Latest Page Discussions/Comic Update Chitchat

[Róisín]

I wondered if it was the vestry rather than a closet?

[Purple Wyrm]

I'm partial to it being the room in which she invited Reynir and Onni for tea, which between its last use being more than a year ago and Minna's various quirks, ended up on the other side of the entrance compared to where it originally was.

That's what I figured. Pastor A has grown to fill the entire space.

[Unlos]

I believe it's the bell tower? That reaches higher than the rest of the church?

Look at  p. 872, the partly ruined tower with the cross at the left from the main entrance. It matches position of the door in question, and it is the only place tall enough for the giant to reach so high into the light.

*Edit* I'm fairly certain it's not a Catholic church and so, no confessional.

[Unlos]

agh, but I also want it to be the place they had coffee and cake. ... perhaps both vestry and bell tower?
The church doesn't have the traditional cross shape, but many churches don't - which makes me wonder if it is based on an actual church that just had an inventive architect or if Minna in fact designed it.

[thorny]

I kind of like the bell tower suggestion; but I don't have a clear enough sense of the layout of the space to tell whether it's right.

It occurs to me -- apparently belief in Christianity does have power in the post-change world. Given that: I wonder why there was so thorough a shift away from Christianity that it's close to entirely forgotten? While some people might well have lost their faith due to the apocalypse and been looking for another one, it doesn't seem that everyone would have, unless outcomes were much better for believers in the non-Christian gods; and, if belief in the Christian god has enough power to allow the pastor to guide souls and to keep her own soul whole even inside a trollified body (which last is more than the pagan gods seem to be able to do), I don't see as much if any benefit to switching beliefs.

[Hrollo]

If Reynir continues to grow a spine like that he's going to get wings.

[Sc0ut]

I kind of like the bell tower suggestion; but I don't have a clear enough sense of the layout of the space to tell whether it's right.

It occurs to me -- apparently belief in Christianity does have power in the post-change world. Given that: I wonder why there was so thorough a shift away from Christianity that it's close to entirely forgotten? While some people might well have lost their faith due to the apocalypse and been looking for another one, it doesn't seem that everyone would have, unless outcomes were much better for believers in the non-Christian gods; and, if belief in the Christian god has enough power to allow the pastor to guide souls and to keep her own soul whole even inside a trollified body (which last is more than the pagan gods seem to be able to do), I don't see as much if any benefit to switching beliefs.

I don't think it's confirmed yet that Pastor A's power comes from her Christian belief. It might, though perhaps people just have natural mage inclinations regardless of their religion. As for the "benefit of switching beliefs", with the risk of delving into a too serious topic, I don't think choosing a religion is such a logical affair for most people. You either believe or you don't. (Choosing to participate in rituals is a bit of a different matter, but irrelevant here.)

Also, personally, I wouldn't call having one's conscience trapped in a troll body for 90 years a "benefit", but maybe that's just me

[thorny]

I don't think it's confirmed yet that Pastor A's power comes from her Christian belief. It might, though perhaps people just have natural mage inclinations regardless of their religion.

At the least, however, her being Christian rather than having converted to any of the other possibilities hasn't prevented her from having that power.

As for the "benefit of switching beliefs", with the risk of delving into a too serious topic, I don't think choosing a religion is such a logical affair for most people. You either believe or you don't.

That's true.

It just seems to me odd to have Christianity have disappeared so thoroughly in only 90 years, when many people have hung on to their belief through many other disasters. If the other gods were actually manifesting and actively helping people while there was no sign of the Christian god(s) doing that, that might provide some sort of explanation, even though belief's not generally based on logical thinking. But if that's not what happened --

Maybe it was political? The conversion to Christianity in that part of the world was in large part political in origin, after all; and the belief may have followed practice, as it may have done in the earlier switch.

Also, personally, I wouldn't call having one's conscience trapped in a troll body for 90 years a "benefit", but maybe that's just me

She seems to be protected from the worst impacts of that. She's not begging for help, like the other trolls; and, if we go by her conversation with Reynir and Onni in the dream world, she didn't seem to be in pain or in despair, or even to realize that she is in a troll body -- just to be unable to clearly remember what happened, and to have mostly lost her sense of time, so that she doesn't realize it's been anywhere near as long as 90 years.

[wavewright62]

(apropos of not much) Somebody with more time than I can put this onto the current Gru meme.

