WHEEL SMASHING LORD 1-18 to 1-19
Chapter: 1
“Secret techniques? Here, girl, I’ll show you a secret way to pick your teeth. Ha ha!”
-Meti ten Ryo to her student Mathangi
Kill Six Billion Demons
BREAKER OF INFINITIES
“Secret techniques? Here, girl, I’ll show you a secret way to pick your teeth. Ha ha!”
-Meti ten Ryo to her student Mathangi
To live is to see the continuous cutting motion of royalty stop, and start again.
Has Meti’s cutting motion really stopped? Or is continued with Maya, and then Alison. Maybe royalty is a continuous cutting motion started by the first sword saint, flying across the wheel a thousand times over, from master to student, to student, to student, annihilating billions of enemies along the way
Royalty begins with YISUN cutting, dividing themselves again and again. (Deliberately using “themselves” here not as a gender-non-specific pronoun, but as the plural.)
The Blade of Want.
Volition.
Intent.
This is baked into the very fiber of all life; some suppose that it might even be a prime imperative for all matter in the
uni-multiverse.The cutting motion began, when reality itself became distinct from the void.
i’ve heard it told that after the divisional suicide of god, the truth of the matter is that nothing remained; they just didnt think so!
I used to complain
WHERE IS MAYA
Now we’re having an overdose of the CUT and I’m loving It.
yeah
Would that all who do great evil had simply chosen to sell noodles the world would be a happier, more well fed place.
If only some had been better at painting.
Or at baseball.
Or at rugby.
Oh, how many wars we might have avoided.
… or would we have? Or would they have happened anyway, just in a different shape, sparked by different circumstances, but still occurring at roughly around the same time and scope?
Perhaps the trouble is not that some who lack specific talents instead turn to domination.
Perhaps the trouble is that we, as a species, are simply too good at fucking (to make more of us) and fighting (to bury more of us). Our patterns in this respect aren’t too far off from the basic fluctuations you see as any population oscillates between boom and bust.
Seeking pure equilibrium in an environment that never ceases to move and change around us is the errand of a fool. We would be better off learning to dance than to stand still.
Even had that specific person gotten into art college – or simply died in the previous war like so many of his countrymen – Germany still would have had the terms imposed on it that created the conditions he took advantage of to rise to power in our timeline. In an alternate timeline where he wasn’t around, the nation’s rage, anger, and discontent would’ve still been around; maybe someone else would have seized it who was more or less competent, or more or less bloodthirsty, or more or less of a million different things, but regardless of the specifics, the tinderbox that Germany had become was going to erupt in continent-spanning flames sooner or later.
This of course ignores the massive amount of violence and suffering that was going on in China, Korea, and elsewhere that Japan occupied; it ignores the same in Spain during the Civil War; it ignores the same in the Soviet Union during the purges; it ignores the same where the love of money won out over the love of people and cost so much of both. Attributing these events to singular people or to small groups of them makes it seem much simpler, but history’s turns for better and worse come from what everyone does, not just a single specific person
To be clear, none of what I said should be taken as a defense of any of those horrors; I was merely echoing what you pointed out about how the horrors would have happened anyway, in some form or another
Indeed. We witness the swell and crash of oceans — not just the breakers on the surface.
Generally true. Great events are typically driven by historical forces that are more than one man’s doing.
But as a counterpoint, probably the most significant event in this century was 9/11. That triggered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, destabilized the entire region, cost hundreds of thousands of lives trillions in treasure.
Without that event happening, would the US still have invaded the Middle East? Or similarly, if Gore had won, would he invade had 9/11 occurred?
9/11 was also driven by historical forces. Bin Laden didn’t wake up one day and decide it would be funny to knock down some towers in America.
I agree generally with this, though I think it’s important to point out that…if it wasn’t for the Austrian painter, the eventual conflict probably would’ve happened in a very different way. If his party had instead unified behind someone less charismatic, or less “monomaniacally” determined (to paraphrase Orwell), maybe a different one formed around a different ideology would have come into power instead.
Judging by the 1933 federal election, the Communists would be the most likely to come into power. And the KPD were closely affiliated with the USSR, and so would be on the same side as them if war broke out. In which case, even the alliance blocs in the conflict would be very different. And the results of such a war would be very different.
To make a flame, you need both fuel to burn and a spark to ignite.
Wars are driven by social forces, like the mighty tectonic plates of some worlds are driven by the heat of the fires within, but it isn’t inevitable that either those plates trigger huge earthquakes or that war happens. The trigger is required. The failure of a piece of rock. The actions of a single individual. A shot, a step, a stroke of a pen, a casting of an augury. Destruction cascades from the smallest thing when the circumstances are ripe.
Ah, yes. I remember the great noodle wars.
