Annotated 2-14
Phil’s note in the script: “Erica, I would love it to DEATH if you made Sundar look very much like Pete (of Mickey Mouse fame), because that’s the voice I hear in my head when I’m reading his dialogue.” It’s still the voice I hear whenever he speaks, too.
We had absolutely no plans for Sundar when he was introduced, except that we thought he might serve as an occasional good-natured foil for Byron, someone with whom he could compare notes on the adventuring lifestyle. But our tendency to try to infuse even minor, throwaway characters with enough juice that they could become stars if we needed them to would serve us again and again. The flexible morals hinted at here– “sure, I can be your assassin for hire, money’s money, right?”– would turn out to be especially important.
Byron’s prodigious drinking abilities didn’t mean anything more to us at the time than “he’s a manly man’s man who works hard and plays hard,” but as his tragedy took shape in our minds, the drinking habit got a bit sadder. Maybe it’s just as well that the medicine forced him to stay off the sauce for a while.
Note the stealth reference to D20s, and the much more obvious reference to “epic fail,” a term that was still borderline cool in 2009, I think, maybe. Also, the alt-text’s reference to Dear Abby, which is apparently timeless.
Oddly enough, I always pictured him with a John DiMaggio voice…which really isn’t THAT far from Jim Cummings tbh.
With Sundar the Sunderer and Byron the Berserker, fun will never end, it’s Adventurer Time.
I bet Taro Iwatani would have loved the combined children’s party/ assassination.
Are you not entertained?
Oh, and the casual slaughter and skinning of kobolds again. Imagine if it were dwarves being skinned? We’d be squarely in ASOIAF territory. But flay something that doesn’t look like a human and it’s light comedy!
It’s been established that although kobolds are sorta humanoid, they are not sapient. And although their hides are sold, they are not hunted for those hides or for sport. It’s because they are an invasive, destructive pest. So, I think it’s not so much that we think “it’s ok to hunt them because they don’t look human enough”, but rather, that you think that what are basically overgrown rats should be protected because they look human-like enough.
Really? I thought the only thing established was that the writers didn’t agree on that point.
no, what’s been established in the comic itself is behavior which confirms the kobolds’ sentience, regardless of any word of god wanting (but failing to) paper over the unfortunate implications thereof.
Where’s the stealth D20 reference?
“D’Wentan.”
Still not seeing it. Having trouble getting my brain from disengaging from “…the wizard went and cast…”, which is just kinda pedestrian.
Or is this another anagram? D-twen…an? Ten (as in taking 10)… dawn? Wand? Epic fail, indeed.
I thought “D’Wentan” sounded enough like “D20” to be rewarding without being too obvious, but maybe not.