From the way she looks now, White Chain has surely taken something from Solomon that would qualify as a drop of blood. Will she demand more from his pledge than just her miraculous new bod? Would that be unhumble?
Seems to me that Dave still has some big bills to pay, and Foxy Chain may be the one to make him do it.
What I’m wondering is what she did to him on the way through?
Is he going to turn around and make another of his pretentious declarations (pretentious in that he pretends that he is anything other than a very powerful thug), or is he going to find that she took something from him on the way through, and that losing it was unpleasant?
Do you have any concept of what muscle looks like? At all??? Secondly, why the fuck does it matter if she’s black, has dreadlocks, or is overweight (even though she still isn’t)? Learn to accept more diverse characters, appearances, and experiences in storytelling, and you’ll be the better for it. It’s a badass look for a badass lady.
1. If you think that’s fat, you live in a strange world indeed.
2. This seems like a strange time to get picky about body size/shell size issues, given that the entire run of the webcomic has been presenting the reader with physical impossibilities of all kinds in practicall every strip. Are you going to worry about how devils can fit inside those masksas well, or where the extra weight goes when QWuieen Motton transforms from grown woman to young child by eating a peach?
3. There really is no need to explain of justify the new character’s being Black, but if you insist and this is causing you to lose sleep at night, I might direct your attention to the fact that Solomon David is, uh, Black and this new character sort of seems in part his daughter, so what exactly is the problem? Not that it would be a problem anyway, and why does this bother you anyway?
4. Dreadlocks are bad because….why? What would you prefer – shaved Annie Lennox Eurythmics skull? (although she was pretty cute)No, actually, I don’t want to know. Astroturf wig? Abbadon pasting in adorable angle halo taken from a 1999 newspaper clip art book in every panel? (would save time by not drawing rest of character, just a floating halo. Similar dodge used by Gary Trudeau to conceal fact he can’t draw. Is you ultimate aim to have Gary Trudeau replace Abbadon as KSBD artist. This is an ambition that no one else wants to see. To be sure, you’d no long have to deal with body weight issues, ethnicity or hair styles, since a Trudeau KSBD would dispense with showing all of these, in favor of identical Xeroxed panel layouts and floating symbols for characters. But hey, no more dreadlocks!
Finally, people, on either the left or right, who insist on political posturing instead of aesthetics, suck. Uniformly. I don’t need anyone’s agitprop.
Why should she NOT be black? Especially when her soul form has always been portrayed with black features (such as an afro– admittedly, one full of eyes, but it was definitely not a white-leaning hairstyle)? I look forward to your attempt to explain this, especially if you intend to try to do it without looking like a sad racist. I’m sure it will be very entertaining.
Also have you ever like… *seen* a woman? In real life, and not in heavily Photoshopped online images?
I can’t help but notice the aura of people around Salami Dave that wasn’t there when white chain was moving past him as pure energy, to me that looks like a moment when his guard is down as has been teased.
I feel that he’ll turn around, go to attack her new form or be startled by it and stand still and either way it’ll become apparent that as she moved past she cut his cheek on the side we don’t see or something like that.
Also black trans women’s lives matter and white chain is looking amazingly beautiful in her new form.
I’m guessing what happened here is that White Chain successfully draws blood in panel 14. The prize is to have a wish granted, right? So either she deliberately wished for a body or it was such a powerful subconscious wish that it was immediately granted.
Regardless, absolutely amazing update and I’m eager for more as always!
I’m going to guess that WhiteChain has NOT drawn a drop of blood but HAS drawn a teardrop, and that this counts. Diamond is hard and unyielding but can be broken by insignificant force at a flaw. SDs love and grief for his lost wife and daughters is this flaw. I expect WC looks exactly like one of them.
Passing through mortal fear by integrity alone, Flame becomes flesh, and is exalted at last. It is an honor to witness, and this Aeon salutes from beyond.
So , she needs to breath. Which also means , probably , need to drink , eat , then go to restroom (what a disgusting necessity , when do we finally phase it out , darn ) . Poor angel. Oh , and she woman so there she gets periods , PMS , and all other “happines of being woman” stuff . Pooor , poor White Chain . My condolences .
Well, if critique is allowed and will not be screeched into oblivion, then I shall try this.
In short, pretty weak, pretty pandering.
Look, this flies in the face of the lesson that Alice was supposed to be receiving back in 10-140. Yes, something “miraculous” was hinted in 10-148, but at the same time it was also stated by Zoss that she could not be saved.
This is Alice’s terrible struggle? Her terrible fire? Watching someone else get what they want?
Contemplate this. What if White chain had died, well, got all busted up to dust, but, drew a drop of blood from Solomon? What then?
Well, He’d have a prize to give but no one to give it to, and worse, a victory that as Zoss stated, would show his foolish delusions of control. His rotting heaven. A prison that is the world.
And then, that opens up things, an invasion of heaven like Zoss once did? The rescue of not only White Chain, but also the other angels hammered by the Juggernaut Wheel?
Cio if you recall, was rebuilt, but was a completely new person because of it, only fragments of old. But that was a repair from without.
There could have been something grand, something like an Angel deciding what the shell would look like, deciding to proudly carve their own identity.
But now we can’t, as there were checkboxes to be ticked, a vocal minority to appease, and so we skip all that and land right at the end.
Bah, pandering. The only vaguely amusing thing is that in theory since the body resembles Solomon’s, and no doubt will have bloodied the man, that he in theory will abdicate and give the throne to the former White chain, who will no doubt be either a Davina, or Salome.
‘she can’t be saved’ is not actually what you read, whether or not it is what you understood from your reading.
Zoss said ‘*You* cannot save her.’ complete with ‘you’ being in italics. That’s a very different animal from what your reading produced, and absolutely correct; White Chain was always going to do this for herself. This story arc is clearly not about Alice.
Zoss also spoke to Alice -just- as she began to show the first glimmer of a halo, in a prison, in a sunbeam, upon doubting the very efficacy of violence in and of itself. She thought ‘what if this isn’t the way? what if power isn’t power at all?’ and that was the first time she felt a spark that either of us can recall. Thus, it seems that the truth of Alice’s story is *not* one of violence, but of opportunity, of perseverance, of willingness to be vulnerable, of eschewing the very thing everyone around her relentlessly pursues.
Both Alice and White Chain pursue violence: through violence, one makes space for herself (literally, not figuratively, to breathe), and one realizes that there is no forward path in fighting and that the pursuit of power and control are *the problem* as opposed to the solution everyone makes them out to be.
We have nothing to prove about Solomon’s rotting heaven; he *knows*, he just said as much to White Chain explicitly. He hopes upon hope that someone will come and unseat him. He fought with White Chain praying that she would be the one, and look at his expression in the fourth-to-last frame. I can interpret that pretty easily as ‘uh wait did something just get through?’; it’s possible that you have already got the drop of blood you’re asking for, or even that White Chain has wrested ‘blood’ out of Solomon in taking a piece of him in order to create an entirely new mode of existence for herself.
This whole story has been about subdivision, about the terror of loneliness (while all strive to be the last standing), beginning at the very outset with YISUN breaking into pieces so that they can know themselves.
Breaking as a path of becoming is *a thing* here; it’s not the first time we’ve seen it, but that is a central theme of the work rather than the primary character conceit of a washed-up old god whose days of possibility are far behind him.
This is -much- more in-character (and not at all pandering, our own biases hopefully aside) than the example you gave, both for Abbadon as an author and for KSBD as a continuing storyline and the Wheel as a piece of persistent worldbuilding.
Your suggestion is more like flogging a point that Solomon drives home every time he’s onscreen; his rotting prison *is* constantly all about him, more a companion to him than his halo, and at no point is he seen to be anything other than fundamentally empty as a result. We know that; it’s right in the text.
The culmination of White Chain’s disharmonious body/soul discrepancy is frankly phenomenal, and a whole new mode for her is much more interesting than her exit-stage-left, only to return in a later age. Or, for example, for having a vessel rebuilt by her friends, such to return to ‘life’ as a warrior… despite the fact that Allison is beginning to understand that her power is in sharing and not in perpetuating conflict (which insists, as always, upon itself).
I can see this speaking to a cis dude a lot less than it does to me, like… I get that. But experiences which are not yours and which differ from your expectations are not weak as a result of that difference; just the opposite. White Chain has had much to withstand, not least of which is weathering criticism regarding her fundamental self leveled at her every time she appears.
That speaks to -us-, and it’s far from weak.
I fucking *feel* that first breath after countless ages not knowing the meaning of the word. I have let out that very same breath, and I would know it anywhere.
So close, I must commend you on your efforts. And given the subject and characters it’s almost ironic, but mostly just amusing.
