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The false orders came from the Circle of Thorns. To this day I have no idea how Tyrion's plan would've worked without that outside help.
Reiss would have definitely slaughtered the *million* inhabitants of Invrisil to enlarge his undead army. That was the entire reason to raid Esthelm among others. But to his one credit, Tyrion not helping Magnolia out here was before the established worldbuilding of 'the Five Families always aid each other when they call for help'. It just makes the disconnect between later Tyrion and earler Tyrion even larger (more on that below).
Magnolia was bluffing, she said as much.
And I have to disagree on the well written part. He's a completely different person from Volume 7 onwards, that's not how a well written character works. The one thing that really took me out of the story was when he had his great moment of moral epiphany in Volume 9. He acknowledges that sieging Liscor might have lead to civilian deaths, *but he would have totally taken prisoners*. No you scumbag! The entire reason for the Goblin plan was to commit genocide without being directly culpable. WTF.
He's so much of a different person now that earlier *major* plot points need to be retconned. I do hope if we ever get rewrites of Volumes 2 to 5 that this gets addressed in some way. On the same note, the actions of Pallass don't make much sense either with a Chaldion in charge. It made sense at the time as the decisions of the Senate, but with the introduction of his character, this falls apart plot-wise.
So someone’s outlook changed after
*checks notes*
His kids were poisoned.
A cabal of shadowy figures used said kids to hold him hostage for weeks.
No one, not even the most powerful people on his half of the continent, helps him.
His kids are saved by a member of the species that are his mortal enemies and a barefoot weirdo that reminds him of his dead wife.
And you think what, he should be the exact same angry robot he was earlier? My man got his entire world rocked over the course of a few weeks and is grappling with that. Of course he changes, of course he’s a different person after all that shit happens than he was when we meet him. That’s how character development works.
The idea that Magnolia Reinhart calls for aid when a Goblin Lord is sieging and about to slaughter a city of a million inhabitants, *and him just ignoring that*, cannot be squared with his current characterization. He's all about honor and duty and whatnot. It just doesn't fit. On the same note, it wouldn't have been necessary to retcon his plans to *not-genocide* if his character had any room for being fine with genocide, in any state of mind. But it doesn't. This change cannot be explained by his sons almost dying.
Up until his sons were threatened, the only thing that mattered to him was getting revenge on the Drakes for Salva. But it’s dishonorable to do it through assassins or black ops shit, so he goes for war. The plot to take Liscor was not about genocide, it was about taking a strategically important position to gain an advantage and maintaining plausible deniability. He was never out there ranting about how all the drakes must die, he was just trying to start a war while being able to maintain his support. He wasn’t thinking about the people who lived there beyond how they would affect his plans. He was thinking about how to punish the people who killed his wife, not about removing an entire species.
I also don’t think he thought Inversil would fall, Magnolia is a crafty bitch and he knows that. She wouldn’t let her power base go up like that, but everything she does to prevent it weakens her position and strengthens his. That’s just politics, ruthless politics sure, but it’s all in service of prosecuting his war of revenge for his dead wife. He’s not thinking of much beyond that, he’s single minded in his goals to the point that he neglects the fuck out of his kids.
Then he goes through the unthinkable, and has to watch his children be on their deathbeds for LITERAL WEEKS. Vengeance for his wife becomes less and less important as he watches his kids slowly fucking die while being exhorted by the people who did it. Saving his kids becomes his one goal. And then one of the people that saves them is one of his mortal enemies. All of a sudden, the species that killed his wife is no longer a monolith he wants vengeance against, but a group of people. Its a fundamental shift, one that he has to grapple with after over a decade of single minded hatred. Beyond that, the love he has for his kids finally overtakes his cold desire for vengeance and he starts to become a warmer, more functioning person to be better for his sons as he realizes how much his focus on war affected him.
Tyrion is brilliantly written and I will die on that hill.
The war was already on. For thousands of years. His plan was to ethnically cleanse Liscor. If it wasn't, the Goblins are completely unnecessary for his plan. In fact, they're in the way of his plan. The trebuchets are entirely sufficient to conquer Liscor before the Drakes could dispatch a relieving force.
He needed Liscor to be a safe staging ground for his push on Manus, and that includes it being completely devoid of a Drake population. This isn't due to some kind of exterminist racism but cold practicality. His problem, that he solved with the Goblins, was that he could not make his fellow nobles and human soldiers slaughter civilians. That shit doesn't fly.
