OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread

[multilis]

Yes, that Rich, ridiculously thinking that Bandana and Andi are characters he made up and controls entirely, such that if he writes a conflict in such a way that Bandana is clearly in the right and Andi is clearly in the wrong, it means Bandana is clearly in the right and Andi is clearly in the wrong, instead of being vile slander of the innocent Andi.

I am not saying Andi is right but your argument there seems like straw man, you are misrepresenting what other guy is saying.

Person A does something that is debatable whether right or wrong ("morally justified debate"). Author feels person A is wrong, so in order to prejudice the audience against person A, railroads them to act silly in completely unrelated actions in order to make the original action look silly by association. That is argument other guy is making. If argument was made on a Dominic Deagan Oracle for Hire thread then the mob of regular snarkers would automatically agree.

(I am not saying I agree with argument, but simply repeating it without worrying about whether it is correct)


Often the morally justified arguments come down to peoples bias against a certain type of person... eg Game of Thrones the "High Sparrow" is considered a main villain by some reviewers while Cersei was not despite Cersei having much bigger list of causing death, destruction pain and suffering on innocent people for more selfish motives. It seems to me to come down to some people despising the "self sacrificing religious zealout" with same bias that some despise people based on skin color, which lead to Miko getting extra hate here compared to others like Roy and V who made similar mistakes and "morally debatable" choices.

[Mightymosy]

Slut shaming and transphobic jokes have a very different connotation than jokes about certain careers, so how about you don't ****ing conflate them. And don't refer to trans people as "transgenders."

You're right, these stupid engineers should just stop being so oversensitive. Serves these socially inapt nerds right choosing such career choices. What was I possibly thinking other people had a right in feeling alienated? Especially people who only play such an insignificant role in this story anyway, compared to the poor trans gender people who are constantly mis-portrayed in every single strip.

Necronomicon, I see your point.

[Rynjin]

Slut shaming and transphobic jokes have a very different connotation than jokes about certain careers, so how about you don't ****ing conflate them. And don't refer to trans people as "transgenders."

The **** do you think "trans" is short for? Transmission?

[Onyavar]

Back to topic.

Previously, I believed that the Giant was either working towards "Crashed Mechane, Order has to walk" or towards "Mechane under Andi's command throws Order+Bandana off at Firmament." Now...

If Andi were truly such a great leader as some people believe, she would be barking the right orders so that the Mechane steers out of the mess; and ignoring all distractions.
Well, she isn't. And while Bandana is a competent leader, she is not the one who will simply re-take command of the Mechane in the next two strips by herself - either by giving sensible advice to Andi, who can only repeat that advice; or even by barking the right commands while still tied up and while Andi hops around like an angry Rumpelstilzkin. Bandana isn't THAT great a leader. She was doing okay in the Thunderstorm crisis, but in the adventure fight against Giants, she wasn't charismatic enough to hold the ship together. That's why the crisis broke out. It revolves around CHARISMA, and the lack thereof. That's the stat for leadership. Who on board has the highest amount of it?

So really, I'm now pretty certain this is all a stage-up for Elan to take command. He can swoop to the bridge on a rope and say that he fixed the balloon. He'll look around and see that bad situation. Instead of being confused, he realizes that the ship is going to crash, and tell Mateo where to steer. That done, he'll tell the crew to get Bandana untied. Andi protests and is told to go fixing the ship, which she does. Elan takes the onlooking fighters to flank the giants together with him, and thus saves Roy and the day.

In the end, Elan can basically fix things in a casual way thanks to his high charisma, like only Julio did previously. Then he will be flabberghasted when the crew including A+B tells him he is their ideal captain.

[SilverCacaobean]

He's still evil and trying to dominate the world in the name of an evil-aligned deity. And he constantly gets put down by Xykon, most recently and most pointedly in the arc at the North Pole, you know, "Logic is overrated gibberish", mocking Redcloak as being beholden to math textbooks, "That's why you're a nerd that nobody likes," etc.

