I feel like there might actually be some significance to the fact that he doesn’t really care about the cold. I know he busted out of the Wavsuit that was keeping his temperature regulated, but he’s also the only character to get out of the game entirely(albeit to go into another one), so maybe he broke the fourth wall but didn’t realize it because he’s Payet Best?
Well, consider this. By real life standards, Best is a vicious self-absorbed asshole. By fantasy video game standards, he’s actually completely correct about how the world revolves around him (or at least, *should* do so). That’s the normal state of affairs for your avatar in such a game, after all.
Perhaps, unlike the others, Best retains some understanding, however dim it may be, that he’s really just playing a game. That could certainly account for how he ignores the cold, since in most games your character never changes outfits no matter what the conditions.
That second paragraph is a much better worded example of the point I was trying to make, haha. I feel like he doesn’t care because he kinda knows he doesn’t need to care.
HR is going to a whole lot of trouble, trying to become a god. Best accidentally became a god, but he doesn’t realize it yet. He even got the attitude of an ancient mythological god. (Not that anyone could tell)
Best’s grave will always be lonely, ’cause he’ll never be buried in it, being immortal and all.
Or, maybe Best doesn’t feel the cold, because there’s a WAV 2.0 inside him, keeping him warm. (Who says Best doesn’t have layers?)
For a Winter Elf, catching a jackalope is probably like the scene in “Groundhog Day” where the main character robs an armored car. You just have to know where to be, and when to move, and you can simply walk away with whatever you want.
So, which nth opinion is he up to, now? Recall, back on page 16 the Oracle said he’ll need 9-10 second opinions (probably another pair of Winter Elves) before he gets it.
Yes it is. That unmarked grave suggests he’s going to die sooner or later.
(One thought that’s crossing my mind is that Best will help save Arkerra… but his player will then wake up in SepiaWorld, live out his life there, and that’s the grave they’re talking about…)
That’s actually a decent twist realization of the prophecy…and has some very nifty implications, in that the winter elves can see the future across dimensions.
That would be interesting, but I would think that the name on the grave stone belong to the real life player and not Best so I can’t see him getting freaked out if he sees some stranger’s grave.
If prophecies exist and are accurate, then the world must be deterministic. Since these are NPCs in a game, interacting with human players that are actively working against the lead development who wields godlike powers… they must be programmed to be able to infer the actions of all of the characters in the game, the players, and the outside world. Pretty mind boggling. If I were HR, I’d program them to give me stock tips as well.
Well technically it IS deterministic… If the comic wants to get meta in-universe, then we can assume that the Winter Elves are the voices of the creators in OUR universe, knowing exactly how the comic will go, regardless of what the in-comic Arkerra or Earth characters.
I am sure someone had already commented on this before, but it sounds like the precognition of the Winter Elves is more of a curse than a boon.
“…being young means he’s only seen you people’s stories fifteen or twenty times”, give the impression that just being born a Winter Elf entails have knowledge of the future forcibly crammed into your brain by greater powers at regular intervals whether or not you want it. This doesn’t seem like something they train for, rather something that they are born with and can’t turn off.
Oh yes.
Standard trope when it comes to perfect precognition. You will never be surprised by anything. And there is not much you can do about all these bad things about to happen on the other side of the world.
Just ask Paul Muab’Dib, a.k.a. the Kwisatz Haderach, and his son Leto II.
It makes me wonder: would people really become grouchy and jaded without a sense of the unknown, without any excitement from uncertainty? I can’t help but think, “So you know the future through-and-through, in-and-out. Big deal. Why be grumpy about it?”
Hm. Could it be because they also see every bad thing that happens in their and each other and everyone else’s life? But they also see every good and happy thing as well.
I even thought about the idea that people keep coming to them for advice about the future and they’re sick of it… but that’s not possible considering how hidden they are and how remote their location is.
I guess all the time would be awful. I’m not too sure to be honest. Spoilers don’t ruin stuff for me too much unless they reveal an amazing twist that’s totally left field. In fact, some spoilers make me even more excited for the story I’m going through.
I just realized: the WEs here knew (or probably) Best wasn’t going to accept the truth even from them. They said it anyway and things still were quite heated and dramatic and “exciting” (for lack of a better term). Look at the last panel.
I can know how things are going to turn out in a story in advance, but actually reading or seeing it happen can still be amazing.
