Because there's a huge misunderstanding going on. Real you =/= image of you you're attempting to create.
[edit]The ether that would slowly start to accrue to the real you might eventually build up to the point where you could do something real to confirm to the living people that you could indeed do magical things but it would be minor and a one-time-only deal because this ether isn't naturally replenishing so by the time you notice you can actually do something you've already shot your wad, so to speak, so you can't plan how to use it or practice until it's built up again by killing a lot more people. That's why you need living people or a substitute who will continuously channel ether to you until it becomes a generally-accepted fact that you are a great magician (in other words, the etheric flow has cut a new channel and settled into it). After that you should, all else held equal, have some flexibility about what you do where, though over the long haul you will still need belief else whither. [/edit]
Could you please point me to your in-comic sources for your conclusions? Because right now I do not know where you are getting all this information. ^^°
Thanks to the searchable database of comics I can actually do that in
less than a week! less than two weeks!
TL;DR: If people can use tricks to make religions and the gods from those religions eventually become real and wield real powers, then humans with no etheric talent should be able to cheat the system and become wizards (or whatever) with real magic powers while remaining human, and do so despite the fact that they do not believe in superstitions or religions without ever studying magic or having a magic teacher... iff they're willing and able to flawlessly execute some really inhumane plans and they're a bit lucky.
If you want me to justify my etheric-layering and flow theory with only in-comic sources (excluding Questions and formspring and under-comic comments by the author) then I'd start with the observation that the ether exists, add that the material is either
real (since materialistic methods fail to analyze etheric events, or effectively real, we know that matter and ether interact because symbols
tattoos can be used to invoke/activate etheric abilities and effects (symbols being either physical or arrangements of energy that is explainable in materialistic terms) and of course we've seen etheric activity affect matter a bunch of times, but I will put the link to Coyote teaching Antimony to move a flower with her mind
here. Matter can be
relocated using etheric means or a combination of etheric and mechanistic explainable means (even by
otherwise-mundane humans). Ether is not a substance, as Coyote demonstrates with his
claim of non-existence, but while the ether isn't a thing in the same sense as material things are things and therefore doesn't occupy space like a material thing, there are places that are
closer to the ether than others. Muut effectively describes at least a continuum
here, possibly more. The relationship between ether and thought/will is more complex but we know
it exists and that symbols can be used as a
program for etheric devices. These symbols or programming can be complex enough that it becomes
inaccessible to a baseline mundane human and still work. Most humans are apparently not etherically gifted so are limited to inferring etheric through observation of the mundane material, or perhaps in some cases denying the etheric altogether, but as "Loup" points out this
isn't direct knowledge of reality. The dead go
into the ether. We have evidence that
ether is in water, and since water is in people it follows that ether is in living people. We can infer a little more but I'll save that for when I'm talking about Zimmy later. It's probably in mundane people in other ways but the only in-comic evidence for that is Anja's lecture which I've already linked to, and she could be referring to thought or will apart from ether. We have several points of evidence that the ether moves/operates in a cycle from the Court's experiment plus
'pomps and gods. Since these things are present in the comic I think that it is clear that the Gunnerverse is a continuum between ether and matter. An important aspect of the interaction between ether and matter is human stories/myths, or in other words human abstractions, which define reality as the Gunnerverse knows it. Coyote discusses it in the chapter on his
Great Secret, and "Loup" later
agrees with Coyote's take. The interaction between ether and material has been codified in the form of bureaucracies crewed by appropriate entities.
The Court seems to have
extraordinary events on a semi-regular to infrequent basis. The level of importance that the Court places on instructing students about
myth creation and the supernatural in general is sort of
low, at least in the general curriculum for the lower grades. Older or important students get to meet mythic creatures. Away from the Court and other places like it, the supernatural is uncommon in the Gunnerverse, or at least that common humans are unaware of it operating. Characters react to meeting ghosts and other fantastic creatures as if they are special. If there are ghosts and gods and mythic creatures and there exist open paths to mythdom, then why is it rare to meet them? The most likely explanation is that many events or patterns of human behavior that could create myths do not, and much of the supernatural activity that happens goes unnoticed even by the humans who are involved. We have evidence that
misinformation exists as well.
