Die #19 (August 25): I hate to say it, but I feel like this series is collapsing under the weight of its own pretensions as we near the end.
The plot itself advances in a fairly straight-forward (heh) away. The über-Ash demands that the party take her with them when they return to the "real world." In the sort of roundabout discussion that, as a gay man, I recognize when it comes to telling people who you are, Ash explains that he (the Ash of the "real world") doesn't believe that he's transgender. But, he confesses that playing a woman in Die has helped him acknowledge that sometimes he feels like he's someone else in his body. Sol says that he sensed that Ash wasn't quite himself and created the game for him to explore those feelings. Izzy introduces Ash to the idea of genderfluidity, something that she learned from her students. Chuck accuses Ash of indecisiveness, and Ash acknowledges that indecisiveness isn't a bad thing, since sometimes decisive people just make bad decisions quickly. But, Ash isn't willing to bring über-Ash's blood-thirstiness back to the "real world" with her. She fights über-Ash, and she winds up going over the ledge with her like Gollum, saving the world.
In addition to Ash, the other characters all have moments where they have to lean into their awkwardness, darkness, or failure to save the team. Angela uses the last of her Fair gold to summon Case so that he can find their way home. Chuck tricks Angela into (temporarily) killing Molly so that Angela can use the Fair gold that comes with Molly's death to upgrade Case. Matt fails in his attempt to destroy über-Ash. Izzy accepts the gods' silence in exchange for the Mourner healing Matt. Of course, Matt's power isn't as a fighter but as a listener, and he picks up his sword's hint - despite its attempts to demoralize him - that Ash survived her fall. After fishing out Ash, the team makes its way through the dungeon with Case, where they discover the remains of H.G. Wells' and the Fair's attempts to destroy the Gamemaster. But, as we all know, it's the team that has to take on his question as he appears at the end: "What am I for?"
For how accurately and sensitively Gillen handles all these issues, neither Ash's epiphany in this issue nor Sol's recovery in last issue felt remotely organic. Although Gillen did a good job tying Sol and Ash's explorations to events - Sol discovering the coffin, Ash encountering˙über-Ash - it was a chore to get through the mountains of dialogue-heavy exposition. For example, Ash and Izzy's discussion here feels rushed, with Izzy confession about how a group of male gamers broke her teenage heart when they changed their mind and decided that she couldn't play somehow opening the door to Ash's discussion about his genderfluidity. In the end, it started to feel like you were reading someone reading aloud a pamphlet that you'd find in a guidance counselor's office. (I'm thinking about the amazing pamphlets in Emma's office in "Glee:" "Divorce: Why Your Parents Stopped Loving You!" "Wow! There's a Hair Down There!")
Moreover, although I was able to follow the plot, the issue's wordiness meant that we had to leap over some connections. For example, we glide over how Ash is able to disconnect über-Ash's bloodthirstiness, winning merely the genderfluidity that he desires. Although Gillen might fill in more details next issue, we also don't exactly know what Wells was trying to accomplish in taking on the Gamemaster. He was presumably trying to stop the worlds from merging, but we don't know what he planned to do after that. In other words, it feels like we have a lot of loose ends going into the final issue, and I'm concerned that Gillen isn't going to address them all satisfactorily. I hope that I'm wrong.
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