MitD XIX: The Potted Plant Is Starting To Look Reasonable

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I would surmise (read: "Grey Wolf can probably tell you the actual answer") that it's much more difficult to come to any kind of consensus as to what qualifies as a minor hint, than it was to agree on the big scenes (two of which show MitD's abilities in action and the third of which lets us infer clues about his appearance).

Yeah, pretty much. And the whole "didn't I read somewhere" is particularly hard to pin down because it is a weasel word/sentence where Xykon effectively admits he's got no idea why he thinks that. Which, upon even the slightest pushback, he immediately abandons. So any OP entry would be "maybe Xykon is in fact right and the base species is particularly fond of dwarves (even though no such species has been presented), but most likely he was just completely off base". It's like the whole "doesn't leave footsteps on snow" on steroids where it's trivially easy to find a dozen interpretations and does not in fact help narrow down the field.

GW

[hroþila]

Yeah a "minor hint" list would hardly work for this thread. It might be an interesting premise for a different thread, not as a list of minor hints but as a compendium of everything that has been said in-story about the MitD, leaving interpretation to the reader, but I don't think it would be particularly helpful for the purpose of actually figuring out what the MitD is

[Ruck]

I mean, it isn't what I think, it's what Xykon thinks.

The Lich wouldn't set up a visual reveal if he didn't think the visual of the MitD was drama-worthy.

As I said earlier, there can be many reasons for that. But one way or another the MitD steppkng out of the darkness is supposed to generate an "oh ****" reaction in adventurers who aren't experts with obscure monster knowledge like Team Evil.

Yeah, that just indicates to me that Xykon thinks he will be scary as hell when revealed. And we already know Xykon thinks MitD should be scary.

Also while we know Xykon is far more clever than what most people who met him give him credit for, he's really not a subtle person.

So now that I thought about it more, I admit that an ever-shifting primordial soup of disparate body parts could be considered dramatic enough, given Xykon's tastes.

Ha, I got a good chuckle at "given Xykon's tastes."

Pinning down what Xykon might consider "dramatic" and why seems like it could be a tricky ordeal. I don't really think any particular FBS monster is more or less dramatic than another, but I guess I haven't thought about it. But I'm not sure how we could use that as part of the criteria without getting more specific into what we mean by "Xykon thinks the reveal will be dramatic."

[Tubercular Ox]

Happy Birthday, the season is upon me. I'm slowing down and I will be very busy from April 3rd to June. But I still felt like writing this one.

The Monster in the Dark needs three things to be self sufficient (meaning it works even if you’ve never heard of what it is).

1. Importance in the plot
2. A reason why we were not allowed to know what was revealed beforehand.
3. A reason it had to be in the story before the reveal.

The premise here was that Rich is writing the story to please both D&D fans and fans who don't care about D&D. Therefore the Monster in the Dark story has to make sense regardless of what the candidate is, because some people don't care. This was never intended as a test that could either approve or reject a candidate. The target of this test is a story that someone is proposing is the Monster in the Dark's story, not a candidate.

I can't remember if I ever intended it as a pass/fail thing. It works better as a set of guidelines: You judge the test story based on each of the guidelines, and then you harmonize the results using more judgement.

Importance in the plot is a spectrum. On one end the Monster in the Dark can be an appendix that can be ripped out of the book without anyone noticing. It's already too late for that, the Escape scene is there, but it can still be that in the reveal. On the other end would be a Monster in the Dark so critical to the plot that ripping it out of the book leaves unanswerable questions that ruin the story.

Is there evidence, not based on any particular candidate, that shows where in the spectrum Rich wants the Monster in the Dark to be? If so, are the stories people are proposing in line with that ideal?

The next one is another spectrum. On the one hand, Rich could simply have a death grip on the idea that Xykon is not going to reveal it until he orders it to attack the party. But please note that there is an alternate universe somewhere where Rich decided to have Xykon order the Monster in the Dark to attack at the end of the first book, and after it was revealed it hung out with Team Evil without any darkness. This is the weak end of the spectrum because Xykon saving it doesn't have any particular time it's supposed to happen. On the strong end of the spectrum, the appearance of the Monster in the Dark would itself be an unavoidable spoiler for the entire plot, and would ruin the tension of the entire story if revealed before hand.

