…hey, what’s White Chain even doing on this page, anyway?
Nukoku seems to have appeared alongside Allison, that’s a development, but there’s panel boundaries around WC, she’s not in this scene or the previous one. watching the Incubus Maya fight?
..it’ll probably make sense in another page or two, but at this second it seems to just be telling us she’s still alive and scowling determinedly. which, you know. we could assume.
> Nukoku seems to have appeared alongside Allison, that’s a development
Nah, that’s an illusion. Actually, there is a panel border between her and Allison, it’s just mostly covered by Allison’s head. It’s just the same with Maya and White Chain, only there it’s more obvious.
I don’t much like Maya either, I’ve come to realize. She murdered Meti when she got deep in her feelings over a question and then spent forever hating the guy she abandoned to misery and solitude, and all of this AFTER she spent god knows how long oppressing billions of people. Like, am I supposed to feel bad that he killed her family after she extremely likely massacred so many families that they just kind of blend together into a big Family Murder Memory Blob?
Or is it all just going back to the rat?
They’re both pretty big pieces of shit, honestly, but I at least -understand- why Incubus is a murdering lunatic. He was a feral, starving, filthy, abandoned, near-death kid who was given the power to wound and hurt absolutely everyone forever. Maya wasn’t starving or even particularly uncomfortable. She had a loving family, a reasonably comfortable home. She just REALLY wanted to pick up a sword and murder people and become a multidimensional tyrant-God death eater and pain drinker, despite the Sword Murder Boss telling her repeatedly to just piss off and make some damned noodles.
EVERYTHING, every single God damned thing that’s happened to Maya is something she earned millions upon millions of times over and a 4th quarter change of heart and cooking approximately three hot pots doesn’t earn her a DROP of reprieve.
Maya has done great evil, it is true. She has killed many and her conquests surely brought their share of misery into the world. But at the very least she is trying to be better now, even if it is partly out of spite/hate.
For all his art and cunning, Incubus is damaged and deranged, and reveling in the pain he is inflicting to all around him. Could he eventually repent and try to be better as well? Possibly, but right now he is dangerous and needs to be stopped.
What would redemption for such monstrous evil even look like? Her own death? That’s on the way already, she’s admitted as much herself. I’m invested in Maya’s arc and conflict with Incubus because their mutual annihilation is interesting, it tells us more about the characters and it embodies the idea at the heart of Maya’s character.
She is sympathetic, full of humanity and warmth. She’s also alien and monstrous, a ghost driven by hatred. The contradiction doesn’t need to be resolved with a little bow on top. I have always read KSBD as being much more concerned with will and consequence than it is with morality and judgment. What option is left to a person like Maya, who has committed unspeakable acts and spent centuries remaking herself? What really drives her? Finding answers to those questions in the story is very compelling, at least to me.
It’s interesting to think of her and Solomon David’s mirrored history –
Solomon David:
– his entire family was murdered
– learned a method of ultraviolence
– obtained ultimate power
– used it to rule as an unbendingly stern permanent father figure
– took being beaten once as a sign he should never try again, went fishing. Got bullied into mentorship.
Maya:
– learned a method of ultraviolence
– obtained ultimate power
– ruled as head of the most powerful army(?)
– _surrendered_ ultimate power
– her entire family was murdered
– was used and betrayed, got so mad she figured out how to murder people with an imaginary sword, seems to have been rocking the ‘drunken master’/’auntie to everyone who really needs’ one vibe since?
There’s an implication that surrendering ultimate power to do what makes you fulfilled is probably better than building an empire as a monument to how much everyone needs you, but a much larger implication that “murdering lots of people to attain ultimate power is bad.”
I think part of Meti’s Lesson is that even if you become the ultimate killer you’re still at the mercy of the sword just like the lowest peasant. Might as well enjoy life as a peasant for a while instead of fighting desperately your whole damn life. Either way, in the end the sword will find you.
There is, as they say, always a faster gun. Do you want to spend your brief existence finding it?
I think that also adds some interesting depth to Incubus as a character.
I mean, sure, it’s easy to look at him as nothing more than a ruthless warlord who only wants to “win”. (Even then, he was there when Meti pointed out to Maya that she had no idea what it would mean to win, what would come next — being confronted with that realisation didn’t break his worldview, like it did to Maya’s. And he’s clearly dissatisfied with the world to have told Zoss “your Heaven is rotten”. I reckon he has something in mind that he wants to achieve)
And sure, he’s undeniably done horrible things. Even just looking at his grudge with Maya, killing her family was killing innocent people.
