There is no difficulty in life that cannot be speedily resolved by a bag of gold, honourable suicide, of the thrusting of a despised adversary over a precipice on a dark night
So, now.. unless Nudge tricks her way out of this mess… Phix will be totally free to roam the world for as long as she likes, and Nudge will be stuck in the library again? If that is what would happen, then.. would Monica and friends still be able to make use of the library if they needed to, or could Nudge deny them access once she’s stuck with librarian duties again?
Depending on when in the constant Calendar Machine reset cycles this happened, Nudge could have had thousands of years to think about what she’d do when caught. Because, given enough time, recapture was inevitable. Give a trickster god THAT much time to think, and they might come up with something that blows your socks off. I wouldn’t assume Nudge is going to be stuck in the Library from now on.
Besides, Phix might have grown to like being a librarian…
IIRC, the cycles were ~1450 years long. IRL, the Oedipus myth existed well before that. In the bottom panel, she looks surprised as if she wasn’t aware she could be trapped again, but if she is a trickster, that doesn’t mean anything.
@CrashFu:
To me, the question is not if Monica could get in the library; it would be could Monica trust anything that she finds there?
Question: who said she was a demon? It’s been assumed that she was in the forums/comments here… but did it come up in the strip?
Alternately, a demon (or daemon, more accurately) is a tasked servant (it’s why we deal with mailer-daemons with e-mail). Perhaps in Wapsi-world, that is what demons do? Doubt is tasked to make Monica doubt. Nudge might be tasked with library duties.
Well, she did refer (if a tad obliquely) to herself as also being a demon (the “we” is what I’m referencing here). Then again, she could have just been over-simplifying matters or flat out lying by implication.
Yes, “we” could mean “demons and I” or troublemakers in general. But we don’t even know exactly what the word “demon” means in the Wapsiverse. Are there different types of demons? Nudge doesn’t behave like a personal demon, but are tricksters a different class of demon? Asking if Nudge is a demon might be like asking if a lion is a cat.
and yet at the same time she was strengthening Monica against demons by reminding her to be spontaneous makes me think that she isn’t actually a demon of any kind. She kicks Vanity to death with a word, confuses the heck out of everyone and warns M and Shel against other demons… she doesn’t seem like the type that thrives on order
This all makes no sense whatever anymore. I give up even trying to conjecture what might happen regarding situation with Phix or why. The reasoning now just seems to be trying to make a square peg fit a round hole with a large hammer. It’s heavy handed and has become downright ludricous. At least to me.
How do you explain how something doesn’t make sense?
Just off the top of my head, here are a few things that seem to be contradictory: Phix said that Nudge wouldn’t have anyone to trick, yet the portal annexes allowed many visitors. Books can’t be destroyed, but Phix destroyed one. All humans are demon infested, so Phix was going to kill all humans. Yesterday the library had to be guarded by any sphinx and Phix got the job because she was the lowest on the totem pole, but today only one sphinx was responsible for destroying the book. Phix, Nudge and Oedipus were all responsible for destroying the book, yet Phix was the only one trapped. Phix stopped killing humans when one of them gave her an answer that stumped her, but Oedipus threw a book at her.
Besides the apparent contradictions, why would a book of punishment trap someone who destroyed it accidentally, yet release the person being punished when it was destroyed? Why would bringing Nudge back release Phix? That just seems very random.
It would have expected it to turn to dust, not shreds, if Phix tried to shred it. I was thinking that one swipe might have been enough to do both, though. Actually, since Nudge wasn’t there, she might have been wrong about that detail.
We’ve already mentioned that not everything stated by every character in this comic is fact (as verified by Paul via comment), so several of the contradictions may very well NOT be contradictions. *shrugs* I’m willing to accept that.
…though you do have a point on that “How was Phix able to destroy the book” part.
That said, your issue with the way the book (and its destruction) worked is explainable…perhaps not to your liking, but still explainable. I shall demonstrate…
A book containing an elaborate magical construct is created to entrap Nudge in the Library. Unfotunately, since everything written ends up in the Library, she will have access to her own spelled punishment. In theory, if she can destroy or damage it, she can break free. As a fail-safe, the creators of the construct add a little amendment to the spell that states “whosoever breaketh or destroyeth this spell shall be trapped here forever” or something like that. 🙂 However, they weren’t smart enough to shut down all of the annex locations, and a human somehow got access to the trickster who wasn’t supposed to see anyone else. DING! She has a brilliant idea, and the rest is incorrectly told history (aka myth).
“how was Phix able to destroy the book”
This one is a special case. You NEVER choose a leader of anything without drawing up a method to replace them. in ancient Rome they worked out by the third emperor that the only way they had was to assassinate them. If the Librarian has an “immortal in this realm” clause in the contract you need to build in a method to make the contract void in case said person finds a way to abuse the power. Phix had her clause that “until she finds Nudge she is Librarian”
phix told monica something about not letting the book she loaned get destroyed, that it’d be reformed in the library, but there would be annoyance… there’s also the possibility that the book, was merely a container, and could be destroyed, cause it wasn’t a real book, just decorated like one.
Maybe, I can buy the Nudge-librarian thing Ok, that’s a neat plot twist, but this book thingy comes out of nowhere. No foreshadowing, nothing. It’s like the cliche of a mystery writer bringing out the long lost evil twin to explain the murders, when not one mention was made of her before. Not even a hint. It doesn’t fall into place with anything in the story heretofore. Then there is all the stuff eschmenk mentioned, not to mention the actual reason for Phix running the library being totally contridictory from what was presented earlier. Do we just forget that? If Paul is going to pull stuff like this book plot device out of thin air (or someplace more malodorous and darker) then speculating on it all is pointless. For me, it even ceases to be fun.
Actually, the “Nudge-librarian thing” is one of my biggest problems. If the library contains all of the knowledge of the universe, and knowledge is power, you had better be careful about who controls the access to that knowledge. To me, knowledge is the antidote to a trick; the trickster depends on knowing something that the victim doesn’t. Punishing Nudge by forcing her to watch over the library seems a bit like punishing a fox by forcing it to stand guard in a hen house, to me anyway.
I toyed with the idea that maybe this was supposed to create a frustrating so-near-and-yet-so-far situation for Nudge, but I couldn’t make that work.
Maybe a weak explanation but when Nudge says “her” why do we assume it means Phix personally rather than the sphinx Oedipus encountered? Has it been explained anywhere that Phix was the one Oedipus actually ran into and threw a book at or was it an entirely different sphinx? The only off wording to me is “…condemn those responsible..” Why would it randomly condemn all sphinxes instead of the actual sphinx that broke it?
At the time Nudge said “her”, Phix was the only sphinx present and the only sphinx Monica knew personally, so Monica would likely understand “her” as meaning Phix. Phix could have clarified it if that were wrong, but didn’t.