Same questions: Is Rich indicating anything, and do our suggestions match that indication?

The last one may be trivial. Importance in the plot and having to be in the story are not identical. The Escape scene makes the Monster in the Dark critical at a key juncture in the plot, but Rich controls every aspect of the story and could have easily written an Escape scene where the characters escape some other way, or trashed the Escape scene entirely and written something showing off some different feature of the Monster in the Dark.

My best guess right now is that the only thing the Monster in the Dark is required to be there for is characterization. It's hard to tell the audience to be attached to a character. If people agree with me, then this one is just, "The MitD's climax will extend from its character arc up to that point," which is obvious. But I won't cross off the possibility there might be some other reason the Monster in the Dark would have to be part of the plot.

There is some crosstalk. You can only go so far on the second one before it starts ramping up the first one sympathetically, for example.

[woweedd]

Happy Birthday, the season is upon me. I'm slowing down and I will be very busy from April 3rd to June. But I still felt like writing this one.



The premise here was that Rich is writing the story to please both D&D fans and fans who don't care about D&D. Therefore the Monster in the Dark story has to make sense regardless of what the candidate is, because some people don't care. This was never intended as a test that could either approve or reject a candidate. The target of this test is a story that someone is proposing is the Monster in the Dark's story, not a candidate.

I can't remember if I ever intended it as a pass/fail thing. It works better as a set of guidelines: You judge the test story based on each of the guidelines, and then you harmonize the results using more judgement.

Importance in the plot is a spectrum. On one end the Monster in the Dark can be an appendix that can be ripped out of the book without anyone noticing. It's already too late for that, the Escape scene is there, but it can still be that in the reveal. On the other end would be a Monster in the Dark so critical to the plot that ripping it out of the book leaves unanswerable questions that ruin the story.

Is there evidence, not based on any particular candidate, that shows where in the spectrum Rich wants the Monster in the Dark to be? If so, are the stories people are proposing in line with that ideal?

The next one is another spectrum. On the one hand, Rich could simply have a death grip on the idea that Xykon is not going to reveal it until he orders it to attack the party. But please note that there is an alternate universe somewhere where Rich decided to have Xykon order the Monster in the Dark to attack at the end of the first book, and after it was revealed it hung out with Team Evil without any darkness. This is the weak end of the spectrum because Xykon saving it doesn't have any particular time it's supposed to happen. On the strong end of the spectrum, the appearance of the Monster in the Dark would itself be an unavoidable spoiler for the entire plot, and would ruin the tension of the entire story if revealed before hand.

Same questions: Is Rich indicating anything, and do our suggestions match that indication?

The last one may be trivial. Importance in the plot and having to be in the story are not identical. The Escape scene makes the Monster in the Dark critical at a key juncture in the plot, but Rich controls every aspect of the story and could have easily written an Escape scene where the characters escape some other way, or trashed the Escape scene entirely and written something showing off some different feature of the Monster in the Dark.

My best guess right now is that the only thing the Monster in the Dark is required to be there for is characterization. It's hard to tell the audience to be attached to a character. If people agree with me, then this one is just, "The MitD's climax will extend from its character arc up to that point," which is obvious. But I won't cross off the possibility there might be some other reason the Monster in the Dark would have to be part of the plot.

There is some crosstalk. You can only go so far on the second one before it starts ramping up the first one sympathetically, for example.

Unsupported assertion on the second point. As far as I know, from Rich's word, he sat down around strip 100 or so, laid out the plot of the rest of the story, since he was committing to this being a longterm project, which he expected to be over 1000 strips long and included both MITD's species and its reveal, there was never a point where he was revealed in book 1 of 7.

[b_jonas]

hroþila: We already have such a list of every minor thing anyone says about the MitD. I'm maintaining it, it's section 6 in the first page of this thread.

[Tubercular Ox]

Unsupported assertion on the second point. As far as I know, from Rich's word, he sat down around strip 100 or so, laid out the plot of the rest of the story, since he was committing to this being a longterm project, which he expected to be over 1000 strips long and included both MITD's species and its reveal, there was never a point where he was revealed in book 1 of 7.

Then it's a very alternate universe. The point is we can't always label something as necessary just because that's what Rich chose to do. Some reveals could fit into earlier points in the plot, others can't.

