OOTS #980 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

But if I was being a passive-aggressive jerk or something, I might infer from this that you're not interested in ANY negative feedback or criticism. Any chance of getting clarification on that? Do you take fan complaints/criticism/feedback about your ongoing story and address them or use it to influence your writing process or reflect on your own abilities as a writer? Do you feel there's value in criticism, or is it all just "background radiation?"

I don't have time to write a fully formed answer, but the short version is:

In theory, criticism and feedback are valuable tools that can allow an author to gain perspective on his work and possibly address aspects about which he or she would never have considered on his or her own. In practice, there is always a group complaining about any given decision I make and another group praising it (and subsequently complaining about some other decision), such that there is always going to be someone unhappy about something. There are also deep tissue structural reasons for every single strip that appears, but most readers will never be aware of them, even after the fact. Put together, it is very difficult to take any reader-generated criticism seriously unless the critic is capable of putting together a detailed argument that actually manages to change my mind on the topic by addressing the concrete reasons I made those decisions in the first place—reasons which they can't even know about without spoiling the story for themselves. Dropping in to say, "This scene is pointless," neither addresses any possible reasons I may have had for including it nor outweighs the opinion of those readers who are enjoying it, so I dismiss it without further consideration.

An example: People complained about the New Year's Eve arc incessantly while it was happening, but it was utterly crucial for setting up the payoff of Elan kissing Haley for the first time, as well as Celia giving Roy the amulet so that she could show up again when Roy died. It also led directly to the V vs. Belkar prank war, which allowed me to inject some humor-driven strips into the next few scenes. So anyone complaining that the New Year's Eve scene wasn't funny enough and I should get back to the jokes (a more common complaint in that day than now) was in fact arguing against the tool by which I intended to give myself a new set-up for jokes.

[MReav]

a request that I replace the main cast with talking purple ostriches playing badminton.

Now I want to see that.

Whether it's a temporary hallucination caused by a mental whammy or just an April Fool's Day joke, don't care which.

[Jasdoif]

Sentient undead have to be "killed" before they can be raised/resurrected. I don't know if it is specified anywhere, but i would assume the same applies to a sentient golem.

Resurrecting someone from part of a flesh golem, regardless of its intelligence, isn't going to work unless that golem is destroyed. Resurrection is a Conjuration (Healing) spell, and conjuration spells fail to bring a creature into being inside another creature (such overlapping a living body with a golem incorporating the remains from which the living body would be made).

[137beth]

Me too, I like purple ostriches!

[pendell]

Well that clarifies the point of disagreement on terms, then. Grubwiggler didn't just get offered a big reward, and turn it down. He was being offered tens of thousands of gold, from someone he personally knew had it, to save the life of someone five feet away, with spells and/or items he very likely had. And, if he didn't see Haley, with very little risk involved. To me, that counts as evil. A neutral person would have done it, since he clearly didn't hate Bozzok enough to, say, kill Bozzok thorugh direct action. Which he almost certainly could have done.

I can't agree. If it was ANY person on the street I'd agree with you. But this is Bozzok. Bozzok, the head of organized crime in the city Grubwiggler lives in. Bozzak, who, if memory serves, has already had him killed once.

Not everybody is an epic-level PC class who can simply confront any enemy and neutralize them. SOMETIMES you're a low-level NPC confronted by a criminal boss whom you cannot outfight, bribe, or run away from.

In which case , the neutral course of action is to play along, pay the protection money until you get that one chance to be free. Then you take it.

I think that's what happened here -- I think Grubbwiggler had no love for Bozzok to begin with, and played along because it was bringing him both money and satisfaction of his curiosity. But when the opportunity came to replace Bozzok with, say, Hank the halfling, Grubbwiggler took it.

I'm not going to argue Grubbwiggler's alignment because I don't have enough data. Nor am I going to argue whether this action is definitively neutral or evil. But I would argue that it is, at the very least, not unequivocally evil. Abandoning the organized crime boss who has already killed you once could reasonably be considered a form of self defense.

ETA: Also, there is every reason to believe this fight was a no-win for Grubbwiggler and he knew it. So he wouldn't be culpable for fleeing -- only for not taking Bozzak with him.

