Annotated 46-2
Seems that some of you were flustered to learn of Weo’s fate yesterday. To me, it seems only logical based on what we know…”this is the only adventure Weo will get to be a part of,” and a member of a race that can be anywhere could certainly choose to participate in more adventures if they had the temperament for it and also had adult independence. And they could do that without putting the larger winter elf society at risk. Even a couple of the winter elves that Best interrupts seem to be coming back from some kind of ski trip, which is kind of an adventure. It’s even possible that some of Weo’s cheeriness, his whole adventurous spirit, is due to having a shorter span of clairvoyance than the other winter elves, and therefore less monotony to weigh his psyche down.
I’m pretty sure Flo and I were agreed on Weo’s short lifespan, though I know Flo was a bit hesitant when it came to the premature death of another child character (Taro, and his death will be “premature” in that it came before adulthood, not in the sense that it won’t be due).
Anyway! With this update, we get a much more textually explicit explanation for Best’s constant costume changes, as well as an amusingly character-based explanation for how the heck our team is going to get off the mountain after ordering Hollister and Clair to leave them alone for their own safety. Gotta say, it would’ve been a really bad time for Hollister and Clair to have started taking Syr’Nj literally.
That look they give each other in the last frame is meant as “We’ve never really tested that,” but it might read as “Oh, shit, we both flunked that subject.” As it will turn out, they’re going to end up a little too accurate for the team’s own ultimate good.
“a member of a race that can be anywhere…”
Ah, well, I guess that’s the part of the puzzle that didn’t click, for me at least. I thought the winter elves were just stuck in these snowy mountains forever. Admittedly, I haven’t been paying very particular attention the last few weeks.
“can be anywhere”? How? what? Can see anything, know the future, etc., but can *be* anywhere? I thought the whole thing about Winter Elves was that for the good of themselves and their own race, they had to retreat to the remotest corner of Arkerra and hide their whereabouts from everybody else, or else…
So a winter elf going on an adventure would be not just putting themselves in twice the danger as every other adventurer (because everybody will have the additional motivation of capturing and extracting as much truth from you as they can before you die.), but also their kin (because they’d risk creating traces that betray the whereabouts of the other winter elves), plus: They know the outcome in advance, so if you know you’d end up dead or tortured for a prolonged time, I’m pretty sure the reason that we haven’t seen *any* winter elf in the story before this chapter is that Winter Elves don’t leave their home. Even the adventurous Weo doesn’t.
All of the above was pretty well established, I thought? Whereas the ability to “be anywhere” has not. Am I confused? No idea. Am I good at motivated reasoning? Probably. But to me, the idea that Weo has a short life very much seems to be exist only in the writers’ headcanon, if there is such a thing (and I’m glad it is…).
I’m in the same boat. I was under the impression that the WHOLE POINT behind them living in the most unpleasant, difficult-to-access, frozen ass-end of the planet was to sequester themselves from the rest of society. How does that translate to a race that “can be anywhere”? What’s the point of being hermits if they don’t actually need to be? I’m sure there are pleasant climates they could be living in instead.
I think we’re supposed to get it from this page: http://guildedage.net/comic/annotated-44-10/
“So this village exists nowhere?”
“Well, it lives in the fog … and the fog is everywhere!”
See also the description in the comments.
I don’t really get it, though. They’re in the fog. And they know any interaction with outsiders carries a heavy risk, so they will choose those _very_ wisely.
Okay, in some sense, they *are* everywhere because they have memories of other universes, places, times … so in that sense they can indeed be anywhere, except not physically.
This does of course leave the option that the fog was literally everywhere, meaning they could create an “exit” from their village anywhere on Arkerra (or outside of it…), and pop out for a walk or something — but at that point we’re already reading a lot into the story, and haven’t touched on any of the many other obvious ways in which “you won’t visit (whom, or where?) again” may be true without telling us anything about Weo himself.
… which might sound like I’m disagreeing with the writers here, but of course the writers can have all kinds of background stories in their heads, and they may make perfect sense — but if, say, one of the Five turned to their mates on the next page and said something implying that Weo won’t live long, I would assume they were just making stuff up unless they also presented some evidence that has so far been unavailable to readers.
Yep, I agree completely. I thought that he inevitably grew up and lost this adventuring spirit, as so many people do. I really don’t see how it’d be possible for him to actually go on an adventure, especially sine he can see the future and know what a bad idea this is.
Weo dying as a child raises serious ethical/philosophical questions though: if it’s an accident, why can’t he not have it? If it’s medical, why did his parents not procreate a different child. In fact, if the Welves are all miserable bastards, why do they procreate at all? Is it worth it to create a life you know will regret living?
The mere existence of a race of clarvoiants kind of implies fatalisf reality to me. That’s their tragedy – they know what will hplen and can’t avoid it.
With that in mind… what sense does it make for us to assume Weo could go on another adventure if he wanted to, but for us to *also* assume that Weo couldn’t avoid his on death if he wanted to?
There’s like… a million different reasons for someone to never go on an adventure that don’t involve death. Why would a clairvoyant be able to avoid those reasons but not avoid dying as a kid?
Determinism, I’d wager. Things happen as they foresee them, whether they want it or not. They know it’s futile trying to escape or change their fate. Payet Best’s earlier existential crisis is a good example of how miserable they could be if they refused to accept their immutable destiny
Why is Frigg only about two inches taller than Gravedust on this page? I mean, she has always been the second-shortest of these five, but here the top of her head seems to be below Byron’s shoulders, which is way shorter than she’s been before.
He has a tall hat and she’s bare-headed?
I love that someone out there loves The Sandman enough to comb through all the pages and grab that many awesome Morpheus headshots.
I assumed it was a case of “This world will end [and he will die] when the 5 get sorted out.”
I had assumed the won’t visit again was because the winter elves wouldn’t allow them to come back.