Book 2 - Page 15

[Guppy]

"Yeah, we need to move those mountains after all.... We need to retreat, STAT.
-no can do sir, We no longer have a croakamancer on our side...
"THEN RENEW RELATIONS WITH MAGIC KINGDOM! Heck, we'll SUBORDINATE ourselves to the magic kingdom! GET ME THOSE CASTERS!"

I've been wondering this whole time... when will Parson get around to remembering Misty's corpse and try to have her decrypted? Assuming I'm understanding correctly that moving her body would have kept it from de-popping? If we lose the combination of Wanda + Arkenpliers, this will no longer be possible.

Don King risks poor strategy for sentimental attachment to titles no one else in his Side likes anymore.

Speaking of Royal Sentiments... how much do we know about the mechanics of Prince/Princess popping? We know Jillian can pop one (she doesn't look pregnant, so I'm assuming either it's too soon to show, or that it will poof out of thin air). We know various other Kings and Queens have produced them. The thing is... do we know if a single King can simply order their production queue to crank one out, or does it take both a Father and Mother (Both royal or one non-royal)? For instance, did Slately's sons require cooperation from a neighboring Queen (Say, Unaroyal's Bea)?

In which case... who is the father of Jillian's Heir? Somehow I can't picture it being Don or Vinnie, although I won't exclusively rule it out (but it would provide justification for Don's massive expenditures). The most likely possibility is actually Ansom, considering the night they shared together on his Magic Carpet (if Jillian can retroactively validate the father when she finally decided to pop an heir many turns after their encounter).

Yet another layer of meaning: Faq itself was both carrot (the means to acquire the power to settle the score with Stanley) and stick (accepting her unwanted Royal status and role) for Jillian.

I prefer to be immature and assume it's a reference to Ansom's Peener. "Ansom's Carrotstick"

[CelebrenIthil]

"I love you father"
+20 love points to Trammenis <3

And here goes Wanda being absolutely confident in her control of Jillian.
We all know how that kind of behavior leads to...

Even without the ominous Predictamancy about this fight.

[Jeivar]

I see a lot of people criticizing Wanda for assuming this attempt at reining Jillian in will fare any better than the last. But remember that the last time, Jillian broke loose because she had to choose between Wanda, or saving Ansom from certain death. Now Ansom is in Wanda's clutches, and in no danger except from the conflict that has landed them on opposite sides. And, heck, the text update on Jillian thoughts showed that she's at least somewhat tempted by the possibility of spending forever under Wanda's control. So Wanda isn't ENTIRELY wrong here, methinks, but I still think the Pliers have her on a confidence trip.

There is also the issue of Charlie's hidden force. It wouldn't surprise me if Wanda succeeded in weakening Jillian's resolve, but Charlie's sudden sneak attack on the Dwagons would put an abrupt end to that.

Jillian is a one-dimensional sword wielder who for some reason got named and had a speaking part since page 1 . . . That's because her character is so poor to begin with.

I wish people wouldn't state something like that as rock-solid fact. It's an opinion. Personally, I think Jillian is one of the most interesting characters in Erf, due to her chaotic personality and conflicted desires. Notice how I said "I think".

[multilis]

Carrot is Stanley's head on a platter?

[BLANDCorporatio]

I wish people wouldn't state something like that as rock-solid fact. It's an opinion. Personally, I think Jillian is one of the most interesting characters in Erf, due to her chaotic personality and conflicted desires. Notice how I said "I think".

What do you mean "people"? That text was mine. So ok, it's an opinion. My informed opinion is that Jillian's character is too simple to be chaotic, there's really only one conflict in her (her usual attitude to others did not so far carry over to Wanda) which was left safely unexplored until now. Any new revelation we might find about the relationship between the two (why does it exist for instance) is a new stroke on a sketchy character description that Jillian is.

In my opinion.

[brooklyn]

Anyone else feel like the loud person in a horror movie here? "don't go in there they'll croak you dead!!! sweet jesus shes still going *pointless arm waving* GO BACK...THAT QUEEN IS HELLA PISSED!"

