Chapter 47 – Page 5
Hey, don’t forget Phil will be at the Greater Philadelphia Comic-Con today! Alla youse Southeastern Pennsylvanians better show up and get some water ice with me!!
Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip
…And then Penk killed Hammerhead causing all of the sheep-minded sharks to follow him.
…Huh. I was thinking the same thing, and how I’d actually like to see that.
Hey, in panel 1, I see a lot of regular sized hammerheads!
Even some makos, and a great white or two!
And a TON of lawyers.
Ironically, there’s not a single epaulette shark. And those things are landsharks by default.
Yay for diversity!
Ironically this adds some depth to Hammerhead imo because I’d expect him to strictly adhere to a philosophy of might makes right by which your way is always the right one as long as you’re able to enforce it regardless of underlying principles. This shows Hammerhead has an ideal he can’t be swayed from by a display of strength and high audio volume alone.
Sometimes I feel like Hammerhead just has an inflated sense of his own philosophy and intellect. Being practically the only individual with personal directive and motive in a race known for it’s mindless herd mentality, I think Hammerhead is accustomed to being the smartest man in the room. His whole life he’s never met or conceived of anyone who “has it figured out” as much as him, and so when he encounters other people with similar reasoning abilities and differing philosophies he continues to be as dismissive and condescending as if he were speaking with other Shark People.
He’s your classic “smart teen” who thinks, because he’s smarter than the other “sheeple” in his highschool that means he’s smarter than any adult ever who has a different opinion than him.
Nice. Seems fairly dead-on now that I think about it.
But it’s nice to see this bit of character development in HAMMERHEAD too – last time he fought this alliance with all his might, and this time he’s just heading out. Peacefully. He knows his views and the new Warchief’s don’t mix, and it might indeed lead to a situation in which Penk’s forced to put him down. Surprisingly reasonable for him, really.
Yeah he gives me a strong vibe of “dude you’re not as smart as you think you are”
Especially here, where he seems to be missing the whole Tectonicus aspect of the duel, and misinterpreting both Penk’s reasoning *and Harky’s* — and doesn’t even act like he knows he’s ignoring anything important. Could also be that he does know and ignores what doesn’t suit his purposes? Doesn’t seem as much like him, though, acknowledging it in a belittling way would be more how I see him anyway.
It could also be that he just doesn’t care what a troll god thinks. I’ve never seen any reason to think the sharks care about Tectonicus. They aren’t converts like the dwarves.
I don’t know, I think you’re just expecting him to be stupid, and being surprised when he isn’t. He is showing a lot of reasoning that I am inclined to agree with, i.e. Penk just killed Hammerhead’s previous leader and just did a 180 on his idealism. I’m more surprised this isn’t happening with more of the warchiefs. *cough* the avians *cough*. Penk did some serious shit, and without all the knowledge of the peacekeepers that we, the readers have, it seems 100% reasonable.
Gondelessa is probably too heart broken to stage coup, and he understands that this was Hardy’s will anyways.
HAMMERHEAD attacked Penk’s allies – specifically, the main tank – when they were fighting a fearsome foe and nearly cost the entire group the battle. Then, later, he said that he’d known that they were all working together at the time.
The reasoning behind that action might not be pure stupidity, but stupidity is definitely involved there. That’s not to say HAMMERHEAD is stupid, just that he did a very stupid thing.
He definitely believes himself to be smarter than he is, which isn’t surprising considering the community he grew up in. Penk before his level boost even pointed this out when HAMMERHEAD insisted the land sharks weren’t capable of cooperation. I honestly thought HAMMERHEAD’s self-assured arrogance would continue, but it looks like he’s learned some humility. He still believes he’s right, but he’s realized he can’t convince Penk with brute force, so he’s opted to leave peacefully before their clash escalates further.
How often do you see a born and raised pvper with principles?
This philosophy of his goes well beyond ‘red is dead’. He’s seeing what Penk is doing as a contagious weakness that will make landsharks weak and complacent in the long run. This is Hammerhead taking care of his people.
