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

[CriticalFailure]

It’s unlikely but I’ve seriously contemplated the idea that Redcloak’s niece was given to the circus their family visited, and will end up in dwarven lands as a traveling circus person. Plus there’s a high chance she’s looking for leads to find her family, traveling around in a circus seems as good a way as any for a low level goblin to search safely.

[understatement]

I'll jump on board with this.

I'm going to toss out that RC's niece traveled with humans up to the north pole, where they're probably killed by bugbears and she's spared because she's a goblin. She's been living with the bugbear colony for years, but probably at the fringes or maybe does some dungeon crawling with a couple of other bugbears. If RC encounters her (he's only been here a few days) the narrative will play her off as an ordinary goblin that's living perfectly happy without the Plan and etc, but SOD people will wet their pants.








nah.

[GreatWyrmGold]

She's clearly a polymorphed Minrah (who appeared in the afterlife as a dwarf for the same reason Roy's Archon is explaining here), who will be revealed when she can't pass through the orange barrier.

That's the most reasonable suggestion I've heard for how Redcloak's niece is going to show up in the plot.

[Peelee]

That's the most reasonable suggestion I've heard for how Redcloak's niece is going to show up in the plot.

You clearly haven't heard the theory that she is the MitD.

[understatement]

1160 is literally the best strip to grace the comic so far. Who RC's niece was just -- blew -- my -- mind. Twist was awesome!

[Lord Torath]

1160 is literally the best strip to grace the comic so far. Who RC's niece was just -- blew -- my -- mind. Twist was awesome!

Wait, what?

[Fyraltari]

Wait, what?

That.
Take note of who the first poster is.

[Kish]

Wait, what?

It's an April Fools day thing.

[Lord Torath]

That.
Take note of who the first poster is.

It's an April Fools day thing.

Gah! Stupid March 32^nd customs! I should just go buy that Banksy toaster, just to spite you all!

Well, and to spite my wallet, too, I guess.

[littlebum2002]

I had to look at the Demon Roach Betting Thread (May it Rest in Peace) to find all my old predictions.

A025 +1500 Yes - High Priest of Thor is killed by an undead OR an evil cleric within 200 strips of strip 914
Didn't win this one, but I'll say it was pretty close. They didn't kill the High Priest but they killed a lot of others.


B005 +500 Yes - Belkar's death permanently removes him from any agency within the comic (aka he doesn't get resurrected, or become a vampire, or a demon, or anything)
Don't know yet, but I still stand by this prediction



C001 +200 Yes - It is possible to go through the rifts unharmed

Still standing by this one as well


C003 +230 Yes - The Order will be the first to go through the rifts on-panel

Does the Snarl count as ruining this one?


D003 +400 Yes - Durkon is never resurrected

Ouch


E001 +400 Yes - MITD is a Protean

I'm not going to live or die by this one, I have no idea what he is


F009 -333.3 Yes - Geoff OR Ivy is in league with Bozzock




F015 +120 Yes - Geoff is why Ian hasn't escaped jail




G007 +100 Yes - Thog is alive (odds same for 100 & 200 strip timers)

Still standing by this one as well. He's not dead until we've seen the x's in his eyes.

[Ruck]

I had to look at the Demon Roach Betting Thread (May it Rest in Peace) to find all my old predictions.

B005 +500 Yes - Belkar's death permanently removes him from any agency within the comic (aka he doesn't get resurrected, or become a vampire, or a demon, or anything)
Don't know yet, but I still stand by this prediction

How in the world did you get +500 on this?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

How in the world did you get +500 on this?

Because, IIRC, the thread runner was trying to give odds on the bets, rather than simply collect bets for and against and establish an equilibrium for them. Therefore, their biases bled through. Not saying it was the wrong approach, mind you, but that if they believed that Belkar would be back, then that was by force going to colour the odds they gave.

Grey Wolf

[littlebum2002]

Because, IIRC, the thread runner was trying to give odds on the bets, rather than simply collect bets for and against and establish an equilibrium for them. Therefore, their biases bled through. Not saying it was the wrong approach, mind you, but that if they believed that Belkar would be back, then that was by force going to colour the odds they gave.

Grey Wolf

This, plus, if you look at the thread you'll notice that the odds that each player picked their predictions at are not recorded, only the predictions. So if the odds moved after you placed your predictions, you could get very lucky (or very unlucky).

But I just thought it was a clever way to keep track of what you thought would happen during the strip, but one day it was moved from this forum to the much less populated "message board games" forum and then just died off.

I also think the "Unresolved Plot Points" thread is useful in here as well, as it may jog people's memory as to what we were still waiting to be resolved 5 years ago.

