Almost certainly not. As discussed way back when this whole situation started, if he had an antimagic cone, he could have just used it on Gren in the first place to prevent the magic trap from hurting her while he rescued her. And even further back, the Lewie’s rings arc would have had the simple solution of ‘just antimagic cone the ring and tell people what the deal is’.
Glasses. It should work just the same as masks (Meegs never wears a mask like other gorgons do).
But couple pages ago… Snierr putted her mask off and nothing bad happened to Bob2 – some mystery there
I was thinking that this could be some homebrew petrify curse that’s not undone by normal magic. Though I think they already depetrified other victims. And I think that in such a situation it would be way more effective to petrify Gren and since this could not be reversed without a gorgon, that would make Bob more cooperative.
Not that I don’t appreciate the plot (I DO) but has anyone mentioned the supercool old beholders in panel 1? Old lady and gruffy dude with random face hair sticking out are brilliant. Now I want to see a full bearded beholder 😀
Meegs is not a very nice person, but I still will feel bad when she gets zotted. (not that she doesn’t deserve it 1000x over) Then again, I adore Lizard-Beth 🙂
This may be wishful thinking on my part, but I don’t think Meegs is going to be killed just yet. If she was, there’d be no need for a cliffhanger (darn it Rich, keeping us in suspense) at the end. Perhaps Gren will point out that she was converted against her will or something else will intervene?
Well, she is more magically talented then most gorgons (and a bit less gorgon-ish). Can she teleport, or anything like that? If so, she might yet save herself (for the moment), though where she will run to, I have no idea. After all, Ranna is not going to be too pleased that she was fooled by a sleep ray, rather then a death ray. So right now, neither side will want to keep her alive. If she runs, she had best run far and fast.
I imagine that "run far and fast" is exactly what Meegs has in mind. Hell, even Celena chose to bug out rather than face the dual wrath of Ranna and the unamused anti-Rannites, and pre-snakehead Celena was never a coward. Pre-snakehead Meegs was unapologetically so.
I didn’t see it so much of a cliffhanger as much as a punchline. And the other way this could go is to have Meegs try to weasel her way out again, appealing to the evil nature of beholders (remember when we met Bob’s parents?), faking in that direction, but then zapping her all the same.
From a good aligned standpoint (that none of the beholders, the grell, or even Gren would share) best solution would be to petrify her for now and keep her like that until such time as Ranna is defeated and they can work on a way to restore the converted gorgons to normal.
At the very least, they could use her as a guinea pig.
Aye, a good person would still hope for Meegs to take a chance, and work towards redemption. The beholder attitude can be "that was a dirty, evil thing you did! I’m proud of you!" when it comes to family, but Meegs would be a fool to think she could pull it off. After all, to the beholders, she is just food, and they sometimes play with their food.
Meegs…how you loved power. How you loved the ability to benefit from the choices power allowed you to make. How you loved the freedom to worry about you, and only you. Your concern for your apprentice extended mostly to the hassles of running auditions again. (We won’t even talk about the familiar you fed to your domestic gryphon.)
You saw power in magic, and power in control. You saw power in station, privilege, and force. But you were too busy playing meteorologist, and tracking the changes in the strength and direction of the wind, so to speak, that it never dawned on you that it might have been wiser to work on building shelter that could withstand the wind. Shelter stronger than you.
I can’t entirely credit this to the Rannites. You were on this road before their rise.
Do you see, now, that mortar is what creates a wall, and that mortar is what makes a pile of bricks more wind-resistant than each brick was, on its own?
It ain’t over ’til it’s over, of course. But my words were meant more a reflection on where true power lies, and the opportunities she missed, by choosing to take her chances with the wind. A shame. The power she coveted…is the power staring her down, that she once had.
To be complicit, I think we’d have to be potential agents, in the first place. We’re only culpable if we could have acted, and yet, chose not to act. We have a unique luxury, as readers from outside, and a unique immunity. We can only observe.
