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There was that vampire lady who surprised Durkula with the fact her mortal soul was cooperative and supportive of her due to suppressed evil urges she had in life.
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Jun 25, 2022 00:44
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I always read Nale's comments about Malack as a sign that he was pretty traumatized by him and his upbringing in general.
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Jun 25, 2022 02:04
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e X posted:I always read Nale's comments about Malack as a sign that he was pretty traumatized by him and his upbringing in general. Yeah, I remember being taken aback by just how emotional Nale got while he was killing Malack, practically spitting his words at the vampire, and being out of breath when it was all over. That wasn't one of his typical "I'm the center of the universe and the world owes me my due" villainous gloating speeches, that was the rant of someone who's spent years being afraid finally cutting loose and murdering the poo poo out of their abuser.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:25
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W.T. Fits posted:Yeah, I remember being taken aback by just how emotional Nale got while he was killing Malack, practically spitting his words at the vampire, and being out of breath when it was all over. That wasn't one of his typical "I'm the center of the universe and the world owes me my due" villainous gloating speeches, that was the rant of someone who's spent years being afraid finally cutting loose and murdering the poo poo out of their abuser. Nope! https://www.patreon.com/posts/answer-post-may-39917949 quote:11.) Tomer Mlynarsky: Why did Nale hate Malack so much as opposed to the rest of Tarquin's gang?
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Jun 25, 2022 03:40
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Clarste posted:How do we know he wasn't hostile to the idea? Seems more likely that the original self just gave up centuries ago. Appearntly it happens early on, during their several days in the ground. It was weird for Durkon and those others cause their raising was accelerated, thus the Vampire Spirits had no time to adjust to their hosts memory and personalities before becoming active.
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Jun 25, 2022 04:12
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W.T. Fits posted:Yeah, I remember being taken aback by just how emotional Nale got while he was killing Malack, practically spitting his words at the vampire, and being out of breath when it was all over. That wasn't one of his typical "I'm the center of the universe and the world owes me my due" villainous gloating speeches, that was the rant of someone who's spent years being afraid finally cutting loose and murdering the poo poo out of their abuser. Though with a personality like Nale's, it's entirely possible that Malack's "abuse" consisted of telling Nale that he was wrong about things and not rising to his bullshit from a position where Nale couldn't talk back.
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Jun 25, 2022 06:08
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Based on what we've seen of the Tarquin-Nale dynamic, it seems like Tarquin was heavily manipulative, rarely letting Nale feel like he was anything more than a piece on Tarquin's chess board. Likely came with constant hints that Nale needed to prove his usefulness to them, or else. We never really saw any of Tarquin's teammates besides Malack interact much with Nale, but I don't get the impression they treated him with much respect either.
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Jun 25, 2022 07:11
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yeah gently caress that, death of the author, do not care what burlew says Malack was Nale's tutor and he was a real hardass who would absolutely do the vampire eyes while saying "I could make you listen" to a small child. We've since been shown that him killing Malack's "children" was an act of mercy, regardless of intent.
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Jun 25, 2022 08:24
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:yeah gently caress that, death of the author, do not care what burlew says I dunno, I think it's more fitting that Malack probably rightfully criticized him once and it made Nale hate him forever. Just look at his relationship with Elan. All it took to make him try to kill Elan was Elan very gently refusing to join his group. He was planning to spare him and only kill his friends before that. Story wise, I just don't think his character benefits from a sympathetic back story to justify him becoming an insecure psychopath later in life. JuniperCake fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 08:49
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Malack did mention teaching Nale at some point. I do think that the idea that he was a reasonable teacher, and Nale hates him cause he gave him a trigo homework once is funnier than the idea that Malack was an abusive tutor.
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Jun 25, 2022 09:02
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JuniperCake posted:Story wise, I just don't think his character benefits from a sympathetic back story to justify him becoming an insecure psychopath later in life. I totally get that, but I think that ship kind of sailed when we got introduced to Tarquin proper. Nale spent his formative years in the shadow of the king of insecure psychopaths and his cadre of evil schemers. Tarquin spent the entire time he was with Nale saying "now Malack, you know you're not allowed to murder my son before the mission is over wink wink," and I somehow doubt that is the worst of his manipulations.
