Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, Mk. XLVI: A Tark of the Klones, Electric Boogaloo

[Oracle_Hunter]

And yeah . . . Maltak has a wonky history.

OK, I'm not going to get all the links now, but here's Maltak:

Spoiler

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(1) The Orcs were a single people -- the Kelsheen -- before time changed everything and they became six clans. Five of the clans were defined by adjectives ("Noble Alheera;" "Pious Bikta") while the sixth -- the Tienchak -- decided that time's plan was dumb.

(2) The Tienchak took in the stereotypes of all the other clans and somehow became super-tolerant and took in a random human orphan -- Karnak -- and raised him as their own.

(3) For some reason the racist Warlord Mustache was dispatched as an "emissary" to the Orcs and tried to personally cut a bloody swathe through the Tienchak to return Karnak to human lands. The Tienchak resisted and drove back Warlord Mustache.

(4) Karnak decides to leave on his own accord but nobody bothered to tell the Callanians so they returned with an Infernomancer-backed Army and murdered the Tienchak. This is when Outrage Chief laid his "Curse of the Tuskmouth" upon Callan, resulting in mass infanticide.

(5) During the War, Infernomancers did a lot in Maltak -- spiritually poisoning the land and its people while also trying to bring the Lord of War into the world. Miranda, Donovan and Karnak seemed to do most of the fighting while a few notable Orc Heroes like Melna's father mostly just killed Callanians. Oddly enough, Miranda & co. were never tried for treason despite killing members of the Callanian Army.

(6) Towards the end of the War Karnak challenged Donovan to a "Test of Taking" which is a barbaric tradition in which two men fight for the ownership of a single woman. I guess the tolerant Tienchak raised Karnak with a solid knowledge of barbaric traditions? Anyhoo, Karnak lost and then threw himself into Hell with the Lord of War and won. This apparently caused the war to fold up, save for the Luanian Sacred Knights killing all the remaining Infernomancers and covering-up their official involvement in the Callanian war effort. Nice of them, really.

(7) The Infernal Poison remained in Maltak and make Orcs do terrible things to each other such as child rape. Nobody seemed to notice things had changed so... yeah.

(8) The War in Hell purged Maltak of most of its life, killing most of the Orcs in the process. The remaining Orcs either lived underground (the Shintula) or drained the life of their fellow Orcs to survive (the Bitka). It is entirely unclear what the rest of the Orcs did to survive.

(9) The Orcs were completely ignorant of their own religion until Luna showed up as Orc Jesus and they decided to worship her instead. Dominic them drove around a mountain for awhile. In the end all of the Orcs lot their magic and Hansi was Put On A Mountain.

I hope that helps

[T-O-E]

Stonewater is a Mookinsertion so that is no defense.

He might still roleplay as him on WoW. Let that sink in.

I'm assuming the Melna storyline came out as a way to give his character a tragic, dark past, which is terrible. It's sad how common it is to use rape for drama.

[Welf]

OK, I'm not going to get all the links now, but here's Maltak:

Spoiler

Show

(1) The Orcs were a single people -- the Kelsheen -- before time changed everything and they became six clans. Five of the clans were defined by adjectives ("Noble Alheera;" "Pious Bikta") while the sixth -- the Tienchak -- decided that time's plan was dumb.

(2) The Tienchak took in the stereotypes of all the other clans and somehow became super-tolerant and took in a random human orphan -- Karnak -- and raised him as their own.

(3) For some reason the racist Warlord Mustache was dispatched as an "emissary" to the Orcs and tried to personally cut a bloody swathe through the Tienchak to return Karnak to human lands. The Tienchak resisted and drove back Warlord Mustache.

(4) Karnak decides to leave on his own accord but nobody bothered to tell the Callanians so they returned with an Infernomancer-backed Army and murdered the Tienchak. This is when Outrage Chief laid his "Curse of the Tuskmouth" upon Callan, resulting in mass infanticide.

(5) During the War, Infernomancers did a lot in Maltak -- spiritually poisoning the land and its people while also trying to bring the Lord of War into the world. Miranda, Donovan and Karnak seemed to do most of the fighting while a few notable Orc Heroes like Melna's father mostly just killed Callanians. Oddly enough, Miranda & co. were never tried for treason despite killing members of the Callanian Army.

