Miko Miyazaki
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Miko Miyazaki is a fictional character in the webcomic The Order of the Stick, by Rich Burlew.
[edit] History
Miko was sent by Lord Shojo of Azure City to retrieve the Order in order to fulfill plans of his own. Informed that they were dangerous criminals, Miko was determined to lawfully slay the group from the start, but under orders from Shojo that they should be brought to him alive, she agreed to do so if possible. She hunted the Order for roughly eighty comics, following closely in their wake and, in the process, slaying two evil characters spared by the Order who threatened her after release. Eventually, she caught up with the Order and engaged them in combat during a thunderstorm, which severely hampered the Order's ability to fight against her. This, combined with the reluctance of Durkon Thundershield to fight (as he was convinced that the presence of the storm indicated that his deity, Thor, didn't want the Order to slay their attacker) allowed Miko to gain upper hand in the fight.
With their non-evil credentials mostly established (Belkar Bitterleaf used a lead sheet to block Miko's scan), the Order agreed to accompany Miko peacefully to Azure City in order to prove their innocence. While travelling with them, Miko managed to repeatedly offend the group, partly through her sanctimonious and judgemental comments and partly through failure to include others in decision-making. By the end of the Weary Travelers Inn subplot, a situation that was, somewhat ironically, begun when the Order overruled her intent to sleep in the wild when the Inn was nearby, Roy spoke for the group (other than the again reluctant Durkon) in refusing to accompany her any further, stating that they would only return if she dragged them back in chains. In an unseen combat situation, Miko narrowly defeated all five rebellious Order members single handedly, and did exactly that (though Roy Greenhilt laments that it is only because of the 'stupid railroad plot').
Bringing the group to Azure City as prisoners, she came into direct conflict with the escaping Belkar Bitterleaf, who taunted Miko to come after him by leaving messages written in the blood of a slain prison guard. The two ended up facing off in a battle that raged around the castle. Miko eventually bested Belkar in a dramatic entrance into Lord Shojo's hall, and nearly killed him (which is, in fact, what Belkar wanted, theoretically to induce Miko's Fall from paladinhood). However, the paladin was stopped by Vaarsuvius, claiming that no matter how much (s)he disliked Belkar, (s)he still preferred him to Miko. With the rest of the Order opposed to Belkar's execution, Miko prepared to take on the entire Order before finishing her quarry, but was stopped in her tracks by an order from Lord Shojo, whom she both respected and revered.
Miko subsequently vowed that the Order of the Stick would suffer for their defiance, and prayed that their demise would be at her hands, for allowing party loyalty to stand between her and finishing Belkar.
Her most recent assignment was to carry a message from Durkon Thundershield north into the dwarven homelands and to return with a response from his high priest. She also took the opportunity to buy Lord Shojo a souvenir, a bottle of well-aged fine dwarvish brandy. She was on the return leg of her journey and arrived at a watchtower in Azure City's territory just as it was attacked by Xykon and Redcloak. She attacked Redcloak on sight, acknowledging him as the bearer of the 'Crimson Mantle', whose previous bearer was slain by her Paladin order. She defeated him, but was imprisoned in a forcecage by Xykon before she could finish the goblin off, something that caused her enormous frustration. She managed to escape by weakening the floor with an explosion (created using the potent dwarven brandy) and pushing the forcecage off, something the spell (a variant of the normal forcecage called Xykon's Moderately Escapeable Forcecage, after its creator) was designed to do. She later faced off against the Monster in the Darkness in a game of "Who Can Hit the Lightest", a game that he lost when he managed to knock Miko far away through the wall of the tower (with Windstriker following and landing on Miko). Learning the identity of her captor, she has come to the conclusion that the Order of the Stick lied about defeating Xykon, believing that they are aligned with him and has sworn to bring them to justice for their duplicity. The letter she had received for Durkon from the new High Priest of Thor was found in her dropped purse and eaten by the Creature in the Darkness.
