List of loose ends

[hamishspence]

Pardon my ignorance, but does this count as V's gender being "revealed"? As I understand it, the term "genderqueer" is more generally referring to non-binary / non-conforming gender identities than to one specific gender.

Personally, my view is that it is a broad enough term that it could be said that V's gender, especially V's "biological gender" has still not been revealed, nor has what gender V "identifies as".

It simply rules out that V is "male identifying as male" or "female identifying as female" but still many possibilities remain.

[CriticalFailure]

I agree that V’s sex won’t be revealed and that asking what she identifies as is meaningless since it seems like elves have retroactively been written as both mostly androgynous and having a genderless society.

[Sir_Norbert]

So, I have a question about this thread.

For quite a while, I've had a plan that when book 6 ended, I would reboot the old "Unresolved Plot Point Collection", with basically a copy of the old list but I would mark off those that have now been resolved, and keep the list updated as book 7 progressed.

Would it still be okay to do this? I don't want to be seen as needlessly duplicating an existing thread, but on the other hand, the original poster of this thread doesn't seem to be maintaining the list. I think it would be good for people to have a maintained list in a single post they could easily refer to.

Any thoughts?

[Riftwolf]

So, I have a question about this thread.

For quite a while, I've had a plan that when book 6 ended, I would reboot the old "Unresolved Plot Point Collection", with basically a copy of the old list but I would mark off those that have now been resolved, and keep the list updated as book 7 progressed.

Would it still be okay to do this? I don't want to be seen as needlessly duplicating an existing thread, but on the other hand, the original poster of this thread doesn't seem to be maintaining the list. I think it would be good for people to have a maintained list in a single post they could easily refer to.

Any thoughts?

There seems to be a lot of debate over what constitutes a plot point. I'm still waiting for Qarrs chalice to come back.

[Sir_Norbert]

All other maintained threads (e.g. MitD; Number of Character Appearances; Index of the Giant's Comments; etc. etc.) have a lot of debate, too. That doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to maintain them.

[Quizatzhaderac]

V's physical sex, meanwhile, is about as likely to be answered as specifics about any other character's genitalia are.

Well, we have been given an answer to one such specific question.

You call it the trouser titan?

[littlebum2002]

So, I have a question about this thread.

For quite a while, I've had a plan that when book 6 ended, I would reboot the old "Unresolved Plot Point Collection", with basically a copy of the old list but I would mark off those that have now been resolved, and keep the list updated as book 7 progressed.

Would it still be okay to do this? I don't want to be seen as needlessly duplicating an existing thread, but on the other hand, the original poster of this thread doesn't seem to be maintaining the list. I think it would be good for people to have a maintained list in a single post they could easily refer to.

Any thoughts?

This absolutely should be done. "Unresolved plot threads" and "number of days until Belkar's death" are two threads that need to come back.

[D.One]

This absolutely should be done. "Unresolved plot threads" and "number of days until Belkar's death" are two threads that need to come back.

I don't know how much Mass Raise Thread that would be, but what about a "Threads that need to come back" thread?...

[Staysilver]

You know how D&D doesn't just have good vs. evil, but also a law vs. chaos axis? So you could have lawful good, neutral good, and chaotic good all in the same party with different ideas about what "good" is? The same applies for lawful, neutral, and chaotic versions of evil. The usual catch-all term for all these flavors of evil outsiders is "fiends".



Since English often uses "gender" to refer to physical sex (because referring to it as "sex" brings up all sorts of jokes on its own), V's thoughts on gender vs. V's particular bits are two separate questions.

From repeated gags in the strip, V's local village probably treats physical bits as of minimal importance and doesn't really grasp the idea of gender as a social construct. So asking what gender V is would be like demanding to know what caste a person belongs to in a casteless society like most western ones. V's physical sex, meanwhile, is about as likely to be answered as specifics about any other character's genitalia are. Basically not going to happen.

Got it, understand now, ty. I am now more curious though about the nature of belief systems of "fiends" though, love to know how a "lawful" fiend would differ from chaotic or neutral in terms of actions and... well... laws. Wonder what kind of "laws" fiends have. Being rather new to all this I have to say I'm finding D&D more and more interesting the more I learn.

[HorizonWalker]

Got it, understand now, ty. I am now more curious though about the nature of belief systems of "fiends" though, love to know how a "lawful" fiend would differ from chaotic or neutral in terms of actions and... well... laws. Wonder what kind of "laws" fiends have. Being rather new to all this I have to say I'm finding D&D more and more interesting the more I learn.

