Headscratchers / 8-Bit Theater

8-Bit Theater

• What is it with Black Mages hand and hat colour in panel 5 of this strip?
  • That's just the color for the old world map sprites. The ones used in the majority of the comic are for battle.
• Why does Black Mage seem to find Fighter's contract with Thief to be binding? He didn't sign it, and Fighter has no legal authority to sign for him. Plus he's evil.
  • It was stated once that Black Mage had given Fighter his power of attorney (Sorry I can't remember which strip, I'll try and look it up again)
  • I live to serve.
    • But he is still evil. It's just a piece of paper, and he's committed far worse crimes than breach of contract. So why doesn't he just burn or outright ignore it?
    • Maybe he's Lawful Evil?!
    • Oh, wait. I've found something else. Thief doesn't even have legal contracts anymore, because BM tore em up. Here's the proof.
    • Thief forged a set of replacement contracts. In the same strip.
    • Forgeries are legal now?
    • In the Elf country, yes!
  • Were BM to leave the party and walk somewhere else, Fighter would follow. Faced with their meat shield walking off, expect RM and Thief to follow. BM's only realistic chance of ditching the party is if they're forcibly separated so quickly Fighter doesn't know where to look (and the one time this did happen, Black Mage wasn't exactly in a hurry to rejoin the party... it happened by accident).
    • So the others might follow, I just want to know why would BM listen to Thief? He has proven he can take out all the other Light Warriors with his knives. Without White Mage, they would have died. So why doesn't he do that again?
    • He appreciates having meatshields. Whilst still working for Sarda there's no way for him to ditch the whole Light Warriors thing, and since he's *got* to adventure, he might as well keep the rest of the party between him and danger. There was also the strip where BM tried to sacrifice the party to Sarda, of course, but likewise this was before he knew Sarda was going to foist more quests on them.
    • But he no longer is a member of the Light Warriors, since he replaced Drizz'l and has since became the leader of the Dark Warriors. Why doesn't he just kill the Light Warriors now?I know he already tried to cause the Chaos Shrine to kill everyone but Cleric stopped him.
    • He's trying to kill everyone else. All the time. It's just not working.
    • Seriously, most of the time he isn't spending being stupid or cowardly he spends trying to kill them. He even succeeds numerous times, only to have them brought back. He even refuses to cast feather fall to save his own life because he would rather all four of them die.
  • Another thing about the contracts, now that all of Thief's lawninja are dead, what is stopping Black Mage from violating the contract and simply declaring himself leader and killing any that objected? Thief has pretty much lost any ability to enforce them.
    • The meatshield point above. He already knows that Fighter is Fighter/RM's choice for Thief's replacement when he steps down. If he tried to kill any who objected, he'd run out of party pretty quickly. And still be going on Sarda's suicide quests.
    • Are you sure about that? The last time that Thief stepped down and RM and Fighter elected Fighter the leader, BM became leader through a military coup.
    • That was the point. BM knows he'll have to use force on the party to keep control, and that this may lead to, say, Fighter being stuck singing the Spider-Man song in times of great trouble. Or without the use of Thief or Red Mage's legs. And you have to admit, it seems pretty futile to expect RM to handle the healing.
  • The answer, of course, is that Black Mage is a moron. I thought this was laid out quite explicitly by the fact that, well, he's a moron.
  • BM mentions after Lich's defeat that he wants to keep the group together if only to inflict as much suffering as possible on the others. Also, after working for Sarda for a while, he starts to develop a mild You Can't Fight Fate attitude, along with various degrees of Medium Awareness, probably realizing he can't kill them or ditch them until a particularly climatic moment. He waits to switch sides with Ur's cultists because doomsday cultists about to summon an Eldritch Abomination fits the bill well enough. He switches sides with Muffin because a fight with a dragon in a flying castle that could easily be a Very Definitely Final Dungeon fits the bill well enough (not to mention the air orb was the last on the list).
• Since Thief robs from him all the time, why doesn't Black Mage just use a Hadoken on him and his other teammates, since he wants them all dead?
  • He's tried a few times, but it never works, much to his chagrin.
  • Also, did you not read the entire page above your question?
