2.1.36
on April 15, 2024
at 3:00 am
Erin should’ve tried the puppy-dog eyes. They win over a lot more people than the Wizard Hubris Gambit.
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
Erin should’ve tried the puppy-dog eyes. They win over a lot more people than the Wizard Hubris Gambit.
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: alinua should consider a career in tennis with a backhand that strong
Image source: control
Tumblr text: The debate continues
Twitter text: He’s not asking much really
Twitter text: He’s not asking much really
hmmmmmmmmmmm. “control” huh.
Nope. Don’t like that.
i think its more to do with erin having the situation “under control”
Tell me what you think of this. Should I keep doing it? Would Red be fine with this?
A ‘schrip’ interrupts them. “Oh, sorry, were we still arguing?” Falst asks, with strips of cloth dangling from his hand — he has taken off the bandage on his arm. “For some reason I thought ‘stopping the world-ending dragon’ was a good enough reason.”
“Falst–!” Dainix starts, reaching towards his arm.
“If Erin thinks the ship is fine, by our standards it’ll be a palace,” Falst continues. “I’ve recovered from worse in much worse places.” With a look at Dainix, “And I’m not gonna slow us down.”
“Well, I will!” Alinua cries as Dainix stares worriedly at Falst. “I’ve never sailed before — and this is the longest journey most of us have never taken! If we’re not prepared, when something goes wrong on the open ocean, what can we do?”
Erin replies, “Like I said. Trust that I have it under control.”
Alinua stares at him for a moment, then says, “I don’t. But I know you THINK you do.” She crosses her arms. “So I trust you’ll try your hardest to prove that you’re right.”
oooh… setting up for a potential ali/erin schism this season? :0
I think Alunia has been listening to Falst too much lately.
I looove it. You call him out like it is, Alinua! Powerful and cool as he is, Erin totally needs the ego check 😛
I love when a character flawlessly calls out the greatest weakness of another character like this.
Also it would be pretty funny if the next page started with them speeding over the open ocean and then someone yelled “You do NOT have control of this Erin!”
Alinua throwing shade so hard the dragon in Erin thought it was too much.
Definitely did not binge this arvo to catch up on this series..
Awesome job Red, can’t wait to see what happens next
oh wow im early.i feel so validated
also i agree with falst
Well damn Alinva, I wonder how Erin McHubris will react to that
“alinva”
UGH QUEEN
But seriously, I love this kind of interpersonal drama. Protagonists don’t have to be best friends all the time to be allies, and it makes sense that the Head and the Heart of the group would butt heads, so to speak.
Stop Alinua! He’s already dead!
Falst is tactical and logical, hates being seen as a burden, and doesn’t really know how to respond to certain feelings beyond snark and antagonism; it does track that he’d vote “go”, saying it’s because of the mission, but really because of his feelings. However his line “If Erin thinks the ship is fine, by our standards it’ll be a palace” might age poorly when he sees the boat and it’s inventor.
Alinua’s right, we’ve talked about who can and cannot swim, but being out on the open ocean brings it’s own challenges: Alinua needs dirt to grow plants to a reasonable degree so deep oceans would limit her to just healing; the wooden deck and mast of the ship limits Kendal and Dainix’s fire abilities; Tess is a poor swimmer, according to a tumblr ask, so lightning launching herself across the sea is risky; and while Falst could be handy on the rigging and close quarters, he’s still injured. Erin does have to prove he has it under control, because if there was a time when the squad was at their most vulnerable, it’s on this voyage.
Another part of Alinua’s cutting remark might be her remembering Zuurith. Erin told her in 1-12-13 that, as companions to him, an honorary ambassador to Asera, they couldn’t be safer, then in 1-15-30 admitted himself that he failed miserably in protecting all of them. After everything that happened, and everything that could have happened, Alinua doesn’t trust Erin’s word alone and needs proof.
Hmm, I should really start adding blank lines between my analysis paragraphs; they’re getting difficult to read.
What you said made me think… could Alinua work with algae?
To me, yes. Maybe she hasn’t figured out sea has plants too. They’re hard to come across on the surface, and in the open sea she would probably be far away from the bottom to grow them from there. Then again, there might be a half rotten not yet sunken wooden ship, with some algae growing on it.
I certainly don’t see why not. Red Algae and some Green Algae are more closely related to plants than anything else, and the other Algae are more closely related to Protists.
This tells me that the things we call Algae covers things that are not very closely related. Which is exactly the next thing that the paper I googled up said.
https://eol.org/docs/discover/algae
So yeah, at least some Algae are plants, those she should be able to work with.
