Kabitzin on August 28, 2009 · in Spice and Wolf 2

Summary:

It turns out that Amati issued Lawrence a challenge; in front of a large crowd, Amati wants to bet that he can pay off Horo’s debt of 1,000 Trenni silver in cash by tomorrow evening.  If Amati wins, he gets a chance to propose to Horo (as she does not belong to a convent).  Rather than kick Amati in the nuts and tell him that he’s still 100 years too early to be poaching Horo, Lawrence gives in to peer pressure and accepts the challenge.  Lawrence figures that in the worst case scenario, he will get to keep the silver, Horo will refuse Amati anyway, and Lawrence will be able to piggyback off Amati’s scheme to raise fast money.

Lawrence agrees to take Horo to the festival in the meantime, but while he’s dancing with Horo, Amati is getting in on the pyrite action.  Prices have skyrocketed, and Lawrence gets in too late to do anything but take Mark’s pouch of pyrite (since he had a credit from the nails).  When Lawrence returns, however, he finds that a tearful Horo read the letter that Deanna gave to Mark to give to Lawrence.  Horo learns from the letter that Yoitsu is gone and then realizes that Lawrence knew about Yoitsu’s fate the whole time.  Horo is nearly hysterical at her fear of being alone, even going so far as to offer to mate with Lawrence so she can have a child to accompany her.  Too bad everyone watching this show knows that Lawrence is totally impotent.

Reaction:

Wow, powerful episode!  We finally got back to what made this show interesting, Horo’s fear of being alone. The preview makes it seem like Horo really will try to get with Amati on the rebound, but I’m sure this misunderstanding will be resolved in 1-2 episodes.  Lawrence can just say he wanted to believe and spend time with Horo, and perhaps some new folktales will give renewed hope to the duo.  However, this does explain a lot of Lawrence’s dillydallying from previous episodes and season 1, even if it doesn’t explain why he is such a bad merchant.  I was intrigued that Horo was not more upset at the idea of Lawrence whoring her out, but at least it showed that Lawrence had faith in their bond.

The start of the show was pretty humorous actually.  I really loved how the cliques of women in Kumerson aren’t even gold diggers.  They’re fools gold diggers!  Too bad Lawrence failed as a merchant once again, and didn’t realize how women were trying to one-up each other with pyrite gifts from their boyfriends.  I also find it kinda funny that Horo pretended to be illiterate, but the thought of the female scented letter (shouldn’t it have smelled like sulfur?) brought out her curious/jealous side.  That or Horo’s jealousy drove her to learn how to read so that she could read the letter before Lawrence came back.