hkmaly

Unlikely. Noriko Verres had lot of knowledge about immortals and possibly direct experience with Pandora. She wouldn't be easy to manipulate.

And we already debated how she surely lands properly because cats are better than martial artists in this.

Yeah, that was my thinking as well, although considering that Nioi said that General Shade Tail is corrupting Lord Tedd, I'd believe it was General Shade Tail that was responsible for Elliot's death in that universe and not an Immortal like Voltaire. If Dame Tara would kill Elliot, who would be responsible, Dame Tara or Voltaire? I think that general Shade Tail killed Elliot, but that it was result of some Voltaire's scheme. Probably executed better than the Dame Tara plan. Or maybe not completely and it resulted in Voltaire being killed in that universe Oh yeah, Pandora can kick his ass. She don't plan to kick his ass and if she tears him in half it would be just first step. Her plan is to tear him to shreds. I personally think that he would deserve worse but doing worse to immortal might be too hard. Magic system change will not change immortal rules ... BUT it might give him better opportunities to "guide" people as he wanted, while in current system his guiding is likely to lead into more mortals getting magic, which would be counterproductive for him. And he might want something different - think ensuring that Tedd's research will be available for him but not others. Or, maybe traumatized Tedd would be easier to control ... That would be totally OP. I approve. Personally, I see Will of Magic as villain. Although I little suspect that Will of Magic is like this because alternative would be too much work for Dan ... I disagree. Killing in vengeance is unnecessary bloodshed. The only time it is permissible to kill someone is to prevent them from killing someone else. It's not unnecessary bloodshed if you use enough fire. In cases like this, vengeance just means that you don't personally know the person you are saving. Because Voltaire obviously WOULD be likely to repeat it with someone else.

We can speculate all we want. We just need to accept it's often closer to wild guesses than to hypotheses. Remember, one of point of Occam's razor is that simpler hypotheses are better testable (Karl Popper, 1992). But we can't really test anything in EGS world - unfortunately ; I'm sure everyone would like to. And most would even think up something else besides dangerous tests like "how firm are Nanase's ... various parts of body". We only get the informations in comics, meaning we are in similar situation like astronomers before Sputnik.

I didn't say "true" did I? No. And I wasn't exactly speaking about what would the result of applying Occam's razor on this situation be. I just said it wouldn't work. We have too little information about the situation. We don't know all possibilities how can someone awaken ; we don't know Voltaire's motivation ; we don't know much about Rhoda - we probably know less about her than Pandora, and Pandora was surprised. Any possible answer is going to require assumption which we can't honestly say how simple is. We can, obviously, still speculate. But Occan's razor is supposed to be used on hypothesis, not wild guesses.

You're adding conditions to Occam's Razor, which simply reads, "The simplest explanation is the most satisfying." That's the Razor. Nothing about assessing unknowns or incomplete choice sets. "Simple" means discarding choices we don't know or simply saying "Of the choices we know or can reasonably figure out" (which is what I did) and then choose the simplest choice (which is also what I did). If you want to be technical, Occam's Razor also doesn't say that the simplest explanation is TRUE. (Although, there actually isn't any "canon" formulation of Occam's Razor.) She definitely isn't. Yes. She might not even notice that her size changing abilities improved at the same moment - unlike the mark spell, which the marked person usually cast on his/her own, you can have new spell for months and never noticing (see Susan for example). If the awakening was dramatic, she might decide she need pause afterwards and would only cast her new spell week or two later, and not connecting it. She only mentioned she had the mark because it was relevant. I'm actually not sure how she connected the mark with her spell, but she apparently did. When she noticed her mark disappeared, she certainly checked if she can still resize things, but noticing small change in how her spell works?

Yes it is Simplest explanation. Choosing from known choices = simplest. It doesn't work if you KNOW there is some choice you don't know. Sure, but Jerry didn't hesitate to identify Susan's as a major angst-induced awakening once he was sure. Well he must've admitted it when he was zapping her (with the "serenity" spell) due to that.

Elliot at least knew ABOUT the hammers and was really offended. Gill didn't knew about them, wasn't offended and actually wasn't sure why the hammer appeared, and on top of that she's Uryuom and shouldn't be able to use earth magic. Conclusion: this is about magic's flair for drama and not according to rules. And, presumably, non-reproducible one-time effect. The teaching is probably to be able to summon hammers reliably. (Actually, wasn't this addressed in some Q&A? Probably by "as to answer this .... look, devil duck!")

