Twig Readthrough Espirit de Corpse 5.X

I'm sure there's a pun in this title, but I'm not seeing it. Would someone care to explain it for me?

This arc was a change of pace from the previous ones in several regards. It starts out as the usual, espionage and stealth, but things eventually break down into proper war. Their enemies are onto the Lambs, their allies are doing a bad job at keeping the group secret and, as it turns out, Academy weapons aren't so effective against prepared combatants who have access to the same technology. It hasn't actually yet come up in narrative, but it seems to me that the Crown has not actually had to fight against its own weapons before this civil war. It's a very interesting dynamic that gives the rebels a pretty massive advantage, but it also is probably something that will not last. Sooner or later, the Academy will grow tired of the conflict and start releasing super weapons. At that point no one wins, but it will certainly put an end to the rebellion one way or the other.

That all said, I do find myself wondering what place the Lambs will find themselves in now that Espionage is increasingly leaving the table. It really is the role they seem best suited for, but it just doesn't work when everyone already knows about them. Something to think about.

Now let's talk characters. Gordon is the obvious starting point here. Apparently he's a chimera person taking all the best pieces of over 2 dozen people and sewing them together, which I've got to say had me surprised. I figured he had his brain supercharged and his short expected lifespan would be a result of that supercharging eventually burning out his brain. Instead, it seems he is slowly building up dissonance between all the different parts until it eventually leaves him inoperable. Same end result, and it's something that's still happening, with the obvious goal of a future generation being to extend the lifespan before expiration, but the details are quick different from my suspicions.

Next is Sy. Jamie has finally come out and said how Sy tends to take on traits from his enemies (and allies), but in doing so he also pointed out the traits that are originally Sy's. Things like his tendency towards trying to martyr himself. I would very much like to here Jamie's take in more depth on how Sy has changed after interacting with which characters, but getting a good base for the underlying character is very helpful as well. That youthful optimism. The fierce loyalty to his friends. Things like that.

As an aside, I think this is the first chapter since his introduction that Sy has not mentioned the Shepard. Just throwing that one out there.

Transitioning to setting details, I find myself once again returning to a topic that I had thought I was done with: the rain.

Much like Radham, this mountain town has constant rainfall, presumably for the same reason. I'm not totally clear on whether there is an Academy in or around the mines, but the very presence of the rain suggests one of two things to me, either of which goes a long way to justifying its presence over more simple solutions. Namely that the rain is quick and easy to set up, or that more than many Academies use it (with the all-girl's Academy being something of an exception in this regard) or both. If either of these is the case, it means that Radham likely did not need to spend resources bio-engineering constant rain because someone else had already done so. If both are true, not only does it justify the rain as a method of control, but it creates a unifying aesthetic theme between all (or most) of the Academies that should be observable in universe.

I really like the narrative implications of this (though it's pretty dreary in universe). It takes that raining Frankenstein's Castle atmosphere I talked about in the first of these readthrough topics and applies it to not just Radham but all the Academies. It thematically ties the weather itself with the Academy and in doing so really builds a lot of associations that people, both in universe and out, will pick up without necessarily being aware of it.

Last of all, the next arc is called Lambs to Slaughter. My expectation is that either a Lamb will die, a new Lamb will join the team, or both. However, it is also possible there there will be some sort of trap set specifically for the kids as well. I feel like it's around time for them to return to Radham in any case, so the first chapter of this arc should be highly informative in this regard.