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Post by maxptc on Aug 15, 2021 16:37:28 GMT
We so far have been seeing all sorts of attacks and invasions by forest on court, similar happened in Surma's time. We haven't seen same of court robots or army invading forest and slaughtering or threatening elves or other intelligent beings. The one case of claimed court invasion attack on forest was a false flag trick by forest... beginning of story when Forest requests meeting with court. The Court has been "invading/attacking" the Forest, in a sense. Surma's manipulation of Rey being the main example, the very recent attempt to steal Coyetes powers being another shown example (I think them allowing Annie to visit in general may also be part of the Court ploting). They just don't have any reason to invade in that sense, they want power not land or casualties. The Court has demonstrated it isn't the "take over the world and invade others space so only we remain" type of society. Seems to me they want to be left alone and to progress science/there society, without ethic commities.
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Post by pyradonis on Aug 15, 2021 16:42:37 GMT
I believe you’re thinking of the wrong chapter. I did not refer to Ayilu‘s illusory Court, but to Jeanne‘s memories , which she showed to Annie and Parley after trapping them with Annie’s blinker stone. You are correct, I was thinking of the Ayilu version. That is indeed another (most likely) real flashback.
So we see... Diego being creepy, General Ysengrin being angry, Coyote watching, and um the Gunner with a crow over his shoulder? Not sure about that last one exactly. It's the guy who later shot the arrow. Also an anonymous-looking faceless court agent. Out of those, the only potential "future Aata" I see is the crow. He looks shadowy! So does the agent, I suppose...
Then there is a page full of symbolism, which is sure to delight those into such things. Ah, yes, that Steadman person. I've been wondering about the crow shown behind him myself. Of course the wole comic has a lot of birds and bird sybolism, but this one really seems to turn up only on this page. I really hope we will at one point find out more about Steadman as well as the Artilleryman.
I think the guy whose face is not seen is supposed to be Sir Young, at least he was bald as well.
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Post by drmemory on Aug 16, 2021 15:28:07 GMT
We so far have been seeing all sorts of attacks and invasions by forest on court, similar happened in Surma's time. We haven't seen same of court robots or army invading forest and slaughtering or threatening elves or other intelligent beings. The one case of claimed court invasion attack on forest was a false flag trick by forest... beginning of story when Forest requests meeting with court. The Court has been "invading/attacking" the Forest, in a sense. Surma's manipulation of Rey being the main example, the very recent attempt to steal Coyetes powers being another shown example (I think them allowing Annie to visit in general may also be part of the Court ploting). They just don't have any reason to invade in that sense, they want power not land or casualties. The Court has demonstrated it isn't the "take over the world and invade others space so only we remain" type of society. Seems to me they want to be left alone and to progress science/there society, without ethic commities. Also, Aata has stated that he wants to "rid ourselves of the shackles of the unseen world". He has clearly been actively pursuing this with his plotting and scheming. Which is a bit puzzling, as he clearly has some power in the unseen world himself! So why exactly is he so aggressive about it? I honestly haven't noticed anything resembling "shackles" - it really seems like Coyote and the forest have mostly left the court alone.
Not that there hasn't been a bit of scheming on the forest side! Like when Ysengrin dropped seeds in the court the first time we met him. So maybe I'm wrong about EB being the only aggressor, though he's certainly been more obvious about it.
Observation - We've seen only two ever refer to the ether as the "unseen world" - Aata and Zimmy. Huh. Makes me wonder where the term came from - Zimmy, Gamma or the court?
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Post by Georgie L on Aug 16, 2021 15:36:22 GMT
See, my crazy theory is that Aata's the Seed Bismuth
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Post by drmemory on Aug 16, 2021 15:43:42 GMT
"Evil Buddha (EB) as I like to think of him." IMO your prejudice that sees him that way. It could be true but so far everything he has done might be justified and self defense, from what we have seen of forest. Interesting point. I'm not sure I would think of it as prejudice though. He has been presented as the man behind the curtains, the face of the faceless "court" that keeps messing with Annie and friends. Until recently, I was watching him but had him categorized as more like a campus cop. Except that we've been specifically told that he's not part of the court that has anything to do with the school.
