An Important Offer 2013-07-11

[yuffiek]

Nanase's "Hammer" on Tsillah's noggin would be appropriate. (EGS-comics)

Susan is the Hammer Queen, Nanase goes One-Winged Angel on them.

[Aed]

I have no idea what Paul has in store for us next. While several folks have advocated Kath adopting Atsali, I'm not certain that the supernaturals of the Wapsiverse would look kindly on a mortal adopting a supernatural, especially one that can easily get into a great deal of trouble.

I also find it hard to believe that Kath would ever want anything to do with the MiB. The one possibility that occurs to me is if Kath's accepting a position with the MiB permits her to do some things that she normally would not be allowed, namely keeping in close contact with Atsali -- perhaps even becoming her foster, then adoptive mother. vOv

[Timotheus]

Isn't that Susan's hammer?

My own guess would be that the removal of all that data and the software that was manipulating it from our siren (plus the possibility of the vacuum left from all that emotional upheaval and probably a lot of her personal memories of this trip) has just left a huge empty hole in her emotional and mental condition. She is feeling more lost, lonely, confused, and lacking in everything than she has ever felt in her life and doesn't even have a clue why. She needs a hug and a friendly face now more than ever before in her life.

[shadowinthelight]

This is just my own guessing, but I'm thinking everything from the physical to the spiritual just merged into the one being, so it would be a 'compound' soul.

My question concerns a person's demons. I don't know when a batch is assigned to a human, like at birth or at moment of creation. So does Kat have one set, or the set from all six, giving her as an individual six times the demons? Even though I suppose some would be duplicates and may have merged themselves over the years, but really, I can't call that at all.

We already have a merging of demons+human soul (Shelly's companion) so a "compound" soul is perfectly plausible. From a practical standpoint, I don't think demons would bother bonding with a person before birth. Can you imagine how frustrated they would become waiting for their person's birth then having to go back where they came from every time a pregnancy was terminated by miscarriage, abortion, ect?

[The Old Wolf]

Yeah, I doubt she'll take the job if she is adopting a teenage girl.

And yet I can actually see it going that way. When things calm down a bit, she might decide going back to her dusty existence at the museum is a bit less appealing than it was before. Oh, as long as Oscar can come along too.

[Fairportfan]

Susan, not Nanase.

[Sphinx-Napped]

Kath better take the little birdy..

so they can have duh da dum "The further Misadventures of Kath and astial!!!"

We gotta have it i loved this arc

[zachariah]

Nanase's "Hammer" on Tsillah's noggin would be appropriate. (EGS-comics)

Susan is the Hammer Queen, Nanase goes One-Winged Angel on them.

There is no longer a hammer queen, or even hammers anymore. The immortal who created them as a joke regenerated and halted the source of the hammers in EGS. Sad but true fact. No hammers have been seen or experienced since then either.

[zachariah]

Paul's being sneaky. This tender little scene playing out will distract all of us from noticing that we are NOT getting the answers we want about the loose ends left dangling.

I'd say "Paul is being Paul", and that I recommend that you learn to enjoy the pleasures of delayed gratification

I don't think it's his style at all to wrap everything up in a neat little package at the end of each episode. He might do so, of course, but I'd be tempted to PM him and ask him if he needed aspirin and an icepack to help with that nasty fever he must be suffering from!

Rather, I expect that we'll be seeing the "loose ends" and implications of this little adventure play out over the next several years... just as this adventure turned out to have a great deal to do with "loose threads" that were woven into the story years ago, and have been sitting around unresolved until now. Brandi's "deal" (about a year and a half), the "little dead girl, caught up in the Chimera" (discussed well over two years ago, and "dreamed" by Bud well before that), Brandi's "I don't want to know too much" and "chessmaster" characteristics (at least 18 months, with other hints going back even further), the role of the Library as a sentient player in the game (years, back to the big Nudge Punch-out when Tina became 2.1).

What you see as loose ends or inconsistencies... try looking at them as clues, instead.

This isn't Star Trek, or The Simpsons. Not everything is neatly shrinkwrapped when the credits roll. There is a tomorrow, and some things won't be apparent until then (or the day after, or next year).

And that's my $.02 worth... hope it helps a bit.

I do, but Paul was even worse than usual in this arc. He left almost everything hanging loose in the wind. There are only a few things we know for sure.

Kathy's background in a limited sort of way. There is still a lot there we don't.
The Ethianans were just like the Lantan, not nice people.
Lilly was one but we don't know how she got loose from the crystals.
Brandi no longer has the Nu Gui hanging around but there is a lot more to that story as well.
Sali is a orphaned Siren.

Everything else we think we know is speculation with little to support it. That is the problem I'm gripping about. All this arc and not a lot of solid facts to deal with.

[jwhouk]

TSILLAH: Ms. Gilchrist, we have an offer for you....

KATH: Oh yeah, you're Death's daughter, right?

TSILLAH: Well, yeah, but this offer....

KATH: I saw your dad today.

TSILLAH: Um - huh?

KATH : (LOUDLY) I SPIT IN HIS EYE. If you don't want me to do that to you, pack up your offer and your MIB's and VACATE!

I love it.

[Jay-Em]

Mêh.. Susan, Nanase. I'm terrible with remembering names, so sue me, and the cartoonists' style is not really helping. I keep mixing them up. Still like the comic, though. It's part of my daily routine: 16:00 come home, read all20+ bookmarked comics, have coffee..

