It occurs to me. The halo takes the form of a wheel. God would, one supposes, have the greatest possible halo. What, one wonders as one casts their glance idly about, is the greatest wheel in the vicinity? Questions questions.
Allison immediately slipping on the guttery floor next page and crashing with a looney tunes sound… could have happened if Gog had won the fight of mights
*Into music stops at the pre-logo stairs*
Peter, did you eat that worm?
No!
You did, didn’t you?
NO!
Come on, spit it out!
BLEH!
*He’s, a, fam-ly guuuuuuy*
I theorize if she tries to feed it to Jadis a similar thing would happen. Only those who have glimpsed the Wheel would be able to mentally wrestle with something so vast.
It is interesting on that note, that the Beast appears to never have subsumed the other Tyrants. What could be the reasons? Here’s some that spring to mind:
* The Diamond is mentally incompatible with such a merger, the entirely of his self in direct contradiction with Gog. If he were to be subsumed, there would need to be so little of his self left as to be meaningless.
* The story starts with the Sword’s body reforged by angels, and any matter of an angel is outside the realm of mallable flesh.
* The Bearer of the Shape is conceptually unable to consent to such a merger. Even if she merged with the Beast, the Beast would either a) Be obliterated by the Shape, possibly “skipping” any such loop as there is nothing to add to her recollections. In the end she would only recall timelines where she failed. Or b) She would be slaved to her own destiny, which could easily include erasing her own memories of the loop. Same as above, leaving only a history of the failed attempts.
* The Power…There can be no question timelines exist where Incubus has followed the winning side and dived into the Worm’s maw. Does the worm fear being subverted by Incubus in a manner similar to Allison’s wacky bank psychosis? The key to escape was self-love and acceptance, something I doubt Gog has ever fully grasped.
* The Glory is made of stern stuff, but given time the worm would find a way to subvert Om. Then again, there was Gog’s bitter question during the great battle in the sky. All it would take is Om saying yes, Gog has value to her, and Gog would have helped them all triumph in this loop. But she doesn’t. Maybe she never does, in every single loop. But Gog still gives her a chance to change. Maybe this loop the right circumstances have occured for Om to grow as a person?
* The Tower I have no idea. He could be persuaded with enough time and effort. Seems an obvious choice especially early on when Gog was still going for the wins.
In a completely unrelated note, how much worm did Allison just turn? Did one seventh of the Wheel’s population just melt? Or was that just a demonstation and threat for Gog not to fuck with her.
Hello Guys,
Today is my birthday and I need some clarification about the deep meaning of Gog Agog to the history. What does she represent? I’ve heard it is envy but I am sure there is so much more. Also, are there any other references to a worm-like intelligence in the literature that was an inspiration to K6BDs?
Each of the demiurges represents a failure to confront the true nature of reality. Mammon was trapped by his attachment to material things. Mottom was trapped by her fear of death. Solomon is trapped by his past. Jadis is trapped by her future. Incubus is trapped by his own weakness, while Jagganoth is trapped by his own strength. Gog, meanwhile, is trapped by the way the Wheel cycles, no longer caring about her actions because she can just try again next time, trapped by her own immortality.
Allison will become Royalty because she is trapped by none of these things and walks only in her present, cutting through everything in front of her.
He’s an insecure posturing mess. He will never be safe ‘enough’.
He’s also not a sociopath. Not naturally. He talks to much about the importance of killing empathy for power. He’s a monster because he chooses to be one, rejecting his emotions. I believe this is more thane a front because he was such good friends with Maya. She couldn’t have loved him as a brother if there were no redeeming qualities there.
Part of it is that she’s envious that she will never be the main character. She’ll never be Zoss, Zaid, or Allison in any cycle. She’s doomed to watch from the sidelines how everything plays out each time. She wants to be in the limelight so bad that she doomed herself to being a part of Allison.
There’s also a fair bit of nihilism and absurdism she represents. If everything is just gonna get rewound and repeat, what’s the point? Why try? Failure doesn’t matter, because we can just try again. Success doesn’t matter, because we will just try again.
