SOME REACTIONS
Oh wow, I didn't expect to like Taetus's perspective as much as I did. His view of the world is new, unique, and unlike any of our other PCs'. Kudos to the QMs for crafting him so well, and I'm looking forward to seeing him work with the rest of the "protagonist team" in upcoming chapters. I particularly enjoyed seeing how he was always "taking notes" on the people around them. He's attuned to the subtle ways others unconsciously leak information about their relationships, beliefs, and emotions in a manner I wouldn't have
guessed Taetus would be, but that in retrospect seems obvious for his character.
How on earth could he be otherwise?
Taetus's view of Zelda is very interesting. Her drug habit, her tendency to come up with brilliant plans that overlook key details, her smirks ("that smirk never meant anything good")--all of these things become obvious character flaws/obstacles when looked at through Taetus's eyes, and it's easy to see why. Yet before this chapter, I can't think of a single POV character who has seen these traits in such a negative light.
Throughout the chapter, I picked up strange vibes from Malg. Does he want Izu dead, by any chance? He's a little too eager to see the dear captain sent on a suicide mission, but never comes right out and says it. Perhaps there's some professional rivalry between these two?
Another fun thing I noticed: Zelda's line here
She turned to her side. "I thought that was impossible, Shesan?"
perfectly mirrors how Mathematicae phrased this question in the previous plan. You can vaguely feel a QM winking at you when Zelda says this.
SOME THOUGHTS ON SHESAN
Shesan's framing of our predicament--that the enemy will continue to throw problem after problem at us, and accomplish their true goals while we're busy dealing with those problems--is wrong. Furthermore, the dichotomy she often proposes--between saving the kingdom of Hyrule and saving the world in a cosmic sense--is also wrong.
I think a better framing is that
we cannot afford to accrue debt.
Some problems the enemy throws at us will be a constant drain on our resources until we deal with them. So long as Jabu is around, we have to expend resources dealing with refugees. So long as soulsteel-equipped blin are at large, we have to expend resources dealing with them. So long as political discontent continues in castletown, we have to expend resources dealing with it. These are all forms of "debt." Some of them involve much higher interest payments than others, but they're all still a burden in varying degrees.
The problems that drain resources the fastest need to be dealt with as quickly as possible, and in ways that don't involve taking out more debt in the process. If we burn castletown to the ground to defeat the incoming blin invasion, we no longer have those physical buildings and infrastructure to help us deal with future problems (and Zelda's subjects will likely become discontented much more easily down the line). If we instead defeat the blin hordes by sending Izu on a suicide mission, he won't be around to help us deal with future problems. Both of these solutions involve taking out new debt, and using it to pay off our current debt (the incoming invasion).
Shesan's approach basically amounts to saying "default on your debt. You're screwed if you keep making debt payments, you're screwed if you try to keep on top of it, and the only way to survive is to find your debtholder (Demise?) and kill him."
The better approach, I think, is to be god-tier at both paying off and refinancing our debt. We use clever planning, brilliant stratagems, and inventive usage of the resources at our disposal to replace high-interest debt with low-interest debt where we can, build up our abilities, start to solve problems faster than the enemy can throw them at us, and ultimately win the day.
This is basically what we're already doing, of course. And Zelda was born for it--her father would have played by the rules of the game, gotten overwhelmed with "debt," and failed. He just wouldn't be creative enough to pay it off as quickly as he needs to. But Zelda is different. She's demonstrated the ability to think outside the box in a way monarchs before her haven't. Where they would have failed, I think she can succeed.
Shesan, on the other hand, seems to have a less than stellar opinion of Zelda's competence. I think this is the root of their disagreement. It's not (just) that Shesan thinks Zelda should abandon Hyrule and focus all her resources on taking down Demise. My guess?
Shesan thinks Zelda can't abandon Hyrule and still win, because she isn't good enough. I'm looking forward to that oh-so-cathartic day when we can prove her wrong.
(Thought I'd share my thoughts here in case anyone has been craving a solid anti-Shesan screed/smackdown. Writing this certainly scratched the itch for me, anyway.)
SOME VAGUE PLAN MODIFICATIONS/IDEAS, SPECIFICALLY CONCERNING CAPTAIN IZU
The two plans we have on the table so far are to burn castletown to the ground with the blin inside of it, or to send Captain Izu on a suicide mission.
