Order of the Stick

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willpell
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by willpell » Wed May 08, 2013 11:46 pm

RJJ7 wrote:Honestly though, Xykon has never had the same malevolent aura that he used to; ever since it was revealed that he was being "controlled" by redcloak. At that time, he was downgraded from epic-archnemesis-of-evil to oblivious-but-useful-dufus.
Yyyyyyeah I'm not feeling it. I still expect he'll be the final boss of the campaign.
Arydra wrote:I feel this is the plan. Even had this shift not occurred we all would have felt disillusioned about Xykon simply because he was only a temporary nemesis.
He's still an epic-level challenge, and frankly I find him more compelling than a bunch of cliche black hats like the IFCC (they're a fairly innovative twist on cliche, but still cliche nonetheless). I'll take an actual character over a "cosmic force" anyday.
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by RJJ7 » Fri May 10, 2013 10:25 am

Well, I'll have to issue a partial retraction on my previous post. It's all only an illusion! Fairly obvious I guess (especially with several people here pointing it out :roll: ), but for whatever reason, I wasn't seeing it (I was interpreting the big purple runes as somehow activating immediately following the battle; as in, a big "ooh, what's happening now?" moment).

But I still feel that the plot twist with Redcloak made things come unstuck. I agree with willpell that I like Xykon and find him more compelling. My whole point in the first place was that I was upset because he was getting upstaged by less likeable villains. But the problem we run into is that Redcloak is not stupid. In fact, he is consistently portrayed as being pretty intelligent. And yet, he is supremely confident that he controls Xykon (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0830.html). A hundred strips earlier, we see that Redcloak is not above being intimidated by beings more powerful than himself when he is visibly shaken by the warning from his god not to screw the plan up (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0704.html). But if he screws the plan up, shouldn't Xykon be the one he worries about? Apparently not. He's afraid of what his own team will do to him if he fails, but for Xykon, nothing.

It seems to me that if Redcloak isn't stupid, then we can take his word for it that there are bigger fish in the pool than the "tool", Xykon. And if there are bigger fish in the pool, then what is it about Xykon that will make him a big scary climax to the story? Either we will have already defeated said bigger fish (making Xykon less of a climax than he should be) or we will leave said bigger fish undealt with (a possibility, but I don't see it as a completely satisfactory one).

Obviously, we'll see. But my confidence in Xykon being able to carry his ominosity to the end, when he's already been played for a fool several times, is definitely shaken.
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by Krulle » Fri May 10, 2013 11:12 am

RJJ7 wrote:Well, I'll have to issue a partial retraction on my previous post. It's all only an illusion! Fairly obvious I guess (especially with several people here pointing it out :roll: ), but for whatever reason, I wasn't seeing it (I was interpreting the big purple runes as somehow activating immediately following the battle; as in, a big "ooh, what's happening now?" moment).
Me too. I saw the trigger in the word "killed", as in "I killed Xykon", then he repeats it with all CAPS, after which came a "-"hyphen, then the new panel with hypnotised eyes.
So I saw the trigger being the word "killed" after the fight.

I overlooked that the fight-scratches on the faces disappeared to the last panel...
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by DrinksTooMuchCoffee » Fri May 10, 2013 11:41 am

Also, Belkar wasn't dead any more. ;)

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by willpell » Fri May 10, 2013 11:48 am

Only now did I notice something about this strip. This is the third time in the comic (at least) that someone has been Forcecaged, and the second time V cast the spell. Both other forcecages (Xykon on Miko and Vaarsuvius on Mama Dragon) were actual cages, with holes; this one is a solid cube. I found that interesting, and wonder whether it means RC will eventually suffocate in there (that is, whether he would if this were actually happening).

Also, since nobody else has said it, I loooove the exchange between X and RC in panel 6; the Giant does indeed love to hang lampshades on his genre-savvy characters.
RJJ7 wrote:But I still feel that the plot twist with Redcloak made things come unstuck. I agree with willpell that I like Xykon and find him more compelling.
Don't get me wrong, I like the new Redcloak too. I just don't feel Xykon has suffered Villain Decay as some others seemed to think; RC is plotting against him, but that doesn't mean RC is now secretly the more important villain and Xykon is just a chump (only that RC thinks so). Xykon's strength as a character is his ability to think the unthinkable; nobody can really predict him, and so I suspect RC is going to end up strangling himself with his "puppet strings", bringing a disastrous end to his ostensibly-slightly-noble excuse for his villainous actions, and thus reinforcing why he is in fact a real villain, rather than a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
He's afraid of what his own team will do to him if he fails
That's not what I got from the "No pressure" immediately afterward. I get that TD1 is a vengeful guy, but he seemed fair-minded; if Redcloak gives the Plan his best effort and fails through no fault of his own, I don't think TD1 will be unreasonably inclined to punish him "just because". Now if he does royally bungle the job through his own fault, then TD1 would be perfectly justified in creating a special private hell for RC, but I didn't get that RC was sweating because he was worried about that, just in a more general "the boss is looking over your shoulder, this is the company's biggest client, so no more screwing around on company time" kind of sense. In essence, reinforcing that there is pressure, which is usually exactly the case when you're told otherwise.
DrinksTooMuchCoffee wrote:Also, Belkar wasn't dead any more. ;)
In the dream-sequence, he was shown to have died and then didn't appear again. So I'm wondering what's behind those swirls in his eyes in the last panel. Does he now perceive himself as being dead, or is there a separate illusion for everyone, or is he just miraculously alive again and nobody has figured out that this is weird?

