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ikanreed posted:Actually... That's a bit weird. All the Batman villians who are evil mirrors of one of his characteristics are A listers. That's totally how julio and tarquin read to each other. More similarity almost always leads to an archrival relationship. Especially with pulpy characters like julio. Batman's a dour sadsack, Julio's a poor comparison. Tony Stark's much more his style, and most of his classic villains aren't really dark mirrors-- Mandarin in particular is nothing like the guy.
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# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:48 |
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# ? Apr 27, 2024 00:42 |
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To be fair, even several of Batman's c-list villains are mirrors of him. I'm pretty sure one of them is literally a child who watched his criminal parents gunned down by police as they left the not-opera. Also, two strips less than a week apart I wonder if they're actually gonna do anything with the elven lands. I don't know much about D&D elves and they haven't been too prominent in the comic, so I'm unsure if they would gently caress with the Order too much?
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# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:53 |
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V might need to go to divorce court.
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# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:55 |
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Cabbit posted:Batman's a dour sadsack, Julio's a poor comparison. Tony Stark's much more his style, and most of his classic villains aren't really dark mirrors-- Mandarin in particular is nothing like the guy. Aside from comic Tony Stark being nothing like his movie counterpart, pretty much every single of his recurring villains is a guy in power amour.
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# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:56 |
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greatn posted:V might need to go to divorce court.
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# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:56 |
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I wonder what'll come of Roy and Elan planning to topple Tarquin? I suppose he might be resolved before the end of the comic (or even the end of the arc), but if he isn't it might make good epilogue fodder or even a post-OOTS book.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 00:00 |
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The Order of the Stick: Dads are the World's Biggest Problem.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 00:18 |
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e X posted:Aside from comic Tony Stark being nothing like his movie counterpart, pretty much every single of his recurring villains is a guy in power amour. Except, you know, Mandarin, Madame Masque, MODOK (I'm not counting the flying high-chair as 'armor'), Zeke Stane (a guy created explicitly to be a Stark mirror, so I don't know how you flubbed this one), Living Laser.. I mean, most of his reoccurring 'armor' villains are pretty lame and forgettable. Titanium Man? Crimson Dynamo?
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 00:18 |
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FMguru posted:V signed the papers, making the divorce uncontested, and there hasn't been enough downtime for V to rack up unpaid child support. ...not that V necessarily specifically told anyone that they divorced their partner and sold their soul to fiends. Which may or may not be relevant to the ability to pass through Elven airspace, depending on where Rich wants to take the story.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 00:19 |
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Combed Thunderclap posted:and sold their soul to fiends. Leased. He leased his soul to fiends.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 00:26 |
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Dolash posted:I wonder what'll come of Roy and Elan planning to topple Tarquin? I suppose he might be resolved before the end of the comic (or even the end of the arc), but if he isn't it might make good epilogue fodder or even a post-OOTS book. Pretty sure the title of this very comic is answering whether or not this will happen.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 00:47 |
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A.o.D. posted:Leased. He leased his soul to fiends. More of a timeshare, really.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 01:01 |
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B-lister. Heh. Bet the OOTS boards are up in arms about the sequel.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 01:13 |
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xiw posted:Pretty sure the title of this very comic is answering whether or not this will happen. It could also be referring to the title Elan thought up. As much as Rich is adamant about there only being two books remaining he could always and I feel he always reserves the right to change his mind, even if he himself right now thinks he does not. Though its possible Xykon is resolved in the next book while Elan's dad is for the book after?
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 01:22 |
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Raenir Salazar posted:Though its possible Xykon is resolved in the next book while Elan's dad is for the book after? Assuming we see absolutely nothing more of Tarquin this book, and assuming Sabine doesn't take her own revenge as a minor subplot in a later book, I wouldn't expect Elan's resolution of the EoB to be more than a panel or two in the epilogue of him leading his dad off in chains and shushing him while he complains that they didn't even show it.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 01:40 |
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I will be deeply surprised if Tarquin doesn't bull his way into the final confrontation, but that's me.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 01:45 |
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CapnAndy posted:I will be deeply surprised if Tarquin doesn't bull rush his way into the final confrontation, but that's me. Come on, it's still a D&D webcomic, even if it's also an up-its-own-rear end(in an amusing way) meta-narrative.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 01:50 |
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I have no problem with the Tarquin plot basically being resolved as "And Elan later overthrew Tarquin, but that's a story for another day."
