Grrl Power #579 – Deflection even Genji would be proud of
Sydney’s question isn’t entirely out of the blue. She’s referring to this conversation, in case you forgot. Even still, it is a pretty acute non-sequitur. She was just uncomfortable with how aggressive Max was being with Valen. She’s used to women being mostly pretty passive about it. Usually it’s the subtle torso twist away or at most a “ahem” or few snaps and an “eyes forward buddy” sort of thing. Sydney’s caught a few stares herself (she doesn’t always wear baggy t-shirts). Her move is to ignore it and feel slightly uncomfortable, unless of course it’s a guy she likes, then she very slowly starts unconsciously arching her back.
Some might accuse Maxima of snapping into “gold plated bitch” mode here (one of several nicknames she’s acquired over her career of looking like a trophy model, but in Max’s opinion, saying nothing about it until later when you’re getting drinks with the girls will never change anything.
Speaking of Gandalf, why didn’t he try unmaking the ring? I know it was basically booby trapped so that powerful beings that tried to hold it or use it would be twisted by it, but you don’t have to hold the thing to drop a flame strike on it. Yes, I know the real answer; the book would have been really short if the solution was that simple, which is the same reasons the big eagles didn’t fly them over Mt. Doom in the first place. Still, realizing that Sauron, Sauruman, and Gandalf were all on the same tier fills me with questions.
Also, apropros of nothing, why on (middle) Earth did Tolkien name two of the major bad guys Sauron and Saruman? Just call the second guy Baruman or something. Change one letter. That shit’s confusing even if you’re not dyslexic. Arwen and Eowyn sound similar which isn’t great, but at least they’re spelled differently enough that people won’t get confused when one of them shows up after 300 pages. I was reading Shogun back in high school, which as you might imagine is loaded with Japanese surnames, and when one guy reappears on page 700 who we last saw on page 70, I was like, “Shit, I have no idea who this is.” That’s why I have a Who’s Who. Books should have footnotes with stuff like “This guy is the boyfriend of the catburgler.” or whatever. Kindle books could do that easy.
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That would be a fine statement, if only the Who’s Who wasn’t so inadequate and the Cast Page no longer functioning.
It’s more than nearly every other webic out there has, and it’s only supposed to be a reminder on who is featured on the page
I hope to have the cast page fixed as soon as I get a little time. So like, after the holidays? Ug.
And lo, the cast page is still broken. But, you don’t have enough characters for me to get confused. It’s not Wheel Of Time. You have visuals, so even if I don’t remember the name, I remember the appearance. Books, have no such thing.
Speaking of, you should update Halo’s powers sometime. Since we know now Halo has atmosphere generation and That Other One That Is Revealed Later.
4 years later and it still not updated,
And in the last strip I was sure that he was looking at something else. Yeesh; those Jesuits fell down on the job.
(…I had to make a joke in that vein.)
your joke was not in vain
no, it was straight for the Jugular.
The Jugular. imagine a supervillain named that, but only because of a typo, and it was supposed to be The Juggler
Vampire Stage Performer called the Jugular Juggler.
specializes in wooden stakes…
When dealing with clowns, you always go for ths juggler
Would a vampiric gargoyle be a ‘Cary-o-tid’?
ok nope, dude was creeping. Can we have a moment of silence for whatever bodyguard has to constantly cockblock that guy? or if they don’t exist a moment of silence for whatever spymaster has to put up with someone with very high-level clearance who thinks with the wrong head? I’m sure the succubi rather enjoy having someone that vulnerable to honey traps in a position of power.
DaveB, you are going to have to say which body-part Val the Perv was creeping on
i thought the elf did say something about ears.
His eyes were pretty obviously not on her ears to start with.
Looking back at the last page, they really are. Unless you actually take the time to look, it’s very very easy to just slip into our cultural assumptions about men, but look for yourself, he really is creeping on her ears. Panel 4 is a little deceptive, because his eyes appear to be looking in two directions at once, but in panels three and six, it’s quite clear,
Panel 5 is a red herring – it shows a view looking down at her chest, but does not actually indicate that’s where Blueberry is looking.
In panel 4, he’s clearly focusing on something below eye level for him, while her ears are above it. It appears he’s checking out her lips or chin.
Panel 4 is the weird one, his left eye (on our right) seems to be looking down, but his right eye is definitely looking straight across. Also, despite our cultural assumptions about elves, maybe it’s not the pointy bit of her hears that fascinates him. Maybe she has entrancing earlobes :P (He does just say”ears”, not mentioning any part in particular). Even in panel six, it doesn’t appear to be the tips of her ears he’s looking at.