Now, the juxtaposition of sympathetic pain with awareness of narrative irony is a fascinating thing, indeed. It’s at the heart of the Python troupe’s comedy, really…it wouldn’t work if the viewer wasn’t torn between the detached and and immersed perspectives. Our immersive hearts sympathize with the "straight man," but our detached minds recognize the pattern before he does, and anticipate each and every pitfall that will come from missing the pattern. It’s an uneasy thing — an imbalance, not a balance — and I suspect the "complicity" you suggest calls back to the unsteady nature of reconciling these detached and immersed perspectives. It’s not wrong to engage a scene in both ways at once; if it were, self-aware humor would be impossible, and YAFGC has many such delicious morsels of completely self-aware humor.
That I’m a big ol’ heart-on-sleeve blubbering nerd about engaging the narrative is merely an acknowledgment of realities about myself. I can’t call you "complicit" for appreciating the dramatic irony, or even the dark humor, of those arcs. Indeed, I was giving Meegs herself more of a pass, myself…thinking of her as a more comedic character, contextualizing the darkness in her arcs as riffing on the stereotype of "evil female magic-user," before Rich ahemed and pointed to the "chill wind" comment of Eddy’s, so long ago. It’s caused me to reevaluate my feelings about Meegs, and take her choices a little more seriously…consequences and all.
It’s okay that we saw the humor in a stylized, gloved cartoon mouse flipping Meegs the bird, before dying horribly as gryphon enrichment. As a riff on a legendary property that shall not be named, it was fun! The part of me that mourns for the chances that guy never really had is at peace with the part of me that cracked up at the bird-flip panel with positively juvenile delight…and I cannot and would not cast doubt upon anyone else’s conscience on this, either.
So, I see what you’re saying, but I think that being audience gives us an out that it doesn’t give Meegs, in this moment of reckoning, at least.
Looks like, she retained some of her personality. She straight tried to claim to be on Bob’s side, and that she was on his side all the time. "Our plan" says it clearly, I would say. Its kind of the same move as the "Hail Ranna" was, only this time less effective.
Considering that, she would make a good spy or double agent, provided she is not aware of that she is one…
I think she retained the vast majority of her personality. Ranna didn’t have to break Meegs’ mind to win her service; just nedge it a little. Meegs is nothing if not morally flexible.
Ah ha! Bob wasn’t nearly as clueless as he seemed, the entire thing was part of The Plan (and unlike the Cylons, or the writers of Lost, he and Grell actually had one).
Even if Grell did most of the mental heavy lifting, Bob played his part well.
Hm… was it ever explained why or how Meegs joined the cult?
There always were clues that she was morally on the wrong side. Like dressing up as Maleficient or the cold chill, when she was declared a wizard and no longer an apprentice.
But an actual moment where she decided to join Ranna? Or was she frced to? That would be interesting to know.
Meegs was working with the good guys during the Hank/Scale/Gertrude saga, but was captured when her magic fizzled at a crucial moment:
https://yafgc.net/comic/2961-miss-fizzle/
(As I type that it sounds suspicious, as if Meegs engineered her own capture, but I’m pretty sure she did not. With Ranna’s meddling, the age of powerful magic may well be fading worldwide.)
Gren was captured in that same fight, so Bob and the Grell split off from the Bloodhands’ group to rescue them. By the time they caught up, Meegs had been gorgonized by the Rannites. So technically she is an unwilling convert, though she probably set a new Stockholm Syndrome land speed record:
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I normally do not quote Emperor Palpatine but I feel it must be done here.
Raspy gravely voice: "Do it!"
So it’s her turn to be executed. Will she do anything to spite Bob now? Like, I don’t know, petrify Gren before dying? Or cursing her in some way?
I can’t recall, do YAFGC beholders have the anti-magic cone? Because Bob is staring right at her.
Almost certainly not. As discussed way back when this whole situation started, if he had an antimagic cone, he could have just used it on Gren in the first place to prevent the magic trap from hurting her while he rescued her. And even further back, the Lewie’s rings arc would have had the simple solution of ‘just antimagic cone the ring and tell people what the deal is’.
I asked Bob in the Ask The Characters Thread and he said they did.
Glasses. It should work just the same as masks (Meegs never wears a mask like other gorgons do).
But couple pages ago… Snierr putted her mask off and nothing bad happened to Bob2 – some mystery there
Beholders are immune to the gorgon's petrifying gaze, but goblins aren't. The worry isn't that she would petrify Bob, but Gren.
He could just unpetrify them.
