What an image…! “like cracking an oyster and having a horse fall out.”
How can wombats be so evocative, while disdaining poetry in almost the same breath?
“That was supposed to be the end of it”… famous last words. And now I get the wombats’ mistrust of gods and magic… because if you add “… but gods and magic were involved, so of course it wasn’t” to the end of that sentence, it all makes perfect sense.
I really, really want to know *what (the heck) went wrong !?!!??*. Ah, well, Thursday’s not that far away….
Ok, I agree with whoever said that seeing where the shadowchild fits into this is going to be very interesting. Actually…. no, never mind. I won’t speculate.
OK, OK, OK, so the bound god IS He-Is, and the madness IS Sweetgrass-Voice, fine. I surrender my wacky over-the-top unnecessarily-convoluted pet theories about those two.
Well I’ll be buggered, the kingfisher *was* He-is. I was putting my money down (given that Murai had had nothing to do with hyena’s before) on the kingfisher being the Mother of the Good Man. Which led to a whole different potential storyline of Murai being on a quest to restore the Good Man and oust the Black Mother. Alas…. But anyway, Hah, I was right. I knew it was He-is in that cave, even if we didn’t get a good look at his head.
I think the hyena is the Eaten god rather than Grim Eyes–she doesn’t have a notch out of her ear. I like his expression though, it has a sad sort of dignity.
Really really looking forward to seeing what Grim Eyes thinks of this though. I wonder if the madness of some of their women is caused by the lingering claws of Sweetgrass Voice in her people. Will finally giving the Eaten god the death his followers have denied him, take the demon with him and end the madness?
Gyaaah. I only remember about half the stuff being speculated on in the other comments. I’ve got two days off coming up, and clearly I’m gonna have to spend them archive-bingeing.
I’m pretty much in agreement that I think it’s He-Is that’s chained up, but a random thought occurred to me: Is it possible that the god isn’t He-Is, but She-Is-Fiercer? Guilt over chasing off He-Is and what happened to hyenas as a result (the first born death) could drive her to it. Could even be an attempt to reverse the First-Born curse.
@ortonmc, Wombats may not be able to have the ability to pick the genders of hyenas, but I’m perfectly sure that they are capable of telling what the gender of any particular bird is, Especially when it comes to kingfishers, males are easilly brighter/more colourful then the females
Then again, this is a god we’re talking about here, could be that anything can be disregarded due to whatever tthe god wishes to do
I would venture a guess that shadowchild has nothing whatsoever to do with the main plot, and we will never know where he/she/it came from. On the other hand, the cast page *does* specify a white bird…
Kingfishers have shown up in Digger before. http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=221 (The strip where the Skin Lizards explain their religion.) The “heart becomes Kingfisher.” Perhaps this isn’t all of the god.
While the idea of Shadowchild hatching from the body of the bird He-Is was inhabiting is intriguing and powerful, the timing doesn’t seem to match up very well. All this happened over a thousand years ago; while the timing of Shadowchild’s hatching hasn’t been explicitly stated, it seems unlikely that he could have been running around for a millennium or more without at least rumours of his existence reaching the large ears of Snoutnose God.
Still, even after saying that, I’m not quite ready to write off any connection between Shadowchild and Sweetgrass Voice – but we’ll see!
Lol, i love reading the comments as much as the comic some days. The speculation is almost as intriguing! I agree with Jassius and Werrf though. There are too many coincidences but not enough evidence at the same time. Coincidences do not make irrefutable proof.
You know, given that in the “real world” the same major event (earthquake, flood, war, etc.) can spawn a host of divergent mythologies that all describe the event in different but related ways, it is plausible (though a bit mind boggling) that EVERYTHING ties together – The stories of the hyena gods and their dead child could be related to the story of the Black Mother and her dead child, the Good Man; Shadowchild could be a manifestation of BOTH dead god-children; Famine and SweetGrass Voice are probably one and the same, and related to Shadowchild; and of course all the bird/rodent stories are probably different relations of the same events …
Just a few twisted midnight musings to get the brain cramped up …
I’m with you, Tek…I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see all the myths dovetail somehow, by the end of all this.
