Annotated 36-3
Shutting the eyes in panel 4 was John’s call: the script had them continuing to stare widely. A good call, I think… it’s more dynamic, and a better way to transition to the shattered-glass rendition of the War that Felled Battleshire.
“War” isn’t quite the right word, there, but “slaughter” implies something purely external and “zombie plague” doesn’t convey that the infected killed each other off when there was no one else to kill. “The Fall of Battleshire” is about as specific as you can get and still be short and accurate.
Byron’s catatonia is a deliberate callback (or callforward?) to that other time one of his berserk episodes killed his friends.
You all managed to make the berserker curse really harrowing.
The Battle of Battleshire? :D
Did Byron survive due to being the last one standing?
Yes.
He’s elsewhere been described as the sole survivor, and in Chapter 34, he confessed that Bayen and Brayen died by his hand, so he must’ve been killing with the rest of them. I suspect geography was a factor in his survival, though. If he, Bayen, and Brayen were in a relatively remote part of the shire when it all went down, they could’ve been infected without having to fight half the population. Remember that berserkers keep fighting after they’re dead, so in many fights that day, the “winner” would not be a survivor after the berserk spirit faded in them.
Is it canon that the fighting order of the previous page mirrors the facts?
I.e. Bro vs. Bro and Byron attacking the survivor (from behind)?
Well, that would make sense to me!
His title of Byron the berserker seems kinda cruel in hindsight. Like this is probably one of the most traumatizing moments of his life and it became his functionally last name. That can not be good for his mental health
We have seen that self loathing is a feeling Byron experiences often and strongly.
I wonder if he didn’t choose that name at least partly because of how much he blames himself for his actions that day in Battleshire.
We give a partial explanation for his title here, but I think there’s definitely room for multiple reasons: people are complex, usually. That angle makes sense to me!
Are you going to do annotations for Entitlement?
They’re already there!
D’oh!
Hey T, there is something I’ve been wondering about: Between this event and in the pit with Harky, how often have Byron gone berserk?
Has it happened several times or very few in total?
Well, the comic showed the Berserker almost surface once after that, though Byron could fight it down long enough for Best to soothe it. We then saw Syr’Nj, Frigg, and Gravedust bring it out under controlled conditions, and Syr’Nj noted that they’d have to repeat the process at least once. Couldn’t have been too many times, though, because the team stayed busy, and before much longer, Syr’Nj had got a test version of the suppressant into Byron’s system, followed by a fully working version.
And that, I think, covers all the times that the Berserker showed itself after the time in the pit. And none of them really involved Byron killing or harming people. There were, however, largely undocumented, entirely uncontrolled episodes after Battleshire and before the pit.
Sorry, I realize I phrased that unclearly since we have a flashback here.
I was wondering how often it has happened after Battleshire but before we actually get to know Byron.
His chat with Bandit does reveal it partially, I hadn’t caught that before, thanks!