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SlothfulCobra posted:Incidentally, when I did my reread, I'm surprised at how many characters died for keeps in the comic. The Linear Guild kobolds, Shojo, Miko, Therkla, Kubota, Tsukiko, Crystal, Brainy Pete, black dragon mom, resistance mustache paladin, Malack, Nale, Bozzok, and Minrah, assuming she sticks with Valhalla when Durkon comes back. It never really bugged me as much as character death normally does in stories, since it's not gratuitous or gory. Most of the characters get proper death scenes too, it's seldom just offhand. The structure of an adventuring party focused story makes it easier to do. Essentially, since you rarely return to places or stories once you've done your arc in them, there's no barriers to wrapping up arcs with death. And since being an adventurer means you're characters are all comfortable with killing in various situations anyways, you rarely get moral dilemmas or situations where death wouldn't be in character of either the heroes or villains.
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Oct 22, 2018 19:05
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Regalingualius posted:And threatened to cut off the hand of his other son so he could make the arc into a Star Wars shout-out. But that was all for narrative structure!
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Oct 22, 2018 19:08
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If fingers were family then you might say that thumbs are the parents. You might even say that the right thumb is the dad finger. OOTS updates were delayed for months because of dad problem.
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Oct 22, 2018 19:16
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Soup du Jour posted:I’m pretty sure the worst thing Tarquin ever did as a father was murder his son Yeah. Which is, as far as fatherly acts goes, pretty bad, though also Nale was a terrible person and just finished murdering someone else (and bragging about it), so, like, as far as people who needed killing went, he was up there. But Nale wasn't an active threat and was entirely at Tarquin's mercy, so it was still unnecessary, and also Tarquin's even worse, so even ignoring the father-son angle it wasn't great.
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Oct 22, 2018 19:17
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As a father it is a pretty lovely thing to do, but I am glad someone was willing and able to put Nale down for good.
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Oct 22, 2018 19:21
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And he wasn't wrong about Nale's presence in the story having run its course. Edit: His final contribution will be as a man in a refrigerator to fuel Sabine's future angst and actions, which is a nice flip of the usual.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:04
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Ahaha, nice catch
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Oct 22, 2018 20:10
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SlothfulCobra posted:Incidentally, when I did my reread, I'm surprised at how many characters died for keeps in the comic. The Linear Guild kobolds, Shojo, Miko, Therkla, Kubota, Tsukiko, Crystal, Brainy Pete, black dragon mom, resistance mustache paladin, Malack, Nale, Bozzok, and Minrah, assuming she sticks with Valhalla when Durkon comes back. It never really bugged me as much as character death normally does in stories, since it's not gratuitous or gory. Most of the characters get proper death scenes too, it's seldom just offhand. A lot of death scenes are among the best strips Rich ever wrote. Personal off the top of my head ranking: 5) Kubota 4) Durkon (the first one) 3) Miko 2) Nale 1) Tsukiko
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Oct 22, 2018 20:27
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Android Blues posted:Right, but it's possible to have problems without having a bad dad. Why is Bad Dad so much more common than, for instance, Bad Mom? Typically, there's no Bad Mom because the mom is too busy being dead. There's a Bad Step-Mom instead. You can find good parents in fiction, but you'll never find good step-parents.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:27
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Honestly, I don't think we're going to see Tarquin again until, like, an epilogue maybe, and he'll be taken out by Ian and co following Elan's plan but without Elan being involved otherwise, to break Tarquin's story expectations and whatnot.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:28
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Roland Jones posted:Honestly, I don't think we're going to see Tarquin again until, like, an epilogue maybe, and he'll be taken out by Ian and co following Elan's plan but without Elan being involved otherwise, to break Tarquin's story expectations and whatnot. Oh yeah, but I think Tarquin will die knowing his wish was granted - Elan engineered his downfall - but in a way that makes Tarquins conception of how it was supposed to go irrelevant. Which I think would be Tarquins worst nightmare. To be meaningless.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:38
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Android Blues posted:Dad Bad, Character Traumatised is such a consistent theme of genre fiction that it's kind of fascinating. Like, what is causing this? Are dads, historically, unusually bad? Are the type of people who tend to write genre fiction also statistically more likely to have difficult relationships with their fathers? Anecdotally, it seems like a flawed or entirely absent father figure was a very common background feature of a lot of people I knew growing up. It might be as simple as just being common if you were born in the '70s or '80s.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:55
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Cat Mattress posted:Typically, there's no Bad Mom because the mom is too busy being dead. There's a Bad Step-Mom instead. You can find good parents in fiction, but you'll never find good step-parents. The Kents beg to differ 
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Oct 22, 2018 21:04
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Also O-Chul, and Durkon's entire extended family.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:08
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I guess Finn's stepdad was kind of a jerk someone's but seemed fairly nice
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Oct 22, 2018 21:08
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Al Borland Corpse posted:I guess Finn's stepdad was kind of a jerk someone's but seemed fairly nice I'm way behind on Adventure Time, evidently.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:40
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Tarquin really tried to give Nale a chance, but Nale just left him no other options. Nale didn't want a chance at an empire or a part in some grand scheme, he just wanted to hurt everyone around him and be free if the burden of his father's love, and Tarquin acquiesced. Then he cleaned up his mess rather than leave his allies to chase Nale down. Kind of the only choice left to him if he was going to pin his hopes for a legacy on Elan. Fuego Fish posted:I'm way behind on Adventure Time, evidently. I doubt it. The episode about that is in season 3. I thought it was only step-parentage if your parent remarries, not if you're just straight-up adopted.
