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Post by drmemory on Oct 14, 2021 6:10:48 GMT
I was looking through the Goose Bone stuff in hopes of finding clues, and noticed something I don't remember being discussed. It's probably nothing, but...
When Coyote says "Well, it is true that you will be more than powerful enough to shape the world when all my gifts are returned", what gifts was he referring to, exactly?
The only things we've seen him gift are: the Goose Bone, the Lake Water, his Sword Tooth, and two powers: the power of Gardening to Ysengrin (which Loup seems to still have) and the power of possession to Renard (which he also still has). None of that seems like anything that would make Loup powerful enough to shape the world.
The Goose Bone and Lake Water were both memories. The Sword Tooth isn't exactly a power, just a really sharp knife, right? And the two actual powers aren't exactly all that powerful. Well the Gardening thing is, but Loup uses it pretty clumsily, as did Ysengrin, and he already has it so it doesn't need to be returned. The Possession thing is pretty good but single-target - I don't see how reclaiming that would do anything but screw with Renard. I seem to recall that Coyote actually just used it for fun.
What other powers do we know about? He still has them all, unless something happened offstage!
- Be in more than one place at a time
- Trick himself into forgetting things, so he can do things for the first time repeatedly
- Ability to remove a soul (terminology arguable) from a living being and stick it in a totem
- Fast! Speed, that is, at least run speed
- Fierce! The only one we've really seen him be fierce with was... Ysengrin
- Strong! When he gave his strength to Ysengrin, it kicked off all the rest, so I think it's pretty safe to assume that Loup has it + everything else Coyote had when that all happened
Loup also has the markings for speed, fierceness, and strength, like the ones Coyote got in the side comic.
What am I missing here? Are there more gifts floating around out there? Would getting the Tooth and Possession back really make him hugely more powerful? I feel like it's equally likely that Loup has all the power needed to be "powerful enough to shape the world" already, or that I'm misunderstanding what Coyote was trying to say.
Ultimately, Coyote's big thing is being clever, and he's basically told Loup that the problem with Loup using Coyote's powers is Loup. I figure Loup has all of the capabilities that Coyote had (except for the two things mentioned above), but doesn't know how to use them. What a fool, Loup, what a fool! |
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Post by DonDueed on Oct 14, 2021 14:49:09 GMT
One other power Coyote had was to selectively remove memories. He did that to Ysengrin repeatedly. But I don't think he ever gave that away so Loup probably still has it.
Coyote's claim could have been misleading. I can see several loopholes in his statement. For example, he could simply mean that Loup couldn't get all Coyote's gifts back, so would never be that powerful; or that even if he got them back, they would only provide the potential to reshape the world (but Loup may not have the knowledge or knack of doing so). Or, Loup could already have that power even without getting the gifts back.
In other words, the truth of that statement may have nothing to do with anything inherent in the gifts themselves.
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Post by drmemory on Oct 15, 2021 4:22:33 GMT
One other power Coyote had was to selectively remove memories. He did that to Ysengrin repeatedly. But I don't think he ever gave that away so Loup probably still has it. Coyote's claim could have been misleading. I can see several loopholes in his statement. For example, he could simply mean that Loup couldn't get all Coyote's gifts back, so would never be that powerful; or that even if he got them back, they would only provide the potential to reshape the world (but Loup may not have the knowledge or knack of doing so). Or, Loup could already have that power even without getting the gifts back. In other words, the truth of that statement may have nothing to do with anything inherent in the gifts themselves. Yes! I forgot about the memory stealing thing. Coyote had a lot going on with mental powers and manipulation. We haven't seen anyone else do anything near that as far as I can remember. He is powerful and subtle.
I'm thinking along those lines too - my version is that Loup already had all the power that he needed but had no idea how to use it. Note that Coyote told Loup that when he got all the gifts back, he'd be powerful enough to reshape the world, but if Loup already WAS powerful enough to reshape the world but didn't know how to do it, it would still be a true statement. Loup is powerful but NOT subtle nor elegant in his use of power. Totally agree that his statement was probably quite misleading.
Coyote is a Go master. Loup gets mad when he loses at Tic Tac Toe and kicks the table over. You can hardly expect him to be able to use Coyote's skills well without quite a lot of practice and emotional growth. Which he clearly isn't going to get time for. Nor does he believe it is needed.
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Post by drmemory on Oct 15, 2021 4:38:17 GMT
New theory on why Coyote is doing all this:
1. He wants to experience death. 2. He doesn't at all like what the court would use his power for, and wants to keep it from them. By dying, he can remove his power from the world. So that lets him meet goal 1 as well as blocking the court from doing whatever extra-bad things they are up to, not just once but forever.
He gave his word not to attack the court, so he couldn't just go in and stop them without breaking his word. So he came up with this totally over-engineered, elaborate, complex Rube Goldberg-esque plan instead of doing something more straightforward (like negotiating a new agreement with the court or sending in assassins or whatever) because he is Coyote, and that just isn't his way. Plus, given that he seems to be able to look around in time or maybe even move around in time, it may be that this is the plan that would actually work! Like, he would know what would have happened if he had tried to renegotiate or whatever.
