Princess Bia? OK, time to scratch my head again. But as usual, I love the art.
PS: Gonna be on the road for a month or so, may not have a chance to check in here. I’m feeling withdrawal symptoms already. 🙁 On the plus side, I’ll have a month of Wapsi to read at one sitting. Almost as good as a book! 😀
you’re kidding, right? you’ve NEVER seen/heard a woman do the combo headtilt/one shoulder up/the opposite hip down/hand on the uptilted hip/eyeroll “tch”???
followed by a sigh and an immediate note-to-self about talking to one’s friend’s about the idiocy the current male just committed. 😉
And his comments in the first frame “..not one soul to take over the Styx…”. Assuming this is if post Chimera temper tantrum event, the implications are very disturbing. The Chimera is able to destroy souls? O_o
For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first time that I’ve seen the ” Nukes destroy souls” plot point in a comic. The first time was in the Warren Ellis comic “Planetary”.
Doesn’t make the implication any less chilling though.
What I can’t get over is for the first couple days of this scene is that everyone here was acting like the skellington is just another symbol of “Crispy’s” horror, when he’s really a new character that’s been keeping her company for awhile now. Focus pulls like that are great.
Bia: Daughter of Pallas (Titan associated with War) and Styx (the nymph representing the river), and sister of Nike*, Kratos** (not the guy from God of War), and Zelus***. Personification of Force.
*: Personification of Victory.
**: Personification of Strength and Power.
***: Personification of Zeal, dedication, envy, jealousy, emulation and eager rivalry.
Wait… if she is the daughter of Styx, the nymph representing the river, and Charon is the boatman for the river, does that make him her Godfather or something like that?
Servant does seem to be more likely, considering how he addresses her.
If, he were her “God”father*, than he wouldn’t be addressing her as Princess, but more like “my child” or something or even just by her first name.
Although some additional digging has lead me to find another Styx as well.
Daughter of Tethys (Titan and embodiment of the waters of the world, also acted as a surrogate mother to Hera, during the Titan War, in which both she and her husband/brother remained neutral, also an aunt to Zeus) and Oceanus (Titan representing the Atlantic Ocean, and uncle to Zeus)
Not quite sure what Styx would be a Goddess of, but she supported Zeus during the Titan war, and her name was given the honor of being a binding oath for the gods. So she could still be tied to the river itself as well, as that too served a similar oath function.
*: Charon himself is the son of Nyx (born from Chaos itself, and Deity of the Night) and Erebus (also born from Chaos itself and a Deity and personification of darkness and shadow).
And just to put things into perspective, Gaia, the grandmother of Zeus, was another one of the Primordial Deities, and thus a sibling to Erebus and Nyx.
Casey: (sorry, the page engine doesn’t let me answer you directly)
Oh, i see, thanks! I really need to read the interviews!
Also, I forgot about this: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/nevercomestothat/
Thanks for doing that digging for us IS_Wolf! 🙂 And now I want to go back and do a LOT of reading up on Greek mythology. It’s been years since I gave it the devoted attention I used to give.
I set up a direct deposit to the pun jar. I am tithing 10% directly. I was also notified by the Lord High Executioner that extra gifts were also desired when I succeeded in tripping the pun-o-meter terror limits. This came close but I scaped by.
– a kinder, more gentle death… one with family… OK, now I am in FULL WIERD-OUT Mode and likely to come down with a bad case of limricks…
a skeleton crossing the styx
made comments ’bout what he can’t fix
“I can’t turn a girl’s head
if she’s already dead-
so how do I pick up on chicks?!?”
If you’re looking to pick up chicks
It’s a problem easy to fix
suggest a nice game
With a well known name
Then pull out Pick Up Styx.
.
I should be ashamed but I ain’t.
If poor Death just wants a date,
He really does not have to wait.
For women will greet him,
They’re dying to meet him!
Though not quite in a dateable state.
But then, Death himself is no beauty.
He just greets us because it’s his duty.
He’s skinny and bony,
Some think he’s a phony,
But the poor guy just wants some Booty!
hey, you should check out ‘family guy’ where death manages to badly twist his ankle, so he is on the griffins’s sofa!
No death, so people shoot each other for fun!!:D
Because she won’t stop for the Grim Reaper
He’s going to have to kindly stop for her
He’ll get a date
He just has to wait
To pick up Miss Emily in a few thousand years
There was this Grim Reaper, who was rather randy.
