[2016] Dead!

[keef]

But do they stay that way?

[imaginaryfriend]

It's very hard to kill an idea. Things with bodies are vastly easier to kill and they tend to stay dead.

Also: Sometimes people fall in love and then realize that what they really loved can be separated from the object of their devotion.

[madjack]

Hmm, next few pages might be interesting to compare/contrast between Ys and Diego.

[fjodorii]

'Dead' as when Coyote was a dead goose?

Earlier in the story the totems stored the soul, or life spirit, of the animals, to be transferred later. But if that is the case now as well, where does Loup get his life spirit from? hm, so many new questions...

[turion]

"Your friend was seduced by Coyote's power. When that happened, he seized to be Ysengrin and became Loup. When that happened, the good wolf who was your friend, was destroyed. so what I told you is true..."

[turion]

Jul 20, 2018 7:47:47 GMT fjodorii said:

'Dead' as when Coyote was a dead goose?

Earlier in the story the totems stored the soul, or life spirit, of the animals, to be transferred later. But if that is the case now as well, where does Loup get his life spirit from? hm, so many new questions...

And we saw quite a few huge totems on Annie's way in!

[mynie]

Loup SOUNDS exactly the same as Coyote though...

[faiiry]

Not really seeing how Loup is different from Coyote though. They speak in the exact same manner and both seem fond of dumping exposition on Annie in the ether.

[pasko]

Jul 20, 2018 7:06:32 GMT keef said:

But do they stay that way?

Depends on how long they can wait.

[faiiry]

"A useless wolf and a powerful god." With this, I'm convinced that this is Coyote speaking, another one of his games. Telling Annie that he's some new character called "Loup" is a ruse. He's a trickster, after all.

[todd]

Annie's mission is seeming far less hopeful now. She'd based it on the premise that this was still essentially Ysengrin, Ysengrin with his fatherly feelings for her underneath the snarling rage. But this new figure, who seems to be simply mad, may not have that facet she was counting on - or at most, it's buried beneath the madness, perhaps beyond her reach.

Which raises the question: how to save the Court from him, in light of this major setback to Annie's plan (Though I suspect the discussion about the metaphysics of this metamorphosis into Loup could take up a few pages; it could be a while before Annie has the opportunity to try a "Plan B" - though she might have to concentrate on simply surviving.)

[madjack]

Jul 20, 2018 12:23:50 GMT faiiry said:

"A useless wolf and a powerful god." With this, I'm convinced that this is Coyote speaking, another one of his games. Telling Annie that he's some new character called "Loup" is a ruse. He's a trickster, after all.

Maybe he's tricked himself so hard into believing it that he will need the goose bone and lake water as evidence that he can, in fact, trick himself that well.

[netherdan]

Jul 20, 2018 12:53:05 GMT madjack said:

Jul 20, 2018 12:23:50 GMT faiiry said:

"A useless wolf and a powerful god." With this, I'm convinced that this is Coyote speaking, another one of his games. Telling Annie that he's some new character called "Loup" is a ruse. He's a trickster, after all.

Maybe he's tricked himself so hard into believing it that he will need the goose bone and lake water as evidence that he can, in fact, trick himself that well.

Oh oh, so they would sprinkle the bone with the water and it would turn into a vast lake with a dead goose in a bush somewhere by the lake and when Toten Coyote sees the scene then everything fits together and the goose wife wakes up as a Coyote

PS: Do you realise the more we contemplate the possibility of Coyote returning the more Tom is compelled to leave him dead just to fuck with our expectations?

[ctso74]

Another thing to consider through all this: We may have been confident that Coyote couldn't lie, but can anyone say the same for Loup?
The next few pages should be interesting and insightful, but who's to say they can be trusted.

[netherdan]

Jul 20, 2018 13:15:31 GMT ctso74 said:

Another thing to consider through all this: We may have been confident that Coyote couldn't lie, but can anyone say the same for Loup?
The next few pages should be interesting and insightful, but who's to say they can be trusted.

It's not that he couldn't lie, he just wouldn't. It was in his nature to trick you without fooling you just to show off how great a trickster he was.
So in my opinion Loup can't be trusted at all for there was no truth compelling curse (for the lack of a better word) to be inherited

[jda]

Toot, toot!
Exposition train. All on board!

[ohthatone]

Possibly a version of "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him" taken a little more literally.