I wonder – if some of their attitude is based on the fact that they can foresee their fates, but can’t change them. like, from the moment of birth, knowing you will walk in front of a car and be run over, all the pain that will entail…and not being able to avoid it. The thing about prophesy is, once you have it, you theoretically can change what you are going to do…simple, right? “if I do x, I die, so, I don’t do x” But it seems like the Winter Elves can’t – these two clearly did not want to meet Best, Woe clearly didn’t want to fail at cheering up Best, but they HAD to.
The question then, is can the Winter Elves stray from their foreseen paths at all (which, you have to admit, is a good reason for a downer life – even at your happiest, you know how it will go badly after, and there are just so many more bad things, and you are stuck dealing with them. It’s like a james bond villain trap, without the remarkable escape – it is slowly going to kill you, painfully, and you have to watch it coming, unavoidably, too), or if this is the best possible path, and it still sucks (which is a different reason to be upset) – like, the world could be awesome, if certain people acted in certain ways, but because they don’t know that there is a better outcome, they keep doing short-sighted things that look good at the time, but ultimately result in a world war. and there aren’t enough pre-cog, with enough power, to make up for all the non-pre-cogs doing the best they can. (I’d wager the Winter Elves left because they saw that trying resulted in a bigger rebellion, and their kids turning into utter jackasses in power) XD
By isolating their village, they also reduce the number of interactions they would predict. If you keep to a regular, daily routine, how can you tell if a prediction is a new view of Tuesday, or a repeat of next Friday?
I’m getting the distinct impression that part of the grumpiness comes from knowing what would happen if they didn’t isolate themselves in the ass-end of nowhere. Which is that everybody would bother them all the time.
It’s kinda funny that they were initially portrayed as otherworldly ascetics who only come out to dispense dire warnings. Turns out, they just want all the kids off their damn lawn.
Good one!
Meanwhile, it’s so could out there, he’s got to be a 250 Kelvin Klein bottle. So, all the wispy shapes in that panel? It’s not fog, it’s his cologne.
And clearly he’s put on far too much. So he’s at high risk for cologne cancer.
Well yea. A bad person wouldnt of done half the things he has done. He has done good (for selfish reason) but still good. I think of him like a chaotic good. He’ll do good things but for selfish reason
That’s actually more Lawful Neutral, or even Lawful Evil. Chaotic Good does good things simply because it helps people…being Chaotic just means they don’t feel they have to adhere to a ruleset to do so.
Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines… actually, “doing good things for selfish reasons” could apply equally well to chaotic or true neutral. It’s pretty much the definition of the neutral alignment — you’ll do good if it benefits you or someone you care about, but you don’t do good solely for good’s sake.
These new character should have names. Why don’t they have names? I want them to follow Best wherever he goes and snark behind his back, like a cynical Greek chorus. :D
Seriously, I’m still hoping for Best to become an interesting character again. He used to be a magnificent bastard, and I like magnificent bastards (as characters, not as real people). For a time, there was even a kind of uncertainty about his true nature — he could act generous and magnanimous, as long as things were going his way. Even as he threw his final tantrum before falling into the vortex, I thought there were hidden depths within him. I thought, holy shit, he might actually be a sociopath. He might genuinely be unable to empathize with other people. I even started to feel sorry for him.
But now… he’s just being petty and willfully obtuse. There’s nothing magnificent about him anymore. If you’re going to be an asshole, own it!
It’s funny. Best was an alright guy at first but the prophecy twisted him until he became what we see now. Now he’s in an entire town of prophecies and he doesn’t believe a word because he feels he’s been tricked. He was called nothing all his life, then told he was destined for greatness, and now believes he was nothing all along.
I had to go back and double check. I’m fairly sure he wasn’t “alright” before “The Prophecy”. What with his “mother” (RP backstory, not sepia-world) being eaten by an ogre in front of him. We only have his statement about her dying words nagging him at her end. It also took less than 24 hours for him to go full douche.
Aaaand I’m all caught up. Dang it. Maybe I should go on a GA reading hiatus for a month or so? Naaaah!! I need to keep up with the story while it’s fresh!!!!
To be rather blunt; the fact that you stole the fate of a character far better than this… Horrid abomination of tropperific adventurer subtitles annoys me.
I wanted to do that, but noooooo; you got to it first.
