Annotated 47-24
More paradoxes at work: Frigg is justly proud of her power and her skill in using it, but here she also shows a lot of healthy humility. She’s spent a lot more time telling these new disciples what she can’t do than what she can. Which makes them more inclined to follow her, not less. After Scarlett and Hestia, they’ve had enough of the controlling, my-word-is-law kind of leader.
This is also as close as we’re going to get to resolution of Frigg’s conflict with Fr’Nj: “Sometimes I get mad at people for the wrong reasons, or for no reason.” That could describe her tiffs with Syr’Nj, but those are generally brief and soon resolved, these days—as Frigg admitted once, there’s no one she admires more. But her dislike of Fr’Nj runs deeper. It has always been petty and unfair, and the original reason for it—sexual jealousy over Scipio—was never acknowledged and is now all but forgotten. Frigg still isn’t mature enough to admit this to Fr’Nj’s face. She may never get around to doing that. But conceding it in the middle of this bonding session with her sisters is easier. She carries the scars from the nuns’ attempts to reprogram her, and some of that will always be with her…by now, it’s a part of who she is.
(One small change I’d make: the “diplomatic” bit is a more natural reference to Syr’Nj than it is to Tamara. I think I had a bit where she started to say Syr’Nj and then changed it to Tamara? Can’t say what I was thinking, though. She’s long been able to admit that diplomacy has its place and that Syr’Nj is better at it.)
FB: All my church experiences were also followed by serving punch.
Ah, I did think it was weird that she was hanging onto that dislike of Fr’nj, as I commented a few days ago, but this explains it — or at least the narrative reason for its existence at least.
“I can teach you to be brave, I can teach you to glow, but I can’t teach you to be happy about it” is one of the lines that really sticks with me about this series, and Frigg in particular. Of all the character’s she’s the one that is most easily quotable and repeatable, but this admission that she struggles to just… be happy in spite of all the good and amazing things she’s done really is painful to read, but really deeply honest for her.
As far as I remember this is basically the end of her character arc, and I don’t think she has as far to travel as other people did. She wanted to do the right thing, and had pretty solid ideas on how to do it that were mostly borne out. The more intellectual and high minded characters struggled alot about which options they were doing were actually good, but Frigg decided not to get into all that head stuff for the most part.
But with that, she’s laying out so many of her failures and things she’s not able to do, or is bad at, admitting them without resigning herself to them, not just going ‘this is who I am and I guess I’ll never change’ like a lot of people go. It’s a really good capstone, and of course it’s entirely non violent and non confrontational, two things that frigg is usually doing, in how she does it.
I really like this scene a lot in general, not just this page.
Agree with most but regarding her character arc, she still has one tiny bit left: forgiving Ardaic after defeating him. Indeed, she learned diplomacy in the end.
The most remarkable thing about Frigg in this scene is something she doesn’t say out loud: She’s accepted the fact that she can teach and guide others. Along with the humility she’s displaying while talking about her shortcomings, she’s also getting rid of the fake humility born of inculcated self-loathing that would have her say in the past, “I’m nobody you should look up to and if you don’t believe me, I’m going to be an ass to you until you do.”
I get that any fighter can always learn a few more moves, and learning to manifest one’s inner life force as Green Lantern (Gold Lantern?) constructs is a pretty nifty power to add to one’s repertoire, but how noobish are these nuns, anyway? Aren’t they about as talented as Rachel? They seem a llitle too awed by someone who’s basically a very powerful nun, IMO
I think focusing on power level misses the point. And I am quite certain Rachel would be more boggled than anyone by the equation of “as talented as Rachel” with “shouldn’t be awed by Frigg.”
I think there’s a difference between admiration and worship. People might use them as synonyms sometimes, but they’re not. I think it’s peculiar how those nuns seek to literally worship Frigg, unlike Rachel, who was more of a very enthusiastic fan. All those nuns can tap into the same power source (the self), and maybe each one of them can manifest that inner power differently, or at a different level, but they’re not that dissimilar from each other. I get that Frigg is a rock star to them. A living legend, even. At the end of the day, though, those women are (more or less) trained to do what Frigg does, albeit not with such impressive results, of course. Maybe a Steve Vai fan can’t really match his hero’s legendary guitar playing skill, but I would find it very odd to see this fan actually praying to Steve Vai.
But Rachel did attempt to worship Frigg.
Moreso than these ones, really.
But Then-Frigg was such an open sore, such a self-loathing mess, that Rachel just couldn’t pull it off.
She really tried, but in the end she just had to punch a bitch.
And that turned out to be pretty effective.
Now-Frigg is a much more well-balanced individual.
She’s learned to always punch up, and is promising to help them achieve their own potentials.
Not a bad deal.
Well … Catholics are praying to saints, aren’t they? And those saints all used to be humans.
Also: Rachel was worshipping Frigg. And even though she taught Frigg to control her glowy hammershit, she also knew there was no chance she’d ever get as good at it as Frigg.
The nuns here may be as “talented” as Rachel (in terms of combat, not human interaction, where Rachel rules supreme), but they haven’t learned to control the Glowy Hammershit power any further than Frigg had when she met Rachel — so to them, learning this stuff should be pretty close to a divine gift, bestowed by their patron saint.
…all adds up to me.
She’s gonna fist a god, and teach you how, too!