Erfworld 135 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 122

[Aquillion]

"I trust Commander Zamussels completely." That was obviously not true.

It was a joke with an old friend, as his following exchange with Vinnie makes clear -- he's saying that he trusts her completely because he just saw her come back. When Vinnie jibes him about it, they just laugh it off. That's not the same thing as openly deceiving someone at all.

And Stanley's Loyalty score is highly relevant, since your only contention that I'm wrong is based off of speculation that he failed a Loyalty check. If you're not going to allow me speculation based off of incomplete information, you shouldn't do it either.

You're relying on complete speculation as well, as is everyone who isn't the writer, you know. Also, I don't see you taking this umbrage with the people who are using Charlescomm as the ultimate solution to all the problems of Erfworld, even to the point of speculating that Charlie killed Saline. Also, most of what I've postulated is absolutely grounded in provided information - Ansom hates Stanley. Ansom hates non-royals and believes he has a divine right to rule them. Ansom desires the death of Stanley and to posess GK.

There are different degrees of speculation and assumption. We have been told that all units have a hidden loyalty score, and shown (from the interactions between them, especially between Stanley and others) that it is not particularly rare for high-ranking units to turn or betray their master from time to time. Therefore, given what we've seen of Stanley's decidedly egocentric, self-centered personality, it is not really a stretch to say that he may have a low loyalty to others.

Meanwhile, we have seen absolutely nothing linking Ansom to Gobwin Knob in any way before this war; we haven't seen any hint of advanced intelligence, communications, or espionage capabilities available to Jetstone; we haven't seen any hint that he has a particularly manipulative or devious personality. (If anything, while he can be diplomatic, he's often wince-inducingly blunt.) We've seen nothing to indicate that he is capable of unprovoked regicide against the lawful king of another nation (neither on a personal level, nor a practical one). All of that is groundless speculation, based just around what you want to see, and not around anything in the comic.

Think closely about what you're saying. Jillian is NOT Chief Warlord to Ansom or even a unit under his control, so the effects of Duty and Loyalty are less intense on her, she has a self-described poor Loyalty score (she hated Saline), and Loyalty can be modified by the spell....but yet, when given an indirect opportunity to merely hinder Ansom, she instead broke the spell. Now add up the Chief Warlord factor and that Stanley probably wasn't being magically influenced, and you're still postulating that he's MORE likely to do something much worse than what Jillian refused to do? Possible, but highly unlikely

I still think you misunderstand how Loyalty works. Duty and Loyalty are not less intense on her; unless Wanda's spell worked by inducing them, they have never and will never apply to her at all. She isn't Ansom's unit, and has no loyalty or duty to him whatsoever. She's the leader of her own barbarian faction; the only loyalty that could possibly apply to her is a magically-induced one to Wanda. I assumed, therefore, that that is what you were speaking about... hence my confusion. She was magically loyal to Wanda; but that loyalty broke over personal concerns. This is more evidence that loyalty is not absolute.

Plainly, she has no capital-L loyalty to Ansom. She's a mercenary, not one of his units, and is free to break her alliance at any time -- frequent references are made to this. She's in the same category as Charlie, who was (going by his initial conversation with Parson) plainly free to stab Ansom in the back even during an alliance, and chose not to only because it would hurt his reputation. Jillian could lop Ansom's head off any time she chooses... the reason why she doesn't (and the reason why her magically-induced loyalty to Wanda failed) is because of her own personal feelings, not because of any magical compulsion.

Um, no. Ansom is Chief Warlord of Jetsone with over 2900 units at the start of this campaign; Jillian is a mercenary with 21 units. Ansom has several magical items that we've seen that Jillian has no access to by herself. That's demonstrated - do you doubt that he has other resources to hand?

The resources necessary to undetectably cause revolution and regicide in a distant country go considerably beyond a few field units. He's said himself that he has no lookamancers, and demonstrated through his actions that he has no thinkamancers. Parson notes in a klog that casters are rare and valuable.

Basically, I trust the authors of the strip more than this. What you're describing would be a ham-handed shocking swerve, with very little leading up to it. It doesn't make Ansom's character more interesting; in fact, it makes him into a faceless evildoer. The logic behind it hasn't been properly-established or touched on in the strip -- we've been specifically shown that right now, Ansom [i]doesn't[/i ]have the resources necessary to pull this off, and he's been shown to us as a guy with a stick up his ass, maybe, certainly with lots of class prejudices... but basically someone who tries to be noble, someone who worries about wasting the lives of his men, and so on. The guy you're describing -- capable of committing regicide and encouraging an uprising against a lawful king, capable of lying to his closest friends and confidantes in order to start a war on pretexts he knows to be false -- simply doesn't match the Ansom we've been introduced to at all.

I think that the authors are basically honest in the things they're telling us. I don't think there are any totally unexpected, out-of-the-blue twists hiding inside the characters -- Ansom clearly has a nasty side at times, and might have done some terrible things in the past without realizing it, but what you're describing is way beyond that.

I simply cannot see him as capable of assassinating Saline IV, then trying to accuse Stanley of it in an argument with Vinnie. Actually assassinating Saline IV is actually less impossible to me -- maybe, whatever; that's just speculation. But to bring it up himself in an argument with his best friend, in a deceptive attempt to argue against Stanley? Never. It's flatly absurd, and goes against everything we've seen about Ansom as a character, as well as everything we've seen about his relationship with Vinnie. Why would he even need to lie to Vinnie like that? He could have said any one of a thousand different things, there was no need to accuse Stanley of regicide again in an argument with Vinnie. When he's uncomfortable with other things when talking to Vinnie, he'll usually change the subject or admit his uncertainty -- why would he do such a flamboyantly jerk-ass thing as try to use Saline's death for leverage in an argument with his best friend, if he didn't honestly believe that Stanley was responsible?