#1221: "Witnesses to our victory!"

[Kurosen]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

Hint to Brian:

I know. But I've always had a weakness for demonstrating to people when they're being kinda stupid.

[Aldurin]

Originally Posted by Bob the Mercenary

It's always been a theory of mine that there is no such thing as stupidity, just various stages of ignorance. This thread, however, is putting my theory to the test.

Your theory holds, stupid is simply the superdense ignorance in the form of action or thought. Everyone has some to varying degrees.

I like to be one of those people who think of it as a resource instead of a waste product, and use it to be weird and (on random occasions) funny. 8-bit theater was probably one of my biggest mentors in that field, and I thank Brian for that.

Now, back to listening to the Silver City theme in Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando for the 15th time today.

P.S. I declare my text to be green from this point on.

[MSperoni]

Originally Posted by Kurosen

I've always had a weakness for demonstrating to people when they're being kinda stupid.

*grumbles* Camels! (pay no attention to that, everyone else)


About the setup thing: 8-bit's a comedy, and Brian's a comedian, and the 4 White Mage joke is a punchline. A really really long punchline but still a punchline. Part of delivering a joke is setting things up. That's how comedy works. That's really how writing works in general. If you're an aspiring writer and you think what he did in 8-bit isn't plausible, maybe you ought to practice the ol' craft some more.

Also I think that if he really had no idea what was going to happen and pulled it out of thin air, I would think, based on what other bizarre shit has happened in this comic, that it would be MORE bizarre. I mean, really, this outcome could have been predicted. Sure, you'd have to really make a big guess, but it's a plausible outcome. White Mage has said forever that she wants to stop Chaos, she was never dead (Red Mage cured her, remember?), and was inexplicably gone for awhile. The only oddities are the 3 buddies she has with her (Is a big 'Team White Mage vs Chaos' wallpaper called for?)

I think an ending truly from left-field would be like.. "Oh here's a fire arrow and *crush* goes down Chaos via the Giant Cannon." or "Hey here's Dragoon again." or "Chaos slips in King Steve's shit and falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his neck."

[Aldurin]

Originally Posted by MSperoni

(Is a big 'Team White Mage vs Chaos' wallpaper called for?)

HELL YES!!

[Eldezar]

Originally Posted by EvilEarl

P.S. I declare my text to be green from this point on.

The cool thing about this is that if you stare at the text for a little bit, then quickly highlight all of it, it momentarily looks green.

[Archbio]

At first I thought that it seemed probable that the punchline was devised after the set-up. I mean, it's just didn't seem like that big of a thing (comedically, thematically or any way that I could look at it), and I couldn't remember any build up. I also didn't think it was a big deal, like the lynchpin of the entire webcomic.

Now it seems like it was made into a big deal, and I'm just left scratching my head. Everybody's arguing what the author's intention was, and I think it just kind of highlights how problematic that can be.

As for the author being too insistent about the question: if people think that you're liable to lie to get your work look just a little tiny bit more clever, then they're not going to believe you the second, third or even fourth time. It's not like it's that outlandish of proposition, either. Pettier things have happened.

But this is just so out of proportion. It is what it is, regardless of the author's intention.
If the joke's place in the comic is that of this extremely clever masterstroke, and that it doesn't match this expectation for a reader: then that's ground enough for criticism. If something in a work of fiction that was invented at the very end of writing, but fits just as well as if it had been in mind from the beginning, then it really doesn't matter now, does it? What's important is what on the page, there's really not much of a point in referring to the workings of the author's mind directly. Criticism can relate to an author's intention, but indirectly.

Never mind the fact that they couldn't write anything half as successful as 8BT if they tried.

That really doesn't seem like something that should be minded, you're right.

[Random Ninja]

Has anyone pointed out he misspelled Priest yet?

[mad2physicist]

Originally Posted by EvilEarl

Your theory holds, stupid is simply the superdense ignorance in the form of action or thought. Everyone has some to varying degrees.

I must disagree. Stupidity can have two forms: ignorance and irrationality (unless that is what you mean by ignorance in action). I have seen ample evidence that both hold in epidemic proportions amongst college students, from which I infer that they probably hold in the world at large.

Brian did not change the comic. Go back and look at the eBook versions or the flash version as someone pointed out. Find someone who has an eBook version from some time ago if you think he would have changed all these as well? And, why would anyone be randomly questioning his thought processes, and why would he randomly claim to have come up with this in a fallacious way? I have no doubt that his tale of how he developed this setup is correct in its essential points.

BTW, is Speroni's signature quote a criticism that came from Brian, or from a fan?

[MSperoni]

"Am I drawing a crock of shit? Tell me something, is this comic called How I Killed Your Crock of Shit?"

That? That's just a modified version of something Dr. Sanchez (the guy who used to be in my avatar) says in the show Darkplace

The original quote is "Am I holding a crock of shit? Tell me something, is this hospital called Saint Crock of Shit?!"

[Archbio]

"Am I holding a crock of shit? Tell me something, is this hospital called Saint Crock of Shit?!"

Was it called that? I'm dying to know.