Collector: Tear a city down stone by stone eh? I’d be happy to give you some pointers.
Two more people hate Zuurith, Vash was right, the Collector should have targeted here. I wonder, if enough citizens of Zuurith begin to hate their city and it’s practices would that feed back to Big Z and make him hate himself?
Once of these days Erin will have to come to the conclusion that his companions don’t fit/aren’t welcome in his world no matter how much privilege he throws around or how much he extols the benefits.
I wonder if the hoods are metaphors for how out of place/uncomfortable these two are in this city; Alinua ditched her hood when she got her powers under control and now she has it back after Kendal was imprisoned while Falst traveled hoodless with the gang in chapter 11 and re-donned it while in the city.
During these last two chapters I’ve been theorising over which of the volatile factors and people will be the one to spark things off. Now most of those factors and moving parts have been sorted; Dainix and Kendal are both staying where they are; Falst and Alinua aren’t going to do anything, unless prodded by Big Z; Erin is abiding by the law; PML is just trying to help; Paladins aren’t making a move on Erin and I don’t think V.D. will risk doing anything drastic so close to Paladin HQ. That just leaves Tynan to set things off.
I like how in Falst’s first apppearance he nearly killed Erin and now he’s like “oh you and him so much stronger than me you could do so much for these people”. Redemption Demotion at its finest lmao
TL;DR: Society is messed up, let’s complain about it! And what better time to bash Mr. Hubris than when he’s not around to hear us?? Best commiseration of our lives!
Normally rules are there so the more powerful ones don’t abuse the less powerful ones…
…in this case it protects the wannabee powerful ones by making it impossible for the really powerful ones to do something without hurting the less powerful ones.
Falst is underestimating Erin’s Pride Level. He won’t be broken by some low-class wretch and his so-called friends punching him in the face just because he’s being an ass.
This seems like a conversation that foreshadows a mutual-respect situation where Erin finally goes rogue (probably tonight) and a somewhat soon after situation in which Erin’s way is “right” and the two outsiders have to paradigm shift in their very different ways. Sounds fun.
Also, did I miss the discussion about the likelihood that the Paladins will discover Erin’s connection with the Void Dragon, or is it too obvious to bring up?
@Evil Tree: I would argue that Erin using his privilege to *force* his world to “welcome” his companions is actually a good step toward changing his world into a place that *will* welcome people like them. But as usually happens in these sorts of situations, it’s still gonna be a bumpy road.
I don’t know why, but this storyline is starting to annoy me. The story keeps telling us that Zuurith is bad, but it doesn’t really show us that. The imprisonment of Kendal shows that the guy in charge has some problems, but says nothing about the systems. The guards are portrayed as simply doing their jobs and as decent people, and we have no information about whether the laws and punishments are actually draconian or not. There are laws against walking on people’s roofs (understandable) but we don’t know if the punishment is a light fine or a life sentence. The only characters that are upset by the system are Falst and Alinua. Falst feels restricted because of Ferin racism, but that is a problem with more than just this one city and no one in Zuurith has been actively hostile to him. Alinua’s problem is the inability to use her magic without causing problems but that would happen in any city. This comes across less as the society and laws of Zuurith are oppressive and more as two characters who are used to living in the wilderness where they have no rules struggling to think now that they’re in a box.
Falst: *punches Erin in the face*
Erin, calmly: “Ah, fuck. I can’t believe you’ve done this.”
I jest, though honestly, considering how rich and powerful Erin’s family is, it would be immensely satisfying to at least give him a hearty slap across the face whenever he’s being a dick.
@Fantasy Snakes
I think that’s intentional. Red mentioned in her most recent tumblr ask that Zuurith is an antagonist but isn’t pure evil. His system works well in some areas and I reckon a lot of people inside said system live perfectly good and safe lives; the problem is we’ve seen this city almost exclusively through the eyes of the people it doesn’t work with i.e. our protagonists, PML and Dainix.
Red said she was trying to show Zuurith as an unbalanced system, great for some, terrible for others. Go check the Aurora tumblr, she explains it better than I do.
@FantasySnake–a third of the city is in prison, and the largest structure by far is the prison. Even if the prison were comparatively well run, “one in three citizens is imprisoned at any given time” seems pretty draconian to me.