Who wished to get with a girl, who tasted like candy.
He’ll sure to make her moan.
With the size of his bone.
Only problem is, her name is Mandy.
if you’ve ever sat deathwatch for someone whose passing is going to rip your heart to shreds, that the coldhearted bitch Cancer has wasted to nothing…you know Death isnt coldhearted. you know that Death is the ultimate healer, and the one who loves us enough to take us from suffering.
been there, done that too many times, and come too close myself about 21 years ago not to know Thanatos isnt a bad guy at all. (Charon being the guy who ferried people across the river Styx, Thanatos being the personification of Death.)
I work in Surgery- death isn’t evil. Death is impartial. Often enough, death is welcome. We are well aquainted… and when death claims me, I can honestly say-
“Took you enough tries,”
I have no problem tweeking death- death gets the last laugh anyways-
the Old Sgt.
It seems Bud’s anger/Chimera’s power destroyed their bodies, but moved their souls to some other dimension, a’la Maya and such. Hence Charon’s complaint about no souls to recover.
Back in 2007, I took a stab at explaining this situation in a fanfic here. In short, I proposed that rather than wiping out the entirety of civilization (as Bud though at the time), she more narrowly focused her anger at those who had killed her and the GGs.
As for the new threads bringing in the Greek Gods, just remember they are successors to the Titans who ruled before them, and there’s a whole pile of back story in and of it self! Not to mention African, Chinese, Indian, Norse (partly covered), Egypt, and other panoplies of tales to interweave and delight!
Personal favorite: Edshu, a Yorba trickster divinity. One day he walked between two farmers fields wearing a hat, red on one side and white on the other, green before and black behind (the four World colors). Later, the farmers chatted about the stranger and argued about the hat — White or Red? They eventually come to blows over this debate and were brought before the village counsel, who take up the cause and so become similarly embroiled. Edshu appears and laughs at them all. “I wanted it that way! Spreading strife is my greatest joy!”
As per Monica, “left reality bleeding.” perhaps they bled into other realities – could explain some hauntings that seem to have no historical source. Lost souls, indeed; you can’t get more lost than being in another world.
I figured it was a much more trivial administrative thing – plenty of death, but none of the deceased were aligned with the Greek pantheon, so nobody’s riding Charon’s ferry.
I’d always assumed she had some sort of important station because of that headband/diadem she’s always been shown wearing. 🙂 It’s just nice to have that confirmed…even if it means we’re dealing with a brand new character we’ll have to learn all about. 😀
Eventually these two are gonna end up on Monicas’ doorstep
You all know that right? Maybe Charon can transform into a Hot chick with long black hair that likes to wear black biker outfits (since shes ‘Death’) and wears black gloves (cuz if she touchs things like flowers w/o them they DIE.)….. Just guessing at where this might be going.
I suspect this is all parts of a very large puzzle which we, as Wapsinians, will not see the entirety until the last stroke of Pablo’s pen.
I also suspect that some members of our cast of (seemingly) thousands have pieces to a puzzle that puts everything back into place. What exactly is put “back in place” – and who holds those pieces – is yet to be determined.
I wonder if Bia is like Aphrael, the Child Goddess, in Eddings’ “Sparhawk” books; she is immortal, and likely older than humanity, but she prefers to manifest as a seven or eight year old girl, because it’s easier for her to manipulate people in that form.
If so, the ease at which Aphrael arranged things would give just about every puppetmaster in the Wapsi conniptions. Gods help them all if Princess Bia is of the same cloth.
Her immortality does not seem to have immunized her from abject terror of annihilation. Nor from sympathy.
Bia seemed to have been around for Lanthis, and now she’s hanging with a Greco-medieval manifestation of Death. She also has a mortal-sounding station.
My current guess is she was human during the Chimeric attack, and got unstuck by it. Neither life nor afterlife will accept her. Now she travels the multiverse with Charon in the ultimate mismatched-buddy road movie.
You know…as I sip on a nice tall glass of iced tea here in Confusion Corner, I can’t help but remember the quilt/embroidery analogy my parents shared with me when I was pondering why life is messy.
They told me that God has a Master Plan, but while we’re alive, all we see is the messy “underside” of the quilt/embroidery. We can’t see anything but knots and crossed threads in a tangle 9with maybe the occasional glimpse of “AHA!”)…but when we die, we will finally get to see the full masterpiece on the other side.
