Good thing she takes her time. Or that Kendall collapsed *before* she started cutting him up.
I would imagine Kendall’s body is still sleeping in Erin’s tent.
Is the Collector drying to bring back Stone? Is that why she’s been collecting so many souls and–
If the Collector turns out to be a sympathetic antagonist–or maybe even a future protagonist–I’m both going to be blown away and completely unsurprised because it’s such a Red thing to do. Obviously, she’ll need lots of redemption because she’s done some pretty terrible stuff, but a redeemed Collector would be AWESOME
She won’t become the protagonist. She literally massacred thousands of people in the city of Vash already, so yeah, she crossed the moral event horizon two seconds after she was introduced to the story.
Yeah, in retrospect, the idea of her becoming a protagonist is . . . not as cool as I first thought. I think that a Collector redemption WOULD be really cool, it would just be really, really, REALLY hard. Maybe not impossible, but approaching it.
Wouldn’t bringing back Stone kinda kill everyone else though? You know, because they’re all living on its skin, and constant earthquakes don’t seem that conducive to civilization… Doesn’t seem like the actions of anyone remotely protagonist or anti-villain-like.
I bet she’s in cahoots with the void dragon!!!! Maybe she’s the female Elemental Magus that supposedly died about 100 years ago!!!! She can use all the elements, so she matches up with that description!
That remark on Zuurith makes me worry for the floof squad in the next sub-arc.
If you recall Erin’s roadmap from Chapter 8, Zuurith is the first stop on the way to Argist and the coast.
I… Don’t think so? The Primordials combined to make the seal, and only Erin can unmake it, as the only one capable of truly wielding all elements. I imagine if Stone was revived, either the seal would retain part of his essence the same way a spell contains part of the caster’s magic, or Stone would be removed from the seal but the other five elements would still remain.
Except, if the component of Stone were to be removed from adamant, it wouldn’t be adamant anymore. Adamant is a fusion of the matters of all six (non-Void) elements, so removing one of those elements somehow would make it no longer adamant. And as The Void Dragon stated that adamant is the only substance he can’t break through… changing it like that would set him free.
Good point. But if VD needs Erin to unmake the Adamant, no one Primordial could break it themselves. Even if Stone awoke, I imagine part of them would remain tied up in the Adamant then, otherwise any mage would’ve been able to deconstruct the adamant by removing one specific element. But Adamant isn’t any one element, it is ALL the elements.
So the seal on VD would probably be unaffected if any of the Primordials awoke. I mean, Life is evidently awake, but VD is still trapped. If Life can be in the Adamant and in Alinua, then Stone could be in it’s own body as well.
Ummm She already has power. I’m guessing she’s just bored and wants to toy around with some more different power. Lets just hope she doesn’t find Alinua or Erin – She’d definitely turn them into little lab pets.
I hope she doesn’t find Alinua or Erin, cause she’d definitely capture them and experiment on them. Erin because he’s the Void Dragon, and Alinua cause she’s the incarnation of Life.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Some enbies choose to use ‘gendered’ pronouns. For example, a non-binary person who goes by he/him. But yes, pronouns and gender are linked, if only because the majority of society agree so.
Ooh yeah, agreed. It’s like Red said: Erin would make a fantastic villain (y’know, like the Collector), but because he doesn’t want to be evil, he settles for being a mediocre hero.
Now I really want to draw Erin as a villain. Maybe he would be the collector’s apprentice or something. I also really want villain Erin to have a cape with a big collar (kinda like Dracula). Also why do I feel like villain Erin would HATE Alinua?
Since this is the internet, you will never know my real name.
Everyone is all like: “Wait, the Collector’s trying to revive the Stone Primordial?”
She hasn’t even implied that. She’s just saying she’s a Life Mage powerful enough to heal or mutate small parts of the Primordial’s corpses, allowing her to appear to manipulate all elements on a huge scale. Sure, maybe her end goal is to implant a god’s soul into Stone, or something, but she hasn’t actually SAID that yet. She’s only explained her powers, not her goals or motives.
In fact, considering the nature of her powers, it might be more beneficial to her that the primordials STAY dead. That way she can keep ‘healing’ them and wielding these incredible powers.
Although, (look at me having a one-person debate) she does say ‘revive’. I’m almost embarrassed to admit I misread that, since that DOES imply that she wants to revive bigger parts of the Primordials. Well, I guess we’ll just have to see.
Agreed, as I mentioned in my comment I think she says ‘revive’ in this sense to give her powers and reasons for targeting Vash context. Instead of willing the Earth to do as she commands for limited utility, as most mages do, she sees the big picture of a dead primordial body that just needs reminding of how to heal. She helps encourage the healing, like how doctors make stitches in wounds and casts around broken bone, and Stone’s own body does the job for her.
It isn’t about how much power she has, it’s that she uses it in a completely different way to other mages. I hypothesise she used similar methods with other primordial souls and bodies to get nature spirits of ponds, forests, etc.
Maybe instead of trying to dissect a god, the Collector should try some yoga. Don’t know if it curbs lust for amoral scientific pursuits, but it might help.
Theory: maybe she’s the last Elemental magus (the one before Erin). She can use multiple elements, as Ilia explained (the water lady who visited Kendal), and even though Kendal has said she died, she might have found a way to make her soul stay, in a sort of reverse of what Kendal is. She is still human (while Kendal isn’t) even if she isn’t mortal anymore (whatever she’s done with her magic. Her eyes also seem infused with green, which is the color of Life magic… Maybe she used that to make her soul stay? Seeing what she can do with soul, it doesn’t seem to unlikely…)
That was a popular theory, but I think this page overturns it; she seems to only directly control Life Magic, but because all magic comes from the dead bodies of these Primordials, she can indirectly influence other elements by applying Life Magic to the bodies. I think her immortality comes from a self-healing spell so rapid and effective that mortal wounds don’t even faze her.
Maybe it’s a mashup of BOTH these theories? Like she is the previous elemental magus who found a way to keep herself alive by a rapid self healing spell or maybe a potion or a elixr of some kind?
Plus, she says she *remembers* when Stone was alive, which means she’s somehow older than the actual world. Unless she’s a fully integrated primordial host or something, doesn’t that sort of rule out her being the previous Elemental Magus? No, but she still reads as a human to godly perceptions, so…AARGH! I’m so confused!
