OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread

[AdmiralCheez]

Back in 1987 had a flight student. Flash to 1999 and there I was, as his copilot on a post maintenance check flight. Did I sulk or throw wrenches at him? No, I did my duty.

Well, yeah, I would too. In fact, I just recently trained someone up, and then two months later she became my superior. I was just sympathizing with the idea of being frustrated at that. It's still wrong to act on it with mutiny though. But in my case, she was a good pick for team lead and I have no problems.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

It definitely can be hard to treat someone with respect that you used to babysit, but I think it's clear that Bandana has grown up and this is no time to be holding a grudge.

[Ridureyu]

Andi needs to finish off Bandana. Her authority is eroding as long as she allows verbal dissent.

[FlawedParadigm]

I can only guess Rich was nostalgic for the good ol' days of Miko threads and decided to write Andi to carry on her battles against sense.

[Peelee]

My dad fought Golden Gloves in the Navy. Won his first 5 bouts, then ran into the eventual fleet champion and decided his only hope for victory was to damage the guy's knuckles with his face. Third time the guy knocked Dad down he just decided it was better to stay down, it was comfy down there and gloves didn't appear out of nowhere and hurt him.

Not sure how that compares to Peelee's dad, but I suspect it speaks well of my father's intelligence

My dad went to an Ivy League school and then taught at an all-but-Ivy League school before moving down here and teaching at a nowhere-near-Ivy League school. I think he was also a Navy chaplain at some point, but I'm unsure. That's about all you need to know about how his martial skills were, I'm sure.

[Unoriginal]

I know anti-intellectualism is all the rage these days (sometimes literally), but Andi could have been any crewmember on the ship -- gunner, lookout, quartermaster, pilot, medic, cook, deck-swabber, whatever -- and it would be totally incidental to the plot. The only key thing is that she's been a dedicated crew member on the ship for a long time. Making her specifically an engineer and then grinding that fact in strip after strip just gives me a mean-spirited impression from the author and, against my best intentions, is actually building sympathy for Andi that I should not rationally have.

As you said, the fact she's an engineer is completely incidental to the plot.

If she was a gunner and it was said several time what her job is, would you feel this way?

[ChillerInstinct]

There's something about the whole "oh, now look who's in favour of the captain listening" quip that makes me grit my teeth. Don't know what it is exactly, but for the love of all that's holy, that sets me on edge.

And for something that petty? Yeah, I was willing to give her a little benefit of the doubt of the whole "um, some of our crew just got bisected and we might all die" flight or fight stuff, but it's clear this isn't just a flare up. She didn't even give more than a "oh, you're awake" to the person she very easily could have KILLED with her tantrum before throwing her toys out of the pram again.

Take a long walk, Andi. Preferably off the short plank.

[TheNecrocomicon]

It's like a nesting doll of crises: Xykon's at the gate, but before they can even go deal with that they have to stop Greg, but before they can go deal with that they have to fight off some frost giants, but before they can go deal with that there's a gorram mutiny.

I'm not arguing that this kind of crisis-pileup is bad storytelling in any objective (or even intersubjective) sense, but I personally find the effect of introducing another conflict at this point starts to make reading it more stressful than exciting.

This, very much so. And this coming on the heels of another nesting doll of Hel's tiebreaker backup plans at the Godsmoot.

It definitely can be hard to treat someone with respect that you used to babysit, but I think it's clear that Bandana has grown up and this is no time to be holding a grudge.

Clear to us third-party readers, sure. Clear to a raging narcissist with a superiority complex? That's something else.

People who knew you as a kid hardly ever get that mental image out of their minds.

I know I have a female family member who has this same problem with her parents, despite the fact that the "child" is well into her fifties at this point.

For all her good points, my mother is just like this. No matter how much I (late 20s) and my sister (mid-30s) grow into being adults, it's pretty clear that she will never regard either of us as a fellow adult or as an equal in any way, because she's still got this mental block around the fact that we're not children anymore and she got accustomed to having a lot of control back when we were.

Andi needs to finish off Bandana. Her authority is eroding as long as she allows verbal dissent.

