Kendal slams his fist into the Champion’s face, sending him falling backwards. He leaps after him, slamming the Champion to the ground with a hand on his throat. My Lady–! The Champion gasps in his mind. His eyes have lost their glow, reverting to black with blue irises.
“The Diadems are holding, but I cannot touch its mind,” the Light Dragon whispers to him. “It… it is a void.”
“Please,” Kendal says, kneeling over the Champion. “I don’t want to find your breaking point. Just stop.” A void? The Champion asks. Then it is not among the innocent. A sphere of light blooms under his hand on Kendal’s arm.
Aah I wish you guys could see this in my document it looks much cooler… the Champion’s words are in light blue text & L.D.’s text is white and bold with light blue highlight (and all the gods’ and Primordials’ words are in colored text and highlight too)
But. Ooooh Kendal. What’s even scarier about this is he… doesn’t even look angry. “I don’t want to find your breaking point” isn’t a threat. I mean it is but. It’s just a statement of what WILL happen.
And also… Champion, illogical much? I don’t think she meant “a void” as in “Void Dragon influence kill this guy!” she mean “a void” as in… empty of Light. But yeah, this is… wow
I CANNOT WAIT for Friday. I have Ideas for what will happen, though I’m hoping they’ll eventually be able to explain things to the Champion and L.D.(But obviously that will not happen because… it’s a story)
I believe what is meant is that when the Lady attempted to probe Kendals mind, she found nothing. Ironically, a lot of people think that if they don’t detect anything, there must not be anything there, when they should be asking themselves if maybe something is there, but they just can’t detect it. The fundamental principle of Quantum Physics.
Also, finally someone punched the Paladin in that pretty face of his. Too bad Kendal held back enough to not break his nose. Would’ve been funny to hear him talk with a broken nose for the rest of the chapter.
Additionally, Kendal seems to have very much decided that the Paladin has finished his “fuck around” phase and is going to make him transition to the “find out” phase of the fight.
Gold-haired Kendal punches the champion in the face,
Drives him to the deck, says, “Please.
I don’t want to find your breaking point.
Just stop,” and pins him with ease.
“The diadems are holding but I cannot touch its mind,”
The Lady whispers, “It..it is a void.”
“Then it is not among the innocent,” her champion thinks,
A fierce light in his hand deployed.
Huh. I was expecting some flavor of rage from Kendal. This…thus is different, harder to articulate. Partly “snap out of it” partly “don’t make me hurt you” partly “please don’t make me do this.” It’s less menacing earnestly threatening. I love the complexity here.
I was thinking that too. Kendall’s unmoving finality is, in a way, scarier than rage. “I don’t want to find your breaking point”, as in, if we continue, if you force me to choose between protecting them or not hurting you, there is no contest. He’s injured, and holding back, and he *still* just put the Paladin into the floor. Michael hasn’t seen anything yet.
What concerns me is the longer this drags on, the less likely Walter will linger in the shadows. And that is just going to ruin *everybody’s* day.
Not even Just walter they are in a boat without anyone controlling It(because Michael knocked out falst) in the middle of a storm, the longer this drags on the more damage the boat Will sustain too
I like how Kendal’s weirdness freaks out a primordial being.
Something about just a weird guy that it’s slightly off to mortals but an eldritch horror to gods.
All right folks, place your bets below. Who thinks the Champion will land a hit on Kendal next page, and who thinks Kendal is going to SCHOOL this fool.
I vote the latter. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but that’s my vote.
Oh no! The Paladins are *really* paranoid about void dragon influences, huh. And the Champion, nor the light dragon, have heard anything about Kendal? Nor Vash at Zuurith? How long has the Champion been flying for?
So, void is mostly corruptive, while light seems mostly protective or constraining. Weird mind stuff too. Kendal seems immune to the influence part, but like with void, still going to get hurt by any direct hits. Light magic seems very straightforward, not much in the way of lingering effects, so Kendal’s resistance probably ends there…
Well, Michael’s been flying across an ocean for days on end ever since Lucy first saw that Walter sprung his trap, see: Ch.6 Interlude. It’s been like 2 sefs.. Moreover, only the Squad and the gods (emissaries optional) have an idea of Kendal’s deal. The Paladins at Zuurith likely were not paying attention to city politics at all.
So, either the Champion doesn’t need to eat/drink/sleep, or he’s just been crashing at the nearest city, scarfs down whatever food he can, then flies off again. Funny visual.
I was thinking that since the junior archivist noticed Erin/the void dragon’s powers, that they also would’ve noticed the *god who glows with starfire*. Though to be fair, they might’ve a little preoccupied with, y’know, not dying to a storm dragon.
Not needing to eat or sleep is pretty possible, given the discussion we had in the dockside apartment about void being the source of hunger. It’s not a stretch to imagine the mortal enemy of immortal void would be suppressing that, perhaps not even consciously.
I image the light dragon isn’t that involved with the mainstream god community on the continent, and anything Kendal did in Zurrith was overshadowed by the void dragon’s appearance.
While Vash is an incredibly skilled fighter, he isn’t a war god, he’s a city god. He fought to protect his city and his people. His purpose wasn’t to wage war.
Uh, Kaiba. Did it ever occur to you she’s using void in the figurative sense, not literal?
Kendal’s mind is a void L.D. cannot touch? Is anyone else thinking of the psychic mice from the Pip prose stories? The mice see themselves as “children of the Light”, the elder races and others as Shadows whose “minds were tangles of terror”, and gods as False ones who “existed outside of Light and Shadow and neither was within them”.
