WHEEL SMASHING LORD 5-179 (METATRON ONE)
Chapter: 5
“Hark, said the master of masters, and attend me thus,
But the scribe was mute, and had nothing to say,
He had sworn himself to silence a long time ago,
Sworn to seal his mouth,
So that not even one ounce of love could depart his body.”
-Psalms
METATRON LIVES!
for like another two pages because Jaggy’s gonna hatch soon
“Going to cast The Great Worm for 4 Black, 4 Green, 4 Colorless.”
“As a reaction, I cast Metatron for 6 White and 6 Red.”
It can’t be as a reaction, Gog is clearly in play before Metatron. I’d buy flashed in end-of-turn with an EtB trigger destroying (exiling?) target permanent.
KILL ONE ANGEL
Kill All Angels! And all the Unnoticeables and Empty Ones who happen to be in the way.
Sorry, just couldn’t help it.
Uh Oh. What remains of Allison and co. have found themselves trapped in a PS1 era Final Fantasy summoning animation.
“BEHOLD I AM THE METATRON THE VOICE OF THE ONE TRUE GOD! BEHOLD INAM THE METATRON THE VOICE OF THE ONE TRUE GOD!!” Ohhhh shiz it’s happening.
willem_dafoe_looking_up.gif
Whoa now.
Earlier than I expected.
I guess he’s shown up to witness the return of Jagganoth?
“Earlier than I expected”.
Damn, I was going to comment exactly this. Well, why not here?
Cool! Everything that has been happening in the battle for the last fifty pages meant absolutely fuck all.
Mercury fails to grasp the lesson this conflict has taught Al Yisun.
Do enlighten me.
The point is that it’s not just godly beings who matter in this universe.
All of these people, most of whom Allison never met, showed up and allied themselves with her because like her, they were fighting to change the world for the better. Consider, sure they’re close to losing, and things don’t look great. but if it were just Allison and her friends against Incubus’ Fuckoff Army, there would’t have even been a battle.
Imagine an infinited number of stories… and no one to tell them to.
These people came to this place to tell a story. About defiance. About power. About fear. About hope.
Has the scribe come to record their tale? Let us watchers wait and see.
1) The people who died are still dead. The army of the republic is routed, its leader down, and the presumed heir to the throne slain.
2) Allison is already exhausted from battle which affects her ability/inability to handle this turn of events
3) Gog being summoned now means Gog can’t be summoned later regardless of need/ability
4) The very fact that everyone is there for the arrival of the heavenly army is of consequence, as does their diminished capacity to fight against Metatron.
So, what things of consequence do you believe have been negated by this guy’s arrival?
Well, that’s certainly a wrinkle in the plan.
Who’s plan? Every plan.
That’s not even a vessel. Metatron has entered the physical plane directly. Unprecedented! I wonder if Zoss will show himself too, we’ve nearly got the whole gang here.
Jaggarnoth is going to be so confused when he gets out. At least he won’t feel self-conscious about being naked with Metatron t-posing nude to establish dominance.
The Angelic cavalry has arrived!
Edit: Oh wait, I saw the Mtetatron panel first and thought they’re on Allisinsxside…..
Also, I question how Metatron is able to exist in the throne realm without an armor suit, or is it just that powerful? Iirc the other prime angels needed suits to be able to be in Throne.
Metatron never died. It is the oldest angel and has never left its shell.
The Metatron form we see here appears to be the same as the semi-petrified form we see in the void back in book 2. I think smjjames may be right, and God’s scribe is managing to sustain himself without armor.
The angels reincarnate hot and fluid, and cool over many millenia. My understanding is that it’s not so much that they can’t incarnate without armor, but that they could not hold a form properly without it. Metatron 1, having never died, is the most solid of the angels.
What is denser than Neutron?
Well, apparently this scribe! badum tish we’ll be here all week.
BEHOLD! THE POWER OF AN ANGEL!
*proceeds to die instantly to coin spam*
+FISTFUL OF DOLLAR
+FISTFUL OF DOLLAR
+FISTFUL OF DOLLAR
+FISTFUL OF DOLLAR
M E T A T R O N L I V E S .
