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(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized lactose intolerance.)

It wasn’t that long ago that Belkar and Vaarsuvius hated each other probably more than any other two members of the Order of the Stick. And by “it wasn’t that long ago”, I mean “back when V’s domination of Yukyuk started“.

It’s one thing for them to suddenly be chumming it out like pals; quite another for this not to be a result of Belkar’s character development. If anything, Vaarsuvius is the one who seems to be backsliding on his own character development and showing decidedly amoral tendencies when the opportunity presents itself.

While I could chalk this up to bad writing, exacerbated by Rich’s pledge to post a strip every day until the pledge drive ends, I prefer to look at it three ways. One, what movement in morality Belkar may be undergoing is still decidedly cat-centered (this particular kobold gag comes in defense of his cat) and doesn’t necessarily indicate a shift in alignment. Anyone hoping for Belkar to become a goody-two-shoes before his death is likely to be sorely disappointed, though I still think what happened in the gladiatorial arena will ultimately prove to be the start of some sort of change in him. Two, this may be as much of a reflection of V’s character development as a contradiction, as he’s allowing himself to be the conduit for someone else’s revenge. As with Belkar, his alignment hasn’t changed, but maybe how that alignment expresses itself has.

Which brings me to the third angle: Belkar and Vaarsuvius were never all that different to begin with.  They are quite likely to be the only two non-Good members of the Order of the Stick, though Haley seems to have flirted with it. Both have shown their priorities to be to use their abilities and the situations they get into for personal gain, and both have been willing to do whatever it takes to get there, V more competently. Perhaps each of them saw a little bit of themselves reflected in the other, and utterly hated them for it. But all it ever needed to take was a slight shift in each of their viewpoints, a recognition of their teammates’ skills and how their own skills fit into that bigger picture, for them to become close, if somewhat warped, pals.

The flip side of that recognition, of course, is that when the OOTS is whole and not blindsided, at the moment they may be, more than at any other point in the comic, a force to be reckoned with.

As a relatively recent but what I would still consider “longtime” fan of The Order of the Stick (four years, since a little after the 500th comic), I wish I had something new to say about the astonishing success of Rich’s Kickstarter effort to reprint his compilation and prequel books, which has, within two weeks (with another three still to go), cracked the top ten of all projects in Kickstarter history, and become, by Rich’s reckoning, the most-funded non-tech-gizmo in Kickstarter history, let alone the top-funded comic project (that record was smashed over a week ago), funding the reprinting of every single one of the books, even those that weren’t out of print. (I will say that, while Kickstarter has attracted the attention of the webcomic community in the past for its potential to fund various projects, this drive has really snapped my attention to its potential.)

More than that success (which I’m pretty much numb to at this point), I’m dumbfounded at the level of media attention the whole thing has gotten – catching the attention of freaking Boing Boing, for Pete’s sake! Of course, beyond the added fuel it’s presumably giving the drive itself, it has the added effect of introducing people to the fascinating world of The Order of the Stick; I hope Rich can reward them by producing material on par with that that attracted me to the comic, and the start of the Kickstarter does seem to have coincided with events picking up considerably.

There is one interesting side effect, however. Last year, Rich decided to release a book reprinting the material he created for Dragon magazine back in the day, plus a few bonus side-stories. He announced that it would be a limited print run and would only be available through his online store. Which made sense, since after all, a lot of his longer-standing fans had already read the Dragon strips when they originally came out, and it wasn’t like any of it was canon anyway. Fast forward to now: Some people are clamoring for Rich to commit to reprinting this special book as well, but Rich has shut the door on that, since he did say this was going to be a one-time limited-edition printing, and he’s not going to go back on that promise because of a site that’s all about promises (you don’t want your pledges to be going towards, say, goofing off and working on a blog while blowing off actual schoolwork).

Just one problem: Most of the people who pledge towards the drive will be receiving a follow-up story to one of the new stories in that special book. Along with about five other new stories that will be canon. So, if you’re interested in collecting all of the canonical material, you’re also going to get a story you’d probably like the original context for, which would require picking up this special book.

Not that it’s a big deal, since apparently Rich feels confident there are enough copies to survive this drive and for some time thereafter (which proves the original reasoning right up to this point, though the special book seems to have gotten the short end of the stick in terms of its availability with other books among the pledge rewards), but it’s certainly food for thought.

(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized perfect crime.)

As with Homestuck, it takes a lot of doing for me to post on the same comic twice, and the previous strip certainly ranks high on the list of OOTS strips that would qualify if any did. In this case, after giving myself a day to think about it, I decided that after how SoD-heavy my last post was, I should write a post oriented more towards readers of the online comic. I also think I may have been too gobsmacked by the comic itself to think clearly about it.

