to me, the point of the comic is saying that in the first two panels, the same thing is happening as in the fourth panel. and the third panel is there to bridge the gap of abstraction. so if you ever see anyone make an argument similar to that in tbe second panel, you can link it in your mind with the fourth panel. i don’t think any of it is redundant

It’s like how you can delete the middle two panels in any CAD comic and lose nothing.

This also works for loss.

The full comic has a time progression and expresses a ‘twas ever thus’ more effectively, imo.