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Phenotype posted:Yeah, but this is just a pet peeve of mine whenever it comes in fiction -- two groups with similar motives who have this sort of unnecessary fight or argument based on a misunderstanding, especially when you're pretty sure they're eventually going to make peace and deal with the actual problem. I also greatly dislike misunderstanding-based conflict in media, but I find much easier to stomach this instance because Serini was presented as an antagonist at the end of book 6. Yes, now we know she means well, but she's just fulfilling the narrative purpose she was set up for years ago, which is different from, say, two protagonists that are standing side by side as allies in promotional material spending half a season opposing each other. Also Rich is probably building up to something with this fight and the resolution of it will likely impact the story in some fashion beyond just getting Serini to cooperate with the Order. GimmickMan fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Oct 7, 2021 |
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Oct 7, 2021 20:58
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Parahexavoctal posted:... Serini will probably recognize the Monster in the Dark, won't she. What kind of monster he is, or literally recognize MitD?
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Oct 7, 2021 21:11
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Phenotype posted:Yeah, but this is just a pet peeve of mine whenever it comes in fiction -- two groups with similar motives who have this sort of unnecessary fight or argument based on a misunderstanding, especially when you're pretty sure they're eventually going to make peace and deal with the actual problem. Eh, there is a meaningful point to this fight here. If the adventurers can't handle a cranky gnome rogue with some tame monsters, they have no business thinking they can defend the Gate from a high-level goblin cleric, a higher-level lich, a powerful mystery monster, and Oona. It's not like they've done a very good job of helping the previous gates' defenders. At Azure City, they couldn't even slow Xykon and Redcloak down once Team Evil got serious, and they didn't even try at Girard's Gate. And in both cases, they weren't just useless - their actions were actively disruptive to the force that was intended to guard the gate. Hell, how long has it even been since they've actually straight-up clearly won a fight against someone that wasn't a random encounter or an iteration of the Linear Guild? Lately it's all been technical victories like knocking Tarquin off an airship, breaking the council table, or vampire Durkon deciding to let Belkar kill him. Which makes sense given the direction the story's been taking, but something like that isn't going to fly at the final gate. They need to show that they can really win a fight against someone scarier than Nale all by themselves now. They might be able to talk down Redcloak or the monster in the dark under the right circumstances, but there's absolutely no negotiating their way out of a final battle with Xykon. Even if they were able to convince him to give up on the gate, he'd probably still try to kill them anyway for the hell of it.
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Oct 7, 2021 21:24
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Gnome?!?
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Oct 7, 2021 22:07
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oops clearly, despite Belkar being a main character the entire time, i'm somehow still not used to halflings that shittalk
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Oct 7, 2021 22:58
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Our heroes have also quite likely already hosed up the defenses of this particular gate by hinting to Team Evil that there's a secret trick they should be looking for, so its not even like them possibly damaging the gates defenses is even a hypothetical at this point, they've ALREADY blundered their way into weakening it.
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Oct 7, 2021 23:14
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GlyphGryph posted:Our heroes have also quite likely already hosed up the defenses of this particular gate by hinting to Team Evil that there's a secret trick they should be looking for, so its not even like them possibly damaging the gates defenses is even a hypothetical at this point, they've ALREADY blundered their way into weakening it. This is such a great point lol. You could argue that if Serini hadn't interfered they would have attacked Team Evil and possibly defeated them, but if the Order hadn't shown up at all it would have taken them a very, very long time to figure out how to get through considering the MitD's deception and the fact that they're totally clueless about the trap. Long enough that you could probably have marshaled all the world's willing warriors against them instead of a ragtag band of adventurers, and come up with a comprehensive plan to defeat them.
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Oct 7, 2021 23:18
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GlyphGryph posted:Our heroes have also quite likely already hosed up the defenses of this particular gate by hinting to Team Evil that there's a secret trick they should be looking for, so its not even like them possibly damaging the gates defenses is even a hypothetical at this point, they've ALREADY blundered their way into weakening it. This might be true, but I think Serini has mostly given up on defending the gate from Xykon in the first place. It makes sense, in a cold calculus sort of way -- not only is Xykon a walking, non-breathing counter to her entire build, but he's already nearly killed her in one encounter. I think admitting that necessarily also admits that the teleport trap/scrying thing isn't airtight enough to keep Team Evil out forever. Also, there's the fact that Xykon is immortal and so is Redcloak thanks to his god's artifact, so they have literally forever to figure it out and no alternate sites to exploit for their purposes. Serini won't live forever, after all.
