[1075] What's left of them anyway.

Ysengrin leaves... achievement unlocked?

Now that we don't have eavesdroppers...

Maybe it's as simple as the guides usher them INTO the ether? Completing the cycle. The more I think about it, the more it reminds me of Buddhism.

Some people take many lives to reach Nirvana (through Enlightenment), some less...others linger in between, but eventually everyone returns to The Universe (like, universal energy).

Either way, this has been a very enlightening chapter thus far.

So, are psychopomps products of human imagination? Who was there to guide the first humans? D:

So, if "everyone is brought back into the ether" is true in the sense of consciousness, could it be that Surma's soul still exists in some sense? Annie seems to be considering it, and thinking about the events of the previous chapter, it's possible Anthony may have thought of that as well, possibly trying to use her as a bridge if the phoenix theory is correct.

Yeah, that's kinda what I thought, hyperbole or simply a lame joke.

I am most interested in his conclusion that humans are now the most powerful creatures in the world. It would indeed be embarrassing for ole Yiss that his "perfect creation, immeasurable in its wonder" is the direct product of humans.

The guides are probably either an inherent feature of the system itself, sustained by human contributions to the ether, or both.

Now, are we going to get to see this afterlife? Does this mean Antimony is going to break on through to the other side?

Yeah, it kind of makes people who can manipulate ether sound like mind-cannibals Uh-oh.

Hmmm...Coyote's explanation reminds me of the modern humanistic mystics; the Thelemites, the Wicca, the Satanists and so on. The uniting thread between them is that they see the divinity stem from humanity, rather than the other way around. I still wonder just how independent entity Coyote is in all this. Is he just the sum of all the trickery in the human minds, or an independent agent that came forth from those emotions, but exists in the Ether with no need for further human interference to retain his power?


In many animistic cultures, the dead are considered to slowly fade away into generic ancestral spirits as their memory fades from the minds of the living. They are no longer seen as individuals, but rather a unified force that protects the tribe. Coyote's statements seem to formalize this belief in the GKC universe; the dead are around for awhile, and then slowly fade to the background Ether, from which new spirits then form over time. It's like the cycle of life here on Earth; new living matter forms from the dead stuff. There are no truly immortal souls in GKC, it would seem.

I was wondering that myself. Maybe, the complexity of the Ether evolved along with the complexity of animals.

Also, I was wondering if robots have imagination ...

I suspect that Tom is making a point by avoiding the word "soul", since it has lots of connotations that don't fit in his worldbuilding. For example, souls are typically described as immortal, while Coyote is of the opinion that there is no such thing as immortality. Hence why Annie is described to have Surma's fire, her essence, not her soul. Especially since it sounds like Coyote's insinuating there there's still something left of Surma in the Ether.


It almost certainly refers to Surma. She's there in the second panel, after all.

Also, would simply believing hard enough in [something that can kill/defeat Coyote] work?

But Ysengrin is standing right there!

...No, my bad, that's just a tree.

Is this another: how others see him, how he sees himself and how he truly is projection?The way I'm seeing it is that humans would naturally be subsumed into the ether upon death, eventually human intellect impressed sapience on this physical law, manifesting it into the individual psychopomps.

Should it be? Is it a part of the human disease that immortality is the ultimate goal?