To use my earlier analogy, getting Captain Izu killed is like taking out low-interest debt. Burning down castletown is like taking out high-interest debt.
I *strongly* favor the first option. Burning down castletown should be an absolute last resort. The costs involved seem enormous. And if
another blin attack comes our way later, we won't have a second castletown to burn down to stop them. It's the sort of plan Zelda's father might have implemented, and makes use of none of the unique resources at our disposal that weren't available to previous monarchs (e.g. Fi, ancient knowledge from the Obsidian Spire). It would be a mistake to destroy our own assets just to buy ourselves more time, especially when there are better alternatives available to us.
Also, I'm also rather partial to the idea of reading about an epic showdown between Izu and the warlord, and I think it sounds like it would be a lot of fun for the QMs to write, too. The best warrior in the kingdom, coked up on near-limitless magic and Hylia's blessings, as lethal as a bolt of lightning, going toe-to-toe with the ultimate foe?
However, I think we can do better than just sending Izu to his death. He's just one man, but he's a powerful fighter and it would be a waste to lose him. Furthermore, my basic moral sense finds the idea of asking him to go to his death, knowing that his honor will force him to agree, rather repugnant. We should use our ingenuity to make sure he survives.
Idea #1: Are blin archers all that accurate? Because I can't imagine they're very good shots. Can we design some kind of contraption to get Izu airborne, one he can activate immediately after winning his duel against the warlord (perhaps like the BOTW ability, Revali's Gale!), and a second contraption he could use to glide away afterward? If we can equip him with some good arrow protection (magical or physical) and blin are sufficiently poor archers, he could escape without injury.
Idea #2: Do we have any teleportation abilities we could use to get him to safety? I don't know of any, but they'd be more fool-proof than option #1 if it turns we do have one and I've overlooked it.
Idea #3: Can we pick out the location where we intend Izu to challenge the warlord days in advance, and trap it up with magic so that the moment the duel ends, he gets surrounded by impenetrable magic walls (or some other kind of protection/escape magic activates), keeping him safe while our forces rout the now-disorganized blin? If we're doing the challenging, we might as well make use of our ability to pick our battleground (and the fact that we have plenty of time to prep it).
At present, I'm thinking our best bet is some combination of Idea #1 and Idea #3. We find some place where
(a) The geography gives us a definite tactical advantage--perhaps a ravine or a valley where it's possible to shoot at the Blin from on high, or to have the high ground in hand-to-hand combat, and
(b) that the Blin are almost certainly going to pass through en route to castletown. We'd want to keep their forces away from castletown if at all possible so as to avoid damage to its infrastructure.
Then, we trap the place up. Maybe some explosives (magic or otherwise), maybe something more creative--anything Wymar thinks would be most effective. Probably we could repurpose his plan to burn castletown for this new, outdoor setting. Any hazards we were going to use there, we try to apply here. Consult our other military advisor buddies on what would work best, too.
We send Izu into the middle of this tactically optimal location, coked up on Fi's infinite-magic-juice, and have him challenge the warlord as the Blin forces pass through. The moment he wins, we unleash whatever hazards we've prepared. And with the Blin flashbanged, disoriented, and leaderless, we massacre them. Meanwhile, Captain Izu activates his pre-planned escape mechanism and gets the heck out of there.
Even if Izu should lose, this plan gives us a bunch of fallbacks. We can still hit the Blin where it hurts, and--if worse comes to worst--fall back to castletown and rely on the original "trap 'em and burn 'em" plan.
Furthermore, I recall that Fi was researching a "lesser empowerment" ability. We have approximately a week to prepare for the blin invasion. Could we finish researching that ability in the week of time we have left, and give it to Captain Izu before he heads out? Not only will that improve his chances against the warlord, it would also probably improve his chances of escaping afterwards--regardless of what actual escape plan we choose.
Additionally, lesser empowerment might be our best counter-play to the new soulsteel weapons. Since Zelda could heal bloodrage while empowered, it's possible we could get lesser empowerment to do the same. Give it to some key green-affinity healers, and we have a recipe for a military force that can beat the Blin at their own game. The details of how lesser empowerment could be most effectively deployed, of course, should be vetted and discussed with our qualified military advisors.
Mathematicae has proposed that we teach Izu Coldstepping as a way to fly away after the duel. I think this could be a very effective evacuation plan. The captain has a strong Blue affinity, so he's got that going for him. Furthermore, when Zelda performed Coldstepping (or something like it) earlier, she was basically just improvising. If Captain Izu could *practice* the skill in advance, he could probably achieve a much higher proficiency with it than Zelda did during her brief empowerment spree.
