Character Development: Giant Style (Analyzing OOTS)

[CowardlyPaladin]

Rereading the comic for like the 80th time, and I notice a pattern the Giant has for developing characters which I wanted to share. Obviously OOTS came about first as takes on D&D stereotypes, either fulfilling them (Durkeon, V), Exaggerating them (Elan, Haley, Xykon) or subverting them (Belkar, Roy), and the joke of the earliest comics was effectively the common D&D joke of "hey look, dysfunctional party", but unlike a lot of other comics with a similar joke (8-bit Theater) the characters in OOTS grew into fully complicated realized characters which is especially interesting considering some of them were conceived as shallow (Belkar, Elan). So I was wondering why OOTS manged this so well, and I realized that the Giant's trick seems to be to debilitate the character in question and force them to grow. From the hotel assassins onwards each arch has been about debilitating a character so that we might seen more of them outside their original role

Belkar has his ability to do horrible needless violence removed from him, in essence his entire one dimensional role was taken away forcing him to grow as a character, or at least fake it till you make it

Haley had her ability to speak remove, and thus without her role as "The one who makes the witty lines) we have to learn about who she really is as a personal internally rather than just "The rogue chick with the exposed midriff who makes the funny happen"

Elan has his identity removed, the entire point of his character is that he is the spoony bard who does meta things and is generally a bit of a burden on the group and now he has to actually be a person in his own context, rather than relying on Haley or Roy to do the heavy lifting for him, both narrative as they actual do stuff, but also character-wise as the greater dept carried his relative shallowness. Then he had to be his own character and take his own actions, which suddenly removed him from being "The annoying bard" to "The actual person with goals and dreams


V actually has it inverted, she is given something rather than having it be taken away, but it does relate to moving past her role as "The power hungry knowledge wizard" Once she got it, then lost it, she had to actually grow as a larger character and become more than his role, effectively becoming their own character, literally personified by Blackwing becoming more than a joke

The two most interesting to me are Durkon and Roy, because the former is the most defined by his role of any of the other characters, until the last arch he was the most static, while Roy is was the most complicated and well rounded from the start, in fact the first few dozen comics its "Roy the character" and everybody else as sort of caricatures. And their twist is much more complicated...they die. In roy's case, his death, his rather senseless avoidable death which accomplished nothing, got him out of the lime light for awhile which allowed everybody else to grow and for Roy to actually be more than just "The protagonist" His role has always been "The guy who actually progresses the story" and being able to do literally nothing lets him grow

Durkon is...interesting because he was by far the flattest of the main leads, I don't have any evidence, but when we first got the Empire of Blood, if you had a fan poll I imagine he'd be the least popular. His dying isn't something he would have objected too, instead he gets his autonomy taken away, and thus we actually delve into the character's core motivations and beliefs.


The pattern here is striping away the characters ability to carry out their arch type and then see how they act without it as a crunch. Sort of the "Sink or swim" approach to characters, if these characters weren't good and actually were as shallow as their first appearance implies, then they would just suck when they had their role removed.
There is a term I used called "Hat Characters" which are characters who are fine characters who are quite likable but don't actually have any depth or nuance beyond the outfit that they wear, Indiana Jones is the character I always think of, he is a character who couldn't really function if you took away his outfit and his adventures, he exists to support the power fantasy and the adventure. And the OOTs characters were fine in the start, but they grew into something so much more in part by the Giant...taking away their hat. Indie is a fine character but he is nothing without his role
The Order meanwhile grow more, and even though they get over their impediments (Btw I think every single prophecy has been fulfilled). This actually kind of gets into the very plot structure of the story itself, which is going in some really unexpected turns, but that is an entire other essay unto itself.

Now we haven't seen this with Xykon, and I don't think we will, I think the Giant said he is going to say a shallow evil villain because he is more fun that way, but Redcloack doesn't fit the pattern because he more didn't have a role and then got a character.

