The Order of the Stick/WMG/Jossed

=== This is a page for theories about The Order of the Stick that have been Jossed by the strip or Word of the Giant. Please move any open theories to here if they are jossed. ===

Nale retreated to his hometown of Greysky City after leaving Azure City, and Haley will have to fight him and/or work with him to resurrect Roy/escape the city.
A corollary to the above, and I think an Enemy Mine situation is like the only thing the author hasn't done yet unless I'm mistaken.
 * Well, there was Elan and Thog...

Eventually, Xykon will break down and admit his love for Tsukiko
Right before murdering her horribly. What better way to tell someone their services are no longer needed?
 * Jossed. Redcloak is the one that kills Tsukiko.

The Linear Guild will face off with Team Evil first in Girard's Gate
There are three teams poised for a confrontation in the Gate: Team Evil, The Linear Guild and the Order of the Stick. Out of all these teams the good guys get delayed the most. The parties who will clash first would be the Linear Guild and Team Evil.

Tarquin's wife isn't dead
Her body, or something resembling it, was found after she started investigating an epic level illusionist with whom she was emotionally invested.
 * Jossed. She got zapped by Familicide.

Eventually, Xykon will reassign Tsukiko to his currently-empty harem.
Right after murdering her horribly. What better way to distance himself from those disgusting biophiliacs?

The trapdoor V fell through in strip 843 leads to Girard's gate.
And no, I don't have any evidence for this.

Tsukiko will end up controlling the Snarl
All by herself. Hey, she does have both arcane and divine magic, and she's studying the ritual. It might be that she'll find some way to simplify it to the point where a single caster can handle the duties.

Yukyuk will replace Belkar
Think about it. V and Yukyuk are stranded together in some exotic Plane. They will befriend and when they come back, V will "open up a position in our Short Dual-Wielding Murder department." Since Yukyuk is in bad terms with the Linear Guild, he will presumably accept.

Sabine and Tsukiko will fight over who gets to kill Haley.
Sabine has the whole "no one kills her but me!" obsession, while Tsukiko seems to have developed a rivalry with her during the Time Skip (Rebel Leader versus leader of the Elite Mooks, and all that). At some point, you gotta figure the Order, the Guild, and Team Evil are all going to end up in the same place and fight, which will lead to Sabine and Tsukiko both trying to kill Haley, which in turn will lead to them arguing over who gets to kill her (sort of like that Xykon copy and Kubota's assassin fighting over getting to kill Hinjo during The Siege).
 * And then Crystal will show up out of nowhere just to complicate it further.
 * Jossed, by the fact that

Redcloak will be the cleric that raises Roy.
In this strip, Belkar points out that Redcloak is probably high enough level to cast True Resurrection. He also knows Roy's dead and definitely has enough loot from the conquest of Azure City to pay the 20,000 GP in diamonds. And I kinda doubt that Roy would object to any raising at this point, which only leaves the question of what Redcloak's motive would be.
 * Tying this together with both Belkar and Vaarsuuvius's remaining prophecies, V will make some sort of horrible deal with Redcloak where he will trade Belkar's life for a raised Roy and in the process somehow achieve ultimate magical power. His four words will therefore be (as indicated above): "Bring Roy back, Redcloak."
 * Sorta Jossed as of comic 581. They've got a different cleric lined up.
 * Jossed again as of 650, when Durkon starts up the Resurrection spell.

Roy will be raised as an intelligent undead.
Celia, in the latest strip, is going to a cleric who offers money for corpses. That usually means undead in DnD. Add in the fun of Roy's Sword sometimes hurting him...
 * Maybe Julia will hold the sword for him.
 * Jossed as of the latest strip; Roy is now a bone golem, which is neither technically undead nor technically Roy.
 * Roy still CAN be brought back. He just needs a true resurrection spell now, As that one doesn't require a body. (can Durkon perform that one yet?)
 * I really doubt it, true rez is a ninth level spell. That said, I don't think being a construct would prevent Durkon from using a normal rez on him.
 * Haley seems to think that if they have Roy's body, they won't need a seventeenth level cleric to bring him back. So, it seems a normal rez is good enough. Besides, if a normal rez can't bring back someone who was turned into a construct, then true rez can't either--both say in their descriptions that they can't resurrect constructs (but given that they also both say that they can't resurrect undead, but true rez can be used to bring back someone who was turned into an undead creature, then destroyed, they might both still be usable on someone who was turned into a construct, then destroyed).
 * In strip 578, Belkar is seen shaking one of Roy's boots as they escape the golems. A rattle is heard from within. It has been suggested that a toe bone or similar remains in the boot. And the spell resurrection requires only a small part of the body to work.
 * And the major, major point no-one has remembered: you DON'T need a cleric who can cast level 9 spells. All you need is a scroll and a cleric with Wis 19. Hell, Haley probably has ranks in Use Magic Device; SHE could cast it if a scroll could be found. (Of course, this kind of requires a scroll, but everyone appears to be so obsessive about finding a cleric of high enough level that this idea has completely fallen by the wayside. And since the cleric they found stated he did have a scroll...)

Roy is Killed Off for Real.
Self Explanatory. He's not coming back.

Vaarsuvius is divorced.
Despite claiming to be married, Vaarsuvius goes adventuring for months at a time and never makes any attempt to contact his or her spouse, even when imprisoned for a capital crime. He or she is also reluctant to discuss the marriage. Therefore, the couple have gone through an ugly divorce and broken off all contact. Jossed.
 * One needs to consider an elven perception of time. They are obscenely long-lived creatures at an average "retirement age" of 650 years (AD&D Elves don't die of old age, they just "go away"). So, regardless of how long it's been to the other party members, for Vaarsuvius it's the equivalent of a weekend camping trip. Not to mention, humans are amazed at a marriage that lasts 50 years; think how tired you would get of someone if you were together continually for 500 years. Long periods apart are also listed in the 2nd Ed. Elves Handbook as a way of rekindling an Elven couples love for one another.
 * Based on the above, Vaarsuvius is female, and her ex-husband is Thief from 8-Bit Theater. She left him because he shunned her abilities as a caster to a "pocket universe" wherein she can develop her skills and prove to her husband she's actually useful. That explains why she gets so angry when she fails in her attempt to scry for Roy, her secrets and her bending morals. This is also why Thief refuses to speak about his wife, and often mocks Red and Black Mage for being "casters".
 * This would also explain why Vaarsuvius seems to get along so well with Haley compared to the rest of the party -- she reminds her of dear, sweet Thief!
 * Or, as a counterpoint to the same, Thief stated in 8-Bit Theater that he gained his wife via coercion. It is unlikely that, were this Vaarsuvius, it would endear one to the other...
 * This may be proved, as in the latest strip, a dragon mentions V's kids.
 * That only proves he has kids. Does not prove V's marital status.
 * May not even prove that. This Troper originally read it as a Double Entendre. Of course, that was before...
 * However, a few strips later, V lets slip his kids are adopted... I have no idea what this contributes, but it does exist.
 * Probably to avoid the issue of V's children using a gender specific parental epithet.
 * Vaarsuvius adopted Thief's kids!
 * Note: This WMG is 'Varsuvius is divorced, not 'will get divorced'.

