2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

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Kian
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by Kian »

Errr Human weren't "just Ensigerum" most human weren't and still fighted (mage, ext...)
Before the Errant War, the elves had gotten over humanity and were playing with the half-elves. Most of humanity had been replaced and were again down to playing maids, so they didn't get the training they used to anymore. With the exception of the Ensigerum, because they still wanted someone to fight for them.

The other important group of trained humans were the remaining mages that helped in building Tsuiraku. The ones that up and dissapeared with the city, serving as one of the sparks for the conflict.

So, at the start of the war, the only humans with any appreciable training were the Ensigerum. The mages were (mostly) gone, and the rest played the role of maids. Plus, the ensigerum were the only ones with any reason to fight. They were trained to follow orders, fought in duels that had nothing to do with them and the like. By that point, most half elves didn't come from human-elf pairings, so why would humans get in the way if they didn't need to?

As to Misa's age, 'about' 1500 and 'about 1700' is the same, for practical purposes. Particularly if you arrived at 'about 1700' starting at '2000 or so' and deducting 300 (which is obviously an aproximation as well). She would have been quite young at the end of the war, but would have probably just seen it.
Itterind
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by Itterind »

RubberBandMan wrote:Also remember: She is likely the only one in hundreds of miles who has not either been in a war, or directed a war, or almost get nuked by someone fighting a war. Every elf there most likely has had years of running around warzones, either being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or actively fighting it.

It must be easy for them all to look down on her for not knowing what life if really like. Which is most likely true for her, but it must be hard to deal with over a thousand years of that kind of thing.

Its amazing to see, but Misa is one of the most childish characters we've seen. Meji is just self-centered and immature, which will prolly stay with her for another few decades, even when she should of grown out of it, and she has mostly understood the kind of things going on around her and not freaked out. (Like Ian going crazy and killing Elves, how likely she was to get killed in her sleep by either Sarine or Jon or some other elves, and so on)

I think the chain of command for all the main characters is...

Sarine
Jon
Sara
Meji
Misa.

Which would suck for Misa. Sarine/Jon and Meji/Misa are most likely alot closer to each other, but while Sarine is on the top because she can decide what should be done, she is on equal footing with Jon when it comes to how it should be done.

Sara has a little experience, and most likely isn't as loose a cannon as we've seen recently, and without a doubt isn't stupid as much as working off faulting information basis (Like say, Time Magic trumps all, killing people is the most effective way to deal with anyone causing a problem). Sara would be great at following a plan, if anyone ever bothered to give her one, I would think.

Meji gets over Misa not for her Magic or combat, but mostly because she's smart enough to get the hell out of dodge. Every confrontation she's been in goes in two steps, if the first one doesn't work she switches to the 2ed one.
1. Nuke em.
2. Run away before they nuke you.

I doubt Misa would have the good sense to bail when her plan A fails. Granted, she is unlikely to take orders from Meji, but who knows. They might get along if they talk face-to-face.

Ian I left out, cause lets face it: That guys fucking crazy and listens to no one. Sure, if he hears a good plan that he likes, he'll follow it until he get distracted by something shiny. He just can't keep still since he's gotten those god powers.
Love your well constructed thoughts of their working relationships and tactics/strategy, seems spot on.
I disagree over Ian though, he's batty but he follows a few predictable rules of priority:

1) Save Sister.
2) Save Meji.
3) Save Half-Elves... & maybe a few humans.
4) Kill Elves.
5) Die (self).
6) Nail Meji.

He seems to wish for death more than bootie w/ Meji. And while he's very active killing elves now he did default to healing all his brethren at first and even some humans when they started flocking in. Hmmm, this reminds me... Santuariel should be right on schedule for a wipeout when Poe takes some time off the final dungeon crawl for the party (Sarine, Jon, Meji, Ellis, Misa) when the mage's daughter makes it to Veracia in discontent and is taken captive and interrogated by the Church and then Elves.

icekatze wrote:hi hi

I thought this page was probably one of the most powerful in the whole comic, right up there with:
2002-11-13
2003-07-02
2007-03-02
2007-06-25

At least I can certainly relate to how someone must feel to essentially be the proverbial black sheep, the youngest sibling that can never do anything right. I certainly hope they bring her along, because I can think of a few much worse alternatives, like her trying to go out and find the ensigerum in a misguided attempt to learn from them.
How about them taking her out and her getting killed? I'd consider buying 2:1 for her as a fatality if the bookies would offer it. On second thought, it doesn't seem too likely for literary reasons as well as the surprise she was just victim too, so I wouldn't take or peg odds beyond 1:1...
Last edited by Itterind on September 16th, 2008, 7:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Sareth
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by Sareth »