Because in panel six, he is finally showing manners by looking at her eyes when she addresses him
The only panel in which his eyes are up, are the second last one, when she calls him out: he is slightly shorter than Maxi and his eyes are below the level of her ears
Odd that you, of all people, missed the point of this comic.
Lemme spell it out: Dave trying to distract people from the controversy of what the elf was looking at and getting the comic (it’s characters and readers) back on track while distracting them from an otherwise pointless and somewhat inflammatory debate.
Granted, that’s how I read this, your mileage may vary.
I love it when Maxima goes into reflexive nerd mode.
I think Maxima probably does the same thing with her own family. Sydney being non military, a nerd, another girl, and looking like a normal person instead of like another super.all contribute to Maximas almost automatic reaction to putting Sydney in the “younger sibling” category in how she responds to her.
also the age difference does help with that. It’s hard to guess her age, but you don’t get to be a Colonel as a 20 something. I would think she is around 35 but being a super and everything looks younger.
Also, I’ve noticed that Sydney looks like pre-gold-stuff Maxima. White, blonde ponytail. She does have glasses, though, so there’s that difference. But Maxima reacting to Sydney like a younger sibling makes sense and is also funny.
In this day and age of hyperlinks, tooltips, and other active document features, it should be both easy and common.
ainur was only their race though. I just did some reading on it, and the 5 istari were sent down to middle earth to offer council to the races, but not actually match their powers against sauron, partly because of how much more powerful sauron was. gandalf was actually apparently the weakest among them in terms of actual power, and only became mosre powerful when he was given more power after finally defeating the balrog, at which point he became more powerful than saruman
Not because of how much more powerful Sauron was, but because that is not Eru’s will. The races must fight their own battles, and meddling does not help fix meddling. The Wizards were sent to guide and empower, not fight for them. They were bound to mortal bodies, and their power was bound with them, to keep the order of things in place.
Its stated a few places that, at his greatest, Gandalf will be (arguably is by the end of the series) the strongest of the Ainur. That is one reason Saruman falls: he’s jealous of Gandalf’s imminent surpassing of him as the greatest of them.
I’m going to take a slightly different tack here, on the whole LOTR thing. We’ve talked about the valar and the maiar, but we’ve forgotten about Illuvatar, and anything which tries to interpret the actions of the valar and maiar must do so in that greater context. Manwe, the most powerful of the valar, spent most of his time trying to figure out the will of Illuvatar.
When Frodo made it to Rivendell, Bilbo comments that it was incredible good fortune that it was a hobbit who found the ring, and not a goblin or orc. Elrond responds that it wasn’t just good fortune, but that it indicated a greater hand at work (read Illuvatar). And if that was so, then it was the job of a hobbit to finish the thing. They consciously choose a humble approach, not one dominated by strength or great knowledge or abilities. That’s the first point.
Second point: this choice pans out. At first read, it seems a terrific piece of good luck when gollum bites the ring off Frodo’s hand, and then falls himself into the volcano. But go back and re-read that bit where Frodo and gollum last interact when they’re still outside, still on the slopes of the volcano. Frodo sets it up. Not, it seems, consciously, but he actually uses the power of the ring to set up the ring’s destruction. And if that hadn’t happened, no one would have had the self-control to destroy the ring. We learn that in something like the first chapter of the first book — Frodo, even then, won’t allow the ring to come to harm.
So my reading of that whole thing was that Elrond, Gandlaf, and others at Rivendell, realized that wisdom and humility dictated that it be the weak and ignorant (or certainly less knowledgable) who carried out the task, in their own way, with little intervention of the strong or knowledgable.
I was discussing this conversation with a friend yesterday and he pointed out that the reason Merry, Pippin, and Sam were allowed to go along with the Fellowship was so that there would be backup Ringbearers if Frodo kicked it.
I guess none of the humans, elves, or dwarves (much less wizards!) could be trusted with it but the hobbits had some sort of resistance?
The mini-rings were designed for humans dwarves and elves, since they were the predominant races across the lands, with hobbits being a half-race of humans that didn’t come into existence until much later than the other races, and also are much more peaceful than the other races, causing them to be seen as a non-threat. I cant remember if the hobbits were just so insignificant of a race, or if they just didnt exist at the time, but the fact that they are only half human and they are very willful in their own right, led to them having a great resistance to the rings power. This doesnt stop the ring from having an effect on them as you can see by the effects it slowly starts to have over Frodo, as he is still in fact half human, but it is definitely lessened to a great degree. Especially considering the fact that many humans are shown to fall into greed with the ring being within the same room, let alone being within grabbing range.
