Lao Tzu wrote this in the Tao Te Ching, as translated by Ursula K. LeGuin:
True leaders
Are hardly known to their followers.
Next after them are the leaders that people know and admire;
After them, those they fear;
After them, those they despise.
To give no trust
is to get no trust.
When the work’s done right,
With no fuss or boasting,
Ordinary people say,
Oh, we did it.
The DIE RPG rule book introduces its sixth and final character class, the Master, like so:
The Rules rule, and you rule the Rules. And you never, ever cheat.
Ever.
Oh, this is the GM section. We can be honest.
You cheat all the time.
One of the pleasures of Stephanie Hans and Kieron Gillen’s DIE: Loaded so far has been the variety of voices its new party has, and the ways those voices shape the comic. In issue number 4, for example, the party gained its Fool, teenage meathead Callum. Callum’s egomania and absurd self-indulgence both laid the tracks for a story arc that promises to echo and twist the arc of DIE’s previous Fool, Chuck. It also gave Hans a chance to draw a giant bear god using his power to ask a massive horde of would-be Chosen Ones which of them had been to the funeral that kicked off this current game.
In other words, Hans and Gillen made something wonderfully silly that still moved with care and thought. Issue #5 flips the script, so to speak. Narratively, it’s perhaps the bleakest issue of the comic next to issue #3, which introduced Margaret, the party’s Dictator, and the decades-long hatred that sustained her with poison. Structurally, it’s a blast, and it gives Hans a chance to shift from maximalism to minimalism.
Image
With Callum in the party, Godbinder Sophie and company have gathered all but two of their crew together, and put together that someone who seemed to be Isabelle, the first member of Loaded’s cast to have been a main character back in DIE and the new party’s Master, was neither. Exactly who or what the false Isabelle is tabled for now, since Sophie’s main priority is gathering the six party members together. A game of DIE can only end by unanimous consent of the whole crew. If the party wants out, the party has to want out. It’s one of the rules of the world, an all-caps FACT in a game where messing with form and structure is essential to success. Remember, part of the reason the first party in DIE was able to succeed against an early foe was their utter refusal to adhere to the elaborate tale he’d mapped out for them to follow.
One of Loaded’s twists has been the fact that, while Callum enjoys video games and Sophie, Molly and Margaret have a working knowledge of the basics of gaming, none of them are as deeply read in on games and the media that inspire them as the first party was. With issue #5, this changes, thanks to the arrival of the party’s true Master. Where Callum rolled (sorry) with the Chosen One fantasy he dropped into because he’s a teenage knucklehead eager to be catered to, the new Master is someone who knows not only games and their inspirations, but DIE itself. This knowledge gives her power, particularly since her class is DIE’s equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons’ Dungeon Master. It’s also a trap. Knowing how a system is supposed to work and the patterns of events and narratives that have come before is not omnipotence. Engineering the space for a moment of narrative catharsis does not guarantee narrative catharsis. And mistaking a journey for a fixed path is a great way to guarantee misery. The new Master is as messy a teenager as Molly or Callum; where Molly rages and Callum indulges, she’s self-loathing to the point that she physically droops, and she has a blooming fatalistic streak. Her story is grim and compelling, thanks to dense, thoughtful work from Hans and Gillen. And, as a nice bonus, it also offers new context to one of DIE’s best moments.
Image
With the new Master’s overt invocation of games and their rules, Hans does something she hasn’t yet done for DIE: Loaded by going minimal. The Master has a plan, one that she thinks will bring her the answers she’s longed for. Hans lays it out for the audience across two pages, combining a deliberately simple piece of design work with panels where the Master speaks with the person she’s guiding. In a comic where Hans has drawn magnificent spreads of astonishing deities and grand feats, the sequence is striking for its comparative minimalism and the way it makes both the Master and her guide physically small. It’s a marvelous example of how a story’s framing can underline it. While the Master and her subject may be in a fantastic world, their conversation is as personal as it is fraught, a moment of fragile connection between two people through a rare point of common ground that they still perceive differently enough to clash no matter how much they do not want to. It’s a terrific, creative piece of comicsmaking on Hans’ part, and one of my favorite moments in the book so far.
DIE: Loaded has consistently been a pleasure to dig into. Issue #5, with its strong character work and formal creativity, is the best issue yet. This is a comic that demands to be read.
You must be logged in to post a comment.