Annotated 36-40
Panels 1 and 3 are important, I think. Neither Bandit nor Syr’Nj want their friendship to end today on top of everything else. For that reason, they both hesitate. (Well, in Bandit’s case, it’s also the air of barely contained menace Syr’Nj is putting out.)
But ultimately, neither of them is going to give the other a choice. If Bandit had been repentant, if she’d been standing over the pincushioned Byron and crying, “I had to, I’m sorry but I had to, I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t save any of them”… well, that’d be another story… but that’d also be another Bandit than the one we’ve been following. It’s not like Bandit chose to break. It’s this chain of events that broke her. When she heals back, she’ll be changed.
Again, I don’t think Syr’Nj is the bad guy. She’s pretty damn broken herself after losing Byron, Bandit, and a bunch of villagers and adventurers. (The back of her brain is already shouting, “Why didn’t you make better choices, genius? Why didn’t you save them?”)
The fact that it takes Syr’Nj this long to slug Bandit shows how crazy strong her willpower normally is. When she is knocked down, it can take her time to recover (see Chapters 18-19, 37). But 99 out of 100 people who saw someone butchering their spouse for any reason would not have shown the control Syr’Nj did here, especially not after confirming his death and hearing that first “Good.” (And let’s not forget that she gave Bandit a direct order and Bandit first ignored her, then literally threatened her with daggers in response.) She gives Bandit a chance to backtrack. Bandit refuses it. Only then, when there is no point to restraint, does emotion fully take Syr’Nj over… and even then, not for long.
This is probably the series’ second-act turning point. Many are dead. One of our heroes’ leader figures is dead. The other two will never speak to each other again. There are a couple of other upcoming scenes one could call second-act turning points (we’ll mention those when we get there), but both are consequences of what’s been unleashed here. If you’re a first-time reader, you should already be wondering how and whether our heroes can come back from this.
NEXT: Some odds and ends before we get into “Breaking Bread with the Enemy,” in which our other team of heroes struggles to come back from their “this.”
On my first read I think I cheered for this punch from Syr’Nj.
Now it just seems sad.
Bandit is not the bad guy here, and neither is Syr’Nj (or Byron).
The bad guys of this tragedy are Tom, HR and one could argue Iwatani.
I love Byron and Syr’Nj a lot, but Bandit acted correctly with the information she had. She wasn’t merely blinded by rage – she awoke from that rage, looked her ally in the eye, and spoke truth to power.
Byron needed killing. Bandit knew Syr’Nj would hurt her, but Syr’Nj needed to hear the truth.
Still very short sighted to say ‘I’m glad I killed the person you loved!’ This wasn’t about harsh truth’s, this was Bandit hurting and lashing out and hurting someone else.
It’s obviously not a well-reflected statement which pays regards the emotional state of its recipient.
It’s a “apparently I’ve been the only person concerned about this risk you took for the last few years, which I has just caused horrible blood bath in which I lost many a friend, and nearly died myself, and now you look at me like I’m the one who caused it.” type of statement.
It comes from a person who pulls no verbal punches because she has no experience of others pulling punches on her.
Syr’Nj’s husband just died.
Bandit’s whole life has just unravelled. She failed in her role, though she tried so hard, and didn’t actually do anything wrong. She failed to gain the trust of even the people who gave her that role. She tried to do the good thing, in a selfless way, and failed, and gets no recognition either. She lost many a friend. She was one of the good people, and it took all she had to hang onto that, and now it is taken from her, despite her doing the absolutely best anyone in her position could have done. Despite warning about this for some time.
For the second time in her life.
Anyone who understands Syr’Nj’s reaction (which is not exactly diplomatic either) must also understand Bandit’s behaviour here.
Nah.
Nope. Truth to power would be “He needed killing”. Taking down Byron so very thoroughly and being satisfied about it was clearly payback.
Bandit’s extremely lucky she didn’t gloat to someone with a gun.
I dunno about satisfied, but maybe grimly resolute? She didn’t want to kill him. She’s not proud of having to kill him. If she’s satisfied about anything it’s that she did what had to be done when nothing else worked, and she knows she’s right to have.
Later pages will make it very clear that she resents Byron for this; that she resented him to some degree all this time.
It’s one of the reasons I lost sympathy for her from here on out. Right here and now I can’t fault her for what she’s thinking, and I can even see how Syr’s response pushes her even further away and makes it harder for her to heal.
But it’s how she chooses to act from here on out that turns me against her.
Byron was her friend and subordinate. He very obviously wanted none of this. And this wasn’t a trap he blindly rushed into against her wishes or anything; she led him into it. She was so aware of this possibility that she had anti-berserk serum ON HER PERSON.
