Annotated 50-2
Thunderpeak going all “Tsunderepeak” (hat tip to Psolo Ghoti) was a surprise to a few readers who were still rooting for Magda to get with Penk…as more than a close, trusted comrade. That ship wasn’t really a concern for me at this point: even if we hadn’t meant to put it to bed back in “A Traal to Remember,” Penk and Magda’s respective destinies are pulling them away from each other now. The more traumatic loss for Magda was the death of Tectonicus, and you can see her working that out a bit here, trying to figure out how she’s still worthy and useful. But she’s an upbeat sort in a newly optimistic community, so she’s doing all right with that.
On Penk’s end…as I said to a reader when this chapter was first published, “Don’t feel too bad for him. Look at his title and his body. Penk is very, VERY eligible. He may have put off finding a mate until the joined civilization he leads is a little more settled, but I doubt he will be alone for much longer.”
FB: “First scene of the last chapter” is all well and good, but the real milestone to celebrate today is “now over 100,000 comments.”
My biggest regret as a shipper is that E-Merl x Magda never stood a chance, which makes sense since they never interacted. Magda is similar in character to Rachel; I think it could have worked.
Ohmygosh, I think you may be right. It would have required a proper arc of itself because I think E-Merl would still have a bunch of inner demons to deal with to make that possible. But Magda would totally be the kind of person to notice that and have the patience to support him in the process.
Let’s just imagine that sometime in the future, the protagonists of this story are meeting up, stories are exchanged, interest is raised and friendships made/reinforced… also Thunderpeak may well turn out to have a somewhat too narrow world view to make Magda feel as comfortable as she might be hoping he would in the scene above :)
…but that’s fine, too because the experience does open his eyes to some extent, then he finds a nice Savasi lady who is impressed by the person he becomes as a result, and together they have a happy life that is much less constricted than most of their neighbours’ …
Okay but who hunts with an axe?
He’s hunting treants for firewood.
Is there some visual cue here that I’m not picking up on? It didn’t ever occur to me that this was meant to sink the Penk-gda ship (since that seemed pretty conclusively torpedoed long ago) or be shipfuel for Magda-whatshisface (since whatshisface has always had a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease and Magda isn’t being verbally flirty and her expression looks to be somewhere around self-deprecating and apologetic), but the commentary makes it seem like the intent was that this is sort of a flirty scene? The only thing I can think of is that maybe there’s some subtle blushing going on that I can’t see due to colorblindness.
Thunderpeak is blushing in panel 4.
This is Dwarven society, and I think by their standards, the two of them are getting a lot closer to each other. My interpretation is that Thunderpeak has been having thoughts about Magda for a while, Magda has noticed, but Thunderpeak has not noticed that Magda has noticed because he’s not half as perceptive about such things as Magda. And now Magda decides to move a step closer to see what he’s about. They may not end up as a couple just yet but they might, if Thunderpeak learns to open up a little.
I’m very sorry if someone already brought this up in an earlier comment, but what could/would fill the cultural and spiritual void left by Tectonicus’ departure among the Savasi and other races that worshiped him? Maybe Magda can take the loss of her volcanic lord and savior in stride, but are the other priests of her faith as chill as her?
Remember that Tectonicus isn’t a long-standing cultural touch-stone for the Savasi – he WAS ‘filling the spiritual void’ for the Savasi who had rejected their old ways. Worship of Tectonicus among the Savasi was only a couple years old. Maybe only a year – Harky was surprised by it in Magda’s first appearance. And it was adopted in the context of the Rebellion, so abandoning it in a time of (hopefully) peaceful rebuilding was likely to begin with.
What’s next for them is answered in the next couple pages.
The trolls are a better question for that, since he was the basis for their culture. But it was always going to be a question for them – Penk, despite being Tectonicus’ herald, was rejecting much of his teaching.
Ah, yeah. Naïve as I am, I was still holding hope for Magda/Penk up to this page. I seem to have missed the point where their “romantic potenial” was destroyed, prior to this point. I saw them as people with some understandable differences or awkward moments, but I never thought it was beyond the reasonable amount of dificulties feom any new relationship.
Although if I have to be fair, my shipper brain just wanted Penk to be with someone, just as I did with Bandit or Sir’nj.
I suppose if Penk and Magda were still in daily contact and circumstances changed a bit, Penk might make another attempt, and Magda might react differently, but I think Penk has had the good sense to abandon his attempts during times when his mind was needed elsewhere, and so he didn’t directly resume them afterwards because he’s had Magda as a good friend for a while now, and maybe he understands by now why Magda as a lover would not work out the way he might have imagined at first. He definitely knows that it’s not wise for him to push in that direction. The sort of wisdom I wish a lot more guys had, IRL, and that includes my younger self.
Yeah, I know. Each of their destinies recided with their peoples. But I had imagined they could have a kind of “long distance” relationship. Like they would meet for diplomstic meetings and stuff from time to time and chill together. But back then I guess I had thought that Magda would end up holding a “leading-post” similarto Penk’s, and that’s really not the case at the end of the story. It’s cool tho’, I’m sure everyone will be as well as a fantasy world can allow!