The Order of the Stick

Side note: How long do wand enchantments usually last?

Long enough to tie up a loose plot end, apparently.

IIRC, Wands store spells and cast them as though the original caster were doing so, so depending on whether this wand contains Fly or Overland Flight, it would either be 1 minute/level or 1 hour/level, with level being determined by the person who crafted the wand rather than Haley? I think?

I could be wrong. The SRD doesn't explain much about Wands.

Wand prices are proportional to the caster level of the spell they contain. By default, all wands are crafted at the minimum possible caster level; ergo a wand of fly would last five minutes per charge.

My thought on reading this comic:

'My name is Haley Starshine, and I am a breakfast defector.'

Best revenge is a life well lived, but then you need to ensure that your enemy doesn't take revenge on you in the same way.

It depends on which of you cares about the other. Haley doesn't give a damn whether Crystal has a long and happy life or not as long as she leaves her alone. Crystal is the one with the rivalry complex, for whom "living a good life" is the sweetest revenge.

Of course, Crystal is indisputably Killed Off for Real, as the lava would leave no remains to be resurrected, and Bozzok is also dead and unlikely to be raised as nobody gives a damn about him. He is now reaping the reward for a long life of sociopathy.

edited 27th Apr '15 10:37:26 AM by Fighteer

Character growth my foot. She was just delaying.
And why did Crystal stop to talk instead of, you know, KILLING HALEY?

Because Crystal has had a little character growth too.

^^ Crystal did say that hurting other people made her hurt less, and she just did a hell of a lot of hurting to Bozzok, so she was temporarily sated.

Plus, as the strip title implies, Crystal is a natural follower. With her old handler dead, all Haley had to do was take the initiative and Crystal immediately fell into line, at least temporarily.

Rather a Crosses the Line Twice strip. I do like that Haley gave Crystal a Last-Second Chance though.

I think the strip can legitimately be argued to show character development, if one is taking a look at the entire arc of Haley's character. I mean, she started out taking as naturally to trickery and deceit as a fish to water. This is after all someone who was raised in a Hive Of Scum And Villainy with her survival tactic being that she was a bigger and better liar and villain than her surroundings. At one point she was tricking her party members, people who had just finished a battle fighting at her side, into taking worthless rocks while she pocketed the loot they were rightfully entitled to.

When under the effects of being unable to speak, she spent who knows how long, despite literal life and death situations, being unable to speak a simple truth to break herself out of it. It took the threat of being murdered by someone she loved while that person was under a spell for her to finally snap out of it.

And even after that she was really only just starting to turn away from all her old defense mechanisms. Even after being confronted with the ugliness and corruption of her old life and "friends" from the Guild, her first instinct was to fall back on the behaviors that she learned from being part of them.

Now I very strongly get the feeling that she's turned her back on that life forever, that she wouldn't go back to the Guild or their ways even if someone better than Bozzok was in charge. I think she's completely turned her back on her past self, and that is definite character development.

Plus it leaves the rest of the Starshine clan free to do their thing without worrying about reprisals from Greysky city and Bozzok.

Well, yes, but that would have been "Crystal Clear" even without the latest side-adventure.

So she didn't have a happily ever after vision that involved changing who is in charge of the Guild just a few days ago or so of in-comic time? Guess I must have imagined it.

Also, she needed to trust other people in order to make this trap work successfully, which again is quite a step forward from Haley's past.

edited 27th Apr '15 8:43:30 PM by TheWanderer

Comic image still looks like doody on my phone's default browser, but at least I can use Firefox to see it.

What we see in this strip is not an abrupt Character Development that happened several times to most of the characters (including Haley). We saw her change when she got her speech back and got together with Elan. Then again when Roy was dead and she had to take care of Belkar. What we are seeing now is a look-back on how much she changed since the beginning, or more since before the beginning.

And not just that, but that despite all this, how she did not change. Yes she can be honest, and yes she can even use it to her own advantage, but deception is still her primary skill to defeat her foes. The more interesting part is that she did this without telling a single lie.

If Roy were here, he could have a chance to hack Crystal with his sword until she is dead. Some support spells from V would mean some more advantage. But they weren't here, so Haley had to deal with Crystal her own way. Since her primary combat power (sneak attacks) was unavailable, but her enemy was still sentient, she could use another kind of "sneak attack": trick Crystal to kill her boss then lead her to a trap. And again, the interesting thing is not the trickery, which has always been her tactic, but that she did this without telling literal lies.

I really don't know why Haley not telling outright lies in this scene is supposed to be impressive. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that she didn't tell Crystal, "Hey, heads up, I'm leading you into a trap" means she was still lying in my book.

She never asked.

That is what the trope Metaphorically True is for. Interestingly, it was even used by Durkon, the single most Lawful character in the party. Also by O-chul.

Why would you owe your enemy complete honesty anyway? There's a difference between telling Crystal that she'd stop hurting if she followed Haley, and simply asking Crystal to follow Haley. And neglecting to tell her that they were headed to a spot Haley could survive but Crystal couldn't.

edited 28th Apr '15 3:36:43 PM by blkwhtrbbt

I didn't say Haley owed Crystal complete honesty. I mean, Crystal is a rampaging monster who probably would never relent or show remorse, so killing her by any means necessary is pretty much justified.

What I'm saying here is that Haley killing a monster via trickery isn't a sign of major character development, it's something she's been doing since strip one. So Haley's monologue about how much she's changed as a person seemed redundant and pointless. Like, I get that she's changed now, but why bring it up if it has no bearing to the situation at hand?

Because it's something the person might think about, given that they're making rather definitive breaks with that old life?

First of, 1337.

This strip was less character development and more character celebration, and I loved every moment of it.

This, and Haley didn't even say that much. She literally just started walking and Crystal kept pace to keep up the conversation. At no point was the walk even brought up in the conversation, not even a cursory, "Where are we going?" from Crystal.

Once the topic came around to something even tangentially related to killing Crystal, Haley volunteered the information freely. She was completely leading the conversation and had no pressing need to tell Crystal what was about to happen to her, but did so anyway. It's hard to see anything dishonest here.

Haley took a casual stroll to where she intended to dump Crystal in the lava while musing freely about her past and Character Development, and Crystal followed her of her own volition without question because Crystal is a moron.

edited 29th Apr '15 6:46:52 AM by TobiasDrake

That's a stretch. Lying by omission is still lying; Haley's intent was unquestionably to bring Crystal to the incinerator and kill her there. However, she was under no moral or ethical obligation to inform her arch-enemy that she was about to be killed.