Wapsi Square Forum

Dave wrote:

sheik wrote:"These were plants known to the Fae as ancient guardians of mystical places and doorways to other realms."
Perhaps Castela was created to breach those doorways?
And if the Fae came from the other side, might they fear such a breach?

I noted earlier that Bud and Katherine wondered whether The Hate (Nu Gui, Thup) might have wanted to "branch out" in future plans. I just noticed that in the very next day's strip, they discussed the fact that the Vimana Shield (which Thup had schemed to set up) has flaws or defects in it... which might act as doorways.

How often does one hear "branch" and "doorways" used in the same conversation? And then again?

This might be coincidence, of course. Or, it might be Saint Pablo the Subtle.

When in doubt always remember that Paul tends to make good use of Chekhov's Gun, just saying

Sgt. Howard wrote:Hmmm... she can turn totally dangerous without warning, has the moral stability of an orphaned 5 year old, has no difficulty inflicting pain before death to what she precieves as the enemy...
Yea, we GOTTA have her as a unit mascot!
the Old Sgt.

A cat would do just as well for that.


... perhaps, and many units use a cat to that end- but Castela would certainly be unique as CREATED to such ends...
the Old Sgt.

WOW just WOW...Atsali is gonna have nightmares about Castela for a long time.

Hopefully Atsali's seen something like this before. I think she may have, because when we were introduced to "Pickle" (sidenote: do you think the name's a Red Herring or a Chekov's Gun?) she immediately soothed her to keep her from unraveling.

Sgt. Howard wrote:... perhaps, and many units use a cat to that end- but Castela would certainly be unique as CREATED to such ends...
the Old Sgt.

Some thoughts about cats and fae:

Pterry Pratchet about fae/[i][url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TU16R2/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000TU16R2&linkCode=as2&tag=mikewebersweberw&linkId=2ZUVFKPIA4FS6PET]Lords and Ladies[/url][/i] wrote:“They just laughed and stabbed her. She didn’t even try to run away. It was like they were playing.”

For some reason Magrat shot a glance at Greebo, who had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Pointy ears and hair you want to stroke,” she said, vaguely. “And they can fascinate you. And when they’re happy they make a pleasing noise.”

{Magrat is a witch. Greebo is another witch's cat.}

A few more quotes about fae (well, "elves" in the book, but):

Some local girls have decided they're going to be witches, but they believe it's occult. And they're going to summon the Lords and Ladies, whom they believe are Wonderful. Granny and Nanny are the local REAL, badass witches, and Magrat Garlick is their somewhat hippie junior witch, fiancée of the King. (It's not a big country.)

“I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."

"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.

"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.”

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.

Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.

Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.

Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.

Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.

Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

No one ever said elves are nice.

Elves are bad

Granny Weatherwax confronts the Elf Queen:

You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you.

Face to face with elves:

There was something about the eyes. It wasn’t the shape or the color. There was no evil glint. But there was…

… a look. It was such a look that a microbe might encounter if it could see up from the bottom end of the microscope. It said: You are nothing. It said: You are flawed, you have no value. It said: You are animal. It said: Perhaps you may be a pet, or perhaps you may be a quarry. It said: And the choice is not yours.

“We only remembered that elves sang. But we forgot what they sang about.”

and one about Granny Weatherwax, at age eighteen or so:

But what we have here is not a nice girl, as generally understood. For one thing, she’s not beautiful. There’s a certain set to the jaw and arch to the nose that might, with a following wind and in the right light, be called handsome by a good-natured liar. Also, there’s a certain glint in her eye generally possessed by those people who have found that they are more intelligent than most people around them but who haven’t yet learned that one of the most intelligent things they can do is prevent said people ever finding this out.

and one about cats, just for good measure:

In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.

KnightDelight wrote:You would think the Fae would have a counter to that plant by now, it being such a big threat. Seems like a flame thrower would be good.

We've been assuming that "can't kill" refers to a physical inability to do so. This might not be the case.

In some stories of the Fae, they have their own (perhaps somewhat peculiar to us) sense of honor... an intensely powerful one which can truly bind them to their word. What if the Fae are forbidden from killing Blackthorn (or similar wise, sentient trees) because at some time in the past they made a bargain not to?

Or, perhaps, they revere Blackthorn so greatly that the act of killing one would be something like a mortal sin to them?

Neither of these idea is (I suspect) correct... but we shouldn't automatically assume that they "we can't kill them, but they can kill us" situation is necessarily due to power.

...or perhaps, like iron, it is something that can kill them because it is their *ahem* kryptonite.

