Did Kilani just step on an emotional land mine? Leave your thoughts on how the confrontation with Her Majesty Queen Oscura is going in the comments below!
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23 Comments
A part of me is surprised that Kilani got to say as much as she did here without more interruption than a single ‘Liar!’ outburst, or Lady Shaddig interposing somewhere – still waiting for that metaphorical shoe to drop. Kilani isn’t doing any special wordplay here beyond being earnest. It occurs to me to be impressed that Queen Oscura understood Kilani’s sworn reference – a cultural marker to indicate how sincere she is, but one that could very easily not have been included with the language knowledge.
My impression at this point is that it’s going to depend on whether Kilani’s words touch on any ‘hidden knowledge’ Oscura has about Azure – i.e. if Kilani’s story about Azure being tired of the fighting matches something that Oscura does not think Kilani could have otherwise known. There’s still room for Oscura to just plain deny matters – she’s been surrounded by the story of “The Monster” for so long, and has whatever story Lady Red told her as the ‘truth’ as a counterpoint. I would not be surprised at some resistance to just accepting Kilani’s story as-is. The visible emotional shaking at the end could be the precursor to a “denial” outburst or an “I had no idea” collapse.
The biggest unanswered question for me from these panels – what did the fire dragons claim to find or see? Did they bring back a body (which would mean Oscura now has reason to believe Kilani lied about the burial), or just claim she was ‘lost’? Is a journey to Azure’s burial site in the cards?
On an artistic note, yay for that camera flipping you talked about! Flashbacks make this page particularly busy, and you flipflop between warm and cold colors with each panel to keep them separate… ending in what looks like a divided bottom panel. Huh – that actually seems to be a dark portent in its own right, that split… like they’re not connecting.
Glad you noticed! I had to break my own rule to show the painting of Azure, but after that, it was right back to the established view of Her Majesty on the left and Kilani on the right. And that last panel isn’t split. We’re just standing behind Kilani as Her Majesty tries to reconcile this revelation.
Ah, I wasnt saying the last panel was actually split – more that there’s a strong shadow behind Queen Oscura while Kilani is standing in the light, and that kind of ‘division’ appears to match the pairs’ mental states.
Also – does Queen Oscura know enough to translate what ‘Chuki’ means as a name?
Excellent question! I wonder if her language skills are up to the task…
So one big difference between the original calendar version of this story and comic retelling we got now seems to be that Azure seemingly had a conversation with Kilani. Does a lot to dismiss any ambiguity there may have been with the calendar versions Azure just giving away her unborn granddaughter to a tiger that just because “she saw the kindness in her eyes”, now it seems like the two actually hashed out their ideals in the short time they were together. If whatever Kilani expressed to Azure was enough for her to not only agree with her but trust Chuki with her as well, then Kilani must be the real REAL deal when it comes to the peace stuff.
Also seems like Oscura getting more emotional now that this conversation isn’t going how she thought it would, still have no idea how this will go down in the end however. theres no way at this point that she might go back on killing Kilani? maybe pull a Kiriad and keep her captive? but after she spent so long talking up how she wanted her dead (and all the sacrifices it took to capture Kilani at all) can she show mercy?
Well, Her Majesty is hearing Kilani out, so that’s gotta count for something, right? ^__^;
This is going to be a sad story of kilani well this is not going to end well than kess is going come and she and oscura are gonna have it out with each but heads like two foot ball helmets in a avertisment intro colliding with each other good story keep up the good work
Thanks! It’s gettin’ good!
Of course she won’t believe the truth. Because the truth would mean she was wrong. And more important than anything, it would mean her EMOTIONS are wrong! No one alive or dead across time and space, ever desires for their emotions to be wrong. You don’t want it to be a big misunderstand, you want the other to PAY. We don’t KNOW how to handle ‘big misunderstanding’ so we try to cover it up and boil it down to black and white whenever we can! This isn’t even a CULTURAL FLAW, this is something in our NATURE that before helped us SURVIVE.
A dragon and a tiger both screamed that this endless cycle of murder and revenge was meaningless… and nobody wants to listen.
You make an excellent point about emotions and the resulting cognitive dissonance it can cause!
well there is eone blue and mabel possibly ennek hopefully tamsyn is going to be the next chosen one lumina,s third new mother
in another war there is a spirital war going on within us all light and dark foull and fair good and evil within the sentient being like what a teacher say,s we can have a great forgiving passion a or great ruthless violence well the choice is your,s are we gonna let fear and supersticious hate get to you the dark side or knowledge and reason love the light side
Seems Kilani said just the right things to get Oscura into an emotionally compromised state. Seeing as the dragons have a society rule about not giving into emotions, could be good or bad for Kilani going forward.
For the upside, could open Oscura up for proper talks about Azure and the nature of the war, how they’re all just people trying to survive, maybe opening her to regrets of past actions. For drugging and wiping Lumina’s mind repeatedly or for treating her people so badly, especially the earth dragons. Or any of her past warcrimes.
For the downside, make her angry and more likely to attack Kilani for thinking she’s lying about what happened. This one probably manipulated into the situation by Schaddig, who really wants Kilani dead for some reason. Likely due to the logic of: if Kilani’s telling the truth, then Red is lying. Which might get Oscura to question her general’s other statements, possibly losing Schaddig her pawn on the council, and preventing Cinder’s “reassignment”.
Gotta hand it to Kilani for not cowering in front of Her Majesty. Queen Oscura yelling at you can be a frightful ordeal!
‘Tis not the plot that thickens, but the backstory! There’s too much here or there to say what could happen, but I’ll throw out a dumb idea. Fox lady, shadow portal, dumb tiger sister, attack queen, Kilani protect, chaos.
Yeah, Shaleigh’s still out there along with her motley crew of renegade Tigers. Will she be able to keep them in line? Hmmm…
Shaleigh is playing both sides against the middle…trying to get both sides to attack each other until they are so weak that her group can then take over and rule everyone.
Sounds plausible!
Are those the censor slugs moseying along behind Azure?
You spotted them! You rock!
Well Oscura just exploded. Is she preparing another outburst?
Kilani has told the Queen and her Translator the straight truth and yet is framed as a liar on the basis of what she is. I have to say the Queen isn’t being rational here despite her status and initial calm. Oscura’s shaky “She was my mother.” is an example of the emotional energy she has stored up within her and is primed to explode again given the right trigger. Correction, Oscura, you said yourself that Azure was “like” a mother to you. She is letting her emotions cast a shadow on her judgement which isn’t going well for her.
It seems the Queen is breaking one of her own rules…
Kilani, on the other hand is calm, cool but honest in the face of the Dragoness’ fury and is to be commended. Even with the accusations being thrown upon her she is keeping a level head. Kilani is showing great courage for being face-to-face with such a powerful personage and yet maintaining and defending her innocence by explaining what happened the day she and Azure met. Hopefully the Tiger will be able to pacify the pent-up Dragon without unwittingly inciting an incident where she or others get hurt.
Kilani’s been psyched up for this moment ever since the chat she had with Cinder about accepting her fate. Her Majesty, on the other hand, was surprised to hear the news that Kilani had arrived. Kilani’s had more prep time than the queen. Think that might be a factor?
Possibly, after all Kilani had a clue on whom she’d be facing when she was taken in, while Oscura was taken unawares. I’m guessing Kilani was already in the process of choosing her words before she ever laid eyes on Oscura’s palace.