I was thinking that this could be some homebrew petrify curse that’s not undone by normal magic. Though I think they already depetrified other victims. And I think that in such a situation it would be way more effective to petrify Gren and since this could not be reversed without a gorgon, that would make Bob more cooperative.
Say goodnight, Meegs.
Meegs: Oh, I get some last words? OK: Dimension Door!
Don’t blast until they can see the whites in your eyes!
Yeah! That sudden brightness is a GREAT touch.
t!
yea!
Not that I don’t appreciate the plot (I DO) but has anyone mentioned the supercool old beholders in panel 1? Old lady and gruffy dude with random face hair sticking out are brilliant. Now I want to see a full bearded beholder 😀
Ben has a mighty mustache. Is that not enough? 🙂
Oh I adore the moustache – it’s a mighty one indeed, but now I want to see all the variants – swirly ‘stache, goatee, full Santa…
She should’ve known Bob was pulling something when none of the Bloodhands disintegrated.
That laugh in Panel 3. Rannites really can’t help themselves can they ? They’d rather be sadistic than live
Meegs is not a very nice person, but I still will feel bad when she gets zotted. (not that she doesn’t deserve it 1000x over) Then again, I adore Lizard-Beth 🙂
Bye Meegs.
This may be wishful thinking on my part, but I don’t think Meegs is going to be killed just yet. If she was, there’d be no need for a cliffhanger (darn it Rich, keeping us in suspense) at the end. Perhaps Gren will point out that she was converted against her will or something else will intervene?
I don’t think Bob will zap her.
I think he’ll let his Dad eat her
Well, she is more magically talented then most gorgons (and a bit less gorgon-ish). Can she teleport, or anything like that? If so, she might yet save herself (for the moment), though where she will run to, I have no idea. After all, Ranna is not going to be too pleased that she was fooled by a sleep ray, rather then a death ray. So right now, neither side will want to keep her alive. If she runs, she had best run far and fast.
I imagine that "run far and fast" is exactly what Meegs has in mind. Hell, even Celena chose to bug out rather than face the dual wrath of Ranna and the unamused anti-Rannites, and pre-snakehead Celena was never a coward. Pre-snakehead Meegs was unapologetically so.
I didn’t see it so much of a cliffhanger as much as a punchline. And the other way this could go is to have Meegs try to weasel her way out again, appealing to the evil nature of beholders (remember when we met Bob’s parents?), faking in that direction, but then zapping her all the same.
From a good aligned standpoint (that none of the beholders, the grell, or even Gren would share) best solution would be to petrify her for now and keep her like that until such time as Ranna is defeated and they can work on a way to restore the converted gorgons to normal.
At the very least, they could use her as a guinea pig.
Aye, a good person would still hope for Meegs to take a chance, and work towards redemption. The beholder attitude can be "that was a dirty, evil thing you did! I’m proud of you!" when it comes to family, but Meegs would be a fool to think she could pull it off. After all, to the beholders, she is just food, and they sometimes play with their food.
I like how Meegs scrunches her shoulders in the final panel. These subtle things make the comic come to life.
But somehow I doubt hiding your neck will work against a beholder 😀
Nice catch!
t!
Meegs…how you loved power. How you loved the ability to benefit from the choices power allowed you to make. How you loved the freedom to worry about you, and only you. Your concern for your apprentice extended mostly to the hassles of running auditions again. (We won’t even talk about the familiar you fed to your domestic gryphon.)
You saw power in magic, and power in control. You saw power in station, privilege, and force. But you were too busy playing meteorologist, and tracking the changes in the strength and direction of the wind, so to speak, that it never dawned on you that it might have been wiser to work on building shelter that could withstand the wind. Shelter stronger than you.
I can’t entirely credit this to the Rannites. You were on this road before their rise.
Do you see, now, that mortar is what creates a wall, and that mortar is what makes a pile of bricks more wind-resistant than each brick was, on its own?
You could have been building walls, Meegs.
She’s too sneaky for me to buy her death until I actually see it. And even then, I’ll be suspicious.
It ain’t over ’til it’s over, of course. But my words were meant more a reflection on where true power lies, and the opportunities she missed, by choosing to take her chances with the wind. A shame. The power she coveted…is the power staring her down, that she once had.
