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Obverse & Reverse Ch1 Page 9

Obverse & Reverse Ch1 Page 9 published on 63 Comments on Obverse & Reverse Ch1 Page 9

Hmm, something about this argument is ringing some bells for Michelle, it seems.

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63 Comments

And Michelle realizes the only way to start stopping the cycle is to step back & listen. … she’s gonna have to make the argument stop first though lol

The time for negotiations ended when the dragons began their crusade of genocide. Giving them medallions would be an insult to all of her ancestor who were killed senselessly by dragons.

“The time for negotiations ended”
No. Negotiations ended in the Great War when Ddraig Wen let her pride and anger completely foul up her request to Jocasta and Wosret.

“the dragons began their crusade of genocide”
No. Dragons did not begin a war of genocide. They wanted to drag everyone down to being equal. If Dragons were to be denied Medallions then no-one would have Medallions.

“all of her ancestor who were killed senselessly by dragons”
No. Michelle would not exist if she had ancestors killed by a Dragon.

“Giving them medallions would be an insult”
So, no, there is no insult in trying to peacefully restart negotiations and possibly creating Medallions for Dragons.

Michelle would not exist…

Now hold on here, I have 100s of thousands of ancestors, every one was killed by something. Car accidents, diseases, old age. Does being killed by a dragon somehow kill every one your descendants, no matter how distant they are from you at the time it occurs? So when my grandmother in Oklahoma passed away, 4 year old me in Oregon would be simultaneously struck down?

We are looking at Mite’s claim from two different angles. It’s very much a situation where we are both equally correct.

I was looking at it from the angle, of family tree gets broken before someone in Michelle’s direct branch could give birth to the ancestor that would lead to Michelle. It’s the sort of break the present by breaking the past paradox that Back To The Future employed.

You’re looking at Mite’s claim from the angle of the killing happens after the ancestor has given birth, so that the ancestor sequence that leads to Michelle is intact.

I can think of a greater insult to their sacrifices: that even after all that death, all that destruction, all those generations of secrecy and hiding and silent loss, the war is *still not over* unless Michelle chooses to end it now. Worse still, if the last sphinx dies, their great legacy is done. If there is no ceasefire, Jocasta and Wosret and all their kin have *failed.*

And in light of all she’s learned, were the dragons really acting senselessly? From their point of view, the sphinxes were knowingly standing between them and total extinction, and made a conscious choice to deny them safety. Right until the end the dragons probably hoped that if they won, they could make the sphinxes help them. Certainly they wouldn’t help if the dragons lost.

Stopping the argument is going to be difficult.
The harder problem will be getting Bloodcarver to abort the task of taking her back to The Father. At least Bloodcarver is wanting to try to prevent unnecessary problems, even if he might not know the correct way to do that.

So..does everyone forget the sphinxes outright refuses to make medallions for the dragons? not you have to wait in line like everyone else, you don’t get them at all. Does they justify genocide? no but then they don’t seem to have come any better than the sphinxes from the conflict. You could argue that dragons had no “right” to force the issue and yes they made everything worse but if a group has a resources another needs to survive and can’t or won’t give it then war is inevitable. That’s just reality. No one is going go “welp, gues will just die then” and no one, especially not when specifically excluded due to race, is going to want to wait patiently, beg, kiss your feet and try to slowly change hearts and minds while they are dying. If they are able to fight you, they are going to.

Of course this before you get to blaming someone for what their ancestors did.

Considering that trying to change people’s minds is exactly what the Nemean Lions did, successfully, I think that some of your opinion is in error.

Probably because they knew the couldn’t actually win vs the sphinxes so fighting wasn’t much of an option, and even if they did decide to go that route that would be really unexpected and doesn’t really change things for everyone else.

Oh and did the council ever change their minds on them anyway? looked like it was just two sphinxes in the flashback helping them against instructions.

You’re correct. Jocasta and Wosret were disgusted by the way the sphinx leaders treated their fellows and sequestered themselves to that island where they could mint medallions without getting permission from the council. Them making the medallions for the Nemean tribe was in *defiance* of the decision of the sphinxes at a whole.

