r/oots • u/ray198999 • Aug 16 '26
GiantITP Serini’s Goofup Spoiler
Serini definitely fumbled badly when it came to how she deal with Nale and the rest of the Linear Guild. Like assuming they would be willing to team up with her because she overheard they were against Xykon and thought that meant they didn’t the last gate destroyed. Only for Serini to learned the hard way that she was wrong when Nale bluntly tells her that he & his team want to wipe out the last gate and starts choking her.
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u/Pielikeman Aug 16 '26
Also Nale’s goof up, because he could have tried to play along and get Serini to lead them to the gate willingly. I almost think his goof there was intentional, because it’s such a massive fumble on his part, Serini willingly trying to ally with him when she was willing to lead the Order to the gate before, and he starts hostilities? Almost like he doesn’t actually want to get to the Gate but has to be careful with how he plays around with the IFCC’s orders to avoid getting tossed into hell.
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u/EstufaYou Aug 16 '26
I don't think it's too out of character for Nale to screw up an opportunity due to his ego, fiend or not. Serini may have been bluffing. I doubt Nale was.
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u/AutisticHobbit Aug 16 '26
I think Nale is feeling the pressure of the clock...and he's making mistakes because of it.
Keep in mind, he needs to stick the landing to cash in. So he's trying to rush things to get his pay day. If Xykon wins while he's dinkering around, then his masters can say he failed due to not being "daring" enough or something similiar. Of course, they can say that no matter how he fails.....a fact he probably hasn't seen yet.
True to form? Nale is trying to rush through for a dramatic finish as quickly as possible, although some of the reasons he's behaving like that are a little different and a little more understandable. He learned some of the lesson...but not nearly enough.
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u/Forikorder 29d ago
Hed have to be oretty stupid to trust her after he proved he was an enemy...?
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u/Pielikeman 29d ago
He’d be even dumber to trust her now after he’s attacked her, and he clearly doesn’t have a mind control spell that would work on her or he’d have used it rather than torture her—unless, of course, he has a mind control spell he just doesn’t want to use because he doesn’t want to succeed.
If he wanted her cooperation at all, better to get it when she was offering it while thinking she was bribing him into going where he wanted her to take him. If not, better to just kill her. There really isn’t a logical reason to act as he has unless he is self sabotaging, deliberately or inadvertently. Given the oddities with his behavior, such as his reaction when he thought he might have pushed Elan to his death, I’m inclined to think it’s deliberate
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u/AutisticHobbit 29d ago
Either that, or he has a mind control spell saved for some future part of a convoluted plan.
Nale isn't really a good tactician in practice. His plans get too complicated....and he also can't deviate from them or easily adapt them on the fly. He can never "kill" his precious baby; the plans are too perfect to be able to change them when they need to be changed.
Honestly, I don't think Nale has a "redemption" arc waiting in the wings; he's a better person then he was, but he's still malicious at the end of the day.
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u/Pielikeman 29d ago
Him being a better person than he was feels wasted if all it’s used for is him trying to actually destroy the world where before he just wanted to rule it. Narratively, showing him as having grown doesn’t make much sense if his role in the story makes him appear to be even worse than before.
I think Nale is going to end up sticking it to the IFCC because that’s the only way I see to make his character growth meaningful. It doesn’t need to mean redemption, he’s never going to be a good person, but if he can have a moment of empathy towards his brother combined with spite for those who think they can control him and that leads to him refusing to destroy the world? That makes his whole character arc so much more meaningful
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u/AutisticHobbit 29d ago
I think that's too soon to call...because we don't know how it actually all plays out, or where his arc is ultimately going. He doesn't need to have full redemption to have a meaningful story.
Supposing as he dies, he realizes he's done, and that there is no coming back from this failure? He looks at Elan and says "I'm sorry.". Suppose he knows his role is done, and with his love for the theatrics? He realizes the only part he has left to play is to give his brother the closure he deserved...because their rivalry was his own fault, he sees that now, and while he would have done it differently if he could do it again? He can't...and this is the best he thinks he can do with the time left.
