Order of the Stick - Past Strips Discussion Thread

[ekedolphin]

This is a discussion thread for past strips of the webcomic The Order of the Stick, which I've created because of the murderous rage that followers of the Current Discussion Thread seem to fly into whenever someone bumps the thread without a new strip being added.

Since we've gone more than two weeks since the most recent update of The Order of the Stick, it's probably wise to have a thread that people can post to where the homicidal tendencies are recognized to be a moot point.

(Upon the next update, I'll post a link to this thread in the other OOTS thread.)

So: The first topic of discussion is something that occurred to me while re-reading Vaarsuvivus's epic battle against Xykon.

Many people in the other thread have speculated that V's only assuming the IFCC will lay claim over V's soul after he dies-- and that in reality, the IFCC will probably do it at a critical point, forcing V to turn on the Order when one of the Gates is in play.

When I re-read the battle, I suddenly realized that they've already explicitly said that's exactly their intention.

OOTS #656: "If the elf dies here, this whole thing was a huge waste of time."

[ekedolphin]

I'm also eager to learn what V's guilt over the Familicide spell will cause her to do. We already know she does not handle guilt well; hell, her lingering guilt over being powerless to prevent the fall of Azure City and the deaths of the city's defenders (and Roy) caused her to get all crackly-skinned and obsessed with finding the rest of the party, and directly led to the encounter with the black dragon that resulted in the Familicide spell to begin with.

And at least then, V's guilt wasn't justified. She was limited by her abilities. Here-- she is directly responsible for the deaths of untold hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent people, not to mention all the black dragons. Will she go completely insane as a result?

[Lynn Bodoni]

hell, her lingering guilt over being powerless to prevent the fall of Azure City and the deaths of the city's defenders (and Roy) caused her to get all crackly-skinned and obsessed with finding the rest of the party

She got all crackly-skinned because she wasn't resting. Apparently, elves don't sleep, but they do need some regular down time, and if they don't get it, they'll suffer for it. I think that her obsession was mostly guilt, but it was compounded by not resting. V has very high expectations of herself, and is in agony if she fails to meet those expectations. She is also greatly offended when a mindflayer wants to eat Roy's brain rather than hers.

[ekedolphin]

Well, yeah, but I mean, she wasn't resting because she was guilty and obsessed.

I thought it was funny when the Mind Flayer tried to eat Roy's brain instead of hers.

"Would you feel better if one of us ate your brain?"
"No, it just wouldn't be the same."

[Little Nemo]

Good idea for a thread. I feel the main thread often gets too focused on the current strip and we lose sight of the big story.

On a somewhat related note to the OP, what's Qarr's background? When Qarr was first introduced, he said "our plans shall proceed" for when Kubota took over (484). It wasn't just Kubota's plan to rule the fleet because even after Kubota's death, Qarr said he had a "certain project" he was working on (625). He then said he was looking for "some evil chalice that my supervisor won't shut up about" (631).

Now whatever this mission was, it had nothing to do with the IFCC (the three fiends). Qarr hadn't even met them at this point. So who was Qarr working for and what was their goal? And who is he working for now when he's with the Linear Guild - his original supervisor or the IFCC? Is this perhaps a hint at one of the unaccounted-for factions that are interested in the Snarl?

[ekedolphin]

That's a good question. My guess is that, based on what we know about Qarr, he's working for whichever of those factions is the most powerful. ("Find the most powerful person around, and glue your lips to their ass" is a standard imp survival technique). Or perhaps he's gone into business for himself. He did, after all, immediately offer his services to V after Kubota was... *cough* dusted.

[Attack from the 3rd dimension]

I find myself wondering how many strips ahead RB is thinking.

[Chronos]

The thing about Hell (the domain of devils like Qarr) is that it's the worst bureaucracy you can imagine. You've got untold tiers of hierarchy (or lowerarchy, as the case may be). Qarr starts off as just some low-end flunky working for a boss... But his boss, too, is just some low-end flunky, in the grand scheme of things, because there are still untold levels bossing him around. So Qarr is just muddling around doing his dead-end Hellhole job, when all of a sudden, a trio of Big Kahunas offer him a job working directly under them. He's still a lackey, but now he's a lackey to someone really important-- It's a huge promotion for him.

