One of the Directors set his Teevo beforehand. So they may or may not know depending on how much they bother to watch. I assume they don’t watch V 24/7 since they have other duties and that’s partially what the imp is for.
Arrrrrrgh, 2 minutes and Sohvan beat me.
Once again Rich throws a snarl into the plot.
At least we now know what Daddy Tarq’s favor to Laurin was.
So the Snarl story seems not to be an outright lie, (which was my preferred theory), still think the gods’ story is not as it appears though. (I’m guessing Miron and Laurin are now dead or unmade or whatever)
I don’t think so. Looks like Miron pulled Laurin away.
I wouldn’t bet on it yet. Miron appears to be pulling her away from the rift. If he can buy a round, he can probably port the two of them clear. The only one who seems to be getting hit by a tendril is one of the helmeted soldiers.
More importantly, in panel 12, Laurin’s eyes went Snarl-colored, while she was actively probing with her telepathy. My guess is that the Snarl just got an agent.
Yep. Speculating about the end of the story just got a whole lot harder.
Did Laurin actually re-introduce the Snarl back into the world with her telepathic probe? Alert it to the presence of some rifts with tasty, tasty sentient minds on the other side?
Why are there no fish?
Destroyed by the Snarl, I’d guess. Or they were never there to begin with - there may never have been life on that planet, wherever it comes from.
I’m thinking the planet is the Snarl. After aeons in seclusion you must get bored with shapelessness, plus the whole “It’s a whole world with nobody in it ! Dibs !” aspect might be deliberate to lure people in, let them try to create portals to and from (which the Snarl could then repurpose), that sort of thing.
I also agree with Balance’s idea : I think the Snarl just got itself a pair of eyes. High level eyes from an overpowered class, specialized in creating interdimensional portals to boot. Oh dear.
That strip was beautiful.
Did Lauren know about the Snarl? It was ill advised to probe it telepathically without some experimentation first. Still, I’m glad she’s in charge of the valley rather than Tarq: her mistakes are more interesting.
Perhaps the Snarl is something like “that thing” from Fullmetal Alchemist, or maybe a more aggressive entity. (FmA Spoilers in the links).
The Snarl destroys souls which includes fish spirits but not plants?
A world populated with shambling mounds! 
If the Snarl is awake now (thanks Laurin!) Gobbotopia might be in a bit of trouble.
Am I the only person convinced that the “Snarl” is our world? Or a world much like it? I had a big defence of the idea worked out in my head, but the gist of it is: OOTS makes a big deal out of how they have rules determining how their world works, and those rules make people interact differently than how they do here, make life’s meanings certain, etc. Our world (and Burlew makes a big deal of this on a regular basis) doesn’t have those rules, and as a result, it would appear to people from their world as total chaos —in other words, just like a snarl.
Honestly, the only problem with the idea is that it’s so perfect and obvious, Burlew would do something else just to spite me.
Rich Burlew did say in one of the commentary columns in Don’t Split the Party that the world Blackwing saw inside the rift is not our world, for what that’s worth.
“So no, it STILL isn’t Earth in the Rift. It will never be Earth in the Rift. Earth will never show up.”
Rich Burlew
Speaking of, re-reading the strip from the start, it occurred to me that the hobgoblins HAD a large city with a sizable outlying area already. I know some of the hobgoblins were from the smaller valley but, considering that the hobgoblin warriors outnumbered the Azure City guard three-to-one, the hobgoblin home city and controlled territory had to be pretty expansive. Seems odd in retrospect that being able to squat in Azure City is what it took to get any status as a nation-state.
Laurin said she didn’t even sense fish in the oceans there. You could guess that maybe psionics don’t function in our “real” world but that’s sort of taken apart by the Snarl sensing her using them. I’m sure you could work out an explanation around it but it doesn’t seem like pieces fit together for a “real” non-RPG style world beyond the rift. Earth or otherwise (since we know it’s NOT Earth via author comment).
Had to get a flag, too. No flag, no country. Those are the rules.