Kill6BillionDemons II: The Successor's coming will be followed by 108 burning threads

[TaiLiu]

I think that can be handwaved by the difference between Rich's and Abbadon's pacing.

We're also closer to her, so little art flairs like that can be waved, unless the artist is known for being particularly meticulous about even the smallest of details, regardless of perspective.

The comic is consistent with your hypothesis, yeah.

[sihnfahl]

Now Allison sees the horror that is Jadis' life.

[Ibrinar]

You know I consider deterministic decisions still decisions. Because I consider something a decisions when it is picking between choices based on a combination of personality, knowledge, mood, desires and such things. Since the things have a specific state at a specific point the resulting decision is predictable with perfect knowledge (Except maybe for quantum randomness.). But why would the outcomes being inconsistent be desirable anyway? - However knowing all these outcomes beforehand would make it hard to perceive anyone as actor. (I guess quantum mechanics in the setting aren't true randomness either.)

I wonder how this interacts with the time loop, does it contain all loops or just the current loop? To be static and have stuff about the MC requires all loops I guess.

[Rydiro]

I'd have so many questions. Like how does Jadis come up with the things she does. She decides to do or say things. It seems she lost her insight into the why though. She has the magical power to do a bunch of stuff, but only acts in the most rare and contradicting circumstances.

[mystic1110]

You know I consider deterministic decisions still decisions. Because I consider something a decisions when it is picking between choices based on a combination of personality, knowledge, mood, desires and such things. Since the things have a specific state at a specific point the resulting decision is predictable with perfect knowledge (Except maybe for quantum randomness.). But why would the outcomes being inconsistent be desirable anyway? - However knowing all these outcomes beforehand would make it hard to perceive anyone as actor. (I guess quantum mechanics in the setting aren't true randomness either.)

I wonder how this interacts with the time loop, does it contain all loops or just the current loop? To be static and have stuff about the MC requires all loops I guess.

Since word of God is that Jadis knows more than anyone ever - assuming that means metatron and gang - she would know about the loop, all the loops, if they end, how they started. Even quantum randomness. There’s no such thing for her - she knows each quantum result. She knows too much.

[sihnfahl]

I'd have so many questions. Like how does Jadis come up with the things she does. She decides to do or say things. It seems she lost her insight into the why though. She has the magical power to do a bunch of stuff, but only acts in the most rare and contradicting circumstances.

Because she saw the script. She has the writer's notes. She has the artists' vision.

She doesn't 'come up' with things. She's beyond the Fourth Wall, relaying what the writer has to say through her. Do through her. Perhaps, at first, she only realized it in retrospect. She saw her actions as the only things she COULD have done. Then she looked forward and saw the things that she not just will do, but MUST do. Because that's the story Yisun has written.

And maybe not even Yisun. The writer who created Yisun....

[lord_khaine]

Possibly she is the person i feel the most pity for.
Since it part it seems like she stopped being a person.
She has less free will than anyone else. And she knows it.

[mystic1110]

Possibly she is the person i feel the most pity for.
Since it part it seems like she stopped being a person.
She has less free will than anyone else. And she knows it.

She’s dr. Manhattan. No one has free will if her assertions are correct - she’s just the only one who knows it.

[Rydiro]

Because she saw the script. She has the writer's notes. She has the artists' vision.

She doesn't 'come up' with things. She's beyond the Fourth Wall, relaying what the writer has to say through her. Do through her. Perhaps, at first, she only realized it in retrospect. She saw her actions as the only things she COULD have done. Then she looked forward and saw the things that she not just will do, but MUST do. Because that's the story Yisun has written.

And maybe not even Yisun. The writer who created Yisun....

Sure thats the speech she gave, but she can notice Allisons thoughts and emotions and reasons.
She can't notice her own. Its like the knowledge erased her own motivations and emotions. It's not mutually exclusive to have motivations and being trapped in the amber, so why can she sense Allisons reasons, but not her own?

[Squire Doodad]

Since word of God is that Jadis knows more than anyone ever - assuming that means metatron and gang - she would know about the loop, all the loops, if they end, how they started. Even quantum randomness. There’s no such thing for her - she knows each quantum result. She knows too much.

