Annotated 36-38
Panel 1 makes sense once you understand that Bandit is pumped full of sedatives (and probably a bit exhausted on top of that). Still, it is the sort of anticlimax a writer wants to deploy carefully. It subverts expectations, but it’s definitely not comical, nor is it shifting our attention to some more important conflict. It’s just clarifying that this will be a mostly verbal fight scene. (Mostly.)
I think it’s the right call because this chapter has already contained enough (horrible) fighting for anybody. We’ve done the protagonist-on-protagonist fight scene before (arguably Byron v. Best, definitely Frigg v. Rachel) as the climax to some long-simmering conflict. The mood here is different. This is denouement.
I don’t want to get too hung up on whether Bandit’s “right,” “wrong,” or “half-right” in panels 3-5. Both she and Syr’Nj are working off limited information here, and when it comes to the Cultists, they always have been, always will be. Are the people who set Byron up as a “carrier” like this still alive and out there? Could they do it again? Maybe! Could they do it to anyone who was infected today? Maybe! Is it thus now, based on their knowledge, a moral imperative to kill Braggadocio in order to save some other townful of innocents? Kinda depends! These would be taxing tactical and ethical questions even for people who were fresh and at their best.
But I think the phrase “without his even tryin'” is revealing. Bandit’s feelings of never being totally accepted are getting conflated with her feelings about getting killed, losing Lumberton, letting herself trust and befriend Byron, and all the rest of it. It’s not like she could produce a ranked list of anguish-sources at this point. It’s all just one goddamned gob.
The anti-serum that Brother Homon shot Byron with – it didn’t transfer beyond Byron in any way, right? It’s just counteracting the chemistry/alchemy of the antidote, not upgrading the berserker spirit trapped inside? So Bandit’s dose would have worked on Bragga, or any of the others?
Or, are the medics’ dart bolts using some new formula that overcomes the anti-antidote? If so, same question – is it chemically neutralizing it, or is it acting on the spirit inside?
I believe the anti-serum only affects Byron, since the serum Bandit had worked on brother Tom when she and Rabbit found him at the portal, and we know Tom was affected by a spirit coming from Byron(‘s corpse).
So it most likely would also work on any of the other new berserkers.
Syr’Nj did not have time to develop any new formulas between deciding to leave the Hall of Houses meeting and entering the fray. Outside of Byron’s doubly special case (antidoted by Homon, possessed with far more than one berserker spirit), the original batch works fine.
Chemical neutralization is all the serum can do. In most cases, that won’t matter, because not a lot of berserkers actually survived (Braggadocio is the only case we definitely confirmed, I think), and once a dead berserker stops berserking, they don’t start up again. But any berserker who did survive will have a compromised life ahead of them and be taken to the sky elves for study.
She IS right though, about him not even having to try. I liked Byron from the moment he showed up in his back-story. I don’t know what’s a Berserker doing putting all his points in Charisma, but I like it.
I disagree, we know that Byron works very hard to be friendly, teamworking and good to others.
His reasoning for not wanting to keep working with Best tells us this, some of his inner advice monologues tell us this, him explaining the need for an adventurers guild to Syr’Nj tells us this, and then there is later when he actually puts effort into finding the perfect gift for Best.
I could be wrong, but I don’t see Bandit ever trying so hard to make someone, she really dislikes, happy, just for the sake of doing the right thing.
Come to think of it, Bandit and Byron are actually somewhat similar, in that they both have a harmful condition (although much more harmful in Byron’s case) that leads them to heavy self-criticism.
But Byron seems to have been more focused on bettering himself, while Bandit tends to slip into outrage at the unfairness of it all.
Not that this excuses it but certainly helps to explain it in my opinion; Bandit has already dealt with a lifetime of distrust and judgement due to her history among her own people. Bandit Keyes is infamous and basically disowned by a majority of gnomes. It’s sort of like the anti-robin hood story, and she has come into Gastonia and the team constantly hearing the talk of everyone being on the same terms and everyone being valuable; while also facing some of the same distrust she sought to escape and get a fresh start on.
