Annotated 40-18
To be completely honest…I’m not sure I buy that that much TNT is going to be enough to break Frigg’s field, much less kill her. I’m not even sure it outweighs the power of everyone else here. Part of that is twenty-twenty hindsight: we will see Frigg’s power used against a much more powerful explosive before the series is done, and Hollister and Clair will deflect a similar explosive, albeit at a cost. Still, I can believe that Syr’Nj believes it, based on the info she has currently.
“Do you have any alternate strategies?”
“Get her to chase some illusory me’s like we did to the other berserkers and lead her through a sky-elf portal to some area of desert where the most threatening thing for her to berserk against is a cactus? I mean, she’s got to tire out eventually, ri–?”
“TOO PRACTICAL, WE NEED DRAMATIC STAKES RAMPED UP HERE!!”
More seriously, I think we could show Frigg’s chaotic energies destroying any portal the sky elves tried to guide her through. The team could still portal out themselves, but that would leave a rampaging Frigg within range of the Gastonian capital, and even if Iwatani might deserve what the berserker would dish out, the ordinary people wouldn’t. We probably should’ve dealt with the portal options in the text, though.
As for “isn’t that what you stuck Bandit in jail for,” erwehrm, not exactly. I think the “I’M GLAD HE’S DEAD, HOW DARE YOU TRY TO STOP ME FROM KILLING HIM, YOU CAUSED THIS, I’LL KILL YOU” aspects were a factor in Bandit’s imprisonment, whereas Syr’Nj would treat the death of Frigg with nothing but grief, regret, and shame that she couldn’t think of a better solution. But it’s close enough that E-Merl has some percentage of a point, at least.
To be fair, it’s hard to come up with a perfect plan when your life is in immanent peril. Even Syr’Nj, brilliant tactician though she is, has limits.
Amazingly effective Frigg-o-vision in the last three panels! Overlapping think caption boxes put to excellent use.
Better yet: let Frigg chase someone, possibly fake E-Merl but maybe real people, including Syr’Nj, through a portal to some remote place, give her another flashbang, evacuate back through the portal, close the portal, done.
But to be honest, I didn’t think of that befor T mentioned it, and I’m sure that, if I were facing any similar situation, I’d have problems doing anything but hanging on to the last coordinated thought I had before things got difficult, no matter how useless it may be now, or resorting to fight/flight/freeze.
So Bandit got stuck in jail, not because she killed Byron, but because she hurt Syr’Nj’s feelings?
I think it’s more the fact that she killed him AND expressed satisfaction rather than regret over it.