A truly wonderful pork ramen was developed to devastate the reigning clam linguine.. But in the end the tofu pad thai of explosive flavor came to rule them all.
Um. NO. Humans as a species have always tried to control their numbers, or specifically the humans who have to raise children have always tried to keep control of the numbers they had to rear, but patriarchy has historically fought this urge in order to hypercharge the people-making system to feed its economic and military engines. Except of course now that we have heavy machinery the armies of the poor are no longer the profit-makers they used to be for their masters, so now they are being left to die without healthcare or security. Meanwhile, patriarchy is yet to get the memo from capitalism. So don’t blame ‘fucking and fighting’, blame the system that uses ‘biological’ urges to justify oppression. There’s nothing ‘biological’ about how humans do either.
Cue triggered incel trolls.
I agree, but what if Mozart had taken to the blade? If Van Gogh had turned his sight to war? If Einstein had found a taste for suffering? History has many warmongers who might have been turned aside had the world been a bit different. But we can only wonder how many stayed to a path of peace.
What if Einstein actually did discovered relativity and could actually do basic math.
(His wife discovered formula to relativity, but during his time woman doing math and holding high level jobs and holding a college degree and educated was huge no in his home country, Einstein used her discovery and shared it with her, but never gave her proper the recognition that she deserved all because there country would have killed her if they found out, it was a woman that discovered the equation.. back then)
Einstein was worse – he saw exactly the kind of destruction his fellows would soon wreak, and he found himself unwilling and unable to stop any of it.
I’ve read quite a bit of analysis on failed painters that all seems to point in one general direction… the ONLY way they were going to lose the inevitable war, is if he was directing it: starting the war 3 1/2 years into a 7 year plan, hopped up on meth, sleeping from 7am to 3pm, killing his best generals, attacking his best allies, and never fully mobilizing his economy because “women need their pretty things”.
Almost anyone else who had a chance to be in his position would have done a better job of it… and we couldn’t have that, now could we?
It’s why the Time Agency won’t let anyone kill him.
This seems pretty relevant to the real modern world, except instead of genocidal demigods we have industrial capitalism.
Indeed. To kill the oppressors can easily poison the minds of those who struck the blow, but to leave them unopposed means the continual death of our world to the all-consuming maw of capital. People will continue to be exploited, enslaved, and murdered by capitalists and their strong-arms, but if we slaughter them we risk harming ourselves as well.
Not to mention the question about whether or not the masses are ready to defend their freedom against the next set of oligarchs who will try to seize the power vacuum. Worse so when those oligarchs do so claiming they are necessary to maintain the ideals of socialism.
Most IRL political eventually evolve into oligarchs, even those with democratic election systems. 9/10 the powerful will change the system to entrench and benefit themselves. Even the the most egalitarian demiurges, like Solomon.
The difference between Jantris and Solomon is simply a matter of time.
It is not a linear journey. Systems rise and fall and rise again.
doesnt help that the apparatus of the rich tends to invade or coup anybody who goes communist without nukes
To be fair, the CCCP of China let Xi become president for life and Putin has essentially been in control since Yeltsin.
I think any and all governments – to include egalitarian republis – over at will become at least hegemonies ruled by oligarchs if given enough time.
There is a political science academic name for what I stated, but I leave it at that.
IMHO, The only thing that slowed it down in the 20th century was socialism and communism at the state level, but even then many socialized countries slip back to hegemonies with oligarchs.
slowed it down? my sibling in YUSIN the 20th century communists formed oligargic ruling clips during their birth.
Myeah, Lenin’s concept of the “vanguard party” basically has/is a speedrun exploit that lets you skip straight to oligarchy.
But a degree pinker than that the western socialist movement for sure curbed the excesses of the neo-feudalism of the early industrial era. And _arguably_ that wouldn’t have been as successful without at least the _threat_ of western communism being on the table. I don’t think it’s random that the dismantling of western welfare states accelerate with the fall of the USSR.
So I guess I think you’re both right.
You’ve mistaken the mask for the face. Industrial capitalism isn’t the source of evil, for all the evils of the world that bedevil humanity long predate it. They existed under mercantilism and feudalism before capitalism even existed, they have persisted through capitalism and socialism both, and they will persist too through anything you care to implement as a replacement. Because these systems are merely the masks that the beast wears, and each time man destroys a mask, the beast simply takes up another.
SMELLS BOURGEOIS IN HERE
A GOOD THING TOO I WAS H U N G R Y
Then take a shower
Man shut the fuck up you empty-headed imbecile.
Kinda telling that you’re saying that on Anon, kiddo. Maybe losing at CS:GO is kore your speed.
I agree. People would sooner imagine the end of the world, than an end to capitalism.
Did someone mention masks? Dare we peek under?
