PS238/YMMV

• Ensemble Darkhorse: Zodon.
• Narm: The lower-teeth-over-upper-lip face Toby keeps pulling when he gets excited doesn't make any sense. If the author was aiming for Creepy Child, he merely hit "dorky".
• Loophole Abuse/ Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat/ Did Not Do the Research: When the Crystal Skull weasels out of giving Zodon $100,000 by giving him store credit instead of cash, all the characters treat it like Loophole Abuse. Thinking about it from a more objective opinion, though, this is possibly even more damaging to his business. Sure, while he is not giving up $100,000 in cash, he is still giving up a huge source of revenue. He is essentially giving up just a little less money(the profit) and lowering his ability to draw in many customers who go for the shopping, but stay for the gambling. And if the Skull is following the model of many casinos and selling merchandise at a loss(they are mainly there for convenience, and they get your money anyway on the gambling floor), it would actually have been cheaper to just give Zodon the money. This becomes one of the other two tropes whether or not Skull knew it. It may have just been Skull's villainous personality being villainous, or not.
  • The point wasn't to cheat Zodon out of the promised reward, it was to stop him from using the $100000 in cash to buy himself a nuclear reactor or what-have-you. By restricting him to the gift shop, he is restricting how much technology he can buy. If doing so means Crystal Skull looses an extra $10k from the merchandise but stays in the Revenant's good graces, then it is an acceptable loss.