I’ve seen this referred to as the ‘goblin standoff.’ A sharpshooter with only one arrow can hold of a large number of goblins because no goblin wants to be the one who gets arrowed.
Holy fuck, Taro is retarded. I mean first time we saw him, he was -kinda- smooth, but now he’s just straight up giving all of his own boys the Clinton Special and being glib about it.
At this rate, hope the authors don’t puss out and not actually kill the kid ’cause child.
I’m certain you meant to say developmentally disabled when you said retarded. My apologies, I just read yesterday’s comments. Somebody beat me to the collateral damage observation. Gosh, we must be getting closer to the ending to our tale. This story has been anything but predictable but it seems like before we close the curtains, we need a Carol/Shanna smackdown (After we find out who comes out on top in the Centurion/Ackerfeldt match) also Taro needs to take some licks. Then there are the loose ends such as
what appears to be yet another hungry incorruptible beast emerging from our favorite cult’s inter-dimensional portal. Perhaps a little closure on HR Dedalus, Ferris arm version and Mysterious tube avatar.
I had thought that HR Dedalus “Ferris arm version” was the physical form into which descended the consciousness of sepia-Dedalus. He’s been absorbed into the real deal. Or something like that.
I don’t like that explaination. The other tube avatars didnt need to have flesh offering sent into cyberspace by voodoo. But then again the other immersed players werent simultaneously living life as usual outside of the tubes as was HR. When I said a little closure, I was understating, the 5 need to be found out by the authorities and decanted, people need to be prosecuted at Hurricaine. Any way if the Voodoo Arm version and the Floating in his Undies version were to ever meet face to face it would upset the natural balance kinda like what happens in time travel science fiction.
Are you sure they didn’t? Who knows what HR did behind the scenes. Though it is also possible the offering was to ensure he kept his memories and not wind up the same as the five did, or something. That was my interpretation at least.
Not bad. No I am not sure they didn’t. And the natural balance sure has been turned upside down anyway. Your explaination makes Gorram Batguy’s idea complete. I really don’ t have an idea of what to make of this matter. Gonna be sorry to see this strip end.
Now I’m kind of wondering if this ends in an anti-climax.
The vehicle stops, sits idle for a few minutes then Franzington and Micholuszek climb out with bloodied hands in the air.
Honestly I don’t know if it’d be good writing or not, but grabbing a tool and shiving Taro while he has no bodyguards around would be a very very good idea right now.
Oh, there are good literary precedents.
In a similar situation in a story by Lois McMaster Bujold, a character felt the need to grab a spanner, muttering something about needing to adjust a seat’s attitude. Or maybe adjusting an attitude.
^ This.
Besides, it’d be fitting, even in a just way. There’s a certain amount of comeuppance when two assholes realize in horror how bad the guy they’ve been riding with truly is.
I’m thinking this will end anticlimacticly with the doomsday device imploding. And the real reason Iwatani never planned to use it was it would never actually work, but looked impressive.
Not challenging/disagreeing, but is there any evidence from previous updates that such was the case? I remember the bits about Taro claiming only he understood all his father’s plans, about Bandit’s Gnome Adventurer Team getting their hands on the plans, etc. However, Franzingtonand Micholuszek, despicable as they are, have proven themselves capable of a bunch of technological feats- meaning that even if the plan originally would not have worked they may have succeeded.
yeah… i am thinking that the tank has a reserve of energy big enough to shoot multiple times and haul that 50 metric tons of steel and brass…
if it goes off, that would make Chernobyl look small in comparison!
1. Somehow, this update makes me respect his father a little bit for that political and strategic wisdom. I admire people who understand and value restraint. Of course, that His Grace Iwatani was so despicable means the little respect he earned from me is trying to fill a massive pit of disdain.
2. For people who read Order of the Stick: So, Taro is Guilded Age’s version of Xykon? This update reminds me of Xykon’s “Power Speech”. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0657.html
I respectfully disagree. Although both Xykon and Taro say something along the lines of “Power is Power” in their respective monologues, they aren’t talking about the same thing at all.