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Jun 25, 2022 09:11
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:yeah gently caress that, death of the author, do not care what burlew says I feel the same as ZZ. I do believe Rich when he says that to Nale, Malack was simply the hardest and most ambitious target, because the literal words-as-written back that up. But the attitude of those words is all wrong. Nale goes berserk when killing Malack:  It's extremely out of character for him to stop gloating and show real anger when he's got the upper hand. He only does that when he feels like the victim (usually but not always wrongly). It didn't read to me like "since I was nine years old" was meant to convey "I've been planning it so very patiently and carefully". It read like "something happened when I was nine years old that has made me hate you ever since". And I never suspected otherwise until Silver linked the answers above.
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Jun 25, 2022 12:13
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Agreeing with the above. Every bit of that dialogue reads to me as “my childhood sucked and you were a prime part of why”.
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Jun 25, 2022 13:03
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NihilCredo posted:I feel the same as ZZ. Yeah that was the exact sequence of panels I had in mind and I totally agree with yours and ZZ reading. It is a real credit to Rich writing ability, that he manages to convey such a visceral emotional outburst with stick figures, because it manages to establish a load of backstory and characterization in just three panels. Imagine the monster under your bed is not only real, but your fathers best friend and tutor. That is a genuine living nightmare to grow up in. Honestly, that dismisses answer is kinda odd, because he seems to almost reject a more interesting, deeper understanding of his writing in favor of a very utilitarian view, but on the other hand, that does kinda track with Rich's general workman-like approach to OOTS.
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Jun 25, 2022 13:03
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It’s honestly kind of a lovely answer because A) it spends way too many words belaboring a simple point and B) that misuse of energy makes it hard to tell if he even understands the perspective the question is coming from. It kinda makes him sound like a putz.
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Jun 25, 2022 13:15
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The other reading is that all of the Vector Legion did something to traumatize Nale and that he would have had the same visceral response to getting the upper hand on Laurin or Scarf Guy. It’s not the implication I get from the tone of that answer, but it does make sense of both the answer and my reading of Nale.
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Jun 25, 2022 13:26
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:The other reading is that all of the Vector Legion did something to traumatize Nale and that he would have had the same visceral response to getting the upper hand on Laurin or Scarf Guy. It’s not the implication I get from the tone of that answer, but it does make sense of both the answer and my reading of Nale. Yeah this seems like the answer that connects the two. Burlew calls the question a "category error" not because Nale doesn't justifiably hate Malack, but because he justifiably hates all of his father's colleagues. Malack is just the one that got screen time for his murder. Remember, Elan correctly asks whether he would've been evil if he was the one who was raised by Tarquin instead of Nale. And the overarching story is even explicitly about the circumstances of the world's creation giving a bad hand to the monsters, goblins in particular.
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Jun 25, 2022 15:14
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NihilCredo posted:I feel the same as ZZ. I suspect Nale absolutely would have had the same reaction to having Tarquin at his mercy too. Probably the others as well, but basically his sole on-panel interaction with any of them was gloating about Malack's suffering to Laurin and then getting his corpse disintegrated, so it doesn't stand out nearly as much as his extensive on-panel conflict with Malack (who had little interest in Tarquin's roundabout, manipulative approach). I did not get the impression that Nale had healthy dynamics with any of them. And hell, just a look at how Tarquin treated him is plenty to feed the imagination. For all the poo poo about "protecting" Nale, he deliberately blew Nale's cover in front of Malack, and then forced Nale to provide him a good reason to stop Malack from killing him. And even though Tarquin gave him a chance, he was clear up to that very last conversation with Nale that he wasn't giving Nale a second chance because he loved him and didn't want his son to die: he was giving Nale a second chance to prove that he was useful enough to not kill. He may have given Nale more chances than he would have given anyone else, but the only chances he ever gave out were chances to be useful to his plans.
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Jun 25, 2022 17:49
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Remember "The Linear Guild is practically synonymous with taking disproportionate revenge over quasi-imagined slights."
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Jun 25, 2022 17:50
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Nale lashes out at everyone else because his father's friends are too powerful.
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Jun 25, 2022 17:56
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Vizuyos posted:For all the poo poo about "protecting" Nale, he deliberately blew Nale's cover in front of Malack, and then forced Nale to provide him a good reason to stop Malack from killing him. And even though Tarquin gave him a chance, he was clear up to that very last conversation with Nale that he wasn't giving Nale a second chance because he loved him and didn't want his son to die: he was giving Nale a second chance to prove that he was useful enough to not kill. He may have given Nale more chances than he would have given anyone else, but the only chances he ever gave out were chances to be useful to his plans. I gotta give Tarquin some points for practicality, honestly. Nale's been portrayed as extremely unlikable, especially towards his father's colleagues. Assuming that Tarquin has the (ultimately narcissistic) goal of preserving Nale's life for the sake of his legacy, I think the only appeal that he could have even made towards his colleagues regarding his son that had a chance of actually working is his usefulness, not his strength of character. Granted, it's also a very narcissistic thing to do. I just think it's simultaneously the most reasonable option given the people involved.
