The MitD outwitting Xykon.

[Rakoa]

You're cool in my books, Pendell.

[ufo]

I think I understand that. But it can get annoying to others when you do it too often.

Sounds like a problem with those people. Being annoyed by someone partaking in an activity they like (given that they don't insult otheres doing so) is a pretty serious handicap.

[pendell]

Aw shucks, sometimes you guys make me feel like the world isn't a grim, dark, dreary place devoid of anything resembling hope after all. :)

I needed it. I'm supposed to be on vacation today but I've spent the past hours troubleshooting broken equipment because it needs to be available in case of emergency.

Thanks.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Olinser]

I don't get why people seem to be irritated by the MitD's talk so much.

When I first read 901, MitD seemed totally in character. It worried about O'Chul's friends and finally took some own action to change things. It was a surprising, but yet totally logical consequence from the last scenes it appeared in.

What bothered though, was Xykon.
Whenever Xykon appeared, he is very "bossy" and draws all attention to him. He is very proactive and tells Redcloak and MitD what to do.
Maybe it's because his pelvis was blown away, but to me, he seems rather distracted and passive in 901.

Since now they are getting close to his main goal, the gate, I expected he would be a lot more proactive and center the whole dialogue around him.

After finding out Roy destroy the gate and foiled him YET AGAIN, I would have expected a rage scene similar to the one when V and O'Chul escaped.

It just seemed out of character for Xykon to say "Guy stopped me again. Let's just leave him here and get to the next gate."

Now, after reading the forums, it totally made sense to me.
Because, Xykon just missed this gate because he was a minute late, so he would not waste a single second teleporting to the next, even if this means not punishing the guy who spoiled his victory.

Bascially, I missed ire. His second to last chance to seize a gate was stolen right under his nose, with the guy who probably did it still in front of him.
Considering that, Xykon was a bit too disinterested and passive for my expectations.

Note that this is not a major issue for me or a deus that spoils the story.

It was more like a minor emotional inconsistency while I read that comic the first time. For me it just felt a bit like unreal Xykon from the Phantasm.

I'm bringing it up only because i find it strange that people are bothered by MitD's reaction in comparison.

In 901, I think Xykon may be doing what one of my old bosses used to do in the military.

When something happened that should make him absolutely lose his ****, he would do something absolutely meaningless for about 3 minutes just to cool off so he didn't physically assault somebody.

The only 2 outlets for his rage at that second are Redcloak and the MiTD, neither of which would be a particularly good idea.

[Klear]

The only 2 outlets for his rage at that second are Redcloak and the MiTD, neither of which would be a particularly good idea.

Ehm.. aren't you forgetting the Order of the Stick?

[Olinser]

Ehm.. aren't you forgetting the Order of the Stick?

Not satisfying enough, he doesn't even remember who they are and he already snuffed Roy once.

[Snails]

Not satisfying enough, he doesn't even remember who they are and he already snuffed Roy once.

Right. Along your lines of thinking, it would be the opposite of satisfying. Xykon is also mad as the nine hells with Redcloak. Doing what will please Redcloak is something he is looking for an excuse to avoid.

[Fish]

O-Chul was attacked by acid-breathing sharks and basilisks, and was paralyzed by a walking skeleton sorcerer. And you're worried about the realism of his surviving an explosion? Yeah. Okay.

Look at it this way: The fact that O-Chul survived the explosion is itself foreshadowing. It says "this cat is abnormally tough. He can take a lot."

Examine the literary impact of the alternatives: a) a new paladin character we hadn't met, or b) O-Chul without the explosion scene. Place those two guys in the torture-and-interrogation scenes and see what you get.

A. Some new character. Suspension of disbelief would be broken. Fans like Carry2 would say, "He swam in acid? Who is this guy? His superhuman prowess was not foreshadowed." Xykon and Redcloak would be greatly diminished as a credible threat if they could not intimidate some no-name mook into spilling a secret. "Aw, Jeez," we'd say. "These guys are major villains. It's not realistic that some guy we've never heard of, can't be killed by the two main villains."

