#or fine-printing it like some sort of hellish contract

[beaft]

sitting on my fuckin hands in an attempt to not reply to a comment with "i don't want to be impolite, but this is my blog and sometimes i post about things that mildly annoy me without feeling the need to pre-defend my thesis in exhaustive detail"

[elf-kid2]

Stolas & Contract Negotiations

One thing I appreciate about "Oops" is that it gives us a chance to see Stolas playing HARDBALL with the negotiations!

Asmodeus's favorite Jester, Fizzarolli, is being held for ransom by a Mob Boss-- AND Striker, the Cowboy Assassin who kidnapped & tortured Stolas just last week, is involved as well!

They're on a time-limit! The stakes are high! Emotions are running high! They NEED these negotiations to go smoothly, if they want Fizzarolli back alive!

(Also, if Stolas plays his cards right, there's a chance that Asmodeus might reconsider his flat refusal to give Stolas, and by extension Blitzo, the crystal.)

So! How does Prince Stolas respond to this situation?

"Sire, you need to know the contents of this contract; you can't just sign it! A deal made with a Sin like yourself would be everlastingly binding..."

"This is a contract giving Crimson all of Ozzie's factory assets... And giving him permission to use Fizzarolli's head for a wall decoration!"

"Ooh, this will be fun! I love words!"

It's a life-or-death hostage situation. The proposed contract is twice as thick as Webster's Dictionary, and undoubtably filled with traps & the deadly sort of fine print.

Prince Stolas is making the demon-shark of a Mafia Lawyer sweat with his keen eye for detail. His superior, Asmodeus, is baffled and infuriated by the Prince's open delight at the prospect of combing through the pages and pages of fine print.

If YOU were thinking of signing a deal with Demon Royalty, would you be worried yet?

Let's take a look at what he does next...

The Mafia thinks they have them over a barrel. Sign the paper, give in to ALL demands, or the Jester dies.

Stolas is talking them down from taking *all of the King of Lust's factory assets* to "some" and ONLY SOME of the factories *specifically located in the Greed Ring.* Plus allocated funds. In exchange for the safe return of the hostage.

It's a deal they can all live with. They might even walk away happy with it-- and I wouldn't be surprised if he slipped in some fine print of his own, to give Asmodeus room to shift things more in his favor after Fizzarolli's safe return.

That might be part of why the Mafia Lawyer insists on re-reading the entire thing, come to think of it.

Faced with a Deadly Sin whose blood-lust is very clearly burning hot, this Lawyer decides to take his time going over every word of the new Contract that Prince Stolas drafted. A power move, for sure, but also...

This man decided to run out the clock and deliberately drag his feet over the process, rather than trust Prince Stolas's word about what the new Contract promised to and required of each party.

Deliberately drawing the ire of a Deadly Sin seemed like the better option to this lawyer, compared to signing the long, newly-drafted Contract unread.

He was playing it cool, right up until Asmodeus lost his temper-- right up until the somewhat battered & bruised Hostage walked through the doors at the last minute-- but once the facade is cracked, we can see that he's probably been sweating over these negotiations for a WHILE now!

Does this look like a Lawyer who's spent the past few hours sloooOooowly reading a Big Damn Contract JUST to revel in the feeling of POWER that comes from making Hellish Royalty wait?

Or is it a man who thought they could pull a fast one, and trick a powerful, but famously emotional King into signing a very bad, everlastingly binding contract...

...Only be faced with signing a CONTRACT drafted by Prince "I could eat Overlord Dealmakers for breakfast; your cute little stack of legalese looks like a fun treat!" Stolas?

Look the sheer delight on his face, when faced with a giant pile of paperwork. Look at Ozzie's reaction to Prince Stolas's gleeful approach to the life-or-death hostage negotiations.

This is the smile of a demon who KNOWS he can win at contract-negotiations. A Demon who DELIGHTS in fine print and heavy legalese.

"I love words!"

.

Stella had better have a damn good team of lawyers, if she wants ANYTHING from this Divorce, is what I'm saying.

Also, I wonder if/when Blitzo realized that the Full Moon Deal? Was Stolas being VERY generous by allowing for mutual gain. He had all the cards, re: access to the Grimoire, after all.