(as an aside, this is the first time I've ever been able to spell "bureaucracy" right on the first try. Yay me!)

[ekedolphin]

It could be that Qarr's initial plan, whatever it was, was dependent upon Kubota staying alive, second-stringer though he was, and when Kubota was killed, Qarr bounced from V to the IFCC in search of someone more important to glue his lips to. (I'm not sure how likely that is: Kubota was very much a Big Bad wannabe.)

And of course, let's not forget that Sabine is working for the IFCC as well, as demonstrated in the strip when she returns to the underworld briefly for "feminine hygiene products", or so she claimed to Nale at the time. The fact that Qarr's currently serving as Zz'dtri's familiar could also mean that Z's working for the IFCC, or Qarr's simply using Z to stay where the action is. (My guess is the latter.)

Something that just occurred to me about the current strip: By now, you'd guess that Durkon probably knows that he's fighting Tarquin. Just judging by the sound of his voice, and the fact that he's got a pretty large sample size by this point.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Attack from the 3rd dimension

I find myself wondering how many strips ahead RB is thinking.

You get a lot of insight into how Burlew writes the strips in the commentary sections of the books. It's mostly retroactive - he tells you how he developed the stories that have already been published (although he does give hints about upcoming events).

The thing you can see is that he puts a lot of work into plotting the story. It's not a haphazard process. He has the entire story all the way to its end plotted out at this point and he plots out what he's specifically going to write a couple hundred strips ahead. He's admitted that occasionally he wanders a bit when he gets to the point of actually making the strips - he'll think of a joke or something and throw a couple of extra strips. But overall, the story is very tightly planned out.

As an example, look at 331 where the Oracle gives Vaarsuvius his prophecy. That prophecy referred to an event that would happen just over three hundred strips later in 634. Or look at the hostility between members of the Order of the Scribble, which the group is currently dealing with. It was first mentioned back in 276.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by ekedolphin

It could be that Qarr's initial plan, whatever it was, was dependent upon Kubota staying alive, second-stringer though he was, and when Kubota was killed, Qarr bounced from V to the IFCC in search of someone more important to glue his lips to. (I'm not sure how likely that is: Kubota was very much a Big Bad wannabe.)

True, but my point was that Qarr obviously had some mission going on that was bigger than just putting Kubota in power. To Qarr, putting Kubota in power was not an end in itself - it was a means to some as yet unidentified goal.

It's like Xykon's plan to capture Azure City. He launched a major war and conquered an entire kingdom. Normally, that would have been a major goal for a villain. But Xykon didn't give a damn about conquering Azure City - he did it all just so he could have a few hours uninterrupted access to the Rift in one room inside Azure City. He was perfectly willing to abandon Azure City within an hour of conquering it (although Redcloak, who has an agenda of his own, convinced him to change his mind).

My point is that if we didn't know about Xykon's real goal of capturing the Rifts, his actions would seem inexplicable. We'd be asking why he went to all that trouble to capture a city if he was just going to walk away from it on the day of its fall. And I think that's the situation we may be in with Qarr - we can see what he's doing but we don't know the real reason why he's doing it.

[Peter Morris]

Originally Posted by Attack from the 3rd dimension

I find myself wondering how many strips ahead RB is thinking.

He has the entire story plotted out right to the end.

[squeegee]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

As an example, look at 331 where the Oracle gives Vaarsuvius his prophecy. That prophecy referred to an event that would happen just over three hundred strips later in 634

634 fulfill's the Oracle's prediction for V in 331? Really? Were the "four words" the ones in the final panel? Including the stutter as two words? That V seemly said to herself? I must be missing something here.

[ekedolphin]

Originally Posted by squeegee

634 fulfill's the Oracle's prediction for V in 331? Really? Were the "four words" the ones in the final panel? Including the stutter as two words? That V seemly said to herself? I must be missing something here.

Yeah; I read somewhere that that's the Word of God on the subject.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by ekedolphin

Yeah; I read somewhere that that's the Word of God on the subject.

