Page Commentary No. 181

Gunwild: So I'm auctioning off an Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch console on eBay, with profits going to the ASPCA. My dad was like, "Hm, you should cover your expenses!" and stuff to remind me to be money-sensible and not give too much to charity. But he wasn't too intrusive about it. Gleb's dad is... a lot more judgmental about him trying to do nice things.

Psu: Personally I might get Doom. Oh wait, how about we use "doom" as a segue here. Like... the Vanaa and the Humans are doomed to enter into conflict just because of their conflict prone nature?

Gunwild: Maybe it's pretentious to bring up, but I'm a writer who from time to time fancies himself as being anti-war. But, of course, I like to have cool weapons and soldiers and battle sequences in my fiction, because who doesn't? Meaning I've gotta at least have something to say about conflicts, and why they happen, and why they're bad. I don't think these people (meaning vanaa and humans) are necessarily being forced into war by their similar nature. That's a cop-out. Like, I'm not a great student of history, but I'm always thinking when I read about warfare that it comes down to people being very much alike and wanting the same things, and deciding to fight over them instead of sharing. Folks want oil and land and political power... all the way back to Troy, where some guys with the same gods and language and codes of honor all fought over one woman they were super into.

Psu: And well here's a thing, right? Not to get too spoiler heavy, but I think we BOTH agree that King is wrong here. That's pretty much the thesis of this chapter. Which, I might be biased, I think you knocked out of the park.

Gunwild: He's not really wrong, though. Countless governments have subsisted on war profiteering. An empire forged by conquest will sustain itself by conquest for as long as it can - why wouldn't it? Trying to manage that by minimizing deaths and still seeing a return on investment is actually really smart... if you see violence as an intrinsic element of your nature, anyway. Which... you should, because it is. It's why children have to be taught not to hit each other, rather than to hit each other. Even the tenderest human being was bred by natural selection to fight and kill and take what it can. But on the next page I tried to discuss why that's not the end of the story and war is, like, bad and stuff.

Psu: Look at you being all smart. Here I was thinking I was clever for making the arrows that point at each other different colors in the last panel.

Gunwild: That is clever, though!

Psu: Anyway, we already talked about how this particular storyline elevated the sci-fi bona fides of Cassiopeia Quinn. We swear this stuff plays into our larger story as well. But I think what's special here, is that it isn't just exposition about backstory. It's a genuine moment where a father is educating a son and maybe that son's a little more thoughtful than the parent realizes.

Gunwild: Lest we get high on our own supply, I think on this page I couldn't decide whether to bold Gleb's use of the word "good" or his use of the word "change." So I didn't do either and went and watched cartoons instead. That's the actual level of intellect we're workin' with, people!

Psu: The Vanaa Battle Armor would make a good toy if Cassiopeia Quinn was a 90's cartoon.