Quote Originally Posted by Glome View Post
"Smart Ansom" would be just as dead after Sizemore came up from under the ground and 4chaned him after Bogroll's surprise attack. And in either case, collapsing the city would have finished Ansom off even if Bogroll failed.

Even knowing what we know now, it seems to me that Ansom was safer accepting Parson's surrender on the tower near where he had complete air superiority and away from the dirtomancer that he knew was capable of sniping commanders regardless of how many troops they were surrounded by.

The only way Ansom could have saved himself is if he sent someone else to accept Parson's surrender instead or simply choose not to accept a surrender and 'needlessly' put his soliders at risk, which I believe would be highly uncharacteristic of who Ansom was in the first place.

For Ansom to believe that Parson or his doppleganger put his life at risk at the tower would require him to assign traits to Parson that he was unwilling to do, namely that Parson/Bogroll was loyal enough to sacrifice their own life to save Gobwin Knob.
Arguably, if Ansom was using his carpet as a stage just a few feet off the ground, he could have flown up to evade whatever Sizemore tried to do. Essentially, Parson's plan was playing the player, not the game. He used Ansom's overweening pride to take him down. Pretty much the definition of hubris, and the sort of thing that makes 'pride goeth before a fall' downright literal in this case.

Besides, when have we seen Ansom acting intelligently?