"Good Riddance"

"He was a terrible human being"

"All the more reason to clean up after myself, then"

"I can't think of anyone else who spent any amount of time with Nale who didn't at least entertain the idea."

Harsh, but, well, completely true. Nale WAS a terrible person, and he DID manage to completely alienate everyone he came across except for his girlfriend, and (presumably) Zddtri and Thog, neither of whom live. (Unrelatedly, Tarquin's statement applies to Sabine as well - she wanted to kill him when she was drinking, and thought Nale was going to kill Haley alone.)

---

You know, I still can't tell how strongly Tarquin actually felt about killing Nale. His argument with Nale in 913 (up until the point he stabbed him, of course) read to me pretty much exactly like a parent confused and upset with their child who just wouldn't stop their ridiculously self-destructive ways, with obvious displays of emotion that fit such. You could cut and paste half of those lines into your average family drama, and you wouldn't miss a beat.

And then here, he doesn't say a thing about why he did it, or make a single undirected remark about what he just did, but rather moved directly towards explaining to Elan and Haley why THEY ought be fine with what he just did. Which is really what he SHOULD do - you don't just stand around and emote when someone who you want to help save your empire is obviously upset with what you've done - but, well, it's remarkably... Composed, to put it charitably, for the tragic end of a long-term relationship.

Then again, this does come after years of shielding Nale from the consequences of his stupid, stupid actions, and it's possible that he's simply used up all of his emotion regarding him years ago. Like how after years of begging your junkie sister to stop using drugs, or at least stop stealing from you to do so, that when she finally overdoses, you don't really feel much anymore - that you'd done your mourning ages ago, and were really just expecting this one day, regardless of how you hope things would end differently. But that wouldn't really seem to fit with making an elaborate plan to save him... But, then again, it's not that uncommon to make a last, heroic effort to save a lost cause. It's just that usually nobody else is willing to go along with it, and the person being saved doesn't usually die as a direct result of the plan going wrong.

Of course, it's all complicated by the fact that the comic, as a whole, isn't ABOUT Tarquin. We very rarely get to see directly what he's thinkng and feeling in the same way that we get, say, Elan or V, or even Redcloak, justifying what they're doing to themselves. So all we really end up seeing is Tarquin acting - and, well, he's pretty much constantly attempting to manipulate everyone around him. I mean, I don't think I can think of a single scene he's been in where he hasn't had SOME agenda, beyond perhaps the simple-minded glee he exchanged with Elan shortly after they met. So he could well be happy that Mallack and Nale are both dead, and well at work plotting the deaths of the rest of his party - or he could be absolutely furious that it all went this way, why did that stupid boy have to step outside is role - or sad and distraught, a dull ache where is heart used to be until five minutes ago, why did it all have to come to this - or feeling nothing at all, an unthinking automaton constructed of the distilled essence of TV Tropes... And, well, he'd be acting exactly the same. Because right now, he has a hero to (badly) manipulate into accepting his tacit authority, and can't be distracted by personal matters.