(Less relevant to this thread is my all time favorite dead thread, the Countdown to Belkar's Death, which calculated that Belkar had no more than 24 days left until he died as of the Godsmoot)

[Jaxzan Proditor]

(Less relevant to this thread is my all time favorite dead thread, the Countdown to Belkar's Death, which calculated that Belkar had no more than 24 days left until he died as of the Godsmoot)

That’s one of those threads that, along with the Strip Discussion length thread, I keep meaning to getting around to rebooting, but never have the time too. Perhaps one day someone will take that project off my hand, but I hope I can get around to it.

[CriticalFailure]

Speaking of Redcloak’s niece, do you think she’s trying to track down

[\spoiler] xylophone and her family? She doesn’t necessarily have a way to know they’re all dead so wouldn’t it make sense for her to be trying to find them? Maybe she even has belated designs to help them escape X or free her village or whatever. [\spoiler]

That seems like a reasonablely realistic course of action and if she’s tracking them &/or X and RC it might make sense for her to stumble onto the plot.

[Sir_Norbert]

SoD didn't establish her as having any particular musical talent. Why would she want a xylophone?

[GreatWyrmGold]

G007 +100 Yes - Thog is alive (odds same for 100 & 200 strip timers)
Still standing by this one as well. He's not dead until we've seen the x's in his eyes.

I have trouble seeing how Thog could have survived, trouble seeing how a surviving Thog could find his way back to the plot now that Nale isn't there to lead him, and no idea why the Giant would pull that kind of switcheroo. Not every death needs to be that blatant, especially since even V disintegrating Thog wouldn't stop people from speculating that he'd come back.

[littlebum2002]

That’s one of those threads that, along with the Strip Discussion length thread, I keep meaning to getting around to rebooting, but never have the time too. Perhaps one day someone will take that project off my hand, but I hope I can get around to it.

The problem with that thread is, even if you were to reboot it, you would need to occasionally post stuff even though it is not relevant. Days sometimes take a long time in the OOTS comic. So it is possible that one day might last longer than the deadline you have to post on a thread before it gets necroed. I think maybe you could solve this problem with commenting after every update "Still the same day!" or something similar.

I have trouble seeing how Thog could have survived, trouble seeing how a surviving Thog could find his way back to the plot now that Nale isn't there to lead him, and no idea why the Giant would pull that kind of switcheroo. Not every death needs to be that blatant, especially since even V disintegrating Thog wouldn't stop people from speculating that he'd come back.

That is very true. I did take this bet when Nate was still alive. However, look at how we left Sabine: her story certainly isn't wrapped up. I would not be surprised if we saw her in the comic again, maybe to help Ian overthrow Tarquin? So Thog could potentially come into play there.

[understatement]

She's a bard!

...

Even if Thog's alive, how can he even intersect with the plot in any way anymore? There's no Evil Opposite theme or surprise reveal to pull out, especially since the Order's getting closer and closer to Kraagor's.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

The problem with that thread is, even if you were to reboot it, you would need to occasionally post stuff even though it is not relevant. Days sometimes take a long time in the OOTS comic. So it is possible that one day might last longer than the deadline you have to post on a thread before it gets necroed. I think maybe you could solve this problem with commenting after every update "Still the same day!" or something similar.

That would be a potential solution. Another thing is on rare occasions mods will make threads like that fair game to necro, although obviously that’d be an understanding I’d have to work out.

[GreatWyrmGold]

That is very true. I did take this bet when Nate was still alive. However, look at how we left Sabine: her story certainly isn't wrapped up. I would not be surprised if we saw her in the comic again, maybe to help Ian overthrow Tarquin? So Thog could potentially come into play there.

Even if we did see Sabine help overthrow Tarquin*, I'm not sure how Thog would come into play. I never got the feeling that Sabine particularly liked working with Thog, nor that Ian would trust someone who was both questionably-competent** and playfully callous.


*Which I'm not convinced we would. Tarquin's goal was to create a "dramatically-satisfying" conflict between himself and the heroes, so having his empire's "storyline" end with him in the desert, yelling at Elan to come back and finish the story, was dramatically-satisfying for leaving those loose ends. I don't expect we'll see much more of Tarquin, just the occasional scene of someone more important to an OotS member's unresolved emotional/dramatic arcs doing something tangentially related to Tarquin.

**Don't get me wrong, he's good at beating people up and breaking things. I'm just not sure I'd trust him to beat the right people up or break the right things without close supervision. Remember how easy it was for Elan, of all people, to trick Thog into working for him?

[Mariele]

SoD didn't establish her as having any particular musical talent. Why would she want a xylophone?

If I'm not mistaken, it's a joke based on someone else's autocorrect changing Xykon to xylophone. :P

That's possible, CriticalFailure.

[CriticalFailure]

My autocorrect has been known to change Xykon to xylophone, action, cylindrical, and xylem on occasion sorry about that.

Yeah I’ve seen comments saying it would be a huge coincidence to run into her. But she has every reason to be either trying to track down her family or track down Xykon and Redcloak, in which case her finding the plot actually seems decently likely.

