OOTS #914 - The Discussion Thread

[Porthos]

In the first panel, Elan notes that "his throat is exposed".

But when Malack vamped Durkon (and tried to vamp Belkar), it was shown that the characters don't actually HAVE throats, because Malack had to bite into the head instead.

Which, of course, is completely useless pedantry. But someone was going to bring it up, so it might as well be me this time.

Belkar has a phrase that ends with 'litting their throats' in response to your statement. It's one that has been the source of a callback joke as well.

[Sir_Leorik]

I haven't read anything on this thread, but I will say: disappointed a little. Too much breakage of the fourth wall. Not enough action from the characters that have been constructed. I have never said this before, no matter which way the Giant has chosen to go. It's been so great, don't go down a wrong path. Take the characters wherever they must go, and work them into the story. They will fit, whatever they have to do.

I kinda think you're missing the point. Laurin's actions weren't some way of the Giant biting his thumbing at Nale's fanbase.
("Haleo and Julelan" rocks! Woo!)

Laurin just learned that a close friend of hers was brutally murdered. Another close friend of hers stabbed the killer to death; given that she knows that the Raise Dead spell exists, and that Nale usually works with allies, and that Nale took pleasure in the way Malack's body burnt to ash in the desert sun, what better way for an Evil Psion to treat the corpse of the man who killed her close friend? Why not manifest Disintegrate, and let his fine gray ash blow away on the desert wind? Laurin is choosing to do this, for understandable motives, as a fictional character. On a meta- level, the Giant is also making Nale's return so difficult to render it impossible. (Unless Tarquin deliberately left Nale's blood on his dagger, Nale is never returning.) And that opens up plot potential for Sabine, character growth for Elan, and could potentially spell Tarquin's downfall.

Also, she does it without Tarquin telling her to. That establishes her (for the first time) as an autonomous agent capable of acting on her own. Not that we doubted it, but it's important we should see it at some point before it becomes plot-critical.

Bingo. Laurin is her own woman, not Tarquin's pet Psion. Just Malack chose to Sire Durkon without prompting from Tarquin, Laurin chose to manifest Disintegrate on Nale's body without prompting from Tarquin. (And to some degree it is plot critical, in the sense that Nale was murdered, then his corpse went up in a puff of gray ash in front of Elan. This is another step on Elan's hero's journey, leading to him earning his "Happy Ending".)

Hallelujah. If I never see another reference to TVTropes on this board, I'll be a much happier reader.

I guess you spoke too soon.

Oh. Tarquin. You could really be a true, TVTropes Magnificent Bastard if you'd only get out of the Wrong Genre Savvy rut of thinking you're the main villain here.

I'm betting Sabine offs him before the current book is over.

Hooooo boy. When even Elan thinks someone's taking the whole "it's a plot element" thing too far, well, we know things have gotten serious. Sabine's reaction was priceless. Exactly what I thought might happen...

Elan doesn't mind everyone pitching in and moving the plot along, but you can't do that at the expense of treating people like furniture. Even if he weren't breaking the fourth wall or consulting the Evil Overlord's List, Tarquin treats everyone around him (except his team) as pawns or slaves. As far as Elan is concerned, treating someone as a pawn is just as bad as treating someone as a pile of XP to be earned in combat (and I have a feeling that's the author's position as well, though I may be reading too much into the author commentaries to the trades. ).

[Chess Tyrant]

D'oh, just got the title. Killing Malack was the last Nale in his coffin.

[DaggerPen]

... ow. Poor Elan.

And hoo boy is Sabine pissed.

(Also - oh right, red puddle. Because it's a blood plasma screen and all.)

[Shining Wrath]

I wonder if the IFCC's TV being broken will have any effect on the plot whatsoever? They have--however temporarily--lost the ability to watch the material plane.

One director out of three. They may just need to change offices.

