No, it's still pretty bad. I'll wait a while before I post anything about it on the main page, but jeez, this looks bad.

Mr Death: I'd suggest giving the new Fridge Brilliance entry a quick read first.

I... wait... what.. huh?

HOW IS THIS BRILLIANT

Okay, here's the orignal entry:

• Fridge Brilliance: Nimmel's reasoning for attenting the Coldfire Academy seems very shallow and out of character at first, but it actually does have a sound reasoning for what is known about his character. He has had severe psychological depression and insecurity, he got his ass kicked by somebody far more powerful than him, and watched his friends die. It would make sense that he would rather be in a place he is far more powerful and able to make a stand for himself. His calling the werewolves "emotion-crazed beast people" is very cringe worthy, but in a way it makes sense in context. Before this he held the (equally ignorant) assumption of werewolf culture as exclusively noble and pure etc. But, having been recently disillusioned of this, it seems he's a bit bitter and his emotions have flipped to the other side of the spectrum for a while.

And my proposed changes:

• Wall Banger: Nimmel's reasoning for attending the Coldfire Academy is very shallow and out of character. His calling the werewolves "emotion-crazed beast people" is very cringe worthy. Previously, werewolf culture has been portrayed as exclusively noble and pure. But, since this facet of their cultural identity has largely been abandoned and replaced with wanton violence, it seems he's a bit bitter and his emotions have flipped to the other side of the spectrum, and now he wants to prove he's the Big Dog by lording his magic power over all the apparently inferior werewolves.

You shouldn't just outright delete Fridge Brilliance entries. They're a subjective thing; especially if you're going to take that troper's wording and turn it right around into a Wall Banger entry anyway. The Fridge Brilliance entry, I felt, answered pretty much all your points except this one:

Werewolf culture was portrayed as 'exclusively noble and pure' because, up to now, we've only seen what's basically the most human friendly of the nobles. We only saw that (small) part of their culture.

Also, as the Fridge Brilliance entry said, he's been through several emotional states that would make someone want to go to a place where they'd feel strong. As for his switch of the spectrum? Remember, he's pissed off. You've gotta remind yourself that, hey, characters are people too, and every once in a while, they're not meant to be portraying Everything That Is Right And Good.

On another note, this is what we're talking about when we say "Hate Dom". Someone finds something good in a recent strip, and you "just can't let this sit here." And then you take his words and twist them to reflect your own Accentuate The Negative viewpoint, as if to say his viewpoint is simply invalid. It's as if the simple fact someone likes a development in the comic is an affront to you in some way.

Curse you, Nemesis! Foiled again!

But seriously, if this doesn't turn out to be either a Face Heel Turn or Nimmel learning his lesson, I'm adding it to Wall Banger.

One more thing: you're right, it is subjective. From this side, it looks a lot like Gushing About Shows You Like.

I really don't think that lashing out at a bunch of assholes who have abused you for being human and for befriending someone is the basis of a Face Heel Turn. As for learning his lesson, I'd bet money (if I had any), that this sequence is gonna end with whatever the werewolf equivalent of the cops is showing up, and busting Nimmel for causing a disturbance, possibly followed up with Milov finally showing up and wondering what the eff got into Nimmel.

Also, on a semi-related note, I've pointed out in the mainpage that the comic has always made a distinction between werewolves and spellwolves. In their first trip to Milov's estate, it's mentioned that it's only because he's the latter that House Danovich has its status of nobility.

The spellwolf distinction is a good point, and I've modified the entries I made according. Let me know if I missed any.

Really, it bothers me less that Nimmel is having a morally questionable reaction to the wolves, and more that Mookie has written the entire race of werewolves as Jerk Ass Jerk Jocks. I hate the way Mookie writes other races. They're almost all insanely violent. Talk about your Unfortunate Implications and Moral Dissonance.

I don't think he's written the entire race of werewolves as Jerk Ass JerkJocks.

His friend who calls him Big Dog is kind of decent to him most of the time except when the option to get boobs drains him of common sense — like many a college age guy in many a scenario.

Werewolves as a race are almost always written as insanely violent. It's more like Our Werewolves Are The Same. You see werewolves you expect ravening beasts barely able to behave like humans.

I don't think the Orcs were all necessarily violent either. Melna has a short fuse from not dealing with her issues. Grench is usually nonviolent. Spirit Father was dealing with rage issues — badly.

And for that matter, look at whatsisface, Siggy, the knight who now serves hell. He was a violent Callanian. Mookie has violent and peaceful examples in all the races he's shown so far... at least that's how it looks to me.

I wonder if we should be splitting this discussion into multiple topics. Oh well.

A) I don't mind werewolves being violent when they are normal people who have been transformed in some occult fashion. In DD, they're a race of people whose cultural identity is largely based on wanton violence.

Really, the problem with DD's races is more related to Planet Of Hats. Mookie has a tendency to characterize entire races and cultures with only a few blanket adjectives. In the Vacation arc especially, just about every member of any given race all behave the same way. Part of it was due to the number of races we were introduced in a limited amount of time, but still, there was a LOT of stereotyping going on.

Honestly, I think this is something we're just going to have to agree to disagree on. YMMV.

B) I really don't see how the revelation of why Nimmel transferred is 'brilliant'. It's just a delayed explanation, and there's nothing particularly special about the reasoning, except that it's giving me some heavy Moral Dissonance.

C) After today's comic, I can only hope that Nimmel will learn something from Olena's barb. I have a feeling, though, that he's more likely to believe all the werewolves who suddenly like him again.

Werewolf loyalty is the least consistent loyalty I've ever seen.

I just want to point some things out.

Whilst Nimmel wants to feel like a "big-dog", at no point is this feeling derived from a desire to dominate others. This can been seen in the following ways:

1: This is apparantly the first time he has used his powers on the Werewolves. In both instances such a usage could rightly be called justified. He was stopping Olena from attacking a friend, and stopping several Werewolves from attacking him.

