BREAKER OF INFINITIES 4-161 to 4-162
Chapter: 4
“To break the wheel or be broken on it. These are the only two choices.”
-Atru saying
Kill Six Billion Demons
BREAKER OF INFINITIES
“To break the wheel or be broken on it. These are the only two choices.”
-Atru saying
Break the wheel or be broken on it? Clearly someone hadn’t considered the possibility of doing sweet jumps off a ramp with the wheel. Find and embrace a 3rd option, the only true way to break this cycle.
By existing, one is bound to the wheel. It is easy to say “I simply would not be constrained by the boundary conditions of the universe” but it is impossible to achieve in any meaningful way
A valid point, and true in nearly every case throughout existence. However, give someone a Master Key for the power to do so, and allow them a view from outside the Amber-like confines of Time and Space and causality, allow them to see the shape of the universe and what lay beyond…
…well, anyone who survived both conditions could indeed build a sick ramp outside of the wheel.
In physics, the speed of light is the speed of causality, and therefore sets the direction of the arrow of time – at least at the macro scale. But at the quantum scale, all things may be reversed and cause is not necessarily followed by effect. The question is, what scale are we at here? Perhaps all we have seen is very small and contained within the Key!
Asema disagreed
Well, if you are bound to the wheel, you can still try to roll down a hill with the wheel. Or lie down on the wheel you’re bound to and use it a sled.
Says you.
You should shake your wiimote when the wheel jumps off to do a sick trick
Seek heaven through kickflips.
You don’t break the cycle, you uncultured savage. You mount it, and wheee down eternity, squeaking a rubber duck at pedestrians.
glue the wheel to a board, now you can do kick flips
Against the foolishness, unavoidable lethality and infinite cruelty of this universe, the only sane option is to danse.
Do sweet jumps off a ramp, you might break both.
EVem Knievel agrees
Evel Knievel, damn it!
Why break the cycle when you can do a totally sweet endo on it instead?
if it sucks… hit da bricks
Is there like a page missing? Last panel on the previous page has them standing in the courtyard, with Zaid talking. Next panel (first one this page) Allison is in a hallway and Zaid says “what are you talking about” even though she didn’t say anything?
It’s probably just because you can easily infer what has been said. Something to the effect of:
“I’m not going” *walks away*
“What?” *chases*
Like seriously consider it. What else could have been said?
yeah it’s an ellipse
I thought the same thing at first and had to page back to make sure I hadn’t missed a page 🙂
Yeah, I had to page back myself to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I mean, c’mon, not even a single panel could be spared for Alison saying “I’m not going”?
Right here zaid remind me alot of zoss
“They’re the same picture”
Al-yis-un is very fatalistic here. ‘If I do something I die, If I do nothing I die, therefore it doesn’t matter what I do.’ The truth is we are all marked for death, and we are all fated to suffer. But the hills we choose to die on are the ones that make us US.
I think that’s kinda her point, she doesn’t want to spend her short life inflicting violence.
“Trust a fool to speak the truth.”
And she is confused, though I think Jadis has rattled her mind.
I was going to say the same!
Welp, if I’m not terribly mistaken, I think that’s Zaid giving us the title drop, so the Zaid=Zoss crew must be having a cake party today!
I find this pair of pages really, really good. It makes me think a whole lot.
Legit this is the first I’ve heard of this, but it makes sense. I can at least think that Zaid is Zoss’ reincarnation. And if reading anything by CLAMP has taught me anything, it’s that even having a reincarnation won’t stop your ghost from showing up
There is no such thing as chance in this world, only necessity.
It’s all quantum, my dear.
What we attribute to necessity is only the regular motion of particles in the spacetime ether. For patterns to change beyond the anticipated (read, “preordained” as Jadis would have it), we simply need the tiniest bit of energy applied in just the right place, at just the right time.
The right amount of leverage in just the right place can derail a train.
Have you ever seen this so-called “particle”? Is it in the room with us today? No? Seems to me that it is simply an arbitrary idea based on what arbitrary notion fits our mathematical models the best, but who’s to say that these mathematical models are true either? They simply seem to accurately describe the fraction of reality that we have observed in the last few centuries.
Socrates had it right when he smacked down the sophists. “At least I know that I don’t know.” It seems the scientific community may never catch up with that level of knowledge.
Prim Logan basically has stated everything I wanted to say myself. Deep bow to thee.
He does have a very similar outfit to some of the Zoss art-
fringe theory; Zoss is just time travelling Zaid from the distant past.
I have to disagree. I think Zaid speaking the title of the book is evidence against him being Zoss. At first glance, I can see where the idea is coming from: Zoss normally does the title drop, but here Zaid is doing it. This deviation from the established pattern can be eliminated if Zaid and Zoss are the same person in some way. However, an examination of the themes of the comic reveals that things make more sense if the pattern is broken.
What is the central conflict of the comic? Allison was chosen to find a final solution to whatever problem keeps prompting Zoss to reset the world, and to bring an end to that cosmic cycle. In other words, she needs to end a pattern. I think it makes perfect thematic sense that, in a scene where Allison is being forced to chose whether to fully commit to working at this task or to abandon it forever, the narrative deviates from a long-standing pattern. The narrative structure is paralleling the story that is being told.