Most of what you said was an honest disagreement about the topic, which I really was hoping to have and see, but then you couldn’t resist and fell back to “my biases” and your assumptions of my gender, etc. etc.
As for your words, again it could have been so much more. White Chain wouldn’t have been dead, just back in that Angelic Penalty box, but, with both an Angelic witness (one who acknowledges her gender) and ostensibly an even more feminine appearance. There could have been a third side born, not just the old guard and the thorns. The great deviation that caused one side to become two could become three.
The struggle was the beauty, it was the point.
Cio’s struggle, Alice’s struggle, and sadly, White Chain’s no more.
Still, there’s only one real hope that could salvage this, but I doubt the creator of this story has the… courage to go that route. Pity.
You say you feel that breath and frankly I must be doubtful of that. You breathe all the time. I assume you mean the metaphor of breathing as you truly are, or some such. But she isn’t, as she isn’t an angel any more.
White Chain the angel represented either the third path of acceptance, instead of endurance and denial, or, could have been the first truly female angel, not an angel with a female form. The implications of that would have been boundless and terrifying. Could there be new angels, a new race? Would fresh eyes instead of endlessly recycled ones see things in a brace new world.
We shall never know.
As instead we have White Chain the human, the meat. No longer an angel, she is the result of fleeing being an angel, fleeing being what she was, denying who she was, and, finding solace as a human being. Female yes, but that is what I mean by the pandering, the assumption that gender, and ONLY gender, matters.
This will tell the other angels that there is no other solution, that there is only the duty, in one form or another, or as WC has done and fleeing even further than the other angels have done. Thorn angels still cling to a duty, even if it is different or abhorrent.
Oh, and don’t tell me “But she can still be an angel!” As it has been pointed out, angels are nuclear fire contained in shells. and even Devils barely manage to stay in humans for a short while due to their malleable nature and treating the human body like a mask.
White Chain can die now, not go to that Angelic penalty box, and she has what she’s always wanted to be, except that she hasn’t. Unless the story is now going to be about how she returns to being an angel, she’s fled.
Still, most of the story has been decent, it could recover.
And thank you for reply 2 Thralls of the Great Machine. Discourse, proper discourse is what makes the world go round.
I just wanted to chime in here with what I see having happened, since we will have to wait to learn the mechanics of it one way or the other. The way I interpreted this is that rather than going the route of angelic reset, White Chain has created and transferred (somehow) to a different body at the point where she would have been yanked back to the spiritual plane. Until it is explicitly stated, I don’t think the nature of her flame has been altered. She should still be a white hot flame inhabiting a material body.
One of the aspects brought up in a number of places as a problem with the angels is their rigidity, particularly mentally. From giving an angel a delicate comb way back to teach priorities and proportionality, to what we have been with White Chain breaking her own body by making choices that run contrary to the “contract/law” baked into her physical form, breaking this rigidity has been a definite thread throughout.
Gaining a flesh and blood shell, as opposed to one of rigid stone, is in keeping with this move towards flexible patterns of thought / becoming more like mortals. I personally would have made the form separate from existing races, distinguishing physical body angels as their own race/group, but this could still work.
I would argue similar themes have been played out through Cio moving away from the natural chaos of the black flame by valuing things like relationships instead of the extreme self serving individualism of demons. Down the line she may end up internalizing enough order / distinct values to not need a mask to have a stable mind and body, mirroring White Chain’s journey from the opposite side.
We shall indeed have to see, but unless there is a retcon, we know what happens to an angel with no shell, as Juggernaut has shown us, a nice big kaboom.
And to quote a certain Martian, where is the earth shattering kaboom?
Ergo, one can assume no longer an angel.
As I said, there’s only one real answer that the author can pull off if, and only if, White Chain remains an angel.
Your ability to miss the point, consistently, and with such enormous confidence is… well.. spectacular. Most amusing bit of this thread I must say. I particularly like how condescending you are to everyone who disagrees with you.
Good touch that. Really drives home that sense that you believe you are the only light of reason and truth around and that all others should simply bow to your lofty insights. The way it distracts from your abuse of ‘logic’ is artful. The fallacies, and hidden assumptions of your ‘arguments’ are so deftly swept over.
No one is really discussing this, it’s all lost in the noise of all the chanting of ‘thicc-ness’, or quoting lines from Videodrome.
And lets be honest, how many of them have actually watched that movie, or know of the massive negative connotations of appending flesh where it should not be?
As for my being condescending, well, at least monochromaticprism actually brought up a point, whereas you’ve not actually refuted, or disputed, or disproven anything of what I’ve said. You’ve only complimented me on how well I’m tolerating people like you.
I referred to our own biases – and when misquoting others it’s usually best not to use quotes as though you are repeating us – not to yours. I recognize that the way we are and the path we’ve taken makes for substantial differences between ourselves and others; my forthrightness in this sense is intentional, and if you see it as somehow disqualifying, I don’t know how you can purport to value discourse.
Yep, I assumed your gender. Felt pretty safe, considering. Feel free to correct me if you are not a cis dude.
It’s bizarre to me that you don’t see White Chain and her companions – right down to the one trucking around with Zoss’ key – as a significant force in the Universe (against Old Guard v. Thorns), nor that their process of becoming throughout the story somehow lessens them. That seems like dodging the point more than missing it. Further, the idea that she would be better off going through the usual channels which have so comprehensively failed her seems to misunderstand the concept of preexisting power structures and authority altogether.
As for an angelic nature, she doesn’t need to be an angel to be more than human. Angels are peerless combatants, but still, what is that up against Solomon? Nothing, and though Solomon is a demiurge, I do not believe I have seen anything which says humans cannot be demiurges, or that demiurges are inherently inhuman. Even if they are only the first, even if they are somehow immortal, demiurge is a status, a state, the possession of a Key or a Word, and their methodologies and constructions are diverse.
Also, the statement ‘different and abhorrent’ seems obvious but still uncomfortable.
The bit about fleeing from angelhood because only gender matters seems odd to me also. Are you under the impression that changing such an immutable thing about oneself is a method of *retreat*?
Do you consider Allison’s thoughts on violence (in that it is only useful to beget more violence, and thus nothing like true power at all) to be abdicating responsibility, or retreating from her destiny? It seems as though *that is her path*, not like changing from someone who fights into someone who prepares to fight but seeks peace is fleeing from anything.
White Chain has changed, without a doubt, but it seems telling to me (and this is where assuming your gender comes in, because it’s incredibly common) that you figure this is a reduction, a retreat, and not an act of defiance and a colossal blow against a structure from whence White Chain has, for eternities past and present together, never had the capacity to challenge.
Striking against a body of power – not a monarch in and of themselves, but the mantle of untouchability they construct between themselves and their society, their divine right – is a *grievous* blow, even when the monarch survives.
Knowing that -the queen can be killed- because she bled and screamed like any peasant would changes the way everyone she rules over sees her. Suddenly, vulnerability. Suddenly, all that inexorability evaporates. White Chain has struck a tremendous blow against a body of power.
As for Allison’s power and the way that this story arc is not about her: *Allison did this*. This is at least a partial result of Allison, sharing who she is with White Chain, and giving her enough heart to do something totally fucking unimaginable for anyone of her kind. She challenged White Chain in a totally novel way, and despite the fact that she did not punch the whole concept of Angels right in the face, she absolutely shook the foundations of their organization. No Angel has ever been otherwise. That’s -incredible-, and it’s the first step of a Demiurge (still a human!) coming into her true power.
And, with regard to breaths?
…yeah, I *do* know how that feels. Look down your nose all you like; I spent all my life not knowing the meaning of the word, and have recently taken my first real breath, *as us*. No bullshit. Nothing between us and what’s around us. Refusal to see the connection between White Chain’s arrival in her new state and a trans woman’s experience of same is not a rebuttal, and you have no agency in terms of how we see our new life, or how we celebrate a character’s who we have invested in and seen ourselves in.
You can thank me for proper discourse by not treating everyone you talk to like a bunch of assholes, or us like our having an existence outside of Cold Logic and Direct Reading of the Word As Written in itself disqualifies everything we think.
You’re not the Bearer of the Word Truth, and neither are we, and neither is anyone else who claims to be.
The part that confuses me– aside from your insistence that speaking to people’s experiences of transition is pandering to a “lower” impulse, which perhaps is less confusing than it is *insulting*– is that you can’t imagine how White Chain could possibly have any further struggles after this moment.
First of all, she’s got to deal with the immediate problem of “how the hell is Solomon going to react to what just happened,” which is VERY much up in the air. Then, she has to deal with how her entire *race* is going to deal with what just happened– her existence may well prompt a civil war between the angels who support her and those who see her as a dangerous aberration. Also, she and the rest of the gang have to deal with how the other Demiurges are going to react to what just happened, and continue with Allison’s quest, which is, after all, still a thing.