(6) Towards the end of the War Karnak challenged Donovan to a "Test of Taking" which is a barbaric tradition in which two men fight for the ownership of a single woman. I guess the tolerant Tienchak raised Karnak with a solid knowledge of barbaric traditions? Anyhoo, Karnak lost and then threw himself into Hell with the Lord of War and won. This apparently caused the war to fold up, save for the Luanian Sacred Knights killing all the remaining Infernomancers and covering-up their official involvement in the Callanian war effort. Nice of them, really.

(7) The Infernal Poison remained in Maltak and make Orcs do terrible things to each other such as child rape. Nobody seemed to notice things had changed so... yeah.

(8) The War in Hell purged Maltak of most of its life, killing most of the Orcs in the process. The remaining Orcs either lived underground (the Shintula) or drained the life of their fellow Orcs to survive (the Bitka). It is entirely unclear what the rest of the Orcs did to survive.

(9) The Orcs were completely ignorant of their own religion until Luna showed up as Orc Jesus and they decided to worship her instead. Dominic them drove around a mountain for awhile. In the end all of the Orcs lot their magic and Hansi was Put On A Mountain.

I hope that helps

That isn't that bad a backstory actually. Cut the part with the main protagonists, and realize that orcs are horrible.

[Coidzor]

Stonewater is a Mookinsertion so that is no defense.

I... I think I'd managed to either forget or repress that bit. x.x

[elros]

I forgot that the orcs used to hunt "carnivorous plants." Mookie is so determined to show the orcs as vegans (and therefore superior to the humans) that he makes giant plants that fight back and defend themselves. So how is killing carnivorous plants morally superior to killing animals?
It's like Mookie took the fluff from WoW and tried make it dumber.

[Trazoi]

I forgot that the orcs used to hunt "carnivorous plants." Mookie is so determined to show the orcs as vegans (and therefore superior to the humans) that he makes giant plants that fight back and defend themselves.

To be fair to Mookie, I've never got the impression through DD that veganism is superior (otherwise Dominic would be vegan too). I get the feeling Mookie made his orcs vegans only as a way to make them different. Basically, "what if DD had orcs like in Warcraft, but these orcs are vegan."

But that's as far as Mookie got and he put no thought into how a tribal herbivore society would work, so:

It's like Mookie took the fluff from WoW and tried make it dumber.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

It's sad how common it is to use rape for drama.

And just in DD. What was the Rape Count up to now? Twenty-something by the Maltak arc right?

[Squark]

And just in DD. What was the Rape Count up to now? Twenty-something by the Maltak arc right?

Depends on whether or not you count mind rape, and what you consider to actually count as mind rape (Several of Curly's mind rape counts I'd consider more attempts at psychic murder than mind rape)

[T-O-E]

To be fair to Mookie, I've never got the impression through DD that veganism is superior (otherwise Dominic would be vegan too). I get the feeling Mookie made his orcs vegans only as a way to make them different. Basically, "what if DD had orcs like in Warcraft, but these orcs are vegan."

More herbivore than vegan. It's like the halfings who drink wine and have large breasts, I guess. A thing that mediocre fantasy writers think will set their generic races apart from Tolkien. Have I mentioned that my dwarves can only eat their relatives and rap because wacky?

It's odd because given Mookie's treatment of veganism and his view of orcs as noble savages (oddly), it's never really brought up, especially since he uses the comic as a soapbox. The Callanians are never preached to about eating meat and the Callanians don't really care about orc diet. If that were the case, you'd expect there to be a comic where an orc lectures to Hansi while Dominic nods his head in the background, occasionally interjecting to correct mistakes on orc culture.

[quote=Ninjadeadbeard]And just in DD. What was the Rape Count up to now? Twenty-something by the Maltak arc right?[/whole]

The whole comic seems to trivialise it. Dominic got raped by Rachel but that was treated as a gag and was handwaved a few days later with some horrible excuse that I can't remember at the moment.

