Yamara™

First published: July, 1991. First posted online: September 29, 2005.

And this is where the FriNn story arc actually comes to an end.

It’s always good to have a goal. The one thing about thief characters is, you’re never sure what they really, ultimately want. Is it just the loot? Untold riches? To buy what? A guild of their own? Their mother to just love them? Yamara already had all of these, except the guild, because she opposed the dress code. She’s even acquired the riches, though Ogrek was attached.

Yamara, at heart, wants to be her personal best, despite herself. It’s not something we understood until after we wrote this. It’s probably not even something she would know, at this point in the series.

Oh, we’re sure a “real” PC would exhibit all the alter-ego-stroking its player would demand of it. Dramatic, and even comedic, characters, are normally not burdened with a game system, and we have to approach them as the are, and as they become.

Anyway, those bars are so far apart she should just be able to walk through. What with that? And why don a “bandit mask” when you expect to be eternally undetectable by anyone?

Actually, those little bandit masks are one of the most self-defeating “disguises” ever. Their only function is to identify the bandit.

It’s a kind of infinitely recursive symbolism, a mythic object, not to be found in mortal realms at all.

Bet Joseph Campbell would have a lot to say about it. But he died.

Next week: It’s Halloween month, where the masks are more convincing and enjoyable. And with the uncanny timing this strip is showing, it’s time for Persephone to make her debut…