Kendal is so pissed, and he is not taking Stefan’s bait. Love it. The Falst and Tess commentary is also gold.
I know Stefan won’t take this lying down and he’s not gonna instantly escalate, but this was also one hell of an opener from Kendal. I wonder how long either of them will entertain the other’s attitudes.
Kendal knows something that Stefan doesn’t, that the volcano is going to erupt soon. If Stefan doesn’t play Kendal’s game, Kendal won’t warn him. And since one of Kendal’s goals is to prevent Stefan from hurting his friends, he wins by default just by stalling.
Red knows her way around stories, and will probably continue using dramatic irony to its fullest for a while longer, but Blondie over here might actually get the Paladins to make some concessions if he does tell them about his and his friends’ situation (other than the names), and that he is not, in fact just some random misguided teenager. Kendal is still Vash’s Survivor, allied with most of the gods of the world in his fight against The Collector, and the Paladins REALLY need a reminder that they have a place and a reputation in a wider, more cosmopolitan, and not-necessarily sympathetic world—that might actually make them consider their optics for once, even if they do claim their god as “The One True God” or whatever. Also that things like *the news* and *printing presses* exist—okay that’s more than enough Paladin-opineing from me.
Stefan: what an innocent little philosophical question, let’s consider it over some tea, yes?
Kendal: Let me rephrase, do you want to die by my sword or the hands of your army tonight?
It’s especially fun knowing he absolutely could win this. He just can’t do it while still playing nice. Armies of mooks aren’t actually very useful against massive aoe sword beams
YEAHHHH.
City god Kendal both has a very solid grasp on civilian-god relationships and is also Extremely done with you. Cut the fluff or he will cut it for you with the giant glowing sword.
I’m interested to know if Kendal heard the stuff that The Lady was saying to Micheal about agreeing to kill them. cause that definitely rules out the argument of “oh he just misinterpreted the methods”
Well, he’s immediately attempted to deflect with that “Come and introduce yourself first!” tactic (also an attempt to get Kendal’s name so they can track him as well as Erin). I suspect he doesn’t want to answer because he doesn’t disagree with his Lady, he only disagrees with Her Champion, and when he says that it will seal the deal on making an enemy of this powerful but somewhat reasonable individual.
So I think he’s cunning enough to avoid the question altogether, or make an especially wordy answer out of it. He wants to keep talking.
laughing my ass off at Live Falst Reaction (new reaction images acquired)
also gotta love Kendal’s atttitude of “Dude, your army & your figurehead tried to kill my friends and i just got back from being chucked around like a cat toy by a dragon under your command, and you want to talk about this NOW?”
Oh. Oho. Kendal is furious and having absolutely none of it. (And I am 100% here for it.) He also dodged the trap of divulging his name, so if he does somehow get out of this, the paladins won’t be able to use spellbirds to hunt him down.
Unfortunately, I think Kendal will be taken hostage, in part to keep the heat on him and off his friends, and in part because even Kendal is too physically exhausted, damaged, and outflanked here to brute force his way out of the situation—at least, too outflanked to do it without fatalities. (I think. I mean. He could surprise me. But…) I can see it in Stefan’s face in that last panel: “welp, the diplomacy attempt was a non-starter, time to resume the regrettable fallback of my giant fuck-you army.”
Stefan’s an interesting antagonist. He’s tactical-minded and has a veneer of levelheadedness and outward politeness, but, uh, yeah, Kendal’s got his number. Token diplomatic effort doesn’t change the fact that he’s been hunting them down and serves a god who was happy to sacrifice them all.
I know earlier I was hypothesizing that the paladins would imprison Kendal in Snowfast, but I was thinking about the Northern Wyrm’s line about him being “beyond my power to help” and some Tumblr and others’ commentary about it. Would the Snowfast be on a landmass within their domain, or beyond it? I’m not sure. Another possibility I’m wondering about is if the paladins have a base somewhere around Grimside, which got namedropped on page 2-1-1.
