Chapter 1: Page 58
(My apologies again for the tardiness this week! -Rachel)
Hardin makes his final offer to the conquered Ermehn – his tribe, the Sratha-din, is the only chance they’ll ever get to take the fight to the Canid and reclaim their lost culture. He definitely seems confident that for his plan to work, he needs but one single tribe’s worth of warriors. Exactly how this will be carried out is a topic for in-comic discussion!
With his speech over, Hardin turns things over to three Sratha-din we’ve been seeing periodically throughout the scene. Rathik is one we’ve already met in earlier conversations between him and Ashtor, but the other two are introduced by name for the first time this week: Rhosyn and Bevan.
While I won’t be getting into any character-specific details about these two (since that will all happen within the comic itself), all of Hardin’s core Sratha-din, including these two, have been involved in the story for a very long time. A while back you may recall I posted an early concept image of Rathik and Ashtor watching Hardin’s duel with a mysterious third Ermehn standing behind them. That was an early look at Bevan before his final look came together. Bevan now favors a hood, as you can tell from the pages, meant to conceal his rather distinct facial tattoos. Why conceal the tattoos you might ask? Good question! … Moving on!
As a few of readers have noticed, Hardin’s Sratha-din all have their own tattoo patterns. While a normal Ermehn tribe would have a relatively consistent pattern across all members of the tribe, Hardin clearly has a different idea behind what makes the Ermehn in his tribe a cohesive whole. This also demonstrates the wide variety of tribes that Hardin’s Sratha-din hail from, and suggests how many different tribes there are across the Northern Wastes.
Hee. Bevan without his hood on is adorable.
Also, very excited most of the rest of Sratha-din is finally getting involved. Will they have to duel? I get the feeling they won’t; this tribe looks to be at the tipping point, and perhaps the idea of more dueling is that final push needed.
Does he mean last chance as in “Join or we’ll kill you”? Or last chance as in “You won’t get to follow us and ask to join up later”?
That’s exactly the same thing I was wondering, because their approach doesn’t look friendly…
Hardin apparently has a hardcore strategic plan going on if he believes he can take out the Canid with one whole tribe on his side, though I have a feeling it’s going to be an assassination mission more than anything else. Mr. One-Eyed protester isn’t looking so confident in his defiance now– though his friend in the second to last panel seems to be partially taking his place.
As for Bevan and his hood, why do I have a feeling he’s doing that to hide tattoos that could come from a disgraced or dead tribe, much like Hardin’s Sratha-Din? Ermehn are quite proud of their markings in general, seeing it’s a huge staple of their culture, so him hiding them doesn’t have good connotations for whatever they may mean.
…am I wrong in saying that Hardin’s last words, along with Rhosyn, Bevan, and Rathik getting up, means he’s basically challenging *everyone* in the tribe who doesn’t want to join at once? Because I don’t think those three are getting up to give cheerful speeches about how joining Hardin changed their lives; best career change ever.
If he’s challenging the tribe (and I suspect he is), it raises the question of why he doesn’t have all five of his companions get up. Ashtor’s a bit older, so he might have a pass, but I’m curious why the other isn’t taking part in this, and what exactly they both contribute to the group.
I’m suspecting the other female to be mainly a healer or something similar instead of a warrior, seeing she and Ashtor were the only ones to avert their eyes from the killing.
Hardin is totally on a suicide mission against Canid leadership, calling it now. He strikes me as a man who’d put his revenge before salvation of his people.
Mmm, I don’t know. I could see him possibly devolving into that later on as the amount of death and suffering makes him lose sight of what really matters– and he begins to do whatever he can to reinstate the Ermehn’s home without caring how much of a slaughter it creates and what a Pyrrhic victory it is– but right now, I still think he’s focused on restoring his people *slightly* more reasonably.
…perhaps he intends to frame another kingdom or trick them into going to war with the Canid?
Perhaps Hardin has a plan, we’ll see – it’s just all the little things that make me suspicious of his motives. Hardin claims that he needs just a single tribe for what he’s planning, when he and everybody else knows that all the Ermehn combined wouldn’t be enough to take on the Canid. As Ashtor points out these tribesmen aren’t even warriors, yet he specifically wants them and forces their hand by killing their best. Hardin took long time to search for the companions he needs, so why these saps unless they’re there to be expendable?
You don’t go out your way to recruit desperate people when you’re going to war, you do that when you’re heading for a massacre.
It may be an attack with high causalities, but I don’t think it’s entirely suicidal. If you plan right, a kingdom can be overthrown through one delicate coupe; number doesn’t matter if you use your forces carefully. Hardin doesn’t plan an outright assault. He’s got trickery planned. The fact that all the Ermehn combined can’t face the Canid in open combat just means Hardin is using a different tactic.
Are many of these tribe members going to die? Undoubtably. But it’s not going to be a suicide run for revenge. It’s planned to be the catalyst for the Ermehn restoration/Canid fall. If you could save 100 people by sacrificing 17– and you had seen enough death already– wouldn’t you do it? If Hardin is planning to sacrifice the tribe during the mission to overthrow the Canid, he’s still doing so with the intentions of getting some of them out alive and running back to the rest of the Ermehn to help them rise up while the Canid are incapacitated.
It’s less of a suicide run than it is ruthless calculus.
The only thing I have to say here is that it’s good work. Saraa Luna already said my opinion better than I could have.
Bevan is about the same age as Quin, perhaps a little younger. I haven’t yet nailed down specific ages for those in Hardin’s troupe :)
Dubiously Relevant Fact of the Day:
Aneurin Bevan was the Welsh politician who founded the UK National Health Service. Perhaps his Ermehn counerpart is destined to usher in a new era of healthcare across the Four Kingdoms. That or shoot some fools with his bow.
Bevan’s healthcare is free for all kingdoms but the Canid. They have to pay.
Why wouldn’t Bevan’s body tattoos be as recognizable as his facial tattoos?
Why, indeed! :)
This time we find out that Hardin apparently only needs one tribe in order for his plan to work. Since we pretty much established last time that all the Ermehn together couldn’t take on the Canid, it will be even more interesting to see what he plans to do with just a few dozen of them.
It was nice getting to see Bevan and Rhosyn in closer detail (again, I think those sketches could be a lot bigger) and it’s especially fun seeing just how cute Bevan looks under that hood. Maybe he’s sweeter than he appears! Or maybe it’s just the Monster-With-The-Face-Of-An-Angel-syndrome…
Saraa and Tronn had a very interesting discussion about what Hardin’s plan is and what his outlook truly is. I’ll be looking forward to how his character develops as the comic does.
(One last thing: it seems one of the Ermehn in the second-to-last panel wears a fur cloak-shoulder pad-thingie. Given that Rachel said there were no non-sentient furries in the Four Kingdoms, I’d very much like to know where it’d come from…