And yet she ends up hating him forever for her own failures leading to him being turned against his will.
Despite the fact that the cult is completely gone, that the anti-berserker serum works in every case that it wasn’t specifically enhanced by the very beings that brought it to Arkerra that now no longer exist on Arkerra.
She never ends up really accepting any blame for this outcome, or showing any kind of grief for the friend she had to kill.
And that’s really fucking cold, even after everything she’s been through here.
I know why she feels betrayed by Syr, and by extension, the rest of the surviving guild.
But for someone who was so desperate for approval from the group, and then got that approval, it really rubs me the wrong way that she could turn so completely against Byron because of HER OWN failures. The time when Byron acknowledged that she deserved the role of field leader over him, and was genuinely happy for her, should be/have been a defining happy moment of her life. And while Syr stopped believing in her, Byron never did. Not even after his second resurrection.
In the wake of this tragedy, Bandit chose to build herself back up based on her resentment, discarding her previous friendships so utterly that they may as well have not existed.
This is all true, and nobody could argue with either Syr’Nj or Bandit in this situation. The whole affair only becomes asymmetric because Syr’Nj happens to be the one with the power — and because she withheld information from Bandit before. That information (and the fact that it was offered) would have changed her view of herself within the group, and her whole relation to it.
For the same reason, even though nothing can be changed at this moment in the story, I think it’s up to Syr’Nj after this to make contact and make peace with Bandit. And the fact that she does not, despite making peace with Penk is to me the moment where the power she wields shows its dark side. She’s not immune to that, because nobody is, so why should she?
I actually thing that’s a good thing, storytelling-wise. There’s never a leader who never treats anyone unfairly due to personal bias, and the story reflects that.
In all fairness, Penk didn’t ever kill anybody she loved then told to her face that he was glad he did. A cold shoulder with no further personal retribution other that this shield to the face seems pretty fair to me.
I think the shield to the face was excessive. Understandable, but it’s an understandable failure of Syr’Nj. What it comes down to is that Syr’Nj punished Bandit for doing the right thing – not fair.
To me, that “good” was because Bandit was convinced that if she hadn’t killed Byron, Syr’Nj would have given him a chance to go berserk in the field – again. Killing him removed that possibility. Or should have.
Again I’m going to go against the grain and state that Syr’Nj’s reaction is pretty understandable.
To us, we who live in relative time of peace, comfort and even safety, the idea of your spouse, love, significant other being basically murdered right in front of your eyes is absolutely horrid.
And I’m not saying it’s a cakewalk for these people either, but… To us the terror of the situation stems greatly from the fact that… To us, it’s something that should not happen, something that’s not even possible in this day and age (although it still can happen quite easily even in most haven of countries…)
To Syr’Nj, to any spouse, lover or person who cares of another and even participates in active duty with them… The possibility that their love dies, even before their very eyes… Is a very, truly real possibility. One they no doubt imagine happening every eve before dawn brings them to a battlefield. You know, even for people staying in the homefield, that there always could come the day, when you hear that the one you cared most is dead. And in field you see it happen all the time. Syr’Nj being having been active battlefield medic for pretty much her whole adventuring career, this is nothing new to her. Only this time the feelings are heightened, ‘cose the loved one was her own.
But not only is se a warrior, a medic, but she is also a leader now. It by no lengths mean that she wouldn’t love Byron with all her heart, that she wouldn’t be devastated when she lets the feelings sink in. But the warrior, the medic, the leader in her knows now is not the time. Not for grief, not for rage or regrets. That time comes later.
And you don’t have to be even two of the three to share that understanding. Even in this day many medics, firefighters, police and soldiers, who serve next to the people they love, understand that the situation comes first and they come second.
Do I mean to say everyone of them is “coldhearted bastard”? Goodness, no. Even people faced with danger, injury and death can lose it, crack and break when they are hurt through another. Quite easily so. But 1 out of 100 being able to keep their cool even in this extreme situation? That I’m not buying.
Wooooo… That got long again. XD
I don’t think there’s anyone here who doesn’t find Syr’Nj’s reaction understandable.
The mistakes which lead to this conflict have been made a long time ago.
Hey. Longtime reader, first time poster. Just wanted to say that this comic (and the annotations) give me incredible joy and gets a re-read from me frequently. Also, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the hover-over in the Hiveworks advertisements for Guilded Age deadname Flo. This probably would’ve been more appropriate for a PM, but I wanted to get the message out. Thank you again for creating this.
I’ll see what I can do about it; thanks for letting us know.