The Millstone / Webcomics

The Millstone in Webcomics.

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• 8-Bit Theater, providing the current page quote, has Black Mage. Though all the Light Warriors can fill this role, Black Mage's total lack of interest in their objectives, proclivity for pointless violence, extremely bad record with making use of his amazing power, and status as a Squishy Wizard mean that he is the one most likely to derail a plan, whether he intended to or not. His biggest one is probably being the character most responsible for the creation of Sarda.
• Anecdote of Error: Atshi Sonel, the main character, is this due to her hopelessness with magic. Despite her being the first to fight back against Zeya during the invasion, she is still the same Un-Sorcerer in danger of flunking out of school she was earlier that day, so when her attack backfires, it weakens the locked door enough for Zeya to escape to her targeted room in spite of bringing a knife to an arrintay fight. The MacGuffin is this close to falling into Alemi hands, so Atshi is less than useless.
• Gordon Frohman from Concerned is a bonafide hindrance. He is a Black Shirt of the highest order who wants to eagerly assist the occupiers, that is the Combine. Unfortunately, his actions is a step-by-step disaster for the Combine and he unintentionally aided the resistance in scoring victories against them. It's a miracle that he isn't shipped off to Nova Prospekt despite his antics.
• Darths & Droids: Jim causes pretty much all of the story's plot through his unthinking stupidity, but by Episode V he takes it to extremes. Then it turns out he's deliberately playing Han as an idiot, and later on a treacherous idiot to boot. The others just didn't notice because it's Jim. Through the Rogue One story, he actively goes out of his way to sabotage perfectly sensible plans because they're sensible, which is what leads to the story's Total Party Kill.
• Dungeons & Doodles: Tales from the Tables: Kiruto goes out of his way to be as unhelpful to the party as possible because "It's what my character would do!" Eventually, both the party and the DM get sick of his shit, and Angela gains a Paladin level after Smiting him out of sheer spite.
  Kiruto's ghost: It's not fair! How can she even Smite?? She's not even a Paladin!
  DM: You know what? Just for you... I'll allow it.
• In Escape the Night, only a handful of players are genuinely useful, with most standing idly by. A few of them, however, create more problems for the team then they solve. Sierra spends the first episode complaining about everything, which distracted her teammates who were trying to help, then she starts to intervene with their task by telling them they’re doing it wrong, when the group was finally making some progress into the right direction. Matt and Lele’s constant bickering also slows the team down on several occasions and prevents them from working as a team. Lauren can’t participate in anything physical due to her dress and Destorm is constantly provoking his teammates and ditching them in their moments of need. Destorm is a bit more justified, since he’s actively trying to betray the team and Roi keeps getting himself captured, which means the team has to constantly save him, costing valuable time and effort. The biggest example has to be Teala, who gets captured like Roi, is constantly panicking when under stress and takes her time making simple decisions. It hasn’t made her popular with the rest of The Team, or the fans for that matter.
• Eridan from Homestuck is significantly less helpful to the trolls and kids than he thinks he is. He continually provokes allies, tries to keep the worst parts of their dead civilization alive, kills the angels on his planet in spite of it being difficult and yielding no reward, tries to do everything himself even though the whole point of Sburb is for the players to work together, and constantly hits on people to the point of turning off Equius of all people. His abrasiveness and refusal to help others culminates in an unnecessary duel with Sollux that blinds the latter and leads to Eridan murdering Feferi and Kanaya. Kanaya gets better, but Eridan also destroys the matriorb: the linchpin in the trolls reviving their race.
  • The Post-Scratch Kids play with this, especially Jane and Jake. They both have the most powerful abilities among the kids — healing more powerful than any other Life hero shown thus far and the ability to make anything imaginable real by believing in it — but spend a good amount of their session having Teen Drama. Even when Jake's powers are tapped to the fullest, his constant shouting of "corny old man" stock phrases makes him more of a minor nuisance than an asset.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Villainous, borderline example: Rich's commentary tells us that Nale often needs Thog because of his sheer power, but his stupidity foils his plans half the time.
  • Originally, Roy considered Elan to be this, and when the latter was kidnapped, Roy was hesitant to go and save him. However, he later decided abandoning him would be a jerk move and goes to rescue him. Elan eventually Took a Level in Badass in a class that lets him use his Genre Savvy more efficiently, though he still occasionally had his moments. Combined with (modestly) improved Int, several new skills and spells, and with better ability to use his existing ones, he has become a valuable Face and a reasonable asset in a fight.
  • The real Millstone of the Order is certainly Belkar. His sociopathy and frequent refusal to listen to orders ruin the party's planning several times — If it weren't for Belkar, would Miko have reported an imminent hobgoblin invasion in time to prevent it, or would she still have slain the leader while he was conspiring with the apparent allies of those invaders? If he hadn't pursued Miko to torment her over his childish grudge, would Azure City not have fallen and Soon's Gate remain intact? The consequences catch up to him, hard, when the Oracle tricks him into triggering his Mark of Justice - something Lord Shojo gave him to stop him from stabbing everything in sight. This was such a blatant example that Haley kicks him out, with only a bout of Laser-Guided Amnesia causing her to forget it - when she realises what he must have done, she leaves him to suffer from the illness. After a Vision Quest, fake character development, and then some real Character Development, he seems to be growing out of it.

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