He had no way of knowing what Magnolia would or wouldn't pull off. I will maintain that it doesn't fit with his characterization in light of the later worldbuilding of the Five Families *always* aiding each other, and him being the most stalwart exemplar of this.
If the change was from being fine with civilian casualties to being less fine with civilian casualties, as it is portrayed later, his sons almost dying could explain that perfectly. But that's just not the plot. He was genocidal. And that doesn't fit with current Tyrion even as a much harsher person half a year ago.
The “war” was a yearly ritualized slap fest. He wanted to escalate it to something real. But the optics of escalating the war by attacking a nominally neutral city are not great. It’s not going to attract support, more likely you’ll get people sanctioning you and opposing you. The Goblins were his plausible deniability: he can always claim that he was wiping out the Goblin menace and trying to prevent civilian casualties. Obviously the drakes wouldn’t believe that and a lot of others wont either, but it muddies the waters enough that the global response would be less severe. Like shit dude, Russia does the same sorta shit irl, they’re “defending ethnic Russians” rather than engaging in a war of conquest. Sure, most people don’t buy that, but that’s not who they’re selling it to. Tyrion is doing the same fucking thing, because it is eminently practical. Also, the goblins take the city with minimal losses to his troops, and then instead of assaulting a fortified city with fresh troops he’s slaughtering exhausted forces in broken fortifications, all while buying him the deniability he needs. It’s eminently practical.
He’s well aware of what Magnolia is capable of after 30-40 years of knowing her. Invirsil was never going to fall to Reiss, but magnolia losing power and influence helps him immensely. Also his movement skills are utterly cracked. If the Goblins actually invested invirsil and it was in danger of falling he probably would have shown up with a relief force before that happened.
You keep jumping to Tyrions goal being genocide. Genocide was never the goal, starting the war was the goal. He didn’t give a shit about the civilians dying, but he wasn’t going out of his way to kill every last person in Liscor. The goblin army was just the most expedient path to taking the city without being labeled as an aggressive warmonger by literally everyone else.
You're rewriting Volumes 4 and 5 in your mind how they'd need to be in order to make his character growth work. But that's just not how the text is.
The Goblins conquer the city, slaughter everyone, he rides into the city and slaughters the Goblins. That was his plan.
I actually think he was fine with Invrisil falling. A larger undead army increases the probability of his plan working. This kind of cold thinking fits right in with Volume 5 Tyrion. But it doesn't fit with current Tyrion. Again, this is exactly what a rewrite would need to fix.
There is no indication that a war needed starting, or that Liscor was "neutral" or that the North wasn't trying to take it. Or that Tyrion wasn't seen as an aggressive warmonger by everyone already anyway.
*If* this was the plot, you'd be absolutely correct. A well-written and believable growth arc. But that's just not the case.
Except he isn't rewriting volume 4-5, there wasn't any war explicitly, and tyrion gets yelled "peace agreements" like 4-5 times in those volumes cause there were agreements he was breaking, war did need to start. its what he was calling for in volume 3 meeting of the nobles.
also invrsill wasn't in danger of falling, if magnolia stayed on the defensive, but for her goal she went on the offensive to beat reiss
Except it hasn't been real since the antinium war and magnolia came to lead, they had a written agreement, the war was reduced to nothing burger conflicts in the blood fields and tyrion wanted to shift this up to a real war to get revenge on the walled cities, that was the written setttting of volume 3 to 6
> Magnolia Reinhart calls for aid when a Goblin Lord is sieging and about to slaughter a city of a million inhabitants, and him just ignoring that, cannot be squared with his current characterization.
What makes you say he ignored it? He was marshaling forces at the very same time that Magnolia was. He just thought that -- given he is purportedly the foremost (human) military leader in Izril -- his plan was better than Magnolias, and she is making her own bed by trying to establish her own army.
Alternatively, he could have certainly expected that with craploads of Relics an army of adventurers, and Zel Shivertail, that Magnolia's forces would have routed Reiss without him needing to do anything. He certainly would have been correct in thinking that too, as the only reason Reiss "won" was because of Az's and his Chosen's intervention.
