Wanda=Dilbert

[Kasavin]

Not that the last comi (page 95) doesn't call that into question, but the analogy works on quite a few levels.

Whose Dilbert? The titular character from a famous comic (see www.dilbert.com) which parodies working for large corporations. The common theme is no matter how competent Dilbert and his coworkers are, incredibly inept management absolutely ruins their creativity and ability to get work done. However, due to various reasons, Dilbert is stuck at his job. So he does the best he can, and is constantly disappointed when management so much as speaks. Sound familiar? I think it summarizes the Stanley-Wanda dynamic quite well. Or did.

In retreospect, I realize just how little we know about Wanda. She's from FAQ, she's an incredibly good croackamancer and can actually cast from spells from other mancies, she likes to torture (presumably more than just Jillian), and she does not laugh. Just doing her crummy job was motivation enough for her character in my eye. Yet, now she supposedly willing worked for Stanley? I can only assume that somewhere along the line... she likes it! Maybe not the Stanley as a the boss thing, but a position of responsibility (chief advisor), free reign to practive croackmancy, a comfy bed surrounded by skulls, encouraged to tortore prisoners, and one heck of a wardrobe.

As for not leaving now, I can think of a couple of completely disparate reasons.

1) She might leave if she thought the war was truly lost, but unlike Jillian she knows they have a military genius on their side who she believes can win the battle.
2) Thogh we know little about the fall of FAQ, Wanda might feel guilty about not preventing it (or maybe did something to actively encourage it), and feels that working for Stanley is her penance.
3) Though I don't believe Jillian and Wanda had a sexual relationship (why sex would even exist in a world with only asexual reproduction is another matter), they certainly had some very strong, lets call them friendship ties. Though they were both stuck on opposing sides of a war, they had an implicit understanding that they would look out for each other as best they could. So Jillian can forgive the whole torture routine, its just Wanda doing her job. Jillian's desicion to wipe out the injured dwagon stack was a betrayal of that trust and now won't surrender to her.
4) Similar to one, she's staying for Parson. In a world of incompetence, she's finally found somebody as smart, clever, and driven as she is. Or maybe she's just feeling guilty that it was her fault the donut trap failed. Regardless, win or loose, she's not abadoning the alien she summoned into the booped up world. See the bottom two panels on the left of http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0020.html for some what I feel is foreshadowing.

As for the Aggro spell itself, I doubt its a simple destruciton spell. Maybe paralysis or sleep to incapacitate the stack and hope that Parson's watching to finish it off with archers.

[Dacia Brabant]

I agree with the first part of this, as it was Wanda's competent but futile toiling under a Pin-Head Boss (can't really call Stanley the Pointy-Haired Boss since, well, he has no hair, but one stands in for the other) that attracted me to her character in the first place. I guess we office workers have it all the same.

I'm not so sure she /likes/ it though, she definitely prefers success to failure after all and Stanley had repeatedly failed due to lack of judgment. On the other hand she's also a control freak and Stanley had, up until recently, been relatively easy for her to control. Losing that control over him seems to have snapped her, and now she's lashing out, seemingly at the one who was the source of that lost control (who also broke free of Wanda's spell).

I just can't see her going over to the Alliance side, it doesn't seem like she'd be able to wield authoritative power from behind the throne with any of them, even Jillian (for one thing, I think Wanda was directly complicit in FAQ's fall, knowing that Banhammer was not the imperialist that she needed to work for/manipulate).

Still, I also can't see her liking Stanley in any way apart from being able to manipulate him. The whole point of her summoning "the perfect warlord" was to get someone in to replace him as military commander so his massive deficiencies in strategy and tactics could be circumvented (his attunement to the Arkenhammer, complete with dwagons, means she couldn't replace him in full, simply turn him into a figurehead). Hence her giving Parson advice on how to manipulate Stanley the Tool.

Unfortunately it all blew up in her face--let's see if she can salvage it.

[Gez]

The title was promising, I expected to learn that Dilbert was secretly controlling
the pointy-haired boss and occasionally slept with him; but no, this thread failed to deliver teh funney.

Seriously, if you want a Dilbert in Gobwin Knob, I'd go with Sizemore. There's no Wanda in Dilbert, she could be somewhat likened to Dogbert or Catbert but she's really neither of them.

I suppose Bogroll could be Bob the Dinosaur.

Maggie is Richard. Misty may have been Ratbert.

[Kasavin]

On the other hand she's also a control freak and Stanley had, up until recently, been relatively easy for her to control.

Why would anyone think Stanley is easy to control? He's brash, impulsive, egotistical, and 100% confident in himself. Yes, occasionally, Wanda has managed to convince him do somethings in his own self interest once or twice, but there is a heck of a lot she hasn't managed to get him to do. The only way she managed to keep Stanley from sending Parson into battle was by distracting him for a little while, at which point his own brilliance made his own case for staying. Basically, Wanda has to be manipulative and clever to get Stanley to accept sound tactical advice, something any normal faction leader would take and follow with out the hoops to jump through.

On another note, Wanda does not strike me as a control freak at all. They like to be upfront where the decisions are being made and making them. Wanda seems like she'd rather just pass time studying her magic and maybe chatting the night away with Jillian. For example, when Parson was going to tell her his donut plan trap, she rebuffs and says she doesn't want to know. Thats the exact opposite of a person who wants to be in control.

Still, I also can't see her liking Stanley in any way apart from being able to manipulate him. The whole point of her summoning "the perfect warlord" was to get someone in to replace him as military commander so his massive deficiencies in strategy and tactics could be circumvented (his attunement to the Arkenhammer, complete with dwagons, means she couldn't replace him in full, simply turn him into a figurehead). Hence her giving Parson advice on how to manipulate Stanley the Tool.

The whole point of summoning the perfect warlord was necessity. I suppose its possible that Wanda did not know about the spell beforehand (while Stanley lost 10 cities), but if she did and waited until the side is all but doomed to suggest buying it speaks a lot. Namely, she could never have gotten Stanley to buy it until the situation was absolutely hopeless and the money doomed otherwise. She does seem to want the Gobwin Knob faction to win, but her motivation for this is very murky right now. As for Stanley's deficiencies, they're going to be there whether Parson's is brilliant or not. Remember, he thinks strategy is details and somebody else's job. Had he somehow managed to pick a compontent warlord before (instead of just choosing the most dashing and handsome), Wanda might not have needed to suggest the perfect warlord spell.

The title was promising, I expected to learn that Dilbert was secretly controlling
the pointy-haired boss and occasionally slept with him; but no, this thread failed to deliver teh funney.

There is no "secret control," unless the writers play some mechanically god awful deus ex machina. At best, there's a hidden agenda, which I doubt. As for the Dilbert analogy, all analogies break down if you examine them to closely, and Wanda is probably closer to Alice than Dilbert himself, but to characterize her as a frustrated employee working for incompetent management seems spot on.

[Justyn]

I suppose Bogroll could be Bob the Dinosaur. Maggie is Richard. Misty may have been Ratbert.

So... does that make the Foolamancer Wally?