Or perhaps the opposite is the case. Zoss has forced the wheel to a halt, thrusting the cosmos into bloody stagnation.
Revolution to make the world spin once again.
Movement to be free of tyrants that see the infinite as something that may be grasped.
A massive merry-go-round where those who wish to grasp it and hold it still get flung off into the far nether darkness never to be heard or seen again. Wheeeeeee.
Not Revolution, not the abolishment of Royalty.
The cessation of using Royalty as a means to chain others.
The realization of the will to destruction, change and growth carried as a flame and passed on. The greek fire of the free soul.
Freedom in all its terrible glory used to spread freedom.
Zoss’s true power is figuring out what mean names to call people. That is how he found the names of god and why twinky boy here got so mad when he called him a little man who plays at sticks.
Depending on his awareness of other worlds, particularly hers, he might be making oblique reference to _Through the Looking Glass_. Or perhaps Abaddon is making the reference through Zoss. 🙂
Yes, when it comes down to it, Solly’s notion of royalty is as empty as Inkypoo’s. Though Zoss may be the only person with the perspective to see it that way.
Indeed, even as he regards Solomon David, Incubus and even Gog-Agog as pitiable and bound to the wheel’s rules, he does so equally and without true rancor. Zoss pitied them. I think the next necessary step is instead to empathize with them, and so become equals. That will take some doing, as Al-YISUN must still strive.
A Perpetually Inquisitive Supplier of Noodle Vending Ingredients
Off the top of one’s head, at least three of the Demiurges were the direct victims of their predecessors before their ascensions, the very enlightened God-Princes that Zoss empowered through his gifted keys before they fell to infighting.
Incubus, a starving war-orphan, Solomon, a humble local guardsman who lost his family and his meaning in the wake of the conquest of his world, and Mottom, an innocent girl taken by a rapacious ruler.
One cannot recall the motivation of the Dragon, beyond a Greed so great he murdered his own family to purchase his key, though one wonders at the circumstances of his Universe that would lead to such drastic action.
Overall, one can see why many of the Seven would have a rather extreme, personal, reaction to finally meeting the One face to face.
All-conʃuming, inexorable, yes, but it is no creature’s nemeʃis. Is the gale and river baʃin the enemy of the mountain, or is the mountain unaware that it is but a pile of rubble the gods decided to ʃtack eʃpecially high?
There are two ways a mountain is formed. First is when multiple great plates of the Earth crash into each other, rising up to the pinnacle in joint effort. The second is when land cuts away the Earth around it, leaving itself standing above.
What nonʃense! Craʃhing plates? Terra Mater has no need of plates, nor any diʃhes, nor cutlery–not even a deʃsert ʃpoon! No knives to cut away at herʃelf either. Why would She That Is All ever deʃire to play such fooliʃh sport?
Indeed, somehow attain your victory with overall entropy unchanged. It may not decrease, but it does not have to increase either, if it remains the same. Difficult, but allowable.
Entropy can be calculated, after a force has caused work to be done. It’s a measure more than the cause. Effectively the energy put in to a system, less the work done, gives us the entropy, just divide by temperature.
You could perhaps say that entropy is the opposite of how work is done; it is a measure of the energy input that isn’t able to do work.
Things may of course always be different in the world in which Allison finds herself.
One does recall a similar man who wore a red jacket and stood over a field of blades. However, if one recalls correctly, that man only stabbed his swords into the ground, and not onto himself.
That one attained his dream only to realize the full, horrifying scope of it – forced to end many lives in order to save several more, eternally bound by the collective despair of Man. Is it not understandable that he would seek to break his own destiny by killing his past?
Abaddon was saying on twitter the other day there was only one more book left in KSBD. I’ll be sad to see it go but it would be wrong to keep the wheel turning for its own sake, especially after a page like this one
Foolish Last-of-Pen, Favored of the Impure Snow Wolf
All good things must come to an end, as the adage goes, but then again so do all bad things. Taking the advice of the first Philosopher Peince to grace me with wisdom, I shall not cry because it is over. I will instead be pumped up for what is going to happen.
…Or something like that. My grasp on the ancient proverbs of misattributed wisdom grows weaker by the day.
It is always sad when you are reading a great book and suddenly realize that there is only a chapter or two left. But a truly accomplished author will fill those last chapters with gut-wrenching, tear-splashed pathos. I feel certain Abbadon will rise to this challenge and leave us all breathless.