That said, it may be possible that a different sphinx in Greece had the book thrown at her by Oedipus, but the others continued to ask riddles and kill people elsewhere. Nudge said she tricked the sphinxes (plural) so maybe she tricked the rest of the sphinxes, separately. IIRC (I can’t find it), Bud told Shelly that Phix killed people until she was stumped by an answer and Nudge said the sphinxes “did their jobs” until one of them got an answer that stumped her, so maybe that’s what stopped the sphinxes, rather than having a book thrown at one of them. However, if this is true, then Phix allowed Nudge to be misleading in front of Monica without correcting her immediately.
“Phix is in a hell of her own making, I wouldn’t wish her fate on anyone”-Brandi
“as to the monster I once was…”-Phix
the power of words have been referenced more than often in this in the GG’s controls
do these count as foreshadowing… the rest can be explained by Nudge being incognito
Ok, seriously, creatures the just shred books without checking what is in them first fails to qualify as wise. Then again, I always figured that riddles were a tool to make people look smarter than they really were.
No kidding. The one book that has the power to release Nudge is freely available to her to give out and not securely locked away somewhere? Not even close to “wise.”
All books wind up where she was. Maybe they wrote it somewhere else and locked it up and forgot about the library getting a copy? But if so, the original would still exist.
Yeah. If Nudge had merely had someone who was mortal or less powerful than Phix destroy the book (“Look! Some sort of weird magic! It should be burned!”), she wouldn’t have had hide for centuries. Having Phix destroy the book wasn’t wise, either.
Not sure which “She” Oedipus threw the book at — Likely his mother — but have to review the Greek story to recall the details of her fate. Interesting tie-in to this story line!
Anybody recall what else happened to Oedipus’ mother? Other than that she hung herself (see link above)?
There must be another She in the story somewhere….
Continuing his journey to Thebes, Oedipus encounters a Sphinx which would stop all those who traveled to Thebes and ask them a riddle. If the travelers were unable to answer correctly, they were killed and eaten by the sphinx; if they were successful, they would be able to continue their journey. The riddle was: “What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?”. Oedipus answers: “Man; as an infant, he crawls on all fours, as an adult, he walks on two legs and, in old age, he relies on a walking stick”. Oedipus was the first to answer the riddle correctly. Having heard Oedipus’ answer, the Sphinx is astounded and inexplicably kills itself by throwing itself into the sea, freeing Thebes.
Comedian Emo Phillips asked British Talk Show Host Terry Wogan that same question. Wogan gave him that answer, but Emo said, “You’re wrong, it’s a donkey! Who has four legs in the morning. In the afternoon, you chop two of them off and at night you glue one of them back on!”
Bah! We’re in Wapsi world! Who wants to follow the Greek myth exactly? 🙂 Besides, everyone knows that stories are altered in the repeated telling until they become less like actuality and more like allegory (or sometimes hyperbole).
If you do a little research, you will discover a lot of the tale of Oedipus with which we are familiar is add-on to the original myth – it’s a tale which was retold many times, with many variations.
really? I’ve done research on Greek mythology and the only place i found Oedipus was the Theban plays by Sophocles and some plays by Aeschylus. Since these people lived at approximately the same time this may not constitute “a myth” but all the elements are found in other stories (eg. the shepherd abandonment was used in many other myths including Herodotus’ explanation of Cyrus’ upbringing and rise to power)
I challenge the idea that Oedipus was a “myth” per say but more a stew made of familiar parts of old myths in a new way so that it would survive.
Some researchers actually documented Julie’s assertion that oral retelling shapes stories. In the Balkans, they found a woman who had been involved as an adolescent in a love triangle. The oral version had one boy throwing himself off a cliff after a fight; the woman said that he accidently tripped, and had lasted for some days before dying.
Yes, myths change over the centuries of being told, I see that and have no problem with inconsistancies with ancient myths and this story, but things now are not even consistant with the rest of the story as presented here.
I think “she” would have had to have been Phix, since Phix was the person who was trapped. I assume that Oedipus answered the riddle with “The answer is in here, bitch!”
That seems dumb compared to what Paul has come up with before, but I can’t think of anything better than that.
I agree with you. I see it going down like this: Nudge says, “There’s the book, throw it @ the Sphinx and recite this incantation: ‘The ans wer isn ereb itch!’ “.
Reminds me of the scene I saw on a rerun of “The Odd Couple” once. The slob character (I forget the name) got the other to recite the chant:
Owha tagoo siam, faster and faster.
It seems obvious that Nudge, and probably everybody else, could not harm the book; only a sphinx could. So, they though it was safe from harm. It’s hard to think, “Wait, what book is that?” when a demon infested human is throwing things at you. So, they’re not so dumb.
so what guy throws something at you, dodge, fly up, and hide behind human in case it’s a grenade. Call it forfeight since he used a projectile weapon and eat the guy. Problem solved.
Remember, any violence around the book causes it to crumble to dust. So in reality the very act of throwing it at the sphinx could have caused it to go *poof* and giving Nudge her chance.
Well, the part about it being recreated in the library worked. I think you had to act aggressively toward the book, itself. If Oedipus tossed the book gently enough, that might not have counted. Phix shredding it or just swiping at it angrily would have. Personally, I wouldn’t classify Phix’s reaction as wise or dumb.
Tricksters often have trouble keeping from saying too much, as we have observed previously,with the results backfiring on them. Coyote got himself pregnant once….
With all the intelligent sounding comment coming before me I’d fell bad makin a furry joke, so I’m just gonna ask why an ancient immortal and likely indestructible being would require glasses.
The Old Wolf: We use them when taking Communion. Otherwise, we have to pass around the bottle, which isn’t sanitary, and moreover results in the last few in line coming up dry …
Okay, so the whole ‘riddle’ thing was Oedipus making himself out to look more intelligent than he really was.
Real Scene: *throws book at woman-thing, watches her vanish, realizes this is not gonna make for an Epic Hero story*
What He Told People: “Yeah so this snarkly little so-n-so came up with a totally unsolvable riddle, and guess what?! I solved it! Yeah, no you can’t check in with her about it she… uh… jumped into the Ocean. No, she’s dead now, you can’t find her.”
“So… what was the riddle?”
“Uhh… hang on! *runs off to ask his mom for a really stupidly obvious riddle that seems metaphysical and awesome*”
I would like to point out that incest has been around for ages (and used to be promoted as a good way to keep the bloodlines pure)…and yet the Southern United States gets ragged for it the most. That’s just silly.
I think it goes back to the old days when mountain folk lived in pretty much isolation. Close relative breeding was all too common then. You know how it goes. Do something once and you’re haunted by it forever. One guy from Arkansas has a really difficult time opening a coke bottle and suddenly every bottle made there has “open other end” on the bottom. It’s just not fair. Funny, but not fair.
Intermarriage of people related to what we now call an incestuous degree was widely practiced in the ancient Greek world as a means of holding power and wealth close. It’s still practiced in the Arab world today – cousin marriage is common and sought after.
