[1970] SPAK

[csj]

The root of the problem

[noone3]

You're all gonna get (✌ ﾟ ∀ ﾟ)☞ reforested.

[Dvandaemon]

My guess is this is building a new bridge out of trees to replace the one of cement as a show of power.

Symbolically it'd be a show of force by the forest that it's not the Court that deigns to reach out to the Wood but the other way around. Also, there'd likely be no lights so the shadowfolk would be able to move freely.

[imaginaryfriend]

In hindsight I suppose that it's obvious that Ysengrin would have come to see the Annan divide as a shield for the Court and their bridge (built with their construction methods and on their terms) as their bridgehead into the Wood.

And with the roots burrowing underneath the Court it's also a means by which Ys can attack from more points.

[fjodorii]

It looks like he's closing the gap.

[philman]

Wondering about the significance of that last panel and the crumbling masonry. Are those forest roots going to come up and trap/surround Annie and Smitty, just to prove to them that they are not safe anywhere?

[imaginaryfriend]

Apr 4, 2018 7:28:07 GMT fjodorii said:

It looks like he's closing the gap.

If Ys does have Coyote's power then the only two reasons that I can think of that he wouldn't just yank the two sides back together are 1. he didn't think of it and/or 2. he doesn't want to. If the latter is the sole reason then he doesn't aim for reunification but subjugation; preserving the Annan divide would be a barrier to prevent retaliation against residents of the Wood and later unauthorized crossing from either side.

[theonethatgotaway]

Ooooh, I finally got it, you guys! It's all good!

All YC's trying to do, is bring the Court closer to the Forest, so he can use his new HUGE tree arms, to give them a nice hug! It's all good, all the time!

[csj]

I personally see the roots as attempting to reconnect with the trees currently sprouting out of the Court. So he can assume direct control provide free cherries to everyone.

[fjodorii]

Apr 4, 2018 7:37:49 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Apr 4, 2018 7:28:07 GMT fjodorii said:

It looks like he's closing the gap.

(...)preserving the Annan divide would be a barrier to prevent retaliation against residents of the Wood and later unauthorized crossing from either side.

If Ys is aiming to show the humans how weak they truly are, I'd say that retaliation against the forest is the opposite of what he has on his mind. I can see him paraphrasing Walter White: "I am the danger! I am the one who knocks!"

[imaginaryfriend]

Apr 4, 2018 7:42:57 GMT fjodorii said:

If Ys is aiming to show the humans how weak they truly are, I'd say that retaliation against the forest is the opposite of what he has on his mind. I can see him paraphrasing Walter White: "I am the danger! I am the one who knocks!"

I'm not sure how good a tactician Ys is but wolves do use tactics when hunting in packs and he has had a LOT of time to think about the situation.  But yeah, whatever else this is this is absolutely a demonstration of power.  

[edit] The power to destroy is the power to control; even if the Court can't do anything to stop Ysengrin if they can threaten someone or something that he cares about in the Wood then they can at least bargain, and if that fails they can harm him that way. [/edit]

[Lightice]

Apr 4, 2018 7:11:58 GMT Dvandaemon said:

My guess is this is building a new bridge out of trees to replace the one of cement as a show of power.

Pretty much what I thought. "I didn't like your bridge! Here, have a better one!"

[ST13R]

So does that last panel imply that Annie and Smits didn't go through the main door?

[madjack]

There is a smaller door in each half of the large main ones, they went through one of those.

[arf]

Page 1970 is definitely not filler (Spak! or otherwise).

SPOILER: Click to show

[bicarbonat]

Reunited and it feels so...apocalyptic?

[todd]

Apr 4, 2018 7:24:22 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

And with the roots burrowing underneath the Court it's also a means by which Ys can attack from more points.

Which raises the big question: does Ysengrin intend to actually attack the Court next (as in, sending an army across the new bridge?), or does he just want to humiliate it, give it a sense of how puny its technology is compared to the forces of nature, and then halt after feeling satisfied that he's given its pride a serious blow?

[jda]

Got to say, I mightly dissapointed of Parley, or Eglamore, at this point. Come on, it is DA definition of the job...

EDIT: How long would you say has passed since the IHATETHEMHATETHEMHATETHEM moment? 10 minutes?

[ctso74]

Wow. He might actually be trying to remove the chasm.

Apr 4, 2018 12:57:16 GMT todd said:

Apr 4, 2018 7:24:22 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

And with the roots burrowing underneath the Court it's also a means by which Ys can attack from more points.

