While it seems clear that the Collector always was the kind of person who sits on the Board of Directors of twenty different nonprofits, is of no use to any of them, and doesn’t even notice it, I feel like there’s something more in there, that has replaced her humanity… something like a biological imperative or a manic obsession, or both… some form of alien awareness that’s driving her. She sounds almost like she no longer has any free will.
Vash: … So you’re going to kill everything to bring-
Collector: Bring back Life, yes I’ve spent a good decade mulling over that irony.
Both she and Kendal are on missions to free their respective gods, both spent a good deal of time nameless and both put the mission before their own well being. Looking at Kendal’s face and watching Red’s “We’re not so different” trope talk I reckon Kendal will realise this for himself and will either get over it himself or have either Vash or the gang tell him otherwise.
Also mirrors Erin a little with both of them seeking glory in the past only to have their lives upended by primordial beings. And links with Alinua over their differing interactions with Life. The Collector in this chapter has begun to feel less like Kendal’s enemy and more like the whole gangs enemy.
Falst also has been experimenting with Life magic to obtain something that might destroy himself or harm others. As well as the inhuman part that Kendal speaks of, she was a regular human altered by Life magic, just as all Ferin are. The different is that the collector embraces this while Falst hates it.
Please excuse me if this has been brought up before, but it just occurred to me that the Collector’s goal is to cause Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Third Impact, with Life as this setting’s Lilith.
what really sucks i think is that she’s right. if she succeeds, everything will turn out ok. it would kill every living being on the planet, but in the scale of everything, they’ll all die pointless lives anyways. if what the collector says is true, and life DOES want to be revived, and the adamant encasing the void dragon WON’T be broken without life being dead, this could be the only true way to fix everything. void couldn’t use the magus to twist the dead primordials into undoing the bindings, life could work to revive the other primordials the same way the collector did to her, and they could all start over again with a true and pure victory over evil. it all makes perfect, logical, sense.
and i HATE that.
she could very well be lawful good, she could be the selfless hero who sacrifices everything to save the day, she could go down in history as the only mortal to do anything worthwhile. but even if she is the hero, she isn’t the only one. if the collector has any weakness, it’s bad luck. she may have found one way of saving the day, but probably not the only one, or the best one. other “heroes” will come along and fix everything, and she will be branded as a vile, careless, and terrible monster only because she wasn’t lucky enough to find a better solution.
…And because she, you know, CASUALLY MURDERED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE. That’s a very effective way to get branded as a vile, careless, and terrible monster.
She probably sees it as a “needs of the many” situation if Opportunistic Scavenger is right. The needs of the infinite, unborn future children that will never exist if Void Dragon wins outweigh the needs of those currently living to…stay alive right now.
nothing is casual about it, it is a very heavy decision that i believe the collector has thought very thoroughly through. it is my understanding that adamant does not need to be made specifically from the corpses of primordials, only their power. the only reason they used themselves to trap the void is because they were already too far gone with no other options. if live was alive because of the collector’s experiments, she could theoretically revive all the other primordials and permanently stifle the plans of void. if they were feeling especially merciful, the primordials could re-create some of the more important gods to help repopulate the world with species, perhaps species that aren’t naturally a liability to existence as a whole. again: calculating and precise, predictable and certain, selfless and heroic. i think she could be considered a twisted form of lawful good, though she is obviously a villain. a “good” villain, sure, but a villain nonetheless.
Alternately she will be branded as a vile, careless, and terrible monster because she failed to communicate clearly. “Yes I want to kill everything to revive Life because Life wants to live again.” vs “Yes I want to kill everything to revive Life because Life wants to stop an ancient evil from breaking free of its prison that is our planet, and if it wins it’s the end of everything as we know it anyways.” At least the second option would maybe get people trying to figure out some of those other, better solutions. As it is, she and the Floof Squad are the only ones currently aware of the Void Dragon problem.
Yeah, I see no evidence the Collector has any clue about the Void dragon or has considered what effect resurrecting Life would remove the part of the Void dragon’s prison made of Life’s body, freeing the Void Dragon. As far as I can tell the Collector is just (unknowingly) playing into the Void Dragon’s hands, not fighting him in any meaningful way. She has been completely unhinged by her encounter with Life and her plans make little sense and are bad.
Honestly, I’d say neither. I think the Collector’s obsession with Life has sort of pushed her past the whole alignment chart. Not to mention that I don’t see her as a strictly evil character. Destroying all life to bring Life back isn’t her main goal, it’s just the means to the end. If there was an easier method to restore Life, then the Collector would probably do that instead.