And remember, this is not an up/down test. One end isn't better than the other. Rich could easily plan a reveal that could happen at any point then put it at the end because he liked it there. Has he signaled that in any way? I don't know, I'm bad at spotting stuff like this, which is why I'm here.

[Hardcore]

Yes, it seems like I need to explain more thoroughly what I actually meant by creating a list of clues and hints. The current method suffers from some shortcomings; it's a kind of triangulation based on what others besides the creator assume to be relevant and important. The result is akin to having a tool that sifts through what could be the equivalent of a round block to fit into a hexagonal hole, only to find out it's square when everything is revealed in the end. Besides the flaws and limitations of the current method, it also feels like the current approach may not yield much anymore. Therefore, I want to advocate for the creative capacity of the human brain and its associative ability and see what ideas we can come up with without immediately filtering them out. There's nothing stopping us from using two methods or approaches independently of each other. One might argue, "What's the point then if you don't reach a result?" This is a discussion forum where we collectively entertain ourselves by trying to figure out which Monster it is. We all think freely and as we wish. As an example of this, we have Crusher's list as a sign. In other words, it's perfectly fine if people find something they think fits and believe it falls under the umbrella. There doesn't actually need to be a consensus on this; at least I haven't heard anything about it, so it's also not crucial if we have a generally accepted method or not to use. As an example of how such a list would work, imagine anyone can add to the list, but no one can remove anything except the one who added their clue or hint. And for that purpose, the clues don't actually need to be true or correct in any way.

So, to summarize, the purpose of such a list would be to make it easier to find new candidates through free association.

I had some ideas myself. "Eating children" could be a clue. Now, at least I got myself thinking a bit; there's a Titan in Greek mythology named Saturn who ate his children. Titans exist in Dungeons and Dragons; they are big and strong, capable of magic and psychic powers. Do Titans fit the big scenes? Sure, why not. It's a bit strange to find a Titan in the jungle; it's strong, chaotic, but maybe a bit harder to make it fit into the circus scene, unless we consider being a cannibalistic large humanoid as scary.

[Hardcore]

Or to put it shortly all clues about the monster in the dark should be compiled in a list. Only in hindsight will we know which where relevant and until then they have use

[InvisibleBison]

Or to put it shortly all clues about the monster in the dark should be compiled in a list. Only in hindsight will we know which where relevant and until then they have use

The problem with this is that we can't know for sure whether or not a given thing involving MitD is a clue or not until after the reveal, so until then a list of all clues is just a list of every time MitD appears or is referenced in the comic, which we already have.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Do Titans fit the big scenes? Sure, why not.

No they don't. They are way too big, and have no escape explanation. The Elder Titan does have greater teleport but the lore doesn't fit at all, and it is way, way too big, to the point where scaled down it wouldn't have enough strength.

As to the broader point, I agree with b_jonas & InvisibleBison: a list of all appearances of MitD already exists. What you are describing is not a "list of clues", it is that list, of every MitD appearance or reference.

GW

[Hardcore]

The problem with this is that we can't know for sure whether or not a given thing involving MitD is a clue or not until after the reveal, so until then a list of all clues is just a list of every time MitD appears or is referenced in the comic, which we already have.

That is good enough, I'll go take a look

[Errorname]

Unsupported assertion on the second point. As far as I know, from Rich's word, he sat down around strip 100 or so, laid out the plot of the rest of the story, since he was committing to this being a longterm project, which he expected to be over 1000 strips long and included both MITD's species and its reveal, there was never a point where he was revealed in book 1 of 7.

Yeah, near as I can tell it started out as "the joke is that he will never be revealed" when this was just a gag-a-day strip and then became "he will be revealed at the most dramatic possible moment" once Rich nailed down the structure of the overall story

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Yeah, near as I can tell it started out as "the joke is that he will never be revealed" when this was just a gag-a-day strip and then became "he will be revealed at the most dramatic possible moment" once Rich nailed down the structure of the overall story

From the horse's mouth, as listed in the OP:

So, just so everyone is clear: I know exactly what the Monster in the Darkness is. I have (almost) always known. Its first two or three appearances were before I had worked out much of the plot's details, so at that point, I just figured it was a mystery I would never answer. Once I started developing the real story that I was telling, around strip #100, I figured out what the monster really was and have been dropping hints ever since. (Note that nothing from before strip #100 actually contradicts the truth of what it is, either.) [...]I now know exactly when and why the monster will reveal itself, too ... don't expect it any time soon, though. Sorry. There's a lot of story left, and that little tidbit will need to wait to close to the end.