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Oct 7, 2021 23:24
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Cup Runneth Over posted:This is such a great point lol. You could argue that if Serini hadn't interfered they would have attacked Team Evil and possibly defeated them, but if the Order hadn't shown up at all it would have taken them a very, very long time to figure out how to get through considering the MitD's deception and the fact that they're totally clueless about the trap. Long enough that you could probably have marshaled all the world's willing warriors against them instead of a ragtag band of adventurers, and come up with a comprehensive plan to defeat them. Wasn't there a strip where Roy pointed out that the danger bell had been well and truly rung at this point and it was pretty clear that they were only ones who were going to be dealing with this?
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Oct 8, 2021 04:37
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Taciturn Tactician posted:Wasn't there a strip where Roy pointed out that the danger bell had been well and truly rung at this point and it was pretty clear that they were only ones who were going to be dealing with this? Yeah, it was Belkar cussing out Roy after Durkon first died in the Draketooth dungeon.
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Oct 8, 2021 04:48
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Gwyneth Palpate posted:This might be true, but I think Serini has mostly given up on defending the gate from Xykon in the first place. Sure, but the heroes didn't want to weaken the defenses, they wanted to keep him out, and they hosed up. So arguing "no we really don't want to destroy the gate this time!" based on their track record of undermining their own intent isn't going to be a very convincing argument. She shes them as stupid, unreliable and dangerous, and nothing about the last few things they've done (Durkon trying to talk, then them leading him into the dungeon and possibly revealing its primary defense) should indicate to her that anything has changed in that regard.
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Oct 8, 2021 04:54
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Taciturn Tactician posted:Wasn't there a strip where Roy pointed out that the danger bell had been well and truly rung at this point and it was pretty clear that they were only ones who were going to be dealing with this? Gwyneth Palpate posted:Yeah, it was Belkar cussing out Roy after Durkon first died in the Draketooth dungeon. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0881.html But I think there was another time this came up and it was probably during the godsmoot?
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Oct 8, 2021 05:09
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Vizuyos posted:And in both cases, they weren't just useless - their actions were actively disruptive to the force that was intended to guard the gate. What do you mean in the case of Azure City? Winding up Miko, or something else? That particular fuckup seems to be more on Shojo's lap I think.
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Oct 8, 2021 11:43
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AnoHito posted:The problem isn't that she doesn't have them figured out, it's that she does have them figured out. They have never been anything other than an active hinderance when dealing with the gates. Why should she want their help this time, when every time in the past has shown that they are useless at best, and actively harmful at worst? See, this is were I disagree. I mean, from Serini's point of view it is true, but we know that the Order has undergone huge character grows. They aren't just a bunch of adventures who stumbled into a saving the world plot anymore, they treat the whole thing much more serious. This strip is not the exact point it changed, but it does show that they think pretty critically about their own role and responsibility in the whole affair: SKULL.GIF posted:https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0881.html
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Oct 8, 2021 13:59
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mmkay posted:What do you mean in the case of Azure City? Winding up Miko, or something else? That particular fuckup seems to be more on Shojo's lap I think. Yeah, Miko. She was the strongest paladin in Azure City, and spent most of the battle locked up in prison, while the generally well-liked Lord Shojo had suddenly died under suspicious circumstances. While Miko certainly had issues long before she met the Order, she probably wouldn't have murdered the Lord of the City right before Xykon arrived if she hadn't caught him secretly colluding with the Order to shield a capital-E Evil murderer from justice so that he could act as Shojo's agent for violating one of the most important Paladin Rules in Azure City.
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Oct 8, 2021 14:02
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Lying to paladins. Serini is taking points off for that
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Oct 8, 2021 14:11
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Miko would have never made the will save.
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Oct 8, 2021 14:15
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Vizuyos posted:Yeah, Miko. She was the strongest paladin in Azure City, and spent most of the battle locked up in prison, while the generally well-liked Lord Shojo had suddenly died under suspicious circumstances. While Miko certainly had issues long before she met the Order, she probably wouldn't have murdered the Lord of the City right before Xykon arrived if she hadn't caught him secretly colluding with the Order to shield a capital-E Evil murderer from justice so that he could act as Shojo's agent for violating one of the most important Paladin Rules in Azure City. To quote Hinjo, "I heard the same things you did, and I managed to restrain myself from executing my liege." Feels like spending the battle in prison is on her, not the Order.