I’ve been kinda wondering whether “beyond my power to help” means he’s on land at ALL. The paladins have dragons; how high up out of her waters can the Northern Wyrm reach? Plus, if he’s really far above the ocean, the Wyrm could still “see” him to KNOW he’s beyond her power to help but still wouldn’t be able to do shit about it! And a mid-air prison break sounds the most inconvenient for the entire floof squad to enact xD
What order are Kendal’s speech bubbles in the bottom-middle panel meant to be read? Is it top left, top right, bottom left, or top left, bottom left, top right?
we read top left, bottom left, top right, which i think is the order that makes more sense. i think they’re arranged that way so it’s clear how they line up with Falst’s reactions, but it does kinda make the whole layout slightly less clear
The second option, I believe. Kendal’s speech bubbles are crossing three different panel borders. So the way I read is this:
Falst is whispering, Kendal starts speeking, Falst reacts, and Kendal contiues speeking.
Okay Tess is reminding me of Team Four Star Goku in the beginning.
Tess “You take the five dozen on the left, I’ll take the five dozen on the right.
Falst “Screw you! I’ll take on five dozen and one.”
Tess “That’s the spirit! 🙂
Stefan’s expression is very interesting in the last panel. The shut down closed expression does not bode well for further interplay and Kendal is so done with being pushed around despite his injuries. There is still a lot of damage he can do that Stefan has not really understood yet.
Tam’s still healing, it’s been maybe 24 hours in-universe? He was able to convey what happened on the ship to the other paladins somehow, and now he’s off to heal up.
The late, great Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Carrot is found primarily in the City Watch subseries. Pratchett’s fantastic; well worth reading, to the point that I recommend his work even to people who don’t normally enjoy fantasy.
Ah, defiantly heard of those. Tried starting The Color of Magic a while back but the person I was listening with found it confusing and I wasn’t attached enough to it at that point to be willing to continue on my own. I have friends who love it though, especially the guards novels, so I’ve been meaning to give it another go
The Color of Magic is definitely one of the weaker books in the series. It’s more of a parody of old sword-and-sorcery books like Conan the Barbarian than anything else, and while it’s a good one, it doesn’t really rise much above that category. It’s a good book in its own right, but not anything genre-transcending, and it doesn’t live up to the kind of hype that people who have read the rest of the series are liable to instill. I always suggest that people start with Small Gods, myself. It’s a standalone thing, occurring an unspecified but substantial amount of time in the past relative to the entire rest of the series, so it’s a very easy place to start. It’s also far enough in that Sir Terry had really hit his stride, unlike the first handful of books, where he was still figuring out what he wanted to do with the world. That said, you can pick them up anywhere that sounds intriguing to you. Most of the books are enhanced by knowledge of the rest of the series, but none of them require it.
Also, does anyone else find Tess’ response to Falst’s line “You’re joking” odd? I read that as “Wish I WAS” when I checked when the page went up in the wee hours, and I think her saying “Wish I wasn’t” is a blooper because it really doesn’t look like she’s intended to be joking.
Stefan’s “interesting philosophical argument” comment reveals a significant difference in how he and Kendal think.
Kendal is entirely concerned with practical questions. Who’s in charge of this operation? Was the attack on his crew done by a rogue agent, or was it ordered from all the way up? Can he trust that Stefan will not only be more reasonable, but has the authority to stop the other Paladins from harassing them? Stefan, however, appears to have the mindset of an IRL religious leader and thus sees the question as an academic debate. He evidently believes that he himself has correctly interpreted the will of his god, yet acknowledges that others in the very institution he is part of disagree with him on key details. He likely doesn’t expect the Light Dragon herself to come down in person to explain how she wants her followers to deal with the situation at hand.
By contrast, Kendal has a very different experience with gods in general. Being the former avatar of a not-quite-dead god himself, and being accustomed to other gods (Ilia, Gleicann, Zuurith, Tynan, Argist) treating him as they would Vash – that is, as a peer – he doesn’t draw a strict line between gods and people. That is, he sees gods as one would see human authority figures and expects gods and their followers to have certain natural mutual responsibilities that exist between authorities and their subordinates; for the followers to follow their orders and for the gods to communicate their orders clearly and maintain so that everyone in the organisation is on the same page.
Champion acted of his own accord
Or so it goes by Lord Stefan’s word
Numerous foes if Tess and Falst attacked
Five dozen per one, the odds are stacked
Lady or champion does he contradict
If they have made a life or death conflict
Call for introduction Kendal ignores
The subordinate or god he again implores
I like Kendal calling out their “good”. Because regardless of how polite he might be, what good the organization does, they still made that zealous psycho their CHAMPION. That should speak loudly as to the ethos of the whole sect.
