El Goonish Shive

It's either the real diamond or someone made a fake that would ping a detection method not even Sirleck knew Magus was going to use.

Well, the split itself went off without a hitch, from the look of things.

Also it's nice to see Ellen "Not Helping Your Case" smile! Oh wait...

edited 16th Mar '18 7:58:11 AM by ironballs16

Huh. So, we wind up with two Elliots as a result... are we going to get another gender dysphoria strip as Ellen, who previously struggled with her new identity as female, now has to struggle to recognize herself as male, now with the burden of a second lifetime of memories being female? After all, it's her brother who can change sexes...

...why would Ellen have gender dysphoria over this?

• Elliot is no longer possessed.
• Magus now has a body.
• Ellen is still Ellen.

Honestly, I'm not sure why the Dewitchery Diamond broke apart from this for any In-Universe reason. I can see from an authorial perspective - remove it from the playing field for any future plotlines - but it'd be nice if at some point someone explained just why it broke.

Side effect from magics changing would be my first thought

They knew it was going to break even though they don't know that Magic's rules changed, so that's off the table.

"I'm modifying the effect, but Elliot and I could still be thrown from it, and it's likely to shatter."

Whatever Magus did to it broke it.

^_^ Honest confusion over who was possessed by what?

This, plus the possibility of Magus being far more magically-powerful than most in this 'verse.

Didn't the diamond's creator (can't remember his name at the moment) do everything he could to destroy the diamond and failed? So how come Magnus was able to destroy it?

Abraham was a bit of an idiot.

NP 745

The end is near(I hope).

In the very same comic where Abraham claimed he did "everything he could" to destroy it, we find out that it never occurred to him to chuck the thing into a volcano. So yeah, he's an idiot.

A quick check says the nearest active volcano probably would have been in Italy. That was a lot closer than I was expecting, but might have been a ways for a 14th~16th century Ruritaninan to think of, before Tolkien made volcanoes the go to disposal point for troublesome magical items.

Not to say he wasn't an idiot for other reasons, but thinking of the volcano solution would have made him an innovator.

comic comic comic

Of all the main characters in this arc to approach doing something meaningful instead of just watching Dan's GMPCs, Ellen was not the first that would have sprung to mind.

i mean. it's a comic with one writer, they're all technically GMPCs, but you see what i'm waving at here

I'm not a fan of the execution but I do think she deserved this considering her backstory.

I mean, there is the Fridge Logic question of "why didn't she do that sooner?", but I'm hoping we get an explanation in the next comic or two about that.

There is perhaps a Fridge Brilliance moment here, too. Perhaps the reason Magus wasn't afraid of Sirleck attempting a double-cross to take the new body once made is that he could do what Ellen is doing right now, except perhaps even more effectively.

I suspected Magus was purposefully baiting Sirleck from the beginning. I'm keen to see if that was correct.

NP 746

edited 19th Mar '18 12:29:38 PM by Daremo

If so, does that mean Ellen just became a Spanner in the Works?

Most likely. Though, as noted, Magus might not have actually had much of anything to worry about.

Also, it seems like Ellen has been aware of what was going on around her the entire time, and Magus spent much of that time telling Ashley over and over that he's more powerful than any of them but he's going to leave peacefully once he gets his body back. If she believed him, then there was no need for her to act until Sirlek tried to make his move.

I wonder why Ellen can hold him back in the first place. Is it love/protectiveness towards Elliot? Strength of will? The likely possibility that Sirleck's never had anyone want to keep him in against his will?

The elevated heart rate thing indicates that Ellen has been aware of the situation for while.

Hmmm... is it possible that Ellen can't do much more than keep Sirleck from jumping out, and even that's after what's probably a few hours of struggling against the possession?

Sirleck has been mostly possessing an old dude for ages now, so it's possible he just underestimated ellen.

A brain-dead old dude, if I remember correctly. Point is, his previous host wasn't in any condition to actively resist.

Remember when he swerved to avoid the squirrel? That was a clear hint that Ellen was still awake in there. She was probably just biding her time, or saving up her energy to do something like this.