2: He has already been subject to a great deal of bullying, yet this is the first time he responded by using magic. If Nimmel wished to satiate his ego, he would have been using his powers the MOMENT he arrived at the Coldfire academy. Instead he has been enduring the abuse dealt to him, and trying to focus on his friends and study.

3: It's been established Werewolves are pretty damn strong, and are more than capable of killing a person in a rage. The text also makes it clear it is VERY easy for Werewolves to fall into such a rage. Given such facts (they are facts within the narrative, having already been communicated), I fail to see why the use of magic in such a fashion is an extreme reaction.

4: Nimmel does want to feel powerful, but wishes to use the environment to do so, not through attacking other people. The only mistake Mookie has made is slightly clumsy wording.

5: After stopping ONLY those Werewolves intent on hurting him, Nimmel proceeds to ask everybody to calm down. Does that sound like the actions of a bully, or somebody who just wants to resolve a violent situation?

6: Olena manipulated the Werewolves into attacking him. The fact that she then goes on to attack Nimmel (whose only crime was defending himself against creatures that were physically stronger and faster than him) just shows how much of a bitch she really is:

"You beat up the guy who wanted to kill you. I hope you feel good about yourself, you asshole!"

I don't think the werewolf loyalty is inconsistent.

Hormone crazed college boys being manipulated by a Mean Girl who knows the power of boobies isn't werewolf loyalty: it's silly hormone reaction.

"Olena just insulted his pack" is something all the werewolves relate to, even if they don't necessarily have a close bond with "the hairless Callanian". To werewolves, the pack is family and sacrosanct. You don't diss the pack. Which opened their eyes to seeing she just wants to hurt Nimmel because it makes her feel powerful.

First, I'd like to point out that despite the name, "Fridge Brilliance" doesn't necessarily mean to say that the revelation is actually 'brilliant'. It's mostly just the inverse of Fridge Logic, where after thinking about it for a while you go, "Oh, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. :D " instead of "Oh, huh, that doesn't make much sense. :| "

Secondly, I think this comic illustrates well how Werewolf loyalty works, and where the lines are drawn. Up to now, they've just been messing with Nimmel personally, and except for Olena, it's mostly been the stupid kinda stuff that normal people get up to: Pranks, ribbing, just basically being juvenile, with no 'real' harm done. But when Olena said that, it stopped being fun and games, and shit got real for them. That's when how they reacted started to really matter to them.

Thirdly, judging by that third panel, what she said did affect Nimmel. He'll probably be shown thinking about it in the near future...probably after he recovers from the party.

Additionally, Fawkes, I think it's less that Mookie writes Races Of Hats and more that you keep expecting them to be. On the first trip to Milov's estate, you seem to have gotten the impression that Mookie was saying all werewolves act like the nobles. Now, you seem to have the impression he's trying to say they all act like fratboy Jerk Jocks, and calling it Race Derailment. (And let's not forget, there were a few jerks among the Nobility as well.)

What's actually going on is he's trying to show us a culture that has different sides and groups of people who act differently from one another, depending on the context. That's what that one comic, where Nimmel was contrasting his expectations with the reality, was pointing out: The werewolves aren't a Race of Hats who all act the same, and he was mistaken for expecting them to be so.

I had a complicated response post all written up that I think would've satisfied everyone, but my computer ate it.

Mr. Death is 100% right about one thing: My expectations affect my judgment. Allow me to digress - I used to be a huge fan of DD. I loved it. And I still contend that up through at least Two Thief, it was still a pretty damn good comic. In fact, Two Thief might be my favorite arc. After that, there started to be a decline. I didn't really realize it, but I was enjoying the comic less and less. However, I loved the rest so much, that I was still expecting it to be good, and so I kept reading happily. It wasn't until the vacation arc that I really started to get bored with it. I wandered into the Snarker thread on Git P, and slowly came to the realization that for me, DD had jumped the shark after Class Action. I hung in there, hoping that it could get better again. And then Maltak happened. Maltak was so bad, so unlike anything I would have expected, that it killed my spirit. That's the point where I really crossed over into the Hatedom. And now, I really want DD to be good again. I just don't expect it to. I am a DD cynic.

Here are the main points of my lost response:

• I don't think Nimmel was out of line to defend himself with ice magic. His internal monologue, however, shows me pretty clearly that's he's still really damaged and his reasoning for transferring was unhealthy. This could work, but I don't think Mookie's going to leave this as morally complex. All the werewolves are already absolving him of any poor decisions.

• I agree that Olena is totally, undeniably, 100% a Grade-A bitch. Which, honestly, is kind of my problem. That's the extent of her characterization and motivations. She's just a bitch.

• I didn't have the "Oh, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense." reaction to the reveal, but Fridge Brilliance is a subjective trope, so I'll concede it. However, I don't like how long that entry has become. If it needs all those qualifiers and justifications to be Fridge Brilliance, I'm not so sure it's Fridge Brilliance. I'll leave that one up to you guys, though.

Mookie undeniably has a long way to go as a writer and artist, but to be perfectly honest it must be fairly difficult to progress when your typical reader is even more inept in their field than you are. Detractors will call for blood when they feel a characters motivations aren't properly explained, and when exposition is actually forthcoming they'll demand Mookie stop kissing ass and breaking the fourth wall. Haters are so thoroughly engraved in their negative idealogies that they *want* Mookie to fail, as failure provides them with better entertaiment than a mediocre online comic with cerberus syndrome could.

The common consensus among the Domi NATION fan forum is that Nimmel should have allowed two hormonally charged idiots to tear one another apart for a slight insult, or, when he did interfere, sit back and let the pack of ravaging werewolves tear him to shreds instead of, you know, defending himself like any normal human being would. And if Nimmel did stay out of the fight or allowed himself to be mauled the readers would have seen him as an asshole and a martyr, respectively. To put it simply, the readers are so conditioned to rage that their emotional responses to Dominic Deegan are even more disproportionate than the characters they judge.