[hamishspence]

So what are we to think about demons? Are they true persons or only principalities wrapped in a cloak of personality?
...
Can a succubus in the OOtS Universe actually experience love? Or is what we're seeing here merely the scraps of a propped-up ego applied to a chaotic-evil principality, going through the motions of loving, but truly nothing but an intelligent automaton of destruction?

The same question applies to Celia, obviously.

Other D&D-verses have had them fall genuinely in love- with this being the first step in a redemption process. It's rare though.

Celia, however, is not an Alignment Subtype outsider at all- so she doesn't have the same kind of constraints. She could be thought of in a similar way to any humanoid- only difference is she's native to the Plane of Air, and her soul dissolves back into the plane after death.

[VeliaRae]

As genre-savvy as Tarquin is, I half expect the next strip to be him saying "Wait, was that a cutaway panel? What did I just say? ...crap, revenge incoming, everybody back to the empire!".

Also, I still hope Sabine tries to kill Tarquin by tricking him. I don't care if he has a ring of true seeing. I can totally see him not letting her know he's on to her, using a sneak attack to try and kill her, and then have Sabine explain that she somehow managed to kill him anyway using some magnificent trap or whatever. Whether she makes it out alive or not, it would be pretty awesome either way.

[Sir_Leorik]

Other D&D-verses have had them fall genuinely in love- with this being the first step in a redemption process. It's rare though.

Celia, however, is not an Alignment Subtype outsider at all- so she doesn't have the same kind of constraints. She could be thought of in a similar way to any humanoid- only difference is she's native to the Plane of Air, and her soul dissolves back into the plane after death.

Celia is somewhat akin to Hans Christian Andersen's version of "The Little Mermaid", where the Mermaid is capable of emotion, but her existence is ephemeral: once she dies her body will dissolve into sea foam. Her goal in selling her voice for legs was to try to gain a soul of her own, so that she could live on after the death of her body. In a sense, Celia is the concept of Air or Wind given an anthropomorphic form, a pair of translucent wings, and admission to law school.

Sabine on the other hand is a personification of a specific form of Chaos and Evil, namely violent seduction. Sabine is more Lawful than other Succubi, but she still has the [Chaotic] subtype; if Sabine were to become Good, she would still have the [Evil] subtype.

[Reddish Mage]

I'm really interested to see which direction the Giant's going to go with Sabine.

During the death Tsukiko, Redcloak declared that undead in the OOtS Universe are *not* true personalities - not intelligent undead, not even PC-Level holding undead like Xykon. They're bits of bone and flesh and mind held together by dark magics.

So what are we to think about demons? Are they true persons or only principalities wrapped in a cloak of personality?

I've always thought that succubi were an excellent metaphor for the sort of women that celebrities have to deal with;..

Can a succubus in the OOtS Universe actually experience love? Or is what we're seeing here merely the scraps of a propped-up ego applied to a chaotic-evil principality, going through the motions of loving, but truly nothing but an intelligent automaton of destruction?

The same question applies to Celia, obviously.

(This is why I love the Giant's writing, incidentally; it allows endless reflection upon the moral issues it presents.)

The last sentiment is admirable but seriously, the rest is an exercise in reading into the text what you want. Sabine isn't a typical succubus, she's showed plenty of signs of being madly in love with Nale, from getting depressed and drunk over seeing Nale with Haley, to declaring her loyalty to Nale rather than the IFCC the minute Qarr left and Nale asked her to follow him. Now she flies into a rage and destroys the Directors property over Nale's death.

Celia, as some sort of automaton? Now this is borderline trolling, there is no evidence anywhere for a "non-person" robotic reading of Celia. She's more like a typical middle-class person then anyone in the OOTS.

[Knight.Anon]

If Nale plans on coming back he'll have to escape from Hell or become a fiend. Maybe he'll even learn something.

[Canisius]

1. Where does anyone see blood on that dagger? Before I even thought about rezzing I noticed it was particularly clean.
2. If you could use tissue shed before death for a rez, disintegrate would do nothing to prevent it. Go back to the last room they stayed in and find a toenail clipping. You could rez anyone, body or no body. Nale was not dead when the (invisible) blood was left on the dagger.