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 01:51 |
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CapnAndy posted:I will be deeply surprised if Tarquin doesn't bull his way into the final confrontation, but that's me. But what is there to say about that that hasn't already been said? Elan beat his father on every conceivable level apart from actually taking down his empire (which would mean that he didn't actually beat his father, since that is what his father wanted).
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 02:09 |
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In order to be meaningful taking down Tarquin has to involve putting a just government in his place. In a land that has known nothing but a quick succession of warlords and bloody tyrants for generations. Elan either has to become king himself, or the Order takes over Tarquin's crew as the power behind the thrones to stabilize the region. Either way it will probably take the rest of their lives.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 02:25 |
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Combed Thunderclap posted:...not that V necessarily specifically told anyone that they divorced their partner and sold their soul to fiends. Which may or may not be relevant to the ability to pass through Elven airspace, depending on where Rich wants to take the story. Nah, V wouldn't get the elven airspace pass sorted; it'd be the Sapphire Guard.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 02:57 |
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CapnAndy posted:I will be deeply surprised if Tarquin doesn't bull his way into the final confrontation, but that's me. I'm fairly certain that Tarquin's squad is going to follow Ian to the final dungeon. Tarquin didn't seem too perturbed that Ian escaped, which could suggest that Ian has some sort of bug tracking on him - outside the traitorous friend, anyway. Tarquin's story may have finished for the most part but for such a competent rival adventuring party I find it hard to believe that the last we'll see of them is Miron and Laurin teleporting away to safety.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 03:31 |
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sebmojo posted:But what is there to say about that that hasn't already been said?
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 04:23 |
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Angela Christine posted:In order to be meaningful taking down Tarquin has to involve putting a just government in his place. In a land that has known nothing but a quick succession of warlords and bloody tyrants for generations. Elan either has to become king himself, or the Order takes over Tarquin's crew as the power behind the thrones to stabilize the region. Either way it will probably take the rest of their lives. It wouldn't surprise me, actually, if they end up installing the Sapphire refugees there instead of doing it themselves. The only reason Azure City is where it is was because of the Snarl, which is no longer a concern. and given that a major plot point over the course of the story is "Goblins were literally created so that people could kill them", I'd be very surprised if everyone just goes back to the status quo after all is said and done.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 05:37 |
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Ursine Asylum posted:It wouldn't surprise me, actually, if they end up installing the Sapphire refugees there instead of doing it themselves. The only reason Azure City is where it is was because of the Snarl, which is no longer a concern. and given that a major plot point over the course of the story is "Goblins were literally created so that people could kill them", I'd be very surprised if everyone just goes back to the status quo after all is said and done. I suspect the Sapphirites are right now putting down roots in their current location; it seems to be a pretty good place to settle.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 05:42 |
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Ursine Asylum posted:It wouldn't surprise me, actually, if they end up installing the Sapphire refugees there instead of doing it themselves. The only reason Azure City is where it is was because of the Snarl, which is no longer a concern. and given that a major plot point over the course of the story is "Goblins were literally created so that people could kill them", I'd be very surprised if everyone just goes back to the status quo after all is said and done. Isn't that a Start of Darkness spoiler? Do we mark those? I'm going to mark it just in case. Anyway, did we ever hear that story from a less biased source than (Book 0 spoilers) the propaganda info from the cloak made by a god whose name is literally "The Dark One"?