Before the recent blatant power grab attempt, I was suspicious of him and a bit worried. Now that he's shown all this aggression and made direct attacks, and we've been told more about his scheming and his part in the death of Daniel Schiff and the confinement of Renard, I mentally moved him into the "evil" pile. I mean, he's running the court's secret police, including running ops - if he isn't evil he's at least their head of CIA, complete with field agents carrying out domestic ops!
Plus, he's been mean to a couple of my favorite characters.
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Post by drmemory on Aug 16, 2021 15:53:06 GMT
See, my crazy theory is that Aata's the Seed Bismuth Well, I don't have any direct evidence one way or the other, but I do have to wonder why the Seed Bismuth would be messing with Coyote and friends, and how some of his words and actions would fit that theory.
We don't know what the Seed Bismuth was nor what happened to it but it has been said that it was a collaboration between the court and the forest. So it could possibly be an incarnate being, or have become one later, I guess? I have a mental image of a techno-looking seed, maybe like a small computer or robot, infused with Coyote- and/or forest- energy. Could it has also been a short, round, schemer? Or become one later? No idea.
Since you bring up the Seed, I have to wonder - was it literally a seed, that grew a city and was consumed in the process? Or could it be the heart of the court, such that if it were destroyed or de-powered, the court would be destroyed? If it's still there, does it depend on energy from the Ether to continue to exist? Don't know!
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Post by maxptc on Aug 16, 2021 18:27:38 GMT
Honestly I'm just happy with Atta because he proved my "humans in this comic will be considered monsters for smiling and having any goal, while the magic animals and Coyete will be loved and get a free pass even when they literally try to murder everyone" postion so accurate.
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mzpx
Junior Member
Posts: 71
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Post by mzpx on Aug 16, 2021 19:15:11 GMT
Honestly I'm just happy with Atta because he proved my "humans in this comic will be considered monsters for smiling and having any goal, while the magic animals and Coyete will be loved and get a free pass even when they literally try to murder everyone" postion so accurate. I'd like this more than once if I could. As far as I can remember, the only two actual evil 'masterminds' in the whole series so far have been Diego and Coyote (for the latter, that's just one example, more generally exploiting the distrust between the Court and the Forest for his own amusement is the big one). They are the only two who hurt other(s) for the sake of hurting them, in full control of their actions.
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Post by guntherkrieg on Aug 16, 2021 19:23:17 GMT
Now what Aata [...] with his flower power That is what came to mind But it's no match for glower power >
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Post by maxptc on Aug 17, 2021 1:40:22 GMT
Honestly I'm just happy with Atta because he proved my "humans in this comic will be considered monsters for smiling and having any goal, while the magic animals and Coyete will be loved and get a free pass even when they literally try to murder everyone" postion so accurate. I'd like this more than once if I could. As far as I can remember, the only two actual evil 'masterminds' in the whole series so far have been Diego and Coyote (for the latter, that's just one example, more generally exploiting the distrust between the Court and the Forest for his own amusement is the big one). They are the only two who hurt other(s) for the sake of hurting them, in full control of their actions. I personally think Cruise Ship was an evil mastermind character. He also hurt people for pretty selfish and unnecessary reasons, while being in control of his actions. Kat was gonna get to work sooner or later, she just got distracted by a new relationship, not a good reason to kidnap all children in the court and hold them hostage.
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Post by pyradonis on Aug 17, 2021 7:22:43 GMT
I'd like this more than once if I could. As far as I can remember, the only two actual evil 'masterminds' in the whole series so far have been Diego and Coyote (for the latter, that's just one example, more generally exploiting the distrust between the Court and the Forest for his own amusement is the big one). They are the only two who hurt other(s) for the sake of hurting them, in full control of their actions. I personally think Cruise Ship was an evil mastermind character. He also hurt people for pretty selfish and unnecessary reasons, while being in control of his actions. Kat was gonna get to work sooner or later, she just got distracted by a new relationship, not a good reason to kidnap all children in the court and hold them hostage. I generally agree with your two's assesments of these three characters; however I believe that in order to be considered a mastermind, someone has to design and (preferably successfully) execute more than one scheme. To the group of characters who hurt others for purely selfish reasons while in full control of their actions I would definitely add Hetty. Murdered a child and tortured another who didn't even know she existed purely out of spite. The Court's founders, minus the Artilleryman, also count. Diego concocted the scheme, but they all went willingly along with it. As the Artilleryman demonstrated, no one was forced to participate. Steadman in particular pretended to help Jeanne and in the end shot the arrow, knowing that it would not only end a man's life, but also bind two people's souls forever. Had he refused, this abhorrent plan might have never come to fruition.
