Annotated 49-4
FB: “So, basically, we’ve established that two separate guys with mustaches have threatened or tried to kill you in your last two appearances. He doesn’t seem like much of a fighter, but if you see Mister Bedard in all this, maybe run the other way, just to be safe.”
Kind of a “Jack Kirby” expression on Frigg in panel one there. “Too much symmetry is for NERDS” — the King (apocryphal)
I forgot how well Sir Groff acquitted himself against the purplezerkers here. We’ve established that mounts are not firm protection against these creatures, so just the fact that he’s engaging them so forcefully, and will survive, is a sign that he might be a worthy successor to Madam Arfa after all, despite the self-doubts he’ll express later.
Magda not tagged.
That’s her and other priests of Tectonicus protecting the Hall of Houses. It’s not a fact that immediately registers.
Grazie!
Luckily she has Big Hair.
Who’s speaking in the last panel? I can think of at least three possibilities.
(Ardaic obviously is not one; he’d never talk like that.)
Ulak. Troll typeface.
Thanks.
I can’t see a difference between Ulak’s typeface and Frigg’s in the first panel, for my part.
There’s an italic, but it’s pretty subtle.
I always liked the shape of Groff’s lance here. Looks like something Fry’nj might have grown for him?
I wonder how smart it was of Sir Groff to go in there like this, given that his mount is likely to become _very_ dangerous to him and everyone else in short time. Maybe not more dangerous than the ‘zerkers he eliminates in the meantime, but it’s still a shame.
“no one’s going to be anyone in any situation ever again” — I guess that implies that HR has gone off the rails far enough that even Ulak noticed. If his plan was to seize control of Arkerra, I’m pretty sure he must have forgotten about it some time ago. Also some kind of character development. Might have been interesting to see more of that.
I mean, he had to lose some parts of himself to become that … terrible thing.
I guess it was his world-building skills.
of course. I would have liked to see some more of his path from Eloquent Evil Genius With A Plan to this being of pure destruction that can’t even gloat. Did he think that could happen, but decided to take a calculated risk? Did his ego fight back and lose? Did he just get so high on power that he simply forgot what he had come to Arkerra for in the first place? Or did he get so angry after his first encounter with the Five that he didn’t need any third-party influence to start raging for the sake of rage?
He sort of tries to gloat, at the end, I think.
But like, ever hear those theories that when you put on a ring of +1 Intellect, you’re actually signing off control over your life to something you have no idea what is?
That it’s not Your Intelligence, it’s Some Intelligence, Some **OTHER** Intelligence.
Maybe signing off parts of your mind/soul/self feels like that?
You think you’re in control, because you think you’re the consciousness.
But your identity wasn’t just the fact that you see what your eyes see, and now you’ve let something else take over…