WHEEL SMASHING LORD 3-104 to 3-105
Chapter: 3
“The Ya-at can hear the grinding. That’s what they say, anyway. The turning of the wheel. Their hyms are tuned to its terrifying, monstrous gyrations. That is what makes them feared.”
– Ynnigrad, Lunar Mercenary
Does everyone go to the same cave for Enlightening Heart to Hearts? Is it on rental basis? Do they do weddings and proms?
There’s something oddly sweet about Solomon wrapping White Chains hair up. It’s not in any way necessary for her recovery, but he’s seen her do it and knows it’s something she cares about.
He had daughters once
Is that the sin of the Wheel Turning King? That he refuses to let the wheel turn and keeps resetting? That he won’t let his Age of Fire end, to reference Dark Souls.
Jagganoth just wants to kill himself and also wants to bring eternal peace, but he can’t think of any way to do that beside blowing everything up
Zoss is not the Wheel Turning King and very much wants his age to pass
82 White Chain Returns in Emptiness For The People
As a good friend of mine, Leslie Fish, once (many times) sang:
There’s a wheel turning on bloody ground
Gains an inch every time it goes ’round
Come on, let’s make another revolution
Turn, Turn, Turn….
Now if only she wasn’t an alt-right nut.
14 Coyote! That we have a mutual friend leads me to ask whether you sing also.
I do indeed Northwind. Should you happen back to this and see my response feel free to drop me a line at SongCoyote at yahoo
And Epsilon, while Leslie has said some things that are easily interpreted as alt-right, she is very far from that in my experience. She has tried to clarify and it has fallen on deaf ears. I do wish she were more flexible in thinking but alas in some things I fear she has fallen prey to what she railed about for decades: stagnancy of belief.
Typo detected: Hyms = Hymns
What happened to page 104?
Rusty Cans is observant.
I always thought Solomon David was an interesting character. I’m glad the authnr kept him in the story and was willing to develop him even more.
I think White Chain must be the first “Plum Knight”.
You have Root Knights, Thorn Knights, Petal Knights. What is missing? What flowers and petals beget? Fruit that starts a new generation of change.
And plums are the fruit of knowledge, or at least of some symbolic power, in this universe (vs apples, pomegranate, lotuses, etc. in other cultures).
I love this interpretation. The manifold Iron Plum.
She’s the people’s knight, I think she just told us. Plum would work as a symbol for that I guess, especially in this cosmology.
Fish. Hunt. Tinker. Read.
Even in retirement Solomon is a perfectionist, and has a dedicated man cave for each.
“My allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy!”
My allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy.
Solomon and Jadis aspired to find control and ultimately, make the multiverse less awful for the people. Both found themselves frozen and stagnant, but the Wheel cannot be stopped.
Perhaps, perhaps, however, the Wheel can be steered to higher ground, out of the slog and filth of greed and violence.
But Violence is Inescapable.
Huh. Her crown is different then any other we’ve seen. I don’t think that’s Royalty as we understand it.
No it’s not, it’s manifesting the same way Solomon’s did.
So where’s page 104.
Neo Arkadia is observant, as was Rusty Cans.
In all fairness, I don’t think this metaphor really works here.
For all we know, Solomon’s empire was a relatively decent and stable place for decades, if not centuries, and the only thing the guy couldn’t stop was a sudden invasion by an invincible godlike universe-destroying psycho – which is not something that could have been prevented by merely “allowing history to take its course”.
Jagganoth is also trying to control the wheel in his own way. His invasion is not part of history taking its course.
Your hand must become a hand that is cutting (hair).
I do not turn the wheel, the wheel turns me.
There is no wheel, only I
I am the wheel, I turn myself.
– Lord of Mountains
I see Solomon went with the Kratos look. I like it.
We know that Solomon-David admires, or at least respects, Zoss, and was seeking a way to emulate him. But first he needed to find someone else capable of bearing the weight of the Celestial Empire. So even if he was a bit tyrannical at times, at least S-diddy had some sense of responsibility. Which is more than you can say for most other demi-urges.
Anyway, back to my main point- Zoss was the ruling king, but gave it all up and effectively committed suicide (let himself be beheaded). So I wonder if in that vein, we’re about to see Solomon-David’s own Obi-wan Kenobi moment here, “strike me down and I will become more powerful…” etc.
I am the master of
That which is the master of me
And so I shall ever be
And on
And on
In the end the old man realized the one person he’d have been proud to call son, he must bend himself and call daughter.
Acceptance of the unchanging, and yet hope in change. The violent cycle of humanity to continue, yet new generations bringing new life. A Republic instead of an empire.
It has been remarked that, the thing about revolutions is that they always come around again.
so uh… is the Allison side of the story seeming a bit nonsensical to anyone else? I mean character development wise… like she got a ton of power out of nowhere and is winning just because she got a bigger number?
I know she did a little training with Maya, but that didn’t seem like such a large gap in the story to allow her to basically beat Gog Agog, it’s a smaller implied time than her training with White Chain, and after that training white chain still outclassed her, and the demiurges were just shown to be basically completely out of reach. Also when maya asked her about death, it kinda seemed out of nowhere that she didn’t think about it, like just a few scenes before that she had said she cared a lot about winning and preventing people from dying, and then she basically gets enlightened out of nowhere? and I get that she got a big revelation at the end of her stay with Jadis, and a big dose of willpower, but it doesn’t seem consistent with then… not caring about death? and it doesn’t seem like such a shift to be able to overcome gog agog, which is clearly one of the strongest demiurges, and even the strongest mentally… and she just beats her because she got a little revelation a little while ago?… it kinda seems like she got big number out of nowhere just to move the story in a particular direction
I get she now has “a big will”, and maybe her winning is like, a metaphor, but this isn’t David Lynch where things happen because they’re metaphor, in this story they also happen because of the logic of the story, and it seems inconsequent to have such a big powerup out of just a bit of extra will
I don’t know, I kind of hope Allilson is going to get a big reality check soon and gets smacked in the face, what Cio said a couple of pages ago, calling her fear out, kinda seemed to indicate she’s overconfident, so hopefully there’s some deeper development that’s more interesting than just “she has bigger number now, so she wins at everything”. Abbadon obviously has written a very interesting story so far, and I’m sure he has interesting plans, it’s just these past pages have seemed a bit cliche in a “now main character has the bigger number!” kind of way
This isn’t JJK, it’s not about power scaling. Over and over the text tells us that the greatest strength is in acting without thinking, in hollowing out your head and becoming an idiot so that you can then become pure action. The entirety of Allison’s arc from page 1 is her learning to do more and think less, and right now we’re seeing what happens when she’s not thinking at all and has no plan. The purest expression of this lies in Pree Aesma’s epic — the universe favours a fool.
But it is kind of boring, yes. It’s not that she succeeds in spite of her stubbornness and her empty head, it’s because of those things that she does. It doesn’t stay compelling for long, so we’ll see where it ends up. There being no twist or complication to it is hard to imagine.
I agree, this story never had a set or linear power scale or leaderboard. Each demiurge decided to not fight so we cant even know in a theoritical battle who would win against who and thats is not the point of the story. This story is about ways of thinking and the relationship between our sense of self and the impact it had on ‘history’ itself. Allison realised that even if life is predetermined she needs to act and try and bring about what she sees as a better future. Otherwise if everyone do nothing, nothing will ever happen.
“I will submit myself to being part of the world, not its master.”
“What a noble sentiment. I think you’ll do great ruling my empire.”
“Except for that. I will do incredible amounts of violence to make sure the state you ruled is never an empire again. Fuck you it’s a republic now.”