Unless there’s some sort of arbitrary limitations on who can and can’t be a champion. Like, if only certain people are able to handle that much power, so you do have to draw from a smaller pool or the people that would best fill the role lack the trait.
a: a picture of Alinua
b: the Books page
c: the Contact page
e: the Extra Lore index page
f: a picture of Falst
g: the Gods and Sentinels page
k: a picture of Kendal
m: the Magic page
p: the Privacy Policy
t: The Calendar page
v: the Vash’s Sword page
w: the World Map
Kendal is so pissed, and he is not taking Stefan’s bait. Love it. The Falst and Tess commentary is also gold.
I know Stefan won’t take this lying down and he’s not gonna instantly escalate, but this was also one hell of an opener from Kendal. I wonder how long either of them will entertain the other’s attitudes.
Kendal knows something that Stefan doesn’t, that the volcano is going to erupt soon. If Stefan doesn’t play Kendal’s game, Kendal won’t warn him. And since one of Kendal’s goals is to prevent Stefan from hurting his friends, he wins by default just by stalling.
Red knows her way around stories, and will probably continue using dramatic irony to its fullest for a while longer, but Blondie over here might actually get the Paladins to make some concessions if he does tell them about his and his friends’ situation (other than the names), and that he is not, in fact just some random misguided teenager. Kendal is still Vash’s Survivor, allied with most of the gods of the world in his fight against The Collector, and the Paladins REALLY need a reminder that they have a place and a reputation in a wider, more cosmopolitan, and not-necessarily sympathetic world—that might actually make them consider their optics for once, even if they do claim their god as “The One True God” or whatever. Also that things like *the news* and *printing presses* exist—okay that’s more than enough Paladin-opineing from me.
Stefan: what an innocent little philosophical question, let’s consider it over some tea, yes?
Kendal: Let me rephrase, do you want to die by my sword or the hands of your army tonight?
I love done-with-this-shit Kendal
It’s especially fun knowing he absolutely could win this. He just can’t do it while still playing nice. Armies of mooks aren’t actually very useful against massive aoe sword beams
They are Magic mooks though. At least some of them.
You can really feel the city god in Kendal. He’s descended from a protector, and he will protect them.
You are so right with how it’s either the sword or the army. I never would have thought of that.
YEAHHHH.
City god Kendal both has a very solid grasp on civilian-god relationships and is also Extremely done with you. Cut the fluff or he will cut it for you with the giant glowing sword.
I’m interested to know if Kendal heard the stuff that The Lady was saying to Micheal about agreeing to kill them. cause that definitely rules out the argument of “oh he just misinterpreted the methods”
“Shipwrecking” is such an ugly word!
Kendal being the ***star*** of this part of the show <3 That is THE right thing to ask, and he is the right person to ask it!
And Falst being the voice of all of us. And Tess being Tess *sighs infatuatedly*.
Aurora Question #67: What’s your theory on Stefan’s answer to Kendal’s question?
“Interesting point, young man, and I CAST FIREBALL!!!”
Well, he’s immediately attempted to deflect with that “Come and introduce yourself first!” tactic (also an attempt to get Kendal’s name so they can track him as well as Erin). I suspect he doesn’t want to answer because he doesn’t disagree with his Lady, he only disagrees with Her Champion, and when he says that it will seal the deal on making an enemy of this powerful but somewhat reasonable individual.
So I think he’s cunning enough to avoid the question altogether, or make an especially wordy answer out of it. He wants to keep talking.
I feel like he has to answer “Champion,” because if he says he disagrees with his god, then he might lose control of his army.
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: technically a sea serpent sank our ship but at this point that feels like semantics
Image source: conflict
I think Red meant SEAmantics! Eh? Ehhh? 😀
* crickets *
The crickets are clapping
Tumblr text: live falst reaction
Bluesky text: let’s have a nice civil chat
laughing my ass off at Live Falst Reaction (new reaction images acquired)
also gotta love Kendal’s atttitude of “Dude, your army & your figurehead tried to kill my friends and i just got back from being chucked around like a cat toy by a dragon under your command, and you want to talk about this NOW?”
“What, you mean you DON’T bring forth philosophy quandaries as part of your introduction?”
Love that last panel: Hm. You’re supposed to be an innocent caught up in the Void Dragon’s plot, and as such, easily fooled.
