September 22nd, 2017
22 Sept 2017 · page 734 of 1306
Apparently the last update was page 700 of Widdershins? Holy moly.
At Thought Bubble in Leeds all weekend, hope I can see some of you guys there! I'll have all 6 Widdershins books and all 3 Cautionary Fables, too!
Cast: Harriet Barber, Jack O'Malley, Ms Acedia
Comments (68)
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So Luxuria it was, interesting. I thought it was the one Isa didn't make binding on.
Another interesting thing there was no summoning at all. Sloth was summoned without Barbers, and summoned at first time Wrath asked about the bloodline.
Summoned they can be, I think. They can't be freed without Barber bloodline, if I am not mistaken.
Yeah, it why I wondered... oh, I got it. She wasn't going to summon Lux, only break the binding. It's logical.
Maybe Fairbairn knew enough to have Nicola nearby when she summoned Sloth?
And Envy was summoned at the Tibet anchor, I think the binding is just for Widdershins? Still a little unclear on that.
Good point, which is what I got as well. Although I also got the impression that Envy couldn't leave where it was until it was able to attach itself to Voss so maybe it is across all the anchors.
I think that was actually part of the standard rules for spirits. They can be summoned and dismissed, but while they are here they can't travel on their own and the person who summoned them can limit how they affect the world by controlling the deal offered to the spirit. If the spirit doesn't like the deal it is offered it can refuse the deal and make a counter offer, but without the agreement of the summoner it can't do anything to affect the world. A smart summoner will either offer offer a new deal to the spirit which it will like better but which will still leave the summoner in control or will properly desummon the spirit without letting it do anything. An ignorant fool like Voss accepts the spirit's offer without realizing he just ceded complete control of the deal to the spirit. He gave it transportation to where it wanted to go which it couldn't get without his help and free access to the world which it couldn't get without his agreement for benefits it controlled at its discretion without noticing that Voss was in control before he struck a deal that put Envy in control as part of the terms of the deal.
But Pride, summoned in the Anchor, seemed not to have limitations like these, even before Sid "freed" it.
I like as your description of Voss, "an ignorant fool", is similar with Ben's one, "Envy's foolish summoner", in Malform Guide. :)
Good point. We could explain why Pride is different from properly summoned spirits by the fact that it was summoned accidently in the anchor without a proper summoning circle but that description applies to Envy as well. So it seems like Envy and Pride ought to have been bound by the same rules unless I'm missing something...
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Envy was summoned by one person exhibiting extreme Envy at an anchor (Voss) while Pride was summoned by three people exhibiting Pride at an anchor (Lei, Harry, and Vee)?
Or possibly there's a limit on how far from the anchor the unbound spirit can go without human help and Envy wished to pass that limit but Pride didn't? In Piece of Cake we saw that when you get too close to Widdershins the magic field gets strong enough to fry electronics. If around that point is where the magic field gets too weak for spirits to keep moving away from the anchor without human help Pride would not have needed human assistance to crash Princess Victoria's parade but Envy would definitely need human help to travel from Chomolungma to Widdershins.
I think at that point, Pride was a giant malform (heh) because all three of them had 'buggered up' the summoning what with it being an accidental summons ... it was like a bigger, nastier version of the Hippo of Happiness, so to speak.
I don't think that's it because my understanding is that what makes O'Malley so vital to the malform busters is that he is the only person in Widdershins who can see malforms whereas pretty much everyone could see Pride. I seem to recall Kate saying everyone can see properly summoned spirits, so that argues against Pride being a malform at that point.
I'm not sure how much of the confusion is coming from my having missed a clue in the comic, how much is coming from the rules not being fully explained in the comic (because the explanation wouldn't fit and/or the rules may not even be fully understood by the characters), and how much is due to wiggle in the rules due to dramatic necessity (possibly covered by a hand wave along the lines of "directly involving an anchor in a summons produces unpredictable results").