Royalty has this task. Theirs is the world to sunder!
The word you’re looking for is patriarchy.
All of civilization’s injustices have existed for, at most, five or six thousand years. modern humans have been around for well over ten thousand.
Furthermore, throughout history, not all societies have had every kind of injustice we see today.
Capitalism is the only thing which has made more than a tiny handful of people have truly happy lives at all. The wealth engine is mighty and pours it out upon the whole world, at a steadily and relentlessly increasing rate. And if a few get even more wealth, it matters very little, because they can only do so by being given it by those who would rather have *this* than *that* and make voluntary trades that increase their own wealth also.
Capitalism is the amoral beast that eats poverty and leaves the poor wealthy beyond their grandfathers’s imaginations. It is therefore the most moral thing ever invented.
There is a hockey-stick graph of the world history of human wealth starting from before there even was history. It’s just a flat line for tens of thousands of years, and it basically means that everyone was dirt-sucking poor during that eternal interval – But then it take a turn upward, and then accelerates like a rocket into heaven. The place where it turns is the Industrial Revolution, and it was started by the British, who are universally despised as the enslavers of millions across the planet.
And yet, they created technologies and systems that eventually lifted billions – the entire planet – out of destitution. Capitalism. Instead of remembering this, the Elites of the world worship an abstract, dream-like system invented by a man named Marx. An enraged asshole who never worked a day in his life, hated almost everyone he met, and who had no sense at all about how to create or retain his own money. His formless, hand-wavy ideas have gone on to enslave billions of people, and starve at least 100 million people to death, all in the name of a More Just System of economics. To this day, Marxism still enraptures the best and brightest of humanity’s minds.
The world is astonishing in its perversity.
Many empires built ‘wealth’ from the blood of people they oppressed. That doesn’t mean we should celebrate oppression. Wealth is also a very abstract metric by which to measure human progress. Industry and technology are not the same thing as capitalism, nor do they depend on it. The historical ‘destitution’ you speak of was largely a result of capitalists and their predecessors doing what they have always done – stealing from working people. Of course, there will always be people who opt for selfishness and violence, but to strive for a system that opposes these behaviours is far from perverse.
It’s cute you think that our modern, perverted version of wealth equates to happiness. Do you believe the Native American in the thousands of years before America existed, to be impoverished and therefore miserable?
Poverty is a concept of capitalism and and a means for some to hoard from most. As if it’s some disease, some pre-existing condition that can’t be bothered with, that makes it OK for the dragons to rest on a pile of resources while others fight for what’s left.
The problem isn’t that money can or can’t buy happiness, it’s that money is a variable in the equation at all.
These people’s greed would horrify a mere dragon 😀
So you’re just gonna ignore that everyone except the upper class kept being dirt poor throughout and beyond the industrial revolution until when workers movements became a thing? Cool I guess.
Also, the whole “capitalism is the source of the technological advancements of the industrial revolution and therefore the welfare of the world” thing is pretty dubious as far as correlation vs causation goes. Technology itself is the only inextricable part. Saying that capitalism is a prerequisite presupposes that any society not driven by private profit couldn’t recognize value, which is very ahistoric.
Abbattoir is clearly much more hard working than me and most people I know, if they can call Marx, the first actual scientist in the area of economics, a lazy man. If Marx did not think a moment to write every line he has wrote in his life, he would have worked more than I hope to work in my whole life. But not, his work has tables from a time spreadsheets were not available, and perfectly organized bibliography from a time we did not have access to the world’s knowledge inside our own homes. If Marx was a lazy man, what hope do we have.
It seems to me that Abattor’s heart is consumed by hatred and lies. There are few man with so many eyes on his back as Marx, his correspondence always stopped midway before reaching him. Any beliefs you bring with you were clearly given by someone interested in burdening you for their gain.
Do you really -fucking- think that the ‘elites’ of this world are fucking Marxists?
That’s only true to an extent. Capitalism as it exist can only support itself through the suppression and exploitation of the third world. It can’t rely on just a local underclass to produce value. It also needs an external and unprotected underclass to forcibly and cheaply steal resources from. Without either the entire system collapses, and the powers that be have shown that they are willing to use violence to secure it. There’s a reason why it became so dominant during colonialism.
Pursue something long enough and you will learn to hate it
Capitalism doesn’t eat poverty as much as it cultivates it. It doesn’t function without it. That’s not even some dirty secret or anything, ask any capitalist economist what the “ideal” level of unemployment is and they’ll never say 0%. Because capitalism NEEDS a class of people who are desperate.
Through technology we’ve become incredible at generating all we could really need. But our system concentrates that wealth in the hands of the few and has the rest of us fight for crumbs. That is it’s purpose. It’s not for nothing that capitalisms early adopters were wealthy nobles and merchants with royal charters who wanted to maintain their status despite the decline of the monarchies.
