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  1. #16
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    Does Ama even have 6 months?

  2. #17
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JediKage View Post
    Does Ama even have 6 months?
    My point, apart from the flippancy, is that the story is unlikely to run for that long. I have always strongly suspected the two year thing was a lie anyway. It is certainly a convenient way of managing the expectations of people you may murder or get to kill each other.

  3. #18
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    Well the 1831 special is certainly depressing. Worse it makes me wonder if the world of WicDiv is actually a world deprived of the great works of art we take for granted. It seems as if Frankenstein was never written, it is perhaps hinted that Kubla Khan is not only 'interrupted' but never put to paper. The Brontes have their lives cut short and echoing Heathcliff at the window. Death imitating a character never written.

    There are probably loads of literary references in this, but I am not a student of the Romantics. I recognise the nod to Byron's "She Walks in Beauty" for example, or "The living hand", which again may here have been composed and lost on Keats' death bed, even if that death seems to be ten years later than it actually was.

    The date is odd as this seems to be based upon 1816 'the year without a summer', which any good student of the romantics (and I stress again I am not one) knows as the year Shelly, Byron, (with his doctor), Mary Godwin and Claire (Jane) Clairmont are holed up near Lake Geneva at The Villa Diodati. This begs the question has history been stalled and stuck or is this just an alternate reality.

    So identification time:

    Keats = Hades,
    Inanna = Claire Clairmont
    Lucifer = Lord Byron
    Wodan = Mary Shelly
    The Morrigan = Shelly
    Morpheus = Coleridge
    Hestia = Jane Austin
    Angel of Soho, Urizen = William Blake
    Three Lonely Sisters / Three Graces? / Norns? / Fates? = The Brontes
    Perun = Pushkin? (Apparently confirmed on Twitter)
    Thoth = ? I'm lost here knowing next to nothing about French literature (Baudelaire? Translator of Poe, poet, and died in Paris.)
    ? = ? (We seem to be missing one)

    P.S. The official answer seems to be that the analogies are not the actual people, so Byron exists and somebody else exists that becomes Lucifer. So that means the timeline is not the same and the people are not exactly the same.
    Last edited by JKtheMac; 09-22-2016 at 10:35 AM.

  4. #19
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    Either way, Stephanie Hans is perfect for this book, just as she was for the Secret Wars Angela volume. Her painting style and loose line evokes a moody, brooding timelessness that suits the settings and the themes.

    Whether Gillen is as versed in the Romantics as he appears, remains to be seen, was he just throwing together the references and a bit of online research or has he been deeply reading the relevant autobiographies and couldn't help let his sources slip through quotations?

  5. #20
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    While replying to a post on tumblr I am now wondering if the twelve should include the resurrected creature as Prometheus because of the "modern Prometheus" of Frankenstein's monster. It would also seem this may be the pink Woden.

    Is anybody else even reading this book?

  6. #21
    Fantastic Member Proto's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKtheMac View Post
    While replying to a post on tumblr I am now wondering if the twelve should include the resurrected creature as Prometheus because of the "modern Prometheus" of Frankenstein's monster. It would also seem this may be the pink Woden.

    Is anybody else even reading this book?
    I'm a devoted fan but I've got no where near the level of literary knowledge you possess. I hadn't even begun to think of the romantics as real world analogues and now I feel like I need to go back and read it again since you've given me a whole new point of reference.

  7. #22
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Proto View Post
    I'm a devoted fan but I've got no where near the level of literary knowledge you possess. I hadn't even begun to think of the romantics as real world analogues and now I feel like I need to go back and read it again since you've given me a whole new point of reference.
    Trust me, most of my knowledge is vague and either biographical or based on costume dramas. The only one I have read with any depth is Coleridge, maybe a little Blake and enough Poe to be suspicious that it isn't him. At least two of my tentative guesses are based on Wikipedia. Does not stop me loving the story however. Got to love a tale that equates Laura to Clairmont, and has a Frankenstein's monster riff all in one.

  8. #23
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    Thoth as a Poe expy is a good fit, and the manner of his death alludes to three of his books, his Raven head from the Raven, the monkey from The Murders at Rue Morgue and his stolen heart from the telltale heart. The Bronte sisters could be any triple Goddess or God for that matter, though looking at the hair of one of them maybe the Gorgens or Furies?
    The 1831 raised several points for me, firstly the look of the Gods. It could just be Stephanie Han's art style but do they look more "supernatural" then thier modern versions? Thoths head, Lucifers cloven hoof, the pale blue skin of Hades and the glowing eyes shown by the last four survivors... In #22 it was stated that the Gods Devinity consumes them in time, and the 1831 special is in the final weeks of this pantheon, maybe anakke told the truth.

