First off, let me apologize for repeating observations and questions that others have doubtless posted elsewhere in the forum. I'm not sorry enough to check and make sure there aren't any repetitions in here, though. I'll just give my thoughts in order as I read through the comic. There's a lot of them, so pack a lunch.
By the way, anyone having trouble opening the file might try viewing it through their browser with a plugin like PDFviewer. That worked for me when opening it directly with Acrobat never ever did.
Fang-Grinder:
Honestly, who thought up the idea of an incredibly powerful, universally feared, nearly invincible--Ghol? What's he going to do, throw dwarf heads so hard they actually sting? Taunt twice as loudly? Ooh, I'm so scared.
Now, is this Mauriac the famous one? (By the way, Forrest, he should have an Encyclopedia entry.) Because if he is, there are some timeline problems. The famous Mauriac "was prince regent during Alric's adolescence," so he must have been a mature statesman and, probably, a reasonably experienced warrior when Alric was only a child. On the other hand, this story has it that he didn't regain his honor, become a great warrior and rejoin the armies of the West until after Alric had assumed command and forged his historic truce with the fir'Bolg. The only possible way I can see to reconcile these two histories (unless they're two different Mauriacs) is to suppose that Mauriac, up to and during his term as regent, had lived a sheltered life as a courtier or politician (I'm not sure which term is more appropriate for the Province's form of government) and, though a skilled statesman, had never actually been in battle. When Alric assumed the throne Mauriac finally went to war and almost immediately crossed paths with Fang-Grinder. There isn't much evidence for this theory, but it's the only consistent one I can think of. Any others?
Ground Zero:
I think this pretty much clinches the argument that Shiver's a Myrmidon queen. In this story she looks like a Myrmidon, she sounds like a Myrmidon (she actually whispers her whisper dream, whereas after Soulblighter retrieves her spirit, she grunts like an American Gladiator), and she smells like a Myrmidon--what, you didn't know the comic was scratch-and-sniff?
It interested me that the effect of Shiver's attack on Rabican was described as "the souls began to peel away from his body and his concentration waned." Why does Rabican have more than one soul? What exactly does "soul" mean here? Does Myth folk psychology break the mind down into several parts or "souls", like the id, ego and superego of Freud or the rational, emotional and sensory souls of Enlightenment philosophers? Or do all Avatara (and maybe all Myth creatures) reincarnate, like the Skrael and the Leveler, so that Shiver can weaken Rabican by stripping from him the knowledge and memories of his previous lives? Or has Rabican augmented his power by absorbing the souls of others? Shiver is spoken of as having only one soul. Does this indicate a psychological abnormality on her part, some sort of incompleteness?
I think I've worked out the nature of Rabican's vanity attack. You'll notice that the only time at which Shiver's eyes are visible is when Rabican's attack first begins to take effect and the word "vanity" first appears, and also when her body is almost destroyed. I believe that Balor cloaked Shiver's eyes so that she was unable to see herself properly, or else blinded her completely and gifted her with other magical senses. Either way, Shiver never realized that over the centuries she was shriveling, desiccating, and in general becoming the spitting image of Latoya Jackson. (Assume Balor also screwed with her other senses so that she also didn't notice that, for instance, she had no nose.) When Rabican restored her sight for a moment and she actually saw herself for a moment, she was paralyzed by astonishment, horror and self-loathing, and she put up no resistance as Rabican destroyed her body. This, I think, is why the rather curious sentence "Shiver lingered in defeat" appears (normally, you don't refer to a smoking pile of ash as "lingering"); even after the destruction of her body Shiver's spirit remained frozen in shock at her own hideousness. Her mind likely never recovered from this shock, which is why when she reappears in Myth II she's become a psychotic, impulsive idiot with the strategic skills of a clam.