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Post by Gemminie on Aug 17, 2021 15:45:56 GMT
Also, Aata has stated that he wants to "rid ourselves of the shackles of the unseen world". He has clearly been actively pursuing this with his plotting and scheming. Which is a bit puzzling, as he clearly has some power in the unseen world himself! So why exactly is he so aggressive about it? I honestly haven't noticed anything resembling "shackles" - it really seems like Coyote and the forest have mostly left the court alone. This is where my theory would fit quite well. As a human with an etheric talent for healing, he knows people are dying unnecessarily all over the world every day but knows he could never possibly help them all. But if every doctor had access to powers like his, think how many lives could be saved. But instead, only random people here and there get etheric abilities, for no reason anyone can determine, and only occasionally is one of them a healing talent. And worst of all, everyone is fated to die one day, so even if he dedicated his life to traveling to people who needed healing, there would still only be a finite number of people he could help before he died, as we don't know whether his talent can stop death from old age, nor do we know whether he can use it on himself. So, I propose that the "shackles" of the Ether are the fact that only certain people get etheric abilities, and the fact that everyone dies. (Hmm, as a healer who can stave off death to at least some degree, does that set him up in opposition to the psychopomps?) He's so aggressive about his project because it could save uncountable lives, making him an Anti-Villain. In his failure, using non-technological means to save Shell rather than Court ether-tech means, he proves himself correct: Shell is only alive because he happened to be there, but if his project were to succeed and etheric-healing first-aid kits were easily available, Shell could have been saved regardless of who was around; she could even have saved herself with one. He's a beautiful failure because by failing he saved a life (perhaps Coyote was seeing a few seconds/minutes into the future when he said that, or perhaps this sort of incident has happened before). Perhaps he's a "failed cousin" to Coyote because if he succeeds one day, he might become an ethereal legendary figure, even retroactively, but because that hasn't happened Coyote knows he'll fail. Anyway, still all just speculation.
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Post by drmemory on Aug 17, 2021 16:06:17 GMT
Still not sure of the evil-ness level of EB, but how can you trust a puppeteer, a schemer, and a thief? Anyway, we're getting a few clues about the court's relationship to the ether here. Why would using his flower power get Aata ejected from the program? The obvious implication is that you can't be in the program if you have etheric powers. It is probably more subtle than that though, as the court allows people with etheric powers! Examples: Anja, Carver (so far), Zimmy and Gamma, etc. Anja doesn't really use hers, other than in her computer and for a spot of training, and we haven't heard anything about her being ejected. Annie and Gamma, who use them, are planned to be "sent away". Zimmy, who has no control over her "abilities", is not - they specifically are worried about being separated! Maybe it's ok to have them as long as you don't use them. So perhaps by visibly using his abilities, Aata could be moving himself into the "must go" pile. That would sort of fit in with the attempts to steal Coyote's power. They seem happy enough to HAVE etheric power, as long as it's stored in batteries and controlled by them. For example, the power station stories. Also, the fact that they shut down the power stations seems to imply that they've mostly saved up enough? Except for the current attempt to steal Coyote's power, which may be more related to needing to stop Loup from destroying the court than a need for more power in the batteries. I'm thinking they have been trying to save up enough power to do... something, and when they accomplish this something, they then plan to get rid of (at least, banish, if nothing worse) those with etheric abilities that use them. They may already have enough power for this, as evidenced by the power stations being shut down. What is that something? Well the only ominous-sounding thing we've heard about them making is Omega, and it always is mentioned whenever ether-connected court scheming is mentioned. If it is really only a way to see into the ether, that doesn't make sense - it has to be more. Maybe a way for people like the Headmaster, Jonathan Llanwellyn, to act directly in the ether despite having no power of their own. Also, it is sure to backfire - the court is obviously trying to treat etheric power as neutral energy, but it seems strongly attached to life, and in many cases, individuals! If they stick a bunch of Coyote power in a battery with power they got from rain, I have to think it will combine in surprising ways.
