3403 A Proposition
AAARRRGGHH!
I forgot a strip! No wonder my numbering was all messed up here. Okay, so today you get a twofer. This one takes place before today’s strip. It was supposed to go up right after King Eric I passes on to the afterlife.
3401a Towards the Light
Assuming Mages can still operate, of course
If mages are still to function, they will all have to seriously retrain, with a strong emphasis on efficiency, and maximum effect with a minimum of power. No more being flashy just because, if you can do something like start a fire with a flint, best do it that way, and save the little remaining magic for the things that can’t be done by normal means, like certain kinds of healing, or helping those left in a damaged state as the magic fades.
On the plus side, while Lewie has a long memory of knowledge and experience, he is going to have to retrain anyway, to learn how to function as a living human and not a litch, so combining the two would work. He also has shown some ability to leverage non-magical things to his benefit, such as using the extremely explosive… I think it was Dwarven alcohol?… to blow up Jone. If anyone can adapt to the new conditions, it might be him.
I hope they show his sister soon, one way or another.
I imagine it’ll be sorta like the ending of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. *SPOILER ALERT* if you haven’t watched this decade old masterpiece of an anime go do so before finishing this comment.
after Ed sacrificed his door and lost the power of alchemy he said to Winry that he planned on going to Xing to learn alkahestry, it basically behaves almost identically to alchemy but because it’s performed so differently it’s able to work without the innate human sacrifice required.
basically I’m assuming magic will return to a primal state rather than it’s arcane or divine states that had become so mainstream. people will have to turn to innately magical objects like magical plants for potions, or magical animals like dragons, demons, or elementals. at least that’s how I’d run it in a fantasy game, sorcerers and wizards would become a bit of a rarity whereas alchemists, artificers, and warlocks would become more common. maybe there could be some story arc where they try to open a portal to another dimension and siphon it’s magic DOOM style, maybe open a portal to Primus and stealthily attach some sort of mana generator to one of the infinitely spinning gears like a poor person stealing their neighbors cable/internet by attaching a splitter to the cable line without them knowing.
on the bright side, now that magic is becoming less accessible technology will have to advance to compensate. if I were able to push a button from across the room with magic but I suddenly lost that ability I wouldn’t go back to walking across the room like a neanderthal, I’ve had a taste of that forbidden laziness fruit and now i must invent an item that allows me to achieve the same outcome without using magic, and thus the remote control came to be. laziness is the engine that drives advancement.
"Oh right. I have vital functions now…"
I give him a month tops before he ends up in the hospital for forgetting to eat.
Or forgetting to sleep, or bathe, or exercise, or stay hydrated, or brush his teeth, or poop, or cut his hair, or bandage wounds, or…
Well, there’s just a lot of upkeep in being alive, and Lewie is <i>very<i/> out of practice.
From a previous post you made, Rich, are you wanting some editing help? As in "semi-colin" should be "semicolon ".. if not, I’ll shush. If yes, tell me how you’d like my help.
Ah, Meegs… While it makes perfect sense for these characters to in character call it defecting, I do personally take offense to the idea of torture, coercion, and literal mind control being referred to as "defecting". If they did not have free will or agency than you can’t hold them personally accountable the same way you hold someone who made the choices completely on their own.
That being said I shall watch our former lich’s career with interest. I wonder if meegs will cameo as a statue in future stories though…
Eddy has known Meegs long enough that, even without precise knowledge of how Meegs’s conversion went down, he probably suspects (correctly, as it turns out) that she defected on her own power, and was not in fact a victim of torture, coercion, or mind control.
https://www.yafgc.net/comic/3038-the-mighty-meegs/
Granted, she was under THREAT of all these things, and in real life the threat of torture is classified as an effective form of torture in itself (by the people who do the torturing, not just by those who work to shut them down.) So her choice to defect was certainly made under duress. But she showed no moral compunctions about joining the Rannites; only concern for her own skin. I don’t think Eddy is being unfair to her, only realistic about his problematic ex-apprentice.
TLDR…In translation:
"Understanding *why* someone committed a crime by no means absolves them from committing the crime in the first place."
I would agree with this.
Granted, if Meegs is caught, tried, found guilty & faces a sentence of punishment, mitigating circumstances may *reduce* the severity of the punishment, but there should still be some level of punishment.
