And actually, Bia’s statement seems to be what Phix was getting at…action born of omnipotence should trump any thought of consequence, therefore “losing control” has no real consequence of substance, almost by definition.
txmystic
July 3, 2012 at 12:40 am | # | Reply
And actually, Bia’s statement seems to be what Phix was getting at…action born of omnipotence should trump any thought of consequence, therefore “losing control” has no real consequence of substance, almost by definition.
By that way of thinking Shelly is human and the rest of us are ants. So what if you step on one there are lots more where that one came from. That is a nasty willful child who shouldn’t be allowed out to play. If that is the way gods, or titans are it is no wonder they are now generally forgotten and deposited in the dustbin of history.
That seems to almost have been a defining characteristic of Olympian gods as a class… they generally seemed to be heedless of the consequences to humans of their godly actions. Not universally true, but very common… humans were playthings, or incidental participants, but not seen as equals-of-consequence.
Bias final statement could also be meant in the other direction. By omnipotence Shelly could also feel the pain of any damage she causes for eternity, Basically if she kills someone innocent she will have that bit of hell with her forever.
We are not sure if she is or isn’t. Her statement about being a “Mortal Sphinx” was said before she knew about her Titan heritage. She could have been wrong about that.
True enough…though we already know she’s not invulnerable to harm (while in human form at least), so if she’s immortal, then there are some serious suck-points to her situation. 😛
The way it’s sounded in the past is that she is not immortal in the sense of beings like Bia herself – she can be killed. But she is immortal in the sense that she will not die of old age (80k+ years in the forest, and she still looks like she’s in her 20’s!).
So I guess by “official” terminology she is not immortal, but she is … timeless, I think the term is?
Omnipitence implies beyond demigod. A thought; Shelly is a gardian Sphinx and a Titan. Yet she has ties to earth and its dezinens. She is beyond ancient, yet is young at heart. Brandi’s deal to keep interdimentional visitors out can’t last forever. At some point, the shield protecting earth WILL be dismantled, either by accident or by design. (There are always crazy cultists out there wanting to see the return of some edrich abomination.) Maybe all of this, the 57 time loops, the malfunctioning calander machine, Shelly’s time in the forrest, was to prepare the world for that day. So when the barriers come down and things that man has forgotten come out of the night, there will be something powerful waiting for them. A Titan Protector with unmesurable power and a sense of duty to world that gave her life. Or maybe I have no clue. Either way, great page, Paul.
Shelly: “Huh. Could have sworn we said that to Monica already. And then Bud and I went and sorta killed her… again. Not inspiring me with boatloads of confidence ma.”
It’s an SF / fantasy in-joke catchphrase. In one of the “Incomplete Enchanter” stories, the protagonist was stuck in a Norse-mythology dungeon; one of the other prisoners did nothing but shout “Yngvi is a louse” through the bars of his cell every few minutes. So, in their pun-filled parody story “The Flying Sorcerers”, Niven and Gerrold had their shaman Shoogar use the word “yngvi” as a verb which (as you observe) clearly means “to louse up”. I’ve always liked that, and steal it occasionally when posting in contexts where using the F-word phrase might be considered rude.
I believe that Yngvi is, in fact, a traditional old-Norse name.
Why is Yngvi a louse? Simple… he forgot how important it is not to lesnerize.
Deep spirituality teaches us to not be answerable to law or the authority just *because* they are the law or authority. We are our own authority, us mortals.
This answers where Shelly falls in the supernatural hirearchy. At the top. Aboove the demons and GGs and Sphinxes. Above EVERYONE except the other Titans. Which means Tina’s threat to stop her heart back when was an empty one even if our demon barista didn’t realize it. Shelly is Immortal and Omnipotent and has apparently come into her own. I think that was why Phix was crying as much as anything else. Damn.
Pretty sure Shelly is not immortal. Now I have to go back through the achives to find the reference. Shelly herself siad she wasn’t but I forgot how she got the information. All that time in the forest was outside our space time and did not count toward her age at all. So powerful yes. Omnipotent no. When Tina tricked her into crushing the coffee pot it hurt. Or did Paul change her abilities when he promoted her to titanhood?
Must be careful saying that around Shelly as you would never be able to check you oil again without a welding torch.
Immortal and omnipotent in her Sphinx form and when away from Earth on the other various planes. When human on earth, mortal — very strong, but mortal.
Omnipotence as consequence?? I immediately thought of the profession joke:
Doctors bury their mistakes. Architects plant vines.
What ever Shelly does, she is going to have to live with it, whether she likes it or not. THAT’s the consequence.
Tina’s threat wasn’t an empty one. Shelly hasn’t had these new powers until recently. Tina definitely could have done that to Shelly back then. We saw first-hand how Tina was still able to manipulate Shelly when the duo confronted Human-Nudge, and that was pure accidental manipulation.
Proof? The past 56 cycles. Past-Shelly versions were very mortal, we even witnessed Shelly indirectly kill one of them. If Shelly had been immortal from the get-go:
1) The whole “spirit journey” plan of Jin’s and Nudge’s never would have worked.
2) There’d be other versions of Shelly running about (those that entered the forest).
3) Shelly wouldn’t have needed protecting from the other Sphinxes by CG and Phix while Shelly spent the 80k years in the time forest.
4) (this one is conjecture) Based on Jin’s ramblings, Jin and/or Brandi may have ‘messed up’ a few of the past cycles and killed everyone, which would seem to include Shelly.
Not to mention in Wapsi-verse death seems to be little more than a minor setback, usually making you even stronger afterwards (Monica, Tina, pre-Sphinx Shelly, Bud, Brandi, Jin, Maya, Tepoz, etc).
Hmmm. Bia has used the phrases “heir of a Titan” and “offspring of a Titan”, which both seem to imply a fairly direct relationship. She did not say “descended from a Titan”, which would suggest a more distant relationship.
Could it be, perhaps, that Shelly’s mother was more than just a Comanche woman? Was her death as simple (or as actual) as we have been led to believe? Or, perhaps, her father is more than he seems?
Or maybe 2 sets of highly recessive genes (sphinx and titan) decided to simultaneously express themselves after a couple hundred generations. If you have a several dozen coupled gene pairs that are all recessive, the likelihood it showing up in any generation can get awfully small.
There have been other fantasies where someone descended from a demigod/demiurge/whatever through manymany completely human generations suddenly manifests the full boat.
It could be that Shelly is going to be the mother of the true heir, once she and Justin settle down. Remember how this “conversation” started. The reason to match them up is to mate them up. And, as FPF said about magical genetics…
OKaaay. So Shellynx has been upgraded from mere female (yeah, right!) to sphinx to omnipotence. But is she still mortal??? After the time forest, she (or someone else), said that she (and Connie), was mortal but was that really true? Was it just an assumption or another of Paul’s misdirections?
If Shellynx is mortal – why? Mortality and omnipotence seem a bit opposite and contradictory. Hard to believe and needing a lot of explaining.
If Shellynx is immortal then what about her ancestors? They must be immortal as well. Having Sphinx and Titan genes in your heritage should certainly preclude the need for doctors and undertakers, I would think!
Does this mean that Shelly’s father has hidden and/or latent powers? Does it mean that Shelly will get to see her mom again?
