"There's no free will," says the philosopher; "To hang is most unjust."
"There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must."
"There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must."
"There's no free will," says the philosopher; "To hang is most unjust."
"There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must."
... 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.
So, to be clear, the core problem for me remains that Jadis is supposed to be saying "why bother with suffering to fix things when you could just fuck off and do stuff that makes you content instead", but she is saying it to an obviously suicidal person, after shoving that person into the "everything is meaningless" machine.To me it's kinda the opposite, it's more or less saying - 'Everything Jadis is saying is true . . . and also all of it is also completely and absolutely useless no matter how true it is.'
Which makes sense when you realize that Jadis already had a mindset of supreme passivity. So of course, even with omniscience, that's all she can see herself doing. She was literally telling herself that she was finally in control of her life as she switched on the machine . . . the machine that had been raised and told switching on was the only purpose in her life . . .
It's literally a person who knows that they could do better, and be happier, using any excuse they can to do nothing. Because doing things is hard.
Or, alternative, all of the effective altruist cunts who want people to ride their dicks as moral paragons for being rich by dressing it up in lengthy essays of empty solipsism.
Which is a problem, because it is the core moment for the current Allison to take her place as a powerful person in the world who knows herself.
It is the critical starting point for everything that comes afterwards, and it is at best a total failure of an arc to me, the dramatic equivalent of a joke you need to have explained to you. At worst it is a line of arguments that feels insultingly out of touch to me, but I try and tell myself that I just understand things differently than the comic's creator and shouldn't be that harsh on it.
Eh, that is honestly a bit better than what I think.Would it be fair to say "Author intended this to be a crowning moment of awesome, but instead it appears as ``Main character refutes bloody stupid and poorly communicated argument, with her own bloody stupid and poorly communicated argument''?"
"a bunch of fucked up shit happens, Allison goes through depression while a madwoman rants at her a bit, she gets into a brief argument with her ex about conversations that happened off screen, and then finds a bit of her dead girlfriend that makes her decide to get up and leave, without her new prosthetics for reasons that I still don't know".
Ohhh yeah... that bit where he is telling her "You told me this", and she was like "I what? When?""she gets into a brief argument with her ex about conversations that happened off screen"
Her hair already turned to white when they bought their apartment, so I don't think it's a flashback, I'll bet on either a memory of a past loop, or a glimpse of a future one (if she doesn't break the cycle).My thinking is that this is a memory of some event in the one-year time skip prior to the tournament.
I think it's pretty clear this is some lotus-eater type thing where Allison is in some false simulacrum of her ideal life, where she gets to smoke weed with her demon gf (and she's so real for that). I don't think this has anything to do with time loops, nothing about this thematically screams "real series of events".
Gog mentioned a couple pages back that Allison is strong-willed enough that she might be able to retain her identity inside the Gogmind, but worst-case scenario she gets fried and absorbed. I'd imagine this is just how she treats everyone. Your brain is drowned in wish fulfillment until you possibly die, and the Worm gets your body.
Anyway, I guess Allison is going to learn some lesson about accepting reality for its flaws and hardships.
Anyway, I guess Allison is going to learn some lesson about accepting reality for its flaws and hardships.