I’m just speculating here but I think asking that kind of question would run against his nature. Durkula has been shown to be very direct and literal minded. He’s like a robot that’s carrying out his orders. I’m assuming Hel created him that way. She didn’t want a servant who might start thinking for himself and start questioning her orders.
So Durkula can ask questions like “Where is the key?” and “How do I enter this room?” and “What is this person’s name?” But he can’t ask higher order questions like “What do you think I should do?” or “What would you do if you were in my situation?” or “Which of your memories do you think I would want to see the most?”
Or perhaps it’s Durkon and not Durkula who’s the issue. Durkula may be asking simple questions because they compel Durkon to give direct answers. A more complicated question would require Durkon to choose the appropriate answer and that would give him more leeway to misdirect his answer. Durkula may be aware of this so he’s keeping his questions simple.
Durkula can force a memory from Durkon, but it’s time-consuming and unpleasant for both parties. So most of the time he just asks Durkon to select a memory for him. Durkon goes along with this because A- less psychic torture, and B - he gets to select the memory to reveal. That latter one is more important because he can show memories that only show part of the picture.
I think Durkula is not as literal as **Little Nemo **speculates. After all, he had no problem deceiving Roy and the Order about his status for as long as necessary. Deception is second nature to many vampires. But so is arrogance, and I think it’s his massive arrogance that’s blinding him to Durkon’s ability to selectively choose memories not being the best thing for the vampire host. The direct questions are more because he wants something specific and believes that his vampiric nature makes him a better thinker and planner than Durkon could ever be. Meanwhile, his reactions to certain memories make it clear that’s not the case, but he hasn’t even considered that possibility.
He’d never ask a “What should I do” question because he knows Durkon isn’t going to help with that, and he’s be better off asking Hel anyway. But the real reason is he’s so overconfident he can’t conceive of not picking the best answer himself.
I noticed that the spirit asks “This isn’t some sort of trick, is it? A false memory?” and Durkon really beats the “can’t make a false memory” thing into the ground, taking the focus off the broader “is this a trick” aspect of the question.
Huh. I didn’t interpret that as literal-mindedness as the time, just boredom, that he was just too bored to pay attention to the first one.
But that does make sense that it was foreshadowing how Durkon would beat him.
I came away with the most obvious answer, that he’s misdirecting them about what’s behind the doors, but I’m not so sure now. This suggests to me that the issue is “how these two memories are connected.” Because mixing up the doors is something Durkon could have done without that knowledge in the other strip.
One thing that’s clear from the last few strips is that all newly formed vampires are somewhat neurotic due to the conflict between their worst day and the rest of their lives. I would also opine that the late lizard Malack was largely at peace with himself, and tended to favor reasonable negotiation. This probably sprang from his experience with extended internal dialogue. Sure, I figure that inner Malack probably dissolved hundreds of years ago. But the character trait remained.
Or maybe vampires who can’t come to terms with themselves just tend to [del]die[/del] cease to exist earlier.
Durkon may be laying multiple traps. He may be partly reminding Durkevil of their strong connections with their Dwarven brethren. If the pair ever learn of the reasons for their exile, I suspect that may offset their desire for revenge. Durkon might sense that there had to be some reason. I understand that empirically even partial explanations can mollify the offended somewhat.
See also the current High Priestess reiterating to Roy that Durkon is allowed to come home. How will that help? She couldn’t venture to guess… but it is true, and the truth is always useful.
OK, now that’s deep. If I’m guessing correctly, he’s got a real reason for preferring that hall that’ll give Roy an edge in the fight, then he’s coming up with a convincing cover reason, and then he’s tossing (heh, tossing) in a prank to distract from both the real reason and the cover reason.
It occurs to me that Hel got lucky that Malack turned Durkon into a vampire. He’s not a natural at deceit and misdirection like this. If Malack had turned Haley into a vampire, her spirit would have convinced Hel into fighting Xykon by now.
She did convert to Thorism a day or two prior to Durkon being turned into a vampire so maybe her soul would have been claimed by Hel as part of the Northern Pantheon.
She has default dominion over all dwarven souls (minus those who die with honor) in exchange for giving up clerics but they never mention anything about not getting other souls who would normally go to the Northern pantheon underworld anyway. People who die of plague and stuff like that.
But it’s more a question of where vampire spirits come from than where dwarves go. After all, Durkon unarguably died with honor, both in combat and then spending his final breath asking Thor to watch his friends. Hel apparently had a vampire spirit at the ready to plug into Durkon despite his honor so she may have been able to plug it into any suitable follower of the pantheon who was unlucky enough to get turned.
Wouldn’t such non-dwarves go to their usual afterlife, based on their alignment?
If Durkula is ever destroyed, Durkon’s soul will go to Valhalla, since he died with honor. Being trapped in his body is only temporary, although that potentially could be a long time.
I’ll admit I’m still not completely clear on what the D&D vampire rules are (or what the OOTS vampire rules are, if that’s the case). My understanding is that when somebody becomes a vampire, an outside spirit enters their body and assumes control. This outside spirit has access to the original person’s memories so it can imitate the person.
When Malack said that bringing him back to life would annihilate the person he was today, he meant it literally. He never was the shaman who died two hundred years ago. He’s somebody else who’s inhabiting that shaman’s body.
My understanding is that what Hel did was get a spirit she controlled into Durkon’s body when he was turned into a vampire. If it had been Haley fighting Malack, she could just as easily have sent the spirit into her body.
Hel did say that dwarves fall under her purview. But I don’t think she meant it quite that literally. If she did, then she would control every dwarf that became a vampire and that doesn’t appear to be the case. It appears to me that there was something special in the timing that allowed her to place her tame spirit in Durkon so I feel it’s possible she could have done it for anyone.
/r/popping