Why did Elan let Tarquin fall?

[CoffeeIncluded]

Also, remember that Elan knew (both from being a bard and from personal experience with Nale) that no story-notable villain ever stays captured. They always find a way out, usually at the least convenient time. Tarquin was essentially asking him to buy into a story trope that never works out well for the hero; Elan resisted his usual instincts by refusing. It was a sign of growth for him because he's learned how to say no to narrative patterns that don't help his cause.

Which was something that was a long time coming. It's good to see him grow so much.

Thanks for the explanation!

[BaronOfHell]

Whenever I read about Tarquin here I get the feeling it sometimes goes like this:



Bad guy: I want to be center of attention, and I'll do that by doing evil.

Hero: I must stop him!

Hero accomplishes this by stopping bad guy from being center of attention, but not stopping him from doing evil.



While I think it should be:

Hero accomplishes this by stopping bad guy from doing evil, but not stopping him from being center of attention.



Tarquin is annoying in his "I'm gonna win no matter what, and there'll be no retribution or justice, etc.", but I find that if Tarquin is happy or not isn't really relevant, the relevant is that he's stopped from doing evil.

[Lvl45DM!]

Whenever I read about Tarquin here I get the feeling it sometimes goes like this:



Bad guy: I want to be center of attention, and I'll do that by doing evil.

Hero: I must stop him!

Hero accomplishes this by stopping bad guy from being center of attention, but not stopping him from doing evil.



While I think it should be:

Hero accomplishes this by stopping bad guy from doing evil, but not stopping him from being center of attention.



Tarquin is annoying in his "I'm gonna win no matter what, and there'll be no retribution or justice, etc.", but I find that if Tarquin is happy or not isn't really relevant, the relevant is that he's stopped from doing evil.

Ahhh but you're forgetting that Tarquin is planning to inspire legions of folk just like him, and he would if he got his way. So its really
Bad Guy: "I want to do evil and be the center of attention (which will cause more evil)"
Good Guy: "I want to stop BOTH things! I will both stop you gaining control of evil power, stop you being the center of attention AND then one day come back and save the country from you"

[The Giant]

Tarquin is annoying in his "I'm gonna win no matter what, and there'll be no retribution or justice, etc.", but I find that if Tarquin is happy or not isn't really relevant, the relevant is that he's stopped from doing evil.

No, what's relevant is that evil is stopped. Buying into the idea that he needs to stop Tarquin, personally, is exactly the misconception he is overcoming. He doesn't have a duty to stop Tarquin, he has a duty to stop the entire Empire of Blood scheme (including Tarquin), which is something he can't do at the exact moment that Tarquin is hanging off the ship. Elan is in no position to actually reduce the Empire of Blood's toll of human suffering; Tarquin's allies will soldier on without him for the brief period before they resurrect him or break him out of jail. Elan knows this because of Nale. The best thing he can do for the people of the Empire is get away without entanglements, deal with the existential threat to the universe that might kill everyone in the next few weeks, and then come back with a long-term plan to help. Which is exactly what he's doing.

The fact that it also successfully puts Tarquin in his place is a nice bonus. As Elan says earlier: Morale matters. Getting Tarquin to taste the full ashes of defeat on his own terms now may help more to the eventual effort to overthrow the Empire than handing him another mixed victory where he gets some of what he wants.

EDIT: The post below this one is also 100% correct, saying the same thing a different way.

[deworde]

Hero accomplishes this by stopping bad guy from doing evil, but not stopping him from being center of attention.

I find that if Tarquin is happy or not isn't really relevant, the relevant is that he's stopped from doing evil.

EDIT: Totally started writing this before the Giant posted...

Well, there's two things going on here; firstly, if you're going down that PoV, it doesn't matter *who's* doing evil, only that evil is being done. So your issue isn't with Tarquin, it's with the Empire of Blood (and beyond that arguably the entire geopolitical structure of the Western Continent). Sure, he's a key figure in the Empire, but he's not actually *personally* driving much any more.