B. O-Chul, omitting the "survives the explosion" scene. Same as above, except we would be saying, "What the hell? Hinjo's doorman is tougher than Xykon? This is ridiculous. And look, now he's a kind counselor who is helping to educate the MitD. And RIGHT, he's defying Xykon and taking the phylactery? This guy is a SERVANT, for crying out loud." It would rightly upstage the actions of the heroes.

Allowing O-Chul to survive that makes his later survival credible. It establishes his legendary toughness. The reader may not buy it at first, but by comparison we can see: the same explosion which tore Miko in half, did little more than dent O-Chul. It cements his reputation for enduring what is thrown at him, a reputation he later needs.

[Tragak]

I've got another idea for people who want to know how the Order survived the explosion, even ignoring the fact that they have over a dozen times the amount of survivability as anybody else on the planet* and were still pretty badly injured:

Elan's Dashing Swordsman levels provide "Explosion Resistance" to nearby allies - and Belkar - for dramatic exits much like he personally is immune to shattered glass for dramatic entrances.

*90% of the people in the world have about 1-2 d4 HD, possibly +1 CON.

I'll have to check the Class and Geekery thread, but I imagine that Roy has about 15d10 HD + 5 CON, Haley and Elan each have about 15d6 HD + 1 CON, Mr. Scruffy has about 10.5d8 HD, and even Belkar has about 15 HP.

Even with the usual rules-lawyering, judging the Order's survivability by low-level-Commoner standards still doesn't make sense.

[Morthis]

Minor quibble: I have argued elsewhere on this forum that the explosion of a gate is roughly equivalent to a kiloton yield. Others with physics backgrounds agreed with me that the yield would be anywhere from half a kiloton to two kilotons.

So Carry2 is right in comparing the destruction of the Sapphire Gate to a "small nuclear explosion". That's not entirely accurate, because there would be no radiation damage. But it is roughly comparable. Not to a Hiroshima blast, but to that produced by an atomic
demolition munition .

O-chul's survival of being hit in the face by a concussive blast which would suddenly accelerate him from a standing stop to a high speed and propel him up an away for dozens, maybe hundreds of meters, then the sudden stop at the end, to say nothing of the extreme temperatures he experienced resulting in the obvious burn marks, is nothing short of miraculous. His survival is due to Rule of Funny, and the fact that as a high-level D&D character he is a superhero compared to the normal human population. He can take damage that can kill most men, as evidenced by his subsequent torture for the amusement of Team Evil.

I think it's pretty cool to try and draw a relation to real world examples of how big an explosion is, it can put it into context (although when it comes to bombs and explosives, I think we have a hard time imagining just how powerful it is either way).

What makes it difficult is that in D&D, characters are absurdly durable by real world standards. In the real world, if you're sword fighting someone and you take even one good hit, the fight is pretty much over, and recovery would likely take months (if you recover at all). In D&D characters can get hit repeatedly by swords and not even flinch. You can, quite literally, shoot a flaming meteor into someone's face and have them treat it as little more than a scratch.

It's pretty hard to then look at real world explosions, and how devastating they are to our bodies, as an analogy to what an explosion in D&D would do so someone. Given the absurd level of damage D&D characters can absorb compared to a real person, I wouldn't be surprised if you actually could drop a nuke on someone's head in D&D and have them go "Eh, I've had worse".

[Porthos]

but as far as I can tell the only standard you are using is "Does Carry2 Like This?" Unfortunately, that isn't a standard which can be rationally discussed :)

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head here. It's a conclusion I came to a while back as well. I would just add one thing. It's not just "Does Carry2 Like This?", it's "Carry2 Would Tell the Story in a Different Way."

He's already mentioned that, for him, Team Evil and the OotS should never have met up at Girard's Complex given how the story was written. He's already mentioned that O-Chul should not have survived the Azure City battle as it was depicted. And he's said that he doesn't think various plot elements have had enough establishing moments (I'm setting aside the word 'foreshadowing' on purpose for a moment) to his satisfaction.

