Annotated 18-27
I’ve revised the alt texts every now and again on impulse in this annotated run, just as I’ve shifted the character tags a little bit (it seemed appropriate to tag Graiya in the pages leading up to this one, even if we didn’t see her directly).
However, I’m leaving this one almost untouched as a record of our earlier intentions, even though “End Book II” now strikes me as in no way accurate. This would be the last page of Guilded Age Volume 3 (which would be the last volume we’d put into print) and it’s not the end or even the middle of the series’ “Act II.” I’d put that midpoint at the end of Chapter 24, for reasons I’ll go into when we get there, but let’s just say that this arc had a lot more to do with Syr’Nj and arguably Byron than it did with the series as a whole. Bandit, Gravedust, E-Merl, Frigg, and Rachel all got some cool moments, but their lives aren’t really that different in Chapter 19 than they were in Chapter 17. Scipio and Fr’Nj’s story is just getting started. Winning a nation to Gastonia’s side is significant, true, but not as significant as earlier and later developments will prove to be.
Silent page is silent, a big improvement over my draft, which had Faereksch’Nj chattering way too much for us to feel Syr’Nj’s horror, loss, and grief.
NEXT: Guest strips! Guest characters! Aaaand THEN-NEW MERCH!
This time around I’m really appreciating how Syr’ng feels this as her own Berserker moment, and in addition to all the other emotions swimming around inside her, this further deepens her bond with Byron. Excellently expressed. (*If* I’d remembered the “you have a choice” callback on my own, I might have appreciated this the first time around too.)
Excellent conclusion to a great arc. The whole running through the chaos to save the day, turning into apocalyptic grief, well that right there is my jam.
Side note: Is there ever a good time to be possessed by a God? It always seems to go badly. Which raises the question of, why does Graya’s bough exist?
I guess maybe she isn’t always this angry/her avatar isn’t usually in the depths of destructive grief over the loss of their father, so maybe normally wielding it goes a bit more smoothly.
Great work here, both in the writing and the art, sorry to hear it was so difficult.
My impression is that it’s mostly just sitting in the middle of the city, doing ambient nature magic that lets the wood elves have an advanced urban society while still avoiding any of that nasty industry or agriculture.
You don’t want to wield the damn thing.
Well, unless you’re a charismatic fuzzy wrestler!
Well sure, that’s what it’s doing. But why does it exist at all? This is one of those situations where the fact that this world is both a designed one, and an emergent one raises questions. If this world were purely designed (which it is because it’s fiction, but within the fiction it may not be, you know what I mean) then the Bough is there because the writer/designer wanted it there, so the wood elves would have something worth taking, and also to explain their life style (also for that phat loot for epic raids). But if it’s an emergent world, where things happen because of the flow of action and reaction over time, then there must be some reason that the Bough is powering the wood elf civilization, and is also in the form of a convenient to wield staff.
The simple fact that Fr’n realizes her sister is actually using the staff, means there must be some kind of precedence for it. Also it’s a staff, an item meant to be wielded right? It provides direct connection to a Goddess’s power, that seems like something that would come up at some point in history. My point is either in the world Graya just put it there but was like “Don’t touch this.” and yet made into an item that could be carried around with ease (as averse to a big orb, or a crystal, or a giant flower or something), which makes little sense. Or she put it there for emergencies, and the Wood Elves were so caught up in the benefits they became negligent of actually checking in with the Goddess every once in a while, which seems like it’s most likely purpose, though making everything super green is nice benefit. Or HR just stuck it there and didn’t think about it too much.
If it’s either of the first two options, then there must have been some inciting incident to cause Graya to make the staff and give it to the wood elves. I just wonder what that is.
According to the exposition in http://guildedage.net/comic/annotated-17-20/, Graiya was not always a goddess. She created the Bough from her… bough, originally for her mortal self to wield, in some sort of Tolkien-esque process in which shunting part of your spirit (or body, apparently) into an artifact amplifies its power. She likely never considered that it might one day become a McGuffin.
Later, we learned that this practice became an initiation rite for wood elven archdruids.
It’s also a thing in Sepiaworld, where HR uses a limb (though not his own) to project his power into Arkerra.
Are you guys ever going to print the last of the story? As someone who was giving the print versions as gifts, not being able to complete the set kind of rankles.
That’s gonna be a “no,” I’m afraid: the economics never really justified it. We contemplated a POD deal, but anything that would come close to a reasonable retail price wouldn’t look as good as the volumes we put out. And both Phil and I have too much creative focus elsewhere, these days.