These factors and labels slot together too well with our knowledge of Void and Light to be a coincidence; these mice don’t have the full picture, but they do have some parts our protags don’t. Makes me wonder what Pip would think of Kendal. Or a Paladin like the Champion.
I’m positive now that Light is to do with the mind, not soul. Light magic awakened the mortal wills and minds, it can share information and messages between Paladins, and the diadem works by making contact with a target’s mind.
I think soul is playing a part, but as a tool for the mind to wield. The soulshaper monks know that a disciplined mind can manipulate the soul; maybe, though L.D.’s blessing, the Paladins achieve an advanced form of that to make weapons and wings. A “Mind over matter” type power where mental discipline, faith, or stubbornness (see Falst in the cave) lets them manipulate the world around them.
I’m going to play devils advocate and say that “the innocent” could be referring to the regular races of this world. Maybe L.D. sees humans, elves, ancients, etc as victims of V.D.’s machinations, brought to life just to be tools in his escape, then discarded and killed afterwards. In that sense, Kendal is technically not one of these, though the Champion could have found a more flattering way to say it.
I think the paladin’s are just making constructs out the lady’s material, because that’s the only thing they seen to be manipulating. And in ask about what if Pip, hid in Kendal’s hair Red wrote she also called him a False One
In unrelated news, I finally had PB&J yesterday after confessing in 2-2-14 not to have had it before.
Tasted pretty good, I think I’ll add more filling next time.
Well. Thanks for helping me discover that prose writing of Red’s. For the life of me, I could not find that particular ask in the Tumblr. Still, fertile ground for theorizing there.
Also, congratulations on your first PB&J. May I suggest sliced banana as an additional filling?
You made me think of something — I popped back to 1.8.3 to where Erin was talking about the soulshaper monks, and how they discovered the soul is not the arbiter of one’s being, and the mind can reshape the soul. And isn’t it interesting, the two colours Red used to represent the two…?
I was thinking the Void Dragon represented the body, the Light Dragon the mind…but then, Walter forged a link to Erin’s *soul*. The Lady, then, may forge a link to her Paladins’ minds, which has…frightening implications. Who is *really* being controlled here?
Also, I’m glad you enjoyed your first PB&J 🙂 I’m more a straight peanut butter person, but banana is a solid suggestion, as Longshot said!
I was nearly convinced LD had power over soul, but this chapter has removed that idea. Your thought about the “mind over matter” with the soulshaper monks is interesting! I need to go reread those pages.
The Champion also referred to the floof squad as “innocents” on 2.3.1 (you may have tricked these innocents…) so maybe Champion might also be thinking Kendal knows/ is working for/ is a product of VD?
I will be thinking about soul energy vs mind and the distinctions between the two and how on earth (aurora?) the gods fit into that.
Yeah, I think we can cross both Void and Light off of the possible soul-magic list. With the “existed outside of light and shadow” quote from Pip, and gods being (I think) mostly, if not completely soul magic, those theories kind of get shut down. I think that it’s either void has to do with the body and light has to do with the mind, or both are the mind but, like, different aspects of it? I mostly think it’s the former.
Also, I would suggest trying a peanut butter and honey sandwich with, if you want to do extra, toasted bread.
She seems to support the conclusions that Michael reaches and determined to get rid of the Walter no matter the cost. It’s really interesting because I expected her to be a lot more benevolent and pure than she is. I am excited to see where this goes.
It’s the whole “fate of the world” thing, since the threat is that big she’d likely be willing to sacrifice dozens (even if they’re “innocents”) to save the rest. I’d imagine that she is quite benevolent to people who aren’t traveling with the thing they’re focused on getting rid of.
I think, in this moment, she doesn’t even think of him as a person so much as a mysterious thing due to his absence of Mind. So yes, not an innocent, just an object, and she won’t try to hold Michael back.
Which… gods, it makes me mad for Kendal’s sake. It also makes me wonder how mad Falst would get on Kendal’s behalf if he were free of the Diadem, given Falst’s history of also not being treated like a person.
I agree that she probably sees him as akin to an object. We do know that Kendal does have thoughts because of when he was fighting the sentinel, but unfortunately the light dragon doesn’t read this comic.
We also know, or at least could have reasonably assumed, that he has thoughts simply from the way he talks and reacts. (Just in case it wasn’t clear, when I said Kendal had no mind, I meant Mind the Light Dragon’s element (it seems?), not mind/thought/sentience generally.) Honestly, I think if the paladin’s outlook weren’t so fettered, he should be able to infer or conclude the same even from the interactions in this scene. But Michael is blinded by the belief that Mind is sentience and concluding only people with Light/Mind are people, and it seems the Light Dragon is constricted to that mode of thought as well. I do understand that they haven’t seen nearly as much of Kendal as we have, that we’ve had time to get attached to Kendal as we’ve followed his story, and that Kendal is an unprecedented person in this world, but I’m not giving Michael and LD a pass, either. They’re interesting antagonists, and I now badly want to see Michael’s butt kicked.
I don’t think it matters what she thinks anymore. Whatever connection they have, it clearly isn’t Void!Erin-type possession. She can communnicate with him and advise him and urge him to act, but she can’t control him. She probably can’t stop him either.
