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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Fighter a naive idiot with occasional sparks of genius, or is he a brilliant mastermind lulling everyone into a false sense of security? Strangely enough, offered by Fighter himself. Further supported here. (The Socratic Method is a method in which you ask questions and debate to get answers instead of just finding someone who knows. Also could reference the well-known Socrates quote, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.") Oh, and here.
    • "You realize of course this means Fighter is the smartest."
    • Further evidenced here where Fighter displays a surprising grasp of physics.
  • Garland is another instance of this, as are the Forest Imps.
• Anvils That Needed To Be Dropped: It was a 2001 strip, and White Mage really did make it better.
• Arc Fatigue: The most recent arc, which spent several months of what was essentially one continuous conflict which kept changing, then spent about 4 months on the Light Warriors screwing around to try and gain levels to face the final opponent. It then becomes clear this was completely intentional to make the ending all the more anticlimactic.
• Archive Panic: 1,224 comics. Have fun.
• Crazy Awesome: A majority of the cast. The main characters are defined by this trait. However, special mention goes to Ranger, a supporting cast member. Ultra special mention: Sarda is probably the god of crazy awesome, as shown by the two strips immediately after the above example:
• Crosses the Line Twice: And doesn't even ''try'' to stop there.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: King Steve is one of the most popular characters in the strip.
• Funny Moments: Has its own page.
• Genius Bonus: The LaGrange Terrace joke in this strip. For those unfamiliar, Lagrangian points are the five locations in space where a small object can be in stationary orbit relative to two larger celestial bodies (such as a planet and its sun).
• God Mode Sue: Sarda, though its Played for Laughs, and it works.
• Heartwarming Moments: Has its own page.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The vampire from the game is replaced with an Emo Teen who says no one understands him. This was years before the Twilight craze, although caricatures of Anne Rice's work did often make them look like this.
  • Older Than They Think: Vilbert's a stereotype of Vampire The Masquerade LARP enthusiasts.
  • Obviously Evil Sharp-Dressed (considering the graphics) Cool Old Magnificent Bastard responsible for his own Start of Darkness manipulating the heroes... Hello, Xehanort!
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Black Mage, partly due to never being able to succeed at anything.
  • Sarda.
  • Thief stealing his class change from the future recently came back to bite him.
• Magnificent Bastard: Thief managing to trick a trickster god.
  • That comic also falls under You Just Told Me.
  • Clevinger himself for setting up plot points years in advance, such as this strip, which was set up five years prior.
    • Nothing, however, tops the aptly named "Longest Set-Up in Webcomic History".
  • Thief's actually been called a magnificent bastard in-universe.
• Memetic Mutation: "I am the Black Mage! I casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"
  • "I like swords."
• Moment Of Awesome: See the MOA page.
• Moral Event Horizon: Black Mage finally crosses this shortly after he becomes evil incarnate in the Temple of Fiends.
  • Before that there was his plan to either get White Mage drunk and then rape her, or - if the thing he bought was paint thinner rather than liquor (not that he cared) - make her drink it anyway and then rape her corpse. Thief and Red Mage treated this as his MEH in-universe.
    Thief: You know she could die if she drinks this.
    Black Mage: The way I see it, the body takes a while to cool. So, either way, I get what I want.
    Red Mage: That... may be the worst thing you've ever said.
  • Red Mage's infamous chocobo experiments were his crossing of the MEH. Even Black Mage was horrified.
    • And when the living embodiment of evil is sickened by you, you know you have done something seriously wrong. See for yourself.
  • King Steve in what may be the most disturbing clothing ever. ...EVER!
• Nightmare Fuel: DON'T LOOK AT ME!
• Older than You Think: Many concepts which some believe originated in 8-Bit Theater are actually much older, and appeared because Brian Clevinger was part of Final Fantasy Fandom. For instance: the Black Mage being non-human (this came from Final Fantasy IX and there are clues to this effect as far back as Final Fantasy III), White Mage being a woman (this was a common perception among fans), and the grouping of four White Mages defeating Chaos (winning the game with this party is an old test of mettle for players).
• Squick: Witch-dragon relationship, "animal husbandry", most of the killings... you pick.
  • One of Red Mage's plans involved him watching chocobos mate for a few hours; when asked by Black Mage why he had to watch, he replied: Oh, I never said I had to.
  • Also, the cultists' "tea parties" take the cake.
  • The whole Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong thing with that eye monster and Red Mage.
  • What Black Mage does with the dead body of his doppelganger. See Screw Yourself on the main page.
• Tear Jerker: The death of Black Belt. As seen here.

  Black Belt: Life is funny. You start out with limitless potential, but time is always shaving away the possibilities. Every choice you make is the choice not to do a thousand other things. What’s important when all is said and done is that you made a difference. Your choices and everything undone, have to mean something. Otherwise, what was the point? I’m lucky that way. My path was already there. I had only to walk it. I often thought even if no one knew of the good I had done with my life, it didn’t matter. That it was done is all that counts in the end. But Then I died.

  White Mage: Black Belt?

  Black Belt: And I hadn’t gotten to do any of it yet.

• Weird Al Effect: Some of the things that people believe to be true about Final Fantasy I is stuff that was invented by Clevinger rather than things that were inherent in the original game, such as Fighters being dim, Black Mages being sarcastic, White Mages being women, etc.
• The Woobie: White Mage.