Meanwhile the other side characters are either introduced as complicated from the start (Vamp Durk, Malak, Tarquin, Bandanna) or as they go along get further into role (The Linear Guild). Their are only three exceptions

The monster in the darkness has a very bastard standard role and is now becoming more of a person, but not by losing anything, I think because villain roles work differently than hero ones

Redcloak didn't have a role and just sort of got one because he wasn't planned as a character

And Miko who had a role...and never really grew out of it, which is why I think a lot of people are still kinda bitter about that character, she never got the treatment the other arch-typical characters did.Kinda feels like the Giant lost interest in her.

[alwaysbebatman]

I agree with your analysis in the broad strokes, but have a couple of quibbles.

Haley losing her voice wasn't about losing her role as a punch line delivery device. It was about losing the ability to use deceit and glibness to achieve her tactical goals while at the same time avoiding emotional vulnerability and trust.

Miko's failure to grow as a person when challenged wasn't a storytelling failure, it WAS the story.

The Monster in the Dark didn't have a lot to lose. His umbrella? But O-Chul does challenge him to give up something that was very important to him: his ability to outrageously misinterpret everything around him to suit his preferences.

Team Evil are presented in a humorous fashion, but they are consistently engaging in monstrous atrocities. The Monster shields himself from all of that by inventing an alternate reality where everybody's just having a nice tea party.The Monster is deeply committed to his version of the world: Mr. Stiffly remains Mr. Stiffly regardless of how many times O-Chul corrects him. But when he knows that O-Chul is going to his likely death, he finally breaks his consistency and calls him by his real name.

From that point forward, he is no longer the character there to create a punchline by comically misunderstanding what the other characters are saying, and Oona and Greyview are introduced to Team Evil to fill that role.

[RatElemental]

This is somewhat off topic but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask, what about the prophecy about Belkar's death? I know I've argued it as a devil's advocate before, but even I have to admit all of the wriggling I've seen is a bit of a stretch.

Other than that, you seem to be right on the money, in retrospect. Seems like it's probably one of the best ways to grow a character to me though, that's the whole point of a conflict in a story, is it not? Have to look at some other stories now and see if they managed character development in a different way.

[Fyraltari]

I can't recall where I heard that (probably TvTropes) but someone once said "If you want to make a character grow, you sit and think "What's the worst thing that could happen to this person" and then make just that happen." Character growth happen when a character bounces back from his lowest point.

OOTS is character-driven instead of plot-driven and that is why I am confident the durkon will come back from Vampiredom, how could he demonstrate his new hindsight ?

I disagree that Redcloak had no character type : he was the sycophantic "Renfield"/"Igor" henchman type and paradoxically enough grew out of it when he had to take charge (battle of Azure City) instead of blindly follow like he did. I know his character is explored in Start Of Darkness so maybe this moment is not as significant as I make it to be but as far as low point go, realizing that you are needlessly wasting the lives of people ready to sacrifice everything for you is pretty low.

Then again, in OOTS the difference between hero and villain seems to be the ability to recognize one's failures and better oneself, so it is not surprising that Xykon, Redcloak or Tarquin do not change that much compare to the protagonists.

[CowardlyPaladin]

I agree with your analysis in the broad strokes, but have a couple of quibbles.

Haley losing her voice wasn't about losing her role as a punch line delivery device. It was about losing the ability to use deceit and glibness to achieve her tactical goals while at the same time avoiding emotional vulnerability and trust.

Miko's failure to grow as a person when challenged wasn't a storytelling failure, it WAS the story.

The Monster in the Dark didn't have a lot to lose. His umbrella? But O-Chul does challenge him to give up something that was very important to him: his ability to outrageously misinterpret everything around him to suit his preferences.

Team Evil are presented in a humorous fashion, but they are consistently engaging in monstrous atrocities. The Monster shields himself from all of that by inventing an alternate reality where everybody's just having a nice tea party.The Monster is deeply committed to his version of the world: Mr. Stiffly remains Mr. Stiffly regardless of how many times O-Chul corrects him. But when he knows that O-Chul is going to his likely death, he finally breaks his consistency and calls him by his real name.

From that point forward, he is no longer the character there to create a punchline by comically misunderstanding what the other characters are saying, and Oona and Greyview are introduced to Team Evil to fill that role.

