Drowtales: The Info Dump

[HandofShadows]

It's hard to be dignified when you're a red blob. And she has shown a huge amount of inner strength. She contoled the hunger of the glutton demon for 9 days as she crossed the city. Something else to remember is that Naal's more emotionles/controled state is a result of being tainted and the damage the glutton was doing to her. Now there is no taint she will act more emotional.

[eschmenk]

It's hard to be dignified when you're a red blob. And she has shown a huge amount of inner strength. She contoled the hunger of the glutton demon for 9 days as she crossed the city. Something else to remember is that Naal's more emotionles/controled state is a result of being tainted and the damage the glutton was doing to her. Now there is no taint she will act more emotional.

The problem was that the emphasis was all on how pathetically hungry the blob was and it was constantly whining about it. Whether or not it's the demon's fault, at least Naal was quiet and that made her a good balance for Kiel. Naal also seemed to be competent and had some wisdom that the blob certainly doesn't seem to have. I never would have thought of Naal as a Woobie, but the demon certainly comes across that way.

BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if we would see some more of Naal's behavior come through, but it still won't be Naal any more than it was really Lulianne when Khaless lost control while impersonating her. It's some remnant of the person coming through, but that's all it is. I would certainly hope it's never more than that. IMO, it would be better for Kern to just leave her in peace.

[CWater]

I personally don't mind these new developments with Naal's story. Her desperately clinging to existence in this fashion is kind of interesting and is certainly unusual. Also, it does rise the question of what makes a person? Stripped from her original body and basically everything except for a few memories, can this still be called Naal, or is it a more like a new being of itself. I'm not sure I expect this storyline to have a proper or even a serious conclusion, but I'm okay with how it has been so far.

If there's something that has annoyed me about Naal lately, is how she's been cobstantly overly sexualised in her older forms, with those balloon boobs and certain expressions. It felt jarring together with her tragic fate.

[Vinyadan]

Kiel and Sillice converting on Orthobbae are the key to a hell of a freak accident.

[Vinyadan]

For those who, like me, were wondering: panel 3,4,5,6 mean that she's really cross, not that she's going crazy or having some other problem.

[CWater]

Kiel and Sillice converting on Orthobbae are the key to a hell of a freak accident.

A scary prospect indeed. This should be good.

[HandofShadows]

A scary prospect indeed. This should be good.

Yep. I hope Diva goes along to try and protect the kids. Also Diva is the only one who could probably get up to the Ninth Tower and she certainly knows who and what is up there. Might even make a deal with Kiel.

[Vinyadan]

Given the look Sillice is giving Diva in the first panel, I almost expect her to punch her.
Also, when Nishi is unhappy, the develops an unusual underbite (last panel, you can see her lower teeth, but not the upper ones).

[Vinyadan]

In the meantime, Nishi goes grab a box of Sharen subtlety.

[HandofShadows]

If it causes problems for Snads I don't mind.

[Vinyadan]

This isn't awkward at all.

[HandofShadows]

Not in the least. It was foreshadowed on the cover that there would be a rebellion in the Shargs and they would try and kill Ariel.

[Vinyadan]

Anyone want a smoothie?

[CWater]

I'm sure this will be the end of it.

[Vinyadan]

I guess Nishi was right not to come. Sillice is probably having a ball, but I don't think she would have enjoyed herself.

I was expecting something more siege like. This is really disturbing.

[HandofShadows]

The school has been neutral for everyone and so it had no real defenses against attack. I hope Diva is trying to save the kids. A lot of the teachers are golems/summons, but the kids aren't.

[Vinyadan]

"Survivors"? Are they just killing everyone?

Also, I hate this kind of 4th wall breaks.

[HandofShadows]

Seems so. Silice is WAY off the reservation do her hatred of Snads.

I don't mind the so called 4th wall breaking because while Kiel and Naal know they are being watched and there are "friends" out there, they in no way think they are characters in a web comic as the characters from Schlock Merc did (when the 4th wall was being broken.) To the Kiel and now Naal, we are just people watching events unfold from another dimension/reality and that at times we can help them some. But there are clear limits on how much info that can be given and what we can do. (After all though we knew Silice was gong to attack the School we couldn't tell Kiel. It's not so much the Drowtales characters breaking the 4th wall as the forums members (and some staff) being able to have cameos and play very minor roles in the story. I hope you all understand what I am trying to say.

[Vinyadan]

I get what you mean. My main displeasure is the breaking of immersion by giving room to "and it's you, the readers, who with your good intentions and feels saved Naalglobe!". There's actually a lot of things I don't like about the friend demons/princes, like the fact that they only can speak to Kiel and seem rather inconsequential (does anyone ever comment on them?). Or that we never saw the moment they became visible, which I guess was a rather important point.
I actually have had something of a problem with Kiel for a lot of time. I really liked her "conquer the Vloz clan" arc, but, outside of that, I didn't like how she just seemed to be written in a wholly different style than all other characters, like a callout cluster for readers. Even when she could have been silent in the Beld fortress, to give at least some feeling of tension, she still had to think out loud to interact with readers and defuse tension.

