Annotated 33-4
Despite his tough talk here, again, if Sundar really wanted a fight, he’d already be swinging in panel 1. I’d say he’s approaching this about as intelligently as we could expect from him: he doesn’t know if this guy cleaning up monster poop is taking the beast for walkies or what.
Nor did the readers! At this point (and with the lack of Besty mannerisms from WAV), speculation had moved on: “Is this HR‘s alt? Beta tester? Game moderator?” A couple guessed Cyberia, but none had yet guessed Cyberia and Best together. My favorite theory was that those reflections on his helmet were anime-style tears and he was usually crying.
I appreciate Flo’s insight that Rendar, a reasonably social autism-spectrum inventor, is probably as close to Cyberian as an Arkerran gets. It means we get a flash of perspective from Sundar, surprising yet believable.
And now Sundar has to do the re-Captcha.
I was one of the ones who guessed HR. Completely forgot that was my working hunch until you brought it up, wasn’t sure at the time what role he’d take. Clearly genius-gone-too-far of some sort but antagonist, false ally, et cetera?
Were there any really early hints that this was going to reveal to be Payet? I have to admit I was surprised by the revelation.
I really didn’t think of it until he whipped out the keytar. Then I was like… ah… yeah that’s him.
Definitely the best form of Payet, too.