One thing I'm sure you'll learn on your own but I feel obligated to tell you about anyways is that there's a great many different interpretations of the Alignment system, and what it means to be Lawful or Chaotic. Good and Evil provoke some debates, too, but not that many- it's Lawful vs Chaotic that produces the most.

And the reason for that is that there's been a lot of different definitions of Lawful Vs Chaotic over the various editions of D&D. Originally, Lawful vs Chaotic was there because it was in the Sword & Sorcery books that most of D&D's bones are really drawn from- Law and Chaos were abstract, cosmic principles that were inhuman and amoral, and also in conflict with one another. Of course, there's an obvious problem with this model: Most people don't read Sword & Sorcery books, and so Law vs Chaos wasn't a particularly accessible conflict to wrap their heads around.

So then, it was expanded to the nine-point alignment grid we know and perhaps tolerate today, but with a different rationale. See, Lawful Good and Lawful Evil had more in common than Lawful Good and Chaotic Good- Lawful Good and Lawful Evil were both aligned with the cosmic principle of Law, and it just so happened that Lawful Good was personally a lot nicer about it than Lawful Evil was. And wouldn't you know it, this was still not particularly accessible to a wider audience.

Well, then came something of a flip. Instead of Law and Chaos as the "cosmic principles" axis, and Good and Evil as the "personal inclinations" axis, the designers switched to Good and Evil as the "cosmic principles" axis, and Law and Chaos as the "personal inclinations" axis. This was much more accessible to wider audiences- pretty much everyone knows what a fight between the forces of Good and Evil looks like. Law and Chaos, meanwhile... well, what does a Champion of Law look like? A Champion of Chaos? Good has Angels and Evil has Demons, but what do Law and Chaos get? In D&D's cosmology at least, the answer to that question is "robot dice and giant frogs."(They're called Modrons(robot dice) and Slaads(giant frogs)) Which is cool and funky, but also... well, funky. It's weird. And weird is not a bad thing, but it is, generally, a little inaccessible.

Anyhow, the end result of all this is you've got some people thinking Law and Chaos are cosmic principles, other people who think they're personal inclinations that are relative to societal norms, and probably some third and fourth interpretations I haven't mentioned but are nonetheless incompatible with either interpretation, and for the most part, not very many of them realize that they're having this fundamental disconnect, which is why alignment debates have a reputation for getting very ugly, very fast.

If you want my advice? I suggest you politely ignore everything to do with Alignment. It isn't worth the trouble.

[Squire Doodad]

Personally, my view is that it is a broad enough term that it could be said that V's gender, especially V's "biological gender" has still not been revealed, nor has what gender V "identifies as".

It simply rules out that V is "male identifying as male" or "female identifying as female" but still many possibilities remain.

"Him" was used as shorthand for a person of no specific gender for a long time, but I feel like Rich using male pronouns for V is, at most, toying with the longstanding standard of "V being called a certain gender doesn't mean anything". As in, it's no different than Roy calling V "him" in one comic and "her" the next; either comic on its own could be cited as evidence to suggest V is biologically one gender, but is actually coincidental. At worst, it doesn't mean anything and it's literally just used to make the grammar more fluid.

Also, both V and their lover are of ambiguous gender as well as having adopted their kids (I think that was mentioned at one point in the main comic, but I can't recall where, if it should have been spoilered then my apologies), so again there's little reason to make assumptions.

[The Pilgrim]

Got it, understand now, ty. I am now more curious though about the nature of belief systems of "fiends" though, love to know how a "lawful" fiend would differ from chaotic or neutral in terms of actions and... well... laws. Wonder what kind of "laws" fiends have. Being rather new to all this I have to say I'm finding D&D more and more interesting the more I learn.

Devils, that is, LE fiends, are rational and believe in organized evil. They like bureaucratic red tape, little print clauses and catch-22 rules. They prefered way to corrupt mortals is to fool them into making mephistophelic bargains. Among themselves, they struggle for power through intrincate game-of-thrones style plots.

Demons (CE Fiends) on the other hand, are emotional. They corrupt mortals through indulging in their emotions. A succubus/incubus, for example, leads you to peridition through luring you into indulging in your lust. They also like brutal violence and rampaging destruction. Among themselves, their power struggles are through violence, not intrincate plots.

Daemons (NE fiends) don't care about anything but anihilating life and existence. Their approach to evil is nihilistic. War, plague, famine, natural disasters, are just efficient, dissapasionate ways to anihilate life. They are the Ennui of fiendish races.

Well, there is a lot more about it in D&D lore, but that's a basic approach about how the different aligned fiends operate.

[Squire Doodad]

Devils, that is, LE fiends, are rational and believe in organized evil. They like bureaucratic red tape, little print clauses and catch-22 rules. They prefered way to corrupt mortals is to fool them into making mephistophelic bargains. Among themselves, they struggle for power through intrincate game-of-thrones style plots.

