so… about the new death in the family update.
yes i am making a long analysis post AGAIN because there’s so much stuff i wanna unpack here regarding the new pages (and bring up some old stuff as well) i HAVE to talk about it.
first off, let’s start with grapping hook and sunfire.
in this conversation, grappling hook reveals that their motive for keeping sword around the redcliff settlement is rooted getting more information on the cult. to which, despite sunfire being skeptical about their plan, is hearing out (and most likely agreed to) grapple’s plan. if them agreeing to at least hear them out in the 3rd panel here and bee putting the tracker on sword is any indication of that.
it makes perfect sense to me why they would want sword to be tracked. i mean they said it themself; redcliff needs more information on what true eye is planning, especially since there SEEMS to be some noticeable activity from the church recently. having someone who's actively LOOKING for an actual member of the cult (who also seems to be well known outside of them as well) within reach could give them a perfect opportunity to figure out exactly what they're planning should sword eventually find medkit. or at least get into the church somehow.
as the leader of the redcliff wranglers, grappling hook knows they have the responsibility to keep the redcliff settlement safe and, most importantly, make sure true eye doesn't take control of lost temple's spawn. given it's quite literally the birthplace of all inphernals in the region, it's basically game over should they surrender to overseer's goal of controlling it (as they'd be able to convert even MORE inphernals to their cause. exposing them to church ideals from an early age to make them loyal from the start seems to be their motive, least assuming from them wanting control of lt's spawn in the first place.)
i mentioned this in the previous analysis i made about the comic but it is clear that grappling hook is VERY against overseer's plan to take over lost temple. after all it's their home, and some stranger comes along taking advantage of their fellow inphernals to take total control of their land? of course they'd be opposed to it. and this plan is simply a means to further the goal of making sure true eye doesnt take over the region. it's a matter of protecting their homeland and, despite how dubious it is to take advantage of someone as naive as sword, could be crucial to ending the conflict and perhaps even taking down the church entirely.
it's also important to note here that redcliff is currently struggling a lot due to the civil war with true eye. they dont even have enough supplies to keep up with all the injured who come to the medbay ON A DAILY BASIS, nor do they have enough healers to remedy them either. so having a such a strong lead such as sword could help change the tides of the war. especially when they know his motives will eventually lead him to the cult.
even if grappling hook "using sword for true eye information" does seem pretty bad on the surface (they are basically spying on him, after all), it's honestly pretty understandable. again they are in the middle of a civil war, they need all the leads they can get. especially given the bad state of redcliff as of current. even if they could just.... ask sword to give them this intel. he's still a stranger at the end of the day. they can't completely trust him, though they trust him enough to at least be not working for them. (i do bring this point up since ive been seeing people begin to dislike grappling hook, and by extention bee, due to this. as much as i understand that i do wanna show their own perspective on why they chose to tag him in the first place.)
speaking of bee, i also wanna talk about her and sword’s interaction from before this scene. she is the one that bugs sword to begin with after all. this section is a little bit shorter since i think it’s pretty straightforward, but i wanna discuss it a little regardless.
despite her very stanoffish and distrusting demeanor towards sword at the beginning, i do think she seems to... regret it a little. or at the very least takes pity on sword after their conversation. between sword's apologies and him saving chuck from the explosion it does seem that, at the very least, she understands sword a little better as well as his intentions. even if he's pretty naive and kinda reckless, he has a good heart.
that's why i feel like she seems to look... almost guilty here. at the very least she understands that sword doesn't mean any harm towards her or the rest of redcliff, which is a good thing. but she also seems to sense how naive he is, and that his kindness, even towards people who don't like him, (again sword confronted her to begin with so he could apologize) could potentially get him into some serious trouble should he encounter the wrong person. hence why i feel she feels that way. it's almost like using him as bait; allowing him get closer to a dangerous organization for their own benefit.
has anyone noticed how sword tends to get compared to birds a quite a bit in the comic? outside of being venomshank's adoptive kid (who split a part of himself to be able to watch over sword. who ended up being sisyphus who is a crow), he also has gotten referred to like a bird a couple of times already. particularly by the other wranglers and darkheart—which is VERY suspicious already given the fact darkheart seems to know way more than he's letting on. something about sword’s fate being “interesting” (though we’re not sure what this could mean yet).
he’s also compared/referred to as different types of songbirds twice. first being a canary by darkheart, and second being a sparrow by tara. the canary comparison is especially interesting (and worrying) to me because of their history.
