Annotated 38-8
Flo’s script for the first panel includes the detail that Pardo lost not only work friends and extended family, but illegitimate children as well. That’s a bit of a wrinkle in his generally benign character…but we don’t know what his marriage to Her Grace Pardo is like. Maybe it’s one of those openly polyamorous arrangements. We haven’t seen her since she expressed support for segregation in her only speaking appearance. And mourning illegitimate kids is still a better look than not caring about illegitimate kids.
Also from Flo’s script: “Gosh, Iwatani is such a great friend! He sure would be the last person I’D suspect of making a deal with Cultists to attack Pardo’s territories!”
Look at Miyamoto, trying to stir up anti-adventurer sentiment when he’s really just echoing Bedard, who’s already done that more effectively than Miyamoto ever could. He thinks he’s a real manipulator! (Iwatani pats him on the head and goes “Isn’t that cute.”)
So, I get why Iwatani is trying to blame the adventurers (he wants them out of the way for his take-over), but not quite why most of the others are so eager to do the same. Bedard, I believe, has coordinated with Iwatani, but the others should be smart enough to know that what happened to Pardo’s village could happen to their own villages, and that of course it was the cult who did it, and the adventurers tried to stop it. So what does e.g. Miyamoto think he has to gain by blaming the biggest threat to Gastonia on the people best-equipped to defeat it? Weaken Syr’Nj’s standing?
My impression was that Miyamoto’s entire motivation here is just to follow along with the crowd. As we see later, he isn’t particularly politically adept and is mostly just a pawn – but they’ve managed to convince him he’s a relevant player, for now.
I know Ardaic habitually speaks for Jarvis, but it still seems pretty weird for Pardo to ask Jarvis a question by name and Ardaic to answer. Like Jarvis is a ventriloquist, and Ardaic is his dummy.
Also, wasn’t it established that Lumberton was almost entirely populated by cultists? How does that jive with Pardo having friends and family there?