El Goonish Shive

My WMG on it is that everything else is something that Ellen herself would be open to doing. What Sirleck intended to do was so far out of that wheelhouse that her consciousness kicked into gear, similar to the theory behind hypnosis - you can't command someone to do what they wouldn't be willing to go along with anyway. While Sirleck may have had the ability to suppress those kinds of thoughts/feelings in previous hosts, his long-term possession of the one body might have atrophied that skill.

I'm not so much questioning that Ellen could do this - as noted, it was strongly suggested that Sirleck wasn't in total control when Ellen swerved to avoid the squirrel (which also shows that, at the very least, she has some level of control beyond just keeping Sirleck from bodyhopping). I'm more questioning why she waited to do this now. I mean, Elliot's no more in danger now than he was previously (after all, Sirleck has basically all but stated that he plans on just leaving Elliot be - too much risk to do anything to him), and Ellen certainly doesn't have any reason to be protective of Magus.

He's an alternate Elliot. That makes him family until proven otherwise.

I mean, all she's really doing is keeping Sirleck anchored to her. There's no indication that shes actually regained control of her body.

Comic 2475

You cannot comprehend the true form without gagging a little.

So she just wanted him stopped? Makes sense I suppose. He is a body snatching vampire.

Okay, I guess "had to build up to it" makes some amount of sense... though I'm not sure who now makes as much sense as any other time.

As for Sirleck's true form... I mean, we've been given enough hints that it's pretty much exactly what we've been led to believe. We've seen what his hosts look like, and we've seen what his hosts look like when overlaid with him. Take the latter and subtract the former, and yeah, that's what I expected. Maybe not necessarily quite that long, but that's just a matter of degrees.

Haven't we already seen Sirleck's true form?

@27133 Oh, yeah, that. In other words, yep, Sirleck is still, to steal a famous movie quote, one ugly motherfucker.

Ellen's explaining too much. Given the context of the situation, her dialogue comes off more as revealing information to the reader than organic conversation. Sirleck doesn't need to hear her theories on why this was possible.

Also, I'm going to call script-reading on the plan itself. How did Ellen know that Magus can do this? She's never met the guy.

He did say that he was stronger than Nanase in the car. Whether he was all talk or not that wild be Ellen's chance to stop Sirleck, even/if Magus responded to the sudden but inevitable betrayal.

Well, there's one other option I can think of... namely, Ellen wasn't counting on Magus coming to. Since she was there the first time and knew how long it takes for Elliot to come to after touching the Dewitchery Diamond, she was counting on Elliot being there and ready to kick Sirleck's ass.

Sirleck is an invisible, intangible parasite that body-snatches people. There's no reason to even assume he has an ass to kick.

Magus is proficient enough in spellcasting to apparently have a binding spell that will hold Sirleck, but again, that's not an assumption Ellen should just reasonably make. And if her plan was just that they would defeat Sirleck by punching him a lot, that's a stupid plan whose glaring flaws should be immediately apparent to her given her predicament.

Shive mentioned in an earlier blurb that this part exists because he realized Ellen doesn't actually do anything in this part of the story and wanted to give her some agency. It really shows. Her part feels very aptly like shoehorned gibberish stapled onto the scene and doesn't even really affect the plot in any way.

edited 21st Mar '18 8:34:40 AM by TobiasDrake

Stopping Sirleck from taking over Magus' body while he was incapacitated doesn't affect the plot? That seems a bit of a reach.

It doesn't if this scene was originally scripted to happen without her, which means that Sirleck wouldn't have succeeded in taking Magus's body either way.

A better way to craft this scene would have been for Ellen to clearly know what's going on when wrestling with Sirleck but withhold that knowledge, leaving him confused and stammering for explanations from an Ellen who's not providing any. Then there's an exchange like this:

• Sirleck: You can't hold me forever!
• Ellen: Nope. But right now will do.

Followed by Sirleck confusedly popping out and being bound as occurs in this page. In the pages that follow, we learn that Magus found a way to communicate with Ellen and explained his situation. The "born from magic" exposition is delivered by him to her in flashback based on his knowledge as an experienced magic-user, which also covers why she wants to help him and why she knows that he can counter Sirleck once given a few seconds to breathe.

This should have been a premeditated ambush, not just Ellen's random script-reading whim.

edited 21st Mar '18 8:46:19 AM by TobiasDrake

Although that would be fine(though I might complain that there was no foreshadowing of Ellen/Magus communication, making that seem like a bit of a pull), I think the way it played out was also fine.