For readers of the online comic, the main development from the previous strip, aside from the end of Tsukiko and the revelation of what the ritual actually does, is the more general revelation of Redcloak as the man behind the man. Honestly, though, even before SoD was published there’s been hints of this in the online comic, from Redcloak convincing Xykon to attack Azure City to his level of involvement in the battle planning there to convincing Xykon to stay in Azure City. In the previous book Redcloak even made clear that he and Xykon were not on the same side and that Xykon was little more than a “valuable ally”, which also backs up my contention in the previous post that Redcloak is more committed to the Plan than to Xykon himself. The previous post also explains why this isn’t quite the revelation it looks like it is (and I’ve had people try to tell me it’s even less of one than that).

Probably more stunning, and coming across as a revelation on the order of the “planet-within-the-planet“, is the revelation that the ritual doesn’t do anything near what Xykon thinks it does, that Redcloak has manipulated things down to the level of Xykon’s motivations and goals. By itself this revelation changes little, since Xykon doesn’t know about it, until the final battle (although one may be excused for wondering if it’s related to the “planet-within-the-planet”), but it does say a lot about Xykon, Redcloak, and the relationship between them, much of which is made apparent either in the strip or my previous post. It recontextualizes every strip with Xykon and Redcloak to know that even success for Xykon would accomplish what Redcloak wants, but not what Xykon wants.

Considering that the ritual in actuality neither destroys the world nor conquers it, it also defangs Team Evil a little as villains, even if their success would still cause some nasty consequences. In fact, this is a theory I’ve had in my head since having SoD spoilered for me, but knowing what the ritual actually does could actually open the door for Xykon and Redcloak to succeed at the final battle. Although Redcloak may not be mired in complete subservience to Xykon, he’s still tightly connected to him, and much of the comic and SoD has raised the possibility of a full split between the two being a fairly major event. Xykon discovering the ritual doesn’t do what he thinks it does, as has already been made clear, would certainly fit the bill, and he inevitably would find out if he were to be “successful”. One wonders if it constantly nags at the back of Redcloak’s mind what reaction Xykon would have to “success” at this point. (One problem with this theory: it turns the main villain from Xykon to the Dark One, however briefly, who I don’t think was even mentioned in the online comic until the third book… but what he doesn’t know about the “Snarl” could hurt him.)

It’s also worth noting the number of characters whose information about the Gates, past and future, comes primarily from Xykon and Redcloak. Nale picked up a lot of information about the Gates from Shojo, but makes clear that he intends to get the ritual out of Xykon or Redcloak somehow. They aren’t going to be any more successful, at least at this gate, but it’ll be interesting to see what the reaction will be out of either one of them if they even get close. Would Redcloak, for example, be more willing to divulge the arcane half of the ritual than we may once have thought he would, in hopes of grooming Nale to potentially replace Xykon?

Meanwhile, we now have some sense of what Redcloak’s plan for the phylactery is: to replace it with a fake. In some sense this actually helps Xykon, and certainly doesn’t help the OOTS, who could conceivably destroy the “phylactery” without actually destroying it. But the fact that Redcloak evidently wants to hide this plan from Xykon suggests he still has some ulterior motives…

(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized puppet strings.)

This comic would have warranted a post even considering all the knowledge already out there. For someone who hadn’t read the Start of Darkness prequel or any synopses of its events (a group that apparently includes Gary “Fleen” Tyrell)? I’d have to imagine they’d be in a stupor for days.

(There will be more minor SoD spoilers in this post, but I’m dispensing with the jump break because a good number of them are unspoilered in this comic, allowing me to talk around any details that are too spoilery.)

Let’s start with the fact that those who did read SoD might be confused at Redcloak’s effective claim to have always had a spine, which would render my last OOTS post moot. At the end of the previous comic, Tsukiko calls Redcloak “Wrong-Eye”, which is Xykon’s way of reminding him of his great failure at the end of that book that, he believes, effectively keeps him in line and subservient to him in perpetuity, and it seemed to work quite well earlier in this book. But here, Redcloak claims that he only ever allowed Tsukiko to get her way to avoid “upsetting the delicate balance between myself and Xykon”, implying that he has always been in complete control of the situation throughout the online comic. Which raises the question: do we need to reinterpret what happens at the end of SoD?

