Somebody get this freaking duck away from me!
This entry is bothering me:
Oh, Crap!: When Lilith tells him that the best way out of a bad situation is for her to commit suicide, she sends him an image of using one of Charlie's guns to kill herself. Parson has to take a minute to digest the implications of that image.
First of all, it needs to be clear that the big deal is that Charlie has guns, not that Lilith is in a situation where suicide is a good option. But mostly, Parson's reaction doesn't seem like an Oh, Crap! to me.
I think it's worthy of an entry, but can't think of the right trope.
On the character page, do we have enough to go on for an entry for Jed the Head yet?
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If you can think of 5+ tropes for him I'd say go ahead. Anything below that can just go on the main page.
- Honor Before Reason
- During the siege of Spacerock, Parson delays the battle plan, partially to give his troops his leadership bonus, but mostly because he doesn't want to order people into a fight he wouldn't go into himself. Gobwin Knob could have won hands down at this point, but because of Parson's desire to be there himself, they win a Pyrrhic Victory instead. And since the means by which he did so violated the Magic Kingdom's neutrality, this also earns Gobwin Knob a very large number of powerful enemies and makes it very difficult for them to hire casters.
I don't really buy this, part of the reason he did what he did was because Maggie screwed up his plans.
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That was part of it. He wanted to give them his pitiful +2 Chief Warlord bonus.
But he also said that he didn't want to make anyone do anything he himself wasn't willing to do, so he plans to fight in one rather than just using people as his pawns. And he had no qualms about declaring war on the Magic Kingdom in the process, something he himself later admits wasn't worth it. Maggie's pitch to her fellow Thinkamancers was along the lines of "yes, this is incredibly stupid, but he needs actual combat experience".
Wanda's bonus combined with Count Antium's quickly overwhelmed all the troops in the garrison, rapidly building up a wave of decrypted troops in what King Slately described as a dreadful route. Prince Trammenis was incapacitated. Artemis ended up slain. King Slately was very grateful that they were delaying themselves with the portal room for whatever reason. And then they were ordered to wait. Even if he felt his +2 warlord bonus was really worth enough for him to be there, there was absolutely no practical reason for them to wait for him rather than secure the garrison and finish off the tower.
This seems like it was motivated by Parson's emotional struggles with the whole volcano incident.
Edited by aidreamer
Regarding the removal of the following entry by Arha (this entry was about Tramennis):
- Badass Gay: Given that the ambiguity is all but gone at this point.
His edit reason was the following: "Probably gay, not actually badass. He's a diplomat and tactician, not a warrior."
Now, I have to disagree, since Badass characters don't have to be actual warriors or muscle hunks to qualify (or else we would have to clean up a lot of pages; random exemple: Lelouch Lamperouge, known for his wits and his charisma, though he does fight with his mecha). As far as I know, the only rule for a character to qualify as a Badass is that this character must be Rule of Cool personified. Therefore, that removal was ill-justified.
Although, the example itself was actually rather poor and should be extended to explain why Tramennis is a badass. I could think of a few examples (he stood up to his father, turned out to be a skilled politician and is one of the few characters savvy enough to be wary of Charlie and able to see the big picture), but it has been a while since I've read this webcomic. If someone could put back the trope with a good example, it would be most welcome (assuming we have enough context to call Tramennis a badass).
Edited by NonoRobot Hide / Show Replies
Yes, they totally do have to be somewhat martially competent. It's been settled in the Badass cleanup thread multiple times, though they haven't gotten around to actually cleaning it up. It being applied to characters who can't fight is misuse and should be cleaned up.
I mean, I have no doubt that Tramennis is brave, resourceful and clever, but that's not what Badass is about. Besides, even if Badass was Rule of Cool personified, then he still wouldn't qualify because nothing he ever does is so ridiculously super stupidly cool that it would break our WSOD if it wasn't so cool to see.
So far, I have to agree with your explanation. I'll have to read the Badass cleanup thread (I don't visit the forums that often, didn't know it existed).
Also, Badass is Rule of Cool personified, according to the actual trope page (it is the first line after the quotes), unless the aforementioned cleanup thread mentions that this criteria no longer applies (but in that case, the page needs to be edited to reflect that).
In any case, I think we can agree that there isn't sufficient evidence to call Tramennis a Badass (as you mentioned, while he is a fun and resourceful character, he never did something absolutly cool and insane as far as I remember). Case closed.
On a side note: weird. I didn't get any notification on my watchlist that you answered my question on the discussion page.
Edited by NonoRobot
That's an old problem with the watchlist.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I just added the entry for the latest character to debut—and apparently I have no idea how to make a Wick that's also a rather common word in itself. Sorry! >_< Whoever replies, please correct and/or point me to directions on how to fix it myself.
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Double curly brackets around the word. {{Flight}} becomes Flight.
You might want to check out Text-Formatting Rules, it's a very useful page.
Edited by 24.21.105.7
Is Parson's intervention at Spacerock really a case of Honor Before Reason? I remember the battle going pretty badly when Charlie got involved and Parson went to give them his Chief Warlord Bonus and direct the troops personally after Ansom was captured. Part of the reason things went badly were the field units making stupid decisions that Parson needed to salvage. They wouldn't have won, they'd have destroyed Spacerock and sacrificed their entire army to do so when it burned to the ground.
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Possibly. Parson went in without a plan, but he wanted to be there because he doesn't like sending men to their deaths. If he was going to send men into a fight then he was going to put himself in danger as well. That's the honor part, but he later says that he was going through the portal because they needed his bonus which is reasonable, but going in without a plan wasn't reasonable. You can make an argument either way. I say that Parson's reasons for going through the portal are too ambiguous to determine if the "Honor Before Reason" trope really applies here.
Don't make me destroy you. @ Castle Series
It's not quite an example, but it's pretty close. His original plan was to promote someone in Wanda's group to give them the bonus. Once he got promoted instead, they still needed the bonus, and he didn't want people dying for him when he wasn't in danger. So that was the tipping point, but he had already been thinking about it before.
Should the characters be arranged into sides? At least three characters on the list are no longer part of the side they're listed under. The way it is now, people who have read the comic know that it's wrong, but if we list them under their current side, new readers could be spoiled.
One alternative is to list them under "Warlords", "Rulers", "Casters", and "Soldiers".
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I should probably mention I don't trust my own editing skills enough to not screw it up somehow.
I'll get on the "Warlords", "Rulers", "Casters", and "Soldiers" formatting in a day or so if no one objects.
I had a good reason for not doing it that way. I can't remember what it is, though. Maybe someone did object?
I removed Smug Snake from Marie's character section- I don't think there's nearly enough to support that. Smug Snakes are typically nakedly ambitious, slimy and tend to be portrayed negatively or villainously- I don't think being a little condescending (and remember, she's a Predictamancer, many of her 'overconfident' statements are quantified by that) qualifies her. But if someone wants it back, I'm happy to debate the point.
When, exactly, did Ossomer turn back? As far as I can tell, he's still wallowing in inner turmoil at the end of the chapter.
It isn't a mistake!
Anyone considering some of Jetstone's Casters for their addition to the sheet? Duncan Scone wouldn't be a bad choice either.
I'll twist your arms off at the shoulders and beat you to bloody death with them!
Removed from main page, as there is a cleanup effort on one of the pages linked here underway and I am not sure what to do with this entry:
- The Jester: It's described that during the events of Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) he, in the court of Faq, said things only a jester could get away with saying.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman