Book 2 – Page 38

[DevilDan]

I find the idea of thinkagram-tapping far from thrilling myself.

Charlie only cares about the bottom line, the fall of Unaroyal is something about which I suspect he cared not a whit. Again, to have used his own troops against Bea would have tipped off Parson to Charlie's active involvement and put him in the position of billing Bea post facto--giving her the upper hand in any negotiations. It would have also cost him a good number of archons, archons he does not want decrypted. He simply had no particular reason to save Bea. (And Bea wouldn't have run just to save her life: she cared far more about not seeing her troops get croaked and decrypted. Also, where's the money in saving Bea? A ransom paid out by Slately, who doesn't want to see hide nor hair of him?)

The pre-Exposition Bridge GK force wouldn't have been in a serious need for archers, considering the focus on air power.

[effataigus]

Charlie's still a way too convenient plot device when it comes to providing an opposition for Parson.

I don't see why this is a bad thing.

He makes a lot of sense as an main villain (or at least the avatar for a main villain that is just an idea (war)) even though he, unlike many other characters, isn't necessarily aligned against GK. Parson needs a Parson sized-challenge and we haven't met anyone else who seems to be able to give him a run for his money. Charlie is aligned against peace, and this puts him in opposition to the most thoughtful and sane characters (Tramennis, Grand Abbie, Sizemore (even Wanda if you want to call total conquest peace and whatever she is sane). Peace would be devastating for Charlescomm... with one city and no mercenary work he would dwindle down to very little.

On another topic... I just reread the post and wanted to say again that I loved the artwork... and the conversations. Parson's pizza stain is getting a little out of hand though

[BCCroaker]

Charlie may not able to listen into thinkagrams but rather has found a way to hack into a decrypted Archon - he thoroughly understands Archons - and is using her as a bug. This would be a sort of one off power rather than escalating the Dishes abilities to another level.

[enthar]

You know, in our world we have people eavesdropping on 'Thinkagrams' and its not game ending. And if/when Parson or another side figures that out, its relatively easy to manage such eavesdropping. Crypto, whatever. Heck, if they can find out without letting Charlie /know/ they found out, they have Charlie by the ears!

This kind of double think (or more) is what drives CIA agents bonkers eventually.

But seriously, yes, powerful tool, which all the arkentools are- broken by definition if you consider Erfworld some kind of balanced 'game'. But the cost of the Arken could be that you are irrevocably bound to fate or the will of the Titans. Which, if you care about that kind of thing, could be a hellish cost indeed. Feels like free will is a major theme here. ULTIMATE COSMIC POWER! teeeny tiny living space

Enthar

[ftl]

Charlie's still a way too convenient plot device when it comes to providing an opposition for Parson.

I don't see why this is a bad thing.

He makes a lot of sense as an main villain (or at least the avatar for a main villain that is just an idea (war)) even though he, unlike many other characters, isn't necessarily aligned against GK. Parson needs a Parson sized-challenge and we haven't met anyone else who seems to be able to give him a run for his money. Charlie is aligned against peace, and this puts him in opposition to the most thoughtful and sane characters (Tramennis, Grand Abbie, Sizemore (even Wanda if you want to call total conquest peace and whatever she is sane). Peace would be devastating for Charlescomm... with one city and no mercenary work he would dwindle down to very little.

On another topic... I just reread the post and wanted to say again that I loved the artwork... and the conversations. Parson's pizza stain is getting a little out of hand though

The 'bad thing' isn't that Charlie is in opposition to Parson. That makes perfect sense, and he could be a great opponent.

The 'bad thing' is in HOW it seems to happen. Whenever Parson needs some more opposition, Charlie seems to grow an extra power that nobody knew he had. That's what this is seeming like - oh, things might end up looking positive for GK, the solution is more powers for Charlie! I really hope that that doesn't happen and the implication that Charlie is spying on GK is a misdirection, intentional or not.