Metatron stop T-posing for dominance
I now understand how Jagganoth could possibly have had a boss.
METATRON STILL LIVES!
You have a little rumble and then the cops show up
Damn. Alison should have been recruiting V1, not this stupid clown woerum for babies.
Metatron Lives.
We bear continued witness, even now.
Are we so sure that Zoss beat Metatron? We’ve seen White Chain’s original narrative challenged and expanded upon plenty of times, but between what Zoss and Jagganoth have said it sounds a bit like Zoss was never fully in charge.
Could Metatron be doing all this for the same reasons Jagganoth is, to find a “more perfect servant” who can “fix” the world to restore something like the original heavenly order, sound the trumpets to signal the end of time, and then divide himself or something? Notably, Allison was *not* Metatron’s choice for this cycle, Zaid was (as seen by Juggernaut Star’s efforts). Zaid dying or Metatron getting fed up with Allsion’s lack-of-evil-smiting could be the cause for his descent. Or it could just be a coincidence and the Host of Angels is just coming down for the end-of-world party.
Metatron being another Wheel Turner lines up thematically, Zoss wants Allison to reach strength beyond strength (to beat Metatron without beating him?), Allison is never going to be the master of the Wheel (a title seemingly based on beating people up), and Maya’s lessons seem to impart the notion that winning is for losers.
Honestly, I don’t think Allison is going to Maybe Sword the bad guys away, not in the “I’m using it like a sharp rock” sense (it *will* be relevant, of course). She’s not exactly a powerhouse fighter like Zoss, and that’s kind of the point in that she generally just sucks at this in all the right ways.
Allison’s fundamental wisdom, the thing she has over literally every other demiurge (except possibly salami dave at this point), is the ability to recognize that just because you *can* go at it alone, you will be stronger with others beside you.
think about how many times the story has reinforced this:
– “dismantle your tower brick by brick, so that you are not cut off from the world”
– mottom and co grouping up for the binding
– hell, even white chain beating fused allison/cio because she learned how to bluff *from her friends*
im starting to think “the grand enemy called i” isn’t ego, it’s “do you need a hand?” “nah, *i* got this”
We’ve reached peak yet again.
Holy shit, how do we move on from here?
Himself
as a reminder for all my fellow comic readers. every major player in this war on both sides. the MC, anatgonist, Everyone who we have seen being a king or ruler specifically, has the Stolen Power of this angel who just came for the smoke.
Except, perhaps, Himself.
Yeah well He can get it too. They all can
First balusters, then teacups. Now eyes. Full Circle approacheth.
Cool Page. Cool Comic. Love it and have reread it probably about a dozen times.
But I am confused by several of the paradoxes and inconsistensies in the overarching story. Maybe someone might be kind enough to help me out.
1. Metatron is said to be Gods scribe, who was closest to Ysun. But we have been told that Ysun commited suicide in the infinite moment of their existence, because they were alone. This gave rise to Ys and Un and the Multiplicity of gods, lower case. Koss then created the angels. Which puts Metatrons existance far later than God’s.
2. We were told by White Chain (WC) and Michael that Zoss slew all the Archangels but Metatron, who he tortured to get the names and voices of God. Jagganoth contradicts this and claims that Metatron (M1) offered those name to Zoss, therefore enslaving him to his will. But we where shown M1 in his broken state by Michael and WC and now in his appearance and despite being called immaculate he bears obvious scars and wounds. These could of course be from a previous battle, or even the battle with Zoss before M1 gave up the names. But we have seen no other angel whose soul shows deep gouges and wounds, as M1 does. Making those wounds ingrained into his very beeing.
3. The first 2 points were merely minor gripes that I could not clearly settle for myself. The big point is with the cycle of heirs. Juggernaut Star (JS) tells WC that the rise of the King, his building of a heavenly society and the fall and flight that lead to the rise of the new heir are a pure and infertile cycle. Yet JS is as far as we know not aware of the resets, so he would refer to a cycle in linear time, which would contradict the fact that Zoss was the first Ruling King.
