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Job. We don't know that everything Durkon ever loved was murdered by Thor just to prove a point to himself, but yeah there's some parallels.
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Sep 30, 2015 16:09
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I can't read Durkula's spiel without this playing in my mind.
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Sep 30, 2015 16:32
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The evil spirit is basically just a different set of rules interpreting the same experiences that Durkon had. Furthermore, it has been shown to miss connections between different events. Durkon now probably is bitter and grumpy at the dwarves who threw him out but I doubt he really wants to send them all to the Bad Afterlife.
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Sep 30, 2015 16:45
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greatn posted:This remind me of a bible story. There one with that guy, losses everything, he curses everyone in his weakest moment but never god. Then he gets everything back times ten. Forget his name. Job. Except that what he lost included his children. He has more, later, but it's not like he gets the dead ones back.
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Sep 30, 2015 17:12
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Phanatic posted:Job. I wonder if that story just lost a lot of its context to us in the modern age where a child's death is devastating, compared to antiquity and the Medieval Ages where the death of children wasn't particularly uncommon. "Oh, what, your entire family was butchered by Hun raiders? Buck up, find a new wife and make some more, hell I've lost three wives and six kids and you don't see me crying about it!"
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Sep 30, 2015 17:29
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W.T. Fits posted:I can't read Durkula's spiel without this playing in my mind.
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Sep 30, 2015 17:30
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not posted:I think this explains a lot about OotS vampires. This isn't true, you can read my earlier post. You can totally flip alignment on someone and see how it could still be a form of "them". Sky Shadowing posted:I wonder if that story just lost a lot of its context to us in the modern age where a child's death is devastating, compared to antiquity and the Medieval Ages where the death of children wasn't particularly uncommon. "Oh, what, your entire family was butchered by Hun raiders? Buck up, find a new wife and make some more, hell I've lost three wives and six kids and you don't see me crying about it!" The Story of Job has gotta be pretty much up there as one of the greatest "Whua?" moments in the bible in it's moral dissonance to a modern audience that doesn't just blindly accept "God's Will" or "God works in mysterious ~ways~" as acceptable answers. The Flood is kinda understandable, so is what happened to Sodom, but Job? NOPE.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:00
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I don't think greatn actually forgot Job's name, guys.Raenir Salazar posted:This isn't true, you can read my earlier post. You can totally flip alignment on someone and see how it could still be a form of "them". Or, frankly, just his post in which he says this: not posted:So the idea is that instead, spirits are in some way born from, or at least develop their personality based on, the Negativity that lies within a person, no matter how infinitesimal that spark may be. It's essentially an answer to a 'what if', namely 'what if all the temptations to evil had dominated throughout your life, and none of the temptations to good had?' Where we could simply say that flipping alignment causes someone to "develop their personality based on the Negativity that lies within a person, no matter how infinitesimal that spark may be" as "an answer to a 'what if', namely 'what if all the temptations to evil had dominated throughout your life, and none of the temptations to good had?'" Particularly since the very idea of someone being possessed by a spirit, given that it can't really happen, is based around the actual sudden, radical shifts in personality that a human being can display.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:18
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Sir Kodiak posted:I don't think greatn actually forgot Job's name, guys. Nah I really couldn't remember.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:26
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greatn posted:Nah I really couldn't remember. Fair enough.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:30
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Sky Shadowing posted:I wonder if that story just lost a lot of its context to us in the modern age where a child's death is devastating, compared to antiquity and the Medieval Ages where the death of children wasn't particularly uncommon. "Oh, what, your entire family was butchered by Hun raiders? Buck up, find a new wife and make some more, hell I've lost three wives and six kids and you don't see me crying about it!" It helps that it's from a society which didn't really consider women or children to be people in any serious way.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:31
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ImpAtom posted:The argument (and this is a fairly common argument) is that you can only define yourself by what you do at your worst possible moment. You can't really argue "I wouldn't have killed that guy in any other situation, it was just the wrong time!" You can certainly point out that you wouldn't have done that in another situation but it doesn't change the fact that when push came to shove you sure killed that guy. I've never held much stock in that. Defining yourself by <0.01% of your behaviour seems farcical, and conveniently it's usually trotted out by people who would have killed that guy in any number of other situations, as some kind of "hey man, 1/10000000000 isn't 0 so it's not fundamentally different from 100" justification. The plain fact of the matter is if everyone was actually as bad as they were on their worst day, they'd act like that the rest of the time too. Clearly the fact that they don't is indicative of some difference. Durkon got mad and said some poo poo once, but as Kajeesus pointed out even at that dark moment he probably wouldn't have agreed to actually do it if Hel descended from the heavens and gave him a "kill all those guys" button. Meanwhile, Durkula devotes his life to doing it and goes "well, we're exactly the same." He's a liar and he's trying to demoralize Durkon, that's all it is. A +2 to Bluff if the player provides a convincing in-character lie.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:48
