The Faraway Paladin: The Lord of Rust Mountain

Episode 11

This week's outing of Faraway Paladin: The Lord of Rust Mountain offers up a surprising twist that remains thematically appropriate.

Episode 11 shows us that the battle is far from over. It is a continuation of last week's episode in many ways: lots of monologuing from Valacirca, plenty of defiance from William, and a bunch of giant spells getting flung around. It all has the same bombastic impact as the previous episode, so it works for the pure visceral spectacle of it all. When William is on the back foot we know he is in major trouble because even his trusty spear is broken. No allies, no weapon, running on empty – it seems like he won't make it.

Then Stagnate shows up. Everyone's favorite crow arrives to tip the scales back in William's favor. Our ancient dragon calls this double deus ex machina out and remarks something to the effect of “Gee, William, how come mommy let you have the blessing of two goddesses?” Stagnate makes a big speech about how it's not really taking sides and so forth, it's all just an interesting game to her, etc. but the result is pretty substantially tilted in William's favor.

The giant horde of risen Dwarf warriors is a cool deal. William echoes Aragorn leading an army of the dead to fight a fearsome foe, though here they largely are just buying time for his party to rejoin the fight. I like that both goddesses contribute one element from within their domains of power to assist in the fighting – raising the warriors and granting them a chance to reincarnate in the cycle of life, as well as powering up William and company.

The only real caveat I have is regarding Stagnate. She mentions that it's a moot point anyway, but I thought we already knew she was the goddess of death. Maybe I assumed that front, but I could have sworn that was already common knowledge. In any case, I'm excited to see them blow up a big dragon next week with an army of ghost warriors and magic spells. Sounds like a hoot.

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Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Faraway Paladin: The Lord of Rust Mountain is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.