So realistically, whether he goes back or someone else takes over doesn't help much. What is needed is for the entire Empire to be overthrown and a new, better, geopolitical structure to emerge.

Okay, so why don't the Order do that? Simple answer: They're working on both a bigger and a different scale. Bigger, because the entire casualty rate of the EoB is nothing compared to what happens if the Snarl gets loose, or even if Xykon takes over the world.

Different, because the Order aren't Freedom Fighters or Nation builders. Stopping an evil lich and sealing away a worldeater, no problem(ish). Killing a ton of soldiers, sure. Raising a cohesive ethical organization capable of undermining and competing with an established empire... Nope. They're significantly *less* qualified than the best alternative (Amun-Zora and Ian, who respectively have motivation and experience)

So that's why letting Tarquin go back doesn't matter. Why it's a good idea is the second thing; why do you want Elan to bring down Tarquin? Why does that even seem like it would solve the issue? BECAUSE YOU'RE BUYING INTO TARQUIN'S NARRATIVE.

Of course the Hero should crush the villain after a mighty casterfight, bringing down the mighty empire and heralding a new era. Of course the villain can't be allowed to enjoy being evil for another day. Of course Tarquin matters enough to continue being relevant to Elan's story. THAT IS HOW THESE THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DONE! (sic)

By rejecting that, Elan wounds Tarquin far more than Baltarring him up in some floating cell would.

Arguably handing him over to Ian and Amun would have been better, but Elan didn't know she was going to turn up, and the chance that Ian would trust him offering Tarquin up was precisely zero.

Besides, once you get that fiddly, you're undermining the narrative point BRitF is actually making in order to justify a plot hole that only exists because of a false premise (e.g. that Tarquin's critically important).

[BaronOfHell]

Sorry for wording it badly. I did not mean that stopping Tarquin alone would be all and end all.

I have not disagreed with Elan's actions, but I did not consider that potentially causing Tarquin an existential crisis could help dealing with the scheme his team is running.

Btw. is it because I've the same avatar picture as OP that it's thought I disagreed with Elan's actions?

Ahhh but you're forgetting that Tarquin is planning to inspire legions of folk just like him, and he would if he got his way.

It's difficult for me to buy into that line of thought, because the way I see it, there'll always be a story to tell. And if not most stories, then many stories require both heroes and villains. I think that was the strip where I started to ponder it, because Elan, from what I could tell, bought into Tarquin's "I'm gonna win no matter what", and my solution to the dilemma was that it doesn't matter if Tarquin believes he's won or lost, but that the suffering stops, i.e. the heroes do their thing.

[AGD]

This is pretty much spot-on.

"Continue to be an important part of Elan's ongoing story" was one of Tarquin's goals. Elan denied him that by not taking him captive.

Also, remember that Elan knew (both from being a bard and from personal experience with Nale) that no story-notable villain ever stays captured. They always find a way out, usually at the least convenient time. Tarquin was essentially asking him to buy into a story trope that never works out well for the hero; Elan resisted his usual instincts by refusing. It was a sign of growth for him because he's learned how to say no to narrative patterns that don't help his cause.

Thank you for answering my questions personally. I think, I can buy it now, that locking Tarquin would be too risky. On the one Hand because of the Resources from the Vector Legion and on the other Hand because of narrative reasons.

My Problem wasn't ever, that I wanted Elan to beat Tarquin personally. My Problem was, that(from my perspective) Elan had a change of weakening the empires with little effort and didn't do it. Since I have now some convincing arguements for why he didn't, this Thread can be closed.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I'm disappointed that I came to this thread too late, but I'll add that I agree that Elan's goal was to not allow Tarquin to win, and he didn't need to capture or kill him. Also, thanks to the Giant for responding in the thread!

[Amphiox]

Well, Tarquin wanted to be a bigger part of Elan's story (actually he wanted to be the MAIN part of Elan's story).