That's not how Occam's razors work. At that point Jerry was still trying to calm everybody that it is a minor angst-induced awakening. I don't think he was as sure as he was pretending. I didn't noticed any moment I would rise into the air (unless jumping counts), but I'm not so sure I would notice, because, you know, angst and therefore not really paying attention to what's happening. On the other hand, I didn't break my monitor or something similar yet, so it's not like completely out of control. (Note: which doesn't mean I'm angsty from Internet debates or something. When I'm angsty before monitor, it's usually work-induced angst.) I did said I don't think Rhoda is that type. She's more likely to have those totally quiet and inconspicuous breakdowns. Her life was so stable and happy she changed look enough to convince Justin she's moved. And that was before the boar, which might've made her celebrity AGAIN (she even tried to change look again to not break her hidding look). AND she has a girlfriend now, which might make her more happy but definitely not more stable.

He might mentioned it to few girls, but not thousands. And Susan did implied that to summon hammers repeatedly you need to be taught it.

Might be because we know next to nothing about self-awakenings. Also, while Rhoda doesn't seem the type, I know I would be able to miss several angst-induced awakenings every month, unless they would change my hair color. Remember: she have no idea what awakening is and how it looks, how can she recognize it? Even that cool dramatic effect of Susan's hair changing was mainly for the others, she was unlikely to see it (because no mirror). And that was MAJOR angst-induced awakening, there are also minor ones, presumably less flashy.

Probably because Edward was so far managing to keep Tedd from going forward with his plans, while Pandora was the one actually doing the stuff that caused Magic to threaten a system change. Of course Tedd would still feel like he could have caused a change even if Pandora hadn't created the clog and marked a bunch of people. He might, but it would definitely take him longer. Nothing he was doing so far was dangerous. Might not be thousands of women ... and Edward directly said that using spell catalysts will help you develop own magic. Also, important part of Tedd's plan was raise everyone's magic defenses. Totally approving that plan. Although, regarding Lord Tedd ... another possibility is that Lord Tedd CAUSED the magic reset of his world, because without Grace noone stopped him. The hammers are limited enough people might not realize it's magic.

I think she might've shown Catalina how can she resize THINGS before, just not people. But she might be testing her magic on her own a lot. The least-unlikely option is Rhoda awakening herself, without help of other immortal. But it's true we can't rule Voltaire out completely, given how little we know about his plans. On the other hand, we know that he didn't have much of success lately (based on how frustrated he is), so if he did awaken Rhoda it likely didn't give him what he wanted from it.

First the most important question: How cats land on all four? Turns out that the main component of that - besides the reflex - is unusually flexible backbone and no functional clavicle (collarbone). Catalina in her cat form can have both without it being obvious from outside. She also has tail, which helps. Meanwhile, being bipedal is irrelevant. So, yes, she definitely land on all four, possibly even without any magic trick. The term usually used in experiments like this is terminal velocity. Terminal velocity for cat is 100km/h, which is smaller than human (210km/h) but still big. Landing on all four, thick fur and relaxing on impact can help cat survive even terminal velocity fall, but not always, and they may end up injured. So, definitely don't try that. (Also, that's for cat-sized cat, not Catalina.) I think mouse lacks the falling reflects and will therefore injure more than mouse-sized cat. But yes, Catalina would even without additional magic-based durability definitely walk away without injuries. She doesn't need to read the commentary. Few jumps to feel how her body reacts to impact now and maybe reading about cats always land on their feet should give her enough confidence to try. Still, it would be better to try that somewhere ELSE than parking lot, where people may be wondering what is Rhoda doing. Also, better to try somewhere where you can't fall into mall ventilation. Catalina's cat abilities may lower her acrophobia as sideefect - like Sydneys orb. Or, well, maybe she gets flying spells next. Wouldn't be first. And I'm not talking about cases like Strange Candy (where the commentaries disappeared meanwhile so the effect is lost) ... I'm talking about the previous version of this forum, which was read by Scale from CameoComic.

You mean third panel of http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=537 ? Although she likely won't limit herself to talking and will also SHOW it to Catalina eventually, meaning it WILL happen as well.

I guess I should have said "the" story arc instead of "this" story arc, though I try to refer to the main story when I say story, and then NP for the NP arcs. Actually, the only way to be precise is the long one: "the Sister 3 story arc".

I'm sure there are games with similarly "effective" healers.

I'm sure DGB takes care of that. She's training martial arts, anyone can be told that. That's enough to avoid suspicious in "normal" gym class even if she's not holding back. (Not speaking that half of school saw her floating in air.) Of course, joining some school team would be more dangerous, and taking part in any event serious enough to do drug testing even more so. I would assume Edward would notice. It was actually more luck than Elliot didn't joined any team - I mean, before the diamond. He was ALSO training anime martial arts and had therefore bigger strength, but was not aware he need to be careful, and Edward probably didn't observed him so closely. Rhoda can probably outgrow most opponents, at least if she's going to risk wardrobe malfunction. Or better, she can grow Catalina while Catalina is growing claws. ... what size Catalina needs to be to be able to tear tanks to pieces? We could've get cleric, but Pandora wasn't interested in marks like that ...