So in short, I think he wants to experience death and also stop the worst of the court's plans. Two main goals, one for himself, one for everyone else. Maybe. What do I know? I'm learning things at the same time as everyone else, and spending far too much mental energy thinking about them. I still don't know his endgame(s) though. Lots of theories but no proof of any.
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Post by CoyoteReborn on Oct 18, 2021 13:36:08 GMT
- Fast!
- Fierce!
- Strong!
- S E X Y!
You missed the most important one  |
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Post by Gemminie on Oct 18, 2021 16:58:23 GMT
I was looking through the Goose Bone stuff in hopes of finding clues, and noticed something I don't remember being discussed. It's probably nothing, but... When Coyote says "Well, it is true that you will be more than powerful enough to shape the world when all my gifts are returned", what gifts was he referring to, exactly? Really? I feel like I for one have brought this up so many times that I worried other people were getting tired of it, so I stopped talking about it!  This is one of those "dissecting a Coyote quote" topics, though. Everything Coyote says is true. It just doesn't usually mean what you think it means. What I think it means (which means I'm probably wrong in some way) is this: Coyote didn't say, "You will be more than powerful enough to shape the world because you'll have all my gifts back." He says, "You will be more than powerful enough to shape the world when all my gifts are returned." That is, or so my theory goes, Coyote isn't talking about the gifts giving Loup the power to shape the world. He's talking about the situation that Loup will be in when it happens. Because more recently he said, "You cannot simply return [the dagger] to him, he must be killed with it!" What state will Loup be in once the dagger is returned to him? Dead, that's what state. And dead people go into the Ether when a psychopomp takes them there, and they shape the Ether with their beliefs. This raises a different question, though, which is: Isn't this only supposed to work for humans? Loup isn't a human. But then, does it work for, say, the tree elves, when they die and go into the Ether? Do we know that a psychopomp shows up for them when they die? But what if it's up to the psychopomp? What if, right now, only humans shape the world because psychopomps only take humans into the Ether, because humans created the psychopomps with their beliefs? What if there were a human psychopomp who could choose to do something different? And what if by doing so the world were changed so that other points of view shaped the Ether from then on? |
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Post by foxurus on Oct 18, 2021 17:34:21 GMT
And dead people go into the Ether when a psychopomp takes them there, and they shape the Ether with their beliefs. This raises a different question, though, which is: Isn't this only supposed to work for humans? Loup isn't a human. But then, does it work for, say, the tree elves, when they die and go into the Ether? Do we know that a psychopomp shows up for them when they die? But what if it's up to the psychopomp? What if, right now, only humans shape the world because psychopomps only take humans into the Ether, because humans created the psychopomps with their beliefs? What if there were a human psychopomp who could choose to do something different? And what if by doing so the world were changed so that other points of view shaped the Ether from then on? Bugs are taken by the psychopomps, too. I think it's safe to assume everything is taken by psychopomps. |
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Post by warrl on Oct 18, 2021 19:58:24 GMT
Everything Coyote says is true. Not necessarily. We're told he does not lie. That does not mean that everything he thinks is true, actually is true. Also he's capable of weasel-wording - "perhaps X", "if X then Y", etc - where X is not true. |
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Post by Runningflame on Oct 18, 2021 21:27:45 GMT
Everything Coyote says is true. Not necessarily. We're told he does not lie. That does not mean that everything he thinks is true, actually is true. Also he's capable of weasel-wording - "perhaps X", "if X then Y", etc - where X is not true. Even more specifically: Jones says, "Coyote is no liar." Which doesn't necessarily mean that he never lies, just that he doesn't customarily lie. He might tell a lie on occasion. (Also, there have been hints that Jones may not be as neutral as she claims to be, so we probably shouldn't assume that her assessment of Coyote is completely accurate either.) In this specific instance, I agree that it's likely a case of "technically true but intentionally misleading." I bet Coyote finds that sort of word game endlessly amusing. |
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Post by lurkerbot on Oct 18, 2021 23:21:58 GMT
What if there were a human psychopomp who could choose to do something different? Like say Antimony kills Loup with the Tooth, Ysengrin and Coyote then reassume their separate identities in death, and she escorts them to the Ether? Interesting thought, and this possibly adds more meaning to Coyote's perhaps not-so-rhetorical question of " who better a steward of death than a guide of death?". |
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Post by drmemory on Oct 18, 2021 23:30:13 GMT
I was looking through the Goose Bone stuff in hopes of finding clues, and noticed something I don't remember being discussed. It's probably nothing, but... When Coyote says "Well, it is true that you will be more than powerful enough to shape the world when all my gifts are returned", what gifts was he referring to, exactly? Really? I feel like I for one have brought this up so many times that I worried other people were getting tired of it, so I stopped talking about it! This is one of those "dissecting a Coyote quote" topics, though. Everything Coyote says is true. It just doesn't usually mean what you think it means. What I think it means (which means I'm probably wrong in some way) is this: Coyote didn't say, "You will be more than powerful enough to shape the world because you'll have all my gifts back." He says, "You will be more than powerful enough to shape the world when all my gifts are returned." That is, or so my theory goes, Coyote isn't talking about the gifts giving Loup the power to shape the world. He's talking about the situation that Loup will be in when it happens. Because more recently he said, "You cannot simply return [the dagger] to him, he must be killed with it!" What state will Loup be in once the dagger is returned to him? Dead, that's what state. And dead people go into the Ether when a psychopomp takes them there, and they shape the Ether with their beliefs. This raises a different question, though, which is: Isn't this only supposed to work for humans? Loup isn't a human. But then, does it work for, say, the tree elves, when they die and go into the Ether? Do we know that a psychopomp shows up for them when they die? But what if it's up to the psychopomp? What if, right now, only humans shape the world because psychopomps only take humans into the Ether, because humans created the psychopomps with their beliefs? What if there were a human psychopomp who could choose to do something different? And what if by doing so the world were changed so that other points of view shaped the Ether from then on? I think of Coyote as more of a trickster and a joker than a liar.