I know what he was trying to say, and I never said that she is totally and completely innocent, I just disagree with everyone’s assessment that she is a horrible garbage person and got what she "deserved" (who ever really gets what they "deserve") when people who have committed far worse atrocities are viewed as cool dudes.
I think in general fanbases and some writers consider corruption and mind altering effects as still the character making choices as far as narrative is concerned, and the concept of that fills me with unease. Narratively speaking what happened was Meegs got caught by known torture/murderers (that she was fighting against of her own free will), and then when threatened with torture she claimed to switch sides. Did she actually? Well, yes, because she then was given a potion that insured it- who’s to say she was faking it because she’s a big coward and didn’t want to be whipped? Again, she’s a coward, morally dubious and ethically bankrupt… but I just disagree with any assessment that thinks she was a "willing" servant of evil.
Well, after "coward, ethically dubious, and morally bankrupt," there’s not much more I can say about Meeg’s longtime faults. But yes, I agree that to fixate as readers on what she *deserves*, and whether she has gotten it, is to miss the point. "And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?"
Of course, Celena is a far better candidate for *deserving* a second chance than Meegs is…and since they will probably either both get one or both remain petrified forever, justice, such as it is, would also argue for freeing them. Besides, who could not enjoy the thought of the chaos they would bring, still-snake-brained or otherwise, to those unsuspecting far-future folks?
I mean, threat of torture is the definition of coercion. Then further, once she took the potion her own personal desires don’t matter anymore, as we have seen from others that were freed from the curse’s influence. Like, just a point of order here, that is *literally* the definition of coercion.
Once the potion was taken we can’t judge any of her actions as her actions. It saddens me that people keep referring to her as just a villain when she is rather morally grey compared to a lot of other beloved characters in this comic, Bob included.
Problem is, readers (and author) have been viewing her as ‘evil’ and ‘deserving of any cruel fate she will inevitably receive’ long before this arc
And Bob can do no wrong, because whatever he does (like sell someone out to the hyu-mons for a bunch of silver) is completely in character (and the one he sold out deserved what they had coming to them anyway, because they dared to hurt one of the beloved main characters)
To be fair, her petrified fate isn’t that cruel. We just know she’s not going to be coming back in the story proper because we saw that she’s still stuck potentially a thousand years after these events.
That was light compared to what some people wanted happen to her (including taking a hammer to her statue)
Presumptuous of you to assume what moral judgements I’m making on these characters. I don’t weigh justice and carefully orchestrate actions vs consequences. If I did, Jone’s story would have been very different.
EDIT: I’ve given this some thought and figured I’d share this whether anyone wants to read it or not. Justice and Karma are such culturally and personally subjective matters, it’s never been my desire to tell stories that satisfy this ‘balance’. I prefer to have things happen a bit like it does in real life. It just happens somehow. It’s up to the readers to decide if the way it turns out is satisfying or unjust. Obviously this is tainted by my own conscience and so usually bad guys fall and good guys win out. I have to have my world ultimately wind up a place where I want to come back and pay an extended visit. So the Rannite regime is only allowed to last as long as I know it will eventually collapse. But on a smaller scale, a bad deed can go unpunished, a good deed can go unnoticed and unrewarded, and most of these characters live in an nebulous grey zone of morality.
When I GM RPGs, I create a situation that the characters have to deal with. How they deal with it is entirely up to them. I don’t provide a ‘right’ answer. They then have to live with their solution and the consequences that I create logically rather than morally (Ask t! about commanding the rogue space station Gateway Alpha. The Players argued for weeks about what they should or shouldn’t have done! I loved it.). I try to write this comic the same way. I create a situation. The characters deal with it. You guys have to suffer the feels. I enjoy reading your reactions to it all.
Fine, just the readers then (and *that’s* not presumption)
While I wholeheartedly agree with you in general, Meegs specifically is a nasty, self-serving piece of work (with gorgeous eyes) that I’m thinking that just the proposal of becoming a Gorgon with its inherent powers would have been cause enough to accept. She was power hungry, amoral, and I think she saw her chance and took it. She could help the rannites win to stay in power, and if they lost, claim to be coerced
And how is she any different than any of the inhabitants of the former Black Mountain?