[random11]

And once again, the news post takes the cake:

It was mentioned during Around The World that the halflings and dwarves have a long, complex and violent history. Now we know that they were once the dominant "land of wizards" in the world, and they used that magic to kill each other.

Seriously? He is going to treat THAT as a world building hint?
In an arc that was at least partially dedicated to world building, in the entire part about dwarfs and halflings, everything we got was just this short line written in a letter without any connection to what we saw, when the rest was dedicated to beer tasting, beer bear illusion and a punch in the groin, and he has the nerve to treat that as a useful hint?!?!

Now, in what is supposed to be the last story, we see just how pointless all the world building attempts were.
Halflings were mentioned just twice after the cruise arc. Once now, and once as a source for an awkward sex joke. I don't remember if the elves were mentioned after that, and I don't think anyone remember that this world is supposed to have merfolk.

[dancrilis]

Hi all been reading this topic for a while, and the comic for a while also.
I enjoy them both (largely because I don't consider them as serious uses of my time and more are mindless easy entertainment).

But I just wanted to have something clarified for me.

There is a current complaint about the absurdity of the king trusting his own eyes?

Am I reading that correct from this topic, people actually think trusting your own eyes is absurd?

Just wanted to throw that out there.

As a note he is not actually seen trusting them anyway it looks to me like.

Spoiler

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Eyes: Help me.
King: Sure, I will go over here and do what I want, and you stay here and do what you want.
Eyes: Cool.

Honestly if the infernomancer had never been thrown in with the eyes that might have ended the whole deal right there.
The king had access to the achieves and the sanctum any time he wanted and it was only when the infernomancer got out that he had to deal with his lost eyes again.
All of which would never have happened if the infernomancer had been allowed to cure his own blindness when he initially wanted to.

In a way this is all the Deegan's fault twice over, but hey lots of stories are about the protagonists making mistakes and trying to fix them often without realising that they are to blame.

[Oracle_Hunter]

There is a current complaint about the absurdity of the king trusting his own eyes?

Am I reading that correct from this topic, people actually think trusting your own eyes is absurd?

Just wanted to throw that out there.

(1) If my eyes started talking to me and told me they wanted to murder (almost) everyone I don't think I'd trust them to have my best interests in mind, no.

(2) The main complaint is that Snuggly's apparent agreement to aid Snuggly is completely unmotivated. Snuggly didn't offer to help DJ with his previous goal (i.e. control the Heart of Magic for Callan) and DJ doesn't even seem to think that Snuggly would be helpful in any case.

In short, this whole exchange is a transparent attempt by Mookie to tie together loose plot ends and it's a terrible one to boot. Apparently Mookie simply couldn't think of any way to make a Beast From Beyond be relevant to any plan that DJ Callan could hatch

[Cavelcade]

To be fair - any attempt that was successful in tying them together would have been boring.

This is bad but it's so bad it is glorious. So much activity over the weekend!

[Trazoi]

To be fair - any attempt that was successful in tying them together would have been boring.

There is nothing wrong with the idea that Dave uses his own eyes as magical scouts for the Heart of Magic and then one or both of them morph into Snuggly.

That is, if it was written with more thought than "Hey lets drop my eyes into the Elemecca and see what happens, oh hey there Snuggly."

Mookie has this weird pacing habit in writing where he dwells on the boring parts and then cuts out completely the parts where the characters show why they are doing what they are doing.

[Oracle_Hunter]

To be fair - any attempt that was successful in tying them together would have been boring.

No, there are lots of ways to do it -- they just require Mookie to have not done a lot of other stupid things.

Spoiler

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(1) Making DJ an Archmage put him at such a power-level it raised all sorts of questions about what he had been up to during all the other events.

(2) Making DJ a powerful Seer as well just made it worse since Dominic constantly used his Seer powers to detect and defeat threats to the kingdom -- if not the world.

(3) Making Snuggly a junk-monster reduced his threat level tremendously. Instead of something like the Storm of Souls -- which was essentially a magical WMD -- he's the accidental creation of some jerk. Why would anyone want to ally with that creature?

(4) Including the Heart of Magic as a MacGuffin is fine, but it is so incredibly important to the existence of countless civilizations it is just silly that nobody mentioned it beforehand.

