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http://archives.erfworld.com/Book+3/304 So, that first panel, that's when the Transylvito tower was named?
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Mar 8, 2018 14:01
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| # ? May 22, 2024 13:13 |
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Cat Mattress posted:http://archives.erfworld.com/Book+3/304 Oh, good catch.
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Mar 8, 2018 18:48
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I hope there's more to the towers than anti-cheat hardware, because Charlie being beaten cause he was weakened by a literal Deus Ex Machina is something I won't accept.
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Mar 8, 2018 18:53
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My theory is that the towers lead into the endgame that they've kinda hinted at here and there, where Parson and Charlie are playing with the idea of an Erfworld that can sustain itself without constant war. From Jed and Shirley, it seems like each tower feels that their side's ruler is the "hero" of the story and at least from Shirley harping on Charlie, tries to shape the ruler to be the hero and do the right thing. And the right thing, eventually, will be to let their guard down and work with their neighbors to end the war instead of treating every other side as a potential enemy.
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Mar 9, 2018 06:40
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Huehue manages to live up to his name there. Another official forums theory I like; the Signamancy of the Towers, being as they are very strongly connected to the city they're based in, is based on the original Signamancy of the side they originally belonged to back in the days of the original 99. It does seem like they have some degrees of pre-awakening memory, given Huehue knows all about Bill, and would fit with how TV is a very old side, possibly one of the originals, and they've maintained some semblance of their original aesthetic.
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Mar 10, 2018 09:02
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If the Towers can defend their sanctuary/home base that well... why would the Great Minds have given one to Charlie? O.o
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Mar 10, 2018 20:04
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XkyRauh posted:If the Towers can defend their sanctuary/home base that well... why would the Great Minds have given one to Charlie? O.o Because for all the benefits it carries it'll also try to kneecap him.
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Mar 11, 2018 06:56
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XkyRauh posted:If the Towers can defend their sanctuary/home base that well... why would the Great Minds have given one to Charlie? O.o Charlie benefits the least, because he already had his tower rigged to hell with all sorts of ridiculous traps. Most of what he gets is stuff he already pretty much had (at least, until Lilith blew it all up). Now everyone else gets super defense towers, all powered by the infinite juice from the portal column, just like Charlie's was. Of course, all Jed's talk about "stealing juice from the Source" implies that the portal-column juice isn't quite as free as Charlie and Big Think assumed. And when we last left Shirley, it seemed like she wasn't too happy to find out from Parson about all the portal-column hijinks that Charlie was up to. Which is probably why Charlie isn't doing a very good job of supervising Bill right now.
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Mar 11, 2018 08:16
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Benny is one cool cat. Bonnie sallright too.
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Mar 17, 2018 08:02
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Wait wait wait, does that mean *all* Archon hats are Hats for Hat Magic? (Probably a reach... but with how promptly it was presented?)
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Mar 17, 2018 17:03
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It would make sense. Archons don't level into Hat Magician ever, I'm pretty sure, and Charlie likes to do deals with neutral casters to buff up his stuff. Maybe he has a barbarian Hat Magician on retainer to enchant the pillbox of every popped archon.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:17
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You know, I really want to hear Cubbins explaining in his own internal monologue how Hat Magic is the supreme form of sorcery and the entire universe is ultimately based on the power of hats. You know he's thinking it.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:18
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Hats are made chiefly of cloth, right? And cloth... is made out of strings!!
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Mar 17, 2018 17:55
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Rand Brittain posted:You know, I really want to hear Cubbins explaining in his own internal monologue how Hat Magic is the supreme form of sorcery and the entire universe is ultimately based on the power of hats. You know, Cubbins is a character I would not mind if we stopped flow of story and got his thoughts. That entire bit of story was so interesting and sad. You've got Cubbins self sacrificing himself, ostensibly against duty (magic user being more important than an archer). Then Ace convinces the King to go and rescue his buddy, dying in the process. How does Cubbins feel about that? The Jetstone arc was incredible through and through mind you, but that is one piece I'm sad we never got.