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Oct 22, 2018 22:05
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Cat Mattress posted:You can find good parents in fiction, but you'll never find good step-parents. Stranger Things season 2. Real Good Step-dad Samwise Gamgee.
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Oct 22, 2018 22:22
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SlothfulCobra posted:Tarquin really tried to give Nale a chance, but Nale just left him no other options. Nale didn't want a chance at an empire or a part in some grand scheme, he just wanted to hurt everyone around him and be free if the burden of his father's love, and Tarquin acquiesced. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0913.html It was then Nale realised: when Tarquin said "As you wish," what he really meant was "I love you."
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Oct 22, 2018 22:26
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Brainamp posted:Stranger Things season 2. Real Good Step-dad Samwise Gamgee. He was a boyfriend but still #justiceforbob He was in the show longer than Barb, was a better character than Barb, and influenced the plot more than Barb but nobody cares about Bob 
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Oct 22, 2018 22:29
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McCloud posted:The Kents beg to differ Pretty sure there's a difference between Step-parent and Adopted parent; "step" is specifically the result of marrying someone with a kid. If either Ma or Pa Kent had died/split and the other remarried, I guarantee we'd be reading about Ultraman instead of Superman, and how Metropolis is now on fire.
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Oct 22, 2018 22:58
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I mean, Tarquin gave Nale every chance to live the life Tarquin wanted for him.
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Oct 22, 2018 23:04
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TheAceOfLungs posted:Pretty sure there's a difference between Step-parent and Adopted parent; "step" is specifically the result of marrying someone with a kid. If either Ma or Pa Kent had died/split and the other remarried, I guarantee we'd be reading about Ultraman instead of Superman, and how Metropolis is now on fire. Or we get Man of steel
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Oct 22, 2018 23:05
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TheAceOfLungs posted:Pretty sure there's a difference between Step-parent and Adopted parent; "step" is specifically the result of marrying someone with a kid. If either Ma or Pa Kent had died/split and the other remarried, I guarantee we'd be reading about Ultraman instead of Superman, and how Metropolis is now on fire. Oh, I'll play your game you rogue. How about the original Wasp (Janet) compared to the new Wasp (Hope.) But fiction has plenty of examples of a parent coming in and loving a child "as if they were there own." In many ways they are plenty of examples of Step Parents or ones who are functionally step parents, even if marriage isn't involved.
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Oct 22, 2018 23:06
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Fuego Fish posted:I'm way behind on Adventure Time, evidently. No I mean from like the first season. I can't remember his name, the dog dad. He was always setting up things for his boys to compete against each other and complex dungeons to teach them lessons and stuff.
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Oct 22, 2018 23:18
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Mikl posted:http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0913.html In retrospect, the most hosed up part is "OK, yeah, I did keep hinting I'd stand by and let him murder you, what's the big deal?"
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Oct 22, 2018 23:26
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hosed up from our perspective, but maybe that kind of thing is pretty standard in Evil adventuring parties?
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Oct 22, 2018 23:33
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Mikl posted:http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0913.html ... huh. Thanks for linking this, I just started progressing through the strips from this point as normal before I got to this one and realized something relevant to the most recent batch of strips (with Durkon, Minrah and Thor at the Graveyard of Worlds). The Graveyard for Worlds had all those monuments for all those previous worlds that had been destroyed by the Snarl, or by the Gods themselves before the Snarl could break free on its own. But that still doesn't explain the presence of the worlds we've seen inside the Rifts. Yes, we know that there are previous, multiple worlds that have been lost, but from the way Thor was talking about it, it was implied that when it happens, one way or the other, that everything is wiped out. So why is there at least one, possibly two or more worlds still inside the Rift with the Snarl?
