The title of the strip, “He’s Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today,” is a reference to something that Dante, the main character in Kevin Smith’s movie Clerks, says a number of times. Kevin Smith recently had a dustup with Southwest Airlines.
I noticed that attackers we see are all either members of the elven team that we saw in #670 or are the leaders of the human underground. Don’t these people have any followers?
My understanding has always been that the Resistance is VERY small. The majority of Azurites are either with the fleet on the other side of the world, or (un)dead. I’d be surprised if there were more than 100 or so living rebels in the city.
And the lower-level majority of the resistance mostly works in various logistic efforts to keep the underground community running. For something like a prison raid, it just doesn’t make any sense to send anyone but the few high-level characters, since they’re the only ones who’ll be able to accomplish anything. Consider that the only clerics the Resistance has consider Dispel Magic and Create Food and Water (both 3rd-level spells) to be “high level”.
There’s also the civilians they’re resuing from the prison, obviously.
Anyway, the leaders are also the highest level characters in the resistance; it makes sense for them to spearpoint a commando raid.
The comic was loading slowly for me where I was, but I knew what would happen before the bottom row loaded. On one hand, I do think the whole thing stunk. OTOH, it’s easy to see why Redcloak is on his crusade. OTOOH, if it weren’t for the crusade, would the reaction have been the same?
That’s why Burlew’s writing rocks.
Yiaiks! That was harsh…
…although, of course, I can see that the elvish commander’s decision might be correct from a strictly tactical/military point of view, it still is harsh. Yes, it is practically sure that the hobgoblin in question is a plant, but there is always this nagging thing… what if he wasn’t?
(and, well, it looks peculiar for goblinoids to put their own in jail together with their hated enemies…)
Gray and gray morality, for sure.
Lemme guess: you go by the same handle on the GitP forums, don’t you?
Guilty as charged! 
Why change handles, if I already have a perfectly serviceable one?
I figured out the punchline about halfway down.
My brother and I want to know: what the heck does the strip title mean?
Possibly a reference to the different variants of Elves in D&D?
Wouldn’t goblinoid races make more sense? It’s not one of the better strip titles, anyway.
Yes; ( Start of Darkness spoilers ):
[Spoiler]Redcloak’s crusade against humans in general and paladins specifically is rather directly due to their ruthless extermination of his fellow goblins, down to the children. And the general state of warfare between goblins and humans exists because the humans refused the peace offer of the “Dark One” back when he was mortal. And in turn the hostility that existed before then largely was due to goblins and the other humanoids being put in the world solely as XP fodder.
When you get right down to it, humans, elves and the rest are in a way the vampires in this scenario, feeding on the goblins ( by killing them for XP ) to grow stronger.[/Spoiler]
Back to the previous strip, do you think the last panel of would make a good t-shirt? I know it’s entirely unintelligible out of context, but the sheer randomness is why I love it. “Uh, I may have skimmed the orientation packet”, and then there’s these knights waltzing away in the background… gorgeously surreal.
No. It’s in response to the last sentence. “Elves are awesome.” “That’s probably why there are, like, 17 types.”
Not really. Just because he’s a criminal among goblins doesn’t mean he wouldn’t also be a criminal among humans.
I haven’t read Order of the Stick in a long time… the last thing I remember is a paladin chick and… a city of paladins or something?
I’m in for a long, long read, aren’t I? 
Oh, yes. Very long.
Quite. Enjoy the travels. 
So, are goblins unredeemable? Is that an action of a good character? Or should Good avoid being Stupid?