In the conversation where he made the comment about power, he also made a couple of other clever remarks, that he obviously didn't expect Loup to understand on the level meant. For example, "Oh, is that what I did?". When he made the comment about power, it was a response to Loup asserting that when he got all of Coyote's gifts back, he would have the power needed to control the forest. Coyote went further and said it would let him shape the world but didn't really say anything implying that he couldn't do that already, as far as I can see.
Just a couple of pages later, he basically tells Loup that he obviously already has the power needed to control the forest, and that it is a failure in his own self that prevents him from doing so. A creature such as Ysengrin cannot expect to take Coyote's power and use it properly.
Why is Loup so much Ysengrin and so little Coyote, anyway? Gotta think that's a choice on the part of Coyote, or at least what is left of him!
The question of what the heck will happen when Loup dies is a big one. I would expect at minimum that the parts making him up will be separated, by the blade that can cut a shadow from the ground. So we'll probably have Coyote and Ysengrin at that point... dead? As dead as Coyote is anyway. But will we have those two, or Loup as well? And will Annie really be able to take all or some of them into the ether? If so, what the heck will happen next?
Even if it is the psychopomps that decide what happens next, Annie is one, or at least has already done the job a couple of times!
Dangit I was trying to lay low and not post long tomes for a while, but there is just so much going on! So many questions!
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Post by kitkat1 on Oct 19, 2021 0:03:58 GMT
Coyote’s unreturned gifts are, at this time, the knife and Reynard’s power of possession. If he’s led Loup to believe that he must regain all of these in order to shape the world, my guess would be that he intends to force Annie’s hand in killing Loup/Coyote himself by drawing his attention to Reynard and the gift he bears.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 19, 2021 4:56:08 GMT
Coyote’s unreturned gifts are, at this time, the knife and Reynard’s power of possession. If he’s led Loup to believe that he must regain all of these in order to shape the world, my guess would be that he intends to force Annie’s hand in killing Loup/Coyote himself by drawing his attention to Reynard and the gift he bears. Welcome to the forum! If "Loup" is still semi-rational what you describe may come to pass. I'm wildly speculating that his mind snapped and Antimony will have to end him out of pity to end his suffering... hopefully by cutting Ysengrin free. |
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Post by Gemminie on Oct 20, 2021 14:11:17 GMT
The question of what the heck will happen when Loup dies is a big one. I would expect at minimum that the parts making him up will be separated, by the blade that can cut a shadow from the ground. So we'll probably have Coyote and Ysengrin at that point... dead? As dead as Coyote is anyway. But will we have those two, or Loup as well? And will Annie really be able to take all or some of them into the ether? If so, what the heck will happen next? More than that ... if by the time he dies he's also gotten Reynard's possession power back (by circumstances unknown), what if he's in a human body he's taken over when this happens? (on an unrelated thought) As foxurus reminds me, even insects are taken by psychopomps, but do they (and various other creatures) affect the Ether the way humans do? If not, why only humans? What happened to allow humans to influence the Ether? ... What if we're seeing the story of how that came to be? |
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Post by foxurus on Oct 22, 2021 23:18:48 GMT
The question of what the heck will happen when Loup dies is a big one. I would expect at minimum that the parts making him up will be separated, by the blade that can cut a shadow from the ground. So we'll probably have Coyote and Ysengrin at that point... dead? As dead as Coyote is anyway. But will we have those two, or Loup as well? And will Annie really be able to take all or some of them into the ether? If so, what the heck will happen next? More than that ... if by the time he dies he's also gotten Reynard's possession power back (by circumstances unknown), what if he's in a human body he's taken over when this happens? (on an unrelated thought) As foxurus reminds me, even insects are taken by psychopomps, but do they (and various other creatures) affect the Ether the way humans do? If not, why only humans? What happened to allow humans to influence the Ether? ... What if we're seeing the story of how that came to be? , I think. Which begs the question of the forest elves. |
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