October 21st, 2016
21 Oct 2016 · page 644 of 1306
Show offs.
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Heinrich Wolfe, Sidney Malik, Verity Cunningham
Comments (43)
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Pride will have a field day with that one.
Indeed. While we're accustomed to the notion that desummoning is needed to banish the Seven Deadlies, I find myself imagining that if Verity is forced to swallow her pride enough during this adventure, given how massive her pride and ego are, she'd end up flushing the tangible manifestation of the very essence of Pride right down with it. Does stomach acid dissolve Deadly Sins?
The magpie stole something he wanted to steal, for once.
Knowing that it exist, will Sid be able to control it, or, better still, ask it what he wants sometimes?
I was wondering that, myself. Hopefully, now that Sid knows that he has a spirit tagging along, they can work out a mutually-beneficial relationship.
I feel that it actually does try to help in it's own way. Like how during the adventure with Greed it stole the handcuff keys, and grenade pins during his scuffle with Verity, instead of money or something more traditionally valuable.
Good point. As with so much else in life, good communication is obviously the key here.
It appears to be guided by Sid's desires unconscious or conscious. His random curious thoughts are just as much likely to be followed as the thought I need this thing.
You know, biological magpies are generally known for stealing shiny things, often metallic.
Though I've not crawled through the archives for all instances, I do recall it stealing keys, pins, coins and other little bits of metal.
Yes-no: corvids of all kinds do wind up with metallic things in their nests... but, it's mainly for structural reasons. They're not dim: they realise the shaping-and-strength potential of wire and corrugated iron or steel. In short: a magpie will use shiny objects it's seen other magpies use. But, they will shy away from strange metallic objects: again, they're not dim. They know people like to make traps. Of metal. That shines. :/
Just a thought (plothole?) Why do the guards keep protecting the inmates? If the lure of wrath is so strong. No doubt at least some of them have hostile feelings towards the inmates to begin with. Why not open the gates and let the mob in?
Some are probably effected that way, others may be getting angry at the crowd for interfering with their job, and some may just be like the guard in this strip who sounds more scared than anything else (although in panel three he may be starting to get angry because Sid appears to be ignoring his authority).
So Wrath may not be necessarily directing them to a specific act so much as feeding whatever gets on their nerves. The crowd mentality is to lynch the criminals, the guards are angry at the mob for trying to usurp their authority...and the prisoners may be wanting to riot if they can get out of their cells. That's quite a mess if you think about it.
Ah, I see Mr Malik's cunning plan. He is going to open the gates, allow the crowd in to lynch the prisoners and then let the police arrest the mob. That way Wrath is weakened because no one is angry anymore.
Now that would be a truly cunning plan...and one I would never see coming.
Except the families of all the prisoners?
Hopefully Ms Harriet and O'Malley will have desummoned Mr Wrath before the families find out. :-)
Sturzkampf... this is turning into vun of those plens.
And how do dose alvays end?
Ja goot point, efen though Mr Malik haz already lost hiz magnificent hat.
But de city iz not in flames yet, zo he may yet claim a new vun.
A lot of it may depend on how intrinsically decent the Widdershins police organization is. If they already have a structure that discourages police violence towards inmates, it's going to be harder for Wrath to disrupt that. Also: why would Wrath want a riot right away, anyway? It'd be like Lust organizing an instant orgy when he could just as easily have the participants writhing with frustrated desire for days or weeks.
Just a guess, since I haven't figured out the plan yet, but maybe Wrath needs a lot of energy fast to make its part of the plan to work. After they've ensured they aren't going back they can play the long game. Of course it could always just be a simpler answer, like Wrath just doesn't strike me as the patient type.
Maybe. But this is Nicola's police force, and she runs ship so tight it holds fast even in her absence.
Wrath of Nicola >>>> Wrath of Wrath
A known known vs a known unknown. :)
I'm wondering if it's not on purpose. Like, maybe Wrath is purposefully affecting only people in that area who are outside the prison and aiming that mob specifically at the prisoners because Wrath isn't as powerful without a victim/purpose or something like that. It would explain why this group is mobbing the prison rather than each other like we've seen elsewhere and why when Ben and Verity fell under it's influence their first thought was to join the mob rather than say, Ben let loose on Verity (who is right beside him) for smacking him in the face.
Everyone, the king of thieves.
"Leave that to me, wizard!"
"I can help with that one!"
Sid. Verity. Stop FLIRTING and get ON with it!
This isn't flirting. This is "I make a better assistant for Harry than you do."
OHHHHH! They're jockeying for position.
Do all the police have a night stick? Somehow I thought that it was a non-standard item that only Captain Barber carried. Anyway, they'll never be effective police officers until they get decent hats.
No hats no Jagers. Well, not proper ones.
They already haz nice hats.
That wink! ♥
Of COURSE Vee is going to develop a crush on Sid and try to move on him. He's Harry's boyfriend, isn't he? (In her mind, anyway.)
Wouldn't she be more attracted to Harry though?
She tried that; didn't work.
The more I see Ben and Verity together the more obvious it is that they're related.
I also really like how the further we get into the section on Wrath the more the color palette shifts to red and oranges.
It's very curious to consider what items Sid's magpie chooses to steal. The potential categories are: 1. things Sid wants/intends to steal, 2. things Sid wants to steal on an implicit subconscious level, and 3. random crap.
Things Sid has stolen which he actively wanted to steal: the keys to the prison, the keys to Harry's handcuffs in ch. 1 (twice!), the pins from Verity's smoke grenades in ch. 3, probably other things I don't remember right now.
Things Sid has stolen which he might have subconsciously wanted to steal: his dean's pen (the dean was threatening to expel him then and there, so grabbing his pen away was an immediate impulse, even though nothing good could come of it) which he tells about in ch. 5, a lady's purse when he was strapped for cash in ch. 1.
Random crap: keys he didn't need, stolen from random people: Macavity, Katherine, Ben. Also, Henry's de-magicked and thus not very interesting jewel.
The only two items I can think of that don't fit into these categories are: Verity's coin purse in ch. 3, which he didn't and couldn't know he needed until he stole it; and OF COURSE the Mark of Thieves. Only these two items can really be held up as evidence of the magpie having a mind of its own and knowledge beyond that of Sid, and still acting in what it thinks are Sid's interests.
We'll have to wait till Mal talks to it to know the whole truth I suppose.
Anything you can do, I can do better!
Look ma, no hands!
I think the top priority in most situations is "oh look a shiny thing", like Ben's keys or the Dean's pen, with that directive being overridden by "this will be helpful to the person I'm attached to" and "oh look, powerful magic object" as needed.
Smooth mate.