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What if the evil spirit is a little more on the nose than he's letting on? For example, what if it really is the suppressed, negative aspects of Durkon's personality, made manifest? Hel presumably would have that power. And the reason he's so determined to subjugate Durkon is that....once Durkon realizes that it's not some actual spirit, but an aspect of his own, he'll be able to exercise his will over it. The evil spirit only has power while Durkon thinks he is powerless. Durkon then doesn't have to overcome a separate entity, he just has to exercise his existing will (as the evil spirit). Kind of like accepting the anger as part of himself. Climax of the fight is Durkon stopping attacking Roy, who goes for the kill. Durkon stops him and says something to the effect of "I'm so sorry Roy, you killing me is the right thing. Don't bother resurrecting me" which gives Roy pause because now he believes that the real Durkon is back. No twist, they ice Durkon. They consider resurrecting him despite his request. I don't think it jives with the prophecy but whatever. e: beaten sort of.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:14
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Sky Shadowing posted:I wonder if that story just lost a lot of its context to us in the modern age where a child's death is devastating, compared to antiquity and the Medieval Ages where the death of children wasn't particularly uncommon. "Oh, what, your entire family was butchered by Hun raiders? Buck up, find a new wife and make some more, hell I've lost three wives and six kids and you don't see me crying about it!" The point of it (as a priest long ago explained to me) is to lay out that the just world fallacy is a fallacy. That sometimes no matter how good you are bad things will happen, and then all you can do is try to keep faith in God. Given how many mega churches now push the just world fallacy as real rather than a fallacy, I think that part of the message got lost somewhere
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Sep 30, 2015 20:15
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Taciturn Tactician posted:The plain fact of the matter is if everyone was actually as bad as they were on their worst day, they'd act like that the rest of the time too. No it isn't. Why would you assume that? Nobody acts as bad as they can act every day of their life. Vladimir Putin presumably has days where he does nothing but pets some kittens and has a sandwich. People who do bad things in certain situations might never do those bad things if the situation came up. The vampire is probably wrong that Durkon would have gone further but "no, it doesn't count, it was just a bad moment" is way more of an excuse than anything else. People have have bad thoughts. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 20:18
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That Durkon tries to believe that only the good is really him ("tha's na who I am") and that the "spirit" thinks only the bad is really him ("You are who you are on your very worst day") is characterization, and the point is that they're both wrong, it's the totality of the two. Which I expect we're about to see proven by Belkar's return to the scene.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:35
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ImpAtom posted:No it isn't. Why would you assume that? Nobody acts as bad as they can act every day of their life. Vladimir Putin presumably has days where he does nothing but pets some kittens and has a sandwich. People who do bad things in certain situations might never do those bad things if the situation came up. A bad thought isn't somehow more important than everything else you do. If someone has a racist thought, feels bad about it, and never acts on it, you can't go "well, that's the most defining point of your life about your views on race." You can't say "you're exactly like a KKK member because at your worst moment you agreed." If racism was something that was a core part of them, why would it only be something they thought once? Why wouldn't they be racist all the time? That's why I don't buy it.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:38
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Rendering an entire person down to the hour in which they were literally thrown out of their hometown by the people they trusted and respected most is probably not the best approach to capturing their personality.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:39
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The point is to claim 1) that the monster is a subset of the man, 2) the man hides the monster beneath like a candy shell over chocolate, and therefore 3) the man is just the mask and the monster is the true face. Which is fallacious, but subtly so. It's predicated on debunked pop psychology.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:41
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Taciturn Tactician posted:A bad thought isn't somehow more important than everything else you do. If someone has a racist thought, feels bad about it, and never acts on it, you can't go "well, that's the most defining point of your life about your views on race. No, but you can say that it means you're probably a little racist. That's basically the argument here. Durkon is not fully vampire evil Hel-minion but he is the kind person who is more bitter, angry and nasty than he is willing to admit, even if it is just deep down. Durkon DOES believe, on some level, the things the vampire is saying. They are not the only thing he believes but deep down he's got a pretty bitter angry core he hides behind being pious and affable. That doesn't mean he'd act on them or they are all of who he is but it does mean they are there.
