Imagine this (before the final battle)

[primalcaller ergos]

I gotta say, it would be pretty awesome to see a giant epic battle on mekkan of the same size and scale as the battle for helm's deep.

Although as for what side the main characters would be on it during it, I have no idea....

[aitaituo]

Minas Tirith? More people died at Cannae than fought at Minas Tirith and it wasn't even an apocalyptic battle deciding a war of annihilation. I expect no less than 10,000 Templar journeyman supporting an army of 200,000 thousand humans totally enveloped by the combined hosts of the Wolf Keidran, the Tiger Keidran, and the Eastern Basitin.

[aitaituo]

Minas Tirith? More people died at Cannae than fought at Minas Tirith and it wasn't even an apocalyptic battle deciding a war of annihilation. I expect no less than 10,000 Templar journeyman supporting an army of 200,000 thousand humans totally enveloped by the combined hosts of the Wolf Keidran, the Tiger Keidran, and the Eastern Basitin.

Was going to make a remark about the underdog being subconsciously labeled as the good guy in people's mind, but then it just dawned upon me that the humans have characters with low-DBZ level power. I really wonder if the Templar Masters could just use Dark Magic to summon a giant drake like Trace did and reek havoc on all sides.

Minas Tirith scale still isn't good enough for you? K, let's go Silmarillion scale. I play War of Wrath card. Near 1 Million on the side of the Valinor versus millions and millions on the side of Morgoth, not to mention a gargantuan dragon that could hold 2014 Godzilla in the palm of its hand. (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/War_of_Wrath) Largest battle fought in the history of Tolkien's Middle Earth. The amount of GPU rendering that something like that would require would be absolutely INSANE. Problem is, I don't see how Keidran could breed fast enough without the first generation dying off to create and army this big.....

Now that is a suitably epic battle. If the numbers alone are possible depends on the population of Mekkan and the will to fight. In real history, there have only been a handful of battles with those kinds of numbers and they all happened over months in the two World Wars, but it was only a small fraction of the world's population involved. Of course, logistics are the real problem and the Templar would be a severe disadvantage without towers, since they otherwise rely on a finite amount of magical energy in the surrounding area.

[kdragonk]

This is all epic and great, but there's a problem: the wolves killed the human king.
It takes some time to replace a leader, even years for a king. So there's no one right now to reference Theoden, sadly.

[Warrl]

This is all epic and great, but there's a problem: the wolves killed the human king.
It takes some time to replace a leader, even years for a king. So there's no one right now to reference Theoden, sadly.

The king is dead, long live the king!

Seriously, if it's clear who the heir is, the king is replaced as quickly as said heir can be notified.

Whether the new king is immediately (or eventually) capable of being a strong leader, and *known* to be capable... that varies on a case-by-case basis, anywhere from the generals breathing a sigh of relief that there's finally someone competent in charge to the king's nanny insisting it's time for His Royal Highness's diaper-change and nap.

[SpottedKitty]

You know what would be a real plot twist? High Templar Euchre stepping in as the next king, under the guise of his human self.

That made me think back to the one (I think) time we've seen Euchre and the other Templar leaders together. Would it be safe to assume they don't know what he is? AFAIR the only ones who do know are Raine, her mother, and anyone (like Group B) they might have told. Yes, that would be an interesting twist, no matter what context it's put in.

[Warrl]

Historically it is quite unusual for a monarchy to go even a few minutes without a king.

The king might not immediately know he's king (he doesn't know that his predecessor died)... but he is, nonetheless, king.

And if the inheritance of the throne isn't immediately clear, the country typically doesn't go without a king - instead it has two or more kings at the same time, each proclaiming his right to rule the whole country and gathering an army of supporters, and they have a nice "civil" war until there is only one left who hasn't fled the country or been killed and *his* heirs forced to submit.

[Dadrobit]

Historically it is quite unusual for a monarchy to go even a few minutes without a king.

The king might not immediately know he's king (he doesn't know that his predecessor died)... but he is, nonetheless, king.

And if the inheritance of the throne isn't immediately clear, the country typically doesn't go without a king - instead it has two or more kings at the same time, each proclaiming his right to rule the whole country and gathering an army of supporters, and they have a nice "civil" war until there is only one left who hasn't fled the country or been killed and *his* heirs forced to submit.

In this case, I think people have enough sense to know that now is not the time for a civil war, there are bigger issues at hand. As I said before, I think it would be really interesting if the kingship transferred to the High Templar, in this case Euchre. As far as I am aware, there is no Grand Templar currently (because of everything that happened with Trace), and the King has no son. The most powerful person in human kingdom at the moment is the High Templar, and it would be a very interesting plot twist if the office of monarch was temporarily transferred into his hands.

Edit: I just found this on the wiki - "Although the current Grand Templar, according to the general population, is still Trace, due to his loss of memory, he is no longer active in office. He is no longer officially the Grand Templar, so there is a power vacuum."

The more and more I analyze this novel, the more and more hopeful I become that Euchre may, in fact, step into power.