Taro is talking about the purpose of power, Xykon doesn’t even touch on that, he is referring solely to the “source”. Xykon’s entire point was that there are no shortcuts to power, a point that Taro certainly has no patience for.
And that all forms of power are equally valid, even if common ‘wisdom’ disdains that power. Xykon is bastard of the nth degree, but he’s savvy. He showed that while V’s obsession with arcane power at any cost would be his downfall, that real, reliable power is boring, even ‘everyday.’
1. You know I was going to make that exact comment. I certainly didn’t like Iwatani, I thought he was evil and manipulative. But at least he had a work ethic. At least he thought long term and worked for the benefit of the country, even if it was only to bring himself more power.
Taro on the other hand just uses whatever he has on hand without regard for long term consequences. If he hadn’t inherited the fruits of his father’s schemes he never would have gotten anywhere close to this level of power. And really driving this tank is probably going to be the pinnacle of his life. Even if he survives I doubt he’s going to come out of this ruling whatever is left of Gastonia or even his house. Whereas if he had a little bit of patience and let his father live, Iwatani might actually have managed to maneuver through this and at least retain a decent position at the end.
2. As Sergei said Xykon was referring to how you got power not how it is used. Xekon at least earned all his power legitimately. And while certainly evil has long term plans that put Taro to shame.
Personally, I’m wondering if Bandit manages to break in. Or if the really smart goblin dude manages to find a weakness to exploit. But whoever takes down the Ultimate Engine, I doubt it’ll be Frigg – she’s busy with the Silver Centurion.
Although, it could be Frigg-by-proxy, if she somehow manages to get the Centurion to switch sides and take down the Engine.
Eh… I still like the story but I really wish you hadn’t made this kid the main villain on the Gastonian front. I mean he’s just so cartoonish in his evil and so DUMB in many of his decisions that I just don’t find him intimidating in the slightest.
In the same retrospect as a villain he’s getting on with it, instead of 50 minutes of dialogue.
Hopefully he doesn’t simply just explode in his tin box. That would be sooo cliche.
I’m thinking: since a few chapters ago, the story has been moving faster to wrap everything up in 50 chapters total. And it feels like Taro usurping power is part of that. His dad would’ve been a much bigger challenge for the rebels.
Taro, for all his bragging, isn’t half as smart, and he’s not planning ahead. He lives for the temporary rush of power abuse, and he thinks any problem can be solved with more power abuse. At this rate, the citizens are going to roll out the red carpet when the “enemies” are at the gate.
Yep. Taro being the ruler of Gastonia means that they roll up the gameworld conflict and turn to the real threat, which the Peacekeepers have already realized and the Champions are 9/10 of the way convinced of.
I am really hoping for a huge single panel, where this little SH*T and his war machine ( and it’s inventors. ) go. KABOOM! In huge die-hard movie type glory, and we see him have all his power-mad karma come back and bite him in his nasty evil little a$$!
And this is why it’s dangerous to let your government get too powerful. Eventually a Taro comes along, and then it doesn’t matter how full of sunshine and rainbows and happiness the previous leaders were.
I don’t know . . .. Taro is bad, but he’s just the result of the equation that Gastonia had been building on the backs of its people and victims for generations.
A proud Gastonian would be taken aback and shocked, I’m sure, ‘how did this happen? Where did this come from?’ . . . But a rebel would just see the nastiness that was always below the surface behind polite smiles and poisonous policy.
How exactly does one attempt to stop their government from getting too powerful? Protest? A coup? Stop paying taxes? Vote for those who seem against power increases and hope they aren’t lying or prone to flip flops?
Here’s an idea – give the government as little RESPONSIBILITY as possible. It’s the inverse of the Uncle Ben rule: the more responsibilities you demand your gov handle (like healthcare, education etc etc) the more power and privilege it will logically demand in return to fulfill your wish.
