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Post by drmemory on Aug 24, 2022 18:15:34 GMT
Another psychopomp mystery: Why do they feel like they have a claim on specific souls? In the burned boy incident, two different psychopomps both wanted to escort the boy's soul into the ether. Why does it matter who does it? In the dead Mort incident, Anjou says "But... he's mine!" and looks flustered. Why would this matter? Maybe my PSC (Psychopomp Steering Committee) joke isn't as much of a joke as intended. It almost seems like there is a bureaucracy involved here. This isn't directly related to the Court Exodus, but the question about psychopomps arose as part of the general skepticism about whether the Court can really escape the ether entirely by moving to another planet. My bet is "NO". I further think it's a scam and whoever is trying to make this happen is fully aware of that.
Heck, maybe they want to establish a separate ether, powered entirely by the deaths of the Court people who move, under their control!
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Post by Gemminie on Aug 24, 2022 18:39:46 GMT
Another psychopomp mystery: Why do they feel like they have a claim on specific souls? In the burned boy incident, two different psychopomps both wanted to escort the boy's soul into the ether. Why does it matter who does it? In the dead Mort incident, Anjou says "But... he's mine!" and looks flustered. Why would this matter? Maybe my PSC (Psychopomp Steering Committee) joke isn't as much of a joke as intended. It almost seems like there is a bureaucracy involved here. My theory about this is that taking a soul into the Ether gives that psychopomp some kind of power/energy/strength/mana/etc. It keeps the world spinning for that particular guide.
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heranje
Full Member
Oh super wow!
Posts: 175
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Post by heranje on Aug 24, 2022 21:23:07 GMT
Another psychopomp mystery: Why do they feel like they have a claim on specific souls? In the burned boy incident, two different psychopomps both wanted to escort the boy's soul into the ether. Why does it matter who does it? In the dead Mort incident, Anjou says "But... he's mine!" and looks flustered. Why would this matter? Maybe my PSC (Psychopomp Steering Committee) joke isn't as much of a joke as intended. It almost seems like there is a bureaucracy involved here. This isn't directly related to the Court Exodus, but the question about psychopomps arose as part of the general skepticism about whether the Court can really escape the ether entirely by moving to another planet. My bet is "NO". I further think it's a scam and whoever is trying to make this happen is fully aware of that. Heck, maybe they want to establish a separate ether, powered entirely by the deaths of the Court people who move, under their control! In reply to this and your previous post: I don't know, I think there's a few things we've seen that suggest the psychopomps at least are supposed to show up for everyone who dies. For one, Annie squishes an ant knowing it will call Ketrak to her - did she then know the ant would be confused? And it's suggested that Annie saw the psychopomps almost every night in the hospital, which means there would at least be a high percentage of those who die who need help, since hospitals do have a lot of deaths but not enough each night that something that was uncommon - a soul getting 'stuck' - would be such a regular occurrence. This is all just speculation, but I do believe it's a santa claus thing, or at least a thing where time doesn't work quite in the same way for them as it does for humans, meaning they can effectively be in several places at once. Though you're right that they do observe the passage of time and sequences of events - but that may well be in the sense that they're aware that's something that happens for humans. As for the bureaucracy, an interesting quirk of the ether is that the 'institutions' we've seen there are strangely bureaucratic. The ROTD, the arbiter, even the norns gave a bit of that with their comment that they "only deal in temporal affairs." So I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of bureaucratic psychopomp governing body. The territorial thing makes me wonder again why they want Annie so badly, though. Which unclaimed territory is it that she fills? Based on the people we've seen her guide so far, possibly excluding Surma, it could in fact be that her etheric empathy abilities makes her uniquely suited to deal with those who are lost and 'stuck'. To join your attempt in bringing it back to the topic at hand, I think this discussion illustrates that there's a lot we (and probably all or at least most of the characters in the comic) don't understand about the ether. The psychopomps are a good example of that, especially with the gaps they reveal in Coyote's theory, which is really all we have to go on in terms of an overarching theory of how the ether works. And I'm tempted to suggest that the Court's decision-making is also based on an incomplete understanding of what the ether is and how it works. Of course, Renard would tell us that the point of the ether is that you can't understand how it works - but speculating is fun.
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Post by Runningflame on Aug 25, 2022 0:51:10 GMT
The picture we have of the "real" Court is a long tube, structure, or skyscraper tower protruding out from the Earth. Nothing weird about that. A tower with its top in the heavens, you say? Hmm. Now where have I heard that before...