I believe she’s somewhere on the Blue-Orange morality scale, though Neutral seems the most accurate compared to Chaotic. She’s probably pragmatic enough and willing to work with people who agree with her. It’s just…no one else agrees with her.
I was going to make a compelling case for True Neutral, but now that you mention it, blue-orange is better as she is literally not thinking on the same scales anymore.
The scariness of corrupted paragons as villains is really coming across here. And the infuriating feeling of uselessness when trying to convince someone to understand the worth of something that they just don’t value at all. She’s so stuck on her grand goal that she’s going to destroy a world of people, animals, and plants, and she doesn’t see the difference between destroying some rock and killing a city of people. It’s ironic that she apparently has such a connection to Life, and yet she doesn’t see the beauty and value in the life around her.
Assuming crazy lady isn’t, ya know, crazy, it does kinda make sense for Life to have had the thought “kill all life” as a means of stopping void dragon. If Life is back he can’t possibly compel her to free him. Thus he’ll be trapped forever. This could have just been a passing thought as well. Not something she’d ever try.
I guess that makes sense. The primordials probably didn’t know mages would be a thing when they died, but if the Elemental Magus is dead (along with everything else) then VD has no chance of escape. Only the Collector knows if that’s something she would consider and I honestly doubt it, because if VD is free, everything dies, but if Life is free, everthing dies as well, so it would be a counterproductive plan.
Does anyone else look at The Collector and get reminded of Emperor Belos from The Owl House? They both use their perceived status as the executor of a long-dead being’s will to justify their actions. The only difference is Belos uses the people’s perception of him while The Collector uses her self-perception. Also, the dead being serves as both the setting and the source of the setting’s magic. In Aurora’s case, there are five other beings that contribute to this, while The Owl House just has the one being.
Maybe. Although I think Belos just invented his story about communing with the Titan to amass a following, then expanded into a fully organized religion in control of the Isles, with the Coven System limiting other witches’ power so none may depose him (I may be wrong about that). Conversely, The Collector has genuinely ‘touched Life’s mind’ as she keeps saying, and is acting as she thinks best to serve Life’s interests, with no regard for her own. They seem more like foils to me.
Not to immediately sympathize with the evil villain planning a global scale atrocity…. but didn’t all of the primordials die trying to defeat the void dragon last time? And they’re the most powerful guys we know about besides maybe the twins? It does seem like some degree of primordial resurrecting is gonna be necessary to do this again. Obviously killing all life in the process would defeat the purpose… but still. hmmm.
Personally I think resurrecting Life body and soul as the Collector proposes would almost certainly free the Void Dragon since its prison is made out of Life’s body (and the other 5 Primordials) and if Life could only contain Voidy with the aid of the other 5 Primordials before she would just lose the fight outright now and Voidy would just destroy Life and go back to snuffing out the stars. Although I would equally not be surprised if someone asked the Collector “but what about the Void Dragon?” and she has some spiel, but as described her plan would seem guaranteedl to free the Void Dragon
She can only comprehend Life’s current status as suffering and believes what glimpse she had was that. However, it may that Life’s attempt at communication and gathering herself that is suffering. What the Collector wants to do is speed up the process, without realizing that Life wants to communicate with her children rather than emerge among a bunch of her dead children.
She would also be a prime target for the Void Dragon. She doesn’t know who that is and open to manipulation if given the right approach.
I have a question for the Collector…how did she manage to not die when a god—Vash, the god of kicking ass and looking good—stabbed her and Vash still ranks her as a mortal? I mean, if she goes on with her plan she may really die, but what’s the difference? Did she like heal herself with life magic or something?
Yeah … Life gave me a big perspective!
I can’t even remember my name now because of that …
I need to pay back the favor to Life!
So, to “revive” Life, I’m gonna kill a bunch of people!!!!
But when I do that, I will die too …
But it doesn’t matter, because death is what Life’s about!!!
My legacy will live on among the people who are not-so-dead and they will remember me as some kind of hero/monstrous supervillain!
I’m curious about Life’s actual desires. Like, I have no doubt that she wants to be free, but people in pain can reach for options that they otherwise don’t want/will regret…. Hmmmm… I loosely hypothesis that the Collector was overwhelmed by Life’s need to be free, but didn’t get anything else… kinda becoming a thinking, methodical embodiment of that instinct to get away from pain.
