Annotated 38-14
Miyamoto in panel 2 is suddenly starting to show some actual political skill, albeit a bit late in the game. He doesn’t want to amass too much power for himself at this stage, he just wants Syr’Nj out of the damn picture.
Unfortunately, his scheming is too little, too late to outflank Iwatani, who represents a swing vote and sees Syr very differently. He knows Syr’Nj has far too many valuable skills to exclude on the basis of being nonhuman. Miyamoto would have no more to say to counter Iwatani’s speech, even if they weren’t interrupted.
Gotta love that wood elf training that lets you make a silent entrance even in a formal dress, so you can interrupt conversations at just the right dramatic moment!
What are their chairs facing?
Forward!
But seriously… the chairs face a semi-circular slightly raised dais with a lectern on it for speakers addressing the assembly.
Thanks!
I mean, Miyamoto’s not wrong here.
He’s not? The adventurers are Ardaic’s pets: wrong. The adventurers’ push to be a guild was bad for Gastonia, where “Gastonia” is not defined as “the egos of a shrinking number of Heads of Houses”: wrong. For that matter, “Syr’Nj is capable of anything,” what I think you’re looking at, is still wrong; she has numerous lines she won’t cross. And if he’s worried about other Heads of Houses who are dangerous to him, the last thing he should be doing, is giving more power to Iwatani to keep it away from Syr’Nj.
Eh, more that it’s naive (if one can be naive when conducting a self-serving cynical conspiracy) to attempt to bring her into the conspiracy when she is unlikely to view their interests as in alignment. Syr’nj’s capability is a problem, not an opportunity.
Does Miyamoto not notice Kur’ik is sitting not so far away? Or does he simply not care? Because the way his little rant is shown makes me think that she would definitely be able to hear him and she is Syr’Nj’s assistant/ secretary/note taker/ whatever
I don’t know, but I rather imagine that he simply doesn’t care. If that’s because she’s: a woman, a non-human, a non-Head-of-House, any combination of the preceeding, I couldn’t say.
It’s also possible he intends her to hear. Syr’nj isn’t THERE, and that might be what he was going to be getting at to undermine her. T has technically shot this down in the annotation above but I feel it’s a fun character theory.
»He knows Syr’Nj has far too many valuable skills to exclude«
In the interest of the people of Gastonia, that would be correct, but in the interest of his own plans? The only purpose I imagine he needs her for is to keep up appearances, and to have one person on the council who won’t ally with the others to overthrow him. Divide and conquer.
I mean … given his ambitions, surely he does not believe that *any* of the other heads should not be excluded.
Iwatani’s plan is to raise himself above the Hall of Houses, but he does not plan on eliminating every other leader in government. Doing so would leave him with more administrative work than he could handle. Miyamoto, Bedard, and Jarvis all have roles to play in his vision for Iwatania, and so long as they don’t foolishly challenge his power, their job security under his rule would be ironclad. Caneghem and Syr’Nj are more uncertain variables, independent and therefore challenging to control, but they each represent powerful allegiances that a nation at war should not discard too carelessly. If he could bring either or both of them under his administration as well, that would be quite a win for Iwitania. But he’s prepared for other possibilities as well.
Hmm… yeah, that does make sense. He wants to be a despot and that means he needs pawns :)
And I guess anyone who helped him get rid of the ones they just removed has been a partner in crime to some extent and might then be less likely to work against him. Except Syr’Nj and Caneghem, which explains why he tries to be extra nice to Syr’Nj (whenever he remembers that that’s what he should do).
Hrm. The first panel really makes it easy to narrow down who is currently in power. There are four human seats, three non-human, but one of them never does or wants anything, the other just happens to not be around for the foreseeable future, and Syr’Nj who… is a point of contention.
I don’t remember what happens next, but I note that Jarvis (I think) doesn’t say anything, along with newspaper guy. Newspaper guy doesn’t seem to be interested in having the high seat, but I don’t recall a lot about Jarvis other then he seems like a more cynical version of Ardaic.
To be fair, Jarvis almost never says anything – he delegates most of his speaking to Ardaic.
IIRC, the final showdown between Iwatani and Miyamoto is about to begin.
It’s interesting that the dividing lines are already traced. Miyamoto is quite alone, here, in his outburst. The others are either not supporting, or outright contradicting him.
Man, what I wouldn’t give to have an entrance like that…