As a famous example, Cleopatra. Look up her history. (And before someone calls me on it, Cleopatra was Greek, not Egyptian.)
well tricked or not
phix did say she didnt like who she was so maybe being tricked was not such a bad thing after all.
and if she had not been tricked, could she have help saved m and co?
Is it me, or does it seem implied that Phix is the one that Nudge told ol’ Oedipus to throw the book at?
“You knew it would condemn those responsible for it’s destruction to take your place.”
This could mean Sphinxes in general, Phix implied on the previous page that she got the job because she was “lowest on the totem pole.” But I’m suspecting personal involvement here.
Implied? No. Pretty straight out said. “Condemn those responceable to take your place” says Phix. Who has her place?
If not Phix herself, then she inherited the post from her predecessors (not knowing how these sphinxes reproduce (if they do), I hesitate to say her parents).
I suppose she could have it both ways, say if she was only the one stationed there (where she would end up with the book thrown at her) only because it was the station of the lowest on the totem pole…
It’s as if Phix was one sphinx part of the time and the entire set of sphinxes at others. Both Nudge and Phix said that Nudge tricked the sphinxes (plural), yet Oedipus threw the book at her (singular) and she (singular) ripped it to shreds. At least one sphinx must keep watch in the library, but it didn’t seem to matter which one, so Phix got the job.
My best guess is that the sphinxes combined themselves into one entity when they were hunting the rogues or maybe they had a Borg-type collective consciousness. This confused the spell that forced Phix to replace Nudge, so it thinks only one sphinx is required to stand watch, but it doesn’t know which sphinx it is. Yes, that doesn’t make much sense, but it’s the best I can come up with.
Having the sphinxes split and combine might be Paul’s way of dealing with the fact that the Greek myths only referred to one sphinx, but there seemed to be multiple sphinxes in Southeast Asia. Only he knows what he is thinking, though.
I agree with Xavienne. It doesn’t make sense, though. Nudge looks as if she was caught off guard, but if Nudge knew enough to figure out how to free herself, why wouldn’t she have known about that, too?
Knowledge doesn’t always equate to appropriate action. I know that I have a tendency to avoid work when it seems overwhelming instead of working on it in small stages. I also know that if I take it step by step, it won’t be overwhelming at all. I still avoid work if it seems overwhelming at first glance.
All this is about a story, that we may not have been told the true about, by a hero who had a demon mentor or mother. Phix could not have been as smart as she is now when she was hit with that book, but she had a lot of reading material after that.
Here and Now that Nudge is back in the Library, Is she now stuck to remain?
Oh sorry about the double post
another question, yet to be answered …..Are Demon inflected humans always alive or are they dead like Tina 2.0? Rough demons running around as live humans.
AFAIK, all humans have personal demons. Most people don’t have the ability to communicate with them the way Monica does, but they are still there. Tina is the only dead human body running around that we know of. Jin acted as if that were very unusual, but the same thing could happen if Monica is killed, rather than dieing naturally.
Regarding your first post, since Nudge was able to leave once the book was destroyed, she should be able to leave. However, if the book was automatically recreated, like other books are, but there was a delay which allowed her to leave before it was recreated, then she might be trapped again. Perhaps Phix was able to recreate the book or arrange something else for Nudge.
So was I. Phix said that Nudge was the original librarian and she made it sound as if the library would contain “all of the knowledge of the universe” at the time Nudge got stuck there, so I was interpreting it as if that was the idea from the very beginning. I didn’t consider the possibility of there being a library before there was a librarian. I would think that someone would have to manage it somehow. In any case, I don’t see any particular connection between Nudge’s book and the purpose of the library.
I wondered if the original purpose of the library was to serve as a punishment for Nudge. If Nudge pissed off the equivalent of gods, they might have tried to come up with a frustrating punishment designed just for Nudge. Yesterday, Phix said, “[T]hey locked her up here in the library [with] [a]ll of the knowledge of the universe and no one to trick.” The idea would be to provide her with tons of ideas and information for tricks to play on people, but no ability to do any of it, herself. That would be a very frustrating situation for Nudge. But that would have to mean that the gods never expected anyone to to visit the library! Maybe they thought they already knew everything they needed to know and everyone else was so far off their radar that they didn’t predict what anyone else would do. Maybe humanity turned out to be a far more curious species than they ever expected to develop. (They must not have watched old Star Trek episodes, otherwise they would have known better.) I don’t know how the portal annexes for humans were created, though. I can’t believe that Nudge would have been given the ability to initiate contact with anyone, otherwise she would have had people to play tricks on. Also, Nudge said the Sphinxes replaced her and had to keep watch in the library, so that sounds as if that was Nudge’s original job, which is inconsistent with the punishment idea. The only reason to guard the library would be if the information had value to someone other than Nudge. But why would anyone select a trickster to guard anything of value? So anyway, it started to make sense to me, but it didn’t last long.
Paul might want to keep Nudge in the library. Monica got so self-confident that Doubt wasn’t much of a threat to her anymore. That’s good for Monica, but not good from a story telling point of view. If a trickster was in charge of all of the knowledge that Monica depends on, that might really mess up Monica’s self-confidence. OTOH, if Nudge got inside Monica, that might have the same effect.
Nudge is the last person who should be allowed to be in the library. If Phix has any sense and loyalty to the library, she would throw Nudge out of there. What would be the point of guarding the library against adventurers if you don’t guard it against Nudge?
You may escape … but if/when you get caught you have to continue your sentence. And worst off, more time is added to your sentence.
What’s a Century (or two) added to Forever?
She did the job without supervision before she escaped. What’s the betting that, if she’s stuck there, Phix would be her supervisor? That would make things interesting…. (for us)….
I get the impression she is in there indefinitely, or until the Sphinxes figure out something else to do with her. I also doubt they are working that problem very hard. They just want her out of their hair. For that matter, they may want Phix out of their hair as well, what with her moralizing about killing humans. She probably annoys the other sphinxes as well.
Awww–a rational, serious answer to a wisenheimer comment.
If I’m not careful to whom I smart off, I could end up next to Nudge’s Bibliothiki in the brand new, sparkly Computer Center, equipped with several thousand abaci…
I have to laugh at the tenor of the comments for today’s strip. Guys, Wapsi Square has been up and running for ten years. Do you honestly expect Paul to wrap up, in a single week, a major cusp in the plot? Start complaining that it doesn’t make sense at the end of next week, or next month, if we haven’t figured it out yet!
Will it be OK if Monica does it? She should go ballistic. Or maybe curl up in a fetal position. I’m not sure which.
It turns out that her good friend Tina wasn’t who she thought she was. Monica thought she could trust Nudge, but she turned out to be a trickster. Much of what Monica probably thought she knew about Phix was wrong. The purpose of the library is very much in question. On top of that, Jin is still a dangerous schizophrenic, Monica can’t know how much harm was done to what is now Tina 2.5 and the future of the library is uncertain. Yeesh!