So now that we have a loose theoretical framework on how the Gunnerverse operates let's move on to specific cases. The Court apparently collects people with extra-normal abilities, many as
students. Of course we've got Antimony who
gets away with things because she is etherically attractive, or as Jones puts it, has a
special empathy with etheric beings. Antimony, as a then-singular main character had a
conversation with Coyote about how her mother's fire passes down her ancestral line. Antimony has firey powers; Antimony uses her powers but they don't run out (I assume that you don't want me to bother supplying links to stuff like this) and she doesn't appear to get tired using them though she can get
frustrated if they aren't working as fast as she'd like. How can that be, if her magic is something passed down from her mother and her mother's mother? I think it must be the case that something is passed down her line that isn't just a blob of ether, but instead accumulates and releases ether in a way similar to fire elementals that humans can't do. Partly that may be socially constructed; humans believe that magic fire creatures and fire in general can burn things easily so Antimony being part fire elemental or phoenix (or whatever) can burn things easily if she figures out how to access that part of herself. Let's examine the social-construct aspect more later. Not only can she burn stuff but she can also not burn stuff her fire touches if she doesn't want it to burn. Maybe a fire elemental could do that but maybe not, I tend to think about fire creatures burning pretty much everything they or their fire touches without that degree of control, but perhaps this aspect is less about fire magic and more about magic working according to thought and will. The thought and will aspect was one of the first things that Anja showed Antimony.
A problem that potentially exists for the layering theory is the doubters, living and dead. People on the periphery who did not witness whatever etheric (or pretending-to-be etheric) event are likely to be skeptical as their lives just don't include magic or the supernatural on a regular basis. This may be a problem for genuine etheric entities as well as prospective ones and artificially-created magic villains. An increase in skepticism may indeed have led to a decrease in etheric events globally in the GC universe if one were to compare pre-technological and post-industrial cultures but it is important to note that skeptics will always have been a potential problem and yet etheric events still occur. Most likely the belief of actual witnesses outweighs the disbelief within doubters and, once everyone's dead and in the ether, there will be other etheric beings present to cause the doubters to doubt their skeptical positions.
With that in mind let's take a look at supporting cast character George Parley. Parley starts out in the comic in the
medium training program and
well aware of etheric creatures and such. She has no powers herself (in the beginning) but her father is a
certified psychic. After being exposed to
ghosts and a
simulation about how the Court was founded, Parley developed the ability to
shift space and learns to teleport. Did some characteristic pass down from Parley's dad? Possibly, but not necessarily as the mere fact that her dad had powers could have been enough to open other people to the idea that she could have powers. Parley being brought to the Court with the apparent absence of powers means that other people were taking concrete actions based around that possibility that affected her life and the course of events in the Court. She even manages a
psychic link with Antimony wherein she meets Jeanne.
That brings us to the other main character of the webcomic, Kat. Though initially
skeptical of magic, Kat later became the object of
Paz's brief vision as well as
called a "wizard" by those who knew she was practicing etheric science.
And then there's Zimmy. Things
happen when Zimmy is around, sometimes real things and sometimes illusions or hallucinations. She receives
relief from her condition when it rains naturally but not when the rain has been
artificially depleted of ether and presumably not when just taking a bath or a shower, else she'd be taking multiples per day. We see
something like steam rising from Zimmy when she's in the rain experiencing said relief. What that exactly is isn't explained but it's probably not a coincidence. As everybody knows, Zimmy's condition can be used along with etheric tech to change reality. Ether collection from around Zimmy appears to make it easier for her Zimmingham to manifest.
