Codependent Poster posted:Mookie doesn't know how researching unknown topics works. Late in original DD when they decide they need to research the king to find any dirt/weaknesses, Luna's only idea is to read his publicly available biography.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 04:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 20:09 |
|
|
This all comes back to Mookie's arrested development and his conception of the world being filtered through the lens of a high schooler. I am smart unlike those jocks, my knowledge is what makes me smart, I gain my knowledge through reading books which I enjoy because I'm an intellectual, therefore the best source of knowledge is books because that it what I, a very clever man, have exclusively partaken in. Add in a bit of hackneyed stereotype regarding the best knowledge in a fantasy setting being lost knowledge in ancient tomes but with a dash of extreme lack of creativity that precludes having to actually hunt them down in forgotten or unusual places, and badda bing badda boom, the quest for knowledge becomes a tedious study session.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 04:26
|
|
|
Breetai posted:Add in a bit of hackneyed stereotype regarding the best knowledge in a fantasy setting being lost knowledge in ancient tomes but with a dash of extreme lack of creativity that precludes having to actually hunt them down in forgotten or unusual places, and badda bing badda boom, the quest for knowledge becomes a tedious study session.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 04:37
|
|
|
It'll turn out that Snout is the only person ever to combine all those written facts and that's what makes him so special. Everybody else simply read those books in a void. But Snout loves books, so he read all of them and that's why he was able to find out the true story of the legacy of Dominic Deegan. (Said legacy is a post-it note with puns about how reading makes you smarter)
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 05:39
|
|
|
SubG posted:Yeah I remember that one time Indiana Jones needed to figure out the exact location of the Ark of the Covenant so he went to a library and the librarian gave him a book that said the Ark is in the Well of Souls, so he showed the librarian that and the librarian gave him another book that said that to find the Well of Souls you need know the exact dimensions of the Staff of Ra, so Indy showed the librarian that part too, and the librarian gave him a book that gives the dimensions of the Staff of Ra. So then Indy wrote down that he found the Ark of the Covenant in his journal, roll credits. That was a great film. You forgot the parts where naked women keep forcing themselves on Indy while he sleeps
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 05:53
|
|
|
Codependent Poster posted:But since Deegan is such a well known figure, there's nothing to learn. Everything has already been written. There's nothing new to discover that hasn't already been found, and all he's doing is like writing a book report about Deegan rather than discovering anything new. I think you really nailed it with this. This isn't discovering lost information, it's writing a book report on what's publicly available. You could absolutely write an interesting story about rediscovering lost history but not when what you're researching is already part of public record and only news to your protagonist. Still extremely unsure why those pages that literally started the story were important and why they couldn't just be copied like any other series of words.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 07:33
|
|
|
Essentially this is a comic about Snout wandering places and reading books.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 08:02
|
|
|
It's been established that books are as plentiful in the Deeganverse as they are now. Sure there's no Internet but that just puts you back a few decades, like the library probably still has index cards. Searching for a rare book in those circumstances can be a little bit of a challenge but not, like, anything terribly dramatic.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 08:11
|
|
Riot Bus posted:I think you really nailed it with this. This isn't discovering lost information, it's writing a book report on what's publicly available. You could absolutely write an interesting story about rediscovering lost history but not when what you're researching is already part of public record and only news to your protagonist. There’s even the incredibly obvious hook of “the true history isn’t what was written in the books or commonly accepted by the public”, but by all appearances, this isn’t looking like it’s going to rise to even that low bar. Probably because that would implicitly require something needing to be covered up, which in turn implies that Dominic was provably wrong about something major.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 08:12
|
|
|
Y'all know Snout is going to ~hear~ Dominic, but it's going to turn out he's not ~hearing~ but detecting him with his latent seer abilities, right? Then he'll go to some magic college but they'll be mean and bigoted toward Snout, who learns a secret phrase he'll say in the magic realm or whatever to free Dominic Deegan.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 08:30