But that may not necessarily be pure ego. Since narrative conventions are real in Stickverse, becoming a bigger part of the story may well actually make Tarquin more powerful, since major villains and even subvillains tend to increase in power and threat if they stay in the narrative.

And Tarquin's specific skill-sets are uniquely capable of taking maximal advantage of this.

By rejecting Tarquin's attempt to insert himself further into the storyline (remember the "you're not the real villain" line?) Elan effectively diminishes Tarquin's power.

From narrative convention, a Tarquin who stays in the story, who becomes a recurring villain, will likely increase in power and threat as the Order advances. A Tarquin who gets dropped out of the narrative, to be dealt with later, perhaps in the denouement of the story, is likely to stay static, remaining at the same level and same degree of threat.

This is a fairly common way for a heroic adventure narrative to end. After the defeat of the big bad, in the denouement, an old villain that previously threatened the heroes show up, only for the heroes to dispatch him easily, though he had previously caused them much trouble, as a means of showing just how much the heroes had grown over the course of the story.

[Rakoa]

This is ridiculous. Tarquin can't fall. He's not even a Paladin. He never was!

[AGD]

This is ridiculous. Tarquin can't fall. He's not even a Paladin. He never was!

But everyone knows, that he is a fallen Bard.

[goodpeople25]

This is ridiculous. Tarquin can't fall. He's not even a Paladin. He never was!

Do we know tarquin's class are you sure he's not a paladin my understanding is that that they are non class ability wise close to a fighter, and i don't remember any martial adept abilities used by tarquin.

[Darth Paul]

Boy howdy, I came in way too late as well.

For the record, MY opinion of why Elan didn't take Tarquin prisoner is that he had a subliminal awareness of the scenes in Marvel's The Avengers in which Loki is brought aboard the SHIELD hovership (which, to all intents and purposes, the Mechane fills in for in these circumstances). If brought aboard, Tarquin, in the Loki role, would constantly be manipulating Roy (as Nick Fury) and Haley (as Natasha Romanov aka Black Widow), while Elan (Captain America) fretted in the background and waited for Tarquin's allies to launch their inevitable surprise attack/ villain rescue.

Elan, realizing the dangers of this scenario, short-circuits it immediately.

[ZMiles]

Tarquin's allies will soldier on without him for the brief period before they resurrect him or break him out of jail. Elan knows this because of Nale.

This is the part that's confusing me.

When Redcloak killed Tsukiko earlier, IIRC, he had her body completely destroyed in order that Xykon couldn't resurrect her (or do something else like Speak With Dead). And Xykon's probably capable of higher-level magic than anyone else we've met so far in the verse. So if even he can't bring back a dead person under those conditions, I don't get how the Vector Legion would be able to bring back one of their own.

Similarly, when Lauren killed Nale, she disintegrated his body and specifically said that she was doing that to prevent Nale from ever coming back. And she sounded fairly absolute about it, that there was nothing anyone could do to reverse that, no matter how hard they tried.

Haley did mention the possibility of a True Resurrection spell (in #399 and #579), but that was said to require a 17th level Cleric (in #579), and Haley doubted that any besides Redcloak even existed in the Oots-verse. Even if Malack was at that level, he was already dead by that point, and the Legion has no other clerics as far as the Order knows. And while they could try looking for another, the same could be said of Xykon, and Redcloak didn't seem worried about that possibility at all. If even Xykon won't be able to easily find a cleric that can cast TR, it seems unlikely that the Vector Legion would be able to do so before the Order saved the world and returned to the Western Continent to deal with the VL once and for all.

