“…beneath it all, I’m a coward.”
It’s the final issue of the latest arc, keep reading for a review of Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans’ Die #15.
(Warning: some small spoilers for this issue, and some GREAT BIG ONES for last issue.)
Ash’s biggest concern has been winning the war against Eternal Prussia, but it’s not like her other problems are less important (the friends she’s betrayed, the government she overthrew, the vampire who will rip her throat out first chance he gets) but she’s been kicking that can down the road for two or three issues, telling herself she’ll deal with it later.
This issue is when she ran out of time.
(Once again, spoiler for last issue coming up.)
Matt’s father is dead, and I loved the horror on Ash’s face when she found out, not just that he was dead but that Matt knows it. Matt’s father meant everything to him, and because Ash and Izzy didn’t agree to go home, he’ll never see his Dad again.
The rules say the Emotion Knights can have one weapon, and Matt had to choose between Grief and Rage. So he said screw the rules and took both, and someone’s definitely going to die.
The Party agreed from the beginning that they have to treat people in this RPG world as “real,” because if they start to think of them as characters in a made up game, that leads to you treating everyone as cannon fodder, and a good way to turn into a monster. But if Izzy and Ash had agreed to go home, had let the characters in this world suffer, Matt could have gone home and seen his Dad one more time. Does that mean they should’ve left? It depends on how “real” you think the world of Die really is.
I loved Ash’s panic this issue, as she keeps throwing out ideas: they’ll go home (not till the war’s won they won’t), she’ll use the Voice on him (nope, that releases the homicidal vampire), she’ll throw the city guard at him….eventually, Izzy has to make a choice.
I’ve decided I like Izzy, I wasn’t sure for a while. She can be self-righteous, and a bit of a martyr, but I don’t think she’s ever been wrong. And she’s not wrong this issue, I agree with what she did, completely.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Party is trying to stop the Forge from creating the dice that will be sent back through time and start this whole mess. I like the quick discussion of one-dimensional NPCs, and the look on Chuck’s face when he started to take that kind of thing seriously. And, no spoilers, but I really liked how Angela’s choice this issue was very similar to Ash’s, except while Ash was worried about protecting herself, Angela was worried about everybody else.
I can’t say anything else without risking spoilers, it was a well-plotted resolution that’s been a long time coming, even if it doesn’t wrap up everything (there’s still more story to come of course.) There was one plot point that I’m not completely certain about, it has to do with how the world of Die is controlled. I think I get it, but I haven’t played a D&D game in several years, and I think anyone who’s regularly playing RPGs will get even more out of this issue than I did.
As for Stephanie Hans’ art there were so many images that really jumped out at me; the flaming battle, the images of the Forge, that amazing cover, and any close-up of Ash’s face (the panel where she says “We’ll agree to go home,” little things like the highlight on her lips and the shading of her hair make it so three-dimensional.) I’ll miss her work on this series during the hiatus (we might see the return next April?) but she and Kieron have certainly earned a break.