Collector: (Thinking) Dum de dum dum dum shiny scalpel… dum de dum dum dum gonna slice him up…
So if V.D. is sealed in Stone’s first heart and the Collector’s made her lair in the third, what’s happening with the second? Too messed up to salvage? Another lab for the Collector? The chimera pen? Storage?
So it was the bowl shape of Vash that was why he was targeted but the context behind how the Collector did it is very interesting. Instead of moving the earth to do as she commands, as most mages do, she viewed Vash as part of Stone that was damaged that she helped heal itself. Maybe her secret lies less in being more powerful and more in seeing magic from a different angle to most, as she says at the end she’s “seen the bigger picture”.
I don’t actually see her reviving the primordials, I think she was talking about it to frame her use of magic when she destroyed Vash. Reviving the primordials wouldn’t well for the populace of Aurora, herself included. All their lands, magics, the very stuff of their bodies is made up of the corpses of the primordials; a complete resurrection of any primordial would spell disaster if they reclaim all of their energies and masses. A partial resurrection may be possible though, maybe Alinua is like that to Life, but a complete one would upend the fabric of the world irreparably.
Fascinating are we going to have an antagonist who is sympathetic?
or is she going to attempt to revive Walter?
Who knows!
Only Red, and she’s not talking
People are always asking ma how I keep my hair so long and beautiful. What’s my secret? Souls! Just reap a couple divine souls from their bodies and infuse them directly into your hair, and you too can have long, luscious locks that blend into plot exposition!
On a more serious note.
I think, by reading back what the river goddess told Kendall, that she is trying to dissect the souls and put them back together in order to increase her powers indefinitely.
Let me explain.
Gods are a bunch of elemental energy present in an area concentrated in a big soul that sometimes incarnates in a body of some sort.
They are fragments of the primordial from whom they originate.
Since she doesn’t have enough power or understanding to dissect a whole primordial, being it scattered all through the planet she is targeting increasingly bigger spirits, dissecting them and trying to heal them as a whole.
For now she can only heal small wounds on a primordial’s body, which in a huge body can mean a fairly big crater like Vash.
But, if she takes apart bigger spirits and then is able to stitch them back and make them work maybe she will find ways to revive bigger parts of the elemental they are made from, even arriving to understand the full biology of the primordials and teaching them how to live again.
And again.
This tends to confirm that in this world a soul is intrinsic to the body it inhabits.
Because she is talking about healing the dead and reviving them.
This means that a soul can be something that exists out of a living body but at the same time if it lives it must have a soul. Kendal wasn’t killed when Vash was taken out so the body needed a new soul in order to continue living and so Kendal came to being.
I agree with most of this, but do we KNOW that gods are elemental energy? I mean, I wouldn’t associate Vash with an element; he’s a city god. But I would associate Tynan with multiple elements; wind, water, lightning. Perhaps gods are created when their domain has developed to a point where they are significant enough to collect/manifest soul energy? Or something? So Gleicann was only born when his forest grew big enough for a significant chunk of soul energy to settle in? Then, like the Primordials, they can control every aspect of themself/their domain, resulting in a blend of ‘elemental’ magic unique to them? For example, Gleicann doesn’t use Life Magic, but ‘Gleicann Magic’.
In the Extra Lore page on Gods and Sentinels, it says “Strictly speaking, gods are nothing more than vast, self-sustaining lattices of soul energy.” They aren’t elemental energy, just soul energy. I think Patroclus is right about how gods use not elemental magic but their own specific magic.
So you are telling me that Gleicann is NOT using life magic?
The point is that they are soul energy BUT magic is inherently elemental, gods are not limited to using one single element, apparently, but if they weild magic, because of the rules of the world, that is elemental.
And gods are surely 100% certain, more similar to primordials than mortals.
Well, if you took Gleicann and put him in Journey-god’s savannah, would he still be able to perform magic? I would say no. The way I see it, Gleicann (and other gods) can manipulate their domains. So Gleicann has abilities either derived from Life Magic, or powers that simulate Life Magic, because he’s a forest god. But there’s more to a forest than plants and animals; he might have power over the wind in the trees, or the water in the streams, or the stone and soil beneath the woods.
But here’s the thing: Gleicann’s powers are a different colour. That seems relatively insignificant, but this is Red we’re talking about; colours are very important to her art. HER ALIAS IS LITERALLY A COLOUR. In every instance of Life Magic, Red has used the same colour—that lush, vibrant green. From the Collector’s chimerae, to Erin’s healing runes, to Alinua’s overloads, that same green has been used to represent Life Magic from the Life Primordial. Gleicann has a different colour; it’s an unsaturated green, which tells us that his power is fundamentally different to that of the Life Primordial’s.
It is certain that Gleicann’s forest arose from the Life Primordial, but his powers are independent because it is his forest, his ecosystem. He doesn’t control Life, or Water, or Wind, or Stone, he controls his forest, which is why if you took him out of the forest he would be powerless.
On the other hand there are the Twins. I have a theory that the Twins may be Primordial-like gods of soul energy, but in the Prologue they can be seen creating people using Life Magic—that same green colour is there—and gathering the spirits of the dead Primordials in the form of the Aurora (roll credits!). They are clearly using Life Magic, and if they are using it, I don’t see why other gods wouldn’t use elemental magic.
But then there is Vash. Vash does not seem to have any elemental-based powers, being a city god. His powers must come from his people themselves, and they seem to encompass supernatural speed and strength, beyond his ability to construct formidable vessels. The fact that Vash has no elemental abilities means that he is not connected to any of the Primordials, and if he isn’t I don’t see why other gods would be.
It’s very confusing.
Since this is the internet, you will never know my real name.
Every time I see a character’s hair start flowing like that, I expect an exposition montage coming up. It’s like the bongo drums in the Ant Man movies.
*Kendal collapses*
“This is fine.”
*Falst walks off alone*
“I’m okay with the events that are unfolding currently.”
*Kendal astral projects straight to the Collector’s lair*
“That’s okay.”
*The Collector starts vivisecting Vash’s soul*
“Everything’s gonna be okay.”