Current working theory as to Shadowchild, well. First — we humans take its innocence to mean it was hatched what we’d think of as recent, but I wonder. There’s things it says that lead me to suspect it might have been around longer than its childlike nature would imply. Second — remember what the statue told Digger about shadows needing something to cast them, and also remember the Shadowchild itself and its “there are shadows on your heart”.
So what if the Shadowchild was the shadow of the true guilt and shame on He-is’ heart over his awful deed? And when He-is shed the form of the bird and laid himself down to die, what if that shadow took on a life of its own?
Of course, all that’s just my own wacky theorizing…others elsewhere could tell you about me and theories! ^^;
Nice catch, Rylen. That would also neatly explain why they weren’t trying to keep the dead god’s liver there and functioning, since the heart seemed to be the only part there.
Personally, and if they meant per manacle, I would have used six points of contact. Nice and symmetrical, less room for leverage.
Hah 😀 “Don’t try to teach your grandpa to mine.”
What an image…! “like cracking an oyster and having a horse fall out.”
How can wombats be so evocative, while disdaining poetry in almost the same breath?
“That was supposed to be the end of it”… famous last words. And now I get the wombats’ mistrust of gods and magic… because if you add “… but gods and magic were involved, so of course it wasn’t” to the end of that sentence, it all makes perfect sense.
I really, really want to know *what (the heck) went wrong !?!!??*. Ah, well, Thursday’s not that far away….
I love how you can see through Helix in the top left – nice!
And now there is that dead bird where a tormented god has been dwelling…
I see everything makes sense now.
And knowing that scares me a lot 🙂
So… that thing I thought was a dragon was He-Is I guess. Oh well… they can’t all be dragons.
Ok, I agree with whoever said that seeing where the shadowchild fits into this is going to be very interesting. Actually…. no, never mind. I won’t speculate.
This has *got* to be very weird for Grim Eyes. Very, very weird.
…
Excuse my language but
FUCK YEAH
Now I’m wondering what is going to be the reaction of Grim eyes when she discovers it was He-is the one who they were trying to help…
Wahaha! I was right!
Ursula, I love your comic. Thank you.
OK, OK, OK, so the bound god IS He-Is, and the madness IS Sweetgrass-Voice, fine. I surrender my wacky over-the-top unnecessarily-convoluted pet theories about those two.
Harumph.
Lica — yeah; I really, really like Grim Eyes’ expression in the lower left. I can’t put it into words, but… yeah.
Well I’ll be buggered, the kingfisher *was* He-is. I was putting my money down (given that Murai had had nothing to do with hyena’s before) on the kingfisher being the Mother of the Good Man. Which led to a whole different potential storyline of Murai being on a quest to restore the Good Man and oust the Black Mother. Alas…. But anyway, Hah, I was right. I knew it was He-is in that cave, even if we didn’t get a good look at his head.
I think the hyena is the Eaten god rather than Grim Eyes–she doesn’t have a notch out of her ear. I like his expression though, it has a sad sort of dignity.
Really really looking forward to seeing what Grim Eyes thinks of this though. I wonder if the madness of some of their women is caused by the lingering claws of Sweetgrass Voice in her people. Will finally giving the Eaten god the death his followers have denied him, take the demon with him and end the madness?
Gyaaah. I only remember about half the stuff being speculated on in the other comments. I’ve got two days off coming up, and clearly I’m gonna have to spend them archive-bingeing.
I’m pretty much in agreement that I think it’s He-Is that’s chained up, but a random thought occurred to me: Is it possible that the god isn’t He-Is, but She-Is-Fiercer? Guilt over chasing off He-Is and what happened to hyenas as a result (the first born death) could drive her to it. Could even be an attempt to reverse the First-Born curse.