Demons (CE Fiends) on the other hand, are emotional. They corrupt mortals through indulging in their emotions. A succubus/incubus, for example, leads you to peridition through luring you into indulging in your lust. They also like brutal violence and rampaging destruction. Among themselves, their power struggles are through violence, not intrincate plots.

Daemons (NE fiends) don't care about anything but anihilating life and existence. Their approach to evil is nihilistic. War, plague, famine, natural disasters, are just efficient, dissapasionate ways to anihilate life. They are the Ennui of fiendish races.

Well, there is a lot more about it in D&D lore, but that's a basic approach about how the different aligned fiends operate.

So they embody the extremes of (corrupt) bureaucracy, hedonism and nihilism?

[Schroeswald]

"Him" was used as shorthand for a person of no specific gender for a long time, but I feel like Rich using male pronouns for V is, at most, toying with the longstanding standard of "V being called a certain gender doesn't mean anything". As in, it's no different than Roy calling V "him" in one comic and "her" the next; either comic on its own could be cited as evidence to suggest V is biologically one gender, but is actually coincidental. At worst, it doesn't mean anything and it's literally just used to make the grammar more fluid.

Also, both V and their lover are of ambiguous gender as well as having adopted their kids (I think that was mentioned at one point in the main comic, but I can't recall where, if it should have been spoilered then my apologies), so again there's little reason to make assumptions.

I would also add that somehow I doubt Rich sees V and Inky as a couple of straight cis people, he did draw a little special panel with them holding hands and Bandana kissing some girl while V cast prismatic spray after all.

[Squire Doodad]

I would also add that somehow I doubt Rich sees V and Inky as a couple of straight cis people, he did draw a little special panel with them holding hands and Bandana kissing some girl while V cast prismatic spray after all.

Aw, that's adorable :D

[The Pilgrim]

So they embody the extremes of (corrupt) bureaucracy, hedonism and nihilism?

Well, Demons are usually portrayed more as brutal violent mutable rampaging monsters fond on destruction torture rape and murder (not neccesary in that order). But, yes.

The important thing when dealing with the Law-Chaos axis is to avoid straight-jackets. Note how Roy has been tried twice in the Comic by LG standards (the Azurite Trial and the Deva Trial in the Afterlife) and both close with a heavy author's tract about understanding D&D alignment, specially the Law-Chaos axis. The most important thing is to remain true to the alignment in your motivations.

For exaple, I mentioned the Incubi/Succubi in my previous post. They are seen by many players as weird demons because they avoid violence and are subtle manipulators, which is generally understood as Devil behaviour.

However, a Devil is trying to fool you, to make you legally binding your soul to him. The succubus just overcharges your senses and turns you into an addict.

A sucessful devil's work ends with the mortal being drawn in chains to Hell, screaming and kicking, asking for a lawyer and a re-trial, while the devil laughts and gloats in his face. The victim of a successful succubus goes willingly, he's just a junkie slave destroyed by his own lust. Most source material of D&D, however, portraits demons playing more with pain rather than pleasure.

Daemons are ofter featured like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, just doing their job, grim, cold and silent.

[SlashDash]

I still think there's something still open with the Oracle.
The whole "pixie \ kobold" dust thing in #566 is a bit suspicious.

He's lying about his power source, which makes me wonder if he's involved with some yet unseen party.

[Quebbster]

I still think there's something still open with the Oracle.
The whole "pixie \ kobold" dust thing in #566 is a bit suspicious.

He's lying about his power source, which makes me wonder if he's involved with some yet unseen party.

The Oracle has no real need to be honest, so why wouldn't he answer a stupid question in a cheeky way?

[skim172]

My bet is that Tarquin and Co are not resolved in the main plot. From a meta perspective - and that's how Tarkers operates - the only way his ambitions are foiled is if he turns out to be a minor villain after all. That's how Elan can defeat him - by simply rejecting his place in the story.

However, I can see - in some distant future perhaps, following the completion of the main story - the possibility of the Giant writing the resolution of Tarky and the Vector Legion storyline in a side story, a companion book. I think the story hooks have already been laid in the plot, what with Ian Starshine, Geoff, Enor, and Gannji getting recruited for the Avengers by Amun-Zora.

I daresay that Redcloak's niece and other hanging story hooks that don't get resolved might even be thrown in that pot as well.

[Squire Doodad]

The Oracle has no real need to be honest, so why wouldn't he answer a stupid question in a cheeky way?

For all we know, he knew that was the reply he'd get for saying "pixie dust", so said it on purpose to mess with them.

