[Speculation] Parson is a Retconjurer

[banjo2E]

1. Parson is known to be a caster of some sort, or otherwise exempt from the "non-casters cannot enter Magic Kingdom" rule due to his two successful uses of portals without disbanding.

2. According to Jack Snipe, Naughtymancy is the division of magic associated with breaking the rules; Parson has been shown to do this repeatedly and has this as one of his main goals.

3. Naughtymancy has three schools of magic: Shockamancy (Erf), Croakamancy (Fate), Retconjuration (Numbers).

4. The (Numbers) schol of Naughtymancy was formerly known as Deletionism before it was deleted from existence and Retconjuration was retconjured into replacing it. Parson's specialty in book one was destruction; this was even discussed. Recently he has been shown to be trying to alter this; for example, he's voluntarily entering active field combat, thereby protecting his own units and not risking them to any destruction he himself is unwilling to risk. This falls in line with the school shifting away from deletion.

5. Parson is most likely not a croakamancer because he has not provided uncroaked with combat bonuses beyond standard leadership (that we know of).

6. It is possible, but unlikely, that Parson may be a shockamancer, as he has not displayed any talents in such other than shocking people with lateral thinking and/or lack of knowledge of basic Erfworld principles.

7. Retconjuration's known abilities involve altering the past and present in such a way that it was always the current way; however, this can assumed to require a high level, and Parson is only level 2 according to the wiki. Therefore, if Parson is a retconjurer, his abilities would be minor, such as the ability to bypass the curse filter.

8. A retconjuration-type Arkentool has been proposed; the Arkenpen. "The pen is mightier than the sword," and Parson threw his ultimate warlord sword away. (I'll admit this one's stretching it)

[the_tick_rules]

Retcon is chaning the past to suit the needs of the present. He hasn't done anything like that.

[janusfenix]

Per Rob on August 19th, 2009:

There are no Retconjurers in Erfworld. It is reserved for the Titans. WoT-8/19/2009

[Sylvan]

I find the speculation on the Erfwiki regarding Parson as some sort of "natural Signamancer" to be more feasible.

[the_tick_rules]

Per Rob on August 19th, 2009:

There are no Retconjurers in Erfworld. It is reserved for the Titans. WoT-8/19/2009

Oh yeah, that to.

[banjo2E]

Two more points, one of them a direct counter to the main argument against Parson qualifying for this.

1. Parson was going to GM a scenario that was extremely similar to the Gobwin Knob scenario, a scenario that he created himself. Furthermore, many of the creatures and events in Erfworld are references to objects, memes, and other nouns on our Earth and, ostensibly, Parson's as well. The Titans are the creators of Erfworld. Therefore, it's possible that Parson counts as a Titan for the purposes of the plot.

2. Retconjuration is the Numbers branch of Naughtymancy. Parson not only has a Mathemancy bracer powerful enough that Sizemore believes it is an artifact, said artifact is incapable of working without Parson's calculator watch, an item that almost certainly would not have existed had Parson not been pulled into Erfworld. This point reinforces the previous point in addition to providing further weight for my hypothesis.

Retcon is chaning the past to suit the needs of the present. He hasn't done anything like that.

As I've said, Parson is low-level and therefore is unlikely to be able to perform any sort of powerful technique. At most, he'd be able to retconjure things into and out of existence that nobody was paying any attention to anyway until after he did things with them, such as the Warlord item set. It's also possible that he's exercising his powers at a subconscious level. For example, the Gobwin Knob-esque scenario was designed to be unwinnable, and by extension, Gobwin Knob was as well. Parson could have retconjured a loophole allowing him to uncroak the volcano; it may not necessarily have been a legal move prior to Parson's attempt.

Parson's demonstrated that he is exempt from these rules, but some of them applied initially (for example, censorship.) Following the Retconjuration hypothesis, he may have tricked the universe into thinking those rules never applied to him while leaving those dwelling in it with their memories of the event. Or, he may be the only one who remembers the filter applying to him; he hasn't asked anyone about the filter for a while, and when he swore in front of Wanda she didn't display any reaction whatsoever.

It's also possible that the filter simply never existed from the perspective of everyone other than Parson and those of us on this side of the fourth wall; I don't remember anyone saying "boop" since chapter 1, but I could be wrong about that.

[msb]

Retconjuration didn't exist until after book 1 was completed. It strains credulity to think that the issue of what (if any) type of caster Parson counts as wasn't decided by the author in advance of book. (Or so I believe, given the meticulous nature of the plotting so far.) Therefore, Parson won't count as a retconjurer, except perhaps incidentally, in the case that he is somehow capable of learning all magics or something like that.

