According to Guilded Age‘s established rhythm, the big action set-piece climax took place in a chapter divisible by six (30), and now here we are beginning our next climb. HR will make a significant change before this next block o’ six chapters is done, so Flo felt, and I readily agreed, that this would be a good time to lay bare his history. Mystery and intrigue are all very well, but you need to know the right things about the bad guy for their defeat (or even their victory) to be believable and emotionally satisfying.

What that has to do with this scene of life in Ancient Greece, well, if the textbook on the cover didn’t clue you in, we’ll find our way there.

I’d like to give a huge shout-out to Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey’s Action Philosophers, which stirs together solid research and genuinely funny cartooning to give you a new perspective on the philosophical greats. Their portrayal of, you guessed it, Plato as a luchador served to remind me he was indeed a champion wrestler, and there’s no way he wouldn’t use that fact to reinforce his teachings. Nice to be able to start this section with action, especially since after this, things are going to get pretty talky for a while.