[todd]

Jul 20, 2018 13:14:23 GMT netherdan said:

Oh oh, so they would sprinkle the bone with the water and it would turn into a vast lake with a dead goose in a bush somewhere by the lake and when Toten Coyote sees the scene then everything fits together and the goose wife wakes up as a Coyote

I still think that reviving Coyote (assuming that Annie and Co. will be doing it deliberately) would have to be a sign of just how desperate the situation had become. Coyote, after all, had probably worked harder than anyone else at keeping the Court and the Wood at odds with each other with his schemes and machinations - had even brought about this situation by giving Ysengrin his strength, presumably suspecting that this would be the result and wanting it to happen. If he returns, he'll continue his scheming, no doubt, probably leading to even worse situations. (Granted, Annie and her friends don't know the full story of what Coyote was doing - only he and the readers know.) It would have to be a case of "even Coyote and his trouble-making are better than this" - and I suspect that Coyote would certainly ensure some sort of price to be paid for his handling Loup, which would turn out to be much heavier than the Court or Annie could afford.

[Mitth'raw'nuruodo]

Coyote is dead, in the same sense that Lorkhan is dead. Tiber Septim has mantled him and became Talos and Ysengrin mantled Coyote and has become Loup. Namely the exact level of being "dead" is quite debatable. Is Talos functionally different from Shor/Lorkhan? We can see another example in Brandon Sanderson's books. How much of Harmony is Sazed and how much is just the fusion of two gods?

I don't think that we know the exact level of Coyote-ness or the lack thereof, nor do we know while Coyote is stronger than Ysengrin.

My hypothesis: Loup is a gestalt, but is casting himself purposefully as the Big Bad Wolf to draw upon modern belief/retellings of the Wolf story. Coyote hardly had the level of devotion that he once did, but Loup certainly can grow in power.

[yinglung]

How I'm interpreting this: Ysengrin loved and respected Coyote, holding him up as some sort of ideal. Admittedly, this was in the animalistic, ethereal way, so a lot of it would be respect for Coyote's cunning and power. Once Ysengrin obtained that power, and consumed his stolen memories, he could see how Coyote betrayed and meddled with him for so long. Ysengrin likely feels a great deal of betrayal, and conflicted feelings about incorporating Coyote's essence as he has. Rather than trying to reconcile this conflict, he probably decided to remake himself, taking the strengths of both components. Ysengrin's ferocity and honor, Coyote's cunning and power, and so on. Luckily for Annie, both sources of Loup's personality have fondness for her, and at least Ysengrin's side feels some guilt about their past interactions.

[faiiry]

Annie's hair has greatly increased in length & volume in the ether, and this isn't a particularly brilliant insight into the workings of the story, but I just love how hair functions and looks in GKC. From Annie's hair displaying fire-edges in the ether, to Anthony's hair being broken and shattered when he's reminded of Surma, to just the way everyone's hair looks on page 779... HAIR, dude. One of my favorite visual themes in the comic.

[OrzBrain]

I wonder what would happen if Annie reminded "Loup" of Coyote's great secret, that he does not exist?

[Corvo]

No biggie, being dead. Any technically minded person can Give and Take life, right? Besides, I think those totems are only about half the size they should be.

[Trillium]

Jul 20, 2018 13:39:01 GMT Mitth'raw'nuruodo said:

Coyote is dead, in the same sense that Lorkhan is dead. Tiber Septim has mantled him and became Talos and Ysengrin mantled Coyote and has become Loup. Namely the exact level of being "dead" is quite debatable. Is Talos functionally different from Shor/Lorkhan? We can see another example in Brandon Sanderson's books. How much of Harmony is Sazed and how much is just the fusion of two gods?

I don't think that we know the exact level of Coyote-ness or the lack thereof, nor do we know while Coyote is stronger than Ysengrin.

My hypothesis: Loup is a gestalt, but is casting himself purposefully as the Big Bad Wolf to draw upon modern belief/retellings of the Wolf story. Coyote hardly had the level of devotion that he once did, but Loup certainly can grow in power.

Sounds good. 

The trickster God Coyote seemingly gave Ysengrin the ability  to absorb him and all his power. Ysengrin seems to have taken the bait and turned on Coyote and by "eating" him, transformed into Loup who is flexing his muscles.

Annie is now dealing with Loup. If Annie has to "kill" Loup, Coyote has given her the tool to do so. Loup is missing a tooth. Look at that wide open mouth on the last page. Annie has or owns that tooth. Reynard may bring it to her. She might end up stabbing Loup and returning Coyote. Or she gives Loup the tooth which he puts in his mouth and Coyote becomes the dominant personality and returns. No matter how this goes Ysengrin will come out worse for the experience. 

Coyote is off to the side somewhere watching and eating popcorn. 

This is such a beautifully drawn page! 