E AGAIN to add; Purple ostriches? Yes!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Landis963]

Bye Bozzok, you won't be missed. And no, I have no sympathies for Bozzok in the slightest, nor does his fate make me queasy. (It probably would if I could smell it, but that's a different kind of queasy).

[Dracarot]

I don't know if anybody else caught this but Grubwiggler mentioned continuing his magical research, what probabilities do people want to give that he'll try and investigate the remaining gate as well. Consider in guessing your probability he also wants to be lfet alone and interfering with a major quest device is no way to do that.

I'll personally give it a 1/8 chance he'll try and investigate the gate.

[Psyren]

Now, what will Crystal do?

Join the Order!

Nah, she'll probably say "hang this life" and take a permanent vacation from golem-dom.

[Jasdoif]

I don't know if anybody else caught this but Grubwiggler mentioned continuing his magical research, what probabilities do people want to give that he'll try and investigate the remaining gate as well. Consider in guessing your probability he also wants to be lfet alone and interfering with a major quest device is no way to do that.

I'll personally give it a 1/8 chance he'll try and investigate the gate.

I'm going to tentatively put odds at....1/314160, given that I have no reason to believe Grubwiggler even knows the Gates exist to be investigated, much less where the last one is to investigate it.

[The Pilgrim]

Well, hooray for wrapping up loose secondary story arcs!

Additionally, not only we have got ridden of Bozzok. This is also the last time we'll heard about Bozzak. So a two for one!

[kivzirrum]

I can't agree. If it was ANY person on the street I'd agree with you. But this is Bozzok. Bozzok, the head of organized crime in the city Grubwiggler lives in. Bozzak, who, if memory serves, has already had him killed once.

Technically, Bozzok did not have Grubwiggler killed. As he alludes to earlier in the current scene, that was an indiscretion of Crystal's--killing Bozzok was never part of their plan.

[Crusher]

Half-orc pudding: a dish best served with one's fists.

[Breccia]

I can't agree. If it was ANY person on the street I'd agree with you. But this is Bozzok. Bozzok, the head of organized crime in the city Grubwiggler lives in. Bozzak, who, if memory serves, has already had him killed once.

Yeah, but he also had him raised once. That counts for something.

Not everybody is an epic-level PC class who can simply confront any enemy and neutralize them. SOMETIMES you're a low-level NPC confronted by a criminal boss whom you cannot outfight, bribe, or run away from.

In which case , the neutral course of action is to play along, pay the protection money until you get that one chance to be free. Then you take it.

I'm not sure how much this applies. Firstly, Grubwiggler must be fairly high level to make flesh and bone golems. And, he has flesh and bone golems. His combat ability is only poor if he allows it to be. Secondly, I don't see anything in Bozzok's history, or his crew's history, that would suggest that Grubwiggler couldn't relocate out of town safely. Bozzok's guild seems to treat protection money like a pretty standard contract, with protection revoked for nompayment. There's nothing to suggest he'd have people, who live in another area he doesn't control, hunted down and killed when they've paid their bills before they left (Haley didn't). Thirdly, as I mentioned before, I'm convinced Grubwiggler had plenty of options to off Bozzok, possibly even untraceably, if he wanted. This includes intentionally teleporting to the wrong location, for example, a locked basement filled with angry golems controlled by Grubwiggler. Or a volcano. He could have easily come back, said that Crystal Meth golem killed Bozzok, and be done with it. I mean, that's what he's more or less going to have to do now, anyhow, right? Only difference is that it's true this time. Grubwiggler was definitely not a prisoner here.

But I would argue that it is, at the very least, not unequivocally evil.

I'm with you on that one. I think I simply put it further down on the Evil-O-Meter than you do (down is more evil) but it's nowhere near the most evil thing anyone's done. Nor am I going to take a stab at Grubwiggler's alignment, as a single action rarely defines it.

Also, there is every reason to believe this fight was a no-win for Grubbwiggler and he knew it.

Well I disagree there, too. If Grubwiggler, a high-level wizard who specifically deals with golems, doesn't have spells and/or magic items, specifically for the purpose of dealing with golems, onhand on a regular basis, he's an idiot. If he didn't have them for this exact situation, a situation where he knew the golem was uncontrollable and he didn't know what that would do, he's terminally stupid. Again, I don't see that level of stupidity reflected in his words or deeds. He seemed pretty calm during the fight in which a lightning-charged Crystal, screaming YOU DID THIS TO ME, was literally ten feet away in a closed environment while looking in his direction. He chose to monologue (basically) for at least four rounds, rather than panic and immediately flee. Which is what I would have done. I probably would have been shrieking like Toad on Mario Kart, too. He's packing anti-golem heat, I'm sure of it.

