Annotated 18-3
I’m proud of Phil for laying E-Merl’s half-elf ancestry into the early notes and proud of me for using it to actually propel the plot. We needed something to bring Syr’Nj’s anger at her father to a fresh boil, for reasons that will shortly become apparent. Most of the others had no reason to interact with Naror’Nj at all, and having him abuse Byron in prison somehow would be beneath even him and too obvious.
It’s also interesting to me now how well E-Merl speaks of his lost or departed parents, whom I don’t think he’ll ever mention again, because one doesn’t think of happy families as producing kids with his level of inferiority complex. It is likely that they were ostracized for their love, though, suffering both socially and economically, and E-Merl’s issues began there before his teachers reinforced them.
Naror’Nj’s face in the last panel is ambiguous to me. The reactionary in him has long been at odds with the parent and dominating that struggle, but hearing your grown daughter call you trash is the kind of jolt that can make you question everything. Or double down. It’s not clear which way he’s about to go.
I fail to see how this approach is expected to win Naror’Ng. If it wasn’t for Harky’s scheme he might throw in his lot with the world’s rebellion for the sake of spite at this point.
Well, Syr’Nj is well past any sort of “strategic approach” here. Her issues with her father may have been coloring her strategy from the start, but his punching down at E-Merl was the last straw.
And if Naror’nj actually announced that he would ally with the people who killed his daughter rather than accept that humans weren’t walking virii…well, that would certainly clarify exactly how much of a relationship Syr’nj could ever have had with him that didn’t involve her unthinkingly parroting everything he said.
I don’t think Naror’Ng was ever informed of that. Syr’Ng wanted to keep that a secret because of the problems that might arise with their Gastonian superiors.
What is the pun on Naror’Nj and Faereksch ‘Nj’s names? I held off asking for a long while, but now I swallow my pride.
“Narrow Range” and “Fair Exchange.”
“E-Merl’s ish”
E-Merl’s what?
Issues.
@Bun:
I read it as:
– “Narrow range”
– “Fair exchange”
Yep.
Sry’Nj is has had enough. Naror’Nj avoiding her fury would require a narrow escape.
One interesting thing I’ve heard suggested in the past is that maybe half-elves are like mules. Functional, have some physical advantages, but 99.9% of them are sterile. So your child marrying cross-race effectively ends your family line.
It might explain a lot of the traditional animosity, and given some of the physiological differences Syr’Nj has hinted at, it seems like a quite reasonable outcome.
Did you guys ever plan out anything about what differences various half-breeds would have beyond ear shape and lifespan?
Not seriously. One of those things we figured we’d get to when and if the time came.
I’d like to believe that Naror’nj has, at least, managed to realize what Syr’nj’s feelings are – she doesn’t see the humans’ minds and hearts as fundamentally different, and realizes he overstepped, badly, by outright calling one of her allies an abomination to his face just because of his birth, which presumably he wouldn’t have done if he wasn’t so riled up already.
He can finally, for a brief moment, see something he just did in the same harsh light his daughter does. And now he can start mending bridges between the two of them.