Things You Never Noticed V: Your Familiar

[Ron Miel]

No.

The Giant, who is a vegetarian, used this as a metaphor for factory farming and eating flesh of dead animals. He didn't intend any reference to Nazis.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post14808112

[Szarrukin]

Right, how could I miss it. Even Nazis are dimnished by horrors of barbaric meat eaters.

[walks away slowly]

[Peelee]

Right, how could I miss it. Even Nazis are dimnished by horrors of barbaric meat eaters.

[walks away slowly]

Dude, it's not exactly a reference to meat eating being abhorrent. It's a reference to factory farming, but with people instead of cattle. It's the "but with people" bit that the universal repulsion is supposed to hinge on.

[Jasdoif]

It's the "but with people" bit that the universal repulsion is supposed to hinge on.

Kind of like soylent green.

[Ron Miel]

Right, how could I miss it. Even Nazis are dimnished by horrors of barbaric meat eaters.

[walks away slowly]

You appear to have taken offence at the correction. No criticism was intended. A lot of people made the same interpretation you did, including me. It isn't a stupid interpretation, just not what the author intended.

And he didn't intend to compare meat eating to Nazis. There was no reference to Nazis at all.

[Kish]

Malack doesn't hate the living, so Nazis wouldn't be a proper analogy anyway. He just...sees them as walking food. To be processed as efficiently as possible, without regard for their suffering as a result.

[Keltest]

Malack doesn't hate the living, so Nazis wouldn't be a proper analogy anyway. He just...sees them as walking food. To be processed as efficiently as possible, without regard for their suffering as a result.

"Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs."

[Rogar Demonblud]

Pretty much.

[Peelee]

Kind of like soylent green.

I've heard the taste varies from person to person.

[Darth Paul]

I've heard the taste varies from person to person.

Badoom-boom.

[Kurald Galain]

Kind of like soylent green.

Now, now, don't give Xykon any ideas on what to do with green goblins...

[Vinyadan]

No.

The Giant, who is a vegetarian, used this as a metaphor for factory farming and eating flesh of dead animals. He didn't intend any reference to Nazis.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...2#post14808112

Technically, it isn't a metaphor for, but a reference to.

Anyway, I had not understood he wanted to eat them. Actually, Malak didn't get much of the "people are things I eat" characterization. That's why I also understood it as a weirdly placed reference to Nazis, until I read the author's comments.

[Moo, I'm Human]

I never saw the blood on the floor and coming out of the TV in the last panel of strip 914

[Rogar Demonblud]

What else would you expect from a plasma?

[Ruck]

I've noticed this before, but since I'm reading my War and XPs PDF now, it seems to bear mention: in #327, after Haley solves the riddle by shooting one of the guards in the foot, V makes some snarky comments about disassembling a Rubik's Cube and untying the Gordian knot. While disassembling a Rubik's Cube is obviously improper, it may not be as immediately obvious that, according to legend, the Gordian knot was "solved" by Alexander in similar fashion-- he simply cut it in two.

[Peelee]

I've noticed this before, but since I'm reading my War and XPs PDF now, it seems to bear mention: in #327, after Haley solves the riddle by shooting one of the guards in the foot, V makes some snarky comments about disassembling a Rubik's Cube and untying the Gordian knot. While disassembling a Rubik's Cube is obviously improper, it may not be as immediately obvious that, according to legend, the Gordian knot was "solved" by Alexander in similar fashion-- he simply cut it in two.

And some of us still consider that cheating. Darn punk kid, thinking he can just cut away all his knot-related problems. Get of my ancient Grecian lawn!

[Kish]

Indeed, there is a school of thought that holds that Alexander's method of "solving" the Gordian Knot was symbolically significant: He built an empire, but was able to maintain it only through brute force, the same way he dealt with the Knot.

[Darth Paul]

I've noticed this before, but since I'm reading my War and XPs PDF now, it seems to bear mention: in #327, after Haley solves the riddle by shooting one of the guards in the foot, V makes some snarky comments about disassembling a Rubik's Cube and untying the Gordian knot. While disassembling a Rubik's Cube is obviously improper, it may not be as immediately obvious that, according to legend, the Gordian knot was "solved" by Alexander in similar fashion-- he simply cut it in two.

This just makes me ask, in turn... where did V hear of Alexander or Rubik's Cubes? Does the OOTS have a window through the Fourth Wall?

[Ruck]

This just makes me ask, in turn... where did V hear of Alexander or Rubik's Cubes? Does the OOTS have a window through the Fourth Wall?

There's a lot of evidence to suggest the fourth wall is not particularly present in OOTS-world. (Hell, a few strips later the Kobold flatly says he knows what Haley's saying by looking into the future and reading the cryptogram translations in the book version!)

