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The killer had a series of conditions that were necessary for the plan to go off, and each of the schemes was a way to bring about those conditions. Additionally, the individual plots leading up to it were pretty low risk to the killer themself, and could be (probably were) tried in various incarnations multiple times until something worked. Yawgmoft posted:That man will not see another sunrise, if he even sees the sunset. The bigger question is who manages to have him killed first.
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Feb 18, 2024 00:06
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Tree Goat posted:yeah, it's less setting a single rube goldberg murder machine in motion, but just sort of tossing a bunch of murder marbles on the floor and hoping the target trips on one Or a series of Go stones slowly surrounding a target.
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Feb 18, 2024 00:34
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Yeah. The idea is that it appears to be an overly elaborate coincidence driven plan because the assassin actually did like fifty of these plans and what we're seeing is the combination of the ones that actually worked.
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Feb 18, 2024 01:19
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Murder by numbers. You just accumulate little actions, each explainable on their own, that add up into one murderous whole. If anyone catches you doing one of the actions you can laugh it off as a mistake. You spread it out amongst your confederates so nobody is exposed to too much risk. It's what would today be prosecuted as a criminal conspiracy, assuming anybody even catches on. In Maomao's time there would be a ton of beheadings, probably some splashback onto innocents. Needless to say, when Jinshi gets to the bottom of this it does not look good for our conspirators, whoever they are.
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Feb 18, 2024 01:40
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Things being almost exclusively from Maomao's perspective is both an advantage and disadvantage to this. As an advantage, it helps keep the individual parts obscure from the reader so she looks smarter when she pieces them together, and braver when she decides to take the chance that she's actually right despite the consequences of being wrong. As a disadvantage, it does mean we only see what she brushes up against, and so it's got the appearance of a string of isolated incidents that turn into the Rube Goldberg murder machine instead of seeing the full system of little schemes creating opportunities to exploit for bigger schemes. On a broader level, there's a balance between being able to pull stuff out your rear end early on in a story and have it just be setting the scene, versus an asspull later in the story that's more obviously an asspull. And how that balance becomes incredibly wobbly in a longer series, because something that's an asspull later within a single story could still count as part of the set-up phase of the broader series. Like I love this arc, but it does wobble on that balance enough to draw me out of it a little bit too, but that wobble comes from doing double-duty telling a contained story that's also setting the scene for later.
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Feb 18, 2024 02:01
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i feel like writing-wise this was the equivalent of taking the leftovers from every small mystery and seeing if you can cook up something decent out of them, and the result was sort of eh. i don't mind too much, since i'm used to the ~intrigue~ in most stories being kind of a contrived mess. i'm here more for the characters anyway. also drat, the interior of that temple looked pretty
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Feb 18, 2024 04:26
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I'm reluctant to speculate too hard considering this is an adaptation of a story that's probably got a lot of source material left to unfold, and the anime still has another 4+ weeks of material to dole out and I don't wanna spoil myself, but BOY am I curious what the hell Lakan trying to accomplish with the poo poo he does
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Feb 18, 2024 04:38
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All the stuff after Maomao faints was anime original as her POV stops until she wakes up in the LN and the Manga. I thought that was really well done. Especially the blood trail.
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Feb 18, 2024 04:52
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Nitrousoxide posted:All the stuff after Maomao faints was anime original as her POV stops until she wakes up in the LN and the Manga. I thought that was really well done. Especially the blood trail. I think it's later confirmed to Maomao that Jinshi was the one who carried her back for medical attention, so it's not completely new for the show.
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Feb 18, 2024 06:58
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Early in the episode, before Lakan showed up, I speculated to my partner that perhaps Lakan set it up knowing that Maomao would solve things to force her to acknowledge him in some way. But then by the time he actually showed up I wasn't so sure, and that was reinforced for me when I saw his eyes as Jinshi carried Maomao past. Now I'm wondering if Lakan didn't also simultaneously solve this plot and went to stop it from finishing and then audibled into letting Maomao finish things without realizing how close he was to letting a tragedy happen. I legitimately cannot tell whether Lakan is a supporter/ally to Jinshi and Maomao or an enemy, or perhaps he's one to one and the other to the other. I suspect that, perhaps, we're going to see Maomao's hatred of Lakan soften over time as she learns more about his motivations and actions based on this episode, but I'm hard pressed to think of what specific info will be introduced that makes him less fkn odious. Also, I know that there's only one thread for this property so more LN and manga spoilers are gonna acceptably show up here for context on the episodes than in other anime threads where there's a separate thread for the source material, but if you're responding to my speculation with LN or manga info can ya point that out before I click the spoiler tag cause I will not be able to resist reading if I've already clicked it.