It just doesn’t make much sense for Shelly to be omnipotent without being also immortal as well as her ancestors.
It may have taken an unlikely set of circumstanses to activate Shelly’s dormant blood lines. In all likelyhoood none of her ancestors in the eaons between Bia and Shelly went through what was nessesary to awaken thier latenent heritage. Shelly is literally one in a million. As far as being mortal? Shelly said she would have a normal human lifespan. She did. It ended the day she died on her vision quest. Her insisting to Monica that she would live and die as a normal human was either, 1. She believed it to be true. 2. She lied to Monica to make her feel better about the whole thing. 3. She knew she HAD lived a normal human life already, but after being dumped abruptly back into her former life, she went into denial that she had really changed all that much. Given her knowledge and experience, I think 3 is most likely. As far as her mortality, unless Paul pops up and says otherwise, I’m going to assume that Shelly is in fact Immortal.
Both the omnipotence, and immortality, may be “latent” attributes… not becoming active and relevant until a certain stage in the individual’s life, or until certain conditions exist to trigger them (vis. “Highlander” immortality)
We know, for example, that the other Shellys (1 through 56) were neither omnipotent nor invulnerable… many of them died in the Time Forest during their own respective CM loops.
Even if Shelly’s ancestors had “latent” Titan or sphinx characteristics, and were potentially immortal, it seems quite possible that these parts of their heritage were never “activated” by the right circumstances i.e. none of these folks ever got sucker-punched into an alternate time-dimension for an eons-long stasis-vacation.
Shelly may be the first in many generations to inherit a sufficient combination of sphinx and titan genes, and to have been manipulated into a situation where she would live long enough for these aspects of herself to develop. Nature and nurture, as it were.
One begins to wonder if there was an actual multi-generation “breeding program” in place, to make Shelly’s birth happen and make this all possible. She might not be the first Wahnee to have a potential mate nudged into her path.
Hmmm. Latent omnipotence bit hard to buy. It is hard for us to truly grasp what omnipotence really is I would guess it would be akin to grokking infinity), but to think that it is “controllable” enough to be triggered by an event is really straining the suspension of belief – even for a comic strip.
Likewise a genetic basis. Although not linear, genetics do seem to work in incremental steps – not a plethora of simultaneous mutations. Even at one in a million would imply thousands more omnipotents around – remember we have 6 thousand million people here just in this generation let alone including previous ones.
I suspect the basis will involve some manipulation by the Titans or other super beings but in the end – it is a fantasy comic strip.
Don’t confuse omnipotence (all powerful) with omniscient (all knowing).
Heracles was omnipotent, but could be dumb as rocks when he was determined to be. (There could be a bit of ancestry there as well, given Shelly’s stubbornness at not learning what everyone is teaching).
Of course, he wasn’t really stupid. He just forgot which body part to think with now and then. (Still sounds like Shelly).
In Terry Prachett’s novel, “Mort”, the anthropromorphic personification of Death adopts a son, and as the son of Death, Mort gains a mesure of his power. Later, after he dies, his daughter, Susan, inherits her father’s power as the grandaughter of Death. When she protests that is not how hereditary works, Death informs her that it does when magic is involved.
I think something similar is going on with Shelly. It’s more than just genetics, otherwise the bloodline would be so diluted that there’d be nothing left. I think that Shelly IS a decendant of the Titans and Sphinxes, but millions if not billions people would be. Bia calls her the Offspring off Titans, not a decendant. I think everything leading to this point from her death on the vision quest to her time in the Time Forrest to her return earned her the power and prestige she has now. Her genes are actually a small part of the picture.
Immortality is certainly not necessary for omnipotence. It makes sense to pair the two, but it seems fairly logical that in the passage of time (and the blending of humanity with Titan and Sphinx) that both traits wouldn’t be kept.
I also think that it’s likely omnipotence is not actually the best descriptor for Shelly’s abilities. While she seems to be fairly invulnerable to harm and ridiculously powerful in sphinx form, she has limitations in human form…unless (as Dave postulated) her Titanic heritage included latent abilities that will alter what she can and can’t do in human form.
Huh? If you don’t have power over death, then there must be at least one thing you don’t have power over. The only way to be mortal while being omnipotent is if you willed it or allowed yourself to be mortal. If you didn’t have the choice, then clearly you can’t be omnipotent.
Well, I guess it depends on how omnipotent. Old gods had ways in which each were omnipotent, but all had limitations. Even the titans could be defeated.
Would be interesting to study how the concept of “omnipotence” evolved in that area of the world. We’ll have to see how much it affects the story, but cosmology evolves.
That’s an idea that hangs up a lot of people. But ancient faiths had an insight into it with heroes ascending to Olympus, as we’re seeing here.
(!)
Herakles ascended to become god of strength, duplicating Kratos‘ sphere.
Well to be fair, such overlap isn’t that uncommon.
Oceanus (as in Bia’s grandfather) originally represented all bodies of salt water, but later on Poseidon came into the mix, so he only represented the Atlantic at that point.
Plus Kratos was the personification of Strength, as opposed to a Deity of it. Bit similar to how Thanatos is the personification of Death, whereas everyone considers Hades a Death God, while he only does the Afterlife technically.
Course Nike doesn’t help in that matter, as she was originally a personification, but ended up a deity in her own right as well.
It could be theoretically possible to be omnipotent, with power even over Life and Death and still be mortal.
You see, there’s this one moment-place in all of space-time where you WILL die. There is no avoiding it. Eventually you will be there-then and you’ll be done.
Where-when that point is… who knows? It could be tomorrow, it could be a billion years from now. It could be tomorrow but it will take you a billion years to get then.
Who knows?
For those needing another example of how one could be mortal yet ageless – think Wolverine. He is not immortal but has been around quite a while (a century, at least, that we know of) and Professor X speculated could be around for a VERY long time. Was thought he was perhaps the first known mutant and would likely outlive them all if he didn’t die in combat.
Seems aging, from the body’s perspective, is just another kind of damage so a mutant healing factor was more than enough to make him quasi-immortal: a mortal who could die but not of old age.
I forget who it was, who said something like “We most readily teach, the very things which we most need to learn.”
Somewhat along the same lines: “Not a problem. Zathras do. Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other peoples’ needs. Very sad life. Probably have very sad death. But, at least there is symmetry.”
Quiet a few sensies (martial arts teachers) from the orient said they learned more in the United States about their own disiplines simply because their students in the US asked one question they never had the nerve to ask their own mentors…
Omnipotence is defined all powerful. Shelly is afraid to use what power she has now. But, to gain MORE power, she must learn to use what she has. Her actions will have consequences, and one of them will be to become omnipotent. But only if she lets her self act!
Phix has said that, basically, Shelly WILL kill someone. That someone WILL need killing. Big B has said that, when that time comes, it will lead to omnipotence.
I only wonder what kind of “omipotence” we are talking about here.
Supes-class? Pissed-off Hulk class? Q? Zeus? Odin? “omni-“potence is a bit vague, and is never the end-it-all of power, at least not in any fiction that I know of.
You know, I actually read it as “conscience” instead of “consequence” until I saw your comment. I think you’re right…unless Bia is trying to say something particular in a very complicated way.