That is pretty much the only thing preventing Andi from conclusively going over the moral event horizon. Right now, I'm fine with Andi having a nice long stay in the brig, or being kicked off the crew. If she actually offs Bandana, or some other crew member who objects? She'll deserve a painful death.

[Kish]

I'd just like to point out, before the next bravely against-the-grain Andi defender posts, that she hasn't mentioned the people who died. She's had time for Bandana's age, and Bandana's age, and Bandana's age, and some stuff that appears to be pure ego assertion ("How dare you not listen to me, don't you know who I am? I'm ME!"). She has not spared one syllable for "people have died," either in the "people have died and this never-never happened when Julio was in charge" form her defenders insist on, or in any other "people have died and this is a thing I care about" form.

[Unoriginal]

I see some parallels with Bandana vs. Andi to the lasting conflict between Roy and Eugene. In both cases, we have a character who built their abilities with long study and practice who is contemptuous of someone else who they see as having taken the quick, easy and allegedly illegitimate path. Even Vaarsuvius acted that way towards non-wizards before having their misconceptions broken. It's not a new pattern.

Wait, what.

Neither Roy nor Bandana took the quick, easy way to power. Roy studied for years, and so did Bandana.

[georgie_leech]

That is pretty much the only thing preventing Andi from conclusively going over the moral event horizon. Right now, I'm fine with Andi having a nice long stay in the brig, or being kicked off the crew. If she actually offs Bandana, or some other crew member who objects? She'll deserve a painful death.

I think that's a sarcastic jibe at the people saying Bandana screwed up with being so lenient on Andi's constant disrespect.

[ChillerInstinct]

She has not spared one syllable for "people have died," either in the "people have died and this never-never happened when Julio was in charge" form her defenders insist on, or in any other "people have died and this is a thing I care about" form.

She DOES mention Bandana "getting people killed" in Panel 6, actually. Though it certainly feels like a tertiary point towards advancing her ego-trip at best.

[Unoriginal]

Yes, Andi's shortcomings are unrelated to engineering. That's part of why it feels so gratuitous that the author is not only having her suck at leadership skills but also fly way off the deep end while spouting trite crap about solving problems by hitting things with a wrench and being too obsessed with mathematics to be a decent babysitter.

I sure appreciate my field of work getting used simultaneously as a hate sink and a punching bag for cheap jokes.

Why do you think it's gratuitous to have her be a petty jerk who sucks at leadership and who is using literally anything to justify her behavior? Her "when you don't know what to do, hit the stuff" has no more meaning than her going "you were never the captain, Bandana, everyone else was just too deluded to see it" attitude.

She wasn't obsessed with mathematics to be a decent babysitter, she was a babysitter who thought she could do her homework while on the clock and had instead to deal with a turbulent kid.

[Kish]

I'm going to describe a scene that won't actually happen.

Roy finishes off the frost giants and turns around to look for Bandana.
Wait, what happened here?
Andi replies with something similar to what she's said over the past few strips. Roy closes his eyes briefly, a pained expression coming over his face as he sorts out what she's saying other than some kind of self-justification, then:
WHACK!
Andi goes flying over the edge of the ship and lands far below.

(That last line is what I'm confident won't actually happen; Roy can easily knock Andi unconscious without killing her, and may well do so before the end of this arc. If Andi dies, it will be either without the intervention of any of the Order, or, just barely possibly, Belkar showing that even when he's being relatively heroic he's a different kind of hero than the rest of the Order.)

She DOES mention Bandana "getting people killed" in Panel 6, actually. Though it certainly feels like a tertiary point towards advancing her ego-trip at best.

So she does, after the "Bandana's age, and Bandana's age" part, as a secondary point to the wrong of "bossing me around," and before the "Bandana's age" part. My mistake.

[Unoriginal]

That's entirely beside the point. If you cant, in 15 years on the job, learn how to act in a crisis, you have no business doing that job. It doesn't matter that the captain is new, if you leave your post to go harass her, the ship now has nobody acting as head engineer and nobody acting as captain, and after 15 years, Andi should know that.