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Jun 25, 2022 18:02
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Given what Malak is like, I think the most likely scenario is that Malak wasn't cruel to Nale out of any particular malice, but he was almost certainly condescending and strict, and probably used pain as a punishment and/or motivator because he's a ruthless Evil character who considers that the best way to beat education into a stupid child. Nale hates being condescended to, and I imagine he doesn't like being zapped with magic by someone he can't fight back against either. It makes perfect sense that he'd despise Malak even if Malak never wished him ill. From Nale's perspective, killing Malak's children was revenge for years of abuse. From Malak's perspective, a child he wasted years painstakingly trying to educate repaid that effort by killing his family. I imagine the others weren't any better. Miron probably taught Nale magic, and he seems much more likely to be cruel to a child out of petty amusement. No idea what Laurin did, but she clearly has a quick temper so maybe Nale just pissed her off a lot and she tormented him in response.
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Jun 25, 2022 18:16
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Whereas Tarquin kills to build his empire and establish his power, Nale prefers to kill people he knows personally in order to enjoy the experience. Like I know you can guess at Tarquin being a bad abusive father while Nale was growing up, but that seems like a level of reasoning to create unnecessary justification when we already know that Nale is broadly a sadist who concocted a complicated plan to kill his brother and all of his brother's friends who he knew for just one day. Tarquin is pretty good at compartmentalizing, so there's not much reason to think he couldn't be an okay father in between ruthless slaughter. That's kind of the central first joke his character was built around. Unless fending off Nale from taking the Empire of Blood for himself and ending their grft counts as abuse.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:02
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A: Rich wrote a whole book about how Tarquin is demonstrably not an okay father. He manages to charm Elan for a hot minute but as soon as the facade is broken he is revealed as an absolute sociopathic narcissist. He cannot conceptualize his children as individuals that have agency outside of the role he wants them to play, that's as textbook as it gets. B: Nale has wanted to murder his adopted family from at latest the age of nine years old. That doesn't happen in an okay family, unless the story is that he was just a bad vibes child and I do not respect that. E: I'm not saying that Nale doesn't suck or his actions before book 5 were sympathetic, but he pretty clearly did not have a happy or nurturing upbringing. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 19:37
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:A: Rich wrote a whole book about how Tarquin is demonstrably not an okay father. He manages to charm Elan for a hot minute but as soon as the facade is broken he is revealed as an absolute sociopathic narcissist. He cannot conceptualize his children as individuals that have agency outside of the role he wants them to play, that's as textbook as it gets. I think there's a bit of a subtle retcon here because, like a lot of things in the first 100 strips, Nale's characterization wasn't meant to be taken too seriously at the time. Back in "The Semi-Secret Origin of Elan and Nale" we're told that Nale was raised by his father, "a cold and ruthless general," but it's also sort of implied that Nale was, in fact, a bad vibes child ("Nale! Stop hitting your twin brother in his soft undeveloped baby skull!"). When Tarquin is introduced there's more of a move to the idea that Nale's upbringing is why he's so evil.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:59
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SlothfulCobra posted:Whereas Tarquin kills to build his empire and establish his power, Nale prefers to kill people he knows personally in order to enjoy the experience. I like it better when we post screenshots of the comics rather than linking the pages  another 2 hours lostSilver2195 posted:I think there's a bit of a subtle retcon here because, like a lot of things in the first 100 strips, Nale's characterization wasn't meant to be taken too seriously at the time. Back in "The Semi-Secret Origin of Elan and Nale" we're told that Nale was raised by his father, "a cold and ruthless general," but it's also sort of implied that Nale was, in fact, a bad vibes child ("Nale! Stop hitting your twin brother in his soft undeveloped baby skull!"). When Tarquin is introduced there's more of a move to the idea that Nale's upbringing is why he's so evil. I always figured that it was a marriage between an Evil man and a Good woman that produced an Evil child and a Good child. Though I suppose whether it's nature or nurture doesn't matter that much in that sense.