I’m starting to feel like Paul’s story fits this analogy perfectly. As readers, we only see the abrupt starts and stops, with occasional moments where we comprehend his brilliant plot…but not until the story is fully told (if that ever happens) will we fully be able to understand the masterpiece. 🙂
Huh…funny you mention Ray Bradbury when I’ve been reminicing about one of his short stories that I read once more than 15 years ago. “All Summer in a Day” was the story I think…and to this day I remember how emotionally impacted I was by the tale.
I love the sea-of-slag effect and on inspection can even tell that Princess Bia and Charon are standing on the bottom of a shallow trench blasted out by the chimera.
Paul, your attention to detail is most noteworthy.
So every living sould was wliminated from the planet, save for these two? What of the other immortals? The sphinxes and demons? Is this the point where the loops began?
And now that the loops have ended, will Bia be back?
This looks to be Bia’s second encounter with Chimera-level destruction. Either this is only shortly after her first blast, and the Chimera is still busy about its ruin, or this is an alternate world… or a future state of Earth. She did mention seeing a monster just now, and it ain’t her buddy Charon… who “has to get her away from here”. So that may still be spitting fire in the background.
The Calendar Machine loops began in (and returned to) AD 562. The Golem Girls were long since separated into individuals by then. (Bud’s embarrassing encounter with Amenhotep IV was around 1350 BC, and she was already capable Budly mischief by then.) So if this is the “beginning of the loops,” one or more of the Girls are wreaking this destruction, not the unified Chimera.
This might be a looped Earth, though, assuming Charon is unaware that that is happening. This could be, say, Minneapolis-St Paul after Monica 55 accidentally discovered that there were 2 more loops to go, and that she was fated to fail horribly, and so decided she was going to call all the shots. In Glyph.
But I imagine we’ll be catching up with Bia’s story before we discover any of that.
And as a side story to all of the above – Ray Bradbury passed today at 91 years . Fondly remembered for all his great short story’s’ and complete books .
As for the issue of souls – wasn’t it mentioned at some point in the past that the Chimera destroyed things so quickly and thoroughly that the souls of those who died were ripped from the fabric of existence? Thus, no souls for Death despite all the physical death.
So, correction – according to Bud, they had their demons, shell (physical body) and energy (souls?) stripped away. I don’t think Death is implying that the Chimera killed *everyone*, but it certainly was an extinction level event and a LOT of people died.
Now, as to a) who Princess Bia is and b) why she was there in the first place I will just sit on the CC and wait like everyone else 🙂
Curiouser and curiouser . . .
*like*
Princess Bia? OK, time to scratch my head again. But as usual, I love the art.
PS: Gonna be on the road for a month or so, may not have a chance to check in here. I’m feeling withdrawal symptoms already. 🙁 On the plus side, I’ll have a month of Wapsi to read at one sitting. Almost as good as a book! 😀
Maybe she’s in charge of the ancient Bureau of Interspatial Affiars. Collects user fees. After all nothing is sure but death and taxes.
Now that is a good thought. lolz
Why not a Binary crown of Interspatial Affairs–that’s more appropriate for a princess anyway.
What would that be for a month if i wouldn’t wonder about some strange Plot twist in Pauls Masterwork of wapsi Square 😉
Yeah, you know, Princess Bia.
Otherwise known as “Shelly’s grandma.”
Eh???!!!???!!!???!!!???!!!???etc…
And for at least the 100th, time: I didn’t see that coming!
Yep. Paul pulled the rug out from under us again. So Charon exists as does the River Styx. Interesting.
Even more interesting is who is Princess Bia?And how is it that she can survive a wall of plasma unscathed?
If she can see the entity that ferries dead people to the other side then a wall of plasma is not going to affect her.
According to a post below, she is the manifestation/personification of Force, and one of Zeus’ companions. So yea, she is god/demi-god status.
I’m trying to think of an appropriate Styx song.
Come sail away?
Babe, Borrowed time, Heavy metal poisoning, Lady, Nothing ever goes as planned, Show me the way, Too much time on my hands and You need love.
All good, but somehow I had brain lock.
Googles R yer frend…
Well, we have her name now.
I’m just going to jump in here and suggest her last name be the curious and difficult to pronounce Lanthian name of…
Tch.
