When Stanley is the reasonable one, there’s definitely problems.
Yeah. The one thing that I was not expecting from this strip was character development from him…nice touch!
Stanley is scared shitless of Wanda building and unstoppable army entirely devoted to her. A foolancer is not something he wants her to have in her pocket.
Even aside from all that, all of Gobwin Knob’s living units effectively have a one-up each. Eventually, the time may come when Jack (or any other high-value unit) might get croaked by the enemy, and it’s a nice ace in the hole to be able to decrypt him then, instead of him turning to dust. And even if the scrolls are hard to come by, he’s low on juice, anyway: They wouldn’t lose much by just keeping him out of the attack on Jetstone proper and letting him heal naturally.
I’m surprised, though, that the experiment hasn’t been performed already. In all of Wanda’s conquests, she’s never once scored a caster? OK, by the time of Unaroyal, they’d all just be portalling out before she got the chance, but there were plenty of cities before that.
Were there not Healamancers at Gobwin Knob (on Jetstone’s side)?
No, its been pointed out Ansom did not have any casters at all in his army. It makes sense there wouldn’t have been any in the minor cities that fell so far either.
Archons can shoot those energy beams, and they don’t count as casters? Huh.
Interesting to see Stanley actually listening to Parson’s arguments, though.
Most of the sides we’ve seen have kept their casters back in the capital city – and Unaroyal was the only capital that GK took. And we know where the casters went from there. So it’s not surprising that Wanda hasn’t gotten her hands on a dead caster yet.
But I think that Parson’s argument that a Decrypted caster might not be able to cast falls when looking at the Archons. Their “specials” are specifically described as shockamancy, foolamancy, etc. And they use juice. And can still cast once decrypted.
Yeah, but that’s a special, which might count differently from “real” casting. We already know that uncroaked (but not decrypted) Archons retain some of their abilities (flight, at least), and we also know that uncroaked casters can’t cast spells any more, and just count as generic infantry.
Two other points to note in this strip:
1: Parson successfully says “damn”, which I think was booped out in Book 1. So his “fuck” at the end of that book was not a fluke, and he’s permanently past the language filter.
2: Stanley, who’s (at least in some sense) at the head of the “Tools are more important than royalty” movement, still regards royalty as something to be esteemed.
Not sure about Healomancers; they had Altruist Elves, who were assigned to throw healings where necessary (original book, strip 22). If, as Chronos suggests, the energy manipulations of the archons count as “specials” rather than casting per se, the same might be true of any decrypted Altruist Elves.
Of course, that just puts us back to the question of why the GK army doesn’t have healing capability. We know that a decrypted unit with a special that mimics casting can still use that special, as evidenced by the Archons. And there were enough Altruist Elves at the battle, and enough casualties successfully decrypted, that it defies plausibility that none of them were salvageable. So why doesn’t GK have a few decrypted Altruists in that army, to use instead of expensive healing scrolls?
He also cussed during the Summer Updates scene describing Stanley’s return to GK.
Well, royals have better stats and level faster (an obvious undeniable fact, given that stats and levels are readily visible to commanders).
What Ansom has in the field is a strike force, which apparently consists of flying units like Dwagons and Archons, plus casters and warlords. So they probably didn’t fit the mission profile – particularly if they’re units that can’t be mounted on dwagons (like Parson).
And, let’s face it, at least Wanda and maybe Stanley seem to regard the decrypted as renewable resources. Probably didn’t consider that they’d want to heal decrypted units – they can always make more. And since the original plan didn’t call for putting casters in the line of fire, Ansom wouldn’t have seen the need either.
Yabbut, that brings us back to the fact that there are only two people in the expeditionary force who aren’t already Decrypted (Wanda and Jack), and only one Decrypted one is likely to be considered non-expendable (Ansom). Why should she care about the expense of using up a couple of Healing scrolls?
Hmm. On re-reading, I see that Healomancy scrolls are not being characterized as “expensive” so much as “difficult to obtain.” That might change the dynamic, insofar as divining Wanda’s motives is concerned, anyway.
Actually, I think that Wanda’s motives are only to explore how powerful the Arkenpliers can make her (no matter the cost).
Her justification, though, I think was alluded to in the text update where Sizemore noted how out-of-favor GK is in the Magic Kingdom.
I’m pretty sure all the dwagons are living, too, and we’ve already seen that Stanley isn’t all that fond of losing dragons, even to good strategic ends.
Actually, Stanley really doesn’t seem all that bad, anyway: He really cares for his troops, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen him do anything crueller than allowing Wanda to do the things she does. OK, maybe he’s deluded about the Titans’ plan, but he’s honestly deluded and well-meaning. And then again, we don’t know the Titans’ plan, either: Maybe he isn’t deluded.
He’s not royal, though, and he’s ruling. Obviously, he’s bad.
new text update
So if I’m interpreting correctly, one way for an Heir to usurp from the Ruler is to get the side’s Natural Allies to do the dirty work. Wonder if that’s how Don King’s son’s attempt went down – it doesn’t seem like Transylvito has any natural allies, now, after all…
We get to see Queen Jillian in her new gear, meet King Slately, and finally get to see what a megalogwiff looks like.