Yeah, but he's the most sympathetic villain. And Xykon has said both those things but if he had followed RC's advice, the MitD could not have tricked them, which makes Xykon short-sighted and wrong.

The point the author was making with the flashback is that Andi thought it was more important to do [insert random complex school subject here] rather than bother trying to properly supervise or bond with Bandana, and by extension to the present-day situation conveying the message that her "book smarts" are worthless in a leadership position because she doesn't know how to handle people and stressful situations.

That's not how I read it at all. More like she put her studies aside, until she was done with the brat. She wasn't wrong then for wanting to study. Even Bandana doesn't contest her that she was pigheaded. It's that Andi hasn't gotten over it and seen that Bandana has changed. Tbh, I sympathize with teenage Andi. Adult Andi, not so much.
I could be wrong and Rich may have wanted to show what you say, but the fact it can be read like I read it, means it's not an anvil.

However, I'm going to agree with you on the intelligence thing. Most intelligent characters in the comic are either evil or very snide and contemptuous. Well, there's Roy (whom I see firstly as a tactician and strategist, so intelligence is part of his career but not his class) but still he's snide.

I don't really think that Rich means anything by that, though. Writers have so much in their minds that there's always a slip or an unintentional message. I don't think he's overdone it yet, either. I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't drawn my attention to it.

EDIT:

she wasn't charismatic enough to hold the ship together.

Charismatic? She was doing fine. Only Andi had a problem. What should she have done? She called her captain a "spoiled brat". What exacly is the "charismatic" way to deal with that?

I'll be very disappointed if this gets resolved via D&D mechanics and stats. ("Charisma is the leaders' stat")
There are more important things to leading than that.

[Nightcanon]

So Bandana is so immature that she calls herself by a nickname she made up when she was 8.

I see nothing in the comic that indicates that Bandana is a nickname that B made up for herself as an 8 year old, only that her mother calls her something different at that stage.

[Nightcanon]

The **** do you think "trans" is short for? Transmission?

The trans is short for transgender, as in 'transgender people'. I think the OP is indicating that 'transgenders' is not an acceptable abbreviation of 'transgender people', in the same way that a person with epilepsy is not 'an epileptic'.

[Takver]

He's still evil and trying to dominate the world in the name of an evil-aligned deity. And he constantly gets put down by Xykon, most recently and most pointedly in the arc at the North Pole, you know, "Logic is overrated gibberish", mocking Redcloak as being beholden to math textbooks, "That's why you're a nerd that nobody likes," etc.

But that's Xykon talking, not Rich. Xykon also called Vaarsuvius and O-Chul "sickening pouches of warm goo." Is Rich saying that humans (and elves) are disgusting because we're made of flesh? Of course not; it was Xykon's perspective as an undead skeleton, and his mocking of Redcloak's logic is just his desire to put down Redcloak and his personal contempt for what he sees as overthinking things. It has nothing to do with Rich's thoughts about STEM majors.

[Dr.Zero]

I mean, if you gave an alternative that wasn't almost certainly going to result in them getting lost in the mountains, stalled while under fire, taken down by the giants they passed earlier (as opposed to the ones Haley, V and Belkar are successfully dealing with), crashed into a mountain or some combination of the above, I must have missed it, and would appreciate having it repeated.

Paganini doesn't repeat.
Really, why should I care?
For example, the Leeroy Jenkins meme is not about how fast you can move, while you go stupidly inside an enemy zone where you'll get killed, it is not about athletic capacity.
So, just seeing from that kind of comments, why should I waste my time?

Anyway, if you are so interested (but I hope you aren't, there are better things you can do with your time as well), you can start from here and move backward.

[martianmister]

But that's Xykon talking, not Rich. Xykon also called Vaarsuvius and O-Chul "sickening pouches of warm goo." Is Rich saying that humans (and elves) are disgusting because we're made of flesh?