He’s able to differentiate between food and allies, and what Penk is doing is going to confuse the average landshark who can’t. And thus his people must leave so that they don’t become slaves, like the orks of this setting.
> How often do you see a born and raised pvper with principles?
You must have never played EVE.
And yet, even though he is missing some huge subtle chunks of the reasoning here, he is also spot on. He knows what Penk promised. He knows he is not going to change his mind. So yes, in effect Penk forced him to leave or die. Penk of course I’m sure would disagree because he wants Hammerhead to recognize his reasoning. But Hammerhead is insightful enough of his own mind to know he will not change his mind.
Indeed. More then many the willfully ignorant are truly stubborn and set in their ways.
Yeah, I think Hammerhead does have a point.
That’s putting it pretty generously.
Hammerhead is the IC equivalent of JJ Berten. He’s a killer who dresses up his killing with flowery (relatively) words and pseudointellectual philosophy. At the end of the day, he’s not a warrior poet like he wants people to believe, he’s just a monster with an ego.
Huh, the parallels are striking now that you say it.
Hammerhead strikes me as an intelligent guy that isn’t used to having to think intelligently. Full of keen intuition but constantly slams into logical contradictions by way of bullheaded thinking
this might imply that Harky dueled HAMMERHEAD to make landshark join the alliance.
Come on, Penk
Nope, Harky didn’t know HAMMERHEAD. Re-read that yesterday for old times’ sake, and was left wondering why the Landsharks joined. Maybe Harky had to duel/kill the previous Strongest and Loudest.
Not sure how it is ironic? Hammerhead has a strange wisdom that runs perpendicular to the classic “hero wisdom” but it is something that Penk needed to hear, lest that he becomes so “righteous” as to justify any means.
Except that that is exactly what Hammerhead is advocating doing.
He’s claiming that Penk is weak, because he didn’t just charge on, unchanging, committing multiple genocides, just because he learned that that was, at best, going to be a Pyrrhic victory.
Except for one thing… ‘Justification’ is completely alien to Hammerhead – ‘move forward, kill’ is the only option. To be turned away – by morals or self preservation – is weakness. There’s no need to justify the only possibility.
I’m not seeing that at all. If Hammerhead truly believed that Penk’s worldview made him “weak”, he’d have killed him on the spot, both because he’d have wanted to and because he could and so his shark instincts would have encouraged him. But by Hammerhead’s own admission, Penk defeated someone he considered strong and wise, establishing a new wisdom AND the muscle and willingness to enforce it. Hammerhhead was forced to acknowledge and respect that strength and understood that his own unwillingness to adopt that new wisdom put him at risk of death by Penk’s threatening vow.
What he’s saying is that he prefers to one day die as a direct result of his “ways” than to be killed because those ways are incompatible with the new chieftain’s. He’s literally acknowledging that Penk could kill him! How is that an accusation of weakness?
I think Hammerhead realises that his people wouldn’t stand a chance if Penk’s trust in the Alliance turns out be some kind of Gastonian trap (which it may well be turned into).
Hammer probably has a very keen idea of a kill or be eaten world that he lives in, and he probably views Penk’s idealogy as not only weak in comparison to Harky’s vision of completely overthrowing Gastonia, but akin to swimming into the whale’s mouth chasing the minnow.
Ever wonder why all the other sharks are :), but HAMMERHEAD is always :(
I’ve heard it said that ignorance is bliss.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, especially if it’s also a big dang hammer. Or something.
Well, I for one can’t help but think of him as a moody teen.
To be fair, the other hammerhead sharks in the first panel don’t have cheery expressions as well. Their expressions might be too subtle for our human eyes due to the different face shape.
And also, despite this being a fantasy world full of antropomorphized animals, we can’t always assume that their facial expressions mirror that of humans. A land shark “smile” is definitely terrifying.
May be some truth to that. I read an article that talked about smiling to indicate happiness is not common in the animal kingdom. More often then not, it’s either a threatening or a submissive gesture.
“You have given us no choice.”