Regardless, I wouldn’t be surprised that she thinks Kendal is a monster, an abomination, or a threat. She’s spent eternity destroying everything related to the Void Dragon; she isn’t going to give Kendal a pass and she probably isn’t too interested in expanding her worldview.
was it ever confirmed that living primordials can stop other people from using their magic tho? life clearly doesn’t like people making chimeras and yet we’ve seen both jolon and the collector creating them very frequently and we don’t really know how life feels about erin and the whole void dragon thing and the only thing we’ve seen to support that is that erin asked walter to not stop him from healing falst but erin’s situation(actually, his, alinua’s and michael’s situations) are extremely unique
She wasn’t aware those two existed until Alinua heard about them and the only difference between the host’s situations is the health and willingness of the participants
There is also the question of If she can take him over and stop him is she willing to do It? Because she was the one who gave free Will to the races of the world and wouldnt be hipocritical to stop walter from using mortals as his puppets while doing the same thing herself? This could be a “why doesnt Batman Just kills the Joker” situation
“Don’t make me find your breaking point.” Wow, Kendal is just effortlessly terrifying, isn’t he?
Also, “Void? Did you say void? I HATE void! And I’m not smart enough to notice the nuance in the rest of her sentence, or understand that the meaning of the word ‘void’ is ’emptiness’, not ‘evil’. Anyway, I’m gonna piss off the guy who just punched me across the ship and has proven invulnerable to my magic.”
But what is Kendal’s breaking point? Whenever he’s in a fight, the sword or Vash helps him out, or that new soul fire stuff. He gets close to a breaking point, then we all discover he has a new ability or invulnerability to something. The paladain champion is powerful, but, as demonstrated, he has a breaking point, but the squad went through a ton of trouble to get to it, then he has a glowing thing in his hand, which has a 99 percent chance to blow up. And LD is assisting, so we know champion most likely has a back up plan. So do they even have breaking points?????
It’s used the same power and Kendal has no light stuff in him to agitate, so only he is immune to their corruptive side effect, just like with the dragon
Oooh, Paladin-Guy is SO going to regret this.
No one who ever uses the phrase “I don’t want to find your breaking point” without so much as a shred of bluster, is going to be easy to deal with. Light Dragon Rasengan or not.
Honestly, I had the same thought. However, according to Red, even Alinua cannot regrown a missing limb, since Life Magic only commands the present Life within a body to accelerate healing.
Given that, however, I see no reason why a Life Mage cannot hold a severed limb to the torso and THEN initiate the healing process.
I think Michael would have to escalate his power output by quite a lot before he’s cutting through any starmetal bones. Kendal probably turns him to ash before that (or gets thrown overboard).
I’m remembering the dream sequence in 1-13-26&27 rn. I don’t have words for it at the moment but looking back on the imagery and everything has started me thinking. I’d recommend looking back there for future reference because I’m having a lot of fun thinking about it 🙂
Maybe the paladin and light dragon see Kendal as a philosophical zombie. If the light dragon is responsible for giving everyone their minds, then maybe the light dragon/paladin think Kendal doesn’t have any mind because he doesn’t have any light dragon, in which case, blowing Kendal up wouldn’t actually be hurting anyone.
Exactly! I think everyone is missing the “a” in “a void”. Lucy and the Paladin think there’s nothing there. There obviously is, but I don’t think they can see or wrap their heads around that if the mind doesn’t come from Lucy. So if he doesn’t have that, then he isn’t a part of the innocent club that the paladins seem to protect and value.
I mean, Tarren threw out the suggestion that he could be a homunculus. If there’s no Light in him, I suppose it’s conceivable that they could think he’s some sort of Void construct. I think Michael might be misunderstanding Lucy’s words, and she’s too confused to correct him. There’s never been someone like Kendal before. He’s not a human, and he’s not a god. She (probably) can see no Void OR Light in him…so what the hell IS he?
I’m fairly certain Kendal is just immune to mental influence magic (or maybe just void/light magic). He was immune to the psychic torture slime after all.
So I feel like this is a bit of a miscommunication issue here?
As in ominous light voice meant void as in empty, as in missing something that should be there.
Not void as in void dragon and therefore, like, okay to smash because void dragon.
Or he’s just being snarky and Kendal doesn’t have like. A soul, or a proper soul and as such doesn’t count as people. That sounds fucked up. I am so confused. Do I need to re-read the entire comic again or is it not just me? Because that could take a few weeks or so.
This is interesting. It seems like Michael is being portrayed as in the wrong not for fighting against the dragon, but for dividing our heroes into an ‘innocent / not innocent’ binary, when the whole theme of the comic (and specifically Vash) so far has been recognizing that people are unique and can’t be categorized like that. It feels like Zuurith all over again
That’s a good observation. Might explain why supposed “good guys” like the paladins have their big library with all their important, ancient texts in Zuurith of all places, where people’s worth is (…was?) similarly decided on an innocent/guilty basis.
There’s Two tiers of misinterprerarion going in here.
Light Dragon, who says it’s a void because she can’t touch it.
Lady, Just because you didn’t have a hand in it doesn’t meant there is nothing there.
Hubris much?