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Post by mturtle7 on Aug 26, 2022 2:32:29 GMT
Another psychopomp mystery: Why do they feel like they have a claim on specific souls? In the burned boy incident, two different psychopomps both wanted to escort the boy's soul into the ether. Why does it matter who does it? In the dead Mort incident, Anjou says "But... he's mine!" and looks flustered. Why would this matter? Maybe my PSC (Psychopomp Steering Committee) joke isn't as much of a joke as intended. It almost seems like there is a bureaucracy involved here. My theory about this is that taking a soul into the Ether gives that psychopomp some kind of power/energy/strength/mana/etc. It keeps the world spinning for that particular guide. I could sworn it was explained somewhere that the psychopomps generally have claim only over those souls who believe in them or at least belong to the culture which believes in them - hence, different groups of British people who are descended from different subcultures are claimed by Ankou, Mallt-y-nos, the Moddey Dhoo, or any of the many other British psychopomps whose stories are still told. However...I can't actually find where I got this idea! It doesn't seem to be anywhere in the comic, nor in the old Formspring Q&A, nor in the retrospectives...I'll just put it down as my cool wildspec, then.
It would also fit nicely with Gemminie's theory that the psychopomps get a personal Ether boost from escorting each new soul; each new soul they escort puts a little more belief in their own myth into the Ether which (in theory) gives them life and form!
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Post by drmemory on Aug 26, 2022 6:32:36 GMT
Another psychopomp mystery: Why do they feel like they have a claim on specific souls? In the burned boy incident, two different psychopomps both wanted to escort the boy's soul into the ether. Why does it matter who does it? In the dead Mort incident, Anjou says "But... he's mine!" and looks flustered. Why would this matter? Maybe my PSC (Psychopomp Steering Committee) joke isn't as much of a joke as intended. It almost seems like there is a bureaucracy involved here. My theory about this is that taking a soul into the Ether gives that psychopomp some kind of power/energy/strength/mana/etc. It keeps the world spinning for that particular guide. Or just helps that psychopomp meet their quota.
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Post by drmemory on Aug 26, 2022 6:48:31 GMT
Another psychopomp mystery: Why do they feel like they have a claim on specific souls? In the burned boy incident, two different psychopomps both wanted to escort the boy's soul into the ether. Why does it matter who does it? In the dead Mort incident, Anjou says "But... he's mine!" and looks flustered. Why would this matter? Maybe my PSC (Psychopomp Steering Committee) joke isn't as much of a joke as intended. It almost seems like there is a bureaucracy involved here. This isn't directly related to the Court Exodus, but the question about psychopomps arose as part of the general skepticism about whether the Court can really escape the ether entirely by moving to another planet. My bet is "NO". I further think it's a scam and whoever is trying to make this happen is fully aware of that. Heck, maybe they want to establish a separate ether, powered entirely by the deaths of the Court people who move, under their control! In reply to this and your previous post: I don't know, I think there's a few things we've seen that suggest the psychopomps at least are supposed to show up for everyone who dies. For one, Annie squishes an ant knowing it will call Ketrak to her - did she then know the ant would be confused? And it's suggested that Annie saw the psychopomps almost every night in the hospital, which means there would at least be a high percentage of those who die who need help, since hospitals do have a lot of deaths but not enough each night that something that was uncommon - a soul getting 'stuck' - would be such a regular occurrence. This is all just speculation, but I do believe it's a santa claus thing, or at least a thing where time doesn't work quite in the same way for them as it does for humans, meaning they can effectively be in several places at once. Though you're right that they do observe the passage of time and sequences of events - but that may well be in the sense that they're aware that's something that happens for humans. As for the bureaucracy, an interesting quirk of the ether is that the 'institutions' we've seen there are strangely bureaucratic. The ROTD, the arbiter, even the norns gave a bit of that with their comment that they "only deal in temporal affairs." So I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of bureaucratic psychopomp governing body. The territorial thing makes me wonder again why they want Annie so badly, though. Which unclaimed territory is it that she fills? Based on the people we've seen her guide so far, possibly excluding Surma, it could in fact be that her etheric empathy abilities makes her uniquely suited to deal with those who are lost and 'stuck'. To join your attempt in bringing it back to the topic at hand, I think this discussion illustrates that there's a lot we (and probably all or at least most of the characters in the comic) don't understand about the ether. The psychopomps are a good example of that, especially with the gaps they reveal in Coyote's theory, which is really all we have to go on in terms of an overarching theory of how the ether works. And I'm tempted to suggest that the Court's decision-making is also based on an incomplete understanding of what the ether is and how it works. Of course, Renard would tell us that the point of the ether is that you can't understand how it works - but speculating is fun. Good point about the ant thing. That's decent evidence for some psychopomp showing up for each death, at least briefly. OR, that all insects believe in Ketrak, though maybe some believe in some other psychopomp and she just needed one to show up, and didn't care which.