[D.One]

Well, Demons are usually portrayed more as brutal violent mutable rampaging monsters fond on destruction torture rape and murder (not neccesary in that order). But, yes.

The important thing when dealing with the Law-Chaos axis is to avoid straight-jackets. Note how Roy has been tried twice in the Comic by LG standards (the Azurite Trial and the Deva Trial in the Afterlife) and both close with a heavy author's tract about understanding D&D alignment, specially the Law-Chaos axis. The most important thing is to remain true to the alignment in your motivations.

For exaple, I mentioned the Incubi/Succubi in my previous post. They are seen by many players as weird demons because they avoid violence and are subtle manipulators, which is generally understood as Devil behaviour.

However, a Devil is trying to fool you, to make you legally binding your soul to him. The succubus just overcharges your senses and turns you into an addict.

A sucessful devil's work ends with the mortal being drawn in chains to Hell, screaming and kicking, asking for a lawyer and a re-trial, while the devil laughts and gloats in his face. The victim of a successful succubus goes willingly, he's just a junkie slave destroyed by his own lust. Most source material of D&D, however, portraits demons playing more with pain rather than pleasure.

Daemons are ofter featured like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, just doing their job, grim, cold and silent.

It's woth of notice that Daemons are usually portrayed as beings of Evil for Evil's sake, regardless of method, but also as mercenaries that sell their services to both sides in the Blood War.

[SlashDash]

I honestly don't get it.

I get the notion that the "worst" that could happen to Tarquin is to be taken off screen and all.

But seriously, we saw something coming out of the rift in the desert.

Do people really believe that cliffhanger is going to be left unchecked? We're never going to see or talk about that in the comics ever again?

Sounds completely nuts to me.

[D.One]

I honestly don't get it.

I get the notion that the "worst" that could happen to Tarquin is to be taken off screen and all.

But seriously, we saw something coming out of the rift in the desert.

Do people really believe that cliffhanger is going to be left unchecked? We're never going to see or talk about that in the comics ever again?

Sounds completely nuts to me.

I don't see why those two ideas (tarquin being dealt with offscreen and the rift in the desert appearing again and having plot importance) should be incompatible... The Order might receive news from the desert about the rift there, and go to check on it, expecting some sort of rematch with Tarquin and friends, only to find out he was defeated for good offscreen by the rebelion and that the Vector Legion is behind bars.

[Peelee]

I honestly don't get it.

I get the notion that the "worst" that could happen to Tarquin is to be taken off screen and all.

But seriously, we saw something coming out of the rift in the desert.

Do people really believe that cliffhanger is going to be left unchecked? We're never going to see or talk about that in the comics ever again?

Sounds completely nuts to me.

D. One beat me to it. They weren't anywhere near the rift when Tarquin landed. And he ceded all control and jurisdiction to Laurin. So we could go back there, but that has no bearing on whether we'd see Tarquin.

Also, i don't think we'll go back there until the rifts are re-sealed at comic's end. Same for Azure City rift. Except maybe for Durkon to show Redcloak hoe Gobbotopia is suffering or something.

[hroþila]

I honestly don't get it.

I get the notion that the "worst" that could happen to Tarquin is to be taken off screen and all.

But seriously, we saw something coming out of the rift in the desert.

Do people really believe that cliffhanger is going to be left unchecked? We're never going to see or talk about that in the comics ever again?

Sounds completely nuts to me.

Perhaps we'll return to that rift in particular in some way, I dunno, but my interpretation of that scene with the Snarl is that it was there simply to tell us that yes, the Snarl is real and is very much a threat, at a point where Vaarsuvius (and by extension, the Order and the readers) was wondering whether anything Shojo had told them was true. In that sense, that rift already served its purpose.

[skim172]

I honestly don't get it.

I get the notion that the "worst" that could happen to Tarquin is to be taken off screen and all.

But seriously, we saw something coming out of the rift in the desert.

Do people really believe that cliffhanger is going to be left unchecked? We're never going to see or talk about that in the comics ever again?

Sounds completely nuts to me.

A valid point about the rift, but if they dealt with the Snarl at another rift, presumably the desert rift would be closed, too.

[woweedd]

Perhaps we'll return to that rift in particular in some way, I dunno, but my interpretation of that scene with the Snarl is that it was there simply to tell us that yes, the Snarl is real and is very much a threat, at a point where Vaarsuvius (and by extension, the Order and the readers) was wondering whether anything Shojo had told them was true. In that sense, that rift already served its purpose.

Well, that, and to build suspense by giving us our first non-crayon look at The Snarl in all its awesome (in the literal sense) glory.