THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

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Ralin
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Ralin »

I don't get it. What did the monster notice?
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Crazedwraith »

I don't know he noticed anything but he did cross off extra doors than the one they'd been through.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Ralin »

Oooooh. Now I get it. I thought he'd noticed some sort of pattern to the doors that were duds.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by LadyTevar »

Ralin wrote:Oooooh. Now I get it. I thought he'd noticed some sort of pattern to the doors that were duds.
With the MitD, you never can tell. He did notice at a glance that a spell was only one half of a ritual, from across a room.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Raesene »


"In view of the circumstances, Britannia waives the rules."

"All you have to do is to look at Northern Ireland, [...] to see how seriously the religious folks take "thou shall not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable." George Carlin

"We need to make gay people live in fear again! What ever happened to the traditional family values of persecution and lies?" - Darth Wong
"The closet got full and some homosexuals may have escaped onto the internet?"- Stormbringer

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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by FaxModem1 »

Good to see O-chul seeing his friend doing good work.
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Venator
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Venator »

Aye. While Rich continues to tease suspense about what MiTD actually is.

If I had a GITP forum login I'd check how long the thread on "epic-level monsters that Paladins with O-Chul's skill set would know of" is.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Raesene »

1043 is up.

Belkar is back :D

"In view of the circumstances, Britannia waives the rules."

"All you have to do is to look at Northern Ireland, [...] to see how seriously the religious folks take "thou shall not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable." George Carlin

"We need to make gay people live in fear again! What ever happened to the traditional family values of persecution and lies?" - Darth Wong
"The closet got full and some homosexuals may have escaped onto the internet?"- Stormbringer

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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Venator »

I snorted audibly at that.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Rogue 9 »

It's Rogue, not Rouge!

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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Rogue 9 »

It's Rogue, not Rouge!

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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Crazedwraith »

Heh heh. Awesome. And it's been a while since we saw him.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Raesene »

1046 is up.


Awww...

"In view of the circumstances, Britannia waives the rules."

"All you have to do is to look at Northern Ireland, [...] to see how seriously the religious folks take "thou shall not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable." George Carlin

"We need to make gay people live in fear again! What ever happened to the traditional family values of persecution and lies?" - Darth Wong
"The closet got full and some homosexuals may have escaped onto the internet?"- Stormbringer

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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by LadyTevar »

Raesene wrote:1046 is up.
Awww...
Just goes to show how far V has grown -- and how much of an asshole Elder Greenhilt was.
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Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Rogue 9 »

It's Rogue, not Rouge!

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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Venator »

Rogue 9 wrote:1047 is up.
"Good to see Roy finally getting through the thick ectoplasmic skull of... oh, nevermind."

I'm not sure if I was mis-remembering the older strips with Roy's dad, or if Rich is just playing up the fact that he's a truly horrible being.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Bedlam »

Yeah, they really seem to have suddenly up assholed Roy's Dad in this page and the last.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Crazedwraith »

Indeed. He's supposed to be in front of the lawful good after life after all. And Start Of Darkness had one real heartwarming moment for him. This feels like he was with the dial turned to 11.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Ralin »

If Lawful Good deities can vote to end the world to stop the Snarl (I'm too tired to check right now, but I think at least one did) then there's no particular reason why a Lawful Good petitioner can't advocate letting them do it while proposing a way to mitigate the negative consequences of doing so.

Besides, he's clearly pretty frustrated being stuck and unable to proceed into the afterlife at this point. So it's in-character.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Simon_Jester »

Several gods who are probably either Lawful Good or some other Good alignment seem to vote for ending the world. And this is... not completely unreasonable. Heimdall and Tyr might be god (Tyr is a god of war but is also associated with keeping oaths and being just). Sunna is a sun-god and they are traditionally Good. Skadi, a hunt-goddess, may not be Good, but she makes an argument that is frankly a valid one- that life can only go on if the gods survive, and the imminent release of the Snarl poses a threat to the gods, not just to the world.

Another issue is that it Eugene Greenhilt has some significant limitations as a person. He is very effective at whatever he puts his mind to while being terrible at other things. We have Roy's mom to vouch for that:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0495.html
Sara wrote:"Eugene is- and always has been- a very focused man. He picks one goal and pursues it with single-minded devotion. When he decided his goal was to make me his woman, we had a very good life... [but then he lost focus and started fixating on his career instead]"
So it's entirely in character for Roy's father to come up with some clever strategem for solving a problem or dealing with a situation, while totally failing to comprehend the big picture. His focus is on getting Roy to fulfill the blood oath, and helping Roy however possible. Everything else, including the fate of the world, is outside his picture.

The solution of having all dwarves seek death in combat (even senseless, futile combat) is actually rather clever, and certainly represents a step up compared to all dwarves suffering eternal slavery and anguish in Hel's realm. But it misses the point that from any sane perspective not having the world come to an end is even better, and the only chance for that to happen comes about through Roy taking the more difficult course of action.

This is arguably a limitation shared by V, who comes up with clever ways to save V's family, while missing the big picture that having this kind of power alienates V's mate and children. V, who cunningly traps Belkar with magic at least two or three times, while missing the big picture of how counterproductive and pointless this is.

...

I think maybe this is how Burlew likes to portray characters with very high intelligence but average/low wisdom: their intelligence makes them clever and good at solving any specific problem they identify and set their mind to, but they lack the wisdom to use their power and knowledge to best effect to deal with the real problems that they face.

Take as a converse Durkon, who is very good at identifying which problems he needs to solve (except where tree-phobia is concerned), but often slow to find a solution or to realize specific facts about his surroundings.

Now, V is learning the lesson to be more humble. Eugene... hasn't learned. And as Roy pointed out in Strip 500:

"I'm not going to change who you are as a person by shouting a few insults at you, no matter how clever they may be. I used to think that I could; that if I could just deliver the perfect retort, it would open your eyes a little. But if everything you've been through with Mom and Eric and Grandpa and the literal forces of the cosmos hasn't made you want to be a better man, I doubt a one-liner from me is going to do the trick now. You are who you are, and every time I stoop to the level of engaging you with another angry tirade, I'm a little more like you and a little less like Mom. So, see you around, I guess..."

So yeah, at this point Eugene simply isn't going to change in a reasonable amount of time. Curing his arrogance isn't possible on merely mortal timescales, or it would have already happened.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Ralin »

You have to wonder if that's not the real thing keeping him from passing on as petitioner and not his oath to defeat Xykon.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Simon_Jester »

Well, it's pretty clear that the oath is sufficient to keep Eugene out of heaven. We saw another petitioner (Violet, I think her name was) pass on as soon her her blood oath was fulfilled, too.

But even if Eugene did make it past that first hurdle, I suspect he'd have a hard time getting past the deva at the front desk, a very hard time climbing the mountain of enlightenment to make it into the first level of Heaven... and a nearly impossible time getting beyond the first level.
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Crazedwraith »

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Raesene
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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Raesene »

Crazedwraith wrote:1048 is Up

Roy found a way to focus :-D

"In view of the circumstances, Britannia waives the rules."

"All you have to do is to look at Northern Ireland, [...] to see how seriously the religious folks take "thou shall not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable." George Carlin

"We need to make gay people live in fear again! What ever happened to the traditional family values of persecution and lies?" - Darth Wong
"The closet got full and some homosexuals may have escaped onto the internet?"- Stormbringer

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Re: THE OotS Thread, Part IV.

Post by Rogue 9 »

It's Rogue, not Rouge!

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