And they can't do anything about it.

yeah I see it being more iron/kryptonite like them outright power, but I like the idea of the " Fae are forbidden from killing Blackthorn" idea

i don't know why, but the WAY that Pickles is ?complaining? about how she was raised by "parents" and not in a lab, and they "threw her away" just doesn't *click* with her hatred of the FAE... i mean if she KEEPS REPEATING the "THEY THREW ME AWAY" referencing the PARENTS line of thought... then why is she popping the heads off of, and stomping on FAE??? at this point in time for the info we have right now, i guess she has a right (so far) to be pissed at the Fae for CAUSING her parents to give her up for adoption, but why is she STILL vehemently proclaiming that they (the PARENTS, NOT the Fae) threw her away, instead of something along the lines of "the FAE MADE THEM throw me away"?... thus directing her anger at the Fae instead of her parents... she seems inconsistent as to who she's REALLY pissed at... and i think that that will be a VERY large portion of her back-story, to say the least... (i can't wait to see! )

as for her killing the other fairy at the orphanage, who says that she told anyone about it? OR, if it even happened at all? I'm willing to believe that it DID, in fact happen, and that that's why Cricket even knows about her... you'd kinda figure that a Fae-Killing Monster WOULD have been brought up to the HIGHEST levels of authority in order to determine what needed to be done about the situation... that result being to ?glamor? the lab techs into giving her up for adoption, and then mind-wiping them afterwards... all (seemingly) without bloodshed. the fact that they weren't retired with extreme prejudice could also tie in to why Cricket was isolated from the presumably "bad" influences amongst the (Un)Seelie Court, et al... as well. add that to the fact that Queen Foxglove SEEMS to be trying to change the public image about Fae in general for the better, and you get her trying to get the heir (Cricket) the 'humanity" (i can't think of a better word than that, sorry) that Cricket would need in order to break out of the stereo-typical attitudes shown to/from Fae and non-Fae...

as for the "skreee" at the end of the strip, haven't you ever been SOOO P.O.'ed at something/someone that you were incoherently screaming in rage? i know that "i" have been that mad before, so i can easily imagine Pickles getting that way, too... granted i didn't turn into a Triffid, but still...

scantrontb wrote:i don't know why, but the WAY that Pickles is ?complaining? about how she was raised by "parents" and not in a lab, and they "threw her away" just doesn't *click* with her hatred of the FAE... i mean if she KEEPS REPEATING the "THEY THREW ME AWAY" referencing the PARENTS line of thought... then why is she popping the heads off of, and stomping on FAE??? at this point in time for the info we have right now, i guess she has a right (so far) to be pissed at the Fae for CAUSING her parents to give her up for adoption, but why is she STILL vehemently proclaiming that they (the PARENTS, NOT the Fae) threw her away, instead of something along the lines of "the FAE MADE THEM throw me away"?... thus directing her anger at the Fae instead of her parents... she seems inconsistent as to who she's REALLY pissed at... and i think that that will be a VERY large portion of her back-story, to say the least... (i can't wait to see! )

because she's mad at everyone that abandon her and not just those that made them do it. its a typical reaction to people that go thought something like that.

When Annie moved in with the boys, the oldest one basically treated me as if I was responsible for the breakup of their parents- I was offering temporary shelter against a very controlling individual... that was 2006. They still live with me. Temporary my ...- Regardless, James took it to mind that I broke up his home- most of this was based on propaganda that daddy dearest was piping into the boy.
I can see where somebody gave the little one here a bum storyline and (being a small child) she bought it-
BUT- even though she can kill fae, she STILL has to answer to MOMMA!!!! It appears that Katherine just pulled rank on EVERYBODY!!!

- James calls me "Poppa" these days... he is turning out just fine.
So will Castela.
the Old Sgt.

scantrontb wrote:EDIT: Insightful Observations

as for the "skreee" at the end of the strip, haven't you ever been SOOO P.O.'ed at something/someone that you were incoherently screaming in rage? i know that "i" have been that mad before, so i can easily imagine Pickles getting that way, too... granted i didn't turn into a Triffid, but still...

You seem to have turned into a tentacle beast...

Jabberwonky wrote:

scantrontb wrote:EDIT: Insightful Observations

as for the "skreee" at the end of the strip, haven't you ever been SOOO P.O.'ed at something/someone that you were incoherently screaming in rage? i know that "i" have been that mad before, so i can easily imagine Pickles getting that way, too... granted i didn't turn into a Triffid, but still...

You seem to have turned into a tentacle beast...

nah! that's just the TS-9000 T-shirt i'm wearing...

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

“I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."

"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.

"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.”

....oh, my brain. I expect that sort of logic would make more sense if I had actually ever read anything by Pratchett.

Mort. Witches Abroad The Reaper Man Soul Music

Reading list updated.

in my review of The Pirate's Pantry Cookbook, i said:

In Terry Pratchett's wonderful fantasy novel, Witches Abroad, Nanny Ogg, one of three witches who have traveled to their world's equivalent of New Orleans, tastes a jambalaya a voodoo woman has cooked up. Up till then, we are told, she had believed herself an excellent cook. But, tasting this, she realises that all she's been doing is "...not starving as pleasantly as possible."

I cannot recommend the Discworld books highly enough. I like some better than others but have always had nothing less than a good time reading them. I had to learn to read them before lending them to my mother who couldn't resist reading some of the funnier passages out loud at me.
Get them.
Read them.

Terry Pratchett wrote:For an old woman Mistress Weatherwax could move quite fast. She strode over the moors as if distance was a personal insult. - "A Hat Full of Sky'

Castela in that last panel reminds me of a scene from that movie The Thing which came out back in the 1980's. Hopefully she's not quite as bad as that.

Hmmmm. . .