Main Entry: consequence
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: person’s status
Synonyms: cachet, dignity, distinction, eminence, notability, position, prestige, rank, repute, standing, state, stature, status
Huh. Every time Shelly’s powers or standing in the supernatural world gets elevated, I can’t help but flashback to this comic. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/too-late/
bud: “How does the Chronosphere of the Sun feel today?”
Shellinx: “Auwaahh! Hot, hot, hot..wait ‘chronosphere’?? You did that on purpose, did you! Well..I ought to…..I..I grmbll”
Bud: “Oh? Next time I’ll let you savour the smells of the gas-giants…”
In short: I do not support the notion that a Golem can be knocked-around by a Sphinx-Titan. The titans got their asses handed to them by the Olympians. Thusly: Not Omnipotent.
The point of a Golem is that it’s a TRUE unbeatable construct, to be steered and commandeered by external parties.
The fact that we are dealing with Golems with self-awareness and a consciousness, throws one serious spanner in the works of the hiërarchy of the old gods.
I don’t think that May is the only one who can “alter the programming” on the golems. Didn’t Tepoz do something along those lines waaaay back when? I’d bet that anyone who can write in glyph could affect the GGG (and May and Tepoz).
Yes, but does Bud have knowledge and experience to show Shelley, or is Bud the “bad example” of someone who did bad before becoming the good guy? Yes, I agree we shouldn’t judge Bud for her earlier behavior – she was ensorceled.
Nonetheless, it is an experience to avoid if possible (killing innocents), but Bud has also learned to come to terms with it… I can read Bia either way.
shelly is an 80,000 plus year old omnipotent human, sphinx, titan hybrid with a, fully under her control, first of her kind fused demon conscience that scares the feathers off the other sphinx and lets not forget she’s has a real life god for a boy friend…….. set up with said boyfriend no less and she asnwers to no one….
Not by the strict interpretation of Greek mythology. The gods edged out the titans in key places. Helios was a titan, but was replaced by Apollo, a god.
It could be said that titans were a precursor to the gods.
The problem for us is that what we “know” and what is the “truth” in the wapsiverse may not jive.
All it means she’s not a novelty seeker.
Most people can tolerate a little novelty in their lives but Shelly is presently in a state of massive overdose.
Dat Azz!
Ok, now that I got that out of my system.
*resists the tempation to sing Black Eyed Peas “My Humps”*
Oh where was I… oh yes. Bia is a tall drink of water isn’t she?
I love how yesterday, everyone is expecting Bia to berate Shelley for “bullying” Phix in response to having been once again manipulated. (Something that I found quite reasonable to be upset over.)
And today? Bia’s advice is simply “might makes right; do as thou wilt.”
“And on your own head be the consequences of your actions.” Would be the second/last part.
Bia could berate Shelly- but she knows that does not work, said that would not work and why that never works. So why waste time and energy repeating berates Shelly has already heard a thousand times to no result?
No one can ‘make’ Shelly into a better person. That is up to her.
In humans, older beings can teach younger ones by creating tools that circumvent problems, thus allowing the next generation to save the time in relearning problems that no longer exist. Of course, this creates new problems, and in turn new inheritable circumventions.
And so the written word. The Library collects them as an early warning system of this behaviour, due to demons and the possibility of situations like Lanthis.
Prometheus wasn’t wrong to help man, it was his inability to scale his gifts down first. Shelly has acted pretty “answerable” to Bia, and part of Bia’s office is to carry out sentences.
Unstoppable forces can clash too. Bia’s point seems to be that it’s the entirely stoppable people that will keep you in check. Shelly’s played at bully and monster; playtime’s over.
OMNIPOTENCE =/= IMMORTALITY. Just because she has all the power in the world (or so it seems), she CAN die. Bud could waggle her little finger and knock her into the atmosphere – and she’d be toast before she could sphinx out.
Also, OMNIPOTENCE =/= OMNISCIENCE. Just because she has all that power doesn’t mean she suddenly knows everything.
…but if there is a limitation to omnipotence, it is that one must still be true to one’s nature, and as a Sphinx, Shelly’s power to do harm must by her nature be reserved for demons (i.e. those who “damn well deserved it”, as Phix said), not humans, and therefore losing control/sphinxing out should not cause ancillary damage. Bai’s assertion is in agreement with that.
I was reading it as “on your own head be your actions”.
She ain’t all powerful or indestructible; she’s just self governed under a different set of rules/expectations she must adhere to.
Similar to how you follow different procedures when dealing with a nuclear weapon different than when you are handling a machine gun.
She’s still a baby- in that she’s still learning. Maybe more of a teenager who is going through the ‘all they say is “no” and “mine” ‘ phase. :-p
Bia’s put it all on Shelly. There is no restraint more powerful than self-restraint. Omnipotence, is a loaded term. Usually reserved for “one God” in a monotheistic religion. If Bia can turn Shelly over her knee and spank her, Shelly is not omnipotent. If the only one who can, is Bia, and she chooses not to spank her for anything, then Shelly is in effect omnipotent, but not actually omnipotent.
The results are the same, however, Shelly can do whatsoever she pleases. This may or may not be a problem. Shelly was raised as a human with human rules and consequences. Like Clark Kent, she was instilled with good values. It turned out good for Clark, but then I think of the saying, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and then I think of “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Still, I’m betting that Shelly is a force for good, not evil. She needs to go drinking and dancing with Bud.
I was thinking about Kal-El too. Haven’t seen all of Smallville, but his original core backstory was of a wholesome upbringing in whitebread Kansas. His father’s death tended to be offset by his learning of his true, celestial father without too many moral speedbumps. (The specific examples of Supe being a d!ck are legion, but that’s not the core of his myth cycle; he was supposed to be a Mary Supe.)*
Shelly’s loss of her mother cut much deeper, and led her on the path to become who she could, instead of it just being a revelation. Instead of the intrinsic-nature argument and fast turnaround time of Clark or Herakles, Shelly’s heroic journey is the of the long game of nurture: To be human, to be monster, and to be divine. Indeed, her divine nature cannot constrain her capacity for harm, only her human experiences can.
*(Tosses kryptonite of the colour out of space into the jar.)
As for “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, I once started a screenplay where Elizabeth Dehner only pretended to be dead, so the Federation wouldn’t seek out and destroy her. Should have been easy enough for a god to do, right? And so she follows Kirk through the rest of his career, tweaking every situation he seems to solve against all odds.
Those commercial breaks when he goes from despair to smirking confidence? Dehner popped something into his head.
Redshirts? Does any one besides Kirk get so many fall guys? Dehner.
Arguing with killer robots? Please.
Star Trek III is especially fun to watch imagining Sally Kellerman grinning invisibly behind Kirk’s son as he shrugs off his unethical uses of certain prohibited compounds on Genesis.
Yamara, you made my day. When I was a kid, I thought she was so pretty, I didn’t want her to be dead, and imagined she was playing possum. I never thought about her following The Enterprise around saving the day with a ‘nudge’ here and there. This changes everything!!!!!! I must now watch TOS all over again imagining this!
And, straight answers are probably something that Shelly deserves and would appreciate!
If Shelly is now being handed the burden of Titanic omnipotence, and told in effect that she must bear the full moral responsibility of regulating such awesome power, then she certainly ought to be granted the courtesy of being told the full truth about what’s actually going on.