[Namorax]

The 'bad thing' isn't that Charlie is in opposition to Parson. That makes perfect sense, and he could be a great opponent.

The 'bad thing' is in HOW it seems to happen. Whenever Parson needs some more opposition, Charlie seems to grow an extra power that nobody knew he had. That's what this is seeming like - oh, things might end up looking positive for GK, the solution is more powers for Charlie! I really hope that that doesn't happen and the implication that Charlie is spying on GK is a misdirection, intentional or not.

You could also look at it the other way round: Without Parson, Charlie has no need to use/reveal ALL of his powers.
Parson could be the first real opponent Charlie ever encountered. And whenever an old trick is not enough, Charlie has to dig deeper into his little bag of surprises. I mean, for all we know, Parson could come up with a similar Idea to listen into thinkagramms...

But something else: Is it just me, or is Parson getting thinner? I remember him being a very "fat" guy, but in the latest strips, he looks more and more like a thinner, more muscular person/warrior. I mean... even though the art changed, Parson isnt as fat as he once was.

[Elhoim]

I remember saying, in the first post here, that having this ability makes sense in some ways. That doesn't change the basic fact, that Charlie is waaaay too powerful and at once very capricious in wielding that power, essentially only using it when it's convenient to the plot.

Exactly. I wouldn't mind if he used them more often, or at least give an explanation to why he doesn't.

[Raza]

The strategic implications of having previous thinkagrams tapped have been noted, and so far not that big.

Not sure what this means. The ability to eavesdrop on your opponents has always been a prized asset.

I'm not saying that it isn't bloody useful in general, but so far no specific thinkagrams depicted in the story of erfworld (would) have had major consequences if/when listened in on.

The 'bad thing' is in HOW it seems to happen. Whenever Parson needs some more opposition, Charlie seems to grow an extra power that nobody knew he had. That's what this is seeming like - oh, things might end up looking positive for GK, the solution is more powers for Charlie! I really hope that that doesn't happen and the implication that Charlie is spying on GK is a misdirection, intentional or not.

It's not a new power; this has been hinted at throughout book one. He hacked the eyebooks; considering those were far more unusual than thinkagrams, I see no reason to assume his abilities would apply to those, uniquely. Another subtle hint dropped when 'Charlie's intel' had Stanley flying towards FAQ 'a turn ago' during the Transylvito mountain ambush briefing, which was the same turn during which he contacted Maggie by thinkagram over Jack's insanity.

The hypothesis that Charlie knows the locations and contents of every thinkagram has never been falsified that I know of, with mutliple minor bits of evidence in favor. That takes either great coincidence, or great care by the author.

[splintermute]

Dwagons aren't natural allies - they're feral creatures. There's no reason to assume that because he can influence one he can automatically influence the other.

Charlie can hack Eyebooks, and MonteCristo believes that therefore hacking Thinkagrams is not that shocking; oh wait, you believe the same. Similarly, Charlie can influence natural allies; feral creatures that don't even have an allegiance to begin with- not that big a stretch.

The point I was making is that all of Charlie's abilities (other than archon production) can be thought of as super-thinkamancy. Natural allies are sentient creatures with their own allegiances and duty and loyalty and other natural thinkamancy-ish stuff, and are probably subject to Charlie's manipulation. Dwagons are just wild animals - other than obedience to Stanley (or to their own appetites if they're untamed), we don't know if they have any thoughts or loyalties or allegiances that are subject to Charlie's thinkamancy.

[MonteCristo]

It's been said that Charlie waited for Royals to be desperate. That happened once already, yet Charlie did not interfere. There's a lot of rationalization for that thrown around (some link spell would not have been effective, no diplomatic contact, biding time ...). These ring hollow to me. Charlie wants business, and would gladly have made it so that business flowed back as usual, as soon as possible.

This may not even have required GK to be put down (but a boom head-of-state-shot is also not to be excluded), but whatever it would have required, it seems to me to have been within Charlie's grasp.

