Annotated 20-14
I mean, really, Caneghem has three modes: contemptuously silent, contemptuously contemptuous, and hiding under a contemptuous veneer, so Syr’Nj is not wrong to shrug him off right now. Despite how things are eventually going to work out in the Heads of Houses, I’m on Syr’Nj’s side here; nothing in international relations will ever get better if we don’t allow ourselves to hope for better.
Now, Caneghem is an isolationist. Isolationism is the dominant strain in his personality. But if he were as purely isolationist as he likes to think, he wouldn’t be bothering to talk with Syr’Nj at all, even if it is to piss in her leaf flakes. He’d just be another Jarvis with pointy ears, voting when he has to, speaking next to never, and getting the hell out as soon as he’s no longer obligated to attend this farce of a government.
There’s a spark of compassion in him that his culture, possibly more racist than even Gastonia’s, has not entirely silenced. “Poor Reynolds.”
LMAO I forgot about “Foodtaster Fieri”. I think that might actually be my favorite joke in the whole series
If Caneghem was purely isolationist, would he even be here at all?
Diplomats go everywhere. The point of isolationism is that your country and what it contains does not follow behind, but you must still negotiate your borders and any related situations.
You can hardly demand they be treated with any respect, otherwise.
I don’t think I really got that about Caneghem until the last shot of him watching Archmage Clair.
“Despite how things are eventually going to work out in the Heads of Houses, I’m on Syr’Nj’s side here; nothing in international relations will ever get better if we don’t allow ourselves to hope for better.”
For my part, I think Syr’nj was proven more right than wrong–and the other way around, for Caneghem. Yes, working for change from within was pointless, but working for change was ultimately successful, and joining the “Altruists” instead…
…well, in fairness, events prevented Caneghem or anyone else from finding out whether that would have actually kept the sky elves safe with Gastonia victorious.
I kind of wonder if the reason why he seems so annoyed is that he does care for Reynolds, in his own strange little way, and believes that this “hope” that Syr has given him will only damage him in the long run. I think that he’d prefer if Reynolds, under his tutelage, grew cynical and pessimistic (“realist”, he’d say), bracing himselffor the worst and maybe surviving because of it.
I did find this as the moment when Caneghem showed that, despite himself, Reynolds had indeed made his mark. I have always seen High Elves as a particularly nasty strain of racism, something that worse than what humans could usually muster. They were more willing work together, in their goal to prove themselves superior. The only thing that made them sympathetic, especially in this case, was that the humans were just more advanced on their tech tree branch, and were potentially an grave threat to even Caneghem’s people.