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Things You Only Noticed On Reread

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http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2221

I find it interesting that the Emissary senses only "a bit" of instability in Pandora.  This is something I've thought about Pandora for quite a while now.  Given how overdue she is for reset, she's probably supposed to be incredibly unstable by now.  Pandora is apparently the champion at holding off reset without going completely off her rocker; either that, or she did go completely off her rocker, for so long that she came out the other side and became relatively sane and stable again.  I suspect having love as the basis for her holding off reset, as well as having the example of such a good man to hold herself to, was a critical factor.

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7 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2221

I find it interesting that the Emissary senses only "a bit" of instability in Pandora.  This is something I've thought about Pandora for quite a while now.  Given how overdue she is for reset, she's probably supposed to be incredibly unstable by now.  Pandora is apparently the champion at holding off reset without going completely off her rocker; either that, or she did go completely off her rocker, for so long that she came out the other side and became relatively sane and stable again.  I suspect having love as the basis for her holding off reset, as well as having the example of such a good man to hold herself to, was a critical factor.

I think it's partly that she has her love of Blake and Adrian to keep herself grounded, but as hinted at on this page, she can forcibly pull her mind together, though doing so is difficult and tiring. She's likely doing her best to hold her mind together so she can get the information she wants from the Emissary without putting the integrity of Grace's mind in danger. Also the Emissary shows a couple times that he doesn't really know Immortals that well, so he might be misjudging how unstable Pandora is.

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6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Also the Emissary shows a couple times that he doesn't really know Immortals that well,

If recent story comics are to be believed, the will of magic itself does not understand physical life.

It seems to me that the Will of Magic has a history of contacting mortal minds and then not giving those minds quite enough info (Disco Wizard) and not getting quite enough info back (Tedd?).

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

If recent story comics are to be believed, the will of magic itself does not understand physical life.

It seems to me that the Will of Magic has a history of contacting mortal minds and then not giving those minds quite enough info (Disco Wizard) and not getting quite enough info back (Tedd?).

The last reset happened when a warmongering horde attempted to use magic to conquer others. The WoM could have easily justified that it didn't want magic to be used that way. This time around is completely different, the reasons magic was being used is mixed, yeah there's violent acts involved, but there's also the need to protect others and then there's the fun aspect. There probably isn't a clear reason for changing completely hence the need for a human perspective in order to determine the severity of the system change.

A possibility is that while the WoM might not understand the corporeal experience, it probably still understands that humanity has had a violent history, and might have restricted the use of magic because of how easy it could be used by humans to kill each other. Each time the WoM feels the need to change the system, it's gotta check to see if humanity is still at risk of destroying themselves or if they can be relatively responsible, maybe there's a threshold where if the number of morally good vs morally evil is such that the WoM deems humanity capable of self regulation then it would be less restrictive. Not sure if we're there yet though.

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20 hours ago, Drasvin said:

I think it's partly that she has her love of Blake and Adrian to keep herself grounded, but as hinted at on this page, she can forcibly pull her mind together, though doing so is difficult and tiring. She's likely doing her best to hold her mind together so she can get the information she wants from the Emissary without putting the integrity of Grace's mind in danger. Also the Emissary shows a couple times that he doesn't really know Immortals that well, so he might be misjudging how unstable Pandora is.

There's also polite (or ironic) understatement...

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4 hours ago, Scotty said:

The last reset happened when a warmongering horde attempted to use magic to conquer others. The WoM could have easily justified that it didn't want magic to be used that way. This time around is completely different, the reasons magic was being used is mixed, yeah there's violent acts involved, but there's also the need to protect others and then there's the fun aspect. There probably isn't a clear reason for changing completely hence the need for a human perspective in order to determine the severity of the system change.

A possibility is that while the WoM might not understand the corporeal experience, it probably still understands that humanity has had a violent history, and might have restricted the use of magic because of how easy it could be used by humans to kill each other. Each time the WoM feels the need to change the system, it's gotta check to see if humanity is still at risk of destroying themselves or if they can be relatively responsible, maybe there's a threshold where if the number of morally good vs morally evil is such that the WoM deems humanity capable of self regulation then it would be less restrictive. Not sure if we're there yet though.

I was under the impression the WoM didn't understand or care about "good" and "evil". Which does raise the question what it's problem is with how magic was being used.

