Annotated 21-7
Phil seemingly always had the cultural issues in mind, and it was true that the peace between wood elves and humans opened up some fascinating issues. We were clear that this was Syr’Nj’s extended sequence, setting her up to step back from field work and let Bandit into field command, so I thought I could get away with only raising the issue in a single page. I was definitely channeling some of my Jewish friends’ experiences here, albeit painting in very broad strokes.
Bringing back Embraisch’Nj as messenger and focusing on his particular response to speciesism–the small ways he collaborates with the regime, without even thinking twice about it at this point–kept the page from being an entirely tell-don’t-show exercise. I had no intention of bringing him back a third time, but when I said so to Phil, he immediately started thinking in terms of an arc. You’d see the results of that in about six more chapters.
Phil also revised the dialogue a bit and brought Kur’Ik into the convo, which was certainly for the best.
This is a page that I still don’t understand. What is Embraisch’Nj saying in the first two panels, and why does it piss off Kur’ik and Syr’Nj?
He’s saying that tthe urban Wood Elves were making preparations for (on of the) biggest cultural events/holy days of the Wood Elves and their preparations are being destroyed by humans.
The way I interpreted it was that Kur’Ik and Syr’Nj are pissed off because he belittles that event by calling it a “thing” and not being upset about the destruction.
Or just because it’s happening. They might just be mad because they hadn’t really heard much about it, but hearing that it’s because it’s because of racist rumors would twist my face like that too.
Yeah, it didn’t occur to me that this might be ambiguous. They are definitely upset about humans continuing to persecute wood elves. Emb’s denial of the existence of human racism just strikes them as funny at this point.
Thanks for the clarification. I assumed that they were mad AT HIM (because in this comic he is usually an object of derision, and rightly so) and I couldn’t figure out why they were mad at him. It didn’t occur to me that they could just be mad about what was going on.
Still not sure about panel 2. Is he saying that the tradition is to trim the shrubs to look anthropomorphic, hence the human panic?
“Look identical” just means “look identical to each other” in this context. “Our shrubs all look the same, because WE (wood elves) are all the same.” So the humans don’t really have much basis for their assumption. Not that they need much.
Got it. Thanks for replying.
I see what you mean about the Jewish experience.
At least he’s not doing a Shapiro by loudly exclaiming “I’m not one of those BAD, SUBVERSIVE Wood Elves!”
That would have been a bit too on the nose (also, the discourse wasn’t quite overripe enough for that back then).