If she remember all the way back to the time the Primordials were alive, then I think there are three possibilities for who the collector is:
1. A fragment of Void that sort of became sentient,
2. Some sort of cosmic parasite (after all, we saw in the Primordial scenes that space was filled with stars, so clearly there was more than just the primordials in the universe) or
3. The first sentient being birthed from the Primordials, possibly the first god.
She says, “IT remembers when it used to beat”, not “I remember”. Gleicann outright said she’s a human, and considering the fact that, according to Ilia, she started the godnapping a hundred years ago, a relatively young one at that, compared to the timescale that this planet has existed for. Personally, I think she’s the previous elemental magus, who faked her own death and assumed a new identity.
I do believe that the Collector is the previous elemental magus, mostly because the timeline does actually add up. Lady Illia said that she hadn’t aged in over a century, and Kendal said that the previous one died 130 years before. We’ve also seen her use Life, Stone, and Water magic. She might’ve called it, “healing Stone’s body” but her hands did glow white, not green. My guess is that it was just easier to crush a city when Stones body wants to grow around it anyway. As someone said above me, she must have figured out how to make her soul stay intact even if she got injured badly, probably by seeing how other souls work. If she did this well enough, it could stop her from bleeding, if her soul is that strong.
Also, her motivations still seem pretty unclear. Does she want to revive the primordials? That doesn’t seem good for the world over all. Plus, it seems like at least two primordials are already alive in some capacity, being Life Mum and Magic Light Sword Person’s patron, who’s text boxes are the same font as Life Mum and the Void Dragon. But we don’t know which primordial it is. My guess is wind, because Shiny Floof’s powers fit that, but it could be the Void Dragon’s “Other,” who was mentioned in his evil monologue. The Patron did talk through that dragon one time, and of course, being a foil to the Void Dragon would make them a Dragon also. it is also possible that that dragon is just Wind-Influenced. It lived in the Wind sector without dying. Or maybe its the Water Primordial, and he made that sick sword out of ice. Idk, it’s pretty unclear.
Anyway, the Collector. I re-read the page, and I think that what she means is that she wants to get a direct connection to the Elements, like what Alinua has with life, by reviving parts of their physical forms. With Stone, it would be easiest, because his body is literally the planet.
Speaking of Alinua, the Collector is gonna FLIP when she finds out about her connection
TLDR; insane child wildly speculates in the innocent comment section, about the Collector and the Primordials
I think she is just trying to revive the physical form of the primordials, right now, not their soul.
As far as I may discern by what we’ve seen the primordials died physically and their body partly became VD’s prison.
Their soul is still around and at least some gods seem to be aware of it since Gleicann recognized Life without any explanation.
But just like VD cannot exit his prison with his body and needs to possess somebody else’s body in order to move around, the same goes for the primordials’ souls.
So here comes the chymeric plague for life, which was trying to find a vessel suitable to channel her energy, and most died in the attempt.
I guess Lightning is around too, but since we saw him in a big dragon my best guess is that the twins created dragons in a way that was capable of weilding insane amounts of lightning energy and therefore easier to inhabit without killing some in the attempt.
Why don’t they revive themselves then?
Two hypothesis:
1 they don’t know how to do that, they are too scattered to do so by themselves and maybe the collector might be able to do something about that.
2 they don’t want to either because of all the life that arose from them or because it would be easier for VD to escape if they were around, so they inhabit a vessel and try to kill whichever vessel VD comes to inhabit in order to keep him in his prison for as long as possible.
I’ve just now realised that if the crew was to go and find Vash before properly containing VD
Erin would be dangerously close to where VD wants him
I went back to check what powers the dragon had. You were right, it’s lightning. I thought all the lightning came from Sparky Sparky Metal Woman, but I was wrong.
Anyway why would she want to revive the primordial’s physical forms? Maybe to gain their favor. She’s already immortal, so the most common Evil Motivation isn’t an option. Does she know about the Void Dragon? She lives next door to him. Maybe she’s not a previous Magus, because the Void Dragon probably would have complained about there being a Magus two inches away and him being unable to pocess them.
Maybe we can wait until the next update, maybe then we’ll get more info.
Ok, so she can manipulate the bodies of the primordials to a terrifying scale, and is now trying to learn the inner workings of godly souls.
I’m going with:
A) Mad scientist obsessed with knowledge for knowledge itself even if it dooms us all
or
B) She’s trying to become a primordial level god. Maybe inject herself as the new soul in the body of the old primordials.
So her magic being so terrifyingly powerful allows her to view it as a philosophy of sorts… unless she can actually temporarily imitate life in a part of a dead primordial, in which case it’s not just a philosophy, it’s the real deal.
She might be the strongest mage to have ever lived if she can manipulate that much matter at once.
I read the Extra Lore sections about The Six Primordials and Magic again.
From The Six Primordials: “Though long-dead, the souls of the six primordials continue to linger, dancing through the upper atmosphere in colorful shows of light – a nightly reminder of their sacrifice. It is through their lingering spirits that elemental magic is possible, as mages can draw fragments of these primordial souls into themselves and command the corresponding element to obey. Advanced mages are even capable of drawing upon the true nature of the element itself, small echoes of the splendorous power the primordial embodied in life.”
From Magic: “The physical matter of fire, lightning and life can be harder to find in their pure form than stone, water and wind. This is not because they do not HAVE physicality, as some have theorized, but is instead because their physicality is most often hidden away. These three elements sink within the other three without the structure they held in life. Life dissolves into water and leeches into stone, lightning lurks in wind and water, fire seeps into stone and wind. These elements can be conjured seemingly from thin air, but in fact their physicality must be present for the elemental energy to have any effect. A fire mage who conjures a wall of flame is pulling that fire from the air and stone. A lightning mage calling down the storm is summoning lightning already lurking in the clouds or the air. And a life mage can never create life from nothing – there must always be living matter for them to empower or heal.”
The Collector is most likely an Advanced Life Mage. That would explain why she’s lived for over a century, why she doesn’t bleed or feel pain upon being injured, why she’s able to shape Stone and Water in ways gods can’t understand. As Primordial Life’s vessel, Alinua is the best chance our heroes have of defeating her.
you know, that could be an interesting tactic. remember how Erin commented on mot having much life energy when Aliuna was having a meltdown?
