Tarquin may realize it perfectly according to the information he has available. But he clearly operates on incomplete information. Roy has had his character growth already, yes, but with vampire Durkon with him, he may have to grow some more; and he still has his oath to defeat Xykon. If anything Roy's closer to Aragorn than Luke Skywalker by this point. He has had (most of) his own character growth but is arguably still the center of the story. And Tarquin wants to force Elan to become Luke to his Darth Vader; that might and in all probability will backfire spectacularly. Especially since Tarquin operates purely on egoistical ambition, just like his late son Nale, although with more intelligence, panache and long-term planning. But instead of creating some perverse mirror image of the Order of the Stick, he wants to set himself up as a main villain, a dark lord figure for them to fight. But they already have Xykon who is more powerful than Tarquin and much more dangerous in the long run; and then there's Redcloak as well.Irbis wrote:But Tarquin realizes this perfectly. He sees his son being sidekick to Roy, and he knows that makes him a sidequest, something not important to overall picture. By getting rid of Roy, he shifts his son to the spotlight, making Xykon sidequest and himself main target. This gives him what he wants.
Also, to be honest, T. is kinda right. That encounter with Elan did made them both heroes playing first fiddle. What Roy has still to offer story-wise? Some snarkiness? He said to his dad he pees all over the oath and does it only because Xykon is bad, closing that chapter, he might well have been relegated to the status of unimportant sidekick several hundred strips ago, as he spent second last book dead then last book being in prison or background of more important events. Cut out Roy and last 400 strips change little, Elan and Dad drove them forward.
Besides, I've always seen the Order of the Stick not as "one protagonist, others merely followers" story; it's more like an actual RPG group where everyone is supposed to the protagonist of their own story. When viewed like that, Tarquin becomes a rail-roading DM's villain when the DM wants to show how badass this new threat is and to focus on one character over the others. I can't see the comic going that way.