I’m surprised that you would be surprised that people are reacting the way they are. This is mild compared to what you would expect from Monica under the same circumstances. I think you are totally wrong about anyone expecting Paul to have things resolved quickly; we just didn’t expect to get clobbered upside the head so hard in the first place. We still don’t know why it looked like Monica was talking in the glyph language to the Orion constellation years ago or what the glyph language means, so why would you think that anyone expected the current stuff to be resolved in a week?
Phix’s words in the second panel make the library (or at least the book itself) appear to be sentient, sapient, and conscious. Most interesting. The library subjugates/enslaves a being in order to have a way to maintain and protect itself.
Perhaps it is more of a metaphor. Much in the same way that genes can be said to use bodies to ensure their own survival and propagation, the books of a library can be said to use a librarian to ensure their own survival and scholars to ensure their own propagation.
The difference with this magic library being the fact that every book ever written from every time-line has a copy ‘poited’ into existence within the library, so all authors are the scholars, but the role of a librarian still needs to be filled.
I was AFK for a few days, and two-three days noticed (thanks to eschmenk’s links postings) the Wall of Skulls behind Phix in Monsteriwas and the Wall of Skulls behind Monica in Haveusback, and at the time (three days late), posted the following (a bit edited here) – which I’ve noticed no one else commented on – and I’d like to read what all y’all think about this.
OK, notice that both have a Wall of Skulls as the background. Is it the same wall of skulls (which raises a hellalot of questions)? Or, are they separate? For Phix, I conjecture those are the skulls of her victims – but Monica’s wall????
Paul, methinks you are setting us up for a multidimensional plot twist here, dang your excellent story-writing skills!!! 🙂
I seem to recall someone here having said there may not actually be a wall of skulls as such. That they were just a thing being imagined by the characters involved. Something symbolic of death images. Certainly that was the case in the latter link you posted, and could have simply been reflective of Phix’s thoughts in the former.
For all intents and purposes, Nudge appears to BE Tina. She’s the mover and shaker behind the whole demon collective that’s animating Tina’s body.
I think that Phix is operating under some wrong assumptions here. She might think that Tina is an ordinary human, posessed by Nudge. But what is she going to do if it turns out that there is no Tina left without Nudge?
We haven’t seen Tina at all since Sphinx’s little “It’s Clobberin’ Time!” episode. We saw her fist past thru Tina and connect with Nudge and push down and out of Tina. But where has Tina ended up???
Tina still appears to have the reflective eyes in that one. Ergo, demon-animated Tina. a very very silent Tina. I think Phix dropped the ball on this one…
Actually, we saw on the floor looking dazed, but still with the spirals in her eyes, the following day. I assume she’s still there.
Jin seemed to think that Tina’s demons could run Tina without assistance and Tina’s doesn’t mention Nudge, so perhaps Tina will be OK without Nudge. I’m not all that worried yet about Tina’s dazed state. We’ve seen something similar before. But it sounded like Tina wouldn’t have even made it out of the morgue without Nudge, so IDK. Of course, that would be a time when a trickster’s talents might be particularly useful. “I was just pretending! Really!” 🙂
shoot… nothing that can’t be solved by chucking something at someone powerful eh?
A book, shoes,….whatever….
Kai Lung:
“…or the thrusting…”
Also, now that i’ve had a little longer to think, i think “honourable suicide” came first.
I always heard it as “There is no problem that can’t be solved with a suitable application of high explosives”. BOOM! and the problem goes away.
Nudge threw the kitschy Sphinx at her, huh?
so… the riddle was a book? I… guess the riddle was a metaphor/allegory all this time…
The answer was to use the book to turn the sphinxes’ violence against themselves.
Yeah… I’m a little confused. Why would they design a book that would even do that? Kind of an obvious loophole.
So, now.. unless Nudge tricks her way out of this mess… Phix will be totally free to roam the world for as long as she likes, and Nudge will be stuck in the library again? If that is what would happen, then.. would Monica and friends still be able to make use of the library if they needed to, or could Nudge deny them access once she’s stuck with librarian duties again?
I’m pretty sure Phix can convince her to let them in.
Nudge seems to like Monica & company, so I don’t see a problem.
Depending on when in the constant Calendar Machine reset cycles this happened, Nudge could have had thousands of years to think about what she’d do when caught. Because, given enough time, recapture was inevitable. Give a trickster god THAT much time to think, and they might come up with something that blows your socks off. I wouldn’t assume Nudge is going to be stuck in the Library from now on.
Besides, Phix might have grown to like being a librarian…
Does Phix wear socks?
IIRC, the cycles were ~1450 years long. IRL, the Oedipus myth existed well before that. In the bottom panel, she looks surprised as if she wasn’t aware she could be trapped again, but if she is a trickster, that doesn’t mean anything.
@CrashFu:
To me, the question is not if Monica could get in the library; it would be could Monica trust anything that she finds there?
Remember – there’s a library annex now in downtown Minneapolis…
Ah , but can Phix keep her there ?
Hmmm. Something about Nudge’s dialog seems off-kilter – “…searched out the Library Annex in a way of…”
Seems as if there ought be a “…search of…” (or something similar) between “in” and “way”.
“…as a way to…”
*for a way of* ?
Oops! Change of plan! RUN!
Paul,
The question we want answered is…
Just WHAT kind of demon IS Nudge?!?!
Question: who said she was a demon? It’s been assumed that she was in the forums/comments here… but did it come up in the strip?
Alternately, a demon (or daemon, more accurately) is a tasked servant (it’s why we deal with mailer-daemons with e-mail). Perhaps in Wapsi-world, that is what demons do? Doubt is tasked to make Monica doubt. Nudge might be tasked with library duties.
Thank you for that tidbit; I’ll file it away carefully.
Nah. Nudge is tasked with Keeping Things Interesting.
That’s what tricksters do.
Yep and usually in the Chinese curse sort of way too. 😉
Well, she did refer (if a tad obliquely) to herself as also being a demon (the “we” is what I’m referencing here). Then again, she could have just been over-simplifying matters or flat out lying by implication.
Yes, “we” could mean “demons and I” or troublemakers in general. But we don’t even know exactly what the word “demon” means in the Wapsiverse. Are there different types of demons? Nudge doesn’t behave like a personal demon, but are tricksters a different class of demon? Asking if Nudge is a demon might be like asking if a lion is a cat.
and yet at the same time she was strengthening Monica against demons by reminding her to be spontaneous makes me think that she isn’t actually a demon of any kind. She kicks Vanity to death with a word, confuses the heck out of everyone and warns M and Shel against other demons… she doesn’t seem like the type that thrives on order
I think Nudge is a Search Daemon for literary works.
actually I think we got that impression when Nudge talks about good and evil in stillbeevil
This all makes no sense whatever anymore. I give up even trying to conjecture what might happen regarding situation with Phix or why. The reasoning now just seems to be trying to make a square peg fit a round hole with a large hammer. It’s heavy handed and has become downright ludricous. At least to me.
Yeh… I kind of feel like I slammed into a wall of “what?” there…
Really? How so? I don’t see what the problem is. I actually like this explanation a lot better than most of the conjectures we’d been making.