It's the idea that counts. Tsillah, and frankly the whole MIB could do with some serious hammering on their noggins...Or some dusting of their behinds.

In kids the vigorous removing of dust from their butts, has a way of slapping their brains back to the place where they belong.

[Fairportfan]

In Double Star, Heinlein's Great Lorenzo explains that his father's theory was that the problem with boys' behaviour was that there was too much blood in their brain and the proper remedy was the vigourous application of a strap to the gluteus maximus to warm it and draw the excess blood away...

[Timotheus]

Nanase's "Hammer" on Tsillah's noggin would be appropriate. (EGS-comics)

Susan is the Hammer Queen, Nanase goes One-Winged Angel on them.

There is no longer a hammer queen, or even hammers anymore. The immortal who created them as a joke regenerated and halted the source of the hammers in EGS. Sad but true fact. No hammers have been seen or experienced since then either.

Actually, Susan remains the "Hammer Queen". She has retained the magic spell to summon hammers at will, she's just sort of lost the will to do so.

As for Wapsie, (deep breath) "This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was. Now they'll keep singing it..."

[MerchManDan]

I'm probably mistaken, but shouldn't that be DOCTOR Gilchrist?

Also, it's amusing to see Tsillah thrown off-balance for once.

And finally, "Fuck you and the MIB!" is, for some reason, one of my favourite Kath lines.

[kingklash]

I can't wait for the day when Kat can say, "This is your new bedroom, and this is your new brother, Oscar."

[Avenger_Reloaded]

I'm just thinking about what's going on in her head.
When all those people got squaked into her head she had thousands of voices and lives talking, arguing, venting, crying and screaming all at once.
Somehow she was able to glean what infomration she need at the right times. Otherwise it was pure babbling. Right before the gate it was, "Children lost and washed into the ocean and left to dieinthesandandtrappedincrystalsandmakeitstoppleasepleaseplease!"

Now, praticularly in the library, there only silence.


___________________________________
Went back and reviewed the comic once more. Atsali is off center of the frame. Her wings are markedly absent. Whether on purpose or not it just feels like something else is missing in that last picture.

[Yamara]

A question for knowledgeable people out there. Kathryn is the result of the combination of 6 unborn, wouldn’t that mean she also has 6 souls? If so, what would be the mythological implications?

Ah hahaha. Okay.


I think the time has come for Paul to take a bow. He has successfully crafted a fable upon which his fandom is asking deep philosophical questions of one another. Now is the hour for the Aristotles, Avicennas and Aquinases of Wapsidom to step forward.

We should have weekly meetings to discuss the story; bring the family. Since Wapsi doesn't run on Saturday or Sunday, I propose we choose one of those.


Seriously though, I've been poking at creating a "Soul" entry on the Wapsiwiki to compare the many valences that this ancient concept of the self has approached in the comic. Been too stupid-busy to post anything yet though.

In the general, the concept has a decent overview at Wikipedia. So many ways to parse sentience and its hope for persistence. It's a critically important subject, really, as our most precious social constructs (liberty, family, self-determination, and on and on) depend on how we view and cherish ourselves and one another.

In the specific of Katherine, she's e pluribus unum. Kath now has the life experience of a military brat, the knowledge that one of the women who wanted her persists as a vampire agent of manipulation, and the burden that her creation depended on the heartless slaughter of all those around her by a sentient wrath* squeezed from a lone innocent.

So it's hardly the End of Story for Thup and Lily. They're both mothers of Katherine Gilchrist.

Lily's assessment of Thup's fate should the crystal be shattered may provide a clue. Kath came to be by the six unborn being sent into the same crystal. Acacia's reaction while it occurred suggests that Kath may be, effectively, a living chimera. But if the secret of demons melding with souls has been kept secret from the demon world, perhaps souls melding would be an even more arcane secret. Only the authors of the Akashic Records would know for sure.


As a final observation, we don't really know the origins of sirens (theoi.com seems to be a bit vague about Demeter's anger, though abandonment is clearly a theme) or how they'd reproduce. It's not impossible to fathom that the children scattered on the waves by Thup created legions of nu gui, who manifested as sirens. Which would mean Atsali has been chosen to carry the knowledge of her genesis forward; to what end would be unknown, but the journey of bonding with Kath would be crystal clear.



*Not a typo.

[Sidhekin]

A question for knowledgeable people out there. Kathryn is the result of the combination of 6 unborn, wouldn’t that mean she also has 6 souls? If so, what would be the mythological implications?

According to ancient Egyptian mythology, one has nine souls, of which one is the mortal body, but the other eight survive death.

Since the combination created a single body, and not six bodies, I assume the soul count is combined otherwise as well.

Whether that count is one or nine depends on the mythology chosen.

[NOTDilbert]

I can't wait for the day when Kat can say, "This is your new bedroom, and this is your new brother, Oscar."

Um, about introducing her to Oscar....

Aren't sirens supposed to be part sea bird? Wouldn't introducing her to a goldfish be like introducing a human teenager to a hamburger? (RUN OSCAR RUN!)

just sayin'....

[Fairportfan]

I'm just thinking about what's going on in her head.
Now, praticularly in the library, there only silence.

"Silence in the Library - Thup has been saved."