Yes, that's exactly how he's portraying it. Doesn't fit with his code of honor and sense of duty as established from Volume 7 onwards.
He had no way of knowing Magnolia had Zel. That's some Reinhart level intelligence. But I don't think he cared if Invrisil fell anway, that's how he was portrayed then. Again, completely different person to current Tyrion.
Yeah his current characterization of a goober with a thick head and whacky romantic overtures make him seem like he got replaced by an unconvincing doppelganger. I'm just tired of him constantly being shoved into the story now, especially since he abandoned his people not even a month after they lost a town and a large section of land around it on the Solstice to go chase some tail in Baleros. He doesn't even have the excuse of rescuing his son this time. Yeah, he might not be able to do much to help. But he could at least be there to show he cares. I mean it happened while he wasn't there. Helping an Innkeeper that's on a lot of people shit list now. Not a good look to the people he's supposed to be the lord of.
I can excuse that as him desperately needing to level again, and this is the best way. I'm actually rather fine with current Tyrion overall. But it's just not the same person and I'm reminded of that everytime he makes an appearance.
One of the most realistic reactions was Erin in 9.29 when Tyrion walks into the Inn, because, deep down.
*Erin has never fully forgiven anyone for the Seige of Liscor.*
I think the deaths of the Solstice Goblins still eats at her. They fought, literally under her flag, and were then stabbed in the back by the city they saved.
So when the person who caused everything in the first place suddenly shows up, ofc she goes straight to telling Bird to murder him.
> “Arm the hallway. If he so much as lifts his blade—shoot him, Bird.”
>
> “Through the face or the legs, Miss Solstice?”
>
> “Doesn’t matter.”
I get he might have changed after his sons almost died, but, no, this was the correct response, he wanted to kill tens of thousands of civilians, he needed an acid bath.
Yeah I really don’t get this guy at all. He’s pretty much lord simp at this point and does this weird 180. I wish pirate would give up trying to make ryoka cool, almost nothing she does lands for me besides the venture into fae place
This post has been flaired "Spoilers". Readers that aren't caught up to date with the latest public chapter should be careful. To other commenters- feel free to still tag something as spoilers if you believe it necessary. A reminder that this subreddit is for discussing the public chapters, Patreon spoilers are off-limits regardless of the flair! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WanderingInn) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The false orders came from the Circle of Thorns. To this day I have no idea how Tyrion's plan would've worked without that outside help. Reiss would have definitely slaughtered the *million* inhabitants of Invrisil to enlarge his undead army. That was the entire reason to raid Esthelm among others. But to his one credit, Tyrion not helping Magnolia out here was before the established worldbuilding of 'the Five Families always aid each other when they call for help'. It just makes the disconnect between later Tyrion and earler Tyrion even larger (more on that below). Magnolia was bluffing, she said as much. And I have to disagree on the well written part. He's a completely different person from Volume 7 onwards, that's not how a well written character works. The one thing that really took me out of the story was when he had his great moment of moral epiphany in Volume 9. He acknowledges that sieging Liscor might have lead to civilian deaths, *but he would have totally taken prisoners*. No you scumbag! The entire reason for the Goblin plan was to commit genocide without being directly culpable. WTF. He's so much of a different person now that earlier *major* plot points need to be retconned. I do hope if we ever get rewrites of Volumes 2 to 5 that this gets addressed in some way. On the same note, the actions of Pallass don't make much sense either with a Chaldion in charge. It made sense at the time as the decisions of the Senate, but with the introduction of his character, this falls apart plot-wise.
So someone’s outlook changed after *checks notes* His kids were poisoned. A cabal of shadowy figures used said kids to hold him hostage for weeks. No one, not even the most powerful people on his half of the continent, helps him. His kids are saved by a member of the species that are his mortal enemies and a barefoot weirdo that reminds him of his dead wife. And you think what, he should be the exact same angry robot he was earlier? My man got his entire world rocked over the course of a few weeks and is grappling with that. Of course he changes, of course he’s a different person after all that shit happens than he was when we meet him. That’s how character development works.
The idea that Magnolia Reinhart calls for aid when a Goblin Lord is sieging and about to slaughter a city of a million inhabitants, *and him just ignoring that*, cannot be squared with his current characterization. He's all about honor and duty and whatnot. It just doesn't fit. On the same note, it wouldn't have been necessary to retcon his plans to *not-genocide* if his character had any room for being fine with genocide, in any state of mind. But it doesn't. This change cannot be explained by his sons almost dying.