But even if the VL could rustle up such a cleric in a few weeks and could get back up to full strength before the Order returns, that would still be a few weeks in which nobody in the EoB was having slaves torched to death or holding gladiator games--the Empress of Blood never showed any sign of wanting to have those; it's Tarquin who pushed for those things. So it would seem that killing Tarquin not only had a good chance of taking him out of action for a long time (or permanently), but even if it just took him out of action for a little bit, that still might help save some lives that would otherwise have been lost to his depravity.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

When Redcloak killed Tsukiko earlier, IIRC, he had her body completely destroyed in order that Xykon couldn't resurrect her (or do something else like Speak With Dead). And Xykon's probably capable of higher-level magic than anyone else we've met so far in the verse. So if even he can't bring back a dead person under those conditions, I don't get how the Vector Legion would be able to bring back one of their own.

Tsukiko would have risen as a wight, although she wouldn't have had any of her spell abilities - I always assumed Redcloak ordered her body destroyed to prevent that, not to prevent anything Xykon could have had done. Remember, he was already squicked out by her predilictions, and raising her or bringing her back as a free-willed undead (to maintain access to her spell casting abilities) would almost certainly have made that part of her personality even worse.

And there's no guarantee he wouldn't have offed her himself once she'd finished her work on the ritual.

Also, the only undead creating spell Xykon's ever cast is Animate Dead (plus the two instances on animals in SoD and NCftPB). Short of a wish (which Xykon hasn't shown the ability to cast so far), he'd need Redcloak to resurrect her.

Getting the wights to destroy themselves is (again, IMO) partly to be vindictive against Tsukiko, partly to limit their potential to create more undead and partly to tidy up after himself - he did basically admit to Xykon that he murdered her, although he wasn't entirely truthful about why, and had enough leverage in his possession of the arcane part of the ritual to dissaude Xykon from persuing it further.

Similarly, when Lauren killed Nale, she disintegrated his body and specifically said that she was doing that to prevent Nale from ever coming back. And she sounded fairly absolute about it, that there was nothing anyone could do to reverse that, no matter how hard they tried.

Tarquin does see it as over kill, but someone kills one your your oldest friends? Frankly, Tarquin and Laurin could have been a lot more vindictive than a dagger to the gut and a post-mortem dusting...

If even Xykon won't be able to easily find a cleric that can cast TR, it seems unlikely that the Vector Legion would be able to do so before the Order saved the world and returned to the Western Continent to deal with the VL once and for all.

But even if the VL could rustle up such a cleric in a few weeks and could get back up to full strength before the Order returns, that would still be a few weeks in which nobody in the EoB was having slaves torched to death or holding gladiator games--the Empress of Blood never showed any sign of wanting to have those; it's Tarquin who pushed for those things. So it would seem that killing Tarquin not only had a good chance of taking him out of action for a long time (or permanently), but even if it just took him out of action for a little bit, that still might help save some lives that would otherwise have been lost to his depravity.

Does Tarquin's death/absence mean everyone in the Empire of Blood is safe? Or does it open up the Empire of Blood for conquest by the other nations and every two-bit warlord who can pull a horde together, likely resulting in even more bloodshed.

Essentially, it's the Heroes Curse. The people around them are attacked and hurt or killed because of the hero, and they often have to let evils exist because worse things are waiting in the wings.

[dancrilis]

While the Giant has already answered this making my thoughts somewhat irrelevant - I assumed that Elan meant the words: You'll live.

My take on it was that while Elan understands that Tarquin is a bad person - he doesn't want to see his father dead, and would ultimately like his father to be redeemed and be a happy family (even if he doesn't think it will ever happen he would still have Hope - which he mentioned as important).

Now Tarquin has lost his closest friend, lost his son(s)*, seen two of his allies jump out on him, and had his entire way of looking at the world challenged.
*both due to his attempt to control them.
All after decades of ease without upset - if he is going to have a moment to change his life now would be it.

Lets say he takes these lessons and relaxes the plan a bit - and actually decides that dying peacefully in his bed beloved by the western continent is a better legacy for him (possible with a new wife and heirs). Well he could be a real force for stability and the life improvements that can come from it.

Ultimately Tarquin deciding to change how he operates is likely to result in the most good within the least time for the western continent - and Elan likely knows this.

[Quild]

This is the part that's confusing me.