Nothing about the reveal being dramatic, just that it would happen near the end. Also no indication that it was crafted to please anyone, D&D players or not. Just that it was developed as he was working out the full story he wanted to tell.

Also, FWIW, this quote has been brought up in attempted conversations with Ox before.

Late ETA: I will note that Rich describes the reveal as "that little tidbit". Not "the glorious revelation" or "the turning point of the story" or anything grandiose. So, if anything, Rich considers the reveal to be a minor moment.

GW

[Mordar]

Nothing about the reveal being dramatic, just that it would happen near the end. Also no indication that it was crafted to please anyone, D&D players or not. Just that it was developed as he was working out the full story he wanted to tell.

Late ETA: I will note that Rich describes the reveal as "that little tidbit". Not "the glorious revelation" or "the turning point of the story" or anything grandiose. So, if anything, Rich considers the reveal to be a minor moment.

GW

I think at this point the meta(?)/tail-wags-dog nature of things means that the reveal will be dramatic...just perhaps not in the context of the story. How many threads/pages/posts about the subject?

- M

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think at this point the meta(?)/tail-wags-dog nature of things means that the reveal will be dramatic...just perhaps not in the context of the story. How many threads/pages/posts about the subject?

- M

The internet can make anything dramatic, I'll grant you. But yes, the fact some people seem to have invested a lot of energy into proclaiming they are correct and that they'll show us all and will be back to say the rest of us "See! I told you it was a [psammead/tarrasque/green quiddity god/Pun-Pun/etc etc etc ad nauseam]" will inevitably hit the wall of reality that they can't all in fact be correct, and that very well might lead to High Internet Drama (tm) and what have you on the thread associated to that page.

But I don't care one whit about any of that. Especially not to the current analysis of what MitD will turn out to be. The only reason it is even brought up now is because Ox still seems to be basing what can generously be called "analysis" on what he claims where Rich's intentions when MitD was thought up, and how his claims clash with the realty of what we do know about Rich's intentions. I see no reason to think Rich intended MitD's reveal to be dramatic, and I'm pretty sure that at the time of comic ~100 he had no inkling of just how big this comic would become in time and thus might be meta-dramatic because of the build up of expectations. I also am pretty sure that even if he had, he would not have tailored the story to these hypothetical reader's drama expectations, because Rich is very clearly in the "I write for myself" camp not in the "I write to please all my readers" camp. See also e.g. his counter-reaction to "certain" reader's reaction to LGBT presence in his comic.

Grey Wolf

[Mordar]

I see no reason to think Rich intended MitD's reveal to be dramatic, and I'm pretty sure that at the time of comic ~100 he had no inkling of just how big this comic would become in time and thus might be meta-dramatic because of the build up of expectations.

Grey Wolf

But even if we set aside the forum "drama" (for the record, I meant it in the more good clean fun of anticipation and payoff rather than the "I win the Internet!" perspective), I do think there is that bias that things that happen in the closing moments of the story seem to carry more dramatic weight than in the build up.* Since there is an overall higher activation level, things register differently to a lot of people (often including me). Some things that would have been "neat" drop to unnoticed, some things that would have been "kinda a big deal" become huge. Given the power players, and the hints of great power potential in MitD, I lean toward the latter. The reveal will be dramatic given the moment, the attention and the uncertainty of how it plays out.

* - I hate that in sports, in particular. Know how much the 3 points in the last 5 seconds of the game counts? *Exactly* as much as the 3 points in the first 5 seconds. If it is a penalty in the first period of the first game of the season it is a penalty in the last period of the last game of the championships.[/rant]

- M

[Grey_Wolf_c]

But even if we set aside the forum "drama" (for the record, I meant it in the more good clean fun of anticipation and payoff rather than the "I win the Internet!" perspective), I do think there is that bias that things that happen in the closing moments of the story seem to carry more dramatic weight than in the build up.* Since there is an overall higher activation level, things register differently to a lot of people (often including me). Some things that would have been "neat" drop to unnoticed, some things that would have been "kinda a big deal" become huge. Given the power players, and the hints of great power potential in MitD, I lean toward the latter. The reveal will be dramatic given the moment, the attention and the uncertainty of how it plays out.

