The Order of the Stick

We know for a fact that Xykon suspects the Plan might be bunk, because he gave his half of the ritual to Tsukiko to double-check and then lied to Redcloak about it.

Bunk or not, he might still get a little something from it. And, pull the rug from under Redcloak at the most hilarious moment, too. Reasons to hang with it, no?

edited 2nd Mar '15 4:11:20 PM by Euodiachloris

I figure the Plan will never happen as... well... planned... for two reasons.

1) We know exactly what it is, how its supposed to work, who is supposed to be manipulated and when in order to get the result, and this is all reiterated to us several times.

2) Rich has noted that, no matter what, Xykon is the Big Bad, the final boss, and ultimately the plot is going to come down to taking him out. I get the feeling in the end Redcloak's Plan is going to end in a similar way to Start Of Darkness - in the end, something is going to deny Redcloak the Plan, Xykon will prove himself to be Eviller Than Thou once again and crush Redcloak's hopes, and then whatever happens with the Snarl will be corrupted by his control instead. It's cruel, but then that's basically how Xykon operates - he lazes about and doesn't involve himself in the plot much, until crucial moments where he reminds us that he's the Big Bad.

edited 2nd Mar '15 9:22:43 PM by KnownUnknown

That and the fact that The Plan, if it goes off as, well, planned, would spell The End of the World as We Know It in one way or another, and in stories of this nature the bad guys generally don't succeed at such things.

There's no possible way that Elan gets his prophesied Happy Ending if the Plan goes off, so, yeah, something will stop it in the end.

Well, world ending is basically The Plan B. The Plan A is strongarming the gods into giving Goblins the resources necessary to be a race with as much opportunity to grow and prosper as humans and elves and etc.

So it's entirely possible for The Plan to actually get that far and Elan to have his happy ending.

Well, I meant more that the Plan will never get to the point where it would even nearly succeed, or at least it won't be the climax of the entire storyline (as Redcloak clearly thinks it will). Rather, it will be preempted at one point, and the true climactic battle will be against Xykon.

Two things to consider:

As has probably been noted before (I'm too lazy to check), Redcloak technically succeeded at his original goal, assuming the goblins and such can hold Gobbotopia in the long run. Which isn't that huge a stretch, so if he wanted to achieve equality, he could have stayed there. But we've noted that Sunk Cost Fallacy has its nasty claws deep in his heart, and he can't surrender his original plan. To do so would be to deny everything he went through, blah blah blah.

The second part, though, is that while we know why Redcloak is sticking to his plan, why is his god doing the same? You'd think a god would be smart enough or aware enough to realize what the conquest of Azure City means, long-term. But nope, it's "don't screw this up", full steam ahead with Snarl mayhem.

I personally suspect that what drives the Dark One is a desire for payback for everything that goblins suffered. Of course, this raises the question if the Dark One actually plans to stop at just blackmailing the other gods. Food for thought, huh?

I would think the more important reason the Plan will fail is because at this point no one seems to know the true nature of the Snarl. Every single person in the strip is making assumptions based on faulty information. The odds of anyone's plans succeeding are therefore zero.

edited 2nd Mar '15 11:08:26 PM by Clarste

Well, I mean, even Gobbtopia isn't quite what they were aiming for. Sure, they have a city, but how many other nations of "usual" PC races are going to allow them to build more cities, or even hold onto the one they conquered without a fight?

What he's aiming for is equal resources, and an end to "Oh hey! Goblins! Best raid their camp for some easy XP!"

Well, the Snarl itself is incidental to the Big Ritual (tm). The spell is meant to control the location of a rift, thereby threatening the gods wiht whatever's inside it. Whatever is inside it may not matter to the function of the ritual. Heck, fear of the Snarl may well get the divine threat to work, even if the gods are downright wrong about what's inside the rift. If they think it's the god-killing ball-o-string, that's good enough for the pln.

edited 2nd Mar '15 11:12:39 PM by Enlong

I don't think that Gobbotopia is quite that great of an achievement, yes. It's a foothold, but it'll be easily wiped off the map once a few of the standard "good" factions tire of it. And the Azure City refugees are going to eventually regroup and mount a counterattack.

edited 3rd Mar '15 4:58:45 AM by ashnazg

What if the final confrontation isn't a decisive victory but rather a desperate choice: destroy the last Gate and unleash whatever the Snarl may have become, versus letting Redcloak and Xykon succeed in controlling it? That lets us have both worlds, so to speak.

