"Bust a deal, face the wheel" was one of Aunty Entity's rituals that she enforced in Bartertown. If someone doesn't honor a deal, they are subject to answering for their disobedience.
Description[]
Aunty Entity's Wheel was a crude disk comprised of rusted, scrap metal scavenged from the Wasteland. It was likely constructed for two primary purposes, with the first being a way to distribute "justice" without getting her hands dirty by having to dictate punishment for crimes. In this way, Aunty has an easy excuse to blame fate for whatever outcome and save face with her followers.
The second reason is the suspense of learning the fate of the "criminal" which created another form of entertainment aside from Thunderdome.
The Ritual[]
This ritual puts punishment at the hands of chance, very much a "wheel-of-misfortune" as it is equipped with an arrow that would eventually stop at one of ten possible punishments:
- GULAG
- ACQUITTAL
- HARD LABOUR
- SPIN AGAIN
- FORFEIT GOODS
- DEATH
- UNDERWORLD
- AMPUTATION
- LIFE IMPRISONMENT
- AUNTY'S CHOICE
Max's Fate[]
Max ends up landing on "Gulag" when he disobeys Aunty by refusing to kill Blaster, whom he learns is really just an unfortuante man inflicted with Down Syndrome.
He is immediately exiled from Bartertown upon the back of a horse, which is goaded into continuous travel through the incentive of a bottle of water dangling from its head. Max's arms are also bound behind him o that he can't free himself and he is adorned with a giant, plastic head in order to make him even hotter in the scorching sun, thus proving a subtle degree of torture.
Trivia[]
- Gulag (Russian: ГУЛАГ, IPA: [ɡʊˈlak]) was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems during the Stalin era, from the 1930s until the 1950s.