Bah, how predictable. Blaming it all on Penk is easier than taking responsibility for himself. Makes me think of that line by Lady Morela from the TV show Babylon 5. “There is always choice. We say we have no choice just to comfort ourselves with a choice we’ve already made.”
You all have a choice.
Remember that.
Nice callback!
That was such a good series. Main plot line for the whole series written in advance, and then, when it was done, they ended it. Wish they did that more.
Yes, but the alternatives were either to rebel and try to kill Penk and become the new warchief or to sheepily stay and adopt Penk’s worldview. It is perfectly normal to say that there is no choice when the possible alternatives are undesirable. This move is a pacific and reasonable way to end a disagreement and the fact that it is not an outcome positive for our hero gang doesn’t make it any less legitimate.
It might be “normal” to say there is no choice (in the sense that people often say it in similar circumstances), but that doesn’t make it true. No matter how reasonable the actual decision may seem, Hammerhead is still denying that he is making a decision. And yet, he is making one. Trying to pretend otherwise is grossly irresponsible.
What doesn’t need to be said is that most of the other choices are worse – with any direct conflict, either Penk or HAMMERHEAD dies, and with some of the worse options so do many of the Rebellion’s forces.
The only other choice that doesn’t result in loss of life is if HAMMERHEAD surrenders to Penk’s philosophy, and he points out here that not only will he not do that, Penk KNOWS he won’t do that.
That’s like saying “but you ARE making a decision!” to someone who says that line in response to being robbed at gunpoint. It’s assumed by default that the victim there wants to live, and with good reason.
Yes, there’s always a choice, but when every other option is so terrible as to not even be worth considering… c’mon.
And no, it’s not reasonable to expect HAMMERHEAD to change. He truly believes that an alliance with the humans would be more dangerous than open war, and just because he’s seen a couple that Penk considers allies doesn’t change that. Maybe he, like Harky, has a very poisonous history with them. But here and now, Penk lacks the means to change his viewpoint, and so long as he can’t, HAMMERHEAD considers such an alliance to be just as good as laying his own head on the chopping block.
Hammerhead doesn’t even pretend to believe that the humans are dangerous. He never mentions the humans in his attempt at a ‘reason you suck’ speech. It’s all about Penk, and his ‘weakness’.
What he hates in Penk is explicitly the ability to change tack.
Breaking Bread, page 6.
“”ENEMY” one day, “FRIEND” the next?” … Do you truly think that they will not come back to kill us? They will. And they will be the enemy. And the enemy is our prey. And prey WILL ALWAYS be prey. No matter WHICH direction it runs.”
He’s not as straight-up human-hating as Harky, which is why I only said “maybe” he has a similar history, but at the very least he strongly believes that one does not simply ally with their former enemy. Presumably, the land sharks were never at odds with the Rebellion.
Yeah, no. Trying to find a middle ground, even between people who hate each other, is something politicians have been doing since before history even existed. Penk and Syr’Ng are still working at it, presumably, because it looked as though they hadn’t fully fleshed out any agreements before the Champions left the Snow Elf village. There’s no reason Hammerhead couldn’t try the same thing, except for his own intransigence.
So he believes something that is demonstrably untrue, and therefore it’s unreasonable to expect him to change? Even Gumby would have a difficult time making that stretch.
Let’s be real about this. The issue here is that Hammerhead is being a stubborn jackass who simply will not consider any other way, period. Much like Iver, and for that matter Harky. All of this “no choice” nonsense is just the selfish whining of a war monger being asked to consider diplomacy for a change.
Hammerhead is a member of a species which would be a hivemind if they weren’t comically stupid, violent, and endlessly hungry. He is a zombie that learned to talk and reason to some extent. When Harky first negotiates with him, he is shocked that there exists a Land Shark able to CLEARLY STRING WORDS TOGETHER.