Or he saw Haley. Wizard vs. Rogue rarely ends well for the wizard, more to the point this wizard.

[Tundar]

Haha, love how Grubbler bugs out. And truely he was correct, Bozzok isn't nearly as clever as he thought he was. A clever person would have had some way of talking down crystal, but his attempts only made her madder! Oh Bozzok, you will be missed... briefly.

My thoughts exactly.

Haley did it the clever way, Bozzok quite the opposite.


Also: Poof goes the magic knife/sword. That was alot of hardness going down.

[Doug Lampert]

Is there some kind of rule in the comic that magical creatures made of dead things have to turn on their masters now?

It's in the general genre fiction rules, right next to "if time travel then the Nazis win". [Warning, TV tropes link.]

[Anarion]

This strip felt surprisingly brutal. Bozzak got his deserved death, betrayed through his poor policies, and Crystal just broke down completely into a berserker rage that ends with the repeated hate. That's powerful stuff.

I'm curious to see what happens to Crystal Golem now. I feel like just killing her would be cruel, despite the fact that she inflicted so much damage and killed a bunch of gnomes.

[Emanick]

Well, Hank's probably content to cut the guild's losses and not go chasing after her. He's the self-interested but not evil flavour of TN. Also, the rest of the thieves' guild - whoever wasn't killed - knows better than to think they can take their chances with Haley and come out on top. Especially after this incident with Crystal.

Besides, I don't think Hank even dislikes Haley. He's attracted to her and he's always been courteous in his interactions with her. He doesn't seem the grudge-holding type, and he probably doesn't particularly blame Haley for slaughtering half the Guild, since he and the rest of the higher-ups were the ones who initiated the violence.

He'll probably spend the rest of his tenure as New Guild Leader silently grateful to her for having, in effect, given him his position.

[EvilJames]

Well it looks like this story is over. Now we can get to the next story.

Fixed that for you. Obviously. Stories get boring if the characters can't grow and use that growth.

[Amphiox]

Good grief.
Actually, we've already had that twice now. First, Kubota, when Vaarsuvius killed him via Disintegrate because he was just a filler villain clogging up the narrative (which he absolutely had coming) and second with Nale. Good grief, Nale, what did you think he was going to do after you killed his best friend, boasted about it straight to his face and rejected his last-minute offer to reconcile? Getting permanently killed was a fitting punishment just for being that stupid, in addition to all his other villainous deeds.

I wouldn't put Kubota's demise as one directly provoked by his own stupidity. He didn't taunt V, he taunted Élan, and he was right that Elan wouldn't kill him. He had no idea V was even there and could never have rationally anticipated that V would do what she did.

Regarding Nale, I am reminded of an exchange in Kill Bill between the titular character and the Bride which ends with her saying something along the lines "I knew what you were and what you were capable of doing, I just never dreamed that you could do it to ME." In the end Nale still thought of Tarquin as a father, and he never imagined that his father would kill him.

Of course both characters were wrong, but I don't think, given the narrative and emotional structure of those relationships as presented, that it crosses the line into egregious stupidity for either of them.

That happens when you roll a 1 on a Diplomacy check, Bozzok

Anyway, now it will be either Hank or Blue Dragon Mob Boss running Greysky, I suppose.


Indeed. Except for Vaarsuvius, they have yet to permanently stop anyone at least moderately important.

I don't think that Good heroes SHOULD be too flippant in stopping any secondary villains permanently. Both for ethical and narrative reasons, a decision by a good hero permanently stop a villain should be one of some import, requiring gravity and reflection, and thus should be rare in a narrative, so that it gets the attention that it deserves.

The badminton-playing purple ostrich thing sounds cool.

Joking aside, I understand the reaction of those looking for more movement in the main plot, but I LOVE the directions OOTS has taken and the gradual shifts in tone. The overarching tone reminds me a bit of the late Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, which started as a one-note parody of standard fantasy tropes and, over the years, grew into something else.

