Plot twists you thought would happen (but totally didn’t)

[Fyraltari]

I read that in HK-47's voice.

Condescending pity: Meatbags... If ind it best to spare them mmore inevitable desilusions through the precise application of massive firepower.

[DemonRoach]

Okay, I'll bite. Especially since Redcloak's niece would be, what, 40? And Julia is 17.

That's because Redcloaks niece is most likely Therkla's mum. Does no one else think that?!

[Kish]

I read that in HK-47's voice.

Oh, bother.

[Son of A Lich!]

I remember when Malak started fighting with Durkon, I went out to the smoke deck at NMCP and was saying to all my Oots friends that there was a 0% chance that Durkon would be actually raised as a vampire.

I was all like "Maybe he escapes and Belkar's prophecy is realized, or Haley comes down in the last second, or something something divine intervention but it takes days for vampires to raise from their coffins. The order doesn't have a cleric in the party without Durkon, and while the classic composition of a party is 'Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, Cleric' Clerics were the most important part because they can heal conditional effects and more importantly, raise the dead. Durkon being vamped would mean that they would have to find another powerful cleric to raise him. No way that is going to happen"

and then the next day (I think this is when The Giant was doing his marathon of 100(?) strips daily, but I'm not sure), Malak started drinking and Durkon was raised with a home brew spell.

huh. Well, this is going to have to be resolved quickly...

*Five years later*

Hooray! Durkon's back!

[Mandor]

[Deleted, I'm remembering things out of order and confusion what I wondered then with what I thought might have been an interesting twist after the fact.]

[GreatWyrmGold]

Do you mean ginko biloba? Because I can't find anything about ginko balboa and that's a more plausible typo.

Speling is nat my fortatude. (The wiki mentioned the typo, and I misremembered it.)

I didn't know ginko biloba was believed to have anything to do with memory (although that's apparently unproven)...

I said it was believed, not that the believers had any evidence. It's a placebo, but a pretty widely-known one.

[Persimmon]

I was pretty suspicious of High Priest Hurak. He just didn't act like someone who was really trying to prevent the prophecy from coming to pass. He didn't tell Durkon about the prophecy, which (as Roy points out in #1096) would probably have made it much less likely to come to pass. He also didn't tell his successor, and Durkon almost got permission from her to come home (in #375); if he'd sent such a letter a year earlier, he probably would have come home.

Also, we never actually saw Odin's high priest receiving the prophecy, or even telling Hurak about about it; we only have Hurak's word that the prophecy even happened.

Spoiler: On the Origins of PCs

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This is clearer in the OtooPCs version, in which it's clear that Brewmaster Blackore didn't see any of it, only was told about it afterward by Hurak.

Also, I was expecting Rubyrock's "it is true. And the truth always has a use" (#1024) to be more plot-critical than it has been thus far.

So the plot development I was expecting went something like this:

Hel suborned or blackmailed Hurak. She couldn't persuade him to turn himself into a vampire (or destroy the world) for her, but she was able to persuade him to set Durkon up. She might have had an incomplete prophecy ("If Durkon Thundershield goes adventuring, he will become a vampire"), or was just being nasty to dwarven clerics on general principles, or had sent a few dozen clerics to human lands in hopes that she could get one of them vampirized. (I was figuring that Hel's "serendipitous servant" in #946 was sort of like Minrah's "holy power that we definitely have more of" in #1093.)

Greg found this out at the climax of their big battle, and Rubyrock's declaration was the final fact that pushed him over the edge into betraying Hel.

In retrospect, Rich's version gives Durkon a lot more agency. That makes for a better story...and given how much time we spent in Durkon's head since #1093, I probably should have seen that Durkon would have more to do in the climax than "be in the room when Greg found out".

[Lord Torath]

Belkar: was his zoological sign Pisces?

Zodiacal sign. Zoology is the study of animals.

That's because Redcloaks niece is most likely Therkla's mum. Does no one else think that?!

Therkla is half orc, not half-narc-goblin. And the other half is human not goblin.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I was pretty suspicious of High Priest Hurak. He just didn't act like someone who was really trying to prevent the prophecy from coming to pass.

...How many stories where someone tries to prevent a prophecy from coming to pass have you read? The first five I can think of all have the preventer do something similarly short-sighted and shoddy to prevent the prophecy. The only one I can think of where the preventer did something effective is when he heard that some woman's son would be stronger than his father before he was going to boink her, so he married her to some wimp and tried to forget she existed.

Also, I was expecting Rubyrock's "it is true. And the truth always has a use" (#1024) to be more plot-critical than it has been thus far.

Five gold says it comes up during the dwarven council meeting. Like, one of the vampires tries to get Durkon thrown out, but he's not exiled anymore and all dwarves have a right to sit in on the meeting or something.

Zodiacal sign. Zoology is the study of animals.

Clearly, zoological signs are related to spirit animals.

[Fyraltari]

Five gold says it comes up during the dwarven council meeting. Like, one of the vampires tries to get Durkon thrown out, but he's not exiled anymore and all dwarves have a right to sit in on the meeting or something.