• How can Red Mage use his bluffing die roll to bluff about what he got as a die roll?
  • That's the joke.
  • As skill rolls are free actions by nature, he could just have made bluff checks over and over until he got a high enough result to bluff the result and his prior rolls.
    • Wait, since when has doing a skill check, especially for a social skill, been a free action? Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone obligingly stood there for a couple of hours of repeated bluffing (technically not possible unless the GM says so, but that's not the sort of thing to stop RM) until he finally got it after saying the same thing 20 times.
• Why does Black Mage not simply get himself killed to return to hell and seize power again? If he defeated it's original inhabitants, defeating the demons again + the four fiends ought not to be beyond the dead him's power.
  • A dark god is preventing him from dying.
  • Also, Black Mage is a murder machine of epic proportions. Purposely getting himself killed would therefore be considered a great act of mercy upon the world, possibly getting him into Heaven. Who the heck wants to take over that place?
  • He's tried. He just has a terrible track record with killing Light Warriors in general, due to poor knife skills and even worse aim.
• Why are so many tropers scratching their heads about so much stuff? All of this can be covered by the Rule of Funny; which the author actively uses.
  • Oh, and Black Mage is an idiot - wait, that's not relevant at all.
• If Thief has an entire squadron of elite law ninja, then why doesn't he use them more often for situations where they're useful?
  • They're dead.
  • And the 800+ comics before that?
    • They can only intervene when someone violates the law. That's the reason why Thief had to establish that Lich's use of the Earth Orb was a severe environmental abuse.
• Here's one: When you're actually reading one of the comics, the page heading on your browser reads "Nuklear Power - Home of 8-Bit Theatre". Anywhere else on the site, it will use the American spelling, "Theater", and any place on the site where the title is written, it is written as "Theater". The fact that the title of the comic and the comic itself will never be on-screen at the same time only makes this weirder.
  • Fear not my head-scratching acquaintance, the new site revamp eliminated that problem.
• Why did Black Mage neglect to destroy Corneria? King Steve is a known idiot, the sort which frustrates Black Mage to no ends.
  • He's afraid of invoking Evil Princess Sara's wrath, not that he'll ever admit it.
    • Does he have any real reason to fear Sara, though? His only extended contact with her consisted of him nearly successfully bluffing her into letting them go before Fighter spouted off about his once a day limit. He was out cold for her murdering the giant, too.
  • It has been established that BM is lazy and that King Steve is destroying Corneria with his incompetence. BM probably doesn't want to waste extra effort (and his once a day spells) destroying a kingdom he believes is doomed.
  • BM is not a mindless murderer. He's a sadist. In every situation he does the cruelest possible thing he can do. And it's crueler to leave them with King Steve.
• Isn't Lich going to be just a little bit pissed that Drizz'l tried to kill his son?
  • He doesn't necessarily know yet.
• From when in the future did Thief steal his job class upgrade?
  • Now.
• OK, so we now know that Sarda is Onion Kid, and the entire plot was an elaborate revenge scheme. This, however, makes even less sense than usual. Why in the world would Sarda send the Light Warriors all over the world on insane quests, when he knows that it was during these quests, that the Light Warriors encountered and murdered his many, many parents? Did he not realize he was creating a Stable Time Loop?
  • A variation on the Grandfather Paradox. Its quite clear that the deaths of the Onion Kid's parents and the like led to his eventual rise in power. Sarda is just making sure he becomes who he eventually will become. Besides, quite a bit of the stuff that happened to the Onion Kid happened before they met him in the first place.
    • Actually, the latest comic explains it: He allowed them to get stronger just so when the time came, he could hurt them more. Makes sense, in typical 8-Bit Theater fashion.
    • According to Sarda (who really should know) the 8-bit Theater universe works according to the "one self-consistent timeline" model of time travel, so events couldn't have gone any other way.
    • The real answear is that Sarda is also a selfish spiteful bastard, who lived solely to get revenge on BM and doesn't care who he allows to get hurt in the process. Fits with what he said to Bikke when he threw the orb at him
    • It's because it's based of the original Final Fantasy where Chaos does exactly this.
• If Red Mage believes he's in a tabletop RPG, then why did he report a bug in this strip?