(deposits the entire Lanthian priesthood into the pun jar, and hermetically seals it.)
There. Now. No one need ever make that joke again.
you’re kidding, right? you’ve NEVER seen/heard a woman do the combo headtilt/one shoulder up/the opposite hip down/hand on the uptilted hip/eyeroll “tch”???
followed by a sigh and an immediate note-to-self about talking to one’s friend’s about the idiocy the current male just committed. 😉
Charon’s comments in the last frame as interesting.
“It will some time before _this_ world recovers.” And not “,,, some times before _the_ world recovers.”
And his comments in the first frame “..not one soul to take over the Styx…”. Assuming this is if post Chimera temper tantrum event, the implications are very disturbing. The Chimera is able to destroy souls? O_o
For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first time that I’ve seen the ” Nukes destroy souls” plot point in a comic. The first time was in the Warren Ellis comic “Planetary”.
Doesn’t make the implication any less chilling though.
i clicked more with “Princess Bia, i need to get you out of here”…. where is he going to take her?
and his not a SINGLE SOUL comment… thus implies that she is indeed, still alive…
or her soul is not ‘available’, being the daughter of a demigod… 🙂
I’m curious. How many of you out there are on a first name basis with the boatman of the lower plains?
Not first name, exactly, but I have his business card. I’ve been at the ticket turnstile a time or two.
But like the song says: “Don’t pay the ferryman – don’t even fix a price. Don’t pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side!”
Chris de Burgh knew….
Thrice. I even drew him a cartoon for his dog.
If you draw a cartoon of a cat, do you get an extra nine times to meet him?
I’m not – but i think Antimony Carver is.
Well, well! Another GC fan!
Yeah, I’m scratching my head on THAT ONE as well.
We know someone who knows someone.
What I can’t get over is for the first couple days of this scene is that everyone here was acting like the skellington is just another symbol of “Crispy’s” horror, when he’s really a new character that’s been keeping her company for awhile now. Focus pulls like that are great.
And some google-fu gives me the following.
Bia: Daughter of Pallas (Titan associated with War) and Styx (the nymph representing the river), and sister of Nike*, Kratos** (not the guy from God of War), and Zelus***. Personification of Force.
*: Personification of Victory.
**: Personification of Strength and Power.
***: Personification of Zeal, dedication, envy, jealousy, emulation and eager rivalry.
All four were the constant companions of Zeus.
Awesome.
So she is the manifestation of force? COOOOO-OH_OH_OL! That would explain why she would be there…
Your Google-fu is legend… wait for it… DARY!
Wait… if she is the daughter of Styx, the nymph representing the river, and Charon is the boatman for the river, does that make him her Godfather or something like that?
I’d more think he’d be like a butler lol
I was thinking chauffeur.
Me too. Isn’t Lethe an brother or something to Styx?
Definetly a Godfather. He makes us an offer we can’t refuse.
There is a Pun Jar wandering around here looking for you…
Servant does seem to be more likely, considering how he addresses her.
If, he were her “God”father*, than he wouldn’t be addressing her as Princess, but more like “my child” or something or even just by her first name.
Although some additional digging has lead me to find another Styx as well.
Daughter of Tethys (Titan and embodiment of the waters of the world, also acted as a surrogate mother to Hera, during the Titan War, in which both she and her husband/brother remained neutral, also an aunt to Zeus) and Oceanus (Titan representing the Atlantic Ocean, and uncle to Zeus)
Not quite sure what Styx would be a Goddess of, but she supported Zeus during the Titan war, and her name was given the honor of being a binding oath for the gods. So she could still be tied to the river itself as well, as that too served a similar oath function.
*: Charon himself is the son of Nyx (born from Chaos itself, and Deity of the Night) and Erebus (also born from Chaos itself and a Deity and personification of darkness and shadow).
And just to put things into perspective, Gaia, the grandmother of Zeus, was another one of the Primordial Deities, and thus a sibling to Erebus and Nyx.
Wow, you’re a treasure!
Ever since the gorgon girl appeared I had the feeling that we’re shifting from Mayan theme towards ancient Greece…
(Would make anticipating sounds if ominous anticipation made any sound…)
The shift towards Greek myth is very deliberate, and has been planned for quite a while. Paul strongly hinted at it in an interview some time ago.
Casey: (sorry, the page engine doesn’t let me answer you directly)
Oh, i see, thanks! I really need to read the interviews!