This can be Zoss’ final lesson, the second to last title drop, and the end of book four out of seven.
None of these are mutually exclusive.
Be interesting to know what happens to dream Zoss, possibly at the hands of the dream stealer, to make him stop showing up once a book to drop the title.
Turns out you can only run on top of a spinning wheel so long before you inevitably lose your balance and find yourself crushed beneath the very thing you believed yourself the master of.
But perhaps there will one day be a place where there are no masters, with the wheel turned on its side as a table. A gentle place, ringed with blades so terrible as to repulse even the Royalty who lead nations of armies.
There’s half your problem right there, Zoss. Everybody and their mother wants to be the King of Swords. Nobody wants to be the King of Sensible Policy.
Even Solomon David, who runs the best empire of the seven, has to go all Samurai Seven and insist that his successor pass some absurd trial.
On the topic of Solomon David, he somewhat exemplifies Zoss’s “friendship is power” angle here. Of the seven Demiurges, he relies the most on Emissaries.
*I* would like to be King of Sensible Policy…rational, non-violent policies are the tools of my trade…but I suppose I am something of an unusual case, in this world where bank tellers wield chainsaw halberds and most news anchors are just Gog-Agog. Also, some might say my policies were always more spiteful than sensible. Ah well.
And yes, it is a sad thing indeed that even the most “sensible” of Emperors has made a great Bureaucracy, with even greater Bureaucrats, but his Pride demanded that he remain a true Tyrant in control of everything. A Bureaucracy which is beholden to a Tyrant is no Bureaucracy at all.
There ARE exceptions – those who know that they are only out for their own glory, without the slightest attempt at sensibility. Such people often reach the heights of powers, more’s the pity.
Hrmm… Reckon nobody is correct. Beside, what is sensible to one person might be downright unreasonable to another person. Guns come to mind, as well as babies, speech, money, religion, pollution… the list is really endless, as are the variations in sensibilities.
“Everyone thinks they are the King of Sensible Policy. They don’t see when they stop being that. There are no exceptions.”
– nobody.
Unless I miss my guess the panels are:
Temperence
Temperence Reversed (Wrath, Incubus’ sin)
The Devil (Incubus often appears in compositions that seem to reference this card)
Death (His talk of change and finality convinces me I got this one)
The Wheel (obviously, but I’m least confidant on this one.)
The Hanged Man
The Death Omen
The High Priestess
The Heirophant (Unless I missed my guess on 6, and that was the Heirophant)
However there is something to the theory that panels 6 and 8 together also form the two postures of the Temperence card.
idk, I’m not sure whether every panel in this page can be read as a tarot card, but I’m sure there must be more tarot references in the comic. Mammon’s word was the Tower, so that’s one for certain. Time to re-read!
“I see… you’re just a phantom. An echo of a traitor king that abandoned his kingdom.”
Zoss doesn’t deny it… and he was still sufficient to make you jump. Like, out of your chair. And break out in a cold sweat. Perhaps you should check your demiurgal demiunderpants for brown stains at the earliest opportunity. >:=)>
Indeed, Zoss speaks of a power beyond the realms of science, mortal comprehension, or even mastery. The power which The God Called “I” shall never know.
Zoss speaks to the most ancient of human powers, that which bent even the tigers and wolves to their will, the Power of Friendship. The power of The God Called “Us.”
Tꙩ be rꙩyalty is tꙩ be singular, perfect, as YISUN. Tꙩ be YISUN is tꙩ be incꙩmparably bꙩred. Destrꙩy this fate by destrꙩying the very idea ꙩf I, by instead becꙩming We, sꙩ that we are ALL-YIS-UN.
But if we become ALL-YIS-UN, then will we not all be bound to the wheel? Zoss claims that one alone cannot break the Wheel, but if we all become one, then we will all become YISUN once more, and the wheel will start again. How is that conducive to breaking it?
Is our crippled brother Metatron perhaps not only Ysun’s scribe, but also His Herald? Would everything return to Ysun’s singular existence if Metatron was to speak His Stolen Name? Has Zoss averted the End of All That Is, but was he unable to change the immutable indestructable nature of Angels? Will the True Key always end back in the hands of its True Wielder? This one ponders and ponders about the road Existence took: from Singularity, to Duality, to Multiplicity, to The Wheel… and as a son of Un, Master of All That Is Not, starts doubting the purpose of my own existence.