Ellen 'wakes up' or otherwise only just recognizes her ability to seize control due to the raccoon incident in the car, hears Magus' sob story(which we now realise is the reason Ashley needed to be there), and decides to cut him a break. She picks up on Sirleck's plan either through hearing his thoughts or just feeling him grin her face every time Magus mentions a new body, sees Magus casting spells with little effort, backing up his claims of being 'far more powerful than Nanase', and trusts that if she can give him a few seconds, Magus can deal with Sirleck in some manner. If he can't, then as a certain ronin said, he was only that much of a man to begin with.

Trusting people to be able to do things you don't know they can do is like Hero Protagonist 101. I don't see where script reading comes into it.

As for Ellen answering Sirleck's questions, why wouldn't she? She's never been Captain Terse, why would she start now?

edited 21st Mar '18 10:12:01 AM by Daremo

There's a difference between being long winded and being expository.

Shive has always had a problem with exposition. Why assume he suddenly doesn't now?

More powerful than Nanase doesn't mean a whole lot if he doesn't specifically have spells that can entrap Sirleck like he turned out to. The way magic works in this universe is that you get some spells that reflect your personality.

Like. Elliot could become more powerful than Nanase and that wouldn't mean a thing to Sirleck because Elliot's ability transform into various girly forms wouldn't be much of a hindrance to being body-snatched.

Nanase herself has a powerful angel form that also might not actually stop Sirleck because her enhanced ability to perform violence doesn't mean a lot to a body-snatching parasite that might not even be able to have violence performed to it.

We know very little about how Sirleck's metaphysics work and Ellen knows even less. It doesn't matter if she has reason to believe Magus is powerful enough to fight dangerous foes because there is no indication that Sirleck is a thing that can be fought in the first place. In this context, "more powerful than Nanase" means nothing.

The assertion that Magus is really good at violence is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he can manage an adversary that cannot be defeated through violence. As it is, there was no reason for Ellen to assume that Magus conveniently had exactly the right spell to disable Sirleck based solely on the suggestion that he's "more powerful than Nanase".

edited 21st Mar '18 11:14:53 AM by TobiasDrake

Why would Ellen think Sirleck couldn't be fought? Even if she has no reason to think Magus could fight Sirleck, she has no reason to think Magus couldn't fight Sirleck either. Is Ellen the type to throw up her hands and do nothing or take a chance and do something? She's a card carrying Meddling Kid, after all.

You said yourself, Ellen knows even less about Sirleck. All she knows is that he's a monster, and monsters get fought. That's how it's gone with every other monster she's encountered, why should this one be different, from her perspective? Magus claims to be more powerful than people she knows who have defeated monsters in the past, so he should be able to deal with this. That might be stupid and naive on her part, but it's fittingly stupid and naive, entirely appropriate from where she stands.

edited 21st Mar '18 11:32:29 AM by Daremo

Also Magus has been going out of his way to make sure that they hear his side of the story and keeping Ashley as much out of harm's way as he can help while still doing the first thing.

Between the two, he's early the most reasonable, if not trustworthy.

edited 21st Mar '18 11:40:22 AM by sgamer82

Trusting yes, but this still feels like script reading because of how the last few panels played.

Nothing Ellen did was out of character, it's how Shive chose to write it that is the problem.

I like Magus (I like the archetype in general really), but this was his plan, yes? Didn't he have her get body snatched in the first place? Just tossing in another reason for her to be more suspicious.

Actually, that might be more evidence that he never intended Sirleck to survive. He's pretty dead-set against aberrations (as is everyone else, really), and told Ashley that he sent them to fight vampire hunters in order to get them killed. So Ellen could have deduced that he would have a way to fight Sirleck when Sirleck inevitably betrayed him.

If that sounds implausible, remember that Magus is an alternate Elliot. He's been having a bad couple of years, but he's still a good man underneath. Ellen knows Magus would have a way to fight Sirleck because she would never ally with a monster like Sirleck if she didn't have a way to fight him.

Besides, body-snatchers are generally low on defenses anyway.

In addition to Elliot, Ellen might be expecting Abraham to jump into the situation, now that the Dewitchery Diamond has come into play.

I doubt that, unless Abraham is stored there. Even on Ellen's creation it was some days or weeks before Abraham responded.