And we can see that the prison isn’t pleasant: Dainix is being forced to fight as a gladiator, which is slavery with bonus life-threatening danger where the system as built actively wants to force you to murder people. The fact that Dainix *hasn’t* killed anyone is noteworthy, which says some pretty awful things about what’s expected of a prisoner.
@TeaJay- Cartoonishly high imprisonment rates, forced labor inside those prisons, and coming off as a hellscape to those who don’t fit in: I can’t give up on Zuurith until I give up on my own real-world country.
While we don’t see the specific oppression, a third of the city being imprisoned is an absolutely ridiculous ratio – the countries with the highest ratio, the US (.665%, less than a 50th) and El Salvador (.605%), are way lower and most other countries are at most in the .1, .2 percent range (excluding some authoritarian regimes and underdeveloped countries, to be counted on your fingers. *China* has .118%)
This isn’t a case of grey morality, this is a case of, at best, random arrests for no reason and, at worst, mass usage of slave labour (in a mountain perhaps not a coincidence). The Soviet union had 14-18 million people go through the gulag system in its 23 years lifetime, which would’ve been around a third as bad even if they had been all imprisoned at once and (wiki quote, but they cite a source inline)
“Up until World War II, the Gulag system expanded dramatically to create a Soviet “camp economy”. Right before the war, forced labor provided 46.5% of the nation’s nickel, 76% of its tin, 40% of its cobalt, 40.5% of its chrome-iron ore, 60% of its gold, and 25.3% of its timber.[74] And in preparation for war, the NKVD put up many more factories and built highways and railroads.”
Now, put a bunch of prisoners in the mountains – you know, the places that often have mines in fantasy (idk if that’s a thing irl too I assume ore isn’t much more common in the mountains but maybe I’m wrong idk shit about it), and I’ll get… Suspicious.
…Actually, I doubt a third of the population being arrested and not performing slave labour (therefore, being state-maintained), considering also the fact they’ll need a ton of guards (prison guard to inmate ratio should be 1:7 according to the “Bureau of Corrections Act of 2013”, and is more like 1:5 in reality though that’s also people guarding transportation and shit this mountain won’t need. Considering a conservative 33% kids / unable to work (likely way more), and say 10% unemployment, a non slaver society might make going to prison a way to escape from the horrible conditions of having to work for over 2 people.
I’ve been reading her name as ‘Alley-new-ah’ myself! Though I’m also the type to consistently misread a name and remove or add letters, so maybe I’m not the best at this sort of thing.
Three walking weapons of mass destruction enter your city; one doesn’t like you, one quickly learns it they don’t like you, and one is one bad day away from risking the destruction of the universe. What do you do?
Zuurith: Provoke them to show off how much in control I am!!!
And now we reach the point I hate in every webcomic: I just binged the entire thing and I’m up to date. I’m really bad at coming back to a thing regularly (Sorry duolongo owl) no matter how much I like them. I can’t wait for the rest and I really hope I’ll have the self-discipline to come back on update days because I really like the comic.
Goldenwyrm before that, What. even before that, I stopped reading the TLDRs when I started having trouble finding them but I’ll probably go back and try to plot the evolution of the TLDRs. (this was supposed to be a reply to Steakthedog but I am new to this commenting system and have no idea how to do that hah)
Hooray for resolving interpersonal conflicts and stopping bad ideas with clear communication! You see, folks? It doesn’t make the story worse at all! It just makes it less stupid!
Aliuna Falst
*handshake*
despising Erin
tl;dr: don’t mess with Mama Bear’s cub.
This is forbidden. Somebody is the only one allowed to make tl;drs because tradition.
What is the original TL;DR creator.
Chat on the mountain
Time to discuss your views while
looking at the view.
(Bonus)
Hm, well Alinua,
with that big storm rolling in,
you might not have to!
I get a feeling this place is getting torn down stone by stone ngl
I sense a thunderous cliffhanger for this week…
Collector: Tear a city down stone by stone eh? I’d be happy to give you some pointers.
Two more people hate Zuurith, Vash was right, the Collector should have targeted here. I wonder, if enough citizens of Zuurith begin to hate their city and it’s practices would that feed back to Big Z and make him hate himself?
Once of these days Erin will have to come to the conclusion that his companions don’t fit/aren’t welcome in his world no matter how much privilege he throws around or how much he extols the benefits.
