OotS 830

[lin_fusan]

I sat in on a talk by Scott Kurtz of PvP, and someone asked him about Order of the Stick and whether or not Rich Burlew's use of copy/paste stick figures devalued "real art".

I don't remember the specific quote, but pretty much Scott said that he could tell that Baker put time, effort, and thought into his webcomic, and it was not merely copy/cut/paste. That the use of the stick figures wasn't laziness but a deliberate artistic choice.

(Then he went on to bash xkcd.)

 

[Nifft]

Hot damn, that is one badass goblin.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Kickstarter thing yet. Perhaps it was in another OotS thread. Rich talked about it yesterday the main Giant in the Playground page. I figured this triple-sized comic was a thank you for almost funding the minimum needed. By now the minimum needed has been shattered, in like 24 hours.

I wonder if that sets a record for quickest funding of a project?

 

[TarionzCousin]

I laughed, I cried. Now I'm going to go fall down. Excuse me for a moment.

 

[WarlockLord]

Next PC: Evil goblin cleric.

 

[Henry]

I'm bummed. I really liked the psycho .

It's Redcloak I dislike, because he has no flaws. He's the "perfect" villain, which bugs me in a story, just like "mary sue" heroes.

 

[Rolflyn]

I wonder if that sets a record for quickest funding of a project?

I don't know, but he is at $89k now after maybe 36 hours and nearing his top tier of $96k. That tier he added after filling in his bottom tier in 12 hours.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm bummed. I really liked the psycho .

It's Redcloak I dislike, because he has no flaws. He's the "perfect" villain, which bugs me in a story, just like "mary sue" heroes.

I think Rich is playing Redcloak as the tragic anti-villain. However dispicable his means, he's the one villain in the story that has somewhat sympathetic motives. He just wants his people to have a better world where adventurers don't come along and kill them and take their stuff just because they are ugly. And, he's willing to sacrifice pretty much everything to get it. Frankly, I think his god is playing him about like he's playing Xykon, and that he's heading to tragic of an end as Tsukiko because like Tsukiko he has some basic flaws in his world view. Equally, I think he overestimates his chances against Xykon or for that matter overestimates Xykon's niavity. Unlike Tsukiko, I think that he's going to recognize his folly in the end, although, narrative tropes being what they are, he probably won't survive the revelation.

Redcloak's flaw is ultimately that he is a villain and he's sided with Xykon - even if he thinks he's going to win that game. He decided that the best path for his people was Team Evil, and I think he's going to live to regret that choice. He doesn't strike me as a 'mary sue' precisely because he so clearly is heading for disaster.

 

[lin_fusan]

Redcloak's flaw is ultimately that he is a villain and he's sided with Xykon - even if he thinks he's going to win that game. He decided that the best path for his people was Team Evil, and I think he's going to live to regret that choice. He doesn't strike me as a 'mary sue' precisely because he so clearly is heading for disaster.

Yeah, I think "Start of Darkness" really establishes Redcloak's motivation and sacrifices to show that he is going/has gone down the wrong path. His story arc is pretty much similar to Dr. Horrible in "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog".

 

[Dausuul]

Redcloak's flaw is ultimately that he is a villain and he's sided with Xykon - even if he thinks he's going to win that game. He decided that the best path for his people was Team Evil, and I think he's going to live to regret that choice. He doesn't strike me as a 'mary sue' precisely because he so clearly is heading for disaster.

Yeah, this is how I see it. Of course, my perspective is colored by having read "Start of Darkness," in which it is made very clear that Redcloak has made some huge mistakes, and he's playing a very dangerous game. He's already been burned, badly, for underestimating Xykon, and I think he is setting himself up to get burned again.