It doesn't matter the captain is new, it matters that the captain is Bandana.

Andi literally said she considers anything Bandana says to be wrong.

[TheNecrocomicon]

As you said, the fact she's an engineer is completely incidental to the plot.

If she was a gunner and it was said several time what her job is, would you feel this way?

Possibly. In that reaction though, I'd have to defer to anybody who knows what a career in warfare or naval gunnery is actually like.

Has there been a lot of media that has portrayed people in artillery- or weapons-related careers as being pathologically unable to manage other people, handle leadership positions or develop social skills at all?

But oh no, it's fun and easy to mock and put down the engineers, because we're insufferable nerds with no social skills, right?

I think what gets me more is the deliberate conflation of Andi's role on the ship (as valid as any other) with her arrogance and entitlement coming to a head in the mutiny (which is totally out of line and gratingly so). If her engineering background was just that, her role in past strips, and never really came up here aside from Bandana's "go do your job" line, I was fine with that. But now the author is deliberately using trite BS about "fixing problems by hitting them with a wrench" for Andi to taunt and gloat to Bandana or "gotta go do my trigonometry homework" in the source of Andi's resentment and entitlement. I think that's what really sticks in my craw about this strip.

Wait, what.

Neither Roy nor Bandana took the quick, easy way to power. Roy studied for years, and so did Bandana.

I never said they did, merely that both Andi and Eugene looked down on Bandana and Roy respectively. Eugene despised Roy (like he despised his own father, Horace) for being a physical-prowess-oriented fighter, instead of spending years and years studying and practicing to develop magical skills and talent as Eugene did. Andi looks down on Bandana for being a kid handed a series of leadership opportunities, instead of studying and working up the hierarchy of the ship gradually as Andi did.

It's not a perfect parallel, but I see one.

Why do you think it's gratuitous to have her be a petty jerk who sucks at leadership and who is using literally anything to justify her behavior? Her "when you don't know what to do, hit the stuff" has no more meaning than her going "you were never the captain, Bandana, everyone else was just too deluded to see it" attitude.

She wasn't obsessed with mathematics to be a decent babysitter, she was a babysitter who thought she could do her homework while on the clock and had instead to deal with a turbulent kid.

It's one thing for Andi to be a jerk who feels entitled to leadership; that's not something tied to her role upon the ship but rather to Andi's seniority regardless of her actual title.

It's another thing entirely for the author to be pulling this "have I mentioned Andi is an engineer" routine lately, right down to Andi spouting trite crap about percussive maintenance and being a stereotypical nerd in her youth. It comes across less as "Andi just so happens to be an engineer" and more like some sort of preachy message that engineers habitually suck at leadership due to crappy social skills and people-management.

[Jasdoif]

My dad went to an Ivy League school and then taught at an all-but-Ivy League school before moving down here and teaching at a nowhere-near-Ivy League school. I think he was also a Navy chaplain at some point, but I'm unsure. That's about all you need to know about how his martial skills were, I'm sure.

Chaplain? So this would be a Monk-vs-CoDzilla fight?

[ChillerInstinct]

(That last line is what I'm confident won't actually happen; Roy can easily knock Andi unconscious without killing her, and may well do so before the end of this arc. If Andi dies, it will be either without the intervention of any of the Order, or, just barely possibly, Belkar showing that even when he's being relatively heroic he's a different kind of hero than the rest of the Order.)

Yeah, I don't see the Order being responsible for her ultimate fate. I'm of the mind that she'll live. A more fitting fate would be for Julio to hear about this, for her to live with her shame, and to spend the rest of her life on latrine duty. Or whatever the equivalent is on a magic airship.

[Rynjin]

I like Andi. She's friendly,

Since when? To who?

good at her job (She's kept the Mechane flying for over a decade)

Compared to the rock faces they're about to run into, perhaps.

People who are good at their jobs have a prerequisite of actually DOING them.

and relatable.

To who? How so?

[Jasdoif]

I think what gets me more is the deliberate conflation of Andi's role on the ship (as valid as any other) with her arrogance and entitlement coming to a head in the mutiny (which is totally out of line and gratingly so).