Even medieval serfs had a better work life balance than we do.
Ignoring slavery, colonialism, and the genocides of numerous indigenous people, you are probably right.
Ambition is a sword that cuts a few times upward, and a thousand thousand times downward
yeah. i thought so.
also, frog man.
No one cares to ask, but frog man has attained royalty
Be mindful of the sweeper.
Extremely important comment, thank you. I might never have noticed frog man otherwise.
ah so inky is a bad swordsman because he’s so preoccupied with avoiding death, just as jagganoth is preoccupied with avoiding/removing suffering perhaps
There’s a lot going on in this page. Aunty looks pained when Alison gives her the answer. I wonder why?
she seems both relieved and pained, pained that she’s able to walk this path but also relieved that incubus’s teaching did not ruin her
or simply she did not realise that could be an answer
She did.
She wishes she had realised this answer existed quite a lot sooner.
Yes- her answer is Meti’s. I recall a parable regarding her asking a monk the same, and he sometimes pondered death while he shit!
A perfect state of liberation
I think Prost is right.
The first expression is profoundly sad and surprised, the second is profoundly sad, proud, and resigned.
She was shocked Alison answered the question so easily, with no effort at all. As is expected of royalty. She is proud of the mouse, but is haunted by the fact that she herself took so long reach the same answer. And it pains her to know that she is ready to teach Alison the means to achieve yet more suffering.
A caring master will find the deepest cuts from their students require no blade.
There’s a bit of relief in there too.
Prost is right?
You mean Alain Prost?
The poster above a bit above, Prost-Phet, Grand Priestrix of Parties. Although, Alain Prost may also be right, I haven’t asked him his thoughts on the matter.
“A dog has more sense than you. He doesn’t think of death at all. Not when he eats, not when he bathes, and certainly not when he shits.” –Meti
Oblivious is observant.
Concur with Sev about Oblivious astute observation.
Bravo, Oblivious!
You have passed.
May knows that Allison is the right person to take on the Maybe sword and the quest, but Maya also knows what it will cost Allison. It is a leave-taking from the smaller, quieter and happier person that Allison might have been.
She gave her a correct answer, and thus will be taught the sword of maybe.
This is not a happy thing. In fact, Maya wanted Alison to fail, which is why she asked her Meti’s question:
“You were meant to be here. But if you were not, where would you be?”
Well, as Meti taught, to become good swordsman one must soak his body in death. Maya realised now that she will ruin a beautiful soul with the sword art.
Death is only as important as the life it ends.
Her face at that good god.
Maya’s expressions there are so fascinating, I can’t stop staring
To think of death is to contemplate it occurring to your family, your friends, yourself, and even your foes. To think of death, your hand slows: What if this strike fails to land and my loved ones are killed? What if my foe’s sword fells me? What if I succeed and my foe is slain? These are all weights that slow down your blade.
What is truly required is a blade unburdened by such thoughts. Do not strike to kill. Do not strike to save. Simply strike. If one strike is not enough, strike again. Keep striking even if you no longer need to.
“You must never make ‘multiple’ cuts. Each cut must be singular in its beauty,no matter how many precede it.”
-Meti, Sword Manual, tenet 8
also, allison’s old life being so distant and foreign to her now that when asked about it, all that’s left of her old job crystallized into… “coffee.” it’s a good touch.
Makes me wonder how often she thinks of her family back home. Her disappearance must have been very hard on them. And then there’s Zaid and his family. By now they’ve been gone for at least four to five years without any closure.
I have lost track — what is the canon view on the flow of time relative between different worlds? Are we sure that Alison’s unopened earth has experienced the same duration as we have seen Alison herself live through?
It’s probably pretty similar. Rayuba is a non-Throne world and as far as we can tell there’s just 1:1 time; we’ve been given no reason to believe otherwise. Additionally when she first returned it was a day or two she was missing, which lines up about with the story’s time.
I’m pretty certain that Abbadon somewhere confirmed the same rate of time flow in all worlds. Can’t remember where, probably ages ago on Tumblr.
Death is no more to be feared than life; if anything, it should be feared much less, for death ends all other pains. But neither should it be chased after, for death ends all other possibility for a time. To put death out of your mind without forgetting it exists… this is the gift of mortals, and a sign of both wisdom, and the potential for infinite violence.
I’m wondering about the expression on maya’s face on panel 13 (wide-eyed, pained?). What does it signal?
Maybe it’s the autism, but I haven’t a clue.
It’s definitely ambiguous, we can’t say for sure yet.
Maya’s face on Panel 13 is intentionally ambiguous, but it communicates the conflicting pain, sorrow, joy, and indignation of Maya being presented a profound (but simple) truth and response to her question.
