The Order of the Stick

The only explanation I can come up with is that they don't know about the plan to turn the Snarl against them and they figure the end of the world isn't a huge problem since they can just make it again.

The last time that happened they lost an entire pantheon. It seems a terrible risk to take. But if they are willing to let the world be eradicated because they can always make Reality 3.0, then the Plan is completely pointless; you can't blackmail someone with something that they don't care about.

edited 3rd Mar '15 8:24:05 AM by Fighteer

That was because they were in the Material Plane at the time. From the way Shojo described it the other gods survived by staying in the Celestial Realm.

Edit: The plan isn't pointless because it threatens the gods directly. They might not know this though which is why they don't seem to be too worried about it.

edited 3rd Mar '15 8:26:29 AM by Kostya

The only person we know explicitly has the power to see the future is Tiamat's Oracle and, logically, probably Tiamat.

And the Oracle has suggested that he's seen ALL of it. He knows about the Plan because he knows how it's going to be resolved. He's just keeping the ball rolling, and actually chewed Roy out when he cleverly outsmarted himself for potentially derailing the plot thread.

As such, we can assume that anyone else with future sight has probably also read the unreleased final book too and already knows how it's going to end, so there's not much cause for alarm on their part.

edited 3rd Mar '15 9:18:41 AM by TobiasDrake

So it's not that the gods aren't aware of the problems with the Gates and Rifts, but they don't see any existential threat to themselves and, as such, are content to let mortals handle things until such time as they have to step in to contain the Snarl again. At which point they will presumably wag their fingers at the Dark One and say, "See, kid, now you know why you don't screw around with our stuff"?

Possibly. Nobody ever said good meant nice.

It could also be the case that the gods have their own contingency plan; maybe even one that allows them to control the Snarl. They might just be letting the Dark One follow through with his plan to keep him distracted.

Well, if Rich doesn't show us that, even via cutaway and Unspoken Plan Guarantee, at some point before the final confrontation, then it'll come as one hell of an Ass Pull. A literal Deus ex Machina, never mind that it'll utterly trivialize the struggle of the Order if the outcome of their quest never mattered to begin with.

I'll be honest: I'm not committed to any particular one of these outcomes, but I am curious as to how the gods have been so seemingly in the dark for all this time. Some form of foreshadowing or at least acknowledgement of this problem would be in order, or it leaves a gaping Plot Hole.

That said, Durkon's situation provides a pretty handy way to stage such a reveal, given that we've already been given confirmation that at least one of the gods has a direct hand in current events.

edited 3rd Mar '15 11:25:17 AM by Fighteer

I didn't say it was a good idea for the narrative but it is a possibility. I still think them not knowing the full extent of The Plan and not caring if the current world gets destroyed is the most likely option.

To be fair, Roy only did that due to the Oracle's tendency to be purposefully vague with his prophecies. If the latter were a bit more straightforward (or as much as he could), maybe Roy wouldn't have pulled that stunt.

True. I guess you could say he should've seen that coming.

Eh, we know that the Oracle likes to word his prophecies in the most dickish way possible, because it seems that the only pleasure he gets from his near omniscience is using it to be a jerk.

Honestly, if people came to me all day with annoying questions, and I already knew how each one of those conversations would go, I'd be a bit annoyed too.

It's almost like regular call centre work, except you receive 10000 gp per question.

So I'm looking at the bonus strips in Book 5 and the last one sticks out to me. It implies that the Order might actually still be in the hallucination world that Girard's last trap put them in. I can see why that one was left out.

What happens in the strips?

Haley uses a sending wand to talk her father into meeting them at one of his hideouts. Belkar and Roy remark that it was pretty easy which prompts the three of them to speculate that they might still be in the dream world despite "waking up". They check their surroundings and decide that it's probably not an illusion but decide to check again every few hours to be sure. Roy comments that his dad said a well crafted illusion will make the target double check whether any of their life is real for the rest of their lives. When Haley asks why he didn't warn them about Xykon there's a cutaway gag of Eugene screaming at Roy to wake up because Xykon is on his way. The joke is supposed to be that he was screaming at them for a while to wake up from the illusion but failed. Rich probably left it out of the main comic because it might give some conspiracy minded readers the idea that they're still in the illusion.

edited 3rd Mar '15 2:06:35 PM by Kostya

Whatever happens in the bonus strips, I seriously doubt that they would still be in the illusion. That would be the trope that usually prompts people to quit.

That might be enough to make me stop reading unless it was executed in a really unique way.

Rich probably just meant it as a joke and removed the strip when he realized some people might get the wrong idea.

Probably.

If they were still in the illusion, the book wouldn't have ended yet.

Each book represents a whole major portion of the story taken to its conclusion. The party's not going to wake up and find out they're still in the Empire of Blood story any more than they will find out this was all a Dying Dream and they're still in the battle of Azure City, or otherwise still engaged in the major events of a previous book.

It's not only bad writing, it's bad separation of chapters.

edited 4th Mar '15 8:07:00 AM by TobiasDrake

Also that.

You know with Nale out of the picture it means we probably won't get any kind of prequel book focusing on him and his father. Back when that plot was going on I was hoping they'd get their own Start of Darkness book.

edited 4th Mar '15 10:23:44 AM by Kostya

Maybe we'll get a shorter one as a bonus comic in one of the next books. We just got a bonus comic about Therkla and Sangwaan, with both of them dead more than a book ago.

If Rich ever wanted to collect the Kickstarter PD Fs into a book he could include that as a print-only bonus. I wonder if he will collect those at some point.

I think it's pretty likely. In fact, I think Rich said at some point that the kickstarter pdfs would be made more widely available some time in the future.

edited 4th Mar '15 1:49:20 PM by TheWanderer

Any theories on Elan's ultimate plan to defeat Tarkin? Pretty sure it's going to involve turning his allies against him, since they seem to be the source of all his power and influence.