YANORA: Nevertheless, we must have your forces at home, else there may be no home to go to.
GUDIK: God, I’ll lose as many just trying to withdraw as taking the whole kingdom. There’s already two Draconian armies on the way to raise this siege. They’ll never let me just walk away ...
IPOLA: They actually may want to join you.
GUDIK: Fat chance of that!
IPOLA: Yet, they may. Because you know something that the Draconian Church would very much like to know, and that may make all the difference in the world to them.
GUDIK: Oh, Really,
IPOLA: Something that fulfills their own prophecies.
GUDIK: And what is that?
IPOLA: Shuach has awakened the Dragons.
GUDIK: (pause) Pull the other one!
31 thoughts on “Oh, Really – Page 1069”
Salisria
You know, I can totally see people who worship dragons going on a crusade to free their gods from another god. For that matter, I can totally see dragons preferring to go into the god business for themselves.
Corwyn_Ulhar
I agree completely on all counts, and am eagerly looking forward to learning just how Ipola, Gudik, and Yannora manage to figure out exactly how to present this information to the Draconians in a manner that elicits their forgiveness for the Crusade and rouses their collective outrage at the Urtts, garnering considerable reinforcements for Kivalia’s & Erogenia’s armies while also allowing the former to actually debark & start heading home.
Paddy
They have a religion named after dragons, and a prophecy concerning them… but it doesn’t mean they believe dragons to be benign, or worthy of worship. Hell, the whole belief might be based around dragons existing somewhere as a hidden threat, and it being necessary to be ready to do battle with them.
Plus we don’t know what they call themselves. “Draconians” might be just what the Kivalians call them, and they could easily call themselves dragonslayers or somesuch. Only time, and the story, will tell.
Ganurath
Cue the priest soiling his robe at the much more explicit blasphemy of a different religion being right about something in three… two…
Freelance
Quick! Somebody summon the Dovakkiin!
Sleel
Did her boys inherit nothing of their mom’s smarts? Both come across as dumb as a bag of hammers. Just diff kinds of dumb.
Valk
I’d say Gudik is at least a sack of nice claw hammers. Maldik is rather more like a Walmart bag full of rubber mallets and a couple of used plungers.
Freelance
To be fair, in his mind, just what’re the odds that the dragons *would* come back?
Archone
Honestly, a lot of their behavior seems to be because of Mommy’s treatment. It reminds me of… Archer. If you watch the show, you’ll notice that Mallory is indeed very capable and competent, and Sterling is very capable and competent… but Sterling makes a LOT of boneheaded mistakes, and those are largely due to how his mother raised him and continues to treat him.
I mean, look at her current treatment of him. She needs him to swallow his pride, end his siege, apologize to current enemies/potential allies, and go save the world… AND SHE’S STILL ENGAGING IN PETTY INSULTS. That shows just how ingrained this behavior is, to the point that she doesn’t even notice she’s doing it anymore.
That’s one of the problems with behavior modification… it’s one thing to recognize that you have a bad habit, but it’s another to learn not to repeat the bad habit without even noticing. It’s so easy to fall back into the passive-aggressiveness, or the verbal abuse, or the aggressive domineering, or whatever it is you’re trying to learn not to do anymore. As sexy and brilliant as she is, I notice that Ipola in particular has been showing signs of weariness at her own ally’s behavior. Like she’s trying not to blurt out, “the reason my daughters make me so proud is that I always told them that they made me proud.”
EmmaC
@Sleel: I don’t know that. Gudik seems to worry about his men, not just his loss. And he seems to catch pretty quickly the implication of Ipola’s revelation. I just love his smile: ruthless… This guy certainly loves to have all cards in his hand.
EmmaC
after re-reading it seems I didn’t understand correctly the last panel… problem with not being a native english speaker… Is Gudik doubting Ipola? Is ‘pull the other one’ an expression of doubt?
*face palm at myself*
James
Yup. The long form is “pull the other one, it has bells on”, which refers to the saying, “You’re pulling my leg”, which is a polite way of implying that someone isn’t being honest with you. He is basically saying that Ipola is lying without straight up calling her a liar.
calisto01
Yes the term “pull the other one” refers to an old joke from the theater plays in America. If you are joking it is sometimes said to be “pulling someone’s leg” which is a reference to someone breaking their leg being good luck. To say “pull the other one” is a shortened version of “pull the other leg it has bells on it.” which is an even more obscure reference to Shakespearean actors as Jesters. So in essence he is saying she must be joking/not serious when she made the comment.