After all, Charlescomm, some people claim, considered offering Kingworld free of charge. Even if it wouldn't have saved Unaroyal, it would have made it possible to improve reputation among royals.

Plus, a side with such good intelligence and fast versatile units could have loads of tricks to do. As one example, an archon relay on Unaroyal royalty. So many options when you're nigh omnipotent. And with connections in the MK, and a sympathetic caster in one of the kingdoms, it's weird that nothing AT ALL was tried.

One of the chief problems is the fact that none of the royals would talk to him... this means he can not make them offers and that they would refuse his help (as they think its a trap). Only way he could have helped unaroyal would have been to send an army of archons to attack GK's forces first... but again, Charlie might not be willing to suffer such heavy losses... Charlie is not one of the good guys, he is not the type to make massive sacrifices for a good cause; he's a man of business, which means getting what you need but at minimal cost. And that's why he needed Jillian, the only royal willing to talk to him. He needed her to give him the opportunity to serve the royals and prove where he stands (while at the same time, maintaining minimal losses for himself)... and she was not ready in time to help save unaroyal

At Unaroyal however, Wanda had an army that was made up of THOUSANDS... and your assumption that they did not have a lot of archers, is purely that, an assumption... baseless in fact

I base it on the apparent lack of Archers when attacking Jetstone. You'd think a few would have been useful, whatever the real plan for that siege would have been.

Actually Ansom does mention they had some archers with him in the hex
And who says that more archers aren't just in the back of the column?
The only time we really got to see the ground troops fight was against haggar... And one of the problems was that the column stretched multiple hexes and thus only those in the current Hex could fight... the archers could have been at the back in another hex; again, because they were only there for occupation
Not to mention that this would also assume that unaroyal was not big on archers which is rather farfetched

Charlie can hack Eyebooks, and MonteCristo believes that therefore hacking Thinkagrams is not that shocking; oh wait, you believe the same. Similarly, Charlie can influence natural allies; feral creatures that don't even have an allegiance to begin with- not that big a stretch.

Not really... The eyebook makes sense because it's all heavily involved in thinkamancy
thing about the gobwins thought is that we don't know HOW charlie is influencing the gobwin populations...
For instance, the key could be that Charlie has been negotiating with the marbits and gobwins; such as convincing marbits to move in, and gowbins to move out...
This would make it impossible to do with dwagons since Charlie can not negotiate with feral monsters

I remember saying, in the first post here, that having this ability makes sense in some ways. That doesn't change the basic fact, that Charlie is waaaay too powerful and at once very capricious in wielding that power, essentially only using it when it's convenient to the plot.

More powerful than being able to resurrect your an infinite number of croaked enemies and turn them into full powered and completely loyal allied units that have Zero upkeep?
Like say being able to resurrect AN ENTIRE ARMY in an instant?
Hell using decryption on the right units can give Wanda plenty of information about their enemy's side... as seen with the archons and Ossomer

Because God forbid Trem could have created a good counter plan all by himself. Especially since, supposedly, Jetstone is already at such an advantage that even Parson considers his plan unlikely to succeed. Seriously, do we need Charlie to provide yet more muscle flexing? Can't we believe that some warlord in Erfworld would manage an efficient response to a desperate GK?

How can Trem make a counter plan when he doesn't know what Parson's plan is?... he would have to make it up on the fly and by the time he realizes what GK is up to it may already be too late to counter it. Charlie may do nothing more than tell Trem what Parsons plan is...

[effataigus]

The 'bad thing' is in HOW it seems to happen. Whenever Parson needs some more opposition, Charlie seems to grow an extra power that nobody knew he had. That's what this is seeming like - oh, things might end up looking positive for GK, the solution is more powers for Charlie! I really hope that that doesn't happen and the implication that Charlie is spying on GK is a misdirection, intentional or not.

Ah, ok... that does make sense.

