Book 2 – Page 89

[jah77]

esting that Tramennis asks "saved for how long?" It makes it seem he doesn't have confidence in being made a heir....

Can a double of Slately even make Tramennis heir? What powers does the double king have?

[fjolnir]

The plan for Haggar was to quite simply mop up Jetstone after the fight when they were sufficiently weakened. They have a force they thought was capable of taking down either Jetstone or GK depending on the winner so Charlie is right when he used the word "Twice" and we should be aware how, even if the characters themselves are not.

Characters have talked about killing, murder, or death quite frankly during the series, I am honestly surprised if this is the first non-parson use of the word "kill"

[oslecamo2_temp]

Good to see Trems back into "herp What have you done saving the side from my family's own stupidity? derp"


And for one, we see Charlie's true personality. No more care bears, only controlling, obsessed villains.

Sooo, any guesses on how Charlie intends to kill the Hamster Man?
-Hamster is in the MK, surrounded by a zillion mancers, most of them actually want Hamster alive and kicking.
-Jetstone has no easy acess to the portal room, and GK's forces are actually flushing them out from the city. They'll be lucky if they can escape, let alone punch trough to the heavy warlord that'll probably be surrounded by bodyguards one way or the other.

[bladestorm]

I doubt Charlie has changed at all when dealing with Clonely. Disclosing your plan is a bad villain move, even to someone you know will not last until morning. "Before you vanish permanently, I shall tell you my master plan..." doesn't seem like Charlie at all. I also doubt that Parson is a threat to Royalty. A threat to Charlie, definitely, but not to the concept of Royalty. That would be part of Charlie's manipulation... use a pawn (unassociated with yourself) against an opponent.

Technically, Parson didn't croak Ossomer the second time. That was done by the Archons working on one of Charlie's rules. Even so, if Parson were responsible for the deaths of Ansom, Ossomer and Slately, now they are going to send Tramenis up against him with orders to 'kill the fat man'? It doesn't add up well. So much bargaining power Charlie has when dealing with the terminal Clonely. Clonely's got nothing to really lose at this point, since whether Jetstone falls or not, he's gone at the start of next turn. If Jetstone wins, he'll get one night of celebration; if Jetstone loses, he gets at worst a night in manacles. He's in a lose-lose situation, and Charlie is using that to his advantage.

At this point, the one thing Charlie doesn't want to do is make himself known as Parson's opponent, especially to Parson. He's going to need to run some serious distractions, obfuscations, and misdirection to keep Parson's focus off of Charlescomm. Or, find some way of allying with Parson without jeopardizing his mercenary work. Anything to be, at worst, neutral.

[0beron]

Kingworld happened before charlie strong-armed Haggar into thinning out the GK column.

Oh hum, my bad. Then I'm not really sure. Forcing Haggar into the fight made sure Jetstone suffered fewer losses and could commit more to the capital fight. And also anything that costs Wanda more troops than she gains is a victory for the Coalition.

[splexis]

Nice symbolism, demoting the king to a pawn

Also a little wierdomantic, since by the rules of chess pawns may become kings, but kings may not become pawns.

[danhaas]

They were a threat to Jetstone by extention. The Infantry from GK was prepared to assault the city, getting Haggar to step in was supposed to thin their numbers enough to diminish the GK threat. GK dealt with it pretty well though, so Charlie had to resort to kingworld instead.

The skirmish between Haggar and GK happened after kingworld.

But yeah, I think Charlie is refering to that. Though Haggar was just a potential threat then, strong-arming Haggar did help further Jetstone's objectives. It can't be anything else.

[Salem]

I think one of the big take aways is that *if* Charlie is controlling his appearance, he views himself as the villain, he knows he's evil and he relishes in it. The Joker seems apt, Charlie thrives on Chaos, though his is monitarily driven, or seems to be, it's possible Charlie just loves to play the game, maybe he feels he's imortal since things can last a seemingly infinite number of turns.