It's also right there in the strip. The prophecy was that Vaarsuvius would say "the right four words to the right being at the right time for all the wrong reasons". And the title of 634 is "The Wrong Reasons".

And when that wasn't enough to clue readers in, Burlew confirmed that this was indeed the incident the Oracle was talking about.

[squeegee]

Originally Posted by ekedolphin

Yeah; I read somewhere that that's the Word of God on the subject.

Well, if RB says so, then that's that. I guess the Oracle meant to say V would be lent an incomplete, cobbled-together approximation of total ultimate arcane power - that would start unraveling almost immediately - just after (but not because) she said three words (one of them twice) at the right time to nobody in particular.

But I guess considering the accuracy of the Oracle's prediction for Belkar, V's prediction's follows that pattern.

[Chronos]

The Oracle was correct on that point, too: There's a difference between "total" and "ultimate". Nobody else had more arcane power than V; ergo, V's power was ultimate.

And there's no quibble at all with the Oracle's prediction for Belkar. He asked if he would cause the death of any of those characters, and he absolutely and unquestionably did cause the death of one of them.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Chronos

And there's no quibble at all with the Oracle's prediction for Belkar. He asked if he would cause the death of any of those characters, and he absolutely and unquestionably did cause the death of one of them.

And on that note, what was the Oracle about to say when Belkar interrupted him in 567?

To recap, Belkar had asked "Do I get to cause the death of any of the following: Miko, Miko's stupid horse, Roy, Vaarsuvius, or you?" Which the Oracle answered, "Yes."

When Belkar later complained, the Oracle was trying to argue that his answer had been correct. Belkar had cause Roy's death by lending him the Ring of Jumping, And Belkar had caused Miko's death by having an evil alignment. And Belkar caused Windstrider's death "if we choose to define "death" as our spirit being trapped in the Afterlife."

"And as for the elf-"

What about the elf? What was the Oracle going to say about Vaarsuvius? Going from the context, it appears it would have been some implausible reason why Belkar was the cause of Vaarsuvius' death.

[Malleus, Incus, Stapes!]

Or V would wind up in a state/situation that's even more ludicrous to count as "dead" than Windstriker getting stuck in the Celestial realm. Either one.

[Malleus, Incus, Stapes!]

Originally Posted by Attack from the 3rd dimension

I find myself wondering how many strips ahead RB is thinking.

He's already written the last panel of the last strip.

[squeegee]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Nobody else had more arcane power than V.

False. Xykon did.

I'll also quibble that V's upgraded power was "complete". It was ephemeral.

[ultrafilter]

Per Rich, it was complete in that Vaarsuvius had access to every school of magic.

[Chimera]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

He has the entire story plotted out right to the end.

Where's the fun in that?

Originally Posted by Malleus, Incus, Stapes!

He's already written the last panel of the last strip.

Who does he think he is? JK Rowlings?

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by squeegee

False. Xykon did.

I'll also quibble that V's upgraded power was "complete". It was ephemeral.

Xykon had more power when he fought Vaarsuvious. But Vaarsuvius had already lost a substantial portion of his power at that point. At his original level, when he still had Haerta linked to him (who was "the most powerful of the three by a fair bit") he may have had more power than Xykon.

[Chronos]

And es problem in the fight with Xykon wasn't a lack of raw power, anyway; it was that since e never earned it, e didn't know how to use it effectively. Note that when e started falling back on es own old familiar standbyes like Explosive Runes, e started being effective again, even though a third-level spell is far less powerful than what Xykon's slinging around.

[silenus]

Originally Posted by Chimera

Who does he think he is? JK Rowlings?

No, JMS.

[ekedolphin]

And poor Belkar didn't even get to remember it.

I liked that whole "out of control" angle they played with Belkar after Roy's death, really showing that Roy is the only one who can really handle him and channel his aggressive behavior in the right direction. (Not to mention, his forced character growth starting to turn into real character growth.)

[mlees]

So if Belkar's character growth occurs after Roy's death, than Roy was holding Belkar back, right?

[kaylasdad99]

Originally Posted by Chimera

Where's the fun in that?



Who does he think he is? JK Rowlings?

