I would have wiSSSShed... what is missing from SSSS?

[dreki]

If I remember right, Reynir said he suspects he was a "mistake". Based on his mother - it is possible he was a planned child once his mom realized all her children could leave Iceland. (Or possibly just a deep yearning for one child who is biologically fully theirs)

But there also is something a bit romantic to think his very conception was divine intervention.

I am curious how mages work in Iceland that he was never spotted. 

His aunt, the mage, was miserable by Reynir's account. Which Reynir would've been if he'd been forced to be a farm mage. 

I kind of wonder if Reynir's bloodline is predisposed to be able to help free the spirits - and so after his aunt failed to live up to her potential, they withheld Reynir's power until he was actually in the silent world and could help.

I don't know anything about Finnish magic/folklore.  I spent a few years studying Icelandic (never became conversational) and played with norse reconstruction as a religion.

I definitely think Reynir's support in Finland was mostly a willingness to blindly follow a god's instruction.  The Finnish definitely don't trust the swan to keep them alive, which is fair.

Honestly Onni's portrayal really bothered me in Adv 2.  He was super powerful in Adv 1, like you said despite being in Sweden *and* working from well far away.

Then in Adv 2 he barely showed any power. He relied heavily on strings to corral the bears and then he was kind of useless in the showdown with the Kade.  Despite his bravado about how easily he could take it down.

It just felt really weird.

In the comic How to Be A Werewolf - they have witches who get their power from the land.  One area is specifically stated as not trusting witches so majorly limiting the magic they have access to. So the witches are obviously not helpful in the final showdown in that area and the audience totally gets why.

I think if it was stated that a Kade in the area interfered with Finnish mages' ability to do their work, that would have been better.  Maybe it was supposed to be implied.

[Róisín]

Dunno about the Minnaverse, but in most of the our-world systems of magic familiar to me, there is a distinction between book magic, natural magic (where the power comes straight from the Land, and magic requiring interaction with gods, landspirits or whatever. Also between the kinds where you compel help or ask politely. It is all pretty complex.

[Jitter]

Dreki, especially considering that the area where the final confrontation happened was at Koli, which used to be consistent a place of power. Onni should have been powerful there. Simply having him say aloud that “the power here is corrupted” would have helped a lot.

There was the scene when the team was leaving the sentinel mage’s area and both Lalli and Reynir felt a powerful shivering, maybe that was intended to lead to some “foul area” thing. Also how the Dream World felt bad to Reynir, wen they went looking for Onni while still in Iceland. And the skulls in the water there (one of my favorite panels btw).

So, unfortunately I think Minna dropped some or a lot of her original plans for adv 2 after her conversion. She didn’t use the ancient faith because of having been a believer in it (she was atheist before) but it’s possible she didn’t feel comfortable portraying “witchcraft” anymore, and therefore went for a “battle in dreamscape” rather than showing spells. A great loss for us.

I would also have loved to see an experienced or even mid-level Icelandic mage, preferably of the Norwegian army persuasion. There is one illustration in which Reynir is “holding” a galdastafur of light in the air between his hands as if about to throw it outward. I want to think he will learn to do that!

[JoB]

I really wish we could have seen an experienced seidr mage. Either Reynir properly trained or maybe meeting one in Norway.

I would surmise that the teacher looks like she has tons of experience, just not in what you meant to see expertise in ...

So Reynir I think got a *ton* of support on magic use in adventure 1 because the gods really wanted those ghosts released.

Hmmm ... the problem I see with that is that those ghosts were a specifically Danish thing apparently, and neither pre- nor post-Rash Danes are shown as being particularly close to the old gods. Sure, eventually those ghosts might've become a threat to the rest of the Known World, but.

I am curious how mages work in Iceland that he was never spotted.

I do not remember any part of SSSS saying that the Icelanders would be specifically scanning for domestic talents. The info page says that "anyone who is discovered to have magical powers" (emphasis mine) is suitable to receive training. Add to that that Reynirs parents do their darndest to keep him at home while trained mages might well get sent to missions elsewhere, possibly even outside Iceland ...

(Yes, once his talent had become undeniable, Sigríður acted all delighted about it - and immediately stated that his post shall obviously be on their farm, poorly received allusion to aunt Helga be damned ...)

Dreki, especially considering that the area where the final confrontation happened was at Koli, which used to be consistent a place of power. Onni should have been powerful there. Simply having him say aloud that “the power here is corrupted” would have helped a lot.

