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As a One Piece fan, I can say this for certain: history carries a lot of weight in this story and One Piece alike. The idea of legacy, of inherited will, and the undeniable certainty that all things must pass, and all men die, is a theme they both share.
And though their main characters aren’t exactly alike, they are similar in one important way.
Even so, One Piece is a bit odd parallel. If I wanted an East Asian comic that shows some parallels with KSBD, it is the Korean webcomic Kubera. That has a lot of similarities, other than the fact that it is completely different. 🙂
It has legacy, inherited will, and all thing must pass, and especially the weight of history thing, that is pretty heavy in it.
But also a breaking the wheel plot and an entire universe for playground. And fighting in the face of foretold future too.
And a female MC, who gains powers she never wanted or asked for, with all the crushing responsibility with it. She has a completely different personality that Alison though.
32 machine girl archive saves the songs in perpetuity
one piece will never end, its been going on since the early 1880’s and when oda dies they’ve got an AI construct lined up to keep the series going.
KSBD has been a part of my life for years now, so the fact that it might end soon is a complex feeling. Both good and bad, happysad as they say in norway.
but one piece will end! and soon! just because it’s a long story doesn’t make it any less of a story, and that story has been moving at a pretty steady pace towards a conclusion all along. one piece has occupied a similar ongoing role in many lives, but it will be over in probably the next 5 years, and that’s a complex feeling too.
One Piece is definitely not the kind of story that can go on forever. It might look like that from an outside, non-reader perspective considering its length, but is very clearly and steadily working toward an end point. It’s not Detective Conan or other endless serializations, it’s a linear, constantly progressing plot.
A friend of mine once described this comic as being “shonen anime, but actually good and without all the usual stuff I hate.” I think that’s pretty accurate, honestly!
Anime is full of Japan-specific meta tropes and overdramatic humor styles that destroy immersion if you’re not a weeb/desensitised to it.
For any to have the same consistent minimum level of sobriety we see in KSBD, you can bet it’d spend most of its story edgier than a 12-year-old goth. I’ll pass.
All of that applies to KSBD as well. It’s just that KSBD uses ones that you, personally, are already desensitized to. Nothing wrong with that on KSBD’s part, but your lack of self-awareness is pretty funny.
Especially the ‘consistent minimum level of sobriety’ bit. KSBD isn’t good because it’s not edgy. It’s one of the edgiest edgefests to ever edge, half the time. It’s good because it owns the edge, and dresses it well. And ironically for you, because it takes a step back and stops taking it all so seriously every once in a while.
is it really racism to expect more than tropes, tropes, tropes out of a genre? is it really racism to expect more than capitalist cishet bullshit out of a genre?
Abbadon literally references Jojo’s bizarre adventure during the Solomon arc (which is a TOURNAMENT ARC) claiming this isn’t inspired by anime/manga is just a straight up lie
when the love of your life is slaughtered before your eyes, and you finally accept it and your future after years of ‘therapy’, this is an appropriate outlook.
Actual chills at the last few panels. And I think I got some dust in my eye at the simple, humble, human act of Allison saying “Thank you for sharing your story. I’m sorry you went through all that.” There’s a rare power in hearing that in our day-to-day lives already; it echoes even louder when we’re talking about the fate of universes.
Makes a certain amount of sense when you think about it! 🙂 He was trying to seduce her into allying with him to unlock her power. What better way to do that than to present himself as what her subconscious already recognized as her self-actualized self? It’s a treat for establishing an uncanny fellow-feeling, and it ensures that the end result he’s tacitly offering her (I.e., becoming more like his majestic self) is recognizable and appealing to her.
Shroedinger’s Sam Elliott cowboy speech boiled down to a broken-off sword and a cigarette-smoking heiress, soliloquizing Al-Yisun great division between fate and self-will.
Quite to the contrary, I think it supposes the opposite.
Meti and the old Allison would have seen the defeat of their enemy as the end of the journey. The Destination.
“What then?” is a reminder that there is no “Destination”. They will have to continue their journey even after they accomplish that which they seek to accomplish.
Allison passes this test by saying she already knows. She doesn’t care where the path leads, but she knows that killing Jagganoth is just a pit stop on the journey
“Tomorrow we will be what we do now.” That is to say, habits from over a period of time and you reinforce your own actions.
Like, I read the story about the goddess wondering the road and never being able to stop while disagreeing with it vehemently. Life is not a long journey, it’s many of them.
For a journey to have meaning it has to have an end. A destination, if only after the fact.
The “what then?” is essentially answered by all the things Maya would have done until she got to that point. Because that is what she what would have kept doing afterwards, even if it no longer mattered.
I think the ‘what then’ is a bit more wide in scope than just Maya’s personal journey. Abbadon on his twitter talks about how he hates ‘end of time’ narratives and how KSBD is very much a refutation of this idea. His belief (as far as I understand it) is that creating a narrative in which there is any form of end reinforces the idea that suffering and evil doing is a temporary state, and thus any harm we personally do is justified in the presumption that it is ultimately meaningless. I think we see this viewpoint a lot with Jadis.
So when Meti asked Maya ‘what then?’, she wasn’t referring to merely what Maya plans to do. She’s asking if Maya is truly so delusional as to believe that she has the power to rule literally forever, and no one will ever be born that is capable of destabilizing the ‘peace’ she creates. Because if that ever happens, then all the pain and misery and bloodshed that Maya is responsible for was ultimately for nothing, and her reign will be just a spec in the unfathomable infinity of existence.
But you can have an “end of time” narrative with the suffering and evil that you do not being a temporary state.
To wit, like Jashua Graham from Fallout New Vegas said: “Waging war against good people is bad for the soul.”
Not being evil can be a purely personal self-enriching goal, where the suffering of others is indeed secondary to your personal growth but still connected to it all the same.