Honestly, I was so sick of Nale, and he got a good, dramatic death. What more could an NPC want?

[happycrow]

There's a difference? <ex psychology student here, back when I was studying, "psychopath" was the word that was dropped from the professional vocabulary because of the Hitchcock movie, "sociopath" was what replaced it>

Trying and failing to find a link for you, to a recent study suggesting that while they share most attributes, hence the dsmiv linkage, the approach to empathy/sympathy is completely different: the sociopath is to a great extent "nurture," and has a strong ability to bond with his in-group, and none to the out-group (as opposed to "normal othering," in which people have to work themselves into dehumanizing the "other" with nicknames, etc). Nale fits this pattern: he doesn't care if 100 people who aren't his crew dies, but he'll get pissed and try to physically pull a vampire off his buddy, because, well, Z's his buddy. Nale was a piece of ****, but he cared about Z.

The pyschopath, on the other hand, is strongly genetically dictated and simply does not sympathize/empathize with anybody, and in-group/out-group is completely irrelevant. His success tends to improve with increased symmetry of the hippocampus and his ability to restrain his actions, but social bonds as most of us understand them simply don't exist for him.

[Reddish Mage]

Celia is somewhat akin to Hans Christian Andersen's version of "The Little Mermaid", where the Mermaid is capable of emotion, but her existence is ephemeral: once she dies her body will dissolve into sea foam. Her goal in selling her voice for legs was to try to gain a soul of her own, so that she could live on after the death of her body. In a sense, Celia is the concept of Air or Wind given an anthropomorphic form, a pair of translucent wings, and admission to law school.

Sabine on the other hand is a personification of a specific form of Chaos and Evil, namely violent seduction. if Sabine were to become Good, she would still have the [Evil] subtype.

Replace references to "Celia" and "Sabine" with "Sylph" and "Succubus" and you have something, but these characters are people, not creature types!

Celia is a girl trying to find herself and establish a career. She is very normal. Sabine is murderously evil but she is also a girl in love that wants to stand by her man. Those personalities are what define these characters, not their creature types and magical qualities.

[Knight.Anon]

The Psioness is acting very Neutral. She could even be neutral on both sides.

[Sir_Leorik]

Trying and failing to find a link for you, to a recent study suggesting that while they share most attributes, hence the dsmiv linkage, the approach to empathy/sympathy is completely different: the sociopath is to a great extent "nurture," and has a strong ability to bond with his in-group, and none to the out-group (as opposed to "normal othering," in which people have to work themselves into dehumanizing the "other" with nicknames, etc). Nale fits this pattern: he doesn't care if 100 people who aren't his crew dies, but he'll get pissed and try to physically pull a vampire off his buddy, because, well, Z's his buddy. Nale was a piece of ****, but he cared about Z.

The pyschopath, on the other hand, is strongly genetically dictated and simply does not sympathize/empathize with anybody, and in-group/out-group is completely irrelevant. His success tends to improve with increased symmetry of the hippocampus and his ability to restrain his actions, but social bonds as most of us understand them simply don't exist for him.

So Nale and Tarquin are sociopaths, able to relate to their friends and love others, while Xykon would be a psychopath? Does it make a difference that Xykon's hippocampus was thrown in the garbage by Redcloak decades ago, while upgrading Xykon into a Lich?

[Phantom Thief]

Why is the TV bleeding? Blood plasma is translucent and a tint of yellow

[DolGrenn]

Well, now we have a good idea as to who's probably gonna kill Tarquin.

[NZNinja]

Love the title: "Last ... in the Coffin." Where's the Nail? It got Disintegrated.

[Sir_Leorik]

Replace references to "Celia" and "Sabine" with "Sylph" and "Succubus" and you have something, but these characters are people, not creature types!