When Redcloak killed Tsukiko earlier, IIRC, he had her body completely destroyed in order that Xykon couldn't resurrect her (or do something else like Speak With Dead). And Xykon's probably capable of higher-level magic than anyone else we've met so far in the verse. So if even he can't bring back a dead person under those conditions, I don't get how the Vector Legion would be able to bring back one of their own.

There is a chance that Xykon could bring Tsukiko back, but that it is harder than he cares. Plus, he would have to justify to Redcloak why Tsukiko had the half-ritual scroll.

I don't know if Limited Wish would allow to retrieve a part of Tsukiko's corpse in order to use Resurrection on her, I'm not used at all to this spell.
Anyway, Wish does exist in oots-world and so does True Resurrection.

The fun part about Malack is that considering Rich's rules of vampirization, he may be quite easy to resurrect. But not for the VL itself.

If the vampire's soul would have been destroyed. If Nergal was able to have this soul implanted in a body once, why not twice? It does not need to be that lizard shaman's body!

[NerdyKris]

While the Giant has already answered this making my thoughts somewhat irrelevant - I assumed that Elan meant the words: You'll live.

My take on it was that while Elan understands that Tarquin is a bad person - he doesn't want to see his father dead, and would ultimately like his father to be redeemed and be a happy family (even if he doesn't think it will ever happen he would still have Hope - which he mentioned as important).

Now Tarquin has lost his closest friend, lost his son(s)*, seen two of his allies jump out on him, and had his entire way of looking at the world challenged.
*both due to his attempt to control them.
All after decades of ease without upset - if he is going to have a moment to change his life now would be it.

Lets say he takes these lessons and relaxes the plan a bit - and actually decides that dying peacefully in his bed beloved by the western continent is a better legacy for him (possible with a new wife and heirs). Well he could be a real force for stability and the life improvements that can come from it.

Ultimately Tarquin deciding to change how he operates is likely to result in the most good within the least time for the western continent - and Elan likely knows this.

The entire point of Elan's revelation was that redeeming Tarquin was not a realistic goal. Elan simply dropping Tarquin off was admitting that it wasn't his job to stop him. Hoping that Tarquin will re-evaluate his life choices is exactly the thing that he said was unrealistic in the fantasy sequence. His comment of "You'll live" was simply to make it clear to the reader that he wasn't trying to kill Tarquin, as he knew the fall would not be fatal.

On the topic of Tsukiko, I'm positive the Giant said that Redcloak's plan was to make it difficult to raise her, not impossible. He wanted to make it hard enough that Xykon wouldn't bother putting in the effort.

[Jasdoif]

On the topic of Tsukiko, I'm positive the Giant said that Redcloak's plan was to make it difficult to raise her, not impossible.

Indeed he did.

Speak With Dead requires a mostly-intact corpse in order to function, as does Raise Dead. Redcloak drastically reduced the possibility that Xykon could question Tsukiko, the craftsman, or even the wights about his scheme by eliminating their corpses.

[Onyavar]

[...]
From narrative convention, a Tarquin who stays in the story, who becomes a recurring villain, will likely increase in power and threat as the Order advances. A Tarquin who gets dropped out of the narrative, to be dealt with later, perhaps in the denouement of the story, is likely to stay static, remaining at the same level and same degree of threat.

This is a fairly common way for a heroic adventure narrative to end. After the defeat of the big bad, in the denouement, an old villain that previously threatened the heroes show up, only for the heroes to dispatch him easily, though he had previously caused them much trouble, as a means of showing just how much the heroes had grown over the course of the story.

Yeah, like Saruman in LotR.

Wow, this is the Meta answer. Yeah, I can see that if Tarquin stays on the Western Continent and waits for Elan to eventually return, he will be crushed by Elan's probably skyhigh story-fu.

It's like the Thieves Guild and Haley: They had been doing their business as usual, then Haley drops by and is seriously more powerful than before (except Bozzok and Crystal, nobody was a match for her). Now, that they Thieves Guild is coming after Haley, they have the advantage of being the villain of the story.

