#rn john rhodes
So today, the guys spoke about everybody’s favorite hero who is inspired and informed by Van Hohenheim, The Dude and Uncle Iroh:
The Scholar.
And here’s the things that stick out to me.
1) The scholar’s alchemical power stems from his connection to the Philosopher’s Stone, but he wasn’t an alchemist before. He was a pharmacist, back in the 1800s. The Philosopher’s Stone was made at a confluence of leylines, which is also how “Omegas” in the Southwest Sentinels books were made.
2) After finding his source of power, he returned to find his wife and children missing, and when he found them again, they had no memory of his existence.
3) In the card art for “Get out of the way” he’s not trying to burn the Blade Battalion soldiers. He’s using his power to cut off a malfunctioning engine from a mobile defense platform. The Battalion goons just happen to be in the way.
4) The philosopher’s stone itself is a creation of the Biomancer, who is a much older, much more malevolent force than most other evils in the multiverse, save Akash’Bhuta and Gloomweaver.
5) His connection to Guise is one where this joke character is falling into a more serious role, and needs proper guidance.
6) He changes his form, and the form of things he touches by willing his wishes through the stone. There’s no need for transmutation circles or complex rituals.
7) When he tricked the Wager Master into leaving Earth, the terms of the arrangement were “You get to bring this Philosopher’s Stone with you into space, and you never come back.” The Scholar never said that he got to keep the Stone, just that he could bring it with him into space.
This episode just made me want a Letters Page episode for Biomancer even more than I already really wanted one. I wonder how many more of his creepy eldritch magical science inventions have screwed up our poor heroes’ lives at some point.
(I should make a post about Biomancer; creepy mad scientists are totally my thing.)
As for Scholar himself, I like how he’s always been totally focused on helping people and “mentoring the mentorless”, to the point where he even cared about protecting the Dreamer more than fighting her projections and how he thought maybe helping Apostate might be better than trying to fight him (I mean it didn’t work obvs but it wasn’t a bad thought). He’s really one of the most truly heroic of all the heroes.
He totally didn’t deserve the stone erasing his previous life or the stupid Hermetic ruining his stone and then the eventual end result literally erasing him. The Void seems to continue to be bad news for everyone except the Argent Adept.