Hell, you can't even really blame Nimmel for being power hungry, since as a *mage* success and knowledge in his field is essentially determined by just how powerful he is.

No, the problem with the last story arc didn't really lie with Nimmel, but with the side character Olena. Mookie seems to have gotten it through his head that all bigots are intensely irrational, horrifically violent creatures that would be perfectly willing to go on nation-wide pogroms if given half the chance. While I think it's fair to say that all bigots are ignorant (except perhaps in the world of Dominic Deegan, where orcs and werewolves really do seem to be unintelligent, unreasonably violent monsters), there are different levels of ignorance. Many people harbor an unconscious racism that rarely surfaces. Others are openly ambivalent toward other races, but at least respect their rights to life and happiness. In short, not every bigot is out for blood.

Despite what many people think, a good writer doesn't need to have a grey betwixt the black and white, but he certainly does need to have different shades of black. In Mookie's eyes the lone difference between a college girl and the lord of all frikin' hellfire is merely scope. If Mookie learned to write reasonable antagonists fewer people would complain about what insufferable, holier-than-thou mary sues his protagonists are.

That is actually a very good summary of one of the big problems in DD. Thanks Zozma.

I just want to throw up an apology ahead of time for adding stuff about Nimmel to Mary Sue, as I was unaware of all this discussion. I am a former fan turned facepalmer who can't quite break the habit of reading the strip, for clarification.

It's hard to remember the days when one of the things I liked about the strip was that it wasn't just a bunch of one dimensional characters. At least Bret Taggerty had a motive.

I went ahead and changed it to her "trademark non-lethal fireball" since in all likelihood, that's exactly what it was. To reiterate, an illusion meant to scare someone is completely useless if they're only going to perceive it after the "danger" is passed.

Thanks, hopefully this is settled. Being both bold and obnoxious, I changed the passage back to the original from this:

From the intended viewpoint, in revenge for a trickster's prank, a main character fights back with her trademark non-lethal fireball. Creatively misinterpreted, a main character spurned by a trickster murdering him and a number of bystanders, which she has every right to do because she's a main character  ^*

^{Also requires ignoring the fact said trickster shows up perfectly fine later}

.

This version went into details of the scene that don't really add to to illustrating the Broken Base. Pointing out that the fireball is prank payback is redundant to the strip itself, the reader can be expected to take our word for the non-lethality, and the * seems unnecessary since the snarker version is already stated to be wrong.

Dont Like Dont Read.

Not that I'm saying it isn't crap, but there's plenty of webcomics out there that don't actively try to murder your brain cells you could be reading instead.

I do read better webcomics. But I am just incapable of Dont Like Dont Read in any situation. If anything, trawling through the Deegan archives is enjoyable to me, in a twisted way. It's a weird mix of Bile Fascination and humour derived from the plentiful Narm and Unfortunate Implications. But right now, the comic is just a horrowshow of boring predictable filler. I seriously am honestly curious as to what makes it worthwhile to its readers. Do they genuinely find it enjoyable as a story or artistic achievement? If so, why? How? Truly the riddle of Dominic Deegan is The Ultimate Riddle.

Incredible stupidity edited out.

I enjoy it because it's funny, I enjoy the storyline, and I tend not to read too much into things.

The impression I get is a lot of the people who hate on it are trying to hate it, and scrounging over it with a fine toothed comb to find more things to hate. Just freakin' relax and don't get so worked up over a black and white drawing with words on it. It's much healthier to just laugh at the silly puns, and let yourself just enjoy it instead of getting bent out of shape out of things that haven't actually happened yet. Reading your comments, it seems like about half of what you're pissed off about is things that you think are going to happen.

Mookie's trying to tell a story that he thinks is entertaining. That's it. Maybe if you stop trying to see everything as some Author Filibuster or Author Tract, and just accept that he's telling a fantasy story in a fantasy world that isn't trying to represent the real world, you'd enjoy it more.

(And of course the half-tuskmouth looks ridiculous. You'd look silly too if you pulled out half of your most prominent teeth.)

Shush, you. The comic's a hoot, and it keeps finding new ways to surprise. That'd be an achievement even if it was intentional. :-)

Darn you, Kizor, for making me agree with what you're saying and yet disagree with what you're Saying. *shakes fist*

Incredible stupidity edited out.

Pam never gives indication that she likes the music. If anything, the comic just shows that she agrees with the sentiment of the music.

And it wasn't "a whole schoolfull of kids massacred by a DBZ villain". There was one class attacked, and three students killed.

Also, stop with the strawman fake quotes (the "see you guys I am accepting of fags in any situation" and "Guess you should just hush up with your reasonably voiced complaints woman, a Deegan is talking,"). It's just irritating and juvenile. Make a reasoned argument and please stop with the ridiculous overexaggeration.

Or, you know, just stop reading the comic. From what you've posted, it's clear you just don't like it and won't no matter what we say.

Also also, I just want to point out that your little prediction before seems to have been wrong on everything in the second half of the sentence. Who couldn't see it coming indeed.

Yeah on reflection I am pretty ashamed for being a massive whining baby rather than trying to have an actual discussion. Sorry for that. I'll edit my previous remarks away, just reading them over is making me cringe.

You have done a rare and precious thing, especially by Internet standards.

Oh, and just to be clear, my previous message was at you, not at Mr Death.

This should've been removed. Not because any of the arguments above (Which are VERY subjective), but because the entry as written is actually Broken Aesop.