The thing is, Alinua works with Life, not plants, and Life “sinks into” Water just as well as Stone. And even if she did only work with plants, this planet is not Earth and “plant” means something with a loose enough soul to be Life-manipulated outright – corals count, as Red herself stated, and I’m sure sponges do to.
The real issue is that they’ll be going over the open ocean, which is as barren as a desert. And I doubt she’d fare well in a desert either
Except deserts aren’t all that barren in the first place, it’s just that the wildlife isn’t up during the day, only dawn and dusk (generally speaking)
She’s a Life mage, not a Plant mage, so she absolutely can.
She absolutely should be able to imo
I think that what Ali said also has something to do with how they first met; after all, that was also just Erin’s hubris and him believing he can do things he really shouldn’t.
Well, and Erin *was* actively possessed the first time they met… Granted, he was fighting it, but that’s still not a good introduction if you’re trying to establish trust. Even in his usual passively-possessed state, I don’t think she fully trusts him. (And the Life/Void dynamic doesn’t help, since there’s probably some subconscious influence there that neither are aware of)
To be fair, the reason things went pear shaped in Zuurith was not his fault. Kendal told Alinua about how bad Vash and Zuurith were but not the one guy who could actually do anything about it, and he had no idea that Tess was in the city nor that Tess was going to get the group into a fight with Shrike. He’s made mistakes but I can’t think of any way that what happened in Zuurith is his fault.
Did you forget the reason why they were in Zuurith in the first place? Erin took this detour from their planned route because he assumed he could gain easy access to the Paladin archives. He was aware of the city’s reputation towards people like Falst and I’m certain he would have been aware of Vash and Zuurith’s rivalry, but he still decided to take the gang there.
If they avoided Zuurtih, there’s a good chance Tynan would have avoided it too and continued his pursuit of Kendal, then Tess would have followed Tynan away from Zuurith and likely met the gang in the wild. Yes Erin couldn’t affect several events and he didn’t know about Tess, but it was still him who led them there under the assumption he could keep them safe.
I agree he misread the paladin situation and that he overestimated his ability to keep Falst out of trouble, but Kendal specifically said that Erin didn’t know about the severity of the Vash/Zuurith rivalry. Kendal hid this from him for admittedly pretty dumb reasons. Erin did lead them there assuming it was safe because he had no reason to think it was safe.
No one told him about Tynan coming, so he couldn’t evacuate to a safe distance.
No one told him about how Falst was going to stay so far from Erin that he would get in trouble.
No one told him when they got a bounty put on them or when they ran into his sister, who also had a bounty on her head.
Erin blames himself for this, but that doesn’t mean it’s his fault. The group leaves him out of the loop so he has to make assumptions that screws the group over.
You make good points. While I think Erin would have known that Vash and Zuurith’s relationship was bad, he probably didn’t know it was THAT bad. Kendal hiding it from him was an extension of his mindset of “leave the mortals out of god business” that he kept sticking to even when fighting a losing fight against Tynan.
Yeah I see where you’re coming from now; honestly the timings couldn’t have been worse for Erin.
He said how safe they were thanks to him before Kendal was arrested, and this made Falst distrust his ability or will to help Kendal leading to him and Alinua on the mountain. He tried to make amends by getting Kendal out sooner and speedreading the archives, but failed to inform the gang about this, or question what they did last night, so they got in trouble with Shrike. He then did more good with the rescue, figuring out the storm, and trying to get all of them out of the city before Tynan made his move, but the Arenamaster threw a wrench in that otherwise good plan and then the Tynan and V.D. shindig happened. Then just to rub salt in his ego wounds, the safe, boring, Ancient ruin he led them to happened to be crawling with hidden nasties.
In retrospect, he wasn’t to blame for a good lot of it, and Kendal should have been more forthcoming about Vash and Zuurith. But the fact he boldly proclaimed how safe they are thanks to him and his judgements, only for things go belly-up, is not a good look.
I have also been pretty militant in my defense of Erin this panel.
Erin is definitely overestimating his ability to keep them safe on a meta level. A boring journey would be boring, something has to happen, this will not be a smooth journey. And it is Erin’s fault they have to get on the move before the Paladins hunt them down, meaning that Kendal and Falst are not going to be at 100 before they head out to face whatever is going on. Erin is going to try to do everything and it’s not going to end well, especially since VD is going to try something.
Actually VD has been really really calm about how close the group is to getting rid of him. That expedition on the boat would have been the perfect opportunity for taking over Erin and he kinda slept on it. Does VD know something the group doesn’t?