This could also mean she knows if Allison will end up breaking the wheel and creating a scenario she cannot see, but also knows she never will act to particularly [stop/enable] this and never tells Allison the nature of her fate, thus causing Allison to achieve the ultimate result.
Also, rather interesting to see Laplace's Demon bound not by the linearity of time so much as absolute apathy towards it.

[BRC]

Sure thats the speech she gave, but she can notice Allisons thoughts and emotions and reasons.
She can't notice her own. Its like the knowledge erased her own motivations and emotions. It's not mutually exclusive to have motivations and being trapped in the amber, so why can she sense Allisons reasons, but not her own?

She may very well have emotions, but her perspective is such that acknowledging them does her nothing.

She doesn't ascribe motivations to herself, just inevitability. She knows what she will do, and therefore, her reason for doing anything is the knowledge that she will do it.

She certainly seems to show emotions, she has empathy for Allison. She doesn't behave as an emotionless being, so much as a powerless one.

Two teacups exist, one is slightly chipped. She knows she will drink tea out of the chipped one. She may even be perfectly aware of why (She knows exactly how to hold it so it will not spill, her guest would not have that same knowledge), but that is irrelevant.

She has perfect knowledge of everything, if she were going to choose the unchipped cup, she would already know that. The fact that she knows she will choose the chipped cup means she will choose the chipped cup.

She could go through the mental processes of making a decision, "If I take the chipped cup, I can drink from it without spilling a single drop. Therefore, I shall take the chipped cup", or she could simply act on the decision she already knows she will make, even as she also has full awareness of why she will make that decision.


It's not so much that she does not have emotions, or reasons, it's that her relationship with causality is different. She does not perceive herself as making decisions, so much as moving through a script. This logic twists back onto itself, each decision is an immutable, unchangeable moment.

Maybe once she made decisions normally, even as she knew what decision she would make and why, but eventually the "Why" becomes irrelevant. She makes decisions because she knows she will make them.

[Thales]

Hey, boss titles for Jadis! Have any of the demiurges not gotten those yet? Did Incubus?

[mystic1110]

Jadis was the only one remaining. And what's interesting is the word she bears now - which was not one of the original seven. Looks like Mind was the price for Shape.

[Divayth Fyr]

Jadis was the only one remaining. And what's interesting is the word she bears now - which was not one of the original seven. Looks like Mind was the price for Shape.

Minor nitpick - Shape isn't called a word here. This may or may not be important (but probably the former imho).

[Eldan]

Incubus had titles, yes.

Spoiler

Show

Also interesting: I think Jadis is the only one so far not called "God of the Seven-Part World".

Edit: Jagganoth had "Destroyer of the Seven-Part World".

[sihnfahl]

Incubus had titles, yes.

Spoiler

Show

Also interesting: I think Jadis is the only one so far not called "God of the Seven-Part World".

Edit: Jagganoth had "Destroyer of the Seven-Part World".

And Nadia, Goddess of the Seven Part World.

Minor nitpick - Shape isn't called a word here. This may or may not be important (but probably the former imho).

It seems to be a Word. An Idea. A Truth.

[Rydiro]

@BRC: That actually makes a lot of sense.
---
The Shape is the Shape of the Wheel and thus her perfect knowledge.
The Words are the seven syllables of Royalty. Shape isn't one of them.

I guess she lost her mind upon becoming omniscient.

[Gez]

The Shape is the Shape of the Wheel and thus her perfect knowledge.
The Words are the seven syllables of Royalty. Shape isn't one of them.

I guess she lost her mind upon becoming omniscient.

She ceased being Royalty by becoming omniscient. It's the whole issue of free will vs. predestination. Now that she knows every action she will ever take, she no longer acts because she does what she wants to do at any point, she only follows her script because she's convinced she cannot do anything else.

So she can no longer be the Bearer of a word of Royalty. Instead, she is the bearer of the Shape of the cosmos.