Well, to add to the speculation of what Shadowchild was born from,
we do know that it was a *white* bird, according to the cast page.
So…hmm.
Ash may or may not be white, and since the bird was the color of ash…
Sigh, so very sad to be caught up with the archives at last. Then again, waiting for more work also leads to fun with speculation!
Only five points of contact? Sigh.
Could Shadowchild be Sweetgrass-voice? Or at least part of him? A forgotten, innocent part?
Hrm………..
Sgamer82 – Helix refers to the god as “he,” not “she.” On the other hand, we already know it’s hard for a wombat to figure out a hyena’s sex.
Ortonmc – At least not without a few drinks on both sides…
I would just like to say that I love the image of Grimeyes at the bottom, it is pure poetic art.
@ortonmc, Wombats may not be able to have the ability to pick the genders of hyenas, but I’m perfectly sure that they are capable of telling what the gender of any particular bird is, Especially when it comes to kingfishers, males are easilly brighter/more colourful then the females
Then again, this is a god we’re talking about here, could be that anything can be disregarded due to whatever tthe god wishes to do
I would venture a guess that shadowchild has nothing whatsoever to do with the main plot, and we will never know where he/she/it came from. On the other hand, the cast page *does* specify a white bird…
Kingfishers have shown up in Digger before. http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=221 (The strip where the Skin Lizards explain their religion.) The “heart becomes Kingfisher.” Perhaps this isn’t all of the god.
While the idea of Shadowchild hatching from the body of the bird He-Is was inhabiting is intriguing and powerful, the timing doesn’t seem to match up very well. All this happened over a thousand years ago; while the timing of Shadowchild’s hatching hasn’t been explicitly stated, it seems unlikely that he could have been running around for a millennium or more without at least rumours of his existence reaching the large ears of Snoutnose God.
Still, even after saying that, I’m not quite ready to write off any connection between Shadowchild and Sweetgrass Voice – but we’ll see!
Did you use more than three points of contact..?
This gets better and better.
Something needs to block the light in order for a shadow to be made…
Lol, i love reading the comments as much as the comic some days. The speculation is almost as intriguing! I agree with Jassius and Werrf though. There are too many coincidences but not enough evidence at the same time. Coincidences do not make irrefutable proof.
But the light can be figurative. Shadowchild has mentioned shadows on various internal organs from time to time.
You know, given that in the “real world” the same major event (earthquake, flood, war, etc.) can spawn a host of divergent mythologies that all describe the event in different but related ways, it is plausible (though a bit mind boggling) that EVERYTHING ties together – The stories of the hyena gods and their dead child could be related to the story of the Black Mother and her dead child, the Good Man; Shadowchild could be a manifestation of BOTH dead god-children; Famine and SweetGrass Voice are probably one and the same, and related to Shadowchild; and of course all the bird/rodent stories are probably different relations of the same events …
Just a few twisted midnight musings to get the brain cramped up …
😉
i doubt its She-Is, though i suppose its possible that she had her name taken away some time later and we just haven’t heard of it
I’m with you, Tek…I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see all the myths dovetail somehow, by the end of all this.
Current working theory as to Shadowchild, well. First — we humans take its innocence to mean it was hatched what we’d think of as recent, but I wonder. There’s things it says that lead me to suspect it might have been around longer than its childlike nature would imply. Second — remember what the statue told Digger about shadows needing something to cast them, and also remember the Shadowchild itself and its “there are shadows on your heart”.
So what if the Shadowchild was the shadow of the true guilt and shame on He-is’ heart over his awful deed? And when He-is shed the form of the bird and laid himself down to die, what if that shadow took on a life of its own?
Of course, all that’s just my own wacky theorizing…others elsewhere could tell you about me and theories! ^^;
Nice catch, Rylen. That would also neatly explain why they weren’t trying to keep the dead god’s liver there and functioning, since the heart seemed to be the only part there.
Personally, and if they meant per manacle, I would have used six points of contact. Nice and symmetrical, less room for leverage.