Probably.

[Shining Wrath]

The **** do you think "trans" is short for? Transmission?

"trans people" is generally viewed as more polite than "transgenders". I will leave it as an exercise for the student why.

[sabremeister]

Paganini doesn't repeat.
Really, why should I care?
For example, the Leeroy Jenkins meme is not about how fast you can move, while you go stupidly inside an enemy zone where you'll get killed, it is not about athletic capacity.
So, just seeing from that kind of comments, why should I waste my time?

Anyway, if you are so interested (but I hope you aren't, there are better things you can do with your time as well), you can start from here and move backward.

Arrogant, lazy, declining to clear up the contested point, and abdicating of responsibility to provide support for you own arguments.

I don't think anyone could have written a better demonstration of how to commit debate-suicide

[Unoriginal]

I really don't like to criticize Rich, because this is his story and not mine, but seriously? This is just an excuse for Bandana to be as crappy a leader as she's always been.

Care to explain what makes you consider Bandana a crappy leader?

It feels like an excuse to delegitimize Andi by giving her a crappy reason to do what she did

What she did was not legitimate in the first place, and her reason for it was always this crappy. It's not a new development.

present Bandana as superior merely because Andi is so wrong.

it's Andi who's doing the reverse, in-universe.

Honestly, I feel like Rich is playing favorites with Bandana, excusing her actions because he likes her

Bandana has no action she needs excusing for.

[Shining Wrath]

I feel we've reached the point where people who argued for Andi's side are now arguing that Rich should have written a different story where Andi was right, or more right-ish.

The author, obviously, knew why Andi did what she did, and whether or not the rest of the crew felt the same way, and whether or not Bandana was properly trained to be captain, and so on. All the things we've be squabbling over from our various head canons, Rich either *knows* with perfect accuracy, or doesn't care about enough to know. These characters exist first in his mind before we ever see them. The denouement of the current battle is known to Rich Burlew, and whether or not the crew of the Mechane would have been better off flying straight or turning is known already in Rich's mind.

Now we get to a strip where Andi is clearly wrong, with immature motivations and incompetent leadership, and people make complaints such as Rich "likes Bandana better". He's been writing and drawing Bandana as more likable and right (or more right-ish) all along, and some of us didn't see it. That may speak to Rich's storytelling abilities, although arguably dramatic tension is being created by leaving us in doubt about Andi's motivations until now.

[GrayGriffin]

You're right, these stupid engineers should just stop being so oversensitive. Serves these socially inapt nerds right choosing such career choices. What was I possibly thinking other people had a right in feeling alienated? Especially people who only play such an insignificant role in this story anyway, compared to the poor trans gender people who are constantly mis-portrayed in every single strip.

Necronomicon, I see your point.

I never said that jokes about engineers weren't hurtful, so don't ****ing put words in my mouth. You don't even know what my job is. (For the record, I'm a research assistant, which is also a "nerd" job.) And you're the one who said no one should be insulted, so I was simply pointing out why "engineers shouldn't feel insulted" isn't equivalent to "trans people shouldn't feel insulted."

[JumboWheat01]

But that's Xykon talking, not Rich. Xykon also called Vaarsuvius and O-Chul "sickening pouches of warm goo." Is Rich saying that humans (and elves) are disgusting because we're made of flesh?

HK-47 would most certainly say we're quite the disgusting meatbags.

And really, when you think about it, we are disgusting creatures. Well, maybe us humans. Those elves are just weird in the first place, so sparkly, so clean, so "better than though." Jerks.

[AvatarVecna]

You're right, these stupid engineers should just stop being so oversensitive. Serves these socially inapt nerds right choosing such career choices. What was I possibly thinking other people had a right in feeling alienated? Especially people who only play such an insignificant role in this story anyway, compared to the poor trans gender people who are constantly mis-portrayed in every single strip.

Necronomicon, I see your point.