Kian wrote:As to Misa's age, 'about' 1500 and 'about 1700' is the same, for practical purposes. Particularly if you arrived at 'about 1700' starting at '2000 or so' and deducting 300 (which is obviously an aproximation as well). She would have been quite young at the end of the war, but would have probably just seen it.
I'm afraid I have to disagree. While "about 1700" and "about 1500" do give wiggle room that could potentially overlap, if we were getting so approximate that the lower number's overlap of the larger reaches "probably" instead of "possibly" they'd have to be very close. 200 years is no small stretch even for the elves, I should think.

As a little exercise, let's drop the zeros. Saying that an event happened approximately 17 years ago gives us the idea it might have been 18 years ago, it may have been only 16. Saying that a girl was approximately 15 means she might be 16, or she might be 14. Which means for her and that event to have been around at the same time you have to have a window that covers only 1/3 of the reasonable options for the event AND 1/3rd of the reasonable options for the girl... so ONE possibility in NINE.

While it is POSSIBLE that Misa was alive during the war, it is not PROBABLE. Even if she was alive, the odds of her being eligible to be a combatant are even lower, as she'd be an infant by Elven standards. (No idea what the maturation rates of an Elf are. But even if they are as fast as human maturation rates, an immortal society is VERY unlikely to see an 18 year old as being old enough and mature enough MENTALLY to go to war unless they were desperate. Given that Sarine described the war as just petering out for lack of, well, anything, by the time she WOULD have been physically old enough, there wouldn't have been much left to fight over or against.
Last edited by Sareth on September 16th, 2008, 7:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
Itterind
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by Itterind »

Sareth wrote:
Kian wrote:As to Misa's age, 'about' 1500 and 'about 1700' is the same, for practical purposes. Particularly if you arrived at 'about 1700' starting at '2000 or so' and deducting 300 (which is obviously an aproximation as well). She would have been quite young at the end of the war, but would have probably just seen it.
I'm afraid I have to disagree. While "about 1700" and "about 1500" do give wiggle room that could potentially overlap, if we were getting so approximate that the lower number's overlap of the larger reaches "probably" instead of "possibly" they'd have to be very close. 200 years is no small stretch even for the elves, I should think.

As a little exercise, let's drop the zeros. Saying that an event happened approximately 17 years ago gives us the idea it might have been 18 years ago, it may have been only 16. Saying that a girl was approximately 15 means she might be 16, or she might be 14. Which means for her and that event to have been around at the same time you have to have a window that covers only 1/3 of the reasonable options for the event AND 1/3rd of the reasonable options for the girl... so ONE possibility in NINE.

While it is POSSIBLE that Misa was alive during the war, it is not PROBABLE. Even if she was alive, the odds of her being eligible to be a combatant are even lower, as she'd be an infant by Elven standards. (No idea what the maturation rates of an Elf are. But even if they are as fast as human maturation rates, an immortal society is VERY unlikely to see an 18 year old as being old enough and mature enough MENTALLY to go to war unless they were desperate. Given that Sarine described the war as just petering out for lack of, well, anything, by the time she WOULD have been physically old enough, there wouldn't have been much left to fight over or against.
I agree, the material so far seems to indicate she was given birth to a few hundred years after the war. Furthermore she doesn't 'feel' like someone who's experienced war/-fare. She wouldn't be so hyped up for it unless she's a major warhawk, and I've no indication of that so far. She's even remarkably cordial and amicable towards Sara and has voiced no objections towards Jon, or Meji who had admittedly not been present.

RubberBandMan wrote:Considering how bossy Sarine is, and that Jon is her brother, and Ellis pointed out how Meji and Sara weren't super best friends...

Misa IS Sara's new best friend. Which is almost mildly scary. I'm seeing a Jay and Silent bob dynamic forming between them, if they partner up outside the city.
:D Sara is more serious than Bob and Misa is bubbly where Jay.. he... I'd be to delighted to watch a similar relationship unfold. It'll be more hygienic than the original version.
runic
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by runic »

RubberBandMan wrote:Considering how bossy Sarine is, and that Jon is her brother, and Ellis pointed out how Meji and Sara weren't super best friends...