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Oct 8, 2021 14:39
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Braking Gnus posted:To quote Hinjo, "I heard the same things you did, and I managed to restrain myself from executing my liege." Feels like spending the battle in prison is on her, not the Order. And to a lesser extent Shojo, who was actually doing the things Miko was responding to. The Order didn't really get a lot of choice in working with him.
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Oct 8, 2021 14:42
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mmkay posted:What do you mean in the case of Azure City? Winding up Miko, or something else? That particular fuckup seems to be more on Shojo's lap I think. They also told them that Xykon was going to Girard's gate and not theirs. And Elan (or I guess Julio, to be more specific) actually directly blew up some of their defenses on his way back into the city to defeat Nale. e X posted:See, this is were I disagree. I mean, from Serini's point of view it is true, but we know that the Order has undergone huge character grows. They aren't just a bunch of adventures who stumbled into a saving the world plot anymore, they treat the whole thing much more serious. This strip is not the exact point it changed, but it does show that they think pretty critically about their own role and responsibility in the whole affair: You see, they failed at Girard's Gate, though. Pretty miserably. Like, they couldn't even beat Nale for the gate, why should they be trusted to beat Xykon?
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Oct 8, 2021 14:55
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If the entire Order of the Stick was evil, the sigils in the Dungeon of Dorukan would still be intact.
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Oct 8, 2021 15:22
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AnoHito posted:why should they be trusted to beat Xykon? But that's not Sereni's problem with them...
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Oct 8, 2021 15:25
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e X posted:But that's not Sereni's problem with them... One of her main problems is that she sees no benefit to having them around to cancel out the (very real and established) risk of having them around. Really, what is she going to gain even in ideal circumstances? A bunch of random losers who will probably get chumped the second they face a serious threat? Better off not bothering.
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Oct 8, 2021 15:44
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Braking Gnus posted:To quote Hinjo, "I heard the same things you did, and I managed to restrain myself from executing my liege." Feels like spending the battle in prison is on her, not the Order. I'm not saying it's directly the Order's fault. I'm saying Miko probably wouldn't have managed to concoct a paranoid delusion sufficient to convince her she needed to murder her liege if the Order hadn't been there. Things probably would have turned out a lot differently if Shojo had managed to get himself an adventuring party that didn't include a malicious, murderous halfling who spent a considerable amount of effort specifically trying to piss off Miko for fun. In the end, "inviting" the Order to Azure City ended up leaving the city less able to defend the gate than it was before they arrived. And while Miko had a lot going on with her thought process, the fact that everyone tolerated and protected Belkar was almost certainly the core factor that set her off once and for all. As someone who took the paladin's traditional rigid view on morality and killing Evil to extremes, she made no secret of what she thought about supposedly-Good people like Roy and Durkon protecting Belkar while his knives were still dripping with the blood of the innocent guard he'd just murdered. The difference between her and Hinjo was that Hinjo was happy to leave stuff to the courts, while Miko seemed to prefer to be judge, jury, and executioner herself. Shojo had needed to repeatedly rig or evade the justice system for the Order's convenience, and finding out about that was the key piece she needed to justify her own feeling that the blade of a paladin was more trustworthy and reliable than any court. Tenebrais posted:And to a lesser extent Shojo, who was actually doing the things Miko was responding to. The Order didn't really get a lot of choice in working with him. In fairness, that's because Shojo thought they actually knew what they were doing when they blew up Dorukan's Gate. By the time he realized they'd done it for no reason at all, he'd already rigged a trial in their favor and explained all of the Sapphire Guard's deepest secrets to them. Also, when he first invited them, he thought he'd only need to engage in one miscarriage of justice, and a relatively minor one at that. He didn't expect that as conditions for helping, they'd ask him to keep a murderer out of jail and indefinitely imprison someone without charge.