But even after all she’s done, including what he sees as abandoning him, and slandering him (blaming him for Meti’s death, when she did that herself — I doubt Incubus was lying about that, there’d be no point with only Maya there to hear it), and even with the fact that Incubus doesn’t forgive her, he STILL praises who she used to be. (And still refers to her as his sister. While Maya tells Allison that they were “like siblings in those days”, referring to it as in the past) Still is actively encouraging her to be that “magnificent” again.
Even though, according to his own perspective, that would make her a more difficult opponent. Even though he must know that she hates him. Even though, by his own philosophy, pushing her to be “stronger” and more ruthless is the course of action most likely to end in his death — taking his words to Allison during the fight with Jagganoth on Rayuba at face value (which I’m pretty sure had a lot of projecting in it), it sounds like dying would be losing, in his eyes…but maybe it isn’t, and maybe what he views as winning doesn’t necessarily involve survival.
Which leads me to two conclusions.
Either he idolises Maya as he thinks she used to be, so much that he’s willing to sabotage his own “victory” to see her go back into that — or he sees that as a part of what it’d mean to win. Either way shows a different side to his obsession with her than simple hatred.
I wouldn’t be surprised if actions like killing her family were even meant to push Maya back into being ruthless and bloodthirsty, through her hatred for him.
(Also worth noting that he sees her as having already been “pathetic” by the time Meti broke her worldview, rather than only after that point. So, when was the change from her being “magnificent”, what actually happened to cause that change in opinion?)
—
It’s an interesting contrast with how Maya describes her own motives. She claims (soon before the tournament at Rayuba) to hate Incubus (and from how she speaks to him, I believe it), but also to see him as “beyond revenge”.
She also lies there about him killing Meti. Is that lie to hide from her own guilt, to hide her true reasons for hating him, or maybe even blurring the lines between Incubus himself and the philosophy he represents in her mind? (Maybe killing him is meant to be like killing her own sins)
And she brings up how, in her obsession to kill him, she was “rotting” and “contemplating death”. Is her motive a repeat of “sometimes the only way to rid yourself of despair is to wallow in it until you are sick”?
I’m not sure, but it feels to me like her own obsession is more about herself than Incubus, really. And like she isn’t really seeing him as his own person, which is something I dislike about her.
It’s dehumanising, to someone who was already constantly being compared to her and blamed for her actions by the other demiurges (seen as stealing her key, that she gave up herself — and besides, Mottom, Mammon, Solomon David, and Jagganoth all took their keys by force themselves), which clearly bothers him…isn’t that just pushing him to be even more resentful and cruel?
34 Unattainable Vector Branches from Squandered Youth
I think, if Maya truly killed Meti, then it was because Meti wished her to do so in order to learn a lesson. Perhaps Meti attempted to kill a mouse in order to see if her student had learned the lesson she wished to impart.
She’s gonna do this without the sword handle. Calling it now. Just hope she cuts him lengthwise this time, rather than decapitation, since we know that doesn’t work.
love the perspective of them on the ship, took me a while to notice it.
Plus all of Incubus’ cuts around them.
Wonder if Maya hasn’t had the opening she needed yet, or if she was stalling for some reason. And I wonder what will happen to all of Incubus’ emissaries if he dies…
Informative article very good approach towards data you provides good work. May all your dreams come true and may you find happiness and success in all your endeavors. Best wishes to you always.
Technically this is just a perfect translation of their conversation into English, for our sake. Incubus hasn’t spoken a single word originating from Earth in his life.
holy shit how many of those cuts were hers?? none of them cutting him… because even *he* has more self determination that a brick. how tf does she win this??
“Only takes one bitch. Keep monologuing and you’ll find out…”
Literally on the nose! Well done.
…hey, what’s White Chain even doing on this page, anyway?
Nukoku seems to have appeared alongside Allison, that’s a development, but there’s panel boundaries around WC, she’s not in this scene or the previous one. watching the Incubus Maya fight?
..it’ll probably make sense in another page or two, but at this second it seems to just be telling us she’s still alive and scowling determinedly. which, you know. we could assume.
White Chain is fighting Michael and Juggernaut Star, she got left alone with them when Princess and Vigilant Gaze retreated.
Gog just left to F* up Metatron. Michael may be distracted suddenly.
> Nukoku seems to have appeared alongside Allison, that’s a development
Nah, that’s an illusion. Actually, there is a panel border between her and Allison, it’s just mostly covered by Allison’s head. It’s just the same with Maya and White Chain, only there it’s more obvious.
Suddenly shadowrun
The background face looks impossibly smug.
