MitD XIX: The Potted Plant Is Starting To Look Reasonable

[Keltest]

FTR: this is a strawman. No-one has argued this.

The actual argument, as has been stated over and over, is that MitD retains a face to fit in. It retains it at all times, no "excepts" anywhere. It has a face in the circus, it has a face in the jungle, it has a face whether it is convenient or not. The rest of him is a mass of boiling flesh. The assertion that this is "its most difficult to use" is a fallacy conjured by Meta to strengthen his weak case, with no support other than his say-so. Proteans basic description is that they copy what they see. Everyone around MitD has faces, which they use to emote. Protean!MitD would, the argument goes, attempt to copy that, as something that comes naturally to all proteans. To duplicate an ability seen in an otherworldly construct he saw only once decades earlier and that he had to reach deep into his subconscious to recall would be far harder than "copy those things with eyes and mouths all around me".

And as Peele points out, it is hardly the only argument. Like I was pointing out earlier, it could be that the eyes are not there at all and are a comic convention so that MitD can emote at all. Or it could be that he is not in fact using alter shape and he is stuck with a face because of the drama laws of the OotS universe.

Grey Wolf

I believe the point being made, and one that I find myself agreeing with, is that the Protean cannot selectively halt its boiling like that. It either is or is not doing so. I will allow that the text is ambiguous on that point.

But beyond that, we've seen him with a face while sleeping, so that would seem to pretty definitively preclude him from deliberately shapeshifting eyes. Likewise, "not actually having eyes" would go against the idea that nothing about the chosen monster actually contradicts his pre-selection appearances (to say nothing of stretching artistic license to its breaking point), so that option is out. That leaves "contrived coincidence" as the only explanation that isnt contradicted by something, which... admittedly, at least is actually possible, so it does have that going for it compared to the other explanations, but holy crap would that be unsatisfying to me personally.