Jagganoth and Gog both tell the story of the heirs of Zoss and the cycle of resets. Jagganoth says that he has fought, here he was ambigous whether he meant only the demiurges or the heir as well, and won countless times and has destroyed the multiverse afterwards. But he also claims that the structure of the cycle is fixed and that the heir killls the demiurges and takes the throne. Which is the point at which Zoss resets everything. Gog as well says that she was the omniversal purge before Jagganoth took that mantle. The main contradiction I struggle with is that either the omniversal purge , which is one of the demiurges, destroys everything including the heir leading to a reset or the heir slays the demiurges and takes the throne, leading to a reset. Both can not be true.
1. Closeness to God could simply be holiness. Scribe of God is likely simply ‘writer of history’ given the storytelling take on the 777,777 gods and how *everything* is a result of the division of God. Metatron is still the oldest being in existence, all the other OG angels are dead, as are all of the gods.
2. White Chain was wrong. White Chain thought Metatron was dead before, so her initial narrative has long since been outdated. We don’t yet know what went down between Zoss and Metatron (most notably, we don’t know who actually won), or if Metatron’s willingness to share the names of God came after, but not as a direct result of, his potential defeat to Zoss. All we know is the results: Metatron is wounded but Zoss isn’t looking to healthy either (we don’t know why he’s “vanished” like he currently is), Zoss is the guy with the ability to reset time, and Metatron is still powerful. My best guess is that Zoss beat Metatron, then Metatron came back afterwards and smote Zoss (bringing him to his current state). Metatron seems to need a Key-wielder to do the reset loop, and I suspect that Jagganoth’s guess that Metatron wants to replace Zoss with a more loyal servant is right on the money.
3. Juggernaut Star is aware of the resets, they blame Zoss for them and consider the resets a mockery of God (as per King of Swords 9-126). My understanding is that resets are at-will by Zoss (Zoss likely has control of the metaphorical button but I’m not so sure that he’s entirely in control of the situation), and what drives them to push the button is either the failure of the heir to beat Jagganoth (who considers himself above the rest of the demiurges, in his scenario the heir wipes the floor with the rest of the demiurges, taking the throne and proclaiming victory prematurely, before getting wiped by the last demiurge of Jagganoth.) Jagganoth even notes as much during the big fight, that he’s not used to having to fight the demiurges himself, but considers them a non-threat.
It’s also worth noting that Jagganoth and Juggernaut Star are both pawns of Metatron. The thorn knights trying to take the key earlier in the story is proof that Allison is not the Key-bearer Metatron wanted. I presume Zoss wants to break the loop but Metatron wants to restore the original divine order of things (what the world was like after the gods died but before Zoss showed up) Both need the right heir to do so, so they both want to savescum till they get the right guy, they just have differing opinions on who the right pick is. So Zoss has the reset button but Metatron can flip the table by buffing a demiurge to blow up the world, leading to an impasse until either Zoss gets an heir who can beat Metatron (maybe directly now, but also just Metatron’s servants) or until Metatron gets an heir who overthrows Zoss.
Don’t try to make sense of transcendental truths. Being transcendental they are inherently beyond mortal understanding. You just gotta kinda vibe with that.
As for Zoss and M1 – I think Zoss’s current state is due to his own realization that he, personally, is unable to attain heaven through violence. Zoss has realized that he either is not the culmination of all sentient beings, or else that he does not want to be. He’s trying to escape the cycle, for himself and for the sake of all other sentient beings. And for a guy as arrogant as Zoss saving himself and saving everyone are more or less the same thing (CHIM). But the important thing is that he can’t do the saving. All he can do is abdicate power, and then offer advice.
Metatron is our event horizon for the history of creation. Metatron is the only being that remembers the world before Zoss breached the vault of Heaven. Metatron is our only link directly back to the being of Yisun.
Where the hell did all those cracks come from, leaking wings and eyes?
What happens when angels lie?