I kinda want to see Zoss fight someone, even if it’s just in a flashback. He’s supposed to be powerful enough that THE SEVEN are quaking in their boots at the mere mention of his name, but we haven’t really seem him DO very much. He just shows up on occasion to be cryptic.
Yeah there’s like, 1 panel of him pimp-slapping Metatron, but we don’t know much about Metatron either, so we’ve got no frame of reference. It’s all informed badassery.
Perhaps, but part of the point I think is that his power is unimaginable. He’s not omnipotent, but he’s so incredibly powerful that any opponent we see him fight at the height of his power wouldn’t be a good show of it.
In narrative terms he’s no longer a player outside of having philisophical discussions with our protagonist, ‘Alice.’
We don’t need to know how powerful he is in specific because any show of power would be underwhelming, but not only that; his power is no longer meaningful. His power now is only in his influence over Allison.
To make a reference to a sort of similar character; Yoda from the original trilogy is powerful. We can tell because he does something amazing, but also because he’s respected by other powerful people. His important power though is his influence on the protagonist, not his ability to lift up a ship. It might be cool to see him fight when he was in his prime, but it’s not really needed narratively.
TLDR; any show of power from Zoss would be underwhelming and narratively pointless.
On top of that, Zoss’s whole point is that his incredible power was ultimately utterly pointless. He, alone, could do little to truly change the true nature of the Wheel, no matter what techniques he mastered or secrets he unlocked. That it didn’t matter that he could beat up anyone he wanted, because Throne was still rotting and there was nothing he could do to fix it.
To show Zoss doing his thing at the apex of his power would be pointless, because it’d amount to going ‘yep, i sure was strong. i mean, i didn’t do anything because i’m still dead and all my works are naught but ruin and there was nothing i could do to stop it, but hey, that sure was cool!’
I didn’t say Zoss had to be at the height of his power- someone, ANYONE from his past that made a good show of it would be worth watching. Think of all the other characters we’ve gotten backstory on, like Meti/May/Incubus, Solomon-David, Cio, etc. Knowing something about the character’s past gives you context for their present, so they don’t just come off like an arrogant jerk who knows something you don’t and is having a laugh at your expense.
I think you’ve missed some bits showcasing just how potent Metatron Prime is. Even in his broken, bleeding, paralyzed state, his psychic voice alone can crush the mind of a lesser angel.
The one shot something on that level a single moment is no mean feat.
Once you have one punched your way through the armies of heaven itself, the only opponent that could offer a meaningful battle is The Great Enemy Called I.
Us never really savvied why the old man din’t kill Stoneyarse Wingface Metatron – after abusin him t’get the Names o course. All o the others got done in.
Unless praps he was wantin thum Thorny Spikies t’be inspired by ‘tron, and thums’d remove his Great Enemy for him, an break the cycle. An he’d’ve foreknown it an allowed it. Mebbe.
Strength beyond strength has given us another revelation and taken us beyond quite an achievement I do believe. I hope that’s correct anyway – and that I haven’t succumbed to boggledybrains or something.
Heartfelt congrats and gratitude and the raising of a glass of Lymphatic Sweet Wine for unleashing 501 stonkingly wonderful pages of art and story upon all us worthless supplicants. And may YisUn in their wisdom grant the fertility for many more to come into being.
Alas only one more chapter is the knowledgeable consensus and heavy implication from the pop-up text. One might have wished for a chapter with each demiurge before the grand dénouement, but one shall take whatever is to come, and gladly.
If only one it is to be, then may it be hundreds more pages long.
Is he calling her to start an uprising? Or am I interpreting this wrong.
Friendship broken with Royalty
now Revolution is my best friend
This is wisdom.
The real strength was the friends she made along the way.
Jesus Christ.
Revolution is holy change, after all. What better way to break the wheel.
Ironic. That the only way to stop the wheel revolving…is through Revolution.
Or perhaps the opposite is the case. Zoss has forced the wheel to a halt, thrusting the cosmos into bloody stagnation.
Revolution to make the world spin once again.
Movement to be free of tyrants that see the infinite as something that may be grasped.
