters in the main cast are in a kind of implicit monogamous relationship -- Elan and Haley are committed to each other, as are Roy and Celia, even though they've never formalized their relationship with vows. They appear to be trusting to love to hold them together.

All very well, but if Elan, say, decides he wants to end it and take up with another bandit sorceress or half-orc assassin, well, there's not one thing Haley can do about it. By the laws of OOTS world she isn't his wife, and has no claim on him.

I agree with you that it is highly unlikely O-chulxLien would happen, for two reasons: 1) It looks like they are both focused on the mission, and aren't interested in side games. 2) Out-of-story, one thing OOTS world has made me appreciate is just how limited an author's time is. Rich has to focus on the important thing in that arc, which looks like the MiTD's continued character development. He's unlikely to have time for more than a throwaway joke for other things, and he isn't going to just whip up a romantic relationship out of nowhere; it would take time to build up and realize properly, which there simply isn't time to do.

All I'm saying is that if something were to happen, monogamy or lack thereof would not be an objection ,since none of the main cast members are married.

Fortunate?!? They would share a few moments in time, then go separate ways - each of them filled with the unsated yearning in their hearts for the one they let slip away. Forever pining for their true love, yet never to be fulfilled.

Ok, I'll grant you that would be a bittersweet if not tragic ending, but after all O-Chul has gone through, I'm pulling for true happiness. No half-way measures, the man has earned his happily ever after.
Totally agree that O-chul deserves a happily ever after, am unconvinced that "happily ever after" would mean a lifetime of unrequited love, or life in a bugbear village. I'm pretty sure that life in Azure City (or wherever they wind up in exile) with a bugbear spouse would be happily ever after in no one's dictionary, and even less so for their kids. Far better to settle in some place like Greysky and take a job as a bodyguard or some such. That would, of course, mean abandoning his duty, which O-chul simply wouldn't do.

Besides which, as long as the speciesist Redcloak and the mithanthropist Xykon are around, there will be no happy endings for anyone .

Respectfully,

Brian P.