Odd, I'm fairly sure that while there might still be some folks holding on to wanting Trace to be the Grand Templar, another has already been instated. There is no power vacuum there to my knowledge.

"The new Grand Templar" Referencing whoever is the new Grand Templar implies that someone has already taken the position.
"The Grand Templar knew and tried to kill [Trace]" So not only is someone in power, they have the ability to exercise it as well.

[Dadrobit]

Historically it is quite unusual for a monarchy to go even a few minutes without a king.

The king might not immediately know he's king (he doesn't know that his predecessor died)... but he is, nonetheless, king.

And if the inheritance of the throne isn't immediately clear, the country typically doesn't go without a king - instead it has two or more kings at the same time, each proclaiming his right to rule the whole country and gathering an army of supporters, and they have a nice "civil" war until there is only one left who hasn't fled the country or been killed and *his* heirs forced to submit.

In this case, I think people have enough sense to know that now is not the time for a civil war, there are bigger issues at hand. As I said before, I think it would be really interesting if the kingship transferred to the High Templar, in this case Euchre. As far as I am aware, there is no Grand Templar currently (because of everything that happened with Trace), and the King has no son. The most powerful person in human kingdom at the moment is the High Templar, and it would be a very interesting plot twist if the office of monarch was temporarily transferred into his hands.

Edit: I just found this on the wiki - "Although the current Grand Templar, according to the general population, is still Trace, due to his loss of memory, he is no longer active in office. He is no longer officially the Grand Templar, so there is a power vacuum."

The more and more I analyze this novel, the more and more hopeful I become that Euchre may, in fact, step into power.

Odd, I'm fairly sure that while there might still be some folks holding on to wanting Trace to be the Grand Templar, another has already been instated. There is no power vacuum there to my knowledge.

"The new Grand Templar" Referencing whoever is the new Grand Templar implies that someone has already taken the position.
"The Grand Templar knew and tried to kill [Trace]" So not only is someone in power, they have the ability to exercise it as well.

Yeah...I don't think the "new" Grand Templar is actually a legitimate Grand Templar I think it's just Neutral...I could be wrong, but I don't know. What doesn't make sense is that when Trace left the seat of power, Euchre was the High Templar, second to Grand Templar. Who else besides him would have been possibly qualified to fill that vacancy?

There seems to be several options here:

A. Neutral was temporarily playing the part of Grand Templar, as after he/she was defeated in the battle against Trace he/she retreated to the spiritual world and left a vacancy in the office.
B. An unannounced character is now Grand Templar, who and why we have yet to learn…
C. Euchre secretly filled the office of Grand Templar but Tom is merely dropping hints and keeping everyone in the dark to make the big reveal all the more surprising.

You know, its issues like these that make me wonder whether Tom had a master plan for this story where all loose ends are beautifully tied together, or he is just making it up as he goes and therefore causing discontinuity. The amazingly slow rate at which these comics are published certainly doesn’t help either. I’ll probably make separate threads addressing these thoughts later on, but until anything definite happens, I guess it’s only conjecture.

Oh I can guarantee that a fair bit of the story, (especially some bits early on) were flat out made up on the spot because something sounded cool without much or any thought of, "Ok, now how and when am I going to resolve this?"

Remember, he started this when he was like what, 16? And with no real story composition training or experience to speak of either. S'why we have issues like the Saria Glitch.

Although, it would be an interesting retcon to see if the Adarkist zealots are the "Dragons" referenced in http://twokinds.keenspot.com/archive.php?p=193. Or maybe it'll just be another string left loose.

[Dadrobit]

Oh I can guarantee that a fair bit of the story, (especially some bits early on) were flat out made up on the spot because something sounded cool without much or any thought of, "Ok, now how and when am I going to resolve this?"

Remember, he started this when he was like what, 16? And with no real story composition training or experience to speak of either. S'why we have issues like the Saria Glitch.

Although, it would be an interesting retcon to see if the Adarkist zealots are the "Dragons" referenced in http://twokinds.keenspot.com/archive.php?p=193. Or maybe it'll just be another string left loose.

Yeah that sucks, though a good story-writer could still tie up all those loose ends even if he made a lot of it up on the spot originally. I could think up a decent amount of filler that would wrap it all up nicely myself, shouldn't be too hard for Tom to do. I just hope he actually cares enough to tie it all up...the slow rate at which he releases these things gives me the feeling that he doesn't really care and just does it as a side-thing to get ahead in life. That or it really takes him a whole week to draw a single page...though I doubt it. A good artist could speed draw a single webcomic page in a few hours tops.

Well in his defense, as of the last time he updated his bio, he's a student studying to become a Radiation Therapist and does the artwork on the side. And as someone who's a perpetual college student, I understand how much time classes take up of your life, especially if you're full time.

Weather or not he cleans up the little plotholes here and there from 10 or more years ago is whatever, (when was the last time we heard from the Gods? they should probably get something) but at least he's updating more than once a month+ now \o/.