El Goonish ShIVe: Damn It, Dan, Stop Teasing Us!

[Grey_Wolf_c]

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Becuase the child was born under the effect of a love potion, the child's abiillty to experiance love was hampered--essentially he was predisposed to narasistic psychopathy

Wait, is that canon? I thought that was just a widespread fanon.

Also,

Spoiler: Second Example

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A second incident is the repeated attempts by Romilda Vane to get Harry to be her boyfriend by slipping him a love potion, which Ron ends up taking by mistake, and so warps his mind that he attacks Harry for not being as infatuated with Romilda as he is.

GW

[Douglas]

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The Harry Potter example of forced infatuation going horribly wrong?

Merope Gaunt was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin from a branch that was so inbred that they could barely magic--Merope never went to hogwarts and was abused by the others, and so wasn't able to magic until her father and brother ended up elsewhere.

she had a thing for a Muggle by the name of Tom Riddle and, once her incredibly racist relatives were gone,
she ensnared him with a love potion and ran off with him--even conceiving a child. Becuase the child was born under the effect of a love potion, the child's abiillty to experiance love was hampered--essentially he was predisposed to narasistic psychopathy, though WoG is that if he'd been raised with love the child would have turned out, if not a good person, than at least a fuctional and productive member of socity.

However, after the child was conceived, Merope stopped feeding Tom love potions--maybe she believed that he'd come to love her for real or maybe that he'd stay for the baby...

However... 1: The Riddles were a bunch of rich A-holes and Tom was no exception, and 2: Tom was justifiably horrified at being ensorcelled into loving and copulating with an ugly inbred hag with violent relatives. The second meant he ran at the first opportunity, and the first meant that he didn't give two craps about the child he left behind. Merope died of a broken heart after her son was born, living just long enough to name him Tom after his father and Marvolo after her own.(the implication is that she could have lived--could have used magic tokeep herself alive, but she chose to die. Although she wasn't tha t bright--she sold two proicless family herlooms, one which turned out to be an absurdly powerful artifact, for pocket change.)

For those of you who don't remember the climax of HPatCoS: "Tom Marvolo Riddle"="I am Lord Voldemort."

Wizard Hitler happened becuase an inbred idiot fell in love with a rich jackass and decided to make him become infatuated with her with magic, then died to leave him to be raised without what he needed to make him a good person despite that.

Is that background story shown in any of the movies, though? I don't remember anything about that in the movies (though it's been long enough I could easily have forgotten it), and Hanma is being educated specifically by watching the movies.

Wait, is that canon? I thought that was just a widespread fanon.

Also,

Spoiler: Second Example

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A second incident is the repeated attempts by Romilda Vane to get Harry to be her boyfriend by slipping him a love potion, which Ron ends up taking by mistake, and so warps his mind that he attacks Harry for not being as infatuated with Romilda as he is.

GW

That's the one I was thinking of. Just how bad does it get?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Is that background story shown in any of the movies, though? I don't remember anything about that in the movies (though it's been long enough I could easily have forgotten it), and Hanma is being educated specifically by watching the movies.

I don't recall myself, but it's a big detail to leave out. That said, in the books the focus is on Merope- she's portrayed as the victim, desperate to get herself a happy life, and making horrible decisions because she's been abused and simply can't figure out how to not be abusive herself.

That's the one I was thinking of. Just how bad does it get?

It's played for laughs, mostly, from what I can recall: Ron being particularly pathetic about his obsession.

Honestly, I also am unsure why someone'd pick the HP films to educate on the dangers of magical means of coercion. Maybe it's the scenes touching on the Imperio curse instead? Moody's lesson on it is quite well written, in the books at least.

Grey Wolf

[Qwertystop]

Agreed there. There's a couple of examples in HP... but Imperio is in fourth year, and all the love-potion stuff comes up in sixth, and none of it takes up a large fraction of the movies involved. That's a lot of movie-watching for a relatively small amount of relevant content, especially if they were starting from Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone to give background.

[Tono]

Huh. I thought referencing Ranma would be the low hanging fruit here. Its been a decade but I am preeeettttyyyyy sure that show would have mind control and bad involuntary magic in spades.