I wonder if the hoods are metaphors for how out of place/uncomfortable these two are in this city; Alinua ditched her hood when she got her powers under control and now she has it back after Kendal was imprisoned while Falst traveled hoodless with the gang in chapter 11 and re-donned it while in the city.
During these last two chapters I’ve been theorising over which of the volatile factors and people will be the one to spark things off. Now most of those factors and moving parts have been sorted; Dainix and Kendal are both staying where they are; Falst and Alinua aren’t going to do anything, unless prodded by Big Z; Erin is abiding by the law; PML is just trying to help; Paladins aren’t making a move on Erin and I don’t think V.D. will risk doing anything drastic so close to Paladin HQ. That just leaves Tynan to set things off.
Alinua looks pretty in that last panel. Like, really pretty
I like how in Falst’s first apppearance he nearly killed Erin and now he’s like “oh you and him so much stronger than me you could do so much for these people”. Redemption Demotion at its finest lmao
TL;DR: Society is messed up, let’s complain about it! And what better time to bash Mr. Hubris than when he’s not around to hear us?? Best commiseration of our lives!
woo bonding
@HelloHaiku, how are you pronouncing Alinua? I thought it was uh-LIN-yu-wa. is this like a hermi-one situation?
Erin’s smugness is its own character.
Normally rules are there so the more powerful ones don’t abuse the less powerful ones…
…in this case it protects the wannabee powerful ones by making it impossible for the really powerful ones to do something without hurting the less powerful ones.
Falst is underestimating Erin’s Pride Level. He won’t be broken by some low-class wretch and his so-called friends punching him in the face just because he’s being an ass.
This seems like a conversation that foreshadows a mutual-respect situation where Erin finally goes rogue (probably tonight) and a somewhat soon after situation in which Erin’s way is “right” and the two outsiders have to paradigm shift in their very different ways. Sounds fun.
Also, did I miss the discussion about the likelihood that the Paladins will discover Erin’s connection with the Void Dragon, or is it too obvious to bring up?
Sooo… anyone else think Falst is Red’s author self insert?
@Evil Tree: I would argue that Erin using his privilege to *force* his world to “welcome” his companions is actually a good step toward changing his world into a place that *will* welcome people like them. But as usually happens in these sorts of situations, it’s still gonna be a bumpy road.
I don’t know why, but this storyline is starting to annoy me. The story keeps telling us that Zuurith is bad, but it doesn’t really show us that. The imprisonment of Kendal shows that the guy in charge has some problems, but says nothing about the systems. The guards are portrayed as simply doing their jobs and as decent people, and we have no information about whether the laws and punishments are actually draconian or not. There are laws against walking on people’s roofs (understandable) but we don’t know if the punishment is a light fine or a life sentence. The only characters that are upset by the system are Falst and Alinua. Falst feels restricted because of Ferin racism, but that is a problem with more than just this one city and no one in Zuurith has been actively hostile to him. Alinua’s problem is the inability to use her magic without causing problems but that would happen in any city. This comes across less as the society and laws of Zuurith are oppressive and more as two characters who are used to living in the wilderness where they have no rules struggling to think now that they’re in a box.
Falst: *punches Erin in the face*
Erin, calmly: “Ah, fuck. I can’t believe you’ve done this.”
I jest, though honestly, considering how rich and powerful Erin’s family is, it would be immensely satisfying to at least give him a hearty slap across the face whenever he’s being a dick.
@Fantasy Snakes
I think that’s intentional. Red mentioned in her most recent tumblr ask that Zuurith is an antagonist but isn’t pure evil. His system works well in some areas and I reckon a lot of people inside said system live perfectly good and safe lives; the problem is we’ve seen this city almost exclusively through the eyes of the people it doesn’t work with i.e. our protagonists, PML and Dainix.
Red said she was trying to show Zuurith as an unbalanced system, great for some, terrible for others. Go check the Aurora tumblr, she explains it better than I do.
@Fantasy Snakes
We’ve also seen they force unwilling prisoners into gladiatorial deathmatches, so…
To Fire Lord Sozin:
I use “uh-LINN-wuh”
since that’s how Red says her name
as per the tumblr.
Though I’m more used to
saying “uh-LIN-yu-wa” when
not writing haikus.
That moment when you realize Alinua’s eyes have literally been glowing ever since they turned green, whether or not she’s using magic.
Mind. Blown.
@FantasySnake–a third of the city is in prison, and the largest structure by far is the prison. Even if the prison were comparatively well run, “one in three citizens is imprisoned at any given time” seems pretty draconian to me.
