The Order of the Stick

I got the feeling that the strip was suggesting that some kind of Split-Personality Takeover or Split-Personality Merge happens once the evil aborbs all the memories. Or at least I hope so.

I mean I don't want it to happen to Durkon, but that would make sense given how Malack does seem to think of the Shaman as an aspect of himself and when he claims That Man Is Dead, seems to be talking in the usual, figurative sense of the phrase.

If it turns out (through the illustration of Durkon's case) that "Malack" was just the evil spirit who took over the Shaman's body (what a tweest!) I will not be pleased.

edited 7th Apr '14 1:54:18 PM by Hodor

I like that idea. It also gives time pressure for the group to save Durkon.

I third (fourth?) liking Roy's new look, but I'm a bit surprised that neither he nor Durkon's full sets of armor appear to include gauntlets.

Probably because then his hands would look like forks.

Belkar finally gets the drop on Durkula and slays him. Roy catches him in the finally moments, kills him and chucks his body where it can't be retrieved. He rezzes Durkon who explains the good that Belkar did in slaying him, sending Roy into a depression for the mistake he made.

Alternatively, Roy kills Belkar before he can finish the job.

Looking back at the strip where Malack exposits the Durkon as well as the one where Malack talks about his brothers, I think I owe Burlew an apology.

Malack really does clearly state an identification with the Shaman of the past- so clearly that I don't think there's reason to fear a From a Certain Point of View twist that diminishes Malack's character.

In fact, the way in the second strip Malack speaks of "that dim other life so long past" strikes me as supporting the idea that the evil spirit ends up merging with the soul of the person they possess, and comes to believe that the soul's memories are their own.

And I can also see in Malack's case a likely explanation of how the corruption of the soul works- the evil spirit initially does stuff that are averse to how the person they possess would act and no doubt horrifies the soul trapped in And I Must Scream (i.e. making the Shaman kill his own brothers), but then after the merge, the resulting being is comfortable with those actions because the base personality has been overwritten by the evil spirit (and vice versa).

I wonder if Vampirism in OOTS works the same as Buffyverse? When a human turns into a vampire, the demon soul enters the corpse and it imitates the person who was bitten.

... Somehow, I didn't notice the change in the art-style until it was pointed out here. However, now that I have noticed it, I rather like it, especially in the representation of armour and other clothing.

As to Durkon, on my first reading I took the evil spirit's mention of how the process "usually" runs to indicate that this was in fact how vampires usually work in Order of the Stick, but looking again I'm now unsure—as someone else here pointed out, I think, the spirit could simply be talking about how possession usually runs.

Finally, it occurs to me that the spirit seems rather angry when declaring to Durkon that the latter was wasting his time in attempting to stall, which prompts me to suspect that it may—somehow—not be quite as futile as it seems.

Yeah, when the villain angrily declares that your efforts to resist are futile so you should just stop them forever right now, you are probably on the right track.

I'm still running with the theory that the possession thing is non-standard, but rather the way by which Malack's spell for circumventing the "three days in the grave" rule works: it reanimates the corpse by temporarily placing an evil spirit in it, basically just keeping the body warm, so to speak, until the normal process can be undertaken and the original soul takes possession back. Hel saw a chance when this happened and inserted a spirit from her realm instead of Nergal's, and because Malack died and thus set Durkula free before he could undergo the standard ritual, the spirit has remained in control.

I do like that theory a lot.

Basically, what's happening to Durkon has to be justified in light of what we learned of from Malack, and my concern was that Burlew was going for an explanation that Malack was just lying and was an evil spirit as opposed to the original person.

Looking back at the earlier strips, Malack so clearly identifies with the original person, that he at least seems to think he was the Shaman in the past.

So, either Durkon's circumstances are different, or else something happens in the process that merges the evil spirit and the host soul.

Maybe in the process of merging, the spirit is convinced that it is the original host. I dunno, is there any D&D effect that can forcibly change a character's alignment?

Helm of Opposite alignment. Not common enough for that to be standard though.

The Devil Titivilus has a power that turns creatures lawful evil for 1d8+1 hours. He uses this power to screw up Pallies.

Huh, I just noticed another art update. In the first panel with Roy, one of his feet is turned toward the reader, instead of being in the perpetual side view Burlew has always done feet in.

Oh, and so is Durkmom's in the first panel, though it's partially obscured.

edited 7th Apr '14 4:41:02 PM by Wryte

Wryte I like that theory. It also takes into account that Hel seemed to think she'd pulled off a coup of some nature.

Likewise, I rather like Wryte's theory: it's elegant, consistent with what we know and interesting, I feel. ^_^

edited 7th Apr '14 5:29:29 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

Maybe that's the true reason the evil spirit wants to know all this stuff about Durkon. It's absorbing what he is into himself.

So Hel just got lucky, instead of this being part of some long-range plot?

I suspect it was a long-range plot that required some elements to fall into place first.

To target Durkon and/or the Order specifically, or is that part happenstance?

My bet is that she had the evil spirit queued up and ready, waiting for anything that would give her a chance to install it into a worshipper of Thor without being suspected. Malack's spell just gave her the opportunity. I would also bet her target was Thor in particular and the rest of the Northern Gods as a bonus.

edited 7th Apr '14 5:57:34 PM by Madrugada

anyone else think Belkar looks like he's getting suspicious?

Wasn't he already?

Yeah.

I said that he was.

Then again, Belkar has been suspicious of Durkula from the beginning.

Therkla'd.

edited 7th Apr '14 6:17:58 PM by HandsomeRob