Annotated Chapter 48 Cover
I don’t think this conflict was necessarily the one you all were dying to see…HR and Taro were more compelling villains. But showing Taro’s crown falling off his head would’ve been too much of a spoiler.
We had other options, for sure. This cover could’ve easily been a Gastonian flag overlooking the war coming to the outskirts of the capital city. Or the Ultimate Engine, which is probably the McGuffiniest McGuffin in this chapter. Or even a proper map of the war, like the one that Jarvis spends much of this chapter studying.
The reason we went with this option, I think, is that it wraps up the personal with the allegorical. It’s Frigg versus Ardaic, and it’s what she represents versus what he represents. And if you need a representative of the nation once called Gastonia, well, that’s the role Ardaic’s prepared his whole life to play.
I think most people had a pretty good hate-on for Ardaic at this point, so it worked well IMO
I don’t think I ever really got angry at Ardaic. I thought he was dumb and flawed, but in a “roll your eyes wtf do you do with people like this” kind of way. I never really hate a hate boner for him.
Which to be clear, still works for Ardaic as a character and is good for him being on the cover.
This isn’t a criticism, I just saw the conflict as less “Good vs. Evil” and more “Good vs. Idiots Who Aren’t Smart Enough to Dump Evil on Its Ass.” Ardaic exemplifies that perfectly.
People who choose to be a good cog in a bad machine are ultimately more responsible for the evil outcomes than all the psychopaths at the top.
Psychopaths make very poor cogs, so wouldn’t actually be able to run the monstrosity themselves.
I really don’t see how HR is a ‘more compelling’ villain than Ardaic. More dangerous, sure, but compelling? In a dramatic sense? HR is only really compelling in the actions of those who oppose him: he’s a force of nature villain. As a person, he’s a one-note psychopath who seemingly has no morals and just wants to manipulate those around him to help him to achieve godhood. He barely feels like a person, which is appropriate given how he ends up, but also ironic considering that the world he inhabits is supposed to be the ‘real’ one. I find it hard to imagine HR’s path from a child to the person he ends up being, and I don’t really feel compelled to try.
Ardaic on the other hand is extremely compelling dramatically: he’s the Peacekeepers’ former mentor who has close ties to all of them, and is torn between his sense of duty and his sense of justice. He’s a great sympathetic villain and his final face-off with Frigg is awesome, as well as his redemption.
HR’s conflict might have had higher stakes, but Ardaic’s conflict was definitely the one I was more excited to see resolved.