Exiern
Swords, Sorcery, And Then Some!
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Recent Comments
- Gorm on Insert Monty Python Reference Here
- elfguy on This will hurt more
- elfguy on I don’t get it
- JuL on The Night
- JuL on He’s Dense, But Grounded
Okay, that right there is something I never understand. Why do they do that? She JUST tied that rope. If she were going to set him free, why would she pull out a knife and cut her own rope to pieces? That was a perfectly good rope now cut in at least 12 different pieces by my count. They are going to wish they still had that rope when they need to climb a mountain a few pages from now.
This isn’t even an Exiern thing. I seriously see this kind of thing all the time when someone is setting a prisoner free. Simply untieing a giant knot is too much trouble. Cutting the rope at the knot is too difficult. Lets cut the whole stupid rope, at 11 different points, making sure that it is completely useless when we are done.
Untying a knot when you have to wear thick clothes to shield you from about -70° Celsius is a bit more difficulty then doing it in your boyscout camp with all the time in the world.
Also keep in mind that Prisioner Knots are designed to be not so easily undone (because otherwise the prisioner could undo it).
Even if the knot cannot be untied with ease, she could just cut the knot itself (or both ends around the knot). At worst, she would still have have two useable segments of rope.
Yeah, but she managed to tie it in the first place, plus she is wearing gloves, not the mittens of the minions, plusplus if the knot was too tough to untie, then just do an Alexander and cut the Knot!!!
That look in the first panel, Tiff is realising that Princess P-cups really believes she made it up and has no idea what a Mingalow truly is and, instead of yelling or making fun of her, she took the time to calmly explain (makes me wonder what Princess P-cups’ version was like, and may not be a cuddly little fluffy pink thing as most would probably be thinking :P)
The first panels seemed kinda out of place so went back to the last page, and instead of reading the pages the normal way it makes a little more sense if you read them as one big double-spread page and read both top panels followed by both middle then finally the bottom panels (hopefully when you get around to printing it you will have these pages facing each other, or maybe have them as a double spread)
@Christopher: a good knot does not open under load conditions (like a struggling prisoner) but reasonably enough when you want it untied. A warrior needs to be able to deal with his own knots.
http://wanderingones.com/story/50/18/
What a waste of perfectly good rope. He couldn’t just *untie* Lion-O?
Yeah what JMV said. 😀
@David, if you read that story a bit further, you will note that the prisoners he set free by untying the knot knock him out, tie him up with the same “rope” and steal EVERYTHING he owns, including his clothes. (They do leave an apology letter and then Karma strikes and they give it all back when they go begging him for help against some rather nasty people.)
Re: rope
Flare trumps common sense every time.
Prediction:
The group will meat the Mingalow and Peonie will deal with it
Cutting the ropes was a more… economic way of showing that she was freeing the hanzalo in one frame, rather than showing the process of untying the knot.
I may have underestimated the value of rope, it would seem.
Personally, if my choices are 1) “get close to the captive with pointy claws and teeth who was recently fighting me and slowly untie them while also being unarmed myself” or 2) “quickly free them while simultaneously brandishing a weapon I can use if their friendly attitude is false” I would go with choice #2, regardless of how much rope I have with me.
The captive is a minor point. They are hiking through an extremely dangerous landscape. A rope could easily be the difference between life and death out there if you think about it. And rope isn’t very small or light weight either. That’s probably the only one they were carrying.
What if they encounter a Mingalow, and the only way to defeat / capture it is with a rope? And then it will be like: “Way to go Tiff, you doomed us all!”
The whole rope cutting thing is for dramatic effect & nothing more.
I’ve lived in the kind of climate they’re wandering through & know how hard it is to tie/untie a rope in double digit subfreezing temperatures, irrespective of whether they are ºF or ºC. It can still be done. But it doesn’t look as exciting when it happens.
BTW: -40º is the same whether F or C so if you want to gripe about really cold & use -70, put an F after it. -70C is only about -56ºF but -70F is about -94C. (Says the guy who got a minor case of frostbite from walking through -72ºF temps once.)