… And you’re expecting him to turn around and not just intelligently discuss, but also CHANGE his worldview and what he sees as his nature? Dude, get some perspective. Land Sharks, no matter how eloquent Hammerhead may seem, are extremely different from every other species we have seen. He has made it extremely clear from day one that he, and his people, are animals. Trolls, Dwarves, Avians; these are not ‘prey’ to him. Like an actual shark, he’s willing to attack and eat things which are not prey when they tick him off, but he will not instinctively hunt them. But there is not, nor would there ever be, a situation wherein a human is NOT his prey. Their intelligence and the practicality of an alliance, let alone its morality, are completely and totally irrelevant to him. A shark won’t stop hunting its prey when that prey is getting scarce, or when a bigger predator looms, even if it’s prey has some very insightful ideas on how to deal with that bigger predator.
And none of what I just said, none of the stubbornness, unwillingness to change, or flat out brutality are Hammerhead’s FAULT. Those are traits of his species which Penk and Harky both knew from the beginning. You all are reading this series of events completely wrong. Hammerhead is not some obtuse idiot and he doesn’t exist so that we can pat ourselves on the back and comfort Penk for making the hard decisions here.
Hammerhead is the driving home shot for Penk that maybe he is WRONG. Hammerhead is, himself, definitive proof that there are some species that will not change in their ways, and those ways will be hostile to you. Land Sharks will not, by any means, EVER change their ways. This is non-negotiable fact which is not even up to them as a decision. Maybe backstabbing and conniving are in the Human nature as much as this is in Hammerhead’s? Sure, we know that those aren’t constant Human traits. Penk does not. Harky clearly did not.
tl;dr, Arkerra is not Earth and Land Sharks are not Humans, Trolls, Savasi, Avians, Gnolls, Gnomes, or any variety of Elf. Just as Harky believed betrayal to be Human nature, Hammerhead KNOWS hunting Humans is in HIS nature. Stop expecting a hawk to break bread with a field mouse.
Rather a late response, but –
I DID mention the option of HAMMERHEAD submitting to Penk’s philosophy, but he is completely unwilling to do so. Also, “demonstrably untrue”? The ENTIRE known recent history between humans and the races of the Rebellion is the literal opposite of that. They betrayed Harky and Gondolessa; they betrayed Syr’nj; they even betrayed their own peacemakers. Even Penk HIMSELF had to be talked out of COMMITTING GENOCIDE; that was literally JUST two or three days ago.
The most proof there is of anything is that SOME humans are good and just; we already know the Rebellion has seen some doubt over their aggressive genocidal stance due to Syr passing judgement upon them as she died, only to return from death itself to wield the power of a goddess against them. But, again, for Penk himself to consider genocide an option… they clearly think of decent humans as an extremely rare exception to the rule, and there’s no proof otherwise.
Even now, Penk doesn’t necessarily think that humans are trustworthy; he’s just been convinced that there’s no need for a genocidal solution. There’s a major difference there, and you’re SEVERELY understating the extent of the distrust towards humans in the Rebellion.
Wonder if Hammerhead is the only leader to be leaving this fight. Gondalessa might respect the outcome of the battle or fly the coop with his tribe. Their champion Ranna isn’t all that into forgiving humans at this time. Don Goblingo may be willing to change course if it’s profitable and then there’s Madame Arfa.
Madame Arfa is likely to die quite soon. Auraugu won’t be the next leader, but his popularity does seem to make him influential among gnolls – and he was willing to sit with the Peacekeepers at the recent arena duels.
Even though his lover is dead, I don’t see Gondolessa being so quick to leave. His people still need the stability of a unified nation – it’s been shown that they were prey to the humans before (when Harky saved Gondolessa) and in the bonus comic “Thief” they weren’t exactly living the high life. There was disease spreading through the aerie.
Actually, now that I think about it, Rana owes his life to Isildro.
I’m honestly not sure about the Gnolls. They don’t seem to have any reason to leave, nor is there a reason that they joined in the first place – though I may have missed something. Arfa’s eventual passing may be beneficial to the Peacekeepers if the new leader is pro-alliance.
