May 7th, 2019
7 May 2019 · page 895 of 1306
Thaaaat's politics!
Apologies for the slow updates- normal service will resume next week.
Comments (39)
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Go on! Someone shout ‘It’s a Trap!’. You know you want to.
Somehow I get the feeling brainwashing the person aiming for your seat won't go over well with the voting public.
But who knows, they might be Tories.
I’m pretty sure I know which way Captain Barber is going to vote.
Oh, I like Rana - she's a feisty one :3
Also, hah, just realized the pun of her about to join Hackett's inner circle XD
And on the next page Flack and Robert amplify Yasmin's vigor to make it easier for her to win because they secretly agree with her. Also Flack never intended for Sharpe to be executed - he was going to be saved at the last second to prove once and for all that the death penality affects innocents. Don't you see? This is all a gigantic plot to make Widdershins better!
...
Yeah okay, probably not.
I guess this is why you don't meet dubious people on their own grounds.
Not unless you're packing some serious explosives on a dead man's switch, or you have backup waiting just out of the dubious people's line of sight.
>you have backup waiting just out of the dubious people's line of sight
Rana does, fortunately - she just doesn’t know it yet!
I don't know what the backup can do, though, to foil those dubious people's plans. Jumping out right now and yelling "Stop!" seems like it could have some bad consequences.
Good thing Eliza is smarter than me.
Just say the word.
"Charmed" indeed.
oh holy shit panel 4. hell yeah
I like Flack snickering at Rana's skewering of Hackett in panels 2-3. Even though she's about to do morally dubious magic on Rana, she's not a big fan of Hackett either.
"I don't have to like you to take your money."
I took it as Flack just having a poor poker face about the trap Rana just sat down in.
EDIT: Or possibly Rana made an unintentional pun about what she's about to be imbued with.
I don't think that's why Flack is snickering. I read it as "haha, be careful what you ask for."
I read it as her response to the old windbag being told to get to the point and stop wasting time.
Ya know, Mr. Mayor, your argument for the death penalty for the purposeful dangerous misuse of magic probably would hold more water if, ya know, you weren't dangerously misusing it.
If they don't change that policy very soon, it's likely to bite both him and Doc Flack in the caboose in the near future...
Is that 'stability' or 'stagnation' you're offering there, Mr. Mayor?
'Cause it looks more like the latter from where I'm standing.
Oh! Here's what they might be up to.
Two pages back: [https://widdershinscomic.co...](https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/april-26th-2019 "https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/april-26th-2019")
...Flack says the students were "practice". What if she was practicing exactly what she's about to do to the Councilwoman? That is, she means to imbue Rana with Intense Rage, to be triggered at the sight of Sharpe?
When Rana uses the phrase "murder a boy for next to no reason," Flack snrks. She thinks this is funny -- which it would be, in a nasty way, if the plan is to have Rana murder Will when he's brought out for execution, right in front of a whole rally of people who are opposed to the death penalty.
Voters might still be opposed to the death penalty, but they'd have no-one to vote for to make that happen. Hackett wins because he has no opponent, just like the last time.
Holy crap, that's diabolical! You could have a future in politics.
Ooh, a reverse-Manchurian Candidate. Very conspiratorial.
Just remember what happened to the candidate at the end.....
That's DARK. I like it!
Diabolical! But I'm not sure it works quite like that. The people who got Flacked got triggered into rage by Sharpe, but their ranting was all stuff they were already angry about, which make sense; Flack was able to amplify the emotion, not to create thoughts wholesale. Imbuing Yasmin with Rage when she sees Sharpe seems to me to be more likely to lead to her to lead the crowd to storm the gallows to end this miscarriage of justice or something like that. Which would probably still alarm voters, but...
Good point! Thanks, that's reassuring. I will breathe easier waiting for the next update.
Flack did consider that maybe she made the rage-trigger too sensitive; maybe this time she will weaken the spell so it won't go off as intended. This is assuming that she's casting the same spell. She might be merely changing Rana's political views.
Someone please chuck a rock at flack's head. I assume spellcasting can be interrupted in this setting... but I could be wrong. So chuck two rocks just in case.
Isn't that how malforms arise? And turning a person's spirit into a malform seems...extra bad...
Y'know, this might explain the psychotic behavior of so many figures in DC these days, left right and center. It'd be easier to accept than thinking that people really are that dumb. :-/
On the one hand, part of the apparently psychotic behavior in DC is the result of what politicians actually want not lining up with what they say they want. It is frequently in their best interest for people to believe they want things that are popular with their voters when they actually want things that are good for themselves. So they say and do things in public that appear to support a particular agenda while doing things behind the scenes that support a completely different agenda. Since they do not really believe in the public agenda they are not careful to avoid the appearance of crazy in what they do to "support" that agenda, and the tactics they use to "advance" that agenda are often ineffective, frequently because they do not want that agenda to succeed (while they want people to think they do want that agenda to succeed). Which is a long winded way to say that politics is rationally extremely dishonest right now (not that that is unique to here and now by any means).
On the other hand, it is FAR easier to underestimate human's capacity for stupidity than it is to overestimate human's capacity for stupidity. Arrogance has gotten people in trouble for overestimating human stupidity on occasion, but in general betting against human stupidity seems to be a losing proposition.
Well argued. I'd add to your thoughts by saying that the system as a whole (the collective rules and behavior of the people within the political social systems) has been degenerating over time. This has both the effect of worsening the judgement and behavior of those within the system, and also the effect of attracting a lower caliber of individual into the system in the first place compared to previous periods in US history. :-/
Weird how change is so tiring for people who don't need it and really aren't that affected by it
Ooh, I like her.
Dang, I really like Yasmin already.
So... when the mayor and flack are due for their hanging... will knotty try to get out of hanging them? or will he finally follow through and complete his story arc of not doing the family job?
Aha, a fan of the "strong and stable" slogan. I should have known...
In chapter 2, the mayor was running against councillor Fairbairn, right? And he seemed the "good" one back then. Here he's evil and corrupt too. A grim view of politics then.