I’m going to push back resuming the weekly roundups for another week. Turns out, my post-Anthrocon workload has been very heavy. If you’re curious about my trip to one of the largest furry conventions in North America, you can read all about it here.
I’ve been promising a review of chapter 28 of What Lurks Beneath for over a month now. It is one of the most pivotal chapters of this comic. We see the aftermath of Ray’s death, the shattering of Hake’s faith, Trout’s true colors when put under pressure, the depths of Gull’s bigotry, and the removal of Tusk from this story. These events cast a dark shadow over the island and set up future points of conflict in WLB. In short, had Ray lived, this story would have likely been about healing the rift between The Family and the Daisys that King Thresher caused. Instead, it’s about Queen Trout going down a similar path (despite her best intentions), and how bigotry doesn’t go away just because leadership isn’t as overtly bigoted.
Hake and Tusk mourn Ray’s death. Despite the pain of losing a child, the two cats affirm their love and care for each other, and that they’ll eventually be okay. Tusk admits she wants Ray to be buried under her willow tree so that she can visit him whenever she likes. The idea of being torn apart by crabs on the beach is horrifying to her. Hake reels at her plan and she picks up on her mate’s discomfort. Tusk realizes that it’s more common for cats to go to the beach, and she’s worried her partner is upset with her. Hake notes that he’s not upset, but that he wanted to see his son someday again in the afterlife. But ultimately, the decision of where Ray goes belongs to Tusk.
Hakes leaves to talk to his sister about getting the Tide’s permission to bury Ray. Things quickly go south when Gull and Mollymawk arrive. What starts out as a sympathetic conversation becomes hostile as Gull suspects Tusk wants to eat her dead son. Mollymawk tells her grandmother to drop it, but when it’s revealed the Daisy wants to bury her son, the elder cat makes a scene and goes out of her way to undermine Tusk’s wishes. She won’t let Hake and Tusk mourn. Trout tries to split the difference by allowing Ray to be buried at the shore, but when his body goes missing, Gull assumes he was eaten. The situation spirals out of control and Trout again has to talk to The Tide to decide on a punishment for Tusk for denying Ray his fins.
The queen works out a plan with Sturgeon to banish the Daisy back to the woods, but she worries that a simple banishment might not be enough. A meeting on the beach is declared, and the Queen freezes as she realizes The Family won’t accept Tusk being allowed to return home. So she calls for the mourning mother to be banished from the island. The scene is tinged with violence as The Family begin to push Tusk to the sea, and Sturgeon shakes Trout demanding that she take back her words. The queen refuses and turns away from the violence she’s allowed to be unleashed. As Hake goes to defend his mate with claws out, Wrasse pins him down, declaring blood can’t be shed in defiance of The Tide’s will.
Tusk turns to Hake and declares that he’s better than all of them, and that he shouldn’t let himself drown with the rest of them. Annoyed, Gull goes to slash at the Daisy, but Tusk is faster and slices the elder cat’s face open. She swims away headed to the second island in the distance. The Family cheers for her death at either drowning or being torn apart by sharks. Two fins can be seen in the distance swimming toward the tortie cat. Hake sobs as he’ll never see the love his life again, and Wrasse who was holding him down, also sobs as he shakes.
What Lurks Beneath is an exceptionally well-written story. This chapter stands out well for wrapping up Tusk’s arc and signaling to the audience that things will get worse before they get better for the cats on this island– if they ever get better. It brings the themes of racism, religion, and cult-thinking to the forefront, though these themes were never really in the background.
First, if there was any doubt about Gull being a religiously motivated bigot, this chapter fully dispels that notion.
She is the catalyst for Tusk ultimately being banished from the island. It all stems from her being unable to believe that Tusk was anything more than a monster, and that all Daisys are monsters who eat their own. Worse, she believes that Hake and Tusk’s love isn’t genuine– only that Tusk has brainwashed Hake while she’s unaware of own brainwashing via the religion surrounding The Tide. She rallies the other cats to her cause and believes she knows best about what The Tide wants and what is expected of The Family. This allows her to run circles around Queen Trout’s own authority, and although her plotting cost her an eye, she effectively has a playbook to remove the rest of The Daisys from The Family. She may not be as violent as King Thresher was, but she is every bit as cruel.
Speaking of the royalty, Trout shows how awful of a queen she is. In other words, Queen Trout ain’t shit. She has a need for love and acceptance in The Family. This causes her to be an ineffectual figure that rules by fear of reprisal from the mob, rather than by her own convictions. She knows that Tusk didn’t eat her child, and that her going back to the woods is for the best. Nevertheless, her trauma from being nearly assassinated by Krill has shown her that members of The Family can and will lash out at her when they disagree with her rule. Thus, she was willing to allow the lie that a Daisy attempted to kill her (again) spread instead of admitting it was Krill.