Also, I know it’s the lighting, but the hazy lighting on the eyes of the Collector make me think of a cadaver. Extra spooky! XD
I think the collector highlights an important distinction between her and Allinuas relationships with Life. Allinua was scared that she was not herself after she made contact with Life, but we already know that’s not true since we see in the collector someone who has completely lost themselves after their contact with Life. I think they’re going to end up being great foils for each other. Maybe the collector will even be an example of what might happen to Allinua if she gets too close to Life
If you think about it, the Collector is tragic. She touched something completely out of her scale, lost any part of her that existed.Then she misinterpreted this in the most self destructve way possible, and if anyone finds out her whole plan, they will try to get rid of her. And the worst part is ,she thinks what she’s doing is right since she’s so wrapped up in her plan, so no matter what an outside force does, she won’t listen. Which means that when the floof squad takes her out, she will go believing she did nothing wrong.It will be like punishing a child without telling them what they did wrong, so she will go unredeemed, not knowing why.
There’s a delicious irony in someone saying that their all-important destiny for which they were handmade by the Universe has wiped all thoughts of self-importance from their mind
The Collector really is too far gone
Welp, kudos Red. She definitely comes across as someone who had their sense of self and rationality blasted away and replaced by something else.
I feel like it’s safe to say that she’s Pompous Nitwit the Original
While it seems clear that the Collector always was the kind of person who sits on the Board of Directors of twenty different nonprofits, is of no use to any of them, and doesn’t even notice it, I feel like there’s something more in there, that has replaced her humanity… something like a biological imperative or a manic obsession, or both… some form of alien awareness that’s driving her. She sounds almost like she no longer has any free will.
Erin still has some pride and ego, and you know, some kind of morals xD
Well, there goes all prospect of her joining the floof squad. Guess her hair was just too straight and heavy after all.
She is quite the definition of mysterious colors unlike ever seen on earth
*void noises*
Vash: … So you’re going to kill everything to bring-
Collector: Bring back Life, yes I’ve spent a good decade mulling over that irony.
Both she and Kendal are on missions to free their respective gods, both spent a good deal of time nameless and both put the mission before their own well being. Looking at Kendal’s face and watching Red’s “We’re not so different” trope talk I reckon Kendal will realise this for himself and will either get over it himself or have either Vash or the gang tell him otherwise.
Also mirrors Erin a little with both of them seeking glory in the past only to have their lives upended by primordial beings. And links with Alinua over their differing interactions with Life. The Collector in this chapter has begun to feel less like Kendal’s enemy and more like the whole gangs enemy.
Falst also has been experimenting with Life magic to obtain something that might destroy himself or harm others. As well as the inhuman part that Kendal speaks of, she was a regular human altered by Life magic, just as all Ferin are. The different is that the collector embraces this while Falst hates it.
Please excuse me if this has been brought up before, but it just occurred to me that the Collector’s goal is to cause Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Third Impact, with Life as this setting’s Lilith.
It’s been brought up before on Twitter, but not here. https://twitter.com/RyanTZeppo/status/1360147415316254723?s=20
So uhh… would that make Alinua Rei
hggggnnnnn nothing ever comes out of someone doing something for “the greater good.”
I meant nothing *good* ever comes out of it. Ugh, words
So, what are we thinking? Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil?
I’m inclined to say Neutral Evil.
Neutral Evil. Also, she mentioned “the greater good.” You called it in your response to this comment two pages ago. https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-11-16/#comment-12802
what really sucks i think is that she’s right. if she succeeds, everything will turn out ok. it would kill every living being on the planet, but in the scale of everything, they’ll all die pointless lives anyways. if what the collector says is true, and life DOES want to be revived, and the adamant encasing the void dragon WON’T be broken without life being dead, this could be the only true way to fix everything. void couldn’t use the magus to twist the dead primordials into undoing the bindings, life could work to revive the other primordials the same way the collector did to her, and they could all start over again with a true and pure victory over evil. it all makes perfect, logical, sense.
and i HATE that.
she could very well be lawful good, she could be the selfless hero who sacrifices everything to save the day, she could go down in history as the only mortal to do anything worthwhile. but even if she is the hero, she isn’t the only one. if the collector has any weakness, it’s bad luck. she may have found one way of saving the day, but probably not the only one, or the best one. other “heroes” will come along and fix everything, and she will be branded as a vile, careless, and terrible monster only because she wasn’t lucky enough to find a better solution.
…And because she, you know, CASUALLY MURDERED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE. That’s a very effective way to get branded as a vile, careless, and terrible monster.