Also, I forgot about this:
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/nevercomestothat/
if you read a bit longer, it is all kinds of mythic stuff, before the greeks, mayans, etc… they got their ‘myths’ second hand from the apos..
Thanks for doing that digging for us IS_Wolf! 🙂 And now I want to go back and do a LOT of reading up on Greek mythology. It’s been years since I gave it the devoted attention I used to give.
I’m confused why so many people thought this was Jin at first.
Whistful thinking, or they had one too many Jin and Tonics.
*”shinkle, shinkle, ka-klinkle ” sound clamours over empty glass plain*
“fill ‘er up dude”
There’s a jar over here that wants to talk to you, Zach.
I set up a direct deposit to the pun jar. I am tithing 10% directly. I was also notified by the Lord High Executioner that extra gifts were also desired when I succeeded in tripping the pun-o-meter terror limits. This came close but I scaped by.
Why does that pun get me shaken, but not stirred?
Welp. I was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy off.. I’m gunna go back to the CC. can someone pass the doughnuts?
Here ya go. Sorry, I just ate the last Boston Cream.
– a kinder, more gentle death… one with family… OK, now I am in FULL WIERD-OUT Mode and likely to come down with a bad case of limricks…
a skeleton crossing the styx
made comments ’bout what he can’t fix
“I can’t turn a girl’s head
if she’s already dead-
so how do I pick up on chicks?!?”
… YYAAAAAARGH!!!!
If you’re looking to pick up chicks
It’s a problem easy to fix
suggest a nice game
With a well known name
Then pull out Pick Up Styx.
.
I should be ashamed but I ain’t.
If poor Death just wants a date,
He really does not have to wait.
For women will greet him,
They’re dying to meet him!
Though not quite in a dateable state.
But then, Death himself is no beauty.
He just greets us because it’s his duty.
He’s skinny and bony,
Some think he’s a phony,
But the poor guy just wants some Booty!
hey, you should check out ‘family guy’ where death manages to badly twist his ankle, so he is on the griffins’s sofa!
No death, so people shoot each other for fun!!:D
Because she won’t stop for the Grim Reaper
He’s going to have to kindly stop for her
He’ll get a date
He just has to wait
To pick up Miss Emily in a few thousand years
There was this Grim Reaper, who was rather randy.
Who wished to get with a girl, who tasted like candy.
He’ll sure to make her moan.
With the size of his bone.
Only problem is, her name is Mandy.
if you’ve ever sat deathwatch for someone whose passing is going to rip your heart to shreds, that the coldhearted bitch Cancer has wasted to nothing…you know Death isnt coldhearted. you know that Death is the ultimate healer, and the one who loves us enough to take us from suffering.
been there, done that too many times, and come too close myself about 21 years ago not to know Thanatos isnt a bad guy at all. (Charon being the guy who ferried people across the river Styx, Thanatos being the personification of Death.)
Amen Kat.
I work in Surgery- death isn’t evil. Death is impartial. Often enough, death is welcome. We are well aquainted… and when death claims me, I can honestly say-
“Took you enough tries,”
I have no problem tweeking death- death gets the last laugh anyways-
the Old Sgt.
Well said, Sgt.
This must be when the Chimera made a big hunk of the world go bye bye way back when.
Just some food for thought:
Princess Bia backwards is Aib Ssecnirp.
You just opened my eyes… So obvious…
😀
Palms forehead…so THAT’S what it is!
… I need to up my meds…
Wanna’ share? i have no clue what Joel6113, Yarner, and Kessog were talking about either!?
… welll… the only difference… between a stovepipe… is… the more you polish it… it gets…
Death and no souls…
So far I thought the Chimera did simply destroy everything, like an A-bomb on steroids (and wings and claws and an attitude)
So the questionis – where did the souls go?
Did I miss something? (I don’t think so, not this time)
Bia haunted Jin in her hallucinations…
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/little-girl/
Could the multitude she saw also be the remnants of the Chimera incident?
Bud maybe didnt do this one?? charon talks about humans doing it…
Humans made the Chimera.
It seems Bud’s anger/Chimera’s power destroyed their bodies, but moved their souls to some other dimension, a’la Maya and such. Hence Charon’s complaint about no souls to recover.
Back in 2007, I took a stab at explaining this situation in a fanfic here. In short, I proposed that rather than wiping out the entirety of civilization (as Bud though at the time), she more narrowly focused her anger at those who had killed her and the GGs.