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Mar 17, 2018 19:37
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War-themed hat simulator.
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Mar 19, 2018 06:38
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Inescapable Duck posted:War-themed hat simulator. Valve'd sue the hell out of them.
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Mar 19, 2018 07:42
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If Jack Snipe wasn’t in this comic, Maggie would probably be my favorite character.
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Mar 21, 2018 05:12
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Makaleka is gonna strangle the poo poo out of Bill and he is going to die to his best creation. Maybe a reenactment of Clarice and Buffalo Bill from silence of the lambs?
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Mar 21, 2018 15:31
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And I just realized that becoming disdainful of Thinkamancy is going to be how Maggie becomes a master-class Thinkamancer.
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Mar 21, 2018 18:15
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I mean, being able to think critically about your discipline and to look to outside sources for new ideas is pretty much exactly how advances are made in any discipline. Seems kind of a theme in the Magic Kingdom, and maybe Erfworld in general, is that that in their peaceful paradise carefully insulated from the ravages of Erf's constant wars, casters become complacent and self-satisfied in their disciplines, forming their own cliques and hierarchies and hoarding their secrets, while it's constant challenges that drive innovation and development; see Charlie having gotten so ridiculously far ahead of everyone else in desperate attempts to cheat Fate, Parson's use of experimental tactics, loophole abuse and imported ideas (something Charlie also makes great use of) and Olive Branch turning Flower Power into a horrific drug epidemic. Ace Hardware is ideal to work on and try to reverse-engineer guns since he's a Dollamancer keen on going beyond the stereotype as golem-makers, while Bill in his twisted, mentally handicapped way has managed to accomplish unique and terrible but impressive things because he thinks outside the box.
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Mar 22, 2018 13:23
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Okay, wow, yeah, this is definitely the story of Maggie becoming a master-class Thinkamancer. EDIT: Or I guess she could be becoming a Date-a-mancer without growing in Thinkamancy? I'm not really sure if the distinction there is a real one. Rand Brittain fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Mar 25, 2018 |
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Mar 25, 2018 02:55
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Rand Brittain posted:Okay, wow, yeah, this is definitely the story of Maggie becoming a master-class Thinkamancer. It's basically the difference between a neurologist and a psychologist. Both deal with the brain but on different levels. In this case date-a-mancy seems to focus outwards, to other people, while thinkamancy focuses inwards, to oneself. Also apparently they deal with fundamentally different types of strings, so there's that. It's known that highly talented casters can cast outside their main discipline, mind you (Wanda, for example), so Maggie achieving date-a-mancy is not unprecedented.
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Mar 25, 2018 04:10
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This update was really cool. My excitement for new comics was dying down (because it was dragging with hardly any developments) but this development was really cool. Haven't been this excited since Dons death
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Mar 25, 2018 04:18
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Kyte posted:It's basically the difference between a neurologist and a psychologist. Both deal with the brain but on different levels. In this case date-a-mancy seems to focus outwards, to other people, while thinkamancy focuses inwards, to oneself. I mean more, the distinction between a Thinkamancer who's grown disillusioned with traditional Thinkamancy and branched out into Date-a-mancy, and a Date-a-mancer. I'm not actually sure if the distinction is real. Maybe Erfworld doesn't even really have one? Janis was originally a Date-a-mancer, but she's now a master of all of Hippiemancy and people seem to ping her as a "Hippiemancer" rather than a Date-a-mancer. (Meanwhile, it seems like most of the Great Minds were considered to be Thinkamancers even if they were originally Lookamancers or Foolamancers.)
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Mar 25, 2018 04:26
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The implication is that the Great Minds didn't know about this, and that for all the time they've spent acting like super mysterious magic theorists, their perspective has been limited by their focus on Thinkamancy and therefore their conclusions have often been incomplete. As a result, much of what they've told us about how various forms of magic work are now suspect at best, considering that they apparently missed out on a fundamental force of the universe comparable in importance to the G-strings they obsessed over.