Look at Jagganoth: the crux of his motivation, the entire purpose of his endeavour to essentially claim ultimate godhood, recreate the universe absent of suffering, and then destroy himself. He is doing it because he doesn’t want to accept the truth that all the lives he has taken are on his hands alone. They are his weight to carry, but he doesn’t want to. So he has pushed it off onto 1 Metatron, onto Zoss, onto reality itself. And if he were to succeed he would find that there is no meaningful universe that lacks suffering, because suffering originates from the same source as joy and growth and strength: change. He wants the universe to end, to have a happily ever after, so that he doesn’t have to live with himself.
Allison will continue, she’ll fight her fight and do what she can, she’ll live, safe in the knowledge that one day she will die, live everyone else. And it is exactly that which makes her Royalty. To stride forward in the face of the universe, absurdity, and all the curses of living.
Wow…! That’s an exceptional analysis of Jagganoth. I hadn’t quite clocked guilt as a potential motivator because of how *fervently* he blames reality and Metatron. If you believe that, you can see how his eloquence and blunt philosophy hides something much less grand. Thank you.
If Royalty is, as you say, “To stride forward in the face of the universe, absurdity, and all the curses of living”, then we are all Royalty. And to quote W. S. Gilbert, “When everyone is somebody then no one’s anybody.”
Of course everyone is royalty. It is only revealed by those who act on that reality, rather than the lies they tell about themselves being anything less than such.
It’s still what makes him the strongest till this point. He has an answer to the question and unlike most everything else in creation, his goals actually require him to stand triumphant with all the power. Its not a good answer, but he’s one of the very few that has one.!
That…is more or less Allison’s point, yes. This page ends with her saying, in so many words, that the journey is more important than the destination so it’s pointless to try and answer this question.
It’s a very 21st Century American question, emerging from our failure to “win the peace” in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the end of the post-Cold-War End of History point of view with the return to a multipolar international order. I don’t think it’s surprising that we should see it many places these days.
It’s not a question to a villainous scheme though, it’s a question to the hero and every other “hero” that came before them.
Jagganoth is not asked “what next?” because he already had things figured out until he remakes reality and erases himself.
It’s Allison asked what she will do next after the ultimate evil has been destroyed – will she then reinforce the path of violence she used to reach the top? Which I find very novel. If it was as cliche as you were saying then it would have been guessed at in the comics of the prior pages when everyone was speculating what the question was.
Plenty of people guessed it though. And that’s not a bad thing, it was an obvious but not unsatisfactory path to take. Though I believe it was mostly “and then what?” But same thing.
“What then” was a perfect question to disarm Maya. Basically it’s saying ‘wtf do you need 40 legions and the power of the gods for? literally the only thing that makes you happy is noodles. you just wasted your whole life up to this point on stupid stuff you dont need and can’t do anything with that wont help you reach any of your goals. because you have no goals. the only goals you’ve listed are ‘get more power’ and you want that power to do…. what exactly? wtf is the point of any of this? to get more power? okay, and what’s the point of that? and that?’ Maya was broken because of how hollow everything she valued was, realizing there was no point to any of it.
What she’s saying is that since there is no end, there is no way to justify the means. You’ll have to live with all the destruction you’ve cause forever and in the face of no end, it will all turn into regret. You can’t live a fulfilled life until you realize that every single moment has to be filled with thought, has to be thought out and has to be the pinnacle of your principles and honesty. I really don’t see how that’s a platitude. You might just not have learned it well enough and would rather call it a cliché to avoid realizing its importance.
I cannot express how much glee I found in the astonished face of the sword master that just now noticed how much of her life was spent obsessing over lame phallic objects.
you ever think about the origin of phallic symbology, are swords phallic because of intrinsically good design or some wierd obsession with dicks. Like in an alternate timeline where women are taller, stronger and more agressive, and men still have dicks but also carry around babies sea-horse style. You think those alternate humans would still develop swords like us or just make up some wierd two pronged vagina sword?
Yes, but they would find symbolic meaning in similarity in other things and ways. “The sword is phallic, which makes sense since it is controlled by a woman.” That sort of thing. Humans find patterns and make them symbolic.
Double-headed axe, termed labrys, already symbol of the goddess in pre Hellenistic greece. And in my own culture, the goddess wields a machete-like sword-axe called a kharga, which also has an all-seeing eye.
Perhaps this is the way to live, for a noodle seller, or a farmer, or an old woman in a barrel. But for a ruler? A conqueror? Royalty is a continuous cutting motion, and one must be exceptionally carful and planned in where they point their sword, otherwise you destroy everything in front of you.
One notes that Allison, who claims not to think much of death, accepts the prophecy of her death (the one she requested) as the only thing she is certain of.
Such is the nature of royalty, to be fully aware and cognizant of ones inevitable and pointless death, and to not fear or dwell on it, and accept whatever fate may bring.
Considering I’ve seen people hospitalized from those sorts of panic attacks (along with trying to grasp how small they are /how little their lives mean in comparison to the universe)…. It’s not that uncommon.
Just not particularly publicized.
Most people never really think about this sort of thing- the question of “What then?” is a significant one, and it either requires careful consideration or acceptance. Trying to logic out of it or justify that only leads to falling into further navel-gazing or worse, self-reflection that causes revelations of self-loathing, because you became something you hated in pursuit of your goal.
i love allison. i love allison. i love allison. i love allison. i love allison.
that out of the way, i like that we don’t see her open eye for both these pages. makes her seem… more separate from us, in this form of enlightenment she’s having.
and wow, i really thought the question would be “what do you think of death?”! “what then?” huh. “what then?” is the most important, the most crucial reason to love what you are doing to reach a decades-spanning goal.
i want to be a person whose stories reach thousands, or at least hundreds. it will take me a long time to get there, and by the time i’m there i will want something different, so it’s very important that i actually enjoy writing, drawing, etc. this isn’t really possible for maya or allison, but in their case i guess it can be altered to deriving some good, some greater meaning from the journey to that goal itself.
hope that makes sense, i’m not really the off-the-cuff wordsmith most of you are.