Floof squad: meet’s collector
Aliuna: magic meltdown
Collector: where did my magic go?
I mean, it’s kinda hard to use life magic if life mum is using it all, and I’ll bet life mum has more control of herself than some baddie manipulating her energy.
Hi! i’m new here and not sure this will work, but i have some theories.
the collector probably controls more than one element, possibly including void. not necessarily all of them, but enough to get work done. they are trying to “wake up” the primordials as others have pointed out, but they are possibly not a good guy. one reason they could be doing this is to give the void a chance to break out of their prison, since they need the primordials’ word to open up the lock. on the other hand, they may be trying to revive the primordials specifically so that no other mortal CAN break the lock, like void’s original plan with the elemental magus (to command enough of the primordials’ through magic). if the primordials are alive again, they have the ultimate say and no one can use magic to break the lock. the reason i suspect they command some aspects of void magic is because they manage to somewhat coherently manipulate living beings (and even gods) who need all seven elements, including void, to function.
Welp, I was way off. I assumed she was using void magic to destroy the domains of the gods she attacked. I guess the question is, is she using life magic to heal all the primordials, or is she using their respective elemental magic? If it’s the latter, she’s at least a life/stone/water mage, with possibly wind or lightning in there as well (she was doing something with water in a flashback, and Ilia mentioned her taking a storm spirit).
The other question is, if she’s not a void mage, how the heck is she so deep in the singing caves without suffering cave corruption?
One more thing: if she started out collecting mortal souls, then moved up to minor spirits, then to major gods… I wonder if her endgame is to collect the souls of the primordials?
And here, with our first full view of the gal in a long while, we can see just how massively Red’s art has improved from when she first started this comic. See: the Collector’s image in the Characters page.
She wouldn’t have intentionally woke up life. That’s about ad dumb as breaking some of the expensive china and then waking up your parents to join in the fun. However, the metaphorical sound of the metaphorical china being metaphorically smashed might have triggered life mum’s metaphorical mom instincts to get up and stop the metaphorical naughty kid.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
You know, now I’m wondering if they are either going to fail to save Vash, or save him in less of a “dramatic rescue” way and more of a “soul physical therapy” way after he get’s cut up and put back together. Cause she looks like she’s ready to start cutting, and the floof squad is still several necessary side quests from unlocking the boss encounter.
Although, it’s possible she will notice Kendal, and find him interesting enough to put off dissection day.
Also, I wonder how it would go if they do rescue Vash. Like, his domain is wrecked, would he be magically crippled? I doubt he would evict Kendal either way, but would he have to make a fresh incarnation? Leave Kendal be and take the night shift? Just go “I’m taking a nap, tell me when the city is a city again”? Make a fresh, guaranteed human body for Kendal?
I’m really theorizing now that either The Collector WAS an Elemental Magus, or she wants to BECOME one. Except way more powerful than a normal EM due to channeling entire resurrected primordials. Worth noting that:
a) She has long sleeves, so if she has tattoos like Erin’s then they wouldn’t be visible, and
b) Aside from ATLA-influenced assumptions, I don’t recall there being anything stating that there can only be one EM at a time. We’ve only been told that they are very rare, and that the last one (presumably) died a long time ago.
On a different line of theorizing, not sure HOW these things fit together, but I’m sensing a theme between:
-The Collector having green eyes and doing a lot of life magic
-The existence of the Chimeric Plague when there’s no similar phenomenon for other elements
-The Collector scheming to heal the primordials
-Alinua being possessed by what seems to be the Life Primordial
(I’d almost wonder if she’s ALREADY revived Life… except then what does she need Vash for?)
I’ve seen a few people saying this about Collector reviving Life. But the timeline does not add up. The Chimeric Plague started idk about 500 years ago, and Lady Illia said that the Collector started walking around being immortal and junk 130 years ago.
But I agree with the first part of the theory, however.
I forgot about the collector wanting to dissect Vash. Also what is happening to Kendal’s body
Maybe there is a Kendal II who is quietly going “Not this again…”
Good thing she takes her time. Or that Kendall collapsed *before* she started cutting him up.
I would imagine Kendall’s body is still sleeping in Erin’s tent.
WAIT WAIT WAIT
Is the Collector drying to bring back Stone? Is that why she’s been collecting so many souls and–
If the Collector turns out to be a sympathetic antagonist–or maybe even a future protagonist–I’m both going to be blown away and completely unsurprised because it’s such a Red thing to do. Obviously, she’ll need lots of redemption because she’s done some pretty terrible stuff, but a redeemed Collector would be AWESOME
I really hope she doesn’t become a protagonist… she’s done too much evil shit to be redeemable
She won’t become the protagonist. She literally massacred thousands of people in the city of Vash already, so yeah, she crossed the moral event horizon two seconds after she was introduced to the story.
Yeah, in retrospect, the idea of her becoming a protagonist is . . . not as cool as I first thought. I think that a Collector redemption WOULD be really cool, it would just be really, really, REALLY hard. Maybe not impossible, but approaching it.
Wouldn’t bringing back Stone kinda kill everyone else though? You know, because they’re all living on its skin, and constant earthquakes don’t seem that conducive to civilization… Doesn’t seem like the actions of anyone remotely protagonist or anti-villain-like.
um… or maybe bring back a certain void dragon? remember him?
I bet she’s in cahoots with the void dragon!!!! Maybe she’s the female Elemental Magus that supposedly died about 100 years ago!!!! She can use all the elements, so she matches up with that description!
*trying
so… the Collector is REVIVING the primordials???
She doesn’t seem to have a real healing touch … she’s like a necromancer.
That remark on Zuurith makes me worry for the floof squad in the next sub-arc.
If you recall Erin’s roadmap from Chapter 8, Zuurith is the first stop on the way to Argist and the coast.
Oh boy, bandit city, here we come
So, if Stone is revived, would that do anything to the seal on the Void Dragon?
I… Don’t think so? The Primordials combined to make the seal, and only Erin can unmake it, as the only one capable of truly wielding all elements. I imagine if Stone was revived, either the seal would retain part of his essence the same way a spell contains part of the caster’s magic, or Stone would be removed from the seal but the other five elements would still remain.
