Chapter 4: Page 29
Et tu, Rathik?
After all the speeches and all the posturing, Hardin simply didn’t see how Rathik’s anger might manifest. And as I’m sure you’ve all figured, some bridges–once you’ve burned them–can never be rebuilt.
This isn’t the first time I’ve said this of course, but… this, as they say, is where the plot thickens. Well, thickens even more I suppose? This plot is getting pretty thick!
I’ll be participating in David Petersen’s ONLINECON later today (Saturday, March 27) at 3pm Eastern!
You can watch the panel, FREE, right here:
https://www.twitch.tv/davidpetersen
I’ll be building a very small Mouse Guard-themed point-and-click adventure game LIVE in front of the stream audience while David and I chat about adventure game design and narrative in general.
If you’re interested in seeing how video games are made, or are just a Western Deep or Mouse Guard fan in general, we’d love it if you stopped by! And the art for this project, by the way, was produced by none other than Neil Schultz, the wonderful pixel artist behind our very own Wintersdawn in the Deep micro adventure game (available now on itch.io!)
Here’s a little tease for our readers in advance of the session:
If you know Mouse Guard, you probably know this mouse :)
Hopefully we’ll see you all at the OnlineCon panel!
Thickererness.
Rathie hasn’t lost any of his speed, it appears. Question now is, was he going for a killing/debilitating blow here, or just something to get his point across to Hardin? Looks closer to the shoulder than the chest, although the angle makes it hard to tell. But this raises all kinds of questions, such as, how will Hardin take it if this was just a “warning” stab? How will he take it if it was meant to be more? And, of course, with the canid closing in, will Hardin be in any shape to flee? Ooo, the tension! The suspense! The Western Deepness of it all!
(Also occurs to me that Rathik must’ve executed a mighty fast Hardin-style knife-flip to have seized the blade and then stabbed Hardin with it using the same paw.)
That depends. Are we operating on action movie biology where not hitting the heart or lungs makes for an easily recoverable injury? Because your shoulder is the connecting point for your entire arm, and you tend to use your arm for a lot of important things. Even if you manage not to bleed to death from the severing of some rather important blood vessels, you might not ever regain full use of your arm and hand.
This is the reason I keep harping on Rhosyn shooting Quin. So the question is, is BTWD making a stylistic/narrative choice not to treat these injuries realistically, or was Quinlan extremely lucky?
Speaking of Rhosyn, though, Rathik is very much going to die in the next several seconds unless something significant happens to prevent that.
I think Quin has been extremely lucky in any number of ways, but I will leave the extent of his shoulder injury for the comic’s creators to elucidate upon.
And yes, I just went back two pages to refresh in my own memory that Rhosyn does indeed seem to be loading her crossbow. Rathik’s on some pretty thin ice here, in spite of his lucky strike on Hardin. (Then again, Hardin can be so diabolically Machiavellian, it leaves you wondering whether he might have planned all this, for some reason or another. Time will tell!)
Add that to the list of things I wouldn’t put past Hardin.
Maybe it’s my monitor or I’m looking too deep into things but look at the edges of the two panels where Rathik stabs Hardin and compare it to the first panel and the panels on the previous page. They’ve got slight black edges to them that aren’t as pronounced anywhere else from what I can tell. It’s pretty hard to see, to be fair.
Sorry, I responded to the wrong comment entirely. This was meant to be for your response to me below. My bad. ^^;
Hardin nooooo!!!!!!
Oh snap!
Whoa whoa what!?
Holy heck.
I did NOT see that one coming!
Now both Ouinlan and Hardin have a wounded shoulder! They could be like dark mirror images or something.
A loaded crossbow tends to go off…
Too bad the one that cracked Rathik in the head didn’t shoot a bolt through his heart.
I hope it is only angery Rathik sick imagination, and in next week we will be again in REAL moment from last week – it is strange to me that Hardrin got such supprise for the info about Canids chase.
That’s an interesting theory, and while I wouldn’t put it past Alex and Rachel to try to pull something like that, we’ve never actually seen anything like it in “BWD” before, which would make it feel like a bit of a cheat since there’s no precedent for it. No, I think we’re seeing what’s “really” happening, and Hardin’s about to become incapacitated (at the very least) for the remainder of this chapter. As for Rathik, will he try to take control of the group now? How will that go over? And what about Kenosh? This twist sets up so many possibilities, and that’s why it’s so much fun to follow this story!
I really do think this is the case here too. Mostly because there’s subtle but obvious “black” edges on the panels where he does the deed that seems to imply something isn’t as it seems.
I’m not sure what you mean. Maybe I’m missing something but the panel borders look the same to me for every panel on this page, and they’re the same as they’ve been going back at least as far as the tail end of the previous scene with Bevan and Kenosh.
Now I am think that it is real time, and Rathik in worst case murdered or fatally wounded Hardrin (Without any good medicaments or even good bandages, and in dirty place also still runing away, it is very possible that Hardrin will die soon from the gangrene or faster from the bleeding out). I suppose that is it true, because on the title panel of the chapter 4, we see Rathik with blood on his paws, staying before those group of the canids. So I suppose that in some way Rathik also will die now, as he want, in solo fight with canids, as he argued with others at beging of this whole fatal situation. Anyway, after this, I don’t know what will be next. We need wait to Great Saturday, and we will see (Already Happy Easter to everyone).
I see a great future for this rebellion XD
Noooooooo! D:
!
Huh… we ALL kind of underestimated Rathik here, didn’t we?
Well… to be fair, I expected something like this to happen. I didn´t take Rathik for a person to take slight and let it go that easily. As for Hardin, he had it coming in my opinion.
From fuzzy Alexander the Great to historical marker in the span of three seconds.
I don´t think comparing him to Alexander the Great is fitting here. Considering that the real World Conquerer had an actuall professional Army at his back and had the recources of multiple City States at his disposal. Which were left to him after his father subjugated said States. What has Hardin in comparison? Damn even Arminius of the Cherusci had more recources to his name when he started his revolt against Rome.
DAMN. HE DID IT.
Well, they’re totally screwed now. Rathik will just try to muscle his way through any situation without Hardin around. The canids’ll have a whole bunch of shiny new weasel pelts to hang on their walls. ;)
ohshit.
What the heck Rathik! That’s our job!
This comment is stupid but it’s been bouncing around in my brain and it’s not fair that I should suffer alone:
The plot is dummy thicc and the clap of my surprising yet inevitable twist keeps alerting the canid.
And to think, Kenosh and Bevan came back JUST in time to see this. This is going to get real interesting.
ohhhhmygod.