Tolkien: I have painstakingly crafted all these languages for my OCs, in all of their individual dialects and historical permutations over the thousands of years of backstory.  Each syllable has meaning and poetry, every name lovingly crafted.
Now I can write my epic story bringing together nine characters of all these different races and cultures.
Only one of them speaks more than one language....

Screw it, they all conveniently speak a lingua franca, Westron, with no dialectical or accent differentiation.

Minna: I have painstakingly researched the linguistic relationships of all of the Indo-European and Finno-Ugric languages, in all their individual dialects and historical permutations over a thousand years or so.  I have lovingly crafted a graphic representation of this, to illustrate how different the two language trees are.
Now I can write my epic story bringing together six characters of all of these different languages and cultures.
Only one of them speaks all of the languages...

MuhuHAHAHAha! Hold my beer...

[Antillanka]

(apropos of not much) Somebody with more time than I can put this onto the current Gru meme.

Tolkien: I have painstakingly crafted all these languages for my OCs, in all of their individual dialects and historical permutations over the thousands of years of backstory.  Each syllable has meaning and poetry, every name lovingly crafted.
Now I can write my epic story bringing together nine characters of all these different races and cultures.
Only one of them speaks more than one language....

Screw it, they all conveniently speak a lingua franca, Westron, with no dialectical or accent differentiation.

Minna: I have painstakingly researched the linguistic relationships of all of the Indo-European and Finno-Ugric languages, in all their individual dialects and historical permutations over a thousand years or so.  I have lovingly crafted a graphic representation of this, to illustrate how different the two language trees are.
Now I can write my epic story bringing together six characters of all of these different languages and cultures.
Only one of them speaks all of the languages...

MuhuHAHAHAha! Hold my beer...

BWAHAHAHAHA! Well, just imagine how much more impossible it would've been to have a happy ending in TLoTR if there hadn't been a lingua franca!

[silverceleb]

Oh boy it's been some time since I last wrote here but! I recently started rereading SSSS and today I got to the latest page. And dude wow things are getting just that interesting.

I have so many feels about Mikkel and Sigrun chilling after the kid has gone to bed. So many. Give me more adult talks and I'll die happily.

[LooNEY_DAC]

Screw it, they all conveniently speak a lingua franca, Westron, with no dialectical or accent differentiation.

I'm kinda surprised Noodles didn't already jump in on this, but...

Examples of Westron dialectal differences Tolkien put in the Appendices to LoTR:

Everyone in Gondor thought Pippin was a prince or some such because he only used informal pronouns--because the Westron of the Shire had lost the formal pronouns;

and

Merry and Théoden King had historical and etymological conversations on how Shire Westron and the Westron of the Rohirrim had retained many old-fashioned or archaic words the Westron of Gondor had lost.

There are others; Tolkien was too serious a philologist to exclude such things altogether, even when he cut them from the main plot.

[wavewright62]

I'm kinda surprised Noodles didn't already jump in on this, but...

Examples of Westron dialectal differences Tolkien put in the Appendices to LoTR:

Everyone in Gondor thought Pippin was a prince or some such because he only used informal pronouns--because the Westron of the Shire had lost the formal pronouns;

and

Merry and Théoden King had historical and etymological conversations on how Shire Westron and the Westron of the Rohirrim had retained many old-fashioned or archaic words the Westron of Gondor had lost.

There are others; Tolkien was too serious a philologist to exclude such things altogether, even when he cut them from the main plot.

I stand corrected.  *bows*  I also have not considered whether Minna likes beer.

[thorny]

she didn't seem [ . . . ] even to realize that she is in a troll body

Whoops, I was wrong about that one.

'Who were I'?? Is that a typo sort of error, or some sort of indication of what's going on here? Is our pastor a composite mind?

-- and what a comfortable looking spirit dog! quite properly pleased with himself, too.

[Abprallen]

Whoops, I was wrong about that one.

'Who were I'?? Is that a typo sort of error, or some sort of indication of what's going on here? Is our pastor a composite mind?

-- and what a comfortable looking spirit dog! quite properly pleased with himself, too.

tbh I read it as a past tense way of saying 'who was I', but it only really works in that kind of context - "Who were I to do this?". It also seems to be formal, the way I'd expect a pastor to speak. My vicars spoke like that during the school services when I was a kid.