- After Thorgal meets with the Myrmones, the twin prince explains (their names are too similar for me) that the king ordered a servant to bring one of the princes into the swamp jungle right after birth, to ensure no trouble with the successorship. (As the legend of Louis XVI has it...) He also says the Myrmens found and raised him, and in return, he taught them how to use weapons, and organize themselves. He seems to be their ruler. Now, that would make sense if the Prince had grown up in the palace and learned about weapons, ruling, and gotten a heavy dose of self-worth. But that a baby reveals his true royal blood even when growing up without the proper education... that's for fairy tales, not good fantasy. (It smacks too much of "Blue blood is born to rule" ideology.)
- In the beginning, Thorgal is attacked by the dwarf pirates. Later, the twin prince tells him (translating) that the pirates thought that Thorgal and his family were courtiers of the Prince. Since we earlier saw the Royal court, and the elaborate dresses they wear, and luxury ships they have, I don't believe he could've mistaken them.
- Jolan calls his father Thorgal the best archer ever. It surely is fortutious that when the dwarf pirates attack for the first time, Thorgal shoots an arrow only through the arm of the dwarf leader, instead of killing him, considering the short time Thorgal had to aim and shoot at all!
- The whole plague is very fortuitous, too: after they arrive at the labyrinth, the last medic of the king tells them that the plague lasts about 8 days; that all the king's doctors have tried to find a cure, without success; that there's a legend of a wise man who might know a cure, but lives too far away or may already be dead. So Thorgal, too impatient to watch, sets off on the slim hope of finding the wise man who, if still alive, may have a cure, in 5 days. He finds the Myrmines, who are immune, is taken to the mountain where the old man lives, discovers a pair of gliders that actually work!, flies to the palace with the twin prince, and brings back enough serum from the old man to stop the plague and heal his family and everybody else.
That smells just a bit too contrived. When Thorgal talks to the twin prince, he is told that the real prince is too fun-loving to care about finding a cure - even though it's just a short ride around the swamp for his soldiers! - and the king too old.
Now, in real life, finding a cure for a plague is dangerous, long work. Today, the most advanced medical equipment and scores of scientists have searched for 20 years to find a cure for AIDS, and nothing. But this Leonardo da Vinci-copy finds the cure, and can produce it in short time, but the prince doesn't care enough.
It would be more realistically if what the medic had told was true: that all the doctors couldn't find a cure, only infecting themselves, and the king therefore ordered research stopped because it looked hopeless.
When I first read "The Ring of Phaios", a time-travel story, I was sure there was a huge ICB nit in the middle. But when I re-read it, and tried to disentangle the convoluted plot, I only got a headache ...
and couldn't find the nit anymore.