Awesome fake-out, Parson! Ansom got himself taken down a peg here, and rarely has it been more needed.
And it warmed the cockles of my heart that Bogroll got such a choice mission. I can actually see the joy on his face as he carries it out.
So, is there any likelihood that Parson can make this endgame, depriving Charlie of an opportunity to join in next turn?
P.S. I was first introduced to the Giant in the Playground site by someone having a quote from Sizemore in their .sig. Thank you, whoever you were, for leading me to this place.
If Ansom croaks right here, I think there’s a good chance that Parson can wipe them up when Stanley and the Dwagons return next turn. If not, I have no idea where it will go. Hopefully Ansom’s out of last-second saves to pull out of his ass, just because I want Parson to win for once.
Thing is, if there is a next turn, Charlie and his Archons are there on the side of the Jetstone coalition. And Parson already told him how many Archons he’ll need to take Gobwin Knob.
And even if it has to be recalculated to account for the return of Stanley and the dwagons, well, Charlie still has some calculations to spend.
Charlie pretty clearly anticipated that Parson was faking his surrender.
Charlie’s long-term plan seems to be to get both Parson AND the Arkenpliers. That’s why he let Ansom walk into Parson’s trap. If he’d warned Ansom then the best he could hope for was to capture Parson while Ansom retained the pliers. If Bogroll croaks Ansom then the pliers fall into Parson’s hands and Charlie gets everything when the Archons finish off Gobwin Knob at a later date.
The real game is being played between Parson and Charlie. Poor Ansom has been a pawn all along and hasn’t known it.
The big question is: Has Charlie anticipated Stanley’s return to Gobwin Knob with the dwagons?
Except that it looks to me like a suicide mission: They’re both going over that ledge. Now, Bogroll probably is joyful at the honor of giving his life for his warlord like that, but it’s not exactly heart-warming. Remember, the last component of Parson’s sword was ruthlessness.
Evidently, Charlie decided that it was in his interest to let Parson pull this trick, and so his side probably isn’t going to rescue Ansom on their own initiative. (They might be bound by their alliance to rescue him if he directly orders it. That’s a bit difficult with a twoll squeezing his larynx.) I’m guessing that he’s figured out that he can set up a let’s-you-and-him-fight situation that will rebound to his benefit over and above what he squeezed out of Ansom in their alliance terms.
Another interesting question is how this will affect Ansom’s beliefs about “the qualities you mock in us” if he does not, in fact, “prevail”. Will it shake his worldview, or will the fact that Parson won by fighting dirty and dishonorably make him all the more fanatical?
Twolls have a “Regeneration” ability. Presumably that’s some form of healing that’s superior to the “heal at the start of your turn” that everybody gets.
I was under the impression that Charlie’s Archons can’t enter the field this turn. And I’m not sure I see Ansom still being alive to rescue tomorrow morning.
Assuming he’s still alive, I also don’t see Ansom as having it in him to change his worldview. In fact, even though Parson joked about it earlier, I think it might well cause his head, literally, to explode.
That’s very reassuring. Bogroll and Sizemore are the Erfworlders I like the best.
I was thinking of possibly intervening while Bogroll and Ansom are still falling (i.e. in airspace, where the Archons are stuck for now).
I suspect that your’re right – the fact that he can (correctly) tell himself that he was beaten by low treachery gives him a way to rationalize the conflict between his worldview and his failure.
I’m still not convinced that’s the Pliers: We’ve never seen an artifact look all sparkly like that before, not even the Hammer (which is attuned to Stanley, so it’s not just an attunement thing either). It looks more like a spell effect to me. Still, though, the Pliers would certainly make sense there.
And I’d just like to point out that I was (unfortunately) correct about Bogroll croaking.
Eh, that’s a picture of the Arkenhammer with sparklies on it. The thing Wanda’s holding in the current comic looks to be composed entirely of sparklies. Though I suppose that could just be an evolution of the art style.
BTW, does anyone else feel like they should have ended this episode about two strips ago and started a new one? It feels too much like a new beginning, at the moment, to make a good end.
Nah. This isn’t the end. There’s no resolution. Lord Hampster was brought in to serve Stanley and Stanley is off somewhere else, probably assuming that Gobwin Knob is in the hands of the Coalition. The arkentools haven’t been collected. Stanley the Tool hasn’t been dealt with. And Lord Hampster hasn’t been sent back home, or offered the opportunity to do so (one or the other of those has to happen).
Basically, the battle is over, but the war is not.
I was wondering what Wanda was so exultant about. Of course! She found the ARKENPLIERS! Thanks for figuring that out, Lightray.
Gonna be interesting to learn what properties that one has. And I don’t think for one moment that Wanda is going to feel any duty to place those at Stanley’s disposal when he returns (as I’m quite confident he will).
ETA: P.S. Sizemore sure has adjusted his attitude since Janis’s little pep talk, hasn’t he?
