Whatever the orange speech bubble creature is, it’s capable of carrying 4 things, 2 reasonably weighty, up a cliff at the same time. It is clearly lifting and not telekinesis. I wouldn’t even be able to start speculating as to what that is…but tentacles come to mind.
Who says there’s only one person carrying them? It could be 4 different individuals, each carrying a different item. Only one of them spoke.
And why can’t it be telekinesis?
With TK, you don’t have to lift people by their ankles.
William of Ockham says.
What Alessan said.
Since there were two different colored speech bubbles, I figured there were two different beings grabbing the bodies and weapons. Each holding a weapon and body.
My speculation is that Green and Orange are some kind of magical creatures - possibly Outsiders. The colours might indicate chaotic alignment for both (based on the colours of the planes in #1138). Green is the brains, Orange is the muscle.
I’m guessing they were hired by Serini to keep a watch on the ravine; maybe do any necessary maintenance; replenish the monsters maybe? Most likely we will get some background info on Serini from them (I’m assuming she’s dead).
Or that the Order was going to die in however many weeks from Sphinx Pox. Or using Goblin Dan to show that XYZ event in the future couldn’t happen. And so on.
It’s Burlew’s own fault. Bury narrative hooks in the background of strips, tens to hundreds of strips before they grab the reader, and the reader starts thinking that everything mentioned in the strip is going to end up having great significance.
My vote for the voices is two different Outsiders. I wanted to think that at least one of them was a non-deity refugee from the Eastern Pantheon, like Hercules or Perseus, but I’ve been informed that such beings would have had their memories erased with the destruction of the last world.
I’m really interested to see what the MITD thinks of the two Outsiders.
Might the vessel Sabine is now associated with, be a mind-wiped-by-the-Snarl Lauren? Was there any bonus material in BRIF detailing what happened after #945, when we saw Lauren mind melding with the Snarl?
There was no bonus material after #945.
I think Laurin was temporarily mesmerised, rather than mind-wiped. In any case I can’t see Tarquin and co. letting Sabine snatch Laurin.
I think if the vessel is someone we know - it’s likely to be Thog. He’s kind of a Chekov’s gun at this point.
Green and Orange? Wait a minute, you don’t suppose…
I agree with everything you said here. However:
I just don’t see how this follows. Nothing you said requires the Snarl to be a person. It doesn’t even require it to have a mind. It just requires that the plan will fail and that the Order will confront the Snarl in some way.
My argument is that it reduces the Snarl significantly to make it into yet another person with an agenda who works together with agents to accomplish its grand goal. It’s no longer a different challenge than anything the Order will have faced. It’s just Xykon or Hel or Elon’s dad with more power.
I’m not 100% against it having a mind in a sense, but it would need to be this completely alien mind, where the big challenge is actually about finding a way to communicate with it. Not having it have agents and thus have already communicated.
And if these are agents of the Snarl, where have they been this whole time? If the Snarl is to be that sort of antagonist, those agents should be introduced much earlier on, as some sort of secret force who has been influencing things.
In fact, I just had a new idea for who these people are: they’re the guardians of the last Gate. And they’ve resigned themselves to having to destroy it.
If you see four objects being carried with some distance between them, it is more reasonable to assume several carriers than one carrier with a long reach and several limbs.
Then why are these Guardians messing with the people who aren’t trying to find the gate and not with the party that is?
Well, it could be like Shojo sending Miko to bring the Order to Azure City. Maybe they actually want an alliance.
Whoever they are, they know that Lien and O-Chul are paladins, and they probably know that they’re trying to preserve the Gate. I can’t see any guardian set by Serini opting to poison the paladins into unconsciousness and dragging them away, rather than just opening communications.
It would have been very convenient for us, and sensible for them, if either of them had thought to Detect Evil.
Green says “Grab them” as a command, Orange says “you got it!” and later, based on speech bubble placement, it looks like Green is monologuing by the ledge while the bodies go up. It looks like Orange is doing the lifting. Also, generally, Bosses don’t do their own lifting.
In a world with dragons, Aberrations, Outsiders, demons and countless other huge multi-limbed and tentacley things? And only one Orange speech bubble? No, it is not more reasonable.
I like that idea. As another idea, though, what if they’re inhabitants of SnarlWorld? Just as whatshiscrow has seen into the Snarl, maybe folks who live there have seen out, and traveled out. Why they’re doing so is unclear, but there’s always time for it to develop.
Was that link meant to go to a different, earlier strip? Otherwise I don’t quite get the comment
Those green and orange speech bubbles somewhat remind me of God speech bubbles … except, of course, that Green is the dead pantheon, and Orange never was a pantheon colour. Have we ever seen the darker-colour-on-lighter-colour writing scheme before, though?
It could work if their goals contain some element that they know the paladins aren’t going to like, and they don’t want to get into a big-ass argument somewhere where Xykon and Redcloak might hear them. Quite likely that, though powerful, they aren’t as powerful as the Evils put together (they do need to sneakily poison the paladins, rather than simply picking them up by the heels while awake)
Yeah, it was meant to link to another couplewho speak in orange and green.
(Not a serious guess, btw, I doubt it’s them)
OK, then, “We’re friends of Serini’s. We have some goals in common, and we’d like to discuss them with you in a more secure place. Would you care to accompany us to our base?” Easy-peasy, mac-and-nigiri-roll-with-kimchi-see. And if it doesn’t work, then they can still fall back on the darts.
And Green probably isn’t doing any of the lifting, since e says “grab them”, not “let’s grab them”, or “grab that one”. But Orange, whatever e is, isn’t very talkative, so I don’t think it’d be too surprising if there were more than one lackey, and the other one(s) just didn’t say anything at all. I’m not saying that there is; it’s also quite plausible that Orange is just that big. But it could go either way.
Sabine, working with the lost Eastern Pantheon, located a cult of extra-planar Snarl worshippers and charmed their pet grell, originally given to them by Serini. It’s the only possible answer and you’ll all see how right I am come February 