As for the new threads bringing in the Greek Gods, just remember they are successors to the Titans who ruled before them, and there’s a whole pile of back story in and of it self! Not to mention African, Chinese, Indian, Norse (partly covered), Egypt, and other panoplies of tales to interweave and delight!
Personal favorite: Edshu, a Yorba trickster divinity. One day he walked between two farmers fields wearing a hat, red on one side and white on the other, green before and black behind (the four World colors). Later, the farmers chatted about the stranger and argued about the hat — White or Red? They eventually come to blows over this debate and were brought before the village counsel, who take up the cause and so become similarly embroiled. Edshu appears and laughs at them all. “I wanted it that way! Spreading strife is my greatest joy!”
thanks, that ‘fits’ a lot better!! 🙂
Thanks for the link to your Fanfic. It was a good one.
I expect this reminder has been posted in the comments in the last few days, but I’ll out it here, nonetheless.
It’s Bud’s memory this time
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/dontwanttoremember/
Of course Charon is upset! Can you imagine how much income just got vaporized?
Tuppence (times X) is the traditional amount….
Is it bad that I am sympathizing with Charon & wishing I could send him some Robax Platinum? All that work and not one soul to help with it. *sigh*
I know in this comic all the text is in caps, but Death should really TALK LIKE THIS.
but that is not death, it is charon…
Wait, what? “All this death,” but no souls? The explosion was so intense, it unmade the very essence of life itself?!
…dang.
Probably had the same effect the Calendar Machine had on Maya and left reality bleeding.
As per Monica, “left reality bleeding.” perhaps they bled into other realities – could explain some hauntings that seem to have no historical source. Lost souls, indeed; you can’t get more lost than being in another world.
I figured it was a much more trivial administrative thing – plenty of death, but none of the deceased were aligned with the Greek pantheon, so nobody’s riding Charon’s ferry.
ooohkay.. weirdo’meter went in the red there.. Princess?? Crispy is a princess?
I see water, Is Charon about to take the princess in his boat (he has a boat, no?)
oh.. upon closer inspection it appears to be black glass..
Notes to self:
– don’t make Bud angry
– Dont feed Bud Naga-peppers before antagonizing her..
recheck the above comments.. 🙂
Boat?? only to the underworld, methinks…:)
I’d always assumed she had some sort of important station because of that headband/diadem she’s always been shown wearing. 🙂 It’s just nice to have that confirmed…even if it means we’re dealing with a brand new character we’ll have to learn all about. 😀
Ok. I have always loved the art but I have to say… Making a smiling skeletal face is very awesome! cudos! It really struck me this morning.
I love the idea that a semi-immortal skeletal being can get a backache. Of course, he can’t get a muscle cramp…
It certainly does lighten up an admittedly dark strip. 🙂
Why not? He has fleshed arms. We don’t know where he’s just bones and where he has meat.
Eventually these two are gonna end up on Monicas’ doorstep
You all know that right? Maybe Charon can transform into a Hot chick with long black hair that likes to wear black biker outfits (since shes ‘Death’) and wears black gloves (cuz if she touchs things like flowers w/o them they DIE.)….. Just guessing at where this might be going.
That is a good catch. Charon being female is not a new concept. In fact her name is pronounced “Sharon” after all.
Charon/Death working out a kink in his back is somehow hilarious 😀
I suspect this is all parts of a very large puzzle which we, as Wapsinians, will not see the entirety until the last stroke of Pablo’s pen.
I also suspect that some members of our cast of (seemingly) thousands have pieces to a puzzle that puts everything back into place. What exactly is put “back in place” – and who holds those pieces – is yet to be determined.
I wonder if Bia is like Aphrael, the Child Goddess, in Eddings’ “Sparhawk” books; she is immortal, and likely older than humanity, but she prefers to manifest as a seven or eight year old girl, because it’s easier for her to manipulate people in that form.
If so, the ease at which Aphrael arranged things would give just about every puppetmaster in the Wapsi conniptions. Gods help them all if Princess Bia is of the same cloth.
(I know, I know, “Be Nice.”)
“No hitting”
Her immortality does not seem to have immunized her from abject terror of annihilation. Nor from sympathy.
Bia seemed to have been around for Lanthis, and now she’s hanging with a Greco-medieval manifestation of Death. She also has a mortal-sounding station.
