Number of Character Appearances V

[Fawkes]

I don't think 'Gontor Hammerhel' is in mindless-thrall mode, though. He's acting too intelligent compared to the childlike thrall-"Durkon", and it's hard to see why he would even need to be in the first place, since the spirit inside him would have also come from Hel.

I'm basing the thrall guess just off of the word 'master'. Has HPOH referred to Hel as Master?

[Gift Jeraff]

I'm basing the thrall guess just off of the word 'master'. Has HPOH referred to Hel as Master?

HPoH refers to Hel as his mistress.

[Emanick]

HPoH refers to Hel as his mistress.

Vampires have the same skills as the beings they were in life, right? Maybe Gontor put no ranks into Knowledge (religion) in life (plausible, since he's too much of an idiot to worship a REAL god), and so Vampire Gontor knows so little about Hel that he doesn't even know her gender. Perhaps he rolled a 1.

[dmc91356]

Sorry, but no. He knows Hel is a goddess.

He even refers to her as such


Panel 4.

[ti'esar]

Oh, he's clearly referring to the HPOH as his 'master', but that just seems like an evil cleric thing. Look at the rest of his dialogue, and compare it to Thrall-"Durkon" - I think it's very obviously much more intelligent.

[Emanick]

Sorry, but no. He knows Hel is a goddess.

He even refers to her as such


Panel 4.

I was speaking in jest.

[martianmister]

Updated through 1013
Bandana, Blackwing (+1), Bloodfeast (as lizard) (+1), Gontor (as vampire) (+1), Little Whiskers (+1), Mr. Scruffy (+1), Thrall of Gontor (+1), Vaarsuvius

I'll try to answer each of you.

[martianmister]

Since we list both High Priest of Hel and Durkon Thundershield whenever the HPoH appears, shouldn't we also count this as an appearance for a "Priest of Hel" character or something?

Only when he talks.

[martianmister]

I'll readily concede that the naming of these bit characters isn't a big deal. However, out of curiosity--do you feel that this thread operates on a consensus basis, as with other curated threads?

I tried to follow Wrecan's example. Maybe we should vote about changes that not against thread rules?

Oh, he's clearly referring to the HPOH as his 'master', but that just seems like an evil cleric thing. Look at the rest of his dialogue, and compare it to Thrall-"Durkon" - I think it's very obviously much more intelligent.

Agreed.

[martianmister]

With the benefit of hindsight, I'd say that the HPoH first appearance was with Malack's death (before that, it was Durkon's corpse and Malack's Thrall... which I suppose logically means we should have Malack's entry as "Malack the Vampire and the corpse of long-forgotten lizardman shaman", to indicate the dual nature of every vampire). It would not be that hard to go back to HPoH's first appearance and recount.

Either way, it should be consistent, and now it isn't. Right now the HPoH's "first appearance" is given as Strip #907, However, if we are not considering him a separate individual from the thrall, it should be #878

If we want to keep his first appearance at #907 then we need a separate count for the thrall.

You're right. I'll add it to the list.

[martianmister]

I do agree that most appearances of the vampire after Malack killed Durkon should count as HPOH appearances, and only "scenes inside his head" where we see Durkon restrained should count as Durkon appearances.

We're counting appearances, not characters on a strip. Durkon's corpse is definitely an appearance for him.

[ti'esar]

I'm inclined to disagree that the thrall was a separate character from the High Priest of Hel. I think it's more akin to a domination effect.

Also, if you agree that Vampire Gontor is likely a free-willed vampire spirit and not a thrall, why do you have him listed that way?

Man, these freakin' vampires are making a mess for this thread.

[Emanick]

I'm inclined to disagree that the thrall was a separate character from the High Priest of Hel. I think it's more akin to a domination effect.

Also, if you agree that Vampire Gontor is likely a free-willed vampire spirit and not a thrall, why do you have him listed that way?

Man, these freakin' vampires are making a mess for this thread.

To back you up, The Giant actually explicitly stated that the thrall was the the HPoH from the moment of creation at one point. I can try to find the post in the Index if necessary.

[martianmister]

It isn't worse than not counting Strips like this as an appearance for HPoH. Martianmisters Argument was, that it was only Durkons body, that is controlled by HPoH and that would be, like counting a mind-controlled Belkar as an appearance for Nale. But this is a pretty different situation, since HPoH isn't only controlling Durkons body, but his consciousness is also IN that Body and that makes his body at the moment just as much his body in my opinion and as it seems also in the opinion of most other users. I used Malack to point the absurdity out.

