Late Update, 9-10-2009

[Kris@WLP]

Just finished assembling and editing the PitW TPBs; they go to the printer in the morning. Here's hoping I can pay for 'em...

... and this completes the Robin Hood omake! Filler or something next week as BAR-1 and I prepare for Anime Weekend Atlanta, and the regular story resumes the week after!

[tHEfOOL]

thralls will get you killed

[Happygun]

...Wisdom was obviously the TA's dump-stat.

While I certainly didn't know where the story was going, I had a feeling it was going to be a cautionary tale regarding thrall creation. The fact I was right is oddly infuriating.

...Now that I think about it, thrall creation in werewolf society is much like sex in the Catholic church. While the act is, under the right circumstances, perfectly acceptable and in fact necessary for the propagation of the species, it's highly discouraged and frowned upon even by those who should know better. Hurrah for customs!

[bar1scorpio]

Not only that, but an additional part might: no matter how tame or loyal a thrall can be,m they always have human relations, and THEY'RE the THREAT!

Then again, most Werewolf legends center around boobs, blood, and bad endings. Particularly since it's a medieval tale, and oral tradition, ie: not bowlderized.

[MitchellTF]

Werewolf 'howls' are always three steps from a fight and one step from an orgy...

But, yeah. Doesn't she KNOW that there is a thrall IN THE CLASS, LISTENING TO THE LEGEND?

Also, glad to see she actually teaches things well.

Though I hope this is not foreshadowing...

[Kris@WLP]

[Happygun]

[Ganthan]

[Ganthan]

My apologies for necroing such an old thread, but not only was my issue not addressed, I still have not yet figured out the answer since then. This has been bugging me on and off and I do think it's worth pressing.

The final line, "Thralls'll get you killed," does not make any sense at all. Not in the context of the Robin Hood story at least. The Prioress, with her religious zealotry of eliminating werewolves, would have killed Robin whether Clorinda had been thralled or not. Their deaths are not in any way the fault of Robin OR Clorinda. As a matter of fact, I would say that Robin showed a tremendous amount of compassion for saving someone that was ultimately out to kill him in the first place.

Now I could potentially see that line more aptly applying towards the current story arc with Peter and Sarah. A little bit. Peter thralls Sarah, Sarah gets herself exposed, a werewolf hunter comes because of that. However, even if Lee DOES succeed in killing both Peter and Sarah, it still would not be the fault of Peter OR Sarah. It would be Lee's fault.

Kris, I love this webcomic. All of the writing has been awesome up until that line, and all of the writing since that line has continued to be awesome. However, I just can't accept that line as it was presented, neither in the context of the Robin Hood story nor in the main story. It's abrupt, it came out of nowhere and it isn't even true. Can you please explain to me your reasoning for that line?

[Kris@WLP]

[Ganthan]

The logic is flimsier than Calista Flockheart in a wind tunnel.

You don't think that the prioress, who trained werewolf hunters, would have identified Robin and his remaining comrades as weres if Clorinda wasn't with them? The healing rates they would have displayed from their severe injuries would have given the game away, especially when you consider the practice of bleeding patients. John and Will were the ones who brought them to a convent instead of just taking them into the wild. Why not blame them?

Has it not also been considered that the consequences could very well have been far worse if Robin had NOT thralled Clorinda? Robin was close friends with her father Sir Robert and yet she was about to die at Robin's hands.

In any event, Robin did indeed thrall Clorinda, so let's go over just what the consequences of that actually were. Not only did she not commit suicide due to her now being one of the enemy, she dropped her mission of killing werewolves altogether. She did not threaten The Secret at all and the prioress knew of their existence anyway. They both discovered a great bond of love for each other that lasted through their separation during the Crusade. She became a champion alongside her husband in aiding the people against the tyrannical King John and fought by his side during their great battle.

Yet despite all this, the lesson history has to teach is this: "Don't create a thrall under any circumstances because it will get you killed." You have to connect a lot of random dots to get to this conclusion, and I'm too much of a believer in Chaos Theory to let this one fly.

[Kris@WLP]

Aw, shucks, next you'll tell me that the rule the youngest of three sons/daughters will always succeed where the other two failed doesn't hold water. }:-{D

Yes, it's possible that the prioress would have figured it out anyway, or learned about Robin Hood some other way. But she didn't. When Robin and Clorinda were brought to the priory, she KNEW- and thus acted swiftly before the two could finish healing and depart.

If you think it's weak, well, to be honest most stories with a moral are. Wall-E for example- wouldn't it have been cheaper to ship the GARBAGE out than to ship out all of HUMANITY?

[Ganthan]

To be fair, Kris, I'm not really calling the werewolf Robin Hood story weak. I think it's brilliantly written and ties in very well with the current story of Peter and Sarah. I'm also not saying that the moral about not creating thralls is weak. For plenty of reasons that we're all very well aware of and that are even more pertinent now in the modern age than they've ever been, creating thralls for any reason is a very bad idea for lycanthropes. All I'm really saying is that that moral doesn't really gel with that Robin Hood story.

The story that you gave us about Robin Hood being a werewolf basically gave example after example of how his thralling of Clorinda was a wonderful thing and led to plenty of happiness between them. At the same time it lacked any of the negative elements such as the Secret being found out or lycanthropy being spread even further accidentally because none of those things happened. The only negative connotation given to that particular thralling was through the prioress finding out what they were ahead of time, and thus was ready to dispose of them. Even then, it was only because they came to her. She didn't come to them. I mean, the story was almost championing the creation of thralls. Then suddenly we're slapped with the lesson of 'Thralls will get you killed'?

I guess the reason why that line set off my 'WTF?' alarm isn't just because of the severe contrast between the story and its moral lesson. It tried to posit that Robin was responsible for their deaths and he just wasn't.

[Kris@WLP]