So there would just be stone walking around with VD in his chest complaining loudly the whole time.
Man that is a funny image when you think about it.
Except, if the component of Stone were to be removed from adamant, it wouldn’t be adamant anymore. Adamant is a fusion of the matters of all six (non-Void) elements, so removing one of those elements somehow would make it no longer adamant. And as The Void Dragon stated that adamant is the only substance he can’t break through… changing it like that would set him free.
Good point. But if VD needs Erin to unmake the Adamant, no one Primordial could break it themselves. Even if Stone awoke, I imagine part of them would remain tied up in the Adamant then, otherwise any mage would’ve been able to deconstruct the adamant by removing one specific element. But Adamant isn’t any one element, it is ALL the elements.
So the seal on VD would probably be unaffected if any of the Primordials awoke. I mean, Life is evidently awake, but VD is still trapped. If Life can be in the Adamant and in Alinua, then Stone could be in it’s own body as well.
Ooookay I’m getting it now. What does she get out of reawakening primordials?
Power? Fame? Riches? Sake of knowledge? Cheese sandwiches? Who knows
Probably cheese sandwiches
Ummm She already has power. I’m guessing she’s just bored and wants to toy around with some more different power. Lets just hope she doesn’t find Alinua or Erin – She’d definitely turn them into little lab pets.
My money is on bragging rights, “power is its own end,” or some combination of the two. Real Lawful/Hubris ambitions up here.
I hope she doesn’t find Alinua or Erin, cause she’d definitely capture them and experiment on them. Erin because he’s the Void Dragon, and Alinua cause she’s the incarnation of Life.
Wait, was it ever really put down what gender The Collector is? They always came off to me as androgynous and I assumed that was deliberate.
uhh even Gleicann called her “she”? *shrug*
to be fair, pronouns have nothing to do with gender
…except when a person wants to be referred to by the pronouns that reflect their gender, i.e. damn near every person on Earth.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Some enbies choose to use ‘gendered’ pronouns. For example, a non-binary person who goes by he/him. But yes, pronouns and gender are linked, if only because the majority of society agree so.
To answer your question, Ilia referred to the Collector as ‘she’ and I think Kendal did too, early on. That’s all we have to go on.
If you look closely, you can notice a curve to the chest. Pretty sure the Collector is designed to be female.
The Collecter reminds me a lot of Erin in this page, just less… restricted, both in morality and in what is and isn’t possible
Ooh yeah, agreed. It’s like Red said: Erin would make a fantastic villain (y’know, like the Collector), but because he doesn’t want to be evil, he settles for being a mediocre hero.
that’s one of my favorite things she’s said on twitter
Now I really want to draw Erin as a villain. Maybe he would be the collector’s apprentice or something. I also really want villain Erin to have a cape with a big collar (kinda like Dracula). Also why do I feel like villain Erin would HATE Alinua?
I think they’d be best friends!!!! Except, for the fact that she massacred an entire city … and probably more that we don’t know of yet.
Wait, the Collector actually DID target Vash out of convenience? I was actually right?
*applause*
I’m concerned that she’s either trying to free the void dragon or trying to kill it.
Everyone is all like: “Wait, the Collector’s trying to revive the Stone Primordial?”
She hasn’t even implied that. She’s just saying she’s a Life Mage powerful enough to heal or mutate small parts of the Primordial’s corpses, allowing her to appear to manipulate all elements on a huge scale. Sure, maybe her end goal is to implant a god’s soul into Stone, or something, but she hasn’t actually SAID that yet. She’s only explained her powers, not her goals or motives.
In fact, considering the nature of her powers, it might be more beneficial to her that the primordials STAY dead. That way she can keep ‘healing’ them and wielding these incredible powers.
Although, (look at me having a one-person debate) she does say ‘revive’. I’m almost embarrassed to admit I misread that, since that DOES imply that she wants to revive bigger parts of the Primordials. Well, I guess we’ll just have to see.
Agreed, as I mentioned in my comment I think she says ‘revive’ in this sense to give her powers and reasons for targeting Vash context. Instead of willing the Earth to do as she commands for limited utility, as most mages do, she sees the big picture of a dead primordial body that just needs reminding of how to heal. She helps encourage the healing, like how doctors make stitches in wounds and casts around broken bone, and Stone’s own body does the job for her.
It isn’t about how much power she has, it’s that she uses it in a completely different way to other mages. I hypothesise she used similar methods with other primordial souls and bodies to get nature spirits of ponds, forests, etc.
Reminds me of Doctor Strange: “When you reattach a severed nerve, is it you who heals it back together or the body?”
Patroclus, I have seen three people be both side in a debate in class this nothing weird to me. This is closer to normal.
Maybe instead of trying to dissect a god, the Collector should try some yoga. Don’t know if it curbs lust for amoral scientific pursuits, but it might help.
Theory: maybe she’s the last Elemental magus (the one before Erin). She can use multiple elements, as Ilia explained (the water lady who visited Kendal), and even though Kendal has said she died, she might have found a way to make her soul stay, in a sort of reverse of what Kendal is. She is still human (while Kendal isn’t) even if she isn’t mortal anymore (whatever she’s done with her magic. Her eyes also seem infused with green, which is the color of Life magic… Maybe she used that to make her soul stay? Seeing what she can do with soul, it doesn’t seem to unlikely…)
That was a popular theory, but I think this page overturns it; she seems to only directly control Life Magic, but because all magic comes from the dead bodies of these Primordials, she can indirectly influence other elements by applying Life Magic to the bodies. I think her immortality comes from a self-healing spell so rapid and effective that mortal wounds don’t even faze her.
Maybe it’s a mashup of BOTH these theories? Like she is the previous elemental magus who found a way to keep herself alive by a rapid self healing spell or maybe a potion or a elixr of some kind?
*Death Becomes Her flashbacks intensify*
Plus, she says she *remembers* when Stone was alive, which means she’s somehow older than the actual world. Unless she’s a fully integrated primordial host or something, doesn’t that sort of rule out her being the previous Elemental Magus? No, but she still reads as a human to godly perceptions, so…AARGH! I’m so confused!
Oh, I read that wrong. “IT still remembers.” Not “I still remember.” Never mind. Ignore me.
