Annotated 4-14
Taro’s long-term goals are a bit murky to me now. He was clearly using von Carnaj to his own advantage and probably intended to play both sides, getting what plunder he could from Carnaj’s shortsighted plans and then betraying him to the forces of law and order, claiming that he only acted under duress. Maybe that’s still his angle: his dialogue suggests it is.
But there’s a note in the script that implies Taro is aware that starting a fire on this blimp could have very deadly consequences for all involved. If that’s true, then maybe he intends to escape unsupervised, taking a little treasure with him, before the ship explodes. As the sole survivor, he could then shape the narrative of his kidnapping and escape, trading on the story to gain access to other contacts, even outside his family’s considerable network.
I’m not sure he would’ve made it. But I can be totally confident that he’d be confident he would.
Wouldn’t light-air gases go even further above his head, letting him breathe plain ol’ heavy air like normal?
My guess is dwarves get altitude sickness at much lower heights and much more quickly than other races. Thankfully the “Hindenburg” around here was much less explodey and easier to clean up as it was mostly burnt soarwood. Idiot cut corners on the elemental’s bindings. Or rather his foreman did.
I thought the implication was that his system was unprepared for Taro literally spraying him in the face with hydrogelium, to a greater extent than Byron’s would have been.
One of the many things I appreciate about Taro (“like” is not quite the word) is the way he still talks like a child, even when he’s trying to scheme like an adult. An adult would use a much stronger word than “Bother.”
I dunno, it depends on the adult. It seems to me that, as an adult hobbit, Bilbo Baggins said “bother” quite a lot.
I mean, The Hobbit was technically written to appeal to a much younger audience than TLotR…
*Shrug* I say ‘Bother’ – and I am closer to old than to young.
But then I am a stuffy old curmudgeon.
Still seems awfully high risk, low reward for Taro. There are all kinds of ways he could have died (killed by the explosion, ship catching on fire and falling, killed by Byron or Gravedust…). Unlike legal trouble, there isn’t much his dad could have done about it except some misplaced, pointless vengeance. And for what? Dubious control of a group of pirates and a questionable airship? As his father’s son and heir, what need would he have of that?
“What need would he have of that?” It’s a flying pirate ship! Who *wouldn’t* want one? Don’t forget that for all his conniving, he’s still a kid. And from a kid’s point of view, having his own flying ship would be the coolest thing ever. Also, as he demonstrates in later chapters, he’s very clever but not very wise. Which means he’s good at finding ways to get what he wants, but not so good at wanting the right things.
Dang, imagine how much the story would’ve changed if they’d just thrown the little pest off the side of the boat.
To be frank, I really can’t, for multiple reasons. I’m a little more flexible than Phil on the ethics of child-killing in certain cases, but I can’t see Byron or Gravedust finding it ethical here. Even if they did, Byron is still holding on to his “I don’t kill humans” rule at present and neither of them are the vengeful type. And even if you knock down all that, there’s the fact that Byron and Gravedust have specifically been hired to rescue the noble children, including Taro, and they could hardly expect the excuse “well, he tried to kill us, boy was rotten as heck” to go over well with his parents. Killing Taro would be professional suicide and make them powerful enemies they could ill afford.
No, Taro’s pretty much got to survive here if our group of heroes is going to stay together as a real group, because it’s their success in rescuing the kids that convince several Heads of House that they can be a useful tool. And without the Peacemaker Initiative, the gang wouldn’t stay together. Sure, rescuing all the other kids is not nothing, but it’s not enough to earn trust that they won’t end up breaking as much as they save, the way many adventurers tend to do.
There’s no similar reason that Taro needed to survive his second encounter with our heroes, though.
“Portrait of a little shit as a fledgling supervillain”.