The Heroic Legend of Arslan vol. 20

The ending of vol. 19 saw Duke Guiscard trapped between a rock and a hard place.  On one side was Arslan and his army of 30,000 soldiers (and around a dozen hero units).  On the other was the army of the madman whose visage is featured on the cover of this volume, Bodin and his army of Templars.  His unshakeable religious fervor has dictated his actions throughout the series and kept him alive for just as long.  Now we’ll see if it’ll take him to the next level of villainy, or consign him to being an eminently hateable one-note caricature.  Meanwhile, King Andragoras and his army have arrived at Ecbatana, which is still controlled within Hilmes’ shaky grasp.  While Andragoras has the manpower to seize it for himself, he chooses to use a far more frightening means of doing so here:  Words of truth.

There’s no denying that Bodin has had it coming for a while now and I was certainly hoping I’d see him get it in this volume.  I should learn to be careful what I wish for from this series as what we get here turns out to be… fine.  Not terrible.  Not exceptional.  Just fine.  Same goes for Guiscard as the main cast trolls him overtly for what the text has been doing covertly for several volumes now.  With the main story feeling like it’s moving towards a climax, it makes sense to get these characters out of the way, yet it winds up feeling like busywork than a genuine accomplishment.

Meanwhile, the most interesting part of the volume involves – you guessed it – Andragoras as he meets with Hilmes to drop some truth bombs on him.  What he says here could be completely made up, but it feels like we’re meant to take him at his word here.  If that’s the case, then it’s a clever bit of retconning that makes the current blood feud even more complicated and entertaining to behold.  It might even have some relevance to Arslan’s current situation as a plot point that should have been completely obvious to every reader at this point is confirmed at the end of this volume.  Maybe the truth behind it will finally make him into an interesting character, yet I wouldn’t bet on it after twenty volumes of seeing this series try.