I also think that it will come up again, but I should point out that Durkon was never exiled. He was on a mission there are no records of which. Literally the only person who cares about Rubyrock giving Durkon the green light to go home is Durkon himself. Also it would be weird if anybody could just participate in the meeting of the Clan Elder but the vampires planed to use the rules somehow despite not being invited so who knows.

[Dion]

Zodiacal sign. Zoology is the study of animals.

Fish are animals

[DemonRoach]

Therkla is half orc, not half-narc-goblin. And the other half is human not goblin.

Mistakes were made, back to the lurking cave!

[GreatWyrmGold]

I also think that it will come up again, but I should point out that Durkon was never exiled. He was on a mission there are no records of which. Literally the only person who cares about Rubyrock giving Durkon the green light to go home is Durkon himself. Also it would be weird if anybody could just participate in the meeting of the Clan Elder but the vampires planed to use the rules somehow despite not being invited so who knows.

The idea I had:
All dwarves (or all clergy or something) are by default allowed to spectate and, at the appropriate time, speak at the clan meeting. As far as Durkon* knew, Durkon wouldn't be allowed in because he's not supposed to be in the kingdom, let alone do anything there. So Durkon* would send in his dwarven minions to...do something, safe in the knowledge that none of the Order would be able to enter without breaking dwarven law. You know, try to abuse procedural rules for fun and profit. But Durkon isn't quasi-exiled, so he is allowed in, so he can stop the vampires' plot.
That's about the only way I could see it coming up. There just aren't many points where "Durkon can come home" is going to come up in a story taking place largely outside Durkon's home.

[KorvinStarmast]

Zodiacal sign. Zoology is the study of animals.

I guess my joke didn't work. (not the first time that happened). That's OK, it isn't what pays the rent. (Belkar's a ranger, but I really was trying way too hard with that ...)

[Havelocke]

Crazy theory here, but hear me out. Belkar BECOMES a shoe less God of war and transcends to become an new God for the new world. God's don't age right? Nor do they breathe....and he would be on a new world so wouldn't that fulfill the prophecy?

[Fyraltari]

Crazy theory here, but hear me out. Belkar BECOMES a shoe less God of war and transcends to become an new God for the new world. God's don't age right? Nor do they breathe....and he would be on a new world so wouldn't that fulfill the prophecy?

Yeah 'cause any antisocial murderhobo can become a god, right? Easy-peasy.

[Peelee]

Yeah 'cause any antisocial murderhobo can become a god, right? Easy-peasy.

Especially the relatively unknown ones!

[Paleomancer]

I also think that it will come up again, but I should point out that Durkon was never exiled. He was on a mission there are no records of which. Literally the only person who cares about Rubyrock giving Durkon the green light to go home is Durkon himself. Also it would be weird if anybody could just participate in the meeting of the Clan Elder but the vampires planed to use the rules somehow despite not being invited so who knows.

Well, he was forcibly thrown out by his own superior, with what even Durkon seemed to realize was a weak excuse for "a mission to human lands" (given his anger and its basis for the vampire not-Durkon), on the basis of a prophesy that if he returned, he'd bring "death and destruction." That's pretty much "exile" by any reasonable standard, albeit one that depends on the exiled person's willingness to abide by the judgment as much as anything, since Hurak seems to have been rather careless in enforcing it. I would agree it is unclear how the Vampires would be able to participate in the clan meeting by following the rules... when they should have no way to be admitted.

[Fyraltari]

Well, he was forcibly thrown out by his own superior, with what even Durkon seemed to realize was a weak excuse for "a mission to human lands" (given his anger and its basis for the vampire not-Durkon), on the basis of a prophesy that if he returned, he'd bring "death and destruction." That's pretty much "exile" by any reasonable standard, albeit one that depends on the exiled person's willingness to abide by the judgment as much as anything, since Hurak seems to have been rather careless in enforcing it.

To be precise, Hurak hid this to everybody including his successor, making his confident swear to keep the secret. Durkon could have come back any time after Hurak died and nobody would have cared ('xcept Firuk and he probably just would have talked to Durkon) because nobody knew about this. The simple fact that Hurak phrased it a mission with quotes in the text while talking to Durkon, makes me 93.556 009% sure that Hurak absolutely did not have the authority to exile anybody.

[Paleomancer]

To be precise, Hurak hid this to everybody including his successor, making his confident swear to keep the secret. Durkon could have come back any time after Hurak died and nobody would have cared ('xcept Firuk and he probably just would have talked to Durkon) because nobody knew about this. The simple fact that Hurak phrased it a mission with quotes in the text while talking to Durkon, makes me 93.556 009% sure that Hurak absolutely did not have the authority to exile anybody.

I will concede to, and agree with that point. I guess the key question is, does Durkon know Hurak had no authority? As far as he seems to have known for most of the strip, he couldn't return home and was happy at the thought of merely being buried in his homeland. He seems to have seen it as exile, even if Hurak had no valid authority to inflict that upon him.