Every demiurge so far show, living and dead, has been in one way or another entirely preoccupied with death; despite their vast powers and puissance, they are all in their own way, yet mortal, and they strive with all their will against that mortality.
Allison doesn’t really think about it, and in doing so, exemplifies Royalty — she isn’t looking for power for the sake of undoing her nature (mortality). She’s just seeking power to do her will — to, as she puts it, “do something about all this bullshit”.
Maya walked the path of false Royalty that every other Demiurge before her did; and is finally confronted with the skewering pain of how simple, how *idiotically*, beautifully simple, the difference between the demiurges and Alison is.
So, we see Maya widen her eyes in that mix of pain and sorrow for all that she’s been through, indignation that the answer could be so profoundly simple… and then joy as she realizes the sublime beauty of that simple truth.
Alison isn’t like all the other demiurges before her.
Because she doesn’t think much about death at all.
Despite how many have fallen dead around her, including loved ones and friends.
The Blade of Want, the flame of intent, is all the sharper and all the brighter for being unsullied by doubt about death.
Attempting, while balancing doubt and death, isn’t the same thing as simply doing.
To quote a now-cliche, “Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.”
There be wisdom in them thar’ muppeting.
Yeah. yeah, I think you have it figured out, and you’ve articulated it well.
She merely realized she has a perfect idiot for a student.
A perfect idiot? How… Magnificent.
After all, anyone who willingly learns to wield a sword is an idiot. So the biggest idiot is the most perfect student of the sword. Simple as.
“Moreover, only the worst sort of idiot strives to be king.”
I think I can answer this.
If you look back through the quotes of Meti ten Ryo throughout the comic, the majority of her world view was that caring about yourself or your own mortality is stupid, since death is inevitable and no amount of wealth, status, or power will prevent it.
Further, Meti mentions several times – once directly, but a few times indirectly – that the key to being a king of swords is mindlessness. An absence of ego. Turn off your brain, soak yourself in death, and leave the matter of survival to “the hard and old nerves in the body” which “know exactly what to do, and (are) smarter than you.”
Thoughtlessness (and scorn for anyone concerned about fate) is a theme throughout all of Meti’s appearances. Several times, she brings up that she thinks dogs have more sense than people, and in one quote, she explains why:
“(A dog) doesn’t think of death at all. Not when he sleeps, not when he bathes, and certainly not when he shits.”
When Allison says, “Actually, I don’t really think about it at all,” she is invoking the essence of everything that Meti taught Maya. The look in panel 13 appears, to me, like Maya was not expecting to hear the words of her old master through the lips of her student. There’s a mix of shock and grief in her face, as if she is suddenly remembering Meti.
Panel 14’s expression looks (again, to me – it’s always subjective) – like a mix of Maya being thankful to have had a memory of her old master, and glad that Allison indeed has what it takes to “strike from the heartblood” – to use the maybe sword.
Some other commenter called Meti “Diogenes’ Grandma,” and honesty hearing all of this together makes me inclined to agree with them
Exactly this. And note how Maya says the question has haunted her ever since.
It’s haunted her so much that it’s literally the first thing she asks people, it’s always on her mind. It’s the first thing she said to Allison, even.
I believe your answer is the opposite of the truth. Not wrong, but just the inverse. I believe Maya, the noodle seller, said the exact same thing, long ago.
Alison, just like her, gave a correct answer, and thus will be taught the sword of maybe.
This is not a happy thing. In fact, Maya wanted Alison to fail, which is why she asked her Meti’s question from the previous page:
“You were meant to be here. But if you were not, where would you be?”
It’s easy to imagine the Demiurge Maya protesting, talking of her armies and fifty good swords, until she answered truthfully.
And so she went to a little farm, just like Meti always wanted for her.
Intra, also a sword king, was pretty famous for striking, intentionally, without thinking in a duel against an impossible opponent and considered Royalty something that is achieved without conscious effort. He also called kings fools just before it reducing himself as one after that duel.
Introducing* but really reducing himself to a mere fool also works.
There are a couple good responses already, but I just wanted to add my piece.
I believe the implication here is that this is the question from the previous page. The question Meti asked Maya that “completely and utterly broke [Maya’s] will.”
My interpretation is that,to see Allison, without a thought, answer to simply that she doesn’t think of it was a reminder of many painful things to Maya. The question destroyed Maya who, in her youth, was obsessed with accumulating power and avoiding death. I think it would have initially been a shock to see this young woman, so embroiled in chaos and surrounded by death, so easily reach this point of peace that had so long evaded Maya. And then the expression in the next panel is a sort of wry relief and joy at the fact that Allison currently has this level of peace, and at how ridiculous the universe can be.
