Chapter 45 – Page 11
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Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip
This seems like a good time to discover that unfortunately Taro, while lasting somewhat longer then his family, died of a different, metal based poison.
It was a quick-acting poison, and while side-effects did include excessive internal and external bleeding he thankfully didn’t suffer long.
Taro. Taro now you’re not even trying to be subtle.
Taro please.
That’s the point. He is not actually pretending he didn’t do it, he’s manipulating Ardaic by threatening him with the civil unrest that could result from the monarchy they JUST erected immediately falling apart, and in the middle of a war no less.
That’s my take on it, he knows Ardaic is on to him and has dispensed with the pretenses.
It was time to put away the scalpel and bring out the box cutter.
Forget the box cutter, just get a spoon.
A rusty one.
And here I thought I couldn’t despise a character more than I did Joffrey Baratheon. I’d like to punch this kid in the face until ARDAIC gets tired.
Taro is far superior to Joffrey. Joffrey had no sense of rule, only power and selfishness that was protected by his mother.
Taro has cunning, and while young, a bit foolish, is more like a Petyr Baelish.
I would have gone with Ramsey Bolton (formerly Ramsey Snow). Sadistic, cunning, and surprisingly capable all things considered.
Also Taro’s only killed his own equally-willing-to-trample-on-other-people family. Gastonia is no worse off than it was two strips ago. The world is no worse off. King Iwatani is no more or less of a nightmare for having a different first name and a few fewer decades–if anything, he’s likely to be easier to defeat. I don’t understand why anyone is choosing now to go yearrgh I hate Taro.
Because while his dad was evil, the man totally had class.
From the mouths of babes…
…Comes the Sins of the Father…
“What difference does it really make?”
Channeling another would-be leader of a nation with blood on their hands, are we now Taro?
Kid’s overestimating how useful he’d actually be, i think.
I hope.
I don’t know, as a figurehead and a symbol of how ‘eeeevil’ the other guys are, a recently orphaned princeling could be leveraged pretty hard for some great public opinion.
I mean sure, I can see him as a tool but his father’s war plans? Really? The minister of agriculture does not strike me as someone who would have war plans of much concern or much indecipherability to the ,actual military.
I really hope that Ardaic is on his guard here and doesn’t drink the wine.
Hmm… wouldn’t it be quite the twist if Adraic suddenly developed a desire for the throne… saaaaay to safe guard it from unscrupulous people. The kind of people who would kill their own family to gain said throne… for example.
Heh.
I truly hope something incredibly unpleasant and quite terminal happens to Taro…
Same here. But for now, let him dig himself deeper into his hole.
I had wondered what made Taro think he was so absolutely vital to the kingdom that he would survive the inevitable turmoil of the recently coronated monarch’s assassination. But while I can see why Taro thinks his mind is integral to the future of the nation, I can only hope Ardaic and the former council members aren’t so eager to let him play king.
After all, it’s not like the Iwatani family had a monopoly on strategy. And we have already seen Taro bugger it up multiple times in the past, I couldn’t imagine trusting him with an entire nation’s management.
You misunderstand the argument he’s making. He’s not suggesting he’s essential, though he is making a claim to value.
The point he’s alluding to is that the potential damage of jailing or killing him far outweighs the potential value of rallying the people, who have already been fed a load of propaganda by Bedard and thus are primed to do so to begin with, around him against the Savage Races. If they weren’t at war, there would be no question that it would be better to dispose of Taro immediately.
But the war changes the calculus of the whole affair.
Then Taro is both blind and pompous for thinking this way, for he does not see a third solution after either
1. Ardaic has him face charges for the murder of his family but which destabilizes the country, or
2. Ardaic lets him continue and rule just to keep Iwatania together.
Said third option is: Ardaic kills Taro, claims a third party did it, and promises to avenge House Iwatani, making him or his boss Jarvis head of Gastonia/Iwatania (whatever). Popular support switches to Ardaic or Jarvis based on this promise of seeking justice.
As Softy said, it’s not like His Grace or Taro had a monopoly on strategy, whether military or political. Taro’s claim to value is that he is the key to his late father’s plans. He assumes that said plans are indispensable to the good of the country, thus he is indispensable. But what if his first premise- and thus the rest of his logic- is wrong?
Third option: Ardaic kills Taro and then doesn’t tell anyone that anyone did it. Because the orders trickle down through middlemen through Ardaic, it doesn’t matter if only a few people have met their benevolent child-king, who lives in safety and seclusion while he learns the finer points of statecraft. And so the Heads of Houses get to rule through a single, all-powerful figurehead, which is what they really wanted all along.
And there’s precedent for that in-comic, in Priestlord Gigundus.
Gugundus wasn’t as important and was only the ruler of some nuns.
Organization and scale aside, it’s proof of concept that it would work given a more politically adept operator.