Vaarsuvius will refuse Qarr's offer to make a Face Heel Turn.
Because s/he is Genre Savvy enough to know that evil doesn't pay, s/he will realize at the last moment that his/her recent actions have been misguided and come to his/her senses. S/he will thusly say the wrong four words to the right being, for the right reason. Those words will be "No, I will not."
 * Considering that it's been about eight days since the showdown, which started here, which subsequently led to V's departure - either the demons has been pestering V for eight days and V has not given in, or V has accepted the offer off-screen, and this will be used in a reveal.
 * He has so far, but there is a chance yet as of this strip.
 * This one appears to have been Jossed. And as Genre Savvy as V may be, I don't think V's going to be able to willingly give up this power now that V has it.

When the Soul Splice ends, V will die.
Notice that the IFCC never mentioned what happens when it ends.

Hold Portal is a Chekhov's Gun
If V goes through the door and uses Hold Portal he's safe... until he meets Tsukiko
 * Hold Portal may still be a Chekhov's Gun, or (Chekhov's Skill depending on how you look at magic). V's recent paralysis from Strength poison has shown that V routinely prepares Feather Fall so that V has something to cast while unable to perform somatic components, so it's reasonable to assume that V prepares Suggestion and Hold Portal for the same reason. V has already had great success with Suggestion in such a state (against the young black dragon), so it seems likely that Hold Portal will have its day in the spotlight.

Vaarsuvius will take Qarr's offer and become a 4th edition Warlock.
He did say he'd be incorporating elements of 4th edition at his own disposal, and by doing it this way V doesn't become automatically evil.
 * The right fourth words, eh?
 * "Let's try fourth edition".

The necromancer will use Familicide on V's children.
She's a necromancer, and there must be some loophole she might grasp at to let her escape going back to hell, even if it means risking a few more minutes in the plane of the living. That huge hit of exp could affect only her, and not V, and since we don't really know how this works, it might be enough for her to make him do, in one instant, a single thing against his own nature.
 * Can you even get XP when you're dead? And how would killing V's kids help her escape Hell?
 * Since Xykon and Redcloak were discussing the XP value of the good-aligned monsters...yeah, you get XP when you're dead. It's when you stop being dead you lose XP.
 * Sorry, V would have died from the familicide spell, which might have caused enough confusion combined with the EXP and any prepared spells for her to take over the body before being sent back. Moot point now.
 * Nope. Adopted children.
 * I don't see why she'd want to Familicide on V, but the part of this about her escaping is confirmed.
 * Alternately: She hitches a ride with someone else (Belkar?) until the original splice ends, then kills V and steals the body.
 * Or possibly possesses one of V's kids.

Vaarsuvius will kill hir family hirself after s/he's finished with the dragon.
One of the voices V hears says 'Destroy everyone who has ever slighted you.' While this does make Belkar a good future target of retribution, it does mean that if hir mate and/or children have a negative reaction to what Vaarsuvius has become (this is pretty much the ultimate "You're not the (wo)man I married!" situation), that makes them a prime, available, and immediate target-- after all, wouldn't you be pissed if you sold your soul to rescue your family, only to have them throw it back in your face?
 * What do you think Order of the Stick is, a DC Comic? ;)

Roy's spirit will have no choice but to take over Belkar's body
Eventually V. is going to Mind Rape Belkar into being a vegetable. At this point, Roy will have to possess Belkar's body in order to stop V. from wiping out the party. Following this, he will find a non-psycho arcanist (preferably a sorcerer) and arrange for a polymorph any object spell to give him back his Medium-sized frame. The only problem is how depressing this WMG is, unless Belkar is able to exploit some loophole and pull a Greenhilt as a spirit.

Something awesome involving fiends will happen exactly on Strip 666
Self-explanatory. Now start guessing over what it'll be, folks.
 * I vote for the Splice ending and V blowing up somehow.
 * I predict it happening 1-5 strips later, just so it isn't on 666. The drama will have built up to the point where the savvy amongst us expect something on 666.
 * It has, in fact, happened 13 strips before 666.
 * Jossed; no fiends, just a pleasant chat watching the sun set and a disembowelment threat.
 * But if not for the deaths of D&D co-creators Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, who each quite deservedly got memorial strips, 666 would've been entirely fiend-based.

Roy will die next strip
Because the next strip is 666 and something bad has got to happen then.
 * If Roy dies again, I quit.
 * Eh, no matter what happens, V is not likely to be pleased about Roy's use of his/her cape as cover-up.
 * Jossed, fortunately.

Vaarsuvius will become a major bad guy, perhaps even the new Big Bad
Sure, the soul splice will end eventually, but it's not certain whether V can earn experience during the soul splice and whether it'll last after it's over. Now that V's, s/he will probably rack up a lot of exp. I wouldn't be surprised if Vaarsuvius used the soul splice to go on a rampage, get a bunch of kills, and start leveling like crazy. Since V has ultimate cosmic power and all, s/he could quite easily wipe out entire armies just for exp. Furthermore, V already shows signs of thinking Evil Feels Good, so...
 * A four-sided war between the Linear Guild, the reformed Order of the Stick, Xykon, and Evil V over Girard's Gate? Sign me up! Such a pity V's effective level is so high s/he doesn't technically get more than one or two points of XP for acts short of destroying planets.
 * Well, we know there are more sides to the fight from here. (Roach's dialogue, 8th panel.) Even though at this point, it doesn't look like V will stage his/her own attempt to control the gates, there's definitely more going on than we know of.
 * Jossed.