Imagine, if you will, that Snuggly was a standard Cthulhu God and that DJ was just a King. It is not a stretch for the King of a kingdom of wizards to believe that he could harness the power of a God to further his kingdom's glory. Perhaps he had a grudge against the Luanian Church from the whole Orc War debacle and needed to point a Monster at them to remove their threat?

It is child's play to write an endgame for DD which isn't completely dumb. Sadly, Mookie cannot write even as well as Ax Cop.

[Trazoi]

It is child's play to write an endgame for DD which isn't completely dumb.

I wish Mookie had gone for the "Dominic has a mind-break, other Deeganites band together to subdue insane Dominic before he destroys the world" ending. He had half the pieces ready in 2008 and then he threw it all away and gave us this bland porridge for three and a half years.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I wish Mookie had gone for the "Dominic has a mind-break, other Deeganites band together to subdue insane Dominic before he destroys the world" ending. He had half the pieces ready in 2008 and then he threw it all away and gave us this bland porridge for three and a half years.

See, that would have been one good one. Hell, it could even have been triggered by him fighting off Snuggly in a False Climax.

But it would never have happened because it would require something bad happening to the First Caste. Truly, Mookie's flaws as a writer cripple his ability to grow.

[Cavelcade]

Sorry, I should have been clearer - anything Mookie would have done that was in any way good would have been incredibly boring. I am much happier with this stupid, stupid outcome.

[random11]

I wish Mookie had gone for the "Dominic has a mind-break, other Deeganites band together to subdue insane Dominic before he destroys the world" ending. He had half the pieces ready in 2008 and then he threw it all away and gave us this bland porridge for three and a half years.

I don't think it would work well, even with a decent writer.
In most stories like that, the role of the insane character that needs to be stopped is usually reserved to a close family or friend of the main here. It's done like that to keep the focus on the main character and allow it to grow.
Of course, there is no character growth in DD, but choosing the main character for this role would still be awkward in a story.

If you want a mind broken seer, he could have used Celesto.
He was already on the way of losing his sanity.
It could have been interesting if a guitar wouldn't be enough to stop him, and if his plans had at least some seed of intelligence.

[multilis]

"See, that would have been one good one. Hell, it could even have been triggered by him fighting off Snuggly in a False Climax.

But it would never have happened because it would require something bad happening to the First Caste. Truly, Mookie's flaws as a writer cripple his ability to grow."

Will Roy have a mindbreak in OOTS? (He has shown minor flaws so far)

Will Complains of Names have a mind break in Goblins Comics? (Small chance of yes)

What you describe is relatively rare for most writers, and thus not by itself "truly" but only a matter of opinion. I see Mookie as average for the "comic a day with some plot" webcomics, hard for me to find any comic a day done by single writer/artist that has much better plotting.

I think the last few pages with King David with his big grin pulling out his eyes and dreaming of making "a better human world" as better than average DD, each page is funny.

(In contrast, most of other comic a day or 2 webcomics were more boring in last week just as predictable or worse)

...

In my opinion one of best episodes of Star Trek had Captain Kirk and Klingons eager for war and upset when the Organians forced them to stop fighting. Most writers/episodes though have the Captains of Star Trek with few flaws.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I don't think it would work well, even with a decent writer.
In most stories like that, the role of the insane character that needs to be stopped is usually reserved to a close family or friend of the main here. It's done like that to keep the focus on the main character and allow it to grow.
Of course, there is no character growth in DD, but choosing the main character for this role would still be awkward in a story.

No, that's what would have made it so great!

For the entirety of DD, Dominic has been the one who has actually had to solve problems. He gets the Visions, he knows what to do -- so what happens when he becomes the problem? Luna, for one, should basically collapse into uselessness since she relies so heavily on Dominic for validation and if Dominic took out Miranda quickly then containing him would be a real challenge.

Who would lead? Would they listen to Rilian's demand that Dominic be killed or try to find another way? Would everyone remain united? These questions would have given everyone a chance at development and introduce some real tension into the comic after far too long.