I put this in the Aata thread because he is still pivotal to it all. He's obviously deeply involved. He shows up whenever people do weird things involving the ether. His role, or at least his actions, clearly go well beyond surveillance - the current power theft attempt makes that obvious.
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Post by DonDueed on Aug 17, 2021 17:38:43 GMT
Also, Aata has stated that he wants to "rid ourselves of the shackles of the unseen world". He has clearly been actively pursuing this with his plotting and scheming. Which is a bit puzzling, as he clearly has some power in the unseen world himself! So why exactly is he so aggressive about it? I honestly haven't noticed anything resembling "shackles" - it really seems like Coyote and the forest have mostly left the court alone. This is where my theory would fit quite well. As a human with an etheric talent for healing, he knows people are dying unnecessarily all over the world every day but knows he could never possibly help them all. But if every doctor had access to powers like his, think how many lives could be saved. But instead, only random people here and there get etheric abilities, for no reason anyone can determine, and only occasionally is one of them a healing talent. And worst of all, everyone is fated to die one day, so even if he dedicated his life to traveling to people who needed healing, there would still only be a finite number of people he could help before he died, as we don't know whether his talent can stop death from old age, nor do we know whether he can use it on himself. So, I propose that the "shackles" of the Ether are the fact that only certain people get etheric abilities, and the fact that everyone dies. (Hmm, as a healer who can stave off death to at least some degree, does that set him up in opposition to the psychopomps?) He's so aggressive about his project because it could save uncountable lives, making him an Anti-Villain. In his failure, using non-technological means to save Shell rather than Court ether-tech means, he proves himself correct: Shell is only alive because he happened to be there, but if his project were to succeed and etheric-healing first-aid kits were easily available, Shell could have been saved regardless of who was around; she could even have saved herself with one. He's a beautiful failure because by failing he saved a life (perhaps Coyote was seeing a few seconds/minutes into the future when he said that, or perhaps this sort of incident has happened before). Perhaps he's a "failed cousin" to Coyote because if he succeeds one day, he might become an ethereal legendary figure, even retroactively, but because that hasn't happened Coyote knows he'll fail. Anyway, still all just speculation. Hmm... reminds me of the ending of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 18, 2021 13:21:24 GMT
I choose to belive Atta is a bureaucrat with magical flower grandparents on his mothers side he never liked visiting. They may be humans or elves or fairies or whatever, I have no idea, but I do know the holidays were awkward. Considering that with Antimony's ancestry we are already well in Hoffmann's territory, why not. As in, Lily - Spirit-prince Phosphorus (morning wind?) | Green Snake - Salamander | Serpentina (blue eyed gold-green snake) - Anselmus (some hapless student)
And so forth. Once shapeshifting is, ahem, on the table…
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Post by najmniejszy on Aug 18, 2021 22:44:35 GMT
I personally think Cruise Ship was an evil mastermind character. He also hurt people for pretty selfish and unnecessary reasons, while being in control of his actions. Kat was gonna get to work sooner or later, she just got distracted by a new relationship, not a good reason to kidnap all children in the court and hold them hostage. I generally agree with your two's assesments of these three characters; however I believe that in order to be considered a mastermind, someone has to design and (preferably successfully) execute more than one scheme. To the group of characters who hurt others for purely selfish reasons while in full control of their actions I would definitely add Hetty. Murdered a child and tortured another who didn't even know she existed purely out of spite. The Court's founders, minus the Artilleryman, also count. Diego concocted the scheme, but they all went willingly along with it. As the Artilleryman demonstrated, no one was forced to participate. Steadman in particular pretended to help Jeanne and in the end shot the arrow, knowing that it would not only end a man's life, but also bind two people's souls forever. Had he refused, this abhorrent plan might have never come to fruition.