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Jun 25, 2022 20:30
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Taciturn Tactician posted:Given what Malak is like, I think the most likely scenario is that Malak wasn't cruel to Nale out of any particular malice, but he was almost certainly condescending and strict, and probably used pain as a punishment and/or motivator because he's a ruthless Evil character who considers that the best way to beat education into a stupid child. Nale hates being condescended to, and I imagine he doesn't like being zapped with magic by someone he can't fight back against either. It makes perfect sense that he'd despise Malak even if Malak never wished him ill. From Nale's perspective, killing Malak's children was revenge for years of abuse. From Malak's perspective, a child he wasted years painstakingly trying to educate repaid that effort by killing his family. Rather than tormented, I would imagine they just did not respect him, and acted condescending. Malak calling Nale an idiot would probably be enough to earn his unending hatred.
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Jun 25, 2022 22:13
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Cup Runneth Over posted:I always figured that it was a marriage between an Evil man and a Good woman that produced an Evil child and a Good child. Though I suppose whether it's nature or nurture doesn't matter that much in that sense. Having literal identical twins manifest opposing alignments while still in the crib would kind of undermine the major overarching theme of OotS. If you retcon that old strip and make Nale's hosed-upness a product of Tarquin's parenting, it supports it instead.
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Jun 26, 2022 03:19
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It is also possible that a brief five second joke involving two literal infants may not be an omnipotent total view into their characters at all times.
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Jun 26, 2022 03:25
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Everything in book 1 is canon to the extent that it doesn't contradict something later.
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Jun 26, 2022 03:54
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ImpAtom posted:It is also possible that a brief five second joke involving two literal infants may not be an omnipotent total view into their characters at all times. whoa, hey now, let's not get crazy
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Jun 26, 2022 04:10
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I mean the baby could have been Elan. I could see Tarquin and Elan's mother accidentally losing track of which baby is which.
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Jun 26, 2022 05:07
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Actually, that's a strong point. Nale was born with a goatee, he could never have been anything but the evil twin.
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Jun 26, 2022 06:29
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Actually, that's a strong point. Nale was born with a goatee, he could never have been anything but the evil twin. OotS may have a moral lesson it's telling but it also exists in a world where it's acknowledged canonically that it follows the cliches of stories and that tropes are almost as good as laws of physics.
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Jun 26, 2022 06:32
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Jun 26, 2022 15:05
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Cup Runneth Over posted:OotS may have a moral lesson it's telling but it also exists in a world where it's acknowledged canonically that it follows the cliches of stories and that tropes are almost as good as laws of physics. If the Tarquin arc taught us anything, it's that it's very easy to disrupt tropes by introducing another trope or subverting them in a narratively satisfying way. Someone who seems to be set up to be evil by everything and turns out good to spite that is just as possible as them turning out evil. It'd fit perfectly in OoTs's world to have a twin with a goatee who twirled his moustache in a sinister way and spoke like a JRPG villain but went around saving orphans from fires or something.
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Jun 26, 2022 15:27
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Taciturn Tactician posted:If the Tarquin arc taught us anything, it's that it's very easy to disrupt tropes by introducing another trope or subverting them in a narratively satisfying way. Someone who seems to be set up to be evil by everything and turns out good to spite that is just as possible as them turning out evil. It'd fit perfectly in OoTs's world to have a twin with a goatee who twirled his moustache in a sinister way and spoke like a JRPG villain but went around saving orphans from fires or something. Lysanderoth, but actually a good guy, is a very simple gag, but drat, it would be fun to monologue about bringing your scheme to fully fund the local orphanage to fruition.
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Jun 26, 2022 15:31
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Capfalcon posted:Lysanderoth, but actually a good guy, is a very simple gag, but drat, it would be fun to monologue about bringing your scheme to fully fund the local orphanage to fruition. I can also see this played straight as well to setup a morally ambiguous anti-hero villain; someone who actually builds up their organization with loyal followers by saving orphans and wants to make the world a better place but doing so with revolutionary violence.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:04
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Capfalcon posted:Lysanderoth, but actually a good guy, is a very simple gag, but drat, it would be fun to monologue about bringing your scheme to fully fund the local orphanage to fruition. Darn you all, now I want this comic!
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Jun 26, 2022 16:07
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Raenir Salazar posted:I can also see this played straight as well to setup a morally ambiguous anti-hero villain; someone who actually builds up their organization with loyal followers by saving orphans and wants to make the world a better place but doing so with revolutionary violence. Isn't that basically the plot of all the Metal Gear games where Big Boss is the player character?
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Jun 26, 2022 18:11
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