[Fyraltari]

I will concede to, and agree with that point. I guess the key question is, does Durkon know Hurak had no authority? As far as he seems to have known for most of the strip, he couldn't return home and was happy at the thought of merely being buried in his homeland. He seems to have seen it as exile, even if Hurak had no valid authority to inflict that upon him.

Durkon is too Lawful for his own Good. It wasn't an exile, it was a mission and Hurak could send him on missions. That the mission was an obvious pretext is not the point.

[SilverCacaobean]

I thought that Sigdi would be in bad shape, or die/be dead already and trapped in Hel's realm. I thought Sigdi didn't tell Durkon about his dad because his death was considered dishonourable somehow and he ended up in Hel. I thought Greg would show all this to Durkon and convince him to give in to his dark side temporarily.
Needless to say I'm very happy to be wrong on every count.

Also, I thought Durkon would merge with Greg as an allegory of him dealing with his repressed negative emotions, I thought the revocation of Durkon's exile would be critical to beating Greg and I thought Redcloak wouldn't be the type to derive voyeuristic pleasure from spying on his own niece having sex.

Which creature doesn't breathe, doesn't live in this world, doesn't eat birthday cake, and needn't bother saving for retirement?

I found the answer to this! The species is called Spinoloricus cinziae, it lives in our world and it neither eats cake nor does it bother saving for retirement on account of it being a microorganism! Apparently it was discovered 2 years after the Belkar prophesy strip was published, which proves that the Giant must be part of some secret team of biologists who discovered it first but kept it a secret for their own nefarious reasons. Anyway, clearly Belkar will be transformed into that and be transported to modern Earth where he will find some critical information about Xykon and use some transplanar communication spell to inform Roy about it.

[Fyraltari]

Also, I thought Durkon would merge with Greg as an allegory of him dealing with his repressed negative emotions.

That's more-or-less what happened.

[SilverCacaobean]

That's more-or-less what happened.

That's true. Still not the way I expected it to, so it qualifies for this thread.

[St Fan]

I was very much expecting that the Hilgya vs. Vampire Durkon confrontation would go the way of a brick joke with Elan's many attempt at illusions consisting of creating a female version of the subject to distract him.

Since the vampire had Durkon's memories, it would basically have gone with Durkon-prisoner-in-his-own-mind yelling "Hilgya? But whot is she doin' here?" and the negative spirit scoffing at him. "Oh, come on, it's obviously another one of the bard's lame illusions. That's all he could find, an erstwhile tryst of yours who have absolutely no reason to be here today? Though the baby is a nice touch, I guess, adding still a bit of fatherly guilt to the mix. Anyway, let's just ignore her."

And thus, he would order his pawns to not pay any attention to the illusory female dwarf, only to get nailed hard when discovering Hilgya was truly there.

[Resileaf]

Undead are actually immune to illusions.

[Linneris]

I expected the "two Durkons" thing to be more lasting. Specifically, I expected that either there'd be two Durkon souls in whatever afterlife they'd go to — or perhaps the original Durkon would go to Valhalla, but the second Durkon, formerly known as Durkon*, would go to Hel, and the Order would have a new quest: to rescue him from there.

When that didn't happen, I expected Durkon to briefly end up in Hel after Hilgya killed him, since I thought it probably wouldn't count as an honorable death.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Crazy theory here, but hear me out. Belkar BECOMES a shoe less God of war and transcends to become an new God for the new world. God's don't age right? Nor do they breathe....and he would be on a new world so wouldn't that fulfill the prophecy?

Putting aside the logistics of finding enough people who would want Belkar to be a god that he gained even a Banjo level of power, I'm pretty sure gods do breathe. They're presumably either powerful outsiders or divine versions of whatever creature type they were beforehand, and in either case they'd breathe. Without evidence otherwise...

...and I thought Redcloak wouldn't be the type to derive voyeuristic pleasure from spying on his own niece having sex.

Wait, what?

When that didn't happen, I expected Durkon to briefly end up in Hel after Hilgya killed him, since I thought it probably wouldn't count as an honorable death.

Alcohol poisoning is considered an honorable death, as is dying to a tree. Dwarven standards of honorable deaths are pretty mediocre.

[SilverCacaobean]

Wait, what?

Wait, isn't Hilgya Redcloak's niece? I... I thought...

But... but that means... if Redcloak spied on his niece having sex and Hilgya isn't Redcloak's niece... It means DURKON IS REDCLOAK'S NIECE! Q.E.D.

Yes! Now everything's falling into place! That's why Thor asked Durkon to convince Redcloak to stop his plan! Durkon will appeal to Redcloak's sense of family and this will give Redcloak a chance to make up for what he did to his brother by having him essentially face the same dilemma again, only this time he will make the right choice, thereby completing his character arc!

[Fyraltari]

Speaking of Red's niece, does anyone know what happened to his father? He isn't in the opening of Start Of Darkness even though Redcloak's paternal uncle and mother are and is never mentionned as far as I remember. Granted he should be dead of old age by now but that's peculiar.