He’s standing in for Zoss. That lends itself equally well to the theory that he is Zoss… or that this represents a deviation from the previous cycles, because he isn’t Zoss, and yet is doing what Zoss normally does.
Zaid standing in for Zoss’ ghost with the title top this book. Coincidence… I think not!
More seriously, Allison’s motives are presented here as essentially selfish. But in this case, wouldn’t giving up the key and leaving be what she should have done, rather than just hang about in Jadis’ tower?
She knows she’s involved as long as she holds the key… so choose (ah the irony) not to be?
I’m 90% sure removing the key would kill her, but I can’t think of a reference to confirm that.
Cio stealing part of Mammon’s key is what your thinking of
Auntie Maya gave hers up, seemingly without any ill effect.
What happen when a bee looses its stinger?
In this setting? Apparently they’d slot a jewel in its place and then start cutting angels in half with a broken stub of chitin.
Selfish, short sighted, and ignoring the painful lessons she has learned.
She fights her own enlightenment to action, which is why she is not a hero.
This is good, heroes know best how to get people killed, oft-times including themselves.
I am uncertain that the possibility of ‘getting others killed’ is a preferable outcome to the certainty of everyone dying in a universal annihilation.
I have a feeling that this exchange is also meant to chastise the readers themselves, what everyone wants is for her to go out and kick ass, regardless of who suffers in the process
YOU WILL BE TORN APART. AND EACH PART WILL BE SCRUTINIZED AND PICKED CLEAN. IT WILL HURT, OF COURSE. AND FEAR OF THAT PAIN WILL BECOME YOUR MASTER.
I was re-reading book 2 sometime ago and feeling extremely haunted by Mottom’s warnings. Big oof.
Anyone else think Allison resembles Jadis in the panels where she faces us? I realize she isn’t like, actually Jadis, but I like to think it’s Abbadon’s way of conveying just how much Jadis influenced her–and for the worse, it seems. TL;DR Allison’s drunk on the Jadis KoolAid. Hopefully she can be convinced to try the CoolZaid instead
She’s definitely received a certificate in the Jadis school of un-smiling.
Panel 7’s cheeky ‘i’ve seen the wheel. i get it now’ smile is very Jadis-esque. But quite honestly all i can think of is the poetry of ‘CoolZaid’
Allison’s face in the last panel of the previous page is a one to one replication of the Jadis smile. It’s a very clear visual theme, you’re not mistaken.
I suspect the trick is to mix the KoolAid and the CoolZaid. And drink them through a silly straw, if that suits your fancy.
Zaid got cool
Yes can we spare a moment to admire Zaid’s glow-up? He’s come a long long way. I hope we get a flashback or something so we can see how it happened.
become the wheel or smash it.
Understand you cannot become, but that you are. To smash oneself, is to smash all.
I wonder if he became a noodle enjoyer in the timeskip
Alas, he appears to have instead become a student of the Principal Art of Cutting.
Though I am making an assumption of his teacher, she proved that the two are not mutually exclusive.
At least Alison isn’t depressed in a completely emotional sense anymore.
Zaid took a level or two in badass during Alison’s hiatus.
apathy is an insidious poison. and sometimes not even a slow one.
I wonder who’s been training Zaid? there’s something of an air of Maya and/or Zoss about him. color scheme and vibes, somehow.
Allison does have half a point, endless war sucks enormously, but. I don’t think “let the red guy destroy the multiverse” is a sensible conclusion from that.
Well, Zaid certainly grew a fat sack. Guess he went from Earthling fuccboi to badass pretty soundly, huh?
Strange adventures across the multiverse will do that to ya, supposedly
One might observe that Zaid has become the Universal Fucboi. And Allison ain’t havin the D.
It’s notable that Zaid is the usual target for most of the past cycles. He might just be really predisposed to getting overhimself and becoming a badass, even without the key.
If life gives you wheel, do wheelies!
Zaid Maya’s new apprentice?
Hmm. Interesting that Zaid and Ally’s color schemes are white and black, respectively. One might say they resemble the flames of their slain friends (now swords?)…
Yes, it nicely represents their black-and-white thinking. Speaking of on-the-nose metaphors, if Zaid has literally turned their friends into weapons… wow.
It’s also a bit of Abbadon’s lore kicking in.
The Black-White dichotomy between male and female has been here for long.
“He will be flanked by a white and a black flame, his coming will be followed by 108 burning stars.”
Zaid is looking more and more like Zoss with every page. Look at his expression in the sixth panel. That harshly-lit furious scowl is *classic* Conquering King. All the while Allison’s pained and and nostalgic look of resignation brings Jadis looming hard over every panel of her. Abbadon has a great way of drawing two characters at once.
The lighting on Allison’s face is SO GOOD on these pages! Abbadon has outdone himself.