It there really is a Santa Clause-like thing going on here, or at least a bureaucratic procedure that at least one psychopomp must show up for each death, then that's more evidence that the migration to another planet to escape the ether is doomed. Each time someone dies there, a psychopomp will show up - all this stuff about hiding and not forming memories or even erasing them won't work unless it also takes the psychopomp into account.
I have to wonder if anyone in the Court hierarchy even knows about the psychopomps. Clearly many etheric entities do - it seemed like common knowledge among high-powered ones like Coyote and low-powered ones like Mort. I can't think of any time that a Court person, like someone not in the Annie/Kat orbit, has ever mentioned them in any context. Mort knew Muut was an important guy - is that because "everyone knows that" or maybe "anyone attached to death knows that" or what? Like, does Aata know the psychopomps exist? Do the shadow men in general? They basically treat the ether purely as a power source but there are many different entities who are involved with the current etheric status quo.
Agree that we don't really understand this stuff that well either. We have no way to know whether the court knows what we know. Maybe they know more than is obvious, thanks to their surveillance teams, but again, they seem to treat it in a very mechanical manner and do not engage with the many entities (that we've seen).
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Post by drmemory on Aug 26, 2022 6:54:04 GMT
My theory about this is that taking a soul into the Ether gives that psychopomp some kind of power/energy/strength/mana/etc. It keeps the world spinning for that particular guide. I could sworn it was explained somewhere that the psychopomps generally have claim only over those souls who believe in them or at least belong to the culture which believes in them - hence, different groups of British people who are descended from different subcultures are claimed by Ankou, Mallt-y-nos, the Moddey Dhoo, or any of the many other British psychopomps whose stories are still told. However...I can't actually find where I got this idea! It doesn't seem to be anywhere in the comic, nor in the old Formspring Q&A, nor in the retrospectives...I'll just put it down as my cool wildspec, then.
It would also fit nicely with Gemminie 's theory that the psychopomps get a personal Ether boost from escorting each new soul; each new soul they escort puts a little more belief in their own myth into the Ether which (in theory) gives them life and form! It was in "A Ghost Story", chapter 16. This is also where we learned most of what we know about the psychopomps. I just re-read it and was struck by how much they sound like salespeople quibbling over customers - very territorial! More evidence for the "Soul Quota" theory. Everything we've ever seen them do has been consistent with that, except for the long-term project to endear themselves to Annie, and ultimately blackmail her when that wasn't enough to recruit her.
Amway for souls...
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Post by rezmason on Aug 26, 2022 16:15:41 GMT
What I find curious about the Court's pocket dimension is that it's depicted as a tube extending beyond a point where it physically connects to the known world. I think this is very likely a nod to the novel Eon, by Greg Bear, in which a vestige of humanity survives nuclear war by colonizing the inside of an asteroid, and then builds an apparatus that indefinitely extends space cylindrically inside of it. This invented space is lined with regularly occurring passageways to alternate timelines and universes, where humans meet alien species and perform research. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eon_(novel)Until page 2666, I would never have imagined Gunnerkrigg Court alluding to this book, but there you have it.
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Post by warrl on Aug 26, 2022 16:19:38 GMT
Throwing ideas around that may or may not be right...
1) Psychopomps can personally attend any death that's (arguably) within their jurisdiction. And they chat with each other. After Muut met Annie, there was a lot of "hey, there's someone else to talk to! This cute kid who isn't about to die!" and that hospital suddenly became very popular among them.
1a) ... and maybe they keep tabs on Annie otherwise, so Ketrak knew or was quickly informed that Annie killed a bug with intent to contact him/her/it/them/whatever.
2) (Borrowing from Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse) as long as a psychopomp stays on the job, most souls under their jurisdiction can pass on without a psychopomp's personal attention. Maybe all, as long as the psychopomp is attending someone's death. And it may only require personally attending at least one a day, or something like that, to keep the easy cases flowing.