Spin it so fast it shatters, like a washing machine with a brick thrown in
A massive merry-go-round where those who wish to grasp it and hold it still get flung off into the far nether darkness never to be heard or seen again. Wheeeeeee.
The Rising King must ascend at the head of an uprising.
Makes sense.
Burning Stars, indeed.
he’s just calling for Defeat Is Friendship and Friendship Is Magic, that’s all
But first, she must find the Elements of Strength…
…and Harmony.
With a touch of chaos thrown in
AND FIRE!!!! LOTS AND LOTS OF FIRE!!!
LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF TRAINS.
Only a total zero can beat a god-king yeah?
Nah, only everyone together can. You break the wheel by straightening things out.
“There is no strength in numbers, don’t make such misconception” says a song. Nobody who is knowledgable in the way of war would agree with it though.
Aside for maybe Solomon David, but “one” is also a number.
He waits in the great unsounded until *every* soul joins him. Then, we can build a better world.
That or he’s telling Alison she needs to pull a sword out of Cio’s chest.
Grant us the power to bring world revolution!
SEIZE THE MEANS OF DIVINITY. REDISTRIBUTION OF THE NAMES OF GOD.
UM YES
JUST DON’T START WITH ‘JAHORAH’ OR YOU AREN’T GOING TO GET VERY FAR
King Koss, Ultra-socialist.
Someone’ll be along in a moment.
Not Revolution, not the abolishment of Royalty.
The cessation of using Royalty as a means to chain others.
The realization of the will to destruction, change and growth carried as a flame and passed on. The greek fire of the free soul.
Freedom in all its terrible glory used to spread freedom.
Zoss’s true power is figuring out what mean names to call people. That is how he found the names of god and why twinky boy here got so mad when he called him a little man who plays at sticks.
Wheelburn is a terrible thing to endure.
Friend, you made me laugh. Thank you for your contribution unto these tomes.
When one stands at the pinnacle of all things, they find that there is not room to do much else without falling back to the ground.
It would seem Al-YISUN’s path shall be to tear down the mountain of rulership itself rather than take Zoss’s place on his prison of a throne.
I cannot more highly recommend a book on this theme.
Hope for the Flowers, by Trina Paulus
Did Zoss always call her Alice?
Yep. The first time they spoke Allison actually commented on it.
I assume it’s him mistaking “Allison” for “Alice-UN”, for cultural reasons.
It’s hilariously humanizing.
An nicelike echoes un uther, goin down yon rabbitty hole into strange world of madnesses.
Depending on his awareness of other worlds, particularly hers, he might be making oblique reference to _Through the Looking Glass_. Or perhaps Abaddon is making the reference through Zoss. 🙂
Yes indeed.
Hah. Incubus and Solomon David, identical brothers in folly so far as Zoss is concerned.
Delicious.
Best take
Yes, when it comes down to it, Solly’s notion of royalty is as empty as Inkypoo’s. Though Zoss may be the only person with the perspective to see it that way.
Indeed, even as he regards Solomon David, Incubus and even Gog-Agog as pitiable and bound to the wheel’s rules, he does so equally and without true rancor. Zoss pitied them. I think the next necessary step is instead to empathize with them, and so become equals. That will take some doing, as Al-YISUN must still strive.
Off the top of one’s head, at least three of the Demiurges were the direct victims of their predecessors before their ascensions, the very enlightened God-Princes that Zoss empowered through his gifted keys before they fell to infighting.
Incubus, a starving war-orphan, Solomon, a humble local guardsman who lost his family and his meaning in the wake of the conquest of his world, and Mottom, an innocent girl taken by a rapacious ruler.
One cannot recall the motivation of the Dragon, beyond a Greed so great he murdered his own family to purchase his key, though one wonders at the circumstances of his Universe that would lead to such drastic action.
Overall, one can see why many of the Seven would have a rather extreme, personal, reaction to finally meeting the One face to face.
VERY inconsiderate to draw this plot bomb just in time for me to catch up with the series, come on get it together. (Thanks for this)
Ah, entropy, that all-consuming, unbeatable opponent.
All-conʃuming, inexorable, yes, but it is no creature’s nemeʃis. Is the gale and river baʃin the enemy of the mountain, or is the mountain unaware that it is but a pile of rubble the gods decided to ʃtack eʃpecially high?