It’s almost as though they know that Walter is dangerous and needs to be stopped, they just have different ideas as to how!
Kendal: I am the paragon of our group and I will not stop asking this question until I get a gods damned answer!
Oh. Oho. Kendal is furious and having absolutely none of it. (And I am 100% here for it.) He also dodged the trap of divulging his name, so if he does somehow get out of this, the paladins won’t be able to use spellbirds to hunt him down.
Unfortunately, I think Kendal will be taken hostage, in part to keep the heat on him and off his friends, and in part because even Kendal is too physically exhausted, damaged, and outflanked here to brute force his way out of the situation—at least, too outflanked to do it without fatalities. (I think. I mean. He could surprise me. But…) I can see it in Stefan’s face in that last panel: “welp, the diplomacy attempt was a non-starter, time to resume the regrettable fallback of my giant fuck-you army.”
Stefan’s an interesting antagonist. He’s tactical-minded and has a veneer of levelheadedness and outward politeness, but, uh, yeah, Kendal’s got his number. Token diplomatic effort doesn’t change the fact that he’s been hunting them down and serves a god who was happy to sacrifice them all.
I know earlier I was hypothesizing that the paladins would imprison Kendal in Snowfast, but I was thinking about the Northern Wyrm’s line about him being “beyond my power to help” and some Tumblr and others’ commentary about it. Would the Snowfast be on a landmass within their domain, or beyond it? I’m not sure. Another possibility I’m wondering about is if the paladins have a base somewhere around Grimside, which got namedropped on page 2-1-1.
I’ve been kinda wondering whether “beyond my power to help” means he’s on land at ALL. The paladins have dragons; how high up out of her waters can the Northern Wyrm reach? Plus, if he’s really far above the ocean, the Wyrm could still “see” him to KNOW he’s beyond her power to help but still wouldn’t be able to do shit about it! And a mid-air prison break sounds the most inconvenient for the entire floof squad to enact xD
What order are Kendal’s speech bubbles in the bottom-middle panel meant to be read? Is it top left, top right, bottom left, or top left, bottom left, top right?
we read top left, bottom left, top right, which i think is the order that makes more sense. i think they’re arranged that way so it’s clear how they line up with Falst’s reactions, but it does kinda make the whole layout slightly less clear
The second option, I believe. Kendal’s speech bubbles are crossing three different panel borders. So the way I read is this:
Falst is whispering, Kendal starts speeking, Falst reacts, and Kendal contiues speeking.
Falst: Don’t do it, don’t do it…
Kendal: I don’t think I should tell you anyth8ng…
Falst: Yes!
Kendal: This never had to be a fight…
Falst’s reactions are killing me lmao, also it’s always so fun to see Kendal be capital D Done with it
Okay Tess is reminding me of Team Four Star Goku in the beginning.
Tess “You take the five dozen on the left, I’ll take the five dozen on the right.
Falst “Screw you! I’ll take on five dozen and one.”
Tess “That’s the spirit! 🙂
Literally just thought of that reference too, lmao.
I’ve been waiting for the “you did this” rant for so long.
Stefan’s expression is very interesting in the last panel. The shut down closed expression does not bode well for further interplay and Kendal is so done with being pushed around despite his injuries. There is still a lot of damage he can do that Stefan has not really understood yet.
Kendal with the complete shutdown reminding everyone that even if he doesn’t understand everything, he’s still smart as sh*t
I love Tess and Falst up in the peanut gallery
YES, YES, YEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU TELL HIM KENDAL!!!!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Well at least he didn’t say “You know we are not so different you and I.”
Anyway I don’t see the champion there which is good for a moment there I thought our heroes were in trouble.
Tam’s still healing, it’s been maybe 24 hours in-universe? He was able to convey what happened on the ship to the other paladins somehow, and now he’s off to heal up.
Rather like Captain Carrot, Kendall can sometimes seem very simple and straightforward. But don’t ever let that confuse you into thinking he’s stupid.
What is Captain Carrot from?
The late, great Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Carrot is found primarily in the City Watch subseries. Pratchett’s fantastic; well worth reading, to the point that I recommend his work even to people who don’t normally enjoy fantasy.