Vaarsuvius will successfully scry on Haley soon.
S/he's well above epic levels at this point. There's no question s/he could break through the Cloister spell.

The end of the strip will reveal that the whole thing was actually being played out in an actual game of D&D.

 * 1) It's far from unheard of for a webcomic to pull a St. Elsewhere, especially one as self-aware as this one.
 * 2) More specifically, Adventurers!, a spiritual cousin to OOTS, pulled a similar trick.
 * 3) It would help explain some of the Genre Savviness of many of the characters and the presence of certain D&D-specific (or RPG-specific) tropes over the course of the strip.
 * 4) Burlew is on record as saying he "already knows what the last panel of the last comic will be".
 * Jossed, as Word of God is also on record that "there are no players" in OOTS.
 * Quite strange, if you consider that they're called explicitly "PCs", in contrast to NPCs. They'd be the first PCs without players.
 * I always assumed that the terminology they always use were just the physical laws of their universe. "PC" just refers a class designation of someone who can be roughly defined as an "adventurer"- and that most of the main characters themselves were not PC's until they started living the adventurers' life. The fact that their terminology corresponds exactly to Dungeons and Dragons rules is just a coincidence.
 * Jossed quite recently in this strip.

The Monster in the Darkness will effect a Heel Face Turn and break O-Chul out.
In the months since Azure City was conquered, O-Chul has become good friends with the MITD, and may yet convince the monster to turn against Xykon and Red Cloak at a critical moment. This will, if certain speculation about the MITD's identity is correct, lead to O-Chul riding a Tarasque as a mount as the two of them plow through the Hobgoblins to escape.
 * This is very likely. Or at least The Monster helping the good guys somehow.
 * Apparently, it had, though maybe not exactly a Heel Face Turn. It's hard to define it as a "Heel", to start.
 * Why is this even on the Jossed page? It's EXACTLY what happened.

Belkar's guess about killing Xykon in five strips is spot on.
This is because Xykon is not the ultimate Big Bad; Vaarsuvius is. V fulfills the Oracle's off-the-record prophecy by killing Belkar, who is remembered as a hero because of his faked character growth. In the end, everybody dies but Haley and Elan, who gets his promised happy ending.
 * Alternatively, V does kill him, but in the rush of power, V forgets to (or runs out of power before he can) dispose of the Phylactery.

Belkar will die on strip 654.
He predicted that they'll beat Xykon on that strip. Irony.
 * Jossed. He wasn't even in that strip.

The souls within Vaarsuvius will betray him/her and Celia will replace him/her.
Now he's/she's gone off to face Xykon, in the confrontation the 'subcontractors' will destroy him/her from the inside, killing him/her, Celia will then replace V as an order member.
 * I Read That As Celia finding herself in a Soul Splice. Which would be an interesting twist.
 * Jossed, Celia's heading back home instead, thoroughly turned off to the Adventuring lifestyle.

Xykon's anti-teleport dome will (at least temporarily) strip V of any ability to use magic stronger than a cantrip, if that.
V's not thinking, so as to defeat Xykon as quickly as possible. Were V to teleport just outside Azure city and walk in, it would be possible to wipe out the dome from the inside and/or simply flatten the castle, Xykon, and destroy the phylactery with the right destruction spell. As V is relying on the ultimate arcane power instead of the intellect and wisdom stats that were so important a hundred strips ago, it would be the ultimate in irony, especially if the powers are transferred, even weakened, to Xykon for the duration of the effect. Really, Xykon does seem like exactly the sort of person who would weave a power blocker into his already personalized spell dome simply to have the pleasure of unsuspecting teleporters falling hundreds of feet to their deaths for his own entertainment and convenience.

Vaarsuvius will use his Deal With the Devil as an opportunity to bring Roy to Durkon
S/he'll use her greater wizarding abilities to find out where Roy's corpse is and get it back, and use Qarr's teleportation ability to bring Roy's corpse to Durkon. Besides, he needs to be raised already.
 * V. doesn't need to. S/he knows Wish. S/he now has enough caster levels to perform epic spells. S/he can presumably use some kind of epic Wish variant to bring Roy back without needing to even think about Durkon.
 * What part of "you won't be able to duplicate any divine magic, not even with a Wish or Limited Wish" don't you understand? He can't use Clone without a piece of Roy's flesh, and Major Creation specifically forbids using created objects as spell components.
 * Oops. On the other hand, we already know the fiends were fibbing about the alignment feedback. How do we know they were on the up-and-up about anything else? It may be that you're entirely free to duplicate divine spells, but for some reason V. doing so would screw up the plan, so they tell hir it isn't going to work in order to prevent hir from trying it. After all, fiends being trustworthy doesn't seem to logically fit.

After V goes evil, Qarr will become his Morality Pet, ironically.
V is going to need someone to exposit and talk to if he's going his own way as Chaotic Evil. Qarr is right there, and he ironically seems pretty frightened of any real evil.

The fiends will fuse V's soul with someone else when they have control of it.
It's hard to see what good possessing V's soul for a few weeks is to the fiends, and the reasons they give for the deal aren't convincing. But we've already found out one thing they can do with access to souls - fuse them temporarily to living people to increase their magic power. This would work perfectly well with V's soul, and he or she certainly has the power to make it worthwhile.

Vaarsuvius And the Evil Souls Will Eventually Combine Into A Single Entity
We already know that s/he can hear their voices and has one of their common urges, so it isn't a stretch to say that what the IFCC neglected to mention is that once V's hold on them ends, s/he'll lose control and they'll take him/her over.
 * Not entirely Jossed, but severely weakened by this strip: V losing control leads to a soul escaping.