Misa IS Sara's new best friend. Which is almost mildly scary. I'm seeing a Jay and Silent bob dynamic forming between them, if they partner up outside the city.
segue to sara and misa playing skeeball which leads to hot lesbian, i mean uh bonding. yeah i was thinking they would bond and become friends and stuff

though misa might just need surgery before any of the sapphic daydreams could come true
RubberBandMan wrote:Sara has a little experience, and most likely isn't as loose a cannon as we've seen recently, and without a doubt isn't stupid as much as working off faulting information basis (Like say, Time Magic trumps all, killing people is the most effective way to deal with anyone causing a problem). Sara would be great at following a plan, if anyone ever bothered to give her one, I would think.
when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail

besides she actually got misa to shut up for two seconds and that makes her mighty
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Tiamat
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by Tiamat »

Kian wrote:As to Misa's age, 'about' 1500 and 'about 1700' is the same, for practical purposes. Particularly if you arrived at 'about 1700' starting at '2000 or so' and deducting 300 (which is obviously an aproximation as well). She would have been quite young at the end of the war, but would have probably just seen it.
Sareth wrote:I'm afraid I have to disagree. While "about 1700" and "about 1500" do give wiggle room that could potentially overlap, if we were getting so approximate that the lower number's overlap of the larger reaches "probably" instead of "possibly" they'd have to be very close. 200 years is no small stretch even for the elves, I should think.

As a little exercise, let's drop the zeros. Saying that an event happened approximately 17 years ago gives us the idea it might have been 18 years ago, it may have been only 16. Saying that a girl was approximately 15 means she might be 16, or she might be 14. Which means for her and that event to have been around at the same time you have to have a window that covers only 1/3 of the reasonable options for the event AND 1/3rd of the reasonable options for the girl... so ONE possibility in NINE.

While it is POSSIBLE that Misa was alive during the war, it is not PROBABLE. Even if she was alive, the odds of her being eligible to be a combatant are even lower, as she'd be an infant by Elven standards. (No idea what the maturation rates of an Elf are. But even if they are as fast as human maturation rates, an immortal society is VERY unlikely to see an 18 year old as being old enough and mature enough MENTALLY to go to war unless they were desperate. Given that Sarine described the war as just petering out for lack of, well, anything, by the time she WOULD have been physically old enough, there wouldn't have been much left to fight over or against.
Excellent arguments, but in both cases it would have been much simpler to just look at the page in the archives and see that Misa is younger than 1500. Use of the word 'almost' in that context means she has not yet reached the age of 1500 years.

So yeah, she was born after the war.
DarkLight140
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by DarkLight140 »

Tiamat wrote:...look at the page in the archives and see that Misa is younger than 1500.
I started rereading things from this point, and it quickly struck me how much more typo-free the comic has gotten in recent days. Come a long way from the times when there would be twenty or so posts in every comic's thread about errors, then yelling at the people pointing out errors, then someone else who hadn't read the thread yet pointing out the same damn problems...

...the story's pretty great, too. But that almost goes without saying.
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Michael Poe
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by Michael Poe »

Fuzzy numbers and dates aside, Misa was born sometime during the latter half of the war and, in fact, it was her birth that gave the war (which was actually slowing down at the time) an extra jolt of life (for the elves anyway) and kept the mess going for another round. Even by the actual end of the war, Misa was still far too young to have actually participated in the conflict, beyond being used as an example that 'the birth of this child is a gift from our gods and sign that what we're doing is the right thing', and had even spent a good chunk of her childhood carefully sheltered from it.

Also, unfortunately for Misa, I already have a Jay to Sara's Silent Bob picked out.
proudhon
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by proudhon »

I just hope Sara goes for a guy.
Lesbo sex is getting wayyy over done on the comic scene
common place is not erotic Finding a man who could deal with her would be
way more interesting.. Yeah she''s set up like a guy in alot of ways but
as I say it would be much more interesting to see a man deal with her.

Maybe Misa should just run for VP
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Re: 2008-09-15 - "Oh Anilis, I am worthless!"

Post by Slamlander »

Michael Poe wrote:Fuzzy numbers and dates aside, Misa was born sometime during the latter half of the war and, in fact, it was her birth that gave the war (which was actually slowing down at the time) an extra jolt of life (for the elves anyway) and kept the mess going for another round. Even by the actual end of the war, Misa was still far too young to have actually participated in the conflict, beyond being used as an example that 'the birth of this child is a gift from our gods and sign that what we're doing is the right thing', and had even spent a good chunk of her childhood carefully sheltered from it.
That was good to know, off to the HKV.
Michael Poe wrote:Also, unfortunately for Misa, I already have a Jay to Sara's Silent Bob picked out.
Now if I only knew what a Jay and Silent Bob part was ....
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