Line #8 WhamEpisode/TheOrderOfTheStick


1	%%WeblinksAreNotExamples. Explain what happens on the strip in question so readers don't have to jump to a different site to understand the WhamEpisode.
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3	Thanks in large part to the comics' CerebusSyndrome, it's safe to say that ''The Order of the Stick'' has a '''lot''' of {{Wham Episode}}s to offer.[[note]]Rule of thumb: anytime a strip is larger than what would fit in a single page of the trade paperback qualifies. For example, #1130 is ''three'' trade paperback pages.[[/note]]
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5	!!''[[Recap/TheOrderOfTheStickNoCureForThePaladinBlues No Cure For The Paladin Blues]]''
6	* [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0247.html 247]]. While it's PlayedForLaughs at the time, Haley is rendered TheUnintelligible here, which would later have very serious consequences down the line.
7	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0273.html 273]]. Lord Shojo reveals the existence of [[GreaterScopeVillain the Snarl]], a malevolent EldritchAbomination accidentally created by the fighting among the Gods.
8	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0274.html 274]]. Shojo then explains that the Snarl was so powerful that it ''wiped out all of the Eastern Gods'' and '''undid the creation of the first world'''.
9	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0275.html 275]]. Shojo further reveals that the current world is actually the ''prison'' of the Snarl, and that there are rifts in this prison.
10	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html 276]]. Shojo finally reveals that for the Gods to fix the rifts, they'd need to undo creation first and rebuild the world without the rifts. The Order of the Scribble didn't want to let things get that far, so they built the gates to seal the rifts. Should all of them fall, the Gods ''will'' step in and undo creation, since that's better than letting the Snarl destroy everything since it can [[DeaderThanDead destroy even souls]].
11	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0295.html 295]]. Belkar is readmitted to the Order of the Stick, but with a Mark of Justice magically applied to him to serve as a RestrainingBolt.
12	!!''[[Recap/TheOrderOfTheStickWarAndXPs War And [=XPs=]]]''
13	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0393.html 393]]. Haley [[CannotSpitItOut finally]] makes her AnguishedDeclarationOfLove to Elan, ending her time as TheUnintelligible.
14	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0406.html 406]]. [[KnightTemplar Miko Miyazaki]] decides that Lord Shojo is guilty of treason and executes him. Next strip she's not ThePaladin any more, as the Twelve Gods personally stripped her of her status for murdering her lord.
15	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0443.html 443]]. Xykon kills [[TheHero Roy]], though he eventually comes back.
16	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0462.html 462]]. Miko Miyazaki destroys Soon's Gate, changing the game in the hunt for the Gates. Next strip, the resulting blast devastates the castle and the battlefield, and O-Chul lands near the Monster in the Darkness. And in the strip after ''that'', Soon Kim reveals to Miko that she cannot regain her status as ThePaladin, because she would not seek forgiveness for her wrongdoings, and she finally dies from the blast.
17	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0481.html 481]]. [[BreakingTheFellowship The Order of the Stick is separated]] as [[DownerEnding Azure City falls to the forces of Team Evil]].
18	!!''[[Recap/TheOrderOfTheStickDontSplitTheParty Don't Split The Party]]''
19	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0568.html 568]]. After Belkar kills the Oracle, he unwittingly activates his Mark of Justice.
20	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0572.html 572]]. The [[DeathIsCheap resurrected]] Oracle gives the ghost of Roy one of ''the'' most important prophecies in the entire series: "Belkar will draw his last breath--ever--before the end of the [InUniverse] year."
21	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0599.html 599]]. Vaarsuvius leaves Elan and Durkon to go off on their own in trying to restore contact with Haley and Belkar.
22	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0606.html 606]]. Belkar goes on an illness-induced VisionQuest with a hallucination of Lord Shojo, where he learns that he needs to fake having HiddenDepths and be a team player in order to "play the game" and survive, setting him on the path for (both faked and legitimate) CharacterDevelopment.
23	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0626.html 626]]. The mother of the Black Dragon killed in the starmetal quest comes for V. [[WhamLine "Say 'Disintegrate' one more time, Vaarsuvius.]] ''[[OhCrap For me."]]''
24	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0634.html 634]]. Vaarsuvius accepts a [[DealWithTheDevil Faustian bargain]] with [[BigBadDuumvirate the IFCC]] in order to save their family.
25	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html 639]]. Vaarsuvius casts ''Familicide''.
26	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0661.html 661]]. After O-Chul and a now-BroughtDownToNormal Vaarsuvius have gotten Blackwing to drop Xykon's phylactery into the sewers below Azure City, the Monster in the Darkness (showing how [[CharacterDevelopment they've been taking O-Chul's lessons on ethics and philosophy into account]]) saves V and O-Chul's lives by teleporting them away.
27	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0665.html 665]]. Roy is ''finally'' brought BackFromTheDead.
28	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0672.html 672]]. In the final strip to this story arc, Blackwing, Vaarsuvius' familiar reveals what he saw within the Rift over Soon's Gate: a '''planet'''. ''Not'' the Snarl, which is supposed to be the overarching manifestation of chaos doomed to unmake the whole world (although it's not impossible to discount it still being omnipresent in a way we've yet to understand), but a lone planet.
29	!!''[[Recap/TheOrderOfTheStickBloodRunsInTheFamily Blood Runs In The Family]]''
30	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0759.html 759]]. Knocking off Elan's rose tinted glasses takes a big punch, but his dad delivers.