Either Durkon or Redcloak will remove the Mark of Justice from Belkar.
Redcloak might for the reasons listed above. The only reason I'm putting Durkon here is that we know he could do it. (All you need to remove a Mark of Justice is Remove Curse at a caster level equal to or higher the Mark of Justice's caster level. Which Durkon probably is, even though I'm not absolutely sure because we don't know who cast the Mark of Justice.)
 * Jossed. Removing a Mark of Justice curse requires a particular password that neither know

Xykon's pounding of V is going to be shortlived.
Because the Order of the Stick is going to perform a Big Damn Heroes (somehow) and remind the audience just why the strip is about them and not Xykon. Xykon won't have to worry about V anymore because he will have the much more pressing matter of a resurrected Ray Whathisname leading the Order of the Stick to perform an ass-kicking upon his bony ass. It would also fit with the recent theme of "The Order gets more things done then V, even with his/her/its new power."
 * Alternatively, this is where O-Chul finally gets through to the Monster in the Darkness, and they bail V out. Later Edit: Looks like...
 * This Troper is actually leaning towards the idea that O-Chul is going to head on by himself, and make a Heroic Sacrifice, buying V time to escape. Because "Doing your duty" can never end well...

V's prophecy hasn't been fulfilled yet.
Vaarsuvius must say the right four words ("I must succeed" is three, dammit) to the right being (singular) for the wrong reasons. (I'd say that saving his/her family is a pretty damn good reason)
 * S/He says "I" twice, the "being" s/he's talking to is hirself, and the wrong reason isn't because of hir family, it's because s/he'd rather sell hir soul for power than admit that s/he was wrong.
 * We know the prophecy has been fulfilled because there's a twist. Roy, Haley and Belkar's prophecies were all wrong... at first.
 * Or it could be that there isn't a twist, and the title "The Wrong Reasons" was there as a fake-out because it's yet to genuinely come true. After all, "prophecy fulfilled with a twist" needs a good solid subverting.
 * So, let's examine the evidence FOR: we have the four words(I.. I must succeed), we have the wrong reasons(arrogance), we have the right being(himself). We have him getting the power of three epic spellcasters, which "when combined would dwarf the power of any spellcaster that ever lived"(not exact quote). That's very much ultimate, just because the power was misused does not mean it's not ultimate. We have the strip titled "The Wrong Reasons". Let's examine the evidence AGAINST:... Uhm... A twist needs a good solid subverting? Rich likes to subvert tropes? Seems shaky at best.
 * How about the fact that Xykon pointed out that the Soul Splice wasn't really all that ultimate, especially since it wasn't so much V gaining power as it was his/her/its temporarily gaining the ability to draw on the power of three epic-level spellcasters. The wording of the question implies that the power would truly be V's--"how will I obtain", not "how will I gain access to". Also, that wasn't four words; it was three words, one of which was stammered.
 * Look, if you have a basket with two red apples, one green apple and one yellow apple then how many apples do you have in the basket? FOUR. If you have two "I"'s in a sentence, one "must" and one "succeed" then you have FOUR words in a sentence. The power of the souls individually wasn't ultimate, but when combined "would dwarf that of any spellcaster that ever lived". And there was nothing in V's question about obtaining the power permanently, nor does 'obtain' imply by itself that what you gain is permanent, check a dictionary. In short, there's no compelling evidence whatsoever that V's prophecy might not be fulfilled yet.
 * It is 4 words, but it's 3 unique words. Since the English language is somewhat ambiguous when referring to unique or non-unique parts (4 words can mean either just 4 words, or 4 unique words, both are valid interpretations) it's still questionable.
 * Note, also, the wording "every spellcaster who has ever lived." Xykon is most emphatically not alive, and neither is any other undead spellcaster. It is entirely in character for beings as manipulative as the Three Archfiends have shown themselves to be to use misleading-but-true phrasing to get what they want out of V. It's possible that even before the loss of the first soul, the Soul Splice would have made V more powerful than Xykon as he was when he was still human, but not as he is now, when he's been an undead epic spellcaster for years. The term also does not imply "ultimate power"; it merely means that V has, however temporarily, surpassed all previous living spellcasters. There's nothing preventing someone else from surpassing V in turn. "Ultimate" implies going beyond the point where anyone can surpass you. Check a dictionary. Also, if you're going to persist in refuting this theory, take it to the Discussion page.
 * I've always assumed that V had Ultimate Arcane Power until Haerta left. And I'd like to point out that while Xykon is dead now, he didn't used to be. He "has ever lived", and therefore likely was not as powerful as triple-soul spliced V.
 * Gonna add a corollary to this: It hasn't been fulfilled in order to have the twist. Now that V thinks he has fulfilled the prophecy he is going to walk right into the real one. With all the foreshadowing of a future fall for V it begs that the splicing incident was a red herring. Any other comic, any other story, the splicing would have qualified. OotS dines on tropes and washes down stale cliches with glasses of uberness. This is too "normal" for OotS.
 * Jossed by Word of God in Don't Split the Party's author commentary.

Building on the WMG that Tyrinar the Bloody is Nale's and Elan's father, and Tyrinaria no longer exists...
Nale approaches the Order with a sob story about how Daddy's empire has crumbled, and he'll be good if Elan and the rest help him avenge it. Haley's/Ian Starshine's "trust no one but family" reference (what family is closer than a twin?) will get them exactly as far as finding out who Nale's father really is.
 * Jossed by Tarquin's decidedly non-Tyrinarish backstory.

Tyrinar is Tarquin's last name.
Tarquin Tyrinar. It even sounds cool.

Elan and Nale are half-brothers.
A Wizard Did It (or, to go for the possibly-inaccurate pun, A Wizard Did Your Mom).
 * Jossed, here (first panel) in conjunction with here (last panel).

Elan will use the tiny bolt of lightning which Banjo uses to smite heretics to break Roy's amulet
I only just realized that Elan can shoot small lightning bolts, and Roy has an amulet that, when broken, summons his girlfriend, which can only be broken with an electrical shock. That is going to be a really big Brick Joke, when it finally reappears.
 * Except that amulet was already broken, and we don't have any indication that she gave him a new one. And if she did, it would probably be one she'd know he can break.

Nale is a "Well Done, Son" Guy.
We know that his father is Lawful Evil and so is he. He seems to be trying way too hard to be a Troperiffic villain for ill-defined reasons. This makes more sense if he's trying to live up to the impossible standards of a true Magnificent Bastard. It also makes sense with his grudge against Elan - if he can't even beat the halfwit good twin, his dad will be wishing he'd left them both with their mother. "Because no one denies me, Elan. Not father, not you, no one."


 * Jossed.