Celia is a girl trying to find herself and establish a career. She is very normal. Sabine is murderously evil but she is also a girl in love that wants to stand by her man. Those personalities are what define these characters, not their creature types and magical qualities.

Celia's physical being isn't made of flesh and blood. Her physiology iss made up of an idealization of fluffy clouds, gentle Spring breezes, steam rising from a tea kettle, and seeing your breath condensing for a moment on a cold Winter day; take all of those positive associations you might have with the sky, wind, air, breath, water vapor, and reshape those positive associations into a young woman who resembles a beautiful Elf with diaphranous wings, and that is what Celia's physiology is. That physiology doesn't mean she can't be a career girl trying to balance schoolwork, her lovelife and the threat of the end of the world, anymore than Redcloak's being a Goblin meant he couldn't get passing grades in Chemistry. But it does mean that she has no afterlife if she is killed; she'll be immediately absorbed into the Elemental Plane of Air to be used for spare parts, as the Primordials intended. (Sorry, little bit of 4E humor there! )

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ugh... the lame martyrdom of the most annoying character and one of the most evil people in the whole strip continues... I'm starting to worry he IS coming back, now... This is strongly starting to resemble a really blatantly forced heel-face turn in pro wrestling, where they just lay it on so thick with the betrayal and pity party so that you're supposed to feel sorry for the ex-heel and now like him despite the fact of him not actually doing anything good, redeemable, or even enjoyable himself. Just, "oh don't you feel bad for him? Don't you just love him now?"

[SaintRidley]

Why is the TV bleeding? Blood plasma is translucent and a tint of yellow

The plasma might need to be suspended in blood to give a better picture.

[TRH]

Ugh... the lame martyrdom of the most annoying character and one of the most evil people in the whole strip continues... I'm starting to worry he IS coming back, now... This is strongly starting to resemble a really blatantly forced heel-face turn in pro wrestling, where they just lay it on so thick with the betrayal and pity party so that you're supposed to feel sorry for the ex-heel and now like him despite the fact of him not actually doing anything good, redeemable, or even enjoyable himself. Just, "oh don't you feel bad for him? Don't you just love him now?"

Bitter, party of one? Right this way, please.

[Porthos]

Why is the TV bleeding? Blood plasma is translucent and a tint of yellow

The Giant went to Art School, alright?

NOTE: You're not the first person to bring this up.

Just roll with it, is I believe the phrase.

[veti]

One director out of three. They may just need to change offices.

I would assume the TV was a big expensive one bought on expenses specifically for their head office. I don't think - people, for want of a better word - in the Lower Planes would shell out their own money-equivalent for that sort of thing. So now they're going to have to replace it.

Fortunately, they can just press 'Pause' on reality while they do it.

The last sentiment is admirable but seriously, the rest is an exercise in reading into the text what you want. Sabine isn't a typical succubus, she's showed plenty of signs of being madly in love with Nale, from getting depressed and drunk over seeing Nale with Haley, to declaring her loyalty to Nale rather than the IFCC the minute Qarr left and Nale asked her to follow him. Now she flies into a rage and destroys the Directors property over Nale's death.

"Jealousy" is one of the most negative (evil) emotions there is. "Getting depressed and drunk" for that motive fits nicely with her theme.

"Declaring her loyalty to Nale" - is exactly what she'd do if she wanted to keep Nale on a string. Declarations are cheap.

Destroying the TV - now that, I'll grant you, looks like the real thing. Again, though, it's rage - a very negative/destructive emotion. I imagine it's so common in the Lower Planes that the IFCC's insurance policy probably has specific exclusions for this sort of situation, which would be why she needs to pay for it.

[The Kind Knido]

Nale isn't coming back, and it's a good thing too.

-800+ strips of a "B-List Villain who Elan outgrew" is sure enough. While Elan clearly hasn't 100% shown he's outgrown him, he's definitely outclassed him as a character and a fighter.

