Annotated 8-20
One of the tricks I learned early was to give the reader what they wanted in a way that would make them regret wanting it. Go ahead and invest in that love triangle, guys, but when the rivals face off, it’s actually not gonna go well for either of them. Yes, this guy will get the skill and reputation with women he always wanted, but that will only lead him to an entirely new set of problems. The audience was cheering for Byron here. They wouldn’t be for much longer.
Apart from the cheers, a few readers griped about how we played this fight for a bit of comedy. I have no reservations at all about that. For one thing, humor lowers your (the audience’s) defenses and leaves you less ready for what’s going to happen next. For another, sending such a seemingly invincible foe scampering away so abruptly is a comical reversal, and it’d confuse the tone if we didn’t lean into that. I think the gripers might’ve believed we were shortcutting our way through the climax of the chapter, but that climax is actually still to come.
You know, I forgot Harky was a coward. He really should have lost control of the world’s rebellion here instead of when his scion killed him.
He has a name for The Madness and recognizes it instantly. This isn’t cowardice, it’s something he’s had to deal with before and knows to be a “nuke the site from orbit”-level threat.
And rightly so, given it’s a friggin latent zombie virus.
Kinda weird we were never told how he’s familiar with it. Nobody knows jack about it. Hell if anyone had an inkling on what the hell the berserk virus/curse is, putting “Berserker” as your last name would probably get you set on fire by the kingdom, no questions asked.
Near the end of the comic, HR will tell Byron that his human player invented the berserker virus as a backstory element to his character, and that he retconned it into the game later on. Seeing as how this deathpit scene is HR’s first attempt to murder the five, it works for me that the NPC Harky suddenly has this knowledge.
Pretty sure Harky straight up explains that Trolls are especially susceptible to this condition, and that it’s virulent among them.
Maybe being annointed by Tectonicus is all that keeps him from zerking himself, there.
Yeah, in hindsight, Harky’s actions are really impressive here. Recognizes instantly when the tide of battle has turned, gets himself out of there ASAP, and calls in an air strike.
I mean, at the time, it’s just as T says, there was some comedic disconnect, but it dramatically announces that a Berserker is absolutely terrifying.
I never actually found this scene comedic, for this reason.
Harkey, This seasoned badass, is reacting in this way? Oh shit …
Also serves as a bit of foreshadowing. Harky here seemed like the “last boss”, but wait, there’s /something/ that even he fears. And rightly so, even his own god would end perishing to it.
Meta-knowledge changes the perspective about this situation quite a bit. Back then Harky kinda looked like the “trope-ical” bully who’s actually a coward deep inside. Knowing what we know now his reaction feels completely justified and rational.
I never saw this as cowardice. I saw it as having the wisdom to see what he perceives as (regardless of what we knew of the truth at this point) an existential threat to his people, and instead of letting his ego run the show and fight it out, he chooses to eliminate that threat.
I figured Harky had enough heroic creds that he could shake a poor showing. Heck, this fight alone he was putting on a heck of a show up until the last minute.
So he was able to maintain his heroic status among his people.
People apparently said so the first time around too, and they were wrong then, but they didn’t have the power of hindsight. Harky isn’t escaping because he’s being butchered, he’s escaping because he knows that if he catches “the madness”, he’ll be reduced to a mindless killing machine, attacking friends and foes indiscriminately. That would at best definitely make him lose control of the WR (whether he survives or not), at worst pass on the ‘zerker virus to the rest of his troops and allies.
In hindsight, my issue with the whole death pit scene is that it gave a first impression of Harky as being thoroughly dishonorable; the Peacemakers had nothing but good intentions, but rather than sit down and talk with the leader of the rebels, he traps them and starts fighting them to the death. Much later, he would turn out to have a strong code of honor, more so than most of the Gastonian and WR leaders, but the story had to work pretty hard to shake that first impression. And of course, even if hindsight explains Harky’s blind hatred of all humans and Gastonian allies, it still wasn’t justified regarding the Peacemakers.
OTOH, I guess there is a point to a story that challenges the readers’ first impressions.
I do think that the purpose was challenging the expectations created in the readers. Here we have our heroes facing a group of cheaty “savages”. However, turns out that the savages were abused people fighting for rights denied to them and that the reason they cheated the peacemakers is because previous envoys had already cheated them.
I never saw it that way even on my first read through. Up until this point, Harky has tanked every hit in a solo 1v4 match. While the spear strike is a major hit, this first panel has Harky looking terrified, but not while looking down at his wound – he’s seeing the berserker, and he’s terrified of THAT.
He still quickly and confidently grabs one of the axes, uses it to free himself from the impalement, dodges a spin that would have taken his head off, and gets away.
It didn’t look like an arrogant bully turning coward after starting to lose, because he starts panicking after taking only one hit that doesn’t seem to actually slow him down – he panics as soon as he spots the berserker.
Also, after the next few pages, it’s clear why The Madness is something to fear.
Oh, hmm. Looks like this reply went onto the wrong comment. Oh, well.
I don’t really find his reaction comical — maybe I did the first time I read it, I don’t remember. I can see how it could be viewed that way, but mainly it just comes across to me as O.O.C. is Serious Business. Emphasis on serious.
Here’s a question: Is a plan to infect Harky why Byron was berserked by the Head Cultist not too long ago?
I don’t really see the comedy framing here. For one, there’s no reaction to Harky’s ‘cowardice’ and he explicitly establishes his fear is not of losing or even to himself, but for the safety of the land. Meanwhile the only other player in the picture is Byron being portrayed eyeless, thoughtless, and drooling with a massive bloody chest wound he doesn’t give a shit about. Just…not a lotta ‘ha ha’ in this scenario…
Yeah I was about to comment that I don’t really see why comedy at all in the scene…
I didn’t realize there were people who saw Harky’s abrubt retreat as comedic. It always came across to me as a “SERIOUS BUSINESS” reaction, not a coward’s escape. The previous pages set up Harky’s lack of cowardice (though backstabbing, on the other hand). So this reaction really set up for me how bad the beserking curse was and would be later in the comic. Set a foundation.
Reading back in the comments on the archive page, it looks like the folks complaining about the comedic tone of the page took issue mostly with Byron’s depiction, not so much Harky except a comment or two about his “derpy face”. They hyper-focused on the panel with him whirlwinding. Was this still 2010? I feel like I finally stopped playing Baldur’s Gate to play Dragon Age at that time, come on guys thats what the whirlwind skill looks like!…I think I just realized that there are people who read fantasy comics but don’t play cRPG’s…
Yeah, combining panels 4 and 6, Byron kind of gives off a Tasmanian Devil vibe. It doesn’t bother me, but I think people were still adjusting to the differences between Erica’s and John’s styles.