Anecdotally, the whole mystical concept of Royalty comes from Morrowind's lore, where Royalty was basically defined as doing what Jadis has done while still retaining your own will and sense of self. Something that Jadis clearly failed to do.

[slayerx]

She may very well have emotions, but her perspective is such that acknowledging them does her nothing.

She doesn't ascribe motivations to herself, just inevitability. She knows what she will do, and therefore, her reason for doing anything is the knowledge that she will do it.

She certainly seems to show emotions, she has empathy for Allison. She doesn't behave as an emotionless being, so much as a powerless one.

Two teacups exist, one is slightly chipped. She knows she will drink tea out of the chipped one. She may even be perfectly aware of why (She knows exactly how to hold it so it will not spill, her guest would not have that same knowledge), but that is irrelevant.

She has perfect knowledge of everything, if she were going to choose the unchipped cup, she would already know that. The fact that she knows she will choose the chipped cup means she will choose the chipped cup.

She could go through the mental processes of making a decision, "If I take the chipped cup, I can drink from it without spilling a single drop. Therefore, I shall take the chipped cup", or she could simply act on the decision she already knows she will make, even as she also has full awareness of why she will make that decision.


It's not so much that she does not have emotions, or reasons, it's that her relationship with causality is different. She does not perceive herself as making decisions, so much as moving through a script. This logic twists back onto itself, each decision is an immutable, unchangeable moment.

Maybe once she made decisions normally, even as she knew what decision she would make and why, but eventually the "Why" becomes irrelevant. She makes decisions because she knows she will make them.

Actually now i'm thinking that what if the reason she is unable to do anything differently than what she knows will happen is because she is incapable of even perceiving herself in the present. What if she see's what she does in the future and the past as clearly as she does the present? If she see's the past and future just as clearly as she sees the present, then how does she know which is which? If she is incapable of telling the difference between the present and the future she would be unable to do anything to make her present self do anything differently that might change the future. Trying to tell her present self to do something differently would be like trying to tell a memory of something you did in the past to do something differently. She might be able to physically control herself in the present, but if she doesn't know what the present is, then the present becomes just as unchangeable as a past event that already happened.

She doesn't need any reasons or motivations for anything she does. She can't do anything different because to her "it already happened"

[lord_khaine]

She doesn't need any reasons or motivations for anything she does. She can't do anything different because to her "it already happened"

Thats a really interesting take on her situation.
Thumbs up for deep thinking!

[Thales]

Really good art on this latest update. I like how the perspective is shifting in the last panel, making the hole appear more like it's in the floor and thus something one could fall into.

[TaiLiu]

I wonder if this is when Alison's philosophy minor will come in handy. So much physics and metaphysics and the philosophy of mind being thrown around. Probably not, though.

[Rydiro]

Definitive proof that Jadis is a liar.
There were plants, but the promised breakfast is nowhere to be seen.
Say what you will about Mottom, but at least she was polite enough to serve a meal before unveiling her horrors.

[wingnutx]

I predict a supercharged Allison.

[InvisibleBison]

I predict the Master Key is going to break the machine.

[Rydiro]

I predict she will see Zoss riding the wheel.

Edit: Like a unicycle

[Eldan]

I predict she will see Zoss riding the wheel.

Edit: Like a unicycle

How about there's the wheel, but then also a second smaller wheel behind it.




Also, Jadis definitely put too many things on her bagel.

[LecternOfJasper]

And so the Successor's enlightenment has been conceptualized using 108 burning threads....

[Anarchic Fox]

Ugh. Omniscience is one of my three most hated tropes, along with time travel and alternate realities. Still, the author has established enough credit that I think the ending will be solid.

To clarify, I hate these tropes when they appear late, in a story mostly about other things. If the story is entirely about one such trope, it can be quite good. Everything Everywhere All at Once was fantastic, Primer was fantastic, that episode of Red Dwarf with the oracle was fantastic, but Avengers: Endgame (with two of the three tropes airlifted in) had me frothing.

[Eldan]

Uh, is the new comic supposed to be just an entirely black page or is my computer not loading it?