Kill6BillionDemons II: The Successor's coming will be followed by 108 burning threads

[BRC]

The Salami Slam has certainly been the biggest delaying tactic against Jagg that we've seen, but it's just that, a delaying tactic, and has left Incubus and Jagganoth's army to rampage across Throne.

Most notably, while the Salami Slam has taken Jagganoth off the board for now, it's ALSO taken Salami Dave off the board, presumably forever.

[InvisibleBison]

Sure, the Technique of Relief isn't a solution, but sihnfahl said that Solomon David was less effective at slowing Jagganoth down than White Chain, Cio and Allison's combined efforts. It's that statement which I was trying to refute by pointing out how Solomon David had in fact incapacitated Jagganoth for three years and counting.

[sihnfahl]

Sure, the Technique of Relief isn't a solution, but sihnfahl said that Solomon David was less effective at slowing Jagganoth down than White Chain, Cio and Allison's combined efforts. It's that statement which I was trying to refute by pointing out how Solomon David had in fact incapacitated Jagganoth for three years and counting.

Perhaps I should have been more expansive on the statement.

The Technique of Relief seems to have ended Salami.

Up until that point, nothing he did stopped, or even slowed, Jaggy. And how even the Trio's best effort only gained them a minute of time.

That's when he came to the realization of the necessity of his self-sacrifice, and passing the key to whom he saw as a good successor.

[Dragonus45]

"Democracy has been... difficult."

Yea it will do that, especially when your in the middle of a war to save the multiverse.

[Thales]

Not surprised by the identity of the Factotum, but I am surprised by how she got her powers. Almost feels like that undermines a major character beat from last book.

[Dragonus45]

Not surprised by the identity of the Factotum, but I am surprised by how she got her powers. Almost feels like that undermines a major character beat from last book.

That wasn't my read at all and now I'm very curious.

[Thales]

Er, I may have been unclear about whose character development.

Spoiler

Show

Totally fine with White Chain having the power thrust upon her. I more mean Solomon David surviving what appeared to be — and narratively felt like — a suicide attack.

[Dragonus45]

Er, I may have been unclear about whose character development.

Spoiler

Show

Totally fine with White Chain having the power thrust upon her. I more mean Solomon David surviving what appeared to be — and narratively felt like — a suicide attack.

Spoiler

Show

Oh yea, for me it makes sense because he his pride being totally and thoroughly broken means he doesn't even get to go out in a blaze of glorious glory.

[Aquillion]

I mean it also means his story isn't over.

(To be fair I'm not even sure the Demiurges who are actually dead are out of the story yet.)

[SomeoneNamedGem]

I mean it also means his story isn't over.

(To be fair I'm not even sure the Demiurges who are actually dead are out of the story yet.)

Narratively, doesn't it feel like those characters have already run their course?

Spoiler

Show

It's just Mottom and Mammon who have bit the dust, right? Mottom already lost the immortality tree and Mammon has long since given up on his ambitions and been left alone to the Count. Both were on borrowed time anyway, and it feels like Jagg more or less just put them out of their misery. Nadia even got one final moment of defiance before getting got

[Eldan]

Yeah, Mottom feels done with her character arc, and Mammon kind of feels like he never had much to him, I'd call him the least interesting Demiurge. Incubus and Jadis might still have a few things to do, and it feels like we've barely scratched the surface on Gog. And Solomon had a nice story and now should stay dead.

[wingnutx]

WTF is that?

[lord_khaine]

And Solomon had a nice story and now should stay dead.

Eh well yeah he had a nice story, and should go live in a barrel somewhere isolated.
Perhaps mentor a couple budding heroes in lesser martial arts.
He certainly did earn retirement.

WTF is that?

Well panel 12 speaks for itself i think?
So its who is that.

[wingnutx]

So its who is that.

That's what I said.

[Eldan]

Most likely Cio. The blue shard Allison is wearing is probably from her mask, and it's attracted to this creature, which might be a newly formed protoplasmic devil just returned from the void.

[Aquillion]

I wonder, will Allison have to drop in and talk to Cio's (former) husband? He's reassembled her in the past, so he'd be an expert on what's required, even if she has to beat it out of him. And Allison is currently very close to his place. It'd be a nice chance to bring things in a circle to where it all began.

[lord_khaine]

That's what I said.

No. You said that. Implying its a thing.
I corrected it to a who, implying its a person.