Just because a character has reached a goal, doesn’t mean they suddenly fall out of the story or lose the ability to interact with the other characters’ goals and storylines. Even her own individual storyline isn’t *done*– with this goal being such a revolutionary one within the story’s world, its fulfillment will have reverberating repercussions for everyone, particularly White Chain.
The alternative to having various characters achieve their various goals at different points throughout the story is to either leave things unfulfilled (which is often disappointing to readers) or have everything wrapped up all at once in a nice tidy bow at the end, which tends to read as mere convenient artifice even when done well. In a work with as vibrant a world and as many characters and stories as this one has, an all-at-once wrap-up would not only be strange, but challenging to write without it being a giant mess.
It seems that, in an attempt to argue against “pandering,” you’ve tricked yourself into arguing *for* unimaginative, trite storytelling. Or do you really believe that Abbadon lacks the creativity to continue to challenge White Chain in an interesting way after the most momentous change in her very long life?
Your assertion that White Chain is “done” is just… baffling. You complained about people “assuming your gender,” but your insistence that *she’s transitioned now, everything’s done, story’s over, nowhere to go from here* really does betray that you have never experienced a transition or even witnessed one in real life, nor have you likely read much about them either, nor seen them depicted in other narratives. You seem to have quite the analytical and argumentative chops, but logic often does a poor job of filling in for gaps in experience, and also tends to blind the viewer to the way their own train of thought is twisting in upon itself. It’s a problem that plagues far too many intelligent and well-educated people, and contributes to those people’s vulnerability to manipulation.
So, until we get to see where Abbadon is *actually* going with this, please refrain from projecting your lack of experience and your inability to imagine a path forward from here onto the existing narrative. Acknowledging that you don’t know something is surprisingly empowering, and opens up new realms of imagination and understanding that I think you will enjoy exploring, should you allow yourself to access them.
You sure like to use the word “pandering”. Can you explain what makes it different from “catering”? Is it just when it’s catering to people you don’t like?
I like to use words that are applicable to what is being shown.
And as to what makes it different from ‘catering’, why very little.
In fact, a good example can be found in the free dictionary.
2. To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses: “He refused to pander to nostalgia and escapism”
Except here, there is no refusal.
Now, for catering, I can understand what you think, at least I think that I think I do so. As a verb, “To attend to the wants or needs of.” implies that there is a want or a need for White Chain to finally get what she wants.
And so, if this is indeed catering, and you have been catered to, where do you see White Chain going from here? Doing from here? She’s on a mortal clock now, unless she rips out the beanie from Solomon, and even with that form of immortality, she is Angel no longer.
And being Angel no longer, for she has burned everything she was, everything she could represent or become, she has nowhere to go next.
As I said, the struggle was the beauty, it was the point.
I don’t think you get to decide what “the point” is. Not for others, and not for the author.
Likewise, dismissing things you don’t agree with as “pandering” doesn’t make you correct. It just makes you shallow, and lacking in any true insight of the world around you.
Carry on, though. Your commitment to error isn’t something I expect to change.
Indeed, Does the Fool recognize itself for what it is?, Indeed.
But sadly that includes you as well.
And while I cannot decide upon the point of the author, I can respectfully disagree with what I see. And you can disagree with my disagreement.
That’s how a dialogue works.
Please, tell me where is my commitment to error is. It’s clearly readily obvious to you, as you mentioned it so. And if I’m lacking any true insight of the world around me, which you must undoubtedly have to declare that, you can instruct me, right?
Just jumping on this with a question: KSBD is ending soon :(, with the next book. If that 5th book ended with “and the heroes won and everything was perfect”, you would feel cheated, right? (I know I would).
If the 5th book ended with “the heroes ‘won’ but their struggles for justice/peace/whatever are not yet over and they must continue to work for their goals, as we all must to create a better world)”, would you see that as pandering?
If the 5th book ended with “the heroes didn’t ‘win’, but are still alive and can keep struggling, as we all must to create a better world”, would you find that satisfactory?
Or would you only like the ending if the 5th book ended as “they lost, and the cycle begins anew”?
I’m not attacking you for which one (or ones!) you’d like–with different media I’ve landed in different places on this sorta sliding-scale-of-happy-endings myself! I just want to know where you are for KSBD. (I would probably be varying degrees of satisfied with any but the first one).
31 Dragon Eats Mayfly, that is indeed something that worries me.
I, under a different name, was quite against the one year time passing, as it removed Alice from being our gateway into the new and bizarre world that we were seeing.
Now that she’s been there a year, we no longer have that, and the people, the actions, and all of that cannot venture too far into the depths of the uncanny like before. No more eating little blue demons while being friends with a big blue demon and so on. When has anyone been called “Preem”?
And then we get a tournament battle.
It’s becoming more and more digestible, more… catering, to bring this back to Amelie W’s initial response to mine.
As for if it ends on the fifth book, that’s something I’m not too worried about. It’s a webcomic, and those can go on for quite a long time, whether as one story or many.
But to answer your question, IF it ended on the 5th book, five of seven demiurges met, the best ending I could see would be something more along the lines of either a retreat to earth due to a tragedy, leading to an uncertain future, or, a breaking of the seven demiurges down to three, then to one, and then something more out of the last question.
Most creation stories of such a cyclical nature end as thus.
I hope this answered you adequately 31 Dragon Eats Mayfly, but if not, I’ll try again.
Thanks for the prompt response! I was really asking you that question with an ulterior motive–if the KSBD ended in either of your “best endings”, would that not be catering (in your definition) to your own feeling, wants, or needs?
I think catering/pandering are weighty accusations to throw against any media: personally, I don’t think either happen unless by giving the audience (or parts of the audience) what they want the author subverts their own work and narrative. (Making the audience want something is in some ways an essential part of any good art, right?)
And in this case, I don’t think Abbadon has subverted their work. When we meet White Chain, she is a by-the-book servant of the law, in denial about her own discomfort within the law. Her first actions with Allison are about returning things to the status quo–she seeks to return the Key of Kings to prevent universal war.
Her first step in her struggle is when she acknowledges (after meeting Metatron) that the status quo is not good: things must change. Specifically, she mentions how while she may not agree with the royalists and the thorns, she thinks action (struggle) is better then the complacency of the non-aligned angels. (Book 2, 3-59)
White Chain’s next step in her struggle comes around when Juggernaut and her enter Mottom’s palace, and she makes a commitment to defend life in her struggle (B2, 5-85).
She doesn’t get a ton of character development in Book 3, but we do get a interesting angry outburst from her about that conflict between the supposedly immutable nature of angels, her growing humanity, (B3 6-67) and the growing need for change (and her prior commitment to protecting life, as Nyave stops her!) (B3 7-80 to 7-81).
In Book 4, White Chain starts off as still largely cautious of change: she sees Allison as reckless, she is wondering whether she is doing the right thing, and she even forgets her oath on the comb of Prim (B4 9-120 to 121)–partly because she misunderstands Vigilant’s advice in 9-106; as she doesn’t realize that she too is a work of god.
This prompts her to take the next step in her struggle by acknowledging that the problem of the current system is not just within the non-aligned angels, or even all angels, but the Wheel itself–Solomon David, the demiurges, and most crucially for this step, herself. She is that oppressive system, and she resolves to fight it with every fiber of her being (B4 10-137)
I think where you and I might diverge is in this next part–I don’t think White Chain has lost her flame (and I even think she still counts as an angel or some sort of hybrid, though we will need to wait to see the aftermath to really determine that), and I don’t think flesh is inherently corruptible–the universe would not be perfect if it was run by angels, and while Allison is inexperienced and hasty, she has a honest and sincere desire to avoid violence that seems unshaken by Incubus urging her on, or even her merge with Cio. (see her conversation with Zoss + Incubus on B4 10-139). I don’t think that flesh is inherently lesser than angels and don’t view White Chains transformation as a downgrade or a retreat–after all, Zoss slew all the Primes!
In this context, White Chain’s transformation doesn’t subvert Abbadon’s main message that you must struggle, act decisively, and understand that your only true control is over yourself, and those are the ways through which you break cycles (or perhaps systems?) (these messages are drawn from Zoss’s appearances, since he seems to be a sort of author avatar/mentor).
In fact, the transformation lines up almost perfectly with Zoss’s title drop in Book 2: “By Names she cuts the world as she pleases and she cuts herself into greater forms still. She is not shaped by the world, but instead becomes the Shaper…” (B2 5-95). White Chain has taken the step in her struggle of literally breaking free of the remnant of the angelic status quo that unshackles her (remember, “This shell is not my body” B4 9-124).