How do you explain how something doesn’t make sense?
Just off the top of my head, here are a few things that seem to be contradictory: Phix said that Nudge wouldn’t have anyone to trick, yet the portal annexes allowed many visitors. Books can’t be destroyed, but Phix destroyed one. All humans are demon infested, so Phix was going to kill all humans. Yesterday the library had to be guarded by any sphinx and Phix got the job because she was the lowest on the totem pole, but today only one sphinx was responsible for destroying the book. Phix, Nudge and Oedipus were all responsible for destroying the book, yet Phix was the only one trapped. Phix stopped killing humans when one of them gave her an answer that stumped her, but Oedipus threw a book at her.
Besides the apparent contradictions, why would a book of punishment trap someone who destroyed it accidentally, yet release the person being punished when it was destroyed? Why would bringing Nudge back release Phix? That just seems very random.
:/ yes, agreed.
A simple question I also have is.. why shred the book when she probably could have just dodged it? It kind of rings of overkill…
Phix had anger issues in them days…
It would have expected it to turn to dust, not shreds, if Phix tried to shred it. I was thinking that one swipe might have been enough to do both, though. Actually, since Nudge wasn’t there, she might have been wrong about that detail.
We’ve already mentioned that not everything stated by every character in this comic is fact (as verified by Paul via comment), so several of the contradictions may very well NOT be contradictions. *shrugs* I’m willing to accept that.
…though you do have a point on that “How was Phix able to destroy the book” part.
That said, your issue with the way the book (and its destruction) worked is explainable…perhaps not to your liking, but still explainable. I shall demonstrate…
A book containing an elaborate magical construct is created to entrap Nudge in the Library. Unfotunately, since everything written ends up in the Library, she will have access to her own spelled punishment. In theory, if she can destroy or damage it, she can break free. As a fail-safe, the creators of the construct add a little amendment to the spell that states “whosoever breaketh or destroyeth this spell shall be trapped here forever” or something like that. 🙂 However, they weren’t smart enough to shut down all of the annex locations, and a human somehow got access to the trickster who wasn’t supposed to see anyone else. DING! She has a brilliant idea, and the rest is incorrectly told history (aka myth).
Tada! 😀
“how was Phix able to destroy the book”
This one is a special case. You NEVER choose a leader of anything without drawing up a method to replace them. in ancient Rome they worked out by the third emperor that the only way they had was to assassinate them. If the Librarian has an “immortal in this realm” clause in the contract you need to build in a method to make the contract void in case said person finds a way to abuse the power. Phix had her clause that “until she finds Nudge she is Librarian”
phix told monica something about not letting the book she loaned get destroyed, that it’d be reformed in the library, but there would be annoyance… there’s also the possibility that the book, was merely a container, and could be destroyed, cause it wasn’t a real book, just decorated like one.
Maybe, I can buy the Nudge-librarian thing Ok, that’s a neat plot twist, but this book thingy comes out of nowhere. No foreshadowing, nothing. It’s like the cliche of a mystery writer bringing out the long lost evil twin to explain the murders, when not one mention was made of her before. Not even a hint. It doesn’t fall into place with anything in the story heretofore. Then there is all the stuff eschmenk mentioned, not to mention the actual reason for Phix running the library being totally contridictory from what was presented earlier. Do we just forget that? If Paul is going to pull stuff like this book plot device out of thin air (or someplace more malodorous and darker) then speculating on it all is pointless. For me, it even ceases to be fun.
I agree. I know it’s his story, he can tell it like he wants. I enjoy it… but this just feel kind of like a weak twist..
Actually, the “Nudge-librarian thing” is one of my biggest problems. If the library contains all of the knowledge of the universe, and knowledge is power, you had better be careful about who controls the access to that knowledge. To me, knowledge is the antidote to a trick; the trickster depends on knowing something that the victim doesn’t. Punishing Nudge by forcing her to watch over the library seems a bit like punishing a fox by forcing it to stand guard in a hen house, to me anyway.
I toyed with the idea that maybe this was supposed to create a frustrating so-near-and-yet-so-far situation for Nudge, but I couldn’t make that work.
Maybe a weak explanation but when Nudge says “her” why do we assume it means Phix personally rather than the sphinx Oedipus encountered? Has it been explained anywhere that Phix was the one Oedipus actually ran into and threw a book at or was it an entirely different sphinx? The only off wording to me is “…condemn those responsible..” Why would it randomly condemn all sphinxes instead of the actual sphinx that broke it?
At the time Nudge said “her”, Phix was the only sphinx present and the only sphinx Monica knew personally, so Monica would likely understand “her” as meaning Phix. Phix could have clarified it if that were wrong, but didn’t.
That said, it may be possible that a different sphinx in Greece had the book thrown at her by Oedipus, but the others continued to ask riddles and kill people elsewhere. Nudge said she tricked the sphinxes (plural) so maybe she tricked the rest of the sphinxes, separately. IIRC (I can’t find it), Bud told Shelly that Phix killed people until she was stumped by an answer and Nudge said the sphinxes “did their jobs” until one of them got an answer that stumped her, so maybe that’s what stopped the sphinxes, rather than having a book thrown at one of them. However, if this is true, then Phix allowed Nudge to be misleading in front of Monica without correcting her immediately.
“Phix is in a hell of her own making, I wouldn’t wish her fate on anyone”-Brandi
“as to the monster I once was…”-Phix
the power of words have been referenced more than often in this in the GG’s controls
do these count as foreshadowing… the rest can be explained by Nudge being incognito
Ok, seriously, creatures the just shred books without checking what is in them first fails to qualify as wise. Then again, I always figured that riddles were a tool to make people look smarter than they really were.
No kidding. The one book that has the power to release Nudge is freely available to her to give out and not securely locked away somewhere? Not even close to “wise.”
:/ Maybe that’s where the “trick” was? Getting access to the book?
I dunno.
All books wind up where she was. Maybe they wrote it somewhere else and locked it up and forgot about the library getting a copy? But if so, the original would still exist.
So many little things that just make no sense.
A library with all the written knowledge of the ages.
Stack after stack of shelves. Has any one ever heard of “Hiding in plain sight”?
Yeah. If Nudge had merely had someone who was mortal or less powerful than Phix destroy the book (“Look! Some sort of weird magic! It should be burned!”), she wouldn’t have had hide for centuries. Having Phix destroy the book wasn’t wise, either.
Not sure which “She” Oedipus threw the book at — Likely his mother — but have to review the Greek story to recall the details of her fate. Interesting tie-in to this story line!
Anybody recall what else happened to Oedipus’ mother? Other than that she hung herself (see link above)?
There must be another She in the story somewhere….
From Wikipedia:
Comedian Emo Phillips asked British Talk Show Host Terry Wogan that same question. Wogan gave him that answer, but Emo said, “You’re wrong, it’s a donkey! Who has four legs in the morning. In the afternoon, you chop two of them off and at night you glue one of them back on!”
