BREAKER OF INFINITIES 3-94 to 3-95
Chapter: 3
Feet of Clay
Kill Six Billion Demons
BREAKER OF INFINITIES
WARNING: The next few KSBD updates are super spoilery. If you're cool with that, scroll down. If not, click here for the first page of the comic
25 years in jail for some drinking?
The lady’s rage is more than justified.
What wasn’t justified was her previous acceptance of this “god”‘s rule.
You find ways to accept the things you do not have the power to change. You don’t really have a choice. It is clear this woman has struggled with that. Let us not be too hard on her for failing to choose death over tyranny.
Mondays, am I right?
Imagine legalizing blood sports but making drinking alcohol illegal.
Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of the people in the comments here can.
imagine oversimplifying everyone’s opinions and attacking them for it (oh wait I don’t have to because you’re a dime a dozen in this comment section and then you call them nazis and fascists because you have no mind and can’t fathom that people can partly like and partly dislike things without being all-in)
“Hmm? Was something of import said just now?”
“No, nobody was speaking.”
I will admit that the dead are generally better behaved than the drunk. Except that’s not always true in the setting, so there’s that.
SD: “Y’all talk a lot of shit for being within vaporization range.”
The Diamond has cracked. There’s no repairing the flaws in the gem once they’ve been shown.
I’m expecting parallels to when Solomon murdered his Ki Rata master upon realising the man had nothing more to offer.
In his eyes, a Rayuba ungrateful to him might as well be the equivalent of the Rayuba of Yemmod’s conquest, left barren with a snuffed out sun. If the planet – and the empire at large – isn’t an extension of him and his own mentality then to Hell with it. A God’s insecurity.
Diamonds are tough but pride is brittle.
My take was that he murdered the Ki Rata monks because they could have prevented the death of his family, his world, but chose not to.
And because while they made no effort to prevent the destruction of Rayuba, they likely would have opposed him in using Ki Rata to take over.
Diamonds are not tough; strictly speaking they are one of the least tough substances in existence.
They are, however, extremely brittle.
Also the number of people trying to justify the thinly-disguised tyranny of Solomon David and missing the entire point of the comic is genuinely distressing.
Anytime I thought “Maybe Solomon isn’t such a bad guy” I simply remembered back to the entry in the first page of Book 4:
“The Star Emperor is a man of great stature, with an oiled beard and stern countenance. He does not concern himself, as his kin do, with plotting and scheming against each other, but chiefly with the exercise of ruling. His primary concern is justice. His subjects live fairly, peaceably, and one might say even well, if not for the heavy blade of the law constantly grazing the tender skin of their necks.”
-Payapop Pritram, Chronicles of the Seven
It’s very disappointing, this was a great community. Cheers to the people still talking sense.
Many of the characters within the story have spent much of it saying “reach heaven through violence”. Some may have followed the story because they too embraced that principle, missing that the point of the story was how corrupt such a philosophy was.
Spoken like a true peasant, you’ll never be a King with that attitude.
The protagonist exists to overthrow the old order of violence. This is her story, not Salami Dave’s or Jagganoth’s, who did “reach Heaven through violence.”
Readers who take the “metal, blood, death” stuff from the Psalms and Spasms are precisely what this story is parodying. Astute readers are able to read between the lines.. and are generally not dudebros, bro.
And yet, quite frankly, Allison’s simple victory would make for quite the poor tale; that all it takes is to believe oneself, hope for the best, and take risks ignoring the circumstances and odds, and you will succeed, is a barren delusion that has no root in human experience, and only in the most extreme wishful thinking.
Allison is not a good fit for the situation she faces. She is in many ways a better, nicer person than any of the demiurges, and her inability does not mean she cannot serve an ultimately better future. But Allison, herself, is also quite literally reckless, given to self-delusion, poor emotional control, and lacks any capital talent of her own compared to those she faces – sans the key.
If it were easy, if it could be quickly achieved, if one need only believe oneself to prevail, no matter how brutal the odds, the story would be pure wish-fulfillment.
No, perhaps achieving victory without sacrificing the very things you’d fight for is worthwhile, even if the odds are terrible. But the odds -have- to be terrible. That is the point.
