Erfworld 155 -- tBfGK 142

[BLANDCorporatio]

Prediction:

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Parson reforms Erfworld by realizing that the original purpose of the Arkentools was to create, not to destroy; by teaming up with Charlie to gather all the tools in one place; and by rebuilding under a grand alliance, in which Parson sells out Stanley to put Charlie in charge because, well, he just likes him better, and Stanley is a spoiled brat who wants to keep fighting. The rebuilding is funded by Sizemore's gems.

Dude.

BOOP Charlie.

Yes I am a Stanley fan.

[MattR]

Sizemore being cheerful.

1) An act for Parson's benefit since he's supposed to ingratiate himself and be BFF whilst further the goal of peace.

Or more likely..

2) Like any good geek when a favourite subject is raised his mind blanks and he's warped to happy babbling.

Wanda being able to dig

1) She's capable of more then one school of magic, i imagine digging stuff isn't complicated dirtamancy.

2) Uncroaked survived, maybe she got one of those to do the dirty work.

3) It's the pliers, i doubt she'd balk at digging with her bare hands to claim it.

Stanley attacked FAQ

1) Still not confirmed, all we know about is an overflight of dwagons.. that's circumstantial evidence. Particularly since Stanley's hammer is used for 'taming' dwagons... which implies they can exist in an untamed state.

[Wisp Wings]

Stanley seems to me like the person who will be content. Sure his Capital is now officially Rubblesville, population (when he gets their) 6 sentients, 1 monster (dwagon), 2 golems and a sprinkle of uncroacked, but it's his rubble, and jewel encrused rubble at that, and rubble is better than no rubble.

Having Maggie tell him strait away that he's the richest guy on the planet would probebly save them all a lot of trouble, and Jack can always cloak the city to boost his ego.

"My city is ruins"
"No it's not- look"
"Oooo- now it has a Macdonalds"

[raphfrk]

Prediction:

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in which Parson sells out Stanley to put Charlie in charge because, well, he just likes him better, and Stanley is a spoiled brat who wants to keep fighting. The rebuilding is funded by Sizemore's gems.

Spoiler

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Stanley may be a spoiled brat, but Charlie is not exactly altrustic. Also, he is someone you have to watch all the time as he will stab you in the back as soon as it is worth slightly more to him than not stabbing you in the back.

Stanley could possibly be convinced to do the right thing as it is "the will of the Titans", but maybe not.

[raphfrk]

1) Still not confirmed, all we know about is an overflight of dwagons.. that's circumstantial evidence. Particularly since Stanley's hammer is used for 'taming' dwagons... which implies they can exist in an untamed state.

That could go either way. If he saved the survivors from an attack of wild dwagons (and incidently increased his dwagon corps at the same time), that would explain why the faq units seems to be grateful/loyal to him.

Ofc, "taming" could just be the word used to pop them.

[Gez]

Also: anyone else notice how Wanda's new outfit creates a fanged mouth, with red eyes

She always wanted men to look her in her eyes.

But there is a physical charateristic that is know ONLY to be had by people from Faq, the eye's. Wanda is from Faq. sm

Uh? The eye's what? Who ever said anything about eyes from Faq? Jillian doesn't have the same eyes as Wanda, and she's the only person who has admitted being popped by Faq.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Spoiler

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Stanley may be a spoiled brat, but Charlie is not exactly altrustic. Also, he is someone you have to watch all the time as he will stab you in the back as soon as it is worth slightly more to him than not stabbing you in the back.

Stanley could possibly be convinced to do the right thing as it is "the will of the Titans", but maybe not.

Agree with you on Stanley's assessment. Plus, his whole megalomania shtick is more entertaining than Charlie's aloofness.

On another point, the only cleverness Charlie ever demonstrates btw is knowing when to switch sides and change contracts. Call it clever, taking advantage of opportunities, if you will, but he is bad at creating same opportunities.

So yeah. BOOP Charlie.

[Tweed]

I'm not entirely convinced that this last panel is real. The whole thing seems too good to be true -- the gems, the 'pliers, Sizemoore being chipper. I'm wondering if Parson has been placed into some kind of dream-state by the 'mancers, and this is what he's dreaming about.

[Nad]

Alright let's do this:

Gobwin Knob...

Is still a city, probably level 1 or 0 now. The golems and uncroaked held the city by survivng the volcano so Stanley the Plaid's side still remains, no one is a barbarian and all the major characters are still bound and loyal... except possibly Wanda, I'll cover that in a second.