There is a connection between emotion and will in the comic and will is a function of the mind; if one feels strongly about something one thinks about it more and is more likely to take actions regarding that something. If we accept that then we'd expect a less-emotionally inhibited person with etheric talent to be more effective at using that talent than someone who is emotionally-stunted but perhaps weaker than someone who is emotionally-repressed, as a repressed person might employ a stronger focus (remember Anja's lecture?). Practice and training have been shown to have an effect on etheric powers. Superstition acts as both an aid and a handicap. The art of the temple appears to have existed in the Gunnerverse, which included irl a number of non-magical ways of creating spiritual experiences in worshipers, which benefited religions and cults and by doing so empowered the respective gods and related mythic figures and doubtless enriched select mortal individuals. Whatever their opinions on it, the etherium should be well-accustomed to such things. We also have the robots/golems as examples of etheric tech who are also employers of etheric tech, which I think demonstrates that once the will-threshold is crossed (and the etheric conditions met) the effect can be enhanced in other ways. Is it possible to meet a villain in the comic who gained magic powers from sacrificing humans to his evil god? That's tough to say and even if we did meet one, we couldn't know if this being had actually been a baseline human or if it was born from myth... but it does appear to be a possibility. If the method is generally sound, the next question would be if the would-be artificially-created magical villain would be an appropriate target for the method. We only have about one example of a magic-practitioner and we don't know if she has etheric ancestry but she shows that it's not impossible for a human to become a magician through study of magic; she apparently uses at least the name of a field of magic, special ancestors or circumstances might be a factor but we do not know. Assuming the villain in our thought experiment has no such advantage of ancestry, and lacks other etheric bona fides, that only means that he would have to fake those as well. He could do this fairly easily by faking and then publicizing the amazing feats of his ancestors.
A potential problem for the artificially-generated etheric villain scenario is the lack of preexistence, or effective bona fides. A number of characters who have etheric ablities also have etheric ancestors. Though the relationship between etherically-capable ancestors and present-day etheric progeny isn't clearly causal, merely coincidental, I think we can infer a positive relationship because of the presence of legacy students in Queslett. There are other reasons to cluster legacy students but if the Court was strictly running on merit and nepotism I think the divide between the legacies should be more precipitous. Tangential to all this is the question of mythologized humans in general, which the comic is largely silent on. Clearly humans around a mythic figure have a role to play in myth-creation but it is fair to question if they can become mythic and remain humans. Basil
mentions in passing Theseus (and by extension one of his family members) for example, who was key to his myth-creation but it is not known he is still existent in any sense. I think it is reasonable to believe that Theseus and Ariadne are long-passed into the ether and support or detract from Basil's myth from there. The blurring of lines between human and mythic creature in real-life myths is likely to be carried over into the Gunnerverse and while that removes the possibility of an easy answer at this phase that does introduce myths wherein humans quested for immortality, ate ambrosia and so forth. Criminals such as Promethius who would steal the power/secrets of the god/s and give them to their followers/mankind can be found regularly in myth, and if this has been carried over to the fictional Gunnerverse then I think it opens wide the door to humans becoming human-like mythological creatures. Ether, in fact, could be said to be ambrosia. That said, how can you prove that the wizard Merlin you might theoretically meet in the Gunnerverse is the same historical Merlin? As a myth, he could be a completely different entity to any real Merlin.
The solution to this problem would appear to lie in continuity. The hypothetical mythical person you might meet may or may not have the same memories, similar appearance, or may even be no longer human by any conventional definition, but in the absence of other evidence it seems in-universe appropriate to accept the claim at face value. If evidence for a break in continuity does appear in the comic, such as the remains of a deceased individual or living same, then it is right to call such entities' identities into question. However, the truth value of competing claims may be irrelevant in the final analysis; paradoxical origin
stories and
events are par for the course if you look at gods and other mythical entities as a whole, and right now we have two Antimonies running around, both of which are real and wrong at the same time thanks to timelines created in the ether.
Finally, let's consider Coyote and his plan. Coyote apparently had to divest himself of powers as part of his plan to experience death, or as close to a mundane death as something like Coyote can get. Why? Presumably as long as he had those powers he either couldn't really die or would un-die as soon as some other condition was met. Why is that? Coyote is powerful; I think we can infer that being either plugged in to the etheric flow or being an etheric flow causes whatever sort of mind Coyote has to buoy back up into what the characters of the story call reality.
