Pages 548 and 549 of Home released this morning. Unsurprisingly, the first public site update of 2020 was unsatisfying.
As expected, Kargo was killed off by Ranach. I was prepared for Kargo (who has been portrayed as an unstoppable force in previous fights) to seriously wound or kill Ranach before he died. Instead, Kique gave us a variety of horseshit reasons and an even shittier in-comic scenario on why he fell without much of a fight. Ranach stabbed Kargo first, then he lost his footing, was stabbed some more, and finally used the last of his strength to throw Ferah to safety before being stabbed again. In earlier pages, it wasn’t unusual for Kargo to fly into a berserker type rage or be shown to be skilled at dodging, parrying, and being ready to fight in numerous situations. I’m sure someone in Kique’s defense will say this is because he ran ahead without a knife or armor. Never mind the fact that Kargo’s been shown to kill dogs with his bare fangs in the past.
Before the first comment could be posted, Kique left an author’s message telling fans to either take or leave Kargo’s death.
I’m guessing Kargo’s death stirred up a lot of controversy on his Patreon and he didn’t like the comments on earlier pages about fans being upset about a liked character’s death. Personally, I’m not asking for these scenes to be redone, or for Kargo to live. I’m just saying that if you make a character overpowered for hundreds of pages, then have him killed off by one of the weakest characters in the comic people are going to call your storytelling out. As I said in my last post, it would have made more sense for Kargo to be taken down by Avanti, or fatally wounded and then finished off by Ranach. Instead we get this.
While we’re on the subject of Avanti, Kique explains why she didn’t just kill Rogio quickly, finding excuses for his subpar writing. Again, in previous pages Avanti has been shown to make very fast kills or at least deliver crippling blows. The only way characters escaped being ripped open was because someone set her shrine on fire. But oh no, circumstance just happens to save Rogio’s life. Namely, Akleja who’s unafraid of the beast distracts her just long enough for Rogio to yank off her necklace and shatter her blood-link to Ranach. I’m also guessing that the way Avanti was defeated also caused controversy in the comments section of his Patreon.
Speaking of comments, I’m actually surprised that even with comment moderation enabled on Comic Fury, these little tidbits got through on page 547:
Considering Kique’s author’s comment on page 548, I’m guess this is the last we’ll see of the “This scenario doesn’t make any sense,” commentary.
I’ll leave you all with my final thoughts for on page 549. Kargo was killed off surprisingly easily, even after the true nature of his strength was revealed. He mended his relationship with Roamer, and had a chance at finding peace and happiness which could have been a potential character growth arc before his death. Meanwhile, a scumbag like Ranach has proven to be a Karma Houdini. He murdered Kargo and even after Avanti was defeated, fled the tribe (even passing by Roamer) without anyone else attacking him. Where were Javo, Vigr, Galti, or Fremja? Roamer may be chasing him with a murderous gleam in his eye, but look closely at his feet on the final panel of the page:
See the motion lines indicating wobbliness coming from the back foot closest to to his front foot? That’s an indication the leg he was previously stabbed in is unstable and is probably going to give out allowing Ranach to escape. That will be the official excuse. The second excuse as for why Roamer didn’t attack Ranach earlier (who seems to have lost his knife) when he passed by when would be shock at seeing Kargo’s death.
Anyway, welcome to 2020 and welcome to another disappointing Home update. I look forward to writing about better comics soon.
I have to agree with everything you’ve said, as I reached the same conclusions when I analyzed this very same part. Kique is like the absolute anti-writer, he goes against every writing convention and I’m not saying that in a good way. It simply makes no sense to have this huge build up to Kargo’s supernatural powers, to his strength, his violence, and then just kill him off without so much as a fight. The worst offender is Kique, as usual, trying to excuse his absolute incompetence because he refuses to accept he did it wrong.
It would have been a much different story if Kargo had gone down fighting like a beast. A powerful brute can be killed off, as can be shown in many, many stories, by using cunning. Kargo could have been wounded by Ávanti, or Ranach could actually be an intelligent villain and he could have planned out a way to lure Kargo into a trap he couldn’t scape of. Or, for Hircine’s sake! Just have Kargo go down with Ranach and kill them off already. Ranach has outlived his usefulness in the comic, and by keeping him around as a villain, it’s making things stale and boring.
Kique is notorious for failing to deliver promised resolutions, but this was by far the worst one. There was this huge build up to an epic fight between Ranach and Kargo: Kargo was imbued with all sorts of supernatural strength and fighting prowess, which Ranach does not have, and when the time came for that epic fight, it simply never came. Now Kique seems to want to make this Roamer’s fight, because he wasn’t already a huge Self Insert Gary Stu, that now everyone else’s fights are his too. The thing is, Ranach was never Roamer’s problem. From a background perspective it was Kargo and Ferah’s problem, and it was their right as characters to get the closure they needed fighting off their last enemy in the tribe that had hurt them so. That’s how it should have been.
Anyways, what is Roamer going to do? Sit around and wait until Wild Ranach appears to fight him? Because that’s exactly how these characters act all the Oblivion be damned time. They don’t act proactively. They don’t pursue any goal. They just sit around doing nothing, and when a Wild Problem appears, they passively deal with it in some rushed, three pages fight, and then forget about it for the following 30-40 pages. So much is obvious from the later pages. Roamer promised that he would kill Ranach. Two months later where is he? At the Meteor Tribe doing absolutely nothing.
I would honestly like to know if Kique actually reads anything, because storytelling wise it is the worst I’ve seen in a long time and I daresay ever, and I’ve read some truly awful things. I very much doubt anyone who has a habit of reading adventure books, or fantasy books, or any paperback light action book, would so consistently fail at delivering fun, exciting, entertaining scenes. I’m not saying a consistent, well weaved story, with compelling characterization, I’m simply saying fun, entertaining, exciting scenes. You really don’t need to do much, just plaster some tropes and cliches here and there and you’re done.
Having Kargo and Ranach take out each other would have been one solution that solves two plot points. Kargo was a problem for Kique because he wanted that character to be gone. Ranach IS a problem for the plot because he’s long outlived any meaningful use he had in the story. He should have ended chapters ago, and we should be looking to a greater scope villain. Again, Kique just handwaves Kargo’s instead of making it impactful.
I’ve not read too many awful books in a long time, but I’ve seen some bad anime, TV shows, and played some bad video games. All of them are more entertaining and cohesive than Home. At the very least, they have action and were entertainingly bad. Kique has NOTHING going on for him in Home. It’s too much and nothing going on all at once. No plot points get resolved while more and more are piled on with no end goal in sight. At this point any sane person would just stop.