We’re complicit in some of that, aren’t we?
It was droll when she had to get a new apprentice.
t!
To be complicit, I think we’d have to be potential agents, in the first place. We’re only culpable if we could have acted, and yet, chose not to act. We have a unique luxury, as readers from outside, and a unique immunity. We can only observe.
Now, the juxtaposition of sympathetic pain with awareness of narrative irony is a fascinating thing, indeed. It’s at the heart of the Python troupe’s comedy, really…it wouldn’t work if the viewer wasn’t torn between the detached and and immersed perspectives. Our immersive hearts sympathize with the "straight man," but our detached minds recognize the pattern before he does, and anticipate each and every pitfall that will come from missing the pattern. It’s an uneasy thing — an imbalance, not a balance — and I suspect the "complicity" you suggest calls back to the unsteady nature of reconciling these detached and immersed perspectives. It’s not wrong to engage a scene in both ways at once; if it were, self-aware humor would be impossible, and YAFGC has many such delicious morsels of completely self-aware humor.
That I’m a big ol’ heart-on-sleeve blubbering nerd about engaging the narrative is merely an acknowledgment of realities about myself. I can’t call you "complicit" for appreciating the dramatic irony, or even the dark humor, of those arcs. Indeed, I was giving Meegs herself more of a pass, myself…thinking of her as a more comedic character, contextualizing the darkness in her arcs as riffing on the stereotype of "evil female magic-user," before Rich ahemed and pointed to the "chill wind" comment of Eddy’s, so long ago. It’s caused me to reevaluate my feelings about Meegs, and take her choices a little more seriously…consequences and all.
It’s okay that we saw the humor in a stylized, gloved cartoon mouse flipping Meegs the bird, before dying horribly as gryphon enrichment. As a riff on a legendary property that shall not be named, it was fun! The part of me that mourns for the chances that guy never really had is at peace with the part of me that cracked up at the bird-flip panel with positively juvenile delight…and I cannot and would not cast doubt upon anyone else’s conscience on this, either.
So, I see what you’re saying, but I think that being audience gives us an out that it doesn’t give Meegs, in this moment of reckoning, at least.
Less talky, more killy. She’s dangerous.
Looks like, she retained some of her personality. She straight tried to claim to be on Bob’s side, and that she was on his side all the time. "Our plan" says it clearly, I would say. Its kind of the same move as the "Hail Ranna" was, only this time less effective.
Considering that, she would make a good spy or double agent, provided she is not aware of that she is one…
I think she retained the vast majority of her personality. Ranna didn’t have to break Meegs’ mind to win her service; just nedge it a little. Meegs is nothing if not morally flexible.
I’d say it makes her qualified to run for Congress, but not much else. :-/
Awwww. I like Meegs. Hope she pulls a rabbit out of the hat with this one.
Yea BOB.
Ah ha! Bob wasn’t nearly as clueless as he seemed, the entire thing was part of The Plan (and unlike the Cylons, or the writers of Lost, he and Grell actually had one).
Even if Grell did most of the mental heavy lifting, Bob played his part well.
Well played. Very well played.
Hm… was it ever explained why or how Meegs joined the cult?
There always were clues that she was morally on the wrong side. Like dressing up as Maleficient or the cold chill, when she was declared a wizard and no longer an apprentice.
But an actual moment where she decided to join Ranna? Or was she frced to? That would be interesting to know.
Meegs was working with the good guys during the Hank/Scale/Gertrude saga, but was captured when her magic fizzled at a crucial moment:
https://yafgc.net/comic/2961-miss-fizzle/
(As I type that it sounds suspicious, as if Meegs engineered her own capture, but I’m pretty sure she did not. With Ranna’s meddling, the age of powerful magic may well be fading worldwide.)
Gren was captured in that same fight, so Bob and the Grell split off from the Bloodhands’ group to rescue them. By the time they caught up, Meegs had been gorgonized by the Rannites. So technically she is an unwilling convert, though she probably set a new Stockholm Syndrome land speed record:
https://yafgc.net/comic/3038-the-mighty-meegs/
I just noticed Gren’s glare (and folded-back ears) in panel 3. Goblins are actually a species of cat, aren’t they?
Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I forgot about this part.