I’m not so sure it’s Girard. This is some crazy speculation, but the scrying eye thingy is green. Girard’s magic seems to be associated with the color purple. The Sapphire Guard is blue. Redcloak is red, but one of his cleric lackeys is green. I’m not prepared to guess as to who it might be, but I don’t think it’s Girard.
I thought Shojo was the leader of the Sapphire Guard as well as the leader of Azure City. It was the conflict between the duties of these two positions which led to his downfall. If he hadn’t been a Paladin, the Sapphire Guard would have been able to tolerate his Machiavellian politics.
I also just found out that the name Shojo is a joke. It’s the Japanese word for a little girl.
That is correct
But he *wasn’t *a paladin, though. He just commands them.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0289.html
Co-incidence. I’m sure he said somewhere that he just invented Japanese-soiunding names. If they mean anything, it’s just chance with no significance.
Then again, I’m wondering if Mr. Scruffy is something more than he seems. If he was, I dunno, someone’s familiar or a cat-shaped spirit thing, he may well have been around in Soon’s time. And Gerard probably visited Azure City before he fell out with Soon. So…
Man, things have been moving sslloowwllyy ever since the end of Book 4. I hope the Giant gets better soon. 
One thing I’ve seen several times recently is that there is a long gap between updates, then there’s two in rapid succession. I therefore predict another new strip within a few hours from now. Followed by another long gap.
In Don’t Split the Party there’s an offline strip that seems to imply that Mr Scruffy’s ultimate loyalty is with Hinjo and he’s staying with Belkar to keep an eye on him. But there’s never been any evidence that Mr Scruffy is anything other than a normal cat.
Hey, any cat that would actually listen to instructions like that isn’t normal. 
My crackpot theory is that Vaarsuvius’s gender is 1/sqrt(2) |male> + 1/sqrt(2) |female>, while es mate is 1/sqrt(2) |male> - 1/sqrt(2) |female>, thus making them both completely indeterminate on the male-female axes, but nonetheless orthogonal to each other. And this message board is probably the only place in the world where someone else might understand what I mean when I say that.
And regardless of what Mr. Scruffy was, I think it’s pretty clear that he is now Belkar’s animal companion. He is a ranger, after all.
Probably not, but I get it.
Lirian wore green (see Panel 6). She’s been described as MIA, but unless the books say otherwise, I don’t think there’s been a definitive determination that she’s dead.
Note that the pupil in the scrying eye is green, and when Azure City scryed the scene of the destruction at Durokan’s gate, the pupil was blue.
So it could be Lirian. Or one of her tribe.
Can’t be Lirian. This is a pretty big spoiler, so don’t read it unless you really want to know.
In Start of Darkness there’s a big scene where
[spoiler]Xykon and Redcloak go after Lirian’s gate, are defeated, and are imprisoned underground. To escape they turn Xykon into a lich. Then he breaks free, kills Lirian, and binds her soul to a black gem in his pocket. Then he zombifies her body and still has it with him about 30 years later when his assault on Dorukan’s dungeon begins. He might stil have the Lirian zombie; he definitely still has her soul.
And she’s not the only one.[/spoiler]
Nothing new today, though.
“How can he be safe if no one’s checked his shoes?”
The monster in the darkness is so stupid. If no one has checked his shoes it’s everyone else on the plane who isn’t safe. Duh.
(Dang it, airport check in jokes stop being funny when you’ve been through the security checkpoints half a dozen times in the past two weeks.)
At least it isn’t the same airport check-in jokes that we’ve all seen fifty times already, though.
And this is O-Chul we’re talking about here. With or without his shoes, nobody on the plane is safe unless he wants them to be.
On the other hand…
If O-Chul wants the passengers to be safe they will be.
Strip no 700
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0700.html
Good one. And it’s amusing to find someone more clueless about something than the MITD.
The monster seems to be getting smarter.