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Feb 18, 2024 08:10
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Nitrousoxide posted:All the stuff after Maomao faints was anime original as her POV stops until she wakes up in the LN and the Manga. I thought that was really well done. Especially the blood trail. He should have at least made her a bandage before carrying her around.
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Feb 18, 2024 08:40
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The person he expects to handle that is the one injured, it's no wonder he's in panic mode.
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Feb 18, 2024 08:44
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pork never goes bad posted:Early in the episode, before Lakan showed up, I speculated to my partner that perhaps Lakan set it up knowing that Maomao would solve things to force her to acknowledge him in some way. But then by the time he actually showed up I wasn't so sure, and that was reinforced for me when I saw his eyes as Jinshi carried Maomao past. Now I'm wondering if Lakan didn't also simultaneously solve this plot and went to stop it from finishing and then audibled into letting Maomao finish things without realizing how close he was to letting a tragedy happen. I legitimately cannot tell whether Lakan is a supporter/ally to Jinshi and Maomao or an enemy, or perhaps he's one to one and the other to the other. I suspect that, perhaps, we're going to see Maomao's hatred of Lakan soften over time as she learns more about his motivations and actions based on this episode, but I'm hard pressed to think of what specific info will be introduced that makes him less fkn odious. where the show stands, yeah, it's unclear whether lakan is an 'ally' to maomao exactly. but it is clear that he doesn't want to see her hurt and will protect her if necessary. not that surprising, since she's (as far as has been shown) his only daughter. lakan really hasn't done anything bad to maomao at all, he's just sat around and acted sketchy.
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Feb 18, 2024 08:59
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I have read neither the novels or the manga, and I'm also unsure what's up with Lakan. My hypothesis based on purely the anime is that he's ultimately an extremely odious person who may care about his daughter on some level, even if he's treated with contempt by her. The only way I can see him not being at BEST complete scum who's interests possibly align with Jinshi and Maomao is if what actually went on between him and Maomao's mother was actually as not as hideous as he casually implied it was. When it comes to his role in this episode I could see him figuring out what was happening sooner than Maomao and then setting things up in some sort of complicated charade to try and indebt Maomao to him, that's certainly what she implies when she thinks about his timing. The idea that he was investigating it on his own and probably figured out what was going on isn't really speculation at this point, in the previous episodes we saw him investigate the warehouse fire and he was seemingly involved with getting Maomao on the case of both the official who got poisoned and was definitely responsible for getting Jinshi to get Maomao to look into the three brothers. Previously it was framed like he was doing something nefarious because the dude had rancid vibes even before we learned how lovely he was, but now it seems like his actual plan was an incredibly long end run to, I think, maybe get his daughter to acknowledge him? We know exactly what Maomao thinks about the dude, we know he's shown up to Verdigris House in the past for Maomao often enough they have a practiced response to deal with him, and I think a really notable part of the scene where he appears in this episode is that Maomao explicitly states she does not want to see who is behind her and also she never uses his name even though she has to know exactly who it is. If Lakan is using this incident as an incredibly elaborate way to try and get Maomao even acknowledge his presence then I think quite the sight of her being carried out unconscious could have been a real shock. The way Lakan was described is as someone who is difficult to deal with because he doesn't seem to have any real ambitions and just sort of meanders about being smart and important and aloof. Maybe it was the sight of his daughter injured and bleeding, maybe it was the fact that his elaborate performance got really messy at the end, maybe it's the fact that Maomao went this far for Jinshi and has never even looked at him, maybe it was just callous alarm that his preferred investigator got hurt in a way that might interfere with getting to solve interesting mysteries by proxy, maybe it was some combination of any of those things, but the expression on his face suggests that all of the sudden he wasn't nearly as aloof as he likes to be. And relatedly I'm now quite interested to see where things go from here. I thought Lakan was the culprit orchestrating whatever this all was, but I'm not so sure anymore...