The issue isn't with the message you were trying to get across (that everybody has a right to complain, but that everybody should be able to laugh at jokes about themselves or groups they're part of without getting offended and making it political); ignoring that those points seem to semi-contradict each other, I think both of them are decent enough points, if a bit more nuanced. People should be allowed to voice their criticism - and indeed, nobody has stopped Necronomicon from stating their opinion, because that's how freedom of speech works...and similarly, people responded to them in kind, stating their own opinion on this comic's possible stance against engineers (I probably don't need to tell you that many of the people who responded, a number of whom were also engineers, didn't consider this to be such a negative stance), but that sharing of opinions is good, and important to have. The second point also has merit: sometimes, people get offended by something that's just poking fun, as opposed to something that's deliberate and blatant discrimination being disguised as humor, and when people get offended by something that nobody else (including others who the thing is supposedly picking on) is getting offended by, it's possible that the person getting offended is the one in the wrong. The issue isn't with the points you're making, it's with how you went about making it.

Nobody is saying you don't have the right to complain about issues you see, but you're a piece of **** for even daring to compare your plight to that of people who have actually been discriminated and oppressed. Necronomicon brought up the most egregious example I know of of anti-engineer "discrimination" by mentioning The Big Bang Theory, but BBT isn't anywhere near as offensive as the Black Face routines of the past I've seen it compared to (by others elsewhere; you and Necronomicon have, to the best of my knowledge, not been so un-self-aware as to compare what you view as anti-engineer bias to the highly offensive minstrel shows of the past).

The issue people have taken with your post telling everybody to calm down is the idea that these issues are equal: that one engineer's issue with this arc's seeming anti-engineer bias (and it's worth mentioning that many other engineers have popped up in-thread to express how they don't really view this as such bias) does not make it even remotely comparable to the discrimination and bias faced by trans people. The "Ever-Reliable Engineer" stereotype is far more prevalent than the "cripplingly socially inept engineer" stereotype, and shows that have characters emphasizing both good and bad intellectuals (most detective/true crime/court drama shows) are almost absurdly common and popular; meanwhile, you can barely swing a stick without hitting a show that's done a "that lady's actually a dude! MOCK THEM, LAUGH AT THEM FOR BEING DIFFERENT!" joke, and unlike Engineers, gay people and trans people have gotten assaulted or killed purely for being gay/trans often enough for it to be an actual legal defense. Trans people are considered acceptable targets, and have been for a long time, and the fact of the matter is that even if the supposed anti-engineer bias in this arc (and the supposed anti-intellectualism bias perpetuating throughout this comic as a whole) was actually real and totally intentional, it would still be sickening seeing it compared to real discrimination.

[pendell]

Back to topic.

Well, she isn't. And while Bandana is a competent leader, she is not the one who will simply re-take command of the Mechane in the next two strips by herself - either by giving sensible advice to Andi, who can only repeat that advice; or even by barking the right commands while still tied up and while Andi hops around like an angry Rumpelstilzkin.

Considering that Andi is going to consider all Bandanna's advice wrong, the most likely way for Bandanna to have any influence is to advise Andi to do the exact opposite of the thing Bandanna actually wants. Surely we've dealt with people like that? If you tell them "right", they'll go left purely out of spite. So you say "left" instead, and get the right turn you want.

Someone mentioned that Andi's refusal to recognize growth in Bandanna is the same as Durkula's refusal to recognize growth in Durkon from his worst day.

Gosh, I hope so. Rich has spent more than a real-time month on the interplay between these two characters , and I hope it has some payoff for the overall book.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[martianmister]

What do you like about her?

Her personality.