The separated members of the Order Of The Stick will assemble a Five-Man Band each (plus maybe a Sixth Ranger) in the style of the original Order.
This theory made more sense to me before, but it could still be worth considering.
 * V, Durkon and Elan already have Hinjo or another Paladin as a replacement for Roy, the tank. Therkla could replace Haley, not sure who'd take the place of Belkar yet.
 * If Celia manages to get the hang of actually using her magical powers, she could take the place of V, and we might possible even end up with Hilgya replacing Durkon. Not sure who the others will be played by, and whether or not Belkar recovers.
 * The cleric of Loki has certainly gotten onto Belkar's good side, it looks like, so I'd count him in as a future member.
 * And with Belkar's recovery, he pretty much fills Roy's tanking role. We've got a workable team already! (well okay, one Technical Pacifist caster, but they can work around that)
 * Dear god, no! Frankly, this troper hopes to see Celia Stuffed in A Fridge at some point. I mean, her relationship with Roy just came out of freakin' nowhere, and she's annoying, to boot.
 * The Linear Guild are bound to be amused either way.

One (or both!) of V's children is a sorcerer.
So they'll kill the dragon. And not be hurt. Because they're cute. And I don't want them to die! And... (Goes off on tangent about crappy week, ending with "...And that's why no one should die, ever!")
 * Even if one of them was a sorcerer, a level one sorcerer can't kill an ancient black dragon. Might be able to escape though.
 * "My sibling and one of my parents died at the claws of a black dragon seeking vengeance against my powerful but distant adventurer other parent and I narrowly survived due to the timely manifestation of my sorcerous abilities" is a back-story if ever there was one.
 * ...and all I got was this lousy T-shirt?
 * No, all I got was this lightning-bolt scar.
 * Putting this in Jossed, since the kids didn't use any sorcery against the dragon.

Vaarsuvius will kill Belkar
After the Soul Splice, V now has an Epic Level Necromancer whispering that (s)he should kill everyone who's slighted him/her. Depending on how well V can resist that compulsion, the next time (s)he meets up with Belkar and Belkar gets annoying, V may not be able to resist dropping some epic level necromancy spell that kills Belkar stone dead, no resurrection allowed.
 * This Troper very much hopes so.
 * Putting this in Jossed, since he didn't kill Belkar while under the Soul Splice.

Therkla the Ninja is Right-Eye's hidden daughter.
Right-Eye's daughter (name unknown) was smuggled away to unknown foster-parents between 6 months and 3 years before the Current Events began. Therkla is some kind of either monster or half-monster who is backed by (possibly) demons. Bam! Okay, the main impetus for this theory is backed by how awesome it would be for Right-Eye's daughter, niece to xenophobic Redcloak (who has issues regarding his brother's get, to say the least), to have the hots for humans -- possibly because of her cultural isolation amongst the humans. ...but I have support!
 * Class: Right-Eye was a deadly rogue, and it would only be natural for that same blood to flow through his daughter's veins.
 * Tropes: Rich has been working in his extra books this arc, and some more Start Of Darkness references would be apropos.
 * Racial: Therkla is a greenskin, and while she has the skin-tone of a half-orc...
 * Age: Right-Eye's daughter would be of age -- in three years, she could have hit puberty.
 * Awesomeness: Such an outcome would clearly be covered by the Rule of Cool.
 * Unfortunately, this theory, along with many others, has been Jossed as of #509. An even more thorough Jossing appears on #555.
 * Even so, I'd expect Right-Eye's daughter to put in an appearance at some stage. Perhaps her having been raised lovingly by adoptive human parents will lead Redcloak to rethink his belief that Humans Are Bastards and do a Heel Face Turn on Xykon.

The girl Belkar is sleeping with is Sabine
Sabine has stated that she's an incarnation of illicit sex. And they look alike. And that seems like something the Linear Guild would do.
 * The girl Belkar's sleeping with is the bard that accompanied the rest of the Guild to kill Haley and the cleric of Loki. Who, we might point out, was both completely outclassed in battle by, and very taken with, Belkar during their battle, which doesn't really sound like Sabine at all.
 * She also appeared in the prequel book On the Origin of PCs, and is shown to be a friend of Haley's a good 8 months before the OotS and the Linear Guild ever even met.
 * Her name is Jenny, by the way! Just in case... you know...
 * Seems to be Jossed, so . ..

Xykon is perfectly aware of the Monster in the Darkness's growing friendship with O-chul, and has charmed the Monster in the Darkness so that he'll eat O-chul before they leave the city

 * Because it just seems like the sort of dickish thing Xykon would do for kicks, and it would nip the Monster in the Darkness's Heel Face Turn in the bud if the charm also caused him to forget O-chul ever existed.
 * Or even better plotwise (and slightly less depressingly) the spell would not make the Monster forget about O-Chul and cause the Heel Face Turn.
 * Judging by the "escape" spell, this seems to be Jossed.

The Cartographer in this comic was about to say "Starshinia".
Ian Starshine deposed Lord Tyrinar and is now ruling the country. And um...couldn't get a sending spell out to his daughter about this. Never mind! Point is, DRAMA.
 * There's an easy way around that. The only caster of a high enough level to cast a 5th (4th for cleric) level spell bared evocation (Hey, don't ask me why the spell is in the school that focuses on "the elements" instead of the one based around "infromation") and there are no clerics at 7th level (the resitance can't manage a 5th level cleric).
 * Jossed.

The Monster in the Darkness is a hole in space.
The guys in Start of Darkness just didn't expect a sentient rift to be in the middle of the jungle.
 * No, it's a member of a species (it's recognized as being "one of these), and Word of God has said that it's an actual creature, not something he made up.

The Creature In The Darkness Is The Bonus Boss Of A JRPG.

 * Think about it: Insanely overpowered, able to perform attacks that should be impossible in a D and D universe, and unlike every other creature in the Order Of The Stick universe, HE HAS NO IDEA HOW THINGS ACTUALLY WORK!!! Every other creature, even admittedly idiotic ones, possess full awareness of the abilities of both themselves and others. The Creature In The Darkness does not, because he's not from this universe, but instead he is a creature that came from a universe that operates on a completely different set of rules. And which Bonus Boss? Choko actually seems kinda likely.

V's Master is also his/her mother/father
Just because that looks like an aged V to me.
 * Jossed in the Prequel book. V's parents were rangers, and V's master was a family friend.
 * Alternately, V's master is also his/her real mother/father. (Possibly both, as this is WMG.)