Ok so Tramennis....one of my new favorites. You know your cool when you can order the guy who carries messages from the king to hold stuff for your and scratch your nose.

As for wanda I think she learned her lesson with Jillian the first time dispite what people say. I think this because this isn't the same tactic. If she IS going after Jillian she is doing it with A - Control of the Catalyst that made her last attempt fail(Ansom aka. the carrot....haha dirty joke) and B - epic magic in her school (she hated going outside croakmancy and the spell was thinkmancy, the plier would do the magic and are epic croakmancy, also the pliers aren't persuasive loyalty....they are an ass kicking domination mascarading as loyaly). Pliers = stick (haha dirtier joke)

In this compairision of pliers domination mascarading as loyalty I'm now very curious as the the true loyalty effects of the pliers.....can decrypt turn on their caster? if so how close is super peeved ansome to turning at this point?

[Adama]

Something to remember about Jillian's hate-on for Stanley: He didn't just destroy a kingdom she didn't really want, he destroyed her HOME. All the people she'd ever liked or cared about, gone from her life, like Jack, Wanda, and others we probably don't know about. Even if she didn't at all miss her father or the prospect of ruling, losing the only home you'd ever known would give someone a profound reason to hate Stanley. And after Gobwin Knob, of course, he was responsible for taking Ansom away from her too.

Also, I agree that Don King might be playing a more complex game here than is immediately apparent. He seems to be one of the only people in the RCC2 who understands the real security risks that decryption presents, particularly after the last letter from Unaroyal--which we know from Caesar made Don King even more serious about the war. In a situation where the enemy can turn any of your highest level people if they can kill them, then there's only two good strategies for security. One is to keep your people away from the enemy, and what do you know, all of Transylvito's high command is hiding out at home. The second is to limit what you tell anyone about your strategy: something we know Jillian is already exercising, possibly on the orders of Don King.

Jetstone failed to understand the dangers of decryption, costing them Ossomer and the element of surprise for their would-be tower ambush.

[SteveMB]

Something to remember about Jillian's hate-on for Stanley: He didn't just destroy a kingdom she didn't really want, he destroyed her HOME. All the people she'd ever liked or cared about, gone from her life, like Jack, Wanda, and others we probably don't know about. Even if she didn't at all miss her father or the prospect of ruling, losing the only home you'd ever known would give someone a profound reason to hate Stanley. And after Gobwin Knob, of course, he was responsible for taking Ansom away from her too.

Another point: Initially, Jillian had every reason to assume that Wanda had been croaked by the attack on Faq. After discovering otherwise (the first interrogation session at Orgchart, probably), she assumed that Wanda had been captured by Stanley and compelled via loyalty spell to serve him. Either way, it's a reason to hate Stanley, given her evident feelings for Wanda before their falling-out.

[Hayzeus]

1) Jillian's using herself as bait and my oh my if Wanda isn't about to bite.

2) By the end of this book, Wanda is going to backstab Stanley to steal his Arkenhammer.

[Menas]

I would say that it is just a feeling that has been building, and isn't going to dissipate due to rational thought. She blames him for killing Ansom, and even though Ansom isn't actually dead, her anger is still there.

Also, he didn't actually steal her kingdom, he left it there to be reclaimed.

This. Stanley didn't really do much to her, but made a good scapegoat for everything she felt bad about after the fall of FAQ, especially with everyone else being pissed at him too. She 'loves a problem she can solve with a sword', so that's what she's going to project all her feelbad thoughts onto. Stanley sacked FAQ, Stanley killed Ansom, Stanley controls Wanda... none of those are true and relevant, but it keeps things simple.

In my view Stanley did a LOT to Jillian:

- Destroyed her nation, FAQ, via a completely unprovoked attack. We have no reason to believe Jillian or anyone else in FAQ knew about Wanda's relationship with Stanley prior to him destroying FAQ. So as far as Jillian knows, Stanley is completely responsible. And even if she knew about what Wanda did, I'm guessing she'd be much more angry with Wanda as opposed to less angry with Stanley.
- Killed her father. Since her father was previously leader of FAQ, and Jillian was leader of the barbarian forces after that, there's good reason to believe Stanley killed her father along with destroying the capital. The side went barbarian with Jillian as the leader.
- Was leader of the side that killed the man she loved. It doesn't matter that Stanley didn't deliver the killing blow himself. If he hadn't tried to take over the entire world Ansom wouldn't have been there leading the RCC1 forces against him to begin with. It was because of Stanley's actions and his forces that Ansom died.