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Oct 23, 2018 00:01
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Another thing I thought of: is it a coincidence that Tiamat is the only one of her pantheon that knows purple quiddity is real, and is the only evil deity shown interacting with the fiends?
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Oct 23, 2018 00:13
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FreeKillB posted:hosed up from our perspective, but maybe that kind of thing is pretty standard in Evil adventuring parties? Moral relativism for literal evil is a new one to me
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Oct 23, 2018 00:48
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Dr Pepper posted:I do, because I kind of feel like she was on the cusp of breaking through and actually starting to improve as a person. I mean, her last words are accepting compromise. She was starting to come around, but Roy basically told her to piss off right as she was opening up to his words, which is part of the tragedy. jng2058 posted:I presume one has to be a goblinoid divine caster to wear the Crimson Mantle...but you know what? Oona's a ranger, and almost certainly high enough level to have divine spells. If the Mantle boosts your spellcasting abilities, it might be possible that she's the one who ends up channeling some purple into the godly mix. What about Redcloak's niece? The Question IRL posted:I am using Knowledge: SA Forums to make you all want to go back to the last time this thread talked about mad builds. Do you remember the thread where people were talking about an exemplar smoking a bowl of weed then using balance on the smoke to bring everyone around him to tears? That cracked me up, but I've never been able to find it again. Cuntellectual fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 01:14
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wdarkk posted:Another thing I thought of: is it a coincidence that Tiamat is the only one of her pantheon that knows purple quiddity is real, and is the only evil deity shown interacting with the fiends? That'd be a wild twist, if they were actually trying to save the world with their meddling because they didn't want their plan to be interrupted by a reset.
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Oct 23, 2018 01:31
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Man, I forgot how brutal Tsukiko's death was. Like, holy crap.
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Oct 23, 2018 04:17
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, Tarquin gave Nale every chance to live the life Tarquin wanted for him. Nale could've just run away and lived on another continent. It's not like Tarquin was actively chasing him down, other than putting up wanted posters. Nale chose to come back and get involved in this. Because Nale's life revolved around Tarquin more than Tarquin's ever revolved around Nale.
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Oct 23, 2018 04:29
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Clarste posted:Nale could've just run away and lived on another continent. It's not like Tarquin was actively chasing him down, other than putting up wanted posters. Nale chose to come back and get involved in this. Because Nale's life revolved around Tarquin more than Tarquin's ever revolved around Nale. Nale was following Elan. As he was also interested in the gate stuff. He never intended to run into his father, but screwed up and got caught by him when he decided to ambush the Order at the Colosseum.
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Oct 23, 2018 05:03
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MonsterEnvy posted:Nale was following Elan. As he was also interested in the gate stuff. He never intended to run into his father, but screwed up and got caught by him when he decided to ambush the Order at the Colosseum. Ehhhhhh he was waiting behind him invisibly when he got caught, and he was in his father's city - I think you're probably right in that that's what he might have told himself, but Nale didn't act like someone who was that undercover.
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Oct 23, 2018 05:12
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Nale's problem is that he thought he was a PC.
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Oct 23, 2018 05:14
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I think that the main theme of OoTS is actually a rather simple one. "Why is somebody doing good or bad?" Pretty much every major arc and character is about why a person is doing the right thing, or doing the wrong thing. You have people who are "Good" out of a deluded sense of righteousness, people who do Evil for altruistic reasons. You have near paragons of good like O'chul and Durkon, petty psychopaths like Xykon and Belkar, and all sorts of people in between.
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Oct 23, 2018 06:04
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Bad reason, they treat people as tools: good reason, they treat people as people
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Oct 23, 2018 06:44
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Taciturn Tactician posted:That'd be a wild twist, if they were actually trying to save the world with their meddling because they didn't want their plan to be interrupted by a reset. That it would. I'm not entirely sure how it gels with them actively pursuing the destruction of Girard's Gate, but given that Odin delivered a vague prophecy specifically so Durkon would get tangled up in the Snarl plot and die honorably in time for Thor to spill all the beans, it's entirely possible that the Fiends are part of a similar scheme on Tiamat's part.
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Oct 23, 2018 07:44
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