Sizemore...

You're all saying that Sizemore should be mad at Parson and acting sad because of what happened and I completely disagree.

The last time we saw Sizemore he was given more hope than he's ever had!

He was told that he can contribute to acheiving his one ultimate goal - peace in Erfworld! He's not toiling in vain, he's now helping to acheive his goal. Of course he's going to be excited, especially when he's showing Parson that he can give him gems to start him on the way to bringin that ultimate peace to fruition.

Also, I think the person who commented that he's geeking out over the gems is right along with Sizemore having a dork-gasm remembering spirit-walking his mountain. I mean he said it taught him more than he'd learned his whole life and we've seen him as a self made student. Of course he's excited. Maybe he'll join Parson in grieving/reflecting (see below) or perhaps he's already done that at the fire with Janis.


Ok next, Wanda...

We need to be VERY worried. Wanda doesn't laugh, remember? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0023.html

So now Parson's not the only one breaking rules!

All this speculation about her breaking off seems plausible... after all anyone we've seen in Erfworld who has an Arkentool seems to be an independant entitity. Perhaps it disrupts the loyalty commitment to Stanley?

As for her outfit change... who here has played any game? When you get a major artifact, typically you get a really cool outfit to go with it. Think of it of "unlocking" her special outfit or whatever.


Finally, Parson...

For those of you claiming that he should be bewildered by the death and destruction he's caused... it's probably just a game to him still. Maybe we'll see a point where he misses Balrog and has some grief but that's the only real casualty here for him. In the end though, look at what he did! He's probably pretty proud of himself. He beat the odds, he was ready to sacrifice himself for his cause and he's alive... if anything he's probably a bit bewildered that he went to the magic kingdom and survived and on top of that, since he finished his current goal... what now?


And last but not least, to fuel the speculation fires:

What are the chances of Jillian leading Translyvito to FAQ and somehow claiming it herself? When you claim a city (a mechanic we're not familiar with yet) do units pop immediately? Is it possible for Vinny to defect to her side and help her defend?

If they do, will they join up with Jetsone? Jillian is a royal after all!(http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0039.html)

I doubt the coalition co-ruled the 11 towns captured otw to Gobwin Knob. That could mean that Jetstone now has 11 weakly defended cities or that there are 11 cities with different rulers. I think its rather unlikely anyone wants to go screw around with Gobwin Knob after what happened... who knows if it could happen again? Remember, there was no lookmancy and no thinkmancers sent "ZOMG! VOLCANO" back before they died. Charlie is probably the only one who knows what happened.

All the coalition forces are probably thinking that those 11 other cities look much more promising and less lethal of a liability to take.

Also... my final speculation... we saw PRINCE ANSOM. Why do I think his father, the king will be showing up? Something tells me he won't be as proud and foolish...

[HandofShadows]

Uh? The eye's what? Who ever said anything about eyes from Faq? Jillian doesn't have the same eyes as Wanda, and she's the only person who has admitted being popped by Faq.

You need to pay attention. The ONLY people from Erf that have normal human type pupils surounded by a white of the eye are those from Faq. Jillian has them, Jack, Faq's Master Class Foolamancer has them and Wanda has them. Most Erfworlders eye's are a whire circle with a black ring about it (you sometimes get a colored center like with Ansome who had a blue center) Also Jillian states here ( http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0092.html ) that Wanda was a caster that searved under Banhammer. It would be HIGHLY improbable that Wanda would just happen to find Faq if she had worked for another side since it was SOP to keep Faq totally hidden.

[HandofShadows]

The idea that Ansom somehow raided FAQ and took the Arkenpliers flies far to much in the face of Occam's Razor. FAQ has been touted as a "bubble kingdom" until Stanley invaded and conquered it in one turn. Jillian has never given any suggestion that FAQ was ever compromised before Stanley's attack. I'll give you that it was never confirmed that Stanley did attack FAQ, the fact that he has two of their mancers and has an army of dwagons makes it pretty much a given that the authors wanted us to believe.

(snicker) What the authors want us to belive in a story is not always the truth of what happened. Look up the term "Unreliable Narrator" sometime.

I have no idea why you think Ansome would have just "raided" Faq to get the Arkenpliers (these people don't "raid" they attack. The only person that raids is Parson). And even a small force would have rolled right OVER Faq's no existant defences. Faq having almost no military was clearly stated by Jillian a long time ago.

