The Order of the Stick

My guess is that Xykon has already figured this out, and has a plan.

Yes, but that's not his motive. Xykon's motivation is based around finding something to give his eternal unlife some amusement or at least interest. He became a lich to avoid his natural death and he is no closer to filling the gaping existential hole in his soul than he has ever been. If this scheme fails, he isn't going to fall to pieces. He'll be furious at the utter waste of his time, murder everyone nearby that he can even remotely assign blame to, then find something else to do.

No, the key to all of this isn't Xykon, it's Redcloak. That is where the moral center of the conflict lies. If Redcloak can be made to admit the error of his ways, if he can be persuaded to turn on Xykon, or even just suffer enough doubt to give the Order an opening, the good guys have a chance. If not, if he rides his Sunk Cost Fallacy to the bitter end, then things aren't going to turn out so well.

That's what makes this story so great: like every good heroic fantasy, the key conflict is not about strength, but morality.

It would be nice if Roy could deliver the killing blow, but I absolutely guarantee that the real fight will have been won (or lost) before that happens. If it does.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 18th 2019 at 2:50:20 PM

Rich has stated that the comic was about the Order of the Stick, not the gods. The gods' conflict with the Snarl is the backdrop of the story, not the subject. Expect the gods to take a backseat for the next book, they won't be involved until the very end.

The moral centerpiece of the story is the members of the Order struggling to grow from catastrophically dysfunctional to truly heroic, juxtaposed against Redcloak struggling to redress the fundamental injustice dealt to his race at the world's creation.

Xykon, for all his billing as the Big Bad, is relatively simple from a moral standpoint. He's just evil. He doesn't need complex psychology to understand; he can't be dissuaded with a sufficiently compelling argument. He's by far the most powerful physical threat (other than the Snarl), but he isn't what the Order ultimately needs to overcome.

Edited to add: Even if we assume that Xykon has sniffed out the fact that Redcloak is lying to him about the ritual, what is the one absolutely crucial piece of information that Xykon doesn't know? That his phylactery is still in Redcloak's possession instead of locked up in the Astral plane. If that particular Chekhov's Gun doesn't fire, I will eat my shoes while still wearing them.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 18th 2019 at 2:59:53 PM

@Tharkun 140, you're probably going to be disappointed then, because the writer himself disagrees with you on what the main plot is.

If Rich decides to introduce a new plot to replace the current main plot or makes some existing plot more important than the main plot, than yes, I will be dissapointed. I don't think it will happen though, since for a thousand strips the plot was centered around the Order of the Stick trying to stop what is, to their knowledge or not, Redcloak's plan to elevate his species.

My point, which someone else already elaborated on a bit more, is that as as far as Mr. Burlew is considered those are all just excuses to get the Order doing something; the story is about them, not the gods, Snarl, or saving the world.

You're going to be disappointed if you want Xykon swept under the rug because he's explictly said the story is going to come down to Roy and Xykon.

Edited by LSBK on Oct 18th 2019 at 3:32:25 AM

While I assume that's not directed at me, I in no way believe that Xykon will be ignored or dispatched casually. His final defeat (or whatever happens) is undoubtedly going to be one of the most awesome scenes in the comic so far. I just don't think it'll be the end of the conflict, since he's not the existential threat facing the world.

The way I see it, I expect Xykon to be more of a Post-Final Boss, retreating to his astral fortress after the Gate plan blows up (one way or the other), and the Order hunting him down there. And it would make for fitting Book Ends - the story started with a simple dungeon crawl to kill Xykon without the Gates being immediately relevant to the Order, so why not end it on the same note?

That is actually pretty neat. As much as I'm not a huge fan of conflicts continuing past the main plot, this would allow the order to beat Xykon while keeping him as a final boss of sorts, but without having him be the ultimate focus.

I was looking through old quotes from Mr. Burlew and found this.

Posting in quoteblocks and highlighting what I think is most relevant to this conversation:

So, yeah, it really does read like the author's own view of Xykon, and the story as a whole, just doesn't track with how some of you might be expecting things to go.

Edited by LSBK on Oct 18th 2019 at 12:27:51 PM

I feel like he's taking pride in embracing what I consider a bad form of writing. But I already knew he thought that way, so it comes as no surprise to me.

He touches on something important here, but it gets glossed over; yes the setting and the Snarl and so on are only important because of their relation to the Order, but you still need to write a story where those things are related to the protagonists.

His example is that we only care about the world because we care about the protagonists, who care about the world (they could theoretically survive the destruction of the world). But we probably wouldn't want to read a story about a bunch of characters who don't give a shit if their world gets destroyed.

The protagonists are at the center of everything and everything runs through them because we are human and that's what we care about. But you still have to have that other stuff that connects to them.

The Snarl is lore. Xykon is the plot.

Also,

8-Bit Theater exists and is amazing.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 18th 2019 at 12:10:27 PM

They do kind of give a shit...if only because the world is where all the stuff they want is. If the world blew up, there'd be nothing for Thief to steal for example.

But even when they do start taking the whole "world will be destroyed" thing more seriously, they still mess up.

Edited by M84 on Oct 19th 2019 at 2:24:21 AM

In stories, we become invested in the setting because of the characters that inhabit it. That's fundamental to the nature of fiction, and is something a lot of writers miss.

We care about the setting because the characters live in it, not the other way around.

Every narrative rule is going to have exceptions. In the case of 8-Bit Theater, it's a pure comedy just a couple steps away from a troll fic, so the fact that the main characters are all assholes is part of the appeal. But if the world did get destroyed (and they survived), they wouldn't care much, and we wouldn't care much, because the world only exists for the sake of their stupid adventures.

It says something about 8-Bit Theater that the entire world being destroyed and the "heroes" being left to bicker in an empty void would have been a reasonable ending that the audience would have found hilarious.

But OOTS has quite a bit more drama. We are supposed to care about the world, but the only way to really do that is to make us care about the main characters, who care about the world.

Not to mention that the world of 8BT is so awful in general that there would be no reason to root for it at all unless one happened to like the characters inhabiting it. As hilarious as the protagonists are, they are not even slightly sympathetic, except maybe Fighter. White Mage is possibly the only truly good character and she's not part of the main party.

We care about that world to the extent that it forms a backdrop for the hijinks of the cast; so that we can establish continuity of locations and it becomes increasingly funny when that one city keeps getting obliterated by "natural" disasters.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 19th 2019 at 11:25:32 AM

Well of course you'd say that, Fighteer.

Even the Big Bad pretty much regarded Fighter as collateral damage in his quest for vengeance.

You know something is wrong when the self-proclaimed villain team are some of the most sympathetic and likable characters. So much so that they get all the credit for saving the world and get a happy ending.

Actually, didn't White Mage deliberately make it so that another group took credit for saving the world, since the Light Warriors were going to get the credit even though she and her party of White mages did it?

Yep. The self proclaimed villains the Dark Warriors are the ones she picked.

And they deserved it more than the Light Warriors did. Except Fighter. Fighter did nothing wrong.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 19th 2019 at 6:11:51 AM

But did Fighter do anything right?