There are two ways a mountain is formed. First is when multiple great plates of the Earth crash into each other, rising up to the pinnacle in joint effort. The second is when land cuts away the Earth around it, leaving itself standing above.
What nonʃense! Craʃhing plates? Terra Mater has no need of plates, nor any diʃhes, nor cutlery–not even a deʃsert ʃpoon! No knives to cut away at herʃelf either. Why would She That Is All ever deʃire to play such fooliʃh sport?
You cannot attain victory against entropy. The trick is to attain victory alongside it.
Indeed, somehow attain your victory with overall entropy unchanged. It may not decrease, but it does not have to increase either, if it remains the same. Difficult, but allowable.
Entropy is how work is done. Without it, nothing happens.
Entropy can be calculated, after a force has caused work to be done. It’s a measure more than the cause. Effectively the energy put in to a system, less the work done, gives us the entropy, just divide by temperature.
You could perhaps say that entropy is the opposite of how work is done; it is a measure of the energy input that isn’t able to do work.
Things may of course always be different in the world in which Allison finds herself.
One does recall a similar man who wore a red jacket and stood over a field of blades. However, if one recalls correctly, that man only stabbed his swords into the ground, and not onto himself.
Are you talking about the man with white hair who could summon an alternate dimension with “Infinite Sword Accomplishments”? 🤔
He is a fool that lets the blade hold mastery over him, yet less so for having so many masters, they cannot wield him properly.
That one attained his dream only to realize the full, horrifying scope of it – forced to end many lives in order to save several more, eternally bound by the collective despair of Man. Is it not understandable that he would seek to break his own destiny by killing his past?
Truly, you are correct! (Even if that may not necessarily mean you are right). He did, in some form try to stab his multitude of swords into himself.
AH! He said the line. Roll credits.
Are you talking about Actually Satan?
The Actually is important, I feel.
Wait only one more title drop in the whole series? Does that mean there is only more more book?!
*panics*
Abaddon was saying on twitter the other day there was only one more book left in KSBD. I’ll be sad to see it go but it would be wrong to keep the wheel turning for its own sake, especially after a page like this one
All good things must come to an end, as the adage goes, but then again so do all bad things. Taking the advice of the first Philosopher Peince to grace me with wisdom, I shall not cry because it is over. I will instead be pumped up for what is going to happen.
…Or something like that. My grasp on the ancient proverbs of misattributed wisdom grows weaker by the day.
It was revealed yers ago. And if Abbadon follows his plans, the last one is going to be called “Breaker of Infinities”.
It is always sad when you are reading a great book and suddenly realize that there is only a chapter or two left. But a truly accomplished author will fill those last chapters with gut-wrenching, tear-splashed pathos. I feel certain Abbadon will rise to this challenge and leave us all breathless.
That might be too much of an assumption.
This can be Zoss’ final lesson, the second to last title drop, and the end of book four out of seven.
None of these are mutually exclusive.
Be interesting to know what happens to dream Zoss, possibly at the hands of the dream stealer, to make him stop showing up once a book to drop the title.
Take heart, for the end means many things. One of which is this: The way is opened for the next act of creation.
Turns out you can only run on top of a spinning wheel so long before you inevitably lose your balance and find yourself crushed beneath the very thing you believed yourself the master of.
But perhaps there will one day be a place where there are no masters, with the wheel turned on its side as a table. A gentle place, ringed with blades so terrible as to repulse even the Royalty who lead nations of armies.
There’s half your problem right there, Zoss. Everybody and their mother wants to be the King of Swords. Nobody wants to be the King of Sensible Policy.
Even Solomon David, who runs the best empire of the seven, has to go all Samurai Seven and insist that his successor pass some absurd trial.
On the topic of Solomon David, he somewhat exemplifies Zoss’s “friendship is power” angle here. Of the seven Demiurges, he relies the most on Emissaries.
It’s just a shame his fire oppresses instead of uplifting them.
*I* would like to be King of Sensible Policy…rational, non-violent policies are the tools of my trade…but I suppose I am something of an unusual case, in this world where bank tellers wield chainsaw halberds and most news anchors are just Gog-Agog. Also, some might say my policies were always more spiteful than sensible. Ah well.