I honestly think you guys are just blowing out of proportion and misinterpreting that whole inner monologue in relation to what Milov said. Milov is talking about people who want to use and exploit the Werewolves; people who want to make a name for themselves for studying them, like Jane Goodall with the apes. People whose only interest in the 'wolves is to use them as a thesis, like animals to be studied.

Nimmel's inner monologue was about going to a place where he feels strong. He's shown no intent to do anything that Milov was talking about, and only even used his power at all when it was entirely in self defense.

"He wants to be around perpetually violent individuals who will give him constant excuse to use his powers in violent confrontation"? No, that's not what he said. What he said was he wanted to go to an environment where he feels powerful, and again, he's only used his powers once, despite being picked on constantly for months. If he was really there just to show off and play king of the hill, he damn well could have, but he didn't. He only ever used his magic once, to stop a fight. Hard to say he's looking for "constant excuse to use his powers in violent confrontation" when he's constantly avoided using his powers for any sort of violence.

He's not there to exploit them, at least not the way Milov is talking about.

As for those traits, I'm pretty sure those ideals of nobility, etc. were first introduced when they first came to Milov's lands.

Regardless, expecting a whole culture to act exactly the same, and then calling BS when they don't, is Reality Is Unrealistic just as much as expecting cars to explode when they get shot. You're calling my arguments "subjective"...Well, look earlier on this page, where a strip showing that not all werewolves act the same is reacted to by Fawkes with, "This is race derailment." (EDIT: Or were you saying Peteman's arguments were subjective? If that's the case, my mistake.)

That's the fact of the case: The readers expected one thing, based on an unrealistic trope; when Mookie played things more realistically, they called him out on it like he was wrong. That's pretty much the basis of the trope.

And how is it written as a Broken Aesop?

We are not saying "all members of a culture should act the same". We are saying "telling a character they are a better member of their society than most members of their society, even though we never claimed to have these cultural ideals before and had every character act against them in every scene we've had this arc reeks of Mary Suedom." It'd be like someone saying "tolerance, open-mindedness, these are the ideals of Lynn's Brook... etc etc", even though we've had every character that wasn't a member of Dominic's circle of friends act like small-minded bigots. It comes out of the blue, and helps to emphasize Mookie's loss of ability to Show Dont Tell. Admittedly, if the claimed nobility of the society was established before, our complaints take a hit.

The internal monologue just sounds so wrong. It sounds like someone who wants to feel powerful, and when he's thinking this when calling in his head the natives what sounds like an ethnic slur (emotion-crazed beast people), it sounds like a desire to dominate. Then hearing Milov express contempt for the other Callanians, despite Nimmel's own seeming contempt for the werewolves, it seems like at best a prelude to Milov's further inability to read people, and at worst Protagonist Centered Morality at its finest.

You know what, I've had some time to think, and I've realized two alterations that can make the arc simply bad, as opposed to deserving of some of the highest levels of bashing: remove "you're a better werewolf than most werewolves" (because applied to cultures, that line is terrible no matter how you slice it), and "emotion-crazed beast people" (because it sounds like something Siegfried would say, and Mookie is just so Anvilicious about the principles of tolerance that people who throw use slurs like that are almost always meant to be bad guys, even if the villains' over-the-top renditions as racist stereotypes tend to make the Hatedom view them as Crossing The Line Twice unintentionally). Remove them, and you simply have a bad arc full of obnoxious fratboy stereotypes, a two-dimensional antagonist, a predictable arc with an obvious ending, and a lot of gratuitous, unappealing nudity that served to do nothing but occasionally derail the flow of the comic. But putting those two lines in, we steer heavily into Mighty Whitey Unfortunate Implications territory with a heavy dose of Protagonist Centered Morality, because it makes it sound like we're supposed to recognize Nimmel as the hero, even though his internal monologue made it sound like he's a selfish jerk who pulled the wool over Milov's eyes.

And it's not that we're pissed off about the werewolves not adhering to Planet Of Hats. In fact, many of us had forgotten those aspects of werewolf culture. It's Milov heaping praise on Nimmel that just seemed to run so contrary to what Nimmel was thinking, and when Milov spoke of those "new" werewolf ideals, we thought they were made up for the sole purpose of elevating Nimmel's pedestal even higher.

Thank you Mr Death, your discussion helped to enlighten me.

Back at the start of the Storm of Souls thing. Rilian visits Jacob in his crypt, basically demands that Jacob study under him (ostensibly to keep him from getting involved with the Chosen), and when Jacob refuses, Rilian knocks him down a peg; among other things, he undoes the skeletonizing of Jacob's arm.

Jacob later says something like, "If you think my encounter with Rilian made me weaker, you'd be wrong," but then later says the batch of zombies he animated weren't all that great, or not as good as he usually makes them, so he seems to have been bluffing when he said he wasn't weakened.

Also, when he's monologing to himself later (I think he's writing a journal?), he mentions that the thing with Rilian taught him to memorize his most important notes in case he can't go back to his crypt, so if nothing else, it seems he had to redo some research and relearn some of his techniques.

EDIT: Here we go, found it. Panel 7, he says Rilian took away his power.

It's amazing what people will ignore just for the opportunity to bash this comic. They are seeing the same comic, the problem is they're only able to read it through the "WAAAAAA MOOKIE SUCKS AND EVERYTHING HE DOES IS WRONGWRONGWRONG" lens. Someone put in a very similar bit of whiny bitching in the Just Bugs Me page the other day.

So apparently it's okay to attempt to murder two people, try to maim a helpless animal by cutting off its nose while it's still alive, conscious, and watching you do it, and planning to kidnap and exploit two sentient beings? Good to know, Hate Dumb.

It's like Antagonist Centered Morality. So long as the culprit is somehow opposed to this comic's protagonists, they can do no wrong!

