Quote Originally Posted by slayerx View Post
He wasn't alone, he had the archons with him... as for why they did not assist, it is possible that Ansom fell below the zone crossing line, and thus fell where the archons could not follow to catch him or attack... Had Parson tried to use crossbowmen on Ansom, the Achons would have toasted them... not to mention with the foolamancer gone, Ansom would not know they could use foolamancy... he looked at the situtation and saw it as Parson put himself in as much danger as he himself, if not more so; espeically since Parson would never pull off a one-man attack and Bogroll's victory is thanks to the fact that it was a suicde attack which Ansom would not expect Parson himself to use
Given that Parson had tried Thinkomancy tricks when the Archons were doing their DDR thing, I'm not sure it is reasonable for Ansom to pay no mind to the possibility of magical chicanery. But that's not really the central issue: even though Ansom got a Twoll when he expected Parson, he still voluntarily put himself within arms reach of an enemy whom he considered to be of the basest character. Why would he do that? I understand that he is prideful, but he could have accepted Parson's surrender at a time and place of his own choosing. I mean, how exactly would Parson have refused if Ansom told Charlie to have Parson meet him in the courtyard?

As for the Archons, they were next to him in appearance only. In order for Bogroll to have attacked him, Ansom must have been in the Tower sub-zone, and we know the Archons cannot leave the Airspace zone. If anything had gone wrong, there's nothing the Archons could have done about it from a combat angle (assuming Charlie hadn't been hanging Ansom out to dry). If Parson/Bogroll himself could fly into the airspace zone, then Archons could have lent him support, but that is not what happened.

Really, this whole thing only works because Ansom falls for the most painfully obvious trap I can imagine, the sort of moronic trick I'd expect the Legion of Doom to pull on the Superfriends. If Ansom is really that guileless, how can I take Parson seriously as a skilled warlord? He barely managed to beat someone who thinks he owns the Brooklyn Bridge. That's not something to brag about on your resume.

because the trick would have been less likely to work... Ansom might have been skeptical if Parson surrendered when he still had the majority of his forces intact. Parson used that trick at the time when he was really against the wall, when Ansom thought he was against the walls... the way Ansom saw it parson had played his final hand and was totally out of options...

Furtharmore, the trick goes well with the timing of collapsing the city... Just loosing their leader would spoil their moral a bit, but the coalition would still fight on... but destorying the city right after that and causing them massive casualties and damage, along with having numerous leadership units croaked, would make them feel like they were in a hopeless position
Pfui. What changed between Ansom trumping one of Parson's plans and Ansom trumping another of Parson's plans? Other than author fiat, why must forcing Parson into the dungeons (where he appeared to be safe from the DDR and could still fight on) signal the end of the war? It seems to me that if Ansom was gullible enough to walk into an obvious trap after he had secured a beachhead, he would have walked into the trap once he survived Wanda's attack and had breached Gobwin Knob's walls. The only thing that changed between those two situations is that the author revoked his Hero Death Battle Exemption card, but presumably the characters didn't actually know that.

And I disagree that this coincides well with the collapse of the city: it has nothing to do with that. Had Parson killed Ansom after the outer walls fell, he might not have needed to collapse the city at all. If the RCC ended its turn, Parson could try any other plans he had, knowing he could still collapse the city at any moment should the need arise. If the RCC pushed on, they would not have had Ansom there to DDR them to victory. It sure seems to me as though killing Ansom earlier had nothing but upside.

in fact, had Ansom croaked before the attack on the courtyard, the coalition might have decided to wait 1 turn before attacking the courtyard and thus have charlies aid in the courtyard fight... remember, parson knew ANSOM would attack the courtyard without waiting because of his pride; he could not be sure that the other members of the coalition shared his pride... with the loss of their leader, the coalition might have been more willing to wait until charlie could join them, which would have screwed Parson completely... parson NEEDED them to attack right away
Actually, this is another problem. Parson makes a big show of how they'd be doomed if Ansom didn't attack on this turn. But how on earth am I supposed to believe that when we now see him collapsing the city and (presumably) devastating the RCC forces in it? If Ansom had camped inside the outer walls HE might have survived (if he stayed on his carpet), but his army wouldn't. And given how easy it was to lure him into a trap, I have an even harder time believing his presence alone would be the difference between the Archons failing to capture the rubble and the Archons succeeding on their next turn.

So what difference did attacking this turn make? AFAICT, it didn't matter in the slightest. It was just a contrived line to add some tension by making it look as though Ansom's tactics made a difference.

Wanda took ZERO damage from the archons... the damage she took was 100% falling damage and it was enough to bring her to the near brink of death... Ansom on the other hand not only took the falling damage but also has additional damaged from the crushing weight of a twoll landing on top of him, followed by possible hits bogroll might have gotten in before croaking
Why would Wanda not have taken any damage? The Archons fired on her, and it was already established that they were strong enough to capture all of GK by themselves. If all of them opened up on a mere fraction of GK's forces (as they did), I would expect them to do some serious damage. Indeed, I find it rather hard to believe that Wanda survived in the first place.

The idea that she survived without a scratch while her mount was incinerated seems too unlikely to consider without some evidence to back it up. Wanda does seem to have some sort of shield around her in Panel 9 of page 121, but the shield is gone by the time she's falling in Panel 10. I think she took some damage there.

Meanwhile, we have Bogroll attacking Ansom by himself. Bogroll is clearly less powerful than Ansom, since killing Ansom leveled him twice. I find it hard to believe that Bogroll's attacks hit harder than all those Archons. So we have to assume that either the fall was much longer than Wanda's, that Bogroll landed on him and squished him, or both.

But either way, I find it very unconvincing. We know nothing of how falling damage works in Erfworld, but we've already seen people survive extremely long falls: if this fall is supposed to be dramatically worse because of its height, I just wind up wondering why Ansom flew up that high in the first place, much less to treat with an enemy on his own. If Bogroll managed to crush him to death in the fall, I think we should at least have seen some of the struggle to call attention to that fact. It makes Bogroll's sacrifice that much more meaningful, and makes Ansom's death look like less of a handwave.

I understand that there's no accounting for tastes, but I'm just disappointed by the way this has gone. As I feared, Parson's first victory over Ansom is also his last.

-H