Speaking of stuff I recognized from rereading that book:

-The Oracle's list of payment forms accepted in #330 specifies "Cash (no Electrum)."
-Notice the title of #1028?

Are running jokes about Electrum in OOTS a thing I just never noticed until now?

[Darth Paul]

I think the Electrum gag ties in with the fact that it disappeared along with the earlier editions and never (to my knowledge) made a comeback.

On the other point: I agree that OOTS is highly aware of its own medium, checking back to earlier books for recaps and so forth, but it never really truly occurred to me how many references to the "real" world there are. It's as if they were a group of PCs who occasionally break character, and when they do, we hear the players themselves talking. They're not only aware that the world they're in follows the rules of a game, but they're aware momentarily of the world that game exists in as well.

Did that make sense, or am I posting while half-asleep again? (I do some of my best work half-asleep.)

[Ruck]

You made sense, I totally followed what you were saying. I think there are other references to real-world happenings in the strip, though I can't remember any off the top of my head.

(EDIT: I just remembered one. Roy asks Miko what he should call her, based on naming traditions "in feudal Japan." Miko: "What is this 'Japan' you speak of?")

I'm not really a D&D player so I don't know much about the history of Electrum in-game.

One more thing I noticed (picking up on a lot on this read-through!): #365, after the Cliffport caper. Nale tells Sabine to hurry to Azure City, because his Elan disguise "won't work forever. Except maybe for the halfling."

Aaaaaaaand guess who's the first to sniff him out. (Pun intended.)

[Kurald Galain]

Are running jokes about Electrum in OOTS a thing I just never noticed until now?

Here's the thing with electrum. Currency in D&D has always been pretty straightforward: 10 copper pieces equal one silver, 10 silvers equal one gold, 10 gold equal one platinum. So getting 138,6 silver (say, as a share of loot) easily translates to 13 gold, 8 silver, 6 copper. Some worlds use different materials (e.g. Dark Sun replaces gold with steel) but the principle holds.

And then there's the electrum piece, which is worth half a gold piece. Yeah, that's just weird and makes the math awkward (and while everybody has heard of gold, many people have no idea what "electrum" is supposed to be), so players tended to ignore them. They were removed for third and fourth edition, and returned in fifth where they are again mostly ignored. This is why the oracle doesn't want them either.

[Troy]

I think there are other references to real-world happenings in the strip, though I can't remember any off the top of my head.

Do the mail calls (#33 and 121) count?

EDIT: And #259?

[DaggerPen]

You made sense, I totally followed what you were saying. I think there are other references to real-world happenings in the strip, though I can't remember any off the top of my head.

Does that include putting it in a comic strip?

Or hamfisted product placement, for that matter?

[Darth Paul]

Real-world references would definitely include dimmer switches and invoking lines from The Empire Strikes Back.

Also, wet T-shirt contests.

The more I look, the more I find. I'm going to stop before this becomes "The Post That Ate A Web Page".

[Mordae]

I just noticed that that in the new art style, Giant has drawn the bending of boots/shoes as people are walking.

[Ruck]

Here's the thing with electrum. Currency in D&D has always been pretty straightforward: 10 copper pieces equal one silver, 10 silvers equal one gold, 10 gold equal one platinum. So getting 138,6 silver (say, as a share of loot) easily translates to 13 gold, 8 silver, 6 copper. Some worlds use different materials (e.g. Dark Sun replaces gold with steel) but the principle holds.

And then there's the electrum piece, which is worth half a gold piece. Yeah, that's just weird and makes the math awkward (and while everybody has heard of gold, many people have no idea what "electrum" is supposed to be), so players tended to ignore them. They were removed for third and fourth edition, and returned in fifth where they are again mostly ignored. This is why the oracle doesn't want them either.

Thanks for the explanation. That seems to be the key information I was missing.

Does that include putting it in a comic strip?

Or hamfisted product placement, for that matter?

Do the mail calls (#33 and 121) count?

EDIT: And #259?

I don't know if the mail calls count, but I think everything else here does. (And I'm on the fence whether Larry Gardener and Frudu and the One True Ming count because they're parodies, not direct references.) It's all academic anyway; I think we've enough evidence to answer Darth Paul's question in post #348 in the affirmative. (edit: And he even found more in the time it took me to write this post.)

[Dr. Gamera]

Currency in D&D has always been pretty straightforward: 10 copper pieces equal one silver, 10 silvers equal one gold, 10 gold equal one platinum.

"always"?!

http://oldguygaming.com/currency

[TheWombatOfDoom]

If you guys have things to add, I have created a list explaining all real world or other wise references within the comic!

The Annotated Order of the Stick

[Rift_Wolf]

In 640, Darth V is in the same pose (pointing and talking) in three panels (one flipped and one with disintegrate)