You may love getting what you asked for, not so much the other 1000 things your government does behind the curtains with all the privileges the public granted to them to fulfill all those responsibilities…
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” – George Orwell, 1984
Where we realise that as much as Iwatani was rotten to the core, he was a talented politician who at least had a significant group of people’s best interests at heart, if only because he knew that would keep him in power. Beware of mavericks who tell you that such establishment political swamp needs to be “drained” and who offer themselves, inexperienced, self-serving, power-hungry narcissists as the alternative.
True and well said but really, in the end, Dad’s biggest mistake was raising an heir without any sense of love or empathy whatsoever. Taro was raised with only 2 tools: logic and incentive.
Taro is a monster, but he did not choose to be one and could have been a semi-normal child. He is the end result of the machinations of an evil father who foolishly thought he could somehow gain the trust of a very young mentally unhinged victim of repeated emotional abuse. No one can gain Taro’s trust, the boy has literally been raised to trust no one.
Taro is, in fact, insane but functional. To this mentally and emotionally crippled boy with an adult’s grasp of science, life has only been presented as one thing: a never ending Hobbesian war of ‘all against all’ where absolute power and intimidation through it is one’s only form of comfort and security.
Taro is the embodiment of his father while he was in his most cruel and cold mindsets, the kid is probably physiologically incapable of empathizing with others at this point. Simply put – molding a child into a heartless insane monster is a sickeningly easy task for the people who raise them. Hell if you’re just enough of an asshole you can even do it by mistake.
Finally, there’s even a modern day parallel to Taro: 9 to 12 year old fighters for ISIS, who prove every bit as cruel and deadly as the men who ‘teach’ them.
Let me clarify your answer Taro, since it’s quite unhelpful to say “the purpose of X is X itself” unless X is a commonly accepted good or desire like peace, prosperity, profit etc.
The purpose of gathering power is the same for you as it is for most animals that accumulate resources and/or status. Why do alligators hoard carcasses at the bottom of lakes and rivers? Why do spiders wrap up prey and save them for later in their webs? Why do most mammals readily risk life and limb in disputes over territory or alpha status (sometimes even in group vs group warfare, chimpanzees being a prominent example)?
Simple: Safety. Safety from outside attack, from starvation, from disease and all the other ways the grim reaper knocks. As a general crude rule, amassing ‘power’ in all of its forms helps one to live longer and/or support more offspring than others. Power itself, as a general social concept, could be broadly defined as anything that confers a Darwinian advantage.
Well that’s… why you should never have child leaders. Why don’t they just strangle him?
About two strips back, he had a pistol. Even if it only has one shot, no one wants to be the first one to attack him.
I’ve seen this referred to as the ‘goblin standoff.’ A sharpshooter with only one arrow can hold of a large number of goblins because no goblin wants to be the one who gets arrowed.
That’s racist.
Goblinist
That would mean the opposite, surely? Surely Goblinism would be a viewpoint that’s racist in favour of Goblins? : P
Well he did go BRRRRAAAAAAA MRRRRRRRR with the engine. I’m seriously… he gave everyone plenty of time to GTFO.
Tell that to America.
Although calling Trump a “child” would be insulting children.
That’s what we call in Sepia world “collateral damage.”
It was gnome more costly than it is to Taro. It’ll just later become a cogglestone street with a Little Caesar’s on the corner.
If that was in poor taste to the story, I blame the Crazy Bread.
…I’ll leave you guys the provolone.
I guess MAD wouldn’t work with this kid.
MAD-ness is working for him so far, tho
Holy fuck, Taro is retarded. I mean first time we saw him, he was -kinda- smooth, but now he’s just straight up giving all of his own boys the Clinton Special and being glib about it.
At this rate, hope the authors don’t puss out and not actually kill the kid ’cause child.
