Birb-friends – Chapter 7, Act 4, Strip 49

When you need a deus-ex-machina in a fantasy setting, eagles are a time-honored choice, if not often employed today. Professor Tolkien himself introduced them to this function, after all, although he remarked that they should be used sparingly, and not too soon in a story. Following his advice, I’ve delayed their appearance to the final act, and only used them in the most sparing way possible – as a mere decoy.

At least the Professorian can take comfort in the fact that he didn’t, technically, lie. The eagles were coming. He didn’t say that they were going to do anything in particular…you might say that that was implied in his statement, but he didn’t say it as such, and thus wasn’t lying.

He still got everybody to look up, which was the point of the exercise…and which is quite an achievement for a paper fold-up figure. These poor Orcs and Trolls will definitely have creases on the back of their necks now, that’s no joking matter with such paper-thin physiques.

The rest of the teams’ actions would certainly not have met with Professor Tolkien’s approval, though. Breaking and running doesn’t really meet his exacting standard of literary heroism. But for our friends, it’s a time-honoured tactic…as is the whole look behind you! distraction maneuvre (although it’s more conventionally played with a three-headed monkey involved). They feel that they still can be heroes, even employing such tactics, as long as they manage to defeat the bad guys in the end.

Which seems far from likely at the moment, but not quite as impossible as it would have been if they were dead right now.

More on Thursday.

3 Replies to “Birb-friends – Chapter 7, Act 4, Strip 49”

  1. Oh hey, the orcs/trolls have images on the inside of the fold as well. Does that mean each of them count as 2 units?

    One could argue that given Gregory is now a wizard, him dying would promote him from a zombie to a lich which is probably much stronger than this current alive-form. Though Liches are also evil so maybe that wouldn’t work in the heroes’ favor anyway.

    1. No, it just means I was too lazy to properly align the textures, and was hoping nobody would notice. XD

      And, yeah, Gregory dying would raise a lot of complicated metaphysical questions, given his blurry positioning on the dead/alive axis…so it’s better to just not have him die, at least for the moment. Depending on the specific script-writing standards employed, he might also currently be a bit too blond and young to die.

      1. “I was too lazy… and hoping nobody would notice,” is pretty much the defining charm of a B-Movie (plus lack of budget).

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