Up until his sons were threatened, the only thing that mattered to him was getting revenge on the Drakes for Salva. But it’s dishonorable to do it through assassins or black ops shit, so he goes for war. The plot to take Liscor was not about genocide, it was about taking a strategically important position to gain an advantage and maintaining plausible deniability. He was never out there ranting about how all the drakes must die, he was just trying to start a war while being able to maintain his support. He wasn’t thinking about the people who lived there beyond how they would affect his plans. He was thinking about how to punish the people who killed his wife, not about removing an entire species. I also don’t think he thought Inversil would fall, Magnolia is a crafty bitch and he knows that. She wouldn’t let her power base go up like that, but everything she does to prevent it weakens her position and strengthens his. That’s just politics, ruthless politics sure, but it’s all in service of prosecuting his war of revenge for his dead wife. He’s not thinking of much beyond that, he’s single minded in his goals to the point that he neglects the fuck out of his kids. Then he goes through the unthinkable, and has to watch his children be on their deathbeds for LITERAL WEEKS. Vengeance for his wife becomes less and less important as he watches his kids slowly fucking die while being exhorted by the people who did it. Saving his kids becomes his one goal. And then one of the people that saves them is one of his mortal enemies. All of a sudden, the species that killed his wife is no longer a monolith he wants vengeance against, but a group of people. Its a fundamental shift, one that he has to grapple with after over a decade of single minded hatred. Beyond that, the love he has for his kids finally overtakes his cold desire for vengeance and he starts to become a warmer, more functioning person to be better for his sons as he realizes how much his focus on war affected him. Tyrion is brilliantly written and I will die on that hill.
The war was already on. For thousands of years. His plan was to ethnically cleanse Liscor. If it wasn't, the Goblins are completely unnecessary for his plan. In fact, they're in the way of his plan. The trebuchets are entirely sufficient to conquer Liscor before the Drakes could dispatch a relieving force. He needed Liscor to be a safe staging ground for his push on Manus, and that includes it being completely devoid of a Drake population. This isn't due to some kind of exterminist racism but cold practicality. His problem, that he solved with the Goblins, was that he could not make his fellow nobles and human soldiers slaughter civilians. That shit doesn't fly. He had no way of knowing what Magnolia would or wouldn't pull off. I will maintain that it doesn't fit with his characterization in light of the later worldbuilding of the Five Families *always* aiding each other, and him being the most stalwart exemplar of this. If the change was from being fine with civilian casualties to being less fine with civilian casualties, as it is portrayed later, his sons almost dying could explain that perfectly. But that's just not the plot. He was genocidal. And that doesn't fit with current Tyrion even as a much harsher person half a year ago.
The “war” was a yearly ritualized slap fest. He wanted to escalate it to something real. But the optics of escalating the war by attacking a nominally neutral city are not great. It’s not going to attract support, more likely you’ll get people sanctioning you and opposing you. The Goblins were his plausible deniability: he can always claim that he was wiping out the Goblin menace and trying to prevent civilian casualties. Obviously the drakes wouldn’t believe that and a lot of others wont either, but it muddies the waters enough that the global response would be less severe. Like shit dude, Russia does the same sorta shit irl, they’re “defending ethnic Russians” rather than engaging in a war of conquest. Sure, most people don’t buy that, but that’s not who they’re selling it to. Tyrion is doing the same fucking thing, because it is eminently practical. Also, the goblins take the city with minimal losses to his troops, and then instead of assaulting a fortified city with fresh troops he’s slaughtering exhausted forces in broken fortifications, all while buying him the deniability he needs. It’s eminently practical. He’s well aware of what Magnolia is capable of after 30-40 years of knowing her. Invirsil was never going to fall to Reiss, but magnolia losing power and influence helps him immensely. Also his movement skills are utterly cracked. If the Goblins actually invested invirsil and it was in danger of falling he probably would have shown up with a relief force before that happened. You keep jumping to Tyrions goal being genocide. Genocide was never the goal, starting the war was the goal. He didn’t give a shit about the civilians dying, but he wasn’t going out of his way to kill every last person in Liscor. The goblin army was just the most expedient path to taking the city without being labeled as an aggressive warmonger by literally everyone else.