As I said before, we're counting appearances, not characters in a page. That means:

* If a character isn't in strip but her likeness (portrait, statue, etc., also talking balloons) is visible = It's counted as appearance for her.

* If a character is in strip, but he's not visible in any form = He gets no appearance.

[martianmister]

So... do these comics count as appearances for Malack:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0725.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0750.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0758.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0810.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0848.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0864.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0868.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0877.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0887.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0966.html

Because by your logic, they should only count as "barbarian shaman", since Malack is the name of the Vampire, that possesed the body of the barbarian shaman, who had a different name, when he was alive.

Interesting points. Problem with this: Malack claims to be the "the lizardfolk shaman". Is he simply lying? Or did their minds are united into a single consciousness after some point of vampire's existence?

[martianmister]

I'm inclined to disagree that the thrall was a separate character from the High Priest of Hel. I think it's more akin to a domination effect.

So, you think it's the same spirit?

Also, if you agree that Vampire Gontor is likely a free-willed vampire spirit and not a thrall, why do you have him listed that way?

Actually I added it to index as "Gontor the Vampire". But I forgot to edit original post.

[martianmister]

I'm inclined to disagree that the thrall was a separate character from the High Priest of Hel. I think it's more akin to a domination effect.

To back you up, The Giant actually explicitly stated that the thrall was the the HPoH from the moment of creation at one point. I can try to find the post in the Index if necessary.

Interesting. But should we count it as an appearance for HPoH when he's under domination effect?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I tried to follow Wrecan's example.

Wrecan created the thread before the Mods told us to run the threads based on consensus. Just like I had to do in the MitD thread and like it was done int the geekery thread, there has to be a way of determining consensus - you cannot make any executive decisions for the thread that cannot be overruled by the other participants (note that I am far more formal about it than the geekery thread, but both I and Kurald follow consensus).

Specifically, the curator cannot [...] make any sort of executive decision on what is or is not included in the opening post of a curated topic

This is especially crucial when circumstances never imagined by Wrecan come up, like the fact that we now know that every vampire is inhabiting a previously dead corpse. For example, I believe that the corpse of the shaman being used by Malack, having more than one appearance, needs to be counted even if we don't know the name of the corpse. If they have the exact same number of appearances, then I would be in favour of putting it in parenthesis: Malack (and long forgotten shaman, as corpse). But we'd have to check in case any of Malack's appearances is by name only, in which case the corpse didn't make an appearance. If I'm in the minority, that's one thing, but it is very different from the current situation where we simply don't seem to know what is counted and where the lines are drawn.

But also, given that there were at least three or four people in favour and none other than you against it, that the dwarves that tossed Durkon out should be named Dwarf tossers, not Hurak's Helpers, or at the very least voted upon to decide based on consensus, not on your executive decision of what is "straightforward".

To back you up, The Giant actually explicitly stated that the thrall was the the HPoH from the moment of creation at one point. I can try to find the post in the Index if necessary.

Could you, please? That would be very helpful, thanks.

Grey Wolf

[ManicOppressive]

Is there a reason that Hilgya is put between one of the fiends and the other two? It doesn't actually make a difference in terms of numbers either way, but it looks really strange.

And I just know someone is going to say "OCD" in relation to it and upset me.

Though I suppose it's even more minor than what it would normally be since they'll likely appear again before too long.

[Gift Jeraff]

Is there a reason that Hilgya is put between one of the fiends and the other two?

Alphabetical order if characters are tied in # of appearances (not counting blue & red).

[ti'esar]

Yeah, it looks strange to me as well, though I understand the reasoning behind it.

[Emanick]

Okay, so I spent a while looking for Rich's quote about the HPoH being created as soon as Malack animated Durkon's corpse. I couldn't find anything as explicit as I recalled, which could be due to either a memory failure or my inability to find the right quote. I do think this quote strongly implies that the HPoH existed as soon as Malack's spell took effect, though (emphasis mine):

There is absolutely zero difference between Malack and Durkon's vampirizations, with the sole exception that Hel made the spirit sitting in Durkon's head while Nergal made the one that was sitting in Malack's. Hel is able to put that spirit into Durkon's body because of the physical vampirization process that Malack enacts on Durkon's corpse, which opens a door to Negative Energy and traps Durkon's spirit inside it. Which would also be true of any other vampire created from a person who fell under the Northern Pantheon's domain, though she wouldn't take a personal interest in just any person because they wouldn't be a powerful cleric.