And Paladin guy who hears “it’s a void” and interprets it as “of the Void Dragon”
i’m seeing this at 5AM and every time kendal does something new i am enamored with him even more, beloved ramble incoming. characters who are unfathomably strong and hold no anger in their hearts are truly untoppable. i LOVE how he is written here. please don’t make me keep going, we could have talked about this, leave us alone, let us go. “i don’t want to do this” is usually an empty platitude and a relatively gesture of plausible deniability – but HERE? here he *does not want to do this*. let him stop. let him sit. let him live. not because you could defeat him but because every step you make him take is another step unto defeating himself.
you don’t know how often i think about the page where he breaks his cuff and crumbles the prison wall like floral foam. the elephant tied to the lawn chair. he’s unable to be himself. he would hurt the people he cares about so easily. how often do you think he has to be consciously aware of his strength when picking up something fragile? how on edge would he be with a cat in his arms?
this is a recurring theme amongst many characters, really; they have the power to brute force their goals into submission if they wanted to, but it would cause so much pain that the option isn’t even a blip on their radar. they all seem so small and so big at the same time. alinua comes to mind, when she couldn’t use her powers to escape shrike – not because she COULDN’T, but because it would cause too much harm, too much property damage, she’s not worth it. kendal gave himself up to zuurith, because he’s not worth it. dainix is basically on a quest to be rid himself of his power and erin is undergoing the slow and painful process of having this lesson beaten into him, too.
the villains – here being the collector, the paladin, and shrike – seem to EMBODY this brash singlemindedness that our emcees are desperately running from. it’s the typical evil “for the greater good, the end justifies the means” selfishness, sure, but it’s more than that. i think many other stories would have the main heroes throwing barbs and pushing past the common folk and “being important” many times over by now. kendal would be angry, he would be reckless, he would take pride in beating up the paladin, and he would be right. but he’s not. and he won’t.
Tahraim and Caliban though to be honest half my love for Caliban comes from a fanfiction because it had such a good characterization of them. Not to say that I haven’t always loved Caliban it’s just that I love them more due to their characterization in that fan fic.
GIRL. PHRASING!!!!!!! I’m so hype
“You violated our agreement, so the contract is null and void.”
“VOID??” *Rips the paper in two, then stabs it to the desk.*
“the rise of Skywalker is void of any consequences”
*Scene cuts to Michael storming lucasfilm*
Get a thesaurus! Call it null, or absent, or veiled, or hollow, or empty, or—
It occurs to me that I’m drifting into ways to call Kendal stupid.
Hahahaha!
Public Service Announcement of the day:
Capitalization matters!
Kendal is void, not Void.
Thank you for your attention, we now return you to your regularly scheduled beatdown.
“Not among the innocent”?
Dude, you have not met Kendal, more innocence is not achievable.
the more spell slots a paladin has the more everything looks like a smite target
which is a shame in this case because he could’ve prepared “Detect Good and Evil” to clear up this issue
Can’t be innocent if you don’t technically count as a person! Flawless paladin logic ftw
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: busting out a rasengan already I see
Image source: void
Tumblr text: paragon fight!
Tumblr text: Paragon Fight!
Twitter text: negotiations have broken down
Twitter/Bluesky text: negotiations have broken down
how DARE you make me look up a Naruto Reference in the Year of Our Lorde 2024
Kendal slams his fist into the Champion’s face, sending him falling backwards. He leaps after him, slamming the Champion to the ground with a hand on his throat.
My Lady–! The Champion gasps in his mind. His eyes have lost their glow, reverting to black with blue irises.
“The Diadems are holding, but I cannot touch its mind,” the Light Dragon whispers to him. “It… it is a void.”
“Please,” Kendal says, kneeling over the Champion. “I don’t want to find your breaking point. Just stop.”
A void? The Champion asks. Then it is not among the innocent. A sphere of light blooms under his hand on Kendal’s arm.
Aah I wish you guys could see this in my document it looks much cooler… the Champion’s words are in light blue text & L.D.’s text is white and bold with light blue highlight (and all the gods’ and Primordials’ words are in colored text and highlight too)
But. Ooooh Kendal. What’s even scarier about this is he… doesn’t even look angry. “I don’t want to find your breaking point” isn’t a threat. I mean it is but. It’s just a statement of what WILL happen.
And also… Champion, illogical much? I don’t think she meant “a void” as in “Void Dragon influence kill this guy!” she mean “a void” as in… empty of Light. But yeah, this is… wow
I CANNOT WAIT for Friday. I have Ideas for what will happen, though I’m hoping they’ll eventually be able to explain things to the Champion and L.D.(But obviously that will not happen because… it’s a story)
RASENGAN!
So, Kendal’s mind is void, huh?
“My head hurts!”
“A tooth hurts when its hollow too.”
Now I wonder: How would the Paladins feel knowing that they all have some Void in them? Do they already know?
I wonder if it’s something you’re supposed to morally keep track of, to make sure it doesn’t corrupt you or something
Void is not kept at bay by morality, its essentialy just weird acid
I believe what is meant is that when the Lady attempted to probe Kendals mind, she found nothing. Ironically, a lot of people think that if they don’t detect anything, there must not be anything there, when they should be asking themselves if maybe something is there, but they just can’t detect it. The fundamental principle of Quantum Physics.
“I will not be delayed”
Proceeds to get constantly delayed.
Also, finally someone punched the Paladin in that pretty face of his. Too bad Kendal held back enough to not break his nose. Would’ve been funny to hear him talk with a broken nose for the rest of the chapter.
Additionally, Kendal seems to have very much decided that the Paladin has finished his “fuck around” phase and is going to make him transition to the “find out” phase of the fight.
The punches fly, Lucy calls Kendal “void”
Michael sees this as reason for weapons deployed
Gold-haired Kendal punches the champion in the face,
Drives him to the deck, says, “Please.
I don’t want to find your breaking point.
Just stop,” and pins him with ease.
“The diadems are holding but I cannot touch its mind,”
The Lady whispers, “It..it is a void.”
“Then it is not among the innocent,” her champion thinks,
A fierce light in his hand deployed.
