Annotated 39-17
Remember when I said I loved it when characters got forced out of their comfort zone? Sundar has already had to be “the adult in the room” thanks to Syr’Nj’s absence and E-Merl’s decline, but now he’s actually got to be…I can’t believe I’m typing this…the thinker of the group.
On the one hand, I will always feel badly for E-Merl, trying to drown his pain not only in drink but now in groundless optimism. But on the other hand, silly-drunk dialogue is just insanely fun to write. You see my dilemma.
Also, check out WAV figuring his way through basic economics. He won’t be discussing GDP anytime soon, but a lot of econ is really just data comparison and quantification when you get down to it, and WAV is clearly good at those things.
Well, Sundar’s already shown himself to be a conspiracy theorist. Being suspicious about this situation would come naturally to him and doesn’t really require him to think all *that* hard.
He’s also a seasoned adventurer, Byron and himself got regular work like this from meager farmers but a job like this from a well connected noble? You don’t need to be paranoid to see this as odd.
I know I am in the minority and being a kill joy here here but wasn’t a big fan of tonal shift with E-Merl’s drinking. Felt like we went from being worried about him to laughing at him after a change of scenery because he was the designated clown. It’s probably my own experiences effecting how I read this page but I couldn’t laugh at E-Merl cartoonishly waving a big jug around after establishing than man was clearly in pain in previously pages with a more somber tone.
Meanwhile, I’m blinking at your comment and going, “What tonal shift? Who’s laughing?” Unless you’re equating “fun to write” with “funny,” which I wouldn’t.
I read the last panel as something that was meant to be goofy as the only time you see someone with big jug like that, it’s usually comical. If it’s meant to be somber, I’ll apologies but it really doesn’t read that way.
Not somber, sure, but still concerning – not least for how painfully believable it is. I think most of us who’ve been the nondrinker for the night have seen someone deep in some unhealthy coping mechanisms, and E-Merl here is a textbook case of “dude, you are clearly not okay.”
Speaking only for myself here, I basically wanted people to BOTH laugh at E-Merl AND cry with him at this juncture. That’s the sort of contradiction I’m glad to embrace as a reader.
On one level, mangling Iwatani and Syr’Nj’s names and “My friends could be your friends” is just goofy fun for our inner five-year-olds, sure. On another, it feels like good-natured poking fun at our own writing. On yet another, there’s a little exposition mixed in, as E-Merl provides the official reason these four have been assigned to this gig.
But on another…the prior E-Merl scene already established his drinking as A Problem, and I wouldn’t conclude that the readers are now supposed to regard it as harmless just because he’s happy and not bothering anyone else at the moment. It’s a pretty safe bet that we wanted you to care about ALL our long-running characters’ welfare, all the time!
Honestly, it’s probably a worse sign for E-Merl that he’s still drinking like this even after Iwatani held out some hope that he might know a guy with a resurrection spell. Does he know, on some level, that his sober self might not be as hopeful about this as his drunk self is, and that’s why he’s still ALWAYS DRINKING? If so, ouch. And that doesn’t even get into the fact that he’s drunk while he’s casting fireballs. Kobolds are clearly the lowest-level opponents that Arkerra has to offer, but still, the physical risks he’s taking here are disquieting when you think about them. It’s not like he’s just risking his own skin here, either. Syr’Nj will, eventually, call him out for that one.
The jug is cartoony, sure (we used a similar one for Frigg in a similar context), but it’s also appropriate to the setting in a way other recognizable containers would not be. And it’s our shorthand way of confirming that E-Merl isn’t just enjoying the aftereffects of his last bender. His bender is still going on, in the middle of this fight scene.
😬
I feel like if we’d done this one “serious levels only,” it would’ve come off a little too grim, especially so soon after the death of Kaye. The other Peacemakers could’ve provided more humor, of course…but we wanted to show Sundar and WAV working smoothly as part of the team, and Frigg had to be performing impressively for the next part of the plot to make sense.
The fact that E-Merl is clearly blitzed out of his mind, and along with them on this dangerous-if-standard chore, and they all just… ignore him and let him drink himself to death is kinda rough too, on the serious level.
Obviously none of these people are equipped to handle his grief when it’s like this, and them deciding to stick with him and make sure he’s not alone is nice, but the clearly ‘we’re here for you’ actions don’t jive with their ‘we’re ignoring you’ conversation. The contrast I think is good, there’s a lack of ideas how to engage with E-Merl, but all of them are at this point experienced enough to know that attempting to be something they aren’t isn’t a good move either.
Forced, boundless goofiness is just one of the ways some people cope (poorly) with grief. The fact that this is so out of character is the clue you need to know he’s desperately trying to keep his mind away from an untreated, festering rot of pain in there.
Is Ingratam Iwatani’s handle on Instagram?
Intended similarity or co-incidence?