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Feb 18, 2024 09:02
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I can totally see the show swerving and saying "Lakan and MaoMom were actually secretly in mutual love when she became pregnant. And then shortly after Maomao was born someone else offed her mother in a fit of jealousy." And for some reason Lakan went with the version of the story which made him appear as a monster. Or it doesn't. Who knows? But I don't think he's the instigator. Unless he specifically wants to kill Jinshi for taking his daughter away, which feels like an overreaction.
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Feb 18, 2024 10:26
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cant cook creole bream posted:I can totally see the show swerving and saying "Lakan and MaoMom were actually secretly in mutual love when she became pregnant. And then shortly after Maomao was born someone else offed her mother in a fit of jealousy." And for some reason Lakan went with the version of the story which made him appear as a monster. Or it doesn't. Who knows? More show-only:I also initially assumed Lakan was behind the assassination attempt, given he’s Mr Strategist and all, but yea I’ve got a hard time reconciling that with his expression at the end, unless it’s “oh whoops I almost got my daughter killed” or “wtf, Jinshi lives?!”. But as noted upthread, he did indirectly but purposefully clue Maomao into some of the relevant clues. I suspect we need to learn more about wossname the tall herb growing medicine related lady since she at least is directly implicated in the plot.
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Feb 18, 2024 19:37
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FWIW, my read of the expression at the end is wtf, Jinshi likes this girl THAT MUCH? Since his entire assumption up to this point is that Maomao is Jinshi's toy and he just needs to wait until he gets bored.
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Feb 18, 2024 19:42
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bitprophet posted:show-only: Isn’t the syphilis-stricken concubine living in the Verdigris “annex” MaoMom? She’s not dead, just might as well be. I took it that this woman was just an example of concubines which strike out with bad clients. Mostly to establish that the madame isn't totally heartless. She looked a bit to young for me. Then again, what do I know about anime age? And I guess after that event, she might not have gotten the prime clients anymore.
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Feb 18, 2024 19:57
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Fangz posted:FWIW, my read of the expression at the end is wtf, Jinshi likes this girl THAT MUCH? Since his entire assumption up to this point is that Maomao is Jinshi's toy and he just needs to wait until he gets bored. I definitely think the occam's razor here is he did not expect her to get so close to death, especially since we already know he did not take kindly to her getting hit.
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Feb 18, 2024 21:17
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cant cook creole bream posted:I took it that this woman was just an example of concubines which strike out with bad clients. Mostly to establish that the madame isn't totally heartless. She looked a bit to young for me. Then again, what do I know about anime age? The Madam may be harsh, but she's been taking care of a girl slowly wasting away from syphilis for (presumably) years now. And that girl is clearly not making her any money. I think it's pretty obvious she cares about her girls.
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Feb 18, 2024 21:45
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That's what I'm saying, yes. The fact that she still gives that girl a room and presumably food clearly establishes this. A different whorehouse would just toss her out so she can die in a gutter.
cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Feb 18, 2024 |
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Feb 18, 2024 21:51
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bitprophet posted:show-only: Isn’t the syphilis-stricken concubine living in the Verdigris “annex” MaoMom? She’s not dead, just might as well be. Yeah I was pretty sure that lady was Maomao's mum. The Go pieces reinforced that too. Speculation - is the Madam Maomao's grandmother? Fangz posted:FWIW, my read of the expression at the end is wtf, Jinshi likes this girl THAT MUCH? Since his entire assumption up to this point is that Maomao is Jinshi's toy and he just needs to wait until he gets bored. This also tracks. So, yeah, Omnicron - either Lakan's interest in his daughter is a lost cause and his relationship to Maomao and Jinshi will decline further with time, or the behavior wasn't actually as odious as he implied. And you're right - in previous episodes, Lakan was clearly both investigating and using Jinshi to point Maomao towards elements of this plot. So now I definitely think Lakan was trying to use this to force Maomao to acknowledge him and that we will learn more about his and Maomao's mother's past that will make it more plausible for her opinion to soften, but also probably Lakan is trying to help advance Maomao's station by further indebting Jinshi (and therefore the Emperor and the apparatus of the state) to her. If Lakan can force her to rise above her "humble servant" thing, then he can force interaction between them on an official level and perhaps rope her in to whatever his goals actually are. Relatedly, Maomao and Lakan both have very specific hyperfixations - apothecary work and intricate strategy/plotting respectively. I read Maomao as autistic with relatively modest expression of her autistic traits (hyperfixation, moderate communication deficit with difficulty empathizing or understanding other's feelings without intellectualizing them, strong sensory preferences and aversions and strong reactions when touched unexpectedly, often coming across as tactless or blunt, and she quite clearly observes typical behaviors and actively imitates them) and think Lakan may also be. I understand that diagnosing a fictional character, particularly one who's in a fictional context so far from the context in which our diagnostic criteria were developed, is fraught at best but either way I think it's a useful lens to understand their characters and therefore that one of Lakan's true motivations is trying to rope Maomao into his hyperfixation - pulling her from apothecary work with it's diagnostic mystery solving into puzzle solving more generally and from there into more active engagement with the webs of politics in the court. He may be trying to ensure that she becomes similar to him - useful enough to the state that she's free to be who she wants to be and is basically untouchable even if Jinshi gets bored of her.