My, so quick to judge if Kendal has no human weakness that he has no personal identity and is just an object…
Hi GoodbyeBallad
Thanks for your comment last page!
It was nice to read 🙂
Kendal’s a lightless, mysterious entity
This must be cause for immediate enmity!
She has no power
Over Kendal, and as such
It is fine to kill
Huh. I was expecting some flavor of rage from Kendal. This…thus is different, harder to articulate. Partly “snap out of it” partly “don’t make me hurt you” partly “please don’t make me do this.” It’s less menacing earnestly threatening. I love the complexity here.
*less menacing THAN IT IS earnestly threatening.
I was thinking that too. Kendall’s unmoving finality is, in a way, scarier than rage. “I don’t want to find your breaking point”, as in, if we continue, if you force me to choose between protecting them or not hurting you, there is no contest. He’s injured, and holding back, and he *still* just put the Paladin into the floor. Michael hasn’t seen anything yet.
What concerns me is the longer this drags on, the less likely Walter will linger in the shadows. And that is just going to ruin *everybody’s* day.
Not even Just walter they are in a boat without anyone controlling It(because Michael knocked out falst) in the middle of a storm, the longer this drags on the more damage the boat Will sustain too
To quote a certain worm;
“Hyuk. Hyuk. Hyuk. It finally happened. Someone punched you in your stupid face.”
I read this in Goofy’s voice. I’m sorry.
I did too-
As did i, but i’m not sorry at all since i reflexively tend to find the sillier interpretation of nearly everything.
I like how Kendal’s weirdness freaks out a primordial being.
Something about just a weird guy that it’s slightly off to mortals but an eldritch horror to gods.
All right folks, place your bets below. Who thinks the Champion will land a hit on Kendal next page, and who thinks Kendal is going to SCHOOL this fool.
I vote the latter. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but that’s my vote.
Unfortunately, I think Kendal is about to be smote. Hopefully he will be able to tank the attack and continue beating up the paladin.
Kendal can take Void blasts with only minor burns, I’m willing to bet the same goes for Light blasts.
Im hoping Champion/Paladin/Michael/Pretty Hair Guy ends up blasting Kendal but he’s completely unscathed and scares the sh!t out of him
Paladins, everybody. Known for dumping Intelligence.
Is this when Kendal gets chucked overboard?
Are you referencing this sketch? https://comicaurora.tumblr.com/post/758845385574957056/in-my-continuing-experimentation-on-refining-my
Because I do think Kendal is the YEETER in that image, rather than the YEETED.
Regardless, I doubt this panel is coming up soon. Kendal doesn’t have his sword in hand.
Oh no! The Paladins are *really* paranoid about void dragon influences, huh. And the Champion, nor the light dragon, have heard anything about Kendal? Nor Vash at Zuurith? How long has the Champion been flying for?
So, void is mostly corruptive, while light seems mostly protective or constraining. Weird mind stuff too. Kendal seems immune to the influence part, but like with void, still going to get hurt by any direct hits. Light magic seems very straightforward, not much in the way of lingering effects, so Kendal’s resistance probably ends there…
Well, Michael’s been flying across an ocean for days on end ever since Lucy first saw that Walter sprung his trap, see: Ch.6 Interlude. It’s been like 2 sefs.. Moreover, only the Squad and the gods (emissaries optional) have an idea of Kendal’s deal. The Paladins at Zuurith likely were not paying attention to city politics at all.
So, either the Champion doesn’t need to eat/drink/sleep, or he’s just been crashing at the nearest city, scarfs down whatever food he can, then flies off again. Funny visual.
I was thinking that since the junior archivist noticed Erin/the void dragon’s powers, that they also would’ve noticed the *god who glows with starfire*. Though to be fair, they might’ve a little preoccupied with, y’know, not dying to a storm dragon.
Not needing to eat or sleep is pretty possible, given the discussion we had in the dockside apartment about void being the source of hunger. It’s not a stretch to imagine the mortal enemy of immortal void would be suppressing that, perhaps not even consciously.
To be fair, the nature of Kendal’s existence is completely unprecedented.
I image the light dragon isn’t that involved with the mainstream god community on the continent, and anything Kendal did in Zurrith was overshadowed by the void dragon’s appearance.
Dragon Jesus and co are pissing me off
Can someone p l e a s e Dragon Jesus and co up? They’re insulting my son.
so this i where sundays been (god i hope someone gets this)
Sunday of “One day, while my sister and I were lounging about in Mr Gopher Wood’s backyard” fame?
Michael feels significantly more antagonistic than Sunday did, though.
so this is where sundays been (god i hope someone gets this)
LOL Kendal finally kicked him back into HSR.
“I don’t want to find your breaking point.” Is a harder line than I’ve seen in a long while!
man, this god and her paladin just keep fucking shit up huh
it seems the poor Paladin has come to the wrong conclusion 🙁
Hmmmm less “not innocent” more “sword of a war god”
While Vash is an incredibly skilled fighter, he isn’t a war god, he’s a city god. He fought to protect his city and his people. His purpose wasn’t to wage war.
And hes not the sword of anyone, just a very special guy
turns out the real void was the friends we made along the way
walter:No i want my f*cking freedom
*screams in immolation via Primordial hunger*
VD: If that makes you feel any better, then by all means.
Uh, Kaiba. Did it ever occur to you she’s using void in the figurative sense, not literal?
Kendal’s mind is a void L.D. cannot touch? Is anyone else thinking of the psychic mice from the Pip prose stories? The mice see themselves as “children of the Light”, the elder races and others as Shadows whose “minds were tangles of terror”, and gods as False ones who “existed outside of Light and Shadow and neither was within them”.