We know Gondolessa and Harky talked after the meeting and before the Arena. Plus he was there during the whole “we can’t split the tribe” bit. I’m pretty sure he knows Harky would want him to stay in, assuming Harky didn’t say exactly that: something along the lines of “If I fall today, don’t hold it against Penk, there was no other way.”
Arfa is all ready anti-genocide. She said as much when discussing the cat people.
I feel as though Arfa’s last few acts might be to support the alliance based on what Tradger said and the past comics. Arfa might come to the conclusion to side with the alliance. the only way to know for sure though is to look at the chapter title page again and see if knolls are on there.
Regarding Don Goblingo, remember what Goblaurence mentioned. The Don would absolutely love to open up business with the Sky Elves, he just doesn’t talk about it because the prospect of it seemed impossible. But with the fighting becoming Gastonia vs. Everyone Else, the prospect of that reality opens up.
Is this the first time we’ve seen non-HAMMERHEAD hammerheads?
It’s the first time I recall seeing any, at least.
Here’s
HAMMERHEAD is both wrong and not wrong.
He has VERY clear views on humans and the human allies . . . For some reason. I’m not really sure why. Penk has given him two choices; reevaluate and change your perspective or die. HAMMERHEAD, however, does not see changing his mind as even possible.
This is probably the fairest way for this to end, all things considered.
And even a bit friendly. The other logical conclusion here, of course, is that Hammerhead and the sharks should turn now. Kill Penk outright, be the loudest and strongest, or at least make prey of those that would make you prey.
But HAMMERHEAD, at the end of things, would rather not kill Penk. Leaving this way is as close to saying that as he’s ever going to do, mind.
That… or he doesn’t think he can take Penk in a fight – or, even if he can, that the Rebellion wouldn’t have him as a warchief and would put him down afterward.
That said, if this were an unfriendly exit, the land sharks wouldn’t have dropped off one final pile of meat. So this is at least being handled civilly. HAMMERHEAD has at least enough respect for Penk & the Rebellion not to just walk out while flipping the bird.
See now, I’m not sure that’d stop him. I don’t think HAMMERHEAD does “Caution” or “Fear.” Though that said, I think he has absolutely 0 interest in being Warchief. Remember when directly offered a seat on their council he dismissed the very idea of politics. What would it mean if he were warchief? Words words words words words. He’d be expected to speak words, expected to hear the words of others. If there is any fear in HAMMERHEAD of fighting Penk, it’d be of exactly that: Not that they wouldn’t have him as warcheif, but that they’d WANT him.
Penk isn’t walking back to the city as just a pair of legs, everything bitten off from the waist up, so yeah, I’d say this is pretty fuckin’ friendly.
“I– I only let you live because I don’t feel like killing today! I-it’s not like I like you or anything! Baka.”
A “hammerhead” is a term for someone who won’t change their mind. Penk isn’t even genre-savvy enough to have realized that.
“Being in charge fucking sucks.”
It sure does, Penk. It sure does.
Harky knew how to lead all Non-Humans.
Penk just learned that not all Non-Humans are more than what they are. Sometimes you are just XP.
Eh, Harky didn’t really lead Hammerhead any more than Penk is. Their goals were just aligned enough that Hammerhead was willing to be pointed at prey, just so long as nobody tried to do more than give a general direction.
Hammerhead: You are WEAK, because you fight with WORDS!
Hammerhead: Do you think Harky will be swayed by your WORDS? He respects STRENGTH!
Hammerhead: You killed Harky because he wasn’t swayed by your WORDS!
Penk, last panel: tfw
Pretty much. For a massive berserker shark he’s being really passive aggressive. He sounds scared.
Well, Hammerhead is nothing if not consistent.
I just realized that nearly every landshark in the school (or whatever a group of landsharks is called) of landsharks is not a hammer-head. Also, it seems that every non-hammerhead in this school is ether happy, mentally unstable, or both, and yet none of the hammer-heads are. Has it always been this way, have I been too interested in the rest of the characters, or is it just this scene?
Straight like an arrow, that shark guy. A trustworthy ally and a terrible enemy.
With terrible eating habits.
Interesting how much Penk looks like Harky in that last panel.