# 55 Imagination Is The Only Weapon
Sep18
on September 18, 2015
at 9:39 PM
Hey kids, I think that was the quickest goblin fight in gaming history!
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy. We’ve been laughing our ‘aces’ off!
This is the part where Shhadow insists that I beg for votes. She says it builds character!
Sincerely,
BACH-MANN & Shhadow
Cool she has her own power of the Hammer. Now it will Melvin’s turn to start explaining things.
Jeanie summoned Grace from El Goonish Shive in Jeanie Bottle 102, showing her off to Melvin, BJ, and Red. So if CD Rudd can borrow Grace from the Moperverse, I guess the Bachman can borrow magical hammers. They aren’t exclusive to EGS, of course; they’re an anime trope.
Hey, I was right about Kazom defeating the lock!
And, yes, Riniko, now Melvin has to deal with her.
===
I’d love to know where she got the power to create that Hammer from her t-shirt logo. Did she do that, or Melvin?
Melvin did it. You see him thinkcasting “Create Diversion” between panels 1 and 2, and that’s where the hammer appears. Of course, not bright planning on Melvin’s part. Arming the cleric attempting to smite you is never a good idea.
Poor wolf-man. He had to take one for the team.
Actually never mind. Hammer appeared before that. Now I’M befuzzled.
I’m not sure that hammer is really there. It does look like it’s connected to her thought, in the the first part of panel 1. Also, in the second part of panel 1, where Melvin is thinking to create a diversion, it seems the diversion was to throw the werewolf in the opposite direction of the door, where he was planning to escape undetected. Holly swings after he’s “created the diversion”. Melvin appears to be confused by her “move”.
If Holly believes she’s in one of her, recurring, werewolf dreams, if she is a real magic user, would she be summoning real magic to fight the creatures in her dream? I suppose she could have, if she is in fact a real magic user, not realising this is not a dream. Another possibility could be, that because she fully has accepted she is in a dream, she is consumed by her own imagination; the hammer being a figment of that.
Hammer space!!! Ranma 1/2
Incidentally, here are all the Holly strips I found in IDoaJB; she is not listed in the character index there.
/?comic=jeanie145-sm
/?comic=jeanie-bottle-156
/?comic=157-smaaaa
/?comic=jeanie-bottle-158
[domain name omitted to keep this post out of moderation]
Unless she’s appeared in more strips than the Melvin index lists, I think that, while Holly’s been shown to be something of a nerd, even an SF fan, she is only now revealed to be a gamer. Intriguing that she did not attend the contest.
I wonder if her next line will be, “Melvin, why are you in my dream?”
I’ve said it before, but I really like the fact that her gaming has taught to respond appropriately when she finds herself in a magical situation. So many girls her age (and not a few boys) would simply freak.
If Melvin is quick enough on the uptake, he might realize that he doesn’t have to worry about revealing his magic powers to her. He can truthfully pass this off as a training accident.
I very much want Holly to have deliberately summoned her Hammer, because she’s a witch in the same way Melvin is a wizard. Perfect match.
So, for the coming adventures, I am now shipping Melvin with Holly, because obvious, and B.J. with Red, because I want B.J. to have a girl, and I want Red to be a girl. And, I’ll say it, don’t hate me: I think B.J. will be able to overcome Red’s prickly nature. I want that scene almost as much as I want Neil to accept that Jeanie truly needs a Master, and for Jeanie to accept him as hers.)
There are several way this could play out and we don’t know which way it going to go. Holly could be a gamer where usually girls go and not boys, because girls will choose different types of games. Guy’s will usually choose war games and girls will usually choose less violent games than boy do. So Holly could be part of a group of gamer that Melvin doesn’t know anything about. Holly could either be a witch or have been enchanted by Melvin, while under Melvin magical influence, while Holly having one of her gaming delusional day dream.
Anything could happen here, because Melvin is still new with his power and he still messing thing up when he uses his powers.
Well, yeah. I’m really only talking about what I want, not what I predict–I have no idea what BACH-MANN and Shhadow have planned.
Although not a gamer myself, I understand that many game systems prohibit clerics, who are typically healers, from carrying edged or projectile weapons–hammers and maces are apparently favorite, which rather surprises me.
Anyway, that would be consistent with Holly being a cleric herself, although it does raise the question of which deity she owes her faith and powers to.
I do like the idea of girls and boys hanging out in different venues to play different games. I had no idea.
Can’t be universal with the boys and girls playing in different places as there were a few girls at the game shop.
True, but it’s enough to give Holly an alternate venue.
The trope of clerics using blunt weapons dates back as far as I know to classic Dungeons and Dragons. The reasoning being that clerics are not supposed to spill blood, so use weapons that break bones and cause internal damage instead. The game balance reason was they didn’t want a class that could use magic to use weapons that the fighter would use, because then, who would want to play a fighter? Clerics with swords would be better in all ways- same armor, same weapons and healing magic on top of it.
If I recall correctly, D&D also seemed to use one or two priests with Duke William’s Norman army taking a vow to only use blunt weapons or only clubs or something like that as justification. But this might be them trying to justify things after the fact.
Originally the Cleric character came about because someone in one of the early D&D games wanted to play a Van Helsing like character & at that time they only had as classes Fighting Man & Wizard. I think the only using blunt weapons was a game balance thing, as zafnak says, Clerics with swords would be better in all ways otherwise from a strictly rules/stats base perspective.
Of course from a Role-Playing point of view a Cleric should be played (& act) differently from a Fighter. The usual old school view of clerics (although usually ignored or overlooked by most players), is that they are the Orders Millitant of a particular religion. Think of the Crusader Orders. Most people tend to think of Clerics as Heal-Bots especially in online MMOs. Other Players tend to get “belligerent” if you say as a Cleric your first job is to smite evil & healing their boo boos comes in second.
OK, it will be interesting to see where he going to go with this plot. As far as Holly have a hammer, it either Melvin enchantment on her or she has some power of her own. Either way, it going to make for an interesting confrontation between these two.
I love how Kazom assessed the situation and immediately retreated. I bet he’s laughing his furry little butt off right now.
So that is an imaginary hammer, right? it has the little thought bubble thing.
My interpretation is that the thought bubbles in the first panel indicate that *Holly* thought of the hammer and it materialized, meaning she has some magic ability of her own. Now, does she already know this, or is it a surprise to her?
She knew good words to say. “You rise to fight? Have at thee!”
It’s consistent with her tee as well.
She is genre aware, and knew how to summon a weapon.
She also assumes she is dreaming.
So much for back up lol.
This…This won’t end good.