Here's hoping that Vector (SPG) insists on recruiting a new cleric for the Legion instead of going after the Order in a mad quest of vengeance. I bet Tarquin would have mobilized everything after his latest defeat. That he hasn't shown up yet means that either Miron and Laurin have been killed by the Snarl, or that Vector put a stop to Tarquins ego.

[NerdyKris]

Tarquin's not the leader of their party. It's unlikely Miron and Laurin would go on a second outing to chase after his son on the other side of the planet. They wouldn't be swearing vengeance on the Order because the Order didn't do anything other than escape. They have bigger fish to fry, like running a shell game covering half a continent.

They might return in another manner, but probably not because Tarquin wants to keep pursuing a goal his other four teammates think is stupid.

[Ramien]

Here's hoping that Vector (SPG) insists on recruiting a new cleric for the Legion instead of going after the Order in a mad quest of vengeance. I bet Tarquin would have mobilized everything after his latest defeat. That he hasn't shown up yet means that either Miron and Laurin have been killed by the Snarl, or that Vector put a stop to Tarquins ego.

I don't think either event is terribly likely to be the deciding factor in Tarquin's decision. First of all, the Order pretty much left as quickly as they could and Tarquin doesn't have any airships as fast as the Mechane (If he has any at all). Second, Laurin (assuming she survived) is unlikely to offer her aid in teleporting after the Order again, especially with the revealed threat of the Snarl, which will make it even harder to catch up.

And then there's Tarquin himself - He openly admitted he doesn't know what happens next; but he does know Elan will be back eventually, even if it's not exactly under the terms Tarquin wants. Combine that with the nascent rebellion forming that's likely to keep him busy for the immediate future, and his twisted mind is going to turn this all into 'according to plan.' After all, if he captures Ian Starshine (again) and Sends Elan a message about it at a dramatically-opportune moment, what better way to twist the knife? 'If you'd done things properly, this wouldn't have happened...'

Of course, I doubt it will be so easy for him - from a narrative standpoint, Elan's learned the lessons he needs from his time with Tarquin, and has shown he's much better at adapting and looking ahead to choose the narrative conventions to work with. I'm expecting the next sending the Order receives from the (former) Empire of Blood will involve Ian admitting that the bard knew what he was doing.

[Quild]

Here's hoping that Vector (SPG) insists on recruiting a new cleric for the Legion instead of going after the Order in a mad quest of vengeance. I bet Tarquin would have mobilized everything after his latest defeat. That he hasn't shown up yet means that either Miron and Laurin have been killed by the Snarl, or that Vector put a stop to Tarquins ego.

That's something I've been wondering about. Will Tarquin go in a tavern and meet 2-4 adventurers near the same level including Kcalam the priest?

VL's adventuring days are supposed to be behind them, they're more into ruling now. They don't really need a new priest for that matter. Laurin can do some of the healing, I'm not even sure this was Malack's first role (I think Giant said that he had Heal prepared among his spells while fighting Durkon though).
Of course you want to be able to raise a teammate/friend if something occurs, but I guess VL have access to lot of priests among their empires.

About VL being used to work by pairs,maybe Kilkil could take the place that just opened. He seems well aware of VL's scheme, he's useful and competent...

So I don't really see the need for a replacement.

edit: The title of this thread reminds me the "Why do we fall Bruce?" line every time. This line is probably the better thing of Nolan's trilogy.

[The Patterner]

Something just occured to me.

What happens to Tarquin is essetially what he was trying to do to Elan.

He was going to kill Elans friends and Alies to motivate him.
He lost his greatest friend and was abondoned by his allies.

He tried to control the narrative for Elan.
Elan controlled the narrative for him.

He wanted Elan to rage agaisnt the skyes before accepting that he had to kill his father.
Tarquin raged against the sky and had just killed one of his sons.

There is probably more if you look into it.