-This shows that Tarquin will go to great lengths. You shouldn't underestimate him because he is unpredictable to a decent extent.

-Nale was never going to be redeemed. From the start, he was nothing more than a generic "evil brother who wanted to kill his sibling for no reason" who slowly grew to complete other objectives. For whatever reason, he hated Malack. Malack is dead now. He's completed all he can. There's way too much on his plate and if history tells us anything, Nale's plans are way too complicated to work (killing Malack was easy and he had Z to plan with) and he's managed to make a ton of enemies including the entirety of the Empire of Blood.

-Sabine is a succubus. I suppose to some extent she did love Nale, but he's probably going to be able to see her anyways. They exist in the same plane now; it's always possible. It's true that Sabine might just completely snap and take revenge, but what can she do unless she (and I hope not for the sake of the story) has already prepared for a time like this to bring him back which, by the laws of resurrection if kept untouched, will hopefully be impossible. Sabine attacking the fiends sounds like something she'd do now that it seems they clearly don't give a crap.

-Seriously. Nale's gone and destroyed. Please keep him that way. It's time to let this character go; there's too many of them now. The Linear Guild was way in over the heads anyways.

[Dalek Kommander]

To everyone just now realizing that Tarquin is a heartless and evil man, welcome to the party. Apparently 20 foot tall flaming letters wasn't enough.

Heartless? Those flaming letters spelled ELAN! How many sons can honestly say their father has murdered dozens of human beings just to show how much they care?

Tarquin's fatherly love is truly unique... or at least I hope it is!

[Sir_Leorik]

Heartless? Those flaming letters spelled ELAN! How many sons can honestly say their father has murdered dozens of human beings just to show how much they care?

Tarquin's fatherly love is truly unique... or at least I hope it is!

I thought they spelled "FLAN", right?

[BlackDragonKing]

And then facing the consequences of treating a black dragon as yet another monster... by perpetrating mass murder.

Not to drag things off-topic there, but I will point out that V never thought of the ABD as "just another monster". V just vaporizes ordinary monsters dispassionately prior to the Darth V incident.

The Ancient Black Dragon was deeply personal for her, and she hated that creature about as much as I think an elf can hate. The mass murder wasn't out of callousness, it's because V, running high on omnipotence after spending months feeling trapped and powerless, gets a chance to lash out at an enemy who had hurt her more personally than any other villain in this strip, and uses it to make her suffer for it.

--

Back on-topic, this was not the response I was expecting from Tarquin when Elan inevitably called him out on what he just did. I was expecting him to site simple pragmatism, like it was just common sense, or demand if Elan would feel so magnanimous if it had been one of HIS friends Nale vaporized and bragged about, but this seems even more callous than the mindset I'd been expecting. I was interested and pleased that Laurin did seem to display the genuine villainous solidarity I was expecting from Tarquin...I'm still hoping Team Tarquin gives us a chance to explore a villainous gang with genuine friendships binding most of them together, especially since we can now explore a valued member of that friendship being gone.

[Jane_Doe]

"Good Riddance"

"He was a terrible human being"

"All the more reason to clean up after myself, then"

"I can't think of anyone else who spent any amount of time with Nale who didn't at least entertain the idea."

Harsh, but, well, completely true. Nale WAS a terrible person, and he DID manage to completely alienate everyone he came across except for his girlfriend, and (presumably) Zddtri and Thog, neither of whom live. (Unrelatedly, Tarquin's statement applies to Sabine as well - she wanted to kill him when she was drinking, and thought Nale was going to kill Haley alone.)

---

You know, I still can't tell how strongly Tarquin actually felt about killing Nale. His argument with Nale in 913 (up until the point he stabbed him, of course) read to me pretty much exactly like a parent confused and upset with their child who just wouldn't stop their ridiculously self-destructive ways, with obvious displays of emotion that fit such. You could cut and paste half of those lines into your average family drama, and you wouldn't miss a beat.