    We also see four Gods of the 2014 pantheon together the same way a Amateratsu, Baal and Minerva apparently survived to the end of the 1920’s pantheon. Maybe a sign that Anakke is looking for the "right combination" of deities to stave off her great darkness? Interesting as well is that in Clair Clairmont/Innana we have not only our Laura, the "ascended fan girl" (she was never a published writer or poet herself, echoing how Laura says she has "nothing to say"), but she is also this pantheons Double agent, it makes me wonder if Anakke has an insider in every iteration of the pantheon. It does seem implied that she struck a deal with Anakke for her powers, so it seems that Anakke can simply bestow them upon people like Clair or Cameron, but was her murder of Wodens children the terms of the deal?

    As far as the creature goes, what is it, where is it now and did Annake intend it to be made? She gave Lucifer the hand after all, but did she just intend it to kill them all, or wasnt she expecting Woden to sacrifivpce herself to alter it somehow? And have we found our pink Woden? And if Hades is still a part of it then what does that mean for Laura now she is his queen Persephone?

    Anyways loved the 1831 special, can wait for the next ones hot from WicDiv!

  9. #24
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    In transit so I can't chip in with all the points but I do assume we have found the pink Woden. The horns suggest it and having listened to an interview with Gillen he seemed to structure the whole story around that one thing. So much of the story is about our "Modern Prometheus" and an imperative for a legacy. The way it finished on a frozen lake, just as Frankenstein finishes in a frozen waste. Anyone that has read Frankenstein has that fury that shouts "the whole point is the created rails against the creator, and despairs." Hence the Prometheus analogy.

    Surely this Prometheus is vital to the coming future.
    Last edited by JKtheMac; 09-24-2016 at 04:06 PM.

  10. #25
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    By the way, welcome to the forum! Be strident, be confident and be magnificent.

  11. #26
    Spectacular Member ishikabe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JediKage View Post
    Eh this story is losing me as Ananke moves into straight up evil and the ambiguity bleeds away. Also did Ama die I assume she dodged or something but was unsure. Especially since Ananke due to plot armor decides not to just one shot Nergal.
    I dropped the title around issue #16. Just couldn't do it anymore. To each his own.

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by ishikabe View Post
    I dropped the title around issue #16. Just couldn't do it anymore. To each his own.
    I would be interested to know what convinced you that it wasn't for you. Clearly I love it but it is very obviously not for everyone, and I actually find it surprising how popular it is.

  13. #28
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    A couple of links and then some thoughts

    First Gillen's notes on the special: Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 1831

    And an interview at The Orbiting Pod: A Chat With Kieron Gillen about WicDiv 1831

    Start with the minor points, Gillen obviously was referring to Poe for exactly the reasons BlueCollarDruid mentions. I was basing my reluctance on imagining the actual place of death mattered in the same way that Hades or Perun's deaths were in the places their analogues died. But then I was originally assuming we were replacing historic figures with their analogues; we clearly are not.

    Gillen mentions that there are three structural keys to this issue and clearly one of them is the Woden figure surviving. First of all I wondered if the other two were hinged on the Inanna parallels with the new member of the pantheon and with Laura, but now I am beginning to wonder if there is something else up. What if we have a thematic reincarnation theme developing. Maybe the motive factor as to who gets reincarnated is based on unresolved issues. So while the Romantic Inanna / Modern Laura parallel is a genuine thematic one, maybe the fact Inanna was manifest in the modern pantheon is related to the fact she didn't finish her mythic cycle. There is always a touch of the idea "life through death" with Inanna, or "the necessity of death for life to thrive" and Inanna's destiny in this story is to sacrifice himself for Persephone to be born.

    I also think by continually hinting this is a 'structural' story Gillen is perhaps hinting the ending will be a transformational synthesis between the apparent good and bad forces, in the same way structural theories of mythology are formed.
    Last edited by JKtheMac; 09-28-2016 at 05:32 AM.

  14. #29
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    Yo, check out the cover for #25! https://67.media.tumblr.com/0aea27b4...qar677_540.jpg

    A rad new look.

  15. #30
    Ultimate Member JKtheMac's Avatar
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    Yes but don't skip 23 and 24. (24 being a favourite of mine).

    25 is the first visual confirmation that we get a time jump moving into the "Imperial Phase".
    I just love the way McKelvie captures clothes.

    I am very intrigued by the prospect of an interview issue. Should be interesting, especially the way it is being put together.
    Last edited by JKtheMac; 10-21-2016 at 07:03 AM.

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