Finally, her struggle is not over. Her body is not the sole problem–the problem is that aforementioned system of fear and oppression, and even if she were to defeat Solomon (which, let’s be honest, how many demiurges have the main party defeated thus far?), the rest of the demiurges are still around, and all the minor warlords, and all the people who use their powers to control people, and all the factions of angels, and Metatron himself. Succeeding in this small way is does not mean her struggle is over.
Finally Finally, (whoops), while I think it could be emotionally satisfying if done well, I highly doubt this will end with a return to the cycle. All of Zoss’s appearances imply that the Rising King has risen and failed before, and that Zoss is trying to get Allison to break this cycle where he can’t, as “He who masters the wheel cannot Break it.” (B4 10-141). (in this sense, if White Chain is indeed mortal, she has broken the cycle of angelic life).
TL;DR: White Chain’s transformation isn’t pandering or catering, because it makes logical sense as a progression of the narrative arc of her character and while it makes the audience happy, it doesn’t do so at the expense of the story, but in service to the story. Now, if you reply to this tonight, I will sadly NOT respond tonight because I have a final I need to take tomorrow morning and I have procrastinated on my studying for far too long!!!
Thanks for that entirely unclear answer. I guess the dictionary has all your opinions in it and I should just read that instead of having this conversation. As to your question, I can’t accept its premise because I recognize I actually don’t know what’s going on in this scene.
Did I not answer the difference between pandering and catering? That was what you asked.
And yes, a dictionary is good for defining words, that’s what it’s for.
If it was a passive-aggressive way of asking me what I, Bob, would have wanted instead of what you got, then by all means ask me that directly. No need to mince around the question.
What I was hoping to see was something more along the lines of White Chain going through a living Kintsugi, and becoming greater in the process.
I was hoping to see an Angel finally carve itself into what it wanted to be, not flee from itself and accept the casting of flesh and feeble flame.
Not really. But it does tell me you’re complaining about not getting the thing you wanted before you can know you’re not getting the thing you wanted. Almost like the thing you say you don’t like isn’t really what you don’t like at all.
Going through that much art and drama to create White Chain in the meat, shows that the transition is likely going to stick. One doesn’t do that many pages of art and call it an APOTHEOSIS and then do a takebacksie.
As I said, I sincerely doubt the author is going to go the way of a single perfect breath.
Or in Amelie speak, The thing I say I don’t like is in fact what I don’t like.
Let’s see, White Chain is going through some magical transformation that’s never happened in this multiverse before, a process we can only guess at, for reasons we can only guess at, fueled by energies we can only guess at, with consequences we can only guess at except it seems she has incarnated in a humanoid body, in the middle of a fight that’s probably taking place outside of time against a guy who can explode suns with his martial art and whose mental and physical state at the moment we can only guess at.
But sure, all her struggles are “likely” over. It’s “likely” a cheap ploy to appease us nasty loud trans people, based on the timing with which the pages have been published. I can almost buy you’re just being presumptuous, rather than trying to undermine this gorgeous trans representation behind your fake polite bloviations.
42 Fragments the Universe Beyond All Reintegration
Agreed that we can’t know what will happen; the possible outcomes are too many and the clues too ambiguous. One possible outcome is that White Chain *is* now mortal and will not survive to the end of the book. Solomon could still turn round and end her, permanently.
I’ve been expecting something like this. A while back, Abaddon posted a podcast praising authors who have the fortitude to permakill a major character and I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. This would be the exact opposite of pandering. (Where exactly *is* Abaddon’s windmill?)
And if the author went with your preferred direction, how would that not be pandering as well?
I think you’ve accepted the in-world logic of the angels themselves about the relative hierarchy and nature of the different races. It’s not necessarily true. It’s more likely to all be lies. All is YISUN, and all these sharp divisions, all “this cannot be that”, are just lies. The rules are self-imposed boundaries. All the races are described as flames, whether hot or cold, black or white, but all still flames. What if it’s instead a spectrum, rather than hard divisions? Devils have already been described as feeding off the cooler flames of the other races to maintain their forms, and I believe there was something about humans making too many pacts with devils might turn into one themselves.
Why are you so certain that White Chain is no longer an angel, or has “fled”, rather than ascended? The page title is “apotheosis”, after all. If she’s no longer an Angel, she’s more likely a god than a human. I think she has carved herself into what she wanted to be, and I don’t see how you could have read the comic and gotten a different impression of what she wanted.
Feel free to write a story that satisfies your needs, I suppose?
This story is (probably) going a different direction, and to label it ‘pandering’ because you think it’s an ‘easy’ direction or at the behest of some ‘boxes to be checked’… well, that tells me a lot about how you view White Chain and people like her, who struggle with feeling foreign in their own bodies.
You seem to think that struggle or difficulty are the core of ‘higher’ storytelling (though feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about your thoughts there), but consider: people like White Chain HAVE struggled. Struggle is their whole lives.
Maybe this part of White Chain’s story, her apotheosis, feels more satisfying and meaningful to them than it does to you, because they’re sick and tired of that struggle? Sometimes, it’s just nice to see someone facing problems somewhat like your own get that cathartic moment of total victory.
Sorry if that disappoints you, but not every story can be everything for every person, and not many stories in history have been something made for those certain, struggling people.
Two thoughts: 1. White Chain may have used Solomon David’s genes to create her own body. In that case, she may very well look a lot like his daughters – the ones who were murdered and who’re the reason he’s never ever, fathered daughters again. When he sees her, he may well FLIP comletely! That’s one way to make him lose control.
2. In the last panel White Chain is bvery markedly breathing out. Does this mean she’s breaking the Ki Rata timestop? Will they suddenly fall back into normal time? And how will the spectators react to that?
I think what we are seeing in the last panel is White Chain’s first breath, which is a very moving metaphor when you think about it: millions (billions?) of years old and finally taking a breath for the first time.
In the very first scene where Allison meets White Chain the first time, White Chain makes a HUFF sound, which makes me think angels still use air to talk, even if they don’t need to breathe.
So I’m skeptical this is her first breath.
Then again, White Chain has also smiled more frequently than thought so it might also be artist oversight?
Fascinating theory. And weirdly possible, given that she just sort of collapsed phases through him. Honestly the physics aren’t really something we know about since this doesn’t happen, as a rule.
BTW, I love the look on SD’s face in the fourth panel. He looks like he’s loving the fact that WC is surprising him AGAIN by moving in his Ki Rata timestop.
After a couple days for this to soak in, it just hit me that being flesh and bone is gonna be a weird experience. Needing to breath, hot/cold, food/water and the results, gonna be a lot to get used to.
It will be worse than that monochromaticprism, so much worse.
What happens when she sleeps that first time? Dreams that first time?
How many millions of years of perfect memory will be subjected to the whims of a brain that routinely forgets, and re-imagines, and produces falsehoods?
How long until the next meal, the next warm bed, the next offered body, the next hit of drugs, becomes all that matters to a being that never experienced it. In. The. Flesh.
Willpower is easy for an Angel, they are literally duty and flame placed into a statue. Willpower for a human though?
There’s a reason why robots and angels and all sorts of beings being brought into a meaty existence in all the stories die horribly.
… right. So. Just finished binging the entire series so far and I’m blown away. This is, by far, the best webcomic I have ever read and I’ve been devouring them since the ye olden days of the internet.
Thank you so much for this, and I’ll be watching this religiously.
OH!
the prize is your heart’s desire/wish, is this what she wanted?
Wish granting’s a bit more instantaneous than I thought.
Y’all are over thinking this.
Becoming human was just what her powers brought about. Her wish was for the Cornrows.
Didn’t he say that anyone who managed to hurt him would get whatever it was they desired??
i think she got that one drop of blood from him just now
and the energy made a body ?
From the way she looks now, White Chain has surely taken something from Solomon that would qualify as a drop of blood. Will she demand more from his pledge than just her miraculous new bod? Would that be unhumble?
Seems to me that Dave still has some big bills to pay, and Foxy Chain may be the one to make him do it.
My mind is absolutely boggled by the metaphysical implications of this one page.
What I’m wondering is what she did to him on the way through?
Is he going to turn around and make another of his pretentious declarations (pretentious in that he pretends that he is anything other than a very powerful thug), or is he going to find that she took something from him on the way through, and that losing it was unpleasant?
Why make her fat? Why make her fatter than HER SHELL? Why Black? Why dreadlocks of all things?
This is my first complaint. But this is big.
Do you SEE her abs?
Excuse me?
Do you have any concept of what muscle looks like? At all??? Secondly, why the fuck does it matter if she’s black, has dreadlocks, or is overweight (even though she still isn’t)? Learn to accept more diverse characters, appearances, and experiences in storytelling, and you’ll be the better for it. It’s a badass look for a badass lady.