If it were me, I'd have sworn a blood oath against him as well. As in the 'My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.' type of oath.

And Jillian knows from her last encounter with Wanda that Stanley has absolutely NO loyalty spells in effect on Wanda, and that she is CHOOSING to follow him of her own free will. In her book, I'm sure Stanley = Wanda = they both need to die at this point.

I don't care what tricks Wanda has up her sleeve this time. Jillian knows the truth now and isn't going to fall for them. As far as Wanda trying to use an Arkentool to manipulate her, Charlie also has one with which he can defend her. And I'm sure he'll intervene if he feels he needs to.

NOTE: I was ninja'ed on some of this. It's all good =).

[theseus2x]

I've been wondering this whole time... when will Parson get around to remembering Misty's corpse and try to have her decrypted? Assuming I'm understanding correctly that moving her body would have kept it from de-popping? If we lose the combination of Wanda + Arkenpliers, this will no longer be possible.

I'm sure someone else has said something, but Parson indicated in his blog that Misty's corpse would "de-pop" on its own. He didn't do anything to indicate burying her would make it otherwise.

Besides, on the slight chance her body DIDN'T "de-pop", the Volcano blowing up would quite likely have destroyed it. The units who's bodies survived for decryption for the most part weren't underground/buried.

[Snowtitan]

Where do I start?
Veiled sexual references, Carrot or Stick (maybe a radish?)

Personally I don't think Wanda is going to try and turn Jillian, I think it's the other way round.. Wanda's going to offer her services back to her original side.
She only turned to get the arken-hammer off Stanley (or so she thought). her real loyalties may still side with FAQ.

Also we know that Jack seems to be low on juice, Veiling the column must've taken it out of him

[Sinrus]

Where do I start?
Veiled sexual references, Carrot or Stick (maybe a radish?)

That's not a sexual reference.

[Glenn]

I'm a lot more sympathetic to both Wanda and Jillian than many of the people who have posted on this thread. Wanda is trying to find peaceful solutions to the problems posed by Jetstone and Faq. Like Ansom, she doesn't want to have to kill someone she loves if she can avoid it. That's why she allowed Ansom to try to negotiate with Jetstone, and why she is about to try to negotiate with Jillian. Is there something WRONG with trying to find a negotiated settlement? And Wanda's belief that Jillian will be willing to change sides isn't as stupid as some people on his thread seem to think. While I don't think she will be willing to do it, we know from the recent text update about her that Jillian is a lot more ambivalent than Ossomer believes.

And do people ACTUALLY think Jillian's desire to croak Stanley is wildly unreasonable? Set aside for a moment the fact that he killed Jillian's father and destroyed her homeland, which gives her ample reason to want to see him dead. Isn't the minor fact that Stanley is a megalomaniac who intends to conquer the world, and overthrow Royalty give Jillian a reasonable motive to oppose Stanley? Don King told Jillian that the real reason she instinctively hates Stanley is because she is a Royal, and he may be right. Does anyone here think that Stanley would make a good World Ruler?

[theseus2x]

Wanda is NOT trying to find a peaceful solution to Jetstone. Wanda said as much herself - Parson and Ansom wanted to avoid a Unaroyal situation. Wanda is Wanda - if she kills everyone who is not decrypted, the she wins.

As for Wanda's reaction to Jillian, she's simply trying to remove an obstacle without losing too much of her forces.

[BLANDCorporatio]

I'm a lot more sympathetic to both Wanda and Jillian than many of the people who have posted on this thread. Wanda is trying to find peaceful solutions to the problems posed by Jetstone and Faq. Like Ansom, she doesn't want to have to kill someone she loves if she can avoid it. {...}

And do people ACTUALLY think Jillian's desire to croak Stanley is wildly unreasonable?