[Rater202]

Wait, is that canon? I thought that was just a widespread fanon.

*waves hand half-heartedly*

It's a little of both. It's based on something Rowling said, but a lot of people take it out of context to make it a bigger deal than it is--Joe's line was that being conceived under the effect of a love potion was a contributing factor to how Voldemort ended up, while some people blame the whole thing on it.

At the same time, Rowling said that he wouldn't have gotten as bad if he'd been raised with love, so...

[Vinyadan]

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she had a thing for a Muggle by the name of Tom Riddle and, once her incredibly racist relatives were gone,
she ensnared him with a love potion and ran off with him--even conceiving a child. Becuase the child was born under the effect of a love potion, the child's abiillty to experiance love was hampered--essentially he was predisposed to narasistic psychopathy, though WoG is that if he'd been raised with love the child would have turned out, if not a good person, than at least a fuctional and productive member of socity.

You know, I would have expected the opposite -- being raised with love bringing him to be good while not healing his mental handicap.

Anyway, it's an interesting story, because 1. HP and his parents love and so on and 2. JR herself is a single mother.

[Rater202]

You know, I would have expected the opposite -- being raised with love bringing him to be good while not healing his mental handicap.

IT's not so much a mental handicap as... Tom M. Riddle was an excellent student, very smart, very charismatic, a natural-born leader--the only reason he didn't become the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher right out of Hogwarts is becuase the headmaster at the time wanted someone with more life experiance.

He was also a cold-hearted sociopath with an inflated sense of self-worth, and this was apparent from the day Professor Dumbledore came to give him his Hogwarts letter--he was excited at being special, but the second Albus said that the barman wat the Leaky Cauldron was also named Tom his mood turned sour.

Someone like that has little to no ability to empathize with others and tend to have less of a moral compass... but you can teach morals and empathy if only on an intellectual level. What I took away from the comment is that if Tom had been raised with Love, he would have ended up like that.

[Douglas]

I just realized: This mechanic could end up affecting Susan, since she'll be one of the players.

Susan. With boosted physical attraction.

This has serious potential for otherwise very rare and out of character scenes. Not that the whole game isn't full of such things, but this one in particular seems noteworthy.

[Rater202]

Um... Is anyone else getting "Velma" vibes from Ashley's redesign?

I'm calling it, she's gonna end up in Nanase and Ellen's group when the crap hits the fan and everyone is fighting vampires all over town.

[Quiver]

Am I the only one wondering if Hanma is canon?

I mean... the situation, obviously, isn't. We know this whole storyline is non-canon.
Buuuuut, I get the impression Dan is having fun writing Hanma and her quirks, so I wonder if there will be a "canon" version of Hanma in the storyline at some point.

[Douglas]

Am I the only one wondering if Hanma is canon?

I mean... the situation, obviously, isn't. We know this whole storyline is non-canon.
Buuuuut, I get the impression Dan is having fun writing Hanma and her quirks, so I wonder if there will be a "canon" version of Hanma in the storyline at some point.

No need to wonder, Dan has already stated that she is (see the commentary).

[Quiver]

No need to wonder, Dan has already stated that she is (see the commentary).

...Well, obviously I need to read the commentary more thoroughly in the future. Sorry for the dumb question!

[Douglas]

With the way the scenes keep jumping around, I'm getting the feeling that keeping all of these plot threads chronologically synchronized is going to be important for this part of the story, possibly so that when the violence starts we'll already know exactly where everyone is at that exact time and how they got there. It would do a lot to minimize apparent ass-pulls and help track how the various parts of The Plan relate to each other.

[alwaysbebatman]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_TFiB3e3_J4

I teleported. It's impressive.

[Mith]

My thoughts on the NP: if Rhoda can shrink people/objects around a point within sight, that gives a really useful ability, and amusing implications as to where she was looking at the time.

[Qwertystop]

My thoughts on the NP: if Rhoda can shrink people/objects around a point within sight, that gives a really useful ability, and amusing implications as to where she was looking at the time.