Byron has faced a lot of tragedy but never the amount of distrust or flat out vitriol, particularly due to his own efforts often being very well minded and ensuring he doesn’t sabotage his own relationships in ways he can control. Likely due especially to that berserker nature and hating what he can do when he cannot control himself.
I definitely have never liked Byron, what a milk toast made worse by a terrible choice that he doesn’t even realize he made. I bring my own shit to this conversation that’s for sure: Byron is a straight white guy with no discernable characteristics besides ‘a nice dude’ who still manages to bring carnage and death to his world. It’s hard to look at his character as a queer person of color and go “yeah, I guess he’s worth it” in the context of a more interesting character like Bandit who rightfully is terrified of him – just like I have been of straight white guys my whole life.
This is a troll-free zone, please guide yourself to the nearest exit.
Lol, sorry I identify with literally what the author was describing in his write up?
It’s a little weird to appeal to me here when I’ve been one of the people telling you that Byron did not “choose to be cursed.” That wasn’t Byron. It’s not “a choice he forgot he made.” He’s not the guy who made it, full stop. HR implies otherwise once, but he’s wrong, and even he sorta backtracks, admitting he’s talking about Eric, not Byron.
You have the right to read our work the way you want, in the end. I’m glad you find characters to empathize with, and I’m cautious about addressing the identity issues raised here. But I can’t emphasize enough how much Flo and I did not want to write a story where it turned out the Arkerran characters were just funny masks over the faces of “real people.” Byron gets to make some choices in his life and decide some of his identity, but the berserker thing? That identity was not his choice. It was forced on him.
So, basic premise:
The players who think up a tragic backstory for their characters are Bad People, needlessly inflicting agony on a person, under the flimsy excuse that this person is “theirs”, and the GM is morally justified in doing a TPK to end the abusive relationship. To his credit, HR did first try to literally kill the players, but …
But sometimes, because of dice and trivia, the TPK fails.
And in this particular instance, the TPK failed again and again, eventually making the GM lose all control over the game, and making increasingly poor choices.
Fits.
I mean, you’re not wrong.
Byron is an everyman for white straight people.
His poor-folk background and pro-union chops don’t really go beyond looking out for “his own kind”.
He’s a Social Democrat, to Bandit’s Revolutionary.
As such, he will never be as interesting as she is, and coming to terms with his inner demons, which aren’t even his own, will only make him more sedate.
See, if it was just “he’s dangerous and violent and he actually killed Bandit and Syr’Nj is dismissive of Bandit’s justified fear,” that would be hard to contradict. But instead you keep insisting on this “Byron’s choice” tommyrot–even to the point of claiming to have authorial support when you actually have the opposite. And I have to wonder why that’s necessary. Is Bandit’s fear illegitimate in your eyes if Byron is anything other than a sadistic monster?
Bandit’s perspective makes complete sense to me, as long as we take into account what kind of state she’s in:
She tried like never before to fit in, be part of the team, give it all, establish herself and earn respect, and yet, it all comes to nothing.
Byron has been kind of a leader all the time, despite losing it and attacking his teammates more than once, but somehow he just gets another chance, and that’s on top of having a thing with Syr’Nj, who’s an important figure among wood elves _and_ in Gastonian politics.
And even now, after this massacre, the magnificent Syr’Nj is more concerned with rescuing him than listening to the views of Bandit, who went through SHIT to try and limit the damage.
Now, of course that’s not rational, and of course she got a little carried away, but there’s no way you could blame her.
The same goes for Syr’Nj, of course: Byron is not just very important to her, but she is also very certain that what happened was not his mistake, and therefore Bandit has no reason to be angry at him, etc… and she has a need to believe that because otherwise it would mean that her decision to try and “cure” Byron and let him continue was way more risky than she’d like to admit. As readers, we know that she’s pretty much right, too — but Bandit has no way of knowing that.
Syr’Nj’s mistake here is that she still refuses to open up and talk things out. Remember how Frigg attacked Byron after she was revived, and how much talking it took until she was able to hold it together? I think Bandit would have deserved at least that much of a chance, but doesn’t get one. And *that* is Syr’Nj’s fault.
Her feelings are understandable, but she’s also correct.
Byron is a Dr. Banner but with axes and even less ability to curb the destructive force he harbors.
How do you come to terms with working alongside that?