In past pages, there’s been eye-symbollism with White Chain. She started out with both eyes closed, then one open and one closed, and both open, as she progressed through her arc of “waking up”.
Here, I think the focus on the side of Allison’s face missing the eye is highlighting Allison acting like Aesma. This whole page is about not thinking, just acting–something most people consider foolish. Doing something with one eye closed. Allison is basically a Royal Fool.
Just Doing without thinking too much is an act of creation in this world. Not getting bogged down on what is or isn’t possible, and instead stepping forward to TRY, to create, to do.
All the demiurges have stopped trying and changing. Including, I guess, as of this page, Maya. Allison keeps changing though, keeps trying, keeps striving. And most “educated” people would say she’s a fool for it, blind.
I cannot help but notice the many similarities between the “think not of death” and present-moment existentialist themes of this great story, and the “More Life” thesis of Angels in America. These last two updates especially.
Do you wise men concur?
Then why not a cleaver? Or a knife? Or a glaive? Or an axe?
No, swords are phallic, but form does follow function. After all, Swords are designed for two main tasks: sticking them with the pointy end, and cutting someone with the edge.
Phalluses also have two main tasks, and only one is different between the two of them.
Or the end result of a broken man who has lived a life of borrowed ideals, dedicating his entire being to saving anyone he comes across for a belief that isn’t his own.
Honestly kinda disappointed that we got an answer as to the question that Meti asked that broke Maya’s will, it takes away the possible speculation and mythical nature of it. Not to mention the “swords are phallic” thing feels like extremely surface level and misguided reading on Allisons part.
I’m still invested in the comic and I can’t wait to see where it goes, but the past couple pages have got me worried about whether or not the conclusion will live up to the buildup of a conclusion that truly aligns with the central thesis of this comic. Mostly with Maya seemingly denouncing violence as a concept, despite being a frequent and active adherent to its law. Perhaps that in itself is not a contradiction, and is instead more akin to how in the modern day there are people who denounce capitalism, yet still participate in a capitalist system, because there is no other way to move forward in a world so fully dominated by that system.
Idk, the implication that Allison can truly win a fight against Jagganoth also seems silly, because I thought the whole point of the fight in Breaker of Infinities was that Jagganoth was literal the pinnacle of violence and war, that he was truly beyond equal, and could not be killed by violence alone.
You can read into it more or less- but that’s the thing about this setting.
Does Allison need to have a deep, meaningful reason to do things?
Does the question that broke Maya really mean that much to the observer?
Do you need to have answers to questions?
But there is one thing that is constant in this story: every single character, so far as I can tell, is a hypocrite and flawed in some way. Allison’s flaw, and possible strength, is that she is kinda dumb. Not Luffy or Naruto dumb, but she doesn’t really think things through completely… And in a place and time where you MUST live in the moment, decide now whether to live or die, she is able to thrive- somewhat.
Still- she is flawed. They all are.
And just because one question can be answered from one perspective doesn’t mean that it will always be the right one for all observers.
Maya couldn’t answer the question because she had to think back at what she did, couldn’t see what she could do as anything other than what she had been doing, and was broken by seeing what she had become with no true goal past the point of ‘I will win’.
Allison doesn’t know, and at the moment, does not care. She sees that there is a challenge that must be met, that there is an expiration date in 35 years, and that she will die there. Therefore, she must try to succeed, and maybe she will.
Also that swords are phallic. That is a truth of the universe.
Stick’em with the pointy end!
Besides- a great deal of this comic is based around contradicting dualities that simultaneously exist, so enjoy the story.
Allison fulfills the archetype of Aesma. She is the wisest and most powerful of Yisun’s creation precisely because she is stupid and incapable of philosophizing.
And she is also Prim, travelling an endless road and encountering people who think they have found the end, and ultimately deciding that the road has no end.
Abaddon wrote an monomyth which is internal to his own fictional universe and I think that’s neat.
Hmm, comparing Allison to Aesma and Prim actually really changes the way I view her decisions and actions here. Thanks for giving me some new perspective on the way she is!
I’m also reminded of earlier instances, where commenters decried Allison for breaking down and being unable to continue fighting after the fight with Jagganoth, and called her weak. A lot of people rightly said it was cruel and unreasonable to expect any person, let alone someone who was a barista only a few years ago, to grapple with the unimaginable pain and hopelessness she was wrestling with at that moment.
I think of that moment, and I wonder if I am guilty of putting a similar expectation onto her, instead of expecting her to be able to cut down the pinnacle of violence so effortlessly, and push through pain that most of us could never imagine, I am expecting her to answer these complex questions and provide a conclusion to the question that leaves us satisfied.
It feels quite silly to me, honestly, as I have recently become engrossed in that very monomyth, and am familiar with a number of the tales of Ys-Aesma and Ys-Prim, that I would observe these stories and not fully acknowledge the parallels between these two major deities and our own Pree Allison.
> I can’t wait to see where it goes, but the past couple pages have got me worried about whether or not the conclusion will live up to the buildup of a conclusion that truly aligns with the central thesis of this comic.
I’m also a bit disappointed that the main lesson the protagonist is learning after this whole epic journey seems to essentially be “live laugh love”. Not that I disagree with the idea that all we can do in the face of death is living our life the fullest – but it’s a bit of a letdown after so many hard questions being asked throughout the story. As said above, it may just be because Allison is supposed to be an impulsive 20-something first and foremost.
Anyway, still an awesome comics, can’t wait to see how it sticks the landing.
