Question About Serini's Diary (SoD Spoilers and Very, Very Old OOTS Spoilers)

[Hyper_Antigone]

Hi friends! I was reading through some of the comic's back catalog, and something that Xykon said way back when threw me off a little. Hoping we can figure it out!

Specifically, in OOTS #196 (The Diary), Xykon said that "when [he] first found the diary, [he] deciphered the locations of two of the gates: Lirian's gate, which was SOMEHOW destroyed in a forest fire before it could be unlocked, and Dorukan's gate".

However, in SoD, Redcloak said during his meeting with Xykon (pg. 41) that the Dark One learned of the existence of the gates when a goblin cleric accidentally stumbled across the rift in Lirian's forest. As I understand it, all of the knowledge the Dark One subsequently acquired - about the Snarl, the nature of the rift, and the location of the first rift - was imparted to Redcloak when he put on the Crimson Mantle.

Moreover, SoD depicts the incident Xykon was talking about, where the forest got burned down and the gate was destroyed, and there was nothing in there about the diary. It seemed to me, based on the events in SoD, that Redcloak just told Xykon where Lirian's gate was, since the Dark One had told him. But in the main comic, Xykon made it seem like he'd figured out the location of Lirian's gate by decoding Serini's diary.

Was Xykon just trying to make himself seem smarter and less reliant on Redcloak? Was this a continuity error? Or am I just missing something here?

Thanks much!

[Kish]

Xykon deciphered Serini's coordinate system and translated the coordinates of two Gates, thus locating Dorukan's gate by where it was relative to Lirian's Gate (which he already knew the location of).

His phrasing made it sound like he and the diary played more of a role in finding Lirian's Gate than they had (and indeed I would be surprised if it wasn't a retcon; Rich hadn't planned Start of Darkness out yet), but what he said was technically accurate, and it's not like the creature in the darkness retained any of it anyway.

[NerdyKris]

He used the location of Lirian's gate that he knew to decypher the location of Dorukan's gate. Then they had to decipher the locations of the remaining three gates once Dorukan's was no longer available, as stated in strip #300, because he had no reason to bother with the others until then.

[martianmister]

Watsonian answer: Xykon is overestating his role, as he always do.
Doylist answer: It'a retcon.

[Rogar Demonblud]

He used the location of Lirian's gate that he knew to decypher the location of Dorukan's gate. Then they had to decipher the locations of the remaining three gates once Dorukan's was no longer available, as stated in strip #300, because he had no reason to bother with the others until then.

This. It's basic codebreaking to use something you know to crack what you don't know. The most famous example being the Rosetta Stone.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

This. It's basic codebreaking to use something you know to crack what you don't know. The most famous example being the Rosetta Stone.

Or how Troy was found: by starting from known locations in the Iliad, and working backwards. For example, in this case, the directions to the different gates might have been from a central point that would have been known to the Scribblers, and thus Serini didn't need to record other than by name (e.g. "our base of operations"). The forest gate then would be "From our base of operations, travel 80 miles to the northwest, then East along the river". From the known location, then you can start narrowing down what the central point might be (still not trivial, mind you, as you can see from my example: reversing them means figuring out when you would leave the river to start moving towards the southeast).

Grey Wolf