On one level, Redcloak doesn’t admit to any specific manipulation of Xykon here that wasn’t already covered in SoD, and which dates to the very beginning of their relationship. Not informing Xykon of the ritual’s true purpose has been a sort of passive manipulation; Redcloak could be a complete patsy of Xykon in the here and now, and Xykon’s actions would still be manipulated by Redcloak’s misinformation in the past. The “delicate puppet strings on which ‘Lord Xykon’ unknowingly dances” may well be as simple as Xykon continuing to go after the gates, convinced they will allow him to take over the world, in the first place.

On the other hand, Redcloak implies that it was never the “Wrong-Eye” comment that caused him to acquiesce to Tsukiko’s wishes, but merely maintaining his control over Xykon, letting Tsukiko control him rather than gain too much influence over Xykon. Although he may just be showing some bravado for Tsukiko’s benefit, it still suggests he’s not as broken up over the end of SoD as that ending makes us think.

The thing is, though, while the tragedy presented to us in Start of Darkness may not be the whole story, Redcloak may well still be mired deep within a tragedy of a different sort, one he may never escape from, one of loyalty not to Xykon, but to the Dark One. The Dark One has his plan to better the lives of goblinkind, divulged to non-SoD readers in this comic, but Redcloak has come up with an alternative, one that doesn’t involve the risk of the entire world being destroyed, and one that SoD readers may recognize as an improved version of what the Dark One himself engaged in in his former life, one of goblins seizing a piece of the world for themselves.

Tsukiko essentially warns Redcloak that killing her would lead Xykon to completely obliterate the fruits of that plan (and Redcloak’s life), and Redcloak seems resigned to that eventuality, noting that Xykon’s reaction would likely be the same to Tsukiko tattling on him. At least theoretically, there is an alternative, albeit a difficult one, one of all-out resistance to any attempt of Xykon to commit genocide on Gobbotopia, admittedly difficult considering Xykon’s epic-level status. On one level, that’s not going to happen because it would end the comic or at least Xykon’s (and Redcloak’s) status as its main villain. But on another level, for all that Redcloak may have doubts about the Dark One’s plan, he’s still willing to sacrifice everything for it. It’s especially tragic considering that the forums have speculated in the past that the Dark One hasn’t been completely honest even to his own high priest about the true goal of the Plan.

Perhaps it’s here that Redcloak is still affected by the end of SoD, rendering him unwilling to abandon the Plan under any circumstances lest his guilt for that ending overwhelm him, but unbeknownst to Xykon, still seeing him merely as a means to that end, one that can be replaced if he can find a powerful enough arcane spellcaster that he can control easier. Without getting too spoilery, there’s a bit towards the end of SoD where Redcloak’s brother voices his own concerns over the Dark One’s motives, and whether he really has the best interests of goblinkind at heart. Gobbotopia suggests those words have been nagging at Redcloak; his willingness to throw it away suggests they haven’t been enough to dissuade him.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s here that Redcloak’s recovery of the phylactery really comes into play. If Redcloak can save his life and that of the people of Gobbotopia with the threat of destroying or re-losing the phylactery, he might just be able to continue to have his cake and eat it too. Certainly if Redcloak still sees Xykon as a means to an end, he can at least bluff Xykon into staying in line as a last resort, and certainly it seems unlikely that Xykon would follow through with such a threat, if only because of how integral Redcloak himself is to the strip, although it would make it far easier for Hinjo and company to retake the city. One wonders if it was the recovery of the phylactery, as much as Tsukiko’s threat to unravel (no pun intended) the Plan, that allowed Redcloak to finally take matters into his own hands regarding Tsukiko (sort of).

I’d be remiss if I didn’t cover the end of Tsukiko’s story, as relatively bare-bones as that story was. For someone so delusional about the undead, it’s somewhat fitting for her to meet her end at the hands of the creatures she so adored. I might have preferred for her to become an undead herself, to find out how the other half lives, but Redcloak clearly couldn’t take that risk, as evident in his order for Tsukiko’s former “children” to devour each other. And while Rich presents us with four panels of Redcloak’s expressionless stare while Tsukiko gets slowly drained away, her vain, delusional attempts to appeal to those “children” as her worldview crumbles along with her are far more chilling than any actual depiction of her draining and dismemberment would be. (Although one wonders if having the wights kill her entirely, as opposed to, say, throwing her into the rift, may come back to bite Redcloak in the end if her spirit is still around to blab to any other interested parties…)

(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized crushing.)

Warning: This post will contain spoilers for the Order of the Stick prequel Start of Darkness. As such, we’re hiding it behind a jump break. This means the comic image will overflow past the post itself on the main blog page; I can only hope that the miscellaneous stuff at the bottom will keep it from screwing up the page layout too much (although I admit I forgot how huge the comic image can be compared to the text).

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