July 1st, 2022
1 Jul 2022 · page 1115 of 1306
Just hang on....!
It's only gonna be running until early on the 13th July and there are Kickstarter exclusive discounts on buying whole sets, so be quick!
Cast: Lei Feng, Thea Pryce
Comments (51)
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Gorgeous colouring, although I don't think Thea appreciates it.
Uh-oh!
So is the anchor emerging to claim its witch, or to punish the wizard who dared to summon it?
Why not both?
"Ah, I have been waiting for you, my witch... but we really need to talk about your methods!"
Alright, theory time.
So we know this anchor doesn't have a door. We know this anchor probably should have a door. We know from the color that this "malform" is definitely the anchor doing something. And we know that anchors have some capability to rip the spirits out of people's bodies (when Mal did it by accident in Curtain Call, he appeared to be channeling his powers through the portal of the anchor).
This leaves me with two questions: 1) Do we think an anchor can rip out someone's spirit without a witch's help? 2) What, exactly, do we think the door to an anchor is made out of?
It's not the Anchor that rips the spirits out; it's the witch. So, no, I'd say it can't. For all we know, a witch can do the ripping without being in the Space Between or near their Anchor.
We really haven't seen any sign of Thea being a witch. The only sensory "tells" that are left are taste and touch. Both would be difficult to visualize by the artist and to perform ("Can I lick you?") BTW, I'd lump taste in with smell as they are physically interconnected.
ETA: From the movement in panel 4, it seems to be encasing her in walls of water...
We don't actually know it's the witch who's the driving force there (unless I missed an author comment confirming it?). We've seen Mal rip out spirits from inside the anchor--whether either or both of those elements are necessary to snare souls is yet to be seen.
I also don't think Thea is a witch, she hasn't shown signs that I would identify as anything other than being a nervous but talented wizard. Something I haven't completely ruled out yet is whether or not an unclaimed anchor could make someone a witch, in which case Thea would be about to get a power-up here.
But...well, look at this scene. Whatever the anchor is trying to do to Thea. It's not good. It doesn't feel like a triumphant power-up. I think if Thea Pryce doesn't get rescued she's going to be in for a bad time.
It'd be really wild if the witch didn't have to be human. Maybe the anchor being underwater only seems like a waste of a location because it's not useful to us, but could tether itself to something like, say, a whale, or a dolphin, or a squid. The amplifying effect of the anchor could express itself on its surroundings and the creatures living in them in a more elemental way, not just as a resource to be utilized to imbue shop inventory to make a quick buck or get trains to go faster.
And in that case, whatever creature is "tethered" to the anchor could sense that something is being done to it and respond accordingly? Total wild speculation here, but it's fun to imagine.
We are also assuming that this anchor doesn't have a human witch already. Its entirely possible there is one, we just dont know about it cause theyve never contacted the others. After all, the door did open earlier didnt it?
Sea Witch? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_%28The_Little_Mermaid%29 "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_%28The_Little_Mermaid%29")
Given Thea's revelation as a well-intentioned extremist intent on taking the anchor to suit herself having the anchor transform her into a aquatic form more suitable to serve itself would be a great deal of dramatic irony.
There's the outline of a door and it seemed to make a very quiet sound back in Chapter 7: [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-3rd-2017 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-3rd-2017")
But it didn't open during the music box interlude, so the connection to it is probably still incomplete (though none of the doors were supposed to open, apparently, so who knows): [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/july-24th-2020 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/july-24th-2020")
Ooooh I thought it had opened a small crack, but I think its the small noise I was remembering
That's the thing about magic. The audience can conjecture, explain, and theorize all we want but the author can justify just about anything with "poof, magic". Why wouldn't the anchor have an insubstantial door that opens above the surface? That's no less magic than anything else.
The magic in good fantasy is consistent and has rules that govern it; it is NOT arbitrary.
Authors who solve every problem they write themselves into by saying "poof, magic" are lazy hacks.
{So are space opera writers who do the same thing by introducing new bafflegab and handwavium that was never set up or that violates previous rules whenever the hero is hopelessly trapped. The old movie serials used to be notorious for that sort f thing...|
So: a half-manifested door with seaweedy bits and a goodly sploosh of salt water drags them in ...
Presuming the whole of witch-space isn't filled with water at abyssal pressures they are going to need one of the established witches to let them out - where?
I guess Lei would be happy with a shortcut to Widdershins but Thea is going to have a hard time getting home.
Lemme see, rich girl with no money having to work her passage through an early Victorian world ... is there a story in it do you think?
Cheerio,
If the space between gets flooded at least it will wash away all Mal's discarded dog- ends.
But there's the whole "abyssal pressure" thing. For things that are used to surface pressure, abyssal pressure is . . . not pleasant to be around. If the dog-ends are not magically protected somehow, they would be pulverized or at least flattened. What might be the consequences of that? Might all them be released? Where might they end up?
Many questions and few reassuring answers.
All that water is going to wash away the circles... might be what stops this.
Oookay . . . is this a malform? If so, is it a malform of . . . the door? . . . the anchor itself?
Any malform is not something you want to be near, and a malform of something this powerful . . . I'm not so sure I want to be on the same planet!
I'm going to go with maldoor.
No, the Mal Door is in Widdershins. This is the Sea Door.
My, this is adoorable.
Maldoor? One does not simply walk into Maldoor!
Well, one clearly does not simply walk into SeaDoor
Wasn't there an XKCD What If about a wormhole at the bottom of the ocean?
James Cameron discovered it, but refuses to elaborate further.
Was that the one with the water tentacle?
This is the one I'm talking about: [https://xkcd.com/1040/](https://xkcd.com/1040/ "https://xkcd.com/1040/") Open the full image and zoom in on the bottom of the Marianas Trench part.
I think Glotos is talking about this one: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/53/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/53/ "https://what-if.xkcd.com/53/")
Considering homegirl said “genocide is cool if the numbers support it” Lei is really taking the Be A Better Person thing dead serious by saving her.
I feel like being on a ship powered by certainty might tend to make people a bit more ...firm in their convictions? Possibly she'd be less cool with genocide in other circumstances.
Indifference to collateral casualties may be abhorrent but it is not genocide. Genocide must be both intentional and targeted. You can argue indifference is worse, but in order to be genocide exterminating a specific group of people has to be your primary goal.
Although you're definitionally right, the question of whether 'negligent genocide' is still genocide is a tough one. In this case, I don't think I'd want to defend Thea or her father before the Hague.
Also... to be fair to Thea, she probably never would have gotten to this plan if her father wasn't pushing her into it. Not that it was a good decision on her part, but her sources of input information are probably highly skewed.
So the anchor is a malform?
oh no
chanting
OCEAN WITCH! 👏
OCEAN WITCH! 👏
OCEAN WITCH! 👏
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_%28The_Little_Mermaid%29 "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_%28The_Little_Mermaid%29")
😂 noooooooo
Always remember, Thea: the wages of sin are depth.
(Just wait a minute and let that one sink in.)
GROANNN...
I was all ready to forgive you for the first one, but then you had to go make a splash.
And eventually...
Got to hand it to you...
That'll learn you to piss off Charlton Heston.
So we already have City, Mountain, and Island witches; now add the Sea Witch (imagining her changing into something out of Disney's Little Mermaid here)
Guess it's time to wave goodbye to Thea
In Pacific Ocean, Anchor relocates you!
"In his house at drowned R'lyeh..."
This anchor is done waiting for it's witch apparently.