From what we've seen, the only "standard good faction" that could even hope to compete with Gobbotopia are the Azurites and the elves, and the former is crippled badly. Not to mention, besieging a fortified city isn't as simple as raiding a dungeon.

I'd say they have a decent shot of creating a lasting presence.

edited 3rd Mar '15 6:29:20 AM by TobiasDrake

I consider it vanishingly unlikely that we'll directly witness the recapture of Azure City/Gobbotopia, even assuming that it happens. There's no point unless the Order is involved or it has some bearing on the main story, and it's pretty much a B or C plot by now. It could be part of an epilogue, assuming that the world retains some semblance of its current form once the dust settles from the Gates business.

Edited to add: Redcloak is due some kind of comeuppance at the end — some redress of his crimes. What better way to do it than to have his decision to continue pursuing the Plan result in the loss of his one real achievement towards granting his people equality? After all, it's his Sunk Cost Fallacy that's driving all of this, and to not see it cost him in such a manner would be to make it a bit of a Broken Aesop.

edited 3rd Mar '15 6:33:49 AM by Fighteer

Eeeeeh, killing that many civilians (and lets be real, by then it would be the largest gathering of goblin civilians in the entire world) seems too cruel.

Which sadly enough, makes it a perfect course of action to take.

As already pointed out, Redcloak has gotten more goblins killed following the plan than any adventurer that has come before him. So Gobbotopia being utterly wiped out would sadly reinforce this, and make him realize he's cost his people far more than the humans he hates.

I just don't think it fits the tone of the comic. Familicide was pushing it.

I said that I don't expect to see the "liberation" of Gobbotopia on page. There seems to be little point. Now, if the unleashing of the Snarl results in some kind of apocalypse, then Redcloak's dying vision might be the smoking crater where his people used to be...

We don't know the precise nature of the Snarl but we know for certain that it exists. I doubt Rich would let the story end without it being unleashed so even if Roy and the others don't directly battle it something will happen. Elan getting a happy ending also means that none of the main characters except Belkar will be erased by it.

You know, this brings up an interesting question. A core component of the Plan engineered by Redcloak and his deity seems to be that none of the other gods will get wise to it prior to the suborning of the Gates. Never mind the sheer unlikelihood of this information going completely unnoticed given that the Twelve Gods, at the very least, must have put in some inquiries when the High Cleric of the Dark One conquered Azure City and blew up the Gate there. Never mind that the IFCC have become aware of at least some parts of the Plan, and are beholden ultimately to the gods of the Lower Planes.

We have concrete proof that the ability to predict the future exists and can be bestowed on mortals via some form of divine magic — the Oracle supposedly gains his powers from Tiamat. How is it that not one oracle or prophet has predicted the Plan? How is it that the Dark One has not received one or two visits from his fellow divinities asking what the hell his people are up to?

There is a literally cosmic blind spot here that is totally unexplained.

edited 3rd Mar '15 8:14:53 AM by Fighteer

There are probably also abjurations that prevent divinations the same way they prevent scrying?

• shrugs*

Divine scrying is Epic Inside, and I refuse to believe that the Dark One can, all by himself, completely block any divination used by all the other gods. I mean, sure, maybe he's stuck all this in his portfolio and put a giant "hands off" label on it, but if I were the other deities and some upstart god started messing around with the fabric of existence itself, which just happens to be the prison of a god-killing abomination, I'd at least put in an inquiry or two.

"Hey, Dark One, whatcha up to, dude? Haven't heard from ya lately."

"Eh, nothing. Private goblin business."

"Right, well, there's this whole 'fabric of reality' thing we're trying to pretend is holding together. Are you, like, in with that?"

"Sure, whatever. Now go away."

"Oh, okay. Sorry to bother you."

edited 3rd Mar '15 8:13:50 AM by Fighteer

I think the Dark One is effectively his own pantheon. Maybe there's some kind of non-interference agreement between them. It would explain why Thor couldn't start a storm until the Mechane was in territory that worships the Northern Gods.

I get that the gods have non-interference clauses. That's fine. But again, we're talking about the fabric of reality here, not just territorial disputes. Even if they don't know about the Plan, they might be a bit concerned that the Dark One's minions are going around opening the locks that hold in the Snarl.

Maybe the future sight granted to Oracles is actually Divine Will. And if a god doesn't want his Will to be known, no oracle ever gets it. Since the gods can interact with reality as though it were fibers, perhaps The Dark one can simply not knot them in an obvious way. Or knit himself a curtain first.