ZOMBIE FORUMS

not my fault she's butch

My point is: that being able to build an entire underground cavern with a giant tree literally radiating magical energy, using magic to fly, using magic to heal metabolic and genetic inferiorities, using magic for creating an invisibility shell, to float an island, to create 3 entire species, to craft a puppet-god,

to lift a weapon into ones hand after having dropped it..

Whatever kind of medium magic uses to transfer itself, it's fair to say that magic, such as it is, is some pretty special shit, and I wouldn't put it beyond the abilities of the time monks to be able to activate their weaponry mid-flight. It seems kinda easy in comparison to my other examples, don't it?

@Rakshasa; please don't condescend, I'm trying to make a valid point here.

To be frank, I think Sara deactivated the Dolon in order to not hurt herself with it. She's intentionally dropping her balance (and catching herself with her hand) in order to duck under Sara's blade; she does not need the added danger of the Dolon's blades.

As soon as she's got her balance back, she reactivates it to continue the fight. Of course, that's just me.

It could be something as simple as her concentration winking out for a second.

This is certainly plausible. Will have to keep it in consideration.

I'm with normalphil, Eccles, Destichado and others here.
And to repeat:


We have no confirmation that Sarine bopped Sara on the noggin with the flat of her blade, that Sara lost her balance, or that Sara deactivated her blades for any reason other than her own. Until Poe tells us one way or another, it is all speculation and all the "hey, I'm just callin' it like I see it" is more like "hey, I'm just callin' it like I want to see it."

Except that in the last frame of the 6-frame fight sequence, we see Sara off balance, her feet in a suboptimal position, leaning on one hand -- a hand that's now off the weapon -- having barely avoided having her head bisected horizontally.

We can actually see, there, in the comic, several possible reasons for the unintentional deactivation of Sara's blade.

I'll go with what we can see on the page, as opposed to speculation about the character's motives. In other words, with what the author has actually shown us already.

And again, you are reading things into it that others do not necessarily see or agree with.
So I repeat: Until we get confirmation one way or the other, it is all subjective speculation.

Just wondering if anyone noticed that Sarine is wearing some sort of tight fitting armor... I don't remember seeing it before this fight, she always had that coat on. Maybe this "armor" is capable of somehow magically repelling attacks from a durus flamma blade? Then again maybe not.

As to the motivations in this fight. Sara is torn between loyalties at this point and Sarine sees her as a useful pawn in some scheme she is working out to catch Ian. Pawns are only useful if they obey your orders so she has to gamble that she can beat her and thus gain her trust and or obedience... Maybe.

I guess I'll have to wait till next week to find out.

Granddad is back in the hospital again, don't know how much I'll be online the next few days.

Sarine is the cat playing with the mouse. Sarine *will win, and Sara will have found a new heroine to adore School-girl crush or something more, umm, interesting????

Sarine was disdainful of elven armour (looking more out place than usual) so it's probably human and probably not magicall in itself. Call me soppy and sentimental, but at some stage, her relationship with Sara will turn to friendship.

Good luck with yr granddad.

Actually, we have quite a few examples where the user not only has to continually concentrate to keep the damned thing active but has to be physically connected (touching) the Durus Flamma as well. To whit;

1) Fight, Sarine v Melrin : End-game : A Durus Flamma is dropped and they both dive for it. The blade is completely inactive until Sarine gets her mits on it first and activates it right into Melrin's torso.

2) Fight, Temple:Jon v Warrel:mid sequence: Jon puts a round through a carelessly descending Warrel, causing Warrel to drop his Lancea. The Lancea immediately deactivates and remains in its deactivated state until Warrel summons it back to his hand. It doesn't activate untill he has regained posession.

3) There are other examples that I can't be bothered with but they are there. I think that two are sufficiently representitive. This probably needs to be added to the wiki.

Some deductions from this:
1) A Durus Flamma weapon cannot be thrown because it deactivates the moment it leaves the user's hand. Therefore, there can be no Durus Flamma throwing daggers or Shuriken.

2) Momentarily stunning the wielder will momentarily deactivate the weapon.

3) The wielder must maintain continuous physical contact with the weapon or they have to reactivate it on every reconnection.

None of your examples supports deduction #2, and even if it is true we still have no confirmation that Sara was indeed bopped on the head and stunned, thus causing the deactivation.

You cannot sneak in an unsupported "deduction" like that and then use it to imply (falsely establish as fact) that that is what happened to Sara.

*whistlingspeculationwhistling*

Actually, in this case I am using Occam's rather sharp razor. On the panel in question, there is no doubt about the contact and the Dolon did deactivate. The story sequence doesn't, even until now, support Sara's benevolence to Sarine. At least insufficiently so that, if given a chance to cleave Sarine in two, that Sara won't take the opportunity and deal with her brother later.