Wait, if Hobbitses were a half-human race, what was their other half- ?
I would guess some sort of fey. when he wasn’t making up new stuff, tolkien drew a lot from a combination of celtic/gaelic myths combined with older english legends, as well as his christian faith. so my first guess would be some sort of leprechaun like creature would provide the other half of hobbit blood
I’m not a LotR type of person, but I’d assume half human, half dwarf or gnome. since they’re pretty short.
Either that or the whole ‘halfling’ name doesnt mean they’re half man half something else, but just a dig at their height that they’re like…. half the size of a man. And being good natured hobbits they just went with it.
Gnome? Didn’t know there were gnomes in Middle Earth, don’t recall reading about unexplained explosions and crazy contraptions
“Gnomes” was Tolkien’s original name for the Noldor elves, or ngoldoli, that group of elves who, among other things, were most skilled with metal and gems. When Finrod Felagund (a noldor himself) first encountered men, they named him “nom” – Wisdom in their language.
according to Tolkien’s own notes and the appendices, Hobbits are a variety of Man. presumably their resilience to the Ring is purely due to their mental nature having grown up in a society that is largely peaceful and free of things like greed.
personally, i headcanon that Yavanna made them the way her Husband created the Dwarves, with similar results, but since Hobbits did not go on to record their history right from the beginning, or make their first ancestor a king, that was lost lore wise. which would make them distantly related to the Ents, since the Ents came about because Yavanna was sad that her forests would be chopped down by elves and men, so illuvitar created the Ents to protect the forests.
I haven’t really used it cause I seldom buy from the actual amazon store, but isn’t that what the x-ray function for the Kindle should do? Give you information about the characters?
I know my dad uses it on the fire stick from time to time cause it tells you who is in the current scene. But now that I think about it, it might be possible that it only displays names of characters and actors, not sure about description…
I always kinda agreed with the thought that Gandalf didn’t ask the Eagles to fly them to Mt. Doom was because A) The Ring Wraiths had the Fell Beasts and would have torn the Eagles to shreds, and B0 The Eye of Sauron would have seen them coming from Lightyears away like the “Fuck-Me-Here” light on a Boss.
Oh, was that it??? Ok, that makes sense; Demon-dragons wreck eagle-shit.
I always thought it was because they weren’t available as they were still on tour.
Nah they were in treatment for mouse-cohol addiction
by thier own testimony the eagles are wool-heads.
More like an Eagle corrupted by the ring would have an easy job killing everybody letting them fall.
Don’t let the ring touch the wizard or you all die… Possibility of ridding big bird where ride might have ring brush up against eagle when flying towards demon dragons with a leader who can out right murder their best fighter without breaking a sweat while the eye of doom is searching for its ring out in the clear open sky with an army of arrow wielding works….
Yes walking does seem safer now.
A lot of older sci-fi used to have a who’s who *grabs Footfall by Niven and Pournelle off shelf* ok in this case it is called “Dramatis Personae”, some even have indexes and references, also in military fiction like say Tom Clancy maybe (none in reachable range unlike the sci-fi).
It seems less common in more recent books.
Yeah, some have the ‘cast’ list at the beginning, some have them at the end, usually if they re at the end they are in amongst a glossary of words and what they mean (like how learnt new words for ‘mother’ and ‘father’: Jehana and Jehan)
The Honor Harrington books, at least the ones on Kindle, have a pretty extensive Who’s Who in the back of each one as of the most recent editions. That’s probably because the cast has exploded into enormous proportions over the years with all the add-on stories and spinoffs and and you need help remembering them all.
Don’t forget the Pern series has an index of people,places and dragons
agreed. a lack of who’s who is why i don’t read A Song of Ice and Fire
Quibble: the singular is “Ainu”. “Ainur” is the plural. One Maia, two Maiar; one Vala, two Valar; one Valie, two Valier; one Ainu, two Ainur. -r is the main plural ending for words ending in vowels in Quenya.
At least the plural isn’t “Ainus” ^__^
I wonder if any of the Tolkenites in here have ever considered why Sauton chose Mount Doom to maker the One Ring in?
I have a theory that it is because Mount Doom is actually the ‘fiery pit’ that Maedhros threw himself and his Silmaril into. The Silmaril itself would have been unaffected by being submerged in the lava, and its power would have suggused that same lava to at least some degree.
Ugh, stupid typos. That was supposed to be ‘would have suffused into that’.
