We Are Not Bound!
Tracing a characters journey
Way back in episode 30, our seal knight Albert, knight to the smallest kingdom in the Sea Realm, is distracted from revealing the truth of where his sullen princess has run off to by an inpromptu announcement by his king:
“Oh, I forgot to mention the good news! I’ve decided to make Albert Frances’ personal guard!… Remember when I first brought Frances to Wrack, when they were both tiny pups? He was obsessed with her. Isn’t she the reason you wanted to be a knight?”
“Do you want to know why I became a knight? Because knights protect princesses. And princesses fall in love with their knights.”
So says our Albert in episode 74 to our more shiny eel knight, Patrick of Maerl.
He continues:
“You know what the funny thing is, though? I’ve based my whole life around Frances and she doesn’t even like being a princess. She hates it!”
Flash forward to episode 85 and Albert, in full burrito mode, laments the pressure him and the princess he was in love with had to go through. Frankie, our princess, is now living the life of a witch, and uses the bindweed surrounding them in a spell to release them from this pressure.
Truly, it’s no secret that Albert’s emotions have been played by his king. Episode 68 explores more how a tiny Albert’s fairy tale-influenced ambitions were twisted to the king’s own gain.
And so here we arrive at the latest episode, episode 107, and King Augustus once again leans back on the tactics of emotional manipulation in order to get what he wants after learning that his wayward daughter has married the messenger crow.
All of these past experiences and expectations accumulate into these two panels, where everything that he thought he wanted collides with all that he fears about himself.
You know that he cannot abide by these false-promises anymore. He did the bindweed spell!
We are not bound by things we once thought incontestable!
Plus, he has Patrick now. He knows what love feels like. And he knows that love doesn’t feel like obligation, domination and isolation.
Patreon is four episodes ahead, up to episode 111, and also has the short comic Saliva Helps With Wounds, showing one of Albert and Patrick’s early romantic encounters.
I’m at the email length limit again, so I’ll leave you with a little preview of episode 108, out 10th November.
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