Fair enuf.

But these are matters of personal taste.

The problem, as I see it, is that his 'fixes' to the comic wouldn't be very enjoyable to me. Again, personal taste argument here, but I think it would rob the comic of its drama and its humor, along with character moments. Of course, while I can't fully judge this alt-The Order of the Stick without seeing some sort of preview or sample, I suspect I wouldn't like it as much.

Take for instance the complaints about the IFCC. Carry2 claims that they weren't foreshadowed enough. Which means, logically, he would have either dropped more hints about them early on or had different establishing moments about them. Problem is, characters and concepts have to be introduced sometime. And you can't have all of them be foreshadowed to a large degree.

Even a story like Babylon 5 which foreshadowed things to a ridiculous degree had surprises come up that no one could see coming. Furthermore, judging by the rampant speculation on this (and other) board(s) and the sheer number of Chekhov Guns that have been fired, one thing this comic does NOT lack is people wondering how various hints and clues that have been dropped will affect the future storyline. But even with all of this rampant speculation, Rich manages to surprise. Some might guess the large strokes at play, but miss the fine nuance that makes a story worth reading.

Swinging back to foreshadowing for a moment, I'd simply like to make the observation that not only is foreshadowing in a story not everything, often times lack of foreshadowing is a good, nay, desirable thing. Take the IFCC. When they first popped up, it was as if we all collectively got a new shiny toy to play with.

Who are these guys?
What's their motivation?
What sort of people are they?
What sort of personal dynamics do they have to each other?
What's their connection to the larger story?
OMG! We've seen them before!!!!
But that means.....
Wow.
Speculate Speculate Speculate.

By dropping in a new story element, even though it did indeed have a Gun on the mantlepiece, Rich opened up untold number of new possibilities to be explored in the story that hadn't already been beaten to death in previous speculation. And it is this 'untold number of NEW possibilities' which was the fun part. We got to see the IFCC (taking them collectively) grow as a character before our eyes. We got to see their plotting and scheming as they advanced through the story. We got to see glimpses at a larger picture that still hasn't been fully answered which in turn made us question: Just What Are These Guys Up To?

All the while delivering the Funny and the Drama.

If there had been more hints about them dropped, they wouldn't have been, well, as shiny and new.

Let me give another example: Tarquin.

Do you know just how much Tarquin had been foreshadowed before he was introduced in the comic? Arguably twice (Semi-secret origin and Nale commenting about his father denying him). Maybe thrice if you take the somewhat false-lead of Tyrannia into account. OK, sure, we had some clues that various warlords were running about on the Western Continent. But that Elan's dad was one of them? Endlessly speculated about, but all from one or two comic entries. We only really got to know about Tarquin once he entered the scene.

Boy did we ever.

Now looking at it from a purely logical standpoint, having the main baddy of the Western Continent storyline be a relative of one of the main characters while also, unknowingly at the time, being the major source of the angst of another character falls under the category of "What are the odds?"

Well, in fiction, quite good, actually.

[Sir_Leorik]

Yeah, but how often does he actually do so in a way that actually makes him look bad? How often does he actually snap and beat the pulp out of a hapless goon because he's had a bad day? Approximately never. It's an informed flaw, not an actual one.

Here's one story you're probably not aware of. It began at the very end of John Byrne's run on Superman in the late 1980's.