I would add the fake psychopomps to the list of characters that seem evil rather than misguided
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Post by drmemory on Aug 19, 2021 18:36:44 GMT
Agree about the fake psychopomps - they were clearly acting out of malice. The boat brain almost seems like it was manipulated by the Seraph robots, including (especially!) S-13. Which doesn't mean it wasn't evil, just that there may be a more sympathetic side to that story. Hetty - evil. I suspect some or all of the Wisps as well - they way they approach things is certainly distasteful and manipulative, even if not exactly evil. Really, they are predators that use mental trickery and illusions to get things to feed on (or perhaps implant their young in), but even though that's unpleasant and gross I haven't seen any evidence that they do it out of malice. They seem rather fragile really - perhaps their mental abilities are the only arrow in their quiver. Some of those critters in the ruins in the forest, that Ysengrin took Annie to meet, certainly looked evil, and were quite aggressive. But were they actually evil, or just cranky critters with PTSD that seem to have been abandoned, and were bitter about it? Dunno. Aata (EB) seems evil to me because he is clearly aware of what he is doing, which is manipulating people and non-human entities into doing what he wants, as well as trying to steal power that just isn't his. If you steal all of Coyote's power, as was attempted by Aata and his shadow men, what then is left of Coyote? Would that kill him entirely? Eradicate him from existence, so he can't even pass on to the ether? He didn't try to get Coyote's speed or whatever, he tried to get whatever he could claw away of Coyote! What of the need to keep the world spinning? Whatever his background, he clearly has his own etheric abilities and knows quite a bit about Coyote and the forest. He certainly seems to be acting out of malice or at least with no care of the effects of his actions on others. He is at the center of a nest of information and probably knows as well as anyone could, the probable consequences of his actions. His actions are evil in my opinion. The second purest we've seen in the comic to date (after Hetty). Even the other manipulative, not altogether wholesome characters, such as the psychopomps, are a lot more honest about what they want, selfish though it may be. They didn't try to trick Annie, they offered her a choice and let her decide. Not NICE but not evil IMHO.
Actually, the most sneaky, manipulative character to date is S13. But he hasn't actually done anything all that evil, that we've been shown. So far!
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Post by drmemory on Aug 21, 2021 15:57:55 GMT
It's probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be mentioned, but still... Loup = not evil. He's just a kid. A very powerful, freaked out kid who is being screwed with by much older and wiser beings. He's right that it isn't fair.
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Post by maxptc on Aug 21, 2021 17:13:56 GMT
It's probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be mentioned, but still... Loup = not evil. He's just a kid. A very powerful, freaked out kid who is being screwed with by much older and wiser beings. He's right that it isn't fair. I don't think any of the characters are "evil" but Loup is definitely more then just a kid and is absolutely accountable for his actions. He is a combination of two sentient beings that are near ageless and very intelligent. Despite not being Coyete or Ysengrin he has all the memories they did and as such more knowledge and experiences to draw on then almost any other characters despite being a physically young being. He doesn't get the kid excuse any more then fAnnie or cAnnie or Paz or Red, and while the situation is unfair and was created to put him in an impossible position, he doesnt seem like a tool or a gun in Coyetes hand to me. He is an individual, who is choosing to make bad and sometimes evil decisions.
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Post by drmemory on Aug 23, 2021 1:05:24 GMT
It's probably so obvious that it doesn't need to be mentioned, but still... Loup = not evil. He's just a kid. A very powerful, freaked out kid who is being screwed with by much older and wiser beings. He's right that it isn't fair. I don't think any of the characters are "evil" but Loup is definitely more then just a kid and is absolutely accountable for his actions. He is a combination of two sentient beings that are near ageless and very intelligent. Despite not being Coyete or Ysengrin he has all the memories they did and as such more knowledge and experiences to draw on then almost any other characters despite being a physically young being. He doesn't get the kid excuse any more then fAnnie or cAnnie or Paz or Red, and while the situation is unfair and was created to put him in an impossible position, he doesnt seem like a tool or a gun in Coyetes hand to me. He is an individual, who is choosing to make bad and sometimes evil decisions. Hmmm. I'm not so sure about that. He has said things like not wanting to die when he's only started to live, and he certainly behaves like a kid! I'm not sure of this, as I can't read Tom's mind any more than anyone else here, but I think when Renard asked him if he was really a new creature, he was telling the truth when he said he was. Strongly implied he was anyway.