[Coidzor]

Will Roy have a mindbreak in OOTS? (He has shown minor flaws so far)

Will Complains of Names have a mind break in Goblins Comics? (Small chance of yes)

What?

[Cen]

See, that would have been one good one. Hell, it could even have been triggered by him fighting off Snuggly in a False Climax.

No, you forgot one thing - Dominic The Destroyer would have been triggered by lack of candies.

[SaintRidley]

Will Roy have a mindbreak in OOTS? (He has shown minor flaws so far)

Will Complains of Names have a mind break in Goblins Comics? (Small chance of yes)

Considering that Mookie invented Mindbreak as a condition in his comic that pertains to powerful magic users (is it Seer-specific? I forget), that causes them to be overwhelmed by their magic and become the nexus of what amounts to an uncontrollable magic hurricane...

Your attempts to excuse Mookie's incompetence by comparing to other comics (that don't use whatever harebrained idea Mookie came up with because it makes no sense to do so, whereas in Mookie's comic there exists the rather good reason to do so: that Mookie came up with the idea), your point is not only laughable, it involves even less thought than your usual laughable points.

Here's something to chew on. Complains might go completely insane, but it won't be mindbreak. Roy won't get mindbreak. Want to know why? Because a) they ARE NOT magic users and are not subject to that danger and b) THEY DO NOT EXIST IN THE UNIVERSE OF DOMINIC DEEGAN AND ARE NOT SUBJECT TO MINDBREAK TO BEGIN WITH.


Kindly put thought into your irrational defenses of Dominic Deegan and Mookie's writing ability, and find a way to do so that doesn't involve stupidly comparing Order of the Stick, Goblins, or any other comic in order to do so. You are a tiresome bore at this point because that is all you do.

[Trazoi]

Who would lead? Would they listen to Rilian's demand that Dominic be killed or try to find another way? Would everyone remain united? These questions would have given everyone a chance at development and introduce some real tension into the comic after far too long.

It's the combination and clash of the personal and the physical conflicts that make this so powerful and work well for a finale.

When I started reading (around the mindbreak stage) I thought that was where Mookie was going, before I got a feel for Mookie's writing process.

No, you forgot one thing - Dominic The Destroyer would have been triggered by lack of candies.

Still beats Dave's reason for genocidal murder (which we still don't know other than he's a suddenly big ol' racist.)

Srsly though, I thought the death, near death or apparent death of Luna was the thing that was going to do it. Then the end of Maltak happened and put the squash on that.

[Friv]

"See, that would have been one good one. Hell, it could even have been triggered by him fighting off Snuggly in a False Climax.

But it would never have happened because it would require something bad happening to the First Caste. Truly, Mookie's flaws as a writer cripple his ability to grow."

Will Roy have a mindbreak in OOTS? (He has shown minor flaws so far)

Roy died. He was dead for ages, and his death had a serious, dramatic impact on the storyline, on all of his friends, and on himself. An injury to Roy affected the story for years.

Will Complains of Names have a mind break in Goblins Comics? (Small chance of yes)

He's become part-demon, in a way that is tearing him apart. He could very easily turn into a monster that his friends have to fight; he certainly seems to be afraid of the possibility, and Thunt doesn't spend a lot of time on red herrings as a rule. If he spends that much time discussing something, something will come of it.

So yeah. I argue your points.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

So...who's narrating all this?

And panel 6? Yeah. Good times, glad to see him back.

[Rhapsh]

This is genius! I was really getting tired of trying to determine if someone was evil by their terribly written, illogical, non-foreshadowed actions.

But with this handy disembodied narrator, I don't even have to think anymore. Thank you Mookie.

[guttering flame]

So...who's narrating all this?

I'm guessing either Domi or his mom.

[T-O-E]

I'm not sure why Mookie is trying to show the King's becoming an archmage as illegitimate, since he showed himself to be completely beyond them all in terms of magical power. That's like saying Alexander the Great didn't really untie the Gordian knot, he just cut it in half.

His "respect for humans" is a transparent attempt to explain why he hasn't brainwashed Miranda or any other Deegan.

Panel 6 is hilarious. Mookie thinks that all he needs to do to get his audience to hate a character is to associate him with Warlord Moustache. It's so badly done.