• The Post-Crisis Superman executed the Pocket Universe versions of General Zod and the other two Phantom Zone criminals, after they took advantage of the death of the Pocket Universe Super Boy to wipe out all life on Pocket Earth. Superman made a decision to act as Judge, Jury and Executioner; first he exposed the trio to Gold Kryptonite, taking away their powers, but they boasted they'd find a way to restore their powers and cross over to the Post-Crisis DCU and destroy that Earth. At that point Superman exposed them to Pocket Universe Green Kryptonite, killing them.
• Executing the Phantom Zone criminals affected Superman psychologically. His subconscious mind adopted a Punisher-like vigilante identity, call Gang-Buster, who waged a brutal war against Intergang and the ordinary street gangs of Metropolis, until he learned what he'd been doing.
• Horrified that he had harmed people in a fit of madness, Superman exiled himself into deep space, stopping along the way to help the JLI fight off a Dominator invasion of Earth.
• Once he was in space, Superman tried to stay away from civilizations, but Mongul caught him and sentenced Superman to fight in his arenas.
• Needless to say, Superman won his match, but refused to kill the alien he was fighting. Outraged, Mongul leaped into the arena and fought Superman, who was rescued by an alien cleric, who worshipped the Kryptonian god Rao.
• The cleric consoled Superman, and Superman renewed his vow never to take the life of another living person or alien ever again. (Then he fought Doomsday, but that's another story.)

So he takes the lives of three genocidal maniacs, but is so overcome by what he did that he snaps and beats the pulp out of helpless goons because he is suffering from PTSD. So is something an informed attribute if it was wiped out of continuity by the Nu52?

[Angel Bob]

Now looking at it from a purely logical standpoint, having the main baddy of the Western Continent storyline be a relative of one of the main characters while also, unknowingly at the time, being the major source of the angst of another character falls under the category of "What are the odds?"

Och, right. Like, a hunnerd percent, in this comic.

[Porthos]

Och, right. Like, a hunnerd percent, in this comic.

Lampshading is the best type of shading.

[Goosefeather]

Lampshading is the best type of shading.

Just hang it anywhere.

[BroomGuys]

Do you know just how much Tarquin had been foreshadowed before he was introduced in the comic? Arguably twice (Semi-secret origin and Nale commenting about his father denying him). Maybe thrice if you take the somewhat false-lead of Tyrannia into account.

Got another one for ya. Maybe it's a stretch, but he says "the two of you are up for a pair of family reunions." Roy was about to see Julia and Elan was about to see Nale, but Roy was also about to see his family in the afterlife, and Elan was also about to see Tarquin.

[Tock Zipporah]

I've got another idea for people who want to know how the Order survived the explosion, even ignoring the fact that they have over a dozen times the amount of survivability as anybody else on the planet* and were still pretty badly injured:

Elan's Dashing Swordsman levels provide "Explosion Resistance" to nearby allies - and Belkar - for dramatic exits much like he personally is immune to shattered glass for dramatic entrances.

*90% of the people in the world have about 1-2 d4 HD, possibly +1 CON.

I'll have to check the Class and Geekery thread, but I imagine that Roy has about 15d10 HD + 5 CON, Haley and Elan each have about 15d6 HD + 1 CON, Mr. Scruffy has about 10.5d8 HD, and even Belkar has about 15 HP.

Even with the usual rules-lawyering, judging the Order's survivability by low-level-Commoner standards still doesn't make sense.

To build further on this point:
The 3.5 rules describe hit points as being a combination of many things, from training and experience to divine blessings. To paraphrase the book: "Anyone who sees a Paladin get hit by a wizard's fireball and walk away with barely a single will know that he had the protection of his God."

Along those lines, you can view O-chul's survival in two ways:

the "game terms" way: as a level 12± character who the Giant states has a Con in the mid-twenties, O-Chul has (any 6 per die roll + Con 7 = 13 hp per level * 12 levels) easily 156 hit points (or more if he had good rolls). If the gate did 20d6 when it exploded and O-Chul took 20d6 falling damage, he took on average 140. He'd survive that. A 20d6 explosion would reduce an average human to pulp but a level 12 character is NOT a normal human, especially a Paladin who gains his durability by divine influence.

The "story terms" way: This is not "plot armor" as some would say. Rather, it's a mystical soldier of the gods who has been granted superhuman stamina and is wearing a small fortune in magical protective gear (the Giant has stated that Azurite paladins have special magical equipment that only works for paladins, which is why Miko's gear turned beige, indicating the magical items didn't work for her anymore). I find this a very believable explanation for survival.