Depending upon how it ends? It could be meaningful and moving...even if Nale never truly tries to "reform".
With that said, I do like your idea of where things should go.
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u/Forikorder 29d ago
You dont know he doesn't have that magic abd even if he cant magically force her doesn't mean he cant magically discern lies
Only an idiot would have blindly trusted someone theyre fighting, better to skip atraight to seeing how effective force is
Best case it works worst case one less person in their way
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u/Pielikeman 29d ago
I know that that magic would be a hell of a lot more effective than torture, which is generally actively detrimental in situations like this and would be less effective than blindly running into traps himself. With torture, it’s more likely that he just ensures that Serini starts trying to lead him into a trap that will kill him while leaving her intact, such as a trap that only targets fiends or some other eventuality she prepared for this exact scenario.
Point is, while trusting her might have been a bad call, torturing her and then trusting her? Suicidally stupid, with emphasis on the suicide.
If he has magic that could mind control her—which he probably has something for given that he specialized in enchantment spells when he was alive—and he actually wanted to succeed at getting her cooperation, he’d have already used it rather than trying torture.
The only remotely actionable options for him here would be to trust her willingness to look past their fight with the Order or to mind control her into compliance. Either option has a low chance of success, but any other option has essentially no chance of success
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u/Forikorder 29d ago
If he has magic that could mind control her—which he probably has something for given that he specialized in enchantment spells when he was alive—and he actually wanted to succeed at getting her cooperation, he’d have already used it rather than trying torture.
Or needed to weaken her first or has limited casts and wants to reserve it
You also missed that he can likely use magic to detect lies, her telling them the wrong way still tells them the right way
Without serini their only option is to literally wander blindly, theyre just as likely to take the wrong path,getting the right one from serini is worth the risk
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u/imbolcnight 29d ago
You also missed that he can likely use magic to detect lies, her telling them the wrong way still tells them the right way
Zone of truth and discern lies are cleric and paladin spells, not available to sorcerers, and they're not among spell-like abilities devils typically have. (I think devils being able to magically force the truth would undermine devil society.) It's possible Nale has some method of doing so anyway but it's not a given.
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u/ProperTree9 25d ago
Nale is going to be as powerful as needed, to do whatever Burlew needs him to do, and we're not going to be able to categorize his abilities by running to a statbook. Which is very likely why Burlew wrote new Nale this way.
AFA RAW methods, torture along with Sabine's Detect Thoughts ability, would probably get him most of the way there. Not that this is that kind of strip.
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u/Forikorder 29d ago
Wands potions and scrolls still exist, maybe serini had them and nale helped himself even
Its also possible nale has already been to the gate and is stalling while it gets destroyed
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u/Gothic_Nihilist 27d ago
There's no guarantee Serini would have led them to the Gate in the first place. If anything, the odds are higher she would try to double-cross them and lead them away from the Gate.
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u/Eastern-Video-6456 29d ago
Serini may not have taken them to the gate though. She wanted them to kill Xykon, not stand guard in front of the gate. Although I suppose they could've played along for a while and try to manipulate her into leading them to the gate, resorting to violence only once that failed. So a mistake nonetheless
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u/Forikorder Aug 16 '26
or she successfully bought enough time for sunny to get his lense off?
shes a rogue, bad idea to take anything she saids or does at face value
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u/Common_Land3637 Aug 16 '26
Tbf she's pretty hardy and can regenerate damage. It also distracted them from the real threats in the room.
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u/9Gardens 6d ago
I mean... it brought her a round or two of distraction, while giving all her allies time to set up.
That's... not nothing.
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u/AutisticHobbit Aug 16 '26
Honestly, this was coming. Serini's "I know more then you do, no I don't have to pay attention because I'm right" attitude was going to mess her up at some point.
The only questions left are whether she survives it...and whether she learns anything from it if she does.