When the mob expresses dissatisfaction with The Tide’s decision of letting Tusk go home, she quickly adds “banished from the island” to her decree. When the mob goes to attack, she doesn’t even have the conviction to take her words back OR look at what she’s done. While Hake might forgive his sister, I can’t see him ever believing in or trusting The Family again. As Sturgeon tells Tansy on page 288, The Tide can make exceptions to rules, but Trout is too cowardly to do anything that might receive pushback. How long will it take for savvier members of The Family to realize that they can bully their queen into doing anything they want?
Sturgeon also gets some blame. Although she wants what’s best for her siblings, she’s so out of touch with the violent mob mentality of The Family that she didn’t take Trout’s concerns seriously. The queen wasn’t wrong in her assessment of The Family not reacting well to the original decision. But of course, Sturgeon was raised directly by Thresher and is used to getting her way once she barks out an order. She also has the size and fighting skill to bully others into compliance. I imagine this entire affair will not only change her view of Trout, but of The Family as well. Their bigotry and discrimination of the Daisys runs far deeper than Thresher’s reign, and reversing that is going to be a painful process. As smart as Sturgeon is I’m surprised that she didn’t order Gull to stay away from Hake and Tusk until after Ray was buried.
Hake may have the same rank as Sturgeon, but he’s treated like an outsider. He’s not a part of his sisters’ schemes when it comes to ruling. His faith in The Tide is absolute. He’s not like Trout who comes to realize the hermit crab isn’t special, and Sturgeon who never believed. Despite being all in with his faith and being treated well by The Family because of his high rank, Tusk is the one who shifts his foundation. Through her eyes he sees how truly badly the Daisys are treated, and how they’re still not respected even after joining The Family. The truth becomes painfully clear after Tusk’s treatment, and then not being allowed to mourn Ray’s death. All she wanted was to see her son again, and The Family couldn’t even give her that. Not only that, but he and Tusk were told The Tide would send his partner back to the forest, while Trout did something else on the fly.
In this mind, I can only imagine that if he still believes in The Tide then it is his faith in The Family that has been shattered. Trout did nothing to stop Tusk from being banned. Sturgeon told him one thing and then those plans were suddenly changed. So I’m sure he’ll have to ask himself at some point who was lying. The Tide, Trout, or Sturgeon? I suspect Hake won’t leave The Family immediately, but he’ll keep being told that Tusk was using him, brainwashed him, that she was a monster, and banishing her was the right thing to do. He’ll be unable to accept that, and will eventually leave The Family and live as a Daisy. That will further fracture The Family as more cats who were uneasy about Tusk’s banishment begin to speak out.
Finally, we have Tusk. I saw some people confused whether she actually ate Ray. She didn’t. Mollymawk took him away in a moss bundle to be buried at the willow tree. (She’s the cat carrying a bundle on page 743.) At this point, it doesn’t matter as The Family still sees him being buried as being denied his fins in the afterlife. In a discussion with friends, one pointed out that Tusk should have let Ray be buried at the beach, then dug him up and buried him at the willow tree later. Logically, this could have worked, but then we wouldn’t have a source of drama. Worse, this puts the onus on Tusk who’s grieving her dead son and is being stressed out by Gull. Someone who’s only pretending to care about Ray’s afterlife just so the tortie can’t have her wishes fulfilled. (If Tusk was still in the woods, Gull wouldn’t have given a damn if Ray was buried under the willow tree.) All Gull had to do was stop prying and these events would have played out very differently. Sadly, she couldn’t leave the grieving couple be despite being told numerous times to back off.
Tusk was vindicated in her distrust of The Family. Even Bluegill’s words from chapter 11 ring out like a prophecy. Unlike Trout who caves to her fear when her back is against a wall, Tusk stands up for herself until the bitter end. She could have left without a word, but she risked injury from the crowd to let Hake know how she truly feels about him. And that despite how everything turned out so badly, she didn’t have any regrets. The impact she had on Hake’s life and actions for the rest of the story have yet to be seen, but they won’t be anything less than monumental.
Also, the uncertainty of Tusk getting to the other island, being eaten by sharks, or drowning at sea is brilliant. The goal was to remove her from the story, to essentially say goodbye. It doesn’t matter if Tusk survived being banished from the island or not. She’s effectively gone from the story and the result is the same as if she’d died. She’ll never be able to visit Ray at the willow tree. She can’t be with Hake any longer, and the couple will never see each other again. If her fate is to be revealed, it won’t be until near the end of this story. If that route is taken things will have gotten so desperate on the main island that more cats will attempt the swim to the second island and discover she’s there. Or that she didn’t make it because of her absence. Until that confirmation comes Tusk is Schrödinger’s cat— both alive and dead.
Chapter 28 was excellent, and I look forward to how the fallout surrounding the events playing out– especially when Mollymawk returns and learns of what happened. That might take a while, as we currently have a Thresher chapter to get through. I won’t lie, it’s a needed breather from all the heavy drama, but I’m also on the edge of my seat regarding the conversation Hake will have with his siblings.