EDIT: I just thought of a hilarious scenario. Having "killed" Xykon now, it'd be a bit repetitive to actually fight him later, and we're thinking that confrontations with him are likely to happen later, at Kraagor's Tomb and/or X's "fortress tomb thingy on the Astral Plane", both of which are locations too interesting not to visit. So how's this: the Order somehow fights and beats Team Tarquin (or possibly makes a tense alliance of necessity with them, despite both Nale's desire to kill the OOTS and Roy's desire to avenge and/or rescue Durkon), goes and finds the Gate to try and prepare some last-ditch defense against Xykon, and finds out that he was already there, found the gate wasn't useful for his purposes, and moved on, having neither known nor cared that anyone else was coming after Girard's Gate.

EDIT 2 - Huh. Editing this message (twice) 3 hours after it was posted, I don't get a new timestamp. Weird.
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Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by DrinksTooMuchCoffee » Fri May 10, 2013 5:17 pm

willpell wrote:In the dream-sequence, he was shown to have died and then didn't appear again. So I'm wondering what's behind those swirls in his eyes in the last panel. Does he now perceive himself as being dead, or is there a separate illusion for everyone, or is he just miraculously alive again and nobody has figured out that this is weird?
With Roy's expression matching between illusion and reality but the others' not, I'm going with everyone having their own illusions right now. Specifically Roy and Elan are both happy in the last illusory panel, but Roy is still happy in reality but Elan is just open-mouth drooling (stupid CPU-hogging trojans!). Just doesn't look like they're all sharing the same illusion from that.

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by Zathyr » Fri May 10, 2013 11:55 pm

willpell wrote: EDIT 2 - Huh. Editing this message (twice) 3 hours after it was posted, I don't get a new timestamp. Weird.
They only show up if you edit the post after someone's replied.

As for the solid wall forcecage, it makes sense. You can choose solid walls or bars when you cast the spell. Bars make the cage bigger, and allow spells and small enough weapons and similar things to pass through. So against a melee character when you're the spell-caster: bars make sense. Against an enemy spell-caster that'll fit in the smaller space: solid walls.
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by willpell » Mon May 13, 2013 12:02 am

Updated.
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You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by ThroughTheWell » Mon May 13, 2013 1:05 pm

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by SamWiser » Mon May 13, 2013 1:13 pm

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Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

ÔÇ£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?ÔÇØ
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by DrinksTooMuchCoffee » Mon May 13, 2013 1:35 pm

Happy end to the comic. :)
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by LooksAndSmiles » Mon May 13, 2013 2:27 pm

I quite like the way that last page has been made. A bit hard to decipher all the events, but... :)
Can't wait to see what will happen next because tbh ever since they entered the pyramid or what I felt a bit "meh" about the events. Now it's getting somewhere.

(I guess I've been non-spoilerish about it sufficiently to express my opinion.)
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by willpell » Mon May 13, 2013 5:25 pm

ThroughTheWell wrote:
► Show Spoiler
► Show Spoiler
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by RocketScientist » Wed May 15, 2013 2:36 pm

SamWiser wrote:
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I thought the same thing. It's a really good plan, too. Even if it's not destroyed that way, how would anyone ever find and retrieve it?

Have you guys read the prequel books? Specifically The Start of Darkness? I think some of you (and Left-Eye Redcloak may be underestimating Xykon. He plays stupid/oblivious all the time, and people believe him. It seems to happen more often in The Start of Darkness, which is why I mentioned it. But I will be surprised if he really doesn't know that Redcloak is trying to control him.

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by friedkitty » Thu May 16, 2013 1:06 pm

I now have three days worth of paperwork to catch up on now thanks to you guys. I'm just glad my boss didn't ask me what I was doing.

"Oh I'm reading the entire archive of a comic strip."

Yeah, that would have gone over well.

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by DrinksTooMuchCoffee » Fri May 17, 2013 7:19 am

But wait, how can there be a new strip, when the last was the happy ending? ;)
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by Zathyr » Fri May 17, 2013 9:22 am

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by DrinksTooMuchCoffee » Fri May 17, 2013 10:50 am

Zathyr wrote:
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by SamWiser » Fri May 17, 2013 11:02 am

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Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

ÔÇ£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?ÔÇØ
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by willpell » Fri May 17, 2013 12:03 pm

SamWiser wrote:
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Yeah, that was hilarious, and also:
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You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by RocketScientist » Sat May 18, 2013 12:08 pm

willpell wrote:
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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by willpell » Sat May 18, 2013 1:21 pm

► Show Spoiler
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by Marnath » Sat May 18, 2013 7:28 pm

willpell wrote:
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► Show Spoiler

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by RocketScientist » Sun May 19, 2013 5:43 pm

Marnath wrote:
willpell wrote:
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Yes, that.

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Re: Order of the Stick

Post by ThroughTheWell » Sun May 19, 2013 6:23 pm

I'd say this one was more Elan's dream, and the earlier one more Roy's dream. If that continues I'd like to see Belkar's dream.
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