I’m certain you meant to say developmentally disabled when you said retarded. My apologies, I just read yesterday’s comments. Somebody beat me to the collateral damage observation. Gosh, we must be getting closer to the ending to our tale. This story has been anything but predictable but it seems like before we close the curtains, we need a Carol/Shanna smackdown (After we find out who comes out on top in the Centurion/Ackerfeldt match) also Taro needs to take some licks. Then there are the loose ends such as
what appears to be yet another hungry incorruptible beast emerging from our favorite cult’s inter-dimensional portal. Perhaps a little closure on HR Dedalus, Ferris arm version and Mysterious tube avatar.
Only a little more plots left.
I had thought that HR Dedalus “Ferris arm version” was the physical form into which descended the consciousness of sepia-Dedalus. He’s been absorbed into the real deal. Or something like that.
I don’t like that explaination. The other tube avatars didnt need to have flesh offering sent into cyberspace by voodoo. But then again the other immersed players werent simultaneously living life as usual outside of the tubes as was HR. When I said a little closure, I was understating, the 5 need to be found out by the authorities and decanted, people need to be prosecuted at Hurricaine. Any way if the Voodoo Arm version and the Floating in his Undies version were to ever meet face to face it would upset the natural balance kinda like what happens in time travel science fiction.
Are you sure they didn’t? Who knows what HR did behind the scenes. Though it is also possible the offering was to ensure he kept his memories and not wind up the same as the five did, or something. That was my interpretation at least.
Not bad. No I am not sure they didn’t. And the natural balance sure has been turned upside down anyway. Your explaination makes Gorram Batguy’s idea complete. I really don’ t have an idea of what to make of this matter. Gonna be sorry to see this strip end.
He’s like a mini-Trump ;-)
Now I’m kind of wondering if this ends in an anti-climax.
The vehicle stops, sits idle for a few minutes then Franzington and Micholuszek climb out with bloodied hands in the air.
Honestly I don’t know if it’d be good writing or not, but grabbing a tool and shiving Taro while he has no bodyguards around would be a very very good idea right now.
But will we see… a Taro decked?
They’d have a good excuse.
It could be in the cards.
He does have vast tracts of land…
Oh, there are good literary precedents.
In a similar situation in a story by Lois McMaster Bujold, a character felt the need to grab a spanner, muttering something about needing to adjust a seat’s attitude. Or maybe adjusting an attitude.
So you do agree this might still be in the cards?
He has a gun and I’m p sure they’re old and gutless.
^ This.
Besides, it’d be fitting, even in a just way. There’s a certain amount of comeuppance when two assholes realize in horror how bad the guy they’ve been riding with truly is.
True, but it might happen AFTER Taro shoots one for Reasons (I’m betting it’s a single shot pistol).
I’m thinking this will end anticlimacticly with the doomsday device imploding. And the real reason Iwatani never planned to use it was it would never actually work, but looked impressive.
Not challenging/disagreeing, but is there any evidence from previous updates that such was the case? I remember the bits about Taro claiming only he understood all his father’s plans, about Bandit’s Gnome Adventurer Team getting their hands on the plans, etc. However, Franzingtonand Micholuszek, despicable as they are, have proven themselves capable of a bunch of technological feats- meaning that even if the plan originally would not have worked they may have succeeded.
The engineers are horribly afraid of the thing. Apparently, during its prior tests, it nearly exploded over and over. That tech is unreliable.
yeah… i am thinking that the tank has a reserve of energy big enough to shoot multiple times and haul that 50 metric tons of steel and brass…
if it goes off, that would make Chernobyl look small in comparison!
If it blows, it will be because one of the engineers hits the auto-destruct. Right now it seems like they’re regretting not installing one.
1. Somehow, this update makes me respect his father a little bit for that political and strategic wisdom. I admire people who understand and value restraint. Of course, that His Grace Iwatani was so despicable means the little respect he earned from me is trying to fill a massive pit of disdain.
2. For people who read Order of the Stick: So, Taro is Guilded Age’s version of Xykon? This update reminds me of Xykon’s “Power Speech”. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0657.html
That was the first thing I thought of.
