THANN: What are you on about, my lord? Why don’t you leave this kid alone?
TETHIK: I am just curious about this whole Holy War, and whether in its prosecution it’s as pointless an exercise in cruelty as all the other wars of men.
THANN: Of course it is. So they don’t rape the women, or at least they get punished when they’re caught. Great. They still do plenty of other atrocities. We all saw the bloody trail the army left behind itself. But they’re doing it for God, so it’s all well and good. “Cho-joranni! Hail The Spirit Kings and destroy Their enemies!”
BARANIR: It would be well if you would refrain from blasphemy, Erogenian.
THANN: In my case, it’s only partially blasphemous, kid. I’m half Kivalian.
BARANIR: (warningly) Even so -
GUDIK (Outside): Agh! This was not a good day!
THERIK(Outside): Not to worry, Majesty! You have God on your side.
GUDIK: Well, tell God to send me better siege engines, then! Those trebuchets aren’t powerful enough to breach the curtain wall! They barely even get the stones over it.
GUDIK, king of Kivalia, enters. Not in a good mood.
With him is BISHOP THERIK, an unctious intellectually-challenged churchman.
Gudik sees Tethik:
GUDIK: Tethik?
TETHIK: Cousin.
GUDIK: What the Deeps are you doing here?!
TETHIK: It’s good to see you, too, your Majesty.
GUDIK: I left you in Normos to keep Maldik out of trouble! Why aren’t you still there?
TETHIK: I -
GUDIK: Wait - it’s not Mother, is it? Is she dead or something?
TETHIK: She was well when last I saw her, Gudik.
GUDIK: Ah. Well, we can’t have everything.
TETHIK: Indeed.
17 thoughts on “Return Of The King – Page 1061”
The Random Spectator
Maldik’s loathing of his mother is understandable since we’ve been given full context for it. Gudik’s dislike of her I find at least somewhat surprising, given that it was implied that her treatment of him was both more attentive than that of Maldik and that she actually takes Gudik seriously. Then again, theirs is a royal family, with all of the potential drama and politics which that entails.
Salisria
It can be tough to be the good kid with high expectation held of you. I imagine that while growing up there was stuff Maldik was allowed to get away with because he was only Maldik that Gudik would have liked to tried at least once but couldn’t.
Marcusoterra
OH. BOY.
Tell me Gudik is just the better of two dicks (Ha. ‘Good’-dick and ‘Bad’ dick)
Okay, so Gudik is quite the pretty king, angry, and apparently not above a little blasphemy.
Tom Billings
At least Tethik can relieve the King’s worry about the inadequacy of his siege engines.
Granted, the rest won’t be nearly such good news.
A Crusade could make you feel you were doing good,
especially with the Bishop’s spy, chanting how it’s all right, in your ear.
An existential war is a whole lot grimmer set of feelings.
I wonder if the churchman will be the first to denounce Tethik? After all, once
he hears that Bishop Macon is the insider backing Maldik’s plot, he’ll have
choices to make. Does he stand with the King? Does he *pretend* to
stand with the King, only to get hold of a knife to avenge the King’s turning from his Holy War?
Many choices to make, for all concerned.
Lora
Well, Gudik and Maldik really looks nothing alike, but I’m not too surprised by that. There is the suspicion that Maldik is not King Kendrick’s child.
I guess Tethik is about to make a bad day worse.
EmmaC
In the tell called ‘Riquet à la houppe’ (I don’t the name in English): the beautiful child is stupid and the ugly one is smart (then Riquet comes and screws everything….). So, Gudik, smart or stupid? As for not loving his mom: well, he certainly saw some things that he didn’t like. Even his mother having lovers. PErhaps he even listen to some of Maldik gossips…. Or to Macon.
I suppose Tethik knows where he is going, I hope. But at the moment? Gudik does not impress me.
Reservist
Well, I can hear queen Yanora verbally flipping Gudik off about his recriminations at her having lovers.
Come to think about it, isn’t Tethik far too old to be Gudik’s cousin? Or does Gudik call Tethik cousin because he’s Yanora’s brother-in-law or her cousin?