These factors and labels slot together too well with our knowledge of Void and Light to be a coincidence; these mice don’t have the full picture, but they do have some parts our protags don’t. Makes me wonder what Pip would think of Kendal. Or a Paladin like the Champion.
I’m positive now that Light is to do with the mind, not soul. Light magic awakened the mortal wills and minds, it can share information and messages between Paladins, and the diadem works by making contact with a target’s mind.
I think soul is playing a part, but as a tool for the mind to wield. The soulshaper monks know that a disciplined mind can manipulate the soul; maybe, though L.D.’s blessing, the Paladins achieve an advanced form of that to make weapons and wings. A “Mind over matter” type power where mental discipline, faith, or stubbornness (see Falst in the cave) lets them manipulate the world around them.
I’m going to play devils advocate and say that “the innocent” could be referring to the regular races of this world. Maybe L.D. sees humans, elves, ancients, etc as victims of V.D.’s machinations, brought to life just to be tools in his escape, then discarded and killed afterwards. In that sense, Kendal is technically not one of these, though the Champion could have found a more flattering way to say it.
I think the paladin’s are just making constructs out the lady’s material, because that’s the only thing they seen to be manipulating. And in ask about what if Pip, hid in Kendal’s hair Red wrote she also called him a False One
In unrelated news, I finally had PB&J yesterday after confessing in 2-2-14 not to have had it before.
Tasted pretty good, I think I’ll add more filling next time.
Well. Thanks for helping me discover that prose writing of Red’s. For the life of me, I could not find that particular ask in the Tumblr. Still, fertile ground for theorizing there.
Also, congratulations on your first PB&J. May I suggest sliced banana as an additional filling?
No problem, glad to see more Pip fans.
Here’s the ask Snakesocket mentioned: https://comicaurora.tumblr.com/post/732245531075772416/theory-pip-has-been-hiding-inside-kendals-hair
You made me think of something — I popped back to 1.8.3 to where Erin was talking about the soulshaper monks, and how they discovered the soul is not the arbiter of one’s being, and the mind can reshape the soul. And isn’t it interesting, the two colours Red used to represent the two…?
I was thinking the Void Dragon represented the body, the Light Dragon the mind…but then, Walter forged a link to Erin’s *soul*. The Lady, then, may forge a link to her Paladins’ minds, which has…frightening implications. Who is *really* being controlled here?
Also, I’m glad you enjoyed your first PB&J 🙂 I’m more a straight peanut butter person, but banana is a solid suggestion, as Longshot said!
The void dragon represents hunger, and the mind is a part of the body
As well as void and the other six elements that make up the body
I was nearly convinced LD had power over soul, but this chapter has removed that idea. Your thought about the “mind over matter” with the soulshaper monks is interesting! I need to go reread those pages.
The Champion also referred to the floof squad as “innocents” on 2.3.1 (you may have tricked these innocents…) so maybe Champion might also be thinking Kendal knows/ is working for/ is a product of VD?
I will be thinking about soul energy vs mind and the distinctions between the two and how on earth (aurora?) the gods fit into that.
Yeah, I think we can cross both Void and Light off of the possible soul-magic list. With the “existed outside of light and shadow” quote from Pip, and gods being (I think) mostly, if not completely soul magic, those theories kind of get shut down. I think that it’s either void has to do with the body and light has to do with the mind, or both are the mind but, like, different aspects of it? I mostly think it’s the former.
Also, I would suggest trying a peanut butter and honey sandwich with, if you want to do extra, toasted bread.
Void is hunger and only one of eight elements that make up a body
Is it only hunger though? I thought that the dragons were opposites, so what could the light dragon be then?
I love how much theorizing we get to do with this comic <3
welp…it seems that michael here “deVoid” of intelligence
I wonder why she would ever use that word non-literally with these freaks
Don’t call him an “it” if he doesn’t tell you to!!
Bdass Kendal moment.
Aurora Question #11: Do you believe the Lady agrees with Michael that Kendal is not innocent?
She seems to support the conclusions that Michael reaches and determined to get rid of the Walter no matter the cost. It’s really interesting because I expected her to be a lot more benevolent and pure than she is. I am excited to see where this goes.
It’s the whole “fate of the world” thing, since the threat is that big she’d likely be willing to sacrifice dozens (even if they’re “innocents”) to save the rest. I’d imagine that she is quite benevolent to people who aren’t traveling with the thing they’re focused on getting rid of.
I think, in this moment, she doesn’t even think of him as a person so much as a mysterious thing due to his absence of Mind. So yes, not an innocent, just an object, and she won’t try to hold Michael back.
Which… gods, it makes me mad for Kendal’s sake. It also makes me wonder how mad Falst would get on Kendal’s behalf if he were free of the Diadem, given Falst’s history of also not being treated like a person.
I agree that she probably sees him as akin to an object. We do know that Kendal does have thoughts because of when he was fighting the sentinel, but unfortunately the light dragon doesn’t read this comic.
We also know, or at least could have reasonably assumed, that he has thoughts simply from the way he talks and reacts. (Just in case it wasn’t clear, when I said Kendal had no mind, I meant Mind the Light Dragon’s element (it seems?), not mind/thought/sentience generally.) Honestly, I think if the paladin’s outlook weren’t so fettered, he should be able to infer or conclude the same even from the interactions in this scene. But Michael is blinded by the belief that Mind is sentience and concluding only people with Light/Mind are people, and it seems the Light Dragon is constricted to that mode of thought as well. I do understand that they haven’t seen nearly as much of Kendal as we have, that we’ve had time to get attached to Kendal as we’ve followed his story, and that Kendal is an unprecedented person in this world, but I’m not giving Michael and LD a pass, either. They’re interesting antagonists, and I now badly want to see Michael’s butt kicked.