Best wants to believe the truth is out there but the winter elves deny knowledge.
The best is yeti to come.
Not if he keeps giving people the cold shoulder.
I’m sure someone, out there, will manages to melt his heart away.
Hopefully, not as a metaphor.
OMG! They bagged a couple of … JACKALOPES!
THEY EXIST!! Now I wanna see a dire one.
Guess they weren’t fast enough.
Although I really would like it if a winter elf or anyone could tell me how Best is able to walk about shirtless.
Ignoring information he doesn’t like is Best’s most noticeable trait.
You could even say when he’s doing that, he’s at his…
BEST!
Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week!
Best is so biased in favor of himself he’s practically invulnerable.
I dunno; Best is so far up his own ass that it’s fun to watch him inevitably screw up. I love catharsis in my media.
The jackelopes were up against Winter Elves. Speed is less of an advantage against the precognitive. ;-)
You were shooting were I was! You should have shot at where I’d b-*thunk* Right, precog. Darn it. ow *k’dead*
I feel like there might actually be some significance to the fact that he doesn’t really care about the cold. I know he busted out of the Wavsuit that was keeping his temperature regulated, but he’s also the only character to get out of the game entirely(albeit to go into another one), so maybe he broke the fourth wall but didn’t realize it because he’s Payet Best?
Well, consider this. By real life standards, Best is a vicious self-absorbed asshole. By fantasy video game standards, he’s actually completely correct about how the world revolves around him (or at least, *should* do so). That’s the normal state of affairs for your avatar in such a game, after all.
Perhaps, unlike the others, Best retains some understanding, however dim it may be, that he’s really just playing a game. That could certainly account for how he ignores the cold, since in most games your character never changes outfits no matter what the conditions.
Well…that’s one way of looking at it.
That second paragraph is a much better worded example of the point I was trying to make, haha. I feel like he doesn’t care because he kinda knows he doesn’t need to care.
HR is going to a whole lot of trouble, trying to become a god. Best accidentally became a god, but he doesn’t realize it yet. He even got the attitude of an ancient mythological god. (Not that anyone could tell)
Best’s grave will always be lonely, ’cause he’ll never be buried in it, being immortal and all.
Or, maybe Best doesn’t feel the cold, because there’s a WAV 2.0 inside him, keeping him warm. (Who says Best doesn’t have layers?)
For a Winter Elf, catching a jackalope is probably like the scene in “Groundhog Day” where the main character robs an armored car. You just have to know where to be, and when to move, and you can simply walk away with whatever you want.
The rabbit papilloma virus is no laughing matter.
I miss WAV. :|
Surely Hurricane has another game Byron can toss Best into.
Like “All the Cute Ponies vs the Zombie King”?
I see the winter elves have their own version of WAV…
Good catch on the helmet design.
That said, I actually like his helmet (though strangely I don’t care for WAV’s headgear).
He’s wearing it in mourning of WAV’s passing; his precognition told him to wear it today.
Cue the X Files music.
So, which nth opinion is he up to, now? Recall, back on page 16 the Oracle said he’ll need 9-10 second opinions (probably another pair of Winter Elves) before he gets it.
3rd or 4th, depending on whether these two count as 1 or 2 opinions. He’s had the skyelf fount, Woe, and these two.
Being a winter elf must be kind of like being one of those robots on MST3K.
Can he just die from frostbitten nipples, already?
Agreed but let’s not be too picky, dead Best is the best Best regardless of the cause.
We should give thanks Danzin. These snow elves have given canonical voice to the reasons we hate Best.
Sadly it’s not in the prophesy.
Yes it is. That unmarked grave suggests he’s going to die sooner or later.
(One thought that’s crossing my mind is that Best will help save Arkerra… but his player will then wake up in SepiaWorld, live out his life there, and that’s the grave they’re talking about…)
That’s actually a decent twist realization of the prophecy…and has some very nifty implications, in that the winter elves can see the future across dimensions.
That would be interesting, but I would think that the name on the grave stone belong to the real life player and not Best so I can’t see him getting freaked out if he sees some stranger’s grave.
If prophecies exist and are accurate, then the world must be deterministic. Since these are NPCs in a game, interacting with human players that are actively working against the lead development who wields godlike powers… they must be programmed to be able to infer the actions of all of the characters in the game, the players, and the outside world. Pretty mind boggling. If I were HR, I’d program them to give me stock tips as well.