31	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0830.html 830]]. Redcloak reveals ThePlan (teleport the Rifts from the mortal plane to the Outer Planes where the other Gods live so the Snarl can threaten them on their home turf in order for him and the Dark One to blackmail them all into elevating goblinkind and their ilk to [=PC=] races), is elevated to new levels of awesome (he's been playing Xykon for a fool the whole time)... and offs a recurring villain in the comic (Tsukiko).
32	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0831.html 831]], [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0832.html 832]], and [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0833.html 833]]. Redcloak is revealed to have created a fake copy of Xykon's phylactery, which he then "returns" to Xykon. The lich subsequently stores it at his fortress in the Astral Plane for safekeeping, not realizing that Redcloak still has the real one.
33	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0842.html 842]]. ''Familicide'' is revealed to have a direct and devastating effect on both the plot and V's character arc.
34	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0878.html 878]]. Malack turns Durkon into a vampire.
35	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0896.html 896]] and [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0897.html 897]]. [[WhamLine "Now."]] The IFCC finally reveal their hand, trapping V in hell for 20 minutes and allowing the rest of the Order of the Stick to blow up Girard's Gate.
36	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html 906]]. Nale incinerates Malack.
37	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0913.html 913]]. Tarquin kills Nale -- a villain that has been in the comic for nearly ten real-life years - with a knife to the chest.
38	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0936.html 936]]. Elan lets his father drop from Scoundrél's airship, turning Tarquin's set of beliefs against him and leaving him alone in the middle of the desert, utterly wrecked psychologically.
39	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0945.html 945]]. It is finally confirmed that the Snarl is real, with one of its tentacles reaching out of Girard's Gate and attacking people.
40	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0946.html 946]]. Durkon is being held prisoner inside his own mind by the spirit of the vampire he has become, who is now the High Priest of ''Hel'', and the Order doesn't suspect a thing.
41	!!''[[Recap/TheOrderOfTheStickUtterlyDwarfed Utterly Dwarfed]]''
42	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0997.html 997]]. The Godsmoot's first order of business? A vote on whether or not to unmake the world.
43	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1000.html 1000]]. And what a celebration of a 1000th page it is. Vampire Durkon and Hel's scheme is revealed, and if Roy cannot stop Durkon, the world will be destroyed.
44	* [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1009.html 1009]]. After Vampire Durkon makes an exceptionally cruel remark about Roy's dead baby brother, Roy finally realizes that Vampire Durkon isn't Durkon at all and stops [[WillfullyWeak pulling his punches around who he thought was his former friend]].
45	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1105.html 1105]]. Hilgya [[TheBusCameBack makes a surprising return]] with a child implied - and later confirmed - to be Durkon's. For extra wham, Hilgya was last seen in [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0084.html Strip 84]], which was posted on July 4, 2004. ''Thirteen'' '''real-life years.'''
46	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1130.html 1130]]. Durkon tricks the High Priest of Hel, turning him into a copy of Durkon.
47	* [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1131.html 1131]]. [[HeroicSacrifice The copy of Durkon lowers the Anti-Life Shell]], allowing for Belkar to stake the vampire and finally kill off the High Priest of Hel.
48	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1139.html 1139]]. It is revealed that the current world isn't the second one created after the Snarl destroyed the first world, as previously believed. Nor is it, in fact, the tenth, either. Or the hundredth, or even '''the billionth.''' In reality, the Gods have made a near-infinity of prior worlds of vastly different kinds, all of which were inevitably destroyed by the Snarl.
49	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1141.html 1141]]. Thor drops an InfoDump on the nature of both the Snarl and the Gods -- and reveals that the Dark One is a potential SpannerInTheWorks against the Snarl.
50	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1150.html 1150]]. Durkon is restored to life. Also, both Thor and Odin are revealed to have no idea about the planet inside the Snarl's rifts.
51	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1183.html 1183]]. The IFCC knew about Hel's plan and were counting on it succeeding, meaning that they ''want'' the world to be destroyed. And in any case, they're preparing to carry out their own plan and finally take a more active role in events.
52	* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1189.html 1189]]. We're introduced to at least two new, invisible characters, representing another independent side, who capture O-Chul and Lien without much effort and have motivations unknown to anyone else, including the readers.
53
54	!!''Unnamed Final Book''
55	* [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1226.html 1226]]. Lien and O-Chul's kidnapper is revealed to be none other than Serini Toormuck, who is not only still alive after all these years, but has also been partially transfigured into some kind of monster (revealed to be due to a transfusion of Troll blood in the next strip).
56	* [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1277.html 1277]]. It's revealed that ''all'' of the doors in Kraagor's Tomb are the "correct" ones; only by clearing them all out can the Gate be found.
57	* [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1286.html 1286]]. Roy steps through a door in the Final Dungeon... and finds himself in what looks like Dorukan's Dungeon, from the very beginning of the strip. And later in strip [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1290.html 1290]] Serini explains ''why:'' she tricked individual Scribblers to help her defend her Gate, so her Gate is protected by the power of the other Scribblers other than Soon.
58	* [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1295.html 1295]]. In the previous strip, something seems to Dominate or Charm Sunny to come to and free it, and we find out what it is: an old, powerful red dragon introducing himself as Calder, who's ''pissed'' at Serini for press-ganging him to guard the gates before she turned to volunteers.

Context WhamEpisode / TheOrderOfTheStick