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 06:04 |
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Zogundar posted:Isn't that a Start of Darkness spoiler? Do we mark those? I'm going to mark it just in case. SoD: To be fair, that's a name he earned in life from his complexion. And a recurring theme in redcloak's story is that evil doesn't mean Evil, like Xykon, sometimes it has its reasons for doing terrible things.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 06:15 |
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Zogundar posted:Isn't that a Start of Darkness spoiler? Do we mark those? I'm going to mark it just in case. Possibly? I don't know if it's a spoiler anymore per se, since we get the lowdown on The Dark One's plan in OOTS proper, just not as much of the motivation behind it.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 07:00 |
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CapnAndy posted:Nothing, but if Tarquin's shown one defining trait over the last few comics, it's a total and complete inability to realize when the story is Not About Him. And that's why he's being left behind. The story is not about him. The story will not come back to him. That's the explicit message of this strip (in case you were blind to all nuance over the last couple of dozen pages).
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 11:19 |
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Alchenar posted:And that's why he's being left behind. The story is not about him. The story will not come back to him. That's the explicit message of this strip (in case you were blind to all nuance over the last couple of dozen pages). I think you're taking the meta-narrative bit too seriously when so much is left of the [i]actual/i] narrative. Laurin's favor, the rest of his team, the explicit mention in the latest strip all indicate that we're definitely going to see something else. I'm sure Tarquin will still be underminded and ultimately killed off in some satisfactory way, but this isn't "Poochie died on the way back to his home planet."
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 11:42 |
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Wolfsheim posted:...but this isn't "Poochie died on the way back to his home planet." I now know exactly how I want Tarquin's presence in the strip to be resolved.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 12:21 |
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I mean, they are making another pit stop in the god forsaken desert to pick up her dad, there's a nonzero chance he shows up again.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 13:04 |
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prefect posted:I now know exactly how I want Tarquin's presence in the strip to be resolved. I have a message. General Tarquin... his airship... was shot down... over the Great Barren Desert. It spun in... there were no survivors.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 14:35 |
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Honestly, I could see a one or two page epilogue to this arc where Tarquin gets shanked in the desert by Sabine and then dragged to hell or something. Hell, does he even have anything that can hurt her right now?
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 15:52 |
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Okay, Rich, we get it. Fathers are irrational about how they think the world works, are obsessed with their children playing important roles in making sure that the world works that way, and go crazy and destructive when those children take a different path. That's why Gene forced Roy to continue the quest to kill Xykon and won't stop bitching about how terrible a job his son is doing at it; why Tarquin tried to destroy the Order so that Elan would finally take the right role in what Tarquin's narrative is; and why Ian initially rejected Haley and Elan because they didn't share his paranoid fantasies. We get it. Please don't make us spend six months dealing with Ian Starshine just so you can make the point again.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 16:21 |
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Eschers Basement posted:Okay, Rich, we get it. Fathers are irrational about how they think the world works, are obsessed with their children playing important roles in making sure that the world works that way, and go crazy and destructive when those children take a different path. That's why Gene forced Roy to continue the quest to kill Xykon and won't stop bitching about how terrible a job his son is doing at it; why Tarquin tried to destroy the Order so that Elan would finally take the right role in what Tarquin's narrative is; and why Ian initially rejected Haley and Elan because they didn't share his paranoid fantasies.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 16:23 |
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At least Malack managed to instill the right values into Durkon.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 16:26 |
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Eschers Basement posted:Okay, Rich, we get it. Fathers are irrational about how they think the world works, are obsessed with their children playing important roles in making sure that the world works that way, and go crazy and destructive when those children take a different path. That's why Gene forced Roy to continue the quest to kill Xykon and won't stop bitching about how terrible a job his son is doing at it; why Tarquin tried to destroy the Order so that Elan would finally take the right role in what Tarquin's narrative is; and why Ian initially rejected Haley and Elan because they didn't share his paranoid fantasies. Guess what turns out to be the true relationship between the Snarl and the Gods.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 16:28 |
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The Leper Colon V posted:I'm just glad that there exists almost no possibility of Xykon's dad showing up. Ehhh, his angry ghost could show up only to get Rebuked away by an impatient and annoyed Redcloak as a gag.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 16:33 |
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# ? Apr 27, 2024 00:42 |
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Alchenar posted:Guess what turns out to be the true relationship between the Snarl and the Gods.
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# ? Jan 15, 2014 16:35 |