And there is actually no evidence that it was Stanley that attacked Faq either. The last message stated that a flight of dwagons had been seen, not that they where attacking (if your being attacked by dwagons you would say that you where being attacked by dwagons, not that you had just seen them). Now you might think it odd that Ansome and Stranley happened to show up at Faq at the same time. There is a very simple reason for that. While Faq was hidden, the Jetstone forces sent to attack it would NOT have been hidden. Somone massing an army near GK boarders would certainly draw attention and it would be investigated. A good job for a warlord that has a lot of flying dwagons, don't you think?

Furthermore, if Wanda did posess the Arkenpliers, she didn't tell anyone, because Jullian would have been suspicious as to how Ansom got them.

Jillian spent lots of time out and away from Faq. She and Banhammer hated each other. The Arkenpliers could easily have been found while she was away.

Finally, if Ansom attacked FAQ, a kingdom with no military to speak of, why didn't he just annex the place?

As noted above, he wouldn't have been able to keep the place as Stanley showed up with a flight of dwagons. That kind of firepower would have very likely outgunned Ansome's forces. And it's another reason for Ansome to hate Stanley.

I'm certainly willing to speculate on a deeper history between her, but this theory has more holes than a Florida ballot punch card.

Hmmm. (Looks at his ballot punch card) Don't see any holes at all. Maybe that's because it a long time before election day.

[Yuki Akuma]

His name is spelled Ansom.

A-N-S-O-M. There is no 'e'.

[SteveMB]

All they need to do now is have Jack make it look like the city wasn't destroyed and still has defenders.

Since none of the enemy survived to contradict them, no potential enemy will know that it is an illusion.

Charlie saw everything up to the actual eruption -- at a minimum, he knows that everything above ground has been destroyed.

That said, he, along with everybody else who was part of the ex-Coalition, has no reason to believe that anything whatsoever (not even a rebuildable city site) survived. Jack might be used to keep up that illusion while rebuilding gets underway.

[Nenec]

... I still think that one of my predictions ("Parson and/or the trimancer will abandon Stanley") has a chance of panning out

Parson, Sizemore, Maggie, and Wanda make a good team and have a nice dynamic going.

You know, I really thought, reading this one strip, things were going that way, the four on their own rebuilding the city and Stanley really booped, and that's what I still hope, really. But for sure all comments apart from these 2 convinced me it's never going to happen...damn, after he ran away from battle and left them in the mud with an apparently-already-lost-battle, now they did the dirty job, risked their lives and found the way to restart again an even more powerful city....and little child simply comes back to sit on his throne again?

Oh, Wanda rather than evil seems rejoyced to me...in her unique style.

All the rest has already been said.

But there is a physical charateristic that is know ONLY to be had by people from Faq, the eye's. Wanda is from Faq. sm

What with the eye's?

[Twad]

Because while Gobwin Knob looks like Boatmurdered after an elephant invasion, Stanley is still alive.

Flooding the world in magma.. one of the good things Dwarf Fortress teach us.

[BLANDCorporatio]

You know, I really thought, reading this one strip, things were going that way, the four on their own rebuilding the city and Stanley really booped, and that's what I still hope, really. But for sure all comments apart from these 2 convinced me it's never going to happen... ...

I do not understand what you mean.

I have been saying, like a broken disk for ages now, that Stanley's side is getting imba-er and imba-er by the minute.

Add in the possibility that Wanda can uncroak a sizeable part of the coalition- and make those better uncroakeds, yes these were suggested in this thread- and you have a real game breaker. Which is ... supposedly was Parson is after ... but somewhat soon, eh?

MY pet theory has at least one of the four (Parson, Maggie, Sizemore, Wanda) defecting from Stanley.

As for the eyes, Faq eyes look more or less human- they have pupils and irises, as apart to the solid white stare of most Erfworlders.

[Welf]

Here my two cents on what they should do: Produce some infantery, make them warlords by Stanley and then claim some of the lost cities. Pack the 6 dwagons with Stanley, Parson and Wanda, the new warlords for max bonus and take the last KISS knight and some uncroaked. Take the cities, leave one warlord with the newly uncroaked from Wanda and start producing units.
Even if someone finds out about the cities and attacks them, they simply can wait till they march on Gobwin Knob itself and reactivate the vulcano. Only Stanley has to sleep some time out of GK, veiled by the foolamancer until they have enough forces to defend them without TPK. Maybe he can go dwagon hunting.