Huh.
Well, this might be the thing that gets Solomon’s focus to be disrupted for a second.
1. If you think that’s fat, you live in a strange world indeed.
2. This seems like a strange time to get picky about body size/shell size issues, given that the entire run of the webcomic has been presenting the reader with physical impossibilities of all kinds in practicall every strip. Are you going to worry about how devils can fit inside those masksas well, or where the extra weight goes when QWuieen Motton transforms from grown woman to young child by eating a peach?
3. There really is no need to explain of justify the new character’s being Black, but if you insist and this is causing you to lose sleep at night, I might direct your attention to the fact that Solomon David is, uh, Black and this new character sort of seems in part his daughter, so what exactly is the problem? Not that it would be a problem anyway, and why does this bother you anyway?
4. Dreadlocks are bad because….why? What would you prefer – shaved Annie Lennox Eurythmics skull? (although she was pretty cute)No, actually, I don’t want to know. Astroturf wig? Abbadon pasting in adorable angle halo taken from a 1999 newspaper clip art book in every panel? (would save time by not drawing rest of character, just a floating halo. Similar dodge used by Gary Trudeau to conceal fact he can’t draw. Is you ultimate aim to have Gary Trudeau replace Abbadon as KSBD artist. This is an ambition that no one else wants to see. To be sure, you’d no long have to deal with body weight issues, ethnicity or hair styles, since a Trudeau KSBD would dispense with showing all of these, in favor of identical Xeroxed panel layouts and floating symbols for characters. But hey, no more dreadlocks!
Finally, people, on either the left or right, who insist on political posturing instead of aesthetics, suck. Uniformly. I don’t need anyone’s agitprop.
come on guy those are box braids not dreads
Why should she NOT be black? Especially when her soul form has always been portrayed with black features (such as an afro– admittedly, one full of eyes, but it was definitely not a white-leaning hairstyle)? I look forward to your attempt to explain this, especially if you intend to try to do it without looking like a sad racist. I’m sure it will be very entertaining.
Also have you ever like… *seen* a woman? In real life, and not in heavily Photoshopped online images?
Dear TOG, I must take you fishing one day.
Where is that fat you speak of? I see only muscle.
As to why her new body is black and with locks, it’s obviously because she got it from going through SD’s body.
I can’t help but notice the aura of people around Salami Dave that wasn’t there when white chain was moving past him as pure energy, to me that looks like a moment when his guard is down as has been teased.
I feel that he’ll turn around, go to attack her new form or be startled by it and stand still and either way it’ll become apparent that as she moved past she cut his cheek on the side we don’t see or something like that.
Also black trans women’s lives matter and white chain is looking amazingly beautiful in her new form.
Wowza!
I’m guessing what happened here is that White Chain successfully draws blood in panel 14. The prize is to have a wish granted, right? So either she deliberately wished for a body or it was such a powerful subconscious wish that it was immediately granted.
Regardless, absolutely amazing update and I’m eager for more as always!
Just from this all of us are winners.
“The Power of Youth Explodes” starts playing…
I’m going to guess that WhiteChain has NOT drawn a drop of blood but HAS drawn a teardrop, and that this counts. Diamond is hard and unyielding but can be broken by insignificant force at a flaw. SDs love and grief for his lost wife and daughters is this flaw. I expect WC looks exactly like one of them.
FUCK YOU NOW I CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT DEATH BY SNU SNU
YES!
FUUUUUUCKKKKKK!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
WIELD THAT FUCKING BLADE OF WANT!
REACH HEAVEN THROUGH VIOLENCE!
AND TEAR IT TO ATOMS!
I believe that this entire ‘want’ thing is getting entirely too out of hand. But I am not fated to stop it sadly; thus I move on.
Also, she’s quite cute for a recently transitional humanoid flame to fleshy human.
WHWOOOOOOAHHHHHAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTT!
Passing through mortal fear by integrity alone, Flame becomes flesh, and is exalted at last. It is an honor to witness, and this Aeon salutes from beyond.
So , she needs to breath. Which also means , probably , need to drink , eat , then go to restroom (what a disgusting necessity , when do we finally phase it out , darn ) . Poor angel. Oh , and she woman so there she gets periods , PMS , and all other “happines of being woman” stuff . Pooor , poor White Chain . My condolences .
Being made of meat does have some perks, you know.
Well, if critique is allowed and will not be screeched into oblivion, then I shall try this.
In short, pretty weak, pretty pandering.
Look, this flies in the face of the lesson that Alice was supposed to be receiving back in 10-140. Yes, something “miraculous” was hinted in 10-148, but at the same time it was also stated by Zoss that she could not be saved.
This is Alice’s terrible struggle? Her terrible fire? Watching someone else get what they want?
Contemplate this. What if White chain had died, well, got all busted up to dust, but, drew a drop of blood from Solomon? What then?
Well, He’d have a prize to give but no one to give it to, and worse, a victory that as Zoss stated, would show his foolish delusions of control. His rotting heaven. A prison that is the world.
And then, that opens up things, an invasion of heaven like Zoss once did? The rescue of not only White Chain, but also the other angels hammered by the Juggernaut Wheel?
Cio if you recall, was rebuilt, but was a completely new person because of it, only fragments of old. But that was a repair from without.
There could have been something grand, something like an Angel deciding what the shell would look like, deciding to proudly carve their own identity.
But now we can’t, as there were checkboxes to be ticked, a vocal minority to appease, and so we skip all that and land right at the end.
Bah, pandering. The only vaguely amusing thing is that in theory since the body resembles Solomon’s, and no doubt will have bloodied the man, that he in theory will abdicate and give the throne to the former White chain, who will no doubt be either a Davina, or Salome.
Aside of that, pretty weak, and pretty pandering.
‘she can’t be saved’ is not actually what you read, whether or not it is what you understood from your reading.
Zoss said ‘*You* cannot save her.’ complete with ‘you’ being in italics. That’s a very different animal from what your reading produced, and absolutely correct; White Chain was always going to do this for herself. This story arc is clearly not about Alice.
Zoss also spoke to Alice -just- as she began to show the first glimmer of a halo, in a prison, in a sunbeam, upon doubting the very efficacy of violence in and of itself. She thought ‘what if this isn’t the way? what if power isn’t power at all?’ and that was the first time she felt a spark that either of us can recall. Thus, it seems that the truth of Alice’s story is *not* one of violence, but of opportunity, of perseverance, of willingness to be vulnerable, of eschewing the very thing everyone around her relentlessly pursues.
Both Alice and White Chain pursue violence: through violence, one makes space for herself (literally, not figuratively, to breathe), and one realizes that there is no forward path in fighting and that the pursuit of power and control are *the problem* as opposed to the solution everyone makes them out to be.
We have nothing to prove about Solomon’s rotting heaven; he *knows*, he just said as much to White Chain explicitly. He hopes upon hope that someone will come and unseat him. He fought with White Chain praying that she would be the one, and look at his expression in the fourth-to-last frame. I can interpret that pretty easily as ‘uh wait did something just get through?’; it’s possible that you have already got the drop of blood you’re asking for, or even that White Chain has wrested ‘blood’ out of Solomon in taking a piece of him in order to create an entirely new mode of existence for herself.
This whole story has been about subdivision, about the terror of loneliness (while all strive to be the last standing), beginning at the very outset with YISUN breaking into pieces so that they can know themselves.
Breaking as a path of becoming is *a thing* here; it’s not the first time we’ve seen it, but that is a central theme of the work rather than the primary character conceit of a washed-up old god whose days of possibility are far behind him.
This is -much- more in-character (and not at all pandering, our own biases hopefully aside) than the example you gave, both for Abbadon as an author and for KSBD as a continuing storyline and the Wheel as a piece of persistent worldbuilding.
Your suggestion is more like flogging a point that Solomon drives home every time he’s onscreen; his rotting prison *is* constantly all about him, more a companion to him than his halo, and at no point is he seen to be anything other than fundamentally empty as a result. We know that; it’s right in the text.
The culmination of White Chain’s disharmonious body/soul discrepancy is frankly phenomenal, and a whole new mode for her is much more interesting than her exit-stage-left, only to return in a later age. Or, for example, for having a vessel rebuilt by her friends, such to return to ‘life’ as a warrior… despite the fact that Allison is beginning to understand that her power is in sharing and not in perpetuating conflict (which insists, as always, upon itself).
I can see this speaking to a cis dude a lot less than it does to me, like… I get that. But experiences which are not yours and which differ from your expectations are not weak as a result of that difference; just the opposite. White Chain has had much to withstand, not least of which is weathering criticism regarding her fundamental self leveled at her every time she appears.
That speaks to -us-, and it’s far from weak.