Even though Stunt didn't mean to get him killed, it was still entirely his fault. Just because he didn't mean to doesn't justify it. He doesn't even seem to care, he just kind shrugs it off with a nervous laugh. As for the poachers, granted they were trying to sell the mongrels, showcase them, or something, wasn't really clear, they were still completely butchered for little to no reason. If it were made clear to the characters and not just the audience that these are the bad guys then Lady Bort's massacre would seem less like an overreaction. As it stands it looks more like she got mad simply from someone throwing a net on her and decided to kill everything. The only one who was really being an ass was Jaxon, the other guys didn't even have faces and yet they were killed just as brutally. Now about the murder of Stunt's mom, most of the forums checked the comic before it's uploaded and found the early version where Stunt goes on about how his mother used to beat him and broke a few bones, so he slit her throat. It was changed about an hour before going up for some reason so whether it's canon remains to be seen. I'd link to it, but I'm kinda new to this and not sure how. All in all Anti-Hero would be the best way to refer to Stunt. He's getting guys killed left and right, doesn't bat an eyelash, but is still the hero of the story. That's anti-hero if I've ever heard it.

Really, you guys seem to be just like the people you say bitch about everything. you complain that they twist everything to where it's negative, and yeah, they kinda do, but that's no reason to try and justify every little thing with the comic and revert every edit that you feel is just someone being a super big meanie. I could understand if this entire page was just full of vitriol, but it's not. At all.

So defending yourself against a bunch of people who are trying to capture and sell you is no reason?

Thank you for so eloquently proving Mr Death's point (And for providing a nice Real Life example of What Measure Is A Non Human, to boot).

You must've missed the Oh Crap look on Stunt's face when the Tosser killed the first guy. If this were a court of law, that would've been Voluntary Manslaughter at worst (most likely he gets off under "Defense Of Another"). The rest, as noted, were killed by the Patriarch (induced by the stupidity of one of the poachers) or by Bortette (whom Stunt clearly thought was going to run once freed).

As for Stunt's confession: fair enough. But you might want to actually mention the forum thing. The vast majority of DD readers don't read the forums and mentioning something that was only seen there, and briefly, would sound like you're making crap up.

As I said originally, Stunt probably fits under Anti Hero, just not with a bunch of Complaining About Shows You Dont Like natter tacked on. There's plenty of reasons not to like Stunt without making them up.

Waaaiiit. Wait. You pared that entire paragraph down to two sentences that could be easily debunked. Jaxon refers to Mongrels and money in the same sentence twice before Lady Bort goes ahead and kills everyone. Even assuming that she understands the concepts of selling and money how is this reason enough to initiate a slaughter of everyone in the vicinity? Before that, they threw an easily torn net over her and tied an even easily(er) torn rope around Bort. They both very easily got out, so why does she need to kill them all?

If anything this proves my point of you guys assuming I'm here to tell Mookie how much he fails at life (Does he even knows this exist?), I'm just trying to explain how this can come off as disproportionate retribution at best. I never said they should just bend over and take it, but killing everyone?

By Oh Crap look, do you mean the small, beady eyed face he had when he saw the guy die, or the one where he just kinda nervously smiles with eyes just as beady? He seemed more embarrassed that he had no idea how physics work than sending this guy to his doom. The severity of the crime doesn't really change the fact he got him killed.

The rest, I agree on, but wouldn't Stunt's callousness towards deaths, two that were at least in a way his fault and entirely his doing, count as a reason to not like him?

So, scenario time!

Let's say you're walking through the park with a friend. You spot, down the road, your old high school sweetheart. You haven't seen each other in a while, but there's still a bit of a fire burning, and damn does she look good after all these years. You go up and talk to her, and hit it off like the last few years of separation had never happened.

Then, without warning, your friend is kicked in the face and knocked to the ground. Armed men jump out from behind trees, tie you up, grab your high school sweet heart, and tie her up, all while she's begging for help. The guys are gloating about all the fun they're going to have with you and her, when suddenly...the ropes they're using to tie you up come undone. Apparently they didn't learn their boyscout knots very well. You're free, but your friend is on the ground, your sweetheart is still tied up, he men are still armed, and they still bear ill-will toward you. In fact, you can still see knives in their hands and they don't look happy.

Now, two questions: A. do you really expect them to just shrug, walk off, and say 'Oh, nevermind, sorry to be a bother,', and B. how is it not justified in beating the crap out of them?

Is all attempted crime forgiven if the criminals buggered up the execution? Seriously?

And "only threw a net over her," what, and is she supposed to assume that was going to be it? They throw a net over her and, what, leave? "Ah, it's just a net, I'm sure it's a gift for me, and not some attempt to capture me which is what nets are normally used for, yes, I'm sure these fellows with the knives who are talking about selling me and killing my new friend are just jolly good chaps."

Someone throws a net over you and ties up your boyfriend, they are bad guys and mean to do bad things to you. How is that not clear? She doesn't need a written statement from them outlining their plans, she was just attacked by a half-dozen armed men. That is all the reason you need to defend yourself in whatever way you have available to you, and you don't stop defending yourself until those men are no longer a threat.

It only comes of "as disproportionate retribution at best" if you're completely ignoring the fact that the poachers were armed, tried to kill Stunt twice already (remember how the Tosser killed the guy? Now remember why they sent Stunt out first? That's right, to see if the tosser was going to do exactly that), tried to kill a woman for the sole crime of wanting to not leave her fried to be eaten by wild animals, and were still fully capable of attacking even after the "easily torn net" failed, as evidenced by the fact that one of them has a machete and attacks Stunt right then and there.

Stunt was hardly callous towards death. He didn't mean to kill any of the Poachers at the outset, was clearly put off by the first guy's death, and he was very disturbed by Bortette's little performance toward the end. Note the, "Oh god let's get out of here" and attempt to GTFO right when she starts.

And all of that is on top of the fact that the remaining poachers are openly aiming to finish off Stunt and Vazkes before dragging the Mongrelfolk off. Something Bortette clearly saw and understood.