Which raises the big question: does Ysengrin intend to actually attack the Court next (as in, sending an army across the new bridge?), or does he just want to humiliate it, give it a sense of how puny its technology is compared to the forces of nature, and then halt after feeling satisfied that he's given its pride a serious blow?

I don't think he's intending to attack, but that may be influenced by my belief that the Court has Plot Armor. I'm guessing it's wolf dominating display of power.
The question is what are the robot's programmed to be doing, now?...

[jda]

Apr 4, 2018 15:17:03 GMT ctso74 said:

Wow. He might actually be trying to remove the chasm.

Apr 4, 2018 12:57:16 GMT todd said:

Which raises the big question: does Ysengrin intend to actually attack the Court next (as in, sending an army across the new bridge?), or does he just want to humiliate it, give it a sense of how puny its technology is compared to the forces of nature, and then halt after feeling satisfied that he's given its pride a serious blow?

I don't think he's intending to attack, but that may be influenced by my belief that the Court has Plot Armor.

Well, you never know, maybe next treatise would be: Thank you for reading the comic on this site, at next installment we are moving URL to "http://www.TheForestWar.com"

[jda]

The last panel: What is with the intersection on the floor? Is it a drawing? the shadow of a glass panneled roof with a perfectly aligned noon Sun? is Annie (metaphorically) about to be crucified? Is overthinking a Crime?

[saardvark]

I wonder if there are any risks for the Forest here as well... what if seed Bismuth starts running wild and growing a new cancer of concrete buildings over the bridged chasm?

[todd]

Apr 4, 2018 8:00:21 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

The power to destroy is the power to control; even if the Court can't do anything to stop Ysengrin if they can threaten someone or something that he cares about in the Wood then they can at least bargain, and if that fails they can harm him that way. [/edit]

And I can imagine the Court doing that, too, with a tone of "The inhabitants of the Wood are just animals and other inferior beings; it's not as if we're doing this to people."

It does raise the question of who or what their target would be (with the complication that the Court may know simultaneously more and less about who or what Ysengrin cares about - more, in the sense of knowing things that haven't been revealed to the reader yet, less, in the sense of knowing things that have been revealed to the reader but which the Court might not be aware of). Who or what does Ysengrin care about?

1. Coyote, in a love-hate manner. Of course, Ysengrin just ate Coyote. We're expecting Coyote to return, but largely because he's a major character, a perspective that the Court and the rest of the cast wouldn't have (Coyote - apart from Tea - being, ironically, the one person who shows any hint of an awareness that they're characters in a story). So he'd be off the Court's list unless/until he returns (and anyway, would be obviously too big a target for them to threaten).

2. Gilltie Wood. And the Court could conceivably threaten the forest in retaliation (though with two drawbacks: 1. the likely response of all those ex-forest-folk in the Court and 2. the likelihood that doing that could escalate the conflict).

3. Annie. Who is on Court grounds and thus the easiest to threaten. Potential drawbacks: the Court may not know that Ysengrin had developed paternal feelings for her, and even if they know about those, might believe that those would be entirely suppressed as a result of the changes he underwent by eating Coyote and assuming his power, that all that's left now is his anger at the Court and wish to humble it. Not to mention that if they had to go through with their threats, two problems with the aftermath: 1. Reynardine (assuming the Court know that Antony returned him to Annie and thus Annie's the one who owns him, in which case doing something to her could free Reynardine (as if they don't have enough problems already) and 2. they need her alive to hold over Antony, controlling him and ensuring his participation in Court projects.

The Wood is thus the likeliest target (unless the Court knows about someone or something else dear to Ysengrin who hasn't yet appeared in the story), though even that has its potential problems (though the Court might approach that with a tone of "We're in a desperate situation anyway; it can't be that much worse than the alternative").

[faiiry]

So Coyote's plan was to...

1) Eat Ysengrin's memories of saying, "I would show the humans how weak they really are."
2) Give Ysengrin his strength.
3) Let Yenegrin eat him.
4) Become Ysengrin.
5) Destroy the bridge.
6) Build a new bridge.

This plan isn't making a whole lot of sense so far.

[fia]

Apr 4, 2018 18:16:59 GMT faiiry said:

So Coyote's plan was to...

1) Eat Ysengrin's memories of saying, "I would show the humans how weak they really are."
2) Give Ysengrin his strength.
3) Let Yenegrin eat him.
4) Become Ysengrin.
5) Destroy the bridge.
6) Build a new bridge.

This plan isn't making a whole lot of sense so far.

Counterpoint: when has Coyote ever made sense?

[todd]

Apr 4, 2018 18:51:01 GMT fia said:

Counterpoint: when has Coyote ever made sense?

