Annotated 36-17
It’s not just the bit players who are starting to reach the end of their adventurous glory days in Guilded Age: this will be the last chapter that Scipio’s a really active participant in the action. He’s seen here and there in the finale and has some sharp character beats in the next chapter, but this little profile of his thought process does feel like the first of several parting gestures we’d make to him.
The low stakes of this particular moment make it more about his character than the plot: he takes the time to save one person and also sets himself up to save as many as possible. He still rarely speaks without purpose: even the last panel, where he reveals his strategy, could be seen as discouraging any ill-advised escape attempts.
This robe-wearing guy has an interesting story we never really touch on. Why is he one of very few in Lumberton who is not a Cultist, and yet also a robe-wearer? My best guess is that the townspeople have been wearing robes “because they’re comfortable” for a long time before this, and not being a Cultist means he didn’t get the memo to put them away when the adventurers showed up.
I think there was a comment on the original page or something? Or I just decided that this guy thought that there was a lot of cult activity here and that a robe might help him sneak away? But that was my assumption.
I dunno if it’s been asked before, but are cultists a PvE challenge or are they an organically formed player faction in the same way you had those dropkicks constantly reinfecting WoW with the plague that resulted in the server reset being its only cure?
This sort of question is the sort I’d normally delegate to Flo, but from what you say, the second explanation sounds right, except blah blah blah Arkerra real blah blah blah.
I still feel that Scipio still had some character development ahead of himself. Like, maybe talking openly to Fr’Nj or something. On the other hand: You can’t let *every* character achieve the best version of themselves by the end of the story. That’d be kinda boring, and we can probably assume that he will eventually manage to open up after leaving the adventurer life and spending a few years in an environment much more suited to this sort of thing, accompanied by someone much more appreciative of it.
Also: »It’s not just the bit players« Did you mean “big players”?
No, I meant “bit.” This chapter will be an ending of sorts for Bandit and Byron but a much endier ending for most of the extras who fleshed out the Adventurers’ Guild. To put it gently, they, unlike B&B, will not be headlining any action scenes after this.
okay … then I’m thoroughly confused. Who or what do you mean by “bit players”?
Maybe it’s just my English, but I keep failing to work out what the sentence is trying to say. Depending on how I squint, I’m not even sure it’s a complete sentence :(
Maybe I should go to bed now.
A bit player is a small role. Rabbit and Lectrus, for example.
Yep.
If I was being really strict in my definitions, I’d call Lectrus and Rabbit tertiary characters and reserve the “bit player” designation for the characters who only show up for a page or two, like the mouthy non-cultist on this page and the guy Astoria just punched out. But in a series this size with this many characters, I sorta feel sorry for the Guild members who didn’t get to do more.
Ohhh, thanks. Everything makes sense now. I don’t think I’d come across that expression before… thanks a lot for the language lesson, I’m sure it will stick :)