I wonder whether lots and lots of grosslings having sat in the hotel for 90 years, apparently completely unfazed by said power just around the corner, might convey that exact same message ... ?

[dreki]

There was the scene when the team was leaving the sentinel mage’s area and both Lalli and Reynir felt a powerful shivering, maybe that was intended to lead to some “foul area” thing. Also how the Dream World felt bad to Reynir, wen they went looking for Onni while still in Iceland. And the skulls in the water there (one of my favorite panels btw).

I'd always read it as sensing the presence of the Kade. The sentinel had mentioned you could feel it on the wind sometimes.  Especially since it passed.

Same with the dreamscape.  I'm pretty sure it was heavily implied in adv1 that Lalli couldn't safely find Onni and vice versa because of the Kade searching for them in the dream land.

Honestly I think the Kade would have befitted from the power of Koli as well.

Just one line confirming the Kade was more powerful than Onni had realized...

She didn’t use the ancient faith because of having been a believer in it (she was atheist before) but it’s possible she didn’t feel comfortable portraying “witchcraft” anymore, and therefore went for a “battle in dreamscape” rather than showing spells. A great loss for us.

Yeah that seems to be what happened.  Very disappointing.

I would also have loved to see an experienced or even mid-level Icelandic mage, preferably of the Norwegian army persuasion. There is one illustration in which Reynir is “holding” a galdastafur of light in the air between his hands as if about to throw it outward. I want to think he will learn to do that!

I would definitely like to see the Norwegian army.  It seems accurate that adv1 was a vacation compared to a Norwegian season.  Major "what the heck is going on in Norway?!"

And yes see what the mages do there.

I would surmise that the teacher looks like she has tons of experience, just not in what you meant to see expertise in ...

She isn't shown drawing a single rune in comic time. She doesn't actually show anything to us about how magic works and Reynir comes away from her class with no visible increase in skills. So we don't *see* a mage with expertise in the "show don't tell" sense.

Hmmm ... the problem I see with that is that those ghosts were a specifically Danish thing apparently, and neither pre- nor post-Rash Danes are shown as being particularly close to the old gods. Sure, eventually those ghosts might've become a threat to the rest of the Known World, but.

Anne was divinely gifted the ability to hold her sense of self for 90 years until help could be provided to save the lost souls. Despite having turned into a troll.

Like I don't know what other evidence is needed.

I can imagine it's possible that the christian god stomped their feet at first and refused to work with a heathen - I imagine 90 years of their followers' suffering would mellow that and let them accept help from whoever is available.  If that means Odin going "here let me see if I can lure a qualified mage over...", at some point christian god has to accept no christian is coming and just say "that'd be great thanks".

And honestly there's no reason in comic to believe that the gods are cranky about what the humans in an area believe or working together. 

Given that Finnish mages can perform their magic in the rest of Scandinavia and Icelandic mages can use their magic in Finland and Onni was powerful from Sweden, and Reynir was given visions and guided to a christian church to save christian souls and protected from troll!Anne -there's no evidence that the gods have any aversion to working together when needs must.

I do not remember any part of SSSS saying that the Icelanders would be specifically scanning for domestic talents. The info page says that "anyone who is discovered to have magical powers" (emphasis mine) is suitable to receive training.

Yes so how is someone discovered? 

Discovery isn't typically a passive process. There is a degree of language barrier since English isn't Minna's native language, but it seems unlikely that a process to identify mages wouldn't be a big priority.

Historically there's stigma against men using seidr so it is possible that boys aren't tested or there's even social pressure for boys to ignore any signs.

[JoB]

She isn't shown drawing a single rune in comic time. She doesn't actually show anything to us about how magic works and Reynir comes away from her class with no visible increase in skills. So we don't *see* a mage with expertise in the "show don't tell" sense.

Precisely. She has lots of experience in teaching magic. In the "those who can't do it, teach it" sense ...

Anne was divinely gifted the ability to hold her sense of self for 90 years until help could be provided to save the lost souls. Despite having turned into a troll.
Like I don't know what other evidence is needed.
I can imagine it's possible that the christian god stomped their feet at first and refused to work with a heathen [...]
And honestly there's no reason in comic to believe that the gods are cranky about what the humans in an area believe or working together. 