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Sep 30, 2015 21:04
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People believe things that are stupid and wrong all the time. Including things about themselves. It's a fine argument for an evil parasitic spirit to use against its host, but that doesn't make it right.
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Sep 30, 2015 21:33
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i think the whole thing here isn't that durkon is some sort of amoral beast at his core, but more like they took the entire gamut of his emotional experience from life to death, found the lowest point, took a snapshot, and formed sapience around that snapshot being the case all the time
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Sep 30, 2015 22:00
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Eh, I'm not convinced what the spirit is saying is true, particularly the claim about how another Dwarf with another Vampire spirit might've betrayed Hel - he's trying to break Durkon, so he's contriving a way to make him blame himself rather than thinking he's purely a victim of an external force. The fact that he's failed to make connections about Durkon before that Durkon has while reviewing his memories suggests a fundamental disconnect between the spirit and Durkon, rather than him just being moulded from Durkon's own worst thoughts. I can appreciate what Rich is going for and again the pacing will probably work better when read out long, but for the moment I'm just dying to know how the situation'll resolve and drawing it out to work through expected internal conflict feels a bit tedious.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:11
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To take a brief detour into more mundane matters - the following came to my mind while reading the last couple of strips: 1) if I were one of the NO priests, this is about the point where I'd say "aw, too bad" and go heal / buff Roy back into shape. Sure the YES priests, or at least some of them, will retaliate by doing the same to Durkon, but it's still a second chance for Roy; what do we have to lose? 2) if I were a bodyguard to one of the YES priests, especially one of the less powerful or battle-hardened ones, I'd be having a real serious crisis of faith about now. Do I trust so much in my god that I'd lay down my life because he said "I'm bored with this world anyway. Ooo! I could try out that new idea I had for a coastline"? Do I care so much about my priest that I couldn't bring myself to surprise round full attack him even with the world at stake? Neither scenario, I think, would make for a particularly interesting narrative, but I wouldn't dismiss them either.
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Sep 30, 2015 23:06
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You only get a standard action in a Surprise Round anyway so you couldn't full attack your Cleric. 
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Oct 1, 2015 00:22
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Sky Shadowing posted:I wonder if that story just lost a lot of its context to us in the modern age where a child's death is devastating, compared to antiquity and the Medieval Ages where the death of children wasn't particularly uncommon. "Oh, what, your entire family was butchered by Hun raiders? Buck up, find a new wife and make some more, hell I've lost three wives and six kids and you don't see me crying about it!" The book of Job starts with a rather boring listing of his material wealth (with specific numbers) and a summary of his children, it ends with God giving him double the previously listed material wealth but the same number of additional children which is interpreted as God's intent to resurrect the dead ones at some unspecified future time.
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Oct 1, 2015 00:39
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You know, someone already brought up the Persona thing, but I can't help but feel thats the way it's going to go. Durkon needs to accept his Shadow and gain mastery over it. Thou art I, I am thou, all that jazz. The more interesting question is if, the rest of the party eventually having been convinced it's not really Durkon, Durkon does regain control over himself, still as a vampire, would Roy et al actually believe it was that real Durkon back in the saddle and not just another trick? They might dust him anyway just to be sure. Unrelatedly, I don't think any of the Yes bodyguards are actually within range to do much of anything to their Clerics even if they did take them by surprise. Yanking away the Holy Symbol like Nale stole Malack's staff might be the best course of action, though, if possible?
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Oct 1, 2015 00:39
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quote:And the reason he's so determined to subjugate Durkon is that....once Durkon realizes that it's not some actual spirit, but an aspect of his own, he'll be able to exercise his will over it. The evil spirit only has power while Durkon thinks he is powerless. We have front row seats for this theatre of mass destruction. The committee of Hel's faithful rigged the tiebreaker and turned the votes of a dozen demigods into the obedient echoes of enthralled undead servants. In two minutes, the ushers will return, the positive vote will be cast and the world as we know it will be reduced to nothing. I know this, because Nokrud knows this.
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Oct 1, 2015 00:49
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I bet the mook guarding the tiger lady sacrifices his life by attacking the Vampire.
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Oct 1, 2015 03:25
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Cthulhuchan posted:People believe things that are stupid and wrong all the time. Including things about themselves. It's both right and wrong. Durkon by his rigid unbending nature is currently unable to accept that some things are not either right or wrong. He will learn, and will grow, with pain. e: VV yes. that was an amazing strip. the purity of people who can continue to complain when he's cranking out awesome poo poo like this, that's basically been being set up as a slow burn for 1000 strips, is mesmerising sebmojo fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Oct 1, 2015 |
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Oct 1, 2015 05:57
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I think the idea behind the comic isn't that one time Durkon was really angry, said terrible things and now he's secretly awful, but that he's never really processed or dealt with his justifiable anger and instead repressed it so he could wander human lands without ever complaining - something we know was the wrong response since his mission/exile was unjust in the first place. Essentially, Durkon was right to condemn the priests to Hel, but wrong to hide that instinct and bury it deep down. Now it's risen back up with a vengeance and everyone is at risk.