I also VERY much like the way Haley solved the problem of Crystal and Bozzak without resorting to violence herself; it's nice to see a problem be solved without punching/stabbing/shooting it to death.

But... This problem WAS solved by punching someone to death!

No matter what the rules might say, you cannot burn down a stone golem. I'm putting my foot down on that one.

Depends on both the intensity of the fire and the type of stone.

Even among nonflammable stones, many will become very brittle if heated extensively in a fire. Or have microfissures within them expanded by the heat evaporating water within them. Using fire to make rock brittle so you could smash it after with a light tap was a common method of quarrying in the age before explosives.

Now I want to see that.

Whether it's a temporary hallucination caused by a mental whammy or just an April Fool's Day joke, don't care which.

Purple ostriches playing badminton is just the type of illusion Elan might dream up to cast!

I don't know if anybody else caught this but Grubwiggler mentioned continuing his magical research, what probabilities do people want to give that he'll try and investigate the remaining gate as well. Consider in guessing your probability he also wants to be lfet alone and interfering with a major quest device is no way to do that.

I'll personally give it a 1/8 chance he'll try and investigate the gate.

If he does though, he'd be rapidly moving out of his weight class in power, knowledge and level, and one would not expect him to last very long if he tried.

Is there some kind of rule in the comic that magical creatures made of dead things have to turn on their masters now?

"turning on the master" was the primary theme of the very first Golem story ever known. It's become a pretty ingrained part of the archetype. Besides, it taps a very rich vein of narrative themes, from the true nature of sentience, the issue of free will, the morality of slavery, the limits of ownership, the responsibilities associated with being a creator, the duties if any owed by the creator to the creation and vice versa, and so forth.

(most robot fiction is also a technological repackaging of the golem story, too)




I am a little surprised at how quickly Bozzok went down. A rather pitiful end for a level 19+ character (thematically deserved!). Even if rogues are just that fragile, it seemed like he took fewer hits to go cross eyed than Haley managed to absorb. (I suppose it is reasonable to presume that Haley imbibed potions off screen during the combat)

[EvilJames]

But that's the rub, isn't it? This is a conflict that focuses on Haley's past and how she deals with the unresolved issues from her past with the thieve's guild. Which would be a good story to tell and a great way to showcase her character development if not for the fact that Haley already resolved this conflict with these exact same characters. She defeated her vindictive old boss, personally killed her nemesis, and the entire conflict with the rest of the thieve's guild was ended in a negotiated peace. There is literally no new ground being being explored with Bozzak and Crystal, Round 3.

Except the the very end of that story specifically showed the conflict with the thieves guild not ending in a peace treaty exactly because Haley killed Crystal.

If the story had just proceeded from the arrival in Gnome City to the plot events that are going to occur after this subplot, would the story have been diminished in any meaningful way? Would us jerks on the Internet be going, "Well Haley never really dealt with Bozzak and Crystal so that's a plot thread Rich never tied up."

Yes people would be saying she never dealt with Bozzak, since at the end of the last story we saw that there was more to deal with, with Bozzak.

You aren't required to like everything the author does, but a little tact does go a long way.

Edit: Late to the party as always.

[Commander672]

Best we call the rest of the Order...and the Mechane's crew...and the Army before Crystal runs out of corpse to mutilate.

[konradknox]

Well, that escalated quickly.

[Draz74]

Man, if the Giant's next planned project is purple ostriches playing badminton, then this "in passing" comment was absolutely the best possible way EVER to get his fanbase enthusiastic about it.

I have little doubt that Grubwiggler IS evil, regardless of what you think of his actions here. He's a creepy golem-hoarding wizard who is prominent in a very evil city. He weaseled Roy's body away from Celia in a rather criminal way -- even if it was the agreement she made in a technical sense. He then threatened to take her life by force when she attempted to renege on this "deal."

As for Crystal's future ... I kinda feel like the most appropriate end would be for her never to leave that room. The gnomes board it up, she sits in there for centuries beating what's left of Bozzok's body (or what she imagines remains). Gradually she morphs into some kind of haunting undead spirit, maybe a spectre. There she waits to be the object of some other adventuring party's adventure.