Hel does not have rightful dominion over Durkon's soul as part of her normal assignment of dishonored souls, however, because Durkon did in fact die in battle. She got involved because she is also, separately, the Northern deity of undeath, and one of her "duties" is making the evil spirits for all Northern vampires. The vampirization process basically jammed up the normal disposition of Durkon's soul by trapping it inside the undead body. Where Durkon's actual soul ends up will not be determined until/unless it is freed. It's a like a naturally occurring Trap the Soul spell.

There may be a plausible way to interpret that post in a way that does not have the HPoH first appear when Malack first reanimates Durkon's corpse. I can't think of one, though. It's pretty explicit about the fact that the spirit in Durkon's body doesn't actually change its identity after Malack dies, it just ceases to be dominated.

[rodneyAnonymous]

We're counting appearances, not characters on a strip. Durkon's corpse is definitely an appearance for him.

I think that's wrong. In this world, characters are explicitly more than just their body. Souls exist for sure. A corpse is not an appearance.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think that's wrong. In this world, characters are explicitly more than just their body. Souls exist for sure. A corpse is not an appearance.

Errr.. leaving aside that I don't agree, you said it yourself: "characters are explicitly more than just their body" - i.e. characters are both their body and their soul. Therefore, even when they have been separated, they both still belong to the character.

As an example: a character has their arm removed from their body. We see said arm laying around. It still counts as an appearance, even though the character is alive and as well as can be hoped when missing an arm off-page, because we accept that the arm was part of the whole, and still does even if now is detached from the whole. Same for the body and soul.

Edit: A couple other examples. If it is true that the Snarl destroys souls utterly, then Soon's wife ceased to exists entirely when she got attacked. But her corpse is still around - I see no reason to stop counting it as an appearance just because her soul no longer exists.

Furthermore, we count images of people (like wanted posters) as appearances, and those are in no way connected to the soul other than being a representation of the body's image, drawn by someone else.

In conclusion: if we only count soul appearances, then we need to restart the thread. I am very much against it for both logical and practical reasons.

Grey Wolf

[Emanick]

Comic 1,014: Blackwing, Bloodfeast the Extreme-inator, Gontor Hammerfell, Little Whiskers, Mr Scruffy, Vampire Priest of Hel

Hooray! After this strip, we only need nine more Blackwing appearances before all eight Protagonists can get their own section, above Nale and the rest of the petty Major Characters.

[Gift Jeraff]

I don't really like the idea of Scruffy and Blackwing being grouped with the PCs. They're definitely not protagonists in any stretch of the word and the gap between V and Scruffy is far greater than the gap between Scruffy and Nale.

Maybe if the top section is renamed "The Order of the Stick."

[Emanick]

I don't really like the idea of Scruffy and Blackwing being grouped with the PCs. They're definitely not protagonists in any stretch of the word and the gap between V and Scruffy is far greater than the gap between Scruffy and Nale.

Maybe if the top section is renamed "The Order of the Stick."

Yeah, I agree that the top section should be renamed that way.

[martianmister]

I don't really like the idea of Scruffy and Blackwing being grouped with the PCs. They're definitely not protagonists in any stretch of the word and the gap between V and Scruffy is far greater than the gap between

We could create a new group called "Mascots". But real problem is: Xykon and Redcloak will, very likely, overcame them in numbers within their next appearances.

[martianmister]

Updated through 1014
Blackwing, Bloodfeast (as Lizard), Gontor (as Vampire, Gaseous), Little Whiskers, Mr. Scruffy, Priest of Hel (as Gontor, Gaseous)

[SirKazum]

We could create a new group called "Mascots". But real problem is: Xykon and Redcloak will, very likely, overcame them in numbers within their next appearances.

I, for one, think the division is fine as it is today. Having the "Protagonists" first and then everyone else sorted by number of appearances makes a lot more sense than coming up with lots of little categories like "Mascots" and, I dunno, "Protagonists' Family" and "Recurring Villains" and whatnot. Besides, it's the "Number of Character Appearances" thread, not the "Character Categories" thread or anything