Quote Originally Posted by Errorname View Post
Fair point, if you ignore that Laurin got them onto that airship and that the actual climactic duel was between Laurin and V after the wizard effortlessly took Tarquin out of the fight. I am not inclined to do that.
Tarquin's ending in Blood Runs in the Family was literally him screaming helplessly after Elan because--while he had gotten what he said he wanted, Elan leaving determined to come back and defeat him later--Elan hadn't used the right tone.

So no, "Tarquin can only be beaten off screen as a canonical strategy if he allows it" is close to exactly backwards: Tarquin can never win because he sets his win conditions in impossible to achieve places. And if Tarquin shows up planning to "bring the climax to Elan," he'll be casually annihilated by Xykon with a line about him reminding Xykon of someone who Xykon thinks annoyed him once.