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Fridge Brilliance

  • Why is Klik the page navigation icons? Because you "Klik" on him to proceed!
  • Dies Horribly lived in fear his whole life because of his name. But his name wasn't related to his being doomed. His name was a trigger, designed so that when he met the demoness he would volunteer, be eaten ... and in doing so destroy her.
  • The reason Kin can't figure out which key to grab is because the writing that tells you which key to grab was on the ceiling which is where they were looking from, so she couldn't have seen it. And the reason Minmax can't figure it out either is not immediately obvious. Minmax uses Intelligence as his Dump Stat, but then he could just read the riddle aloud and let the others figure it out. Except Minmax exchanged the ability to read for a bonus.
  • Throughout the story, Minmax reveals a number of stat trades he did that are, frankly, impossible (and lampshaded at times). One wonders, why would a GM put up with such an insufferable munchkin, let alone humor him. Look at Minmax's character growth over the course of the comic. It actually seems he's played by a master role player who specifically took up the role of a munchkin and purposefully played up how messed up such a single-minded person would be, then worked to give him character development. Minmax's player and Herbert have probably played games before, and Herbert would have been somewhat aware of what his player could do with such a character, hence the allowing of such patently silly, well, Min-Maxing.
  • Kore's philosophy is that even spending a small amount of time with monsters is enough to make someone evil. Consider how much time he's spent killing them.
  • Biscuit says that Roak orcs don't even hesitate upon losing something valuable to them. He also says that the clan is the absolute most important thing ever. When he finds out all the other Roaks have died, he says "meh." The fact that he had ANY REACTION AT ALL proves how much value he placed in his clan.
  • Also regarding Biscuit: In one strip he says that his Fluffy the Terrible name comes from his favorite food as a child. In another he says that as part of their training in stoicism, all Roak orcs have their favorite thing taken away from them so that they learn how to cope with loss. This could well be the Roak clan's naming convention: naming them after the thing that was confiscated as a constant reminder of it.
  • Possibly also Fridge Horror or Fridge Hooray depending on how you look at it: We now know that there are multiple Prissans, but then a demon tells Big-Ears the thing in the first ax is "pure", and that the first Prissan is a hammer. Suddenly one of the alternate realities from the Maze of Many whose adventuring party we never got to see could potentially have been brought up as plot-relevant Foreshadowing instead of just more filler Evil Twin examples, if the angel sealed into "the Hammer of Jale" from reality 207 was sealed into the first Prissan in reality 156.
  • Minmax might be dumb, but sometimes he has genuinely smart ideas. How? All his skills are combat-oriented. As a result, the only thing he can think through is how to win a fight. Notably, all the bright moments, no exceptions, are battle strategies.
  • From a purely logical perspective, evil currently being on the winning side of the battle between good and evil makes sense. Being evil is easy. It's the expedient path, it's the simple path. Being good take effort and it's all to easy to slip into evil from it, even if unknowingly. All beings are naturally inclined to take the easy way out if they can. Thus, the odds ultimately favor evil, despite how ultimately self defeating it is.
  • Kore's curse is brilliant in it's scope. Kore created the Axe of Prissan because the Sacred cursed him, which will eventually allow the Sacred into reality. It needs to be wielded by Paladins to give the Sacred a snack, but the other Paladins are just incidental. The notable thing about the curse is Kore's Black-and-White Insanity. This ensures that any being that could possibly be a threat to the Sacred in this reality will be killed by Kore. Plus, while Kore is obviously intended to be the meal for the Sacred, the fact that every soul that Kore kills is absorbed by him means that it's not just one measly Paladin soul on offer. Potentially, Kore could have millions of souls contained within him by the time the Sacred reached the reality the comic is set. Kore himself is merely the start of the buffet line for the Sacred.
  • Why, when he learns about Kin being trapped in Brassmoon, and thus dead, can't Minmax counter this even though he is the very reason Kin no longer has trouble with Goblinslayer and just calls Ears a liar? He is an idiot, so he can't reason very well with others, Ears didn't mention it's Dellyn's fault, and Minmax also probably doesn't know the right insult would be hypocrite.
  • Thaco explains here that their teller needs to be able to guide the clan without direct leadership, understanding each goblin as a person to help them grow and improve. These are the reasons he gives for why Vorpal wouldn't make a good teller. The thing is, Vorpal's guided them in that way since the very beginning—he was the one who inspired them to become adventurers, and even helped each member of the party figure out what class suited them best!