However if it's natural signamancy, erfworld views him as the villain. More interestingly, Jack is on the "Bad" side and his signamancy is a horribly benign villain, however the villains that it would be choosing for Charlie paint another picture. Control being the major aspect. Though I think Erf choosing his form seems unlikely, unless it's a spell. Charlie has always been concerned with hiding his appearance, so I would imagine this is just him doing that in thinkspace. So I don't really think it's worth thinking about it being anything but Charlie's choice.


Aside: I really liked Charlie at first, but I stopped liking him fast, and he's just getting more hateable. When they hinted he was doing things to his Archons, it was almost like "Okay, maybe. Lets just think of him as Earthling who is a lonely geek who now has really pretty dolls." That was a stretch and the more personality he got the more he looked like a really really horrid cult leader who uses his followers, and now with him viewing himself as the villain or just being the villain he just looks like a monster.

[Ansan Gotti]

Good to see Trems back into "herp What have you done saving the side from my family's own stupidity? derp"

I'm cutting him a lot of slack right now... he just found out his father, with whom he has had a conflicted relationship, but one that has just dramatically improved, is about to die.

This is a totally brilliant page, by the way.

[bladestorm]

Nice symbolism, demoting the king to a pawn

Also a little wierdomantic, since by the rules of chess pawns may become kings, but kings may not become pawns.

Could be a reference to End Game tactics. A common End Game strategy counts upon having pawns available towards the end of the game. some players are totally screwed if you target all of their pawns and leave them with much more capable pieces (like the entire back row). Just like with an End Game in chess, your strategy has to change. What worked in early game doesn't work as well in mid-game, and you need something completely different in end game.

With that in mind, the battle between Parson and Charlie may not even be a typical confrontation where two armies clash on a battlefield and one attempts to seize the other's capitol. It maybe a battle over capital. How many more turns can Charlescomm sustain itself without new contracts? Parson can systematically eliminate Charlescomm's revenue sources, target the Archon's stationed at hotspots across the map (the ones strategically placed there so that they can respond to services faster), and then launch raids against Charlescomm to further reduce whatever is allowing Charlie to sustain his side. Much like when Parson corrected Wanda about holding the garrison (Close. It's to render the enemy incapable or unwilling to take the garrison). Charlescomm doesn't have to be defeated, merely made unable to sustain its own side.

[Kaed]

Nice symbolism, demoting the king to a pawn

Also a little wierdomantic, since by the rules of chess pawns may become kings, but kings may not become pawns.

Uh... not sure you're playing the same chess I do, but that is actually the one thing pawns cannot become. The King is the most important piece on the board, everything else is expendable and able to be made by promotion.

[oslecamo2_temp]

Nice symbolism, demoting the king to a pawn

Also a little wierdomantic, since by the rules of chess pawns may become kings, but kings may not become pawns.

Uh... not sure you're playing the same chess I do, but that is actually the one thing pawns cannot become. The King is the most important piece on the board, everything else is expendable and able to be made by promotion.

I always felt it was somewhat perverse the fact you can promote pawns into queens.

So you can make your own harem? And were they all women to begin with?

Good to see Trems back into "herp What have you done saving the side from my family's own stupidity? derp"

I'm cutting him a lot of slack right now... he just found out his father, with whom he has had a conflicted relationship, but one that has just dramatically improved, is about to die.

He's still the chief warlord. He above everybody else is suposed to keep calm, focused and start asking "what do we have left, and how do we live to fight another day?"

[bladestorm]

Didn't The Joker show up as one of the background -mancers in the Magic Kingdom, or am I misremembering?

It's possible. Rob isn't above using a reference twice in different ways (Case and point, Jack is a constant reference to the Joker). OR, this could mean Charlie is also a Foolamancer at some level, and he has been to the MK using that disguise.

Countdown to someone speculating that Jack is really Charlie in 3...2...1...

Seriously, that raises a good point about how pop culture can be grafted onto Erfworld in different ways. Jack dresses like the Ceasar Romero Joker -- the Clown Prince of Crime, an amusing prankster carrying at worst a vague air of menace. When Charlie manifests as the Joker, it's the Heath Ledger version, a terrifying force of chaotic destruction, mass murder with a smile. Good stuff.