I think you’re correct, but looking at the wrong question: “You were meant to be here. But if you were not, where would you be?”
It’s easy to imagine the Demiurge Maya protesting, talking of her armies and fifty good swords, until she answered truthfully.
And so she went to a little farm, just like Meti always wanted for her.
She walked away from Royalty, started a new life on the farm, raised a family of her own – all to refute Meti.
Surely she could change her path, surely she could start anew, surely she was not *meant* to be here. Relinquishing her role was an act of protest, to prove Meti wrong once and for all.
So it was, in turning away from the path she had carved, that she doomed everyone she would come to love. Royalty is a continuous cutting motion, and it cares not for whom it cuts.
Maya is a wonderful treasure and I think Meti would finally be proud.
Meti would not be proud. She is an awful old woman, and would never go so far as to give one of her idiot students praise. That would only encourage them. Her response to this, as with so many other things, would have been a slap to the back of the head, and a mocking remark.
“Only took you a dozen lifetimes to figure it out, eh, girl?”
Perhaps the laughter would be a little less cruel than usual. To compensate for this, the slap to the back of the head would likely have been harsher.
Also is that Aesma? I wonder the significance of that.
I guess we shall see.
Speaking of whom, I thought I’d continue my pondering on the lineage of Maya. Previously I wondered if one followed the line of student and teacher back far enough, would one find Intra, the King of Swords? My present wondering is, if one followed it further, might it be traced back to Aesma, the original Fool? The quote from her about striking from the heartblood before the quotes from members of the lineage in question had me wondering this. Did Intra learn the power of foolishness by watching Aesma, the paragon of power and foolishness both?
The quote from Aesma was to discard the proper way and “strike from the heartblood”. Intra said his skill was no skill, his technique was no technique. Maya called this “The Heartblood blade, the Maybe Sword”. It seems likely that when Ryo said that the technique went back to the line of Gods he meant it.
Unlikely, considering that Meti was already in barrel mode by the time Intra first picked up a sword.
She was? I honestly don’t remember this. If so, that’s a strong point against my theory.
Alternatively, considering Maya claims in this very page that Meti was Royalty, and we already know that Royalty allows Zoss, the Conquering King to exist outside of time, perhaps it’s not as impossible as I thought. It also wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the King of Swords was Royalty himself, also increasing its possibility. Keeping in mind also that YISUN was said to interact with people who could only have existed after YISUN’s suicide… I don’t know, but I suspect that had something to do with Royalty. All together this makes my first wondering unlikely, as you said, but certainly not impossible.
According to the notes under the last few chapters, the lineage goes Meti-Ryo-Ryam-Gälde-Bilong. Of course the chapter right before talks about the way of Aesma and striking from the heartblood, which is what seems to be what the technique every student learned and improved is based on, so you might be on to something.
Besides, the first human was trained by Aesma (among others) so every lineage probably ends there eventually.
Well, on one side I feel Maya was about to decapitate Allison, had the mouse turned put to be an Incubus-influenced rat.
On the other side, pushing one’s self to danger and conflict and having not a thought all the while but to force reality to be what one wants… I feel this is one thing Pree Allison has in common to the Master of Want.
Those who want suffer, after all.
I want to know this secret technique of picking your teeth.
The principle is simple. You must keep one fingernail long, with the tip sharp and thin, but offset from the center; the rest of the nail should be thick and sturdy. Use the more nearly straight edge, and keep it aligned with the space between the teeth, but angled to avoid damaging the gum, where the picking motion should start. Be neither hasty nor hesitant. As with most secrets, proper actual practice has details too subtle for description, which must be learned through observation, experiment, and intuition.
allison’s gotten so hot holy shit
indeed.
Allison can not think and act by topping me
Great pages. The facial expressions on the characters are fire.
This is simply awesome. My favorite page in a while!
I’ll never have to choose between fighting demigods and working in a noodle shop, but I do have to choose between a career that will consume all my time and one where I will have time to see my children. If I choose the former, I’ll have money, prestige, respect, power. If I choose the latter, I’ll probably see my kids a lot more. I’ll probably be a good father. My dad chose the former. He was a lawyer. He made so much that we were never at want for anything. But I didn’t see him often. Now I’m a lawyer, and I have the same choice. If I ran a noodle shop I could see my kids more, but like Maya, I might not have the power to provide for them if I give up that path. I might not be able to protect them. How do you choose then? Do you just run the noodle shop and pray you don’t get annihilated somehow? By an Incubus, or losing a job? Maybe this is too earnest for a comment section on a web comic. However, it is a very good web comic.