As for Celena, she willingly handed over one of her former group to die (DM’s don’t convert males, just torture to death), but that’s fine, she was tortured into converting, and forced to take over leadership, so she can be forgiven
The main characters are funny, and have always sided against widescale destruction no matter how beneficial joining up would be. Meegs jumps at any chance for power, regardless of the consequence.
I don’t hate her but she got what was coming to her.
> I don’t hate her but she got what was coming to her.
Indeed. (And delighted to see you in the comments lately — remember you most fondly from the old forum!) I rather liked Meegs…as a dark character. When processing her arcs and her behavior as comedy, she was a very humorous take on the "evil mage-queen" archetype, but when one thought about life from the perspective of her familiar, or her apprentice…well, she became a significantly darker and uglier character, once her actions were examined in light of meaningful consequences.
I rather like Meegs…again, as a character, and as, frankly, a relatively reprehensible one. That I "expect" evil from "monsters" and I react differently to evil wearing a more human face is an interesting comment on my biases and prejudices, and I freely acknowledge that I have biases, and I enjoy the way YAFGC challenges them, and demands that I examine them, as a consequence of caring.
I do think that the range of audience reactions to Meegs is a bit more nuanced and varied than some might suggest, too. But I note, of course, that you never claimed otherwise.
The only time we saw Meegs attempting to act in the name of greater evil was after she became a gorgon and therefore wasn’t in her right mind, as evidenced by every other one of the women who drank the potion before. She may have been mean to her familiar or apprentice but need I remind you of other characters literally murdering and reanimating their magical assistants *cough* *cough*
Hmmm. I really can’t agree, Bububub2, and I’d be careful here: you seem to be conflating "Meegs did nothing all that bad" with "Others did bad stuff, too, you know." Those are two very different arguments, and the latter might just undermine the integrity of the former, a bit. I don’t think we can "defend" Meegs by citing that other characters have done morally-troubling things, too.
But then, I don’t think that it’s necessary to lessen the impact of Meegs’ deeds to appreciate her as a character.
I can’t help but think I’m seeing that this is a little bit personal for you, and that worries me a bit — it seems to be setting yourself up for easily-avoidable hurt, for battles of opinion that can’t be won, and frankly, don’t even need to be fought in the first place. I don’t think that we need to vindicate Meegs, morally, to appreciate her as a character…and I don’t think that we need to form a "fan consensus" of her imagined moral culpability. If some people think more dimly of her than you do…what skin is it off of your nose, really?
I think she’s a self-centered, callous, inconsiderate jerk, and that’s a big part of what makes her a nifty character. I found the arc with her familiar engaging because of the active dissonance between "This is darkly humorous when taken as comedic abstraction" and "This has absolutely horrifying consequences when taken at face value." I was horrified. I was laughing. I was horrified *that* I was laughing. Comedy is, at its heart, uncomfortable, off-balance, and at least a little adversarial — it wouldn’t have been nearly so funny if it was presented fully self-aware of its own moral and ethical implications, without the dissonance between empathy and narrative distance.
I don’t think this is a "wrong" way to enjoy YAFGC, or the character of Meegs. I worry, when I see increasing voices to the effect of "Meegs is unfairly maligned!" — there are suggestions in that stance that it’s wrong to engage Meegs as a villain, wrong to focus on her more evil actions, and wrong to be most moved by those. Honestly, I think that whatever draws you into engagement with the characters and the story is net-positive, and that there’s room for all flavors of story and character appreciation at the table, here.
While the presence of a self-appointed "honor guard" for Meegs is a sign of her emotional impact on the YAFGC fan base, so too is the continued remembrance of her for her less than admirable actions. I love Meegs, as a character, and my disappointment that her better nature didn’t prevail is predicated upon her having said capacity for better nature to begin with. I can’t speak for others, but I suspect I’m not the only person for whom my disappointment in Meegs is not, ultimately, an expression of the fact that I cared about the character.
Indeed…emotional energy is a precious commodity, and we don’t tend to spend it on imaginary people lightly. Respect the love, even when the manifestation of it you see is hurt, disappointment, anger or despair toward a character. I doubt anyone carrying emotionally-meaningful misgivings toward Meegs arrived there through means other than caring about the story and the characters.