It fits in with the Maggie is Charlie conspiracy. There was no trimancer link, it was just Charlie. When he split into three units, and Misty died, he couldn't go back to his Voltron mode because Misty died..... THAT's why he hates Parson. Now he's been separated so long that the sub-units are trying to exhibit their own personalities, and their individuality is growing stronger. Shaking trees and mystery roars abound.

[hajo]

by the rules of chess pawns may become kings, but kings may not become pawns.

Pawns may become queen, and maybe knight/rook/bishop, but not king.
Unless you play some sort of fairy-chess

In other news, I wonder if Charlie is going to throw 'some' more money at the battle.
E.g. with sufficent funds, they could rebuild the tower, upgrade the army to all-heavy, etc.

[Lamech]

I like how Charlie quickly deflected the question of payment. Anyway he's being slippery. I suppose this will be how Parson gets let in. Stanley invites him. Then they can spring their "trap"...

[noname_hero]

In other news, I wonder if Charlie is going to throw 'some' more money at the battle.
E.g. with sufficent funds, they could rebuild the tower, upgrade the army to all-heavy, etc.

Well, your idea gave me one of my own, or at least one I don't recall reading around here.

Could Parson promote any of the ex-Jetstone decrypted to heavies? Because, as far as we know, GK is also a side with money to throw around and their force on the ground could use some upgrades...

[Kreistor]

No, Charlie's use of these Earthworld characters is not evidence that Charlie is from Earth. All of these characters may have been popped on Erfworld, and any of them could have dealt with Charlie as mercenary.

The pages where he simulates non-characters while speaking with Parson in Book 1 are better evidence, but they may simply be using arson's own memories to generate the visuals, and Charlie may not know exactly what he looks like to Parson.

Further, Charlie may have drawn all of those visuals from Parson's mind during that discussion. The Joker image is classic Joker (Killing Joke version, I think [Edit: changed my mind. It's too fat faced to be the KJ version)]), NOT Heath Ledger's imperfect variant. Parson left Erfworld prior to Heath's version being released.

[onlyme]

Perhaps "Kill" here is another sign of the breaking filters.

That and it rhymes with "Kill the batman"

The full quote of the original is:

The Joker: It's simple, we kill the Batman.

So both sentences are there, it is obviously a quote.

But I do not think it is a filter broken, but it's simply a natural. What Charly is doing here is most likely some form of mild suggestion spell. And spells in Erfworld are the same as pop references in our world. So it is obviously that a suggestion spell to pull someone on your side to kill the hero will look like many characters from our world's fiction that try to pull someone on their side.

At least Palpantine, Dr. Doom, Agent Smith, Beetlejuice and Joker fit well into that, I don't know enough about the other characters to know if they also have a history of dragging people into working against the hero.

[Ansan Gotti]

He's still the chief warlord. He above everybody else is suposed to keep calm, focused and start asking "what do we have left, and how do we live to fight another day?"

Part of good writing is to convey a very real "human" element to a character, and IMO people do the story a disservice (as well as decrease their own enjoyment, probably) to try to make a character either react the way they think they ought to react, or to view the character from a too-detached, objective place.

Maybe you're right about what would be objectively best for the side, but personally the scene feels more "real" to me the way he reacted, and it makes me appreciate the character more. Way more than if he had just reacted like a Vulcan or a robot.

[noname_hero]

I'm thinking about two more things.

One, maybe the captured archon could provide spell security to Jetstone in order to help her own side, especially if she's jealous that Charlie is talking to the double but she's cut off. Imagine her saying "Uh, you three casters, pay attention to your king. Can't you see the suggestion spell on him?"

Two, the strange coincidence that Parson is being called fat man. Yes, I know he is one. I get the Batman reference. But he is also the guy who is supposed to end the war on Erf and the name Fat Man springs into mind. Especially since Charlie came to power before him and maybe, maybe we could call Charlie an angry Little Boy.