I think it’s more of a counterpoint to everybody else’s awnsers. All the other demiurges have taken these very deep, intense views about the world and themselves. They got so sucked up in things they lost sight of being human. All this serious philosophy hasn’t actually helped them be comfortable with being themselves. And in turn led to an exacerbation of flaws, rather than acceptance. And so they all became stuck in internal dellemas as they neglected themselvs.
I honestly find it hilarious, but that is indeed one of the lessons Alison has learnt. But it wasn’t learnt at this moment, where Maya confronts her student in a direct parallel to her teacher confronting her, it was an understanding gained before this story even started, an understanding that your life is just going to keep on going until you’re dead, and that you may as well *keep going.*
Alison is 20-something barista who just wanted to get laid, and even after a boatload of terrible events in the greater Wheel, she still has better mental health and lifestyle philosophies than 90% of the Wheel. You think the other Demiurges would have tried to reason with Jagganoth when he was bound with that seal? She even got a iota of amusement and a monologue from him in doing so! Alison is a breath of fresh air to the thousand year old crypt breath that the Wheel has going on, fulfilling the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype in most of the relationships she is in and soothing the angst and scars that others are blinded by.
Kindness is a strength, understanding preludes an answer, and a life well lived is one with clear eyes upon the horizon and yourself.
All true, and why Alison may be the correct successor.
After all, why did Zoss go to the Wheel at first? He may have become the conquering king who struck down the Prime Angels, but we may never know his initial goals.
Here I can see in Alison a being who might be able to do the same, in the end. Not through violence (though she may end up utilizing it as a tool), but through understanding.
Honestly, 35 years isn’t even really that bad of a death sentence. She’s what, 25 right now? Maybe 30? I’d prefer to live past 60 myself, but it’s not like she’s been cursed to die young or anything.
It was thirty-five years and ten days, as of nine months ago – six recovery, then three training. So, more like thirty-four years now. Of course, if Allison is sufficiently bad at math, it’s possible she’ll lose track, keep thinking it’s thirty-five years away, and never quite get around to dying at all.
In my head Meti is voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo
Oh. That’s kinda perfect, actually, and I now need to go through the whole comic again so I can reread all of Meti’s dialogue in her voice.
The poor frog caretaker from earlier is gonna have SUCH a mess to clean up later.
My last month’s paycheck was 11000 dollars. All I did was simple 0nline work from comfort at home for 6-8 hours/day that I got from this agency I discovered over the internet and they paid me 45 dollars every hour.
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You again!! get outta my tomato stand ya lout!
At first I was like “who” and then I googled her and I was like “oh. Yeah. Yes.”
For those unfamiliar, she plays Chrisjen Avasarala in The Expanse (tv show), and has a really compelling deep, feminine “smoker’s voice”.
Also, Shala’Raan vas Tonbay, also called auntie Raan.
She’s a space person.
She was also in Arcane!
Oh yeah absolutely
“Where are you going with this, Meti?” “Wherever I goddamn like!”
It’s curious how she would fit two absolute juggernauts of old ladies like Avasarala and Meti, them being so different.
It’s strange how never before had I considered that, even though it’s objectively correct.
I haven’t, but that’s an interesting idea.
Ever since I saw arcane I couldn’t stop imagining it :^) Especially with her throat injury, it’s just perfect
They said Meti, not Maya. But tomato/tomato amirite? Especially in that second and third panels.
Meti would be perfect voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo. She should portray her too in live action.
Maya should be voiced and played by Tamara Tunie.
I have thought the exact same thing omfg.
Television adaptation of KSBD when??
Hi
I don’t like this. This is OnePiece, Dragonball, etc.
Was this really the endgoal? Then I at least embrace the journey we took.
Walk me through that? What were you hoping for? How is this like The Shounens? What are the frustrations here?
As a One Piece fan, I can say this for certain: history carries a lot of weight in this story and One Piece alike. The idea of legacy, of inherited will, and the undeniable certainty that all things must pass, and all men die, is a theme they both share.
And though their main characters aren’t exactly alike, they are similar in one important way.
They are both Royalty.
I agree with comparing it to One Piece if the comparison is complimentary.
This comment wasn’t though, he was just complaining vaguely in to the void.
Even so, One Piece is a bit odd parallel. If I wanted an East Asian comic that shows some parallels with KSBD, it is the Korean webcomic Kubera. That has a lot of similarities, other than the fact that it is completely different. 🙂
It has legacy, inherited will, and all thing must pass, and especially the weight of history thing, that is pretty heavy in it.
But also a breaking the wheel plot and an entire universe for playground. And fighting in the face of foretold future too.
And a female MC, who gains powers she never wanted or asked for, with all the crushing responsibility with it. She has a completely different personality that Alison though.
I think its that the end is in sight.
one piece will never end, its been going on since the early 1880’s and when oda dies they’ve got an AI construct lined up to keep the series going.
KSBD has been a part of my life for years now, so the fact that it might end soon is a complex feeling. Both good and bad, happysad as they say in norway.
but one piece will end! and soon! just because it’s a long story doesn’t make it any less of a story, and that story has been moving at a pretty steady pace towards a conclusion all along. one piece has occupied a similar ongoing role in many lives, but it will be over in probably the next 5 years, and that’s a complex feeling too.
One Piece is definitely not the kind of story that can go on forever. It might look like that from an outside, non-reader perspective considering its length, but is very clearly and steadily working toward an end point. It’s not Detective Conan or other endless serializations, it’s a linear, constantly progressing plot.
Similiar to when Schlock Mercenary Ended.
That was a weird day.
Though the maxims of highly effective mercenaries apply to godly beings as well.
Comparing this story to anime is sinful.
Only if one has an excessively narrow view of anime.
A friend of mine once described this comic as being “shonen anime, but actually good and without all the usual stuff I hate.” I think that’s pretty accurate, honestly!