17 Noble Silver Execrates the Names of the Unworthy
My theory is that she *is* an Allison, just not *this* Allison. As in, she was, an unfathomably long time ago, the love interest of a Zaid (all names of these characters besides Zoss being meaningless in the time cycle). She was slain to motivate her own Zaid in the 3rd act and didn’t take it lying down. Became a demiurge, specifically the demiurge representing envy, due to her absolute refusal to accept her bit part in fate. Or something like that. I think that’s a part of what rankles her so much about our Allison. She’s different. Chosen. *She’s* the main character. She doesn’t have to make Faustian bargains to survive death in defiance of God. Sure she’s going through hell but things are lining up for her. I think Gog Agog has to consume this Hero Allison to take her place, and that’s her fatal mistake.
On a planet full of different cultures and religions, why should anything be associated with Christianity?
Fuck gluttony, it’s a limited and childish view of the world, it would be a disappointment to realize that these works of art are based on something so stupid and small.
What is it with your hangups on Christianity? You are the only one dragging it into the discussion when everyone else was talking about what familiar concepts could fit which demiurge.
Furthermore, your interpretation is your own and if you cannot handle Abbadon potentially having some Christian influences in his vast mythology, then the only one disappointing you is yourself.
especially since ksbd is themed after and draws inspiration mostly from hinduism and other indo-aryan religions and texts. but then again, angels demons and 7 overlords
Well. The Hebraic Kabbalah is also present here, and it’s the basis of most Xtian mysticism and quite a bit of orthodox Xtianity including Greek and Iberian before the Reconquista. Certain Xtian communities The core structure of this story corresponds to the Ets Chaim, but the Ets Chaim and its associated paths is also found in a slightly different form in the Tantras. Given the very close connections between coastal European communities and the spice trade (not to mention Buddhist influence on the Levant and Arabia), this is not surprising.
This comic gets inspiration from Buddhism, Hinduism, ancient Greek paganism, as well as other fictional works like (very especially) the Elder Scrolls, and in one aspect it draws from Christianity and you’re like “HELL NO”?
Here’s a fun question:
If you were building your own set of demiurges, what religious moral schematic would you flavour it with? Here we have the seven sins, great villain material, a classic choice, lots of room for creativity, and as a bonus quite recognisable in western cultures so people can go “oh, there the sins! Its sin time baby!” and feel clever about their media literacy. We have the Aesma stories that invert some of the Demiurges to give “virtues” (who still get clowned on because in this house we follow a buddist interpretation of metaphysics mother fu-)
Ahem. I’ve always been parital to the Sephirot/Qlippoth myself, even if some can be harder to embody in a character. ANybody have thoughts on the matter?
The Tree of Life may be well suited for ritual magic, less so for telling a story with recognizable antecedents. Unless one be a better storyteller than this humble vessel of fired clay, to be sure.
This humble scholar you see before you has written a fair bit about the unique persepctive of Gog-Agog before, especially on pages 3-80 and 5-77/5-78! I love your question about literary inspirations, though, so this time, I shall let the esteemed poet-warrior Preem Edgar Allen Poe speak for me:
“Lo! ’tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!
That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, ‘Man,’
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.”
Right on the spot! This is exactly what this page is all about! The conqueror Worm. But now that Alison has conquered the Conqueror Worm, is she now the Conqueror Worm…?
One is reminded of His Lordship Leto II acquiring divinity by merging with the worms. If we take into consideration his infatuation with a combative woman, the parallel grows.
Gog x Allison is canon in other timelines, in other words.
You and I, tiny worms, writhing on the ground of a planet fully made of worms and only worms, ah, wouldn’t that be the gog agogest of sights?
The ground shakes, trembles, but it’s only a continent sized worm that’s wriggled against the might of gravity. It resists, but the pull of its own fall is enough, and too much, and yet another worm as tall as mountains would be plummets to the depths of the writhing earth. The collapsing worming mass continues on, more microscopic worms feeding on the carcasses of once great worms, growing, spreading, and the perpetual feast continues~~
Oh, but to be a worm
Divine in plight
Gluttonous storm
There are only worms in sight.