SeanR
I have a cousin that is old enough to be my father, (I have a cousin who served in either World War II or Korea, and I wasn’t born until after Vietnam). I know someone who is only two years older than his niece.
No. He they are not too far apart in age to be cousins.
That said, in some circles “cousin” holds a more general meaning of “relative”, and not even close relative. Queen Elizabeth II may well have greeted her future husband when they first met as “Cousin”.
SeanR
Whoops. Mistake. I have an UNCLE who served in either WWII or Korea, and I wasn’t born until after Vietnam. The rest stands. It would be his kids who are about my fathers age.
Someguy
Ah, after so many years we finally get to meet Good Dick. It’s been a long Journey.
Paddy
I see what you did there.
Time will tell, however, how much of a dick Prince Gudik Charming actually is. That he’s friends with Zona gives me hope.
Dave M
So Guldick is Richard the Lionheart to Maldick’s Prince John. Which means they’re both a waste of good oxygen, just in different ways.
The MacNut
Yeah, Tethik would make the better king. Too bad he’s (wisely) not interested.
Archone
Honestly, I think Maldik would make the better king – if he’d had better upbringing. Even his own mother admitted she had been terrible to him (after we’d seen her, in the comic itself, insult him in front of foreign dignitaries and regularly belittle him. When his upbringing and education was HER RESPONSIBILITY). Hell, it says something that when Tula expresses doubts that Maldik was responsible for poisoning his own mother, the woman’s response was “let me the illusion of thinking my son did something intelligent for a moment.” As opposed to “thank you for pointing out that my son isn’t nearly cruel and evil enough to do that sort of thing.”
Even Tula says it herself – she doesn’t hate Maldik, she pities him.
pls
I admit I don’t understand the artistic decision to make the dialog balloons semi-transparent. But on dark pages like this, it makes the text very hard to read. I gave up on this page half way through, my eyes could not take it any more.
Do you perchance have a text of the dialog on the page somewhere? A lot of comics have that for searching.
jedraft
pls,
The reason is to show more of the actual artwork. This was a suggestion from fans and something I wanted to try – it seems to work fine for my own tired old eyes, but I have no problem adding a transcript if you like from now on. For this page the dialogue goes as follows:
THANN: What are you on about, my lord? Why don’t you leave this kid alone?
TETHIK: I am just curious about this whole Holy War, and whether in its prosecution it’s as pointless an exercise in cruelty as all the other wars of men.
THANN: Of course it is. So they don’t rape the women, or at least they get punished when they’re caught. Great. They still do plenty of other atrocities. We all saw the bloody trail the army left behind itself. But they’re doing it for God, so it’s all well and good. “Cho-joranni! Hail The Spirit Kings and destroy Their enemies!”
BARANIR: It would be well if you would refrain from blasphemy, Erogenian.
THANN: In my case, it’s only partially blasphemous, kid. I’m half Kivalian.
BARANIR: (warningly) Even so –
GUDIK (Outside): Agh! This was not a good day!
THERIK(Outside): Not to worry, Majesty! You have God on your side.
GUDIK: Well, tell God to send me better siege engines, then! Those trebuchets aren’t powerful enough to breach the curtain wall! They barely even get the stones over it.
GUDIK, king of Kivalia, enters. Not in a good mood.
With him is BISHOP THERIK, an unctious intellectually-challenged churchman.
Gudik sees Tethik:
GUDIK: Tethik?
TETHIK: Cousin.
GUDIK: What the Deeps are you doing here?!
TETHIK: It’s good to see you, too, your Majesty.
GUDIK: I left you in Normos to keep Maldik out of trouble! Why aren’t you still there?
TETHIK: I –
GUDIK: Wait – it’s not Mother, is it? Is she dead or something?
TETHIK: She was well when last I saw her, Gudik.
GUDIK: Ah. Well, we can’t have everything.
TETHIK: Indeed.
Reservist
“As all the other wars of men”
Oh, Tethik… would you then call the war(s) you waged against the Urtts pointless?
A war is never pointless. For petty reasons, maybe. But pointless? Technically, it is never so.
The cruelty that can happen during it? Sure it can be pointless and excessive.
Categories
Meta
Archives
Archives