V's prophecy hasn't come true yet.
The exact wording is that Vaarsuvius will achieve complete and total ultimate arcane power, quote, "By saying the right four words to the right being at the right time for all the wrong reasons." The problem is that none of these conditions were met. V said "I... I must succeed," which isn't four words (it's three, with a stammer). V says it to three beings, not one being. It wasn't the right "time"--time was frozen during the bargaining session, so there was no "time" at all. And V doesn't do it for all the wrong reasons: V's children and spouse were under threat of being murdered in an inordinately gruesome fashion--pride was a reason to do it, but not all of them. In fact, Vaarsuvius didn't even achieve "complete and total ultimate arcane power." As Xykon noted, V only acquired the power of three magicians who were too weak to stay in the game, and thus, not ultimate; the Soul Splice was fairly easily broken, and thus, not complete.
 * Except that "I(1)...I(2) must(3) succeed(4)" is 4 words. Count them again. And V didn't say them to the Three Fiends, he said them to himself in an attempt to justify his Deal With the Devil when given a hypothetical alternative solution (that it would not have actually worked out for him is irrelevant; he didn't know that at the time). This makes it "for the wrong reason"--V wanted to prove that pure arcane power could solve any problem, and the one fiend specifically calls him on this by pointing out that it would mean he was wrong. V did it out of pride--the wrong reason. The right time was just as the Time Stop was fading, and he had little choice to think of an alternate plan (or, to think through the proffered plan). V received "ultimate arcane power" and lost it. Xykon even calls him on this, pointing out that all his power is for naught as it is still "shackled to your lame mid-level ass." There is no question that the terms of the prophecy have been met.
 * Stammers are indicated by a hyphen, not dots. The four words are written "I... I must succeed", not "I-I must succeed".
 * Wrong. Rich confirmed that the prophecy has been fulfilled.

V's prophecy hasn't been fulfilled yet. In the future, it will be fulfilled by...

 * V becoming a Green Sun Prince. Yes, I realize that this would involve a massive crossover (probably with Keychain of Creation), but think about it: A Green Sun Prince exalts after an interview with a demon, who makes contact with them after they fail to fulfill a heroic destiny on their own terms. And, well...look at the White Treatise's Solar Circle spell list, or even the Infernal Charm list--if that's not "complete and total arcane power" by D&D standards, I don't know what is. V has already demonstrated some serious character flaws, as well as a willingness to go through with Faustian bargains under the right circumstances, so as long as his/her/its acceptance is exactly four words long (and none of this "three words and a stammer" nonsense), all the conditions of the prophecy have been fulfilled. Clearly, V is going to become a Defiler. Or if he isn't, someone should write fanfic about it.
 * Wrong. Rich has said that the prophecy was fulfilled with the Soul Splice.

We will eventually see Elan's half-sister Lena and half-brother Alen.
Well, we know his dad's been married at least nine times, so it wouldn't be surprising if he has more kids (and used the same letters of alphabet for all of them).
 * And Neal, Lean, Anel and Nela too.
 * And Lane.
 * Say, maybe the letters differ slightly depending on who the mother was. Lien doesn't have any physical traits that are clearly similar to Elan's, but this being a stick figure comic we can't rule it out yet.
 * Possibly jossed. Although he might be lying about it and (more likely) his motivations for doing so, Tarquin claims that he was so disappointed in how Nale turned out, he's avoided having children then. So, any other siblings would have to have been born prior to Elan and Nale.

Haley is going to be the one to fight Roy
Tarquin could declare her the champion simply for the drama it would inspire, even without knowing they're both friends of Roy. If Haley dies, Elan can make an oath to avenge her death after Tarquin lets Roy go free to run away and Elan chase after him. If Haley wins, it gives Elan more motivation to hate Tarquin and also adds drama to the Haley/Elan relationship because she just killed a man and Tarquin knows Elan hates senseless death. If they reveal Roy is in their team, he'll just insist on it even harder because of the thrill of forcing two friends to fight, knowing that if they don't the other is going to die in a hail of arrows anyway.

The Champion is...
A Monster in the Dark. Because it would be awesome.
 * Jossed. It's Thog.

The Monster In Darkness is an aspect of The Snarl.
For reasons known to almost everyone here: it cannot perceive the gates, as the Snarl could be expected not to perceive its prison, it is insanely powerful, as the Snarl surely is, and it seems to have no particular motivation or intellect, as the Snarl is more a primal force than an actual entity.
 * This actually helps explain why Burlew let slip that one of the gates opened before the story began -- why wouldn't he just have had four gates in the first place, unless the already-destroyed one was a Chekhov's Gun? Clearly, Xykon and Redcloak obtained the partial services of the Snarl when they knocked down their first gate. This also helps explain why Xykon hasn't unleashed the Monster yet -- he'd prefer to have the whole thing.
 * This may have been Jossed in Start Of Darkness: the Monster in the dark was about a while before the incident with the gate. That an aspect of Snarl existed before some other way is possible. As well, the Monster serves as The Watson to the explanation of Xykon's plot in #195-6, sitting through the gate's destruction before learning what's going on.
 * Alternatively, the Monster in the Dark is an aspect of the Snarl left out in the original sealing. It's in darkness because the tanglyness would give it away, and it can't see the gates because they're constructs of order -- the Snarl couldn't see the prison around it when it was being made.
 * This may be disproved by Start of Darkness: In that book, . If the Monster was a part of the Snarl,
 * Jossed: he was recognized by his captors, and by Word of God he isn't something Rich has made up for the comic.

Lord Tyrinar is the Man Behind The Lich.
Xykon became involved with the Snarl stuff thanks to an opening move by Tyrinar. Haley's story would be kind of anticlimactic if she just got the gold and had him released, and most of the possible plotlines would really detract from the main plot from here on (or he could have just taken control of one of the gates, but that doesn't support the theory). If Elan and Nale's father is Tyrinar, it would be a thread connecting more characters than Xykon and Redcloak (bonus points to the "string" theory if Belkar started out as a spy after Vaarsivius' mis-scribed spell was caused as part of Tyrinar's Gambit Roulette).
 * Xykon really doesn't seem like the type to let some warlord have any kind of authority over him. Now Tyrinar as a secondary villain or the new primary one... that seems much more likely. And awesome.
 * Jossed. Tyrinar was just a figurehead ruler who got "his" kingdom by Elan and Nale's father: Tarquin. And most likely he won't appear anymore, he was eaten by the Empress of Blood.