I was under the impression when the meeting started that Jocasta was willing to discuss making medallions for the dragons as well, at least until the threats started to fly. I also get the impression that dragon negotiations probably start with power displays like threats. If so, that’s a cultural difference that’s also throwing a wrench in everything.

Is it just me or is he way more bit up than he was in Orientations? I know Jim grabbed his tail but he’s got claw marks all over, his head and sides….when he failed to bring back Michelle from Missouri, did the rest of his flight retaliate?

Several people have noticed this on previous pages. There’s an implication there that I don’t think anyone mentioned.

The Father learned of a newly turned sphinx, and sent his second in command Bloodcarver to capture this high-value enemy target. Bloodcarver returned empty handed, saying that they had misread the situation and that he could not ethically carry out his mission as ordered. The Father’s response was apparently to give Bloodcarver a savage beating, and then send him back out with the exact same orders “or else.”

That’s not how a reasonable authority figure treats a trusted lieutenant. That’s how a vicious tyrant treats a servant.

And Bloodcarver is a dragon, and the highest-ranked one under the Father himself. Logically, he rates the best treatment anyone is going to get. How much worse would an ancestral enemy be treated, if the Father gets his claws on them? This could be a real problem, even if Michelle does want to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Bells starting to go off for Michelle. ‘Maybe the issue here it too much assumption and pride and not enough listening and communication?’ The question is, will she stop it before tempers flare out of control? And will we get to see the Dragons living conditions? Even with her vision, she only saw one half of the story, and Bloodcarver seems to have just as much difficulty getting sidetracked into petty arguments, and Greg isn’t helping with his accusations that lump all responsibility for the war on Bloodcarver.

Greg has been riffing on how Michelle reacted after the transport bubble popped.
CAN Michelle stop things before someone makes a fatal mistake? I don’t know.
Bloodcarver has little difficulty getting sidetracked into such arguments, so I also think he will have little difficulty to be provoked into blasting Greg with flame, unless Michelle can make both stand down.

Let’s cut the bullshit. The Dragons are the ones at fault. There is no other side in this situation. No matter what they say, Dragons do not have the right to kill people that disagree with them. I can’t believe people are defending a race of genocidal maniacs. The Sphinxes were not prideful, arrogant or whatever bs the dragons used to justify their madness. They were cautious and rightfully so, because even centuries later dragons are still threatening to kill sphinxes who don’t immediately give in to their demands.

Dragons were being actively hunted by humans, for sport.

The sphinxes had the resources to save their race and allow them to peaceably hide. They had the resources to help every mythic species. Instead they reserved the right to pick and choose the races who ‘deserved’ to have the medallion magic and left the others to their fate. Go back to Illuminations and see how they reference the treatment of Nemian lions, who were also considered dangerous brutes. Jocasta and Wosret making medallions for a tribe of them was considered an act of rebellion.

Obviously it would be impossible to quickly mint sufficient medallions for everybody that needed them, but the sphinxes went beyond pragmatism; they basically chose who lived and who died. If a species they didn’t approve of was being *literally hunted to extinction*, well, too bad for them.

We don’t know the story of how the dragons actually interacted with the council. All we saw was one dragon, trying to save her family, having a hostile interaction with a pair of sphinxes who were more accepting than the rest of their race, but the deep mistrust between the two caused a communication breakdown. Was it right for her to go burn down the mint? Absolutely not. But she was a mother who saw a way to save her family only to be reminded that her entire race were considered barbaric monsters.

The sphinxes might not have been executing an active genocide, but they were damn sure *complicit* in a passive one.

This. What were the dragons left to do? Just accept their fate to die off by humans? I recall a quote some said, “If you charge me $100 to save my life, I will pay you $100. If you charge me $100,000 to save my life, I will find a way to pay $100,000.” If the Sphinxes weren’t going to give them any recourse, I’d be surprised if the dragons didn’t attack and try to take / force medallion secrets.

The thing about how the dragons chose to respond to this situation may seem understandable, when you only consider how the dragons themselves were suffering. But then you look at it from the point of view from everybody else and realize the Sphinxes were right to judge them.