1) yes, you're right, its Haley's entire ability to do the "Sneaky rogue" trope which is taken away from her
2) I know that was the point...I just don't find it very interesting, I rarely find "this character is static" more interesting than 'This character grows and changes". I think it works with the undead but there is a larger point being made there, I've always felt that Miko is a bit of a weak link of a character
3) You are right, the Monster does need to give up his needed to reinterpret everything around him, but I don't think that fits the pattern, because that isn't related to his original character role, which is the big scary monster, its more organically tied to him as a person, which I think is why it is less dramatic. The big dramatic "lets take away this character's ability to function" style of story telling seems to apply the most to characters who came into existence as a an example of a certain D&D cliche. You are right about his growth as a character, I just think its more an example of good old fashioned "organic development"


RatElemental: I totally forgot about Belkar's death, my bad, you are right.

Also what i really love about OOTs is that yes, conflict grows character but the Giant isn't just throwing conflict at them en mass and seeing what sticks, its much more surgical, finding the exact thing that would undermine the character and then jumping on it. A lot of writers think "Oh I need these characters to grow, I know, lets just have them get tortured, that will do it" while OOTs designs something very specific for the individual involved.

[Jasdoif]

Also what i really love about OOTs is that yes, conflict grows character but the Giant isn't just throwing conflict at them en mass and seeing what sticks, its much more surgical, finding the exact thing that would undermine the character and then jumping on it. A lot of writers think "Oh I need these characters to grow, I know, lets just have them get tortured, that will do it" while OOTs designs something very specific for the individual involved.

On that note:

I think that's one of the big issues here: why couldn't Tarquin BE a calm and collected person whose actions in the various aspects of his life all follow from his Evil character?

Because then there's no climax to the story?

He IS that, 99.999999999% of his life, but you are looking at his very worst day. Drama is all about taking characters and pushing them until they break, one way or the other. If a character can't be broken, then they have no place as a main character in a story. So writing a drama involves thinking of all the ways that your characters can be broken; this is the way that I chose for Tarquin.

I once read excellent writing advice that said, "Is this the most interesting time in your character's life? If not, why aren't you writing about that instead?" This is the most interesting time in Tarquin's life, because it's where the rubber of his self-image hits the road of reality. It's where his worldview is being challenged in a way that he can't just throw resources at it to fix it. Take away that conflict, that inherent crumbling of his previous cool, and there's nothing interesting to write about. There's just, "Oh, he was bad for a long time, but then the good guys fixed it by stabbing him." Boring.

"Breaking" a character does not mean brainwashing them into being someone else, it means knocking down all the walls that the character has put up to hide from themselves. It's breaking through to see the truth. It's removing all the easy paths so that they have to pick one of the hard ones, and then seeing which of the hard ones they pick.

I guess if one thought that everyone walks around being 100% the person they seem to be on the surface, then that wouldn't make sense, but it's been my experience that most humans construct elaborate series of lies, delusions, and justifications for their actions that they trot out to convince themselves and others that they are in the right. "Breaking" a character is about getting past those and finding out what really matters.

[alwaysbebatman]

Re 2) I don't see how a paladin falling can be considered static. Change isn't always going to be for the better. I'm not going to say that she's as fully rounded a character as the main cast, but I don't think she's comparable to "immunity to character arcs is in my template" Xykon. She's more like Redcloak. They both have good intentions, but their actions are clouded by ego and self-deception. They both get opportunities to turn back from their path of self-destruction, but they'd have had to admit they'd been wrong all along, and their egos can't stand it.

Re 3) I can't agree that "being a scary monster" is the aspect that the Monster relies upon in the way that Haley relies on glibness, for example. That's what Xykon values about the Monster, not what he values about himself. And he has yet to actually use that, still waiting for a dramatically appropriate moment that has yet to come.

But I really agree with what you said about Mr. Burlew being "surgical" in the way he handles character growth. Too many writers come across as sadistic, just "let's pile some more angst on our already angsty protagonist!" A lot of that is because the things he takes away from the protagonists were crutches to begin with.