I fucking *feel* that first breath after countless ages not knowing the meaning of the word. I have let out that very same breath, and I would know it anywhere.
So close, I must commend you on your efforts. And given the subject and characters it’s almost ironic, but mostly just amusing.
Most of what you said was an honest disagreement about the topic, which I really was hoping to have and see, but then you couldn’t resist and fell back to “my biases” and your assumptions of my gender, etc. etc.
As for your words, again it could have been so much more. White Chain wouldn’t have been dead, just back in that Angelic Penalty box, but, with both an Angelic witness (one who acknowledges her gender) and ostensibly an even more feminine appearance. There could have been a third side born, not just the old guard and the thorns. The great deviation that caused one side to become two could become three.
The struggle was the beauty, it was the point.
Cio’s struggle, Alice’s struggle, and sadly, White Chain’s no more.
Still, there’s only one real hope that could salvage this, but I doubt the creator of this story has the… courage to go that route. Pity.
You say you feel that breath and frankly I must be doubtful of that. You breathe all the time. I assume you mean the metaphor of breathing as you truly are, or some such. But she isn’t, as she isn’t an angel any more.
White Chain the angel represented either the third path of acceptance, instead of endurance and denial, or, could have been the first truly female angel, not an angel with a female form. The implications of that would have been boundless and terrifying. Could there be new angels, a new race? Would fresh eyes instead of endlessly recycled ones see things in a brace new world.
We shall never know.
As instead we have White Chain the human, the meat. No longer an angel, she is the result of fleeing being an angel, fleeing being what she was, denying who she was, and, finding solace as a human being. Female yes, but that is what I mean by the pandering, the assumption that gender, and ONLY gender, matters.
This will tell the other angels that there is no other solution, that there is only the duty, in one form or another, or as WC has done and fleeing even further than the other angels have done. Thorn angels still cling to a duty, even if it is different or abhorrent.
Oh, and don’t tell me “But she can still be an angel!” As it has been pointed out, angels are nuclear fire contained in shells. and even Devils barely manage to stay in humans for a short while due to their malleable nature and treating the human body like a mask.
White Chain can die now, not go to that Angelic penalty box, and she has what she’s always wanted to be, except that she hasn’t. Unless the story is now going to be about how she returns to being an angel, she’s fled.
Still, most of the story has been decent, it could recover.
And thank you for reply 2 Thralls of the Great Machine. Discourse, proper discourse is what makes the world go round.
Regards,
Bob
Hey Bob,
I just wanted to chime in here with what I see having happened, since we will have to wait to learn the mechanics of it one way or the other. The way I interpreted this is that rather than going the route of angelic reset, White Chain has created and transferred (somehow) to a different body at the point where she would have been yanked back to the spiritual plane. Until it is explicitly stated, I don’t think the nature of her flame has been altered. She should still be a white hot flame inhabiting a material body.
One of the aspects brought up in a number of places as a problem with the angels is their rigidity, particularly mentally. From giving an angel a delicate comb way back to teach priorities and proportionality, to what we have been with White Chain breaking her own body by making choices that run contrary to the “contract/law” baked into her physical form, breaking this rigidity has been a definite thread throughout.
Gaining a flesh and blood shell, as opposed to one of rigid stone, is in keeping with this move towards flexible patterns of thought / becoming more like mortals. I personally would have made the form separate from existing races, distinguishing physical body angels as their own race/group, but this could still work.
I would argue similar themes have been played out through Cio moving away from the natural chaos of the black flame by valuing things like relationships instead of the extreme self serving individualism of demons. Down the line she may end up internalizing enough order / distinct values to not need a mask to have a stable mind and body, mirroring White Chain’s journey from the opposite side.
Hello monochromaticprism,
We shall indeed have to see, but unless there is a retcon, we know what happens to an angel with no shell, as Juggernaut has shown us, a nice big kaboom.
And to quote a certain Martian, where is the earth shattering kaboom?
Ergo, one can assume no longer an angel.
As I said, there’s only one real answer that the author can pull off if, and only if, White Chain remains an angel.
A single breath.
Hi Bob,
Your ability to miss the point, consistently, and with such enormous confidence is… well.. spectacular. Most amusing bit of this thread I must say. I particularly like how condescending you are to everyone who disagrees with you.
Good touch that. Really drives home that sense that you believe you are the only light of reason and truth around and that all others should simply bow to your lofty insights. The way it distracts from your abuse of ‘logic’ is artful. The fallacies, and hidden assumptions of your ‘arguments’ are so deftly swept over.
Keep it up! Most amusing!
Well, someone has to B. Dobbs.
No one is really discussing this, it’s all lost in the noise of all the chanting of ‘thicc-ness’, or quoting lines from Videodrome.
And lets be honest, how many of them have actually watched that movie, or know of the massive negative connotations of appending flesh where it should not be?
As for my being condescending, well, at least monochromaticprism actually brought up a point, whereas you’ve not actually refuted, or disputed, or disproven anything of what I’ve said. You’ve only complimented me on how well I’m tolerating people like you.
And for that, you’re welcome.
Regards,
Bob
Either stop kvetching or get a room, you two. :p
I referred to our own biases – and when misquoting others it’s usually best not to use quotes as though you are repeating us – not to yours. I recognize that the way we are and the path we’ve taken makes for substantial differences between ourselves and others; my forthrightness in this sense is intentional, and if you see it as somehow disqualifying, I don’t know how you can purport to value discourse.
Yep, I assumed your gender. Felt pretty safe, considering. Feel free to correct me if you are not a cis dude.
It’s bizarre to me that you don’t see White Chain and her companions – right down to the one trucking around with Zoss’ key – as a significant force in the Universe (against Old Guard v. Thorns), nor that their process of becoming throughout the story somehow lessens them. That seems like dodging the point more than missing it. Further, the idea that she would be better off going through the usual channels which have so comprehensively failed her seems to misunderstand the concept of preexisting power structures and authority altogether.
As for an angelic nature, she doesn’t need to be an angel to be more than human. Angels are peerless combatants, but still, what is that up against Solomon? Nothing, and though Solomon is a demiurge, I do not believe I have seen anything which says humans cannot be demiurges, or that demiurges are inherently inhuman. Even if they are only the first, even if they are somehow immortal, demiurge is a status, a state, the possession of a Key or a Word, and their methodologies and constructions are diverse.
Also, the statement ‘different and abhorrent’ seems obvious but still uncomfortable.
The bit about fleeing from angelhood because only gender matters seems odd to me also. Are you under the impression that changing such an immutable thing about oneself is a method of *retreat*?
Do you consider Allison’s thoughts on violence (in that it is only useful to beget more violence, and thus nothing like true power at all) to be abdicating responsibility, or retreating from her destiny? It seems as though *that is her path*, not like changing from someone who fights into someone who prepares to fight but seeks peace is fleeing from anything.
White Chain has changed, without a doubt, but it seems telling to me (and this is where assuming your gender comes in, because it’s incredibly common) that you figure this is a reduction, a retreat, and not an act of defiance and a colossal blow against a structure from whence White Chain has, for eternities past and present together, never had the capacity to challenge.
Striking against a body of power – not a monarch in and of themselves, but the mantle of untouchability they construct between themselves and their society, their divine right – is a *grievous* blow, even when the monarch survives.
Knowing that -the queen can be killed- because she bled and screamed like any peasant would changes the way everyone she rules over sees her. Suddenly, vulnerability. Suddenly, all that inexorability evaporates. White Chain has struck a tremendous blow against a body of power.
As for Allison’s power and the way that this story arc is not about her: *Allison did this*. This is at least a partial result of Allison, sharing who she is with White Chain, and giving her enough heart to do something totally fucking unimaginable for anyone of her kind. She challenged White Chain in a totally novel way, and despite the fact that she did not punch the whole concept of Angels right in the face, she absolutely shook the foundations of their organization. No Angel has ever been otherwise. That’s -incredible-, and it’s the first step of a Demiurge (still a human!) coming into her true power.
And, with regard to breaths?
…yeah, I *do* know how that feels. Look down your nose all you like; I spent all my life not knowing the meaning of the word, and have recently taken my first real breath, *as us*. No bullshit. Nothing between us and what’s around us. Refusal to see the connection between White Chain’s arrival in her new state and a trans woman’s experience of same is not a rebuttal, and you have no agency in terms of how we see our new life, or how we celebrate a character’s who we have invested in and seen ourselves in.
As a secondary, much less verbose reply:
You can thank me for proper discourse by not treating everyone you talk to like a bunch of assholes, or us like our having an existence outside of Cold Logic and Direct Reading of the Word As Written in itself disqualifies everything we think.
You’re not the Bearer of the Word Truth, and neither are we, and neither is anyone else who claims to be.