The demiurges are dysfunctional. Zoss himself is a terrible person. But they were both adapted to survive and thrive in the reality of KSBD.
The better (morally), healthier (mentally), people quite literally perished or cannot ascend. And yet, the demiurge’s and Zoss’ own victory – as it’d already taken place – is ultimately less ideal a victory than could be if, against all odds, better people had prevailed, through better means.
And so, for Allison’s victory to feel both satisfying and believable, it must not frontally reject, but subvert that reality: Allison can succeed because Zoss, in his own regret, has chosen to repeat the roll of the dice until the incredibly unlikely happens, and someone who can be better – but had virtually no chance of winning – wins.
It means to break with the world’s affinity for the triumph of those afflicted by the demiurge’s madness.
Breaking a corrupt philosophy can only feel satisfying if the reason said corrupt philosophy is commonplace in the firstplace is given due weight.
In that context, though Solomon David and Jagganoth are both mad demiurges, one would do well to understand how they are a byproduct of how the KSBD world works, and that is no more foolishness of theirs that made and keeps them that way.
Those who believe that to break with said corrupt philosophy is a trivial matter, and that success should be intrinsic to its rejection, are not astute.
I think there’s a very important change that this comic made to that phrase that far too many people fail to really take into account. The original quote, from Crowley through to the Elder Scrolls, isn’t “reach heaven *through* violence,” it’s “reach heaven *by* violence.”
There is an ambiguity of meaning to the altered phrase that KSBD uses that simply isn’t present in the original, and I do not think that’s in any way accidental – it’s essentially the most important repeated line in the entire comic.
VV 3 |2 D
Anyway. I think Solomon David might have just been sliced in half.
Salami…
Coming up: The new KSBD spin-off series featuring the fallen demiurge’s split personalities! Tune in for this week’s episode of “Salami & Dave!”
Falling Down starring Solomon Douglas
And so the Diamond finally cracks…
The way I view Solomon is essentially as a well-loved historical king (much like his arguably-historical inspiration namesake). i.e. we can respect that he did a lot of things more progressively than his contemporaries, while also recognizing that by modern standards many of his other actions and ideas were still totally messed up, such as imprisoning people for decades because of drunkenness.
WHERE ARE THE SWORDS, SHOW ME A SWORD RIGHT NOW
There may not be swords but there have been some pretty cutting remarks.
Wait a moment..
⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️
there you go.
The issue with diamonds’ legendary strength is that when they break they do so all at once
I think many people misinterpret Solomon David’s expression here. It isn’t the petty rage of a tyrant angered because the peasants dare to defy him. His face is filled with anguish, because for all his faults Solomon David truly loves his people, and now he is being faced with the fact that he failed them in many ways.
To go further, it actually sickens me to see so many people calling him a fascist and gloating at his (and by extension his people’s) misery. We were able to forgive the kin-murdering dragon gone soft in senility and regret, even feel sympathy for the monstrous Mother Om, one who fit the mantle of tyrant far better, a relentless and cruel pillager and raper of worlds. Yet the one demiurge who was actually basically good and tried to do the best he knew how for his people, is relentlessly spat upon and jeered at by cruel, perverse, spiteful rebels without a cause sitting upon their moral high horses, casting judgement as if they themselves are gods. Now that is one thing, considering that Solomon David is a fictional character in a fictional universe, used as a vehicle to discuss philosophical and political topics. What is not okay is their other behaviors, such as casting these foolish aspersions of “fascism” upon any who would advocate for Solomon David at all in any capacity. Not only are they completely incapable of considering that they might be wrong, and assume that their wild accusations and impertinent behavior should be welcomed automatically in this forum or anywhere at all, but they truly believe anyone who disagrees with them is EVIL. This is nothing short of shocking political zealotry fostered within an echo chamber. It has no place in any serious discussion whatsoever.
I’m just going to drop all pretense here- this is not your personal Twitter thread. People from all over the internet come here to read this comic. It is vastly immature to expect everything to go your way and that your jackassery is acceptable because you apparently believe that you are the quote-unquote “good guys”. Please take some time to self reflect and gain some nuance and humility in your political and moral worldview. Thank you.