Considering the scale of that Kickstarter campaign, that comparison is kinda apropos.

[hogarth]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

He has the entire story plotted out right to the end.

Of course, that's not mutually exclusive with "making stuff up as he goes along" (cf. A Song of Ice and Fire).

[Mr Shine]

The fact that they are characters in a webcomic based around a game that people play is an open secret.

Do you think most characters know or suspect that the the webcomic's name is "The Order of the Stick"? Do you think Nale, for example, thinks it is called "The Amazing Adventures of Nale and the Linear Guild", and that when he's offscreen in the real comic, he thinks it is still following him? If they do know it is called "The Order of the Stick", and that the members of that order are the main characters, do they just think by the end it'll be a tragedy instead of a comedy?

[Little Nemo]

Do my posts from a couple of days ago asking if Qarr has a hidden agenda make me looking amazingly prescient now?

The answer is "Yes".

[Chronos]

See Tarquin's comments that stories never end, sometimes the storyteller just stops telling it. He doesn't mind that the strip will end at a point where the so-called "good" guys temporarily have the upper hand, since he can just define his own "happy ending" to be whenever he reaches his personal peak.

[Little Nemo]

Another question from the other thread: Any speculations of what Elan's secret plan is?

We saw he thought of a "totally awesome idea" for a "Super Top Secret Plan" in 836.

Will it defeat Tarquin? "Yes! No! Sort of!"

He needed Durkon's help for it. And we saw in the next strip that Durkon did help him although he looked confused about it.

[kaylasdad99]

Elan is going to manipulate Tarquin to throw in with Xykon, and then put himself into Xykon's sights, compelling Tarquin to pick Xykon up and hurl him into the Rift.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by kaylasdad99

Elan is going to manipulate Tarquin to throw in with Xykon, and then put himself into Xykon's sights, compelling Tarquin to pick Xykon up and hurl him into the Rift.

I've already speculated that it's going to go the opposite way.

There are two gates left. That virtually guarantees that we're not going to see the final battle at Girard's Gate. The final battle will be at Kraagar's Gate, which means Girard's Gate serves some other narrative purpose.

My theory? Burlew has put a lot of work into building up dramatic tension between the Order and the Linear Guild. Xykon and Redcloak have sort of vanished from the story, although we know they're heading in the direction of Girard's Gate. The current story arc is approaching two hundred strips so we should expect some major event to end the current book. I think it's obvious: Xykon arriving at Girard's Gate.

I think the current fighting we're seeing between the Order and the Linear Guild is just a set-up. When Xykon arrives, both groups are going to realize he's a much bigger threat than their opposite numbers are and this will force them at ally together against Xykon. The next book will be about how the combined Order of the Stick/Linear Guild work together to prevent Xykon from capturing Girard's Gate.

[Little Nemo]

Keeping the thread alive.

Topic from the other thread and the OOTS forum: was the Oracle telling the truth about Belkar's death?

It's been established that the Oracle always gives true answers to questions (albeit they're sometimes incomprehensible until after the fact). But his prediction that Belkar would die within a year wasn't given in answer to anyone's question. He just threw it out there.

And then he later made sure that not only did Roy hear it a second time but he also arranged things "accidentally" so Roy would retain the knowledge. Seriously? The Oracle just made a mistake? We had just seen how he makes arrangements to be raised from the dead and to set up revenge months in advance. Does it really seem plausible he accidentally sent Roy away using the one method that would bypass the memory wipe? It seems much more likely that the Oracle intentionally arranged things so that Roy would remember the warning about Belkar's death while thinking he had put one over on the Oracle.

So let's say the Oracle looked into the future and saw that Xykon and Redcloak were going to defeat the Order and as a result the universe would be destroyed. And he also saw that this resulted from the Order kicking Belkar out of the group and him not being present at some critical moment.

The Oracle obviously doesn't want to be wiped from existence along with the rest of the universe. He decided he needed to convince the Order to let Belkar stay in the group, regardless of how irresponsible he acted. And he saw that if Roy and Haley believed Belkar was going to die in a few months, they'd be willing to tolerate him for that long. So the Oracle lied and told them Belkar was going to die.

