The Order of the Stick

I wonder what will happen when O-chul tries to explain that too many people know enough about their mission for amnesia-ing them to work.

Also does amnesia work on liches? I wonder if Team Evil did get past the rogue trap at some point, and then fought Serini, but forgot about it.

Edited by thok on Feb 19th 2021 at 1:03:16 PM

Rereading this page, by referring to "your boss", it seems that Serini still thinks that the Sapphire Guard exists as a formal institution commanded by someone deriving authority from Soon. They must have sent paladins to investigate the Gate before and they came home empty-handed because she erased their memories of it. That or this is a contingency plan she's been brewing for a while.

What's not clear to me is why she'd be keeping this scheme going if she's aware that the other Gates have been destroyed and she's now preparing for The End. Is she trying to preserve the fiction of normalcy even while the world burns? Maintain the oath that the Scribblers took at all costs? Does she have her own plan to beat Xykon?

So. Many. Questions.

Liches, like all undead, are immune to mind-affecting effects and to poison. He has no blood to carry it around his body and no heart to pump it anyway. Undead are also immune to sneak attack damage. Rogue class abilities are pretty shit against them.

Edit: I'm going to surmise that Serini is assuming that the sending spell that O-Chul and Lien were responding to was from their "boss", and who else would send paladins of the Sapphire Guard than the leader of the Sapphire Guard?

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 19th 2021 at 1:20:54 PM

Is it too early to label her character sheet as a walking spoiler?

FYI, if we include her appearance in 1189, it's been 912 strips and over 13 years since we've seen her. Only Ivan and Surtur beat Serini out on physical appearance gaps.

Well she didn't maintain the oath. If I remember correctly it's implied she kept in contact with Draketooth. Then again like draketooth that's not stopping her from being a hypocrite. That has me wondering who won the bet between Girard and I assume his siblings and cousins?

I find it hard to believe that any of them bet "never".

Regardless, one thing is clear:

This isn't the case of "character who only appeared in one panel", so now we get to speculate on who that's gonna be.

Her associate maybe? But who that is I have no idea.

....

So.....am I wrong here?

Cause Serini makes sense, but I'm pretty sure she's been in one strip.

You know what? I'm gonna keep my thing here until we know who the other dude is.

Edit: Looks like my Oona is a Bugbear theory is wrong though.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Feb 19th 2021 at 7:04:39 PM

She's been in more than one strip (If we count the crayons), and the picture of her in the diary they found in the tower. If we count the crayons your guess has been in only one strip.

Edited by jjjj2 on Feb 19th 2021 at 2:11:18 PM

She has recently converted to the Holey Brotherhood dogma and is ready to unseal the rift, even at the cost of her own existence.

@Frosthead: Here.

Elan: Maybe I'm a half-halfling. Or a five-eighthling!
Belkar: Bah! You're not cool enough to even be a nine-tenthling.

What confuses me about all the theorizing on those lines last strip is her robes aren't the same colors as the Holey Brotherhood guy's were?

Yeah we still haven’t run across our mystery “one past appearance” person, unless the Giant miscounted.

Still, we're likely gonna get a story from Serini, which will provide a lot of context.

Hell, maybe we'll fully see how Kragoor died. That seems to be one of the big sticking points that splintered the Scribblers (though it seems mostly Girard held it against Soon, but we don't know how the others felt).

It'll be interesting to see hear the story from someone who actually lived it and see what really happened.

He's got that thread where the readers were counting character appearances, he wouldn't have had to count himself.

Edited by shigmiya64 on Feb 19th 2021 at 3:41:00 PM

Yeah that Wrecan character Roy bonded with during the Godsmoot was named after the forum member who started that thread, who had recently passed at the time that arc was in progress.

It should be noted that all robes look alike in the comic. The IFCC, Miko, the Holey Brotherhood, and now Serini.

I was looking at the thread earlier actually, apparently another of the people maintaining that character appearances thread has also passed away, with the current thread being named in memory of the two thread curators who have passed away.

It’s highly unlikely that the Giant miscounted anyone’s appearances unless they appeared in a form that the thread counts and he doesn’t, which itself doesn’t fit anyone important.

Besides, he doesn't need to keep track of every characters appearances for this. Just the one he was referring to. I'd imagine that'd be fairly simple.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention that Rich played a trick on us — Serini was standing on a stool, and the robe made her look like a Medium size character. So tricky. I love it.

Many of us called out the out-of-proportion arm.

Yeah, “Halfing on stilts” was a common guess.

Especially given that Burlew already pulled that gag with Belkar and the "get out of jail free" card thing. (Although maybe Burlew was counting on the audience to not expect him to repeat that joke.)

Doesn’t seem like much of a fakeout, given it lasted for all of two strips. But you pretty much have to admit that he was definitely going for it, given there doesn’t seem to be any other reason for her to be wearing such an oversized cloak.

I feel kind of bad that it didn't turn out to be a member of the Holey Brotherhood. I wish Rob's theory had been correct.

That being said, I do recall that Miko was introduced hidden by a cloak, so an appearance-concealing cloak is definitely not just a feature of the Brotherhood.

Also, I have a stupid question I've been meaning to ask for a while. What does it mean with Kraagor being "eaten" by the Snarl? Because my impression is that everyone in the Scribble still remembered him, right?