And we can see that the prison isn’t pleasant: Dainix is being forced to fight as a gladiator, which is slavery with bonus life-threatening danger where the system as built actively wants to force you to murder people. The fact that Dainix *hasn’t* killed anyone is noteworthy, which says some pretty awful things about what’s expected of a prisoner.
@TeaJay- Cartoonishly high imprisonment rates, forced labor inside those prisons, and coming off as a hellscape to those who don’t fit in: I can’t give up on Zuurith until I give up on my own real-world country.
@Fantasy Snakes
While we don’t see the specific oppression, a third of the city being imprisoned is an absolutely ridiculous ratio – the countries with the highest ratio, the US (.665%, less than a 50th) and El Salvador (.605%), are way lower and most other countries are at most in the .1, .2 percent range (excluding some authoritarian regimes and underdeveloped countries, to be counted on your fingers. *China* has .118%)
This isn’t a case of grey morality, this is a case of, at best, random arrests for no reason and, at worst, mass usage of slave labour (in a mountain perhaps not a coincidence). The Soviet union had 14-18 million people go through the gulag system in its 23 years lifetime, which would’ve been around a third as bad even if they had been all imprisoned at once and (wiki quote, but they cite a source inline)
“Up until World War II, the Gulag system expanded dramatically to create a Soviet “camp economy”. Right before the war, forced labor provided 46.5% of the nation’s nickel, 76% of its tin, 40% of its cobalt, 40.5% of its chrome-iron ore, 60% of its gold, and 25.3% of its timber.[74] And in preparation for war, the NKVD put up many more factories and built highways and railroads.”
Now, put a bunch of prisoners in the mountains – you know, the places that often have mines in fantasy (idk if that’s a thing irl too I assume ore isn’t much more common in the mountains but maybe I’m wrong idk shit about it), and I’ll get… Suspicious.
Either that, or Writers Cannot Do Math.
…Actually, I doubt a third of the population being arrested and not performing slave labour (therefore, being state-maintained), considering also the fact they’ll need a ton of guards (prison guard to inmate ratio should be 1:7 according to the “Bureau of Corrections Act of 2013”, and is more like 1:5 in reality though that’s also people guarding transportation and shit this mountain won’t need. Considering a conservative 33% kids / unable to work (likely way more), and say 10% unemployment, a non slaver society might make going to prison a way to escape from the horrible conditions of having to work for over 2 people.
Wait Kendal is asexual right? Not aromantic? Then there is still hope…
I’m too desperate.
I’ve been reading her name as ‘Alley-new-ah’ myself! Though I’m also the type to consistently misread a name and remove or add letters, so maybe I’m not the best at this sort of thing.
Three walking weapons of mass destruction enter your city; one doesn’t like you, one quickly learns it they don’t like you, and one is one bad day away from risking the destruction of the universe. What do you do?
Zuurith: Provoke them to show off how much in control I am!!!
To Waddle Dee:
I used to misread
Tynan’s name as tin-ee-yan.
So I can relate!
Yellow Rose:
You really are… what’s wrong with him staying single?
And now we reach the point I hate in every webcomic: I just binged the entire thing and I’m up to date. I’m really bad at coming back to a thing regularly (Sorry duolongo owl) no matter how much I like them. I can’t wait for the rest and I really hope I’ll have the self-discipline to come back on update days because I really like the comic.
Doppler Effect:
That owl will never let you sleep again. I feel you.
pssst… Alinua! Falst! Maybe break the rules?
I get the feeling the next page will be following what Erin’s doing.
yes this is how I feel about the law
I took a little break, but I‘m back, looking for Ahkuna again.
Also this comic is awesome!
Goldenwyrm before that, What. even before that, I stopped reading the TLDRs when I started having trouble finding them but I’ll probably go back and try to plot the evolution of the TLDRs. (this was supposed to be a reply to Steakthedog but I am new to this commenting system and have no idea how to do that hah)
The eyes here are really well drawn, damn!
Alinua is so caring of Kendal! so wholesome!
Alt text: erin’s smugness has survived worse
Hooray for resolving interpersonal conflicts and stopping bad ideas with clear communication! You see, folks? It doesn’t make the story worse at all! It just makes it less stupid!
about every three pages i’m reminded that life girl is utterly TERRIFYING if she needs to be