Bah! We’re in Wapsi world! Who wants to follow the Greek myth exactly? 🙂 Besides, everyone knows that stories are altered in the repeated telling until they become less like actuality and more like allegory (or sometimes hyperbole).
If you do a little research, you will discover a lot of the tale of Oedipus with which we are familiar is add-on to the original myth – it’s a tale which was retold many times, with many variations.
really? I’ve done research on Greek mythology and the only place i found Oedipus was the Theban plays by Sophocles and some plays by Aeschylus. Since these people lived at approximately the same time this may not constitute “a myth” but all the elements are found in other stories (eg. the shepherd abandonment was used in many other myths including Herodotus’ explanation of Cyrus’ upbringing and rise to power)
I challenge the idea that Oedipus was a “myth” per say but more a stew made of familiar parts of old myths in a new way so that it would survive.
There’s a bit more – it was apparently a known myth – check this section of the Wikipedia article i quoted earlier.
Some researchers actually documented Julie’s assertion that oral retelling shapes stories. In the Balkans, they found a woman who had been involved as an adolescent in a love triangle. The oral version had one boy throwing himself off a cliff after a fight; the woman said that he accidently tripped, and had lasted for some days before dying.
Yes, myths change over the centuries of being told, I see that and have no problem with inconsistancies with ancient myths and this story, but things now are not even consistant with the rest of the story as presented here.
(That’s because they are oral myths??)
I think “she” would have had to have been Phix, since Phix was the person who was trapped. I assume that Oedipus answered the riddle with “The answer is in here, bitch!”
That seems dumb compared to what Paul has come up with before, but I can’t think of anything better than that.
I agree with you. I see it going down like this: Nudge says, “There’s the book, throw it @ the Sphinx and recite this incantation: ‘The ans wer isn ereb itch!’ “.
Reminds me of the scene I saw on a rerun of “The Odd Couple” once. The slob character (I forget the name) got the other to recite the chant:
Owha tagoo siam, faster and faster.
Oedipus gives me a complex…
It seems obvious that Nudge, and probably everybody else, could not harm the book; only a sphinx could. So, they though it was safe from harm. It’s hard to think, “Wait, what book is that?” when a demon infested human is throwing things at you. So, they’re not so dumb.
so what guy throws something at you, dodge, fly up, and hide behind human in case it’s a grenade. Call it forfeight since he used a projectile weapon and eat the guy. Problem solved.
Remember, any violence around the book causes it to crumble to dust. So in reality the very act of throwing it at the sphinx could have caused it to go *poof* and giving Nudge her chance.
we don’t know that that was there from the start or whether said clause was added later to prevent a reccurrence
Well, the part about it being recreated in the library worked. I think you had to act aggressively toward the book, itself. If Oedipus tossed the book gently enough, that might not have counted. Phix shredding it or just swiping at it angrily would have. Personally, I wouldn’t classify Phix’s reaction as wise or dumb.
Tricksters often have trouble keeping from saying too much, as we have observed previously,with the results backfiring on them. Coyote got himself pregnant once….
Loki turned into a mare and then birthed the 8 legged horse that one time…
man, Gods have the kookiest sex lives.
What about that farm girl that let a swan go ‘all the way’ on a first date?
I hear she Leda egg, but then the tale goes to Helen a handbasket.
Avoid dark alleys. And keep checking your six.
Punder Twins Unite!!
Actually that was great.
Even with fatuncle’s advice, it is over for you…
These are the YOLKS, folks.
With all the intelligent sounding comment coming before me I’d fell bad makin a furry joke, so I’m just gonna ask why an ancient immortal and likely indestructible being would require glasses.
Presbyopia.
Or maybe because they maker her look more “bookish”.
Sort of like:
Q: What does a blonde call red hair dye?
A: Artificial Intelligence.
Q: Why are blonds always bubbly?
A: Their attention span is so short, the world is constantly new and exciting!
I didn’t know Presbyterians required glasses as part of their faith… 😛
What about the Presbyters (Priests or Elders) themselves?
Ugh!
hsssss
The Old Wolf: We use them when taking Communion. Otherwise, we have to pass around the bottle, which isn’t sanitary, and moreover results in the last few in line coming up dry …
ROFL!
(What’s the correction factor on those glasses?)
“A fiasco is a small Italian wine bottle.”
“If stuck with a fiasco, make spectacles of yourself so tou’ll have glasses for the wine.”
(Chapter titles from John Brunner’s The Jagged Orbit…)
Sphinxes are neither immortal, nor indestructable. The one at Thebes jumped from the city wall and died.
I don’t know about that. I’m beginning to distrust my Bulfinch’s.
I think it is the badge of office of the Librarian. If Nudge loses, I bet they appear on her. ‘Cause you know sexuh-librarians have to have pince-nez.
Okay, so the whole ‘riddle’ thing was Oedipus making himself out to look more intelligent than he really was.
Real Scene: *throws book at woman-thing, watches her vanish, realizes this is not gonna make for an Epic Hero story*
What He Told People: “Yeah so this snarkly little so-n-so came up with a totally unsolvable riddle, and guess what?! I solved it! Yeah, no you can’t check in with her about it she… uh… jumped into the Ocean. No, she’s dead now, you can’t find her.”
“So… what was the riddle?”
“Uhh… hang on! *runs off to ask his mom for a really stupidly obvious riddle that seems metaphysical and awesome*”
You mean his Bride?
They must have all resided the the deep southern part of Greece.
I would like to point out that incest has been around for ages (and used to be promoted as a good way to keep the bloodlines pure)…and yet the Southern United States gets ragged for it the most. That’s just silly.
I think it goes back to the old days when mountain folk lived in pretty much isolation. Close relative breeding was all too common then. You know how it goes. Do something once and you’re haunted by it forever. One guy from Arkansas has a really difficult time opening a coke bottle and suddenly every bottle made there has “open other end” on the bottom. It’s just not fair. Funny, but not fair.
i always thought it was the royalty that was ragged for inbreeding the most
All sexually reproductive species are incestuos. Remember if you are getting intimate with some one, at best they are some extremely distance cousin.
Intermarriage of people related to what we now call an incestuous degree was widely practiced in the ancient Greek world as a means of holding power and wealth close. It’s still practiced in the Arab world today – cousin marriage is common and sought after.
As a famous example, Cleopatra. Look up her history. (And before someone calls me on it, Cleopatra was Greek, not Egyptian.)
well tricked or not
phix did say she didnt like who she was so maybe being tricked was not such a bad thing after all.
and if she had not been tricked, could she have help saved m and co?
Is it me, or does it seem implied that Phix is the one that Nudge told ol’ Oedipus to throw the book at?
“You knew it would condemn those responsible for it’s destruction to take your place.”
This could mean Sphinxes in general, Phix implied on the previous page that she got the job because she was “lowest on the totem pole.” But I’m suspecting personal involvement here.
Implied? No. Pretty straight out said. “Condemn those responceable to take your place” says Phix. Who has her place?