I would say everybody deserves a straight answer. Whether they appreciate it or not is their problem. Does that mean I’m a Titan? I’m not prone to violence, but I am a tad binary about playing nice, and I have a heavily qualified respect for authority.
People from some ethnic groups can be prone to have dark circles around the eyes – Wiki suggests it’s common among those of Mediterranian origin, and I’ve seen some striking examples in people from certain ethnic groups from India. Can be a result of more melanin in the skin in that area, thinning of the skin with age (allows blood vessels to show through), shadowing from deep-set eyes, lack of sleep, allergies.
One hopes that Bia is not allergic to sphinx feathers.
When I first saw Bia as an adult, I thought her eyes were glowing or radiating power or light. I don’t know if I still believe that or not. It could be make-up, but I’m not convinced of that yet.
Well, I’ve said before, you need a certain level of intelligence just to follow the story. Paul dosen’t lay everything out for you. You have to think about it. It’s a troll repellant of sorts.
Yep, and when Paul does the “reveal” of all this secret plan this and Titan scheming that… that’s when we find out that “petrol goo” is actually Napalm… 😀
So – seeing today is Tuesday – we only have 3 more shoes to drop before the week-end summations . Folks – get your cheat-sheets out and make lots of notes ! (:>))
You missed him, illiad… he’s come and gone already.
He just stopped over for a few minutes to buy some beer for his family’s Fourth of July fireworks party later this evening. Apparently they were (are, or will be) running low, and the stores were already closed.
He grabbed a keg of Hermannator (Vancouver Island Brewery), paid for it, and plinked away… ten or eleven hours, I guess.
Must be nice, to be able to take bock to the future.
Hmmm–I tried this morning to post, but apparently it didn’t “take”, as I feared.
Shelly looks rather like she slipped in some spilled toothpaste–in other words, Crest-fallen.
But on a more serious note, I’m hoping that this is another test, that Bia is seeing if she has a conscience and a well-developed moral sense. However, given the track records of Titans and of Greek mythology in general, I’m not expecting much.
The problem with Might Makes Right is that there is almost always someone out there somewhere who is mightier than you. If your Might gives you the Right to do whatever you want to those weaker than you and they have to like it, then the same would be true of you if you met someone stronger than you are. Anything they say goes, and it’s your job to be happy about it.
There’s also collective Might. It doesn’t matter how strong one individual human is, a thousand are stronger. And a civilization of billions? Stronger still.
The real test is, can a Titan survive getting up close and personal with a 50+ megaton thermonuclear detonation? If not, then civilization is Right and the Titan is less Mighty.
And actually, Bia’s statement seems to be what Phix was getting at…action born of omnipotence should trump any thought of consequence, therefore “losing control” has no real consequence of substance, almost by definition.
Exactly.
—-
txmystic
July 3, 2012 at 12:40 am | # | Reply
And actually, Bia’s statement seems to be what Phix was getting at…action born of omnipotence should trump any thought of consequence, therefore “losing control” has no real consequence of substance, almost by definition.
By that way of thinking Shelly is human and the rest of us are ants. So what if you step on one there are lots more where that one came from. That is a nasty willful child who shouldn’t be allowed out to play. If that is the way gods, or titans are it is no wonder they are now generally forgotten and deposited in the dustbin of history.
That seems to almost have been a defining characteristic of Olympian gods as a class… they generally seemed to be heedless of the consequences to humans of their godly actions. Not universally true, but very common… humans were playthings, or incidental participants, but not seen as equals-of-consequence.
Good thing there’s a lot of us.
Bias final statement could also be meant in the other direction. By omnipotence Shelly could also feel the pain of any damage she causes for eternity, Basically if she kills someone innocent she will have that bit of hell with her forever.
Not eternity…Shelly’s not immortal…but certainly for as long as she lives.
We are not sure if she is or isn’t. Her statement about being a “Mortal Sphinx” was said before she knew about her Titan heritage. She could have been wrong about that.
True enough…though we already know she’s not invulnerable to harm (while in human form at least), so if she’s immortal, then there are some serious suck-points to her situation. 😛
The way it’s sounded in the past is that she is not immortal in the sense of beings like Bia herself – she can be killed. But she is immortal in the sense that she will not die of old age (80k+ years in the forest, and she still looks like she’s in her 20’s!).
So I guess by “official” terminology she is not immortal, but she is … timeless, I think the term is?
Being told that you’re (potentially, or actually) omnipotent, and not answerable to any authority…
… well, I think I’d be scared silly, of anyone who was not scared silly after being told that.
To err is human… but to really yngvi things up requires a demigod at least.
Omnipitence implies beyond demigod. A thought; Shelly is a gardian Sphinx and a Titan. Yet she has ties to earth and its dezinens. She is beyond ancient, yet is young at heart. Brandi’s deal to keep interdimentional visitors out can’t last forever. At some point, the shield protecting earth WILL be dismantled, either by accident or by design. (There are always crazy cultists out there wanting to see the return of some edrich abomination.) Maybe all of this, the 57 time loops, the malfunctioning calander machine, Shelly’s time in the forrest, was to prepare the world for that day. So when the barriers come down and things that man has forgotten come out of the night, there will be something powerful waiting for them. A Titan Protector with unmesurable power and a sense of duty to world that gave her life. Or maybe I have no clue. Either way, great page, Paul.
Bia: “Let you omnipotence be your conscience.”
Shelly: “Huh. Could have sworn we said that to Monica already. And then Bud and I went and sorta killed her… again. Not inspiring me with boatloads of confidence ma.”
Bud’s going for the lead spot on the frag chart!
Yngvi is a louse!
No, wait…
The meaning is obvious from context, but why “yngvi”? Wikipedia is no help.
(I have to retype that word every time: my brain now expects to find a ŋ key…)
You got it correctly on the first try.
It’s an SF / fantasy in-joke catchphrase. In one of the “Incomplete Enchanter” stories, the protagonist was stuck in a Norse-mythology dungeon; one of the other prisoners did nothing but shout “Yngvi is a louse” through the bars of his cell every few minutes. So, in their pun-filled parody story “The Flying Sorcerers”, Niven and Gerrold had their shaman Shoogar use the word “yngvi” as a verb which (as you observe) clearly means “to louse up”. I’ve always liked that, and steal it occasionally when posting in contexts where using the F-word phrase might be considered rude.
I believe that Yngvi is, in fact, a traditional old-Norse name.
Why is Yngvi a louse? Simple… he forgot how important it is not to lesnerize.
And he didn’t stop the gnurrs when they came the woodwork out.
Damn, you’re good at this 🙂
By the time i was nine or ten (1958) i had found my Dad’s complete run (from 1941 up) of Astounding and pretty well read most of them cover to cover.
And he had complete runs of Galaxy and F&SF.
Oh, and the signed/numbered first editions of “Doc” Smith’s “Lensman” and “Skylark” books… (Actually, i think that was a couple years later.)
Something like that warps a fellow.
Perhaps scaring Shelly silly was the point.
Deep spirituality teaches us to not be answerable to law or the authority just *because* they are the law or authority. We are our own authority, us mortals.
Bia’s words are a cosmic restatement of this.