Collector: (Thinking) Dum de dum dum dum shiny scalpel… dum de dum dum dum gonna slice him up…
So if V.D. is sealed in Stone’s first heart and the Collector’s made her lair in the third, what’s happening with the second? Too messed up to salvage? Another lab for the Collector? The chimera pen? Storage?
So it was the bowl shape of Vash that was why he was targeted but the context behind how the Collector did it is very interesting. Instead of moving the earth to do as she commands, as most mages do, she viewed Vash as part of Stone that was damaged that she helped heal itself. Maybe her secret lies less in being more powerful and more in seeing magic from a different angle to most, as she says at the end she’s “seen the bigger picture”.
I don’t actually see her reviving the primordials, I think she was talking about it to frame her use of magic when she destroyed Vash. Reviving the primordials wouldn’t well for the populace of Aurora, herself included. All their lands, magics, the very stuff of their bodies is made up of the corpses of the primordials; a complete resurrection of any primordial would spell disaster if they reclaim all of their energies and masses. A partial resurrection may be possible though, maybe Alinua is like that to Life, but a complete one would upend the fabric of the world irreparably.
Fascinating are we going to have an antagonist who is sympathetic?
or is she going to attempt to revive Walter?
Who knows!
Only Red, and she’s not talking
Wait, ruins of the third heart, thats next to the fuck you dragon!
Damn that lady is resistent to corruption
how much hair does she have
and how does she deal with it
D A R K M A G I C
She uses the power of evil to reap souls and uses them to keep her hair on point
People are always asking ma how I keep my hair so long and beautiful. What’s my secret? Souls! Just reap a couple divine souls from their bodies and infuse them directly into your hair, and you too can have long, luscious locks that blend into plot exposition!
That’s why her hair is so big.
It’s full of evil.
The collector would be absolutely wrecked in a modern comment section since she is taking her collected souls out of the original package.
TL;DR: Troglodyte villain monologues about how incredible her perspective on magic is and how convenient blue god’s city was.
lol troglodyte
I’m not wrong. She is a cave dwelling evil… Thing.
WOW WHAT’S WITH THE HAIR I-
On a more serious note.
I think, by reading back what the river goddess told Kendall, that she is trying to dissect the souls and put them back together in order to increase her powers indefinitely.
Let me explain.
Gods are a bunch of elemental energy present in an area concentrated in a big soul that sometimes incarnates in a body of some sort.
They are fragments of the primordial from whom they originate.
Since she doesn’t have enough power or understanding to dissect a whole primordial, being it scattered all through the planet she is targeting increasingly bigger spirits, dissecting them and trying to heal them as a whole.
For now she can only heal small wounds on a primordial’s body, which in a huge body can mean a fairly big crater like Vash.
But, if she takes apart bigger spirits and then is able to stitch them back and make them work maybe she will find ways to revive bigger parts of the elemental they are made from, even arriving to understand the full biology of the primordials and teaching them how to live again.
And again.
This tends to confirm that in this world a soul is intrinsic to the body it inhabits.
Because she is talking about healing the dead and reviving them.
This means that a soul can be something that exists out of a living body but at the same time if it lives it must have a soul. Kendal wasn’t killed when Vash was taken out so the body needed a new soul in order to continue living and so Kendal came to being.
I agree with most of this, but do we KNOW that gods are elemental energy? I mean, I wouldn’t associate Vash with an element; he’s a city god. But I would associate Tynan with multiple elements; wind, water, lightning. Perhaps gods are created when their domain has developed to a point where they are significant enough to collect/manifest soul energy? Or something? So Gleicann was only born when his forest grew big enough for a significant chunk of soul energy to settle in? Then, like the Primordials, they can control every aspect of themself/their domain, resulting in a blend of ‘elemental’ magic unique to them? For example, Gleicann doesn’t use Life Magic, but ‘Gleicann Magic’.
In the Extra Lore page on Gods and Sentinels, it says “Strictly speaking, gods are nothing more than vast, self-sustaining lattices of soul energy.” They aren’t elemental energy, just soul energy. I think Patroclus is right about how gods use not elemental magic but their own specific magic.
So you are telling me that Gleicann is NOT using life magic?
The point is that they are soul energy BUT magic is inherently elemental, gods are not limited to using one single element, apparently, but if they weild magic, because of the rules of the world, that is elemental.
And gods are surely 100% certain, more similar to primordials than mortals.
Well, if you took Gleicann and put him in Journey-god’s savannah, would he still be able to perform magic? I would say no. The way I see it, Gleicann (and other gods) can manipulate their domains. So Gleicann has abilities either derived from Life Magic, or powers that simulate Life Magic, because he’s a forest god. But there’s more to a forest than plants and animals; he might have power over the wind in the trees, or the water in the streams, or the stone and soil beneath the woods.
But here’s the thing: Gleicann’s powers are a different colour. That seems relatively insignificant, but this is Red we’re talking about; colours are very important to her art. HER ALIAS IS LITERALLY A COLOUR. In every instance of Life Magic, Red has used the same colour—that lush, vibrant green. From the Collector’s chimerae, to Erin’s healing runes, to Alinua’s overloads, that same green has been used to represent Life Magic from the Life Primordial. Gleicann has a different colour; it’s an unsaturated green, which tells us that his power is fundamentally different to that of the Life Primordial’s.
It is certain that Gleicann’s forest arose from the Life Primordial, but his powers are independent because it is his forest, his ecosystem. He doesn’t control Life, or Water, or Wind, or Stone, he controls his forest, which is why if you took him out of the forest he would be powerless.
On the other hand there are the Twins. I have a theory that the Twins may be Primordial-like gods of soul energy, but in the Prologue they can be seen creating people using Life Magic—that same green colour is there—and gathering the spirits of the dead Primordials in the form of the Aurora (roll credits!). They are clearly using Life Magic, and if they are using it, I don’t see why other gods wouldn’t use elemental magic.
But then there is Vash. Vash does not seem to have any elemental-based powers, being a city god. His powers must come from his people themselves, and they seem to encompass supernatural speed and strength, beyond his ability to construct formidable vessels. The fact that Vash has no elemental abilities means that he is not connected to any of the Primordials, and if he isn’t I don’t see why other gods would be.