And yes, it is a sad thing indeed that even the most “sensible” of Emperors has made a great Bureaucracy, with even greater Bureaucrats, but his Pride demanded that he remain a true Tyrant in control of everything. A Bureaucracy which is beholden to a Tyrant is no Bureaucracy at all.
“A Bureaucracy which is beholden to a Tyrant is no Bureaucracy at all.”
“When a ruler is above the rule of law, there is no law.”
Everyone thinks they are the King of Sensible Policy. They don’t see when they stop being that. There are no exceptions.
There ARE exceptions – those who know that they are only out for their own glory, without the slightest attempt at sensibility. Such people often reach the heights of powers, more’s the pity.
Hrmm… Reckon nobody is correct. Beside, what is sensible to one person might be downright unreasonable to another person. Guns come to mind, as well as babies, speech, money, religion, pollution… the list is really endless, as are the variations in sensibilities.
“Everyone thinks they are the King of Sensible Policy. They don’t see when they stop being that. There are no exceptions.”
– nobody.
Nice Tarot reference, and an interesting contraposition between Metatron and Allison’s faces. I’m sure there’s a meaning to it.
Unless I miss my guess the panels are:
Temperence
Temperence Reversed (Wrath, Incubus’ sin)
The Devil (Incubus often appears in compositions that seem to reference this card)
Death (His talk of change and finality convinces me I got this one)
The Wheel (obviously, but I’m least confidant on this one.)
The Hanged Man
The Death Omen
The High Priestess
The Heirophant (Unless I missed my guess on 6, and that was the Heirophant)
However there is something to the theory that panels 6 and 8 together also form the two postures of the Temperence card.
idk, I’m not sure whether every panel in this page can be read as a tarot card, but I’m sure there must be more tarot references in the comic. Mammon’s word was the Tower, so that’s one for certain. Time to re-read!
“I see… you’re just a phantom. An echo of a traitor king that abandoned his kingdom.”
Zoss doesn’t deny it… and he was still sufficient to make you jump. Like, out of your chair. And break out in a cold sweat. Perhaps you should check your demiurgal demiunderpants for brown stains at the earliest opportunity. >:=)>
The pup finds his courage when he realizes that the image of the old wolf can’t actually hurt him.
Yap yap yap.
“can’t actually hurt him” ?
Bold statement, I think.
It’s Zoss after all.
Incubus, better than anyone, should remember how dangerous dreams of demiurges can be. That’s his MO.
My little pony!!
Indeed, Zoss speaks of a power beyond the realms of science, mortal comprehension, or even mastery. The power which The God Called “I” shall never know.
Zoss speaks to the most ancient of human powers, that which bent even the tigers and wolves to their will, the Power of Friendship. The power of The God Called “Us.”
so basically he’s calling for uprising. will allison establish glorious luxury gay throne communism
“glorious luxury gay throne communism” might be one of my new favorite phrases I have ever read on the Internet.
I certainly hope so! And then she should change her name to Emperor Fabulous. And wear a feather.
I hope she is egalitarian enough to consider straight thrones.
Do you think she’d accept a throne of black glass, even if she knew it was carved from a death god’s penis bone?
Asking for a friend.
A death god’s black glass penis? There’s a story waiting to be told…
Tꙩ be rꙩyalty is tꙩ be singular, perfect, as YISUN. Tꙩ be YISUN is tꙩ be incꙩmparably bꙩred. Destrꙩy this fate by destrꙩying the very idea ꙩf I, by instead becꙩming We, sꙩ that we are ALL-YIS-UN.
But if we become ALL-YIS-UN, then will we not all be bound to the wheel? Zoss claims that one alone cannot break the Wheel, but if we all become one, then we will all become YISUN once more, and the wheel will start again. How is that conducive to breaking it?
It is like that Spiderman meme.
YISUN is the last thing YISUN would expect.
YISUN nobody, not even YISUNself
Is our crippled brother Metatron perhaps not only Ysun’s scribe, but also His Herald? Would everything return to Ysun’s singular existence if Metatron was to speak His Stolen Name? Has Zoss averted the End of All That Is, but was he unable to change the immutable indestructable nature of Angels? Will the True Key always end back in the hands of its True Wielder? This one ponders and ponders about the road Existence took: from Singularity, to Duality, to Multiplicity, to The Wheel… and as a son of Un, Master of All That Is Not, starts doubting the purpose of my own existence.