[GreatWyrmGold]

My autocorrect has been known to change Xykon to xylophone, action, cylindrical, and xylem on occasion sorry about that.

I can see xylem, and kinda xylophone, but...action? Cylindrical? They barely have any letters in common!

Yeah I’ve seen comments saying it would be a huge coincidence to run into her. But she has every reason to be either trying to track down her family or track down Xykon and Redcloak, in which case her finding the plot actually seems decently likely.

Eh...I'm not convinced that she'd be trying to track down the people her dad specifically sent her away from, and I'm even less convinced that she'd be able to follow two high-level casters teleporting across the planet. Redcloak's niece probably isn't showing up unless someone else is looking for her. (Or maybe if she visits Gobbotopia and does something important there.)

[CriticalFailure]

makes sense, on the other hand she was much younger at the time and likely never learned that her family was killed. I don’t think her trying to get revenge is likely but her trying to locate her family and help them run away, not knowing they’ve all died, is.

[littlebum2002]

Even if we did see Sabine help overthrow Tarquin*, I'm not sure how Thog would come into play. I never got the feeling that Sabine particularly liked working with Thog, nor that Ian would trust someone who was both questionably-competent** and playfully callous.


*Which I'm not convinced we would. Tarquin's goal was to create a "dramatically-satisfying" conflict between himself and the heroes, so having his empire's "storyline" end with him in the desert, yelling at Elan to come back and finish the story, was dramatically-satisfying for leaving those loose ends. I don't expect we'll see much more of Tarquin, just the occasional scene of someone more important to an OotS member's unresolved emotional/dramatic arcs doing something tangentially related to Tarquin.

**Don't get me wrong, he's good at beating people up and breaking things. I'm just not sure I'd trust him to beat the right people up or break the right things without close supervision. Remember how easy it was for Elan, of all people, to trick Thog into working for him?

I don't know how I feel about Tarquin. Elan specifically withheld the details of his plan to the audience, because that's the only way plans work, so I am pretty sure that Ian is going to overthrow Tarquin in some capacity. But I can also see not wanting to indulge Tarquin's desire to have his storyline resolved. So I think my main "prediction" is that there will be an "aside" during the epilogue describing what happened.

As for Thog and Sabine, who knows? I just, personally, think the way we last saw Sabine means we're going to see her again. She's been a pretty major character in the story and it seems to leave her at "she got exiled for 24 hours, went nuts because the man she loved was killed, then we never see her again". It just doesn't seem like a satisfying conclusion to her arc. And since I think we're going to see Sabine again, and since characters who sustain a lot of damage and are assumed to be dead are usually not dead, it makes sense that we are going to see Thog again as well.

[zimmerwald1915]

As for Thog and Sabine, who knows? I just, personally, think the way we last saw Sabine means we're going to see her again. She's been a pretty major character in the story and it seems to leave her at "she got exiled for 24 hours, went nuts because the man she loved was killed, then we never see her again". It just doesn't seem like a satisfying conclusion to her arc. And since I think we're going to see Sabine again, and since characters who sustain a lot of damage and are assumed to be dead are usually not dead, it makes sense that we are going to see Thog again as well.

Sabine doesn't have to return to the Material Plane at any point to return to the story. Vaarsuvius will be called down to Hell at least twice more in her life, and probably at least once more in the story. She could show up then.

[CJG]

I thought that Oona might be a disguised Serini. It’s still my favorite stupid hypothesis.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I just, personally, think the way we last saw Sabine means we're going to see her again. She's been a pretty major character in the story and it seems to leave her at "she got exiled for 24 hours, went nuts because the man she loved was killed, then we never see her again". It just doesn't seem like a satisfying conclusion to her arc.

Alright, that's fair.

And since I think we're going to see Sabine again, and since characters who sustain a lot of damage and are assumed to be dead are usually not dead, it makes sense that we are going to see Thog again as well.

Aaand this is where you lost me, twice. "People assumed to be dead usually aren't" is untrue; the examples of characters coming back after apparently dying are memorable, but vastly outweighed by the number of characters (even major, named ones) who were actually dead...being dead. We never see corpses of, say, any of the Linear Guild kobolds*, but nobody assumes the three dead ones are coming back.
Same with most dead characters. We don't always see their bodies, we definitely don't see anything that would stop people from bringing them back, but nobody assumes they're alive, because that would be stupid.

Also, you didn't justify "Sabine, therefore Thog." Thog's (almost) always been around when Sabine is, but that's just because both followed Nale. There are plenty of other LG members who've been abandoned without a second thought on the remaining Guilders' part; why not Thog?

*Okay, we saw a couple body parts from one, but that still leaves the other two.

[hroþila]

We never see corpses of, say, any of the Linear Guild kobolds*
[snip]
*Okay, we saw a couple body parts from one, but that still leaves the other two.

Dead kobold #1
Dead kobold #2
Dead kobold #3