This is also assuming that this really is Coyote's scheme, that it's all gone exactly the way he planned it, that this isn't Ysengrin attacking the Court but Coyote who consumed him from inside and took over his body (meaning that what we're really looking at isn't Ysengrin but the thing that killed him), etc.

But Coyote has made mistakes (goofing up the creation of the shadow-People, for example). He'd probably make it look as if those mistakes were deliberate, but I suspect he's just as fallible as anyone else. It's entirely possible that he miscalculated how far he'd pushed Ysengrin and really wasn't expecting to be attacked by him. (All the more so since tricksters - Coyote included - in the traditional stories about them, often do wind up the victims of their own or someone else's cunning scheme.)

And I think it's best for the story if Coyote is that way, isn't in complete command of the situation. If he is always in control, always able to out-think and out-maneuver everyone, with an undefeatable plan thought out well in advance, then Tom's going to have a difficult time (if not impossible) ending the story convincingly without making it "Coyote wins; everyone else loses."

[imaginaryfriend]

Apr 4, 2018 18:16:59 GMT faiiry said:

So Coyote's plan was to...

1) Eat Ysengrin's memories of saying, "I would show the humans how weak they really are."
2) Give Ysengrin his strength.
3) Let Yenegrin eat him.
4) Become Ysengrin.
5) Destroy the bridge.
6) Build a new bridge.

This plan isn't making a whole lot of sense so far.

I'm pretty sure Coyote is indeed dead at this moment. Coyote's plan centered on Ysengrin; earlier on in the story he mentioned that Ys would destroy the humans given the chance. The reason why centers on the humans failing to react to Ys properly (in Ys' mind) by acknowledging Ys' power (or to put it another way, they act like humans and not wolves). Even after Ys received the power of the trees of Gillite and made himself a towering human-shaped body they still wouldn't roll over and show their bellies. Ys doesn't seem to be on great terms with the humans of the Wood either but at least they're properly afraid of him. Coyote wishes to create powerful dog-creatures like himself (probably to make himself more powerful in the long run but also to alleviate boredom). With Renard the problem was that he was too close to humans to want to accept Coyote's gifts; Surma was used by the Court to change that, though unintentionally and with interesting unforeseen consequences. Coyote used Antimony in a similar way by forcing Ys to interact with her without killing her until she earned a measure of his approval and respect. He even referred to Antimony as "acrimony barber" once which could mean one capable of trimming anger and bitterness. As a requirement of that process Coyote made sure Antimony knew how dangerous Ys could be but also showed her how vulnerable he could be and advised her to deal with Ys by standing her ground (which made sense at that point when Coyote was there to protect her but wouldn't have worked later) and trained her up a little. In addition to using Antimony he also took memories from Ys to keep him under control, which made him even more unstable, but also likely to keep Ys from thinking too much about what Coyote was doing. And of course Coyote was goading Ys the entire time by insulting him.

The beginning of this chapter Coyote examined Ys' internal mental state (by being in two places at once) and decided that Ys' rage was sufficiently tempered through attachment to Antimony to produce an interesting/useful result, as opposed to a boring predictable result, so Coyote was ready to give Ys his power. So far nothing interesting/useful has happened other than Ys not killing the mediums, but the confrontation between Antimony and Ys will occur sooner or later. And Coyote doesn't exist anyway so why would he worry about being killed and eaten? It just adds to the story.

Which way will Ys break?  And after will he experience the grief and remorse that Renard did?  Remains to be seen.

Apr 4, 2018 16:25:18 GMT todd said:

It does raise the question of who or what their target would be (with the complication that the Court may know simultaneously more and less about who or what Ysengrin cares about - more, in the sense of knowing things that haven't been revealed to the reader yet, less, in the sense of knowing things that have been revealed to the reader but which the Court might not be aware of). Who or what does Ysengrin care about?

...And the Court could conceivably threaten the forest in retaliation (though with two drawbacks: 1. the likely response of all those ex-forest-folk in the Court and 2. the likelihood that doing that could escalate the conflict).[/edit]

Ysengrin considers the former forest folk traitors so if they see Ys rampaging around (assuming they haven't noticed already) and if Ys can't be stopped and the Court can't be evacuated they would probably be okay, at least in the short term, with any plan that increased their chances of survival. That wouldn't impact how they'd feel once they personally were out of danger, of course. It's always easier to raise objections after the fact.