SD may not have a fascist ideology, but his methods are similar: define some enemy or conflict as overwhelmingly important; promise to defend against that enemy; demand absolute power to do so; use those powers to prevent any opposition; along the way, trample on civil rights, because truly empowered citizens might be an effective opposition.
The major difference between SD and RL fascists is that IRL they typically invent an enemy or start a conflict. SD’s enemies are real, and his threats existential.
Personally, the commentators praising SD’s rule scare me. I fear that they’ll follow some RL right-wing manipulator with an invented enemy just as they support SD. It’s not like that only happened in the 20th century, it happens today. And then all our freedoms and qualities of life are burnt just to fuel the ego of a political thief.
Both sides make me slightly concerned. It’s all fine and dandy to like or dislike a fictional character and to be vocal about it. But constantly trying to tie said character to real-life politics and to one’s own beliefs is just weird and uncalled for, no matter what side you’re on. If it were a particularly politics-heavy webcomics I could understand, but it’s not even the case. Goes to show how everyone is progressively getting incredibly polarized I guess.
“Reach heaven through random debates on the Internet”?
Fiction is a blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar. It must have some connection with your own experiences for you to understand it at all. How then is it uncalled for to draw parallels between it and real life, and gain a greater understanding of universal truth?
I already replied to one of your earlier comments on the point, but the tl;dr is: because fictional worlds don’t necessarily follow the same rules as ours. The KSBD one certainly doesn’t. As such, it’s absurd to literally apply our real-life worldviews onto it (although said worldviews will inevitably determine how you interpret the story, there is no denying that).
It’s asinine to react to Solomon David, a fictional character in a fictional world where literal mad gods are running the show, by strictly applying your real-life worldviews to him. Because KSBD is not the real world, and it doesn’t have the pretense to be an indepth metaphore for real-life situations either.
In other words, it’s okay to go “I think SD is a great/terrible ruler IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS STORY”, but it’s irrational to start saying “I think SD is a great/terrible ruler according to real world standards”.
Again, it’s fine that politics and ideology play a role in your understanding of a story – they always do. But you should have the common sense to know where they cease to be applicable. And if they’re the only tools you’re relying on to comprehend a story, then you’ve probably been severely radicalised in your worldviews.
(not referring to you in particular by the way, there are tons of people doing it in this comment section at the moment)
Um, so it disturbs you if we relate art to real life? I take it none of your friends are literary critics.
But I agree with you that this comments section is making me lose my faith in humanity. I hope Abbadon updates soon and all the little trolls go back to swooning over the Jaggahog.
You’re slighty misinterpreting what I say – of course you can relate art to real life, but it’s important to know the limits of this relation.
A caution that any competetent literary critics should be familar with since Proust said it a century ago 😉
When Solomon David was a mortal man, war came to his world. He watched his family die, and he was completely helpless. He devoted his entire life to becoming harder and stronger than any other being so that no other father would ever have to experience what he did – so that no more children would be consumed by the fires of war. He took away his people’s freedom, and even his own, to create peace.
That look on his face is the realization that, once again, those who think him invincible and depend on him to protect him are going to die before his eyes, and he will be every bit as powerless to save them as a “god of the seven part world” as he was as a common soldier.
If you think anything else is going through his head right now I’m not sure you’ve been paying attention.
“Paternum, help us.” He’s heard those words before.
I guess that’s true, actually. We’ll just have to see if the author remembers that.
Yeah, I don’t get how between the constant cries of “Save us!” and Solomon’s expression anyone thinks this guy is on the verge of some kind of god-rage. His expression absolutely *screams* “Oh no, it’s happening again.” That’s the face of a king who, for all his flaws, really loves his people, and is absolutely and painfully aware that he hasn’t just failed, he’s failed *them.*
I disagree with the way you’ve framed some of your points, but I do think the observation of people not being very sympathetic for David interesting. I would imagine it’s because he is Pride incarnate- Mottom and The Dragon were morose with their actions and cognizant of certain flaws. David has admitted no such wrongdoing, though he may soon. Any thoughts?