Sorry if my expounding upon the subject was too long winded. I tend to do that sometimes…
EmmaC
Thanks to both of you.. I really feel dumb now with my first answer!! Speak about a way to misunderstand something.. :o/
James
No big. It’s a weird idiom that references another weird idiom that a non-native speaker might not be familiar with. Besides, you guessed right the second time on your own. But now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
SeanR
It may be a far more local idiom, but around here, you’ll sometimes hear someone ask the tricked individual, “are your legs the same length?”
jd.
I think my native language is the same as EmmaC (hi sis! How’s sleep? Lots of love to the cutie and the parents!); anyway I’m no native English speaker either.
I always assumed “pull” in “pull the other one” was meant as in “pull a stunt”, like the person addressed has tried to lie their way and failed, so they might as well try another lie.
And full disclosure, when James mentioned the “it has bells on” following, I thought it referred to the “middle leg”, not a jester’s costume. (Then again, given the bawdy nature of historical jest, I may not be all that far.)
Oh, and I have to entirely forgive you for being long-winded, calisto01. This pot would not call you black.
Lora
I can understand not quite believing the dragons are back, but I’m sure Ipola will manage to convince Gudik. She’s rather good at that sort of thing.
Salisria
The problem won’t be convincing Gudik, it will be convincing the Draconians that this revelation isn’t a clever Kivalian ruse to distract their forces.
Paddy
Be careful, your majesty; you came very close to calling Ipola a liar there.
Reservist
Well, in all fairness, hearing this thing out of the blue is not quite anything Gudik would expect.
Someguy
C’mon Gudik. you’re (I thought) smarter than that. Ipola wouldn’t joke about this. Not now.
The Random Spectator
Am I the only one who is curious just how Ipola learned of the dragon-waking? None of the good guys were present for that and I doubt that any of her birds operate close enough to Urtt territory to have seen it themselves. Perhaps she sensed a disturbance in the world’s magik? Or one of her more magikally attuned priests/priestesses/shamen/etc. has been busy scrying and discovered it? Divine vision from the Earth and/or Moon goddesses? It’s a bit of a plot-hole right now.
Descartes
No plot hole. The scout team saw something shocking, presumably dragons, on their winter reconnaissance mission. That they reported this to Ipola is implied a little later when she expressed concern about it. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to link these plot developments.
Descartes
Here’s where they learn of the dragons https://barbarianprincess.com/comic/interlude-on-the-road-again/page-918/:
Descartes
Ranik’s team has reported its discovery: https://barbarianprincess.com/comic/the-long-road-home/page-988/
jd.
Quite true. One has to admire how Ipola turned a major threat (“I needed this like a hole in the head”, she commented) into a diplomatic asset.
That being said, to the best of my knowledge we still have to learn what that “incredibly stupid” thing was that she meant to do when going North after receiving the news. Maybe we’ll find out in this scene…
jd.
I like that Gudik refuses to go back to Kivalia, in panel 2, on strategic accounts. It’s not that he refuses to quit any more: it’s that he doesn’t think it’ll do any good, quite the contrary. So far I cannot agree with evaluations of his wits as deficient. (Though his refusal to believe Ipola shows he hasn’t been around her much.)
By the way, Descartes’ comments lead me to think that this wasn’t planned by Ipola and Yanora when they set up this meeting, since they didn’t even know about it yet.
EmmaC
French is my native language, what is yours? Actually I thought Gudik was encouraging Ipola to explain better her tactic, so I must thank again James and calisto01 (and no it wasn’t too long, I loved the explanation).
Cutie is good and growing, sleep is… absent right now we are still trying to find where it’s hiding 😉
jd.
Pareil, frangine !
I see all is good. Baby does well, and parents… at least they aren’t making the rest of us jealous.
Salisria
Now that Tula has ‘splained the Draconians, I can understand Gudik’s incredulity even more. Not only does this conveniently give a way of ending the war with the Draconians, but it also serves to discomfit his enemies within the Church of Kivalia who were using Maldik to usurp his rule. If Old Kivallian lacks gender marking, there might even be a prophecy we haven’t heard yet concerning a golden-haired warrior prince(ss) that could be interpreted to mean himself.
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