Since the panel i refereed to involved the lost shard of Cio that Alison found in her arm.

I wonder, will Allison have to drop in and talk to Cio's (former) husband? He's reassembled her in the past, so he'd be an expert on what's required

I think part of the lesson there, was that Cio didnt come back as the same person at all.
Dead is pretty permanent if your not Royalty.

[Thales]

For a plan billed as reuniting the demiurges, Allison isn't really planning to reunite many demiurges. She's specifically not bothering with outreach to Jadis and Incubus, she's planning to reach out to the decapitated empires of Mammon and Mottom, and she already has Solomon's successor on her side. Solomon himself isn't a demiurge anymore. The only active demiurge she's trying to persuade is Gog-Agog! (Also, while I can definitely believe Mammon's empire outliving him, seeing as it already outlived his time of strength, I don't see the same happening for Mottom's, which was a squabbling court of backstabbers and cowed subjects held only loosely together by fear of her.)

[Aquillion]

I think the real point of this arc, narratively, is to show us the state of the world after all those events, three years later.

(It's also reasonable to assume that 000001 had a much larger portion of Mammon's key than an emissary would, given how senile she was and how much she'd need it. She was able to go toe-to-toe with Mottom, at least temporarily.)

[Anarchic Fox]

I enjoyed the last few pages from a character-building perspective, not so much from a worldbuilding perspective. The first we see of the new government, and it's all characters we already know? But now with important-sounding titles? Sure. However, each of the characters got a chance to interject and show how they've changed in the past few years, which is solid writing.

[Dragonus45]

Given that the government seems to just be whoever is standing close enough for White Chain to foist off the responsibility to, and getting an angel like Vigilant to be a general actually seems pretty damn choice in any circumstance, it makes sense it's just people we know who would clearly have been standing nearby when the time came.

[BRC]

I mean

White Chain has the power, so the government should be made up of people she trusts, since whether or not she wants, she's the one picking people.

Vigilant Gaze: If you can get a senior angel like 10 Vigilant Gaze to lead your armies...you take him up on that.

Princess: Princess is head of the imperial guard, which seems like he's mostly just Nyave's Bodyguard. Assuming he's trustworthy (and he hasn't betrayed them yet), and being a Gilded former-ebon is resume enough that he can handle himself in a fight.

Zaid: I get that he's some sort of magic sword ninja badass now. I guess we just have to take their word for it that he's qualified to be a general. He DID spend a while at Solomon's side. Who knows what Solmon had him doing during that time.

[Rydiro]

I enjoyed the last few pages from a character-building perspective, not so much from a worldbuilding perspective. The first we see of the new government, and it's all characters we already know? But now with important-sounding titles? Sure. However, each of the characters got a chance to interject and show how they've changed in the past few years, which is solid writing.

Its the refugee empire they built. People who disagree with our protagonists are currently running their own empire-fragments.

[Anarchic Fox]

It makes sense that these characters became high-ranking military officers, given their martial ability. I'm just disappointed I haven't seen any more of the new government, particularly its non-military side, and likely won't. The post-Solomon government only matters insofar as it provides character development to previously established characters. And that's fine, just not what I would have liked.

[wingnutx]

The worm turns!

[Dragonus45]

You know, it says a lot about how much but yet how little White Chain has evolved as a person that she has such a limited view of what she is capable of with her new power. That she sees her options as either "become a new
self declared authoritarian god like the old self declared authoritarian god" or give the power up entirely.

[BRC]

I think it is the nature of Power, or at least how White Chain/ The World sees power.

Power means Violence, both literal and metaphorical. To wield Power is to reshape the world according to your will, an inherently violent act.


Because Power, Violence, and Will are so intertwined, the idea of wielding power on behalf of something else, what White Chain is trying to do, is alien to people here. How can the state NOT be an extension of her Will if she holds the power to destroy it? The idea of serving something weaker than yourself is antithetical to how this world approaches Power.

...But it's also exactly what Angels do. Angels, supposedly, do not fight for their own Will, they wield their power on behalf of The Law and their duty, rather than for themselves or as extensions of somebody else's power.

From White Chain's perspective, embracing the power of Demiurge means embracing the role of a demiurge, partially because that's what the world, including the Celestial Republic she attempts to serve, assumes as well.

[Dragonus45]

Yea it's kind of tragic that despite all of her growth she still is stuck in the same paradigm she has been in for something like an eon but just shuffled up a bit where she was standing in it.