The Order of the Stick

I actually think the setup was thorough enough that we'll likely never get to see her mind wipe anybody. She's already explained her intentions in detail in a separate scene prior to this fight. That makes it unlikely that her plan will go off without a hitch.

Someone recently proposed that the IFCC might abduct V, sparing them the mind wipe, and that's the hitch. But that feels too late to me. If Serini was meant to win this fight, the scene where she explains her intentions would have been after it. The only reason to establish for the audience's benefit what Serini is trying to do before she tries it is if she won't make it far enough to do so after.

I'd be surprised if she wins this fight because we've already been told in excruciating detail exactly what will happen if she does.

I’d go for the long bet, she wins the fight but doesn’t end up doing the mind wipe for some other reason.

My bet is on it's a draw.

What also gets me about this scene is that Serini is taking the time to taunt the Order.

If the hitch is supposed to come after she's already captured them, there's no reason for this scene to continue past this page. The Order is confused by why they can't open the false wall, then the Beholder opens its anti-magic cone and Roy falls. Before anyone can react, Serini darts the rest. Game over, move to next scene.

Instead, Rich has taken the time to explain that the fake wall is actually a Mimic, something important for the audience to know for the upcoming violence puzzle. He's taken the time to introduce Sunny as an actual character. And he's got Serini monologuing instead of just getting the job done. All of this indicates that this scene is meant to continue, that we're going to get a serious fight out of this, have the Order engage Serini conversationally, maybe Xykon and Redcloak interrupt, or some combination of the three.

The only reason for this scene to continue instead of skipping straight to, "And then Serini wins, next scene," is if Serini's failure happens here. The setup alone already means that Serini's won. If we're still here, still telling this scene after establishing her inevitably victory, that can only mean something's going to upset that victory.

Compare and contrast.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 29th 2021 at 2:34:51 AM

Excuse you, there are rules. Serini isn't allowed to make 12 ranged attacks in one or two turns.

Well, she's a crappy Epic Rogue, then.

Or something happens during this scene before they get totally knocked out that matters later, the presence of Mimi is important because it shows how Serini operates (and possibly introduces a character), the fact we get a proper fight is because the stakes are high and the characters competent enough that a quick wipeout wouldn't do them proper justice, and the fact it's a cliffhanger is for pacing reasons for update readers.

I don't even think that's likely but it's not impossible and it's silly to see stuff like the unspoken plan guarantee treated as an inviolate principle of storytelling, it's really not. Also Sunny's introduction as a character would and should have happened however this scene played out because Sunny is probably going to be an important character, right? So that's not evidence.

Edited by RaichuKFM on Jun 29th 2021 at 6:19:00 AM

I can't believe it, but I'm on Team Dino. That would be an amazing call back.

Also,yeah, Unspoken Plan Guarantee isn't an inviolable rule, but it's a trope because it is used pretty often, so the odds are on its side.

It’s entirely possible that the reveal of Sunny and Mimi is to Show, Don't Tell how screwed the Order is in this fight and establish their existence and personalities for future plot events, and the next strip will cut to Serini preparing to serve the mindwipe potion. “And then the Order was captured” isn’t effective as a punchline because we already expected that the odds are in Serini’s favour (even if we didn’t know exactly how); there was an expectation that she would do it by herself, though, as various people have already remarked on in this thread, so “Serini has a Beholder on her team” is a much better way to end the strip. (This isn’t a prediction, just an observation.)

Sunny’s personality as a powerful but childish monster reminds me of the Mit D, so I think it’ll be interesting to see what they (and Serini) think of each other.

Definitely curious about the Sunny/Serini relationship, particularly given that it's apparently close enough for Sunny to call her "Mom".

Regardless of how the fight goes, we've shown that Serini basically keeps the monsters as pets. This might become important later, but in itself is an interesting piece of characterization of her.

The fight with Miko was cut short 1. to make a gag, and 2. because there was another fight with her before. That one took an entire 3-page comic which ended in a cliffhanger, and the fight was finished in the next comic.

So I'm keeping my theory that the Order will be captured and brought to Serini's lair. What will happen there can go multiple ways. The Order might be able to reason with her or she might attempt to go through with the memory wipe.

Eh, I’ll put some odds on the fight not going Serini’s way. Considering this is their first real group fight against an Epic-level opponent, they have to show some effort against her because if they can’t pass this test, Xykon’s going to chew them to bits.

I really think we're supposed to take away that she treats them as partners if not family, and specifically not as pets, really.

Might be worth noting as I'm not sure if it's common knowledge, but a typical 3.5 Mimic has 10 Intelligence and can speak Common, IIRC. So I'm pretty sure Mimi's going to be shown to be a person, not a trained animal, though not necessarily a character with much depth or focus.

