Ah, I don’t think so. I think Burlew basically was saying “OK, Roy and (maybe) Belkar and Durkin and Julio – they’re all off-stage for this next little bit.” I’m not quite sure what’s going to happen, but we’ve already had the pitched fight with all the OOTS vs. Tarquin so there’s no real point in doing that all over again.
Yes, it’s time for Tarquin to die. If it weren’t for the 24-hour banish thing, my money would be on Sabine to get it done.
I just thought I’d note that this strip marks the 100th strip that it was “today”. Happy 100th birthday, day.
I agree. Burlew made it a point to remove three characters from the scene. So whatever happens next will only involve Elan, Vaarsuvius, and maybe Haley.
Same thing with Tarqin getting killed right now. Burlew made a point that Laurin expected a favor from him for going with him. If Burlew was just planning on killing Tarquin now, why do that? He could just as easily have had Miron and Laurin both owe Tarquin favors from the past to get them on the scene. The fact that he went to the trouble of creating a future favor means Tarquin will be around to repay it.
While I hope you’re right, it’d be hilarious if those were basically Tarquin’s last words.
Wait, I’ve got it: Tarquin dies now in some stupid ironic way, then Elan complains “But that’s not possible! Now we’ll never learn what favor Laurin was going to ask him for!”, and then Laurin says “Oh, that? I was just going to ask him to ____.” (blank yet to be decided), and then teleports away.
Well, Daimyo Kubota thought he was gonna get the Trial of the Century, and look how well that worked out for him.
The thing is if you read Burlew’s commentary about the story, you begin to realize how much careful thought he puts into the plot. He’s written that he intentionally created the character of Kubota because he wanted Elan to have an antagonist to work against while the group was split up. But he also wanted to make the point that the individual members of the group weren’t acting towards their main goal of saving the world so he wanted a small-scale antagonist who had nothing to do with the gates or the master plot of the story. And he knew from the time he created Kubota that he was a disposable character who would end up being killed once he had completed his role in the story.
The only reason I’d say Tarquin is in any danger is because of another thing Burlew loves to do: out think his readers. He knows very well we analyze his strips to death looking for clues and trying to guess the plot like I’ve just done. So he’ll sometimes plant elements in the story to make us think the plot is going in one direction and then see if he can surprise us when he goes somewhere else.
If Blackwing had more brains than a raven, he’d (she’d?) fly downstairs and fetch the others rather than being V’s fanboy right now. That or fly in the psion’s face at an opportune moment.
Where would I do so? I’ve been on the OOTS message board, and the search function is disabled, and searching for “The Giant” + that domain via google is frustrating because everyone dregs up quotes of his and reposts them, so you get a zillion dupes. Is there a pool of links to his posts or somesuch?
Also, is it significant that Laurin currently has two negative levels, because Durkon slammed her? Do psions lose spell slots/equivalents?
He usually includes several pages of background commentary in each of his books.
There is a post called something like, “Index of the Giant’s posts”, and it’s usually pretty near the top of the forum post list. Currently, it’s called the index reloaded. Of course, the Index is rather lengthy…
Yes - there’s a cite a page or two back in this thread. She has temporarily lost two of her highest-level disciplines, and as many PP as it would have taken to power them at their base cost.
Can’t *believe *I didn’t notice that before.
I don’t even know if we disagree - I just thought it was worth pointing out that just because there are some plot hooks outstanding that it meant a character was safe. In Tarquin’s case, I think the thing that’s more likely to keep him alive is the fact that we still haven’t really met the rest of his team (the catgirl assassin and the dude with the shoulderpads.) On the other hand, he seems to be pushing this confrontation way, way, past the bounds of reasonability. If he doesn’t die here, I feel like any future appearances by him would be a letdown.
Looking back at this strip, the way Laurin talks, she doesn’t seem to enamored of the villain lifestyle anymore. It could be her favor from Tarquin is “I want out of this empire building con.” If that’s the case, Tarquin dying might be as good as him fulfilling the request.
As I alluded to above, I also think, given the extent to which Tarquin’s motivations are tied up in following narrative conventions, there’s a good chance that his death is going to deliberately defy those conventions. So dangling plots like Laurin’s favor might have been inserted with the deliberate intention of not being resolved, as a way to emphasize Tarquin’s complete defeat.
I disagree that Roy and Belkar are out of this fight for more than a couple rounds. The ship ain’t that big - they’d hear the sound of fighting even from the hold, and that will bring them running back up on deck. More likely, they’re off stage temporarily so they can heal up, and actually be involved in the resolution to the Tarquin subplot (assuming that’s finally being resolved).
I dunno… how loud is an airship motor? Whup Whup Whup Whup Whup!
The way that Tarquin has been pushed to the side of the ship makes me think that Julio may be about to take him out from below since he’s still dangling from the rope. It’d be funny if T died out of panel. Julio could say, “You know what Tarquins last words were? No you don’t. And neither will anyone else. Ever. He died without an audience.”
Can’t be all that loud - it’s hard to make a dramatic entrance when people can hear your ride coming from half a league away.