Rhoda and Grace meet quite often as mutual tutors. That was, granted, last semester, but I suspect they haven't changed teacher yet. Of course they meet often. I just don't think Grace mentioned to her that she's part space alien and met immortal named Jerry, much less that she's dating son of head of paranormal diplomacy. Therefore, Rhoda has no reason to assume Grace knows more about magic and/or changing shape than her. Actually, this might biggest surprise to her. She would go through some complicated scheme (especially if Catalina will come up with it) to talk with Elliot and then she finds out that if she just told Grace ... Yup, most people when meeting someone sort of reveal if they already know them. Wait. You mean current STORY arc or current NP arc? Because my "yup" is for the story one.

It was New Years Eve that Rhoda mentioned it to Diane which is almost 2 weeks ago comic time, it was probably several months earlier when the actual conversation with Grace happened. It might slip her mind in the excitement over Elliot being Cheerleadra, I dunno... Well she only mentioned it because Diane asked. She may consider it suspicious, but not suspicious enough to immediately assume there is magic involved. Given Rhoda's practically non-existent relationship with Ellen compared to Catalina's relationship with Elliot, it would make more sense for Catalina to contact Elliot either with Rhoda or to ask him to meet with her and Rhoda (... hey, what about taking also Ashley and make that double-date? There's also great place they can visit together ...) than for Rhoda to contact Ellen. Unless, of course, would Rhoda have some reason to suspect GRACE is also involved, but that doesn't seem likely. That is very possible, I think I did speculate on that earlier as well, but because of what happened with Noriko, Mama Kitsune didn't want that happening to her family, so she formulated her own method of raising Nanase to not be like Noriko. I'm not sure if it's more "don't want this to happen" or "ok, it will probably happen anyway, but let's try to delay it" but yes.

Are you referring to upgrade spells or whatever this was?

Hopefully. Finally. Also, just when we found Rhoda awakened, we have summary of how can one awaken in main story ... Hmmm ... calibrate Luke and then use him? I mean, if they show him several marked and awakened people and tell who is which, he may learn how to distinguish them ... Because 1) if Box's story is true, that means they will have to get rid of the magic clog that is allowing his devices to work so well, and 2) because of the possibility of others among the recently Marked having Awakened as well beyond just Justin. (Notice his phrasing: 'someone like Justin'.) Also, 3) he just realized they were very sloppy. Actually, five billion might easily be number of different emotions which can awaken you ... if not for the previous panel where he clearly said you can awaken by training a lot. Maybe she's so sure because Edward confirmed it. And making fake mark might be violation of "empower and guide" or some other immortal rule. ... yes. Pandora certainly welcomed that confusion and maybe even predicted it, but her main reason to awaken Justin was IMHO so he can make more "chaos". But, see, 2-1-2, we still need one emotional event. ... yup, seems they have access to lot of informations. Edward MIGHT though about limiting it after that incident, but that could be as dangerous as feeding Tedd misinformations.

If Glinda meant that only good witches are able to use cosmetic magic to make them look better, not really. Maybe Glinda was 90-60-90 while Dorothy, in her age, certainly wasn't ...

I think this is more than double FV5 ... wouldn't complain if it WAS her limit. Few rhetorical questions: Is this the same spell as the "get tall" one, just applied differently, or is it different spell, making total count 4? Did the "later" already happened between this NP and "now"? Can she cast the "tall" and this spell on Catalina? Did her?

I dunno, maybe, if Catalina does end up approaching Elliot at school and tells him about her spell, maybe Rhoda goes to Ellen as well cus logically if Elliot has magic that lets him be a superheroine, Ellen likely knows about it, also Rhoda believe that there's more to Ellen now just on the fact she mysteriously showed up in school with Grace and she didn't get any clear answer to why she'd be going to MSHS instead of MNHS with her brother. However it goes down, Rhoda and Catalina meeting with any of the Main Eight over this could give us an explanation if we don't get one in this story. I don't think she still remembers that. They are more likely to contact Elliot. And while yes, that might be another opportunity to get some flashback, that would mean the flashback is important: if it isn't, then it's more likely to appear in NP. True. It's just theory. Don't uses as much magic as actual spells, nevertheless it IS enough to awaken even without immortal and/or dewitchery diamond, or at least Edward believed so. It was just what she THOUGH. Might easily be wrong and still be canon that she had this misconception. True. You says it as if you though that Noriko is better in teaching magic than Mama Kitsune ... Personally, I think she not only knows much more about magic than Nanase thinks, but also was trained by her least favourite teacher in magic and awakened.