She probably sees it as a “needs of the many” situation if Opportunistic Scavenger is right. The needs of the infinite, unborn future children that will never exist if Void Dragon wins outweigh the needs of those currently living to…stay alive right now.
nothing is casual about it, it is a very heavy decision that i believe the collector has thought very thoroughly through. it is my understanding that adamant does not need to be made specifically from the corpses of primordials, only their power. the only reason they used themselves to trap the void is because they were already too far gone with no other options. if live was alive because of the collector’s experiments, she could theoretically revive all the other primordials and permanently stifle the plans of void. if they were feeling especially merciful, the primordials could re-create some of the more important gods to help repopulate the world with species, perhaps species that aren’t naturally a liability to existence as a whole. again: calculating and precise, predictable and certain, selfless and heroic. i think she could be considered a twisted form of lawful good, though she is obviously a villain. a “good” villain, sure, but a villain nonetheless.
Alternately she will be branded as a vile, careless, and terrible monster because she failed to communicate clearly. “Yes I want to kill everything to revive Life because Life wants to live again.” vs “Yes I want to kill everything to revive Life because Life wants to stop an ancient evil from breaking free of its prison that is our planet, and if it wins it’s the end of everything as we know it anyways.” At least the second option would maybe get people trying to figure out some of those other, better solutions. As it is, she and the Floof Squad are the only ones currently aware of the Void Dragon problem.
But does she even know that the Void Dragon exists? I haven’t seen that anywhere yet.
Yeah, I see no evidence the Collector has any clue about the Void dragon or has considered what effect resurrecting Life would remove the part of the Void dragon’s prison made of Life’s body, freeing the Void Dragon. As far as I can tell the Collector is just (unknowingly) playing into the Void Dragon’s hands, not fighting him in any meaningful way. She has been completely unhinged by her encounter with Life and her plans make little sense and are bad.
Neutral Evil who probably thinks she’s Lawful Evil.
Probably thinks she’s a Lawful Good at best.
Honestly, I’d say neither. I think the Collector’s obsession with Life has sort of pushed her past the whole alignment chart. Not to mention that I don’t see her as a strictly evil character. Destroying all life to bring Life back isn’t her main goal, it’s just the means to the end. If there was an easier method to restore Life, then the Collector would probably do that instead.
I believe she’s somewhere on the Blue-Orange morality scale, though Neutral seems the most accurate compared to Chaotic. She’s probably pragmatic enough and willing to work with people who agree with her. It’s just…no one else agrees with her.
Sorry, this was a reply to Patroclus77 that didn’t go through.
Is “Neutral Insanity/Madness” an alignment? If it’s not, it should be invented just for people like the Collector.
I was going to make a compelling case for True Neutral, but now that you mention it, blue-orange is better as she is literally not thinking on the same scales anymore.
TL;DR: Troglodyte villain is a suicide bomber willing to die for life itself. Talk about irony.
How Red sees her: Omnicidal fanatical immortal life mage dissecting souls in the planet’s third heart.
How We see her: Ironic troglodyte.
At least I got that right! Somewhat accurate summaries for the win!
even though it would really screw alinua over, i really want somebody to tell her about life’s new vessel just so vash can be saved lol
The scariness of corrupted paragons as villains is really coming across here. And the infuriating feeling of uselessness when trying to convince someone to understand the worth of something that they just don’t value at all. She’s so stuck on her grand goal that she’s going to destroy a world of people, animals, and plants, and she doesn’t see the difference between destroying some rock and killing a city of people. It’s ironic that she apparently has such a connection to Life, and yet she doesn’t see the beauty and value in the life around her.
I agree
Assuming crazy lady isn’t, ya know, crazy, it does kinda make sense for Life to have had the thought “kill all life” as a means of stopping void dragon. If Life is back he can’t possibly compel her to free him. Thus he’ll be trapped forever. This could have just been a passing thought as well. Not something she’d ever try.
I guess that makes sense. The primordials probably didn’t know mages would be a thing when they died, but if the Elemental Magus is dead (along with everything else) then VD has no chance of escape. Only the Collector knows if that’s something she would consider and I honestly doubt it, because if VD is free, everything dies, but if Life is free, everthing dies as well, so it would be a counterproductive plan.
But has she mentioned old Voidy? She just seems to be focused on Life here.
Hyperfocus, truly a silent killer
Does anyone else look at The Collector and get reminded of Emperor Belos from The Owl House? They both use their perceived status as the executor of a long-dead being’s will to justify their actions. The only difference is Belos uses the people’s perception of him while The Collector uses her self-perception. Also, the dead being serves as both the setting and the source of the setting’s magic. In Aurora’s case, there are five other beings that contribute to this, while The Owl House just has the one being.