Love YAFGC your way, in your time, at your pace. Grieving, hurting, resenting…these are every bit as legitimate reactions to an engaging story as love, delight, cheering and joy are, and frankly, they pay Rich, and Meegs for that matter, a great honor. A panto actor who plays a villain can expect, at curtain call, to be booed…and this, too, is an accolade.
>Rancourt
My own personal feelings about Meegs don’t really factor into my personal stance that I simply don’t view her as a villain worthy of the dislike people lump towards her- and my argument that other people that are beloved also doing really messed up stuff is a completely different and separate argument. Before she drank the potion, yes, she was a petty and douchy character that I liked.
I do not feel bad that she suffered consequences for her actions- nor am I *sad* at her fate. I am simply commenting on the fact that **once the potion turning her into a gorgon was consumed** you cannot judge Meegs gorgon as the same character as Pre-gorgon her. Whatever her personal character was before. It bothers me when people do not make the distinction, or then say "Well she was evil before, anyway".
Meegs was never an overt villain, if such a thing actually exists in this comic. In fact she very often decided to help heroes with very little prompting. My personal feelings on the matter aren’t really factoring in here beyond the fact that liking her made me take an interest. I’ve taken an interest in villains that I am well aware are villains before as well and cheer at their ultimate defeat. I also am not opposed to Meegs’ ultimate fate as a lawn ornament or as a museum piece- I actually find that to be quite a daring and interesting end for such a character. You rarely see someone who is petrified actually given that as an "end" in a world where being petrified can easily be undone.
My comments are, and always have been, a distaste at the unwillingness of people to even try to keep in mind that there are mind altering effects in play towards the end of her part in this comic. "I never thought Meegs would actually throw in with the baddies, I knew she wasn’t really good though" is recurring comment I saw in those strips’ comment section and all of my responses have been in response to THAT!
If you hate her because of her callous attitude towards her apprentices, or her familiars, or her lazy desire for power, then totally fine. If you hate her because she "threw her lot in with the evil goddess" then, yes, that makes me as a fan uneasy. She didn’t do that of her own free will, she did it after the threat of torture and then afterwards whatever her personal desires were don’t matter after she drank the potion. Unless she kept her alignment, but we all evidence points to that not being how that potion works.
I’ve had this stance since I’ve first started consuming pop culture. I just don’t think I can count someone who has been corrupted by an outside influence as a villain, even if they weren’t really "good" before the corruption.
Hey bububub2;
I personally agree with your standpoint here. I showed that the gorgonizing potion was a total mind control drug and it was clear that Meegs converted via threat of torture. She is, therefore not to be held accountable for any wrongdoings she did as of that moment. If one is inclined to hold cartoon characters accountable for anything. And people like us are; being all artistic-minded like writers, artists, actors or even just appreciators of the arts.
I do believe, though that what I read in Rancourt’s reply was simply that he was concerned that you’re getting rankled by others who have a different opinion. It’s tough to not get riled up by ‘people who are wrong on the internet’, I’m quick to relate to that, trust me. But these people will always exist. There’s no point in getting mad at them.
For my part I’m not trying to say anything moral about Meegs’ life or her fate. I’m /generally/ writing them reactionary to situations I throw at them. And it was just really dumb bad luck (and the hilarity factor for me) that she brilliantly escaped being obliterated by Beholders just to accidentally wind up as a statue. And that they’re misinterpreted as being an art piece about sapphic love.
I wouldn’t say that I "hate her" at all, mind you. I’m also not convinced that everyone who expressed displeasure with her "hates her," either.
I worry here that nuances of individual intent may be lost in generalization — I don’t think we can categorically describe everyone’s feelings about Meegs with generalizations. Might I suggest that my own stance is well-articulated here — I don’t hate Meegs, but I do find some of her actions reprehensible, and I’m fine with this as a reader! — and suggest that we look at the question of how "YAFGC’s readership" feels about Meegs in a more individual and granular manner. I suspect there’s a fair bit of variation in individual opinion and stance, and I don’t want to speak collectively for a large number of people whose individual voices I don’t know well.
Perhaps a more productive question to put forth would be: How much do we imagine the transformation changed Meegs? I certainly don’t know the answer to that, either, but it might serve as a basis for exploring the matter that’s concerning you in a more actively-inclusive-and-welcoming way.