It’s very confusing.
I’m scared for Erin if the Collector finds him. Alinua too, but mainly Erin. She’d probably use Erin to try to get his power as the Void Dragon.
Every time I see a character’s hair start flowing like that, I expect an exposition montage coming up. It’s like the bongo drums in the Ant Man movies.
Collector’s hair is not floof, it’s FLOW.
I LEAVE FOR THREE UPDATES
welcome back :)) please ignore the flames
*Kendal collapses*
“This is fine.”
*Falst walks off alone*
“I’m okay with the events that are unfolding currently.”
*Kendal astral projects straight to the Collector’s lair*
“That’s okay.”
*The Collector starts vivisecting Vash’s soul*
“Everything’s gonna be okay.”
If she remember all the way back to the time the Primordials were alive, then I think there are three possibilities for who the collector is:
1. A fragment of Void that sort of became sentient,
2. Some sort of cosmic parasite (after all, we saw in the Primordial scenes that space was filled with stars, so clearly there was more than just the primordials in the universe) or
3. The first sentient being birthed from the Primordials, possibly the first god.
I like #2 the best. Alien abduction? That’s all this comic needs!
She says, “IT remembers when it used to beat”, not “I remember”. Gleicann outright said she’s a human, and considering the fact that, according to Ilia, she started the godnapping a hundred years ago, a relatively young one at that, compared to the timescale that this planet has existed for. Personally, I think she’s the previous elemental magus, who faked her own death and assumed a new identity.
I do believe that the Collector is the previous elemental magus, mostly because the timeline does actually add up. Lady Illia said that she hadn’t aged in over a century, and Kendal said that the previous one died 130 years before. We’ve also seen her use Life, Stone, and Water magic. She might’ve called it, “healing Stone’s body” but her hands did glow white, not green. My guess is that it was just easier to crush a city when Stones body wants to grow around it anyway. As someone said above me, she must have figured out how to make her soul stay intact even if she got injured badly, probably by seeing how other souls work. If she did this well enough, it could stop her from bleeding, if her soul is that strong.
Also, her motivations still seem pretty unclear. Does she want to revive the primordials? That doesn’t seem good for the world over all. Plus, it seems like at least two primordials are already alive in some capacity, being Life Mum and Magic Light Sword Person’s patron, who’s text boxes are the same font as Life Mum and the Void Dragon. But we don’t know which primordial it is. My guess is wind, because Shiny Floof’s powers fit that, but it could be the Void Dragon’s “Other,” who was mentioned in his evil monologue. The Patron did talk through that dragon one time, and of course, being a foil to the Void Dragon would make them a Dragon also. it is also possible that that dragon is just Wind-Influenced. It lived in the Wind sector without dying. Or maybe its the Water Primordial, and he made that sick sword out of ice. Idk, it’s pretty unclear.
Anyway, the Collector. I re-read the page, and I think that what she means is that she wants to get a direct connection to the Elements, like what Alinua has with life, by reviving parts of their physical forms. With Stone, it would be easiest, because his body is literally the planet.
Speaking of Alinua, the Collector is gonna FLIP when she finds out about her connection
TLDR; insane child wildly speculates in the innocent comment section, about the Collector and the Primordials
I think she is just trying to revive the physical form of the primordials, right now, not their soul.
As far as I may discern by what we’ve seen the primordials died physically and their body partly became VD’s prison.
Their soul is still around and at least some gods seem to be aware of it since Gleicann recognized Life without any explanation.
But just like VD cannot exit his prison with his body and needs to possess somebody else’s body in order to move around, the same goes for the primordials’ souls.
So here comes the chymeric plague for life, which was trying to find a vessel suitable to channel her energy, and most died in the attempt.
I guess Lightning is around too, but since we saw him in a big dragon my best guess is that the twins created dragons in a way that was capable of weilding insane amounts of lightning energy and therefore easier to inhabit without killing some in the attempt.
Why don’t they revive themselves then?
Two hypothesis:
1 they don’t know how to do that, they are too scattered to do so by themselves and maybe the collector might be able to do something about that.
2 they don’t want to either because of all the life that arose from them or because it would be easier for VD to escape if they were around, so they inhabit a vessel and try to kill whichever vessel VD comes to inhabit in order to keep him in his prison for as long as possible.
I’ve just now realised that if the crew was to go and find Vash before properly containing VD
Erin would be dangerously close to where VD wants him
I went back to check what powers the dragon had. You were right, it’s lightning. I thought all the lightning came from Sparky Sparky Metal Woman, but I was wrong.
Anyway why would she want to revive the primordial’s physical forms? Maybe to gain their favor. She’s already immortal, so the most common Evil Motivation isn’t an option. Does she know about the Void Dragon? She lives next door to him. Maybe she’s not a previous Magus, because the Void Dragon probably would have complained about there being a Magus two inches away and him being unable to pocess them.
Maybe we can wait until the next update, maybe then we’ll get more info.
Ok, so she can manipulate the bodies of the primordials to a terrifying scale, and is now trying to learn the inner workings of godly souls.
I’m going with:
A) Mad scientist obsessed with knowledge for knowledge itself even if it dooms us all
or
B) She’s trying to become a primordial level god. Maybe inject herself as the new soul in the body of the old primordials.
Both are plausible. Good theorizing. ^_^
So her magic being so terrifyingly powerful allows her to view it as a philosophy of sorts… unless she can actually temporarily imitate life in a part of a dead primordial, in which case it’s not just a philosophy, it’s the real deal.
She might be the strongest mage to have ever lived if she can manipulate that much matter at once.
can i just say how PRETTY this room is? red, you’ve outdone yourself!
Is it just me or does her nose not look like a human nose? It’s probably just me
Stone isn’t the first primordial she’s tried to awaken. Life is awake
Not necessarily. Life may have woken of their own accord. In fact, it might be that being the very concept of ‘Life’ prevents Life from dying.
I think this just became my favorite chapter thus far.
I just read this whole thing and now I have to actually wait how do you people live like this I need more
I read the Extra Lore sections about The Six Primordials and Magic again.