This is just my personal taste, BTW. If I am reading a story I just want to read a story, not to have a major character spend its whole existence winking at me.

Kern has made a mistake in the cast list, that's Fame'nidea :P

Also, I was rereading and I noticed Nirnaya's claim that she saved Zala at the times of the Nindra war. http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=9245 If that's true, it could be that she was actually forced to join the coup, or that the original plan was Sarvswati and Snadhya killing or exiling her too, Nirnaya informed her and she joined the plan to save herself. I hope we one day get to see how things exactly developed.

[HandofShadows]

This is just my personal taste, BTW. If I am reading a story I just want to read a story, not to have a major character spend its whole existence winking at me.

I look at her talking to the audience as a way of keeping her head together and not going (totally) insane. At least part of the time. Other times she is being used for exposition like when she shows us her home. Sometimes, like on this page, Kiel is just being goofy and joking. There are times she is "mugging the camera" for fanservice but those are likely not as many as you might think.

Also, I was rereading and I noticed Nirnaya's claim that she saved Zala at the times of the Nindra war. http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=9245 If that's true, it could be that she was actually forced to join the coup, or that the original plan was Sarvswati and Snadhya killing or exiling her too, Nirnaya informed her and she joined the plan to save herself. I hope we one day get to see how things exactly developed.

I would take anything said by any true Snad supporter with a grain of salt the size of the Rock of Gibraltar. Nirnaya might have done something that she thinks saved Zala, but we need more info.

[HandofShadows]

Does not really depend on if you think Naalblob is Naal or a demon, she did the right thing.

[Vinyadan]

...it's already been 25 chapters since Lu ended up there?
...wow.

[Vinyadan]

It doesn't have much to do with the current happenings, but I found something funny. Quintana was the medieval name of a mannequin used as target practice when training with a lance. I could see Quain getting her name as a kid from this item, and maybe it would explain her approach to giving names. (Headcanon).

I also once found that the Ada was the currency of an ancient kingdom in Anatolia, that probably wasn't random.

Also, many names have a Sanskrit look to them (Sarv'swati and Ashura pretty much are Sanskrit riffs).

[HandofShadows]

Many of the characters names (and some other things) come from real world sources.

[HandofShadows]

Spoiler

Show

Ooooh crap. The 9th tower is a giant summoning gate. Had a feeling the Demon Princesses/Princes would show up again soon when the forum blob got fat. Here is a wild guess at what is going to happen. Someone tries to fire up the gate and Kiel tries to stop it knowing it would attract the demon god and NOT Sharess. In order to keep the demon god from taking a body Naalblob ends up in the body. Naal was a true believer in Sharess and don't she that she would take over her body unless it was to stop something much worse.

[Vinyadan]

So... I'm almost happy with this update. It explains what Ni'ju (Ni'bai's protector twin) probably is: a demon that consumed the real protector twin, acclimated itself to her shape and memories, and then kept protecting Ni'bai when the body was lost.
I am also happy that Shashana made the problem here clear: Naal has had her life destroyed by that cutesy blob. I just hope the comic stops going all cutesy over it, and that the purpose wasn't to make Shashana look evil because of the omg cute blob she's so mean to. And Kiel not really thinking about it isn't strange, she once had a naga that looked like Naal. She did however identify it as Naal's demon, and she was rather cool about it, so she likely already knew that it wasn't Naal and that it was even less of Naal than the big glutton at Orthobbae (which she identified as Naal).
I am happy that, for the first time, someone has been able to actively interact with Kiel's demons.

What is weird is that I see people on the forum identifying the blob with Naal's memory as Naal. If I ever am killed and my memories stored into a computer, I hope people will realize that those may be my memories, but that isn't me.

[HandofShadows]

Seems odd that you very easily accept that Naalblob isn't really Naal, but totally ignore that much of what Shashana said about demons is KNOWN to be wrong. Demons can feel, they can think, they are sentient (or at lest some of them are). Shashana has been stuck up in that tower for a long time and is utterly ignorant of what people like Kiel's mom learned. She is stuck 1000 years in the past. It's like consulting Newton about String Theory before he even has a chance to read up on it.

[eschmenk]

I am happy that, for the first time, someone has been able to actively interact with Kiel's demons.

Perhaps she can do it, because she, like Kiel, is a Ver'drowendar, i.e., a Drow who fused with a demon such that the Drow, not the demon, is dominant. That could mean that the Nids who managed to do the same could interact with them, too. (BTW, I don't know if this counts, but didn't Kahless interact with them back when she gave the invitation to Felde to Kiel?) I'm afraid that hoping that she destroys them would be futile, but we shouldn't have to put up with them all that much longer in any case.