Deep Spirituality, eh? I was just the other day wondering what that was…
Nah, to err is human…
to truly foulf things up requires a computer.
She answers to no one. Not even umpti-great grandma Bia?
I think poor Shelly has been hit with enough in her life. She needs a hug and some time on a deserted sandbar.
Anyone else notice that the emblem on Bia’s headband changed?
Looks like it’s just a reduction in detail.
This answers where Shelly falls in the supernatural hirearchy. At the top. Aboove the demons and GGs and Sphinxes. Above EVERYONE except the other Titans. Which means Tina’s threat to stop her heart back when was an empty one even if our demon barista didn’t realize it. Shelly is Immortal and Omnipotent and has apparently come into her own. I think that was why Phix was crying as much as anything else. Damn.
Pretty sure Shelly is not immortal. Now I have to go back through the achives to find the reference. Shelly herself siad she wasn’t but I forgot how she got the information. All that time in the forest was outside our space time and did not count toward her age at all. So powerful yes. Omnipotent no. When Tina tricked her into crushing the coffee pot it hurt. Or did Paul change her abilities when he promoted her to titanhood?
Must be careful saying that around Shelly as you would never be able to check you oil again without a welding torch.
Immortal and omnipotent in her Sphinx form and when away from Earth on the other various planes. When human on earth, mortal — very strong, but mortal.
Omnipotence as consequence?? I immediately thought of the profession joke:
Doctors bury their mistakes. Architects plant vines.
What ever Shelly does, she is going to have to live with it, whether she likes it or not. THAT’s the consequence.
and a pilot is buried BY his mistakes.
Tina’s threat wasn’t an empty one. Shelly hasn’t had these new powers until recently. Tina definitely could have done that to Shelly back then. We saw first-hand how Tina was still able to manipulate Shelly when the duo confronted Human-Nudge, and that was pure accidental manipulation.
Proof? The past 56 cycles. Past-Shelly versions were very mortal, we even witnessed Shelly indirectly kill one of them. If Shelly had been immortal from the get-go:
1) The whole “spirit journey” plan of Jin’s and Nudge’s never would have worked.
2) There’d be other versions of Shelly running about (those that entered the forest).
3) Shelly wouldn’t have needed protecting from the other Sphinxes by CG and Phix while Shelly spent the 80k years in the time forest.
4) (this one is conjecture) Based on Jin’s ramblings, Jin and/or Brandi may have ‘messed up’ a few of the past cycles and killed everyone, which would seem to include Shelly.
She is an omnipotent mortal. She’s got all the power in the universe, but she can die. (That is the biggest suck in the world, by the way.)
She’s got something on her BF, though – she knows who she is.
Truth.
more like she’s getting a handle on WHAT she is. Justin is likely to reveal to her (thru love) who she is.
Just because Shelly might be able to die does not mean that she would be out of the game. Her family guardian seems to be Charon after all.
Not to mention in Wapsi-verse death seems to be little more than a minor setback, usually making you even stronger afterwards (Monica, Tina, pre-Sphinx Shelly, Bud, Brandi, Jin, Maya, Tepoz, etc).
Also, if you make a mistake, you got to live with it forever, even if you outlive the result.
Hmmm. Bia has used the phrases “heir of a Titan” and “offspring of a Titan”, which both seem to imply a fairly direct relationship. She did not say “descended from a Titan”, which would suggest a more distant relationship.
Could it be, perhaps, that Shelly’s mother was more than just a Comanche woman? Was her death as simple (or as actual) as we have been led to believe? Or, perhaps, her father is more than he seems?
Or maybe 2 sets of highly recessive genes (sphinx and titan) decided to simultaneously express themselves after a couple hundred generations. If you have a several dozen coupled gene pairs that are all recessive, the likelihood it showing up in any generation can get awfully small.
There have been other fantasies where someone descended from a demigod/demiurge/whatever through manymany completely human generations suddenly manifests the full boat.
Magical genetics are not necessarily Mendelian.
Remember, Million-to-one shots crop up nine times out of ten in these stories. (c8
It could be that Shelly is going to be the mother of the true heir, once she and Justin settle down. Remember how this “conversation” started. The reason to match them up is to mate them up. And, as FPF said about magical genetics…
OKaaay. So Shellynx has been upgraded from mere female (yeah, right!) to sphinx to omnipotence. But is she still mortal??? After the time forest, she (or someone else), said that she (and Connie), was mortal but was that really true? Was it just an assumption or another of Paul’s misdirections?
If Shellynx is mortal – why? Mortality and omnipotence seem a bit opposite and contradictory. Hard to believe and needing a lot of explaining.
If Shellynx is immortal then what about her ancestors? They must be immortal as well. Having Sphinx and Titan genes in your heritage should certainly preclude the need for doctors and undertakers, I would think!
Does this mean that Shelly’s father has hidden and/or latent powers? Does it mean that Shelly will get to see her mom again?
It just doesn’t make much sense for Shelly to be omnipotent without being also immortal as well as her ancestors.
It may have taken an unlikely set of circumstanses to activate Shelly’s dormant blood lines. In all likelyhoood none of her ancestors in the eaons between Bia and Shelly went through what was nessesary to awaken thier latenent heritage. Shelly is literally one in a million. As far as being mortal? Shelly said she would have a normal human lifespan. She did. It ended the day she died on her vision quest. Her insisting to Monica that she would live and die as a normal human was either, 1. She believed it to be true. 2. She lied to Monica to make her feel better about the whole thing. 3. She knew she HAD lived a normal human life already, but after being dumped abruptly back into her former life, she went into denial that she had really changed all that much. Given her knowledge and experience, I think 3 is most likely. As far as her mortality, unless Paul pops up and says otherwise, I’m going to assume that Shelly is in fact Immortal.
Both the omnipotence, and immortality, may be “latent” attributes… not becoming active and relevant until a certain stage in the individual’s life, or until certain conditions exist to trigger them (vis. “Highlander” immortality)
We know, for example, that the other Shellys (1 through 56) were neither omnipotent nor invulnerable… many of them died in the Time Forest during their own respective CM loops.
Even if Shelly’s ancestors had “latent” Titan or sphinx characteristics, and were potentially immortal, it seems quite possible that these parts of their heritage were never “activated” by the right circumstances i.e. none of these folks ever got sucker-punched into an alternate time-dimension for an eons-long stasis-vacation.
Shelly may be the first in many generations to inherit a sufficient combination of sphinx and titan genes, and to have been manipulated into a situation where she would live long enough for these aspects of herself to develop. Nature and nurture, as it were.
One begins to wonder if there was an actual multi-generation “breeding program” in place, to make Shelly’s birth happen and make this all possible. She might not be the first Wahnee to have a potential mate nudged into her path.
Mentor? Is that you in the corner over there?
Hmmm. Latent omnipotence bit hard to buy. It is hard for us to truly grasp what omnipotence really is I would guess it would be akin to grokking infinity), but to think that it is “controllable” enough to be triggered by an event is really straining the suspension of belief – even for a comic strip.
Likewise a genetic basis. Although not linear, genetics do seem to work in incremental steps – not a plethora of simultaneous mutations. Even at one in a million would imply thousands more omnipotents around – remember we have 6 thousand million people here just in this generation let alone including previous ones.