SOME VAGUE PLAN MODIFICATIONS/IDEAS, SPECIFICALLY CONCERNING TAETUS
I'm not sure if it's typically something people
put in plans, exactly, but I think we need to get Taetus and Zelda alone in a room together and have them talk out their differences. In chapter 21, we hear Zelda say the following:
I myself have always taken the side of the Experimentalists versus Preservationism in academic debates. I mean, you're the very embodiment of the argument for why commoners of sufficient merit should be allowed to hold higher offices. But then, one must also respect the argument from tradition. The histories are littered with accounts of rebellions and uprisings—of reforms and failed revolutions. Dozens, if not hundreds—every one of which resulted in a return to form, and sometimes then only at ruinous cost. Again, on the face of it, your view makes sense, and I could hardly fault you of all people for holding it. That is, if not for the historical precedent being so strongly in favor of the status quo.
We the players might not know exactly what Experimentalism is, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that
Zelda, while not anti-aristocrat or an anti-monarchist, is at least sympathetic to such ideas. Rather importantly, I'd also bet she's much more friendly toward Experimentalist views than her predecessors.
Taetus knows this. He is not stupid. The fact that Zelda is the current queen of Hyrule and not someone else is a huge advantage in pursuing his agenda. The issues he has with her come down to her weaknesses as a ruler--her insistence on doing drugs during state meetings, her often brilliant-yet-fundamentally-flawed plans--and their long history of subtle (yet very real) interpersonal conflict. It is this, not their ideological differences, that is most likely prevent them from working well together or, in the worst case scenario, cause one to decide to betray each other.
Right now, I've noticed Taetus and Zelda have these kinds of conversations over and over:
Zelda: Taetus, you're a piece of trash and I don't trust you. But right now, we have to put our differences aside in the face of a much bigger enemy.
Taetus: Yes, of course. But, ah, about that plan you proposed 5 minutes ago... have you considered that it's actually *completely broken and won't work?*
Taetus looks smug. Zelda, realizing Taetus's criticism is correct, becomes flushed and angry.
Zelda: Oh, isn't that just grand. You're right and I hate you for it.
Taetus: And as much as I'd like to respond in kind, I'm much too composed to sink to such lows. Instead, I'll content myself with occasional verbal barbs that cast doubt on your capacities as a ruler.
Every conversation these two have is filled with subtle, passive-aggressive jabs and barely veiled hostility, regardless of how much it might be hidden by their adherence to basic decorum. They
talk a lot about putting their
political differences aside, and then bicker like children over their
interpersonal differences. We need to put a stop to this
right now. Their little feud might get the kingdom destroyed.
For most of Zelda's life, she's been a princess, not a queen. The vast majority of her interactions with Taetus up until very recently have been conducted under a very different set of power dynamics. With those power dynamics now in flux, this is her chance to turn over a new (and healthier) leaf in her relationship with Taetus. Just like the Sheikah are duty-bound to provide criticism and feedback to Zelda in a way that is maximally productive, why doesn't Zelda work together with Taetus to set some ground rules for their future interactions? How best to give the other criticism, how best to avoid needlessly antagonizing the other, etc.
We need both of these people to make a good-faith effort to get along with the other, and one of them has to initiate that effort. Is this the sort of thing we could include in a formal plan?
SOME SIDE NOTES
Chapter 23.2 is in the works but with no current ETA. You are free to vote and make adjustments the previous plan based on new information presented here, which we may or may not incorporate into 23.2. In absence of that, we will continue from the existing plan. Absolutely no information from "Fortune Finds the Bold" may be used (as that hasn't happened yet).
I'm not very good at writing plans, so I'm hoping the regular plan-writers around here want to incorporate any (or all) of what I've written above into their proposals. We've gotta stick some effective ways to get Captain Izu out of combat safely into the existing plan. I'd like to see my proposals for improving Taetus-Zelda relations added as well, if people think they'll work.
Additionally:
Would this be something where it would be useful for us to pick a single character to focus on for each plan, then assume that the others are still taking actions off-screen (or on-screen at QM discretion)?
In my opinion, this sounds like a pretty good idea.
. Now that you've walked in Zelda shoes for a few minutes, will you stop being so shesan-like? Yeah I didn't think so.