I don’t think it matters what she thinks anymore. Whatever connection they have, it clearly isn’t Void!Erin-type possession. She can communnicate with him and advise him and urge him to act, but she can’t control him. She probably can’t stop him either.
Regardless, I wouldn’t be surprised that she thinks Kendal is a monster, an abomination, or a threat. She’s spent eternity destroying everything related to the Void Dragon; she isn’t going to give Kendal a pass and she probably isn’t too interested in expanding her worldview.
given that LD is a living Primordial, she should be able to deny Michael use of her element to depower him
was it ever confirmed that living primordials can stop other people from using their magic tho? life clearly doesn’t like people making chimeras and yet we’ve seen both jolon and the collector creating them very frequently and we don’t really know how life feels about erin and the whole void dragon thing and the only thing we’ve seen to support that is that erin asked walter to not stop him from healing falst but erin’s situation(actually, his, alinua’s and michael’s situations) are extremely unique
She wasn’t aware those two existed until Alinua heard about them and the only difference between the host’s situations is the health and willingness of the participants
There is also the question of If she can take him over and stop him is she willing to do It? Because she was the one who gave free Will to the races of the world and wouldnt be hipocritical to stop walter from using mortals as his puppets while doing the same thing herself? This could be a “why doesnt Batman Just kills the Joker” situation
“Don’t make me find your breaking point.” Wow, Kendal is just effortlessly terrifying, isn’t he?
Also, “Void? Did you say void? I HATE void! And I’m not smart enough to notice the nuance in the rest of her sentence, or understand that the meaning of the word ‘void’ is ’emptiness’, not ‘evil’. Anyway, I’m gonna piss off the guy who just punched me across the ship and has proven invulnerable to my magic.”
Michael once again demonstrating that the Venn diagram of arrogance and stupidity is a circle.
Something tells me they are. in fact, going to need to “find [his] breaking point” before this ends.
But what is Kendal’s breaking point? Whenever he’s in a fight, the sword or Vash helps him out, or that new soul fire stuff. He gets close to a breaking point, then we all discover he has a new ability or invulnerability to something. The paladain champion is powerful, but, as demonstrated, he has a breaking point, but the squad went through a ton of trouble to get to it, then he has a glowing thing in his hand, which has a 99 percent chance to blow up. And LD is assisting, so we know champion most likely has a back up plan. So do they even have breaking points?????
Starfire. Soulfire is Dainix’s thing.
This psychic magic is really reminding me of the goo from the last arc. Why does psychic magic not seem to affect Kendal?
If nothing else, the boat probably has a breaking point.
It’s used the same power and Kendal has no light stuff in him to agitate, so only he is immune to their corruptive side effect, just like with the dragon
For @OhNoMyHubris
“Finally, a good reason to punch a teenager in the face!”
Doesn’t seem to have knocked any sense into him, though. Better hit him again, Kendal…it works with computers.
Nice reference!
I don’t think LD ment void dragon void, but a vast emptiness kind of void.
Oooh, Paladin-Guy is SO going to regret this.
No one who ever uses the phrase “I don’t want to find your breaking point” without so much as a shred of bluster, is going to be easy to deal with. Light Dragon Rasengan or not.
I think we’re about to find out if Kendal can grow back limbs
Honestly, I had the same thought. However, according to Red, even Alinua cannot regrown a missing limb, since Life Magic only commands the present Life within a body to accelerate healing.
Given that, however, I see no reason why a Life Mage cannot hold a severed limb to the torso and THEN initiate the healing process.
I think Michael would have to escalate his power output by quite a lot before he’s cutting through any starmetal bones. Kendal probably turns him to ash before that (or gets thrown overboard).
I’m remembering the dream sequence in 1-13-26&27 rn. I don’t have words for it at the moment but looking back on the imagery and everything has started me thinking. I’d recommend looking back there for future reference because I’m having a lot of fun thinking about it 🙂
No thoughts head empty
The fact that this can be applied to all three visible people on the page to varying levels of accuracy is hilarious.
Perhaps a poor choice of words. Void=dragon in this persons mind, im thinking.
Maybe the paladin and light dragon see Kendal as a philosophical zombie. If the light dragon is responsible for giving everyone their minds, then maybe the light dragon/paladin think Kendal doesn’t have any mind because he doesn’t have any light dragon, in which case, blowing Kendal up wouldn’t actually be hurting anyone.
Exactly! I think everyone is missing the “a” in “a void”. Lucy and the Paladin think there’s nothing there. There obviously is, but I don’t think they can see or wrap their heads around that if the mind doesn’t come from Lucy. So if he doesn’t have that, then he isn’t a part of the innocent club that the paladins seem to protect and value.
I mean, Tarren threw out the suggestion that he could be a homunculus. If there’s no Light in him, I suppose it’s conceivable that they could think he’s some sort of Void construct. I think Michael might be misunderstanding Lucy’s words, and she’s too confused to correct him. There’s never been someone like Kendal before. He’s not a human, and he’s not a god. She (probably) can see no Void OR Light in him…so what the hell IS he?
oh my god oh my god im frowing up this shit is scary oh my god
Ethereal claws scrabble to find purchase but there is none to be found.