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Oct 1, 2015 10:28
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Triple Elation posted:We have front row seats for this theatre of mass destruction. The committee of Hel's faithful rigged the tiebreaker and turned the votes of a dozen demigods into the obedient echoes of enthralled undead servants. In two minutes, the ushers will return, the positive vote will be cast and the world as we know it will be reduced to nothing. I know this, because Nokrud knows this. The (demi)gods cast the votes, not the clerics, so it wouldn't matter if Durkula had vamped them all and I highly doubt Hel could turn the demigods directly considering she didn't even have any high level clerics before Durkula came around.
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Oct 1, 2015 13:31
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Triple Elation posted:We have front row seats for this theatre of mass destruction. The committee of Hel's faithful rigged the tiebreaker and turned the votes of a dozen demigods into the obedient echoes of enthralled undead servants. In two minutes, the ushers will return, the positive vote will be cast and the world as we know it will be reduced to nothing. I know this, because Nokrud knows this. This can't be the case because of clearly established mechanics and rules of the summit. Nokrud cannot attack the demigods. He could attack the one usher, which was much more likely a mistake as there's now no one to acquire the demigods to finish the vote (meaning Roy in theory can stake him and make it a positive vote). Nokrud is unlikely to have vamped the usher, he only has a limited number of charges and it probably isn't worth it to vampirize the usher for the sake of it without a clear plan (which isn't clear from our perspective what plan that could be despite knowing the gist of it).
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Oct 1, 2015 14:31
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Eifert Posting posted:I bet the mook guarding the tiger lady sacrifices his life by attacking the Vampire. He can't.
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Oct 1, 2015 14:46
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It's a tie! If you had to choose, if you had to choose, Is up to the demigods! If you had to choose, if you had to choose, It's up to Banjo! If you had to choose, if you had to choose, Destruction or not? Destruction or not? ... ... The gods are asking to hear my voice! For the planet is facing a difficult choice! And if you were to ask me what I promote? ... Destruction has my vote! I have never agreed with Hel even once! We have fought on like 75 different fronts! But when all is said and all is done... Hel has beliefs, Thor has none.
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Oct 1, 2015 14:51
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Who What Now posted:The (demi)gods cast the votes, not the clerics, so it wouldn't matter if Durkula had vamped them all and I highly doubt Hel could turn the demigods directly considering she didn't even have any high level clerics before Durkula came around. Right, but for certain demigods having their high priests turn into evil undead could disqualify them as high priests. So now those demigods do not have high priests present at the meeting and can't vote at all. Durkon would need to have strategically vamp'd the high priests of gods who could not accept evil undead as priests and who would have voted to save the world. There might only be a couple that would meet those conditions, but if the vote is close it could tip the balance.
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Oct 1, 2015 18:13
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Colonial Air Force posted:He can't. I thought the case was that he can, but it'll result in everyone else in the hall being forced to murder him on the spot?
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Oct 1, 2015 18:34
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MarquiseMindfang posted:I thought the case was that he can, but it'll result in everyone else in the hall being forced to murder him on the spot? Yup. They just happen to be up there with him and he just happened to have recently mentioned his wife and kids and how he would rather they continue to exist.
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Oct 1, 2015 18:53
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Fun comparison on the increase in art effort- The panel where the dwarves kick out Durkon in the most recent comic: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1007.html Is a remake of a panel from strip 305: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0305.html
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Oct 1, 2015 22:23
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Angela Christine posted:Right, but for certain demigods having their high priests turn into evil undead could disqualify them as high priests. So now those demigods do not have high priests present at the meeting and can't vote at all. Durkon would need to have strategically vamp'd the high priests of gods who could not accept evil undead as priests and who would have voted to save the world. There might only be a couple that would meet those conditions, but if the vote is close it could tip the balance. I'm pretty sure that would be clear evidence that Durkula had attacked other priests protected by the Godsmoot, thus invalidating his protection and possibly also Hel's vote, making the whole ruse a waste. Also it takes, like, a week for victims to rise as vampires and Durkula has very limited charges on his staff.
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Oct 1, 2015 22:44
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