[Porthos]

Got another one for ya. Maybe it's a stretch, but he says "the two of you are up for a pair of family reunions." Roy was about to see Julia and Elan was about to see Nale, but Roy was also about to see his family in the afterlife, and Elan was also about to see Tarquin.

And Haley would meet Ian (which would make three of a kind, not a pair ). Never have bought that one, personally. Coincidence, I would think.

Or, more accurately, repetitiveness of B-plots variations of a theme.

No, if you want to stretch, look here. But that was much more about the Ian storyline than the Tarquin one. We don't even know how much Tarquin was involved from Bozzok's point of view, if at all. Which is why I didn't include it.

We're not even exactly sure what the connection here is, except for lots of suspicious looking glaring over in Geoff's direction.

[DR27]

At any rate, there's probably no point getting into further details. I've said everything I can reasonably say on the subject, and I doubt that further debate will change any minds.

If it wasn't for this, I would have pegged Carry2 as a troll. Not trying to be offensive, but that's what it looked like from prior experience moderating elsewhere.

More on the topic though, I really read the whole thing in 901 as the MitD shouting out in a panic to save O-chul's friends, and Xyklon just going with it because he wasn't showing up at the last Gate a round after it's destruction. He still sounds pretty adolescent and in-charater.

I thought that the reason that team Evil took off so quick was the extreme information asymmetry between them and the OotS. The Order and their allies spend every waking moment thinking and worrying about team Evil, and how to stop him. Team Evil on the other hand, know next to nothing about the structure or capability of the OotS due to the fact that they just don't care. Redcloak can't convince Xyklon that there is a good reason to stay because he can't remember why Roy is important. Not exactly DeM.

[SowZ]

I don't necessarily interpret it that way. I am saying that this is Step 1 on something like a 10-step program to self-actualisation, and we seem to have skipped over 5 or 6 intermediate steps.

It's not just a joke. Jokes, by their nature, are un-serious. The timing of Xykon's arrival, on the other hand, has dire potential consequences for the Order, which we are expected to take seriously.

As for foreshadowing negating thrills- I'm reasonably sure that this story ends with Roy destroying Xykon, but that doesn't automatically make it lame. Secrecy and suspense are two different things. But things-that-completely-surprise-the-audience in a really plot-critical and convenient way are the definition of a DeM, and the MitD being a walking source of these is not a particular virtue.



Yes, because the author pays such very close attention to the fine points of D&D mechanics and would not violate them even if he wanted to.

This guy survives the equivalent of a small nuclear explosion, and people not only find ways to rationalise it, but also don't mind that he lands at the precise spot where the MitD is having lunch.

What? We're supposed to infer something from one evil demon talking to other evil demons about opportunities to do evil stuff? Because this totally told us what to expect from the sapphire guard, and the Oracle was super helpful in teasing out the shape of things to come. Not to mention that the whole question of how they the IFCC could possibly forsee V being separated from the party, and would never mention what was in the rift, is basically handwaved away.

Of course the ghost army was plot-convenient. Without it, Xykon would most likely have vapourised Miko on sight and the sapphire gate would've remained intact, thus effectively ending the story with Xykon's victory. (I'll admit I'd mostly forgotten about the pure-of-heart enchantment on Durokan's Gate, though it only killed low-level mooks.) But the story is still rife with contrived plot factors, with another 3 or 4 during Miko's arc alone.


At any rate, there's probably no point getting into further details. I've said everything I can reasonably say on the subject, and I doubt that further debate will change any minds.

This is not an unexpected survival or something pulled out of nowhere. O-Chul is high level and has been established as having a ludicrous constitution score and crazy lucky Hit Dice rolls. Being practically indestructible is one of O-Chul's most defining and well defined features.

[The Giant]

At any rate, there's probably no point getting into further details. I've said everything I can reasonably say on the subject, and I doubt that further debate will change any minds.

I am going to say something that I hope you take seriously: You should stop reading this comic.