[banjo2E]

Retconjuration didn't exist until after book 1 was completed. It strains credulity to think that the issue of what (if any) type of caster Parson counts as wasn't decided by the author in advance of book. (Or so I believe, given the meticulous nature of the plotting so far.) Therefore, Parson won't count as a retconjurer, except perhaps incidentally, in the case that he is somehow capable of learning all magics or something like that.

Parson's actions in book 1 (specifically, being very good at breaking things, especially rules; and uncroaking the volcano and killing everything in Gobwin Knob's hex) worked perfectly as Deletionism. During book 2 (after the school change) he's begun moving away from that ("I'm not gonna send people into battles I wouldn't fight myself" or, in other words, "I'm going to keep as many people on our side alive as I can") which, assuming he has Naughtymancy-Numbers casting, would be nigh impossible for a deletionist, but not for a retconjurer; this could be the reason behind the name change. (The name change could also indicate that Parson's going to get explicitly creative powers later on, again assuming he is, in fact, a retconjurer.)

[Sojiko]

I've always thought that Gobwin Knob being pretty much a copy of the game he had created was not a coincidence, and that on some level Parson's work on his game helped create GK's situation when the story starts, making him a sort of titan.

So that would make him using Retconjuration perfectly natural, and explain how the rule on censorship got changed.


On the other hand, if his caster type was decided from the beginning, he has to be something else.

[banjo2E]

I've always thought that Gobwin Knob being pretty much a copy of the game he had created was not a coincidence, and that on some level Parson's work on his game helped create GK's situation when the story starts, making him a sort of titan.

So that would make him using Retconjuration perfectly natural, and explain how the rule on censorship got changed.


On the other hand, if his caster type was decided from the beginning, he has to be something else.

Not necessarily. It could have been that having Parson's magic school be "deletionism" would have been just as misleading and/or as much of a mistake as letting Bogroll's special ability still be "regeneration," with letting it remain so giving everyone entirely the wrong idea about his abilities.

It's also possible that the change could be even more of a metaexample of retconjuration than we already thought: Parson could ha--no, that's just silly, he's not high enough level to affect this side of the fourth wall by himself. But his titan buddies over here could have done something...

[skarl]

on the wiki stands that the titans have reconjuration to fix mistakes they made in the webcomic before they make a book out of it.

[Occasional Sage]

Per Rob on August 19th, 2009:

There are no Retconjurers in Erfworld. It is reserved for the Titans. WoT-8/19/2009

1. Parson was going to GM a scenario that was extremely similar to the Gobwin Knob scenario, a scenario that he created himself. Furthermore, many of the creatures and events in Erfworld are references to objects, memes, and other nouns on our Earth and, ostensibly, Parson's as well. The Titans are the creators of Erfworld. Therefore, it's possible that Parson counts as a Titan for the .

It'd be pretty dickish of Rob to make an unqualified statement-of-reality like that, if your hypothesis were true. Let's not assume things like that, hmmmmm?

[Shuuwki]

I think that while it's completely possible for Parson to be a Retconjurer, I find it a lot more likely that he's his own class of unit ("Player", perhaps, or "Avatar" symbolizing that) and as such he can't be put into a given Caster slot.

[king.of.cats]

Or he could be a hippiemancer.

Spoiler: show

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F140.jpg

Janis: "He's not a mathamancer. He's a hippimancer, but guard him anyway."

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F141.jpg

Janis: "He broke things. Rules, people, ideas... Even the land itself."

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -12-24.png

Marie: "What Hippiemancy neeeeds, Jonnis my true friend, is da one thin it con't evah have. A warlord. A soujah!"

[Shuuwki]

Or he could be a hippiemancer.

Spoiler: show

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F140.jpg

Janis: "He's not a mathamancer. He's a hippimancer, but guard him anyway."

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F141.jpg

Janis: "He broke things. Rules, people, ideas... Even the land itself."

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -12-24.png

Marie: "What Hippiemancy neeeeds, Jonnis my true friend, is da one thin it con't evah have. A warlord. A soujah!"

Your sources for this are all Casters who can't think outside of the box they've created for Parson. No Hippiemancer could willfully break the rules of Erfworld (which has happened a couple of times now).

[Housellama]

Or he could be a hippiemancer.

Spoiler: show

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F140.jpg

Janis: "He's not a mathamancer. He's a hippimancer, but guard him anyway."

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F141.jpg

Janis: "He broke things. Rules, people, ideas... Even the land itself."