I understand the message that’s upsetting you, I think, and I see the point you’re making, that you have questions about how culpable Meegs is for actions taken post-transformation. That’s certainly not a trivial subject to address, and perhaps the best approach to your misgivings would be to open the floor to explore that, as a topic.
I’m not sure the gorgonification process affects everyone uniformly. I see some evidence that it has corrupting effects, yes, but I wonder: Is this always the case? Is it *typically* the case? What exactly does gorgonification *do* to the mind? Where would the boundaries of culpability lie in the case of someone who, pre-gorgonification, *would* have acted evilly, but post-gorgonification, cannot *help* but act evilly?
These are fascinating questions. Where you encounter belief that Meegs is culpable, I suspect you will find that the party in question disagrees with you about the above points, but obviously, I can only speculate, leave the topic on the floor, fold hands, and listen, in case anyone cares to speculate, or offer their own theories.
Thank you Rich! And again, I’m not actually upset right now at anyone. Text doesn’t really show nuance that vocal ranges are capable of. My *only* point was the mind alteration of the potion being ignored by people was a big point of contention. I will stop posting walls of text!
Again, for those I’m debating with… I am not angry. I’m sorry if I angered you as well.
Ack! No no, bubub…bub. I’m not angry at all! I’m just making sure we’re all on an even keel. I don’t anger very easily, I don’t think. I mean, I hope not.
Ack right back at you, I wasn’t referring to you as someone who might be angry, but some of the other people I was debating with! You actually were quite calm and diplomatic in your response! Stupid text not showing nuance!
> Again, for those I’m debating with… I am not angry. I’m sorry if I angered you as well.
Not angry at all, Bub2. Rich nailed it: was worried that you might be stressing about this. I hope my above replies demonstrate that I was listening, seeking to understand, and when I got a handle around your core point, related to it! We’re good if you’re good.
Funny to see how much lingering hate there is for Meegs. I miss the character.
I know! I don’t get the hate at all!
Love the draft sketch of Lewie’s head shape in the last panel- the one to determine eye level makes it seem to be motion lines as he turns his head to look at the reader. And perfect for lewie to be insulted by Eddie before being offered the position lol great description of being cold too!!
I hope lewie accepts as I think it’d be perfect fit, and one more tie between the black mountain and the others.
Leland and Trevor- sooo in character! Lol
There’s something particularly beautiful, too, about the fact that they’re *cuddled up* in the wreckage together, while still writing.
…and that they find being buried under rubble inconvenient, primarily because there’s not enough light down there for proper writing and proofreading. Nerd on, gentlemen.
I keep picturing a little camp on the battlefield, with a makeshift "billy" boiling tea over a fire, an understanding that the camp is neutral ground, and those two offering cups, a safe sit and warming, in exchange for firsthand tales from those who came to the great battle.
…but I don’t think Trevor remembered to bring tea, let alone crystallized ginger. And the moment he catches sight of a Great Legendary Mind among those present, he’ll be away from camp and fanboying egregiously. I have my own theories about his biggest braincrushes…
What C’rhynne would give for a gps and a tracking tag. ?
Trevor may need to be collared and belled. It’s true.
"colon" not "colin". Normally I wouldn’t be pedantic here, but the CHARACTER is trying to be pedantic.
After his snowmobile tragedy, we only found semiColin…
(…. and people think that I’m the awful one around here? )
Isn’t a colon something you poop out of?
Colon (the punctuation mark) comes from the Greek word κωλον, meaning ‘limb’ or ‘clause’. Colon (the body part) comes from the Greek word κόλον, meaning ‘large intestine’. Totally different words.
Oh. So you can’t poop out of a clause?
Damn. Here I was thinking I was so clever, pausing to think about how that might be spelled and realizing… oh wait, a COLON is a thing you poop out of, therefore the punctuation mark must be spelled differently.
You can if your name is Santa.
Well, it IS spelled differently … in Greek. Not in English.
> Oh. So you can’t poop out of a clause?
I had colleagues in grad school whose entire courses of study could be summed up in precisely those words, good sir.
This is correct, which is kinda funny if one considers that "κωλος" means "ass". It almost feels as if the spelling was reversed for that one.
Aww, nice to see Trevor and Leland made it okay. They likely protected the history they had been writing up and saved it as well.