Yet another third option: the other Heads of Houses play along with Taro long enough to settle things down and come to an agreement about who should take the throne next, then have him assassinated.
Fourth option: Ardaic imprisons Taro without trial and publicly announces his death with his family. He keeps Taro alive so that Taro can see that he isn’t needed and/or for the few times he is needed, he must help or be tortured/killed.
Put Taro into a place of powerlessness where no one thinks he’s alive, guarded only by the most trusted individuals.
In particular to the war changing the calculus of the whole affair, in addition to my previous comment:
Who does Taro think he’s talking to? Civilians who don’t know the first thing to leading and organizing an army whom without Taro can’t defend Gastonia/Iwatania? We’re talking FIELD MARSHALL Ardaic and GRAND MARSHALL Jarvis.
Um, Taro believes himself indispensable, or would like Ardaic – and the others lords – to believe so.
It is said that cemeteries are full of indispensable people. Maybe someone should demonstrate it to Taro. After all, his plan to stir Gastonians into patriotic war-frenzy by blaming the Savage horde will work even better if House Iwatani was fully eradicated.
Tagline: “Taro Iwatani”
Should be “His Grace Taro Iwatani”, really, if Taro is the legitimate heir of the just-departed House lord.
(should have started 7 pages ago, actually – chapter 45 page 4; or even from page 1, it would have been a heck of a spoiler…)
Current Guess that is most probably going to be disproven next week: Ardaic or someone else has poisoned the wine Taro is going to drink there.
While it won’t happen, I think it would be hilarious if it was wine Taro had previously poisoned, only to forget about that detail until after he’s taken a big gulp.
I really, really, really want Taro to have his comeuppance.
And I really, really, really hope Ardaic doesn’t do anything that gets himself killed at this point.
If I’m not mistaken the servant we saw previously was one of the ‘odd cogs’, yes?
What if one of them were to become ‘Taro Iwatani, in mourning, passing his directives along through the venerated Ardaic, now Steward of Gastonia’ (while the real Taro ends up nosediving in a winebarrel until the pretense can be dropped)?
Rikard
It strikes me as more likely that he’d pass the job onto his boss Jarvis.
Ardaic doesn’t really seem the type to crave the spotlight himself.
Well, I think he has made one error in his calculations . . . Ardaic may be part of a corrupt institution, but he himself is not corrupted.
Ardaic, don’t drink that wine, even if Taro does.
He’s spent the last 5 years building up a resistance to Iocaine.
Inconceivable!
“I do not think that word means what you think that it means.”
So it would seem that Taro while a terrible actor is a better long term thinker than anticipated. Sadly this is only the second time that a rich brat was underestimated in recent weeks. I think this scenario crossed his mind before he poisoned his father, but he still considered taking the risk. Aradic may support him for the good of the realm or so he can ultimately undermine and remove him at the right time.
Or he twisting the knife before he ragequits with his own poison, just like the spoiled brat he is.
Taro is thinking exactly as some people expected, and from his point of view I get it. Civil unrest in the face of war is pretty bad timing, and he assumes the adults in the room will grit their teeth and bear it, placing a regent behind his throne until he is old enough to actually run things. It’s a risky gambit, but I can understand why he’d go for it. I just don’t know that it will work out as he hopes.
He’s completely missing that the despicable murder of the *entire* Iwatani family could be just the thing to unify the people against the savages.
Kid’s got the life expectancy of a mayfly right now, and that’s only because it’s Ardaic he’s talking to. Anyone else, and he’d already be having a really awkward family reunion.
I have to agree that it’d have been safer if Taro waited until he was older and more used to the idea of Royal Iwatanis. Not to mention that he’d insinuate himself as more of a political player by then. He has no personal worth beyond being a nominal prince and *maybe* knowing something about dad’s war plans. But as the senior Iwatani has said, he’s not really the micromanaging type. He delegates. So it’s doubtful his plans were all that vital to begin with.
Iwatani has proven quite adept at killing political rivals…but, to my knowledge, he hasn’t demonstrated anywhere near as much tact fighting actual enemies.
Fighting is for the armies. His battles will always be political.
Of course, but I’m wondering why his battle plans are supposed to be something of note.
“Sorry Taro, you got to them first, the Wine you just opened is what I poisoned to kill you all and take over… What A Twist!” – directed by M. Night Shamalamadingdong
In panel 3, he overestimates his own skills, and underestimates everyone else’s. I really hope Ardaic jails this little brat.
I’m picturing the Altruist conspiracy and I can just easy seeing them playing Taro like a fiddle.
Let’s see.
Bedard is an unflappable master of spin hidden behind his unreadable glasses.
Canegham doesn’t give a fuck about the humans.
Jarvis is the silent stoic.
Miyamoto is hot-tempered.
