Tag: girl genius meta

Matt Asks:

Not a ASOIAF question, but considering your avatar…Do you think Martellus is right when he claims that had the Baron proclaimed himself emperor instead of insisting on a lesser title that the Fifty Families of Europa would have played along?

I think there would have been less friction, but probably not a lasting peace. To take a similar example from world history: when Napoleon ended the Republic and proclaimed himself Emperor of France and married into the Hapsburgs, it made France more of a normal player in the politics of European monarchies.

But that didn’t mean that people stopped going to war with France – after all, the historical rivalries, geopolitics, economic conflicts, etc. were all still there. But the tenor of the wars changed a little, and occasionally France was able to get the Austrians or the Prussians or the Russians on-board for a while, which was less the case back during the Republic. 

What is your evaluation of Tarvek Sturmvoraus?

Dicey question to ask someone with a Gil avatar…

Reminds me a lot of Kid Loki – a really smart person who struggles against his worser angels, but who is so habituated to manipulating people to accomplish things that he can’t stop himself from doing that to his friends and loved ones, as opposed to honestly communicating with them. Someone who assumes his bad reputation will doom his relationships, so preemptively alienates people rather than suffer rejection.

I don’t find his politics that appealing, though. Given what he knows of his own family, the idea that the Storm King monarchy/Fifty Families aristocracy is a good way to rule Europa is insane. Yes, I understand why Tarvek might think that he personally would be an enlightened monarch, but what I don’t get is why he doesn’t see there’s no way of preventing generations to come from becoming just as bad as the cousins he despises. 

And I still blame him for screwing up Agatha’s attempt to warn the Baron about the Other, exacerbating tensions between Wulfenbach and the Heterodyne in ways that led to a lot of unnecessary bloodshed at a time when efforts needed to be directed at the Other.