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Oct 8, 2021 16:00
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e X posted:See, this is were I disagree. I mean, from Serini's point of view it is true, but we know that the Order has undergone huge character grows. They aren't just a bunch of adventures who stumbled into a saving the world plot anymore, they treat the whole thing much more serious. This strip is not the exact point it changed, but it does show that they think pretty critically about their own role and responsibility in the whole affair: They blew up girards gate in a completely rational, logical, developed way, at their leaders behest and after consultation. It wasn't an accident or for comic effect. I think serini has a solid point tbh
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Oct 8, 2021 23:48
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Yeah Girard's gate is probably the clincher here. Serini is firmly of the opinion that letting Xykon have his fun with the gates is a better outcome than letting the world get torn apart without them. The Order made a very conscious decision to risk the latter dramatically to prevent the former.
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Oct 9, 2021 00:16
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Staltran posted:What kind of monster he is, or literally recognize MitD? Either? Both?
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Oct 9, 2021 06:22
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Even if "the order is a bunch of idiot you can't trust", she could still try to talk to them - convince them, enlist (if only to put them in a place where they can't make things worse) or manipulate. I mean, you think they'll do more damage if they blunder in blindly than if they'll know to, say, "do not enter the tunnels under pain of death"Tenebrais posted:Serini is firmly of the opinion that letting Xykon have his fun with the gates is a better outcome than letting the world get torn apart without them And this is another flaw of her thinking: So there's this very complex, never tried before magical ritual, which poke the world-killing abomination. Surely, nothing could go wrong if they cast it! (Besides the fact that this gives him a weapon against the gods, not merely mortals, and the former may have a strong opinion about that. Even not knowing about the godmoot, this is a logical deduction. ...How much does she know about what Xykon's planning to do with the gate, tho?)
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Oct 9, 2021 19:34
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Gun Jam posted:...How much does she know about what Xykon's planning to do with the gate, tho?) The problem here is that we don't know what Xykon's plans for the gate(s) are. Ostensibly he has some vague scheme to become 'emperor of the world' by blackmailing everyone, but that sounds like the sort of plan that Xykon himself would shoot down as unfeasible. I'm guessing he has something more specific and down to earth planned.
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Oct 9, 2021 19:45
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Maybe he'll force the gods to give him back his sense of taste. He can already take over the world as it is, if he put his mind to it.
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Oct 9, 2021 19:52
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I think it's pretty safe to say that the evil skeleton man who kills people for fun is going to do bad things with the power to blackmail the gods with a deicidal pre-universe monster. Serini thinks the order is going to gently caress up the last gate (possibly destroy it to at least give the world oblivion instead of evil like a certain mustachioed paladin might've considered), and if she's gonna stop them, she needs the element of surprise to take them down. I'm often annoyed by stories relying on people just refusing to talk out their problems, but there's already plenty of talking out in this comic.
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Oct 9, 2021 20:24
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Does Serini know they're planning to use a ritual on the gate?
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Oct 9, 2021 20:49
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I think we need to concede that between the grief of all her old friends dying one by one, the fear she has of Xykon after he nearly killed her, oh and getting troll parts grafted into her brain, that Serini my not be thinking rationally anymore.
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Oct 9, 2021 20:58
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SKULL.GIF posted:Does Serini know they're planning to use a ritual on the gate? I don't think so.
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Oct 9, 2021 21:30
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jng2058 posted:I think we need to concede that between the grief of all her old friends dying one by one, the fear she has of Xykon after he nearly killed her, oh and getting troll parts grafted into her brain, that Serini my not be thinking rationally anymore.
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Oct 9, 2021 21:43
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Lirian was too into flammable defenses, Dorukan was too horny, and Kraagor is too dead.
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Oct 9, 2021 22:17
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Lirian was too druid (no defense against fire/undead), Dorukan was too wizard (all of his defenses required active casting maintenance, got provoked into a caster duel), and Kraagor was too berserker (he dead).
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Oct 9, 2021 23:32
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Serini also won't have to suffer any of the consequences of her actions, as she's going to continue living in a hole in the middle of nowhere with her monster friends for the few years that remain of her life.
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Oct 10, 2021 00:10
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Rand Brittain posted:Serini also won't have to suffer any of the consequences of her actions, as she's going to continue living in a hole in the middle of nowhere with her monster friends for the few years that remain of her life. Or the few days that remain of everyone's life, if she doesn't yield to the Order. 
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Oct 10, 2021 00:13
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Gwyneth Palpate posted:Or the few days that remain of everyone's life, if she doesn't yield to the Order. It's not my fault if the Outlands are a boring afterlife.
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Oct 10, 2021 00:25
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