Come in the curdle of Gog Agog’s embrace, for only Gog Agog will love you if you were a worm.
The wheel that was agog has halted in it’s revolutions. It was foolish for the worm to swallow it’s own tail and trap itself. Clearly the worm did not understand that royalty is a single perpetual cutting motion, an unstoppable momentum forward.
This is the result of all of Allison’s hard work, A single cutting motion that cannot be stopped. This conflict of the minds, once initiated, was always going to be fast one way or another.
It’s her character. She is not satisfied with going back. No matter how real it is, she can’t go back to the best time of her life, hanging out with her girlfriend. She tore off her arm because it was a lie. She pulled out her eyeball because it was a lie. The key made it easier, but she is self-effacing. She would never accept her own pleasure.
I mean, she does accept her own pleasure – one of the first things she does after Maya’s training is going bar crawling with White Chain – but she doesn’t accept illusory comfort or returning to the past(Jadis’ prosthetics and Gog Agog’s mental matrix bullshit)
Tbh idk why everyone in the comments is eating this shit up. You’re telling me Gog lost after ONE page of brain-fighting? Just because?? Alison *tried* hard enough to know that she’s in an illusion? I don’t really get it, this isn’t even what the powers of the worm were said to be. It’s possible Gog just figured out which reality Allison would fall for: the one where she is undefeated. Obviously I’m fine with either outcome, but I don’t see Allison coming out of this so unphased and unscathed. We know that’s not the story Abaddon wants to tell
I disagree, the seven were all equal in power (in theory anyway) so comparing how brutal a challenge her first trial was to her last shows just how far she has come.
I agree, this feels rushed and strange. This chapter felt less about telling a full story and more about getting to the end as quickly as possible. What story is there to tell from this interaction? We’ve already seen Alison conquer her demons after a fashion with Incubus, and there was no way she was going to get absorbed by Gog-Agog at this point.
I would’ve rather seen Cio take the worm and let this be her struggle to awaken as a new being, because that’s an arc with actual stakes.
This is Allison’s first decisive victory in the full comic. Clearly beating gog isn’t the end goal of this section of story and, like the alt text said, the author didn’t want to spend 50 pages just cycling through possible timelines.
In the same sentence you say that this is Alison’s first decisive victory in the entire comic but beating Gog-Agog isn’t important anyway. This kind of speaks to my position that this entire section of story feels a bit pointless.
I’m not really interested in seeing decisive victory or seeing “50 pages of cycling through timelines”, but I WOULD be interested in seeing Alison or Cio actually grappling with spiritual delusions relevant to their characters rather than Alison cutting through Gog-Agog like paper after “am i gf or am i mommy.”
Ah, but notice the last panel. Nukoku and Allison are about to meet. This chapter’s story hasn’t even started yet. The Gog Show was prologue.
Also remember almost the first thing Gog said to Allison was ‘I’m your biggest fan!’ Don’t assume that she wants to be defeated. Or that defeat is the end for her. She’s playing a much longer game.
It’s not over. Grog was never the real source of conflict here, Grog joining Allison was just the opening act. The real tension is between Allison and Cio. The real show is just about to start.
It’s a heavily abridged sequence, look at the alt text for the past page. This isn’t Allison speedrunning through it, it’s Abaddon wanting to move on with the story.
I wish he’d had this spirit for the tournament arc and not now tho.
The thing is: Allison has already beaten the challenge Gog Agog was supposed to be when she left the palace of “the Shape”. From now on she will only go “forward”. Gog wasn’t giving her a chance to go forward somewhere else, she was asking her to “stop”. In the tournament she still had to learn collaboration in actual combat.
It is honestly amazing how… earned… all this feels. We’ve spent so long seeing Allison get kicked around and grow and learn and adapt that at this point, her slapping the heck out of Gog just feels right.
