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sebmojo posted:NALE Good thing there was a good gust of wind in that desert valley!
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Aug 27, 2013 00:33
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sebmojo posted:That's why he got disintegrated. Man will you be sorry when 
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Aug 27, 2013 00:37
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The GITP forums are so awful with their dramatic illiteracy, tactic-lol obsession with how rules could apply to maximize the efficiency of all actions in each story beat, and unwillingness to let characters and arcs do anything but endlessly and repetitively intertwine in place of new things happening. It's a good thing that's not a problem here. My prediction is that Miko and Nale will form an alliance with Lord Shojo in the afterlife and replace the fiend council with a pan-alignment (Good, Neutral, and Evil) supercouncil of characters whose stories are done and who therefore cannot be accounted for by the very genre literacy that gives Tarquin his power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is how Tarquin will die! But when he dies Xykon will resurrect him, but not before he falls in love with Tsukiko in hell, who knows the truth about the Snarl (because she read Redcloak's ritual!!!!!!!!), which is that it is the ogre with the chain whip from strip eighty, who clearly did not fall off a cliff and die because his build gave him more HP than the falling damage could remove...
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Aug 27, 2013 01:10
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sebmojo posted:NALE Not saying that he will, or even that he should per say, just that he can. And if he does, it won't be until the last book anyway, at which point we'll all have forgotten this particular discussion since that point will be years from now, even at Rich's current 1-2 strips per week pace. But of course, you're right. Rich is a very straightforward storyteller and never does things in ways to misdirect the readers so they don't see his twists coming. It was perfectly obvious to everyone that Malack wasn't going to kill Belkar, especially as he bit him. We all called his vamping Durkon many months ago. Remember all those posts about that? So certainly, it's absolutely, positively, no chance what so ever that Rich killed Nale in a way as to make his coming back very difficult but not technically impossible means that not only is there no chance that Nale will ever return but that we'd be fools to discuss it. Of course. Oh, and shouting down anyone who feels like exploring the matter? Totally the way to convince people of your correctness, and don't ever let them tell you otherwise big guy.
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Aug 27, 2013 01:16
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SuperKlaus posted:The GITP forums are so awful with their  My favourite  from the GITP forums was some dude around the time of Darth V who Could Not Accept that V might be more powerful but could still lose.
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Aug 27, 2013 01:17
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I'm not sure where this whole drop of blood debate came from to begin with. I mean, look at the last three panels of 913 again. I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly can't see any blood on that blade.
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Aug 27, 2013 01:21
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There have to be people on the GitP forums who are there expressly to tweak Burlew, since he sometimes overreacts in grand style. (page 500 crew  )
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Aug 27, 2013 01:30
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The only way I expect we will see Nale again is like the Dorokun/Liara resolution - his soul will pop up for a last goodbye with Sabine. And even that is a long shot. That death sequence was way too well done to let be wiped away by coming back from the dead.
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Aug 27, 2013 01:55
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Fried Chicken posted:The only way I expect we will see Nale again is like the Dorokun/Liara resolution - his soul will pop up for a last goodbye with Sabine. And even that is a long shot. That death sequence was way too well done to let be wiped away by coming back from the dead. Been playing some Mass Effect recently, have we? Pretty sure it was Lirian. But I actually agree that's the most likely turn of events, but I've learned that with Rich you can't count anything out. He likes to surprise us and Nale stepping out of the shadows with Sabine at his side at a dramatic moment in the final book is the kind of thing he likes to set up well in advance.
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Aug 27, 2013 02:00
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sebmojo posted:
Was this before or after Xykon's Power Equals Power speech? 
