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[PA Comic] Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - Thornwatch, Part One
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
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EDIT: or a Wolfbat!
This comic is beautiful to look at.
Also, I believe this is that kickstarter money at work?
Back after a three year hiatus!
I'd say he's an oathbreaker.
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My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
But yeah I love the Lookouts world, it's probably my favourite PA-related thing. Really excited for this.
Steam: Chagrin LoL: Bonhomie
Honestly they are equal in my mind. Both worlds are so mindbogglingly interesting to me, I can't decide.
Watcher of Thorns (or Thornwatch) is a group of former/disaffected/deserter Lookouts who patrol the parts of the woods that the Lookouts can't or won't. They also help people in need. Gabe/Mike has previously described them as being like the A-Team from the 80's TV show. They are oath breakers because they've gone against the Lookout way at least in part.
I wonder if that means they are essentially the Lookout's moral grey area. They do the necessary things in the frontier that keep people safe that normal Lookouts have no desire or ability to do themselves.
I want to see more of this.
This doesn't make sense in the context of the comic. The comic suggests the Thornwatch is the most dangerous thing to the existence of men.
If you break an oath in a society like this odds are pretty good you're gonna get murdered somethin feirce by their law enforcement
Depends on who is saying this. If you're a Lookout, then the Thornwatch are probably viewed as heretics and traitors. They are a threat, because they reject the strict code of the Lookouts. They show people that the Lookout way isn't the ONLY way to live your life. Societies that have very rigid rules always view anyone who dares break the rules and rebel as the greatest threat.
From the second (guest) Lookout PA comic, we have already seen that the Lookouts elders frown heavily on any breaking of their rules/code. An entire group that rejects the Lookout way would be a serious threat indeed.
Well it may not make sense to you, but what he's saying comes straight from Gabe's mouth. :P It's basically the description of the idea he's given in his newsposts about the Thornwatch game he's working on.
As @King Riptor and @foodle have already said, it's not implausible for even surprising that the Lookouts or what passes for the "mainstream" of society in the Eyrewood, which relies heavily on training recruits according to rigid codes and traditions from childhood up, would denigrate and demonize the Thornwatch. These people are pariahs, partially of their own doing, don't abide by revered, pass-down codes, and do things that the Lookouts are unable or unwilling to do. You can't be having impressionable little kids thinking the Thornwatch sound pretty cool and wanting to tear off into the forest to join them. So you tell the young ones scary stories about the Thornwatch, storytelling, as we've already seen, figuring pretty heavily into the training/indoctrination of child Lookouts recruits anyway.
Thornwatcher in the making.
In the first series they used a stylized monster to represent a simple childhood game
In this one they've got another stylized monster, apparently representing something the kid is scared of. By the ears it's a mouse/rat, or maybe a bat I guess. Maybe the kid found one in the attic and was frightened by it (or something)
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I'd speculate that the Elders' willingness to sacrifice children isn't widely known. Some Lookouts die on their training missions, but overall they're a force for good, right? That's all you people need to know.
Then when a Lookout gets deep enough into the organization to find out how shady the Elders are and/or starts questioning their authority, that Lookout is vilified, accused of oathbreaking, and cast out by the Elders. These men form the Thornwatch to continue protecting people of the Eyrewood but also to stop the injustices of the Elders. Hence, the current comic storyline and the Lookouts' anti-Thornwatch propaganda.
Thats my take on it anyway, I'm interested to see where it goes.
I would assume that Mike/Jerry did at least ok the plots of the other efforts in the world.
Not sure what you find confusing about this comic. The boy cast off his weapon and runs from the creature. This cowardice is most likely forbidden in Lookout culture, so he will likely be shamed/shunned/exiled. This sets up his joining of the Thornwatch, and we get introduced to it at the same time he does. Pretty common storytelling technique.
FWIW my initial take on that part of the original strip was that the kid had to die because he failed - effectively nature selected against him, via a cockatrice/basilisk thing. Clearly there is Some Ridiculous Shit going on behind the scenes that I am super looking forward to learning about.
I like Automata better. It's more interesting to me, the world and the moral choices that arise from existing in it. Lookouts is just too many open ended questions. It's like a section out of a Tolken novel, for better or worse. It makes no sense without context.
I only became aware due to today's newspost (seriously, G&T need to get over their fear of advertising their own stuff) but there seems to be a more traditional format comic being published. Whether this is in physical print as well as digital I don't know.
http://www.comixology.com/Lookouts/comics-series/8317
It's also why I am skeptic at best of this Thornwatch business. Lookouts just don't need it.
Read Gabe's newsposts.