Apr 4, 2018 16:25:18 GMT todd said:

3. Annie. Who is on Court grounds and thus the easiest to threaten. Potential drawbacks: the Court may not know that Ysengrin had developed paternal feelings for her, and even if they know about those, might believe that those would be entirely suppressed as a result of the changes he underwent by eating Coyote and assuming his power, that all that's left now is his anger at the Court and wish to humble it. Not to mention that if they had to go through with their threats, two problems with the aftermath: 1. Reynardine (assuming the Court know that Antony returned him to Annie and thus Annie's the one who owns him, in which case doing something to her could free Reynardine (as if they don't have enough problems already) and 2. they need her alive to hold over Antony, controlling him and ensuring his participation in Court projects.

The Wood is thus the likeliest target (unless the Court knows about someone or something else dear to Ysengrin who hasn't yet appeared in the story), though even that has its potential problems (though the Court might approach that with a tone of "We're in a desperate situation anyway; it can't be that much worse than the alternative").

I break things down about the same way as you did though I'd add Renard to the list of potential targets/hostages and segment the Wood into as many different groups as possible. Ysengrin might not care if the (green) human population of the Wood was slaughtered or even if the monsterish-ones that hang out at the ruins and call him "general" all bit the big one, but he'd probably care if any other wolves in the Wood were getting killed off. He'd absolutely care about all the prey animals disappearing. Even killing all the fish where he eats would inconvenience him; if he doesn't need to eat in his current form he'd probably want to keep the option. And the Court probably has something (or a few somethings) that could be adapted to a WMD in short order so the Wood itself could be the target (all the plants and trees as well as all the entities). Even if they don't, they can call on conventional or strategic assets outside the Court.

Ys still hasn't delivered his ultimatum but there's a decent chance what he will demand will be impossible and/or insane. If backed into a corner people will do all sorts of things, and even things that wouldn't stop Ys might be useful as a diversion if it bought time to counterattack or evacuate. Antimony would make a good diversion if dropped into Ys' path, and would probably go willingly. Zeta could probably match Ys in raw power but not control, so she might make a good diversion but not an opponent UNLESS Ys, either on his own or with some subtle assistance, killed Gamma (or to a much lesser extent maybe Antimony). We do know Zeta can kill. In that case the real trick would be to take the battle out of the Court to minimize collateral damage.

[todd]

Apr 4, 2018 20:36:11 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Zeta could probably match Ys in raw power but not control, so she might make a good diversion but not an opponent UNLESS Ys, either on his own or with some subtle assistance, killed Gamma (or to a much lesser extent maybe Antimony). We do know Zeta can kill. In that case the real trick would be to take the battle out of the Court to minimize collateral damage.

The tricky part would be getting Zimmy to take an interest in the situation; generally, she doesn't care about anyone other than Gamma. Convincing her that Gamma was in danger from Ysengrin would be the best option. Though given what Zimmy's world is like, using her against Ysengrin could be replacing the current problem with a bigger one - though as you suggest, making certain that Zimmy's confrontation with Ysengrin takes place outside the Court's bounds seems like a good solution for that.

[TBeholder]

Yup, it's that guy.

Apr 4, 2018 7:37:49 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Apr 4, 2018 7:28:07 GMT fjodorii said:

It looks like he's closing the gap.

If Ys does have Coyote's power then the only two reasons that I can think of that he wouldn't just yank the two sides back together are 1. he didn't think of it and/or 2. he doesn't want to. If the latter is the sole reason then he doesn't aim for reunification but subjugation;

I doubt he can think about long-term "subjugation". More like, Show Them All and then lose interest.

[imaginaryfriend]

Apr 5, 2018 6:09:25 GMT TBeholder said:

Apr 4, 2018 7:37:49 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

If Ys does have Coyote's power then the only two reasons that I can think of that he wouldn't just yank the two sides back together are 1. he didn't think of it and/or 2. he doesn't want to. If the latter is the sole reason then he doesn't aim for reunification but subjugation;

I doubt he can think about long-term "subjugation". More like, Show Them All and then lose interest.

I'm not sure we disagree. I'm not thinking subjugation in the sense that Ys is planning on appointing an occupation council to take over government during the transition, making more infrastructure improvements, building Wood-style schools and hospitals, and promoting outdoors activities to the sedentary Court humans. I'm thinking more in terms of go here, smash that, go there, kill them, repeat until no descendants of survivors for all time will ever consider themselves anything other than worms and insects before him.  Antimony would be allowed to stay, as would non-traitorous non-humans, but as for the rest... I figure he's planning on crushing his enemies and seeing them driven before him, hearing the lamentations of their women, rending priests scientists on their own altars workbenches, writing a final epithet to the Court in their history books with the blood of their lauded ones then burning all the books, leveling their buildings until not one block remains atop another, and so forth.