Originally I planned on talking about Belkar of Order of the Stick later in more depth, but the latest update left me needing to laugh in enjoyment over this one short (no pun intended) bit: Belkar is a sexy shoeless god of war! Yes, Belkar’s back in the game (and no longer suffering from the Mark of Judgment), looking for trouble, and leaving the girls breathless in his wake. (No wonder Varsuvius was so worried about Belkar possibly being attracted to V after the kiss on New Year’s.) And I must admit that the “passcode” for the Curse Belkar was under proved most amusing: Evolve or die.

One of the greatest flaws of Belkar’s character was that he has been a two-trick pony for the longest time. He was a violent comedic foil who had no social graces, no interest in blending in, and whose solution for everything was “stick a knife in it until it’s dead.” And it was getting old and boring. What’s worse, it was hurting the rest of the comic as well. The rest of the cast have undergone character growth and have had some truly intriguing stories behind them. Belkar? Outside of killing things, he was useless. The visitation of Lord Shojo (whether it was Shojo’s spirit, a manifestation of the curse Belkar was under, or even just a hallucination) ended up providing Belkar with a chance (and a reason) to grow, while staying fundamentally who and what he is.

Thus Belkar is going to pretend to have character growth. Yet I must wonder… in pretending, and while playing the same game everyone else is, some of that faked character growth may actually rub off. In the meanwhile, watching Belkar slaughter his way through a horde of low-level thieves, leaving the one girl alive after kissing her breathless, has actually become amusing again. What’s more, he may actually get to play the part of hero once again, and enjoy himself immensely while doing so. And while he is fated to die (according to the Oracle, whose death activated Belkar’s Mark of Justice to begin with), I can’t help but wonder if maybe he’ll gain a measure of redemption in the process… or at the very least enter into the Abyss ready to kick butt and chew bubblegum.