From The Six Primordials: “Though long-dead, the souls of the six primordials continue to linger, dancing through the upper atmosphere in colorful shows of light – a nightly reminder of their sacrifice. It is through their lingering spirits that elemental magic is possible, as mages can draw fragments of these primordial souls into themselves and command the corresponding element to obey. Advanced mages are even capable of drawing upon the true nature of the element itself, small echoes of the splendorous power the primordial embodied in life.”
From Magic: “The physical matter of fire, lightning and life can be harder to find in their pure form than stone, water and wind. This is not because they do not HAVE physicality, as some have theorized, but is instead because their physicality is most often hidden away. These three elements sink within the other three without the structure they held in life. Life dissolves into water and leeches into stone, lightning lurks in wind and water, fire seeps into stone and wind. These elements can be conjured seemingly from thin air, but in fact their physicality must be present for the elemental energy to have any effect. A fire mage who conjures a wall of flame is pulling that fire from the air and stone. A lightning mage calling down the storm is summoning lightning already lurking in the clouds or the air. And a life mage can never create life from nothing – there must always be living matter for them to empower or heal.”
The Collector is most likely an Advanced Life Mage. That would explain why she’s lived for over a century, why she doesn’t bleed or feel pain upon being injured, why she’s able to shape Stone and Water in ways gods can’t understand. As Primordial Life’s vessel, Alinua is the best chance our heroes have of defeating her.
you know, that could be an interesting tactic. remember how Erin commented on mot having much life energy when Aliuna was having a meltdown?
Floof squad: meet’s collector
Aliuna: magic meltdown
Collector: where did my magic go?
I mean, it’s kinda hard to use life magic if life mum is using it all, and I’ll bet life mum has more control of herself than some baddie manipulating her energy.
Hi! i’m new here and not sure this will work, but i have some theories.
the collector probably controls more than one element, possibly including void. not necessarily all of them, but enough to get work done. they are trying to “wake up” the primordials as others have pointed out, but they are possibly not a good guy. one reason they could be doing this is to give the void a chance to break out of their prison, since they need the primordials’ word to open up the lock. on the other hand, they may be trying to revive the primordials specifically so that no other mortal CAN break the lock, like void’s original plan with the elemental magus (to command enough of the primordials’ through magic). if the primordials are alive again, they have the ultimate say and no one can use magic to break the lock. the reason i suspect they command some aspects of void magic is because they manage to somewhat coherently manipulate living beings (and even gods) who need all seven elements, including void, to function.
I like how Vash defends the honor of his crater
What if she wants to awaken the primordials, so they can free the dragon thingy?
Welp, I was way off. I assumed she was using void magic to destroy the domains of the gods she attacked. I guess the question is, is she using life magic to heal all the primordials, or is she using their respective elemental magic? If it’s the latter, she’s at least a life/stone/water mage, with possibly wind or lightning in there as well (she was doing something with water in a flashback, and Ilia mentioned her taking a storm spirit).
The other question is, if she’s not a void mage, how the heck is she so deep in the singing caves without suffering cave corruption?
One more thing: if she started out collecting mortal souls, then moved up to minor spirits, then to major gods… I wonder if her endgame is to collect the souls of the primordials?
And here, with our first full view of the gal in a long while, we can see just how massively Red’s art has improved from when she first started this comic. See: the Collector’s image in the Characters page.
Hey what if she resurrected Life and that’s why she’s been making special guest appearances in Alinua’s mind
She wouldn’t have intentionally woke up life. That’s about ad dumb as breaking some of the expensive china and then waking up your parents to join in the fun. However, the metaphorical sound of the metaphorical china being metaphorically smashed might have triggered life mum’s metaphorical mom instincts to get up and stop the metaphorical naughty kid.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Collecter just casually fidgets with the terrifying scalpel
Ooooo interesting… someones got some necromantic tendencies.
You know, now I’m wondering if they are either going to fail to save Vash, or save him in less of a “dramatic rescue” way and more of a “soul physical therapy” way after he get’s cut up and put back together. Cause she looks like she’s ready to start cutting, and the floof squad is still several necessary side quests from unlocking the boss encounter.
Although, it’s possible she will notice Kendal, and find him interesting enough to put off dissection day.
Also, I wonder how it would go if they do rescue Vash. Like, his domain is wrecked, would he be magically crippled? I doubt he would evict Kendal either way, but would he have to make a fresh incarnation? Leave Kendal be and take the night shift? Just go “I’m taking a nap, tell me when the city is a city again”? Make a fresh, guaranteed human body for Kendal?
I’m really theorizing now that either The Collector WAS an Elemental Magus, or she wants to BECOME one. Except way more powerful than a normal EM due to channeling entire resurrected primordials. Worth noting that:
a) She has long sleeves, so if she has tattoos like Erin’s then they wouldn’t be visible, and
b) Aside from ATLA-influenced assumptions, I don’t recall there being anything stating that there can only be one EM at a time. We’ve only been told that they are very rare, and that the last one (presumably) died a long time ago.
On a different line of theorizing, not sure HOW these things fit together, but I’m sensing a theme between:
-The Collector having green eyes and doing a lot of life magic
-The existence of the Chimeric Plague when there’s no similar phenomenon for other elements
-The Collector scheming to heal the primordials
-Alinua being possessed by what seems to be the Life Primordial
(I’d almost wonder if she’s ALREADY revived Life… except then what does she need Vash for?)
I’ve seen a few people saying this about Collector reviving Life. But the timeline does not add up. The Chimeric Plague started idk about 500 years ago, and Lady Illia said that the Collector started walking around being immortal and junk 130 years ago.
But I agree with the first part of the theory, however.
This is the funniest thing I’ve seen all day
Is anyone else getting necromancer vibes?
YES!!!!
Ok, good
She may be a villain, but the Collector is so sexy…
Yes, I’ve never claimed to have good taste.
Wait, that if The Collector tries to awaken the Primordials, so they could fight the Void Dragon, which makes her a hero?
I’m actualy really excited to see her again. Turns out I have a thing for evil soul-stealers.
Damn, this level of arrogance might give Erin a run for his money!
alt text:
yeah yeah villain monologue whatever, it’s just so good to SEE you again! where have you BEEN, girlfriend?
Wow first time we see collector talk and see her at all since the first few pages
Image source: heal
(It WAS a nice crater.)