The part that confuses me– aside from your insistence that speaking to people’s experiences of transition is pandering to a “lower” impulse, which perhaps is less confusing than it is *insulting*– is that you can’t imagine how White Chain could possibly have any further struggles after this moment.
First of all, she’s got to deal with the immediate problem of “how the hell is Solomon going to react to what just happened,” which is VERY much up in the air. Then, she has to deal with how her entire *race* is going to deal with what just happened– her existence may well prompt a civil war between the angels who support her and those who see her as a dangerous aberration. Also, she and the rest of the gang have to deal with how the other Demiurges are going to react to what just happened, and continue with Allison’s quest, which is, after all, still a thing.
Just because a character has reached a goal, doesn’t mean they suddenly fall out of the story or lose the ability to interact with the other characters’ goals and storylines. Even her own individual storyline isn’t *done*– with this goal being such a revolutionary one within the story’s world, its fulfillment will have reverberating repercussions for everyone, particularly White Chain.
The alternative to having various characters achieve their various goals at different points throughout the story is to either leave things unfulfilled (which is often disappointing to readers) or have everything wrapped up all at once in a nice tidy bow at the end, which tends to read as mere convenient artifice even when done well. In a work with as vibrant a world and as many characters and stories as this one has, an all-at-once wrap-up would not only be strange, but challenging to write without it being a giant mess.
It seems that, in an attempt to argue against “pandering,” you’ve tricked yourself into arguing *for* unimaginative, trite storytelling. Or do you really believe that Abbadon lacks the creativity to continue to challenge White Chain in an interesting way after the most momentous change in her very long life?
Your assertion that White Chain is “done” is just… baffling. You complained about people “assuming your gender,” but your insistence that *she’s transitioned now, everything’s done, story’s over, nowhere to go from here* really does betray that you have never experienced a transition or even witnessed one in real life, nor have you likely read much about them either, nor seen them depicted in other narratives. You seem to have quite the analytical and argumentative chops, but logic often does a poor job of filling in for gaps in experience, and also tends to blind the viewer to the way their own train of thought is twisting in upon itself. It’s a problem that plagues far too many intelligent and well-educated people, and contributes to those people’s vulnerability to manipulation.
So, until we get to see where Abbadon is *actually* going with this, please refrain from projecting your lack of experience and your inability to imagine a path forward from here onto the existing narrative. Acknowledging that you don’t know something is surprisingly empowering, and opens up new realms of imagination and understanding that I think you will enjoy exploring, should you allow yourself to access them.
You sure like to use the word “pandering”. Can you explain what makes it different from “catering”? Is it just when it’s catering to people you don’t like?
I like to use words that are applicable to what is being shown.
And as to what makes it different from ‘catering’, why very little.
In fact, a good example can be found in the free dictionary.
2. To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses: “He refused to pander to nostalgia and escapism”
Except here, there is no refusal.
Now, for catering, I can understand what you think, at least I think that I think I do so. As a verb, “To attend to the wants or needs of.” implies that there is a want or a need for White Chain to finally get what she wants.
And so, if this is indeed catering, and you have been catered to, where do you see White Chain going from here? Doing from here? She’s on a mortal clock now, unless she rips out the beanie from Solomon, and even with that form of immortality, she is Angel no longer.
And being Angel no longer, for she has burned everything she was, everything she could represent or become, she has nowhere to go next.
As I said, the struggle was the beauty, it was the point.
That’s why I call it pandering.
Bob,
I don’t think you get to decide what “the point” is. Not for others, and not for the author.
Likewise, dismissing things you don’t agree with as “pandering” doesn’t make you correct. It just makes you shallow, and lacking in any true insight of the world around you.
Carry on, though. Your commitment to error isn’t something I expect to change.
Indeed, Does the Fool recognize itself for what it is?, Indeed.
But sadly that includes you as well.
And while I cannot decide upon the point of the author, I can respectfully disagree with what I see. And you can disagree with my disagreement.
That’s how a dialogue works.
Please, tell me where is my commitment to error is. It’s clearly readily obvious to you, as you mentioned it so. And if I’m lacking any true insight of the world around me, which you must undoubtedly have to declare that, you can instruct me, right?
You do have an actual counterpoint right?
Just jumping on this with a question: KSBD is ending soon :(, with the next book. If that 5th book ended with “and the heroes won and everything was perfect”, you would feel cheated, right? (I know I would).
If the 5th book ended with “the heroes ‘won’ but their struggles for justice/peace/whatever are not yet over and they must continue to work for their goals, as we all must to create a better world)”, would you see that as pandering?
If the 5th book ended with “the heroes didn’t ‘win’, but are still alive and can keep struggling, as we all must to create a better world”, would you find that satisfactory?
Or would you only like the ending if the 5th book ended as “they lost, and the cycle begins anew”?
I’m not attacking you for which one (or ones!) you’d like–with different media I’ve landed in different places on this sorta sliding-scale-of-happy-endings myself! I just want to know where you are for KSBD. (I would probably be varying degrees of satisfied with any but the first one).
(You can also say none-of-the-above, those scenarios were not meant to be exhaustive lol! I’d love to hear what “ending state(s)” you’d like to see!)
31 Dragon Eats Mayfly, that is indeed something that worries me.
I, under a different name, was quite against the one year time passing, as it removed Alice from being our gateway into the new and bizarre world that we were seeing.
Now that she’s been there a year, we no longer have that, and the people, the actions, and all of that cannot venture too far into the depths of the uncanny like before. No more eating little blue demons while being friends with a big blue demon and so on. When has anyone been called “Preem”?
And then we get a tournament battle.
It’s becoming more and more digestible, more… catering, to bring this back to Amelie W’s initial response to mine.
As for if it ends on the fifth book, that’s something I’m not too worried about. It’s a webcomic, and those can go on for quite a long time, whether as one story or many.
But to answer your question, IF it ended on the 5th book, five of seven demiurges met, the best ending I could see would be something more along the lines of either a retreat to earth due to a tragedy, leading to an uncertain future, or, a breaking of the seven demiurges down to three, then to one, and then something more out of the last question.
Most creation stories of such a cyclical nature end as thus.
I hope this answered you adequately 31 Dragon Eats Mayfly, but if not, I’ll try again.
Regards,
Bob
Thanks for the prompt response! I was really asking you that question with an ulterior motive–if the KSBD ended in either of your “best endings”, would that not be catering (in your definition) to your own feeling, wants, or needs?
I think catering/pandering are weighty accusations to throw against any media: personally, I don’t think either happen unless by giving the audience (or parts of the audience) what they want the author subverts their own work and narrative. (Making the audience want something is in some ways an essential part of any good art, right?)
And in this case, I don’t think Abbadon has subverted their work. When we meet White Chain, she is a by-the-book servant of the law, in denial about her own discomfort within the law. Her first actions with Allison are about returning things to the status quo–she seeks to return the Key of Kings to prevent universal war.
Her first step in her struggle is when she acknowledges (after meeting Metatron) that the status quo is not good: things must change. Specifically, she mentions how while she may not agree with the royalists and the thorns, she thinks action (struggle) is better then the complacency of the non-aligned angels. (Book 2, 3-59)
White Chain’s next step in her struggle comes around when Juggernaut and her enter Mottom’s palace, and she makes a commitment to defend life in her struggle (B2, 5-85).
She doesn’t get a ton of character development in Book 3, but we do get a interesting angry outburst from her about that conflict between the supposedly immutable nature of angels, her growing humanity, (B3 6-67) and the growing need for change (and her prior commitment to protecting life, as Nyave stops her!) (B3 7-80 to 7-81).
In Book 4, White Chain starts off as still largely cautious of change: she sees Allison as reckless, she is wondering whether she is doing the right thing, and she even forgets her oath on the comb of Prim (B4 9-120 to 121)–partly because she misunderstands Vigilant’s advice in 9-106; as she doesn’t realize that she too is a work of god.
This prompts her to take the next step in her struggle by acknowledging that the problem of the current system is not just within the non-aligned angels, or even all angels, but the Wheel itself–Solomon David, the demiurges, and most crucially for this step, herself. She is that oppressive system, and she resolves to fight it with every fiber of her being (B4 10-137)
I think where you and I might diverge is in this next part–I don’t think White Chain has lost her flame (and I even think she still counts as an angel or some sort of hybrid, though we will need to wait to see the aftermath to really determine that), and I don’t think flesh is inherently corruptible–the universe would not be perfect if it was run by angels, and while Allison is inexperienced and hasty, she has a honest and sincere desire to avoid violence that seems unshaken by Incubus urging her on, or even her merge with Cio. (see her conversation with Zoss + Incubus on B4 10-139). I don’t think that flesh is inherently lesser than angels and don’t view White Chains transformation as a downgrade or a retreat–after all, Zoss slew all the Primes!