Fridge Horror

  • The sheer fact that the human and dwarven characters are so Ax-Crazy. What is Kore's personality in real life? Or Goblinslayer?
  • Complains being ostracized for breaking the rules and using the weapons in the poorly locked chest becomes this when you realize that in all realities where he didn't do so and Minmax got in the chest first, there is no Goblin Adventure Party because Minmax wins.
  • There are almost certainly Greater Finger Horrors somewhere. Otherwise the thing wouldn't have been called a Lesser one. Let's hope it isn't "lesser/greater" as in Worm That Walks...
  • The backstory of Mr Fingers involves a farmer making a Deal with the Devil to cure his son of nightmares. Now consider that in relation to what we learn about deals with demons in this strip. Not only did that deal unleash the kid's nightmares upon the world, but the farmer is probably undergoing the same And I Must Scream fate as the demoness' pet orc.
    • Also, considering the backstory for this thing, it'd make far more sense for it to be an Outsider (being from another plane) or Aberration (bizarre monster), but it's considered Undead instead. Best not to think too hard as to why that may be the case...
  • K'seliss brings up the fact that for lizardfolk eating, fighting, and mating are practically the same thing. So using this logic, that means that in addition to the Body Horror, that Mr. Fingers, by eating parts of K'seliss, technically raped him. Of course, if that's the case, he gave as good as he got.
  • Evil is winning. They are just words Kin says at first, but then you think about it and it is terrifying. On the other hand, shortly afterwards, the protagonists end up in a deathtrap, while some Obviously Evil alt versions of them are in the next room, dealing with the exact same trap. The Good party communicate (mostly) calmly, and work together to get out alive. The Evil party shout at each other, interrupting each other's train of thought, getting mad at each other instead of thinking, and their Kin only figures out how the trap works just as it's about to kill them. Evil may be winning, but Good definitely has an advantage.
  • Biscuit has been the only person to recognize Klik for what it is, and mentions that his tribe used to catch them and put them in magical cages. We first met Klik in one of said cages(Sold as a "bowling ball in a bird cage"). Biscuit himself is over 600 years old, and his tribe was wiped out 200 years ago. Just how long was Klik trapped? No wonder he became so friendly and loyal to Dies Horribly and Saves a Fox
  • When Kore catches up to the Goblin Adventuring Party, he catches them completely by surprise. Despite Big Ears being a paladin who can detect evil. Kore isn't just a Paladin who keeps his powers despite being evil, he's a Paladin who somehow remains good despite committing monstrous acts!
  • Back on Kore, there are many theories as to how he retains his Paladin powers despite performing evil acts ... but a truly terrifying one is that whatever good-aligned deity that Kore worships actually agrees with Kore's mindset.
  • Yeah, Minmax's dispatching of his Psion counterpart was awesome and all, but... now his counterpart is on the loose in his own world, with an even tougher body than before. Think about it...
  • When Psionic Minmax accidentally caused parts of the Maze of Many to fall into oblivion, there were probably a lot of alternate reality versions of themselves who fell into them and were deleted from existence. Additionally, when Minmax caused Psionic Minmax to win, it caused his version of Forgath and Kin to stay dead. Although, it appears that Psionic Minmax's psionic gears are capable of restoring anything deleted by Oblivion (eg when Forgath got his beard back) - including Kin's necklace.
  • Kore's battle cry. "All evil, even potential evil must be destroyed." That means the death and soul consumption of every sentient being in the realm, and a few non-sentient items (in the D&D manuals, it is possible for artifacts to be "evil" despite lacking sentience). Should Kore ever get his hands on the Axe of Prissan, be prepared to kiss the realms goodbye.
    • Rest assured that Kore knows what the deal with the axe is and won't dare to destroy his own creation.
  • Ward, of the cursed party. It goes to show that when Kliks eat magic items, they take on the properties of said item. The Axe of Prissan is made of metal. Kliks eat metal. Considering that the Axe of Prissan is a soul jar for an immortal, nigh-invulnerable demon/devil capable of single-handedly destroying the realm, what do you suppose would happen if one of the Kliks saw the Axe of Prissan and thought it looked tasty? Made worse here. Since the Axe of Prissan is a shape-shifting item by the rules of the realm, its magical abilities could warp whatever Klik ate it into a horror, like Evil Klik. So the realm would have not one nigh-unstoppable horror to deal with, but two, and at the same time!
  • Forgath is now about half made up of grafts made by some of Klik's kin. Given what happened to Dies Horribly, are we sure we can trust Forgath to keep himself under control? Yup. But here's some new horror: Klik wasn't an adult. He might even have been a child by the standards of his species. And he died in agony.
  • Going back to Klik, perhaps "death" was the preffered outcome as we learn that corruption effects for them are contagious with a simple scratch. If Klik hadn't turned to ash, Dies would have had to deal with two corrupted Kliks, one of which he'd have to bleed on to defeat.

Fridge Logic

On the headscratchers page.

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