* - I hate that in sports, in particular. Know how much the 3 points in the last 5 seconds of the game counts? *Exactly* as much as the 3 points in the first 5 seconds. If it is a penalty in the first period of the first game of the season it is a penalty in the last period of the last game of the championships.[/rant]

- M

And you are welcomed to that opinion, but it's just that, an opinion. Not a fact. But then, you aren't the one building a whole case based on that opinion, so yeah, by all means. I happen to be of the opinion that the revelation of his species will be practically irrelevant, compared with the actual dramatic moment where MitD finally breaks from under Xykon's bony thumb and sides with O-Chul. That will be the dramatic moment (in my opinion, YMMV, etc etc). I do expect MitD to come out of the shadows in that moment, as a not-particularly-subtle mirroring of his character development. And maybe we will have V, Elan, or O-Chul namedrop his species (aha! The learned scribe was correct, he is indeed a [insert name here]!). But of all those things happening all at once, the name drop won't be the dramatic part. And I think this because he might not be name dropped at all. Because Rich doesn't regularly give us the species names of creatures. And he doesn't need to for MitD because his species is immaterial to his story arc. We already know what he is: a good man. We already can see where his character arc is going. And none of that requires Rich to tell the audience his species.

And that's really the bottom line, as I am tired of saying at this point: this game of ours? It's a side game. It is a morsel of entertainment. The narrative does not owe us an answer, and if the comic never directly gave us the answer, it'd be nothing remarkable. Those that care would be able to get the answer from the forums, to everyone else, MitD's personal story would still have been dramatic and complete because he reached the end of his character arc. Nowhere in that arc is "oh, and also his species name is X" required, and in a comic that effectively hammers "stop putting some species above others, they are all sentient beings deserving the same considerations, rights and freedoms; the species is in fact irrelevant to how you should treat others" as its central message (sometimes hammering it quite literally) it'd be mighty weird if Rich suddenly made an exception here.

Grey Wolf

[Crusher]

(even though no such species has been presented)

The Loculi begs to differ.

I went back and re-read the entry for them, and it was better than I'd remembered. If the second-oldest age category had Psionic Teleport on its list of abilities (and it *should* have, by how the powers worked at the time), I might have pushed it for FBS consideration which is kind of remarkable for a 1E monster.

Sadly, I wasn't the one tracking Protean appearance claims. Or, rather, I don't recall that I'm the person doing it. Possible I'm wrong about that.

Timy,

Your change of guess is so noted.

[Peelee]

I do think there is that bias that things that happen in the closing moments of the story seem to carry more dramatic weight than in the build up.*

* - I hate that in sports, in particular. Know how much the 3 points in the last 5 seconds of the game counts? *Exactly* as much as the 3 points in the first 5 seconds. If it is a penalty in the first period of the first game of the season it is a penalty in the last period of the last game of the championships.[/rant]

- M

The value of the points stays the same, sure. However, you know how important the 3 points in the last 5 seconds, when you're down by 2, is? Significantly more than the 3 points in the first 5 seconds when the score is 0-0.

[b_jonas]

Yes, there will be Internet Drama when the Monster is revealed. The comic will go

• Xykon: You foolish mortals can never defeat the might of Xykon, not when I have the power of THIS on my side!
  Elan: Oh no! It's the dreaded white Slaad!
  Redcloak: Indeed it is, and he has just completed his hundred years of slumber so he can finally transform to a black Slaad.
  MitD changes color

And the forum will be full of posts saying “Actually Redcloak and Elan are wrong here. It's an understandable mistake, because the MitD is easy to confuse with a Slaad, and you need a very high Knowledge roll to identify it correctly as a”. And those sorts of posts won't stop even after Rich directly confirms in a public Patreon post and the foreword of the printed book that the MitD is a Slaad.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The Loculi begs to differ.

Right you are. Sorry, my bad.

GW

[Tubercular Ox]

Why am I being fact checked for an invitation to a thought experiment? Did I word it that badly?

Here we go again: After the reveal, when you know what the Monster in the Dark is, imagine that it were revealed at the end of the first book. How much does the story change?

If I said, "When wishes are horses, beggars will ride," would the thing to do be to complain that beggars are unlikely to know how to ride because of the expense of keeping a horse?