"turning on the master" was the primary theme of the very first Golem story ever known. It's become a pretty ingrained part of the archetype. Besides, it taps a very rich vein of narrative themes, from the true nature of sentience, the issue of free will, the morality of slavery, the limits of ownership, the responsibilities associated with being a creator, the duties if any owed by the creator to the creation and vice versa, and so forth.

(most robot fiction is also a technological repackaging of the golem story, too)

What's "the very first Golem story ever known"?? (It's certainly not Frankenstein ... The word "golem" comes from a Hebrew myth or folk tale. I don't know how old that one is, but I'm guessing it's newer than Thalos, the bronze-golem guardian of Crete from ancient Greek mythology. But I don't remember him turning on his master -- the Minotaur did that for him, IIRC.)

I am a little surprised at how quickly Bozzok went down. A rather pitiful end for a level 19+ character (thematically deserved!). Even if rogues are just that fragile, it seemed like he took fewer hits to go cross eyed than Haley managed to absorb. (I suppose it is reasonable to presume that Haley imbibed potions off screen during the combat)

Well, she hits a LOT harder after she gets charged up with electricity ... maybe she only hit Haley once or twice after that?

[Thunder'sFall]

I don't have time to write a fully formed answer, but the short version is:

In theory, criticism and feedback are valuable tools that can allow an author to gain perspective on his work and possibly address aspects about which he or she would never have considered on his or her own. In practice, there is always a group complaining about any given decision I make and another group praising it (and subsequently complaining about some other decision), such that there is always going to be someone unhappy about something. There are also deep tissue structural reasons for every single strip that appears, but most readers will never be aware of them, even after the fact. Put together, it is very difficult to take any reader-generated criticism seriously unless the critic is capable of putting together a detailed argument that actually manages to change my mind on the topic by addressing the concrete reasons I made those decisions in the first place—reasons which they can't even know about without spoiling the story for themselves. Dropping in to say, "This scene is pointless," neither addresses any possible reasons I may have had for including it nor outweighs the opinion of those readers who are enjoying it, so I dismiss it without further consideration.

An example: People complained about the New Year's Eve arc incessantly while it was happening, but it was utterly crucial for setting up the payoff of Elan kissing Haley for the first time, as well as Celia giving Roy the amulet so that she could show up again when Roy died. It also led directly to the V vs. Belkar prank war, which allowed me to inject some humor-driven strips into the next few scenes. So anyone complaining that the New Year's Eve scene wasn't funny enough and I should get back to the jokes (a more common complaint in that day than now) was in fact arguing against the tool by which I intended to give myself a new set-up for jokes.

Works for me. /shrug If we don't know the full extent of the narrative purpose behind a strip, we can't really offer reliable criticism or come up with an idea of what comes next.

[Metahuman1]

Fatality. Crystal Wins. Flawless Victory.

[woweedd]

Is it strange I found the sight of Bozzok getting killed incredibly satisfying?

[Ralanr]

Is it strange I found the sight of Bozzok getting killed incredibly satisfying?

Not at all.

Pride comes before the fall. Seeing the prideful fall is usually satisfying.

Seriously what was he thinking? She broke his weapon. Either he thought he could snap her out of it with words, or just gave up on being manipulative. Little of both maybe.

2 half-orcs down. 1 missing.

[Elenna]

And...apparently Bozzok thinks the best way to deal with a minion turning on him is to insult that minion more. I guess Charisma was his dump stat?
Brutal, yes, but I think Bozzok pretty much got what he deserved.

Also, yay purple ostriches!

[Mad Humanist]

.......and there is literally zero chance that I am in any way going to take such requests under consideration. They are just background radiation at this point and have as much chance of meaningfully impacting the story as would a request that I replace the main cast with talking purple ostriches playing badminton.

Okay, it's a really really great comic and absolutely my favorite story of all time. But please could we just have one "talking purple ostrich playing badminton" some time before the end of the comic.

[gerryq]

I have little doubt that Grubwiggler IS evil, regardless of what you think of his actions here. He's a creepy golem-hoarding wizard who is prominent in a very evil city. He weaseled Roy's body away from Celia in a rather criminal way -- even if it was the agreement she made in a technical sense. He then threatened to take her life by force when she attempted to renege on this "deal."

Exactly. He seems a pretty typical Lawful Evil type.