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Post by speedwell on Aug 26, 2022 16:32:07 GMT
Throwing ideas around that may or may not be right... 1) Psychopomps can personally attend any death that's (arguably) within their jurisdiction. And they chat with each other. After Muut met Annie, there was a lot of "hey, there's someone else to talk to! This cute kid who isn't about to die!" and that hospital suddenly became very popular among them. 1a) ... and maybe they keep tabs on Annie otherwise, so Ketrak knew or was quickly informed that Annie killed a bug with intent to contact him/her/it/them/whatever. 2) (Borrowing from Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse) as long as a psychopomp stays on the job, most souls under their jurisdiction can pass on without a psychopomp's personal attention. Maybe all, as long as the psychopomp is attending someone's death. And it may only require personally attending at least one a day, or something like that, to keep the easy cases flowing. I like those very much. I have to set against them the fact that it was a shameful and traumatic thing that nobody came for Surma, and it was clear she could not go herself.
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Post by warrl on Aug 26, 2022 17:02:29 GMT
I like those very much. I have to set against them the fact that it was a shameful and traumatic thing that nobody came for Surma, and it was clear she could not go herself. There isn't a psychopomp for etheric beings? Maybe that's going to be Annie's job, so some of the current psychopomps can retire? Surma happened to fall through the cracks, being insufficiently aligned with any of the established psychopomps' jurisdictions (possibly because she was aware of so many of them) - so she had to be matched up with a psychopomp with no current jurisdiction?
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Post by speedwell on Aug 26, 2022 20:13:22 GMT
I like those very much. I have to set against them the fact that it was a shameful and traumatic thing that nobody came for Surma, and it was clear she could not go herself. There isn't a psychopomp for etheric beings? Maybe that's going to be Annie's job, so some of the current psychopomps can retire? Surma happened to fall through the cracks, being insufficiently aligned with any of the established psychopomps' jurisdictions (possibly because she was aware of so many of them) - so she had to be matched up with a psychopomp with no current jurisdiction? Muut at the riverside for the fairies, wasn't it? I know we've seen at least one psychopomp appearance for Etheric beings, anyhow. It's not been stressed, I agree. I think that if there wasn't a firm expectation that Surma would have a psychopomp guide in the usual way, it wouldn't have been so distressing when that expectation was violated.
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Post by madjack on Aug 27, 2022 1:06:22 GMT
Muut at the riverside for the fairies, wasn't it? I know we've seen at least one psychopomp appearance for Etheric beings, anyhow. It's not been stressed, I agree. Muut was there for the glass-eyed man who took control of Robot, and was killed when Eggs chucked the sword at them. Edit: Here.
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Post by speedwell on Aug 27, 2022 7:47:41 GMT
Muut at the riverside for the fairies, wasn't it? I know we've seen at least one psychopomp appearance for Etheric beings, anyhow. It's not been stressed, I agree. Muut was there for the glass-eyed man who took control of Robot, and was killed when Eggs chucked the sword at them. Edit: Here. Oh right, the Glass-Eyed Man. Yeah, an Etheric being.
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yellowb
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Post by yellowb on Aug 27, 2022 12:07:07 GMT
Throwing ideas around that may or may not be right... 1) Psychopomps can personally attend any death that's (arguably) within their jurisdiction. And they chat with each other. After Muut met Annie, there was a lot of "hey, there's someone else to talk to! This cute kid who isn't about to die!" and that hospital suddenly became very popular among them. 1a) ... and maybe they keep tabs on Annie otherwise, so Ketrak knew or was quickly informed that Annie killed a bug with intent to contact him/her/it/them/whatever. Annie killed the ant specifically to use Ketrak as a relay to send _Muut_ a message that she wanted to see him. It was the only way she knew how to contact any of the psychopomps.
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Post by drmemory on Aug 27, 2022 17:01:50 GMT
Don't forget, Surma used to help the psychopomps. Maybe that means she was considered a psychopomp in some way. Perhaps there is no psychopomp for psychopomps? If they are as bureaucratic as I suspect, it may be a policy rather than a limitation though.
Either that, or what was stated was true, and she was a shell of a woman with nothing left to take, but that doesn't seem right - she was still talking and interacting and clearly loved her daughter. Not zombie-like in the least! I've always been suspicious of that explanation for why they didn't take her.
Whether either or both of those are true, it's also possible they didn't take Surma in order to force Antimony into taking her, as part of their (obviously) long-term scheme to get her to join their ranks. High-pressure recruiting - still sounds like Amway to me!
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