People see Wanda as too confident, and she's been like that for some time. It's not that negotiation is wrong, people think Wanda is too sure of her grip on Jillian. Which, despite Jillian's "tormented inner life", is tenuous.

And no, most people think Jillian's hatred of Stanley is to be expected, given their history.

Does anyone here think that Stanley would make a good World Ruler?

Yes. I do.

Wait, wait, explanation forthcoming.

Just what, exactly, is a world leader supposed to DO? Not even Charlie can manage that complexity and there's a reason why Havelock Vetinari is satisfied with just Ankh-Morpork.

So any world ruler will have administrative underlings doing the really important stuff like making sure the streets are repaired and clean, that the roaming barbarians stay clear of the trade caravans, that the various populations stay happy with each other. Leaving Stanley with nothing else to do than fondly regard creation.

[Guppy]

As far as Wanda trying to use an Arkentool to manipulate her, Charlie also has one with which he can defend her. And I'm sure he'll intervene if he feels he needs to.

Definitely. What Charlie wants is very key to how all this will turn out. We have no idea his intentions towards his target (or targets -- he could be very well after Jack as much as Wanda). Does he wants them croaked, turned, or consumed by mutual destruction? I think it was mentioned that he was the one who had arranged for Vanna's hiring, so we don't even know if a turned Wanda (or Jack) would end up under Jillian's control or Charlie's.

I think it's reasonable that what Charlie wants is to re-establish his customer base among the royals, but not in a way that leaves any of them too powerful. He'll want Slately alive and strong enough to repel Haggar afterwards (or, for Haggar's infantry to take enough losses to prevent them from conquering Jetstone afterwards), and for Wanda and the Arkenpliers to be separated should she end up under Jillian's faction.

I'm a lot more sympathetic to both Wanda and Jillian than many of the people who have posted on this thread. Wanda is trying to find peaceful solutions to the problems posed by Jetstone and Faq.

The peace of the grave, perhaps. In her conversation with Parson on strategy, it seems she kept poking Parson until she got the answer she wanted, which was burning Jetstone to the ground. I have no doubt she still holds to this plan, and would like to continue once Jillian is no longer an obstacle, however that is accomplished.

[theseus2x]

Does anyone here think that Stanley would make a good World Ruler?

Yes. I do.

Wait, wait, explanation forthcoming.

Just what, exactly, is a world leader supposed to DO? Not even Charlie can manage that complexity and there's a reason why Havelock Vetinari is satisfied with just Ankh-Morpork.

So any world ruler will have administrative underlings doing the really important stuff like making sure the streets are repaired and clean, that the roaming barbarians stay clear of the trade caravans, that the various populations stay happy with each other. Leaving Stanley with nothing else to do than fondly regard creation.

Okay - I get your argument, and I love the Discworld reference.

BUT - I disagree. Stanley won't be satisfied with that. Stanley wants to FEEL like he's in control. He'll make petty decisions just because he has the power to do so. Look at the current situation where he's forced to delegate to Wanda. He HATES it. He's going nuts. He's throwing a temper tantrum. He despises not feeling in control.

Now multiply that by 1000. Uhm, no. He'd destroy the world before he'd make himself a figurehead.

[Snowtitan]

Where do I start?
Veiled sexual references, Carrot or Stick (maybe a radish?)

That's not a sexual reference.

Carrots and sticks are both classic phallic symbols. Jillian and Wanda have a relationship. Suggesting that they are both interchangeable.
Oh yes it IS a sexual reference

[nerf-dweller]

Ugh, she's falling for the old "I know this chick, she won't hurt me" thing again? Shouldn't someone who commands a legion of switched over zombies know that sometimes personal history doesn't matter, people change completely and can't be trusted? I mean, it had some pretty terrible consequences for her earlier when she underestimated Jillian's freewill. I think she'd have gotten the memo.

Well Wanda has a very big carrot and stick in the form of Ansome. And that would explain why she ordered him to stay and retreat if need be. The carrot is Wanda can literally give Ansome to Jillian. And the stick is that Ansome is almost within Jillian's reach again. But Wanda can deny him to Jillian.