And then here, he doesn't say a thing about why he did it, or make a single undirected remark about what he just did, but rather moved directly towards explaining to Elan and Haley why THEY ought be fine with what he just did. Which is really what he SHOULD do - you don't just stand around and emote when someone who you want to help save your empire is obviously upset with what you've done - but, well, it's remarkably... Composed, to put it charitably, for the tragic end of a long-term relationship.

Then again, this does come after years of shielding Nale from the consequences of his stupid, stupid actions, and it's possible that he's simply used up all of his emotion regarding him years ago. Like how after years of begging your junkie sister to stop using drugs, or at least stop stealing from you to do so, that when she finally overdoses, you don't really feel much anymore - that you'd done your mourning ages ago, and were really just expecting this one day, regardless of how you hope things would end differently. But that wouldn't really seem to fit with making an elaborate plan to save him... But, then again, it's not that uncommon to make a last, heroic effort to save a lost cause. It's just that usually nobody else is willing to go along with it, and the person being saved doesn't usually die as a direct result of the plan going wrong.

Of course, it's all complicated by the fact that the comic, as a whole, isn't ABOUT Tarquin. We very rarely get to see directly what he's thinkng and feeling in the same way that we get, say, Elan or V, or even Redcloak, justifying what they're doing to themselves. So all we really end up seeing is Tarquin acting - and, well, he's pretty much constantly attempting to manipulate everyone around him. I mean, I don't think I can think of a single scene he's been in where he hasn't had SOME agenda, beyond perhaps the simple-minded glee he exchanged with Elan shortly after they met. So he could well be happy that Mallack and Nale are both dead, and well at work plotting the deaths of the rest of his party - or he could be absolutely furious that it all went this way, why did that stupid boy have to step outside is role - or sad and distraught, a dull ache where is heart used to be until five minutes ago, why did it all have to come to this - or feeling nothing at all, an unthinking automaton constructed of the distilled essence of TV Tropes... And, well, he'd be acting exactly the same. Because right now, he has a hero to (badly) manipulate into accepting his tacit authority, and can't be distracted by personal matters.

[M.A.D]

Of course, it's all complicated by the fact that the comic, as a whole, isn't ABOUT Tarquin. We very rarely get to see directly what he's thinkng and feeling in the same way that we get, say, Elan or V, or even Redcloak, justifying what they're doing to themselves. So all we really end up seeing is Tarquin acting - and, well, he's pretty much constantly attempting to manipulate everyone around him. I mean, I don't think I can think of a single scene he's been in where he hasn't had SOME agenda, beyond perhaps the simple-minded glee he exchanged with Elan shortly after they met. So he could well be happy that Mallack and Nale are both dead, and well at work plotting the deaths of the rest of his party - or he could be absolutely furious that it all went this way, why did that stupid boy have to step outside is role - or sad and distraught, a dull ache where is heart used to be until five minutes ago, why did it all have to come to this - or feeling nothing at all, an unthinking automaton constructed of the distilled essence of TV Tropes... And, well, he'd be acting exactly the same. Because right now, he has a hero to (badly) manipulate into accepting his tacit authority, and can't be distracted by personal matters.

This, I agree with whole-heartedly. We don't know if Tarquin really didn't feel anything from his son's death, or he did but managed to perfectly keep his emotions inside. To make it more confusing, Tarquin has legitimate and logical reason to kill Nale right there, before the situation escalates to something beyond his control. Those few drops of blood on his dagger might be his last resort of saving his son, short of betraying his own party and ruining everything he had striven for in the past 30 years. Nale had made it perfectly clear that he wouldn't cooperate with Tarquin, and in doing so he wouldn't stand a chance against the rest of the party. There is basically no way Nale could come out of this alive, and leaving him to his own might make it messier, since there's always a chance, however small it is, that Nale could pose as a threat to the next one who tried to kill him, like Laurin herself. Tarquin's decision to step in and clean it all up is a right one from a logical point of view.