Annotated 49-37
…I mean, probably? Seems like destroying their entire world would give them nothing to do but fight you, for revenge’s sake? I mean, sure, Sun Tzu says “Control the terrain,” but your grasp of their psychology appears much shakier than your grasp on their planet.
There’s not much further we can take HR’s ramped-up offensives without doing permanent damage to our setting that we didn’t want to do, so things are quietly going to scale back down for a bit after this, before the battle’s end point.
FB: The Fellowship vs. the (Would-Be) King, presented in Three Towers.
Thinking on it, I’m suddenly asking myself “If he really IS a God, if he really HAS transcended….why is he still here? Shouldn’t he be, I dunno, off on another level of existence looking out at the “real world” outside the Cavern of Socrates? Admiring the true Platonic Forms? Why is he bothering to try to murder these five randos?”
Which is not a complaint about the story, mind you. Several of the Five have pointed out pretty much the same thing already. And there’s at least two obvious answers to the question as well: 1) His ego won’t let him leave until he proves he has more control here than them or 2) He’s actually not QUITE a god yet and he needs to consume this reality and the other dimensional travelers (and maybe more stuff after that) in order to complete his ascendance.
I suspect the answer is probably “both.”
Either way, I feel like I should have thought more about that during the original run of the series.
My reading is that the fact that the Five reshaped the Arkerra (and its history from before they arrived!) without even trying, that their abilities are actually on a similar level as his, they just don’t know it, and don’t know how to consciously wield those powers. This means that while they’re in Arkerra, there’s some element there which HR cannot control, and if they eventually learn to wield those powers, they could unseat him.
That’s why HR would prefer them gone before he starts his work in earnest.
I’ve just noticed that the page is misnumbered “Chapter 49 – Page 27” in the bottom left corner.
Did the pages get shuffled around a lot or is this a rare typo?
Typo for sure. Numbering the pages was one of the last stops in Flo’s production process, I think.
I really like that the power couple are playing literal support here, actually carrying the party. It’s a great turnaround from when they had most of the spotlight, and also from early days before the team cohered.
Narratively so satisfying, and also feels like MMORPG hard content where how well the team plays together makes or breaks it.
Hey, how did Frigg lose her jetpack?
Flipping back, I think Gravy’s broke during his hard landing (page 49-20), and Best used his to blow a hole into HR (page 49-23), but Frigg is simply seen without jetpack after she middle-fingered through HR’s eye. Seems unlike her to take those sweet relightable rockets off her back.
Rockets?
Frigg don’t need no stinkin’ Rockets!
The jetpack was destroyed in the process of Frigg armoring herself up, there.