So stop deliberately conflating them.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Yeah, I don't see the Order being responsible for her ultimate fate.

I could see them being the instrument for her fate, but yes, I find it unlikely.

I cast Summon Banana III: Jasdoif, can I please have the Giant's quote about every character meeting their downfall as a consequence of their actions, please? (Thanks in advance)

Grey Wolf

[Unoriginal]

Like, is Bandanna in the right?

Yep.

Is the engineer?

Nope.

It seems to hinge on whether the boat would have crashed if she didn't pull them away from the giants, but I don't know that.

Nope. Her way of thinking is irrational, her reasons for doing what she did are based on factually wrong issues, and she's only not destroyed the ship by luck. She still got it damaged.

Now, because of her, the Mechane is flying blind in uncharted territories, with the people who defended the ship and her crew abandoned behind and likely unable to reach them to keep protecting them. And they have literally no info on what's the path they're taking is like.

So, even if Andi's method happen to produce a desirable outcome, it'd be by pure randomness.


Also, note that the Mechane only arrives just on time if you makes an honest effort to go through the challenges baring its route. So Andi's actions are also making the ship's most needed feature not working anymore.

[Doug Lampert]

Roy disagrees with your assessment.

And I agree with the others that say you are reading into this what the author has not put in. Andi's shortcomings are unrelated to engineering - indeed, she does not strike me as a particular good engineer either, although she's likely a better engineer than leader, but only because I can't see how she could be worse.

Grey Wolf

There's also this from long ago.

I'm sure I can find other examples if I look. Roy uses his brains and environmental factors when he can.

That said, what he studied at that fancy fighter college was "Standing in Front of Other People 101". Con and strength are required for his build to work, Int is a minor edge compared to them.

[Tyrannosaurus]

You know it's one thing for someone to be angry that someone "less qualified" (read: younger) was given a promotion over you. I can even understand slightly the feeling of unease that generates. However as nearly everyone ever has pointed out, that's nowhere near justification to not do your job let alone attack your superior. It's clear that despite explicit orders, Andi never really considered Bandana the captain which shows she not only has no respect for Bandana, she has none for Scoundrel. All of which have been discussed. I think the most sickening thing is how she treated someone she's pretty much helped raise from the age of 8. I've known people since they were kids. I can attest to the idea that it's sometimes difficult to see them as more than a kid. That typically makes me less prone to wanting to bash their head in with improvised blunt weapons. Even if it had been an "outburst", she clearly has no remorse for attacking someone she practically raised. What a genuinely awful person. At least Miko was a powerful case of lawful stupid and as much as she deserved her comeuppance, she wasn't a terrible person. I'm finding it genuinely difficult to find redeeming qualities within Andi. We're instead treated to a horror show of ever more terrible character traits and behaviors. It's almost enough to make you understand people like Xykon who want to destroy the world.

That my friends, is the true moral of this story. We're ALL just one Andi away from being Xykon.

[Jasdoif]

I could see them being the instrument for her fate, but yes, I find it unlikely.

I cast Summon Banana III: Jasdoif, can I please have the Giant's quote about every character meeting their downfall as a consequence of their actions, please? (Thanks in advance)

Grey Wolf

(Note to self, check BananaBlock for effectiveness against heightened spells)

And I've never killed a developed character where that character's death wasn't a direct result of their own choices.

...Kubota died because he made a choice to surrender based on his assumption that Hinjo was bound by morality and therefore he would be safe to continue his scheme from inside a courtroom. He made a calculated choice that involved his own safety and got the math wrong—because he didn't count on anyone going outside of Hinjo's laws. In many ways, like Nale; he thought he was untouchable, so he made a bad call.

I think it's pretty much Storytelling 101, actually. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's how I see it. If the character isn't important enough to die through their own agency, even indirectly, then they're not important enough to learn much about in the first place.

Saangwan is a good example. She totally got killed not as a result of her own choices, except maybe her choice to be there on the wall in the first place. But we also know almost nothing about her. How did she get her powers? Was she born blind? What did she think or feel about what was happening? We don't know. And that's on purpose.