Yeah. That will be interesting. Saying no to the Worm was, relatively, easy for Alison, because that’s what she’s be doing this entire time and it’s central to her becoming royalty. How she’ll respond to Nukoku is less preordained and the “correct” answer is a lot less clear. I think it’s also something she’s far more afraid of, both because of the possibilities any answer will entail and because a her recent experiences are probably setting her up to feel like she has to give an answer she does not want to.
What a good show this was
That new halo is having quite the repulsive effect.
It occurs to me. The halo takes the form of a wheel. God would, one supposes, have the greatest possible halo. What, one wonders as one casts their glance idly about, is the greatest wheel in the vicinity? Questions questions.
the halo takes the form of a wheel.
the halo takes the form of a _broken_ wheel.
the halo, from another perspective, takes the form of an _unfinished_ wheel
As players progress through the game, they can collect various outfits and themes, ranging from funky costumes to unique stickman designs.
Still got those cool poses down
Yea boiiiiiiiiii
Allison is just built different than everyone else who joined The Worm
What is different is that The Worm joined Allison.
This was not part of the Plan, but the Lessons of Aesma tell us that, sometimes, plans need a good monkeywrench in their works.
Allison immediately slipping on the guttery floor next page and crashing with a looney tunes sound… could have happened if Gog had won the fight of mights
Alas, Royalty will be Royalty
Alas, Gog is a bit too agog at this turn of events to Gog properly XD
Royalty is a continuous farting motion? I don’t think Abbadon would use that gag, but Gog might.
*Into music stops at the pre-logo stairs*
Peter, did you eat that worm?
No!
You did, didn’t you?
NO!
Come on, spit it out!
BLEH!
*He’s, a, fam-ly guuuuuuy*
I theorize if she tries to feed it to Jadis a similar thing would happen. Only those who have glimpsed the Wheel would be able to mentally wrestle with something so vast.
It is interesting on that note, that the Beast appears to never have subsumed the other Tyrants. What could be the reasons? Here’s some that spring to mind:
* The Diamond is mentally incompatible with such a merger, the entirely of his self in direct contradiction with Gog. If he were to be subsumed, there would need to be so little of his self left as to be meaningless.
* The story starts with the Sword’s body reforged by angels, and any matter of an angel is outside the realm of mallable flesh.
* The Bearer of the Shape is conceptually unable to consent to such a merger. Even if she merged with the Beast, the Beast would either a) Be obliterated by the Shape, possibly “skipping” any such loop as there is nothing to add to her recollections. In the end she would only recall timelines where she failed. Or b) She would be slaved to her own destiny, which could easily include erasing her own memories of the loop. Same as above, leaving only a history of the failed attempts.
* The Power…There can be no question timelines exist where Incubus has followed the winning side and dived into the Worm’s maw. Does the worm fear being subverted by Incubus in a manner similar to Allison’s wacky bank psychosis? The key to escape was self-love and acceptance, something I doubt Gog has ever fully grasped.
* The Glory is made of stern stuff, but given time the worm would find a way to subvert Om. Then again, there was Gog’s bitter question during the great battle in the sky. All it would take is Om saying yes, Gog has value to her, and Gog would have helped them all triumph in this loop. But she doesn’t. Maybe she never does, in every single loop. But Gog still gives her a chance to change. Maybe this loop the right circumstances have occured for Om to grow as a person?
* The Tower I have no idea. He could be persuaded with enough time and effort. Seems an obvious choice especially early on when Gog was still going for the wins.
In a completely unrelated note, how much worm did Allison just turn? Did one seventh of the Wheel’s population just melt? Or was that just a demonstation and threat for Gog not to fuck with her.
In the former case, we can be reasonably sure that Gog Agog is/was at least a few billion demons.
Blood and worms, aaaaah, blood and worms.
All the way down, yep.
Hello Guys,
Today is my birthday and I need some clarification about the deep meaning of Gog Agog to the history. What does she represent? I’ve heard it is envy but I am sure there is so much more. Also, are there any other references to a worm-like intelligence in the literature that was an inspiration to K6BDs?