Quoting Rich at me does not prove me wrong, because there is nothing to be wrong about. It is a thought experiment. It's not bound to reality.

* - I hate that in sports, in particular. Know how much the 3 points in the last 5 seconds of the game counts? *Exactly* as much as the 3 points in the first 5 seconds. If it is a penalty in the first period of the first game of the season it is a penalty in the last period of the last game of the championships.[/rant]

In war games they tell you take risks in the beginning or take losses in the end. I've sat up and wondered what difference it makes when you take the risk, all else being equal. My best guess is that all else is never equal.

[OvisCaedo]

How much does the story change in this double hypothetical situation of information that has still not been revealed having instead been revealed a decade ago? Probably not very much, I guess! Weaker symbolism for the MitD's whole character arc, I'd think, since being kept in the darkness and bossed around until he finally decides to choose his own independence is more important than whatever his species actually is.

I don't think it will really matter much at all what his species is when it's revealed, though I expect that reveal will coincide exactly with the culmination of his character arc and finally defying Xykon directly. The act of the reveal will be more dramatic than the information itself.

[Tubercular Ox]

How much does the story change in this double hypothetical situation of information that has still not been revealed having instead been revealed a decade ago? Probably not very much, I guess! Weaker symbolism for the MitD's whole character arc, I'd think, since being kept in the darkness and bossed around until he finally decides to choose his own independence is more important than whatever his species actually is.

I appreciate that you're playing along and thank you for that, but I didn't know it was possible to play this game without a suggestion for the reveal.

If it's revealed that the Monster in the Dark is related to something plot central, like the Snarl, the Gates, or Redcloak, obviously it couldn't be exposed earlier in the story. It'd give it away.

But if the Monster in the Dark isn't connected to anything else in the story, and there's no other reason to keep it in the dark, if you can imagine it being revealed in the first book and the story not changing... that's a different kind of reveal.

Is Rich indicating a particular kind of reveal?

Are the reveals being suggested consistent with that indication?

And I'm still trying to operate without worrying about a candidate. Is Rich's story telling us something about the reveal that even a person who doesn't play D&D could learn?

I get what you're saying about the symbolism. For that we can just be happy that it's only a thought experiment. Also, its characterization is something I'm considering separately and has different questions attached.

[Kish]

The premise here was that Rich is writing the story to please both D&D fans and fans who don't care about D&D. Therefore the Monster in the Dark story has to make sense regardless of what the candidate is, because some people don't care. This was never intended as a test that could either approve or reject a candidate. The target of this test is a story that someone is proposing is the Monster in the Dark's story, not a candidate.

I can't remember if I ever intended it as a pass/fail thing. It works better as a set of guidelines: You judge the test story based on each of the guidelines, and then you harmonize the results using more judgement.

Importance in the plot is a spectrum. On one end the Monster in the Dark can be an appendix that can be ripped out of the book without anyone noticing. It's already too late for that, the Escape scene is there, but it can still be that in the reveal.

When I read that, I went "huh? What does 'in the reveal' mean that..."

You mean "his species can still be that," correct?

And later when you say things like "On the other end would be a Monster in the Dark so critical to the plot that ripping it out of the book leaves unanswerable questions that ruin the story."--that again refers to the creature's species specifically, correct? If he ended the comic as a still-shrouded-in-shadows major character, that would equal "ripping it out of the book"? (To be clear, I think there is 0% chance Rich will do that.)

As Grey Wolf alluded to here, I think--

:O-Chul: You may not know exactly what you are--but I do.
You do? Really? Then what am I?
:O-Chul: A good man.

--the creature is most definitely a character first and a whatever-his-species is second. His story, we've already seen the bulk of. It will not be fundamentally transformed by any revelation of species, and various short-lived proposals here over the years that he will reach maturity and suddenly become the alignment of his species have been dropped quickly for excellent reason. Rich may well have a protean appear from the shadows and say "I CAN CHANGE," but he will not have one say or imply "because of my species: if I was, say, a red dragon, Chaotic Evil would be all you could get!"

The next one is another spectrum. On the one hand, Rich could simply have a death grip on the idea that Xykon is not going to reveal it until he orders it to attack the party.