I'm not trying to be flip here, I mean it. You clearly do not enjoy nearly any aspect of what I am doing here. You don't like the plotting, the humor, or the characterization, and it sounds like you haven't for a very long time. You are getting practically livid over the tiniest, unimportant details, and when they don't bother other people the same way they bother you, you're flipping out. No webcomic is worth it.

I'm not writing for you. The way you want me to change? I'm not going to. Not because I'm ignoring your criticism, but because I am listening to you, I just think you are wrong. I think there are dozens of reasons why none of what you seem to care about actually matters, and for 99.9999% of my current audience, the way I am plotting now is somewhere between "adequate" and "very good."

I am not going to become the writer that you seem to want me to be. I will never care about the force generated by an explosion, I will never care about the probability that someone thrown by that explosion lands in a given spot, I will simply NEVER CARE. I like improbable events. I include improbable events on purpose, precisely because they are improbable! All I care about is the emotional content of the story—how my characters react to those improbable events.

So please, do yourself a favor. Close this window, delete your bookmark, delete your RSS if you're using it. Stop reading. You will never be happy with it. You said in your OP that you didn't care about the plot anymore? Go with that feeling. Embrace it. Stop reading. It's OK. You'll be happier.

[The Giant]

I missed this, but it deserves comment:

Now maybe this threatens to obviate various story elements you otherwise intended to introduce, or maybe it breaks a prophecy or two in the process. But that's not the point, and I more-or-less don't care. I might be asking for a significantly different story, but I don't know that it's a worse one, and it's not my job to write it.

It's not my job to write the story you want to read, either. I know you think it is, but it isn't. It's my job to write the story I want to write, and then let the market decide whether or not I get to earn a living off of it.

That determination will be made without respect to your personal feelings on the subject.

[Holy_Knight]

More on the topic though, I really read the whole thing in 901 as the MitD shouting out in a panic to save O-chul's friends, and Xyklon just going with it because he wasn't showing up at the last Gate a round after it's destruction. He still sounds pretty adolescent and in-charater.

I thought that the reason that team Evil took off so quick was the extreme information asymmetry between them and the OotS. The Order and their allies spend every waking moment thinking and worrying about team Evil, and how to stop him. Team Evil on the other hand, know next to nothing about the structure or capability of the OotS due to the fact that they just don't care. Redcloak can't convince Xyklon that there is a good reason to stay because he can't remember why Roy is important. Not exactly DeM.

See, this is how I took the scene as well. The MiTD seems not only in character but quite believable there--he starts off with a spur of the moment attempt to save O-Chul's friends, and flounders around enough to hit on something approximating a decent argument. Add to that the crucial factor that Xykon is specifically mistrustful of Redcloak, and probably doesn't think the MiTD is cunning or motivated enough to try to trick him, and it makes perfect sense that he'd ignore Redcloak's protestations and just go to the next gate. The whole thing reads as entirely plausible to me.

[halfeye]

See, this is how I took the scene as well. The MiTD seems not only in character but quite believable there--he starts off with a spur of the moment attempt to save O-Chul's friends, and flounders around enough to hit on something approximating a decent argument. Add to that the crucial factor that Xykon is specifically mistrustful of Redcloak, and probably doesn't think the MiTD is cunning or motivated enough to try to trick him, and it makes perfect sense that he'd ignore Redcloak's protestations and just go to the next gate. The whole thing reads as entirely plausible to me.

Xykon goes along with it, but he does say "Howzat again?" and he and Redcloak give the MitD some serious quizical looks when he says "Hooray! I saved the day!", so I don't think this is going to be passed over though it may be put to one side for a while.

[luc258]

We don't know what the MitD is, but it is not stupid. It is naive and too benevolent, but it regularly has very bright moments.
For example when it recognized the ritual from a glance, or in this strip:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0190.html

I would argue that making a convincing argument is actually in line with those bright moments it has and fits into that chain.

[neriana]

It's not my job to write the story you want to read, either. I know you think it is, but it isn't. It's my job to write the story I want to write, and then let the market decide whether or not I get to earn a living off of it.

