Annotated 45-19
FB: Humans think it’s cute how gnomes call themselves “Occupation Name” (often but not always using alliteration). But in many circles, it’s an insult to do this alliteratively to humans, whether their stated “job” is something perfectly innocent or not: “Municipalist Miyamoto,” “Intrigue-Maker Iwatani,” and so on.
This always annoyed Admiral Annunziata.
There’s also General Jinjur, Colonel Klink, King Kong, President Putin…I’m sure you can think of other “naturally gnome-named” examples.
And so we end most remaining speculation about the Silver Centurion. That bit where he was a separate person from Ardaic will be explained later on, though some of you figured it out here. Perhaps more important is the specific oath he takes to summon the power, which hints at the source of his power, and the problems he’s about to develop.
So once the war plans are gone there’s no reason whatsoever to keep Taro around anymore? I see that as an absolute win!
Well, all the sudden these war plans are the only way they can win and if they go missing, Taro’s memory will be the only source of these plans… Didn’t think of it first read but as someone pointed out early, would have really helped if these plans had been mentioned earlier.
They were mentioned one reason the other heads of houses were throwing in behind Iwatani, that night that Miyamoto and Bedard had dinner together. The line was something like “Iwatani has presented concrete military plans to end the war…”
Okay, so I have a memory for these things that works like a sieve with holes in it, so feel free to correct me, but I don’t think there was much of a case made that these plans were ever reviewed and found to be better than Miyamoto’s. (And if they had been, then Iwatani would no longer be the only “grown-up” who knew them.
That’s the thing: You can’t make a solid case that your plans a good if you keep them to yourself.
And that’s simultaneously the way the plans, as well as both Iwatani’s and Taro’s power grabs could have worked a lot better for me: Had we seen (not just indirectly been told about) Iwatani show his plans to some of the other members of the house, maybe make even Miyamoto look bad in the process (at least in the eyes of the others), or actually demonstrate his abilities in the field, and thereby establish to the other heads and to the readers that he does have a solid grasp of the military situation and some solutions that even Ardaic believes give them a much better chance at winning than otherwise, maybe with some difficult-to-derive details that the others don’t quite get but now have reasons to believe will work (that’s what’s in the papers Bandit just stole) — that would instantly provide a very believable motivation for most of the Heads to let him take the reigns, and for Ardaic to not oppose Taro. It would also directly raise the stakes of this scene.
Ehhhh, if you’re talking about war plans, you can share a broad strategy without delving into the minutiae of logistics and asset allocation, which is like 90% of the actual planning. Iwatini could make realistic promises about timetables and upkeep costs without giving away even most of it, especially if it’s his house/guild that’s covering a large chunk of the budget.
yes yes — but we haven’t seen him do even that. As with a lot of other plans, it’s easy to make the summary look good but have completely fail on the important small bits. At least Miyamoto and Ardaic know this, so they would likely not be impressed if Iwatani told them just the timetables and upkeep — they wouldn’t be able to tell if it’s just wishful thinking or if the guy has figured out how to make it work. So Iwatani would have had to explain quite a bit more than the headlines, and provide some reasonable proof that the whole thing doesn’t contain some little oversight which will ruin everything.
If what Iwatani is asking in return for the plans is sole dominion over Gastonia … well in that case I’d insist on having a few people with the appropriate background double-check a significant portion of it to know that it’s not all rubbish.
As Readers, we have seen none of that, we just have everyone talking as if all of that had happened but nobody bothered to inform the reader.
I would say this ‘lack of seeing it happen’ is some of what got left on the cutting room floor over time. They could have had a few pages devoted to it, but as T has explained, they had enough butting of heads over the stuff the had to cut to save time.