Far less importantly, I also don't think Xykon's opinion on when the creature should be revealed matters much. He's already going against Xykon in everything but outright attacking him, and only the fact that both Xykon and Redcloak ignore him and think he'll never do anything significant has stopped them from noticing it. The only question is when he'll act openly, against Xykon and Redcloak. He may potentially reveal himself by eating, or trying to eat, Redcloak...but if Xykon orders him to attack the Order, or tries for a reprise of the "you foolish mortals can never prevail etc." plan he had in the first book, the only way the creature will be attacking is if he attacks Xykon.

I think it is very unlikely that the reveal will include any form of "it would actually have significantly changed the story of the audience had known what the creature in the darkness was from Book 1 on," any more than Malack's reveal included any reason why the audience not knowing, as opposed to Durkon not knowing, mattered.

[Mordar]

And you are welcomed to that opinion, but it's just that, an opinion. Not a fact. But then, you aren't the one building a whole case based on that opinion, so yeah, by all means. I happen to be of the opinion that the revelation of his species will be practically irrelevant, compared with the actual dramatic moment where MitD finally breaks from under Xykon's bony thumb and sides with O-Chul. That will be the dramatic moment (in my opinion, YMMV, etc etc). I do expect MitD to come out of the shadows in that moment, as a not-particularly-subtle mirroring of his character development. And maybe we will have V, Elan, or O-Chul namedrop his species (aha! The learned scribe was correct, he is indeed a [insert name here]!). But of all those things happening all at once, the name drop won't be the dramatic part. And I think this because he might not be name dropped at all. Because Rich doesn't regularly give us the species names of creatures. And he doesn't need to for MitD because his species is immaterial to his story arc. We already know what he is: a good man. We already can see where his character arc is going. And none of that requires Rich to tell the audience his species.

Grey Wolf

I see the crux of the thing. My use of reveal = the big moment when MitD is no longer under the umbrella and does the big thing it is going to do at the end of the story (because I believe it happens at the climax of the story).

We're in agreement here...the reveal will be very dramatic *not because we learn that MitD is a Animated Flluffernutter*, but because of the narrative stakes at the point of the reveal, and the actions that happen in that reveal.

The value of the points stays the same, sure. However, you know how important the 3 points in the last 5 seconds, when you're down by 2, is? Significantly more than the 3 points in the first 5 seconds when the score is 0-0.

Except that if I stuck that 3 at the start of the game, we'd be up 1 in the last 5 seconds and it would be a whole different ballgame.* Or if I hit that field goal we'd be able to kneel it out instead of trying for the 52-yarder down by 2 with 5 seconds left. The only different is for the degenerate gamblers. And basically screw them.

* - Or if I missed another 3 at the start we're down by 5 with 5 left. No points are more important that other points. More dramatic, yup.

I imagine I am the first to guess MitD is an animated peanut butter and marshmallow cookie...right?

- M

[b_jonas]

I imagine I am the first to guess MitD is an animated peanut butter and marshmallow cookie...right?

Ok, I'll bite. How did an animated peanut butter and marshmallow cookie punch Miko and Windstriker through the tower wall? The stats for animated objects indicate that they are much too weak for that.

[Mordar]

Ok, I'll bite. How did an animated peanut butter and marshmallow cookie punch Miko and Windstriker through the tower wall? The stats for animated objects indicate that they are much too weak for that.

Hallucination brought on by fermented peanut butter and brandy soaked marshmallows. Or it wasn't meant to stand to scrutiny and reinforced that the drama will be of the moment, not of the actual knowledge of MitD's species.

- M

[Peelee]

Except that if I stuck that 3 at the start of the game, we'd be up 1 in the last 5 seconds and it would be a whole different ballgame.* Or if I hit that field goal we'd be able to kneel it out instead of trying for the 52-yarder down by 2 with 5 seconds left. The only different is for the degenerate gamblers.

Not at all. The difference is for how the game is played. If you're down by 2 with a minute left, you're going to play very differently than if you're up by 1. Score a 3 in the beginning and things may go very different because of that, have no score all game and make a 3 at the end and i promise you, the offense and defense were both trying their damndest, moreso than in the very beginning. This is an information difference, where the information (we need X more points and have Y time to do it) matters. A lot.

Your argument is basically an incredibly reductive "just score more points, team!" Which isn't wrong, but i can't imagine you enjoying watching sports at all with that view.