Maedhros’s pit was on the east coast of Beleriand, shortly before it sank. Nowhere near Mordor.
I did not get the syntax right. You know, it’s sort of unfair to use raw html tags with no explanation, no preview, and no editing. Anyway, here is another attempt.
Anyway, no! Those are not the ‘real’ reasons any more than “The one ring was outright immune to anything other than the fire of its original forging” and “With Sauron still in play, the Eagles may well have been defeated before getting that far” are the ‘real’ reasons.
Those are two different kinds of reasons. Doylistic and Watsonian. They use different assumptions and provoke different sorts of discussion. Steamrolling over Watsonian discussion with “Actually, the real reasons are Doylistic” has never been constructive, and I am especially upset to see it used in self-censorship.
Oh, come on, @DaveB! You of all people should know that Tolkien was way too much of detail-oriented perfectionist (like seriously. Guy had problems…) to have not had an overly complicated, if universe-logical reason other than “story would be too short”.
There are like, 3 reasons.
1) Gandalf and Saruman were actually not on same level as Sauron. While all were Ainur, Sauron was Valar while the Wizards were Maiar. The analogy of archangels and cherubs both are angels seems appropriate here.
2) The Valar who opposed Sauron who wanted Earth for himself didn’t want to do so in direct conflict (conflict between powers so great would destroy the world excuse? Or maybe they just didn’t care enough? “Probably shouldn’t let our) and sent their subordinates
Sauron was of the maiar, not of the valar. He started out as a maia serving the vala Aulë, then took up with the vala Melkor and followed him into darkness.
Actually yes each time the powers of the world took the direct confrontation approach, the conflict changed the geography of the middle earth.
Whoops! Thanks for the correction! Guess it’s just the two reasons then.
Sauron and Saruman were both Maiar apprentices(?) of Aule with many crafting/crafty type interests/skills. All of the Istari/wizards were Maiar and apprentices of Valar. The Giant Eagles were flipping powerful; in the wars with Melkor/Morgoth, they were the counter to dragons/drakes…..Plan A for Gandalf after passing through Moria was likely to whistle up a ride to Mt Doom…..another meaning to “Fly, you fools!” as he fell, perhaps
Sorry. Internet issues. Continuing on:
2) The Valar who opposed Sauron who wanted Earth for himself didn’t want to do so in direct conflict (conflict between powers so great would destroy the world excuse? Or maybe they just didn’t care enough? “Probably shouldn’t let our brother drive one of dad’s infinite cars. He’ll break it. Ehhhhh. Guess we should do something to say that we tried to stop him”) and sent their subordinates with instructions to advise only, with no direct confrontation.
3) Apparently Gandalf had some serious fear issues going on regarding Sauron. Like he most definitely did not want to get sent by his Valar, Manwe, and even tried to get excused by Manwe just told him to suck it up. (puts his whole unwillingness to even consider touching Sauron’s creation on a whole new light…)
Well, given the low fantasy setting and the wizards perchance for subtle magic I’m pretty tempted to think that Gandalf can’t create a plasma cutter.
I mean, he can’t even make fire without lumber and snarked at the Fellowship for thinking he could do so.
Tolkien probably didn’t care too much about Sauron and Saruman being similar in form because he was only ever using “Saruman” as a translation for the reader – his actual name in Quenya is Curumo. (He translated damn near everything into English, up to and including making up words based on Old English roots, because he didn’t know how willing people would be to put up with his made-up languages outside of passages which were entirely written in them. If he were writing Lord of the Rings now, in the shadow of the success of conlangs in fiction from Klingon to Dothraki, he’d certainly leave all the names intact.)
Sauron and Saruman were both Maiar apprentices to the Valar, Aule
like ‘el’ and ‘al’ in Hebrew/Arabic denoting God; the roots of Saruman and Sauron are probably entangled within Tolkien’s Middle Earth language tree. I find Tolkien pleasured himself with language play (much like Stephen Fry)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY
I’m on Max’s side on this. She’s on the job, elf boy.
Sorry DaveB, but there is something just “off” about Maxima’s face in panel five… i can’t place WHY exactly, but in all the other panels she looks fine, like a normal (super)human should look, but the drawing of her in panel five just looks weird… and it’s not the same effect as how Sydney’s face is distorted for comic effect like in panel six, Max’s face just came out not “right”… .sorry…
It’s her finger being reflected in her chin
Unless you meant panel seven
Further lookings, and there appears to be something ‘wrong’ with her eyes
Actually as to the type of Elf Valen is, I’d say he’s a high elf by the description, they generally have a hard time with expressing and sharing feelings. Most in fact are taught from a young age to suppress their emotions that would explain why Valen is having a problem expressing his attraction to Max. not only that silver hair is a common adaptation of high elves.