The Winter Elves are the PTR patchnotes, somehow available ingame.
Or the normal world is deterministic too in this universe, problem solved.
Well technically it IS deterministic… If the comic wants to get meta in-universe, then we can assume that the Winter Elves are the voices of the creators in OUR universe, knowing exactly how the comic will go, regardless of what the in-comic Arkerra or Earth characters.
This is getting too meta for me
Agreed, we need someone to defend us from all this meta- but who…? *japanese pipe plays*
They probably couldn’t appear until after he was already in the game and thus unable to utilise their ability to influence sepia world.
I am sure someone had already commented on this before, but it sounds like the precognition of the Winter Elves is more of a curse than a boon.
“…being young means he’s only seen you people’s stories fifteen or twenty times”, give the impression that just being born a Winter Elf entails have knowledge of the future forcibly crammed into your brain by greater powers at regular intervals whether or not you want it. This doesn’t seem like something they train for, rather something that they are born with and can’t turn off.
Oh yes.
Standard trope when it comes to perfect precognition. You will never be surprised by anything. And there is not much you can do about all these bad things about to happen on the other side of the world.
Just ask Paul Muab’Dib, a.k.a. the Kwisatz Haderach, and his son Leto II.
It makes me wonder: would people really become grouchy and jaded without a sense of the unknown, without any excitement from uncertainty? I can’t help but think, “So you know the future through-and-through, in-and-out. Big deal. Why be grumpy about it?”
Hm. Could it be because they also see every bad thing that happens in their and each other and everyone else’s life? But they also see every good and happy thing as well.
I even thought about the idea that people keep coming to them for advice about the future and they’re sick of it… but that’s not possible considering how hidden they are and how remote their location is.
How would you feel, if you knew the ending to every book/movie/game before playing? If you got spoilers for everything and couldn’t opt out?
I guess all the time would be awful. I’m not too sure to be honest. Spoilers don’t ruin stuff for me too much unless they reveal an amazing twist that’s totally left field. In fact, some spoilers make me even more excited for the story I’m going through.
I just realized: the WEs here knew (or probably) Best wasn’t going to accept the truth even from them. They said it anyway and things still were quite heated and dramatic and “exciting” (for lack of a better term). Look at the last panel.
I can know how things are going to turn out in a story in advance, but actually reading or seeing it happen can still be amazing.
I wonder – if some of their attitude is based on the fact that they can foresee their fates, but can’t change them. like, from the moment of birth, knowing you will walk in front of a car and be run over, all the pain that will entail…and not being able to avoid it. The thing about prophesy is, once you have it, you theoretically can change what you are going to do…simple, right? “if I do x, I die, so, I don’t do x” But it seems like the Winter Elves can’t – these two clearly did not want to meet Best, Woe clearly didn’t want to fail at cheering up Best, but they HAD to.
The question then, is can the Winter Elves stray from their foreseen paths at all (which, you have to admit, is a good reason for a downer life – even at your happiest, you know how it will go badly after, and there are just so many more bad things, and you are stuck dealing with them. It’s like a james bond villain trap, without the remarkable escape – it is slowly going to kill you, painfully, and you have to watch it coming, unavoidably, too), or if this is the best possible path, and it still sucks (which is a different reason to be upset) – like, the world could be awesome, if certain people acted in certain ways, but because they don’t know that there is a better outcome, they keep doing short-sighted things that look good at the time, but ultimately result in a world war. and there aren’t enough pre-cog, with enough power, to make up for all the non-pre-cogs doing the best they can. (I’d wager the Winter Elves left because they saw that trying resulted in a bigger rebellion, and their kids turning into utter jackasses in power) XD
By isolating their village, they also reduce the number of interactions they would predict. If you keep to a regular, daily routine, how can you tell if a prediction is a new view of Tuesday, or a repeat of next Friday?
I’m getting the distinct impression that part of the grumpiness comes from knowing what would happen if they didn’t isolate themselves in the ass-end of nowhere. Which is that everybody would bother them all the time.
It’s kinda funny that they were initially portrayed as otherworldly ascetics who only come out to dispense dire warnings. Turns out, they just want all the kids off their damn lawn.
The tag on this comic is a lie.
How hasn’t he suffocated yet? With his head shoved that far up his ass, you gotta wonder.