[Lacuna Caster]

Re 2) I don't see how a paladin falling can be considered static. Change isn't always going to be for the better. I'm not going to say that she's as fully rounded a character as the main cast, but I don't think she's comparable to "immunity to character arcs is in my template" Xykon. She's more like Redcloak. They both have good intentions, but their actions are clouded by ego and self-deception. They both get opportunities to turn back from their path of self-destruction, but they'd have had to admit they'd been wrong all along, and their egos can't stand it.

And Miko who had a role...and never really grew out of it, which is why I think a lot of people are still kinda bitter about that character, she never got the treatment the other arch-typical characters did. Kinda feels like the Giant lost interest in her.

I'm not sure I can speak for 'people', but I wouldn't say that Miko is a static character. She's initially restrained, generous, tactically sharp and arguably more heroic than any of the Order. At the end she's been reduced to a belligerent sliver of her former self. But what most annoys me is that the circumstances of her fall are so blatantly manufactured that she's not actually wrong to see a pattern in the noise, and secondly that it vindicated the knee-jerk reactionism of the (many) readers who hated her for no good reason from day one.

[Jasdoif]

I'm not sure I can speak for 'people', but I wouldn't say that Miko is a static character. She's initially restrained, generous, tactically sharp and arguably more heroic than any of the Order. At the end she's been reduced to a belligerent sliver of her former self.

Indeed. Turned out she's a survivor well before she's a hero; that's quite a development.

[CowardlyPaladin]

I'm not sure I can speak for 'people', but I wouldn't say that Miko is a static character. She's initially restrained, generous, tactically sharp and arguably more heroic than any of the Order. At the end she's been reduced to a belligerent sliver of her former self. But what most annoys me is that the circumstances of her fall are so blatantly manufactured that she's not actually wrong to see a pattern in the noise, and secondly that it vindicated the knee-jerk reactionism of the (many) readers who hated her for no good reason from day one.

I think her falling being rather manufactured and seems to vindicate a certain dislike of the character is a sign of her being Static, Miko is never really a full character she is an idea, an idea of a certain way Paladins are played/viewed. Hinjo, O-Chul, Lien, and Ho Thanh are all people first, takes on the paladin second, even O-Chul who seems to exist as a way to prove "Good is not dumb" is defined far more by his personality rather than "paladin Traits"
By contrast, most of Miko's traits are tied to her class, the stereotype of the paladin is them being boss, holier than thou, uptight, humorless, paranoid, zealous, brave, suicidal, puritanical and idealistic, which are Mikos primary traits, she doesn't have much beyond that. Contrast to say, Durkon, who has the standard Dwarf Traits of

• Conservatism
  Loving Rules
  Stubborness
  Drinking
  Funny Accent
  Brave
  Kinda of clueless
  Socially Awkward
  Support

but he has so much more than that, which Miko never really gets.

Which incidentally I think is why in a giant essay I wrote, the main focus of the thread is on Miko, because that character really is sort of the flash point of the entire fandom

I haven't read the one about O-Chul getting his scar, so maybe there is more to her there

[woweedd]

I think her falling being rather manufactured and seems to vindicate a certain dislike of the character is a sign of her being Static, Miko is never really a full character she is an idea, an idea of a certain way Paladins are played/viewed. Hinjo, O-Chul, Lien, and Ho Thanh are all people first, takes on the paladin second, even O-Chul who seems to exist as a way to prove "Good is not dumb" is defined far more by his personality rather than "paladin Traits"
By contrast, most of Miko's traits are tied to her class, the stereotype of the paladin is them being boss, holier than thou, uptight, humorless, paranoid, zealous, brave, suicidal, puritanical and idealistic, which are Mikos primary traits, she doesn't have much beyond that. Contrast to say, Durkon, who has the standard Dwarf Traits of

• Conservatism
  Loving Rules
  Stubborness
  Drinking
  Funny Accent
  Brave
  Kinda of clueless
  Socially Awkward
  Support

but he has so much more than that, which Miko never really gets.