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Feb 18, 2024 21:54
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Eh, I concede that I might read all of this wrong. Hadn't pegged Lakan as her biodad either.
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Feb 18, 2024 21:58
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Nitrousoxide posted:The Madam may be harsh, but she's been taking care of a girl slowly wasting away from syphilis for (presumably) years now. And that girl is clearly not making her any money. I think it's pretty obvious she cares about her girls. Iirc, she also used to be one too before taking over so she knows exactly how the business works and what a typical place does with women who can't work, even if they used to be one of their more popular courtesans.
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Feb 18, 2024 22:22
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Yawgmoft posted:I definitely think the occam's razor here is he did not expect her to get so close to death, especially since we already know he did not take kindly to her getting hit. The look on Jinshi's face said 'Someone hit and nearly killed my autistic crush, I am going to personally kill someone'. sharkmafia posted:lakan really hasn't done anything bad to maomao at all, he's just sat around and acted sketchy. As someone above already pointed out - both Lakan and Maomao very much act and appear autistic coded, which explains their inability to really connect with people emotionally yet still want to do good for people, and Lakan wants to relate to Maoamo somehow but he's not entirely sure how and probably also worried that Maomao will outright reject him. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Feb 18, 2024 |
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Feb 18, 2024 22:50
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Fangz posted:FWIW, my read of the expression at the end is wtf, Jinshi likes this girl THAT MUCH? Since his entire assumption up to this point is that Maomao is Jinshi's toy and he just needs to wait until he gets bored. My read on his expression at the end was because his end goal was Jinshi's death, which would remove the final barrier in finally grasping the one thing which he actually valued but which had been denied him all these years - control of Maomao. And if Jinshi was dead no one else would have the authority to prosecute him even if they were somehow able to piece together all the hundreds and hundreds of pieces of the puzzle so he'd be home free and his years of scheming and planning and blackmailing and murdering would have all been worthwhile. But Jinshi miraculously survived so Lakan is totally hosed and he knows it
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Feb 19, 2024 08:43
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:My read on his expression at the end was because his end goal was Jinshi's death, which would remove the final barrier in finally grasping the one thing which he actually valued but which had been denied him all these years - control of Maomao. And if Jinshi was dead no one else would have the authority to prosecute him even if they were somehow able to piece together all the hundreds and hundreds of pieces of the puzzle so he'd be home free and his years of scheming and planning and blackmailing and murdering would have all been worthwhile. EDIT: Info from the LN included, spoilers - This isn't remotely reflected in the light novel that the manga and this is based off of. Lakan isn't an evil assassin, he didn't set up the trap, he just deduced the same thing Maomao did, he's just....distant and uncaring. He likely had that face because he realized he could've lost Maomao forever if she dies. And Lakan isn't plotting some overthrow or trying to kill Jinshi, while he disproves of Maomao being with Jinshi, he works for the state and enjoys a comfortable position. He's not power hungry. He also likely had that face because Maomao being hurt might push her and Jinshi even closer together which Lakan doesn't want. Lakan looks down on Jinshi because he feels he's wasting his position. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Feb 19, 2024 |
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Feb 19, 2024 12:27
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Might want to preface that spoiler block with the fact you're referring to the LN, since the one you're responding to is probably an anime only enjoying their speculative reasoning...