A thought that just occurred to me: what if it isn't so much that WoM wants magic to be a secret or only a relatively small number of people to use magic, what if there is only so much magic to go around, and if everybody in the world got an equal amount, no one would have enough to do anything with it? The WoM would then have to find a way to restrict either who can use Magic or who knows how to use Magic to ensure that magic can be used at all.

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11 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

A thought that just occurred to me: what if it isn't so much that WoM wants magic to be a secret or only a relatively small number of people to use magic, what if there is only so much magic to go around, and if everybody in the world got an equal amount, no one would have enough to do anything with it? The WoM would then have to find a way to restrict either who can use Magic or who knows how to use Magic to ensure that magic can be used at all.

The other half of the world seems to be fine with magic being well known, the two halves share the same energy as it flows back and forth between them, but either each half has it's own WoM or the WoM decided that one half shouldn't or doesn't need to be restricted, but I don't think the amount of energy available is a factor.

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:

The other half of the world seems to be fine with magic being well known, the two halves share the same energy as it flows back and forth between them, but either each half has it's own WoM or the WoM decided that one half shouldn't or doesn't need to be restricted, but I don't think the amount of energy available is a factor.

But can everybody in the other half use magic? In "this" half of the world (almost) everybody has the potential to gain magic but it being a secret keeps the numbers of mages down. In the other half of the world magic is well known but the majority of the population might be unable to gain magic.

 

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47 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

But can everybody in the other half use magic? In "this" half of the world (almost) everybody has the potential to gain magic but it being a secret keeps the numbers of mages down. In the other half of the world magic is well known but the majority of the population might be unable to gain magic.

 

There definitely seems to be varied degrees of usage as the strongest magic users are considered royalty. but that also might have to do with being related to Fairies (or Ancients as they call themselves). So it stands to reason that those that can't use magic just don't have any Fairy ancestry.

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2 minutes ago, partner555 said:

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1278

You know, Adrian realised from the beginning that this plan wasn't complicated enough. Right here, we had foreshadowing that it wasn't Pandora who did that. The next Q&A that comes, I'm asking if this was intentional foreshadowing.

Dan had stated that Voltaire had been created prior to New and Old Flames. He had waited over 6 years to reveal him, so yeah I would believe that Dan was giving us a hint that Pandora wasn't responsible for manipulating Dex into summoning fire golems and Bulldog Dragon.

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So, when I first read that in the other half of the world members of the royal bloodlines have the strongest magic among humans, I was thinking about it in terms of today's monarchies, which are mostly ceremonial (with a few exceptions). However, that world is very different from the main universe (and ours) and likely has been for centuries at the least, so we can't just assume the political systems are similar to ours. These royal families may well include politically powerful monarchs - monarchs who are also powerful mages. In other words, a good chunk of that half of the world could be ruled by Sorcerer-Kings and Sorceress-Queens.

Furthermore, the gryphons imply that all royal bloodlines are magically powerful. This could just be the result of magical powers coming to be seen as a prerequisite for monarchs, and the royal families all either bringing powerful magic users into the family or loosing their position. However, there's a more dramatic possibility: what if at some point in the past (presumably after the last Magic Reset if that half of the world ever had them), powerful magic users collectively (not necessarily as a single group) conquered (that half of) the world?

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2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Furthermore, the gryphons imply that all royal bloodlines are magically powerful. This could just be the result of magical powers coming to be seen as a prerequisite for monarchs, and the royal families all either bringing powerful magic users into the family or loosing their position. However, there's a more dramatic possibility: what if at some point in the past (presumably after the last Magic Reset if that half of the world ever had them), powerful magic users collectively (not necessarily as a single group) conquered (that half of) the world?

You need look no further than to the Girl Genius world to see an example of this. EVERY domain in Europe that is still politically stable is ruled by Sparks. Ordinary people are simply no match for Sparks of any strength. Too, Sparks are the only ones with the power to keep their domains safe from what is left in the wastelands after the Long War. A sufficiently powerful Spark can easily create machines or breed monsters that can crush entire armies. In short, the Sparks rule the world.

Admittedly they do not rule it very well, but that's an entirely different issue.

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15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

You need look no further than to the Girl Genius world to see an example of this. EVERY domain in Europe that is still politically stable is ruled by Sparks. Ordinary people are simply no match for Sparks of any strength. Too, Sparks are the only ones with the power to keep their domains safe from what is left in the wastelands after the Long War. A sufficiently powerful Spark can easily create machines or breed monsters that can crush entire armies. In short, the Sparks rule the world.