The Elven Ambassador is Varsuvius's Mate's new Lover.
Mysterious Elf who can be seen glaring at V on at least two occasions? Great opportunity to continue the Humiliation Conga V's personal life has been turning into lately.
 * Jossed. It was

The Empress of Blood isn't.
Not only is she a puppet for, as Haley thought, but also a metaphorical and almost literal lapdog for.
 * Alternately: The character shown is a literal lapdog. The Empress is slightly more unfortunate than the throne.
 * Jossed. He is just Tarquin's puppet, there is no real Empress of Blood.

Tyrinar is a stage name.
No reason...

Kraagor is the Order of the Scribble's Ambiguous Gender Member.
Kraagor has a braided beard and no Dwarven Phonetic Accent, at least based off of his/her one line in This strip. The last Dwarf we saw without an accent was Hilgya Firehelm. Start Of Darkness also establishes during the freakshow scene that female dwarves have beards. And yes, Lord Shojo used a male pronoun to describe him, but he's just guessing at Kraagor's Gender, like people do unsuccessfully with V's.
 * Jossed by Start of Darkness - in a flashback scene, Kraagor utters the line "Raging makes Kraagor a thirsty boy."

Tarquin worked for Tyrinar.
The political situation is so extremely unstable that he might have once worked for Tyrinar before ditching him for the Blood Empress. Haley's dad may be rotting in one of Tarquin's dungeons, and no one bothered to update Haley that Tyrinar has been deposed.
 * Jossed. Tyrinar was just a figurehead and the Empress is the new one.

Haley's father will be rescued as such:
Hayley amasses, with the help of the rest of the Order once they find out, the necessary 200 000 gp. Tyrinar's chancellor said in the letter that he "might" be willing to "consider" releasing him, not that he will. Thus, even with the gold he'll keep her father captive. Exploiting the "period not to exceed the span of his natural life", the order will kill him remotely, nick the body (either from the garbage or the guards on the way to the crematorium), resurrect him (possibly in a similar way to Roy- Vaarsuvius?), and get the gold back (through either spite or Elan recognizing Lord Tyrinar as his father and executing him).
 * Jossed as A: Haley has no intention to pay anymore, B: Roy is supposed to break up from prison with him, C: Tyrinar is dead and he isn't Elan's dad.

The Monster's father was 682.
The Monster in the Darkness does mention that his father was "BIG, and he ate a lot". Evidently the hatred for all things living doesn't run in the family. Alternately, or possibly on top of that, it might be 231's [Data Expunged]; it's either one of the early less-harmful test runs, or it just takes a few decades or centuries to get to the point of being evil and powerful enough to end the world.
 * Jossed. Word of God says the MitD is something from D&D.

Tarquin's fiancee/girlfriend is Sabine
Think about it. Nale already managed to plant Thog AND Zz'dtri into the Western Continent. What better way to further one-up his dad that planting Sabine as a suitor? Alternatively, Sabine broke up with Nale and was ordered by the fiends to go to the western continent, where she ended up hooking up with Tarquin.
 * They have now been seen in the same frame.

The Monster in the Darkness is a Deus Ex Machina.
Given the trope's inherent nature, it fits in every single way. Super strength, powers of teleportation, access to hello kitty umbrellas, all are powers of a Deus Ex Machina. The Monster in the Darkness is the trope physically personified.
 * Well, I was going to guess the MitD was a newborn god, but both could work. Indeed, the MitD could be a god in-universe doing double duty as a Deus Ex Machina.
 * To fuse these two interpretations and add a horrible pun: the MitD's race is originally from Mechanus.
 * This makes a lot of sense going all the way back to its' discovery in Start of Darkness. The explorers and later the people at the circus were shocked to see it "here" meaning shocked to see a Deus Ex Machina halfway through a prequel book.
 * It's a Monster in the Darkness, not a Trope in the Darkness. It's a creature that will be revealed (Word of God says so), and a Deus Ex Machina has no physical appearance, so this is Jossed.

The Order knows about Blackwing
Blackwing simply spoke with the others ahead of time to mess with V's head and teach hir a lesson.
 * Judging by the reaction the comic in question engendered as is, I think there would be a revolt if this were to be revealed.
 * In strip 809 Roy says "That bird. I think it's the one that's been on V's shoulder these past two weeks". Jossed.

No one can remember Blackwing anymore
Something happened to Blackwing when he got too close to the Snarl. It made him become somehow unstuck from the world of Order of the Stick; no one but V remembers him now and anyone who sees him will forget about him quickly. In this respect everyone will treat Blackwing in the same fashion as the Monster in the Darkness treats the Gates.
 * In strip 809 Roy says "That bird. I think it's the one that's been on V's shoulder these past two weeks". Jossed.

The Cartographer in this comic was about to say "Naleria", or some other derivative of Nale, before she was interrupted.
Last we saw of Nale, he was heading to off to find one of the other gates, and if the above WMGs about Lord Tyrinar being his father are correct, what better place to start than where he has familial connections?

The fact that his dad is holding Haley's father hostage would just be icing on the cake, and give him something else to use against Elan.


 * Jossed.

The Monster in the Darkness is related to the Snarl.
He is either some kind of larval form which escaped through the rifts before the Gates were formed, a shard which was cut off by the Gates and became independent, or a deliberately created avatar. This would explain his immense power, his insatiable hunger, his references to having not been born in the rainforest but only ever remembering living there, his reference to his "dad", whom he claims was much bigger than him and ate a lot more than he did, the fact that he is apparently horrifying to look upon, and the fact that Redcloak and Xykon both seem to know what he is and how powerful it makes him, as well as their desire to conceal him (O-Chul may have guessed, which would explain his commitment to convincing the Monster that he can be good). It would also explain why he apparently cannot perceive or remember the Gates; they were specifically made to confine the Snarl, so the much smaller and weaker form of the Snarl cannot even tell that they are there.
 * Word of God says that it isn't something Rich made up for the comic. The snarl is made up for the comic. Jossed.