It’s gone so far up it’s escaped again, kind of like a
humanelven Klein bottle. :PGood one!
Meanwhile, it’s so could out there, he’s got to be a 250 Kelvin Klein bottle. So, all the wispy shapes in that panel? It’s not fog, it’s his cologne.
And clearly he’s put on far too much. So he’s at high risk for cologne cancer.
No redundancy intended, but Best is shitelven
His head is so far up his ass, his nose is coming out of his mouth.
This may be my favorite alt text so far.
Definitely.
I was expecting “Who are you calling a ho?!” :P
The Winter Elves are bitter grouches, yet even they can call Best an arrogant jerk and be totally blameless in doing so. Whoa.
…the Winter Elves are forum moderators!
it must be horrible to know Best is coming to grace you with his presence and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
The elves may be oracles, but I bet the jackalopes didn’t see that coming.
No, I take that back. Even a dead jackalope could see Best is the poster child for Narcissism.
I may not like best but I’m still hoping he’ll have the best redemption. I mean its not like he’s a shitty person….just a huge asshole
There’s a difference?
Well yea. A bad person wouldnt of done half the things he has done. He has done good (for selfish reason) but still good. I think of him like a chaotic good. He’ll do good things but for selfish reason
That’s actually more Lawful Neutral, or even Lawful Evil. Chaotic Good does good things simply because it helps people…being Chaotic just means they don’t feel they have to adhere to a ruleset to do so.
Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines… actually, “doing good things for selfish reasons” could apply equally well to chaotic or true neutral. It’s pretty much the definition of the neutral alignment — you’ll do good if it benefits you or someone you care about, but you don’t do good solely for good’s sake.
*thinks back* yes…yes that makes more sense. as you can see it was only quarter to 2 I was most likely juts waking up
But still my point stands that he has done good *fixes character sheet for best* bloody half asleep jay
The first 400 google search results haven’t substantiated my “vaccines are actually alien blood” belief, BUT THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
They should be overjoyed to finally meet Best.
Now that it’s happening, they’ll stop forseeing it.
I wonder if they have enough alcohol handy so they can edit that meeting right out of their memories.
I think it was mentioned they have photographic memory as well.
These new character should have names. Why don’t they have names? I want them to follow Best wherever he goes and snark behind his back, like a cynical Greek chorus. :D
Seriously, I’m still hoping for Best to become an interesting character again. He used to be a magnificent bastard, and I like magnificent bastards (as characters, not as real people). For a time, there was even a kind of uncertainty about his true nature — he could act generous and magnanimous, as long as things were going his way. Even as he threw his final tantrum before falling into the vortex, I thought there were hidden depths within him. I thought, holy shit, he might actually be a sociopath. He might genuinely be unable to empathize with other people. I even started to feel sorry for him.
But now… he’s just being petty and willfully obtuse. There’s nothing magnificent about him anymore. If you’re going to be an asshole, own it!
It’s funny. Best was an alright guy at first but the prophecy twisted him until he became what we see now. Now he’s in an entire town of prophecies and he doesn’t believe a word because he feels he’s been tricked. He was called nothing all his life, then told he was destined for greatness, and now believes he was nothing all along.
I had to go back and double check. I’m fairly sure he wasn’t “alright” before “The Prophecy”. What with his “mother” (RP backstory, not sepia-world) being eaten by an ogre in front of him. We only have his statement about her dying words nagging him at her end. It also took less than 24 hours for him to go full douche.
there wasn’t any indication he was lying and, generally for all his faults, he never really lied so
They do know him! Only people who know Best dislike him that much!
Aaaand I’m all caught up. Dang it. Maybe I should go on a GA reading hiatus for a month or so? Naaaah!! I need to keep up with the story while it’s fresh!!!!
I mis WAV. Can we have WAV back? I liked WAV.
I’d settle for RealAudio.
<Best> FOOLS! My story began in the 12th century….
“You There! Half-naked guy! Freeze!”
To be rather blunt; the fact that you stole the fate of a character far better than this… Horrid abomination of tropperific adventurer subtitles annoys me.
I wanted to do that, but noooooo; you got to it first.
So…Best turned into Wav turned into Best turned into Doofus.
The kid is a male? Hadn’t guessed that.
I still wanna know how Best isn’t freezing his butt off.