[ZMiles]

My bet is that the ship is going to get hemmed in by a mountain that is just barely too tall for them to get over and will be chased by pursuing enemies, which will force the crew to try to jettison weight to get light enough to top the mountain. And eventually they'll have to chop off most of the ship so that the somewhat depleted balloon can still get the rest (maybe just the deck and the balloon itself) over the mountain and to Firnament, permanently destroying the ship in the process. Bandana won't want to--she sees the ship as a chance to prove herself as captain, which is basically her entire motivation at this point--and Andi won't either--she's fixed the ship for 15 years and can't bear to see it damaged or lost. So they'll both have an 'evolve or die' choice like Belkar did so long ago.

----

I agree that this seems to be setting up a street smarts (Bandana, who got experience watching her parents take orders) being better than book smarts (Andi, who went to school) scenario.

And I maintain that if Bandana had insisted Roy explain what exactly was going on back at the Godsmoot, rather than accept the 'nuts, we don't have crayons' thing, a lot of this could have been prepared for and avoided--if only by the crew knowing in advance they would probably be dealing with frost giant enemies (since the Frost Giant demigod voted on Hel's side and they are passing through his territory as part of a plan to frustrate Hel's schemes) and having a chance to mentally prepare for it. Doesn't excuse Andi hitting Bandana, but it doesn't make Bandana's blase attitude look good either.

[Yendor]

Considering that Andi is going to consider all Bandanna's advice wrong, the most likely way for Andi to have any influence is to advise Andi to do the exact opposite of the thing Bandanna actually wants. Surely we've dealt with people like that? If you tell them "right", they'll go left purely out of spite. So you say "left" instead, and get the right turn you want.

"Andi, don't jump off the side of the ship."

[Quibblicious]

My sister does. She choose the name she uses to this day back in like first or second grade. She's 35.

Boo-Boo Kitty is your sister?

Pleased to meet you!

Q

[Quibblicious]

EDIT:

I believe Freud's last words on his deathbed were "Oh, to be Jung again".

Socrates last words were "I drank what?"

Jokes aside, it was something about a chicken: "Crito, we owe a <rooster> to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt."

Q

[Unoriginal]

I agree that this seems to be setting up a street smarts (Bandana, who got experience watching her parents take orders) being better than book smarts (Andi, who went to school) scenario.

Bandana trained for years to be a competent leader. Her watching her folks take orders was the motivation to get a different path of life, not how she learned.

And again, Andi's inability at leadership has nothing to do with her training. She's been deliberately *not* acting like the chief engineer, and is a bad captain for reasons that are not related to her job.

And I maintain that if Bandana had insisted Roy explain what exactly was going on back at the Godsmoot, rather than accept the 'nuts, we don't have crayons' thing, a lot of this could have been prepared for and avoided--if only by the crew knowing in advance they would probably be dealing with frost giant enemies (since the Frost Giant demigod voted on Hel's side and they are passing through his territory as part of a plan to frustrate Hel's schemes) and having a chance to mentally prepare for it. Doesn't excuse Andi hitting Bandana, but it doesn't make Bandana's blase attitude look good either.

No one in the Order even realized that being attacked by the other gods' followers was a possibility, and I don't think anyone else would have thought about it, given how distant gods are usually. Though I'm pretty sure people were warned that the ride was going to be eventful. There was no more reason to expect Frost Giant attacks than giant Wolves and other monsters attacks because Fenrir voted for Hel.

[Shining Wrath]

Socrates last words were "I drank what?"

Jokes aside, it was something about a chicken: "Crito, we owe a <rooster> to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt."

Q

Ascelpius being an aspect of Apollo - Socrates had, supposedly, prayed for an easy death from the hemlock, and was paying his debt to the god.

If we believe the Andi:Bandana::Durkula:Durkon thesis, the link needs to be Roy; Roy is the only one who will be able to use the "Andi didn't realize Bandana wasn't a kid any longer" story to help Durkon. But ...

Maybe Roy is the one who will be helped. Roy becomes a vampire; Evil Roy shows up in his head with a MWAHAHAHAHAHA and shows him his own worst moment (probably the death of his brother), and Roy says "Ah but ...", and remembers this moment (among others) and becomes the first person ever to kick a vampire out of his head. And then explains how to do it to Durkon.