Your freind watches only Shonen then. That’s the problem. It’s like says all American animated shows are bad when they only watch nickelodeon shows.
you wouldnt recognize a good show it it punched you in the face
In what way? Anime is a medium, you can make any story you want in it. How good it is, is up to the writer.
Anime is full of Japan-specific meta tropes and overdramatic humor styles that destroy immersion if you’re not a weeb/desensitised to it.
For any to have the same consistent minimum level of sobriety we see in KSBD, you can bet it’d spend most of its story edgier than a 12-year-old goth. I’ll pass.
All of that applies to KSBD as well. It’s just that KSBD uses ones that you, personally, are already desensitized to. Nothing wrong with that on KSBD’s part, but your lack of self-awareness is pretty funny.
Especially the ‘consistent minimum level of sobriety’ bit. KSBD isn’t good because it’s not edgy. It’s one of the edgiest edgefests to ever edge, half the time. It’s good because it owns the edge, and dresses it well. And ironically for you, because it takes a step back and stops taking it all so seriously every once in a while.
Somebody never sat Ghost in the Shell 2.
Anime doesn’t have to be the worn out tripe that Kadokowa recycles.
Watch “Grave of the Fireflies”. If that doesn’t prove that anime has a breadth far beyond what you realize, nothing will.
Ah, ‘Grave of the Fireflies’… I only watch it when I introduce it to someone new, never alone. I’m at 7 viewings now, I hope to reach 8 some day.
Can’t let all these people think anime is just ‘Ultra-Violent Porn Cartoons’.
last week the issue is not with anime the issue is you are racist
is it really racism to expect more than tropes, tropes, tropes out of a genre? is it really racism to expect more than capitalist cishet bullshit out of a genre?
Incorrect, MFer
I mean, king of swords is a shonen tournament arc.
Abbadon literally references Jojo’s bizarre adventure during the Solomon arc (which is a TOURNAMENT ARC) claiming this isn’t inspired by anime/manga is just a straight up lie
What do you mean by that? One Piece and Dragon Ball don’t even have the same messages.
Do you find no entertainment in futility?
It has literally always had the structure of a shonen, what are you talking about.
Always has been.
when the love of your life is slaughtered before your eyes, and you finally accept it and your future after years of ‘therapy’, this is an appropriate outlook.
The sword of will.
THE KING OF FOOLS
THE KING OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
*gasp* leaders aren’t allowed to have that
It is better when leaders and not kings and Kings are not leaders.
Beware the superman.
Make a face that’s horrible and frightening
Make a face as ugly as a gargoyle’s wing
For the face that’s ugliest is crowned the King of Fools!
Actual chills at the last few panels. And I think I got some dust in my eye at the simple, humble, human act of Allison saying “Thank you for sharing your story. I’m sorry you went through all that.” There’s a rare power in hearing that in our day-to-day lives already; it echoes even louder when we’re talking about the fate of universes.
This is the first time we have seen Maya thanked for her lovely noodles. My heart warms.
And that last panel is magnificent.
One notes Al-Yisun looks a hell of a lot like when we just first met Incubus.
Makes a certain amount of sense when you think about it! 🙂 He was trying to seduce her into allying with him to unlock her power. What better way to do that than to present himself as what her subconscious already recognized as her self-actualized self? It’s a treat for establishing an uncanny fellow-feeling, and it ensures that the end result he’s tacitly offering her (I.e., becoming more like his majestic self) is recognizable and appealing to her.
walk like them until they walk like you
imo maya’s restaurant would kinda be like soup nazi from seinfeld
She will serve the Maybe Soup. Maybe it will be tasty. Maybe it will not. up to you decide.
Shroedinger’s Sam Elliott cowboy speech boiled down to a broken-off sword and a cigarette-smoking heiress, soliloquizing Al-Yisun great division between fate and self-will.
Meh, “What then?” is kind of a cliche question to villainous schemes these days.
Now, things aren’t bad because they are cliche. But I do feel that question proposes that the destination is more important than the journey.
Quite to the contrary, I think it supposes the opposite.
Meti and the old Allison would have seen the defeat of their enemy as the end of the journey. The Destination.
“What then?” is a reminder that there is no “Destination”. They will have to continue their journey even after they accomplish that which they seek to accomplish.
Allison passes this test by saying she already knows. She doesn’t care where the path leads, but she knows that killing Jagganoth is just a pit stop on the journey
“Tomorrow we will be what we do now.” That is to say, habits from over a period of time and you reinforce your own actions.
Like, I read the story about the goddess wondering the road and never being able to stop while disagreeing with it vehemently. Life is not a long journey, it’s many of them.
For a journey to have meaning it has to have an end. A destination, if only after the fact.
The “what then?” is essentially answered by all the things Maya would have done until she got to that point. Because that is what she what would have kept doing afterwards, even if it no longer mattered.
“for a journey to have meaning it has to have an end” is a thought that is drenched in ideology
Life before Death
Strength before Weakness
Journey before Destination
BRIDGE FOUR!
the only phrase from some fantasy media I’ve legit considered getting as a tat
I think the ‘what then’ is a bit more wide in scope than just Maya’s personal journey. Abbadon on his twitter talks about how he hates ‘end of time’ narratives and how KSBD is very much a refutation of this idea. His belief (as far as I understand it) is that creating a narrative in which there is any form of end reinforces the idea that suffering and evil doing is a temporary state, and thus any harm we personally do is justified in the presumption that it is ultimately meaningless. I think we see this viewpoint a lot with Jadis.
So when Meti asked Maya ‘what then?’, she wasn’t referring to merely what Maya plans to do. She’s asking if Maya is truly so delusional as to believe that she has the power to rule literally forever, and no one will ever be born that is capable of destabilizing the ‘peace’ she creates. Because if that ever happens, then all the pain and misery and bloodshed that Maya is responsible for was ultimately for nothing, and her reign will be just a spec in the unfathomable infinity of existence.