Ah, defiantly heard of those. Tried starting The Color of Magic a while back but the person I was listening with found it confusing and I wasn’t attached enough to it at that point to be willing to continue on my own. I have friends who love it though, especially the guards novels, so I’ve been meaning to give it another go
The Color of Magic is definitely one of the weaker books in the series. It’s more of a parody of old sword-and-sorcery books like Conan the Barbarian than anything else, and while it’s a good one, it doesn’t really rise much above that category. It’s a good book in its own right, but not anything genre-transcending, and it doesn’t live up to the kind of hype that people who have read the rest of the series are liable to instill. I always suggest that people start with Small Gods, myself. It’s a standalone thing, occurring an unspecified but substantial amount of time in the past relative to the entire rest of the series, so it’s a very easy place to start. It’s also far enough in that Sir Terry had really hit his stride, unlike the first handful of books, where he was still figuring out what he wanted to do with the world. That said, you can pick them up anywhere that sounds intriguing to you. Most of the books are enhanced by knowledge of the rest of the series, but none of them require it.
Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld.
The Greater Good.
(Echoes: The greater good.)
Just introduce yourself as barrel-rider, man
There’s more lava in the background…
Also, does anyone else find Tess’ response to Falst’s line “You’re joking” odd? I read that as “Wish I WAS” when I checked when the page went up in the wee hours, and I think her saying “Wish I wasn’t” is a blooper because it really doesn’t look like she’s intended to be joking.
https://comicaurora.tumblr.com/post/823317736211070976/question-about-todays-page-falst-and-tess
We got clarification! Tess IS joking about actually fighting the Paladins, but she wishes she wasn’t.
Stefan’s “interesting philosophical argument” comment reveals a significant difference in how he and Kendal think.
Kendal is entirely concerned with practical questions. Who’s in charge of this operation? Was the attack on his crew done by a rogue agent, or was it ordered from all the way up? Can he trust that Stefan will not only be more reasonable, but has the authority to stop the other Paladins from harassing them? Stefan, however, appears to have the mindset of an IRL religious leader and thus sees the question as an academic debate. He evidently believes that he himself has correctly interpreted the will of his god, yet acknowledges that others in the very institution he is part of disagree with him on key details. He likely doesn’t expect the Light Dragon herself to come down in person to explain how she wants her followers to deal with the situation at hand.
By contrast, Kendal has a very different experience with gods in general. Being the former avatar of a not-quite-dead god himself, and being accustomed to other gods (Ilia, Gleicann, Zuurith, Tynan, Argist) treating him as they would Vash – that is, as a peer – he doesn’t draw a strict line between gods and people. That is, he sees gods as one would see human authority figures and expects gods and their followers to have certain natural mutual responsibilities that exist between authorities and their subordinates; for the followers to follow their orders and for the gods to communicate their orders clearly and maintain so that everyone in the organisation is on the same page.
I have exactly one word to say to this:
DAMN!
Live Falst Reaction is really funny if Tess can’t actually hear this, Falst only can because of the Catboy in him.
Oh my gods, I hadn’t thought of that. That’s amazing
live falst and tess reaction
Oh, this is what I was waiting for, this better not transition away to something else.
Champion acted of his own accord
Or so it goes by Lord Stefan’s word
Numerous foes if Tess and Falst attacked
Five dozen per one, the odds are stacked
Lady or champion does he contradict
If they have made a life or death conflict
Call for introduction Kendal ignores
The subordinate or god he again implores
Holy crap. I’m nominating you for official Aurora poet laureate.
So if there’s seven paladin leaders… what do you wanna bet one of them will be Falst’s dad?
30 bucks says yes (please don’t hold me to that)
I like Kendal calling out their “good”. Because regardless of how polite he might be, what good the organization does, they still made that zealous psycho their CHAMPION. That should speak loudly as to the ethos of the whole sect.
Unless there’s some sort of arbitrary limitations on who can and can’t be a champion. Like, if only certain people are able to handle that much power, so you do have to draw from a smaller pool or the people that would best fill the role lack the trait.
Apparently if you type “k” after the last / without a ? before it, you see a picture of Kendal
It works with other letters too:
a: a picture of Alinua
b: the Books page
c: the Contact page
e: the Extra Lore index page
f: a picture of Falst
g: the Gods and Sentinels page
k: a picture of Kendal
m: the Magic page
p: the Privacy Policy
t: The Calendar page
v: the Vash’s Sword page
w: the World Map
If you want pictures of Erin, Tess and Dainix, though, you have to type their names in.