No reason for the centerpoint of the shrinking to be the centerpoint of her visual focus. She's not looking at the waitress in the prior. If her physical actions have relevance, it's more likely to do with where her hand is pointing.

I'm more curious about her arm. Didn't even get mentioned in the commentary but that's ridiculous.

[Douglas]

I'm more curious about her arm. Didn't even get mentioned in the commentary but that's ridiculous.

What about it? Extending the length of her arm is a simple and straightforward application of size-changing magic, which is what she has a talent for.

[Qwertystop]

What about it? Extending the length of her arm is a simple and straightforward application of size-changing magic, which is what she has a talent for.

I don't think she previously demonstrated an ability to change just part of something, though?

[Douglas]

I don't think she previously demonstrated an ability to change just part of something, though?

In Escape From the Mall, a quick flashback, the third hypothetical, and what she actually does to Kitty.

[Qwertystop]

In Escape From the Mall, a quick flashback, the third hypothetical, and what she actually does to Kitty.

...how on earth did I forget all that?

[Mith]

I don't think she previously demonstrated an ability to change just part of something, though?

Expanding bust size is an example of this, isn't it?

[Rater202]

Is the website down for anyone else or is it just me?

[Tono]

Looks like it is down for everyone.

[halfeye]

The site was okay a couple of hours ago.

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Today's comic was about Nanase being unsure about Eliot's new girlfriend's <I forgot name, and can't check with the site down> motivations.

[Rater202]

The site was okay a couple of hours ago.

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Today's comic was about Nanase being unsure about Eliot's new girlfriend's <I forgot name, and can't check with the site down> motivations.

It's back up.

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And her name is Ashley.

[Silva Stormrage]

Latest comic:

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A remarkably interesting point of view and covers up one of the complaints I had about Arthur. It also makes his character seem a lot more pragmatic and sane. Also it's one of the few times this kind of viewpoint is brought up in stories that I can remember, "Why on earth would I try to outwit a force of nature that is nigh omniscient and much more powerful than me". While quite a lot of stories involve someone trying that and it not ending well for them

[JeenLeen]

Today's comic

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Something about Sybil's words and appearance made me think she might be Voltaire in disguise. Her words seem like they'd push Voltaire's agenda (guiding him to make magic change), and she looks vaguely not-quite-human, but maybe that's Dan's art style for folk with chubby faces. Just her face looks different from most people in the comic.

But the commentary today made me dismiss that.
Also, I reckon they'd have security for impostors. We know that Verres knows a spell to check for impostors (what he used on Eliot when shapeshifted), and I reckon that'd work on immortals unless we had reason to think otherwise. And it'd be hard to take the time to be a full-time secretary for a guy who probably works a lot of hours beyond 9-5.

[Rater202]

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Arthur unilaterally deciding to steal magic from everyone and put a lot of FBI agents and their presumed counterparts from elsewhere in the world out of the job confirmed.

He's still a ****, and I hope that when the incident inevitably happens, Tedd looks right into a live broadcast and declares exactly who and what he is and what he's capable of ant that he'll force magic to stay put if possible, becuase, fearing that the incident is too much, it's going to change.

Or, alternatively, that a Seer' Hidden purpose is to decide how magic changes and Tedd becomes that Seer, and he puts it right the way it used to... but makes it harder for bad people to get magic

And then Pandora apears behind him and vows to support him in this plan and do everything in her power to prevent people from taking action against Tedd or his frineds and family

and Arthur is watching, and fuming impotently because he doesn't want an angry immortal out for his blood.

And optionally gets glared out by the several wizards and normal spellcasters who work for the FBI. Possibly fired.

But I'm serious, have EGS go full unmasked world here.

[JeenLeen]

Hmm... my post today is similar to my last one.

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Anyone else think that 'Ellen' in today's comic might not be Ellen? The frantic running reminded me of Jerry from a couple comics back.

Well, I think it's either foreshadowing a 'guidance' of Nanase or this is some foreshadowing of Nanase feeling slightly offended at Ellen. She seems to have slightly hurt feelings about the rush up--get answer--go.