Girl Genius

I think the two situations are not really comparable. Tarvek did some work for a villain to pretend they were their favourite minion so he could more effectively stab them in the back later. Martellus tried to functionally enslave another person for the sake of power.

I'm not sure it counts as a redemption arc. Making him more acceptable as an ally feels better. Everyone has weird morals here based on Mad Scientist standards.

Pretty much the only one most can agree is totally beyond redemption is Lucrezia.

Everyone else has someone they care about besides themselves and in turn they have people who care about them.

Lucrezia otoh is truly alone.

Edited by M84 on Apr 29th 2024 at 1:46:48 AM

x3 Tarvek allowed a clank to believe herself to be his sister and then dismantled her for parts when she was no longer useful to him.

Anyway, I won't call this a redemption arc except insofar as it acknowledges Martellus' Evil Virtues and establishes he's aware that he could survive the story if he yields his claim to be Storm King and walks away. He very well might prove too stubborn or self-absorbed; he's certainly too important a complication to dispose of any time soon. So far this just appears to be Krosp's attempt to Save the Villain.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Apr 28th 2024 at 7:01:57 PM

Well, yeah, because said clank was the closest he had to his beloved sister. And he dismantled her only after she became a danger to him and others. Also, he felt shitty about it afterwards.

Yeah, the way it's presented makes it clear that he genuinely grew to care about "Anevka" despite knowing she wasn't truly his dead sister. He's tearing up as he explains everything to her, tells her that her presence comforted him as well, and after he shuts her down he collapses and admits he was taking it harder than he thought he would.

Edited by M84 on Apr 29th 2024 at 2:15:11 AM

So Tarvek isn't more sympathetic simply because Martellus crossed a line that he didn't, but because of how we saw Tarvek feel about his own actions.

What makes Martellus unsympathetic compared to the rest so far is that he's the only one who still completely buys into the aristocratic Mad Scientist bullshit that's been dragging Europa down for generations. Krosp in this strip is trying to warn him that this bullshit is going to make him miserable and then dead and that he should instead focus on taking care of the people who actually give a shit about him.

Tarvek isn't that much better admittedly — he does still want to be Storm King someday. But it's been made clear that his top priority is simply taking care of the few loved ones he has left.

Edited by M84 on Apr 29th 2024 at 2:19:19 AM

We saw how Martellus felt about his own actions. Dude was positively giddy about it.

Martellus isn't as bad as Lucrezia at least, but that's a pretty low bar to clear.

Krosp is out-Klausing Klaus. He's the Social Science Spark(ly) who's good at it! He's even managed to dent Martellus. (Sephie won't like that.)

And Tarvek may start to get nervous.

Like I said before, the somewhat personal connection between Krosp and Martellus due to Krosp's creator being Martellus' teacher helps. Krosp is one of the few people whose criticisms Martellus will actually consider seriously.

Some of the best redeption stories I've seen were the ones that didn't feel deserved at first. A recent one that comes to mind is Endeavor from My Hero Academia.

Because the character absolutely didn't deserve it, watching them realize that and then give everything they had for it made it all the more worthwhile.

Martellus looks like he might be another case of that.

Also, amazing page.

Edited by NinjaDragon on Apr 29th 2024 at 3:50:27 AM

"Pretty much the only one most can agree is totally beyond redemption is Lucrezia."

Unless it turns out that she has been mind controlled all this time.

My theory is that she's being mind controlled (or at least heavily influenced) by a time traveling version of her future self (mostly to prevent her from making decisions that would keep this future self from existing).

Martellus doesn't deserve redemption. Nobody deserves it. It's not something you can earn. It's a gift. Someone sees another person going down a bad road and wants to help regardless.

Krosp likes Martellus. Both because of their shared personal connection and because he sees that Martellus for all his faults actually cares about his subordinates, including the constructs. This is why Krosp is trying to convince Martellus to give up on the Storm King crap that he believes will ultimately only lead to Martellus' ignoble death.

Martellus' better qualities are a sign that there's at least a chance he might start taking Krosp's words to heart.