It was subsequently revealed that Xykon orchestrated Miko's escape, in order to provide him a suitable scrying target for locating the Azure City gate (based on the assumption that the city's paladins will be called to the Gate's defense during the siege). Miko returned to Azure City, apparently without further incident, only to overhear a conversation between Lord Shojo and Roy Greenhilt where the pair discussed the duplicitous lengths that Shojo had gone to to get the Order to Azure City, and how he was using the Order to get around the oath sworn by all the Sapphire Guard paladins along with Hinjo, Shojo's nephew. This led her to the conclusion that Shojo was plotting with Xykon to overthrow the Sapphire Guard. Despite Hinjo's pleas to put Shojo in a fair trial, Miko, in her capacity as the highest ranking paladin in the Guard, judged Shojo to be guilty of treason. Drawing her sword, she executed him (this action also came close to opening the Azure City gate of the Snarl since the gemstone that the rift was sealed in was on the throne that Shojo was sitting on when he was slain). This caused the Twelve Gods to revoke her powers as a Paladin, an act which seemed to surprise her. In addition, her clothes underwent a notable change at the very moment of Lord Shojo's death, turning from blue to a more bleached or faded appearance. Roy confronted her, leading Miko to immediately accuse him of manipulating her into slaying her lord. The two fought, with Miko coming off worst, until she was able to temporarily stun Roy and attempt to flee the building, with only Belkar standing in her way. She was about to kill the halfling when Hinjo interceded, telling her that she was under arrest for murder. She attempted to explain her actions and failed miserably, contradicting herself and generally making little sense. Hinjo talked to her calmly and nearly persuaded her to hand over her sword and face trial, when she suddenly took a swing at him. The pair fought, with Miko swiftly getting the upper hand before Roy stepped in, sending Miko flying into a wall and knocking her out. She woke up in a jail cell, where Belkar and the other jail residents welcomed her and acknowledged her first evil act with a hearty round of applause.
When questioned about her fallen status by Sabine, Miko insisted that she has not fallen despite all evidence to the contrary. Sabine extended an offer of conversion to Blackguard, despite Nale's observation that Miko was hardly Linear Guild material. Sabine tried to press the point by saying Miko would look good in black leather, and Miko responded by snapping Sabine's neck barehanded before returning to her meditation, leaving Sabine irritated and with her head stuck looking over one shoulder.
[edit] Personality, Traits, and Abilities
Miko seems to be an archetypal paladin in the sense that she adheres to the strictest letter of the Lawful Good alignment, though she is arguably more Lawful than truly Good. She is suggested to have had a very sheltered life, and as such knows little socially beyond the concepts taught of monks and paladins. She is innocently unfamiliar with sexual references, and tends to be extremely direct and occasionally somewhat naive in her speech. She is often described as "having a stick up her ass" (which, according to her, is a paladin class feature).
As the most powerful paladin in the Sapphire Guard she is utterly convinced of her own superiority and the rightness of her actions, and considers anyone who disobeys her or manipulates her to be going against the will of the Twelve Gods. When she is challenged or proven wrong she becomes irrational and violent, utterly convinced there is some other explanation that puts her in the right. Her belief that she is always right, according to Redcloak, is a potentially repulsive feature exacerbated by the Paladin immunity to fear - as Paladins lose the consciousness of fallibility which could moderate their actions. The loss of this immunity is likely to have a serious effect on her.
Unlike an archetypal enemy, Miko is an extremely law-abiding person with immense personal honor (as is required of a paladin), but is also highly judgmental and narrow-minded. She almost never smiles; the closest she usually gets is a blank neutral expression on her face. It could be argued that her commitment to Good is mostly expressed in killing things that she finds out are Evil. Not that she limits herself to those, necessarily; she has also prayed for divine retribution toward characters of good alignment for actions against her own moral code, and engaged them in combat. She was a high-level paladin, with a few levels of Monk as well, whose power is almost on par with the entire Order of the Stick put together. She is considered a samurai as a social class, though she has no roleplay character class named "samurai", a joke on the differences between game classes and social standing.
Miko is very single-minded, a trait that has kept her at the heels of the Order of the Stick for so long. This mindset, mixed with her imperious attitude and strict paladin code of morality cause her to go about situations via methods that greatly annoy the Order when forced to work with her. She once suggested sleeping in a muddy ditch, with sharp rocks as pillows and plenty of moss to eat, over a well-appointed inn next to the ditch (which she saw as giving into gluttony and corruption). Hinjo, a paladin who is more easygoing and amiable than her has remarked that this is the reason she is often sent on missions far abroad that keep her away from home for long periods of time; even other paladins find Miko unbearable. This single-mindedness is perhaps the main contributor to why she fell from grace- in her desire to uphold law and honor, Miko has the tendency to leap to conclusions without gleaning all available information beforehand, always assuming the worst(like the idea that Lord Shojo was in league with Xykon based off the minimal info she had gathered, coupled with her already poor opinion of Roy and the Order).