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -12-24.png

Marie: "What Hippiemancy neeeeds, Jonnis my true friend, is da one thin it con't evah have. A warlord. A soujah!"

Your sources for this are all Casters who can't think outside of the box they've created for Parson. No Hippiemancer could willfully break the rules of Erfworld (which has happened a couple of times now).

Cite your source... I haven't seen anything in source that supports such a claim. In fact, Janis says several times that she would like to see things broken. That's the POINT.

[Saladman]

I'm in the "not a caster at all" camp. No-one can see his stats; the spell in a narrow, technical sense goofed in summoning him and had to fix itself with some add-ons; the force listing on a sandwich wrapper lists him as a level 2 Chief Warlord (special); and early on he wonders whether "the world considers me a 'unit' in the literal sense. It shows I don't quite fit into this universe, and there's got to be a way I can use that." (Book 1, 040a.) And then, at the end of the same book, he does unintentionally find a way to use not quite fitting into the universe, in the form of entering the Magic Kingdom. So there's no colossal mystery involved in him not disbanding (to the reader anyway), it even got obliquely fore-shadowed. Occam's razor says, okay, not a caster but such an abnormal and alien unit he can slip through a few cracks.

And to the extent he is a unit, he's got a tangible leadership bonus, and all known commanders are either warlords or casters but not both. Being both would be even more special than just being from a non-game-like world.

Granted he and others have wondered, at some point you've got to distinguish between an author's canon pronouncements and characters speculating or being mistaken in character.

I do like the "counts as a Titan" theory also, and that could turn out to be the case, but even it isn't necessary to explain the MK entrance.

[Shuuwki]

Here's my deal:

Parson is clearly a Warlord-type; he has a Leadership bonus that he can spread to his stack and other adjacent units.

Parson is clearly a Caster-type; he exhibits Signamancy, is potentially a Hippiemancer, can pass through the magic portals without disbanding, etc etc.

Parson is clearly a Heavy-type; he can't move from the garrison without help, can't fly, etc etc.

Parson is clearly a Unit in the game and has to abide by the rules.

All of the above apply all the time, except when they do not.

The lack of consistency makes me think that while he is considered a "unit" he is certainly not a traditional unit as seen thus far in Erfworld. Every individual in the story so far who has attempted to define Parson has done so through their own lens, be it Stanley, Janis, Wanda, Ansom, whoever, and thusly their view is shaped by their own perceptions. I think only Maggie and maybe Charlie have a real inkling of what's going on; Maggie due to her long allegiance and close proximity, and Charlie due largely to his reaction (overblown for a normal Warlord).

EDIT -- Re: the poster above, Parson directly breaks the rules of Erfworld when he swears without being <booped> at the very end of book 1. When Janis is talking to Sizemore about Parson "breaking" the world, she is referring to the state of the world in perpetual war, not about Parson's ability to violate the central tenets of Erfworld. I base that belief on the context of the discussion between the two of them.

[drachefly]

all known commanders are either warlords or casters but not both.

or archons with the leadership special (and neither of the other two)

[Occasional Sage]

Here's my deal:

Parson is clearly a Warlord-type; he has a Leadership bonus that he can spread to his stack and other adjacent units.

Parson is clearly a Caster-type; he exhibits Signamancy, is potentially a Hippiemancer, can pass through the magic portals without disbanding, etc etc.

Parson is clearly a Heavy-type; he can't move from the garrison without help, can't fly, etc etc.

Parson is clearly a Unit in the game and has to abide by the rules.

All of the above apply all the time, except when they do not.

The lack of consistency makes me think that while he is considered a "unit" he is certainly not a traditional unit as seen thus far in Erfworld. Every individual in the story so far who has attempted to define Parson has done so through their own lens, be it Stanley, Janis, Wanda, Ansom, whoever, and thusly their view is shaped by their own perceptions. I think only Maggie and maybe Charlie have a real inkling of what's going on; Maggie due to her long allegiance and close proximity, and Charlie due largely to his reaction (overblown for a normal Warlord).

EDIT -- Re: the poster above, Parson directly breaks the rules of Erfworld when he swears without being <booped> at the very end of book 1. When Janis is talking to Sizemore about Parson "breaking" the world, she is referring to the state of the world in perpetual war, not about Parson's ability to violate the central tenets of Erfworld. I base that belief on the context of the discussion between the two of them.

heavies can move freely.

All units can or do exhibit natural Signamancy: Slately is short and pudgy from lack of fights, Trammenis is a foppish diplomat, Bogroll was... a heavy unit like Parson, et cetera. This has been pointed out or discussed a few times in-comic.