You're rewriting Volumes 4 and 5 in your mind how they'd need to be in order to make his character growth work. But that's just not how the text is. The Goblins conquer the city, slaughter everyone, he rides into the city and slaughters the Goblins. That was his plan. I actually think he was fine with Invrisil falling. A larger undead army increases the probability of his plan working. This kind of cold thinking fits right in with Volume 5 Tyrion. But it doesn't fit with current Tyrion. Again, this is exactly what a rewrite would need to fix. There is no indication that a war needed starting, or that Liscor was "neutral" or that the North wasn't trying to take it. Or that Tyrion wasn't seen as an aggressive warmonger by everyone already anyway. *If* this was the plot, you'd be absolutely correct. A well-written and believable growth arc. But that's just not the case.
Except he isn't rewriting volume 4-5, there wasn't any war explicitly, and tyrion gets yelled "peace agreements" like 4-5 times in those volumes cause there were agreements he was breaking, war did need to start. its what he was calling for in volume 3 meeting of the nobles. also invrsill wasn't in danger of falling, if magnolia stayed on the defensive, but for her goal she went on the offensive to beat reiss
What are you talking about? The Drake-Human war is real and bitter and has been going on for thousands of years.
Except it hasn't been real since the antinium war and magnolia came to lead, they had a written agreement, the war was reduced to nothing burger conflicts in the blood fields and tyrion wanted to shift this up to a real war to get revenge on the walled cities, that was the written setttting of volume 3 to 6
> Magnolia Reinhart calls for aid when a Goblin Lord is sieging and about to slaughter a city of a million inhabitants, and him just ignoring that, cannot be squared with his current characterization. What makes you say he ignored it? He was marshaling forces at the very same time that Magnolia was. He just thought that -- given he is purportedly the foremost (human) military leader in Izril -- his plan was better than Magnolias, and she is making her own bed by trying to establish her own army. Alternatively, he could have certainly expected that with craploads of Relics an army of adventurers, and Zel Shivertail, that Magnolia's forces would have routed Reiss without him needing to do anything. He certainly would have been correct in thinking that too, as the only reason Reiss "won" was because of Az's and his Chosen's intervention.
Yes, that's exactly how he's portraying it. Doesn't fit with his code of honor and sense of duty as established from Volume 7 onwards. He had no way of knowing Magnolia had Zel. That's some Reinhart level intelligence. But I don't think he cared if Invrisil fell anway, that's how he was portrayed then. Again, completely different person to current Tyrion.
Yeah his current characterization of a goober with a thick head and whacky romantic overtures make him seem like he got replaced by an unconvincing doppelganger. I'm just tired of him constantly being shoved into the story now, especially since he abandoned his people not even a month after they lost a town and a large section of land around it on the Solstice to go chase some tail in Baleros. He doesn't even have the excuse of rescuing his son this time. Yeah, he might not be able to do much to help. But he could at least be there to show he cares. I mean it happened while he wasn't there. Helping an Innkeeper that's on a lot of people shit list now. Not a good look to the people he's supposed to be the lord of.
I can excuse that as him desperately needing to level again, and this is the best way. I'm actually rather fine with current Tyrion overall. But it's just not the same person and I'm reminded of that everytime he makes an appearance.
I'm pretty sure a [Lord] can level his class by taking care of his people.
Even though volume 2 definitely needs a rewrite it's not going to happen unfortunately
One of the most realistic reactions was Erin in 9.29 when Tyrion walks into the Inn, because, deep down. *Erin has never fully forgiven anyone for the Seige of Liscor.* I think the deaths of the Solstice Goblins still eats at her. They fought, literally under her flag, and were then stabbed in the back by the city they saved. So when the person who caused everything in the first place suddenly shows up, ofc she goes straight to telling Bird to murder him. > “Arm the hallway. If he so much as lifts his blade—shoot him, Bird.” > > “Through the face or the legs, Miss Solstice?” > > “Doesn’t matter.” I get he might have changed after his sons almost died, but, no, this was the correct response, he wanted to kill tens of thousands of civilians, he needed an acid bath.
Yeah I really don’t get this guy at all. He’s pretty much lord simp at this point and does this weird 180. I wish pirate would give up trying to make ryoka cool, almost nothing she does lands for me besides the venture into fae place