It’s been shown during the dungeon arc that Erin can resist V.D.’s control over him if he’s wide awake and focusing; while V.D. was forcing his will on Erin back in their first meeting in the storm, I chalk that up to catching Erin by surprise. Now that Erin has made it clear he would paralyse himself even in the face of death to stop V.D., he’s only been making moves when Erin can’t.
As for V.D. knowing something they don’t and/or being calm about his fate, maybe he know, or highly suspects, that the soulshaper monks can’t fix the problem. Erin did say in 1-19-16 that the monks are only in Plan A, so he hasn’t ruled out the possibility this trip will amount to nothing. Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake, and if Erin is wasting time going to Helm, that gives V.D. more time and opportunities to get his way.
There’s also the fact that V.D. doesn’t always pay attention to what’s going on around Erin; they were in Zuurith for a couple of days, visited the Paladin archives, and he only found out about this when Erin told him in the dungeon arc. Unless he sees a chance of escape, is near an entrance to the caves, or Erin’s life is in danger, I’m not sure how much he’s listening in on the gang.
Being the person that has to constantly heal everyone when something goes wrong would put things into perspective, wouldn’t it
I was thinking this. Not only did Alinua kind of have a front row seat as things slowly spiralled out of Erin’s control, she had to (probably literally) piece him back together after he *blew himself up*. She’s right to hold him to the mark — a plan without redundancies is NOT a plan! But I also think that desperation to prove/feel he IS in control and can be trusted will push Erin to do something reckless.
Alinua has been a hermit for most of her life but she is good at observing and NOT just some silly elf when she is not traumatized by her past.
To play the Greek Advocate, Alinua’s only been there when Erin’s plans have gone wrong. The dozens of times that Erin’s helped them out, like when he helped to rescue Falst and Dainix, Alinua didn’t notice because she didn’t have to fix that.
That arm DEFINITELY hasn’t finished healing, Falst!
It makes sense that Erin and Alinua would clash over this. He is desperately trying to keep everything under control and won’t realize that’s impossible (even Tarren told him that it’s impossible to have complete control over the ocean, and solving that is their field of study). She is tired of seeing everyone hurt and doesn’t want a repeat scenario of Kendal (or anyone else for that matter) almost dying.
Still, do they really have an alternative, after what Tess said?
Hello! I started binge reading this a few days ago and now I am all caught up! Red is an excellent writer!
Hello! I started binge reading this a few weeks ago and it is amazing! Red is so talented.
Welcome to the party! Glad you could join us. =)
Hello! I started binge reading this a few weeks ago and it is amazing! Red is so talented.
What happened to my comment why is there two of them
It often takes a bit for your comment to show up after it’s posted, you probably wrote the second one while waiting for the first one to be viewable.
That just happens sometimes.
I don’t understand it either.
Also, I started binge reading this almost two years ago, Someone. Once you see the most recent comic now a year from now, you will feel like you have read it forever.
Maybe it’s just me, since I started reading it about a month ago, but I clearly remember the page I stopped on the first time I read it all up to “current”. Anybody else?
I do too! I remember the page I first caught up to was 1-17-26, right at the beginning of the Voidy fight.
I didn’t start until Arc 2, and first read up to 2.1.15. I felt lucky to be able to read through the Tynan fight in one go!
i remember mine ^^ it was 1-13-31
Yeah, I caught up at 1-10-6, and made a comment about it as well. That was near the tail end of the “Is Falst the bad guy?” fight.
I’d have to go back to find the exact page, but I caught up around Dainix’s gladiatorial match/introduction to the comic.
I think I got current around the zombie dungeon funtime
Might’ve been the one when Red took a break maybe?
I can’t remember the exact page, but it was some time in chapter 8. Somewhere around the bear fight, maybe?
I can’t remember the exact number of the page, but i caught up when Alinua bought the blue melon in Zuurith
I don’t remember the exact page I caught up on, but I do remember the most recent page when I started reading was when Alinua and Falst were leaving the hotel room in Zuurith just before the Shrike fight
I genuinely don’t remember mine, but I remember being glad I could get through the Jolan fight in one go, so sometime vaguely between that & Zuurith? I definitely watched the Tynan fight page by page.
I believe I first caught up on May 29th 2023 with 1.21.28 after about two days of reading everything up to that point.
I’m fairly new. I caught up on 2-1-5.
I caught up *somewhere* in the Tynan fight, but that fight was LONG so I’m not sure when exactly. Mid-early fight I think?
My first comment was on 1.10.34 – a TL;DR.
I started reading this around the Tynan fight, I remember reading that page by page… I think towards the end but idk
I think there is an RPG rule about never going out on the open ocean, because the DM has all sorts of cool monsters he never gets to use.