The Dragons were so narcissistic that they decided if they were going to go die, then everybody else was going to die with them. Not just Sphinxes, but every mythical creature, who were faced with the same threat of extinction as they were. If Dragons were the only ones being hunted, then the other creatures wouldn’t have to hide, like they do now.

One could make the argument that the Sphinxes were racists, but the Dragons over reacted to the situation in the absolute worst way possible.

Who the heck would just let themselves die? Of course you fight back. And by all indications, the dragons were about the only species who [i]could[/i] fight back.

It wasn’t so much that Dragons could fight back, because of their physical size and flame breath. Because of the Sphinx Leaders decreeing Dragons could not be trusted, the Dragons reacted as having nothing to lose by destroying the smiths and taking what Medallions there were. Because they had nothing to lose, Dragons could afford to fight back. Basically it’s like a lot of media consumers from the late 1990s onwards, in saying, “If the Media Corporations are going to call us criminals and pirates and treat us in that manner, without first even bothering to obtain proof, then we will behave in that manner towards them and their content.”

Now contrast that with Nemean Lions. Similar decree, but the Nemean Lions decided to try to convince the Sphinxes that Nemean Lions could be trusted. The Sphinx Leaders refused to reconsider things, and it was Jocasta rebelling that caused suitable Medallions for a small pride of Nemean Lions to be made.

And when Ddraig Wen tried to get Dragon Medallions to be considered to be made, her pride made the discussion a complete disaster, and served to hasten the end of the Great War.

We don’t know anything about dragon culture. We have seen one dragon. Period, we’ve seen all the different creatures have varied and diverse personalities, can you say all of one is a representative of every other member of their species? They are not robots, they have free will, and it was clear that the individuals involved in the communication breakdown were both at fault for letting pride, fear, and assumptions get carried away.

Not to mention that dragons are massive compared to every other species we’ve seen so far. They’re literally the least able to hide naturally.

Dragons can change their size, using their innate magic.
Orientations, end of chapter 4, giant extra large economy size Bloodcarver snatches Michelle out of the air, and one of his hands is bigger than Michelle in full form.
Orientations, Chapter 5, and Bloodcarver has shrunk enough to easily fit in Fiddler’s cave.

This conversation was never going to be easy. I know Greg’s anger isn’t “the perfect response,” but man, it makes sense. “What, they arrogance’d themselves to death”–that is a poignant statement. Then, the kidnapping? The dragons, despite pride on either fence, have a lot to answer for. Their “let’s do genocide because it’s obviously the best communication tool” affected everyone for centuries. It meant people like Greg couldn’t get their medallions fixed, for example. Or, that others, just being born, could not have them to begin with.


Greg, shut up.

To be fair to Greg, he isn’t up to speed on the real history like the readers are, and all he knows is what he’s been taught.

This is a big problem in the human world, too.

True to some extent, but he’s a guy talking to a person with a gun, who’s from a group “known” to using them against people like you.

Okay, so the fellow holds the gun to his side and says that they only wanted to talk, so that’s why they threatened our heroes with the said gun to get them in their pickup.

So now that they’ve stopped pointing the gun at them, it’s okay to go all: “Really?! Want to talk?! As if! You just want to shoot us! Yeah, we know! Had shot us already? Well that’s just your arrogance or something! Instead of shooting us there, you’re going to shoot us here! Aren’t you?! Shooting us! Here! Now!”

Only thing missing is him attacking Bloodcarver to actually force him to respond…

To me, this seems to be something of a “both sides were in the wrong” kind of scenario. Let’s hope Michelle can get things straightened out before they get worse. Because let’s face it, this is a situation that does NOT need to be dragged out any longer then it already has…

Is that how you view genocide? The men, women and children being killed by mindless and unprovoked aggression must have also been in the wrong. What next? Are you going to give a three fingered salute?

