in all fairness, it's sort of hard to believe, since Jadis' whole thing is incredibly stupid and it'd be way more satisfying if she was Just Wrong in the end. I read her arc, it's pretty clear the author buys what she's selling, even if I don't, so she'll definitely be contrived to be right. But if you have faith in the author to make a satisfying ending, it's pretty easy to go "No, he has to be bullshitting us".
Kill Six Billion Demons
- Thread starter Tempera
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Why would she need to be contrived to be right? She saw spacetime as an object so even if the universe wasn't deterministic it became so the second she did.
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this is a story where a central plot point is an immortal god king going 'mmm. nope, reroll' every time he doesn't like the universe.
either jadis is fucking with us and hiding that she knows about zoss's shtick, or she's just wrong about her own perfect accuracy.
but of course the author somehow doesn't appear to get that, so indeed she will be forcibly made right even though she's at least one of sketchy and wrong based on available info.
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Well, "Jagganoth is invincible" was another we'd been outright told, and he turned out to be only imperfectly invincible since a powerful enough technique could actually harm him or at least pin him in place. And this is a setting where "fuckit, I reject your reality and substitute my own" is entirely possible, so the precedent was already established for "successfully surprise the omniscient lady."
Of course she knows about Zoss's whole deal, but she doesn't reveal that to anyone because she doesn't. She, like the totality of the universe, is locked in place and playacting, she's just the only one fully aware of it.
Pinning him in place isn't the same as harming him, he still has yet to actually be wounded in any way.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
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Eh, it's a valid criticism, but it's more like, once you start messing around with causality and determinism as plot points, the author's personal philosophies on such things are going to become way more apparent, because your story's internal reality has to be further elaborated on to accommodate them.
i.e. We can all agree about the normal, causal, flow of time. But once you throw in time travel, or 'perfect' precognition, you have to specify the exact rules. And not everyone will agree, because time travel rules go against the collective consensus of causal time.
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The problem is we have jadis word and jadis word alone she's an accurate precog, ignoring word of god.
We also know jadis is not being open with Allison, what with points such as not bothering to mention Zoss's deal.
Or if she's being open with Allison, then she doesn't know Zoss's deal, and we're right back to her not being an accurate precog.
The in universe proof she's infallibly accurate is she said so.
But we have plenty of reason to doubt her word. And her accuracy.
Her being fiat given perfectly accurate is just the author, not the evidence of the story so far.
The core issue though is that she isn't deliberately withholding information, she's literally incapable of sharing it. She does or doesn't do anything because she does or doesn't do it, she doesn't even exist as a personality or sense of agency any more, just a hollow shell composed of scripted actions.
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Which once more the in universe proof is 'she said so'.
This is the problem. Discounting word of god there is no actual reason to think she's right.
She's the only source saying what she says is true. Except literal cultists who say she's right, after all she said so.
But in universe we have no idea how many prophecies she's made that have come true, even with the benefit of hindsight, over literally thousands of years of whispering through a glass block. Given that her status is accepted and acknowledged by her peers and a vast empire my immediate thought is "all of them".
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which would all be in the past relative to Zoss wheel turning, thus giving zero evidence as to whether or not Jadis can be considered a relevant authority on Allison's fate.
Given that she saw everything it becomes semantics but even if she didn't directly observe the prior loops she still saw every single one of Gog's (and Metatron's!) thoughts and actions so she'd have experienced every prior loop secondhand. It becomes a moot point.
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I really think the more fundamental issue is that if Jadis was a character in Pree Aesma's* story, we'd absolutely be expecting Aesma to do some bizarre dumbass stuff that Jadis didn't see coming for some reason. Because being too pig-ignorant to know that what she's doing is impossible and doing it anyway is her whole thing.
And Aesma is kind of an echo or allegory for Allison herself a lot of the time.
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*(spelling?)
And Aesma is kind of an echo or allegory for Allison herself a lot of the time.
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*(spelling?)