How about this?

You meet up with a girl, you've never met her before. You infer she's looking for a guy you've met all of once. This one time you met him, he beat you over the head with a sign. She met this guy you met before all of once, yet she is madly in love with him. When you all meet, a guy beats the crap out of you and puts Chinese finger traps on the other two. They then proceed to act like dicks. Since they're not only adults but adults with fully functioning motor skills it takes them all of five seconds to remove the traps. They then proceed to kill the shit out of everyone. I'm sure you notice the disconnect here. You can't downplay the fact she murdered everyone by playing up how they were planning to do bad things, and it's not defending yourself when you kill everyone. You seem to be ignoring the fact that she killed everyone, so I feel I need to state it again, she killed everyone for a minor inconvenience to herself. She could have busted some heads, but no, she killed them in a shower of gorn.

She didn't even care about Stunt, cause she frolicked off immediately afterward with Bort, who she actually seemed to care about, and who was also only kinda sorta inconvenienced by the ropes since he tore right through them. They just up and leave Stunt to get his ass kicked by Jaxon. In fact, none of the poachers were shown to be armed until Jaxon spawned that machete into existence.

The poachers tried to kill him once, which was after he got one of their own killed. If you really wanna stretch it that far then it'd be on Vaskez's head, since she was the one to send him out there. Have either of you gone back to look at Stunt's face in that page by the ay? He doesn't look put off at all, he just looks kind of nervous. Seriously, look at it. He has that same kind of awkward nervousness after Lady Bort's murders, minus the smile. In case you missed it, he intentionally crushed Jaxon with a cloud to let him be eaten alive by slimes. It says it on the trope page even.

"She killed everyone for a minor inconvenience to herself." Yep, getting kidnapped, exploited, and treated like nothing more than a stupid animal is real inconvenient.

Your whole story fails because you seem to be assuming that the poachers knew that they'd break out. They did not because, well, that would be utterly stupid to try and capture something with a method you wouldn't work. They clearly meant for the ropes and net to be enough, and thought they would be.

And yet again, you're willfully ignoring the poachers' clear intentions, intentions that she very clearly understood. And she just saw them kick the teeth in of a guy who was just helping her. You don't think the poachers would've tried again? You don't think they would have, seeing that the ropes and net didn't work, brought in some heavier equipment and maimed Bort and Bortette? You don't think they were going to follow through on their threats to Stunt?

Of course you don't. They're the real heroes, obviously, only set up by the dastardly Mookie to fall against The Mighty Deegans And Their Amazing Friends, so sayeth the hatedom, so shall it be done!

As for them not being armed, Jaxon wasn't the only one you saw with a knife; the guy who was going to cut off the Tosser's nose had a knife, and frankly if you're going to be working in the wilderness, you keep a sharp knife on you if only to clear brush.

Yes, it is still defending yourself if the other people die. If you're up against multiple armed attackers who ambushed you, you don't hold back. You attack until they're no longer a threat to her, and as far as she knew, they'd remain a threat while they were still alive.

As for just "up and leaving Stunt to get his ass kicked," Jaxon was hiding, so Bortette didn't know he was even still there. If she did, she'd have killed him too.

"In case you missed it, he intentionally crushed Jaxon with a cloud to let him be eaten alive by slimes." Nope, didn't miss it. How dare Stunt defend himself against a guy who's already slashed him with a machete, stomped on his face, and plans to gut him. And how dare he execute some karmic retribution on the guy.

Oh, that's right. Stunt's a good guy in this comic, and therefore, he must really be a Complete Monster. So sayeth the hatedom, so shall it be done! Damn the logic, or actually paying attention to the plot! Finding contrived means to blame everything on the protagonists comes before all else!

Jesus dude, would you look at what you just typed? You've completely missed the point of the discussion page and instead decided to use it to declare anyone with an opinion that isn't heaping praise on the comic as just some embittered old man who just really likes to make other old men cry. I don't actively go out of my way to hate Dominic Deegan, I just got into it. Does that mean I think it's good? Oh no, oh hell no, I have a standard for what I call good and Deegan doesn't get within spitting distance.

It's possible to read something and know it's not good. I can admit when it does something right and not nitpick on every detail. You seem to assume that because I see a flaw that I'm out to spread the gospel on how awful this is, and in retaliation you're ignoring things that are very obviously in the comic to try and undermine me. How can you respond to me pointing out to you where Stunt killed someone, by ignoring how you said he hadn't killed someone and instead saying that I was blaming Stunt for killing someone who tried to kill him. I wasn't. I was saying he killed someone. Which you said he didn't do. Which he did.

She didn't defend herself and other people just happened to die, she killed them, you even admit that in the next sentence, so why are you trying to skirt around the fact she did when even the author knows it?

Even if they were incompetent enough to not know a small net with no weights on it wouldn't work, killing them all in return is still extreme. You're making too many excuses for what you've been given. It's the exact opposite of what you say the hatedom does but just as annoying to everyone else.

Granted, yeah, you take knives and other tools when hunting, but not them have any sheaths or much of anything on them to actually imply that they have them, Jaxon does have that rectangular pouch, but it kinda looks like a dildo, just saying.

You're really just coming off as a sychophant who can't admit fault in a comic he likes, and it's not doing much to help your point, especially when you make so few and fill the rest of your post with wild accusations.

No, I'm not declaring that "anyone with an opinion that isn't heaping praise is...etc. etc.", I'm ranting at the Hate Dom and their tendency to see everything the heroes do as HORRRRRRRIBLE and see everything the villains do as entirely justified. I was exaggerating for comedic and rhetorical effect. And I didn't mention a "bitter old man" anywhere, I'm not sure where you got that.