There is no proof yet from this comic that the dragons started the great war, or that they actually were attempting to genocide the sphinx. If the dragons killed everyone in their attacks – who identified the dragons as the murderers? Could the dragons have gotten blamed for the crimes of another race? Or could dragons as a whole have been blamed for the actions of a single group of renegades (just as the Nemeans were apparently saved by a small group that proved they could be trusted). In the flashbacks, we’ve only seen dragons burn down a building that had no people in it – after getting treated rather poorly by the sphinxes who she had hoped would live up to the open minds they showed in bestowing medallions on the Nemeans.

I am skeptical of the “evil dragons” narrative. It’s too tidy. Accurate history is never tidy, and this comic is too well written to overlook that. Several times already we’ve learned that key details of history have been lost. Jimothy’s family didn’t even remember why they were guarding what they were guarding. I expect we’ll learn the events are messier than Jimothy and Co believe. An entire race of evil beings? Who appear to be claiming they are getting unfairly treated/blamed, who no one will listen to, is actually guilty of their alleged crimes? Isn’t that too simple? It lacks the dramatic tension and misdirection we’ve been treated to at every other step of this journey.

How much more interesting would this story become if the dragons were unfairly blamed for starting the war but it was actually an entirely other race or group, and Bloodcarver is somehow able to convince Michelle and Gregg of this, and then they have to go back to Avalon and correct history. Would Jimothy’s family be able to accept that his ancestors played a very real part in unfairly dooming so many dragons to be hunted by humans for events the dragons weren’t behind — because they couldn’t overcome their own biases long enough to check the evidence? Our Nemean friends take great pride in their honour and self control. What if the great war was started by a nemean who lost his temper and then blamed the slaughter on the dragons (and used a torch to hide the evidence of his own involvement)?

If Jimothy’s family couldn’t accept all that, could Jim believe his friend? or is his loyalty to his family’s mythos (which he claims to resent – but boyo did he get defensive at any implication that any of his ancestors were less than perfect?) stronger than his faith in Michelle? How much will mythics insist that the new comer sphinx has been fooled b/c she doesn’t know enough of their history to be able to assess the dragon’s claims (despite being the only person who actually got to see events of so long ago)? Are the dragons allied with demons because only the demons would protect them? What happens if it turns out the Nemeans were guilty of that first slaughter of sphinxes that presumably started the war? Or humans?
Do the mythics owe the dragons any recompense, or any attempt to right their wrong? If they discover it was the humans’ crimes that dragons took the blame for…will (even more) mythics want to reveal their existence? Will Michelle and Gregg be left to team up with Bloodcarver to free the dragons from the demons and gather evidence to clear their name?
Is there a whole other community of mythics out there who were also denied the medallions and believe everything the Avalonians believe of dragons – only about sphinxes? Will Michelle need to prove that what they were told about the sphinxes was also false?

hmm, this wasn’t where I clicked to reply, but it works here too.

Key point: Unless I’m forgetting a major magical vision of Michelle’s, we have not one shred of proof that the dragons really did start a genocidal action against the sphinx – or even an attempt at a genocide. We only know that 1) they and the sphinxes never got along, 2) they and the sphinxes were on opposite sides of a war that most mythics believed ended with BOTH races being genocided, 3) that most of the mythics (that are still around today) were on the sphinxy-medallion-granting side (the one that would be safe from humans…who were running around killing mythics as fast as they could), 4) that the Sphinx believed it could end only with genocide. 5) That even the most open minded sphinx (who were willing to make medallions for the much distrusted Nemean Lions) were not willing to even let a dragon mother plead her case or suggest there might be something unfair at foot. Oh, and 6) that neither the sphinx nor the dragons were genocided. The dragons hid (in hell?) from others, and the sphinx hid even from themselves.

Some people seem to be using the **allegation** of genocide as proof that the dragons actually did the genocide. But you have to prove something somewhere – one can’t just repeat the same accusations over and over as though the louder one says them, the truer they become.

this is what i think will happen she will tell him that she will make a medallion for him if the other want one she will make them for them but they have to suck up there pride and ask nicely at a set location two she will be making medallion for all those who do not have them so the other mite have to be patience since there a lot of work that needs to get done

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