Envy made itself into a malform by splitting itself up into the gem that Voss was carrying, which allowed it to move around as long as the gem was close by. So when it was shattered it became a regular spirit and immediately went free as it wasn't bound by a circle.
Pride wasn't summoned as a malform, but as a very unstable spirit kinda bound by the metal and such that it merged with- it only lasted about 5 minutes before becoming unstable enough to fall apart (and explode the gunpowder). it didn't have a circle when it was summoned, make of that what you will.
"Let the Spirit of Lust be Free in this Place", rough translation, though I figure everyone would pretty much figure that out given what little we know about Ms. Acedia.
Ah, that's why it didn't work. He's still too young! A kid like that probably thinks girls are icky.
Just wait until he's a teenager with hormones running wild, and THEN you can unleash Lust quite easily.
No, with Mal you can't. :)
Acedia is the worst person in the entire comic and I hope she has to do dishes and take out the trash. >:C
This is the most hilarious comment I have seen in a while. :-)
Envy and Pride: read comment WHAT?!???????
Envy: Worst person??????
Pride: HOW??????!!
Envy: I held the whole theatre to ransom!!! I was going to hold the whole city to ransom!!!!!!
Pride: I had the whole university! And the Anchor, last time around!!
Envy: And Miss Yawnyface there just shoots a geriatric and mistreats a little kid, and she's scooping up accolades like that???! Not to mention that she had the eye of smarmy Mister Lustbucket,Â1Â Pride: He barely spared me so much as a GLANCE!! I can't BELIEVE it!!!!!
Envy: So unfair... razznfrazzn... poisonous thoughts
Pride: sulking and hissy fits
>:=)>
Sorry, Envy and Pride; it's a universal truth that people are more moved by direct harm done to someone they care about than by large-scale evil. For instance, I wasn't particularly bothered by most of what you did at the theatre and the university - but if either of you hurts Ben Thackerey again, I'm coming for you. glare
For me, there's a greater and more global difference.
Envy and Pride are spirits, Deadly Sins at that, and one can't blame them for acting according their "natures". (It is more logical to blame people whose passions has caused them, if anyone.) Acedia is human and has a choice. She has been a child herself, sorry for sentiments.
That's a good point. Acedia really is more evil than the Sins, in a way.
And Invidia and Superbia turned out to be much nicer people than at first blush ('tho, I always thought Superbia was awesome). Acedia just gets worse and worse.
It seems Lux had a reason to choose Acedia as his "wife".
I said it way back when they first turned up, and I'll say it again: Whatever twisted plans Lust comes up with, Sloth always lies back and goes along with it. It's less effort.
I agree completely. Time and again, Acedia has chosen to go down the wrong path, and for a thoroughly stupid reason.
Yep. That would really make her suffer!
Spite in your name and that's the worst you've got? ;)
We could say she has to, like, every hour...
You guys are bad at this! :P
Really wish i could have come to this but its half of England and crossing London away from me and i dont drive, i really hope some fans make it and you have a wonderfull and profitable weekend.
I can relate to Acedia here: she's doing almost everything right and the spell doesn't work because of some weird obscure thing, which despite its weirdness and obscurity may actually have been really obvious. That is exactly like me when I code. xDDD
Yes, I was reminded of my efforts to install MySQL on Linux.
Anytime I do anything with my email other than read it. :/
Wow...Acedia has put an awful lot of work into this...time for a nap...
I'm not hiring her as a babysitter.
Me every week:
Monday: Darn, no Widdershins.Checks five times an hour in case of unexpected
Tuesday: Yes! Widdershins!
Wednesday: Darn, no Widdershins yet. Checks comments five times an hour
Thursday: Darn, no Widdershins yet. Checks five times an hour just in case anyway
Friday: Hum de dum... What it's after noon and I haven't checked Widdershins!!!
And then, still Friday, afer gulping the new page: Oh, now three days more of waiting again...
