So I went and had a look at how old Mikbell is for Reasons and because it’s very funny to me
He’s 22
“Oh 7 year age difference isn’t that long” it is when it’s almost 20% of your life, but isn’t when you’re unionising
Cuz see here’s the thing: Mikbell’s attitude towards Chilchuck is pretty fucking standard anti-union propaganda that bosses like to spread to workers
“They just want a cut of your money, you don’t need them, why would you share the profits of your hard work”
It’s also a complete and 1000% ignorance of the reason the union was started in the first place: people were literally using half-foots including Chilchuck himself as monster bait
(Big “capitalism consumes us all” metaphor energy)
Chilchuck made himself boss of all the half-foots on the island because he has Chronic Dad Disease and no one else was going to stop them from being mulched for profit
This is also why he always demands pay upfront, not after the job is over
Now, we don’t actually know when Mikbell reached the Island relative to Chilchuck, but since Chilchuck worked there as an adventurer long enough to be jaded, start a union, and become ubiquitous? It’s been a while
It’s also been long enough that a good chunk of the other half-foots cannot be original members, because they’d definitely have known about the succubus trap thing; starting unions is fucking hard work and people need to very clearly understand why they need the union, or you just get the Mikbell situation where no one bothers
Those original members would have told Mikbell exactly goddamn why they need that union and why they’re lucky as hell to have Chilchuck
They formed the union. They know exactly why it’s important
Now, we don’t know how much of Mikbell’s continued existence is pure luck of having met Kabru first instead of a succubus hunter party (or similar) vs how much is just the direct result of Chilchuck’s unionising having changed the Island’s work culture so that exploiting half-foots like that is no longer done
But hooooooo-boy does he look like a lucky little shit for having survived blowing off the guild that was specifically and recently formed to stop people mulching them for money long enough to be a dick about it