[Gez]

You need to pay attention. The ONLY people from Erf that have normal human type pupils surounded by a white of the eye are those from Faq. Jillian has them, Jack, Faq's Master Class Foolamancer has them and Wanda has them. Most Erfworlders eye's are a whire circle with a black ring about it (you sometimes get a colored center like with Ansome who had a blue center) Also Jillian states here ( http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0092.html ) that Wanda was a caster that searved under Banhammer. It would be HIGHLY improbable that Wanda would just happen to find Faq if she had worked for another side since it was SOP to keep Faq totally hidden.

You're looking too much into an element of style. In your own example, Wanda has solid-colored eyes. In many strips, Parson himself get solid-colored eyes as well. I'm not convinced at all.

[Khyron]

My personal thoughts (Regarding Wanda, the Pliers, Jillian, and what was 'took') :

Stanley destroyed FAQ, and Wanda (and Jack) willingly went into his service because they hated the place, the king, or both. Ansom never heard of FAQ, never went there, had absolutely zero contact with the place. The pliers being attuned to Wanda is awesome but she never had them prior to Ansom's death. What Ansom 'took' from her is Jillian.

The reason I beleive this is because of Jillian's story. She indicates that the King treated people like crap, and in the same panel we can see an image of Wanda. I beleive that indicates he may have treated his casters the same way. (See : http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0091.html )

The only real piece to the puzzle that I can't seem to find is the reason why Wanda is so... unquestionably loyal to Stanley. Personally I think that the predictamancer (The one who predicted the kingdom would fall) got together with Wanda and Jack and told them that they'd have a great future if they joined the Tool, or something like that.

Stanley was attacking everyone; that's how he pissed off enough people to form a coalition against him. But it's never stated that his attacks failed on everyone - I think the attack on FAQ was just one of the raids that succeeded.

But honestly, I'm absolutely dying to see Stanley's reaction when he arrives. He considers the city, all units, all warlords, all casters to be expendable if it means getting hold of another Arkentool. Well, the city is in ruins, nearly all of his units are gone, but he has the pliers (Or someone who appears completely and totally devoted to him does). More than that, he's got a foolamancer who is used to 'diverting' attention from a capital and two cities, so it should be easy to rebuild Gobwin Knob unnoticed. He's got millions of schmuckers waiting for him. He's got the finest tactical mind that Erfworld has ever seen.

Everything he's lost has been in his 'acceptable' list considering the pliers are in his control, and it's ENTIRELY due to Parson and his lateral thinking. The question is, will he realise this and is he even capable of expressing any gratitude? And how will Parson handle the downtime during rebuilding? I'd hoped that Parson would have stayed in the Magical Kingdom for a while, learning more about the different caster types, spells, etc.

[SteveMB]

When we last saw them, Stanley was showing some respect and gratitude toward Jack, and Jack was convincing Stanley that the Titans wanted him to go along with Jack's suggestion that they head home. So they may have two people with a talent for talking Stanley out of being Toolish (unless it turns out that Wanda has no further interest in manipulating the Tool now that she has the Arkenpliers).

[Anias]

Here my two cents on what they should do: Produce some infantery, make them warlords by Stanley and then claim some of the lost cities. Pack the 6 dwagons with Stanley, Parson and Wanda, the new warlords for max bonus and take the last KISS knight and some uncroaked. Take the cities, leave one warlord with the newly uncroaked from Wanda and start producing units.
Even if someone finds out about the cities and attacks them, they simply can wait till they march on Gobwin Knob itself and reactivate the vulcano. Only Stanley has to sleep some time out of GK, veiled by the foolamancer until they have enough forces to defend them without TPK. Maybe he can go dwagon hunting.

Decent idea, but impractical. Stanley has a handful of high-powered units, no more. The worst thing he could possibly do (well, ONE of the worst things he could do) would be to go on the offensive at this point. Sure, the other sides are greatly weakened, and he might well be able to take back some of the lost cities, but he'd be spreading his power too thinly. As it is, he has a few units that, together, can probably hold off any offensive that his opponents are likely to be able to muster at this point. That being said, a handful of powerful units can take or defend a single location rather effectively, but are often practically useless if widely spread. If Stanley has to spread out his troops to defend the new cities, none of them will be strong enough to repel an invasion force; if he takes the cities, and keeps the powerful units together in a central location, he'll just be wasting his time capturing and recapturing his own cities, and dealing them heavy damage in the process. Plus, Stanley has reason to suspect that at least one side is still powerful and hunting him down (TV/Jillian), and so he's probably better off rebuilding GK under the protection of his best troops. After all, it WAS the best defensive position in Erf, and it's probably even better now, what with all the lava and such. If he can build a new stronghold there, he'll be practically invincible...especially if he's powerful enough that people won't challenge him without provocation and he avoids randomly attacking people until he's got a new army and GK is rebuilt.