I suspect the basis will involve some manipulation by the Titans or other super beings but in the end – it is a fantasy comic strip.
Don’t confuse omnipotence (all powerful) with omniscient (all knowing).
Heracles was omnipotent, but could be dumb as rocks when he was determined to be. (There could be a bit of ancestry there as well, given Shelly’s stubbornness at not learning what everyone is teaching).
Of course, he wasn’t really stupid. He just forgot which body part to think with now and then. (Still sounds like Shelly).
In Terry Prachett’s novel, “Mort”, the anthropromorphic personification of Death adopts a son, and as the son of Death, Mort gains a mesure of his power. Later, after he dies, his daughter, Susan, inherits her father’s power as the grandaughter of Death. When she protests that is not how hereditary works, Death informs her that it does when magic is involved.
I think something similar is going on with Shelly. It’s more than just genetics, otherwise the bloodline would be so diluted that there’d be nothing left. I think that Shelly IS a decendant of the Titans and Sphinxes, but millions if not billions people would be. Bia calls her the Offspring off Titans, not a decendant. I think everything leading to this point from her death on the vision quest to her time in the Time Forrest to her return earned her the power and prestige she has now. Her genes are actually a small part of the picture.
Immortality is certainly not necessary for omnipotence. It makes sense to pair the two, but it seems fairly logical that in the passage of time (and the blending of humanity with Titan and Sphinx) that both traits wouldn’t be kept.
I also think that it’s likely omnipotence is not actually the best descriptor for Shelly’s abilities. While she seems to be fairly invulnerable to harm and ridiculously powerful in sphinx form, she has limitations in human form…unless (as Dave postulated) her Titanic heritage included latent abilities that will alter what she can and can’t do in human form.
Huh? If you don’t have power over death, then there must be at least one thing you don’t have power over. The only way to be mortal while being omnipotent is if you willed it or allowed yourself to be mortal. If you didn’t have the choice, then clearly you can’t be omnipotent.
Which is why I said that “omnipotent” isn’t the best descriptor for Shelly’s abilities. 😛
Her Titanide family plainly has power over death, or open access at any rate.
But, yeah, what you said.
Well, I guess it depends on how omnipotent. Old gods had ways in which each were omnipotent, but all had limitations. Even the titans could be defeated.
Would be interesting to study how the concept of “omnipotence” evolved in that area of the world. We’ll have to see how much it affects the story, but cosmology evolves.
That’s an idea that hangs up a lot of people. But ancient faiths had an insight into it with heroes ascending to Olympus, as we’re seeing here.
(!)
Herakles ascended to become god of strength, duplicating Kratos‘ sphere.
So if Bia were to have a once-mortal counterpart…
Well to be fair, such overlap isn’t that uncommon.
Oceanus (as in Bia’s grandfather) originally represented all bodies of salt water, but later on Poseidon came into the mix, so he only represented the Atlantic at that point.
Plus Kratos was the personification of Strength, as opposed to a Deity of it. Bit similar to how Thanatos is the personification of Death, whereas everyone considers Hades a Death God, while he only does the Afterlife technically.
Course Nike doesn’t help in that matter, as she was originally a personification, but ended up a deity in her own right as well.
It could be theoretically possible to be omnipotent, with power even over Life and Death and still be mortal.
You see, there’s this one moment-place in all of space-time where you WILL die. There is no avoiding it. Eventually you will be there-then and you’ll be done.
Where-when that point is… who knows? It could be tomorrow, it could be a billion years from now. It could be tomorrow but it will take you a billion years to get then.
Who knows?
Other than that… you’re omnipotent.
For those needing another example of how one could be mortal yet ageless – think Wolverine. He is not immortal but has been around quite a while (a century, at least, that we know of) and Professor X speculated could be around for a VERY long time. Was thought he was perhaps the first known mutant and would likely outlive them all if he didn’t die in combat.
Seems aging, from the body’s perspective, is just another kind of damage so a mutant healing factor was more than enough to make him quasi-immortal: a mortal who could die but not of old age.
Weren’t the healers in Heroes similar? Adam Monroe, with regenerative power, did not age from 17th century Japan (Takezo Kensei) to now.
Humm…..wasn’t it Shelly who said something similar to Bud when Bud was asking advise on how to abide by rules that could not be enforced upon her?
Maybe, but do you really think Shelly was listening when Shelly said that?
You mean http://wapsisquare.com/comic/societysrules/ ?
Excellent! Yes — that one!
I forget who it was, who said something like “We most readily teach, the very things which we most need to learn.”
Somewhat along the same lines: “Not a problem. Zathras do. Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other peoples’ needs. Very sad life. Probably have very sad death. But, at least there is symmetry.”
Quiet a few sensies (martial arts teachers) from the orient said they learned more in the United States about their own disiplines simply because their students in the US asked one question they never had the nerve to ask their own mentors…
“why?”
Nice B5 reference there.
You know, that last balloon sounds funny.
I could almost believe that Paul meant “conscience” in that last sentence, instead of “consequence”; it reads better, anyway…
No, I disagree.
Omnipotence is defined all powerful. Shelly is afraid to use what power she has now. But, to gain MORE power, she must learn to use what she has. Her actions will have consequences, and one of them will be to become omnipotent. But only if she lets her self act!
Phix has said that, basically, Shelly WILL kill someone. That someone WILL need killing. Big B has said that, when that time comes, it will lead to omnipotence.
Sorry – doesn’t scan that way. I really think Bia is telling Shelly she’s already omnipotent.
It’s also in the comic title.
No it’s not. The words are there, but they way they’re arranged there means something different.
I only wonder what kind of “omipotence” we are talking about here.
Supes-class? Pissed-off Hulk class? Q? Zeus? Odin? “omni-“potence is a bit vague, and is never the end-it-all of power, at least not in any fiction that I know of.
This has of course been addressed on TV Tropes, with “Super Weight” classes.
You know, I actually read it as “conscience” instead of “consequence” until I saw your comment. I think you’re right…unless Bia is trying to say something particular in a very complicated way.
Well, “consequence” can mean “importance” – “matters of great consequence”, for instance.
From Thesaurus.com ()second meaning):
Thanks!
That makes much more sense.
That would work for this useage…but I still say Bia was being overly complicated in her phrasing. 😛
Huh. Every time Shelly’s powers or standing in the supernatural world gets elevated, I can’t help but flashback to this comic.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/too-late/
Heh.
“Hey, Bud! Remember that day that you twisted my arm to prove I wasn’t super?”
“Yeah, so?”
***POW***
People who thought Bud hit Jin hard have got another think coming…
Bud: “that was it? Now watch thís”
*SKA-BAFF!!*
bud: “How does the Chronosphere of the Sun feel today?”
Shellinx: “Auwaahh! Hot, hot, hot..wait ‘chronosphere’?? You did that on purpose, did you! Well..I ought to…..I..I grmbll”
Bud: “Oh? Next time I’ll let you savour the smells of the gas-giants…”
In short: I do not support the notion that a Golem can be knocked-around by a Sphinx-Titan. The titans got their asses handed to them by the Olympians. Thusly: Not Omnipotent.
The point of a Golem is that it’s a TRUE unbeatable construct, to be steered and commandeered by external parties.