Choices, not actions. Choices can include inaction, as well as a given viewpoint or a lifestyle. If you live a life of crime, and then die from disease while in jail, then your choices led to your death for our purposes. Accurate foresight into the possible consequences of one's choices is not required; indeed, most commonly, it is absent because if the character was capable of seeing and understanding the true possibilities then they probably wouldn't make that choice. It also does not absolve responsibility from the person who does the killing; that's not the point. The point is, characters don't die from someone jumping out of an alleyway and murdering them for shock value. A character's death is the culmination of their story, and should be handled as such.

Malack dies because his settled comfortable life leads him to both underestimate his enemies and ignore his own vulnerabilities. Roy dies because he is given the chance to back out of a battle that is clearly over his head and he refuses. Durkon dies because he trusted Malack to not mess with his spell research. Zz'dtri dies like he lived, as Nale's loyal follower and without much story of his own. Shojo dies because of a lifetime of lies and deceptions, the most important of which was telling a random orphan girl that she was Special and Chosen. Nale dies because he doesn't recognize the privilege he has been living under his entire life. Crystal dies the first time because she can't help but continue to threaten Haley even as they have a truce, and the second time because she can't help being a sadistic killer. Bozzok dies because he chose not to consider his follower's well-being at all. Tsukikko dies because she can't avoid gloating, and because she trusts the undead. Therkla dies because she won't pick a side.

Character deaths are a function of that character's traits, not random. Their deaths flow logically from their flaws. That's all it means.

And Fruit Pie the Sorcerer died because he was a sorcerer who chose to fight encounters with fruit pies rather than actual spells.

[Unoriginal]

Though Sweet seems to consider Freud to be a credible source of knowledge instead of a guy with some bright ideas and some weird obsessions.

In my country's psychology/psychiatry-related academia , Freud is considered credible. Not 100%, but certainly not discredited.

Could also just be the writers going "let's use something people will recognize" stuff, as someone else pointed out.

[Unoriginal]

One of the primary duties of a captain is to chart a course. This means that they spend a lot of time looking at maps. Chances are good that if this area is well mapped, any side passes will be marked as dead ends. Bandana would have studied the charts and was probably trying to make that point in panel 5 before she was interrupted.

Andi's move may have put the Mechane on a course to something worse than Frost Giants.

We KNOW that there is no known path through the mountains aside from this pass, in the area. There are a few others, but they're not close.

Bandana already explained it, even.

[danielxcutter]

(Note to self, check BananaBlock for effectiveness against heightened spells)

(Note to self, start researching Summon Banana IV, and take Spell Penetration)

[Mightymosy]

So, before the usual Andi vs Bandana arguments continue in the new thread, can I just say that young Bandana-Beatrix is soooo lovably cute?


Ooops....too late, I guess

[Kish]

By any reasonable metric, I think Andi has done enough to be responsible for her death if it happened in this scene whether it came by dagger, oversized axe, disintegrate ray, greatsword, arrow, or the ground. Though, as I said, I do not actually expect anyone in the Order to kill her (alas; the speed with which she went from pretending she wasn't actually taking Bandana prisoner to snidely gloating has managed to make me start actively hoping she winds up dead).

I never said they did, merely that both Andi and Eugene looked down on Bandana and Roy respectively. Eugene despised Roy (like he despised his own father, Horace) for being a physical-prowess-oriented fighter, instead of spending years and years studying and practicing to develop magical skills and talent as Eugene did. Andi looks down on Bandana for being a kid handed a series of leadership opportunities, instead of studying and working up the hierarchy of the ship gradually as Andi did.

Citation needed for the bolded parts.

At this point I'll be surprised if you acknowledge this at all, but the fact is, you're making up stuff as much as the people who wholeheartedly embrace championing Andi are. Neither indicates "grah, being a fighter/a captain is not working hard like me!" Ever. It's much more elemental: a fighter is not a wizard/Bandana is not Andi, thus a fighter is inferior to a wizard/thus Bandana is inferior to Andi.

You're also reading a ton of stuff that isn't there into a couple jokes that no one but you has indicated considering to be a comment on engineers.