So, looking at the gestalt, Sarine boping Sara on the back of the head stunned Sara momentarily and sufficiently to temporarily deactivate her Dolon. Sara didn't voluntarily deactivate it out of kindness (for mysterious motives not currently supported in the story).

All-in-all, it was a slick move on Sarine's part, showing complete mastery of the situation; She steps in, delivers her attack, and in such a way as to automatically stop the counter attack. At that point in time, Sara has to know that she's completely pwnd. Everything after is completely anti-climatic.

No. No, you are not.
You are trying to falsely invoke Occam's razor as authority to bully your viewpoint onto us instead of dealing with the logical fallacy I pointed out in your argument.



Big. Fucking. Deal.
Yes, there is contact between Sarine's blade and Sara's HAIR.
However, there is no proof of contact with Sara's head, or that this is the cause of the Dolon's deactivation. So cut the authoritarian "I'm right. You're wrong" crap. Seriously, you are becoming one of the worst for speculating and then trying to establish your speculation as fact and browbeat others into accepting it.

Also please note that I am not insisting that Sara deactivated the Dolon to avoid disemboweling Sarine, either. I am merely saying that it is also a possibility, and that untill we get confirmation we cannot say either way.

Sheesh...

No, you have no doubt about the contact. To me, it looks like Sara just ducked under the blade (losing a couple hairs in the process). We've never seen someone unintentionally deactivate their Durus Flamma before without dropping it or dying first. You are assuming that if someone is surprised, their weapon will deactivate, something you have no basis for. Two points

1)That's a rather large flaw in the weapon, one you'd figure would have been mentioned.

2)If they did have that flaw, you can bet your sweet ass anyone who used them as much as the monks do would train to maintain control in a fight.

"Sheesh" yourself. I am only following a logic train. If it has flaws then point them out. I'll go with logic. Logic is NOT pointing out fallacious debate rules, which I usually discount because they imply something false about my motivations. I am ONLY trying to interpret things that I see. If I fail to see something it is simply because I failed to see some thing. This isn't either the ICANN, IETF, or the IAB. So, stop attributing Machiavallien mechanations to my arguments. I am not trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

I also don't see myself being authoritarian here. If that's coming across than maybe I should quit posting here because that is ever so far from my intention. The ONLY authority is Poe, period! If I am impinging that in any way then I will have worn out my effective stay here.

If this stops being a conversation (shown by kids trotting out the "rules for fallacious debates") then I have also worn out my relevence. Not only that, but it's also getting too serious and too polarized. I don't have such emotional investments in my conclusions. If I am wrong then bring out the relevent points but don't start quoting fallacious debate club rules, intended for sophmores.

BTW, every one of my speculations are just that, speculations. I know that and so do most of the folks here. Should I post disclaimers in my signature-line? I thought that folks here were smarter than that.

Just thought I'd summarize the three differing things people think happened in the last panel of the previous page:

1)Sara ducks under Sarine's hape while swinging her dolon left-handed across Sarine's torso, deactivated to avoid killing her.
Pros: It does look like Sarine misses her with that swing.
Cons: No real reason for Sara to play softball.

2)Sarine bonks Sara on the head with the flat of her blade
Pros: In keeping with Sarine's personality and the story.
Cons: The more I look, the more that looks like a miss than a hit. Are the crystals even heavy enough to hurt?

3)Sara ducks under Sarine's blade, deactivating hers for a moment to avoid cutting herself
Pros: Does match visually with the panel.
Cons: The blade isn't really close enough to Sara to risk cutting her.

(just thought of another possibility)

4)as above, except Sara's dolon deactivates because she takes her hand off for a second to steady herself/push off the ground
Pros: Fits visually, Sara is right handed, the dolon might have a killswitch/pressure switch.
Cons: No reason to think she can't channel magic with her left, or that there is a switch.

I'm actually leaning towards 4 now. It fits the panel and is in keeping with what little we know about how they activate/deactivate.

Oh BTW, lets not get any more worked up over this than we already are. It's an argument over a single fucking panel in a comic, FFS.

I'm fairly sure that, given the modifications that the elves made to create the durus flamma weapons in the first place, they theoretically COULD have modified the spells in such a way to allow for thrown blades.

I'm equally certain that they had no motivation whatsoever to bother. There are just too many ways to accomplish the same thing (such as with spells that presumably your enemy can't throw back at you if you miss) without wasting time developing it out of the crystal. Plus, you know... a lot of thrown weapons are held by the blade. Kinda unpleasant to hold a blade like that, I'm guessing.

^-^'

Yes, that is an assumption, sort of. Coupled with the deactivation of her Dolon, I assumed that she was momentarily stunned and I wasn't willing to attribute too much generosity from her part, which is still the only alternative that I see.

There are a couple others as I posted above; she deactivates it to avoid cutting herself or because she has to take a hand off to push herself off the ground.