  • Because he's insane.
  • Sometimes he believes he's in a tabletop RPG, sometimes he believes he's in a MMORPG, sometimes he believes he's in a RTSG... heck, sometimes he even reasons like he's in a Final Fantasy game, go figure!
• So, what was up with that scene where Black Mage stabs the elemental fiends to death and takes their power? BM's stabbing NEVER works.
  • Correction: BM's stabbing never works on Fighter. There are a few exceptions, but generally it's Rule of Funny, Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, or WM heals/resurrects them. BM's good at stabbing... he just can't stab people who shouldn't die according to the universal time stream.
  • Plus, there are all those countless peasants, guards, and other nameless yokels that he messily slaughters all the time. And the inbred mind-flayer lookalike cult.
• Remember, there are no plotholes. If you've found one, you're wrong.
• Why steal the Real Light Warriors' weapons instead of conning them into risking their lives fighting Chaos? They'd do it.
  • Could be because Thief and the others would rather have the measure of security that godly weapons would give them, rather than remaining entirely defenseless. Plus, you don't think Thief wants to cash in on whatever fame saving the world would give him?
    • OK, con the RLW into fighting Chaos and then use that amnesia dust on them and claim to have beaten Chaos themselves. Problem solved.
    • You're asking for common sense from the Light Warriors? What?
    • All those stabwounds to the head made you forget that "amnesia dust" never works.
  • Chaos wasn't just going to kill them, he was going to destroy the world. Sending the real Light Warriors would only mean that their fate would be entirely out of their control.
  • Red Mage would despise the idea of letting another group fight the final battle against the great evil. If not because it doesn't make narrative sense, then because he'd be out the XP for it. Thief, meanwhile, doesn't trust anyone but himself to not screw everything up, and the idea of stealing somebody else's gear to get more powerful is a lot more appealing than letting them fight and take the glory. (And treasure.) Fighter, of course, lacks ambition, and Black Mage defaults to the plan that results in more suffering.
• In the early strips when the Light Warriors are sleeping in a hotel, why doesn't Black Mage just murder Thief in his sleep and have White Mage join them in his place (after disposing of the body, of course)? He has no use for him and he really wants an empty spot on the team for White Mage, and for BM, Murder Is the Best Solution. If asked, say that Thief just quit and left in the middle of the night (RM and Fighter aren't nearly smart enough to put it together). After all, they genuinely thought that Thief was helping the pirates.
  • Because Black Mage is a moron. For heaven's sake, this is a wizard who deliberately walks backward to a town because he's too lazy to actually turn around. Black Mage is an idiot.
    • Seconded. Also, Black Mage is none too bright as well when it comes to White Mage. It wouldn't last.
• So in the strip where Sarda reveals his evil plan,he says that he'll be doing the universe a favor by destroying the light warriors (except fighter, who is a casualty). But wait a minute. Thief is a greedy bastard that makes Daffy Duck look like a humanitarian. Black Mage is a being created to bring about the apocalypse, murders people on a regular basis, and actually took over hell for a while. Fighter is a generally nice guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. But what about Red Mage? Most of the time he's grouped in with Thief and B.M. as personifications of evil, but he doesn't seem like a bad guy. Very stupid and overly egotistical, yes, but I wouldn't say he's evil. He seems the want to help people, even if it's only for the Exp.
  • How many times has he engaged in unethical animal husbandry, get-rich-quick schemes, that one time he helped to murder and replace an entire town's police force to extort the town for protection...
  • Also, as you said, Sarda was doing the universe a favour by killing them. Red Mage may not be actively malicious, but him being dead would certainly improve life for the universe in general.
  • Plus he continues to hang around with the Light Warriors and come up with schemes that further their plans. He might be more amoral than actively evil, but given the company he keeps... nah. He's a terrible person who willingly stays with even more terrible people.
  • Also, sometime after he absorbed the datasphere, he stated an intent to dethrone the gods and start the world over. That probably counts as evil.
  • Red Mage seems to be based half on a stats-obsessed min-max player, and half on the "murder-hobo" type of tabletop player: the player who is only interested in fighting and killing everything in sight (enemy, NPC, or otherwise), looting the bodies, looting their homes, and selling whatever he can't equip before moving on to the next area.