[warrl]

Jul 20, 2018 8:06:44 GMT turion said:

Most things make sense if you look at them right. It's just that sometimes you have to look really, really cockeyed. -- Florence Ambrose, Freefall

[Nepycros]

It's not entirely uncommon for deities to "change." When the Romans adopted the Greek pantheon, they didn't just do a general name swap of all the deities and then name planets after them. They implemented their own cultural values, altering the nature and behaviors of these gods. The old Hebrew pantheon used to have a host of gods they would regularly worship, though in time these were condensed into properties of a single deity.

Isn't the structure of the world of GC a little strange? If a psychopomp that represents death can take on a physical form, does it take the most abstracted, generalized form of the population it governs over? Or is every minute difference in the legends enough to influence its nature? What about tribes that adopt another group's personification of death, or their spirits, or their gods, and apply their own traditions to ultimately change the supernatural being's specifications?

I think what we're seeing here is a mythic battle given physical form. Ysengrin's absolute devotion to Coyote may even have been enough to alter Coyote's nature. And when it came to a head, when Coyote could no longer reasonably be considered appropriate for the form Ysengrin saw him with... Well, he changed. Religions change all the time.

If we perceive Coyote and other gods as simulacrums for ideas about the supernatural, as Coyote's secret suggests, then this new form of Loup could be considered an appropriation of a prior mythos to create a new being, one so strikingly similar to what existed before... but is now defined by the characteristics Ysengrin so strongly desired his patron god to have. A war god.

In fiction, truly powerful gods are often the result of truly great sacrifices, and truly awful tragedy.

Suppose we saw an etheric being that represented Noah from the story of Noah's ark. Would we then expect to see the Assyrian version from the Epic of Gilgamesh? Or does the existence of one contradict or erase the other? Or did the change to one lead to the creation of the other's form?

It was possibly foolish of us to think that even a powerful god like Coyote could not fall prey to the changing times.

[aline]

Jul 20, 2018 12:38:10 GMT todd said:

Annie's mission is seeming far less hopeful now. She'd based it on the premise that this was still essentially Ysengrin, Ysengrin with his fatherly feelings for her underneath the snarling rage. But this new figure, who seems to be simply mad, may not have that facet she was counting on - or at most, it's buried beneath the madness, perhaps beyond her reach.

Which raises the question: how to save the Court from him, in light of this major setback to Annie's plan (Though I suspect the discussion about the metaphysics of this metamorphosis into Loup could take up a few pages; it could be a while before Annie has the opportunity to try a "Plan B" - though she might have to concentrate on simply surviving.)

Annie is still the person who befriended Ysengrin (the guy who hates humans and the Court) and had a good working relationship with Coyote. She has way less cards to play than she thought she did, that's true, but she's good at this stuff. She'll get to know Loup as well.

[darlos9d]

I feel like this is a Tuvix situation. Except in this case Tuvix is a crazy jerk so the moral quandary of whether or not they should be separated back to their individual entities is a tad less complicated.

It's just a matter of how we get there. Or if.

[Mitth'raw'nuruodo]

Jul 20, 2018 18:00:30 GMT Nepycros said:

It's not entirely uncommon for deities to "change." When the Romans adopted the Greek pantheon, they didn't just do a general name swap of all the deities and then name planets after them. They implemented their own cultural values, altering the nature and behaviors of these gods. The old Hebrew pantheon used to have a host of gods they would regularly worship, though in time these were condensed into properties of a single deity...

It was possibly foolish of us to think that even a powerful god like Coyote could not fall prey to the changing times.

Loup isn't a new genesis though, nor is he Ysengrin or Coyote, he is a gestalt of the two, but the nature of Coyote himself is in question. Because as Coyote said, he does not exist. So this Loup is not taking on the mantle of Coyote-being or even a Coyote-person, but the amorphous entity of Coyote-god. Loup is both and neither. Because the mantle of Coyote-god exceeds, subsumes, and overpowers Coyote-being.

Was Coyote, as an individual ever real? Not according to him, which is a bit of hyperbole. Coyote-being wasn't ever able to act in ways that went against Coyote-god the mantle, and so effectively stopped being, vis-a-vis Anakin to Vader. This new Loup is being subsumed into the Coyote-god mantle, but it seems clear to me that in that original moment of fusion, Ysengrin or Coyote or both fought against the mantle and has now cast Loup firmly as the Big Bad Wolf, which is a much more powerful concept.

So does this mean that the Coyote-god is being subsumed into BBW-god? I would say so. But keep in mind that Loup-being is hardly, if at all, there. Loup is just a puppet for a mantle, for an etheric idea.

[madjack]

Slightly belated realisation that might cast some doubt on whether the "useless old wolf" line only comes from Coyote: Did we ever learn which Ysengrin was which?