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Aug 27, 2013 02:11
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Regalingualius posted:Was this before or after Xykon's Power Equals Power speech? It was a while ago... probably before. I'll see if I can find it. jng posted:But I actually agree that's the most likely turn of events, but I've learned that with Rich you can't count anything out. He likes to surprise us and Nale stepping out of the shadows with Sabine at his side at a dramatic moment in the final book is the kind of thing he likes to set up well in advance. But a surprise in itself is only good if it's interesting. Elan turning into chocolate would be surprising, but it wouldn't be interesting. Nale coming back might be a 'surprise', but it would lessen the genuine, complex impact of his death and put everyone back where they were a few strips ago. It would also lessen the overall impact of death in a strip where coming back from the dead is already ridiculously easy.
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Aug 27, 2013 02:32
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sebmojo posted:It was a while ago... probably before. I'll see if I can find it. Maybe they'll send her to help the Order so she can manipulate them.
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Aug 27, 2013 02:51
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Sabine seeking revenge by herself or with the remainder of the Linear Guild feels too peripheral from everything else so I'm expecting Sabine to side up in some way with one of the existing parties involved with the rest of the story like the Order or Xykon. The Order makes some sense because V is right there. I'm not sure what the benefit is for the Order though given they've very little reason to team up with Sabine - does she offer them something like a teleport out of the desert or anything immediately useful?
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Aug 27, 2013 02:58
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Trapezium Dave posted:Sabine seeking revenge by herself or with the remainder of the Linear Guild feels too peripheral from everything else so I'm expecting Sabine to side up in some way with one of the existing parties involved with the rest of the story like the Order or Xykon. The Order makes some sense because V is right there. Well if she were to join the Order, it would make the party over 50% evil.
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Aug 27, 2013 03:22
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Calaveron posted:Well if she were to join the Order, it would make the party over 50% evil. I'm still only seeing 3/7. Am I missing something?
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Aug 27, 2013 03:26
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Well, there was the whole "history's worst mass-murderer" thing.
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Aug 27, 2013 03:35
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Sabine looks like she's Lawful Evil; at least her superior is the Lawful Evil fiend and she worked with the LE imp and dated an LE guy.
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Aug 27, 2013 03:37
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The Leper Colon V posted:Roy - Lawful Good, Haley - Chaotic Good(ish), Elan - Chaotic Good, Varsuuvius - Neutral(ish), Durkula - Lawful Evil, Belkar - Chaotic Evil, Sabine - Chaotic Evil Moddington posted:Well, there was the whole "history's worst mass-murderer" thing. Yeah I don't remember the strip but someone implied that V's alignment doesn't necessarily fall on the Good or Neutral spectrum no more.
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Aug 27, 2013 03:46
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I'm still going for 'The fiends force Sabine to work with Tarquin'.
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Aug 27, 2013 03:48
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This has probably been brought up by someone fasterer and cleverer than me before now, but I wonder if now is the time For Elan to spring his "Can't tell you or it won't work" trick involving Durkon. I'm assuming it involves use of the Sending spell.. but I'm not sure who it would be to. Elan's mom? What would she do, though? Scold Tarquin for murdering her son? That's not very useful compared to a Psion that can use Disintegrate. Maybe she can tie him down in legal fees and bankrupt his kingdoms with the help of those two lawyers. As for "is he dead for good or is he not" I'm leaning toward the former, but it would be vastly more interesting if it were the latter. Tarquin is just begging to get horribly killed. And both Z's and Nale's deaths were completely lacking in any imagination. Oh, way to murder someone with 5 HP left. Durkon and Tarquin should be so proud. Truly their finest moments. Barf. Now Nale killing Malack, that's how you make a final curtain call on a character (Who was also asking for it for murdering Durkon.) Both Z and Nale deserved better than this. Maybe he could come back as a Demon or something. We still don't know why he hated Malack, and I get the feeling we only heard the tip of the iceburg of the surface of his issues with Tarquin. It just stinks of unfinished business. And while you could infer some of that and flashback others, I'd rather just hear it from him. But then for a while I thought there was a good chance Miko would come back, and with only two books left I'm now assuming that is not going to happen. Shame, I liked her. Several missed opportunities there.
