The Order of the Stick

Your second analogy seems closer to the mark than the first one, Johnnye. Durkula appears to be in complete control of what the body says and does,and Durkon is simply there to provide information he has that Durkula doesn't have and needs. Durkon can say ''I'd turn left down this alley" but he can't make Durkula do it.

The analogy works if you're just talking about Durkon's freedom in providing memories. The vampire spirit says what information he needs, and Durkon is bound to provide it, but he can take whatever route he wants to reach that answer, like showing a long, involved and emotional memory that just happens to have somebody yelling the sort of "Thor's X" curse that the vampire was looking for.

And I suspect that Durkon is also able to provide memories that have false positives in them; what would have happened if he'd offered a scene where dwarfs were cursing left and right, but some of them were using language that Durkon never would? Could the vampire tell the difference? Would he guess? Or would he just keep demanding more memories until he got an unambiguous one?

edited 10th Apr '14 7:54:20 AM by Shale

Something I noticed- the original dwarf in the flashback uses the phrase "Thor's balls" differently than Durkula does.

The original dwarf uses it to indicate being impressed by Durkon's mom and the phrase is like an exclamation with a positive connotation.

In contrast, Durkula uses it as a curse.

I mean it isn't really a slip up or even an inaccurate use (as someone noted on the Giant, Durkon himself has used "Thor's X" as a curse), but I find it an interesting detail.

Edit- One thing I wanted to clarify RE my comments on Malack- what I worry about is a theory to the effect that if Durkon's process is standard, then not only is Malack himself just the evil spirit that took over that Shaman's body, but it also means that when he vampirized Durkon, he wanted to have conversations with the evil spirit that would possess Durkon (and have access to his memories) as opposed to Durkon (albeit a Durkon without those pesky moral qualms).

However, given how explicitly Malack identifies with the Shaman, unless Burlew makes it so that Malack was simply lying, then it stands to reason that he expected a vampirized free-willed Durkula to be an evil version of Durkon.

Now if what happened to Durkon is the standard, it does suggest that a merge in personality occurs once the memories are absorbed, since that's really the only explanation for why Malack thinks he was the Shaman (again, unless Burlew makes it that he was just lying).

Edit 2- That being said, Durkon being possessed by a spirit of Hel was clearly not in the plans, as for whatever reason, Malack would have assumed Durkula would be loyal to Nergal.

edited 10th Apr '14 8:25:17 AM by Hodor

A previous troper who called Durkula a Yeerk seemed to hit it right on the money.

Durkula is in complete control of Durkon's body, while Durkon is locked away in a little corner of his mind. Durkula can manually sort through Durkon's memories, mannerisms, etc. if he must, but it goes a lot easier if he can convince Durkon to volunteer the information rather than having to scavenger hunt for it.

Should we add Durkula to the character page or wait until we get more info on him and his motivations? At this point it's pretty clear that he's an entirely separate entity rather than Durkon's evil side.

edited 10th Apr '14 9:06:22 AM by Kostya

I'd say it's fine to add him. He's certainly more "notable" than Halberd Guy, anyway.

edited 10th Apr '14 9:09:49 AM by Fighteer

He's already on the character page, and has been there since before the hiatus. Well, since the hiatus, I suppose.

edited 10th Apr '14 9:56:25 AM by Discar

Of COURSE the console explodes.

So Haley just straight-up has a new outfit now, I guess.

Aaaaagh, Elan's sleeves have been white this whole time? My imagination was wrong!

well, her other one would be more than a little cold where they are going.

In other news, That was hilarious.

edited 17th Apr '14 4:42:01 AM by kayeka

Fair point. My thought was that maybe the audience doesn't want to see how the new fleshy arms connect to the torso, or Burlew hasn't worked it out yet.

Props to Haley for a creative use of her Icy Burst bow and props to Elan for going all-in on his apparent belief that being able to cast healing spells means he needs to act like a cleric.

edited 17th Apr '14 4:44:43 AM by Fighteer

Critical already?

Haley must still be wearing that magical top of hers, though it seems to have changed colors. Wearing something warmer underneath is logical given that they are no longer in the warm desert.

Correction: Elan is playing doctor, not cleric. Still funny.

Heh.

That dude will probably be ok. Elan is right; he hasn't appeared enough yet to be important enough to kill.

I think that's a terrible misunderstanding of narrative causality on Elan's part. A Red Shirt exists to be killed; it doesn't matter how many episodes they appear in beforehand. Until they achieve some level of narrative importance, whether via being named or at least given a distinct personality, they are cannon fodder.

But since this comic likes to subvert tropes back and forth, it's equally likely that this guy will die than that he won't.

I don't think that Elan is suggesting that his patient can't die because he's thus far been in only a few pages, but rather that the idea of getting to be in more than just three is something to live for, something to help him pull through. (Despite him likely being pretty much fine—or close to—after that casting of Cure Critical Wounds.)

It would be hilariously ironic if Banjo "stabbing" him knocked the last of his hit points off and killed him right before Elan cast the cure spell.

So an aversion (subversion?) of Healing Shiv?

Edit- Changed my avatar, etc. in honor of Banjo's reappearance.

edited 17th Apr '14 8:57:23 AM by Hodor

heh, loving the star-trek.

^^^ You may notice that Banjo did actually stab him with his scalpel when Elan healed him, and the wound is still there in the last panel.

Now that I think about it, crewmembers that are brought along on missions as expendable extra hands get killed all the time, but crewmembers who remain unintroduced and just stand around doing unimportant background stuff don't. Well, not as often anyway. They do get tossed around by explosions a lot.

I guess even if you don't even have a nametag, you still have to be brought into the action in some way to qualify as a Red Shirt.

In any case, that's not what Elan meant, but it's still interesting.