Any ideas on why Moagim is mentioned in the battle scene? The only connection I can think of is that maybe Moagim was also defeated by vanity; maybe that's a necessary characteristic in anyone who's good at managing Myrkridia, like Moagim and Shiver. (God knows why--maybe commanding Myrkridia is bad for the self-esteem.) Someone suggested that The Head is Moagim, but I don't think even ex-great heroes can survive as severed heads unless the power of the Leveler is still backing them up, and in that case The Head would have helped Balor, not worked against him.
Antero's Bestiary:
A hearty handshake to the first unitmaker to post an armored, sword-wielding Trow at the Mill, like the fellow on page 13 who's decapitating 5 Oghres at once.
What is the relationship between Nyx and Wyrd? I can see two possibilities; either Nyx creates all the races and Wyrd guards them once they've been created, so that their roles are analogous to Brahma and Vishnu, or Nyx creates and protects the silicon-based races like the Trow, while Wyrd creates and protects the carbon-based races like us.
Is the naga-like creature in the picture of the ancient races appearing (page 12) a primitive Skrael?
Why did the Trow cannibalize the younger races? I don't see that a silicon-based life form could get much nourishment from the flesh of carbon-based creatures, and the fact that the Trow live in such barren wastelands indicates that, indeed, they don't need to feed on carbon-based life. Was the cannibalism purely ceremonial, or can the Trow extract energy from carbon-based life even though they can only incorporate silicon compounds into their bodies? Maybe they can use the water. Why am I even speculating about this?
Were the Oghres a single species? Their forms seem so diverse that it's hard to imagine them all interbreeding. Perhaps "Oghre" was the generic term for all younger races who had achieved civilization by then, and their cultures had merged.
Did anyone else find it interesting that, before the younger races appeared, a new race appeared to fight the Trow every "thousand years or so?" I think the Trow were the original champions of the Light. Whatever agent is responsible for the Leveler, it started trying to destroy all sentient life as soon as the Trow were created. Because the Trow are for some reason unpossessable (if there ever was a Trow Leveler, the world would have ended pretty damn fast), the agent had to create other species to attack them, such as the Callieach; and even back then, it only had a window of opportunity every thousand years. As the Trow civilization declined and humans advanced, the agent turned its attention to mankind and, rather than create new species, opted to possess the greatest human heroes of every age.
Who's the guy in the hood behind Connacht? I can't shake the feeling I've seen him before (no, really, there might be someone else in Myth with a pointy hood?)
Why did Connacht attack the Trow in the first place, and then work so hard to "erase all evidence of their culture?" Did he fear that their violence against the Oghres might be repeated against humanity, and that beholding their mighty buildings and advanced technology would crush mankind's pride? Or did he, already tainted by the Leveler, make an unprovoked attack so that he could store away the Trow as weapons, then remove any indications of their culture that might lead people to think his attack was unjustified?
When did the Trow gain the Dream of Unlife? Acerus Malum Magnus never mentions his people's magical prowess.
Inside the Tain:
Correct me if this recounting of the plot is wrong. The art's a little hazy, so I can't be sure.
Three guys in the Tain come across a strange magical portal. One of them touches it and is paralyzed while his soul is drawn through. On the other side is a fantastic, dream-like world which seems to contain many lost or imprisoned souls, as well as buildings and monuments shewing (not a misspelling) evidence of a mighty civilization. An enormous spider (with eleven eyes, no less) appears and pierces the captive's soul with its fangs. On the other side of the portal, his body is torn open and shrivels up as if the spider is sucking out his fluids through his soul. Then a smaller spider climbs out through his corpse--specifically, out of his brain--and grows to about the size of a large spider queen.
Now, I'd guess that this was how the Smiths of Muirthemne communicated with those they worshipped: force a sacrifice to the portal, let its soul be drawn into the world of the spider-gods, and let them enter into this world, or send an emissary, through the corpse. Connacht didn't seem to find anything like this at the shrines in Muirthemne's catacombs; was one of the reasons for the creation of the Tain to make such a portal possible? Perhaps the Tain exists halfway between our world and the world of the spider-gods.
Comments? Criticisms? Dirty jokes?
--SiliconDream