But you can have an “end of time” narrative with the suffering and evil that you do not being a temporary state.
To wit, like Jashua Graham from Fallout New Vegas said: “Waging war against good people is bad for the soul.”
Not being evil can be a purely personal self-enriching goal, where the suffering of others is indeed secondary to your personal growth but still connected to it all the same.
I’m honestly not sure what you’re saying here.
I am arguing that “what then?” is not a good refutation of the end-of-time narrative.
Yeah, I got that, I mean specifically with your response to me, I cannot parse any of it, at least in how it relates to the topic.
I disagreed with Abbadon’s hatred of the narrative and offered an alternate solution that did not lead to those conclusions.
Fair enough
‘What then?’ said Plato’s ghost, ‘What then?’
“The next step,” sneered Aristotle, “the ever-present next step.”
“Will that step be worth the harm you inflicted to get this far?” inquired Socrates.
It’s kind of the most important question.
Look at Jagganoth: the crux of his motivation, the entire purpose of his endeavour to essentially claim ultimate godhood, recreate the universe absent of suffering, and then destroy himself. He is doing it because he doesn’t want to accept the truth that all the lives he has taken are on his hands alone. They are his weight to carry, but he doesn’t want to. So he has pushed it off onto 1 Metatron, onto Zoss, onto reality itself. And if he were to succeed he would find that there is no meaningful universe that lacks suffering, because suffering originates from the same source as joy and growth and strength: change. He wants the universe to end, to have a happily ever after, so that he doesn’t have to live with himself.
Allison will continue, she’ll fight her fight and do what she can, she’ll live, safe in the knowledge that one day she will die, live everyone else. And it is exactly that which makes her Royalty. To stride forward in the face of the universe, absurdity, and all the curses of living.
Wow…! That’s an exceptional analysis of Jagganoth. I hadn’t quite clocked guilt as a potential motivator because of how *fervently* he blames reality and Metatron. If you believe that, you can see how his eloquence and blunt philosophy hides something much less grand. Thank you.
If Royalty is, as you say, “To stride forward in the face of the universe, absurdity, and all the curses of living”, then we are all Royalty. And to quote W. S. Gilbert, “When everyone is somebody then no one’s anybody.”
Of course everyone is royalty. It is only revealed by those who act on that reality, rather than the lies they tell about themselves being anything less than such.
It’s still what makes him the strongest till this point. He has an answer to the question and unlike most everything else in creation, his goals actually require him to stand triumphant with all the power. Its not a good answer, but he’s one of the very few that has one.!
That…is more or less Allison’s point, yes. This page ends with her saying, in so many words, that the journey is more important than the destination so it’s pointless to try and answer this question.
It’s a very 21st Century American question, emerging from our failure to “win the peace” in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the end of the post-Cold-War End of History point of view with the return to a multipolar international order. I don’t think it’s surprising that we should see it many places these days.
It’s not a question to a villainous scheme though, it’s a question to the hero and every other “hero” that came before them.
Jagganoth is not asked “what next?” because he already had things figured out until he remakes reality and erases himself.
It’s Allison asked what she will do next after the ultimate evil has been destroyed – will she then reinforce the path of violence she used to reach the top? Which I find very novel. If it was as cliche as you were saying then it would have been guessed at in the comics of the prior pages when everyone was speculating what the question was.
Plenty of people guessed it though. And that’s not a bad thing, it was an obvious but not unsatisfactory path to take. Though I believe it was mostly “and then what?” But same thing.
“What then” was a perfect question to disarm Maya. Basically it’s saying ‘wtf do you need 40 legions and the power of the gods for? literally the only thing that makes you happy is noodles. you just wasted your whole life up to this point on stupid stuff you dont need and can’t do anything with that wont help you reach any of your goals. because you have no goals. the only goals you’ve listed are ‘get more power’ and you want that power to do…. what exactly? wtf is the point of any of this? to get more power? okay, and what’s the point of that? and that?’ Maya was broken because of how hollow everything she valued was, realizing there was no point to any of it.
Furthermore she had been cleverly scammed into this situation by Incubus, and her realisation of this also led her to see that she was being used.
What she’s saying is that since there is no end, there is no way to justify the means. You’ll have to live with all the destruction you’ve cause forever and in the face of no end, it will all turn into regret. You can’t live a fulfilled life until you realize that every single moment has to be filled with thought, has to be thought out and has to be the pinnacle of your principles and honesty. I really don’t see how that’s a platitude. You might just not have learned it well enough and would rather call it a cliché to avoid realizing its importance.
I cannot express how much glee I found in the astonished face of the sword master that just now noticed how much of her life was spent obsessing over lame phallic objects.
Lots of good Maya reaction images in this one, definitely.
“Really? This what you focused on? What have I done?”
She obviously should’ve obsessed over axes imo, dont look very phallic to me.
Girls with swords is lame, girls with halberds is where it is at.
We go from serious armor-piercing questions to a silly Los Angeles girl taking it one step at a time.
I dig it.
Also, yes, swords are phallic. Women wielding them is symbolic in a good way.
you ever think about the origin of phallic symbology, are swords phallic because of intrinsically good design or some wierd obsession with dicks. Like in an alternate timeline where women are taller, stronger and more agressive, and men still have dicks but also carry around babies sea-horse style. You think those alternate humans would still develop swords like us or just make up some wierd two pronged vagina sword?
Are you aware that the etymology of the word vagina is the Latin word for scabbard? A vaginasword would be something like a catdog.
If you want to poke someone, then a pointy stick is a good design. Form follows function, nothing deeper about it.
Yes, but they would find symbolic meaning in similarity in other things and ways. “The sword is phallic, which makes sense since it is controlled by a woman.” That sort of thing. Humans find patterns and make them symbolic.