Lucrezia? She's never once shown any sign that she's anything but a selfish and power hungry coward. She has no better qualities or depth so far.

My guess is that this is a consequence of repeatedly copying her mind and transferring herself into different bodies. Each time she does it, she loses a bit of herself. She basically has a self-inflicted in-universe case of Flanderization — she's stripped herself down to her core essential traits of selfishness and entitlement. This would be consistent with Queen Albia saying the future Lucrezia who slaughtered the Queens had a shattered mind.

Edited by M84 on May 1st 2024 at 3:08:12 AM

Also Krosp isn't even necessarily tries to do any kind of total engoodification of Martellus. Agreeing with , he already has good qualities. He also has asshole qualities, but Krosp doesn't actually talk or likely even care about them. The whole Storm King obsession is something his family full of power hungry idiots cultivated. But it is an impossible goal and only puts him in the path of Getting Heterodyned. He is smart, he has things he cares about and if he drops the idea of being The Biggest King Of Everything he will still have a great kingdom to himself.

To pull back a bit, maybe things are going *too* well for Agatha a bit. They look on course for freeing mechanicsburg. The Dreen look on course for getting rid of that big monster. The Agatha + Gil + Albia + Martellus alliance looks on course for beating The Other and the Polar Lords militarily.

But that looks too good. Something *has* to go wrong.

And "Martellus stabs them in the back" (in league with Zola?) is certainly one way that could happen, and the current redemption thing could just be one way of giving that some extra punch.

Or maybe the big bad surprise will come from somewhere else. Maybe Albia will betray them, maybe Lucrezia has another superweapon up her sleeve, maybe the awakened Klaus will still be under her control, maybe Bill Heterodyne will return but turns out he's evil - maybe he's even the reason Lucrezia is like that. In which case yeah we might see more of a Martellus redemption there.

I'm trying to remember what was mentioned before. I think the next stop for Agatha is Africa. So not so much things going wrong with freeing Mechanicsburg but perhaps it only being the start of other things before Agatha can settle into ruling that place as The Heterodyne.

For one, Klaus's state as wasped basically means they have to find an actual to goodness cure to solve things at some point. There is also finding a way to Skifander to get Higgs back. And finding out more of what made Lucrezia the Other, as well as dealing with her permanently. And there's also the Polar Lords.

Mechanicsburg doesn't need another hurdle. Agatha has a long list to get to before she can just focus on her city.

Or maybe Mechanicsburg gets resolved, and an entire new story arc begins.

Better prepare for the frog rain that'd be soon to follow, then.

The Africa thing was based on a comment Phil made in an interview years ago; the original plan evidently for Agatha to go there after England. Looks like they decided to simplify the plot and have Big Rat Island be the quicker and easier destination. But yeah, she could still end up going there as a way somehow to get to Skifander.

My theory long has been that she is/was going to visit Embi's homeland, and learn the Goddess he made his vow to has a working Mirror. But I suspect they will now just use the Mirror under Castle Heterodyne.

The mirror could be badly damaged from the being used as a time stop hit thing.

Also I'm remembering that Klaus has been to Skifander so him being unfrozen could lead to him being dragged along by Agatha. Not only can he not rule his empire until he's unwasped, but he has the information both Agatha and Zeetha need likely to get to Skifander.

Fixing the timestop and then fighting the temporal kaiju are not necessarily trivial tasks already. Then dealing with Klaus is a mandatory next problem. He is wasped, he is still incredibly mad at Agatha, and he will be mad at Gil. The alliance might splinter because there are now two separate Wulfenbach factions that are at war with each other.

After that, they have only beaten a small scouting force of the Polar Lords. Then there is the whole thing that besides the Polar Lords, Lucrezia has the northern half of Europe fully conquered and mindjacked. That is not trivial to fix.

Edited by Adannor on Apr 30th 2024 at 3:21:14 PM

The story has to somehow move back to a conflict involving Agatha and others as individuals.

Meanwhile, Page

When did we last see Orange Cat?

Seffie gives a great display of aristocratic manners in the first panel, last row.