Maybe. Although I think Belos just invented his story about communing with the Titan to amass a following, then expanded into a fully organized religion in control of the Isles, with the Coven System limiting other witches’ power so none may depose him (I may be wrong about that). Conversely, The Collector has genuinely ‘touched Life’s mind’ as she keeps saying, and is acting as she thinks best to serve Life’s interests, with no regard for her own. They seem more like foils to me.
Not to immediately sympathize with the evil villain planning a global scale atrocity…. but didn’t all of the primordials die trying to defeat the void dragon last time? And they’re the most powerful guys we know about besides maybe the twins? It does seem like some degree of primordial resurrecting is gonna be necessary to do this again. Obviously killing all life in the process would defeat the purpose… but still. hmmm.
Personally I think resurrecting Life body and soul as the Collector proposes would almost certainly free the Void Dragon since its prison is made out of Life’s body (and the other 5 Primordials) and if Life could only contain Voidy with the aid of the other 5 Primordials before she would just lose the fight outright now and Voidy would just destroy Life and go back to snuffing out the stars. Although I would equally not be surprised if someone asked the Collector “but what about the Void Dragon?” and she has some spiel, but as described her plan would seem guaranteedl to free the Void Dragon
She can only comprehend Life’s current status as suffering and believes what glimpse she had was that. However, it may that Life’s attempt at communication and gathering herself that is suffering. What the Collector wants to do is speed up the process, without realizing that Life wants to communicate with her children rather than emerge among a bunch of her dead children.
She would also be a prime target for the Void Dragon. She doesn’t know who that is and open to manipulation if given the right approach.
Vash: “Your example of a city is flawed. I don’t give a toss about the city itself. It’s the people that were lost that I fought against.”
I have a question for the Collector…how did she manage to not die when a god—Vash, the god of kicking ass and looking good—stabbed her and Vash still ranks her as a mortal? I mean, if she goes on with her plan she may really die, but what’s the difference? Did she like heal herself with life magic or something?
Alright I know this question is actually irrelevant at this point, but I was just wandering from a few panels back.
Yeah … yeah, she went off the deep end centuries ago.
Vash’s look at the last panel … he just realized that the Collector is beyond insane. No use reasoning with her … better try to run.
That’s not Vash, that’s Kendal; look at the eyes. Vash’s soul is the orb that Kendal’s soul is currently inside.
Yeah … Life gave me a big perspective!
I can’t even remember my name now because of that …
I need to pay back the favor to Life!
So, to “revive” Life, I’m gonna kill a bunch of people!!!!
But when I do that, I will die too …
But it doesn’t matter, because death is what Life’s about!!!
My legacy will live on among the people who are not-so-dead and they will remember me as some kind of hero/monstrous supervillain!
– Collector’s reasoning
I’m curious about Life’s actual desires. Like, I have no doubt that she wants to be free, but people in pain can reach for options that they otherwise don’t want/will regret…. Hmmmm… I loosely hypothesis that the Collector was overwhelmed by Life’s need to be free, but didn’t get anything else… kinda becoming a thinking, methodical embodiment of that instinct to get away from pain.
Also, I know it’s the lighting, but the hazy lighting on the eyes of the Collector make me think of a cadaver. Extra spooky! XD
I think the collector highlights an important distinction between her and Allinuas relationships with Life. Allinua was scared that she was not herself after she made contact with Life, but we already know that’s not true since we see in the collector someone who has completely lost themselves after their contact with Life. I think they’re going to end up being great foils for each other. Maybe the collector will even be an example of what might happen to Allinua if she gets too close to Life
She sounds like a cult leader ngl
If you think about it, the Collector is tragic. She touched something completely out of her scale, lost any part of her that existed.Then she misinterpreted this in the most self destructve way possible, and if anyone finds out her whole plan, they will try to get rid of her. And the worst part is ,she thinks what she’s doing is right since she’s so wrapped up in her plan, so no matter what an outside force does, she won’t listen. Which means that when the floof squad takes her out, she will go believing she did nothing wrong.It will be like punishing a child without telling them what they did wrong, so she will go unredeemed, not knowing why.
There’s a delicious irony in someone saying that their all-important destiny for which they were handmade by the Universe has wiped all thoughts of self-importance from their mind
OnO. hooooboy, this might be a problem, she might be hard to convince not to kill everyone.
the story of “i am nothing but this task” seems to be very popular within our protagonists
alt text:
something something destiny something something master plan
Image source: destiny
somehow killing everything doesn’t seem like a very “life” thing to do.
i know she’s an asshole but her motives are very interesting and her character is too! well done red for giving us such a fascinating villain
mmm parallels