Which incidentally I think is why in a giant essay I wrote, the main focus of the thread is on Miko, because that character really is sort of the flash point of the entire fandom

I haven't read the one about O-Chul getting his scar, so maybe there is more to her there

Well, yeah. That's the point. Her existence in the story is to make a point about D&D and how it's played, same way Redcloak is. Redcloak's point is about the idea of assuming that any creature that's labeled "Mostly Evil" must automatically be an irredeemable monster, and using that to make a point about real-world Racism, Miko is about how not to play a Paladin. She just gets a lot less screen time. Keep in mind: Just because she was with the OOTS for an arc, that doesn't make her a main cast member, any more then Cellia was.

[Jasdoif]

By contrast, most of Miko's traits are tied to her class, the stereotype of the paladin is them being boss, holier than thou, uptight, humorless, paranoid, zealous, brave, suicidal, puritanical and idealistic, which are Mikos primary traits, she doesn't have much beyond that.

Paranoid? Suicidal? Puritanical? I'm...not sure we're talking about the same Miko, here.

[georgie_leech]

I'm not sure I can speak for 'people', but I wouldn't say that Miko is a static character. She's initially restrained, generous, tactically sharp and arguably more heroic than any of the Order. At the end she's been reduced to a belligerent sliver of her former self. But what most annoys me is that the circumstances of her fall are so blatantly manufactured that she's not actually wrong to see a pattern in the noise, and secondly that it vindicated the knee-jerk reactionism of the (many) readers who hated her for no good reason from day one.

She wasn't wrong to see a pattern of lies and deception, she was wrong to conclude "I know what's best in this pile of politics and oaths and I think the best solution is to kill a defenseless old man in cold blood." Like, not respecting legitimate (if dishonest) Good authority by killing them is pretty fall worthy. Note the lack of falling for Hinjo's "arrest him and let the courts do their thing" solution.

[Lacuna Caster]

I think her falling being rather manufactured and seems to vindicate a certain dislike of the character is a sign of her being Static, Miko is never really a full character she is an idea, an idea of a certain way Paladins are played/viewed. Hinjo, O-Chul, Lien, and Ho Thanh are all people first, takes on the paladin second, even O-Chul who seems to exist as a way to prove "Good is not dumb" is defined far more by his personality rather than "paladin Traits"
By contrast, most of Miko's traits are tied to her class, the stereotype of the paladin is them being boss, holier than thou, uptight, humorless, paranoid, zealous, brave, suicidal, puritanical and idealistic, which are Mikos primary traits, she doesn't have much beyond that.

I have to disagree. Hinjo, Lien and Thanh, to my mind, go through much less change than Miko and aren't as sharply defined. Early-strip Miko refrains from killing Belkar even when it's implied that executing evil-doers is well within her mandate, orders or no. Later-strip Miko appears to do her damndest to kill Hinjo, a definitionally decent person who happens to be her current organisational superior, essentially for being in her way. That's quite a transition- large enough that I'd raise an eyebrow about how psychologically plausible it is, but certainly not static.

I also don't think she was the worst way to play a paladin at the time of introduction- or at least, given that the Order weren't exactly shining exemplars of how to play rogues, bards, rangers and wizards, I don't see how this complaint made any sense. I mean, even the commentary to paladin blues makes a big deal out of Roy's willingness to temporarily embarrass himself to rescue an ally at the Inn, when Miko, who at that moment is actively risking permanent immolation to rescue total strangers, gets zero credit. In a nutshell, that's why the fanbase was so divided.

She wasn't wrong to see a pattern of lies and deception, she was wrong to conclude "I know what's best in this pile of politics and oaths and I think the best solution is to kill a defenseless old man in cold blood."

That's not what I'm mainly getting at. It's more that she manages to enter the throne room at precisely the right moment to give a maximally bad impression on three separate occasions. Miko, by the end, was a murderous, deluded fanatic clinging to the vestiges of her tattered pride... and she was screwed sideways by manipulative narrative contrivance. These are not mutually exclusive propositions.