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Aug 27, 2013 03:52
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How can somebody have so many bad opinions at once 
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Aug 27, 2013 03:56
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Whilst I don't expect Nale will be resurrected, there'll have to be a reason Sabine doesn't either go hunting for a resurrection or bring his post-mortal self into the game.
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Aug 27, 2013 04:00
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Calaveron posted:Yeah I don't remember the strip but someone implied that V's alignment doesn't necessarily fall on the Good or Neutral spectrum no more. During Roy's exit-from-heaven, if I'm not misremembering things. That said, I think the term used was Evil tendencies, and V's already shown a not-insignificant amount of remorse, and that's as far as I'm going to follow this particular alignment-themed rabbit hole e: MikeJF posted:Whilst I don't expect Nale will be resurrected, there'll have to be a reason Sabine doesn't either go hunting for a resurrection or bring his post-mortal self into the game. Not necessarily-- if she prioritizes vengeance over trying to hunt down a cleric (because we've all seen how effective Nale is against Tarquin up to this point ), her trying to find him could easily be delayed until beyond the end of the series.That said, given what people in this thread have said about needing to buy back LE souls from LE hell, and Sabine's an LE working for LEs who work for (presumably higher up the food chain) LEs, I think that even if she does prioritize "getting Nale back", they'll just use it as a goad to keep her in line. "Finish your job and you can have your boyfriend's soul back". Alliterate Addict fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Aug 27, 2013 |
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Aug 27, 2013 04:04
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MikeJF posted:Whilst I don't expect Nale will be resurrected, there'll have to be a reason Sabine doesn't either go hunting for a resurrection or bring his post-mortal self into the game. I'm not sure how tied to the core archetypes of the 3 fiends the IFC is, but if Wizards' published books have anything to say, Devils rarely, if ever, let a captured mortal soul go again.
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Aug 27, 2013 04:06
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The Leper Colon V posted:Roy - Lawful Good, Haley - Chaotic Good(ish), Elan - Chaotic Good, Varsuuvius - Neutral(ish), Durkula - Lawful Evil, Belkar - Chaotic Evil, Sabine - Chaotic Evil I'd say Belkar is at least up to Chaotic Neutral.
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Aug 27, 2013 04:34
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SuperKlaus posted:My prediction is that Miko and Nale will form an alliance with Lord Shojo in the afterlife and replace the fiend council with a pan-alignment (Good, Neutral, and Evil) supercouncil of characters whose stories are done and who therefore cannot be accounted for by the very genre literacy that gives Tarquin his power!
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Aug 27, 2013 04:36
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Hell, it might even also end up as a LNC triad, depending on whether Miko was LN or TN at the time of her death. Not that I seriously expect it to happen, of course.
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Aug 27, 2013 04:40
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Soonmot posted:I'd say Belkar is at least up to Chaotic Neutral. Belkar isn't even close to being Chaotic Neutral.
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Aug 27, 2013 04:46
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Soonmot posted:I'd say Belkar is at least up to Chaotic Neutral. Why? He's not an obsessively murderous psychopath anymore, but he really hasn't changed that much. See: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0685.html http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0835.html http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0848.html Since then he hasn't really made any decisions of note beyond... not lying about Durkon becoming a vampire I guess? Oh and not continuing to suicidally attack Vampire Durkon. He's gone from Mega-Hitler to Thog. At best. Zore fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Aug 27, 2013 |
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Aug 27, 2013 04:49
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Hypocrisy posted:Belkar isn't even close to being Chaotic Neutral. 
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Aug 27, 2013 04:49
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If Belkar is evil for those minor offenses, I guess Haley went to the dark side for murdering Crystal while she was defenseless in the shower.