Some women have swords
Double-headed axe, termed labrys, already symbol of the goddess in pre Hellenistic greece. And in my own culture, the goddess wields a machete-like sword-axe called a kharga, which also has an all-seeing eye.
“What then?” I don’t know man, I’ll take it a day or a week or maybe a month or two if I’m lucky at a time until I die.
Perhaps this is the way to live, for a noodle seller, or a farmer, or an old woman in a barrel. But for a ruler? A conqueror? Royalty is a continuous cutting motion, and one must be exceptionally carful and planned in where they point their sword, otherwise you destroy everything in front of you.
One notes that Allison, who claims not to think much of death, accepts the prophecy of her death (the one she requested) as the only thing she is certain of.
worry not about what is a certainty, i guess.
Such is the nature of royalty, to be fully aware and cognizant of ones inevitable and pointless death, and to not fear or dwell on it, and accept whatever fate may bring.
You don’t need to really think on something that’s a settled matter.
Can’t believe Maya was defeated by the same type of panic attack I had about graduating. Fucking weirdo.
Considering I’ve seen people hospitalized from those sorts of panic attacks (along with trying to grasp how small they are /how little their lives mean in comparison to the universe)…. It’s not that uncommon.
Just not particularly publicized.
Most people never really think about this sort of thing- the question of “What then?” is a significant one, and it either requires careful consideration or acceptance. Trying to logic out of it or justify that only leads to falling into further navel-gazing or worse, self-reflection that causes revelations of self-loathing, because you became something you hated in pursuit of your goal.
i love allison. i love allison. i love allison. i love allison. i love allison.
that out of the way, i like that we don’t see her open eye for both these pages. makes her seem… more separate from us, in this form of enlightenment she’s having.
and wow, i really thought the question would be “what do you think of death?”! “what then?” huh. “what then?” is the most important, the most crucial reason to love what you are doing to reach a decades-spanning goal.
i want to be a person whose stories reach thousands, or at least hundreds. it will take me a long time to get there, and by the time i’m there i will want something different, so it’s very important that i actually enjoy writing, drawing, etc. this isn’t really possible for maya or allison, but in their case i guess it can be altered to deriving some good, some greater meaning from the journey to that goal itself.
hope that makes sense, i’m not really the off-the-cuff wordsmith most of you are.
(also hug make me happy :’) )
In past pages, there’s been eye-symbollism with White Chain. She started out with both eyes closed, then one open and one closed, and both open, as she progressed through her arc of “waking up”.
Here, I think the focus on the side of Allison’s face missing the eye is highlighting Allison acting like Aesma. This whole page is about not thinking, just acting–something most people consider foolish. Doing something with one eye closed. Allison is basically a Royal Fool.
Just Doing without thinking too much is an act of creation in this world. Not getting bogged down on what is or isn’t possible, and instead stepping forward to TRY, to create, to do.
All the demiurges have stopped trying and changing. Including, I guess, as of this page, Maya. Allison keeps changing though, keeps trying, keeps striving. And most “educated” people would say she’s a fool for it, blind.
We can never plan for an ending because the only thing certain to end is us.
I cannot help but notice the many similarities between the “think not of death” and present-moment existentialist themes of this great story, and the “More Life” thesis of Angels in America. These last two updates especially.
Do you wise men concur?
“I’m fated to die in 35 years so it wont make a difference if I smoke.”
Maybe in 35 years she ends up dying of lung cancer.
An old saying:
“If you’re born to hang, you’ll never drown.”
Make of that what you will.
Ahab was doomed to die by a rope. He drowned when a rope pulled him into the sea.
Liver failure finally gets to her
It would certainly bring to mind Un-Hansa’s own self circular demise to die in such a way.
…oooh, nice catch.
Made me choke and fondue came out my nose.
I can only feel amusement and burning pain now. Well played.
Swords are not phallic, they’re just a hunk of metal to cut stuff with.
Then why not a cleaver? Or a knife? Or a glaive? Or an axe?
No, swords are phallic, but form does follow function. After all, Swords are designed for two main tasks: sticking them with the pointy end, and cutting someone with the edge.
Phalluses also have two main tasks, and only one is different between the two of them.
Also it’s funny.
Or the end result of a broken man who has lived a life of borrowed ideals, dedicating his entire being to saving anyone he comes across for a belief that isn’t his own.
What then? I’m going to Disneyland!
She keeps moving forward, until all her enemies are destroyed
…and then what?
after that, who knows?
Honestly kinda disappointed that we got an answer as to the question that Meti asked that broke Maya’s will, it takes away the possible speculation and mythical nature of it. Not to mention the “swords are phallic” thing feels like extremely surface level and misguided reading on Allisons part.
I’m still invested in the comic and I can’t wait to see where it goes, but the past couple pages have got me worried about whether or not the conclusion will live up to the buildup of a conclusion that truly aligns with the central thesis of this comic. Mostly with Maya seemingly denouncing violence as a concept, despite being a frequent and active adherent to its law. Perhaps that in itself is not a contradiction, and is instead more akin to how in the modern day there are people who denounce capitalism, yet still participate in a capitalist system, because there is no other way to move forward in a world so fully dominated by that system.
Idk, the implication that Allison can truly win a fight against Jagganoth also seems silly, because I thought the whole point of the fight in Breaker of Infinities was that Jagganoth was literal the pinnacle of violence and war, that he was truly beyond equal, and could not be killed by violence alone.
You can read into it more or less- but that’s the thing about this setting.
Does Allison need to have a deep, meaningful reason to do things?
Does the question that broke Maya really mean that much to the observer?
Do you need to have answers to questions?
But there is one thing that is constant in this story: every single character, so far as I can tell, is a hypocrite and flawed in some way. Allison’s flaw, and possible strength, is that she is kinda dumb. Not Luffy or Naruto dumb, but she doesn’t really think things through completely… And in a place and time where you MUST live in the moment, decide now whether to live or die, she is able to thrive- somewhat.