For perspective, I'll mention I've run with a number of ostensibly good-to-neutral D&D adventuring groups that couldn't even accommodate the mildest possible version of a paladin, when it comes to, e.g, not butchering enemies in their sleep, giving fair warning or prioritising defence of innocents- and even these groups came down hard on Belkar-style antics when they didn't ban Evil PCs entirely. Let's just say I can see Miko's PoV here.

[alwaysbebatman]

That's not what I'm mainly getting at. It's more that she manages to enter the throne room at precisely the right moment to give a maximally bad impression on three separate occasions. Miko, by the end, was a murderous, deluded fanatic clinging to the vestiges of her tattered pride... and she was screwed sideways by manipulative narrative contrivance. These are not mutually exclusive propositions.

She was a self-righteous paranoid incapable of second thoughts once she's convinced that she's right, and her boss was a manipulator hiding a massive secret from her. The plot contrivance was that she hadn't found out some partial truth about Shojo and murdered him as a traitor sooner.

[Lacuna Caster]

She was a self-righteous paranoid incapable of second thoughts once she's convinced that she's right, and her boss was a manipulator hiding a massive secret from her. The plot contrivance was that she hadn't found out some partial truth about Shojo and murdered him as a traitor sooner.

Again... I just don't see particular signs of paranoia in early Miko, who seemed perfectly capable of second thoughts on several occasions, and conspicuously neglected to, for example, confiscate Belkar's lead sheet until he passed inspection or use DE pre-emptively on Sam & Pa. I suppose there's no way to prove what would have happened with her and Shojo minus the OOTS, but I certainly don't see what happened in the throne room as a direct extension of her initial character traits.

[alwaysbebatman]

The first feat we ever see her use is "Leaping to Conclusions (Improved)"... Which would be fine, anybody can make a mistake. But when she was proven mistaken she held a grudge over it. "Well, I suppose you aren't evil after all, but... then again, if there's a magic item that can make him seem to be evil, maybe there's another that can make them appear to be good. I will nurture that suspicion deep in my heart until my confirmation bias eventually proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Because the Gods know I could never be wrong twice!"

[Lacuna Caster]

Again... I just don't see her forming opinions on the Order based on multiple converging lines of evidence to be 'leaping to conclusions', especially when the first hint she gets that Roy isn't actively evil is enough to have her back down, and especially by the general standards by which pivotal life-or-death decisions get made in the early days of OOTS. I also don't see any particular sign of nursing a grudge until after the trial scene, given she was tentatively willing to, e.g, date Roy.

[thereaper]

Thing is, it became pretty obvious after a certain point that while Miko was doing the right things, she was always doing them for the wrong reasons (that is, her own ego). If that made her heroic, then one could also argue the current Belkar to be heroic. That Flaw (and her failure to grow out of it) led to her fall.

[Lacuna Caster]

With respect, assuming that someone would run into the lobby of a burning building purely as an ego-syntonic PR exercise seems like an incredibly mean-spirited way to interpret someone's underlying motives. This didn't stop many readers at the time from doing exactly that, of course, but if the purpose of Miko's narrative trajectory was to ultimately validate that perspective... well, I'm not exactly going to approve of the company Rich keeps.

[woweedd]

She wasn't wrong to see a pattern of lies and deception, she was wrong to conclude "I know what's best in this pile of politics and oaths and I think the best solution is to kill a defenseless old man in cold blood." Like, not respecting legitimate (if dishonest) Good authority by killing them is pretty fall worthy. Note the lack of falling for Hinjo's "arrest him and let the courts do their thing" solution.

Acting as judge, jury, and executioner, for crimes you don't even fully understand, is not Lawful nor Good.

[thereaper]

With respect, assuming that someone would run into the lobby of a burning building purely as an ego-syntonic PR exercise seems like an incredibly mean-spirited way to interpret someone's underlying motives. This didn't stop many readers at the time from doing exactly that, of course, but if the purpose of Miko's narrative trajectory was to ultimately validate that perspective... well, I'm not exactly going to approve of the company Rich keeps.

I think you misunderstand what I mean. It's not that Miko did Good things for PR, but rather because it allowed her to justify her attitude of superiority, rather than out of any concern for people, as a lack of empathy or compassion was very evident in all of her actions, and she never took kindly to people calling her out on this. Roy's speech to her sort of hit the nail on the head, there.