Each of the demiurges represents a failure to confront the true nature of reality. Mammon was trapped by his attachment to material things. Mottom was trapped by her fear of death. Solomon is trapped by his past. Jadis is trapped by her future. Incubus is trapped by his own weakness, while Jagganoth is trapped by his own strength. Gog, meanwhile, is trapped by the way the Wheel cycles, no longer caring about her actions because she can just try again next time, trapped by her own immortality.
Allison will become Royalty because she is trapped by none of these things and walks only in her present, cutting through everything in front of her.
What do you mean “trapped by his own weakness”?
He’s an insecure posturing mess. He will never be safe ‘enough’.
He’s also not a sociopath. Not naturally. He talks to much about the importance of killing empathy for power. He’s a monster because he chooses to be one, rejecting his emotions. I believe this is more thane a front because he was such good friends with Maya. She couldn’t have loved him as a brother if there were no redeeming qualities there.
He also got cut by the maybe sword! he only survived by cheating with blood alchemy
Hey, if it works it works.
Love this explanation.
Part of it is that she’s envious that she will never be the main character. She’ll never be Zoss, Zaid, or Allison in any cycle. She’s doomed to watch from the sidelines how everything plays out each time. She wants to be in the limelight so bad that she doomed herself to being a part of Allison.
There’s also a fair bit of nihilism and absurdism she represents. If everything is just gonna get rewound and repeat, what’s the point? Why try? Failure doesn’t matter, because we can just try again. Success doesn’t matter, because we will just try again.
Oh man… “Admit that you needed me” hits that much harder realising this.
My theory is that she *is* an Allison, just not *this* Allison. As in, she was, an unfathomably long time ago, the love interest of a Zaid (all names of these characters besides Zoss being meaningless in the time cycle). She was slain to motivate her own Zaid in the 3rd act and didn’t take it lying down. Became a demiurge, specifically the demiurge representing envy, due to her absolute refusal to accept her bit part in fate. Or something like that. I think that’s a part of what rankles her so much about our Allison. She’s different. Chosen. *She’s* the main character. She doesn’t have to make Faustian bargains to survive death in defiance of God. Sure she’s going through hell but things are lining up for her. I think Gog Agog has to consume this Hero Allison to take her place, and that’s her fatal mistake.
I love this interpretation!
Side chick becomes demiurge by refusing to be fridged for MC. I love it.
Either gluttony or despair, depending on how you feel about mottom.
On a planet full of different cultures and religions, why should anything be associated with Christianity?
Fuck gluttony, it’s a limited and childish view of the world, it would be a disappointment to realize that these works of art are based on something so stupid and small.
What is it with your hangups on Christianity? You are the only one dragging it into the discussion when everyone else was talking about what familiar concepts could fit which demiurge.
Furthermore, your interpretation is your own and if you cannot handle Abbadon potentially having some Christian influences in his vast mythology, then the only one disappointing you is yourself.
especially since ksbd is themed after and draws inspiration mostly from hinduism and other indo-aryan religions and texts. but then again, angels demons and 7 overlords
Don’t forget a “Seven headed beast”
Well. The Hebraic Kabbalah is also present here, and it’s the basis of most Xtian mysticism and quite a bit of orthodox Xtianity including Greek and Iberian before the Reconquista. Certain Xtian communities The core structure of this story corresponds to the Ets Chaim, but the Ets Chaim and its associated paths is also found in a slightly different form in the Tantras. Given the very close connections between coastal European communities and the spice trade (not to mention Buddhist influence on the Levant and Arabia), this is not surprising.
are you restarted?
This comic gets inspiration from Buddhism, Hinduism, ancient Greek paganism, as well as other fictional works like (very especially) the Elder Scrolls, and in one aspect it draws from Christianity and you’re like “HELL NO”?
Grow up lmao
Vivec and the face of water->Yisun and the water house?