That determination will be made without respect to your personal feelings on the subject.

As Kurt Vonnegut said: "Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia."

There can also be pleasure in hate-reading something and taking it apart. But trying to do that on the creator's forum is impolite, to say the least. And trying to do it at all with OotS sounds like quite a difficult, thankless, and humorless task.

[Carry2]

It's not my job to write the story you want to read, either. I know you think it is, but it isn't...

Rich, no-one is going to argue for the kind of story that they don't want to read. This is basically attacking the person and not the argument.

To touch on your other points... I do in fact enjoy a good deal of the strip's humour and much of the characterisation, which is why I haven't quite been able to simply set it aside without a second thought. But the narrative contortions needed to get from point A to point B (or to stick unambiguous value labels on the deeply ambiguous) are like having ground glass lurking somewhere in my subway sandwich. Maybe it's worth chewing and maybe it ain't, but that's not the point: Sandwiches work fine without it.

I could draw up scenarios where the characters go through the same kind of dramatic progression under rather more plausible circumstances, but it's either redundant (because we've seen it done in other media) or pointless (because you can't be bothered.) The thing is, for every strip where some out-of-the-blue event or fluke of chance dictates subsequent narration, you also have a couple of strips where you explain, in painstaking and meticulous detail, the necessary underpinnings for Event X at Location Y during Time T due to Motive W- usually for something comparatively unimportant. So in a certain sense, you are my kind of writer. I think these logical potholes do bother you. The effort is there, it's just oddly misplaced.


*shrugs* But, I can take a hint. If you don't want me posting here subsequently, I can oblige. I don't think that amounts to a less biased sampling, however.

[Fish]

But the narrative contortions needed to get from point A to point B ... are like having ground glass lurking somewhere in my subway sandwich.

Here is a list of narrative contortions you must also hate:

1. Superman just happened to be sent to Earth from Krypton. What are the odds? Also, he just happens to look perfectly human, except he has superpowers. That's so unlikely.
2. Luke's father just happened to be the second-biggest Sith badass in the Galactic Empire, and Luke just happens to be the one to destroy the Empire in a one-on-one duel with his father. Come on, that's impossible. Even for a computer.
3. Oedipus just happened to kill his father and marry his mother. Jeez, contrived much?
4. The One Ring just happened to be picked up by Bilbo Baggins, in the dark. It's much more likely that Gollum lost the ring under water, not on land. It's so contrived, it breaks the entire story.
5. Peter Parker just happened to be bitten by a radioactive non-deadly-venomous spider. And got super powers, instead of getting dead.

So you should stop reading all fiction, because coincidences and convenient fictional shorthand and simplifications and abbreviations are everywhere. Go back to reading technical manuals and encyclopedia entries, because you can't evade the fortuitous.

[SowZ]

Rich, no-one is going to argue for the kind of story that they don't want to read.

Sure, and that's totally fair. But you did imply, intentionally or not, that he would be better doing his job by adapting his style/story. Which is less fair.

[jere7my]

To touch on your other points... I do in fact enjoy a good deal of the strip's humour and much of the characterisation, which is why I haven't quite been able to simply set it aside without a second thought. But the narrative contortions needed to get from point A to point B (or to stick unambiguous value labels on the deeply ambiguous) are like having ground glass lurking somewhere in my subway sandwich. Maybe it's worth chewing and maybe it ain't, but that's not the point: Sandwiches work fine without it.

"Sandwiches work fine without it" is an opinion. The narrative contortions are a feature of OotS, not a bug. They generate comedy. Complaining about them is a bit like complaining about the physics in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, or the improbable coincidences in the Hitchhiker's Guide.

If they're not your cup of ground glass, that's fine; there's plenty of media out there to choose from. But you seem to be trying to convince people that you've found a way to "fix" the comic, if only people would listen, and you're not hearing the fans who are telling you that your fix would take away one of the things that make the comic work.

Plausibility is not always the goal.