You just have to do what I do and memorize the minute that it will be posted. Thankfully Kate is very consistent with this.
Or you could just be a dear and tell me! ;)
Well, for me a new page seems to go up right around 3 in the afternoon Tuesdays and Fridays... I don't know if that will help you : P
I'm on Central US time, and the page is there when I check first thing in the morning.
Ditto, which raises some serious questions about where Ocean is checking from.... :P
I'm in China lol
She posts around 8 am her time, so the best bet is to convert that to your timezone.
tfw you do the fetch quests out of order and now you just have a small child taking up space in your inventory
Even better is she's trying to unbind the one sin that never got bound to begin with.
Honestly, I keep wondering about that. Lux wasn't bound, was he?
It wasn't :)
It's all one big binding spell. If she wants to unbind them all, perhaps she has to do all seven in reverse order, which means she has to start with the last sin in the spell. Lux's binding didn't actually take effect, but it's still on the list.
Hm... so has the binding been weakened enough by this to allow Mr Thackerey to summon Sloth before O'Malley returned to Widdershins, or is everyone's favourite wizard in cahoots with Mr Luxuria after all?
See Maria's reply to Heylir's comment below - I think the Sins can be summoned with the binding in place, just not released.
I really need to keep up with the literature. I went back and checked the last volume and it was the release, not the summoning, that was not allowed by the binding. And of course when sloth was released, O'Malley was back in Widdershins. So it's all his fault after all.
>And of course when sloth was released, O'Malley was back in Widdershins. So it's all his fault after all.
It is indeed! It occurred to me recently that when Harry and Sid have their first encounter with Greed in Vol. 1, if Sid had tried to free it then and there, he wouldn't have been able to. He succeeded in fulfilling his promise only because they went back to Widdershins first - on the same train that brought Mal to town.
I love the exchange of Mal and Ben about this:
- So yer blamin' me?
- No! Well.. yes, but-
I like how mini Mal is using the same gesture in panel 3 as adult Mal did in the last page.
Oh, poor little Jack. ;_;
I fear this was not even the worst of what was done to him.
Depends on what you mean. I lay odds that she didn't bother to feed him. Or leave him a hole or a bucket for his... waste.
Ms. Acedia's aura seems awfully... consistent. It's kept the same colour since we first saw her- even though she, in this panel, is going through a range of emotions that probably should affect it somewhat ( compare with Ben here [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-21st-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-21st-2014/") ). An effect of being more or less consumed by Sloth?
I think it did change slightly... I think the sparkles in it got less pink? But yeah, I think you're right that she's pretty consistent with feeling slothful, so the aura's consistent like that too.
Resolved: I am sending some photos of my chubby old self to Kate.
I will request that she draw pictures of me as when I was young and cute.
Money is no object, but we have to rush. My 30th wedding anniversary is next week.
No offense meant to your drawing skills (they are awesome), but Young!Jack's head looks awkwardly huge in that last panel.
A camera angle? He's pushed forward and about to fall.
I have a friend whose children really do have awkwardly huge heads.
I'm puzzled: why can Mal see the color of his own shirt? IIRC, he "rather liked blue" when his mal-o-vision got turned off in Green Eyed Beast, so I'm confused about how he can see color on himself...
He can see colours on himself, he just never knew what they were called. I think. Maybe.
Nope, he's in color because he's the viewpoint character. Check the author comment on this page: [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/may-9th-2012/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/may-9th-2012/")
This was also true when Ben accidentally got the sight. [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-26th-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-26th-2014/") But when Ben viewed himself in the mirror, he did not see himself in color: [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-21st-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-21st-2014/")
No wonder poor Mal doesn't like being called a witch!
What is up with kid!Jack's head?
Don't know if this has been pointed out, but the way children are drawn in this comic sometimes... it looks like a child's body but with an adult head stapled on there. Sorry if that comes off as mean, just a critique that you might want to scale down or soften some features.