KING OF SWORDS 10-167
The lord of the vale and his thugs laughed at Intra and his preposterous proclamation. But their mirth was cruel, so they stayed to watch his futile labor.
“I will turn this rock into fire,” said Intra. The men roared with laughter.
“Fool!” they cackled. “The rock shall not become fire, no matter your wish.”
Intra ignored them, turned the rock in his well worn hand, and dug a shallow pit with it, piling the earth carefully at the sides. Then he gathered dry brush and reeds and piled them high in the pit. The sun was hot and bright overhead as he worked, and his traveling clothes were soiled with sweat as he worked. The men bade the villagers of that place gather water for them to drink as they watched Intra’s labors.
From his traveling cloth, Intra produced a sword. The thugs watching him leaned forward at this, but then quickly relaxed. It was a decrepit and battered thing, well used and pitted and chipped.
“I no longer use this to kill men,” said Intra. “But it’s very good for cooking dinner.”
Intra struck the rock against his sword, and a spark flew into the dry brush. Intra fanned it with great care, and soon a roaring fire blazed in the village square.
– The Song of Maybe
TRANS RIGHTS CONTINUE! good evening to everyone except Bob
We never got the serious series serious punches…
Alison in the last panel: “You like Krabby Patties, dontja White Chain?”
Holy shit.
I still have no fucking clue whats going on but this set of pages since white chains exchange of punches have left me feeling awed and like I have lost the plot in a way that the comic hasn’t so far. My brain is on fire trying to figure out how exactly this happened.
I have. So many questions.
Take it alllll in before everything goes to shit again, folks
Alright abbadon you little shit you listen here.
This is some amazing cool like mr rogers storytelling jesus fuck.
And in the great cycle, we do not see a fall, nor an apotheosis, but a deposition from ethereal essence of the white flame to be contained within the prison of flesh. Perfect infertility is broken, as YISUN broke from perfection to multiplicity, so too has the first of the nephilim been born, slipped from holy chains of perfection to imperfection, and made more perfect in the process.
I’ve felt so happy and sometimes tingly very time white chain moves or says anything not that she’s transformed. <3
You are my sister also, White Chain, though I be no angel.
May none dim your light. May you live your own truth to its deepest.
The thing that took a second to notice but is definitely incredibly cute in this comic: the Miyazaki-style hair-float when Cio is surprised but facing away from the camera.
…also White Chain, who is a beautiful new thing that no one understands.
Seriously. Abbadon. Do you *know* how often we kvetch about neat trans representation? And here the fuck you are. This is blisteringly wonderful.
(rather, about the widespread dearth of neat trans representation)
I’ve been reading this comic since 2015 (before I knew that I was trans myself) and these past few pages have me in tears. It’s so rare to see a character arc like this that rings so absolutely, fully true for me and my experience and I just….. holy shit dude.
Thank you for this.
It’d be cool to see WC wearing some kind of armor in the next book with an homage to her old angel armor. Helmet, shoulder pads, something like that. Just a thought.
The comb of Prim has to stay though. Assuming it didn’t get vaporized.
transcendence.
=//=
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT!
Et mulier facta est.
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Hi, I’m new here. I love this comic so far. Question though. Is “Bob” just a dirty LGBT-phobe or something?
Came back after a long time to postulate my theory, which others may have thought up. I think that White Chain in her astral form, without her armor, cut Solomon’s face a tiny bit, as we saw from the mark on his cheek. At the same time, White Chain embraced her desire to change, to reject the stagnant and eternal nature of the angels in favor of the ephemeral and blossoming nature of humanity. This, plus the incredible energy of an angel’s true form, 111,111 keys, and multiple incredibly powerful martial arts, combined together in the perfect confluence. Her soul transformed its very essence, and borrowed the surrounding energy to spontaneously form a new “armor” or body either from the flesh and blood of a nearly flawless human form or based upon it, and her soul fused with said body, forming into a new being that is somewhere between an angel and a human.
A flawless and near immortal human body, the divine nature of the keys of kings formed from YISUN’s names, the pure energy of an angels soul, the power of the most dominant martial arts known across the wheel, and most importantly the pure desire to transform and the acceptance of said desire in what may even come close to royalty. The confluence of all these factors accomplished the impossible, mutating the immutable and fusing two things that seem to be mutually exclusive.
Of course, how important the energy of White Chain’s spectral form, the power of the martial arts, or even the flesh of Solomon was to this process is unknown, but it is certain that her will to live and to embrace who she is, most likely alongside the energy of the keys, was what allowed this to take place.
Honestly I think the theory is that there’s no theory. This whole arc is really a lot of fanservice and pandering which is great for viewership and possibly hurtful to narration.
I feel like THAT death (people who read comments might have not gotten there, so not spoiling anything) was felt from the author as some kind of necessity to steer the ship back towards the original narrative.
I’m probably just projecting but I think White Chain will be at best a wasted character, at worst a problematic plot hole for the nature of angels.
In any case the general narration is very sound, but doing these kind of moves is like drugging up your audience, which is why when THAT death happened, everyone started shouting “THAT TROPE!!!” without realizing it’s just a character getting hurt in a vast sea of characters. People felt entitled to invulnerability.
I’ll see how White Chain evolves but so far it’s my “Arya Stark Game Of Thrones S8” of K6BD.
TRANS ANGEL I LOVE IT
transgenderism won on that day. <3