Admittedly they do not rule it very well, but that's an entirely different issue.

The Queen of England implies an almost deity-like entity at first, but then quickly shifts into super spark mode.

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Just now, chridd said:

Not quite something I noticed on reread, but something I realized while I was thinking about the comic earlier today: When Mr. Raven said that Abraham should have paid someone more skilled to cure the werewolf's curse, Mr. Raven himself is one possible person Abraham could have paid, since he has a talent for disenchantment.

Thing is though, Adrian was either not born yet, or just a kid when Abraham enchanted the diamond. The Unwaking Wolf was prior to Pandora getting the werewolves wiped out.

I've mentioned that it was possible that it was the Unwaking Wolf that killed Blaike, hence why Pandora wanted revenge on Abraham. But another possibility could be that Pandora had Abraham enchant the diamond after Blaike was killed, maybe Pandora initially tried to cure werewolves as Adrian had hoped, but Abraham somehow botched it up creating something much worse and Pandora blamed his incompetence rather than try to figure out what went wrong.

I'm still leaning towards the idea that the Unwaking Wolf killed Blaike because Pandora setting up Adrian to fight the man responsible for his father's death would seem like something Pandora would have done in the state she was in at the time.

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It's a little late for me to be noticing this, but one of Dan's big premises for the New Year's Eve Party in Family Ties is Diane's sister Rhea not letting her drink until ten minutes to midnight when she turns 18. But the minimum drinking age in Illinois has been 21 since 1980, and before that it there was only a seven-year period when the drinking age was lowered to 19.

Edited by Tom Sewell
Small omission.

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45 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

It's a little late for me to be noticing this, but one of Dan's big premises for the New Year's Eve Party in Family Ties is Diane's sister Rhea not letting her drink until ten minutes to midnight when she turns 18. But the minimum drinking age in Illinois has been 21 since 1980, and before that it there was only a seven-year period when the drinking age was lowered to 19.

I just reread it and there wasn't anything there about Rhea telling Diane to wait till 10 minutes before midnight to drink, only that Diane couldn't open Rhea's porn folder until eleven-fifty.

There was the brief debate over whether Diane was considered an adult, but that was after Diane responded to Ellen and Nanase's question about her birthday, but that wasn't completely relevant to Diane getting caught drinking the year before. And note that later on Rhea's talking to Rick about it being good for Diane to see the effects of alcohol through sober eyes, so I don't believe Rhea ever intended on letting Diane drink that night.

As a side note though, I'm not entirely sure if it's legal, probably not, but I know when I turned 18 my parents let me drink the odd beer as long as it was at home, drinking age in Ontario is 19 so 1 year probably doesn't matter as much but I dunno, I was under the impression that the underage drinking bit only applied to public events and licensed establishments and that trying to enforce it in a residence was impossible.

Rhea's apartment would be a residence but I think the only way anyone would get caught serving to minors is if the police happened to be called out to the building by someone either complaining about noise, or suspecting underaged drinking, and then they'd have to catch Diane drunk. There is also the question of who owns the apartment, if the college did, then there would obviously be rules laid out by the college for what you could and couldn't use the building for, parties and alcohol would likely be prohibited. If it was owned by a private landowner, then they might be more lax in their rules, just as long as the tenants don't damage the property or create a lot of noise.

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4 hours ago, Scotty said:

As a side note though, I'm not entirely sure if it's legal, probably not, but I know when I turned 18 my parents let me drink the odd beer as long as it was at home, drinking age in Ontario is 19...(etc.)

Living in the Land of Moosehead, I'm guessing you have had little experience direct experience with things in the Great Dumb South, including the liquor laws. There isn't anyplace closer to Chicago than Ontario where a 19-year-old can buy booze legally. You're right that Rhea didn't specifically tell Diane she couldn't drink before 11:50 or even that it would be all right to drink at all--but it it would be illegal for anyone at that party under 21 to drink. There's talk in Illinois about allowing drinking under parental consent for 18-year-olds, but only talk so far, and Dan wrote about that party back in 2013. It just struck me as peculiar that no one in that story mentioned anything about the legal drinking age, even Mama Kitsune talking to Nanase about drinking.

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1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

 It just struck me as peculiar that no one in that story mentioned anything about the legal drinking age, even Mama Kitsune talking to Nanase about drinking.

Why would they mention it? Everyone knows what it is, and everyone knows everyone else knows what it is. That would be like finding it weird they didn't talk about the need to wear clothes at the party.

 

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