It would be a plot twist from hell - or from Hel.

I think this is very unlikely, as Malack's staff is no longer with us.

[ZMiles]

Bandana trained for years to be a competent leader. Her watching her folks take orders was the motivation to get a different path of life, not how she learned.

And again, Andi's inability at leadership has nothing to do with her training. She's been deliberately *not* acting like the chief engineer, and is a bad captain for reasons that are not related to her job.

See, I don't agree that Andi has been derelict in her job (and not just because she must be skilled or she wouldn't have been kept around for 15-odd years in the first place). She first approached Bandana when the ship was taking damage all over and she thought it would fall apart soon--and as the chief engineer, part of her job is telling the captain when that happens. If she had just stayed, head-down working on some problem and never told Bandana the ship's damage was more severe than it might have seemed from the deck, she would have been failing in her job.

Almost immediately later, Haley and V jumped ship. And Andi told Bandana, because that's also part of the crew's job--letting the captain know things like "hey, two of our high level adventurers just jumped off".

And then finally the giants got aboard, the ship took even more damage, and Andi again reiterated the state of the ship to Bandana by describing everything that was breaking down and how it would be destroyed if they kept going. At which point Bandana refused to turn around and Andi mutinied.

I don't see any point in there where the right thing to do would be to go work on some patch job instead of informing Bandana about the crucial things happening to the ship that Bandana wouldn't know were happening--because she's not the engineer--but Andi does.

No one in the Order even realized that being attacked by the other gods' followers was a possibility, and I don't think anyone else would have thought about it, given how distant gods are usually. Though I'm pretty sure people were warned that the ride was going to be eventful. There was no more reason to expect Frost Giant attacks than giant Wolves and other monsters attacks because Fenrir voted for Hel.

The Order didn't know they would be crossing Frost Giant territory specifically (Bandana had the map). If Roy had told Bandana what was happening, who had voted to blow things up, and what their reasons were (including the Frost Giant god hiding his reason), that could have clued Bandana in to the potential problem (especially since Bandana knew the pass and knew they'd be more or less constrained at this point in the journey--if they're going to be attacked, it's probably here, and Frost Giant god has the home turf advantage). It could, at the very least, have given her the chance to tell the crew the gods are involved and so this could be much more dangerous than anticipated, again giving them fair warning and letting them get mentally prepared. Instead, it seems most of the crew--including Andi, critically--thought this would be a routine 'take Order from here to there' mission, and aren't handling the shift well.

[theNater]

...as the chief engineer, part of her job is telling the captain when that happens.

Between the start of the attack and hitting Bandana with a wrench, Andi delivers 19 sentences across 16 speech bubbles. Four of them(each in their own speech bubble) are about the condition of the ship. That is low information density.

I don't see any point in there where the right thing to do would be to go work on some patch job instead of informing Bandana about the crucial things happening to the ship that Bandana wouldn't know were happening--because she's not the engineer--but Andi does.

Being the engineer does not give Andi any special insight into the behavior of adventurers. Maybe she could have done a little patching instead of telling Bandana something literally any person on the ship(Bandana included) could see with their own eyes?

The Order didn't know they would be crossing Frost Giant territory specifically (Bandana had the map).

The pass isn't Frost Giant territory. Direct quote from Bandana: "I ain't never even heard of no Frost Giants clogging up this pass..."

[yldenfrei]

The Order didn't know they would be crossing Frost Giant territory specifically (Bandana had the map). If Roy had told Bandana what was happening, who had voted to blow things up, and what their reasons were (including the Frost Giant god hiding his reason), that could have clued Bandana in to the potential problem (especially since Bandana knew the pass and knew they'd be more or less constrained at this point in the journey--if they're going to be attacked, it's probably here, and Frost Giant god has the home turf advantage). It could, at the very least, have given her the chance to tell the crew the gods are involved and so this could be much more dangerous than anticipated, again giving them fair warning and letting them get mentally prepared. Instead, it seems most of the crew--including Andi, critically--thought this would be a routine 'take Order from here to there' mission, and aren't handling the shift well.