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Mar 25, 2018 04:43
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Main Paineframe posted:The implication is that the Great Minds didn't know about this, and that for all the time they've spent acting like super mysterious magic theorists, their perspective has been limited by their focus on Thinkamancy and therefore their conclusions have often been incomplete. As a result, much of what they've told us about how various forms of magic work are now suspect at best, considering that they apparently missed out on a fundamental force of the universe comparable in importance to the G-strings they obsessed over. That's not really what I'm talking about at all, though?
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Mar 25, 2018 04:47
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A thought I had, and I don't know if it's been floated before, but I jumped back in for the most recent page and Jed's whole deal stuck out to me: What if the towers are the tutorial mode for Erfworld? They're designed to look old, even ancient, and once upon a time there was a first generation of Erfworlders. Maybe the towers were there to get the sides up and running.
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Mar 25, 2018 06:27
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean more, the distinction between a Thinkamancer who's grown disillusioned with traditional Thinkamancy and branched out into Date-a-mancy, and a Date-a-mancer. Moreover, it's mentioned that Headmasters need to have mastery of at least two of the three Eyemancys (Lookamancy, Foolamancy and Thinkamancy) while Grand Abbies must have mastered at least two of Flower Power, Signamancy and Date-a-mancy, so clearly casters are expected to branch out to sibling disciplines as they improve their skills and can't be Master-class without such an achievement. Nevertheless, the distinction is definitely real, recall that every discipline we've seen has had its own innate sense that other casters lack. I assume it can be learned or at least comprehended to some degree if the caster wishes to delve into it, but most casters with the talent to go cross-class would not be interested, given what we've seen of them. In the Great Minds' case, it's probably because thinkamancy is the most obviously powerful of the three, so they just assumed it was the main one and later peer-pressured the rest accordingly. (It may have been started by Thinkamancers, too)
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Mar 25, 2018 08:31
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I dunno, I'm not too impressed by this update myself. It's a lot of words about how Maggie is changing her mindset but not a whole lot of substance otherwise, the plot hasn't moved at all. Like some bizarro 'show don't tell' gone too far and wrapped around so the showing of Maggie's growth for setting up later events has turned into telling us how she's grown. Text updates are supposed to be optional for following the plot so I guess wordy non-events fits that perfectly, but I feel that you could have cut this update to half its length and still covered everything.
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Mar 25, 2018 08:55
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My main take-away is that there's yet another magical discipline that is The Important discipline that runs the world.
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Mar 25, 2018 10:09
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Pretty sure the last line strongly implied the makaleka is about to do Something to Bill's mind, in which case the exposition actually is kind of needed.
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Mar 25, 2018 10:53
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This comic is going very far up its magic system's rear end in order to justify the next plot twist, and I'm bored already.
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Mar 25, 2018 11:43
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Joe Slowboat posted:A thought I had, and I don't know if it's been floated before, but I jumped back in for the most recent page and Jed's whole deal stuck out to me: Dovetails nicely with my idea that the Towers aren't something new, but something very old that's been reactivated. They have a deeper understanding of the world than other beings, are very concerned with the unwritten roles and playing the game the 'right' way, mostly focused on self-preservation and stability rather than active warfare, and give their side a lot of defensive advantages; an ideal tutorial mode for players who don't know what they're doing and are likely to make stupid mistakes. nimby posted:My main take-away is that there's yet another magical discipline that is The Important discipline that runs the world. Kind of been shown that pretty much every magic discipline can be incredibly powerful when used a certain way, and all of them are manifestations of (or able to cheat) Erf's underlying physics and nature. It seems to be more emphasising that one-trick ponies have a limited lifespan on Erf compared to casters willing to look into other disciplines to get new abilities, ideas and perspectives. The Great Minds acting as the pinnacle of Thinkamancy had the effect of teaching all Thinkamancers there's one way to improve, and of course they'll never catch up to the Great Minds on their own because the Great Minds have had longer to get better at it. While Wanda kinda seems to have stagnated too. It seems like the Arkentools have that effect on people, besides maybe Charlie, but he is a Carnymancer, they need to be constantly coming up with new tricks to survive.