On the one hand, yeah, he hasn’t admitted to any wrongdoing, which would negatively affect people’s perceptions. The thing is, though, he’s also the only one who’s *tried* to do the right thing. That he was monumentally arrogant about it is indisputable, but surely he, out of all of them, deserves some pity – the end of the tournament alone indicates that he’s maybe, just maybe, gained the smallest sliver of awareness that he may not be entirely right, and this moment seems to be the epiphany.
I mean seriously, look at the guy’s face. That’s the face of a man driven by absolute certainty that everything he did was for the greater good, only to see the greater good he sacrificed for – and more importantly, that he made others sacrifice for – be literally burned to the ground.
Doing what you know to be right only to be shown well after you do the deed that it was not, in fact, the right thing is painful to the soul on a level many people refuse to comprehend – especially when it had painful costs to others that you were previously somewhat insulated from (say, by distance, time… or layers of bureaucracy).
So yeah… It honestly bugs me a little bit to see people cheering at his misery here.
He tried, but he was wrong. But that is not why he suffers, or why he should suffer — it’s that he allowed no possibility that he might be wrong, that he felt right in making others suffer and sacrifice for his idea of the greater good. That is why he deserves to suffer. But that does not place him beyond pity.
That seems very similar to a certain faction I see in the comment section, which seems willing to write off anyone even remotely sympathetic to Solomon’s plight as a fascist.
Sympathy begets sympathy. Antagonism begets antagonism. Do you have a specific example of sympathy begetting antagonism?
Friends, fellows, citizens of the Wheel, I watched my god die today. I saw His noble head torn from His neck, flailed about like a toy by a giant naked abomination. The multiverse is now dark and cold. Every bit of precious metal in my vaults now feel like mere rocks without shine or worth. Greed has given way to grief, for Lord Mammon, my one true god, is dead.
I suppose it must be even worse for the people of Rayuba, blasphemous as it sounds; both our gods are dead, but Lord Mammon only died in body. Solomon David, Celestial Emperor, died in his people’s hearts. What is left is only a man.
After much consideration, I will not shut down my branch of the Bank of the Grand Dragon. If any of the worlds survive, they will need us to rebuild. But just in case, I will be throwing all my employees a company party at my rotating palace, where I will serve them all my finest delicacies and drinks I have hoarded over the eons. If we are to die, then we will die as we lived: as corporate lackeys seeking wealth and luxury. I think it is what He would have wanted.
👏👏👏👏👏👏✨✨🌠👏✨👏
Bravo, someone with some sense.
Solomon David: in combat, the very definition of a “tank”. In politics, the very definition of a “glass cannon”. Dreams of perfection can raise an empire, can even make that empire’s people police themselves to follow your orders…but the moment the slightest flaw is revealed in your perfect dream, EVERYONE will turn on you. C’est la vie (or le mort, as the case may be).
Dreams of perfection can raise an empire, and by those selfsame aspiration later raze said empire.
She punched him in the boob. Prepare to die, obviously.
Solomon David’s journey began because of, was defined by, and ended with “daddy help us. Daddy help us.”
Murder the gods and topple their thrones.
Isn’t that what started this whole thing?
And it is what will finish this thing, too. The cycle shall be complete yet again. So it goes.
Pity, that.
An idiotic adherent to the blade will tend to misinterpret the purpose of toppling thrones.
“No, no, guys, THIS time if we murder enough of the right people, it will work.”
-Human history in a nutshell
If killing people isnt solving your problems, then obviously your not killing enough people.
Spoken like a person that will have a few pages dedicated to them in the history books.
Lady, timing!
Also, are you going after him instead of the guy who killed so many people because he’s less dangerous? You are simultaneously wise but counter-productive, like Charles Fox in opposition.
Because she’s dead either way. But Solomon stole twenty-five years of her life.
Solomon’s resolve is tested!
Anybody else momentarily read panel 4 as granny adding the strength of her hair to Solly’s beard?
Forgive them, Solomon.
They know not what they do.
The first rule of being a leader of a cult of personality, never let them see you bleed.
Break that, and everything falls down like a jenga tower.
the best one
Solly having his Son Gohan moment? Super Solomon David 2 coming up? NEXT TIME ON KSBD Z.
Where will you be when you realize your Gods are men?
Where will your Gods be when they realize the same?…