So fear takes the helm and reason is lost
And in response an attack is wrought
I’m fairly certain Kendal is just immune to mental influence magic (or maybe just void/light magic). He was immune to the psychic torture slime after all.
Yeah I agree
Yeah, Kendal doesn’t have any Void or Light(/Mind?) in him so those elements can’t affect him
So I feel like this is a bit of a miscommunication issue here?
As in ominous light voice meant void as in empty, as in missing something that should be there.
Not void as in void dragon and therefore, like, okay to smash because void dragon.
Or he’s just being snarky and Kendal doesn’t have like. A soul, or a proper soul and as such doesn’t count as people. That sounds fucked up. I am so confused. Do I need to re-read the entire comic again or is it not just me? Because that could take a few weeks or so.
She meant void an in empty and kendal has a soul or else he wouldn’t exist
O! Thank you! An excuse to go back and re-read this comic again!
Lol
No Michael no that’s not where you’re supposed to look for Void it’s supposed to be in the stomach—
Side note, today is my birthday! It’s good to have a new page today 🙂
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday!
happy birthday!
happy birthday!!!
Happy birthdayyyy to you!
Thank you all! I had a great day yesterday, and will be celebrating with friends this weekend.
Sounds like someone’s got some real moral rigidity going on there.
“Then it is not among the innocent.” Speedrunning breaching your code of ethics when encountering an unknown, I see~
Did it look like tess’s diadem was weakening or is that just me? maybe because the champion is focused on kendal…
I hope I’m wrong, but it really feels like Kendal’s about to get his arm blasted off 😬
That’d be a pretty cool parallel wouldnt it? Vash also lost an arm in a pivotal fight. But alas he still has both arms in this preview of a future page: https://comicaurora.tumblr.com/post/758845385574957056/in-my-continuing-experimentation-on-refining-my
Hypothetical being: No thoughts head empty
Michal: THIS MUST BE THE RESULT OF VOID POSSESSION
Many such cases
This is interesting. It seems like Michael is being portrayed as in the wrong not for fighting against the dragon, but for dividing our heroes into an ‘innocent / not innocent’ binary, when the whole theme of the comic (and specifically Vash) so far has been recognizing that people are unique and can’t be categorized like that. It feels like Zuurith all over again
That’s a good observation. Might explain why supposed “good guys” like the paladins have their big library with all their important, ancient texts in Zuurith of all places, where people’s worth is (…was?) similarly decided on an innocent/guilty basis.
All writers have styles, and themes that touch on what they think and feel. It’s part of what motivates writers to write.
TL;DR: DUEL!!!
My goat Kendal literally punching his lights out (as you can see his eyes have gone back to regular dragon eyes and not GLOW)
God i’m really starting to hate michael
Oh he is THAT stupid? I’m tempted to call him a himbo atp but he doesn’t have the kindness of a himbo…hmm…
so Kendal is losing an arm next page right?
I think this paladin guy forgot to use their rigged dice when rolling intelligence……. crit fail.
There’s Two tiers of misinterprerarion going in here.
Light Dragon, who says it’s a void because she can’t touch it.
Lady, Just because you didn’t have a hand in it doesn’t meant there is nothing there.
Hubris much?
And Paladin guy who hears “it’s a void” and interprets it as “of the Void Dragon”
yeah lmao
I’m starting to suspect our Champion here is not very capable of critical thought.
When kendal say breaking point, I feel like he might mean it in a chewbaca way
“Fezzik, rip his arms off” type feeling right here, yeah
i’m seeing this at 5AM and every time kendal does something new i am enamored with him even more, beloved ramble incoming. characters who are unfathomably strong and hold no anger in their hearts are truly untoppable. i LOVE how he is written here. please don’t make me keep going, we could have talked about this, leave us alone, let us go. “i don’t want to do this” is usually an empty platitude and a relatively gesture of plausible deniability – but HERE? here he *does not want to do this*. let him stop. let him sit. let him live. not because you could defeat him but because every step you make him take is another step unto defeating himself.
you don’t know how often i think about the page where he breaks his cuff and crumbles the prison wall like floral foam. the elephant tied to the lawn chair. he’s unable to be himself. he would hurt the people he cares about so easily. how often do you think he has to be consciously aware of his strength when picking up something fragile? how on edge would he be with a cat in his arms?
this is a recurring theme amongst many characters, really; they have the power to brute force their goals into submission if they wanted to, but it would cause so much pain that the option isn’t even a blip on their radar. they all seem so small and so big at the same time. alinua comes to mind, when she couldn’t use her powers to escape shrike – not because she COULDN’T, but because it would cause too much harm, too much property damage, she’s not worth it. kendal gave himself up to zuurith, because he’s not worth it. dainix is basically on a quest to be rid himself of his power and erin is undergoing the slow and painful process of having this lesson beaten into him, too.
the villains – here being the collector, the paladin, and shrike – seem to EMBODY this brash singlemindedness that our emcees are desperately running from. it’s the typical evil “for the greater good, the end justifies the means” selfishness, sure, but it’s more than that. i think many other stories would have the main heroes throwing barbs and pushing past the common folk and “being important” many times over by now. kendal would be angry, he would be reckless, he would take pride in beating up the paladin, and he would be right. but he’s not. and he won’t.
Tahraim and Caliban though to be honest half my love for Caliban comes from a fanfiction because it had such a good characterization of them. Not to say that I haven’t always loved Caliban it’s just that I love them more due to their characterization in that fan fic.