On what might be a related not, Burlew writes commentaries in his books. Like the Oracle, he usually concludes with information about upcoming events in the story. In his most recent book, he wrote:

In the next volume of The Order of the Stick, people will travel someplace. While there, they will meet other people - some new, others not - and discover facts that they didn't know. Some of those facts will in turn lead to conflict and additional discoveries, while others will not. There will be a lot of jokes - some that you will find funny, others that you do not. The characters will talk a lot. Someone...

...will drink a beverage.

What?

OK, OK, fine, how about this, then. In the next volume of The Order of the Stick, readers will meet, for the very first time, one of the "nine sides" mentioned by the demon roach in strip #548. That's right, there will be at least one entirely as-yet-unrevealed player in the struggle for the Gates who will be ... well, revealed.

Oh, and somebody will die. But I bet you already knew that, right?

Now, the first part is obviously a joke, giving a "prophecy" that consists of a list of vague and trivial events. And maybe it's just a joke. But maybe there's another level. Maybe Burlew hid a really critical event in the list by making it sound like it was just something trivial.

Have we seen anyone drinking a beverage in the last couple hundred strips? Yes, we have.

It just seems like part of a short throwaway sequence. But as I've noted, Burlew loves to plant seeds like this, that he brings back hundreds of strips later. And note what Belkar says to Elan about the drink - "It will change your life."

[Peter Morris]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Have we seen anyone drinking a beverage in the last couple hundred strips? Yes, we have.

That's npt a beverage, it's a spice, presumably a powder.

However we have seen someone drink a beverage.

Or two.

[Babale]

Originally Posted by Chronos

And es problem in the fight with Xykon wasn't a lack of raw power, anyway; it was that since e never earned it, e didn't know how to use it effectively. Note that when e started falling back on es own old familiar standbyes like Explosive Runes, e started being effective again, even though a third-level spell is far less powerful than what Xykon's slinging around.

This. When Vaarsuvius faced Xykon, even after losing the first soul bind, she had much more "raw arcane power" than Xykon. Of course, the problem was that that power was shackled to Vaarsuvius's lame mid-level ass. If Vaarsuvius was an actual epic-level wizard rather than a 15th level wizard with friends in low places, she would have cast Time Stop without interruption. A couple of Delayed Blast Fireballs would kill Redcloak and Jirix (since V couldn't know that Xykon was immune to fire). Xykon looked pretty beat up by the end of the fight; without Redcloak's advice, V could have kicked his ass. Xykon wouldn't have heard the soul binds saying that Energy Drain effected them; he'd just see that the elf is unaffected, and would assume that V had Death Ward on. So he'd try a different spell, which would buy V enough rounds to kill Xykon. Xykon won by fighting smart, not through any sort of excess of magic.

Of course, had V actually been using that 18 base Int of hers, she would have wiped the floor with Xykon: Ask Durkon to cast Death Ward before teleporting, taking a few rounds to divine some information about Xykon's defenses (since V has stated that her new powers can pierce the Cloister), etc.

[ekedolphin]

Yeah, V thought she was just gonna walk in there and stick her foot up Xykon's ass. She wasn't fighting intelligently at all; she was mad with power. It seemed to her like she could do absolutely anything. Instead, she only succeeded in giving Xykon and Redcloak a kick in their complacency. (Although, I suppose if you think about it, she was very indirectly responsible for Tsukiko's death, considering that the attack forced the villains to remain in Gobbotopia until finding the phylactery-- where before, they really could have left anytime they wanted to, but for Redcloak torturing O-Chul for shits and giggles.)

On the subject of The Oracle and whether he lied about Belkar's death: I suppose it's possible. Someone on the GITP forums who's played games that Burlew has GMed has said, "When someone in one of his games says something, all you know for a fact is that they said something." He's not necessarily acting as the Exposition Fairy, or even telling the truth.

And The Oracle is obviously against Xykon, since he deliberately went on vacation from the Sunken Valley at the same time Xykon would arrive. So, yeah... the idea that The Oracle lied about Belkar's death to give the Order their own kick in their complacency might not be far from the truth. At least the way I see it.