I could easily see them being unimpressed by baby’s first conspiracy.
I for one really hope Taro doesnt end up being the main Altruist baddie. Jarvis and Bedard seem like far more impressive players, and it’d be cool to see them take a more direct role in things.
If Ardaic doesn’t take some sort of action (pouring the remaining poison down the little brat’s throat seems like the most convenient solution), he’s gonna be dead real quick.
Taro knows better than to leave somebody with access to his most dirty laundry running around.
Drama tells me Taro will get away, whether by manipulating Ardaic or by manipulating the populace. It would be a anticlimax if his character died off, or lost so now. I predict we will hate him for a while longer.
I made the assumption, but I was waiting for the confirmation, and now I got it: Taro killed his whole family.
(Quick aside: That was kind of stupid. If he had just given the others sleeping drugs, and taken them himself, he wouldn’t suspiciously be the only one left alive.)
Anyway. Taro didn’t just kill his father, the evil mastermind he wanted to replace. He killed his mother. He killed his sister. They may both have been more or less corrupt, or at least they were aware of father Iwatani’s ambitions and schemes. I don’t care.
I’ve always hated the little shit, but I haven’t evaluated exactly how much I hate him. Until now.
The verdict: I hate Taro Iwatani more than any other character in this comic.
More than Iwatani Sr. More than Miyamoto. More than Annunziata. More than Best. More than Iver. More than Don Gobligno. More than HAMMERHEAD. More than Brother Tom. More than J.J. Berten. More than H.R. God Damn Dedalus.
…More than the corruptor beast that erased Rachel.
I don’t give a fuck about story potential. If the next update shows Ardaic saying “Nope, sorry, don’t care” and kneeing Taro in the face until he stops breathing, I will be nothing but happy.
I’m surprised that Hammerhead ranks so lowly in your esteem.
Because Hammerhead is constitutionally incapable of any finer feelings of public good beyond “You are not a prey species. See how progressive I am?” That really isn’t his fault.
My list isn’t ranked, and it doesn’t really say anything about my level of hate for anyone except that it’s lower than for Taro. Some of them I love to hate, some I don’t really hate so much as I find them annoying, and some are irredeemably evil while still being fascinating. I left Auraugu off the list because, even when he was about to kill Bandit, I couldn’t bring myself to hate him. I don’t think he’s irredeemable, and he’s never annoying. Every page that features him is better for it.
HAMMERHEAD was fascinating. Then he tried to kill the enemies that weren’t an immediate threat, instead of the enemy that was an enormous, super immediate threat that the other enemies were also trying to kill. He did this not because he didn’t understand the situation, but because he was ideologically stubborn. He refused to divide people into more than two categories — “kill now” and “don’t kill” — at any time, no matter the circumstances. Enemies could not be allowed to live if it was immediately possible to kill them, even if it put himself and his allies at a great disadvantage. Kill people because you’re an unthinking, indiscriminate predator? Fine. But HAMMERHEAD was more than that, and he disappointed me. As it stands, he’s pretty much useless both as a character and as a rebel champion.
The corruptor beast, on the other hand, I see as a pure force of nature. I just hate that it wasn’t killed before it got to Rachel.
so now he’s basing his plan on the marshal either being stupid enough to drink the obviously poisoned wine, or failing that buy into how he is the only one who can lead them to victory despite showing no actual signs of intelligence.
yeah this kid is’nt going to last long.
Especially given that said marshal could probably splash said wine in his face and get away with it.
If there isn’t an assassin on the ceiling of that room, there’s no reason for Ardaic not to just shut the door and kill him.
Ardaic clearly understands the “just a child” argument doesn’t apply.
Kid’s obviously a psychopath.
Kid’s not remotely necessary as an actual living person – and has already shown himself to be a liability in at least four ways now.
The cellar is secluded – no witnesses.
Ardaic’s proven willing to overcome moral qualms for the good of the nation. This qualifies.
Ardaic’s proven to consider “the good of the nation” synonymous with “what the people in charge of it want,” with no regard for the concerns of most of the people of Gastonia, no concern that the real rulers are a shadow council that was neither elected nor appointed and answers only to themselves, and no concern whatsoever for anyone outside Gastonia (except, probably, Syr’nj, who he hoped would join that shadow council). I no more get why people are overidealizing Ardaic than I get why “family of backstabbers gets predictably stabbed in the back, Taro is the one left standing” is making people view Taro more negatively than they did after the kidnapping thing.
For the latter point, the Iwatanis were only 50% backstabber, and the surviving member had no practical reason to kill the non-backstabbing half other than so that he could monologue at the person who was his actual target.
Phil, for the love of god, please don’t let this kid get away with his villainy with such a hare-brained plan that stands on something so flimsy as “the people love me because the newspapers told them to.”