It turns out the true strength to master the multiverse is the friends we made along the way.
Also, fire.
Fire, and riding the lightning… everyone else is all “ponies” and I’m like “METALLICA BEFORE THEY BECAME DADS” over here.
“I found Rainbow Dash!”
Anyone else read Zoss’s lines in Mark Hamill’s voice?
Which mark Hamill voice variant? Luke, Joker, regular speaking?
TLJ Luke, also Master Eraqus from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
“Power builds its own limits”
–BG summation of the Tyrant’s lesson
I kinda want to see Zoss fight someone, even if it’s just in a flashback. He’s supposed to be powerful enough that THE SEVEN are quaking in their boots at the mere mention of his name, but we haven’t really seem him DO very much. He just shows up on occasion to be cryptic.
Yeah there’s like, 1 panel of him pimp-slapping Metatron, but we don’t know much about Metatron either, so we’ve got no frame of reference. It’s all informed badassery.
Perhaps, but part of the point I think is that his power is unimaginable. He’s not omnipotent, but he’s so incredibly powerful that any opponent we see him fight at the height of his power wouldn’t be a good show of it.
In narrative terms he’s no longer a player outside of having philisophical discussions with our protagonist, ‘Alice.’
We don’t need to know how powerful he is in specific because any show of power would be underwhelming, but not only that; his power is no longer meaningful. His power now is only in his influence over Allison.
To make a reference to a sort of similar character; Yoda from the original trilogy is powerful. We can tell because he does something amazing, but also because he’s respected by other powerful people. His important power though is his influence on the protagonist, not his ability to lift up a ship. It might be cool to see him fight when he was in his prime, but it’s not really needed narratively.
TLDR; any show of power from Zoss would be underwhelming and narratively pointless.
On top of that, Zoss’s whole point is that his incredible power was ultimately utterly pointless. He, alone, could do little to truly change the true nature of the Wheel, no matter what techniques he mastered or secrets he unlocked. That it didn’t matter that he could beat up anyone he wanted, because Throne was still rotting and there was nothing he could do to fix it.
To show Zoss doing his thing at the apex of his power would be pointless, because it’d amount to going ‘yep, i sure was strong. i mean, i didn’t do anything because i’m still dead and all my works are naught but ruin and there was nothing i could do to stop it, but hey, that sure was cool!’
I didn’t say Zoss had to be at the height of his power- someone, ANYONE from his past that made a good show of it would be worth watching. Think of all the other characters we’ve gotten backstory on, like Meti/May/Incubus, Solomon-David, Cio, etc. Knowing something about the character’s past gives you context for their present, so they don’t just come off like an arrogant jerk who knows something you don’t and is having a laugh at your expense.
I think you’ve missed some bits showcasing just how potent Metatron Prime is. Even in his broken, bleeding, paralyzed state, his psychic voice alone can crush the mind of a lesser angel.
The one shot something on that level a single moment is no mean feat.
Once you have one punched your way through the armies of heaven itself, the only opponent that could offer a meaningful battle is The Great Enemy Called I.
Us never really savvied why the old man din’t kill Stoneyarse Wingface Metatron – after abusin him t’get the Names o course. All o the others got done in.
Unless praps he was wantin thum Thorny Spikies t’be inspired by ‘tron, and thums’d remove his Great Enemy for him, an break the cycle. An he’d’ve foreknown it an allowed it. Mebbe.
“You have outlived your usefulness”
“Your punishment is … eternal life.”
Strength beyond strength has given us another revelation and taken us beyond quite an achievement I do believe. I hope that’s correct anyway – and that I haven’t succumbed to boggledybrains or something.
Heartfelt congrats and gratitude and the raising of a glass of Lymphatic Sweet Wine for unleashing 501 stonkingly wonderful pages of art and story upon all us worthless supplicants. And may YisUn in their wisdom grant the fertility for many more to come into being.
Alas only one more chapter is the knowledgeable consensus and heavy implication from the pop-up text. One might have wished for a chapter with each demiurge before the grand dénouement, but one shall take whatever is to come, and gladly.
If only one it is to be, then may it be hundreds more pages long.
*HOOTS AND HOLLERS* YEEEEEEEAAAAHHH GOOD SHIT GOOD SHIT
Wait, what does he mean, “final”? Is this the last we see of Zoss? Tell me it isn’t so!