One cut? You better make it happen before you die from a thousand of them, lady.
Shit is going to double hell.
A man who would cut of his nose to spite his face.
Since she knows decapitation doesn’t work I’ve long suspected Maya will make a cut that separates every atom.
If you wait long enough and patiently enough, the universe itself shall cut your opponent.
I like that Nukoku will get to choose afresh.
A new self, a new slate.
Not a rose body, a thorn body.
Waiting for her moment.
“Keeping my eye on you.”
Nukoku’s in the background! Is this time for the new iteration of Cio’s once-per-book Big Damn Heroes moment?
Maya is telling Inky that she has gone back to basics. To what thay both were told, and what he never listened too.
I don’t much like Maya either, I’ve come to realize. She murdered Meti when she got deep in her feelings over a question and then spent forever hating the guy she abandoned to misery and solitude, and all of this AFTER she spent god knows how long oppressing billions of people. Like, am I supposed to feel bad that he killed her family after she extremely likely massacred so many families that they just kind of blend together into a big Family Murder Memory Blob?
Or is it all just going back to the rat?
They’re both pretty big pieces of shit, honestly, but I at least -understand- why Incubus is a murdering lunatic. He was a feral, starving, filthy, abandoned, near-death kid who was given the power to wound and hurt absolutely everyone forever. Maya wasn’t starving or even particularly uncomfortable. She had a loving family, a reasonably comfortable home. She just REALLY wanted to pick up a sword and murder people and become a multidimensional tyrant-God death eater and pain drinker, despite the Sword Murder Boss telling her repeatedly to just piss off and make some damned noodles.
EVERYTHING, every single God damned thing that’s happened to Maya is something she earned millions upon millions of times over and a 4th quarter change of heart and cooking approximately three hot pots doesn’t earn her a DROP of reprieve.
Maya has done great evil, it is true. She has killed many and her conquests surely brought their share of misery into the world. But at the very least she is trying to be better now, even if it is partly out of spite/hate.
For all his art and cunning, Incubus is damaged and deranged, and reveling in the pain he is inflicting to all around him. Could he eventually repent and try to be better as well? Possibly, but right now he is dangerous and needs to be stopped.
What would redemption for such monstrous evil even look like? Her own death? That’s on the way already, she’s admitted as much herself. I’m invested in Maya’s arc and conflict with Incubus because their mutual annihilation is interesting, it tells us more about the characters and it embodies the idea at the heart of Maya’s character.
She is sympathetic, full of humanity and warmth. She’s also alien and monstrous, a ghost driven by hatred. The contradiction doesn’t need to be resolved with a little bow on top. I have always read KSBD as being much more concerned with will and consequence than it is with morality and judgment. What option is left to a person like Maya, who has committed unspeakable acts and spent centuries remaking herself? What really drives her? Finding answers to those questions in the story is very compelling, at least to me.
Protect the rat.
It’s interesting to think of her and Solomon David’s mirrored history –
Solomon David:
– his entire family was murdered
– learned a method of ultraviolence
– obtained ultimate power
– used it to rule as an unbendingly stern permanent father figure
– took being beaten once as a sign he should never try again, went fishing. Got bullied into mentorship.
Maya:
– learned a method of ultraviolence
– obtained ultimate power
– ruled as head of the most powerful army(?)
– _surrendered_ ultimate power
– her entire family was murdered
– was used and betrayed, got so mad she figured out how to murder people with an imaginary sword, seems to have been rocking the ‘drunken master’/’auntie to everyone who really needs’ one vibe since?
There’s an implication that surrendering ultimate power to do what makes you fulfilled is probably better than building an empire as a monument to how much everyone needs you, but a much larger implication that “murdering lots of people to attain ultimate power is bad.”
I think part of Meti’s Lesson is that even if you become the ultimate killer you’re still at the mercy of the sword just like the lowest peasant. Might as well enjoy life as a peasant for a while instead of fighting desperately your whole damn life. Either way, in the end the sword will find you.
There is, as they say, always a faster gun. Do you want to spend your brief existence finding it?
I think that also adds some interesting depth to Incubus as a character.
I mean, sure, it’s easy to look at him as nothing more than a ruthless warlord who only wants to “win”. (Even then, he was there when Meti pointed out to Maya that she had no idea what it would mean to win, what would come next — being confronted with that realisation didn’t break his worldview, like it did to Maya’s. And he’s clearly dissatisfied with the world to have told Zoss “your Heaven is rotten”. I reckon he has something in mind that he wants to achieve)
And sure, he’s undeniably done horrible things. Even just looking at his grudge with Maya, killing her family was killing innocent people.