The human mind, as Jones once observed, wields
great power in the Gunnerverse. Ether passes through body and brain and the subjective reality of the individual apparently changes its state somehow. Mundane humans may be limited to actions taken by their bodies as they do according to what they perceive and believe, and how they
feel about things (and what they leave behind after they die) but others appear to be able to directly use ether to change what is. "I feel real enough,"
says Antimony, "I have my own thoughts and memories and those seem real enough too." We know that the dead go back to the ether; if they still exist in any meaningful sense and if so what they do there is unclear, but some of the ether that they had goes with them.
What exactly fuels etheric abilities is an open question but with regard to humans with abilities there seems to be a question of definition involved. "Normal" humans don't have etheric powers, therefore humans who do have powers have connections to mythic beings or (though it hasn't been shown in the comic) possibly to rare or unique etheric events. I could and will list a few fully-human-in-appearance "gods" who have appeared in the comic like
Brinnie and
Chang-e but it would be more productive to speculate that these beings have a connection to the ether where humans do not, as humans have to be taken into it when they die.
Zimmy has powers but is human, though arguably not normal. I think it is reasonable to speculate that Zimmy has a connection to the ether that normal humans do not and that some or all of her problems result from her mind being ill-equipped to deal with it. Likewise "Loup", though not human, is having trouble using Coyote's power.
Coyote says that the reason why is because Ysengrin, who could not control a power from Coyote before, is still part of "Loup." While I'd argue that "Loup" is essentially Ys with Coyote's power and some traits of Coyote that Ys admired, Coyote appears to be saying that "Loup" has not sufficiently modified himself to wield the power and could do so if he wanted to and understood how. It is unclear what exactly Coyote is referring to but it should be either a limiting trait of Ysengrin's intrinsically or Ysengrin's personality, or both. There is not a lot I can say about Zimmy here if I am limited to in-comic sources but consider that Zimmy's name was not likely Zimmy at one point; Zimmy is probably cutting away her past.
Though this is mere speculation at this point, I think Zimmy can modify herself, at least a little at a time, and eventually will either destroy herself (if she outlives Gamma, for example) or be someone else... Most likely something else as well, something other than human with an identity and perhaps a paradoxical history. In other words, she can "fake it until she makes it."
So we have in Zimmy a human with a potential path to godhood (or demon-hood, or some other etheric thing) because of a connection to the ether. Etheric sciences appear to demonstrate that ether, through whatever method, can be manipulated "artificially" by aid of devices and cheats. With respect to the question at hand, could a baseline human artificially create a connection to the ether to give himself enduring etheric powers by manipulating belief, it would appear the villain would have to not only create a fiction that can fool people he was killing but one that would endure even if they linger for a while after death, and would have to avoid being a doubter himself. To accomplish the latter part the villain would have to know that the plan he was exercising could work which would necessitate not only contact with the etheric but some familiarity with it. That would appear to involve some sort of contact with an etheric event, which is plausible, and an understanding of how the ether works (which is much less plausible) and of course how to manipulate humans' beliefs (which has arguably been a vocation since prehistory). Anthony Carver demonstrated that one can have an encounter with the etheric if one wants to badly enough, even far away from Gunnerkrigg Court. All that is needed is a
near-death experience, but more is probably better. What needs to be overcome is the
dream-like aspect of these encounters and the nature of the ether abstracted into a form that is usable to normal humans without incorrect superstitions and unhelpful fictions.
Likely the Court is working on exactly that. So then the next question is, "Would our hypothetical villain need to have complete knowledge of how the ether works or would general theory an etheric-sciences cheat get him close enough?" That is unknown but I could link to a number of impressive things that etheric sciences can accomplish, and those things plus a good knowledge for manipulating people (minus any sense of ethics) should be able to do it.
