The girl that Julio left in charge of the Mechane.
If I recall correctly, Burlew intended for Bandanna to join the Order as a full-time character but she never really clicked with readers so he shelved that idea versus listening to people complain about her. Reader reception to Minrah was probably more positive so she’ll be joining the full-time roster instead.
Edit: It occurs to me that Bandanna is a lesbian and there’s an assumption that Minrah is as well. I doubt this is relevant to the story but Burlew just wanted that representation in the group.
I just can’t see Bandana having any potential as a member of the main group. She was clearly an NPC. If anything she was a parody of an NPC. Her role in the plot was literally to move the main characters to the next part of the story. She was treated as a fixture of the airship (what was she supposed to contribute to the main group if she left the airship?). And she was named after an item of apparel she wore.
The only role she had beyond being an NPC was that she was an alternative leader character. This allowed Burlew to have some interesting scenes with Roy being in a position were he wasn’t the one in charge; it was interesting to see Roy taking orders rather than giving them and this perspective helped develop Roy’s character. But that dynamic would have vanished if Bandana had left the airship and joined the main group.
Minrah, on the other hand, has potential as a main character if Burlew decides to go that route. She’s represents the newbie; a low level character playing alongside characters who are far more powerful and experienced than she is.
If only audiences were as malleable.
Burlew wanted another ‘strong female character’ for awhile, and did his level best to make it Bandanna. Audience reaction seemed mixed. Plucky Captain Sue didn’t appeal to me, but tastes vary. Edit: OTOH, Nemo made some great points, just above, about why Bandanna should never have been expected to join the Order, or be more than an uber-NPC.
Minrah looks to me like attempt #2. She’s written entertainingly enough that I’ll be disappointed if she gets ganked again. The crew of the Mechane? Meh. YMMV.
I guess they’re taking it to the Tomb. I’d be as happy if the Order got teleported near there with or without the Mechane.
I believe Rich has never said any of this, so it’s pure speculation.
Yeah, it’s like Miko. She was never a popular character. When she died people speculated that she had been killed off because of reader response. Burlew certainly said that her plot arc and death had been planned out before her first appearance. IIRC, I think he said that he doesn’t alter his plots to suit readers.
I don’t believe that he added Minrah because Bandana wasn’t popular. I’d like to see some cite that he did.
I was remembering back to last December when we apparently had this same conversation. I don’t think anything was proven then and I’m not invested enough in the theory to go looking for evidence though I’ll admit I remembered it more definitively than it was actually presented. In fact, I questioned it at the time.
That’s what those “If I recall correctly” caveats are for 
Edit: I meant to link to the start of the whole conversation and not call out dtilque’s post explicitly.
Wait, how were people last December already discussing a strip that clearly only came out a couple of weeks ago?
It was just a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?
Gray Ghost, in just this very episode, Minrah reminded us all that we don’t have any idea what her pre-cleric level was. Remember, O-Chul’s paladin level is even less than Minrah’s cleric level… but even before he became a paladin, he was already tough enough to be the sole survivor of an entire pitched battle.
Time flies…
OK, what do you think her level is, and how does it compare with the Order’s average level? (Although, if she were optimized even halfway well, she’d be able to punch well above her weight, as bad as the Order usually is when they try combat.)
I have no idea what it is exactly. But I’m pretty sure based on how she fought and Roy’s reaction, that she’s well behind the Order in skill. Scanning the Class and Level Geekery thread, the consensus is they don’t know (what else is new) but that a reasonable guess is somewhere in the 5/5, 5/6 range. I’d buy something with more fighter levels than cleric.
Reading the first page of C&L Geekery, maybe she does have the same number of levels as O-Chul, if he’s something like a Fighter 8+/Paladin 3-4+? The difference is that I’d have no problem at all visualizing O-Chul hanging with the Order, and yet I sort of do thinking of Minrah doing the same.
Doesn’t bother me, I stand by that post. Anyway, here’s a link to the page the discussion is on. If you search the page for my name, that’ll be the post.
I’ll say it again. I’m always amazed in these callbacks to not-even-that-old of a thread, at the number of people who’ve been banned in the interim.
Interesting discussion. The only word of God I remember reading about the thing was a few years ago, that Burlew was initially surprised at comments he didn’t have enough female characters, realized people were right, and then complained that everytime he drew one that he considered detailed and fully actualized, (e.g. Miko, Celia), people bitched at him and hated the character.
I love jophiel’s comment in that thread that Burlew could double the number of female characters in the Order with the right bath scene…
I hate every panel of that guest strip.
The joke isnt horrible, but the rest- well, we agree. ecch.
Those feel like weird examples since Miko never felt like you were supposed to like her. Her whole gig was that she was unlikeable. I’ll give credit that she subverted the Lawful Stupid trope a bit (using the ‘honorable fight’ bit as an excuse to collect everyone for a fireball from V) but she still felt like a one-note character.
Celia is just kind of weird because her schtick is being an Outsider and sometimes that was represented with things like being in business suits or working for an employment agency and being a paralegal. It’s fine, just like it was fine when the deva judging Roy’s soul had a glass desk with a computer, but it was still a barrier to thinking of her as a “real” person in the OOTS milieu versus a flying gimmick.
I have to give Burlew mad props for the last panel of 1178. I laughed myself silly.
When one of the dwarves congratulates Elan for being a certified bardic genius, he humbly replies “I do what I can in an environment hostile to the performing arts.” Belkar glares at him like he’s thinking “Oh shut up, you pretentious ass.”
I also like the fact that Janna’s skills seem to have improved.
It’s been like 25 or 30 years since Durkon was consecrated. I would hope she would improve in that time.
That’s adorable.