This is a false dichotomy, there are infinite ways to live your life, and choosing to be a laywer is not condemning you to not seeing your children. You can always get to a point where you feel satisfied and happy (and idealy bring other happiness too). And if you are a lawyer and feel there is no way to live and bring hapinness to yourself and others, then you can implement change slowly so it becomes that way (no need for the maybe sword but you will need to wield your will for this).
That’s nice of you to say, but with the career path I’m on, it really is set up as one of two options. Law firms expect long hours. Come in early, stay late, work weekends. Anyone who refuses to do that is seen as someone who “can’t cut it.” There’s a lot of people talking about how the culture in our profession is toxic, and I’m inclined to agree, but unless someone will change that culture tomorrow, I am still confronted with this choice.
And I think in any profession, everyone is confronted with this choice to some degree. How much will you give to work versus to living? Maya chose one, and her family got annihilated. Now her and Alison are trying to figure out this paradoxical third path, in between the war path and the noodle shop, where they can have both. I hope they find it. And I hope I do too. But if I can’t find the third path, I wonder which one I’ll choose. I don’t even talk to my own dad anymore. Again, maybe too earnest for a web comic comment section.
>but unless someone will change that culture tomorrow, I am still >confronted with this choice.
“someone has to do something about all this bullshit”
-Allison
I have spent the last two hours thinking about this comment. Way too insightful for an internet comment section. Please never do that again
Better to regret having tried and fail, than to regret having never tried at all… (Speaking from the point of view of someone who has found his calling, and has enough income and time to maybe, *maybe*, raise a family the way he wants to) (and yes, I apologize for talking about myself in the third person)
Not to insightful for *this comment section*. Actually that is the norm around here, if you glance the comments from time to time, you’ll realize that you are not too earnest and that 45 Pushups is not too insightful. Here we tried to be like that. And my personal contribution to your dilema is this. I have a phD in physics, many post-docs under my belt. I got fed up with Academia and Research. I discovered that they eat young idealistic persons like I was to grow the paper count of the chiefs of the labs and universities while we get nothing. The behave quite demiurgic and we are they servants food. Science, in praxis is not the realm of the Truth and Beauty we were sold. So I got out. I am jobless now (i have a shitty webcomic thatI like to make). I live from my savings and a little side jobs. I am searching for the third way. But I had to leave the other two ways to be *forced* to find it.
This is a nice thread, so i will repeat what i said originally in different words, i didnt mean to say changing what being a laywer is (while still being possible, this is a hell of a thing to do). I meant changing jobs all together (if it is not bringing hapiness to you and people around), maybe some skills you acquiered there can be useful in other ways. There is litteraly infinite ways to live your life and sometimes we dont know where we are going, maybe being a lawyer for some time can set you off well in life and teach you things, before you pivot into something else after, maybe someone you meet along the way will give you an opportunity i cannot fathom, maybe not. It’s not about a third way, it’s about being adaptable and aware of the life you have yourself and what you can give to others and the infinite things that can happen. Sorry for the rambling, i’m not an expert either in this stuff just giving my thoughts.
I was not a lawyer – I started off as a programmer, and moved up in a series of technical roles. I chose the path of ‘working so I could live’ instead of ‘living so I could work’. I got to see my kids grow up, but at work I my choice resulted in having to endure decades of mediocre performance evaluations… I was d*** good at what I did, and although I continually disappointed management, the value of what I *did* do for them was more than sufficient for them to keep me around. It wasn’t easy – management always wanted more from me than I was willing to give, and they never hesitated to let me know how they felt.
Then along came a corporate project that interested me. In retrospect it was one of those ‘death march’ projects you hear about, but at the time I got excited about what was happening and worked very hard – for a long time. And developed clinical depression. Which stuck with me for a decade. That pounded the nails into the coffin of what remained of my marriage and it didn’t help my career any. I lost interest in – well, everything. It took a long time to climb out of that hole. And ironically, even though I gave that project everything I had, my performance evalauations never really changed…
Neither path is easy. However I have never regretted taking the path I did.
Going to a grandaughter’s birthday party tomorrow. My three daughters live in the same metro area that I live in. We get along well.
Yeah, it was worth it.
Watch Everything Everywhere All at Once, if you haven’t already done so.
That film may help you find the insight you seek.
I want to portray a different path to the previous answers. As doc, I chose the former path, and remaining on it is a continuous choice: It is said, reach heaven through violence. I see the will as a sword, a brush, and life as an artwork. I believe you still need to think of what you want, and not forget the violence that follows any decision, for work or family. Either way, you will cut something away, something from your life, your being.
In the webcomic, it is talked about how the will behind the sword needs to know and remember what it wants. Do you know your will? What do your bones say, your skin? Have you listened to your body and stomach?
Sit outside alone in nature, without your phone, for a few hours. What are your thoughts? What does your mind return to all the time? What are your feelings and hurts?