Also nice to see Lewie has good priorities, if somewhat rude about it. Meaning, nice to see him helping so many people, and not even making a hash of it. His sister has taught him well. I hope someone feeds and waters him, and gives him a good crash course in caring for a body again. It has been a really long time, and for a while, he didn’t even remember when he was human.
Yeah, he has so many people to save, not worry about two specifics he’s never heard of
C’rhynne: "Would it help if I told you Trevor once called Eddy a…" (checks archive) "…oh, wait, damn. It was *me* that called Eddy a crackpot."
Lewstrom: "Yeah, continuity is a headache. Wait till you’ve lived a few more millennia and you’ll see how bad it gets."
(Okay, it wasn’t C’rhynne who forgot and had to check the archive…)
3401a, Panel 3.
Further proof (not that any was necessary) that Richard grew up in the early days of the PG-13 movie rating!
t!
Carefully hidden bodyparts?
Carefully and *imaginatively*.
t!
In comics you also have the use of the helpful, if oddly placed, word balloon, if nothing else is available.
Common prank among comic characters. You stop speaking, just at the moment your word balloon was supposed to conveniently shield your friend’s modesty!
Brilliant C’rhynne-noggin placement. And whilst we’re examining C’rhynne-noggin…I note that recent events have aged her model slightly. It’s subtle, but it’s unmistakable that we’re looking at a very, very tired C’rhynne…upon whom this battle has left a mark. Another of the subtle visual touches I so love about Rich’s work…
"Ironic" …. or inevitable?
Eglerost will never be the same again, and that’s probably a good thing.
But I hope that Lewie can learn one thing very quickly; time is fleeting for mortals. He may be blessed with a houng body, but it won’t stay that way.
Maybe he can get some tips on regenerative napping from Eddie.
Did you mean ‘young’ or ‘hung’ body?
Hey. What an unexpected a happy news.
Two strips for one. Are we celebrate something i forgot?
Just my disorganized tendancies.
But it *is* November 11th, and the war has just ended…
t!
"The" war … those were really great times, if a bit naive, when it was called "the" war …
When it was called ‘The *Great* War’
"Before we knew enough to number them."
t!
It was also the first war to span, or at least reach, nearly the entire world (you even had German troops in the South Pacific)
I will probably catch Hell for saying so* , but you CAN slow down if you want to. Honestly, we’ll be fine, just hope you will be too.
* again 😉
Thanks. Normally I’d just post it out of intended sequence, but this one /had/ to have taken place before today’s strip, for reasons you’ll see in tomorrow’s.
Was Elegrost built on what used to be Lewie’s kingdom, or is the irony just that he conquered it back during the Rings scheme?…one of these days I should archive binge again.
Both. Elegrost exists in the area where his people used to rule before the Nordsmen came and conquered them. Later he used his ring scheme to nearly take it all back and be ruler again.
Elegrost will certainly benefit, what about the residents of the former Black Mountain?
He’s got quite the job ahead of him, he’ll probably have to rediscover how magic can be made to work at all.
I never know how to feel about a high fantasy world loosing his magic. Narratively is a interesting way to make a evolution in all the wolrd and to show how the people (and the life in general) adapt to new radical circumstances. In other hand, it sadden me the disapearance of the thing wich makes a world… well magical, like if all the stories told were a mere dream and didn’t happened (in-story evidently).
I am curious about the consequences of this war. How will affect the magical creatures, in special those who rely in magic to survive? There will be soome kind of magic left? The magic left will be more evil-friendly like sacrifice-powered magic?
I agree with you on this. Magic isn’t going away. It’s just diminishing somewhat. And the reason for this is that powerful magic makes storytelling more difficult, especially if you’re trying to bring in some real world historical period elements. Technological advance for example. I plan to move YAFGC away from the Medieval – Elizabethan rut and push it forward into a bit of Age-of-Sail swashbuckler era. There will still be mages and soothsayers and witches and Liches and curses and fairies and magic relics and all that. There just won’t be a dude in robes snapping his fingers to end wars. It’s just a transition for YAFGC marked by a thing.
Kinda like at the end of one the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, the one where they had hunted down and killed the Kraken: the ‘mystery’ and the ‘majesty’ of the unknown seas was being replaced with the ‘mundane’
Even with skin, that is a classic Lewie expression. I love it!