Although this particular power revelation (this is assuming that Charlie can eavesdrop, of course) doesn't sit uncomfortably with me like the Kingworld spell did. Kingworld pissed me off because it seemed like it needed so many things to happen just so for it to be a useful spell, and yet it did somehow work out for Charlie because the plot needed it to. It was almost like he knew exactly what GK's plan was a long time in advance and concocted an elaborate scheme to rig the fight to his own ends. Kingworld looked like it relied on too much luck to be reliable or even viable. All of this is to say that eavesdropping on thinkagrams seems like an ass pull that justifies the incredible ass pull of the Kingworld spell... in retrospect, it didn't require much luck, just unrivaled intelligence. BLAND already made this point earlier, so I'll shut up.

Also, unlike Kingworld, this power is more of a liability than a power as soon as everyone knows about it... it also ties together some of his other assumed powers of unrivaled intelligence into something understandable. I'm guessing we're going to see Charlie do some more things in the updates to come that will seem like ass-pulls to Parson, but make perfect sense to us.

Also, I don't see any problem with Charlie waiting until the beginning of Book 2 to pull off the Kingworld. The possible reasons people have mentioned as to why Jetstone is a better time for him to make his move make sense to me. Less personal risk, less obvious meddling, better chance of GK being reduced to a manageable side. I would never directly attack Wanda's stack... unless Wanda is in a position like she's in right now, you'd be overwhelmed by your own decrypted units in no time.

[singingbard]

I interpret Charlie's call as something different. I believe that b/w the thinkagram to Jack and the thinkagram to Wanda, Parson called Charlie. Information that Parson gleamed from the conversation hinted at Charlie's involvement with FAQ/RCC2, therefore Parson knows that a parley with Jetstone would be futile.

Parson does know that Charlie is involved somehow in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps a thinkagram to Charlie was Parson's attempt to get more intel on Charlie's involvement.

[splintermute]

Regarding the extreme situationality of Kingworld, maybe Kingworld wasn't the only super powerful spell that the Charlie-Vanna entity was capable of casting. Maybe he had outlined an entire arsenal of possible spells to Jillian that she could have chosen from in combat, and Jillian, realizing that the situation at that moment was perfect for that particular spell, opted to do the time warp. The foreshadowing provided by the Rocky Horror Picture Show outfits was likely entirely incidental - natural signamancy or "plot-a-mancy" beyond anyone's control.

[HailGreen28]

As others have said, Charlie hacked the Eyebooks. It should be EXPECTED that Charlie can wiretap thinkagrams.

I'm assuming Jillian is trying to call Charlie, and Tram is using Charlie's services to call Ossomer?

Could someone please tell me WHY Parson said it was proven they couldn't parley with Jetstone. From Parson's convo with Jack, it seemed Parson was going to rely on being able to parley with Jetstone. What's changed?

[Welf von Ehrwald]

It's been said that Charlie waited for Royals to be desperate. That happened once already, yet Charlie did not interfere. There's a lot of rationalization for that thrown around (some link spell would not have been effective, no diplomatic contact, biding time ...). These ring hollow to me. Charlie wants business, and would gladly have made it so that business flowed back as usual, as soon as possible.

You're forgetting something: before Unaroyal Charley didn't exactly knew what was going on. Until Bea found out, he couldn't even be sure if croaked decrypted stay dead or can be decrypted again. And he probably had only vague ideas about GK's strength. Starting an open attack under that circumstances would have been very risky. And to effectively defend Unaroyal, he would have needed at least some turns of concerted planing and troop movement. And until Bea found out about decrypted, she wouldn't even have seen the need to hire Charley. And after she found out, she never would have allied with an attuned non-royal.

On the thinkagrams, it has been hinted in book 1. We've been told that Charley's intel spotted Stanley's dwagons; maybe he just localized him with the thinkagramm between Maggie and Stanley.