Somehow I think this is applicable here. IN this case, if you NEED to go across the ocean, heal up to full before going, so when all the new and interesting nasties appear, you can deal with them
I had a friend whose character who had a bad experience with undead sharks. So traumatized by experience, he kept saying when the group was sailing “Never leave the Boat!” while at sea.
“Why would you leave the boat?”
“Exactly!”
My DM kept siccing giant eels on us. Understandably our characters really didn’t like them.
(Thankfully the abyssal Dire Eels were the right honourable not-appearing-in-this-story)
Truly wasn’t ready to see Erin get roasted like that but i’m here for it
Only 5 more Aurora pages till I graduate!
17 more pages of Aurora for me!
oh my gosh his face in panel 7
Falst made up his mind long ago
Ali knows of hubris, but it seems they must go
OOH ALINUA’S LITTLE PAUSE I LOVE HER SM SM SM <33333
Falst rips off some of his bandages.
“I’m not going to slow us down.”
“Well, I will, I’ve never sailed before,”
Alinua interjects with a frown.
“If something goes wrong on the open ocean,”
She asks, “What can we do?”
“Trust that I have it under control,”
Erin says, smiling anew.
“I don’t. But I know you THINK you do.”
The healer’s green eyes glare.
“So I trust that you’ll try your hardest to prove that you’re right.”
The magus meets her stare.
Welcome to some newly up to date readers, I guess!
THAT BURN THO, Ali is a SAVAGE rn
It’s a good thing she’s a healer, then
That’s weaponizing someone’s personality against them.
Erik get rekt that burn will not heal
There once was an elemental mage
Who thought the whole world was his stage.
He’s put in his place
By Alinua’s case
That ’cause of pride, his best will engage.
FALST NO put those bandages back on RIGHT NOW D: Also, hey, Falst, in your determination to shove your own vulnerabilities under the rug, have you not considered that Kendal is still recovering?
Snickering at the alt text. In fairness, Alinua’s lack of trust is entirely justified, considering Erin’s limitations and the ways he’s messed up thus far. He does not have things under control, much as he’d like to believe otherwise.
Well then. It looks like they’re going. For better or for worse.
TL;DR: I’m asking you all to trust my hubris, how hard is that?
I’ve said this before but I’m going to say it again; thank you so much for these, they make my day <3
Awww thanks fellow dragon fan.
To chime in on what could Alinua do at sea, Remember she is connected to PRIMORDIAL Life and she can trigger the Chimeric Plague in others as well create and heal Living creatures and such. But the thought is so repugnant to her she would not EVER use Life’s power to do that unless the gang were really in a corner. That could NEVER happen to Alinua in Red’s story right? I wonder what Alinua’s respon OUCH!
Dainix’ absolute concern face in panel 5 is so good.
Falst, stop being a *hero*! It’s not the- oh well, you might learn…
On another note, the full cast has a fantastic range of dynamics between them.
ALINUA FROM THE TOP ROPE
I get why Alinua isn’t listening to Tess. She has no context to imagine what “storms” plus “ocean” can be like, and Tess is the newcomer to the group. But surely Kendal has some idea from his Vash memories. Personally, I think they should let Terran blast them to Helm over the space of five days. But then again, I know that they’re going to be caught between the hammer and the anvil: Shrike and June on the one hand, and the storms on the other.
As for getting more intel about what they can expect in Helm, well, he’s not wrong.
Oh what the hell. Let’s just go shopping for tchotchkes and get ice cream on the boardwalk. What could happen?
Alinua just finished gluing together the bits of half the party after the last time Erin brought them to a “perfectly safe place”.
Understandable she isn’t eager about going for seconds on that.
She’d had already had seconds, this would be thirds!
Ali is exposing this man in front of everyone. Perceived in the most vulnerable way. I can’t help but gush about her expression and body language. before she has had a moral high ground or the generally more clear perspective, but now it feels like she’s looking down on Erin. Far from timid is Alinua!
I also cannot help but to feel sorry for Erin here, even knowing it is deserved.
I slightly disagree. I agree that Erin is way more confident, but I think that taking Alinua as completely correct is missing that she’s not the most reliable person here. Kendall was probably the most objectively correct. Alinua has only seen Erin at his worst, and hasn’t had time to work out her issues. I only think Erin’s made two major blunders so far, where he knowingly acted on a lack of information. All other problems were Erin acting correctly according to information he had, then getting blindsided and then taking the blame for it. Hell the situation with Zuurith was Kendal actively hiding how bad his relationship with the god so Erin didn’t have a plan to deal with it.