What is weird is that I see people on the forum identifying the blob with Naal's memory as Naal. If I ever am killed and my memories stored into a computer, I hope people will realize that those may be my memories, but that isn't me.

Yeah, and I'd especially hope that no one would stick the memories in a robot and program it to act in a way that was a pathetic mockery of you, and then act as if that were really you. I'm glad that Naal isn't a real person and I don't have an emotional attachment to the character, otherwise I would find what's going on very objectionable. As it is, it's just kind of disgusting in a saccharin way, IMO. Oh, well.

Seems odd that you very easily accept that Naalblob isn't really Naal, but totally ignore that much of what Shashana said about demons is KNOWN to be wrong. Demons can feel, they can think, they are sentient (or at lest some of them are). Shashana has been stuck up in that tower for a long time and is utterly ignorant of what people like Kiel's mom learned. She is stuck 1000 years in the past. It's like consulting Newton about String Theory before he even has a chance to read up on it.

A much better analogy might have been consulting Newton about physics. Newton's understanding of physics is generally correct, just like what Shashana said about demons. Yes, it is true that there are complications that can be important at times, but most of the time you wouldn't need to worry about them.

According to the official wiki page on demons, which I'm pretty sure is canonical in this case, most demons have a "comparable intelligence level to animals." Specifically, Naal's demon, which was a glutton, is a type of unintelligent demon, so what she said should be true enough regarding it.

I don't know how good Sha'sana's understanding actually is. She might know better, but oversimplified because she hates demons and didn't realize that Kiel knew better, too. Or maybe she really doesn't know any better. But given that she could merge with a demon and be dominant and could capture Kiel's "friends", she seems to know more about them than the average Drow, despite being locked up in the tower for 1000 years.

[HandofShadows]

First off, String Theory IS physics. Much more advanced than anything Newton even conceived of, but still very much physics.

If Naalblob is just a Glutton Demon which has an animal level intelligence and exists only to eat, then why does she NOT eat and show clear signs of intelligence, self-awareness along with problem solving capabilities? In fact she has stated (and acted on) preferring to die/fade away to nothing rather than turn into a monster should say something. It's an odd attitude for a demon or animal. That’s something a person would do.

Dumping memories into an animal’s head cannot make it smarter. Just as teaching someone one knowledge does not make them smarter either. It only gives the person more information to work with. The hardware (wetware actually) isn’t there for people (or animals) to become smarter by learning information. As for Sha'sana, what she is doing in mana manipulation not really all that different than what other Summoners do.

On a slightly different but related subject the comparison of uploading a human mind into a computer is NOT analogous to tainting or what happened to Naal. For one the computer upload described is clearly stated as being a COPY of the person. A true brain/mind upload would be moving the person’s mind and conciseness from the wetware of the human brain to the hardware of a computer system. There wouldn’t be very much of the original person left in the body. Just some of physical brain patterns which would not be the original person. Something that could grow into a person maybe, but it is not and could not be the original person. (You folks should play the game “Soma” BTW.) Now we HAVE seen minds/aura moved from one body to another in Drowtales before. Diva and to an extent Sharess herself.

The real question with Naal is if she survived the tainting process. If she survived (consumed the demon) or merged with the demon than Naalblob is Naal. A Naal that is changed, but still Naal. If the demon did consume Naal, then it’s a demon that thinks it’s Naal. But as I said we have no way of knowing what happened (and probably never will). One thing that points to a merge though is when Naalblob took over the dying drow earlier in the chapter the body took on Naal’s physical characteristics (face changed and hair changed color. The same as we saw with Diva.) as well as the mouth of the glutton demon. If Naalblob was *just* a demon, she should not have looked like Naal when she took over the body.

[eschmenk]

First off, String Theory IS physics. Much more advanced than anything Newton even conceived of, but still very much physics.

I didn't say it wasn't. You must have misunderstood what I was saying.

If Naalblob is just a Glutton Demon which has an animal level intelligence and exists only to eat, then why does she NOT eat and show clear signs of intelligence, self-awareness along with problem solving capabilities?

The blob certainly doesn't seem to be a glutton demon. Why wouldn't it behave differently than a glutton demon? However, a glutton demon was what destroyed Naal. The glutton demon didn't seem to have much intelligence and it did eat, so that's all consistent.

On a slightly different but related subject the comparison of uploading a human mind into a computer is NOT analogous to tainting or what happened to Naal. For one the computer upload described is clearly stated as being a COPY of the person.

Of course, the situation in the original analogy was analogous! Yes, there are some differences; that's why it was analogous rather than identical.

Beyond that, how would you know that any memories the red blob got would be any less of a copy anyway?

The real question with Naal is if she survived the tainting process.

She didn't. That has been obvious for a long time.

Granted, Naal wasn't a real person, but I liked her as a character and was disappointed when Kern killed her off. I'd rather not be reminded repeatedly that she's gone. On top of it, acting like the infantile red blob is her would be a bit like pissing on her grave. Why insult her like that? She was so much better compared to the blob.