Here’s a fun question:
If you were building your own set of demiurges, what religious moral schematic would you flavour it with? Here we have the seven sins, great villain material, a classic choice, lots of room for creativity, and as a bonus quite recognisable in western cultures so people can go “oh, there the sins! Its sin time baby!” and feel clever about their media literacy. We have the Aesma stories that invert some of the Demiurges to give “virtues” (who still get clowned on because in this house we follow a buddist interpretation of metaphysics mother fu-)
Ahem. I’ve always been parital to the Sephirot/Qlippoth myself, even if some can be harder to embody in a character. ANybody have thoughts on the matter?
The Tree of Life may be well suited for ritual magic, less so for telling a story with recognizable antecedents. Unless one be a better storyteller than this humble vessel of fired clay, to be sure.
This humble scholar you see before you has written a fair bit about the unique persepctive of Gog-Agog before, especially on pages 3-80 and 5-77/5-78! I love your question about literary inspirations, though, so this time, I shall let the esteemed poet-warrior Preem Edgar Allen Poe speak for me:
“Lo! ’tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!
That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, ‘Man,’
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.”
Right on the spot! This is exactly what this page is all about! The conqueror Worm. But now that Alison has conquered the Conqueror Worm, is she now the Conqueror Worm…?
Gog represents the deadly sin on gluttony to me. The worm is never satisfied and seeks to consume the world.
One is reminded of His Lordship Leto II acquiring divinity by merging with the worms. If we take into consideration his infatuation with a combative woman, the parallel grows.
Gog x Allison is canon in other timelines, in other words.
A WINNER IS CROWNED AND THE KING STANDS HIGH
Kill six billion worms
Finally an achievable goal
Would you love me if I was a worm?
Why can’t we both be the Worm?
You and I, tiny worms, writhing on the ground of a planet fully made of worms and only worms, ah, wouldn’t that be the gog agogest of sights?
The ground shakes, trembles, but it’s only a continent sized worm that’s wriggled against the might of gravity. It resists, but the pull of its own fall is enough, and too much, and yet another worm as tall as mountains would be plummets to the depths of the writhing earth. The collapsing worming mass continues on, more microscopic worms feeding on the carcasses of once great worms, growing, spreading, and the perpetual feast continues~~
Oh, but to be a worm
Divine in plight
Gluttonous storm
There are only worms in sight.
Come in the curdle of Gog Agog’s embrace, for only Gog Agog will love you if you were a worm.
Does that answer your question?
Yes, actually!
Sorry Mrs. Agog, but my drip is fanum tax and you cannot skibidi the sauce I’m carrying.
Words that will define a generation’s worth of Royalty.
As badass as this is, I can’t help but feel a bit sad. That maybe we’ve seen the last of Gog-agog as they were
I don’t think Gog has agogged her last gog. But i do think she is more or less bent to the will of Al-yisun
AL-YIS-UN is a 25 year old Barista who knows Kung Fu.
GOG IS EVERYONE IS GOG IS EVERYONE IS GOG.
Idk what’s going to happen but don’t write her out. She has fed on the entrails of creation when all other lives had ceased.
Fear not, there is still Goth Agog
these steps look hella slippery that would be such a comedy genius if allison fell on her ass
If this is/were still the Gog-agog (agog) Show, this would indeed be the best moment for slapstick. Drama and comedy are not so far apart.
Our revels now are ended.
Exeunt omnes.
The wheel that was agog has halted in it’s revolutions. It was foolish for the worm to swallow it’s own tail and trap itself. Clearly the worm did not understand that royalty is a single perpetual cutting motion, an unstoppable momentum forward.
To shreds you say
goddamn I laughed too hard at this
I’m glad that Allison was able to worm her way out of this problem.
Winning comment.
ALLISON IS
ALL IS ON
No, I just can’t take how easy this was. Just no
This is the result of all of Allison’s hard work, A single cutting motion that cannot be stopped. This conflict of the minds, once initiated, was always going to be fast one way or another.
It’s her character. She is not satisfied with going back. No matter how real it is, she can’t go back to the best time of her life, hanging out with her girlfriend. She tore off her arm because it was a lie. She pulled out her eyeball because it was a lie. The key made it easier, but she is self-effacing. She would never accept her own pleasure.