The fact that we are dealing with Golems with self-awareness and a consciousness, throws one serious spanner in the works of the hiërarchy of the old gods.
On the one hand I agree with you. On the other hand, I wonder if a sphinx-titan punch could crack clay…
I’d disagree to the point that Maya apparently can shut down ANY of the GGG, just as she stopped the Chimera.
But I don’t know of anyone who can stop Maya. Except herself.
I don’t think that May is the only one who can “alter the programming” on the golems. Didn’t Tepoz do something along those lines waaaay back when? I’d bet that anyone who can write in glyph could affect the GGG (and May and Tepoz).
@ Julie My bet is The Golem Girls programming is PROM, whereas May is ROM.
Er, Jay…. ‘Chromosphere’. Time is not involved, escept in the passing of.
It’s all fun and games until it becomes about scarce resources.
OMFG. You used “another think coming” correctly. You didn’t write “another thing coming.”
You’ve renewed my ability to hope that civilization will not be swallowed by ignorance in my lifetime. A faint hope…but there.
And i know the difference between “discreet” and “discrete”.
And between “imply” and “infer”.
…and “flaunt” and “flout”.
Mother an English teacher/writer, brother a best-selling novelist, read everything i can get my hands on since age five or six…
…I’m getting verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.
I’ll give you a topic. Under what circumstances would the phrase “Mongol hoards” be correct? Discuss.
Well naturally the Mongol hoards food before a major migration.
These are the sorts of misuses that it’s far too late to nip in the bud.
Probably a reference to the treasure buried by Genghis and Kublai Khan, no?
(The map says it’s all in one of the beverage warehouses, safely hidden beneath the floorboards under several hundred crates of Xana Dew).
Hey, FPF! My mom was an English, teacher, too! High Five!
FPF is smart. 🙂 It’s one of the reasons we love him.
Nah – just a wizard.
“Wizard (noun): From the Old Tongue, wize arse, one who knows”
And it’s interesting that Bai suggested yesterday that Shellynx has more to learn from Bud…
Yes, but does Bud have knowledge and experience to show Shelley, or is Bud the “bad example” of someone who did bad before becoming the good guy? Yes, I agree we shouldn’t judge Bud for her earlier behavior – she was ensorceled.
Nonetheless, it is an experience to avoid if possible (killing innocents), but Bud has also learned to come to terms with it… I can read Bia either way.
Paul,
Gotta tell you. The final line in today’s comic might very well be one of the best lines I’ve read in print in a long time. I may quote you.
J
okay lets recap this.
shelly is an 80,000 plus year old omnipotent human, sphinx, titan hybrid with a, fully under her control, first of her kind fused demon conscience that scares the feathers off the other sphinx and lets not forget she’s has a real life god for a boy friend…….. set up with said boyfriend no less and she asnwers to no one….
you know I used to like shelly I really felt for her and now I totaly agree with Luci. ( http://wapsisquare.com/comic/worstinme/ ) oh well.
Actually, he’s a Titan, too.
with is just another name for a god.
Not by the strict interpretation of Greek mythology. The gods edged out the titans in key places. Helios was a titan, but was replaced by Apollo, a god.
It could be said that titans were a precursor to the gods.
The problem for us is that what we “know” and what is the “truth” in the wapsiverse may not jive.
I think you meant “may not jibe.”
“Jive” means something else.
Never have understood how a term for a tricky and possibly dangerous maneuver/accident for a sailboat means “accord with”…
nah, that’s “jib’, not Jibe”.
Demigod at most.
You have a point here…but I keep getting the impression that Shelly doesn’t like all of these “gifts” she has stumbled into…
All it means she’s not a novelty seeker.
Most people can tolerate a little novelty in their lives but Shelly is presently in a state of massive overdose.
Dat Azz!
Ok, now that I got that out of my system.
*resists the tempation to sing Black Eyed Peas “My Humps”*
Oh where was I… oh yes. Bia is a tall drink of water isn’t she?
In the words of one James Cricket, “…and always let your conscious be your guide.”
I was wondering if anyone was thinking that too.XD
“Always let your consequence be your guide” doesn’t flow quite as nicely in Pinnochio’s voice….
I love how yesterday, everyone is expecting Bia to berate Shelley for “bullying” Phix in response to having been once again manipulated. (Something that I found quite reasonable to be upset over.)
And today? Bia’s advice is simply “might makes right; do as thou wilt.”
“And on your own head be the consequences of your actions.” Would be the second/last part.
Bia could berate Shelly- but she knows that does not work, said that would not work and why that never works. So why waste time and energy repeating berates Shelly has already heard a thousand times to no result?
No one can ‘make’ Shelly into a better person. That is up to her.
Maybe.
The full version i see of that “…do as thou wilt” bit begins “An thou harm none…”
Yeah, in the classic reading.
But Bia very much did not say the last part.
In humans, older beings can teach younger ones by creating tools that circumvent problems, thus allowing the next generation to save the time in relearning problems that no longer exist. Of course, this creates new problems, and in turn new inheritable circumventions.
And so the written word. The Library collects them as an early warning system of this behaviour, due to demons and the possibility of situations like Lanthis.
Prometheus wasn’t wrong to help man, it was his inability to scale his gifts down first. Shelly has acted pretty “answerable” to Bia, and part of Bia’s office is to carry out sentences.
Unstoppable forces can clash too. Bia’s point seems to be that it’s the entirely stoppable people that will keep you in check. Shelly’s played at bully and monster; playtime’s over.
OMNIPOTENCE!
Whoa!
What a word to say to Shelly, for Shelly, about Shelly.
No, no, no, you’re all getting it WRONG.
OMNIPOTENCE =/= IMMORTALITY. Just because she has all the power in the world (or so it seems), she CAN die. Bud could waggle her little finger and knock her into the atmosphere – and she’d be toast before she could sphinx out.
Also, OMNIPOTENCE =/= OMNISCIENCE. Just because she has all that power doesn’t mean she suddenly knows everything.
You sound kinda omniscient…
…but if there is a limitation to omnipotence, it is that one must still be true to one’s nature, and as a Sphinx, Shelly’s power to do harm must by her nature be reserved for demons (i.e. those who “damn well deserved it”, as Phix said), not humans, and therefore losing control/sphinxing out should not cause ancillary damage. Bai’s assertion is in agreement with that.
I was reading it as “on your own head be your actions”.
She ain’t all powerful or indestructible; she’s just self governed under a different set of rules/expectations she must adhere to.
Similar to how you follow different procedures when dealing with a nuclear weapon different than when you are handling a machine gun.
She’s still a baby- in that she’s still learning. Maybe more of a teenager who is going through the ‘all they say is “no” and “mine” ‘ phase. :-p
We’re not all getting it wrong. 😛
We’re omniniuriant?
Bia’s put it all on Shelly. There is no restraint more powerful than self-restraint. Omnipotence, is a loaded term. Usually reserved for “one God” in a monotheistic religion. If Bia can turn Shelly over her knee and spank her, Shelly is not omnipotent. If the only one who can, is Bia, and she chooses not to spank her for anything, then Shelly is in effect omnipotent, but not actually omnipotent.