My current guess is she was human during the Chimeric attack, and got unstuck by it. Neither life nor afterlife will accept her. Now she travels the multiverse with Charon in the ultimate mismatched-buddy road movie.
Just because yer immortal doesn’t mean it’s painless.
The immortals of Baccano! know this all too well. Czeslaw Meyer more than any of the others.
You know…as I sip on a nice tall glass of iced tea here in Confusion Corner, I can’t help but remember the quilt/embroidery analogy my parents shared with me when I was pondering why life is messy.
They told me that God has a Master Plan, but while we’re alive, all we see is the messy “underside” of the quilt/embroidery. We can’t see anything but knots and crossed threads in a tangle 9with maybe the occasional glimpse of “AHA!”)…but when we die, we will finally get to see the full masterpiece on the other side.
I’m starting to feel like Paul’s story fits this analogy perfectly. As readers, we only see the abrupt starts and stops, with occasional moments where we comprehend his brilliant plot…but not until the story is fully told (if that ever happens) will we fully be able to understand the masterpiece. 🙂
Yay Confusion Corner!! *sips tea*
*phwew*
Alright. Caught up again.
Luvs de colors, but your black and white versions are still smashing, as it were.
Heh. I essentially spent three days last week doing nothing much beyond reading the whole nine years of Questionable Content…
Three days sans internet. I’m so behind!!!!!
Ok now I get it… Fuel in the creepy machine.
Paging Mr. Charon.
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)
Keep outpacing those soft rains.
Huh…funny you mention Ray Bradbury when I’ve been reminicing about one of his short stories that I read once more than 15 years ago. “All Summer in a Day” was the story I think…and to this day I remember how emotionally impacted I was by the tale.
For my favourite story ABOUT Bradbury, click here.
my fave news site has a tribute…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/06/rip_ray_bradbury/
some funny links too, in the comments, be sure you *carefully* check the URL if you are at work!!! 🙂 🙂
I love the sea-of-slag effect and on inspection can even tell that Princess Bia and Charon are standing on the bottom of a shallow trench blasted out by the chimera.
Paul, your attention to detail is most noteworthy.
So the Chimera was burdened with a soul-destroying job…
So every living sould was wliminated from the planet, save for these two? What of the other immortals? The sphinxes and demons? Is this the point where the loops began?
And now that the loops have ended, will Bia be back?
So many questions over here in confusion corner…
This looks to be Bia’s second encounter with Chimera-level destruction. Either this is only shortly after her first blast, and the Chimera is still busy about its ruin, or this is an alternate world… or a future state of Earth. She did mention seeing a monster just now, and it ain’t her buddy Charon… who “has to get her away from here”. So that may still be spitting fire in the background.
The Calendar Machine loops began in (and returned to) AD 562. The Golem Girls were long since separated into individuals by then. (Bud’s embarrassing encounter with Amenhotep IV was around 1350 BC, and she was already capable Budly mischief by then.) So if this is the “beginning of the loops,” one or more of the Girls are wreaking this destruction, not the unified Chimera.
This might be a looped Earth, though, assuming Charon is unaware that that is happening. This could be, say, Minneapolis-St Paul after Monica 55 accidentally discovered that there were 2 more loops to go, and that she was fated to fail horribly, and so decided she was going to call all the shots. In Glyph.
But I imagine we’ll be catching up with Bia’s story before we discover any of that.
Perhaps not all life on the planet, but certainly a large radius around Ground Zero.
sphinxes & demons don’t live on the planet.. and any visiting would get a warning to leave I guess…
And as a side story to all of the above – Ray Bradbury passed today at 91 years . Fondly remembered for all his great short story’s’ and complete books .
longer post on that above… 🙂
As for the issue of souls – wasn’t it mentioned at some point in the past that the Chimera destroyed things so quickly and thoroughly that the souls of those who died were ripped from the fabric of existence? Thus, no souls for Death despite all the physical death.
Ah, wait, found the strip: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/demonsshellenergy/
So, correction – according to Bud, they had their demons, shell (physical body) and energy (souls?) stripped away. I don’t think Death is implying that the Chimera killed *everyone*, but it certainly was an extinction level event and a LOT of people died.
Now, as to a) who Princess Bia is and b) why she was there in the first place I will just sit on the CC and wait like everyone else 🙂