Perhaps. Or he may have just begun to question whether his “allies” were really on his side.
I’m lodging an official prediction.
Elan is going to go back to his friends and tell them what happened with his father. They’re going to see how utterly shattered he is by the realization that somebody he’s close to is capable of acts of unspeakable evil.
And my prediction is that Vaarsuvius is going to be looking really uncomfortable at that moment.
I’m just saying if you’re putting people to death anyway, why not crucify them and set them on fire on a hillside as a welcome message to your son?
Well, mostly because you can do so without inflicting more suffering than necessary? If you want to give a message to other slaves that escaping and/or rebelling is really frowned upon, you could always behead the escaped slaves, put the heads on pikes and display them for everyone to see… Burning the guys for a light-display (and so far away from the city that there is no big deterrent from other slaves seeing them burn first-hand) smacks of cruelty for cruelty’s sake…
Just my 2 eurocent!
P.D.: Or maybe the original post was an elaborate whoosh which I didn’t catch up on… 
Is this you?
It’s not cruelty for cruelty’s sake. It’s cruelty so you can impress your son. I mean, if you’re going to be cruel anyway, you might as well get something out of it.
OK then, “cruelty for the sake of obtaining some pleasurable entertainment out of it” (which is what the light show is, ultimately – something Tarquin considers to be pleasurable, at the very least to his son, on whom it is rather evident -or at least I think so- that he is projecting his own outlook and “values”: he thinks that Elan will enjoy the show of slaves being burned alive to spell his name. Tarquin was not obliged to tell Elan precisely how his name had been spelled with letters of fire!). I submit that, compared to “cruelty for cruelty’s sake”, this is potayto, potahto.
And “cruelty for cruelty’s sake” is shorter to write
Edit window missed: Or, at the very least, Tarquin thinks that Elan won’t find abhorrent the idea of setting all those “rebellious pricks” on fire for a light show. Someone who is capable of doing that is likely not to find abhorrent that particular idea, either.
I think it’s the “if you’re going to be cruel anyway” part that people have a problem with.
Hope Elan is not going to lose an arm.
Poor Elan. Both in the sense that he’s lost the father he looked for his entire life, and in the sense that he’s about to get his ass kicked.
On the plus side, I too like flan. Not in a “crucifying and burning two dozen people to death” kind of way but still.
When Tarquin says “Note to self: Elf cannot cast Teleport”, I get the distinct feeling he’s going to win and then take advantage of this fact.
Lightweight.
Oh, Elan. I was hoping against hope that he would conceal his horror and revulsion and tell Haley everything so that they could make a further plan, but he has no guile at all. I hope this doesn’t end with another sword sticking out of my man Elan’s chest.
Flan, mmm.
I think Haley will bail Elan. She is the one with the guile after all.
I’m sure Tarquin’s people are moving on Haley, V and Durkon as we speak. Tarquin’s a schemer, like Nale; there’s no way he hasn’t made plans to neutralized Elan’s known comrades. If anyone is going to save them, it’ll be the two party members he *doesn’t *know about.
The eyebrows and lines around the eyes are really getting a workout in this strip.
And poor Elan. He’s never going to be the same. Yeah, everybody grows up, but I think this is harder on him than it would be on most people.
I think that Belkar is going to save the group, here, with a little help from Roy.
Crap! I just looked back to check – in his panic to do something to save the burning prisoners, Elan calls out to Haley, Vaarsuvius, and Durkon. If Tarquin did put the pieces together about Haley’s being out of her room coincident with the prisoners’ being freed, along with possibly having that confirmed by the recaptured prisoners themselves, then it could well be that Haley and V are being arrested even as he and Elan talk on the roof. Now he knows that Elan knows Durkon well enough to turn to him in a crisis.
I think this is indeed going to come down to Roy, Belkar, and possibly Ian saving the rest.
Looks like I picked the wrong day to give up biting my nails.
Remind me to never have breakfast at Tarquin’s Diner.
Still working my way thru The Dresden Files.
I’m up to Book Nine: White Night.