Continuing Where This Post Left Off

Continuing where this post left off

And as if they didn’t just write an excellent ending they added one final panel showing off that even though the australium that has powered Australians like Saxton Hale to keep them healthy, strong, and smart far beyond a normal human life span and range is gone, he’s still kickin with Mags living his life to the very end giving us this final send off

“What’s the matter, Mags… You wanna live forever?”

Saxton understands that living forever is pointless because eventually you get bored and reach a point of apathetic stagnation. There will be nothing left for you, so go out and live to the end. Hunt your new trophies and always find new things worth doing.

I believe this is Team Fortress 2 Team telling us all that we’ve had a good run, and made unforgettable memories on this journey, but we need to acknowledge that Team Fortress 2 will someday shut down. But it’s not about what could happen in the future and when it might come about. It’s about the here and now, and the past we’ve experienced together. Whether it lives for another 17 years or shuts down next week, we have seen this ride to the end and we’ll remember it fondly. Because at the end of the day, “What’s the matter… You wanna live forever?”

Just absolute peak fiction.

TEAM FORTRESS 2 COMIC 7 IS OUT THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL

Spoilers below

Fair warning, long post here, I’m basically going to be summarizing my interpretations and thoughts on the comic.

After a seven year hiatus I love the closure that this comic brings, sure we don’t have all the answers to some storylines but I’m glad everybody got some semblance of closure and some decent world building for the finale.

Rick May got a dedication at the front, we got to see what the purpose of RED vs BLU has been this whole time as well as who the Administrator was and her goals.

Speaking of her goals, heres my own interpretations on the Administrators goals and motives.

My interpretation is based on hints from the covers.

The little girl is presumably the Administrator as a child, and the couple are likely her parents or guardians and are most likely a part of the Mann family based on the variety of stacked hats the patriarchs all seem to have worn. After her presumed parents get shot I assume she gets taken in by another Mann couple she's related to, then those ones end up being thrown in a frozen lake and die leaving her alone again. Then once more she is taken in by another Mann couple who end up dying to poison as shown from the spilled drinks and bulging veins on the couple.

This shows a motive. Who knows how many people she’s lived with that have died around her. And based on the visible cause of deaths, they seems to be orchestrated making them murders, not suicides or accidents.

Jumping forward to the flashbacks of the administrators past when she approaches the Mann manor, we meet Zepheniah Mann who within a few basic lines tells us a few facts. He is vain, stupid, and has no sense of social grace. When we watch as he gives the Administrator the tour through the graveyard absolutely filled with Mann family members, we learn that Zephaniah has an obsession with survival of the fittest regarding his children and ancestors.

This is where i begin to speculate on Zepheniah’s involvement with the deaths of the Administrators family. Zepheniah likely orchestrated the deaths of every other Mann family member leaving only himself and his two sons Redmond and Blutarch (missing Grey due to being presumed dead, as well as the Administrator herself.) as the only branch of Mann blood. By the Administrators own words, her original plan was to get close to Zephaniah with the intent to harm him in the same way she was harmed, by killing his family. However, after meeting him and hearing his speech about how he wants the weak blood of his family to die anyway she quickly figures out he doesn't care at all about his family. So she needs to hit him where it hurts, her goal changes, she needs to destroy any chance of his greatest ambition coming to fruition. She needs to guarantee his life’s purpose is a grand failure, she needs to keep his sons fighting for dominance eternally. Once she ensures that they will keep fighting without ever killing each other she reveals her hand to Zepheniah and shows that he was manipulated this whole time and its from the consequences of his own actions coming back to haunt him.

From here I'm guessing the Administrator’s thought process and mindset after the death of Zephaniah.

Because Zephaniah died (and was ironically buried in the same tiny barely marked grave he prepared for to be used by the weaker riff-raff of his blood) while the Administrator lives, she eventually realized her life was so dedicated to eviscerating Zephaniah’s mind body and soul, that now that she succeeded, she had nothing left to do. Because of this lack of goal and continued burning hatred, she is left in apathy to the point that she commits suicide. When she wakes back up from Grey using australium, she realizes the potential of what the Mann family has mined and stockpiled and goes to dig up Zephaniah. Her ambition returned, she contracts Engie’s grandfather to build the life extender machine to keep herself alive and resurrect Zephaniah. She continues to torture Zephaniah by forcing him to watch his sons fight the gravel wars for decades with the multiple generations of mercs to continue feeding her bitter rage towards him for killing her entire family. Over the years she also contracts Engineer’s father and soon Engie himself to handle maintenance and to improve the fuel efficiency on the machine as she slowly starts running out of Australium. This eventually leads to the missions she gives Ms. Pauling and presumably everyone else in her employ to find more australium.

As she finally approaches the end of her supply after centuries she decides to watch Zephaniah’s suffering to the end as they both die, admitting to the Team and Ms. Pauling that even she forgot her motive in her actions towards Zephaniah. But she keeps going anyway, because although she’s forgotten much over the centuries, she only needs to know a few incontestable facts. She hates Zepheniah, and Australium can make him suffer more.

Now leaving that mess behind, I liked the twist where they showed that as dogmatic as Ms. Pauling is and how she could easily become the next Administrator she chooses to heed Engie’s words and leaves it all behind.

We get to see everybody move on Saxton let’s Olivia go live her life how she wants, free from expectations, and even sets up a trust for her to do it and then leaves himself to truly live again like he used to. Scout turns out to be a good father (and we learn his last name), spy still stays close to scout and his family and officially unmasks himself. We don’t actually know if Spy has officially told Scout about their connection but Spy seems genuinely content about the situations they have arrived at. I loved the picture of Spy looking at Scouts mom. Soldier and Zhana have a nice family, and based on their son’s eyepatch, Demo is probably a fun uncle for the family. Medic raised the baby baboon that was born from TFC heavy and Pyro apparently still has the Dalmatian from the vet when they sewed soldiers hand back on. Ms. Pauling still stays in contact which is nice. I loved seeing Demo’s mom doting on Soldiers family in the final shot.

And then when the final shots happened of Scout opening the door, I expected it to be someone else from the comics like Ms. Pauling or another character that maybe I forgot about. But as they start down the hallway I slowly start realizing that Scout is talking to us, the readers, thanking us for sticking around with this game that came out 17 years ago and the stories that were started from the shorts to the update comics to finally the official start of the comics in 2013. And finally they close the story of the mercenaries of Teufort, happy, together, and (mostly) alive.