[Lok]

I can't see the Oracle lying about Belkar. He may have wanted to motivate the Order, but not at the expense of destroying his rep. He gives out a prophecy that is wrong, then why would people come pay him vast sums of money?

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Lok

I can't see the Oracle lying about Belkar. He may have wanted to motivate the Order, but not at the expense of destroying his rep. He gives out a prophecy that is wrong, then why would people come pay him vast sums of money?

As I pointed out, it wasn't an answer to a paid question. Besides, saving himself and the universe from destruction is a pretty strong motive for telling a lie.

[mlees]

Has Belkar's year passed?

I know that the Order was in Azure City, getting ready to defend against Xykon and his Hobgoblins, when there was a New Year's celebration, but couldn't the Oracle be using some other calendar?

[Gray Ghost]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

..."And as for the elf-"

What about the elf? What was the Oracle going to say about Vaarsuvius? Going from the context, it appears it would have been some implausible reason why Belkar was the cause of Vaarsuvius' death.

My explanation has been that the Oracle meant, "And as for the elf- [By contrast] S/he kills you." As to why V would kill Belkar, I thought it'd happen when V is "running on Infernal Standard Time", tries to do something that'll kill everyone (like free the Snarl), Belkar tries to stop V and gets killed.

I'm sure it'll end up being something else, but I like that hypothesis.

I think the bit about the spice was just a throwaway Dune-reference and joke, with no other meaning, but we'll see... Wouldn't it be funny if Tarquin was the Kwisatz Haderach? He certainly fights like he knows the weirding way.

[AndrewL]

Originally Posted by mlees

Has Belkar's year passed?

Belkar still has a few weeks left at least. After Roy was raised from the dead, he commented that Belkar had about seven weeks left at most, and that was only 2-3 weeks prior to the latest comic.

The New Year's celebration in Azure City came well before the Oracle's prophecy that Belkar would be dead by the end of the year. I suspect the Oracle is going by a different calendar.

[mlees]

Originally Posted by AndrewL

The New Year's celebration in Azure City came well before the Oracle's prophecy that Belkar would be dead by the end of the year. I suspect the Oracle is going by a different calendar.

Sorry for the goofed timeline.

[Lok]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

As I pointed out, it wasn't an answer to a paid question. Besides, saving himself and the universe from destruction is a pretty strong motive for telling a lie.

Except in 572, he specifically said it was on the record. And your theory is that he knew that Roy would remember it. So it would be a deliberate lie that would hurt his reputation. And he knows that the world isn't going to end, he has an appointment to be resurrected in the future.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Lok

Except in 572, he specifically said it was on the record. And your theory is that he knew that Roy would remember it. So it would be a deliberate lie that would hurt his reputation.

Your theory isn't helped by the fact that what the Oracle is saying in that strip is itself a lie. The prophecy he tells Roy in 572 isn't what was actually said.

And what was the Oracle doing in 567 other than attempting to deliberately lie? He apparently has no problem deceiving a customer as long as it isn't an official answer.

[Lok]

My theory is that he will not lie about what he sees when he gives an official answer. Your theory seems to be that the Oracle knew Roy would remember their chat, gave Roy an official, on the record (with light show and everything) answer that Belkar would die permanently before the end of the year. And that prophecy was a lie to goad Roy, and thus the Order, along.

Yes he was twisting words and meanings to avoid Belkar killing him. But that is standard Oracular business practice. Vague prophecies that can fit more than one ending, eg., "A mighty kingdom will fall." But none of those was done while giving an official answer, and the prophecy was fulfilled in the end. I have no doubt that he will phrase his answers in a way that will be better for himself specifically, and even the world in general. But he won't outright lie about them.

[Chronos]

The prophecy he tells Roy in 572 isn't what was actually said.

So? He's stating the same thing multiple times in different ways, and in the process closing as many as possible of the large number of loopholes in a magical world. If he just said "Belkar will die", well, that wouldn't really mean much, since raises are (usually) trivial at that power level. Likewise, any other single statement he's made has similarly-trivial loopholes. But put them all together, and it's clear that, yes, in this case, Dead Means Dead.