|
|
|
what do you mean library quest is boring
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 09:20
|
|
|
Turns out it's not a story about finding out something that nobody knows, but about finding out something that Snout doesn't know, which isn't really all that compelling and is made more frustrating by the consistent reminders that Snout probably doesn't have the education needed to understand the thing he's looking for, anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 13:58
|
|
|
It feels like Snout is meant to be discovering these things, but since the only method of exposition Mookie has is books or notes it becomes publicly available knowledge once we figure out what it is. The only other way he knows how to have a character learn something besides reading it in a book is having a vision that shows them exactly what it is, so I look forward to Snout's seer powers coming in soon.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 14:14
|
|
|
Didn't Buffy and the gang usually defeat their enemies by looking their weaknesses up in the library? I only caught bits of that show but my main mental image of it is everyone crowding around the nerd friend as he reads out how to win.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 14:26
|
|
|
Dabir posted:Didn't Buffy and the gang usually defeat their enemies by looking their weaknesses up in the library? I only caught bits of that show but my main mental image of it is everyone crowding around the nerd friend as he reads out how to win.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 14:36
|
|
|
Joss Whedon is a hack and a terrible human being in general.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 14:57
|
|
|
The whole thing with the waiting list and Snout's library card was a way to take this publicly accessible information and turn it into something special bestowed upon Snout purely for who he is, requiring no work on his part to obtain. The seemingly pointless bit with Veth pointing him in the right direction was the same thing: avoiding having Snout obtain anything by his own devices.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 15:16
|
|
|
Dabir posted:Didn't Buffy and the gang usually defeat their enemies by looking their weaknesses up in the library? I only caught bits of that show but my main mental image of it is everyone crowding around the nerd friend as he reads out how to win. Looking stuff up helped sometimes but only because the librarian also had a bunch of forbidden lore on vampires and demons and such
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 15:55
|
|
|
Now I'm remembering how Snout discovered the necromancy cancer, was spoonfed a dozen notes explaining what was happening there and then he just...refused to engage with it. That could've been his thing, he was the only one who knew what happened. Then Dex comes along already knowing exactly what happened and why. Oh well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 17:47
|
|
|
I know it's Mookie's style not to plan out pages ahead of time, but I'm wondering now if he even planned out how this story will end.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 21:51
|
|
|
Dabir posted:Didn't Buffy and the gang usually defeat their enemies by looking their weaknesses up in the library? I only caught bits of that show but my main mental image of it is everyone crowding around the nerd friend as he reads out how to win. There's plenty of poo poo to talk about Buffy, but at least those research scenes were the characters trying to find ways to defeat enemies, and not just wandering from library to library because they saw the word 'vampire' written on a scrap of paper somewhere and didn't have anything else going on that month.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 22:00
|
|
|
Roman Reigns posted:I know it's Mookie's style not to plan out pages ahead of time, but I'm wondering now if he even planned out how this story will end. And ruin the surprise?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 22:15
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:And ruin the surprise?  Fair enough.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 22:37
|
|
|
Dabir posted:Didn't Buffy and the gang usually defeat their enemies by looking their weaknesses up in the library? I only caught bits of that show but my main mental image of it is everyone crowding around the nerd friend as he reads out how to win. Usually the hard part was putting that in action, so the "getting information" bits were brief scenes or focused on character drama rather then the task of finding stuff out.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 00:05
|
|
|
TheHan posted:Now I'm remembering how Snout discovered the necromancy cancer, was spoonfed a dozen notes explaining what was happening there and then he just...refused to engage with it. That could've been his thing, he was the only one who knew what happened. Then Dex comes along already knowing exactly what happened and why. Oh well. He didn't even write what happened down himself, seriously, he was like "I hated this and so I shall now forget it!"
