Axemas Bonus Anno 3
The difference between a “gift” and a “present” is that a gift is selflessly given, but a present is something the giver wants you to have. There’s a lot of overlap, but the present-giver may have selfish motives.
Flo got a lot of mileage out of Harky’s sexual embarrassment in a couple of Ask an Adventurer features. Maybe John picked up that ball and ran with it, or maybe Flo put a bug in John’s ear on this one. At any rate, Gondolessa’s little smile is just perfect: he nurses that cup and waits for understanding to dawn over Harky. Love it.
Those furnishings have a sort of humble-yet-expensive look, though Harky himself may have killed the beasts whose tusks now serve as table and chair legs.
Somehow this doesn’t ring true for the characters as they are represented in the main story. It doesn’t seem that Harky would wear a thing like this. That makes it a bad present, like the cliché where the husband wants his wife to wear sexy lingerie. But then, maybe Gondolessa just wants to see Harky’s reaction.
“Well, if YOU don’t want it, I suppose I could put it to use…” Which might make it a selfish present, unless its known that that’s something that Harky would really want. What would the husband think, should HIS gift contain the lingerie? He could flip the script and put it on – presuming it fits, like the gift here does – but the gift-giver probably knows the likelihood of that and a good one would be prepared for (or even be delighted/amused by) that possibility
I think we’re seeing in Harky’s reaction that he’s not actually comfortable with things like this, and that teasing him in his discomfort cracks Gondolessa up.
Less “hey wife, dress up sexy for me,” more “buy your friend an embarrassing gift because you’re gently ribbing them.”
I don’t think Karky would wear it. But I think he’d laugh about it after a bit. Then he’d make some remarks and Gondolessa would make some more remarks. And then they would stop remarking and start doing and the present would lay on the floor, unneeded but having served a purpose.
I’ve always liked the apparent contrast between Harki’s fearsome role as leader of the World’s Rebellion, and this softer side of him. It’s cute and humanizing.
I suppose Mr. Waltrip is both poking fun at Harky’s super masculine “big hulking warrior” image while also giving us a peek at their domestic intimacy. Sometimes you can be a very different person in the privacy of the bedroom
My impression was not that this is how we should imagine Harky in private, but more a “what if” joke.
In their actual dealings, I imagine Harky to be all manly and serious and more or less unable to acknowledge that his relationship with Gondolessa involves actual warm fuzzy and wonderfully soft feelings, except perhaps for very brief moments. And I suspect that Gondolessa, despite similar public appearances, is a good deal more comfortable with that aspect, and occasionally annoyed with Harky. So maybe this scene is a jape of Gondolessa’s to get Harky stop being so uptight for a second.
“gifts are selfless” depends on context. Anthropological gift economies are all about status and reciprocity.