I'd never even heard of "Peter Wheat" before -- or not in any way that stuck in my mind. Always interesting to broaden my horizons. It's been so long since I read much of anything by Walt Kelly that I don't know if I would have picked up on the similarities of style if I hadn't been told.
I could tell I was missing a ton of background knowledge from previous comics which would have made it easier for me to appreciate who these various characters were, and the logic behind their actions, within this latest installment of a long-running serial.
Apparently the Hornet Knights have taken over the local castle and are busily confiscating all the wheat from the surrounding fields for their own purposes -- possibly so they can eat it, but I don't think anyone said so in plain English -- and this creates hardship for the sentient local residents of various other species. (I didn't think hornets even
cared about wheat harvests in the first place, but what do I know?)
Dragonel is repeatedly referred to as a "Queen," and I finally did a little Googling and found that
http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonel_of_the_Hornets confirms that she started out as "Queen of the Hornets." Must be some interesting political backstory there, to account for why she is basically "in exile" and "working for the other side" within these pages.
Meanwhile, the local
wasps are staunchly on the side of the "good guys," as I discovered when some of them were told to disguise themselves as rank-and-file "Hornet Knights." By "good guys," I refer to Peter Wheat and his buddies -- although it occurs to me that, since I came in so late to this narrative, I'm basically just
taking it on faith that their faction occupies the moral high ground! (I don't really know how this violent disagreement with the Hornets got started in the first place, do I?) Frankly, I've never been clear on the distinction between "hornets" and "wasps" in real life, but apparently it matters immensely to the hornets and to the wasps.
I liked the story fairly well, but as it wraps up, I'm still very
unclear on the Wizard's logic behind sending out Dragonel, a person loyal
to the other side, as his chosen "champion" to joust against Peter Wheat in what he presumably expected to be a duel to the death. If I were sending out a champion to fight to resolve who gets to occupy the local castle from now on, I'd send out someone who was a) a very tough and skillful fighter, and b) was very loyal to me and my side, so as to avoid the risk of having him or her simply "throw the fight" by getting knocked down as quickly as possible (which was pretty much what happened in this instance).
I'm also unclear on where "treachery" comes in. Let me explain that: After unhorsing his opponent (or should I say "unfrogging" her?), Peter sees it's Dragonel, whose face was previously concealed behind the helm. He promptly yells: "That's treachery enough -- seize the Wizard, wasps!"
My question is simple: "Enough of
what treachery?"
The Wizard has not yet done anything, nor even talked about doing anything, to violate the terms of their agreement to let the larger conflict be resolved by this single duel on the field of honor. If anything, the Wizard seems to have deliberately stacked the deck
in Peter's favor by sending out a hand-picked "champion" who
didn't want to hurt him! That's about as far away as you can get from "treacherously breaking the rules in the frantic attempt
to win by hook or by crook."
Peter is the one who might be accused of "treachery" here. His previously-stated terms about acceptable stakes for the contest of champions were: "The outcome of the fight will determine which side wins the battle -- if I win, you hornets must leave the castle." So it seems to me that when he had subdued Dragonel (because she wasn't exactly trying to prevent it), the honorable thing would have been to give the Wizard and his Hornet Knights a ten-minute head start to leave the neighborhood pronto. I have no idea whether or not they would have done that, but instead, Peter gave the signal and all of a sudden his two disguised wasps were taking the Wizard prisoner, and a moment later we're told that "our men have surrounded the Knights" (using the word "men" very, very loosely).
There was nothing in the original terms about "one side should expect to end up as the
helpless prisoners of the other side" -- there was only an agreement that the losers would voluntarily back off and
let the winners have the castle all to themselves. So isn't Peter the one pulling a double-cross? (The more I think about this, the more dubious I am of my earlier statement that he
presumably occupies the moral high ground.)
Author
Topic: Week 20 - The Adventures of Peter Wheat #18 (Read 4496 times)