Is there an example of etheric cheating or otherwise gaming the system in the comic? We've seen examples of bargaining with or manipulating the etheric bureaucracies. Kat manages to
get some information from the interpreter while working out a solution with Saslamel over Renard's contract. Antimony also
negotiates with the 'pomps for healing Smitty, which wasn't really something that they were supposed to do, but then again he wasn't dead at that point. More to the point, there's that time Jones
interacts with a 'pomp named Ankou after Mort died in Ch.47. As far as we know Jones is not a 'pomp and has nothing to do with the dead, or anything magical or supernatural besides herself for that matter, but her
seniority as... what, an etheric being? ...caused the RotD representative to side with Jones over the disposition of Mort. Superior personage may trump the standard operation of an etherial bureaucracy if one is an etheric being, it seems, but there do not appear to be any examples of baseline humans doing such things. We do have Diego breaking contracts and creating ghosts with his etheric-science arrow, of course, which (since other people have learned the
same tricks) leaves the possibility that the system may be gamed in other ways, but we do not have examples of normal non-etherically-enabled humans doing the same.
Absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence, however. Our hypothetical villain would need to know that the ether exists and that it can be manipulated for his plan to potentially work but that is not a burden that is impossible to overcome. One single encounter with the etheric would appear to be enough to overcome this obstacle.
The strongest "steel man" argument that I can come up with against this thesis that I'm presenting is the notion that it is inappropriate to try to analyze a fictional fantasy universe in this way and make any sort of inference that isn't in the work; magic is magic, fantasy is fantasy, the author just decides what happens based on what he considers to be an interesting story and that's that. I agree that this can be an appropriate way to look at some fictional works but I also believe this can present a false dilemma. Of course the authors will choose to include things in their stories that are interesting, but they borrow a great deal from reality and most aim for continuity. The four basic forces have been translated into the Gunnerverse, and we can be confident in saying so because familiar machines and appliances look similar or identical to their real counterparts and they work in the same ways. The less-clever or unconscientious author may disregard continuity here and there in favor of interesting or useful (to the narrative) elements but finding any story with absolutely no continuity is very rare, such as flow-of-consciousness or songs/poems. Further, authors do not often write randomly. Even if they include a continuity-breaking element they chose it for reasons and will often try to rationalize that decision within the fictional universe. The author may not be fully aware of the reasons, and may also be unwilling to discuss or unable to articulate them, and in some cases they may be ill-considered or silly reasons, but those reasons remain. A fictional world is a big place, often bigger than reality itself, and world-building a fictional universe with a coherent magic system and a pantheon of gods is a herculean task, so to speak. That is why borrowing from reality is convenient. It lightens the load on the author and makes the product more easily accessible to the reader. Doing so grounds the fictional work to an extent; by borrowing real natural forces those forces can be expected to behave in the same ways they do in reality unless there is an in-universe reason explicit or implicit. That's why it's said that "unexplained tech/magic is better than poorly explained tech/magic," as leaving ambiguity for the universe to comfortably grow in gives the author more latitude to choose different elements later and lets the reader project what he thinks makes for a better and logically-consistent story in the blank spaces. Over time a fictional world can build itself in wonderful ways if given space to grow.
Therefore, the last obstacle our hypothetical villain would have to overcome is the question, "Would such a villain's plan be consistent with things that the author has included in the comic?" At first blush the answer would appear to be a resounding "No." It would be too dark and violent. However, if we ask if the characters of Gunnerkrigg Court might encounter a villain who's backstory was similar to the villain's plan that I've described above the answer is that it might be possible. The whole business with Diego and Jeanne was pretty dark, and the foil-
monsters that Antimony briefly encountered in her trip to
'fun city' might have equally dark origin stories. It is easy to imagine such characters engaged in acts of brutality, so long as it is not depicted in the actual comic. Therefore, in absence of other evidence, I have to say that it is possible.
In closing I'll observe that even these omissions and ambiguities are not random, but they surround elements where continuity or rationality problems occur either by instinct or intent, and through those gray spaces rational connections can and do emerge... even if the author did not intend for it to be so.