[BCCroaker]

This order could also lead to directly to Wanda decrypting herself after croaking. [Marker put down]

Umm...did Parson really just give an order to Wanda to stay alive, whatever the cost?

What if that cost is defecting to Charlie?

The real question is how much that order will really influence her. She seems to be convinced that whatever happens will work out because her Fate will triumph in the end, which implies that she's not going to see herself as in any real danger as long as she sticks to Fate's plan (insofar as she understands it), or, conversely, that she already considers surviving long enough for her Fate to play out as her absolute top priority.

With regards to Parson's order: Jillian has no heir, Wanda could destroy Faq with a stroke of her Pliers. And thanks to that order, she may have to.

Would she? If Wanda is not techically Loyal to Stanley, Parson can't really give her binding orders... except insofar as she decides that sticking with Stanley and Parson is useful in advancing her fate. She does seem to believe that, but isn't not clear just how far that belief will extend when push comes to shove.

[Altima]

Keep in mind that this power is pretty much tailored to curb-stomp GK. After all, GK relies *heavily* on Thinkagrams because, guess what, their best strategist is a garrison unit and unable to leave the capital. So all orders would have to be sent out through Thinkagrams...

A problem I have with the sudden number of powers Charlie has managed to pull out of his rear is taht there's really no risk involved. Stanley's hammer is a weapon--allowing to rock out, giving massive bonuses, and so on. It's 'best' feature is taming dwagons--which can be built at GK, too--but in order to tame those dwagons, the heirless ruler has to physically venture out and find the suckers. It's only because of extreme conditions--suddenly having Archons and Parson's idea--that the power even came into abuse.

Whereas Charlie's Arkentool seems specifically designed for him to sit on his comfortable arse. Being able to link casters across distances--suddenly every caster in a city becomes insanely powerful, and even has juice left over.

So far, it seems anything with "Thinkamancy" in its name is a playground for Charlie. Natural Thinkamancy, Thinkagrams, even item thinkamancy.

Heck, the only good news out of all this is if Charlie is hacking Thinkagrams, then it's likely Parson will get upgraded from a garrison unit in order to be able to command from the field where Charlie's magical interference will be diluted.

[Nayl]

Different topic. Panel 9 - that's a decidedly different look for Parson. Thinner, more handsome, even dashing. Makes me wonder, are we seeing a direct representation, or is that how Maggie sees him? Hmmmm?

[Anca]

And he can give whatever command he wants.

Creepy.

[yuffiek]

Re: Charlie - Charlie's role is the classic Chessmaster/Manipulative Bastard. He's not a Magnificent Bastard, because that requires him to pull off something awesome, instead of just being a jerk playing everyone else against each other. Is he listening in on Parson-Wanda? Probably. After TBFGK, Charlie's been pretty cut off, so he's had to rely on subterfuge to get this to play out the way he wants, and since Parson knows a lot about Charlie's forces and motis operandi, it's in his best interests to keep an ear on Parson at all times.

Re: Jillian and Trammenis - So, who's making the call first? Answer... Neither one. Jillian doesn't trust him anymore, and Trammenis has realized that Charlie's been pulling the strings behind most of whats going on. Since both of them have suddenly decided to give him a buzz, he must think that they're actually going to try talking instead of croaking each other. But if Charlie can keep them on hold and in the dark... he'll buy enough time for Parson to commit to his "food fight" exploit, and ruin any chance of diplomacy altogether.

Re: Parson's orders - Parson knows Wanda's the #1 asset GK has, even above Stanley. Croak her, and GK's is in worse shape than going barbarian (since it likely would instantly dust the vast majority of GK's forces) Stanley getting croaked would at least keep the units intact.

Re: Parson's "stressed" look - All that climbing up to Stanley's office Parson does has actually been doing wonders for him, even if he doesn't like it. ("Stairs, wheee...") I imagine his warlord status has also been slowly buffing him up and getting him in shape ever since he arrived in Erfworld.