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Mar 25, 2018 14:16
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Inescapable Duck posted:While Wanda kinda seems to have stagnated too. It seems like the Arkentools have that effect on people, besides maybe Charlie, but he is a Carnymancer, they need to be constantly coming up with new tricks to survive. Even before she got the Arkenpliers, Wanda mentioned that she was "uninterested" in disciplines outside Croakamancy, even though she was proficient in several. I think it was more to do with her overpowering fatalism.
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Mar 25, 2018 14:28
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Rand Brittain posted:That's not really what I'm talking about at all, though? I wasn't responding to you specifically, just the comic happenings in general. For a long time, the Great Minds have acted like they knew more about magic than anyone else, and were outright dismissive of some disciplines and even magic concepts as a whole (for example, Roger thought Fate was just unconscious Luckamancy spells created by Predictamancers). Now we know that they were missing out on a fundamental force of the universe, a fundamental unit and building block of magic - and if their picture of how golems work was incomplete at best, then we can go ahead and guess that their idea of how Fate worked was total bunk. The Great Minds spent most of the book convinced that they were the ultimate masters of the secrets of magic, knowing other disciplines even better than those disciplines' casters knew them...but if Maggie's right, then they were only seeing part of the picture on pretty much everything outside of their disciplines. The reason Janis is treated as a Hippiemancer rather than a Date-a-mancer is that Hippiemancy is a category of disciplines rather than a single discipline. Date-a-mancers are a kind of Hippiemancer and are able to learn other Hippiemancy disciplines, just as Thinkamancers are a kind of Eyemancer and were able to learn both Foolamancy and Lookamancy.
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Mar 25, 2018 20:40
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Not just the Thinkamancers, most caster viewpoints we've seen have placed their disciplines as the natural foundation of the universe with all others as curiosities or subsets. Maggie's revelations are a break from that into things Thinkamancy simply cannot do alone, or even through normal linking (at least not consciously, part of her revelation is that she was using these things in links and in herself without realizing it). Date-a-mancy may feel overwhelming since she's just realizing what it can do, but it is no more the true foundation of the world than Thinkamancy is. That's my take on it anyway. For all I know the next strip will be everyone singing "All You Need is Love" while they Care Bear Stare Charlie into oblivion.
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Mar 25, 2018 21:07
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Main Paineframe posted:The reason Janis is treated as a Hippiemancer rather than a Date-a-mancer is that Hippiemancy is a category of disciplines rather than a single discipline. Date-a-mancers are a kind of Hippiemancer and are able to learn other Hippiemancy disciplines, just as Thinkamancers are a kind of Eyemancer and were able to learn both Foolamancy and Lookamancy.
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Mar 26, 2018 03:54
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XkyRauh posted:You're absolutely right. I find it handy to check back into Book 1 from time to time, since they actually laid it all out in a chart or two! Makes me want to see examples of more of the magic types we haven't seen yet. I don't think we've seen much Changemancy or Weirdomancy. Clevermancy seems like the most straightforwardly useful set of magic in that luck, healing and money are things that you really, really want in a grand strategy game.
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Mar 26, 2018 11:44
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Oh, heh, I just realized. The cutting of Bunny’s string means that her Decryption is going to fail. And Maggie’s new insight into strings will make it possible to succeed, possibly using the data siphoned out of Bunny into the Bunny doll via H-string.
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Mar 26, 2018 11:57
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| # ? May 22, 2024 13:13 |
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I only just now realized Jed got Parson to return home by having everyone tug on his heartstrings. For all the poo poo I give Balder, I do appreciate his dedication to both easy and convoluted puns.
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Mar 26, 2018 13:25
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