The results are the same, however, Shelly can do whatsoever she pleases. This may or may not be a problem. Shelly was raised as a human with human rules and consequences. Like Clark Kent, she was instilled with good values. It turned out good for Clark, but then I think of the saying, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and then I think of “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Still, I’m betting that Shelly is a force for good, not evil. She needs to go drinking and dancing with Bud.
I was thinking about Kal-El too. Haven’t seen all of Smallville, but his original core backstory was of a wholesome upbringing in whitebread Kansas. His father’s death tended to be offset by his learning of his true, celestial father without too many moral speedbumps. (The specific examples of Supe being a d!ck are legion, but that’s not the core of his myth cycle; he was supposed to be a Mary Supe.)*
Shelly’s loss of her mother cut much deeper, and led her on the path to become who she could, instead of it just being a revelation. Instead of the intrinsic-nature argument and fast turnaround time of Clark or Herakles, Shelly’s heroic journey is the of the long game of nurture: To be human, to be monster, and to be divine. Indeed, her divine nature cannot constrain her capacity for harm, only her human experiences can.
*(Tosses kryptonite of the colour out of space into the jar.)
As for “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, I once started a screenplay where Elizabeth Dehner only pretended to be dead, so the Federation wouldn’t seek out and destroy her. Should have been easy enough for a god to do, right? And so she follows Kirk through the rest of his career, tweaking every situation he seems to solve against all odds.
Those commercial breaks when he goes from despair to smirking confidence? Dehner popped something into his head.
Redshirts? Does any one besides Kirk get so many fall guys? Dehner.
Arguing with killer robots? Please.
Star Trek III is especially fun to watch imagining Sally Kellerman grinning invisibly behind Kirk’s son as he shrugs off his unethical uses of certain prohibited compounds on Genesis.
Yamara, you made my day. When I was a kid, I thought she was so pretty, I didn’t want her to be dead, and imagined she was playing possum. I never thought about her following The Enterprise around saving the day with a ‘nudge’ here and there. This changes everything!!!!!! I must now watch TOS all over again imagining this!
Peter David’s “Excalibur” series of ST spinoff novels has a character named “Morgan Primus”who seems to be immortal and to have popped up just about everywhere in the ST universe and to have known everyone.
And the Federation’s computer voices all sound like her.
(He also brings in M’ress and Arex…)
Ok, that was unexpected. It was a straight answer! I may actually end up liking this character a lot
And, straight answers are probably something that Shelly deserves and would appreciate!
If Shelly is now being handed the burden of Titanic omnipotence, and told in effect that she must bear the full moral responsibility of regulating such awesome power, then she certainly ought to be granted the courtesy of being told the full truth about what’s actually going on.
I would say everybody deserves a straight answer. Whether they appreciate it or not is their problem. Does that mean I’m a Titan? I’m not prone to violence, but I am a tad binary about playing nice, and I have a heavily qualified respect for authority.
So are those dark circles evidence that Bia doesn’t sleep? Or does she just wear some interesting makeup? Or have fun facial markings?
It’s been bugging me. 🙂
I was guessing she has very deep-set eyes, and those are shadows. Maybe makeup though?
People from some ethnic groups can be prone to have dark circles around the eyes – Wiki suggests it’s common among those of Mediterranian origin, and I’ve seen some striking examples in people from certain ethnic groups from India. Can be a result of more melanin in the skin in that area, thinning of the skin with age (allows blood vessels to show through), shadowing from deep-set eyes, lack of sleep, allergies.
One hopes that Bia is not allergic to sphinx feathers.
Or cat hair.
I think the dark circles are makeup.
Just because you’re a Titan doesn’t mean you don’t show the signs of aging. Compare her to her “princess” self a few weeks earlier…
When I first saw Bia as an adult, I thought her eyes were glowing or radiating power or light. I don’t know if I still believe that or not. It could be make-up, but I’m not convinced of that yet.
I’m beginning to think that Wapsi Square commenters are some of the most intelligent people on the ‘Net. Just sayin’.
I think you may be right. 🙂
And we seem to be the least likely to fall into ‘pissing contests’ and ‘trolling’ as well. This is why i love this forum so much.
Well, I’ve said before, you need a certain level of intelligence just to follow the story. Paul dosen’t lay everything out for you. You have to think about it. It’s a troll repellant of sorts.
Wow. Shelly’s get a LOT dumped on her today. I wonder how she’s going to deal with all this…
Hopefully not by going to the bar and getting “poop” faced. 🙂
and the plot thickens…. to petrol goo consistency
Everyone loves a well-turned phrase. I may have to steal that some day.
Yep, and when Paul does the “reveal” of all this secret plan this and Titan scheming that… that’s when we find out that “petrol goo” is actually Napalm… 😀
Is it just me or did anyone else think of Q from Star Trek when Bia said omnipotence?
Like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96jPvL85MjM
Very responsible omnipotent being…not…well maybe..sometimes.
problem is Q is also immortal, invulnerable etc, unlike shelly…
So – seeing today is Tuesday – we only have 3 more shoes to drop before the week-end summations . Folks – get your cheat-sheets out and make lots of notes ! (:>))
Only 3 more shoes… unless Paul has an octopus show up. Or possibly a very large millipede.
Unless it’s a Harryhausen quintopus…
I’m back, from the future! there is only two now… 😛
(looks around, in case guy from ‘further future’ appears….)
You missed him, illiad… he’s come and gone already.
He just stopped over for a few minutes to buy some beer for his family’s Fourth of July fireworks party later this evening. Apparently they were (are, or will be) running low, and the stores were already closed.
He grabbed a keg of Hermannator (Vancouver Island Brewery), paid for it, and plinked away… ten or eleven hours, I guess.
Must be nice, to be able to take bock to the future.
you did’nt manage to ask about YAP on thursday???.. 🙂
ummm… looks like comic is ‘stalled’ due to lack of author… 🙂
he’ll be back monday, if lucky….. 🙂
Btw every time Puffy AmiYumi plays New York, Barbara and I go and see them.
Juuuust sayin’.
Hmmm–I tried this morning to post, but apparently it didn’t “take”, as I feared.
Shelly looks rather like she slipped in some spilled toothpaste–in other words, Crest-fallen.
But on a more serious note, I’m hoping that this is another test, that Bia is seeing if she has a conscience and a well-developed moral sense. However, given the track records of Titans and of Greek mythology in general, I’m not expecting much.
I think you owe the Pun Jar at least a set of zircon-encrusted tweezers for that one.
Actually, in the original, I did drop in some payment–but I’ve forgotten what. It’s out of the scope of my memory.
[drops in a gift certificate to a full-service spa]
The problem with Might Makes Right is that there is almost always someone out there somewhere who is mightier than you. If your Might gives you the Right to do whatever you want to those weaker than you and they have to like it, then the same would be true of you if you met someone stronger than you are. Anything they say goes, and it’s your job to be happy about it.
There’s also collective Might. It doesn’t matter how strong one individual human is, a thousand are stronger. And a civilization of billions? Stronger still.
The real test is, can a Titan survive getting up close and personal with a 50+ megaton thermonuclear detonation? If not, then civilization is Right and the Titan is less Mighty.
🤔 What happened to the belt/sash around Bia’s waist
(“No Way To Behave” [29 June 2012])❓