We're all Coyote on this bus

[drmemory]

Yes, that's a paraphrase of a Firesign Theatre album title.

Anyway.  I got to thinking about who all is Coyote.  People have thrown out a lot of theories about this over the years.  Here are my thoughts.

1. Robot.  S13 seemed to have knowledge of the future, and put a lot of work into making it turn out the way it has.  If he isn't Coyote, I still would bet he was set up to do this by Coyote.  The biggest question I have is - when?  Long ago, before he was first disassembled?  More recently, like after he possessed S1 (or vice versa)?  Did Coyote actually make an agreement with Robot or with Diego initially?  It seems more likely that Coyote guided what he's done than that he's actually Coyote, simply because of all the weird science stuff that Kat did while evolving his form, but who knows.  Maybe the little green mezzanine chip is Coyote. 

2. Loup.  Supposedly yes, he's supposed to be what you get when Ysengrin kills and eats Coyote, but he's always seemed more Ysengrin than Coyote.  He's missing a lot of Coyote's powers, or at least doesn't understand how to use them properly.  I feel like the story there is more nuanced than has been shown.

3. Jerrek.  Probably not.  More Loup than Coyote.  Whatever Loup really is.  If Coyote is Robot or is behind Robot, then it may be that Jerrek is really the point of the NP.

4. Lana.  Probably not.  No signs of scheming or manipulation.  No signs of special powers, like omniscience.  I think she is important and will be the reason Loup ends up sacrificing himself for Coyote's plan, but I don't think she is Coyote.

5.  Anyone we saw in the Court before Loup broke the barrier.  Coyote said he wasn't allowed to enter the court w/o permission as part of a treaty or something along those lines, and he doesn't lie.  So not Aata or any of the students or Shell or the old or new Dragon Slayers, etc.  That doesn't mean Coyote didn't have spies in the Court, of course.  Just that Renard and Zimmy and Gamma and many others are almost certainly not him.  Unless I missed a loophole and they are, of course.    For example, maybe he'd think it was ok to send in himself as someone else that didn't remember being him, like the Dead Goose.  Who knows?

6.  The suspicious dark-haired NP girl.  Maybe.  She wasn't around the court before the Loup Cataclysm and she's certainly been acting suspicious.  However, she could also be Zimmy or a mixture.  But we know Coyote is inside the distortion and I have to think he'd want to watch what's going on with Annie and Kat.  So, maybe.

7.  The groundhog that Annie punted.  Probably.  He'd think that was funny.  Even the kick.  I could definitely picture Coyote setting that up.

8.  Others we have met in the distortion.  Hard to say.  The elves and most of the NP are probably real.  The giant Ysengrin though?  Jeanne?  No idea really.  We seem to be meeting things built from old memories but we don't know who is doing that, nor what role Coyote has in things.  Versus Zimmy.

[drmemory]

Side note - Why would Coyote be involved in whole Robot/NP scheme? Because if you use ether to power a machine, or a Star Ocean, it is lost. If you use it to bring NP to life, when they die it returns to where it belongs and helps the world keep spinning.

[Hatredman]

You are onto something!

[blahzor]

For Robot and Coyote is concerned it's more likely Coyote told him the truth of the future but left out some key points to get him to follow along. Then reinforced it when he sent robot back over the bridge with the arm. Then again when coming back as memories in Loup as if he has access to his powers even temporarily he can be in 2 places at once

[Hatredman]

I would not dismiss Lana so quickly. Coyote ate her but she did not die - Pipey Sam was the first to die. So there is a chance she is Coyote, just like the dead goose in a bush by a lake. He may even lock away the memory of Lana, and that's why Coyote does not seem to remember her when they met.

Anyway:
Ysengrin loves Coyote
Loup loves Lana

Simple. Neat. Clean.
More room.

[hp]

As I mentioned in the discussion for the last page (2887), maybe Coyote is just the scenery or the sky. Wasn't the moon and the sun his eyes? He has also morphed himself into a cave before, for instance.

Maybe Zimmingham made him lost his sense of self and in his vastness he has turned into the background everything is happening upon.


As I also said in that thread... I find it majorly interesting that Kat, one of the characters Coyote never met (and to whom he has been basically blind due to her lack of connection to the ether) was the one to throw a span into his "Batman Gambit"