1. Very similar to my thoughts, you beat me to it.
I respectfully disagree. Although both Xykon and Taro say something along the lines of “Power is Power” in their respective monologues, they aren’t talking about the same thing at all.
Taro is talking about the purpose of power, Xykon doesn’t even touch on that, he is referring solely to the “source”. Xykon’s entire point was that there are no shortcuts to power, a point that Taro certainly has no patience for.
And that all forms of power are equally valid, even if common ‘wisdom’ disdains that power. Xykon is bastard of the nth degree, but he’s savvy. He showed that while V’s obsession with arcane power at any cost would be his downfall, that real, reliable power is boring, even ‘everyday.’
Also remind me of Cersei’s speech to Littlefinger early in the Game of Throne’s series.
1. You know I was going to make that exact comment. I certainly didn’t like Iwatani, I thought he was evil and manipulative. But at least he had a work ethic. At least he thought long term and worked for the benefit of the country, even if it was only to bring himself more power.
Taro on the other hand just uses whatever he has on hand without regard for long term consequences. If he hadn’t inherited the fruits of his father’s schemes he never would have gotten anywhere close to this level of power. And really driving this tank is probably going to be the pinnacle of his life. Even if he survives I doubt he’s going to come out of this ruling whatever is left of Gastonia or even his house. Whereas if he had a little bit of patience and let his father live, Iwatani might actually have managed to maneuver through this and at least retain a decent position at the end.
2. As Sergei said Xykon was referring to how you got power not how it is used. Xekon at least earned all his power legitimately. And while certainly evil has long term plans that put Taro to shame.
he’s going to drive up to the battlefield and get one-shotted by Frig or something
Personally, I’m wondering if Bandit manages to break in. Or if the really smart goblin dude manages to find a weakness to exploit. But whoever takes down the Ultimate Engine, I doubt it’ll be Frigg – she’s busy with the Silver Centurion.
Although, it could be Frigg-by-proxy, if she somehow manages to get the Centurion to switch sides and take down the Engine.
He learned only the worst parts. That and good posture, God how can he keep that crown perfectly horizontal all times?
Eh… I still like the story but I really wish you hadn’t made this kid the main villain on the Gastonian front. I mean he’s just so cartoonish in his evil and so DUMB in many of his decisions that I just don’t find him intimidating in the slightest.
In the same retrospect as a villain he’s getting on with it, instead of 50 minutes of dialogue.
Hopefully he doesn’t simply just explode in his tin box. That would be sooo cliche.
I’m thinking: since a few chapters ago, the story has been moving faster to wrap everything up in 50 chapters total. And it feels like Taro usurping power is part of that. His dad would’ve been a much bigger challenge for the rebels.
Taro, for all his bragging, isn’t half as smart, and he’s not planning ahead. He lives for the temporary rush of power abuse, and he thinks any problem can be solved with more power abuse. At this rate, the citizens are going to roll out the red carpet when the “enemies” are at the gate.
It’s not unrealistic. Look at Donald Trump.
Besides, Taro isn’t the Big Bad. He’s the Little Bad BEFORE the Big Bad.
The Big Bad is whatever HR is embodied within, these days.
Yep. Taro being the ruler of Gastonia means that they roll up the gameworld conflict and turn to the real threat, which the Peacekeepers have already realized and the Champions are 9/10 of the way convinced of.
Perhaps they will stuff Taro in that Rail Cannon?
The difference between men and boys
Is the size of their toys.
Look at him all grown up. Brings a tear to your eye doesn’t it?
O’Brien speaks.
I am really hoping for a huge single panel, where this little SH*T and his war machine ( and it’s inventors. ) go. KABOOM! In huge die-hard movie type glory, and we see him have all his power-mad karma come back and bite him in his nasty evil little a$$!
And this is why it’s dangerous to let your government get too powerful. Eventually a Taro comes along, and then it doesn’t matter how full of sunshine and rainbows and happiness the previous leaders were.
Hear hear!