I'm not sure we're working from the same page here - according to Minnas statements, SSSS magic is a gift from the old (pre-Christian) gods, who abstain from interfering with humans who belong to another pantheon (mainly the old Finnish gods', who reciprocrate). She even explained that the few Danes who do have a magic talent got it as a gift from the Nordic gods, not to mention all of the Danes being equipped with a fylgja, a rather Nordic-specific piece of equipment, in spite of their disbelief in it. And Christianity dropped out of the post-Rash world to the point of Onni barely knowing it existed until they ran into Anne.

Yes so how is someone discovered? 
Discovery isn't typically a passive process. There is a degree of language barrier since English isn't Minna's native language, but it seems unlikely that a process to identify mages wouldn't be a big priority.

To me, first and foremost, "discovery" is not what you call the expected results of a systematic screening. You discover a bug in the software you've already shipped to X customers, but you don't "discover" a completely unresponsive device in the course of doing proper QA on the hardware. Also, that info page says that those discovered "may enter a training program" - having the entire populace searched for those with potential doesn't sound like there'd be much "may" left in their future, even if only by peer pressure.

Frankly, I think that they don't need to do organized searches. For most SSSS Icelanders, being a mage seems to hold prestige - and the promise of steady employment. I suspect that the Academy of Seiður is rather busy scanning the applicants to keep the wannabes out ...

Historically there's stigma against men using seidr so it is possible that boys aren't tested or there's even social pressure for boys to ignore any signs.

No trace of that in the info page (or the comic) beyond saying that seiður are "predominately [sic!] female". (And while Reynir did make his gender into an awkward topic while visiting the academy, I'm not under the impression he would've gotten any stink-eye before having embarrassed himself.)

[dreki]

I'm not sure we're working from the same page here - according to Minnas statements, SSSS magic is a gift from the old (pre-Christian) gods, who abstain from interfering with humans who belong to another pantheon (mainly the old Finnish gods', who reciprocrate). She even explained that the few Danes who do have a magic talent got it as a gift from the Nordic gods, not to mention all of the Danes being equipped with a fylgja, a rather Nordic-specific piece of equipment, in spite of their disbelief in it. And Christianity dropped out of the post-Rash world to the point of Onni barely knowing it existed until they ran into Anne.

https://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=572

Anne was christian. Her faith in the christian god, according to her as stated in comic, is what protected her from losing her sense of self and she was preserved, fully capable of proceeding to the afterlife, for 90 years waiting for help to come.  Anne's protection began during the collapse of the old world, before the old religions took back over, back when christianity was hale and healthy.

Look if you want to say that Anne was actually preserved by Odin, okay, sure.  Anne herself wouldn't really appreciate that but I personally don't really care if it was the flying spaghetti monster.

Some higher power protected and guided Anne for the purpose of saving those souls.

Some higher power protected and guided Reynir to Anne for the purpose of saving those souls.

If they were not the same higher power - then they were clearly happy to work together for the purpose of saving those souls.

[JoB]

Anne was christian. Her faith in the christian god, according to her as stated in comic, is what protected her from losing her sense of self and she was preserved, fully capable of proceeding to the afterlife, for 90 years waiting for help to come.  Anne's protection began during the collapse of the old world, before the old religions took back over, back when christianity was hale and healthy.

Look if you want to say that Anne was actually preserved by Odin, okay, sure.

No, I don't have a problem with the statement that if Anne had divine help, it would have had to come from Christianity - that's the religion she was 100% looking to, and as I said, Minna did confirm that the post-Rash deities work on a pronounced "my folks first, hands off somegod else's" basis. (Yes, folks, not individuals.) And sure, if the Christian God sees that someone (Sleipnope) has collected all the lost Christian souls (ghosts) from large parts of Denmark (the only place where "the cure" created those) and gets close to what probably is the last Christian priest in the Known World, trying to arrange them meeting would sure be in His interest.

As a last hurrah and going-out-of-business event, not simply "business as usual", but still.

What I don't quite see is a necessity for Him to either break the abovementioned rule and guide Reynir directly, or negotiate (much) for support from his Nordic colleagues. The pillar of light also effectively saved the lives of the team, which is in the interest of their own gods, and since Reynir obviously does have a talent for Icelandic magic, to have prophetic dreams comes as a standard tool of that trade.

Or maybe they did make an explicit trade - how would us mortals ever know. But that still puts an additional level of indirection between "[certain] gods wanted to see those ghosts released" and "ergo, Reynir gets a boost", which I sorta missed in your initial wording.