Know Your Place Page 3
February 22nd, 2017Running away from home when you come of age is a time-honored tradition. Sometimes it works out well; sometimes not. For Jassart, well, you’ll have to see. But you can see a preview of a man who will have a huge influence on Jassart when you vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comics!
Emerald City Comic Con is next week? I’m at Table C15? Am I ready for a 4-day convention after surgery last month?Will I have to take a nap at the table? What will people stack on top of me when I do so? So many questions!
“Anybody interesting is parasite in effect. … Thieves are just little more direct about it than mercenaries – and, face it, most professional adventurers are mercenaries.”
I disagree… a mercenary can provide protection from a thief like a guard dog provides protection from a wolf. If he keeps more sheep alive then the food that he eats, he earns his keep, he gives more than he takes.
Similarly a farmer may take wool from sheep and eat a few, but if he provides them a better life then they would have in the wild, he gives them more than he takes from them.
You misunderstood. Mercenary does not parasite on the ones he protect (at least not if he’s good and honest). He parasites on the thieves. If thieves would disappear, he would be out of job.
(And, obviously, by parasiting on thieves he indirectly parasites on the ones who are not protected and thieves successfully steal from them.)
Sorry, but I’m not feelin any sympathy for Jassart here. A lot of people had it rough during the age of Sail, and fled to the new world to try and make a better life for themselves. Jassart, instead of making something of himself, became a parasite. He became everything he hated.
Not a drop of sympathy for him.
I still see Jassart as driven by ambition, not by malice. I definitely wouldn’t call him a parasite. He is a proactive character, which seems to be unwilling to stay still for long or accept his allotted position in society.
He’s a thief, and thieves are parasites in effect, even if they do spread the pain over multiple “hosts”. Somebody jacked stuff out of my car twice in the last month, so I have little sympathy for rogues at the moment…
That’s kind of the thing with stories about thieves, conmen, bandits, or pirates. Your characters may be cool but unless you take pains to make them essentially Robin Hood, or make an antagonist who’s Dark Lord the Baby-Eater, they’re not going to be the good guys. But then, there’s no reason why stories should be about good guys. Personally I made my peace with this before even starting this comic. It stars two thieves, of course they won’t be upstanding people!
Anybody interesting is parasite in effect. Hard working peasants or craftsmen don’t have time for adventures. Thieves are just little more direct about it than mercenaries – and, face it, most professional adventurers are mercenaries.
Luckily, fantasy worlds tend to have several “Dark Lord baby eaters” and lots of obviously corrupted and evil nobles so plenty of targets to steal from and not feel bad about it.
>Anybody interesting is parasite in effect.<
hkmaly, that's just not a supportable statement. Are Toothy Kit, Defiant Elk, Vivviane, et al – parasites? I think not.
The world (and the stories about it) are filled with people who are honorable, hard working – and interesting.
Jeff: Toothy Kit is good example as yes, technically she is parasite and will be until she finishes her training and get a job as Wisdom of some clan.
On the other hand, yes, the statement is too absolute to be supportable. Some people may be hard working and still be interesting in their spare time, it’s just hard to get enough spare time when working and you might/should be doing more work instead. Or, hard working person might get interesting if the work doesn’t go as expected (VERY interesting if that person is scientist).
But the hard honest work itself is boring.
IMHO, whether ambition or malice drives him makes no difference, Cpt. Deadeye. The same thing could be said for the Intendant that he hated so much. In the Intendants case, fear was also probably a factor.. I can hear the Lord saying “this is how much money the peasants should be paying my coffers every month, and if you can’t collect it, I’ll throw you into a cell and get someone to replace you who CAN collect it”.
In the early chapters, we found that Jassart was taking theft insurance from several townsfolk. I fail to see the difference.
I would add that every personal relationship Jassart has had, he has turned on in one way or another when it no longer became profitable for him. Vivienne is next, when he’s done with her. Although I will be fair about that one, She may dump him before he dumps her… I’m curious to see how that one plays out.
“He became everything he hated.”… not exactly, he doesn’t make people grovel, he leaves them with self respect.
He hated being a sheep so he switched to being a predator.
That may be true, David, we have no evidence either way to be honest. What I would suspect though, if this is any parallel to real life, is that there are a handful of people that he has made examples of… People who’s lives have been completely destroyed, that he can point to as the price for not paying the “insurance”.
What has been done with those examples are not anything that is germaine to the story at hand, but it would be a safe bet that it isn’t pretty, and may or may not include murder.
We actually are in about 80% agreement on this subject overall, and I certainly respect opinions that differ from my own, in part or in whole.
“I left before dawn so nobody would see which way I went.”
>>leaves the biggest most intense footprints feasible.
LOL.