I mean, she does accept her own pleasure – one of the first things she does after Maya’s training is going bar crawling with White Chain – but she doesn’t accept illusory comfort or returning to the past(Jadis’ prosthetics and Gog Agog’s mental matrix bullshit)
“We’re not going back”?
Of course it was easy, Royalty is the easiest thing in the world. Just cut and never stop cutting.
Exactly. If you struggle then you’re not Royalty.
Tbh idk why everyone in the comments is eating this shit up. You’re telling me Gog lost after ONE page of brain-fighting? Just because?? Alison *tried* hard enough to know that she’s in an illusion? I don’t really get it, this isn’t even what the powers of the worm were said to be. It’s possible Gog just figured out which reality Allison would fall for: the one where she is undefeated. Obviously I’m fine with either outcome, but I don’t see Allison coming out of this so unphased and unscathed. We know that’s not the story Abaddon wants to tell
I agree, a little too easy. At the very least, she should have struggled more to overcome the temptations.
I disagree, the seven were all equal in power (in theory anyway) so comparing how brutal a challenge her first trial was to her last shows just how far she has come.
I agree, this feels rushed and strange. This chapter felt less about telling a full story and more about getting to the end as quickly as possible. What story is there to tell from this interaction? We’ve already seen Alison conquer her demons after a fashion with Incubus, and there was no way she was going to get absorbed by Gog-Agog at this point.
I would’ve rather seen Cio take the worm and let this be her struggle to awaken as a new being, because that’s an arc with actual stakes.
This is Allison’s first decisive victory in the full comic. Clearly beating gog isn’t the end goal of this section of story and, like the alt text said, the author didn’t want to spend 50 pages just cycling through possible timelines.
In the same sentence you say that this is Alison’s first decisive victory in the entire comic but beating Gog-Agog isn’t important anyway. This kind of speaks to my position that this entire section of story feels a bit pointless.
I’m not really interested in seeing decisive victory or seeing “50 pages of cycling through timelines”, but I WOULD be interested in seeing Alison or Cio actually grappling with spiritual delusions relevant to their characters rather than Alison cutting through Gog-Agog like paper after “am i gf or am i mommy.”
Ah, but notice the last panel. Nukoku and Allison are about to meet. This chapter’s story hasn’t even started yet. The Gog Show was prologue.
Also remember almost the first thing Gog said to Allison was ‘I’m your biggest fan!’ Don’t assume that she wants to be defeated. Or that defeat is the end for her. She’s playing a much longer game.
The first memory was the only actual temptation.
It’s not over. Grog was never the real source of conflict here, Grog joining Allison was just the opening act. The real tension is between Allison and Cio. The real show is just about to start.
It’s a heavily abridged sequence, look at the alt text for the past page. This isn’t Allison speedrunning through it, it’s Abaddon wanting to move on with the story.
I wish he’d had this spirit for the tournament arc and not now tho.
The thing is: Allison has already beaten the challenge Gog Agog was supposed to be when she left the palace of “the Shape”. From now on she will only go “forward”. Gog wasn’t giving her a chance to go forward somewhere else, she was asking her to “stop”. In the tournament she still had to learn collaboration in actual combat.
AYE
Schlorp
allison got that dewormer glow
that ivermectin rizz
Clean up on aisle gog
Call Anon a vet the way she dewormed this dog of a world.
I wonder if this dissolution is happening just locally or in every single one of Gog-Agog’s universes.
It is honestly amazing how… earned… all this feels. We’ve spent so long seeing Allison get kicked around and grow and learn and adapt that at this point, her slapping the heck out of Gog just feels right.
Now a harder choice…
Yeah. That will be interesting. Saying no to the Worm was, relatively, easy for Alison, because that’s what she’s be doing this entire time and it’s central to her becoming royalty. How she’ll respond to Nukoku is less preordained and the “correct” answer is a lot less clear. I think it’s also something she’s far more afraid of, both because of the possibilities any answer will entail and because a her recent experiences are probably setting her up to feel like she has to give an answer she does not want to.
Also, how many thousands of random characters across the multiverse also just dissolved into worms and gore?
We should make a list.