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 01:05
|
|
|
I might have been thinking of Charmed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 05:09
|
|
|
 Honeslty, could Mookie even come up with a more condescending way of presenting Snout. He's literally an inspirational figure by just sitting around vacantly staring.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 05:49
|
|
|
Snout's what now? What's so kind about sitting around being upset that nobody's paying attention to you because you're useless and have nothing to contribute, then wandering off because you couldn't handle other people fixing a problem without your input?
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 05:55
|
|
|
Is this entire comic now the final pre-credits sequence in an RPG where everyone is congratulating you on your victory?
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 06:05
|
|
|
Still better than wild edge.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 06:05
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:Snout's what now? Yes I'm lost, what kindness did he do? Does Mookie think being a sad sack and not doing anything is praise worthy? Did Mookie forget what he wrote? Is this just his fantasy?
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 06:26
|
|
|
He stopped a fight and pointed out corpsemom was distressed That's it I mean, sure, that's a decent thing to do and commendable, but apparently they're ready to give him a loving sainthood over it. It feels really forced when no one else in the room noticed she was in shock, she was kind of the focus of attention after all. Oh yeah he also had the flower that magically cured her, but having an object that solves a problem is not a character trait.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 06:38
|
|
|
Like he did look after Corpse Woman (who is definitely still around and has not vanished from the face of the strip) and let her travel with him while they wandered aimlessly for five years or however long that was. Thing is, she already thanked him for that, we already had the big group hug, and so this extra bit of "Snout you're so nice" pushes it even further into the realm of the Informed Attribute.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 06:41
|
|
|
Billy Gnosis posted:Yes I'm lost, what kindness did he do? Does Mookie think being a sad sack and not doing anything is praise worthy? Did Mookie forget what he wrote? Is this just his fantasy? Mookie knows that he's kind, so that means that every character in the entire world knows that he's kind.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 08:28
|
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:Like he did look after Corpse Woman (who is definitely still around and has not vanished from the face of the strip) and let her travel with him while they wandered aimlessly for five years or however long that was. What do you mean, she's right there in panel 2! Also, it was like. Two days? Remember when we saw that big ol' long montage of all the places Snout had been, then alter get a hard number on how long it took and it turned out days only changed when we saw him sleep so everything happened in one day? The Mild Edge is apparently not like, bunches of weird sprawling biomes, it's a bunch of individual exhibits in a botanical garden or something.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 08:57
|
|
|
Snout is as kind as he is curious.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 08:57
|
|
|
This comic is so loving hilariously masturbatory.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 10:03
|
|
|
The worst part of it all is that I'm pretty sure Mookie made Snout as a way to challenge himself with a main character who's completely opposite all of his usual protagonists, and then immediately decided he was devoid of potential and incapable of carrying an interesting story, which is why the rich, talented, well-connected wizards immediately became his friends and have done everything since they appeared.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 11:31
|
|
|
Emrikol posted:The worst part of it all is that I'm pretty sure Mookie made Snout as a way to challenge himself with a main character who's completely opposite all of his usual protagonists, and then immediately decided he was devoid of potential and incapable of carrying an interesting story, which is why the rich, talented, well-connected wizards immediately became his friends and have done everything since they appeared. The thing is, unless I'm misremembering how things go down with some of the Snout and then later the Mild Edge poo poo with Bumper (or was it Stunt? I always confuse the two) Mookie has written protagonists before who were, at least nominally, unconnected and lacking in resources. Sure, they were still infallible Mookies because of narrative contrivances and infallible skills or whatever, but like Mookie has, unless I'm stroking out from all this harder than I think I am, totally written protags who didn't, at least in their arc, rely on their connections to the rich and powerful Deegans to move the story forward or solve the plot. Like inasmuch as there has been arguments in this thread about whether or not Mookie has or has not improved as an artist, I do not for a second believe anyone can seriously entertain the idea that, as a writer and storyteller, he has not regressed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 11:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 20:09 |
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 11:58
|
|