Annotated 20-4
To the surprise of no one who knows Syr’Nj–and that means to the surprise of many people here–she’s done her damn homework. Her speech blends sincere desire and devious pragmatism: she really means it when she says she wants to stand united with everyone, and yet, because she knows that’s not possible, she is targeting Annunziata, whose pomposity and ineffectiveness against the World’s Rebellion has already weakened his standing (where was he, it’s worth asking, when Auraugu and the others hit the docks?).
By saying what other Heads (Pardo, Bedard, Iwatani, and especially Jarvis and Ardaic) have been thinking about him and adding a higher-minded message about wartime priorities, Syr’Nj has (for now) won those members’ allegiance at little cost. (Well, she already had Ardaic’s.)
Annunziata would’ve been vulnerable to flattery, but flattering him would’ve alienated those others. Miyamoto would have hated almost anything she did that wasn’t complete submission (“Th-th-thank you for having me, sirs”). Reynolds, conversely, would support a strong-willed non-human no matter what as long as she wasn’t immediately shouted down. Caneghem is a skeptical grump and not easily won over, but her history with his people at least buys her his curiosity.
It’s just occurred to me that Syr’Nj is nearly always dressed in green, but here she’s wearing an autumn-themed outfit. Was that intentionally symbolic?
That, and “this August body” make the think the autumn season is being used as a metaphor for the waning of the reign of the heads of houses and a hint of the events to come.
Well, my thought was that autumn can symbolize loss, maturity, or transition, all of which are applicable to what Syr’Nj is going through at this point in the story.
Man, Miyamoto looks like he’s going to stroke out.
The other Heads of Houses faces are all pretty good, actually. Ardaic and Bedard taking her measure. Iwatani thinking he HAS her measure. Reynolds being just SO HAPPY to have another non-Human HoH, while Canaghem is more skeptical. Annunziata reacting to the perceived barb she may or may not have intended, but Persson definitely did. Can’t really read Pardo or Jarvis, but I sort of feel like that’s deliberate.
Jarvis cannot be read. It’s his schtick.
Pardo looks like he is in love. Or, as the one overseeing lumber resources, he is thinking he just met the person who will provide the solutions to all his problems. Or at the minimum, to whom he will pass on all his problems.
Given that T attributed the last line on the previous page to Pardo, his smile seems a little more – eheh – wooden to me, given that context. As if he’s thinking “oh, so that’s how much trouble she’s going to be.”
At long last, the who’s who of the heads of houses. I’ve referred back to this page frequently for reference.
Iwatani wishing he had planted corn so he could be munching on popcorn right now.
Damn, beat me to it.
I’d just like to say, this gown Syr’nj is wearing here blew me away the first time we saw it, and it blows me away again today. It is an amazing design. The rich orange colors (a visual pun maybe, it occurs to me now, or’nj?) still fits in with the whole leaf-motif of Wood Elf clothing as we’ve seen, but here it exudes both a sign of a powerful flame within, while also the brown suggest the strength and steadfastness of wood itself. Invoking autumn says, to my eyes at least: “We Wood Elves are no naive political novices. We’ve seen many winters, faced many hardships, and endured. In us you can find a strong, time-tested ally. But it would we very unwise to cross us.”
Anyway, amazing work Mr. Waltrip. (And the gallery of faces and facial expressions is a delight as well. Don Pardo is clearly excited about the lumber resources the wood elves are bringing to Gastonia.)
I’ve always loved this page.
And once again, the list of real world video game developers the Heads of Houses were named for:
Toru Iwatani – Pac-Man
Markus “Notch” Persson – Minecraft
Jon van Caneghem – Might and Magic
Brian Reynolds – Civilization II
Renaud Bedard – Fez
Rob Pardo – World of Warcraft
Ed Annunziata – Ecco the Dolphin
Shigeru Miyamoto – Mario
Eugene Jarvis – Defender
(Ardaic’s not a Head of House, so he doesn’t count.)
Hmm. I remembered they were all named for game developers (I can’t remember if it was T or Phil who mentioned that, but I remember one of them saying it), but didn’t know what games most of them were famous for (any except Iwatani, Notch, and Miyamoto, and even them I’d have to take some time to think on it). I’m not sure if I’d have gotten it before now, even if I’d known, but seeing it all laid out like this…
Persson, Caneghem, Annunziata, Miyamoto*, and Jarvis’s duties line up with their games in obvious ways either from gameplay or the title. I can stretch for Iwatani (there were a lot of fruit in Pac-Man) without too much trouble…
Having trouble connecting the dots on Reynolds and Pardo, though**, and know basically nothing about Fez, but what I’ve seen of it doesn’t really suggest ‘press’.
* Assuming ‘Municipal Services’ is dealing with sewers and other such infrastructure. If so, I can understand why he’s so damn high strung.
** I mean, Civ does include scientific and engineering research, and the WarCraft RTSes involved harvesting lumber, but they weren’t that huge a part of the games…
I know nothing about Fez, but research is a big part of the Civ games, and in Warcraft (the original, not World of…) one of the first things you have to do is chop wood. (I wouldn’t have made that connection myself, but I remember someone else pointing it out in the comments way back when.)
Also, Iwatani likes to gobble things up.
Fez is a platformer you can travel to the sides and back of each area by reaching the edge – it’s a major mechanic – and I believe the developer ran into some controversy that caused him to happy development on the sequel, more or less exiting the spotlight in the process.
As far as “press” goes, he certainly got some coverage over the aforementioned controversy. If I went the pun route to explain the connection… the rotating stages are a “third dimension” to Fez’s (initially) supposedly flat world? I dunno.
*halt, not happy. Oy.
Wow, thanks for this! I never knew. I always thought “Persson” was such an odd name for a … person, but now I know the reason behind choosing it at least.
Also, I can’t believe it took us till Chapter 20 to get to this page! My faulty memory of this story has it taking place much earlier, since Syr’nj’s involvement with the Head of Houses plays such a big part of the story, it feels like.
Well, Per (sometimes spelled Pär, and always pronounced sort of like “pair”) is a common Swedish name, so Persson simply means “Per’s son”.
(“Person” is the same word in Swedish as in English, but it’s pronounced like “pair-SOON”)
Aha, I don’t think I caught that on my first time through. Now that’s the kind of touch I really appreciate.
So, I don’t know if this is mentioned elsewhere. Every HoH has a “field”, including the gnome and sky elf representative (Science and Magick.) So what is Syr’Nj? Especially since Pardo is already Lumber.