Note that none of this makes her a bad character (quite the contrary, in my opinion; she was a very interesting and nontraditional antagonist, and the controversy surrounding her proves how thought-provoking she was). Nor did it make her ineffective at what she did, until that flaw brought her down.

[Cozzer]

You know, it just hit me how much Miko's situation is similar to Tarquin's. Sure, one wanted to be an Evil dictator and the other wanted to be a champion of Good, but but were convinced they were the main characters (on the heroes' side and on the villains' side, respectively) of the story and fell because of it.

All of Miko's mistakes, in the end, were caused by her conviction that she had to be the one to solve all the major problems. Every time she made a major mistake, the fault in her reasoning was that she completely failed to account for the fact that maybe there were people more important than her in the context of the current crisis, and she should just have let these people do their job in their own way, providing support as needed. She tried to take the main characters' spot by force, just like Tarquin tried to make Elan the main character by force, because both of them believed that the actual main characters weren't good enough (for different reasons, obiviously).

At the beginning of her personal arc Miko was a hero, there's no question about that. A jerkish and unpleasant hero, sure, but there's plenty of them in the genre (or, well, in any genre). Her fatal flaw, in my opinion, was that being a hero wasn't enough for her. She had to be the hero.

It's just that in Tarquin's case, this narrative subtext is spelled out because when Elan and his family are around, the fourth wall might as well give up and go home.

[Lacuna Caster]

I think you misunderstand what I mean. It's not that Miko did Good things for PR, but rather because it allowed her to justify her attitude of superiority, rather than out of any concern for people, as a lack of empathy or compassion was very evident in all of her actions...

'All of her actions' would include offering healing after battle, rescuing the defenceless, and paying for rent and damages she did not cause. How, exactly, is a lack of compassion evident in those actions? That doesn't make any sense.

All of Miko's mistakes, in the end, were caused by her conviction that she had to be the one to solve all the major problems. Every time she made a major mistake, the fault in her reasoning was that she completely failed to account for the fact that maybe there were people more important than her in the context of the current crisis, and she should just have let these people do their job in their own way, providing support as needed.

No. Miko is the very powerful and presumably experienced second-in-command of a major paladin organisation charged with combating existential threats. The people she butts heads with are either hazardously inept random misfits (the Order), ethically shady to the point of being actively criminal (the Order, Shojo), or by all appearances in dire need of help at a critical moment (Soon). There is no good reason for her to hang back and wait for an invitation under those circumstances. Miko's bad calls are serious, but they have to do with how she intervenes.


Even then, I don't think the early version of Miko necessarily hogs the spotlight. She was quite willing to let Belkar track the ogres, lets Durkon do the healing after combat, and during the Inn scene could have ordered Roy & Co. to do the grunt work of evacuating civilians while she took the glory of capturing trained assassins. But she doesn't, which suggests that either (A), she genuinely cared more about the civilians, and/or (B) was willing to defer to Roy's plan. The evidence does not fit the theory.

[LadyEowyn]

Away from the Miko topic, I just wanted to say that the analysis by the first poster is excellent. A lot lf writers think that just throwing loss and tragedy at the characters causes character development, and that gets old fast. This method is focused on removing narrative crutches, so that characyers need to become something more than they initially were.

But I think the Belkar analysis is a little off. He got the Mark of Justice at the end of Book 2, but he didn't start sctually devrloping as a character until Book 5, after it had been removed.

[Cozzer]

No. Miko is the very powerful and presumably experienced second-in-command of a major paladin organisation...

I agree with most of what you're saying. The problem is, the major paladin organization is still limited and their approach is not enough to deal with the menace, just like Girard's opposite approach has faults (the Order at its best shows how you need both Lawful leadership/focus and Chaotic guile to succeed). But Miko can't even imagine her approach might be wrong. In her mindset, if what she's doing isn't bringing the desired results, she just needs to do the same thing but harder. And if someone, even someone who has a better grip on what's going on and more experience than her, disagrees, she just needs to keep doing things the same way but harder until that person changes their mind.

