OOTS #1076 - The Discussion Thread

[Quibblicious]

Because Elan is a rock star, obviously.

That's a rock solid observation.

Q

[ORione]

That's a rock solid observation.

Q

Well, we don't want to take him for granite.

[Jasdoif]

Well, we don't want to take him for granite.

That wouldn't be very gneiss.

[Quibblicious]

Well, we don't want to take him for granite.

He's a bedrock part of the organization.

Q

[Peelee]

Stop with the puns, ore I'm gonna get upset.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Yeah, guys, these are some really schisty puns.

[goodpeople25]

Shale I slate you both in for a complaint at 8 then? I don't want to rock the boat but if you can't make it then tuff.

[danielxcutter]

Ooh, those puns are stone cold. I don't think my mind can sand them for much longer, and I might have to gravel for you to stop, which may not work since they're your earthly delights. Then again, I may be making a mountain out of a molehill, and my reaction may have been of an excessive magmatude.

[Shining Wrath]

This continued string of puns shows true grit on the part of the forum. In the aggregate, they express my sediments pretty well. I can only sand in awe at the igneousuity displayed.

[Jasdoif]

Stop with the puns, ore I'm gonna get upset.

You mean this geological potpourri isn't what you smelt?

[2D8HP]

I'd like to contribute a pun, but my mine is blank.

[drazen]

Is anyone going to attempt a serious answer, or do I just have to assume that frost giants excrete boulders?

[Erys]

(because what's a forum without nitpicking?)

A better place for all, I'd wager...

[JumboWheat01]

Is anyone going to attempt a serious answer, or do I just have to assume that frost giants excrete boulders?

Maybe not frost giants, but I can totally see STONE giants doing that. And maybe they give their "boulders" to others to throw.

...And that's a bad mental image to self-inflict.

[Jasdoif]

Is anyone going to attempt a serious answer, or do I just have to assume that frost giants excrete boulders?

Your serious answer would be: It doesn't matter. You already said it's plausible for a rock to land on the deck, so what difference would it make whether it landed on the deck off-panel or not?

[Xyril]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1053.html

That comic doesn't depict any boulders actually making contact with the deck of the ship, but it does show at least a couple flying along trajectories that peak above the level of the deck, and could plausibly have landed on deck off panel.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Maybe not frost giants, but I can totally see STONE giants doing that. And maybe they give their "boulders" to others to throw.

...And that's a bad mental image to self-inflict.

If you hadn't, I would have.

[chaoticanarch]

If information on the plan hadn't been restricted to the captain, and they had a good communications system, a captain wouldn't have been necessary to save the day. Rich, this reads like an authoritarian power fantasy. I could not be more disappointed.

Trust in people. Given the right social systems, we can run a non-hierarchical society, even if we stumble at the first steps.

[GreatWyrmGold]

What plan? The plan that Bandanna made up several seconds before she implemented it?

[Quibblicious]

Is anyone going to attempt a serious answer, or do I just have to assume that frost giants excrete boulders?

Where do you think the term "<Excrete> a brick" came from?

Same thing but at a smaller scale.

Q

[drazen]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1053.html

That comic doesn't depict any boulders actually making contact with the deck of the ship, but it does show at least a couple flying along trajectories that peak above the level of the deck, and could plausibly have landed on deck off panel.

I only see two flying rocks there that would have even a remote chance of landing on deck, and they're with Roy at the complete opposite end of the ship from Bandana and the pirates.

If Roy hadn't picked up the rock and thrown it at the Frost Giant, I wouldn't even care, it would just be background art, showing the situation they're in.

But if the boulder is going to be an object that's actually used in the story, I just think we should actually get to see how it got there, directly. (I had the same issue with Roy's club, which ended up as bonus content in the books).

[Quibblicious]

Maybe not frost giants, but I can totally see STONE giants doing that. And maybe they give their "boulders" to others to throw.

...And that's a bad mental image to self-inflict.

So you're saying that giants are essentially monkeys at the zoo, flinging poo?

That changes my view of giants entirely...

Q

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I only see two flying rocks there that would have even a remote chance of landing on deck, and they're with Roy at the complete opposite end of the ship from Bandana and the pirates.

If Roy hadn't picked up the rock and thrown it at the Frost Giant, I wouldn't even care, it would just be background art, showing the situation they're in.

But if the boulder is going to be an object that's actually used in the story, I just think we should actually get to see how it got there, directly. (I had the same issue with Roy's club, which ended up as bonus content in the books).

We have seen rocks flying at the ship. We have also been away from wide shots of the ship often enough it is plausible for a rock to be on the deck without us seeing it actually arch, especially if there was no other significance to it arriving than "it hit nothing but the deck". It is effectively a missed shot, so it does not need introduction. You might as well complain that we didn't get the full backstory of how a random crew member had a sword he could lend Roy. Pirates have swords. Rocks are being tossed around at the ship. It is not in any way surprising someone was able to lend a weapon to Roy, nor that some of the rocks ended on board.

Grey Wolf

[hamishspence]

In #1051, Roy runs down from the steering wheel and there does not seem to be a rock on the deck behind the unnamed pirate in the foreground, so it could not have landed on the ship in #1050, when they first came under attack.

While it is plausible a rock could land on the deck, why didn't we actually see this happen?

