Home on the Range: Where the Buffalo Shouldn’t Romé

I didn’t think it was possible for Home to become even more pointless after the death of Kargo, but Kique Nordin has the ability make this comic progressively worse with each new page. All of the newest plotlines post two-month time skip are bad. However, Jahla’s is particularly awful and any interest I had in her plight has been squandered.

Jahla, Thakir, and Folluin have built up Havenreach so it resembles a tribe. Jahla selfishly prepares to leave after a final supply drop from their allies at Solar Stag Tribe. She’s been howling to a stranger from a distant tribe for two months. Thakir rightly points out that going is a terrible idea. Once she reaches Ravencrest Tribe she’s immediately captured and held hostage. Out of the six dogs in the tribe, only one named Romé is willing to hear her story. All of the dogs have been told by the Flamegarde Tribe that she murdered their members, but for reasons never explained Romé is skeptical.

After hearing Jahla’s side of the story and learning she’s also from Earth, Romé decides to help her escape. He adamantly defended her in front of the others, so the tribe doesn’t trust him not to free her. They barricade the door to the earthen structure holding Jahla. They also beat Romé each time he steps out of line. With an easy escape cut off due to his incredibly obvious meddling, Romé decides to create a distraction by bringing buffalo back to Ravencrest so Jahla digs herself out.

This plotline is so stupid it physically hurts.

First, Jahla ditched her duty as Viscountess of Havenreach Tribe in order to seek out a mysterious howling dog. She claims he might be her first ally, but she really doesn’t know if he’s friendly. She goes alone knowing that regular dogs are prejudiced against the Akiulfr. Worse, Jahla doesn’t tell Thakir to come looking for her or to send help from Solar Stag if she doesn’t return in a timely manner.

Second, when she gets to Ravencrest territory she sneaks around instead of announcing her presence. Again, Jahla is the leader of a tribe seeking allies. There’s no reason for her to creep around the village. No wonder she’s captured and not given the benefit of the doubt by the majority of the tribe. Yes, racism was the major factor, but sneaking around did not do Jahla’s cause to find allies any favors. If someone was hiding in the bushes outside of your house would you greet them warmly?

Third, Romé is supposed to be shown as having an open mind by wanting to hear Jahla out. He’s so against his tribe locking her up that he openly calls his own Jarl’s decision ignorant. It’s not unlike calling your boss an asshole to his or her face. There will be repercussions. He’s promptly put in his place by the Jarl. A smarter way to go about this would have been to hide his true feelings, lie low, secretly talk to Jahla, and then let the Solar Stag Tribe know of the situation while verifying her story. Herbalists often go away for long periods of time gathering supplies. It wouldn’t have been much for Romé to leave for a few days, learn what he needs and decide to trust the Akiulfr.

Instead, we get him acting smug around his tribe, disobeying orders, and getting caught red-handed (or pawed, if you prefer). When he does talk to Jahla he learns she’s also from Earth and decides to free her without further questioning. We as the audience knows her actions were in self-defense, but Romé has no way of knowing if she’s being truthful. Contrast this with Ranach who recently joined the Southspear Tribe and is lying to their Viscountess. Again, we know Ranach is lying, but Lykenia doesn’t.

As for Romé, he also flirts with her and paints himself as being the one to teach the Ravencrest members manners, all while playing the savior role. It doesn’t help that Kique shows the rest of the tribe as completely unreasonable, but why would they have reason to believe a random stranger over their allies? Would you believe a stranger over your friends, unless you know your friends can be dishonest at times?

Forth, during their conversation Jahla asks very few relevant questions. Instead she focuses on Romé after telling him her side of the story, and doesn’t even bother to ask about the real reason she came– the howling dog. (Spoiler, it was Romé all along and the reveal is so contrived it hurts. More on that later). He tells her it would be best for her to return to her tribe. She never considers the possibility of making more enemies with her escape. Nor does she suggest asking him to appeal to Solar Stag on her behalf since she’s allied with that tribe as well.

Fifth, Romé eavesdrops on the Jarl and presumably his Baron having a discussion about what to do with Jahla. We learn that her life is not in danger and that they plan to ransom her back to Solar Stag. Given that her grandmother is the leader of SST and the Matriarch, the ransom would either be paid or Ravencrest would have been admonished for kidnapping an ally. In short, she would eventually be free to go without any damage to her reputation. Romé’s plan to break her out puts her fragile reputation at further risk. The urgency doesn’t make sense as he’s only been shown to be punished when he steps out of line. There’s no indication that they plan to hurt Jahla or worse, even if they see her as little more than a beast.

Sixth, Romé’s plan to break her out dangerously is also problematic for Jahla. His escape plan is to have her dig free of her prison while he creates a distraction with charging buffalo. This horrifying plan means the tribe members could be seriously injured or killed. Which also means Romé would have to go with Jahla because they could figure out or assume he is the reason she escaped. Even though the tribe mistreated Romé, having the tribe destroyed by rampaging buffalo is overkill. And for what? Just to free a dog hybrid he barely knows? Wouldn’t a better solution be to put the tribe to sleep using herbs and quietly have her escape?

I guess that solution isn’t dramatic enough.

As I touched upon, page 594 reveals that Romé is the howler. So in addition to him being an ass to his tribe and rightfully outcast, he’s also the lonely voice that brought Jahla to him. She’s surprised to learn it was him and is overjoyed. Much of this contrivance could have been avoided if she just asked him who the howler was. Howls are loud, so everyone in the tribe would have known about the howler. She could have asked him about the howler when he mentioned howling as his signal. She could have listened to Thakir and not gone to Ravencrest to begin with. Instead, this reveal is forced like everything else in Home. I.e., Romé is the first friendly dog she’s seen since parting with the Asmundr pack. This whole howling and kidnapping plot is to get him to join Havenreach Tribe without the heavy lifting of organically creating bonds. There’s even a spot for a Herbalist on the tribe’s Wiki page.

On one final point, some Home readers have insisted that Romé is an abuse victim.

When asked why he just doesn’t leave, him being manipulated by the tribe into staying was brought up as the answer. While the tribe treats him badly, I see his wounds as self-inflicted. He’s like that one co-worker who gets themselves in trouble because they consider themselves to be above the rules. When disciplined they often seemed shocked that someone would dare question their world view. Instead of seeing the criticism as a chance for self-improvement, they double down on that world view.

Even though Romé’s from Earth he knows about the existence of other tribes and the capitol at Solar Stag. He doesn’t respect the tribe, nor does he have any bonds to the brothers. He doesn’t have a lover, he doesn’t have pups, or anything else shown to be keeping him tied to Ravencrest. As he told Jahla, he’s been trying to teach the rowdy dogs manners. He has no problem openly disrespecting the Jarl. Romé doesn’t come off as abused, manipulated, and bound to the tribe, he comes off as haughty and foolish. Compare that to Galti and Ava when they first arrived at the Meteor Tribe.

The bigger mystery is why the tribe hasn’t exiled Romé.