The Monster In The Darkness is...
...some kind of dragon? D&D dragons are natural arcane spellcasters after all.
 * oooh... Tiamat is going to be mad at Xykon for that.
 * A dragon is quite recognizable, so the scene in the circus would fail (they call him "it"). A dragon talking in common isn't that surprising. The powers required for all he did in the comic this far are only available when a dragon is bigger than the box and the umbrella. So pretty much Jossed.

The Monster In The Darkness is
Whatever happend to their remains? Yes, they are divine, but something should have remained. We don't know anything about the Monster, so who says it has to be one thing? It could be a gesalt entity. And his memory/naievety can be written off by that fact too.
 * Word of God says it's not something Rich made up for the comic, and that it can be guessed. This makes the WMG Jossed.

The Monster in the Darkness is a MacGuffin.
Xykon picked it up a while back because... that's what you do with a MacGuffin. It's exactly as powerful as it needs to be, exactly as trusting as it needs to be, and exactly as visible as it needs to be for the right people to acquire it and the audience to never find out what, in-universe, it is. The heroes just haven't picked up on that particular plot thread yet. See also the Deus Ex Machina guess above.
 * Since, by Word of God, it is a guessable creature, this is Jossed.

The Monster In The Darkness isn't hidden in the shadows. It is the shadows

 * It's the Vashta Nerada! It fears the light, it's virtually unstoppable, and most of all it's only shown attack is to eat people.
 * You mean, Belkar attacked the darkness? And by the way, it doesn't fear the light. It keeps trying to get lit up.
 * That's because it's been pretending to be vulnerable and harmless. It's been planing everything from behind the scenes, by animating a skeleton and passing it off as a lich king.
 * Except Vashta Nerada are microorganisms, like bacterias, and the Monster is only one creature. So Jossed.

The Creature In The Darkness Is At least a Semi-Humanoid Female Monster.

 * Let's see, there's the very girly umbrella it has during the siege on Azure City, the fact that it has no problem with hitting ladies (the "who can hit the softest" contest should be an indicator), the fact that it enjoys tea parties, and the fact that it is a lot more docile than a male creature would be (males tend to be a lot more aggressive, even while they are young, like The Creature In The Darkness seems to be). But why would everyone refer to it as male? Because no one would care about the gender of a monster, as it would matter about as much to most people about as much as it would the breeding patterns of slugs on a continent that you had never visited before in your life and never will. Others just refer to The Creature In The Shadows using male pronouns for convenience. And since The Creature In The Darkness has no idea what it really is, he just assumes he's male like everyone else (the only other one of it's kind that it's encountered is it's father, but it wouldn't be able to tell the difference between itself and it's father meant male or female unless it met a female of it's kind). Given this evidence, there is a strong possibility that "Monster-san" is in reality a "Monster-chan"
 * And why a humanoid? EASY: First off, there's the fact that it's holding the umbrella over itself, so unless someone's been duck taping that umbrella to it's back, that implies that it's at least got arms of some sort.
 * But it won't let girls join its secret club.
 * Knowing that monster's usual level of intelligence, it does not seem far-fetched that it might not understand what gender is, "under the hood", meaning it would be incapable of knowing it's own gender.

It is Xykon scrying on the supposed location of Girard's Gate in comic #698.
We know in recent comics that Xykon has left Azure City / Gobbotopia on a personal quest, one he didn't see fit to tell Redcloak about. Since Redcloak has (accidentally) destroyed one of the Gates in the past, it makes sense that Xykon wouldn't trust him not to make the same mistake twice. Secondly, Redcloak failed to glean any useful information about Girard's gate from O-Chul while he was their captive, which would give Xykon more motivation to take matters into his own bony hands.
 * Jossed. It was Nale and the Linear Guild.

Mr. Scruffy will help defeat Thog
In the Latest Strip, Scruffy gets a belt of giant strength and is able to launch a 150 pound riding dog out of a window. He obviously now has a high strength score, and will want to finish off Sir Scraggly. To do this, he will have to jump down into the arena, where Thog will be beating Roy up. Thog may notice that there is a cat there, and in Thog's rage, he'll also blame it on the cat, which will give Roy time to mount a counterattack.
 * Jossed. Roy singlehandedly defeated Thog with his cross class-skill ranks in Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering).

Thog is an alternate universe version of Deadpool.
Think about it. If Deadpool was a little bit more retarded, green, and used an axe, or if Thog were just a bit smarter, wore red, and used guns and a katana.....
 * Or Thog could be a character Deadpool was roleplaying in a game of D&D.

Belkar's halfling skill with thrown rocks will turn out to be a Chekhov's Gun
Currently, Belkar is lying in the prison with armor but no weapons, his cat is coming running, being chased by a big dog and a kobold with crossbows akimbo. Belkar will throw a rock at Yukyuk, tear a hole in reality, and then the entire Linear Guild will be destroyed by the Snarl. (Or something like that)

Haley is directly related to Girard
She notes that Orrin Draketooth is paranoid just like her father, and it is not inconceivable that he WAS Orrin. The redhair thing seems too convenient. Let's go down the list. Haley and Ian have distinctly red hair...just like Orrin and his daughter. Orrin ran away with his daughter, and Haley's mother is missing, possibly dead. In the comic, Ian's paranoid nature is compared to Girard and Orrin's. Every time we've seen Ian, he has a bushy beard covering his face, the same spot that Orrin has an extremely distinct tattoo. The only wrinkle is that we see Haley's mother in one panel...but it could easily be Ian/Orrin's second wife.
 * Okay, here's the comic in question: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0816.html
 * Actually, Rich went onto the discussion and said that the girl and Orrin were NOT Haley and Ian. However, that does not mean that Orrin isn't actually like... a cousin of Ian's. Just saying your details are jossed, not the big picture.
 * And now it looks like Vaarsuvius accidentally killed off the entire Draketooth bloodline.

The Elven Commander will cross the Moral Event Horizon at some point in this arc.
Considering how he was introduced, things can only get worse from here...and as someone once pointed out, it's not a good thing if you're going to have to lie to the Paladin about your actions. I'm guessing it will involve those Goblinoid women and children that Redcloak mentioned a few strips ago.
 * This will also make him the new Miko on the Order of the Stick forums, with the fandom divided over whether he went too far or not far enough.
 * Jossed as of his death at the hands of Redcloak.