(because what's a forum without nitpicking?)

At the very start of 1051, there's a high-trajectory rock:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1051.html

that looks like it could land close to the quarterdeck.

When Roy runs down the steps from the quarterdeck to the main deck, we can't see the area near the quarterdeck - and in the next shot of Roy, he's some way down the main deck.

The rock seen in 1066 is close enough to the quarterdeck

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1066.html


that I could believe Roy had already run past it, in 1051.

[Shining Wrath]

We didn't see everything that happened during the battle. We have seen giants come running down the mountainside and leap onto the deck, which means at least some giants are above the flight path of the Mechane, which makes it plausible that a boulder could have been rolled down the mountain (accidentally or not) and landed on the deck.

We also know from lore that giants carry bags with lots of things in them, including throwing-size rocks. In fact, given the snowy terrain, it's plausible that the giants brought all their ammunition with them, as finding convenient rocks might be difficult in the snow. This means that either of the two giants could have had the rock in their bag or hammerspace and then dropped it on the deck.

[drazen]

At the very start of 1051, there's a high-trajectory rock:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1051.html

that looks like it could land close to the quarterdeck.

Given the ship is illustrated as zipping along, it should miss or fall short on that path (Also, those are some weird trajectory differences, now that I look at it... one guy flung one way up in the air, but many others look too low to even hit the ship).

Plus, the boulder on deck looks nearly round, and the one you cite seems to have a chunk out of one size.

We have seen rocks flying at the ship. We have also been away from wide shots of the ship often enough it is plausible for a rock to be on the deck without us seeing it actually arch, especially if there was no other significance to it arriving than "it hit nothing but the deck". It is effectively a missed shot, so it does not need introduction. You might as well complain that we didn't get the full backstory of how a random crew member had a sword he could lend Roy. Pirates have swords. Rocks are being tossed around at the ship. It is not in any way surprising someone was able to lend a weapon to Roy, nor that some of the rocks ended on board.

Grey Wolf

The pirate sword analogy is ridiculous. We've seen the pirates many times, and we've seen them armed with swords. Of course there could be one with a sword. He was even hiding out after Roy said "Stay back, I'll handle this," so his position made sense.

Your analogy is as if I'd asked "Where did the giants get all the rocks from to throw at the ship?" which would be a silly question. They're in the high mountains, which generally have lots of rocks, so there's no point to wondering where the rocks came from. But if Roy is going to pick up and throw a boulder that landed on the ship that wasn't originally there, then yes, I'd like to see it actually landing on the deck. I just find it sloppy not to. It would be similar to if when Roy was fighting Thog in the arena, we never saw Ian slip him a potion that he then used as an improvised weapon. It's perfectly plausible that the rogue did something sneaky or that Roy had something on him, but the best writing would be actually showing it happening. The full sequence was shown in the arena, but there is no reason to just assume a boulder landed on the deck.

It should have been a pretty tough shot for a boulder to land on the deck. Most, if not all, seemed to be hitting the bottom and sides of the ship. A higher trajectory would be more likely to hit the balloon than the deck.

It had been bugging me for a while that I didn't remember the boulder on deck; I just had not had the spare time to re-read all the mountain pass strips to see where it came from until recently.

[Jasdoif]

It's perfectly plausible that the rogue did something sneaky or that Roy had something on him, but the best writing would be actually showing it happening.

What advantage would adding a panel dedicated to showing the boulder landing on the deck contribute to the writing? It seems to me like it'd be drawing out the conflict, blunting the overall pacing, for no real gain.

[Goblin_Priest]

I concur. We've seen the giants hurl boulders at the Mechane. We've seen them hit the Mechane. I fail to see any point to seeing a boulder specifically *land* on the Mechane.

[Goblin_Priest]

Given the ship is illustrated as zipping along, it should miss or fall short on that path (Also, those are some weird trajectory differences, now that I look at it... one guy flung one way up in the air, but many others look too low to even hit the ship).

Plus, the boulder on deck looks nearly round, and the one you cite seems to have a chunk out of one size.

That boulder could have landed on an arc, it's hard to judge these things in a 2d comic strip. That line could mean it flew over the Mechane just as well as it could mean it was going to hit the Mechane like a mortar shell.

The following panels seem to show giants that are, roughly, at the Mechane's height. These could easily throw boulders on deck without using exaggerated throwing arcs.

Finally, in the panel where Roy hives instructions to V, we see a boulder flying over deck, with the "woosh", that boulder could have landed on deck. Given the rapid loss of upwards momentum (the arc starts by going pretty much straight up, and by the end of the arc it's almost going at 90 degrees, seems plausible to me.

Showing a boulder land could have been integrated into an existing panel, but I don't think that boulder had enough significance to warrant going out of the way to show it.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Furthermore, Rich already did spend half a page showing a projectile hitting nothing of importance. Nothing would be gained by repeating such joke, and therefore using even a single panel showing a boulder land on the deck and not hit anyone would be a literal waste of one panel. Especially given how irrelevant the rock is to the overall scene: Roy tried and failed to use it as a weapon, and Elan used it as a stool. That's it. Chekhov's Gun this ain't.

This whole nit-pick comes across as ridiculous, to be honest. Complaining for complaining's sake.

Grey Wolf