canaries were often used as early detection for toxic gasses from within the coal mines. due to these birds being more sensitive to these gasses then humans, they’d often get sick and even die first, which would then alert the miners to evacuate or put on protective respirators once they heard the bird had stopped singing. it’s a pretty clever, albeit cruel, method of keeping the workers safe. the practice became so well known that it even became a term for early signs of danger: a canary in the coal mine.
in this instance, sword is the canary brought into the mine (both figuratively and, in the previous pages, literally)— being chipped and watched by the redcliff wranglers in order to bring information on true eye’s plans so in the event they attack them again, they’ll be prepared to face them or shut them down before they manage to damage redcliff even further. yet this is all the cost of endangering sword to father overseer and his followers. which is very, very dangerous. not exactly a good omen being referred to as a bird multiple times now is it.
okay i need to finish up my chores before i get #executed so here’s some really quick little things i noticed in this update that i thought was cool yay!!!!
FIRSTLY!!! darkheart pissing off sword the whole time. it's definitely not a new thing, given he has been teasing and poking fun at sword for basically the majority of the times he's talking to him in the comic. but it's this particular instance i wanna mention where he gets him to throw his gear to kill the vulture.
i do think it was intentional though. im not entirely sure as to why he had to nag him to get to this point (perhaps, given how kindhearted sword usually is, killing the vulture would be too much for him? sure he's been trained all his life to fight but something tells me it was it was just to defend himself rather then to actually kill), but that particular line seemed to finally get on his nerves.
sword often gets underestimated due to his gear just being... a sword. it's seen in a LOT in the dialogue he has with the other phighters in game. his techniques are old. his gear is basic. hell ALL of banhammer's dialogue with him is just him making fun of sword. he's seen as being not as strong as other inphernals because of his gear and combat techniques. they're strong, sure. but comparing it to other gears it doesn't seem to be seen as anything special.
in the comic he's shown to have a desire to prove himself (least, that's how i interpret it anyways), which may extend from the fact that he's often undermined by other inphernals. it's why he wanted to apologize to bee, why he still tried to help tara despite being scared of the vultures, why he even went with chuck in the first place to retrieve the medical supplies. he wants to prove to others that he can help. that he isn't as incompetent or 'outdated' as he seems to be.
which is why THAT line is what finally pushes him to snap. once again he's being underestimated, by a deity no less (also what does he mean by forgetting anything worth remembering??? suspicious as hell.) that HAS to hurt especially with everything else that had happened before. he wants to be seen as competent. he wants to be taken seriously. and it's with that line that sword finally gets his first kill in the entire comic.
and oh my god. it's horrifying to see his actual phinisher in the comic compared to in game. he himself even seems to be horrified by it too judging from chuck's comment on him looking shaken up right after. (i'd put the image but.... i got hit by the photo upload limit OOPS </3. its on page 179 though.)
in the end it did help save chuck. i wonder if darkheart never said all that (or was like, way nicer to sword) that chuck would've just ended up dead instead. the way he's guiding sword is really interesting too because despite kinda bullying him and not really helping sword out in some sitiuations, i think it's actually helping sword out in the long run. helping him make decisions for himself rather than doing them for him. i have been writing this analysis for over eight hours though so i could be reaching. but it's a sentiment that ive seen a bit from other people and i do agree with it so i wanted to add it here.
SECOND about sunfire. their mask is pretty cool since it seems to represent a lion, even having fur around it to mimic lions manes. which is very very cool looking, but also because lions and the sun actually are an existing symbolism in real life! its a very very cool connection that i do wonder if it's intentional (wouldn't be surprised, given the gear itself and the fact that a couple of darkage masks kinda do seem to depict animals + theives den as a whole having a deep connection to nature).
their gear is also part of the darkage ninja’s series, which makes sense given they hail from the darkage clan. though given it’s from this set specifically rather than any other gear, i wonder if they have a bigger role/reputation in thieves den as a whole. perhaps serving as part of a council with the rest of the gears in the set? they certainly seem to be the one leading the darkage clan members who are helping redcliff, that's for sure.
and finallyyyy..... about what chuck said in the earlier pages to sword about red claw. he mentions that it was through that he met grappling hook for the first time. while it doesnt mention anything about the redcliff wranglers as a whole, it could be cool if that was the origin of that particular faction; originally a group of inphernals hunting down oziphrages who managed to tame them and have them assist in protecting fellow inphernals (funny given they originally. ate inphernals. oops.)
WOOOH OKAY WE'RE DONE. that's it. that's the analysis. i think this like so so long compared to my first one oh my god. but there was so much i wanted to say here maybe i shouldve made it two separate posts but.... eh..... maybe i can split it later. in any case im gonna take a break now. if anyone else has some insight on the comic or their own interpretations i'd be happy to hear it ^_^