[Yahoo_Serious]

Charlie vs. Janis?

These two seem to be the most aware (that is, capable of meta-gaming) characters in Erf so far (aside from the Titans and of course our ProtaGonist).

They would come complete with opposing ideologies (circa the early 70s): Charlie as slick corporatist consultant (w/ just in time synergistic client solutions) and Janis as off the grid peacenik hacker. Or disco vs. psychedelic, or leisure suit vs. bellbottoms, or coke vs. weed. Perhaps Janis even has her own Tool hidden away somewhere (the ArkenBong?) to oppose the ArkenDish.

By the way, I did a search of Erf threads and found no mention of "Joplin" (as in Janis). Perhaps she's a Joplin that didn't OD young but rather grew fat on the Vegas circuit like Elvis (a Titan-like quality I might add).

[Welf]

Decent idea, but impractical. Stanley has a handful of high-powered units, no more. The worst thing he could possibly do (well, ONE of the worst things he could do) would be to go on the offensive at this point. Sure, the other sides are greatly weakened, and he might well be able to take back some of the lost cities, but he'd be spreading his power too thinly.

I think the most important thing now is to recover. With three (or more) cities he can rebuild units three times faster.
If someone attack the cities again, he can just withdraw from them and send all his units to GK. And if an attacking army is not strong enough, he can destroy them and use Wanda to get more uncroaked.
The most immediate threat, TV, ill attack anyway, regardless if Stanley claims the cities or not. And having some cities in the backhand is never a bad thing.

[vrellum]

I think it's interesting that the Hippies are paying homage to the origin of their name and using violence (thus being hypocrits) in their pursuit of peace.

[dr pepper]

Charlie vs. Janis?

By the way, I did a search of Erf threads and found no mention of "Joplin" (as in Janis). Perhaps she's a Joplin that didn't OD young but rather grew fat on the Vegas circuit like Elvis (a Titan-like quality I might add).

She was identified as Janis Joplin by the readership as soon as she was first shown.

[Fez]

I'm just curious how close we are to the end of this first book.

We've had the big summer spectacular blockbuster climax with the volcano.

We're now in the tidying up some things and prepping for the next story.

This page was very much an 'all in'. It went from utter destruction, to more wealth than can be imagined, a second attuned arkentool, and Stanley is coming back. Escalation. (And tons of wealth in a wargame when you don't have tons of troops and building troops takes time, isn't always an envious position.)

We might be coming up quickly to the cliffhangers. Or perhaps we'll at least find out whether the group sticks together (all under Stanley or otherwise) or there is a break in the faction. (Thas a mighty perty attuned arkentool you got thar pardner. Draw!)

I'd think if there is a cliffhanger though, it would thematically want to revolve around Faq. There are a lot of frequently asked questions about Faq, both its past and what's going to be happening in the near future, and its time to start getting some answers.

[HandofShadows]

You're looking too much into an element of style. In your own example, Wanda has solid-colored eyes. In many strips, Parson himself get solid-colored eyes as well. I'm not convinced at all.

As the saying goes "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

[ShinyBrowncoat]

I'm not entirely convinced that this last panel is real. The whole thing seems too good to be true -- the gems, the 'pliers, Sizemoore being chipper. I'm wondering if Parson has been placed into some kind of dream-state by the 'mancers, and this is what he's dreaming about.

Yeah, this strip definitely had a "too good to be true" vibe about it, especially compared to the events and tone of the rest of the comic...I wouldn't be surprised if you are right, although I have to wonder if the authors would really throw another twist in there this close to the end of the story.

[joosy]

You're looking too much into an element of style. In your own example, Wanda has solid-colored eyes. In many strips, Parson himself get solid-colored eyes as well. I'm not convinced at all.

That was a bad example, yes. Wanda's pupils are big in that one. But if you look at every single comic you will note that Jack, Wanda, and Jillian all have pupils. (So does Parson but he is obviously not from FAQ). All other characters have ovals with different colors. When Jack is under the effect of the breaking of the mindlink his pupils are white and the rest of the eye pink. When seeing Jillian restores his mind ("COMPOS") they switch back.