Even then, I don't think the early version of Miko necessarily hogs the spotlight...

I don't think Miko has ever cared about glory, or hogging the spotlight. The way I see it, the fact that she was the hero of whatever story she was in was a given for her, so she didn't really feel challenged in these situations. Again, I do believe she was a legit hero despite her flaws, until the circumstances broke her because she wouldn't bend.

That said, I join the praise for the OP and his analysis.

[Lacuna Caster]

I really hate being a cracked record on this point, but... again, whatever one can say about Miko's later conduct... I don't think those remarks apply to her early behaviour. Miko using Smite Evil on Roy during their first encounter didn't bring the desired result, and her reaction was to immediately pause and listen to someone more experienced with a better grip on the situation (Durkon.) Harrying the OOTS to follow her orders didn't exactly work, so her reaction (before the Inn blew up) was to accommodate their demands and follow Roy's lead. Which was, in fact, compromising with them.


I don't think we really know enough about the Draketooths to say how much or little they had in common with the Guard, but I would point out these are both hierarchical secret organisations with rigid membership standards that share information on a need-to-know basis, so they might be more similar than either would care to admit. And what I partly found interesting about Miko is that she was a blend of Lawful focus and Chaotic guile. I mean, you can talk about how she rubs people the wrong way and isn't great at tactful persuasion, sure, but using half-truths and misdirection to, e.g, destroy the Ogres certainly wasn't tactically sub-par. That's actually the opposite of Lawful Stupid.

[Cozzer]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. As long as she stays more or less inside her confort zone (which, as a trained warrior and agent, is pretty large) she's able to compromise, use guile and be effective at most things. It took a very specific chain of huge events to push her far, far away from her confort zone and to ultimately break her, in War and XPs... which is similar to what happened to Tarquin in the fifth book, is my point. Rich stated that Tarquin is a succesful Evil dictator 99% of the time, but for the story to be interesting it has to focus on the other 1%. War and XPs is Miko's other 1%.

(I guess part of the reason why they're so... problematic, is that it's easy to think that 1% is the only way they can be, since it's the biggest part of what the story actually shows).

Which, to avoid being too much off topic, is part of the "take away a character's role" style of character development the OP talks about, in my opinion. A character has his or her role gradually taken away, falls to the bottom, somehow survives and that's where development starts. Since Miko's not a main character and her personal story is a tragedy, it ends at the "falls to the bottom" step. It's what would have happened to Belkar without the Cleric of Loki's Remove Curse, or Varsuviuus without O-Chul's presence.

[wumpus]

Well, yeah. That's the point. Her existence in the story is to make a point about D&D and how it's played, same way Redcloak is. Redcloak's point is about the idea of assuming that any creature that's labeled "Mostly Evil" must automatically be an irredeemable monster, and using that to make a point about real-world Racism, Miko is about how not to play a Paladin. She just gets a lot less screen time. Keep in mind: Just because she was with the OOTS for an arc, that doesn't make her a main cast member, any more then Cellia was.

The problems Rich points out about Miko and D&D Paladins is pretty much baked into the rules, and it takes a certain amount of house ruling to even allow a PC Paladin to work with a Belkar-less OOTS (dealing with V's fall would be much more traumatic). There is a reason the paladins make great NPCs, but the paladin who has to be the main character suffers disaster for it. This is something Roy never shows: he just needs the world to be saved. Had V been successful after the ABD, he would have happily moved on and faced Tarquin with Elan [although I think I have the timeline a bit off].

[KorvinStarmast]

I disagree that Redcloak had no character type : he was the sycophantic "Renfield"/"Igor" henchman type and paradoxically enough grew out of it when he had to take charge (battle of Azure City) instead of blindly follow like he did. I know his character is explored in Start Of Darkness so maybe this moment is not as significant as I make it to be but as far as low point go, realizing that you are needlessly wasting the lives of people ready to sacrifice everything for you is pretty low.

Redcloak has an "aha!" moment during the battle for Azure City. I think that's a part of his growth process.