Chapter 6 Page 14

Abt_Nihil on July 2, 2010

Continuing our daily updates.

The comment I initially wrote for this page turned into a little philosophical essay (or a not-so-little rant) which, looking back on it, I don't deem too relevant for this page. But it comments on a central point of the comic, and anyone interested can find it in will be additional info, I'm just not sure whether I should include my own picture of this “holistic theory” or not. Personally, I have a very simple theory of why everything happens. Some things are just not important to me, so I don't bother looking for an explanation (for instance, I am not a big fan of psychological explanations - I do appreciate some psychologisms, like those underlying the classic Batman villains, but personally, I think we are who we are, and that's that. Most personalities can't be reduced to their upbringing, their traumas, etc. The most fruitful of these psychological explanations might involve relationships, so basically I'm skipping the whole psychology and just concentrate on relationships). But I feel that if I said to much, I might destroy people's own interpretations, and a bit of the “sense of wonder” you mentioned.
Your theory about Ed's being eaten sure is interesting. Let's wait and find out whether you'll change it after the next few pages! :P
Regarding Metropolis - I did think of that scene, but I wasn't sure. The scary part, I think, is that her programming overrides her humanity. And of course, that can be taken as a metaphor for our own human inclinations, or our deeply rooted dispositions, to interfere with either our rationality, or the bonds we've formed. Like a deep-seated psychosis that ruins carefully developed bonds we've formed. Of course I did use the sort of “inhuman” appearance which Sunhra showed on the previous page as a sort of “shocker”, and a reminder that we don't know what she really is at all, despite her appearance. But another part of the story is that you judge a person by what she normally does, not by the ugly face she shows in a moment in which she might forget herself. In real life, it might be hard to accept that even our most trusted and loved persons have that ugly side to them, but the right thing would be to just accept that, I think. In that sense, Sunhra is very much human.

DAJB: Hey, and here I thought y'all wanted to see more boobies and hair-raising action and less philosophizing! If only I'd known! ;-) And yes, you're spot-on regarding that last caption. But it's really just a straight-forward sentence with a lot of adjectives and some inserts to disguise the fact that it's a simple sentence! The alternative would be to break up the sentence and start the next one with a substitutive pronoun, and that might be even more confusing, because you would have to figure out just what the pronoun substitutes! So, I chose this approach and hope there are more dedicated readers like yourself! :D
Let's see, just for fun, what a broken up rephrasing might sound like:
“Over time, these Gods diffused into language, art, science, and diverse social practices. The latter constantly give birth to locally and temporally restricted communitites. And despite these restrictions, these communities are absolute and all-encompassing in (relation to) their own frame of reference.” I guess one might still criticize pompous philosophisms like “frame of reference” (or “philosophism”) :P

Oriru: That's not gonna work! …I think ^^;

Nepath, loulouloulou, Zephyrion, mmm bacon0: Thanks!