Though the fact that Aesma attempted to do what Jadis succeeded at and was permanently mutilated by the effort despite being the goddess of "Fuck you I do what I want" speaks volumes
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and once again we solely rely on word of god and Jadis for proof Jadis actually is All That And A Bag Of Chips.
literally, you are just believing a character in story if you're going to textual evidence as she screams I AM INFALLIBLE.
She doesn't scream "I AM INFALLIBLE", I don't think she's capable of it 😂 Even ignoring word of god and her devoted priesthood she wouldn't have a reputation of infallibility among the other demiurges if she'd ever credibly been wrong, given that they are her equals that have known her for millennia and would be well aware of any mistake in her predictions.
E.I.G.
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... did any of the others actually put any real stock in what she says?
I mean, they listened to that, and took Zaid, but I think they cared about as much about Gog's random statements as the prophecy itself overall. It was a thing to take into account, but most didn't seem that convinced.
Because she doesn't give straight answers. She's clearly not a lodestone given the nature of her statements but they never outright disregard what she says or treat it as anything less than the truth, in comparison to Gog who they constantly talk shit on and blow up her head.
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so lemme get this straight- in the current context we're supposed to assume people explicitly unaware of the time loop who freak out over Zoss, such as incubus, are valid judges not of Jadis infallibility in day to day events but for the current present involving the direct actions of multiple time loopers and when the time loopers have seen it all and keep going 'this loop is interesting and maybe different'?
sure that's what the crap wog says, but in character the logical assumption is Jadis is either lying or wrong about a lot of things now.
The loops are baked into the structure of the universe though, that's how spacetime works, anything that has happened or will happen is happening. "The circle, pure and infertile" as 2 Michael says. Also she doesn't lie just like she doesn't tell the truth, she has no agency to choose one way or the other and just says/does what she says/does.
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On the other hand, it's perhaps notable that when Gog is describing the other demiurges as dumb, know-nothing fools who act out their parts on the stage while Gog is in the audience, she doesn't carve out an exception for Jadis.
Gog talks about how she's the oldest of them, how she had to assume a different form just to be able to hold all her memories, how she's done it all and seen it all, but apparently nothing Jadis has said or done in any previous cycle has given Gog cause to regard her as any sort of peer in knowledge or perspective. If Jadis is actually omniscient it seems like she would be a natural comparison to make when Gog is telling Alison her deal.
Gog talks about how she's the oldest of them, how she had to assume a different form just to be able to hold all her memories, how she's done it all and seen it all, but apparently nothing Jadis has said or done in any previous cycle has given Gog cause to regard her as any sort of peer in knowledge or perspective. If Jadis is actually omniscient it seems like she would be a natural comparison to make when Gog is telling Alison her deal.
Because Jadis can't do anything, she's metaphysically incapable of doing anything she wasn't already going to do. She hasn't been trapped since she turned the machine on, the fact she was trapped to begin with is why she flipped the switch in the first place
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If Jadis is omniscient, Gog doesn't care, because Jadis herself does not care and Jadis' knowledge is therefore irrelevant.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
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... honestly, the Jadis arc remains the worst part of the comic for me, and it is entirely because the creator introduced a character who if taken at face value is representative of the truth of the singular timeline that definitely happens.
Which is unfortunate when:
1- She is destined to lose the argument, and in fact said outright "I am useless and will not do anything the creator didn't make me do".
2- I fundamentally disagree with the creator on the details of the philosophy she spouts to such a great degree it sounded like total nonsense the first few times I read it, and the best I can say is that I have some idea what they intended to say but did not actually successfully say.
It is an unstable foundation for these parts that have come afterwards, and as much as I like what has happened since the Jadis arc I still have this unfortunate feeling of "it would probably have been better if the Jadis arc had worked".
Which is unfortunate when:
1- She is destined to lose the argument, and in fact said outright "I am useless and will not do anything the creator didn't make me do".
2- I fundamentally disagree with the creator on the details of the philosophy she spouts to such a great degree it sounded like total nonsense the first few times I read it, and the best I can say is that I have some idea what they intended to say but did not actually successfully say.
It is an unstable foundation for these parts that have come afterwards, and as much as I like what has happened since the Jadis arc I still have this unfortunate feeling of "it would probably have been better if the Jadis arc had worked".