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Feb 19, 2024 13:18
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A jargogle posted:Might want to preface that spoiler block with the fact you're referring to the LN, since the one you're responding to is probably an anime only enjoying their speculative reasoning... Thanks friend, you were correct. Also I ain't gonna click on that spoiler block
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Feb 19, 2024 13:45
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As a LN reader I really enjoy everyone's speculation.
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Feb 19, 2024 13:57
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That's fine, but the speculation makes no sense - why would Lakan, who likes and wants to be closer to Maomao as his biological daughter, risk Maomao's life in his plot against Jinshi, let alone speak up for her and allow her to go into the trap? Also - why would Lakan risk his position that way in a way that doesn't even benefit him? He's basically the chief strategist, this doesn't fit with how Lakan thinks. Not really making much sense.
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Feb 19, 2024 14:34
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Because he knew the guard wasn't actually going to let her through on his say-so, so doing this clears him from blame while simultaneously saving Maomao from getting killed by the guard?
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Feb 19, 2024 14:48
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Fangz posted:Because he knew the guard wasn't actually going to let her through on his say-so, so doing this clears him from blame while simultaneously saving Maomao from getting killed by the guard? That still means letting her into a trap that he set to kill Jinshi. So still doesn't work, if we're going by that speculation.You guys really aren't giving Lakan credit here. He is, basically, the smartest guy in any room he's in, barring Maomao being in the room.
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Feb 19, 2024 14:50
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CommieGIR posted:That still means letting her into a trap that he set to kill Jinshi. So still doesn't work, if we're going by that speculation.You guys really aren't giving Lakan credit here. He is, basically, the smartest guy in any room he's in, barring Maomao being in the room. He didn't "let her" into the trap, though. He talked to the guard. Maomao dashed into the room when the guard was distracted, and he had no control over that and no reason to suspect Maomao *would*. All he had to do was tie up the guard for a few minutes in tedious bureaucratic argument. All he really did was stop Maomao from continuing to confront the guard and getting her brains smashed.
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Feb 19, 2024 14:53
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The episode is a day or two old. You probably don't need to spoiler tag your theory crafting if you're anime only
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Feb 19, 2024 15:04
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Nitrousoxide posted:As a LN reader I really enjoy everyone's speculation. Extremely. Like not to sound... smug? about it, but it's pretty neat seeing everyone else going through the, "Okay, what the gently caress is his game?" I had on first reading this stuff. Lakan's one of my favorite characters because he's such an interesting mess like this.
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Feb 19, 2024 18:24
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwtfzz7OWt0 City Pop Maomao
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Feb 19, 2024 22:20
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Fangz posted:He didn't "let her" into the trap, though. He talked to the guard. Maomao dashed into the room when the guard was distracted, and he had no control over that and no reason to suspect Maomao *would*. All he had to do was tie up the guard for a few minutes in tedious bureaucratic argument. Yeah the one thing which he couldn't predict was that Maomao would publicly defy palace authority for the first time
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Feb 19, 2024 22:57
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Fangz posted:He didn't "let her" into the trap, though. He talked to the guard. Maomao dashed into the room when the guard was distracted, and he had no control over that and no reason to suspect Maomao *would*. All he had to do was tie up the guard for a few minutes in tedious bureaucratic argument. Actually, he very specifically tells the guard to 'do what maomao says,' i.e. let her in, and that he would take responsibility. he's very highly placed in the military to the point that even people associated with the royal family hesitate to cross him, so if he tells some random guard to do something, the guard has no choice. it's an order. and he's clearly not just 'tying up' the guard; he's pissed. That guy is fired at best. sharkmafia fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Feb 20, 2024 |
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Feb 20, 2024 00:02
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sharkmafia posted:Actually, he very specifically tells the guard to 'do what maomao says,' i.e. let her in, and that he would take responsibility. and he's clearly not just 'tying up' the guard, he's pissed. That guy is fired at best. My point is that it's very different if he does not actually have the power to do that, in which case he's just blustering and wasting time knowing the guard cannot possibly agree. I don't see any indication that Lakan is *in charge* of the guard detail on a high class noble and can order them to let an unauthorised person in.
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Feb 20, 2024 00:06
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