• In the epilogue, how is the Legitimate Business Man still alive? I distinctly remember him being beaten to death with burning law ninja corpses.
  • Technically, the last time we saw him before epilogue he had 10 HP left, so he wasn't dead. (Though admittedly, he would still have to survive this explosion two strips later.)
    • This is Final Fantasy, and there are revive spells.
    • It seems pretty unlikely that this is the case - otherwise, White Mage's angst about Black Belt would be utterly pointless, since he's a simple LIF 1 away from being back in the game (even if the body was too destroyed during the Kary Incident, his stoned time-clone's body looked pretty reparable). Yeah, we see Red Mage cast it, but we're discussing Red Mage here. White Mage even spelled out that her white magic isn't identical to the Final Fantasy version during the Hurt/Onrac arc, saying that it just restores order, and that if it made things 'better' there'd be no pain or death or bad things, ever. Presumably, once someone's dead, their natural state is being dead and all the white magic in the world won't change that.
    • "I can't do this! He's in pieces!" Resurrection spells don't necessarily work like True Resurrection in D&D. If you don't have enough parts of a person or the brain's been damaged too much or any other number of issues at play with Black Belt's death, then the attempt might very well just fail. Sarda's resurrections don't count, of course.
• If White Mage could use the influence of her Order to prop up the Dark Warriors as the saviours of the world... what was stopping her from using their influence to tell the truth that it was her and her White Mage companions that defeated Chaos in the first place?
  • Moreover, the Dark Warriors previously launched a full-scale political campaign against the Light Warriors. You'd think impersonating the Light Warriors afterwards would be kind of hard. People don't pay attention to politics these days.
    • In 8-bit Theater, very few people posess more than one brain cell.
  • White mage was part of a "secret cabal of healers," mentioned in the early comics. Revealing the WM group as the heroes would likely go against the whole "secret" thing.
  • Well, firstly, it was even more galling to supplant BM with Garland than it would have been to take the credit herself. Secondly, when the inevitable sequel rolls around (I mean in FF terms, not in webcomic terms), the new archvillain's first move will be to vaporize the guys who saved the world from the previous archvillain. Better to have chumps take that bullet for you.
  • That, and White Mage wasn't thinking straight at the time. All she saw was the unfairness that the Light Warriors, who were the biggest threats to the happiness and safety of the world, were about to be given (or take) all the credit for killing Chaos and saving the world. When Garland and his buddies happened to run into her, she hit on the idea of making it look like they were the heroes. She did eventually regret the action, as three years later, she set out on behalf of the Council of White Mages to find the Light Warriors to recognize them for their efforts leading to the prophecy being fulfilled.
• You may or may not agree with this, but I've always wondered why Princess Sara just didn't plan on dethroning her father, King Steve? Let's face it, the guy is an absolute idiot, he's not popular as a ruler at all in his kingdom, his advisor has a legitimate reason to believe that the king's insane and people would rather die than to put up with his inane rule. Now Princess Sara, there's someone who's clearly on the ball, she may be a reasonable person, she can think of many good plans and is very qualified to be a much better ruler than her father overall. Sometimes, it makes you wonder how Corneria would be like if Princess Sara was in charge.
  • Have you ever wondered why Thief thinks that King Steve is the greatest criminal mind in the world, and exactly where Sara got her evil from?
• How did the Orb of Air end up in the sky castle after being stolen by the Other Warriors?
  • Those idiots? They probably believed an empty cup of coffee held the essence of the Orb of Air and the scaled barrista they got it from was completely legit.
  • The comic hints that they stole it, but it never testifies that they did - they may have searched for it and found nothing.
• Elves in this universe are pretty close to immortal, and Thief's father wasn't sick anymore after the quest with Astos. So how did Thief end up as king of Elfland?
  • Close to, but not. Just because they do not age does not mean that they can't die. Now consider that in elfland, all castle advisors are evil viziers, There have been multiple wars, and at least half the population is a scheming bastard. Do the math.
  • And don't forget that Thief himself is one of the most scheming bastards in the world. He probably set something up to discredit and dethrone his father so he could take over.

---