Hey Frith, you’ve got your Celsius and Fahrenheit backwards. -70c is -94f.
If you have to worry about the captive with claws and teeth while untying him, DON’T UNTIE HIM. If you are planning to set him free, he should understand that you need to untie him.
”
Okay, that right there is something I never understand. Why do they do that? She JUST tied that rope. If she were going to set him free, why would she pull out a knife and cut her own rope to pieces? That was a perfectly good rope now cut in at least 12 different pieces by my count. They are going to wish they still had that rope when they need to climb a mountain a few pages from now.
This isn’t even an Exiern thing. I seriously see this kind of thing all the time when someone is setting a prisoner free. Simply untieing a giant knot is too much trouble. Cutting the rope at the knot is too difficult. Lets cut the whole stupid rope, at 11 different points, making sure that it is completely useless when we are done.”
What he said. +1
@DanStanding
if you trust the tiger that little you shouldn’t be untying/freeing him in the first place.
thats just stupid.
err..what jmucchiello said if I read a little farther.
“If you have to worry about the captive with claws and teeth while untying him, DON’T UNTIE HIM. If you are planning to set him free, he should understand that you need to untie him.”
I call bs, this is totally a retcon. typhon thought a mingalo was a creature to be commonly caged(like a cow or something I suppose), something found in the southern lands.
They reconed a lot of stuff, I Still think Peonie Reconned Reality and made it real. Just be the way Tiffs luck runs.
It maybe just me but I only see one string being cut others are left under shadow and path of knife not quiet passing through them so it is not like rope became 10 or 12 pieces but maybe one long and one very short pieces. Not only one string seems to be cut but other also it is only string that acted like being cut other strings seems to be passing through as if they ere not cut at all.
Great. An undead half-fiend. >_<
I agree would have been better to not cut the rope, rather show a frame with it being taken apart… They have to carry everything they have for a long time, including food and clothing, so every item is valuable or they would not have it with them. But too late now.
Well lets be fair stupid Dramatic gestures are in Tiff’s Nature! Even when she should know better.Both male and female Tiff had there Blond Moments.
” stupid Dramatic gestures are in Tiff’s Nature!”
Fighting helps a barbarian improve skills and establish pecking order, like 2 rams butting heads.
They are in one of most dangerous parts of world. Normally people die of lack of food and cold partially because they can’t carry enough supplies, eg Robert Falcon Scott and friends died of starvation and lack of fuel in Antarctica.
If rope was not important, they would carry food or more clothing or heating oil instead. (Heating oil can take the form of candles made with animal fat) If rope was important they would very carefully keep it usable.
Don’t really have a problem with Tiff cutting rather than untieing the rope, but she could have cut the knot (or at least the rope closest to the knot) then jump back while Furdinand shrugged out of the rope
Maybe that’s Tigger’s rope. Hers is on the feet.
This is how you forge a fantasy alliance. Your adversary subdues you, treats you honorably, then you say something melodramatic like. “Let us join swords, not cross them.”
Our lives were once so calm and slow.
We’d drink our cups of Bigelow
With just a touch of Sweet-N-Low.
Try THAT with a mingalow!
On rope matter. With enough rope, you dont need to make insane knots for prisonet which will be held for short amount of time, even simpliest hold. Even if prisoner can squirm out somehow, there is guy with steel boots (normal will do too 😀 ) to kick it to the head.
If you dont trust guy and think he might follow and kill you, kill him. If you think he may do something stupid but not follow, knock him out and retrieve rope.
Just posting for fun, as this fantasy comic everything about drama/comedy/coincidence.. What chance of tigerman jumping out from snow in endless snow/ice wasteland? 😀
Yes, rehashed a dozen times, *but*….as someone who works with rope for a living, I can think of a handful of knots, that are easy to tie, even with gloves- in the cold with frozen fingers, secure enough to be loaded or used for a potentially squirming prisoner- and can be broken with one hand, leaving the other free for said knife. And in any case, it’s still at least two on one and a little bit of preplanning is going to make most restless prisoners think at least a second before trying anything sneaky…
Of course, this eliminates the ‘Wow, wish we had some rope’ gag later on in the adventure.