Nobody ever foresees that a guy like this is ever in the cards, but Taro proves them wrong.
I don’t know . . .. Taro is bad, but he’s just the result of the equation that Gastonia had been building on the backs of its people and victims for generations.
A proud Gastonian would be taken aback and shocked, I’m sure, ‘how did this happen? Where did this come from?’ . . . But a rebel would just see the nastiness that was always below the surface behind polite smiles and poisonous policy.
How exactly does one attempt to stop their government from getting too powerful? Protest? A coup? Stop paying taxes? Vote for those who seem against power increases and hope they aren’t lying or prone to flip flops?
Here’s an idea – give the government as little RESPONSIBILITY as possible. It’s the inverse of the Uncle Ben rule: the more responsibilities you demand your gov handle (like healthcare, education etc etc) the more power and privilege it will logically demand in return to fulfill your wish.
You may love getting what you asked for, not so much the other 1000 things your government does behind the curtains with all the privileges the public granted to them to fulfill all those responsibilities…
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” – George Orwell, 1984
Addendum:
that was certainly prescient George Orwell said that in 1949
When writing insightful descriptions of fundamental aspects of human nature, the results are timeless.
Old man Iwatani made the mistake of thinking the loyalty between him and his son was mutual.
Taro… is making all the other mistakes.
Where we realise that as much as Iwatani was rotten to the core, he was a talented politician who at least had a significant group of people’s best interests at heart, if only because he knew that would keep him in power. Beware of mavericks who tell you that such establishment political swamp needs to be “drained” and who offer themselves, inexperienced, self-serving, power-hungry narcissists as the alternative.
True and well said but really, in the end, Dad’s biggest mistake was raising an heir without any sense of love or empathy whatsoever. Taro was raised with only 2 tools: logic and incentive.
Taro is a monster, but he did not choose to be one and could have been a semi-normal child. He is the end result of the machinations of an evil father who foolishly thought he could somehow gain the trust of a very young mentally unhinged victim of repeated emotional abuse. No one can gain Taro’s trust, the boy has literally been raised to trust no one.
Taro is, in fact, insane but functional. To this mentally and emotionally crippled boy with an adult’s grasp of science, life has only been presented as one thing: a never ending Hobbesian war of ‘all against all’ where absolute power and intimidation through it is one’s only form of comfort and security.
Taro is the embodiment of his father while he was in his most cruel and cold mindsets, the kid is probably physiologically incapable of empathizing with others at this point. Simply put – molding a child into a heartless insane monster is a sickeningly easy task for the people who raise them. Hell if you’re just enough of an asshole you can even do it by mistake.
Finally, there’s even a modern day parallel to Taro: 9 to 12 year old fighters for ISIS, who prove every bit as cruel and deadly as the men who ‘teach’ them.
Your argument is better than mine, kudos.
He’s really pushing their buttons.
Getting a real strong Cersei vibe from this kid now.
Let me clarify your answer Taro, since it’s quite unhelpful to say “the purpose of X is X itself” unless X is a commonly accepted good or desire like peace, prosperity, profit etc.
The purpose of gathering power is the same for you as it is for most animals that accumulate resources and/or status. Why do alligators hoard carcasses at the bottom of lakes and rivers? Why do spiders wrap up prey and save them for later in their webs? Why do most mammals readily risk life and limb in disputes over territory or alpha status (sometimes even in group vs group warfare, chimpanzees being a prominent example)?
Simple: Safety. Safety from outside attack, from starvation, from disease and all the other ways the grim reaper knocks. As a general crude rule, amassing ‘power’ in all of its forms helps one to live longer and/or support more offspring than others. Power itself, as a general social concept, could be broadly defined as anything that confers a Darwinian advantage.
Oh definitely. You should always take life lessons from a privileged little fucker who’s had less than 16 years of experience at it to your 50.
Hah. At sixteen, you think you know everything.
At fifty, you have learned that you know very little.
Life sucks, especially for the elderly :-)