If not Phix herself, then she inherited the post from her predecessors (not knowing how these sphinxes reproduce (if they do), I hesitate to say her parents).
I suppose she could have it both ways, say if she was only the one stationed there (where she would end up with the book thrown at her) only because it was the station of the lowest on the totem pole…
It’s as if Phix was one sphinx part of the time and the entire set of sphinxes at others. Both Nudge and Phix said that Nudge tricked the sphinxes (plural), yet Oedipus threw the book at her (singular) and she (singular) ripped it to shreds. At least one sphinx must keep watch in the library, but it didn’t seem to matter which one, so Phix got the job.
My best guess is that the sphinxes combined themselves into one entity when they were hunting the rogues or maybe they had a Borg-type collective consciousness. This confused the spell that forced Phix to replace Nudge, so it thinks only one sphinx is required to stand watch, but it doesn’t know which sphinx it is. Yes, that doesn’t make much sense, but it’s the best I can come up with.
Having the sphinxes split and combine might be Paul’s way of dealing with the fact that the Greek myths only referred to one sphinx, but there seemed to be multiple sphinxes in Southeast Asia. Only he knows what he is thinking, though.
I suddenly have a mental image of a Risk board with little sphinxes and demons…
there’s an app for that…
that would be an awesome app now all i need is an Ipod
Resistance is futile…
No, resistance is V*I
+1 Geek Electro-points for that one!
E * I
Please.
Actually it’s:
E= Volts, I= Current, R= Resistance
E= I * R
I= E / R
R= E / I
Um, actually E*I = Power. Resistance=E/I. But then power is really where it’s at.
Agggh. I knew that. I just edited the original post without actually thinking about the formula.
I promise, i do know Ohm’s Law.
Thirty years as a tech will sort of guarantee that.
I tried to post the 4 formulas but each time it would not post.
Oooh, that’s an “Oh shit!” look on Nudge’s face if ever I saw one. Great update!
Looks more like a “Glork! Nudge breathe again soon, okay?”
I agree with Xavienne. It doesn’t make sense, though. Nudge looks as if she was caught off guard, but if Nudge knew enough to figure out how to free herself, why wouldn’t she have known about that, too?
Knowledge doesn’t always equate to appropriate action. I know that I have a tendency to avoid work when it seems overwhelming instead of working on it in small stages. I also know that if I take it step by step, it won’t be overwhelming at all. I still avoid work if it seems overwhelming at first glance.
Yes, I think the reality of her fate has just sunk in.
Keep Moving Forward
All this is about a story, that we may not have been told the true about, by a hero who had a demon mentor or mother. Phix could not have been as smart as she is now when she was hit with that book, but she had a lot of reading material after that.
Here and Now that Nudge is back in the Library, Is she now stuck to remain?
PBH
Oh sorry about the double post
another question, yet to be answered …..Are Demon inflected humans always alive or are they dead like Tina 2.0? Rough demons running around as live humans.
AFAIK, all humans have personal demons. Most people don’t have the ability to communicate with them the way Monica does, but they are still there. Tina is the only dead human body running around that we know of. Jin acted as if that were very unusual, but the same thing could happen if Monica is killed, rather than dieing naturally.
Regarding your first post, since Nudge was able to leave once the book was destroyed, she should be able to leave. However, if the book was automatically recreated, like other books are, but there was a delay which allowed her to leave before it was recreated, then she might be trapped again. Perhaps Phix was able to recreate the book or arrange something else for Nudge.
In the moments that the book needed to be recreated back in the Library, Nudge used that time to escape.
Thanks for clarifying that.
Where’s Tina ???
OK, we now have been told of a use for the Library – a depository for writs of law.
Huh? We were already told it was a depository for all books. If you write law in a book, it would be there too.
I am speaking to the original purpose of the Library, one of the basic reasons for it to have been created in the first place.
So was I. Phix said that Nudge was the original librarian and she made it sound as if the library would contain “all of the knowledge of the universe” at the time Nudge got stuck there, so I was interpreting it as if that was the idea from the very beginning. I didn’t consider the possibility of there being a library before there was a librarian. I would think that someone would have to manage it somehow. In any case, I don’t see any particular connection between Nudge’s book and the purpose of the library.
I don’t think she said Nudge was, necessarily, the original Librarian – just that Nudge was, at one time, locked in as the Librarian.
“Nudge is the original librarian.” I took it to mean exactly that.
I wondered if the original purpose of the library was to serve as a punishment for Nudge. If Nudge pissed off the equivalent of gods, they might have tried to come up with a frustrating punishment designed just for Nudge. Yesterday, Phix said, “[T]hey locked her up here in the library [with] [a]ll of the knowledge of the universe and no one to trick.” The idea would be to provide her with tons of ideas and information for tricks to play on people, but no ability to do any of it, herself. That would be a very frustrating situation for Nudge. But that would have to mean that the gods never expected anyone to to visit the library! Maybe they thought they already knew everything they needed to know and everyone else was so far off their radar that they didn’t predict what anyone else would do. Maybe humanity turned out to be a far more curious species than they ever expected to develop. (They must not have watched old Star Trek episodes, otherwise they would have known better.) I don’t know how the portal annexes for humans were created, though. I can’t believe that Nudge would have been given the ability to initiate contact with anyone, otherwise she would have had people to play tricks on. Also, Nudge said the Sphinxes replaced her and had to keep watch in the library, so that sounds as if that was Nudge’s original job, which is inconsistent with the punishment idea. The only reason to guard the library would be if the information had value to someone other than Nudge. But why would anyone select a trickster to guard anything of value? So anyway, it started to make sense to me, but it didn’t last long.
I said it didn’t think so; i was in too much of a hurry to check back.
So i was wrong.
Please ignore that comment.
Pretend it does not exist.
That it was never typed.
That you didn’t see it.
That i didn’t, therefore, wind up looking like a prat.
OK, I’ve used white-out to cover that portion of the screen.
The Library must have one hell of a filing system… I wonder if they’ve updated to digital or if they are still on an old card system
Perhaps it has no filing system. That may have been part of the original punishment. Having to find things by trail and error.
It’s a long long trail a-winding…
Well, you can’t expect them to give Nudge a car and roads to drive on.
How about a Segway?
Now back to work, you! And FYI, you have used up all your coffee breaks for the next couple of millennium.
I don’t think this is going to go the way Phinx wants it to go. I think Nudge is carrying a “get out of Jail free card.”
Yes. It’s called, “Monica”.
No, I think it’s called “Tina”.
I’m betting it’s Tina.
Could be. Perhaps Phix will find out Tina cannot function without Nudge and will have to reach some sort of compromise.
With Pablo driving the bus, we can be sure that there will be more twists in this road than on Lombard Street. Nice work, sir! 😀
Paul might want to keep Nudge in the library. Monica got so self-confident that Doubt wasn’t much of a threat to her anymore. That’s good for Monica, but not good from a story telling point of view. If a trickster was in charge of all of the knowledge that Monica depends on, that might really mess up Monica’s self-confidence. OTOH, if Nudge got inside Monica, that might have the same effect.