In this context, White Chain’s transformation doesn’t subvert Abbadon’s main message that you must struggle, act decisively, and understand that your only true control is over yourself, and those are the ways through which you break cycles (or perhaps systems?) (these messages are drawn from Zoss’s appearances, since he seems to be a sort of author avatar/mentor).
In fact, the transformation lines up almost perfectly with Zoss’s title drop in Book 2: “By Names she cuts the world as she pleases and she cuts herself into greater forms still. She is not shaped by the world, but instead becomes the Shaper…” (B2 5-95). White Chain has taken the step in her struggle of literally breaking free of the remnant of the angelic status quo that unshackles her (remember, “This shell is not my body” B4 9-124).
Finally, her struggle is not over. Her body is not the sole problem–the problem is that aforementioned system of fear and oppression, and even if she were to defeat Solomon (which, let’s be honest, how many demiurges have the main party defeated thus far?), the rest of the demiurges are still around, and all the minor warlords, and all the people who use their powers to control people, and all the factions of angels, and Metatron himself. Succeeding in this small way is does not mean her struggle is over.
Finally Finally, (whoops), while I think it could be emotionally satisfying if done well, I highly doubt this will end with a return to the cycle. All of Zoss’s appearances imply that the Rising King has risen and failed before, and that Zoss is trying to get Allison to break this cycle where he can’t, as “He who masters the wheel cannot Break it.” (B4 10-141). (in this sense, if White Chain is indeed mortal, she has broken the cycle of angelic life).
TL;DR: White Chain’s transformation isn’t pandering or catering, because it makes logical sense as a progression of the narrative arc of her character and while it makes the audience happy, it doesn’t do so at the expense of the story, but in service to the story. Now, if you reply to this tonight, I will sadly NOT respond tonight because I have a final I need to take tomorrow morning and I have procrastinated on my studying for far too long!!!
Thanks!
Thanks for that entirely unclear answer. I guess the dictionary has all your opinions in it and I should just read that instead of having this conversation. As to your question, I can’t accept its premise because I recognize I actually don’t know what’s going on in this scene.
Did I not answer the difference between pandering and catering? That was what you asked.
And yes, a dictionary is good for defining words, that’s what it’s for.
If it was a passive-aggressive way of asking me what I, Bob, would have wanted instead of what you got, then by all means ask me that directly. No need to mince around the question.
What I was hoping to see was something more along the lines of White Chain going through a living Kintsugi, and becoming greater in the process.
I was hoping to see an Angel finally carve itself into what it wanted to be, not flee from itself and accept the casting of flesh and feeble flame.
Does that answer your question Amelie W?
Not really. But it does tell me you’re complaining about not getting the thing you wanted before you can know you’re not getting the thing you wanted. Almost like the thing you say you don’t like isn’t really what you don’t like at all.
Sadly Amelie W, it is.
Going through that much art and drama to create White Chain in the meat, shows that the transition is likely going to stick. One doesn’t do that many pages of art and call it an APOTHEOSIS and then do a takebacksie.
As I said, I sincerely doubt the author is going to go the way of a single perfect breath.
Or in Amelie speak, The thing I say I don’t like is in fact what I don’t like.
Let’s see, White Chain is going through some magical transformation that’s never happened in this multiverse before, a process we can only guess at, for reasons we can only guess at, fueled by energies we can only guess at, with consequences we can only guess at except it seems she has incarnated in a humanoid body, in the middle of a fight that’s probably taking place outside of time against a guy who can explode suns with his martial art and whose mental and physical state at the moment we can only guess at.
But sure, all her struggles are “likely” over. It’s “likely” a cheap ploy to appease us nasty loud trans people, based on the timing with which the pages have been published. I can almost buy you’re just being presumptuous, rather than trying to undermine this gorgeous trans representation behind your fake polite bloviations.
Agreed that we can’t know what will happen; the possible outcomes are too many and the clues too ambiguous. One possible outcome is that White Chain *is* now mortal and will not survive to the end of the book. Solomon could still turn round and end her, permanently.
I’ve been expecting something like this. A while back, Abaddon posted a podcast praising authors who have the fortitude to permakill a major character and I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. This would be the exact opposite of pandering. (Where exactly *is* Abaddon’s windmill?)
And if the author went with your preferred direction, how would that not be pandering as well?
I think you’ve accepted the in-world logic of the angels themselves about the relative hierarchy and nature of the different races. It’s not necessarily true. It’s more likely to all be lies. All is YISUN, and all these sharp divisions, all “this cannot be that”, are just lies. The rules are self-imposed boundaries. All the races are described as flames, whether hot or cold, black or white, but all still flames. What if it’s instead a spectrum, rather than hard divisions? Devils have already been described as feeding off the cooler flames of the other races to maintain their forms, and I believe there was something about humans making too many pacts with devils might turn into one themselves.
Why are you so certain that White Chain is no longer an angel, or has “fled”, rather than ascended? The page title is “apotheosis”, after all. If she’s no longer an Angel, she’s more likely a god than a human. I think she has carved herself into what she wanted to be, and I don’t see how you could have read the comic and gotten a different impression of what she wanted.
Feel free to write a story that satisfies your needs, I suppose?
This story is (probably) going a different direction, and to label it ‘pandering’ because you think it’s an ‘easy’ direction or at the behest of some ‘boxes to be checked’… well, that tells me a lot about how you view White Chain and people like her, who struggle with feeling foreign in their own bodies.
You seem to think that struggle or difficulty are the core of ‘higher’ storytelling (though feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about your thoughts there), but consider: people like White Chain HAVE struggled. Struggle is their whole lives.
Maybe this part of White Chain’s story, her apotheosis, feels more satisfying and meaningful to them than it does to you, because they’re sick and tired of that struggle? Sometimes, it’s just nice to see someone facing problems somewhat like your own get that cathartic moment of total victory.
Sorry if that disappoints you, but not every story can be everything for every person, and not many stories in history have been something made for those certain, struggling people.
Where did you get the idea that we landed at the end? There’s an entire book left.
I have to say, your fan fiction is super predictable and boring. I expected White Chain to die. This is much more surprising and satisfying.
TL;DR
Two thoughts: 1. White Chain may have used Solomon David’s genes to create her own body. In that case, she may very well look a lot like his daughters – the ones who were murdered and who’re the reason he’s never ever, fathered daughters again. When he sees her, he may well FLIP comletely! That’s one way to make him lose control.
2. In the last panel White Chain is bvery markedly breathing out. Does this mean she’s breaking the Ki Rata timestop? Will they suddenly fall back into normal time? And how will the spectators react to that?
I think what we are seeing in the last panel is White Chain’s first breath, which is a very moving metaphor when you think about it: millions (billions?) of years old and finally taking a breath for the first time.
In the very first scene where Allison meets White Chain the first time, White Chain makes a HUFF sound, which makes me think angels still use air to talk, even if they don’t need to breathe.
So I’m skeptical this is her first breath.
Then again, White Chain has also smiled more frequently than thought so it might also be artist oversight?
Fascinating theory. And weirdly possible, given that she just sort of collapsed phases through him. Honestly the physics aren’t really something we know about since this doesn’t happen, as a rule.
Oh shit. Could that… count??? As spilling a drop of his blood??
BTW, I love the look on SD’s face in the fourth panel. He looks like he’s loving the fact that WC is surprising him AGAIN by moving in his Ki Rata timestop.
Oh, and what’s happening in that small black en white panel in the middle? Might be important.
Indeed. Trying to sort that out.
i do believe that’s white chain’s fist making contact with the celestial emperor’s head 🙂 to be confirmed in coming panels, i guess.
RETURNS
TO
SUBDUE
EVIL
After a couple days for this to soak in, it just hit me that being flesh and bone is gonna be a weird experience. Needing to breath, hot/cold, food/water and the results, gonna be a lot to get used to.
It will be worse than that monochromaticprism, so much worse.
What happens when she sleeps that first time? Dreams that first time?
How many millions of years of perfect memory will be subjected to the whims of a brain that routinely forgets, and re-imagines, and produces falsehoods?
How long until the next meal, the next warm bed, the next offered body, the next hit of drugs, becomes all that matters to a being that never experienced it. In. The. Flesh.
Willpower is easy for an Angel, they are literally duty and flame placed into a statue. Willpower for a human though?
There’s a reason why robots and angels and all sorts of beings being brought into a meaty existence in all the stories die horribly.
… right. So. Just finished binging the entire series so far and I’m blown away. This is, by far, the best webcomic I have ever read and I’ve been devouring them since the ye olden days of the internet.
Thank you so much for this, and I’ll be watching this religiously.