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Aug 27, 2013 04:57
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Zogundar posted:If Belkar is evil for those minor offenses, I guess Haley went to the dark side for murdering Crystal while she was defenseless in the shower. He's evil for the mass murder, slavery and torture he committed before then in the strip and before the strip and the 'minor offenses' are just showing he hasn't had a major change of heart since his character development. He doesn't get to be 'not evil' because he isn't literally murdering people left and right any more. I was trying to point out that Belkar is still acting in an 'evil' manner when he has agency and ability to without ticking off the rest of the Order. Evil doesn't wear off over a period of two months. Which is a fairly generous estimate for the length of time he's been pretending to be a team player which isn't even good. Thog is also a ridiculously evil character despite being humorous and liking puppies. Because he's an unrepentant mass murderer who enjoys hurting people!
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Aug 27, 2013 05:04
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Zogundar posted:If Belkar is evil for those minor offenses, I guess Haley went to the dark side for murdering Crystal while she was defenseless in the shower. Belkar is not murdering people in exchange for the treasure drops an ECL 15 party gets. That is serious bank, yo. Also he still wants to kill everyone who annoys him even mildly, he's just willing not to for enormous piles of money. He's done, what, one good act? Releasing that tyranosaurus rex, which involved killing a lot of people? He needs to try a little harder.
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Aug 27, 2013 05:05
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Nale will totally show up working with Kubota, having formed The Order of the Dust Mites.
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Aug 27, 2013 05:15
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Kajeesus posted:Sabine looks like she's Lawful Evil; at least her superior is the Lawful Evil fiend and she worked with the LE imp and dated an LE guy. Sabine is a Demon, not a Devil. She's also almost certainly Chaotic Evil, since she pretty much does what she wants when she wants to. It's just that most of the time what she wants to do is be with Nale.
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Aug 27, 2013 05:21
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CapnAndy posted:Argue for me with a straight face that he's still Evil, I dare you Being semi-civil with your teammates doesn't make up for a lifetime of murder.
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Aug 27, 2013 05:22
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I think it's hilarious that we've been told in strip that Belkar is pretending to not be evil and people in this thread are totally buying his act.
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Aug 27, 2013 05:34
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Zore posted:He's evil for the mass murder, slavery and torture he committed before We're (Well, I am) not talking about "before" though, otherwise yes, he was provably of evil alignment within like the first 10 strips (Okay just barely after that.) Zore posted:the 'minor offenses' are just showing he hasn't had a major change of heart since his character development. Don't these minor offenses in place of further major offenses show that he's had a change of heart? He doesn't have to become a saint to count as no longer horribly evil. At the very least I'd say he's pretty close to the border between CN and CE on the latter side at this point. Zore posted:He doesn't get to be 'not evil' because he isn't literally murdering people left and right any more. I was trying to point out that Belkar is still acting in an 'evil' manner when he has agency and ability to without ticking off the rest of the Order. Arguably in real life, but this is a universe where you can literally put on a hat and no longer be evil. And neutral characters can get away with the occasional evil act without an alignment shift. If Belkar had been neutral to start, you wouldn't be able to cite those as evidence that he's suddenly become evil. Yes his big revelation was to just "pretend" to cooperate, but if you think he's pulling off a perfect scam and hasn't been at all affected by the required continual changes in behavior then you haven't been paying attention.
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Aug 27, 2013 05:49
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He's certainly been drifting towards neutral, but whether he gets to bust out the eraser for the alignment slot on his character sheet quite yet is another question.
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Aug 27, 2013 05:52
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sebmojo posted:He's certainly been drifting towards neutral, but whether he gets to bust out the eraser for the alignment slot on his character sheet quite yet is another question. Just to be clear I'm not arguing that Belkar is certifiably outside the bottom right of the alignment chart yet, just that he's made decent upward progress that shouldn't be easily dismissed. On a completely unrelated note, going back to the earliest strips, I noticed that in his first mention, Xykon is referred to both as "Xykon" and "the Xykon." Obviously it became just Xykon after that, but "The Xykon" has a nice ring to it. The "the" appellation probably made him sound TOO threatening though (Notice that later it was, perhaps, inherited by "'The' Snarl.")
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Aug 27, 2013 06:06
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