Their first fight against an epic opponent who specifically studied their group dynamics (how she did it is another question) and set up the ambush to exploit all their weaknesses. Against Xykon, it's the other way around. Xykon may be more powerful than the Order, but the Order knows Xykon's weaknesses, and they have the element of surprise (as of right now, that is).

But seriously, unless there’s a spot off-panel not covered by Sunny’s AMF, I don’t see how the Order can take Team Serini, like, at all.

Exactly — sometimes a plan is explained in order to set out the stakes and so that we have a basic idea what's going on.

Also: Serini's mutually respectful relationship with her monsters is making me wonder all over again whether she may have had some kind of cultural exchange with the bugbear clan, either in the past or ongoing. The story about the trolls would fit into that as well, with her treating humanoid "monsters" just as diplomatically as the, er, monstrous ones.

Regarding the problem of the anti-magic field, perhaps a gap might be achieved by a bow-shot to Sunny's central eye. Not enough, perhaps, to force permanent closure—but maybe enough to prompt a heavy blink, the eye screwed shut for a second or two, and thus a brief window in which magic is again available.

Now, even a hard blink due to severe irritation isn't likely to last long; I'm not sure whether it would last long enough for a spell to be cast. However, it just may last long enough for some quick action; the aforementioned dinosaur-freeing might fit here, for example.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jun 30th 2021 at 11:04:01 AM

By "weakness", we're talking about Xykon and pals being tired out from their latest dungeon excursion?

It might be an unideal scenario for them but they'll have to tough it out (as they usually do because ideal scenarios rarely shack up with them, Murphy's Law and all that) because if they can't throw some wrench into her plans...well, it's going to be awkward trying to rush back into prime ambush position afterwards.

How you fare under unideal scenarios matter as much as the ideal scenarios.

To be fair, it's more about things getting planned...not going as planned, which happens very often. Like, even the One Ring got tossed in because of an attack by some fish-eating cave thing, which was a good thing because...I don't remember it very well but wasn't Sam having great difficulty to toss it in?

Heck, "wait here for Xykon to ambush him" has gone off the rails so far.

Edited by fredhot16 on Jun 30th 2021 at 2:45:07 AM

When I'm talking about Xykon's weakness, it's not anything specific, but that Roy knows his capabilities and can plan a potential ambush taking it into account, the same way Serini planned her ambush taking the Order's strengths and weaknesses into account.

Is there any chance Belkar got himself another lead sheet? Perhaps that might give some cover from the Anti-Magic field.

Frodo, but yeah.

I don't mean to question the Unspoken Plan Guarantee's utility as a trope and tool for speculation, but I do think it's easy to take it too far. Sometimes we are shown a plan and then that plan does go as planned, generally because including the explanation of the plan served some purpose which outweighed the loss of tension.

Which, honestly I think it's often overblown how much tension is let out or foregone by something going as planned, there can still be plenty of tension so long as it's unclear as things happen if they'll (continue to) go as planned. And in the case of Serini's plan, tension is added by knowing what she's trying to do to the protagonists, compared to if we didn't know her plan; since then we might have reasonably expected her to be misunderstanding the Order and quite amenable to discussion after capturing them. This addition won't be negated even if it turns out she succeeds.

Edited by RaichuKFM on Jun 30th 2021 at 5:45:32 AM

That, and also the memory wipe thing makes it clear that Serini tries to capture the Order alive, not kill them.

Lead blocks magic detection, it does nothing against anti-magic fields.

I don't expect a memory wipe to happen if only because that feels like a huge waste of time at this point, but I also don't expect the Order to somehow overpower Serini here, mostly because there's no reason for them to when she can at least theoretically be reasoned with and isn't trying to kill them. Also I think it's important to establish her as a major threat if only because the legacy of the Order of the Scribble sort of requires it. Like how we saw that Soon's force-ghost might have taken out Xykon if not for Miko, or how Girard did actually create an epic illusion that might have taken them out long enough to be captured if not for his family being dead. These are legendary heroes, so they should feel, well, legendary.

And if there's a lesson to be learned from this fight, it should most certainly not be that they can fumble their way through any encounter without a plan. Especially against someone who actually does have a good plan. So far Roy's never had a real plan to beat Xykon, and maybe it's time to fix that.

Edited by Clarste on Jun 30th 2021 at 4:57:34 AM

To be fair, it's more about things getting planned...not going as planned, which happens very often. Like, even the One Ring got tossed in because of an attack by some fish-eating cave thing, which was a good thing because...I don't remember it very well but wasn't Sam having great difficulty to toss it in?

Spoiler tagged for propriety more than actual concern I'm spoiling anybody.

Edited by sgamer82 on Jun 30th 2021 at 5:47:25 AM