General comments:
Things are wrapping up quickly and lots of questions are being answered. I do hope that this is what Rob and Jaime wanted and not just pandering to the whiny speculators and detractors whose mewling from their parent's basements has spilled onto these forums.

Parson is still in shock and awe at what he has commanded others to wrought. He wasn't even expecting to make it through the portal and was probably hoping he would be sent home. But now he is viewing the aftermath and probably doesn't know what to do next. He has no enemies to counter (that he is aware of) and is out of his element. Hopefully he will snap to it and start rebuilding.

Maybe he will contact the Tool at this point. Parson and the casters were forbidden to be seen by Stanley lest they be disbanded but his departing words were "book me if you need me" so they can try to contact him that way. However, given the security breach by Charlie, I wouldn't recommend it. They may just have to wait for his return or hope that they can send a Thinkagram to him without breaking orders.

Sizemore has had an aboutface no doubt due to Janis' counsel and a good night's rest. He is focusing on his handiwork and his contribution to the treasury. Whether that is forced remains to be seen but he does seem genuinely enthusiastic.

Wanda.. well she finally got the pliers. huzzah. A long overdue, foreshadowed, and teased outcome.

The interaction between Ansom and Wanda over the Pliers (capital P) still begs the question about what happened at FAQ. Hopefully it will be answered in this chapter of Erfworld.

To recap what I know about the fall of FAQ:
We know that Wanda and Jack either defected or were captured by Stanley. We know that capturing would require some serious manipulation of loyalty most likely via Thinkamancy.
We also know that Wanda is under no loyalty spell.

ergo, Wanda is following Stanley of her own free will and has, for the most part, Stanley's trust and a lot of leeway on how she serves him.

I would assume Jack is following of his own free will as well. He had to choose between Jillian (who it was implied he was in love with) and Stanley and he chose Stanley during the battle of the pass. I would assume that would put a big strain on any loyalty spell enough to break it or at least bend it a little.

The questions I still have about the fall of FAQ are:

- What role did the Pliers, Ansom or at least Jetstone units have?
- What was Stanley's role? (implied by the overflight of Dra.. er. Dwagons)
- Why hasn't Wanda told Jillian details about what happened to FAQ? (I assume Jillian never asked as she assumed Wanda was under a loyalty spell).
- The Predictamancer predicted FAQ would fall.. but would it rise again stronger now with Jillian, Plier attuned-Wanda and Jack returning under the rule of Stanley?

I don't really expect any answers here as as anything in the forums would be speculation (unless Pclips answers) but I would prefer he uses the comic as the medium.

[VariaVespasa]

I doubt Jillian will be handing her cities over to TV unless she has no choice, or she gains something for doing it. As long as she isnt formally captured, and she isnt last we saw or that whole "breaking your alliance" speach by Ceasar would have been irrelevant, she can just fly away any time she wants during their joint turn. She's got the fastest thing in the air at the moment, as far as that alliance goes (locally, at least), so its not like they can catch her. But we dont know yet which way she's gonna go.

Stanley will not attempt to recapture his lost cities anytime soon. Parson and Wanda wont permit it, since revealing himself again now would lead to his destruction. He will lie low (probably with some noticeable pursuasion from Parson and Wanda) and rebuild his city and army with his newfound wealth.

Stanley doesnt care about the city or army per-se; he's already walked away from them once, so he may be boggled by the destruction and grouse about the damage out of habit, but he wont really be angry. Wanda having the attuned pliers is, as people have observed, gonna be the interesting part. I daresay the conversation will basically go "She has the tool, she serves you, therefore you have the tool", unless Wanda has something else in mind, and we dont know enough of her real backstory and motivations to judge if she does or not. She seemed too familiar and eager for the pliers to not have had some prior connection with them, and I'm suspicious of that, as are others. The whole "touch me with them" thing, in the same exchange as "you took more from me"... "Took more from me" being Jillian is possible, but it doesnt fit together well with "touch me with them", which is definitely the pliers. I dont particularly buy the the idea that Ansom wiped out FAQ, but he might have taken the pliers from Wanda in some fashion on the basis of royalty having precedence over peons if he encountered her away from FAQ. Or maybe Wanda learned enough about the pliers due to her own multitalented magical education to become interested in them and developed a personal quest of her own, and she joined up with Stanley willingly in order to use him to get to it. But we just dont know enough.