He seems to have Ysengrin's mind inside him, as evidenced by how he let Annie talk to it. Loup's personality clearly isn't a combination of the two! It almost seems like he's like encapsulated them, fenced them off from himself. We haven't really seen whether Coyote is in there as well, and I'm surprised Annie didn't ask.
He seems to have full access to Ysengrin's powers of gardening. He has at least some access to some of Coyote's powers but really doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to use them. For example, his problems keeping the forest going. Under stress, like now, he largely reverts to those gardening powers.
What isn't clear is to what extent he can access their memories and skills, and whether that situation is a matter of choice on his part. This really does not seem like a merging of two mature minds that we are seeing. I might be wrong, but I really think Loup is a new personality, a very young one.
Even so, I'm not really sure how that came about. He started as Ysengrin, killed and ate Coyote, and was reborn as Loup. Why? Why didn't he become Ysengrin with colorful body tattoos and more powers when he absorbed all that power? He doesn't even know what he can do with his power, clearly! And he certainly doesn't have access to Coyote's memories - he didn't even know the goose bone and the waters were memories.
Loup is, as has been said in-comic, less than the sum of his parts. His mind certainly doesn't seem like the merging of two ancient and powerful beings!
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Post by drmemory on Aug 23, 2021 1:07:25 GMT
Oops, forgot the other part. I'm not saying he shouldn't be help accountable for his actions. I'm saying he's a kid with a huge amount of power that he doesn't know how to use nor control properly. He's on a quest to get what he thinks of as missing Coyote powers, but clearly what he is lacking is in his mind.
I'm certainly more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt than if were, say, Ysengrin + more power. Not evil, but a fool, and probably a kid IMHO.
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Post by maxptc on Aug 23, 2021 4:56:14 GMT
I don't think any of the characters are "evil" but Loup is definitely more then just a kid and is absolutely accountable for his actions. He is a combination of two sentient beings that are near ageless and very intelligent. Despite not being Coyete or Ysengrin he has all the memories they did and as such more knowledge and experiences to draw on then almost any other characters despite being a physically young being. He doesn't get the kid excuse any more then fAnnie or cAnnie or Paz or Red, and while the situation is unfair and was created to put him in an impossible position, he doesnt seem like a tool or a gun in Coyetes hand to me. He is an individual, who is choosing to make bad and sometimes evil decisions. Hmmm. I'm not so sure about that. He has said things like not wanting to die when he's only started to live, and he certainly behaves like a kid! I'm not sure of this, as I can't read Tom's mind any more than anyone else here, but I think when Renard asked him if he was really a new creature, he was telling the truth when he said he was. Strongly implied he was anyway. He seems to have Ysengrin's mind inside him, as evidenced by how he let Annie talk to it. Loup's personality clearly isn't a combination of the two! It almost seems like he's like encapsulated them, fenced them off from himself. We haven't really seen whether Coyote is in there as well, and I'm surprised Annie didn't ask. He seems to have full access to Ysengrin's powers of gardening. He has at least some access to some of Coyote's powers but really doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to use them. For example, his problems keeping the forest going. Under stress, like now, he largely reverts to those gardening powers.
What isn't clear is to what extent he can access their memories and skills, and whether that situation is a matter of choice on his part. This really does not seem like a merging of two mature minds that we are seeing. I might be wrong, but I really think Loup is a new personality, a very young one. Even so, I'm not really sure how that came about. He started as Ysengrin, killed and ate Coyote, and was reborn as Loup. Why? Why didn't he become Ysengrin with colorful body tattoos and more powers when he absorbed all that power? He doesn't even know what he can do with his power, clearly! And he certainly doesn't have access to Coyote's memories - he didn't even know the goose bone and the waters were memories. Loup is, as has been said in-comic, less than the sum of his parts. His mind certainly doesn't seem like the merging of two ancient and powerful beings!
I read this whole plot as Loup getting the few memories of Coyete he didn't have accesses to back. His first attack and the knowledge he had in the conversation after words makes me firmly belive Coyete is there. I definitely think he has full access to Coyete and Ysengrins memories and abilities, aside from the powers and memories Coyete had given away. Loup is a new creature and physically young, but emotionally and intelligence wise, he is far from "just a kid", despite being immature. I think our readings have lead us to rather different interpretations of Loup, what's happening and has happened.
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