This page just reminded me of something from the beginning and I have a theory…
Jadis initially predicted the “chosen one” to be Zaid. Everyone including her thought Allison was a mistake. BUT, therein lies the twist…
As we’ve seen, Jadis can predict nearly everything with uncanny accuracy. But even she supposedly messed that one up. And with all the stuff Allison has already done, it’s likely those events were also not predictable in the sense that a “mistaken chosen one” would have ever accomplished. I’m betting that despite Jadis thinking she knows everything, some of those events have her less sure than she used to be.
Though she was right that the chosen one would be “followed by a white flame and a black flame”, a now obvious reference to White Chain and Cio, no one in the story even considered the “flames” would merge with a human to form a super being. Even Jaganoth said that trio was unusual.
My thought/theory is that Jadis is banking on Allison to be the wildcard again in the hopes that her prediction for the utter destruction of the wheel will be wrong as well.
Her current attitude seems to belie that theory, but my guess it was to get Allison to “let go of the wheel”, so to speak, so she would actually rest and heal on multiple levels (not easy to relax and heal if you think the multiverse is depending on you). So Jadis pushed Allison into a complacency of sorts. And that we’ll soon see Allison find more motivations to continue the fight (though I completely understand why she’d want to stop fighting as well). I’m also hoping Cio isn’t dead. Love that demon.
A counter theory could be that its Jadis’ intention to have Alisson give up the key to Zaid in order to either be right about her prophecy (pride is a bitch, and there are seven keys we could probably line up with the “seven sins”) or because she thinks he has a chance. Or even that on some level, she wants the universe to end and knows he’ll fail where Allison might prevail. A LOT of “ifs”. And also, GREAT writing!
Anyway… Just some theories. Could be wrong. Time will tell.
Either way, I can’t wait to see how everything plays out! And when this whole story is available in a graphic novel or whatever, I WILL be buying it!
Thanks for the great stories, Abbadon, and keep up the great work! /:)
So I’ve been pretty quiet on comments for this series for a loooong time. However, you’re theory kind of ties to one of mine about Jadis. There is evidence that suggests that what Jason says is true, in that she has a complete and accurate knowledge of all events that have happened and are going to happen. However, nothing has ever been conveyed that Jadis only tells the truth. If she is the only one to know the future, then only she knows how immutable or fluid the future could be. Jadis could know the script but be telling everyone else a lie, either in attempt to try and change it OR because she is fated to misdirect everyone.
Jadis is just as much a slave to the wheel as everyone else. She is part of the play and will play her part. She can know all of time, but it doesn’t mean what she shares is what she knows.
Plus when you’re looking at the great enormity of everything, you miss the details. Zaid’s quote at the end points to the need to focus on what’s directly in front of you, contrasting Jadis and her attempt to show Allison everything (and nothing). While she claims this gives her a more complete view of the universe, in fact, it might have the opposite effect in some ways. Even if Jadis isn’t trying to mislead (or isn’t fated to try and mislead), she might just not be able to see the forest for the trees anymore.
In myth attempting to prevent a specific future from happening, inevitably resulted in said prevention triggering the events that laid to the undesired future. Perhaps, in order to succesfully stop a future event from happening your best strategy is to push for it.
This could add to what Jagga and Allison say to each other; about how Allison never met him before; and how we answered by saying thats the truth and this cycle was quite strange for him.
I actually think there is a more silly but probable answer: jadis withheld information. If the pattern lines up and Zaid is zoss, then the issue becomes that jadis simply withheld the fact that Allison was the “finall” inheritor, and Zaid was the first. This means that the omission of their would lead the demiurges to assume a simple and inaccurate version of the truth. Mind you when jadis says anything, she has to simplify it( she ain’t gonna describe every atom of the true heir to the people) so buy sheer apathy she feeds them the most simple version of the prophecy. One that fails to mention the existence and role of zosses time shenanigans. Hence they go off half cocked, and in trying to prevent it instead take their destined role in the fated events.
I thought the issue in that scene was that Jadis’ *interpreter* got it wrong? That he was trying to translate Jadis’ mumbling and he just assumed the gender?
Ahh, hello there- Zoss?
6 Juggernaut Star Scours the Universe agrees wholeheartedly with this sentiment. On a related note, they plan to break you.
Could be that too. But I’d like to think that the misunderstanding has a more elaborate and interesting cause than just a basic translation goof by one of jadises servants.
Leading Zaid/Zoss deeper into the maze. All the wounds and scars removed from Alison.
This is a long outside angle on all of this and I am having problems predicting what might be next.
I am excited none-the-less
I think soon we are going to get a better glimpse of what zoss has been exactly doing with time. And what he’s been trying to change.
I absolutely love the interactions between these two. So good.
If one wants to keep a sense of inner peace, they need to learn to love being broken on the wheel. It must not be in self sacrifice, but as a celebration of the turning. Of new starts and new beginnings of all the growth and life that comes with the pain. In Jubilance you must give all, until even your bones give sustenance to the soil
I feel like we missed a panel. There’s a word or two from Allison that may have been forgotten
Nah, it’s just implying what we already know (namely, that she told Zaid she’s not leaving)
I’m reminded of the final scene from Jordan/Sanderson’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘮…
Nice reference.
Dead boyfriends only become Einheryar, though, not Valkyries, so maybe she’ll see him again.