“and you are so a fantastically beautiful” probably doesn’t need that “a”…
He speaks like-a Mario, yahoooo!
Just love this role reversal.. instead of Max fighting to control Sydney and her Madness… Sydney is controlling Max’s (justified) outburst
Oh, Max, can’t you remember? You’re supposed to be PROUD of being a nerd. Don’t worry, Sydney will teach you.
Ah well, some day Sydney will learn not to annoy people who can order her to do calisthenics.
God I love this strip so much.
…DaveB, I’d like to put in my 2 cents – give Valen an even chance with Max. Who else is there, Deus who sees her as another item of power for his trophy wall(and you will have to explain the what + why of Vale being so loyal to Deus as he drools over Max)? Dabbler ,who punches Max’s buttons on g.p.+ seems to think she’ll say yes if Dabs is persistent enough ? Hiro is right out- chain of command + Max must’ve heard (and smashed) rumors that she slept her way up the ranks and she wouldn’t do that to him.
Still, Max is (to mangle a Robin Williams quote)” the woman most in need of getting her cookies crumbled in the USA”. So, let Valen try- besides, the idea of Valen in the reception area wearing a visitor tag + sipping on a green tea waiting to see Max might impress her…
Sydney is the real bro of the comic.
Word.
Eagles
https://oglaf.com/ornithology/
*face-palm* Of course this was posted already. I knew it would be. Why did I even.
You know, one of the things I love about this comic is the sheer amount of deformed facial expressions that somehow pop all over despite rather realistic art style.
It vexes me =D
I have a personal white noise generator, in my ears. I can make the blood rush enough that it can drown out even loudly spoken dialogue. A technique I mastered in my cinema going years, to avoid spoilers in trailers.
So panel 2 resonates with me, even though I do not need to make any noise that others sitting next to me can hear.
Rereading this for the Nth time, it makes me wonder if Sydney’s ADHD might be infectious. Clearly Max is almost as easy to distract as she is, though only BY Sydney. So far.
Maybe it needed to be irretrievably immersed in a destructive bath long enough for the underlying material to dissolve, unanchoring the magics enchanted into it.
Besides, Gandalf had done enough Deus Ex shit. “Ok Gandy, why don’t you just wrap up this plot conflict singlehandedly, here and now, or butt out for the rest of this epic!”
Short version on why Gandalf couldn’t unmake the ring: Sauron was a follower of Aule (Lord of Smithing and Craftsmanship), while Gandalf was a follower of Manwe (Lord of the Winds). Sure, after a few ages of studying under Aule, Gandalf could have learned how to unmake the ring, but it’s clear there isn’t enough time for him to do that.
(And his ability to play with fire? He can do that because he’s got Narya, one of the Three Rings. There’s no chance that he could use it to destroy the One Ring.)
no, destruction is waaaay easier. Can’t build a cathedral, but could destroy one with a match or even a rope. Can’t make a nuclear bomb, but could destroy one with a crowbar. Can’t make a watch, gun, sword, etc etc etc
All of this despite Gandalf being a Maiar that followed the two ‘hippy’ Ainur. By all respects, the Balrog (Maiar of Fire and destruction) was, by nature and nurture, better suited for combat. The Balrog should have quickly scragged Gandalf the hippy.
Of course, the ring was made of plotdevicium and crystalline maguffite.
“Also, apropros of nothing, why on (middle) Earth did Tolkien name two of the major bad guys Sauron and Saruman?”
FWIU, Tolkien invented the Elvish languages first, before ever starting on the Silmarillion and LOTR. He named them Sauron and Saruman because, according to the linguistic principles and histories he’d invented, those *were* their names, and he couldn’t change that without rewriting decades of work.
As for why Gandalf never tried unmaking the Ring… that actually comes up when Frodo is discussing the Ring with Gandalf, and the short version is that destroying the Ruling Ring would have required either decades of work by a crafter more skilled than Sauron (of which none remained in Middle-Earth by this point), or else a level of raw destructive power far beyond anything Gandalf could muster. Even dragons-fire couldn’t have melted the Ruling Ring. If it could have been brought to Valinor, Manwe could probably have summoned a thunderbolt hot enough to melt it, or Tulkas could have been strong enough to break it, but no force on Middle-Earth could destroy it except the specific fires used to forge it in the first place.
THIS the power she makes the big bucks for.