Alinua’s feelings are valid and it’s good she’s finally getting it out there but I don’t think that Erin is as unreliable that she’s making him out to be, just once bitten twice shy, even when he’s the subject matter expert.
Not gonna lie, kinda on Erin’s side here. They have access to what is likely the strongest ship in history at this point, magical protection, and Erin and possibly Tess to keep back any storms. I like those odds alot better than keeping voidy in a city full of very fragile people for several months.
So the way I’m reading the misconceptions is this:
Alinua has only seen Erin at his worst and hasn’t had time to air her issues with him yet.
Erin needs a win after screwing himself over and getting screwed over, but he assumes that the group would go along with it.
I like how everyone else has something logical to add to the discussion but both Erin and Alinua’s argument seem to be focused on their thoughts on the mage. Alinua doesn’t trust him farther than she can throw him, and Erin wants someone to give him an ego boost, which no one is really in the mood for.
I think she does have SOME faith in him — It was Erin she opened up to about being worried that it was Life, not herself, that was in control, and in Zuurith, she turned to him for help, trusting not only that he could resolve the situation without further damage, but also that he would abandon his mission in the Archives to do so — and she was right. Erin came through in spades that time. She and Erin also worked very well together to get Falst and Dainix out of the catacombs in the ruins.
But she’s also seen the consequences of him overreaching himself (their meeting, Zuurith and Tynan, his distraction and inability to help after the Glort covered his tattoos and rendered him effectively useless) and she’s feeling very unbalanced by the prospect of travel, on the open ocean, to a place she doesn’t know, with injured teammates, and she knows very well the Dragon can wrench control away from Erin at a moment’s notice, which she has almost ALWAYS been at ground zero when the Dragon rears his head. Plus, Erin can’t do everything — he can’t manage a crisis, steer their boat, and heal their teammates, not all at once. Relying on him as their ONLY lifeline when things go pear-shaped is not a good idea — not because he’s unreliable, but because he simply can’t do everything, and the Dragon could interfere, leaving them completely up the creek.
She’s got a good point in highlighting this — unfortunately, given Erin’s string of losses lately, this just means he’s going to double down and try to prove is CAN do everything, and bring himself and Alinua into conflict. Which is good — God knows the poor girl needs to sort out everything that’s happened in the last sef, and Erin needs a shock to the system. It’s just probably not going to be pretty 😛
(Except, you know, this is Red. It will undoubtably be VERY pretty.)
I can def understand where Alinua’s coming from – even though Erin can contribute, she is the major one who’s gonna be responsible for healing the party if things do go wrong. Especially in the wake of Falst and (especially) Kendall having been injured so severely, I can understand her protectiveness. Plus, unlike Erin who seems much more comfortable with sea travel, I don’t think she’s ever been on a boat before, so her wariness makes sense.
But also Tess isn’t wrong – if they don’t go immediately, they’ll either be going into far worse and more dangerous conditions later, or have to wait at least a couple months to continue their quest. And Erin does have a point that he knows an awful lot about Helm already.
Also between these most recent pages and Tess’s comment in 2.1.8 that Erin has “got more reason than ever to be cocky about the weather”, these upcoming chapters seem like they’re gonna deal a lot with Erin’s hubris, and unfortunately i have a feeling that if Erin’s plan does go ahead, it’s going to go horribly wrong.
Oh hey, how about bringing with you an experienced sailor that knows how to handle any sailing-related problem?
No? Oh, with a party this powerful why would they need it? 😛
Ah, it appears I have hit the end… I gotta say, pressing the forward button only to realize it’s not there was a bigger shock and betrayal, than I would have thought
RED GOT A DEAL TO PUBLISH AURORA!
THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
Ouch. I hope that doesn’t make it stop being her fun release that she does for fun.
It’s just the first arc, but I see your point. People might start just waiting for the books to release, and it’s probably at least a little stressful trying to publish something.
Time to countdown to 2025 now
This might still be the nicest thing anyone has ever said about Erin’s hubris… after all, she left open the implication that she believed that in trying to prove that he had it under control he might at least succeed at faking it usefully!
We have definitely reached the point in the D&D session where the players wrangle for over an hour about what the characters should do in the next five minutes.
Falst just ripping the bandage like oh were we stilll arguing?
This page is the funniest thing I read all day
“I don’t think you can do it but I think you’ll try your hardest just to prove you can do it” is on par with “believe in the me that believes in you” shenanigans and I love it
get told hubris wizard.
Gosh, Red! How long does it take you to come up with dialogue like this? =)