2011-10-31: Mental Assault

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matapat
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by matapat »

wingshad0w wrote:
Ged wrote:Now I guess the question is how many times Ian's been hit. He's taken a lot of a beating in this comic....

Pain only really stops newbies, you can overcome it with willpower and experience. Anyone whose been knocked about a bit'll just keep coming if you smack them in the face. They know if they back off it's all over.

The red mist comes down, you get high as a kite on adrenaline, and the only way someone's going to stop you is to break something or knock you out outright. Which makes it especially funny when people have trained with the expectation that pain will give them openings.
What do you think that this leads into a gunshot wound for Ian?
You tend to not recover from one of those at a close enough range.
It'll be really strange if John's Chekhov's Gun ends up doing him in given all the punishment he's shrugged off during the course of the series.
Ged
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by Ged »

wingshad0w wrote:What do you think that this leads into a gunshot wound for Ian?
You tend to not recover from one of those at a close enough range.
At close range whoever decides to go first, and has the will to strike somewhere that will disable their opponent, wins. Pretty much regardless of weapons, size and strength disadvantages. Your reactions times just aren't up to stopping someone right up in your face without some extra info. If you're grappling it's slightly better because the information you get from a blur in your vision tells you much less about what's going on than feeling them against your body - so you need less time to recognise what's going on and react. If you're a couple of steps away from them - outside of elbow range say - the situation is also different. I don't think either of them has enough of a contact with the other person's body to be able to use that in their favour though and I don't think they're far enough away to fence with each other.

Meji recoiled from being struck and Ian should have capitalised on that. When she went to fall over backwards he should have broken her knees by stomping on them and then he could have finished her with a few kicks to the side of the head. Instead he gave her time to recover and catch up.

Meji - if Ian is used to being hit - wasted that by nutting him in the nose. Which is painful and will make it hard for you to concentrate on planning anything but doesn't really stop you. If you're used to pain and fighting you don't go back from being nutted in the nose. When you stumble back you're just lining yourself up for someone to hit you again. If you're used to it you go forwards and plant your head alongside theirs. Try and get an advantage so that you can throw them, or at least end up on top when the thing goes to the floor.

Really this could go either way. Whoever thinks - 'fuck it, I'm just going to kill them' - first is probably going to win. My money's on Meji - Ian still thinks they're BFF and the situation can be solved by rational discussion, whereas Meji's already said "You know what, fuck this...." At this stage, she's here to kill him, not to talk him down, not to protect the elves. I think he'll be shocked that she actually hit him, not so much because of the pain but because he was still in 'this is a discussion' mode - he thought he'd hit her once and that was him having won. She'll use that to get the gun free and then... well if he's backed off, if he's one of those dumbasses that wastes time being surprised, he's screwed.
No One
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by No One »

Ged wrote:Ian still thinks they're BFF and the situation can be solved by rational discussion
When has Ian ever been involved in a rational discussion, at least in regards to Elves? He's been a nutjob on that topic since day one, and it's only grown worse in recent times.
Ged
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by Ged »

That may be true but he's unlikely to see it that way. The importance of his behaviour in this regard is not a matter of its outward effects but of the beliefs that motivate it.

I'd also note that rational discussions make for damn poor comics. Few people want to see a bunch of folks sit around a table for thirty pages spamming blocks of text at each other. ;)
eee
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by eee »

Yay, Meji!

Now pull out the gun and gut shoot him. You can heal him once he stops fighting and surrenders to your insane, all powerful, enslaving all reality demi-godness...
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davester65
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by davester65 »

I seem to remember Poe once saying that Meji pretty much hit the jackpot in the 1/2 elf genetics lottery and that she was very strong for her size. I also remember her bludgeoning two fully grown human guards in armor unconscious using Ellis as a club, so if this remains a brawl it's possible Meji will come out on top or at least hold her own.
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by CptNerd »

Note to Ian: In future (hah),remember that rational discourse works much better before you hit your scary little devil girl girlfriend...
:roll:
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by Slamlander »

Ged wrote:I'd also note that rational discussions make for damn poor comics. Few people want to see a bunch of folks sit around a table for thirty pages spamming blocks of text at each other. ;)
Yes and no. You can have two perfectly rational characters go to war with one another. All it takes is opposing goals and a rigid mind-set. It's not even a good v evil thing. Also, remember that Ian doesn't think that he is doing evil. In his mind, what he is doing is perfectly justified and Ellis was an acceptable collateral loss. Meji disagrees, of course and Ian is too rigid in his thinking to even try to apologize to Meji for Ellis' despell. He simply does not see anything wrong in what he did. Note, that does not make him a 'nice guy' and Meji is perfectly justified in sounding off on him, with a howitzer. ;)
Character God wrote:The most credible and evil bad guys are those who would sacrifice themselves for their fellow man. Think of Hitler, Stalin, Mladic, and Polpot. None of them thought that they were commiting an evil act when they ordered the deaths of millions. Rather, they thought that they were doing good for humanity. Their fundamental problem is that they didn't consider their victims to be human. The minor detail is that those victims were.
Ian is that sort of character.
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Tortenschachtel
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by Tortenschachtel »

Slamlander wrote:Also, remember that Ian doesn't think that he is doing evil.
Sure?
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Re: 2011-10-31: Mental Assault

Post by Viking-Sensei »

matapat wrote:It'll be really strange if John's Chekhov's Gun ends up doing him in given all the punishment he's shrugged off during the course of the series.
I dunno, there's been a lot of speculation througout that all the answers to Ian's questions are written on a bullet between his eyes.
How could a plan this awesome possibly fail?
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