I never said Stunt didn't kill anyone. In fact, I specifically stated that I didn't miss the part where he crushes the guy. I don't deny that Stunt killed anyone, though in this arc he seems to have been trying not to up until that point (as evidenced by him starting out by simply inconveniencing them, and assuming the tosser's toss would be non-fatal). I was saying that Jaxon, ringleader of the whole mess, who stabbed Vazkes and was trying to kill Stunt, deserved what he got.

I'm not "skirting around" anything. I was saying that her killing them in self-defense was justified on the grounds that A. she's outnumbered, B. been ambushed, and C. has no indication that these people are just going to leave her alone. She's out of the net, yes, but as far as she's concerned, they're still a threat. And, well, she's a Wild Edges creature. When she defends herself, it's not going to be with a measured response to subdue them with minimal harm. She's going to go wild on them.

Meanwhile, you're saying she went overboard because their initial attempt to subdue her failed. So, should she have stood there and waited for them to start shooting her with arrows, perhaps? If you're attacked and get an opening, you don't give your attacker another opportunity to get the drop on you.

The fact remains, she was attacked, unprovoked, by several armed people who clearly did not have her best interests in mind. If you're attacked, you don't hold back to see what the attackers have in store for you, or if they've brought in bigger weapons to deal with you, you put them down before they can do you harm.

Bottom line: They attacked her, they deserve it if their kidnapping victim is more than they bargained for.

The fact that they're wilderness guides, and at least two of them are shown using machetes, is enough to imply that they've got that sort of equipment.

I can admit fault, certainly. Check the old discussion pages, I concede on a few points in there. I just get sick and tired of seeing updates put up through the "This is WRONGWRONGWRONG" lens, and that's exactly what the initial Anti Hero entry was. And I'm not exactly the only one who's tired of it.

BUSINESS IS TOO SERIOUS!

COMMENCE KITTENS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bmhjf0rKe8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTxW3GWZ5hI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNyLkXcN8yU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vmoZEaN_-o

KITTENS COMMENCED AND ENGAGED!

PROCEED!

Are the kittens erupting from your landmass?

Mr. Death, you really need to settle down. No one here's trying to burn Mookie alive, we're just trying to give credit where it's due.

Though you must admit, Stunt pretty much murdered Jaxon in the most horrifying way possible. And then he gets no repurcussions. I added it as a Moral Event Horizon, until something more agreed upon can be figured out.

One person's Moral Event Horizon is another's Karmic Death.

Thank you, Freezer. Took out the Moral Event Horizon listing.

I was settled; you'll notice the discussion ended two weeks ago. The reason I was angry was that the anonymous troper was, as the Hate Dom is wont to do, completely ignoring all mitigating circumstances in order to portray the protagonists as EVIL.

In this case, it's not "murder" if the other guy is trying to slice you up with a knife, for a start, and leaving him to be eaten by slimes—i.e., the exact same thing he did to one of his own allies—is Karmic Death. He wanted to abuse the Wild Edge, so Stunt left him to the Wild Edge.

As I've said before: The comic does have its faults, and I'll admit to that. What pisses me off is when people contrive to make it sound worse by ignoring things explained in the comic, exaggerating the slightest misstep, and, occasionally, outright making shit up to bash the comic.

I don't think Karmic Death really justifies leaving a man to be eaten alive by wild animals.

---

Oh dear, Mr. Death.

From the article's creator: "Also: I set up the Dominic Deegan Tropes page back when DD was a font of misapplied Tropes. Shortly after its birth it attracted a single vocal True Believer who re-spun everything. Since the Neverending Arc I washed my hands of it and while the occasional Snarker seems to pop up to keep things honest it seems more trouble than it's worth."

Would that True Believer be you?

You don't think it does. Others disagree, as Freezer pointed out. The man in question is about as far from innocent as you can get, given that "left to be eaten alive by wild animals" is more or less the state he left Vazkes in.

As for the second bit, DD was already an established page by the time I came around, so no, I don't believe he's referring to me. And even if it did, what difference would that make? What, exactly, are you trying to imply with that "Oh dear"? That I should somehow be ashamed that I like the comic?

Also, I find it hilarious that the "Snarkers" are credited with keeping things "honest," given they seem to be the ones misapplying the tropes and making things up more often than not.

Uh, no. Jaxon stabbed Vasquez. He intended to kill her. Stunt left Jaxon to be slowly burned away by slimes, one of the most excruciating deaths imaginable. It's rather, oh, I dunno, insanely sadistic. It doesn't matter if YOU think it's Karmic Retribution. A great deal of the fanbase found it BLATANTLY DISTURBING.

What Anon said.

The problem is that the arc's hero is the one brutally murdering someone, villain or not. That's the sort of thing I'd expect from Terry Goodkind, not from good old Mookie.

Also, you arriving here after the article's creation only further cements you as that True Believer. Go back and re-read that paragraph, you'll know what I mean.

Okay, this was stupid before people started accusing Mr Death of something wholly unrelated to ending this argument, on no real evidence. Are you trying to pick a fight, Lost Hero?

Never mind. Look, let's just add the slime kill to Pay Evil Unto Evil and end this topic. We can't call it a Moral Event Horizon, because that's an act that establishes a character as irredeemably evil and unsymphatetic, and perceptions of Stunt haven't changed that far even among the hatedom. We can't call it a Karmic Death, because that's not an ironically appropriate death but one caused entirely by the villain. We won't be able to get anywhere with a discussion, because (a) it's gotten too ugly already and is not about to unuglify, and (b) even though the snarkers' shock at the slime kill is probably genuine, there is no real way to prove that.

We can call it a case of Pay Evil Unto Evil, i.e. a morally questionable act done for understandable or at least human reasons. That, I hope, is clearly appropriate. We're unlikely to find any better outcome, so hopefully we can just agree that the matter is solved and go have popsicles.

Calling it "brutally murdering" sorta ignores the fact it was done in self defense. You know, while Jaxon was trying to gut him with a knife. You seem to be forgetting that little tidbit, how he hid, let his own men be slaughtered, and then attacked Stunt for petty revenge. Calling it "brutal murder" makes it sound like Stunt was the instigator and aggressor.

And Anonymous Troper, he stabbed her, yes, but like Stunt, he didn't finish her off either. He left her bleeding to death in the Wild Edge, in the middle of a pack of animals that were certainly capable of eating her.

So, Lost Hero, being someone who likes the comic unironically is somehow a bad thing that I should hide? Really? Is that how much you hate the comic that you think someone should be ashamed for liking it, that it's something you need to catch me at?

And your quote said that the person came "soon after" the page was made. As I said, the page had been long established before I showed up, and had already gone through fixes from the "Who wrote this, John Solomon?" phase it apparently started out in.

If you want to see some real spinning, look at the first thread on this page, where Fawkes's reaction to someone liking a plot development is to go "I cannot let this stand!" and deliberately twisting said troper's entry in the worst way he could manage. You can look at that and say I'm the one spinning things?

---

Anyway, I'll agree with Kizor (who is, as always, a worthy opponent and quite reasonable, for a Snarker). It fits Pay Evil Unto Evil.

I would still argue in favor of Karmic Death, though, given Stunt's last line to him about how he wanted to exploit the Wild Edge, so he was going to let the Wild Edge decide what to do with him.

Always a pleasure, Mr. D. I'll make you drop that "for a snarker" qualifier someday.

I was just trying to find out if you were him. I didn't meant to cause any trouble. :(

I'll agree with the trope listing, though. That's what I had been trying to do before: Settle the trope down together so no edit wars started up. :(

Well, the way you were saying it came off as if it were an accusation, or as if you were trying to uncover some tidbit about my past I was trying to hide. Sorry if I overreacted, but dealing with the Hate Dom has made me a bit edgy when it comes to this comic.

I dunno about the "derailing", but I don't think the killing was out of spite. I think the decision to kill Siegfried came because he would be the "safest" one to kill of Dominic's group since among them, he'd have hit Dom the least hard. If Luna died, that would've devastated him, same with if it'd been his mother or Szark. Dom's relationship with Siegfried, however, has always been antagonistic even at the best of times, so killing him wouldn't have been such a blow to his psyche.

I can't speak to whether the revelation of the murderous racism of his youth was motivated by spite or not. Going by the blurb, it doesn't seem like Mookie's aware of, or at least acknowledging, the Hate Dom or Snarkers most of the time; one recent posting had him remarking on meeting someone who said he only read the comic to make fun of it as if it were a notable occurance, which to me indicated he doesn't pay much attention to it.

I don't belive Mookie killed Siggy out of spite, but rather went the easy route and killed him instead of Luna (which would have been more interesting, but would mean letting one of his favorite characters die). After realizing that the fandom went nutters about this, he quickly backpedaled (sp?) and tried to justify killing Siegfried by retroactively making him evil. An act which, if you read the Draco In Leather Pants entry, went horribly wrong.

But that's just me. : )

^ But yeah, Mookie seems pleasantly unaware of most of it.

Still don't understand the whole "derailment" argument. Siggy was never a good person. Hell, Siggy being a good person was just as much in flashback as his really bad acts. It also assumes that Mookie didn't have the orc murder and the affair in the works long before Siggy officially reached Draco In Leather Pants territory.

Ah, I was wondering when you'd bring this up in here.

While he doesn't do it terribly often, Dominic did take a look at Hansi's injuries at the end of the Maltak arc to see what was up with his wound—though I'll admit he was probably looking more at the "magically healed" aspect. He also, when Bulgak first collapsed, seemed to be intending to use his second sight to see what was wrong with him as well—it turned out to have a magical source, but he didn't know that before he looked.

We haven't seen him explicitly refer to medical training, no, but I wouldn't put it past him to have studied up on it at least a little bit. I mean, he's studied up on just about everything else, and he puts a lot of emphasis on the idea that a Seer should be familiar with as many subjects as they can—and medical knowledge would certainly fall under the heading of "useful information." Even your entry said he "spent years learning the knowledge of many fields."

As for the eyesight, blood pressure, and brittle bones, yes, you can figure this out from having lived through it, or if he's been hospitalized before. The eyesight is easiest—he wears glasses, after all. Speaking as someone who also wears glasses (and has had to get a couple new prescriptions so far), you do sorta catch on eventually that things are blurrier than they used to be. The blood pressure's a bit trickier, but there's likely to be symptoms of that you don't have to be a doctor to recognize. As for the brittle bones, we've seen Dominic get physically beaten down in the comic, and he probably had boyhood injuries we haven't seen, which likely resulted in Gregory saying, "Geez, bro, I have to fix your arm again?"

In any case, Miranda almost certainly is the type of mother who'd make sure the boys got regular check-ups growing up, which would've revealed all three, and a sperm-count isn't part of a regular check-up, as I understand it, you usually have to have that done specifically.

As far as those three things go, I took it not as Dominic "discovering" them so much as just listing them as more stuff wrong with him on top of being infertile. A medical As You Know, if you will, or a self-inflicted verbal Trauma Conga Line.

As for his and Luna's fertility, we're not sure exactly how he saw/figured it out. Maybe using the second sight doesn't just give you visual images (I believe we've seen Dominic see symbolic visions before), but you can also see/feel someone's aura, or something similar that would indicate something is "wrong" in a given area. Maybe Dom took a peek at himself, and saw a big red circle-with-a-line-through-it over his groin.

Also note that both he and Luna go and get proper medical exams right after, which indicates at the least he wants to confirm what he found rather than just relying on his own sight.

DD is completely work safe. There hasn't been anything naughty except a bare ass here and there.

Well, the Erossus arc has more than a few scantily clad people; no outright nudity shown, though.