Before you know what your regret would be, you need to know yourself, and I believe you’re asleep to your own needs and wants.
So, I’ve got to ask – is the statue Aesma? And is that third eye drilled straight through, or simply painted to appear that way? Because Aesma being graced with a symbol of enlightenment that emphasizes her ‘head empty, no thoughts, just vibes’ style of enlightenment fits her perfectly.
The statue reminded me of Kali. Look at the necklace of skulls. The link to madness and death. The snake. Even if it’s a fictional KSBD exclusive goddess the influence is noticeable.
Of course, Aesma was inspired by Kali.
Her expression reflects her panic. She thought differently of death. Her answer was different
Also note. Alison now asks not how to defeat, but how to win.
Maya doesn’t seem to think it’s much of an improvement. It’s Incubus who taught Allison to try ‘win,’ after all…
Note: Allison now asks how to find _peace._
That is the truest and most important thing she has said. Her first thought wasn’t winning, but peace.
Jagg can’t be defeated, one can’t win against him. It’s impossible.
However, one may be able to find peace.
This whole time, Meti has been telling everyone that they would be better off if they hadn’t ever taken up the sword. Her every word and lesson has been about learning how to _not_ fight.
Her concern is not with death. Death is not the point. Death is easy. If one wishes to kill, there are an uncounted myriad of ways to make it happen. To Royalty, death is a mere distraction. The Wheel is full of death. To kill with a cut of Royalty is a pathetic waste. When the great enemy I is defeated, this may be seen clearly.
Maya was told this, and did not understand until the entirety of her failure had been laid out behind her.
We may yet see true Royalty cut with the Blade of Maybe and bring forth a new existence from the shell of The Wheel.
“Behold! The awesome fires of God. The limitless power of pure creation itself. Look carefully! Observe how it is used for the same purpose a man might use an especially sharp rock.”
-Meti ten Ryo
That’s one of my favorite quotes from the comic. And it might be because it implies that the awesome fires of god *can* be used for a purpose greater than that of a sharp rock.
The nature of cutting is that of division. One becomes many. To cut is to shape. One cuts in order to remove that which is not, to reveal what will be.
The foolish use this divine power to shape men into corpses.
What is death but an inevitability? To fret about the unavoidable is to waste the time you were given.
To embrace the inevitable as a long-lost friend gives you a companion. Tell me, which is greater?
“Don’t take life too seriously. After all, no one ever gets out of it alive.”
Do you flee death, as prey flees a hunter?
Or do you walk side-by-side with death, as your constant companion and fellow traveler on this road?
Or perhaps death is there, but no more a focus of one’s attention than the air we breathe or the spaces we move through.
There are many approaches. The destination is always the same.
Except that death by its own nature is absolutely all-encompassing. No matter, how hard you try, you will have to think about it.
We are imperfect creatures filled with vices. Wretched worms that managed to stole an insignificant speck of dust from the cosmic times. A span
that, for eternity, is less space than an eyeblink for the slowest sphere in heaven. Worthless maggot-kin clinging to a glorified chunk of cosmic detritus.
We are surrounded by eternity. It’s all around us. By the sheer very fact you are alive, you cannot help but to think about death. The deer can delude themselves how much they want, they are still going to shiver at the sound of black wolf howling in the night, squirm at its racing breath caressing its tender neck.
Whomever say that they don’t think about death are liars. Existence is nothing but the contemplation of the fact it ends.
Hgghh falls into the same trap that makes Incubus such a poor swordsman.
Does a fish think of water? A bird think of air? No more so does a swordsman think of death.
A swordsman is steeped in death, suffused with it. And gives death no more thought than a fish gives to the water it swims through.
Death is certain. Life is fleeting. Which to ponder?
Behold the mountain. It will remain. Consider it later.
Behold the flower. It will wither. Consider it now.
Allison unconsciously echoes the words of Meti-ten-Ryo to the mendicant priest: “A dog has more sense than you,” [Meti] said to him, and thumbed at a lazy mutt that was picking through the market. “He doesn’t think of death at all. Not when he sleeps, not when he bathes, and certainly not when he shits.” [Wielder of Names 2-35]
This is also not the first time that Maya has asked Alison this question. Maya asked her the same question at least twice: the very first time they met [KSBD 2-34], and in Mottom’s palace [Wielder of Names 5-89]. Alison did not or was not able to answer her either time; this is the first time she has answered the question as far as I know.
We also see Allisons answer to that question in Wielder of Names 5-97, or at least a response to it: “Everybody dies. Get Over it.”, whens he’s talking to Mottom. It took some time, but it’s nice that the seeds of that were there all the way back when.
Erm, She. Darn it.
Thanks for the reminder! Good catch.