Asking Bandana to preempt a God-orchestrated Frost Giant ambush strategy is very ridiculous. That Roy or V were not able to anticipate such heavy-handed interference from the pro-destruction side is enough of an indication that this ambush wouldn't have been avoided/mitigated. Dear gods, doesn't anyone really get the meaning of AMBUSH??

At this point, I don't even trust Andi's assessment of the ship anymore. Right after her wailings of "the ship is falling apart!! We're gonna die!" and the whacking of the captain, her subsequent regard for the ship is a mere query to the engine status (which apparently was still functioning, same as back when she was crying wolf). So what is it really? Is it falling apart or not?

EDIT: Excuse my language but "mentally prepared" my ass. I will keep repeating what I said: OF THE ENTIRE CREW, ONLY ANDI FREAKED OUT AND LOST HER MARBLES. NO ONE ELSE. Why is there such an intense need to coddle the ever-so-special-snowflake Andi with all these justifications and regard for her well-being in a situation that everyone else is getting by adequately??

[The_Weirdo]

Someone mentioned that Andi's refusal to recognize growth in Bandanna is the same as Durkula's refusal to recognize growth in Durkon from his worst day.

Actually, it's worse.

"You are who you are on your worst day." is at least a tenable argument, even though it's way too cynical and pessimistic.

"You are who you are when you were 8." uttered to an adult is plain and simply insane.

[Unoriginal]

See, I don't agree that Andi has been derelict in her job [...]I don't see any point in there where the right thing to do would be to go work on some patch job instead of informing Bandana about the crucial things happening to the ship that Bandana wouldn't know were happening--because she's not the engineer-

Regardless of if informing the captain was better than patching up the ship or not (Bandana seemed to think it was acceptable up to a point, as she didn't tell Andi to stop complaining and start fixing before a while), I was referring to how she didn't do her engineer duties when ordered to go repair the ship instead of standing next to the captain, and how she is currently not doing her engineer job because she's assumed command/is debating with the person she subdued.

The Order didn't know they would be crossing Frost Giant territory specifically (Bandana had the map).

This is not Frost Giant territory, it's usually a pretty safe pass through which treasure-filled airships go all the time.

Unless you meant "it's in the mountains, therefore Frost Giants might be there", in which case the entire Order saw the mountains, they didn't need the map.

If Roy had told Bandana what was happening, who had voted to blow things up, and what their reasons were (including the Frost Giant god hiding his reason), that could have clued Bandana in to the potential problem (especially since Bandana knew the pass and knew they'd be more or less constrained at this point in the journey--if they're going to be attacked, it's probably here, and Frost Giant god has the home turf advantage). It could, at the very least, have given her the chance to tell the crew the gods are involved and so this could be much more dangerous than anticipated, again giving them fair warning and letting them get mentally prepared. Instead, it seems most of the crew--including Andi, critically--thought this would be a routine 'take Order from here to there' mission, and aren't handling the shift well.

The gods being involved doesn't really imply that there would be an army, or even anything, sent against them. While I agree that everyone involved, the Order included, probably thought it would just be a travel with maybe one or two appropriate-level encounters, and that it was probably too nonchallant of them, the Godsmoot's events didn't really gave them reasons to think the gods would, or even could, do more to influence the outcome. The Clerics all agreed on not starting an open fight by supporting either side, after all.

The Frost Giant God sending an army will probably lead to an escalation of conflict, or at least have every gods go talk to their agents on the mortal plane to tell them who they should help.

Which beg the question if the dwarf lords are going to be warned by a bunch of priests from different religions that vampires will come for their skin because they want to commit voter fraud.