Nudge is the last person who should be allowed to be in the library. If Phix has any sense and loyalty to the library, she would throw Nudge out of there. What would be the point of guarding the library against adventurers if you don’t guard it against Nudge?
Hey. Where is Tina???
I <3 Phixy. ^__^
I want to see her running around in the world freely. That'd be cool.
In full aspect or as tall librarian?
Yes! and I know that’s a non-answer answer.
So, Nudge may have her job back, but with supervision. Either Phix checks in on her regular-like, or her link with Tina is upgraded appropriately.
You may escape … but if/when you get caught you have to continue your sentence. And worst off, more time is added to your sentence.
What’s a Century (or two) added to Forever?
She did the job without supervision before she escaped. What’s the betting that, if she’s stuck there, Phix would be her supervisor? That would make things interesting…. (for us)….
As long as it’s a finite amount of time, according to Cantor, it’s no problem. However, if it’s a larger transfinite cardinal…
I get the impression she is in there indefinitely, or until the Sphinxes figure out something else to do with her. I also doubt they are working that problem very hard. They just want her out of their hair. For that matter, they may want Phix out of their hair as well, what with her moralizing about killing humans. She probably annoys the other sphinxes as well.
Awww–a rational, serious answer to a wisenheimer comment.
If I’m not careful to whom I smart off, I could end up next to Nudge’s Bibliothiki in the brand new, sparkly Computer Center, equipped with several thousand abaci…
Hmmm. the URL says this is comment page #1. I nver saw that with the other comments pages, so how o we read page 2?
There may not be a page two as yet.
I have to laugh at the tenor of the comments for today’s strip. Guys, Wapsi Square has been up and running for ten years. Do you honestly expect Paul to wrap up, in a single week, a major cusp in the plot? Start complaining that it doesn’t make sense at the end of next week, or next month, if we haven’t figured it out yet!
Tune in next week for: Negotiations!
will the negotiations be short? *draws lightsaber*
Excellent point, sir!
Well, not holding my breath on this one.
Will it be OK if Monica does it? She should go ballistic. Or maybe curl up in a fetal position. I’m not sure which.
It turns out that her good friend Tina wasn’t who she thought she was. Monica thought she could trust Nudge, but she turned out to be a trickster. Much of what Monica probably thought she knew about Phix was wrong. The purpose of the library is very much in question. On top of that, Jin is still a dangerous schizophrenic, Monica can’t know how much harm was done to what is now Tina 2.5 and the future of the library is uncertain. Yeesh!
I’m surprised that you would be surprised that people are reacting the way they are. This is mild compared to what you would expect from Monica under the same circumstances. I think you are totally wrong about anyone expecting Paul to have things resolved quickly; we just didn’t expect to get clobbered upside the head so hard in the first place. We still don’t know why it looked like Monica was talking in the glyph language to the Orion constellation years ago or what the glyph language means, so why would you think that anyone expected the current stuff to be resolved in a week?
People are problem solvers. With out the accomplishing of task, either chosen or necessary, the species would not survive.
Phix’s words in the second panel make the library (or at least the book itself) appear to be sentient, sapient, and conscious. Most interesting. The library subjugates/enslaves a being in order to have a way to maintain and protect itself.
Perhaps it is more of a metaphor. Much in the same way that genes can be said to use bodies to ensure their own survival and propagation, the books of a library can be said to use a librarian to ensure their own survival and scholars to ensure their own propagation.
The difference with this magic library being the fact that every book ever written from every time-line has a copy ‘poited’ into existence within the library, so all authors are the scholars, but the role of a librarian still needs to be filled.
I think someone has been watching too much Harry Potter.
I neither watch nor read Harry Potter. Your assumptions are misplaced.
Wapsi Square has broken through the 100 barrier of the Top 100 Web Comics list! Keep Voting!
I was AFK for a few days, and two-three days noticed (thanks to eschmenk’s links postings) the Wall of Skulls behind Phix in Monsteriwas and the Wall of Skulls behind Monica in Haveusback, and at the time (three days late), posted the following (a bit edited here) – which I’ve noticed no one else commented on – and I’d like to read what all y’all think about this.
OK, notice that both have a Wall of Skulls as the background. Is it the same wall of skulls (which raises a hellalot of questions)? Or, are they separate? For Phix, I conjecture those are the skulls of her victims – but Monica’s wall????
Paul, methinks you are setting us up for a multidimensional plot twist here, dang your excellent story-writing skills!!! 🙂
I seem to recall someone here having said there may not actually be a wall of skulls as such. That they were just a thing being imagined by the characters involved. Something symbolic of death images. Certainly that was the case in the latter link you posted, and could have simply been reflective of Phix’s thoughts in the former.
I think Paul said they were real skulls…
What about the Wall of Voodoo?
That’s camouflaged; you have to listen to Mexican radio to find it.
I am beginning to worry about Tina. She hasn’t uttered a peep or (apparently) moved after Nudge was extracted.
For all intents and purposes, Nudge appears to BE Tina. She’s the mover and shaker behind the whole demon collective that’s animating Tina’s body.
I think that Phix is operating under some wrong assumptions here. She might think that Tina is an ordinary human, posessed by Nudge. But what is she going to do if it turns out that there is no Tina left without Nudge?
We haven’t seen Tina at all since Sphinx’s little “It’s Clobberin’ Time!” episode. We saw her fist past thru Tina and connect with Nudge and push down and out of Tina. But where has Tina ended up???
Try again, with all the characters this time <a href="http://wapsisquare.com/comic/eluding-me/" Eluding me
Last try http://wapsisquare.com/comic/eluding-me/ Eluding me
Tina still appears to have the reflective eyes in that one. Ergo, demon-animated Tina. a very very silent Tina. I think Phix dropped the ball on this one…
“Be vewwy vewwy guiet – I’m avoiding sphinxes…”
Actually, we saw on the floor looking dazed, but still with the spirals in her eyes, the following day. I assume she’s still there.
Jin seemed to think that Tina’s demons could run Tina without assistance and Tina’s doesn’t mention Nudge, so perhaps Tina will be OK without Nudge. I’m not all that worried yet about Tina’s dazed state. We’ve seen something similar before. But it sounded like Tina wouldn’t have even made it out of the morgue without Nudge, so IDK. Of course, that would be a time when a trickster’s talents might be particularly useful. “I was just pretending! Really!” 🙂
so he threw the book at her?
I don’t remember seeing that on The Simpsons.
Even as a demon, Nudge/Tina is scared shitless! (who wouldn’t be with that giantess)
Well, you know the old saying; The bigger they are, the harder they flatten you.
Phix has an interesting concept of “temporary.”
Everything is relative, I guess.
Just caught up (over the past 3-4 days). Incredibly consistent story flow, love it. Glad it’s continuing past the “finale” – few do.
Thanks!
Is that a Mirror Mask reference…?