Still- she is flawed. They all are.
And just because one question can be answered from one perspective doesn’t mean that it will always be the right one for all observers.
Maya couldn’t answer the question because she had to think back at what she did, couldn’t see what she could do as anything other than what she had been doing, and was broken by seeing what she had become with no true goal past the point of ‘I will win’.
Allison doesn’t know, and at the moment, does not care. She sees that there is a challenge that must be met, that there is an expiration date in 35 years, and that she will die there. Therefore, she must try to succeed, and maybe she will.
Also that swords are phallic. That is a truth of the universe.
Stick’em with the pointy end!
Besides- a great deal of this comic is based around contradicting dualities that simultaneously exist, so enjoy the story.
I plan to do so.
Allison fulfills the archetype of Aesma. She is the wisest and most powerful of Yisun’s creation precisely because she is stupid and incapable of philosophizing.
And she is also Prim, travelling an endless road and encountering people who think they have found the end, and ultimately deciding that the road has no end.
Abaddon wrote an monomyth which is internal to his own fictional universe and I think that’s neat.
Not the person you’re responding to–but thanks for mentioning Prim.
I’ve seen the Aesma parallels in Allison for a while, but completely missed the parallels with Prim.
Hmm, comparing Allison to Aesma and Prim actually really changes the way I view her decisions and actions here. Thanks for giving me some new perspective on the way she is!
I’m also reminded of earlier instances, where commenters decried Allison for breaking down and being unable to continue fighting after the fight with Jagganoth, and called her weak. A lot of people rightly said it was cruel and unreasonable to expect any person, let alone someone who was a barista only a few years ago, to grapple with the unimaginable pain and hopelessness she was wrestling with at that moment.
I think of that moment, and I wonder if I am guilty of putting a similar expectation onto her, instead of expecting her to be able to cut down the pinnacle of violence so effortlessly, and push through pain that most of us could never imagine, I am expecting her to answer these complex questions and provide a conclusion to the question that leaves us satisfied.
It feels quite silly to me, honestly, as I have recently become engrossed in that very monomyth, and am familiar with a number of the tales of Ys-Aesma and Ys-Prim, that I would observe these stories and not fully acknowledge the parallels between these two major deities and our own Pree Allison.
Al-YISUN
There’s a lot in a name here.
> I can’t wait to see where it goes, but the past couple pages have got me worried about whether or not the conclusion will live up to the buildup of a conclusion that truly aligns with the central thesis of this comic.
Only when you abandon all hope will you be free.
I’m also a bit disappointed that the main lesson the protagonist is learning after this whole epic journey seems to essentially be “live laugh love”. Not that I disagree with the idea that all we can do in the face of death is living our life the fullest – but it’s a bit of a letdown after so many hard questions being asked throughout the story. As said above, it may just be because Allison is supposed to be an impulsive 20-something first and foremost.
Anyway, still an awesome comics, can’t wait to see how it sticks the landing.
I think it’s more of a counterpoint to everybody else’s awnsers. All the other demiurges have taken these very deep, intense views about the world and themselves. They got so sucked up in things they lost sight of being human. All this serious philosophy hasn’t actually helped them be comfortable with being themselves. And in turn led to an exacerbation of flaws, rather than acceptance. And so they all became stuck in internal dellemas as they neglected themselvs.
Someone who is looking deeply into themselves may just find that they accidentally ended inserting their own head up their rectum.
I honestly find it hilarious, but that is indeed one of the lessons Alison has learnt. But it wasn’t learnt at this moment, where Maya confronts her student in a direct parallel to her teacher confronting her, it was an understanding gained before this story even started, an understanding that your life is just going to keep on going until you’re dead, and that you may as well *keep going.*
Alison is 20-something barista who just wanted to get laid, and even after a boatload of terrible events in the greater Wheel, she still has better mental health and lifestyle philosophies than 90% of the Wheel. You think the other Demiurges would have tried to reason with Jagganoth when he was bound with that seal? She even got a iota of amusement and a monologue from him in doing so! Alison is a breath of fresh air to the thousand year old crypt breath that the Wheel has going on, fulfilling the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype in most of the relationships she is in and soothing the angst and scars that others are blinded by.
Kindness is a strength, understanding preludes an answer, and a life well lived is one with clear eyes upon the horizon and yourself.
All true, and why Alison may be the correct successor.
After all, why did Zoss go to the Wheel at first? He may have become the conquering king who struck down the Prime Angels, but we may never know his initial goals.
Here I can see in Alison a being who might be able to do the same, in the end. Not through violence (though she may end up utilizing it as a tool), but through understanding.
It is said he came to throne seeking an audience with god, but why exactly he sought this audience so fervently is indeed a mystery.
Where does Alison keep getting cigarettes!?
I assume she buys them someplace in Throne and has been for at least two or three years now.
She can transmute things into cigarettes using magic, or maybe she never got past making plums?
Probably she makes them.
After all- transmuting air into plums may be easier or harder than making cigarettes. That, or she keeps finding/buying them.
We’ve seen cigarettes elsewhere in Throne.
There are shops and vending machines in the red city; and also, as we saw a while back, Cio taught her how to materialize things magically.
Is there a meaning of life?
Maybe.
But there is a journey, and what you do along it matters to you.
Honestly, 35 years isn’t even really that bad of a death sentence. She’s what, 25 right now? Maybe 30? I’d prefer to live past 60 myself, but it’s not like she’s been cursed to die young or anything.
It was thirty-five years and ten days, as of nine months ago – six recovery, then three training. So, more like thirty-four years now. Of course, if Allison is sufficiently bad at math, it’s possible she’ll lose track, keep thinking it’s thirty-five years away, and never quite get around to dying at all.