But even after all she’s done, including what he sees as abandoning him, and slandering him (blaming him for Meti’s death, when she did that herself — I doubt Incubus was lying about that, there’d be no point with only Maya there to hear it), and even with the fact that Incubus doesn’t forgive her, he STILL praises who she used to be. (And still refers to her as his sister. While Maya tells Allison that they were “like siblings in those days”, referring to it as in the past) Still is actively encouraging her to be that “magnificent” again.
Even though, according to his own perspective, that would make her a more difficult opponent. Even though he must know that she hates him. Even though, by his own philosophy, pushing her to be “stronger” and more ruthless is the course of action most likely to end in his death — taking his words to Allison during the fight with Jagganoth on Rayuba at face value (which I’m pretty sure had a lot of projecting in it), it sounds like dying would be losing, in his eyes…but maybe it isn’t, and maybe what he views as winning doesn’t necessarily involve survival.
Which leads me to two conclusions.
Either he idolises Maya as he thinks she used to be, so much that he’s willing to sabotage his own “victory” to see her go back into that — or he sees that as a part of what it’d mean to win. Either way shows a different side to his obsession with her than simple hatred.
I wouldn’t be surprised if actions like killing her family were even meant to push Maya back into being ruthless and bloodthirsty, through her hatred for him.
(Also worth noting that he sees her as having already been “pathetic” by the time Meti broke her worldview, rather than only after that point. So, when was the change from her being “magnificent”, what actually happened to cause that change in opinion?)
—
It’s an interesting contrast with how Maya describes her own motives. She claims (soon before the tournament at Rayuba) to hate Incubus (and from how she speaks to him, I believe it), but also to see him as “beyond revenge”.
She also lies there about him killing Meti. Is that lie to hide from her own guilt, to hide her true reasons for hating him, or maybe even blurring the lines between Incubus himself and the philosophy he represents in her mind? (Maybe killing him is meant to be like killing her own sins)
And she brings up how, in her obsession to kill him, she was “rotting” and “contemplating death”. Is her motive a repeat of “sometimes the only way to rid yourself of despair is to wallow in it until you are sick”?
I’m not sure, but it feels to me like her own obsession is more about herself than Incubus, really. And like she isn’t really seeing him as his own person, which is something I dislike about her.
It’s dehumanising, to someone who was already constantly being compared to her and blamed for her actions by the other demiurges (seen as stealing her key, that she gave up herself — and besides, Mottom, Mammon, Solomon David, and Jagganoth all took their keys by force themselves), which clearly bothers him…isn’t that just pushing him to be even more resentful and cruel?
I think, if Maya truly killed Meti, then it was because Meti wished her to do so in order to learn a lesson. Perhaps Meti attempted to kill a mouse in order to see if her student had learned the lesson she wished to impart.
She’s gonna do this without the sword handle. Calling it now. Just hope she cuts him lengthwise this time, rather than decapitation, since we know that doesn’t work.
love the perspective of them on the ship, took me a while to notice it.
Plus all of Incubus’ cuts around them.
Wonder if Maya hasn’t had the opening she needed yet, or if she was stalling for some reason. And I wonder what will happen to all of Incubus’ emissaries if he dies…
Informative article very good approach towards data you provides good work. May all your dreams come true and may you find happiness and success in all your endeavors. Best wishes to you always.
At a risk of ignoring the fourth conquest, it’s interesting that Incubus uses a Yiddish word.
‘Interesting’ how, and why, precisely? Just out of interest.
Yiddish is easily one of the top five languages for cussing.
At the risk of igniting the fourth conquest, it’s interesting that Incubus uses a Yiddish word.
Technically this is just a perfect translation of their conversation into English, for our sake. Incubus hasn’t spoken a single word originating from Earth in his life.
“All I wanna do is see you turn into a giant woman,A giant woman!All I wanna be is someone who gets to see a giant woman.”
BUT DONT FORGET ABOUT US, THE OTHER CAVALIERS!
wasted cuts are nothing more than a baby’s tantrum
There aren’t many of us left.
Please, help me.
Help us all.
bro is really out here saying shit like “No dude, Twelve is super viable in Third Strike.”
holy shit how many of those cuts were hers?? none of them cutting him… because even *he* has more self determination that a brick. how tf does she win this??
None of them were hers. They’re all from Incubus, and every one of them failed to kill his opponent. He is an awful swordsman.
“Consider: An undefeated swordsman must be very poor.”
Things are spiraling alright. Where, I have no idea.