Despite her negative traits, Miko is a fundamentally good person, loyal and respectful to people she decides are worthy of such (very few to our knowledge), as well as very courageous (infinitely, in fact, as is a class feature of paladins). She has high morals which she holds herself to, as well as everyone she associates with.
Miko, as a mainly warrior-based character, is highly skilled in combat, particularly in melee using two-weapon fighting (normally using a katana and wakizashi, as typical of a samurai). She has twice managed to single-handedly subdue the Order (other than the non-resisting Durkon) in simultaneous combat, leading to estimates that she is around level 16. These defeats were cited as due to a linear plot by Roy, however. Considering her class selection, it is likely that she possesses an "Attack Bonus" nearly equal to her level. As a paladin, she possessed all normal class abilities in combat, such as the ability to smite evil, turn undead, and heal herself or others. Due to the levels taken in the monk class, she possesses evasion (allowing her to fully dodge some area-of-effect spells instead of receiving half damage, as is the normal for all but rogues and monks), some unarmed combat ability (including able to stun someone with a punch or a kick), and high agility and acrobatic skill that paladins do not typically possess.
With the recent loss of her paladinhood (including all the abilities that go with it) Miko is now essentially a warrior. Her monk skills remain intact, as monks in the D&D game do not lose their class abilities with an alignment change, presuming that one act was enough to actually change her alignment (as opposed to simply constituting a gross violation of her Code) in the first place.
[edit] Relationship with other characters
Miko generally has an antagonistic relationship towards most of the characters she meets. She has earned the enmity of Vaarsuvius for ordering him/her around and the enmity of Haley Starshine for accusing her of greed, while her mount Windstriker has earned Belkar's enmity for grappling him in their first encounter. She also later earned Roy Greenhilt's enmity for, as he puts it, following the letter of the Lawful Good alignment and not the intent. She initially respected Durkon--who stepped down against her in their first encounter and generally doesn't hold any ill will towards her--for his dutiful and honorable personality. After he defended Belkar from her (claiming that if forced, he is willing to stand against her), she counted him among her enemies.
She suspects (correctly) that Belkar is evil, but his skill with a lead sheet and her own scruples against violating legal restraint keeps her Detect Evil from confirming this hypothesis. Belkar is the member of the party whom Miko hates most; beyond being the only party member who is actually Evil (all other members being at least neutral), Belkar has taunted, baited, and generally annoyed Miko every time he's had a chance. This culminated in a long, protracted fight that saw both of them utilizing every skill in their arsenal. She eventually beat him; however, after preparing to kill him and being thwarted by both the party loyalty of the Order of the Stick and Lord Shojo, Belkar revealed that he wanted Miko to kill him; believing (mistakenly, as it turned out) that Durkon could simply cast Raise Dead on him, he wanted Miko to break her personal code and lose her paladin skills. This level of deviousness, not wanting to beat an opponent physically but spiritually, is an indication of the utter disdain the Chaotic Evil Belkar holds for Miko.
When she was first revealed to be female, Roy was noticeably attracted to Miko, and prone to using sexist language towards her. However, after his time girt by a Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity, which switched his gender temporarily, Roy came to respect Miko as a woman, but detest her as a person. He also commented missing his 'Trouser Titan' may have had something to do with the shift in attitude.
Miko has a strong bond (literally and figuratively) with her paladin special mount Windstriker. Suggested to be supernaturally smarter than a normal horse (as paladin mounts generally are), Windstriker is likewise unwaveringly loyal to Miko. Windstriker lives in the "celestial realms", he is summoned by Miko via a Poké Ball and is also is known to eat "heavenly oats" brand horse feed. This may change due to her loss of her paladin powers.
Naturally, Miko is utterly opposed to Xykon and Redcloak. Determined to destroy him for good, she also became enraged when she found out that the Order of the Stick had not destroyed him as they claimed, believing that they had lied outright to her (when in fact, they themselves did not realize as a Lich, he possessed a phylactery and therefore was revived). Miko seems nominally stronger than Redcloak, who is a close rival. Xykon is a different matter; during their only encounter to date, he easily trapped her within a forcecage before she could get anywhere near him.
| The Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew | |
|---|---|
| Characters: | Roy Greenhilt | Durkon Thundershield | Haley Starshine | Elan | Vaarsuvius | Belkar Bitterleaf | Xykon | Miko Miyazaki |
| Character lists: | General list | Linear Guild |
| Locations: | General list |
