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Dis pater? That’s a name of a roman underworld god who is also associate with hades. Was father treated like a god in the past or something?

I think Bloodcarver might just mean “father of Dis”, as pater is the dated term for father. But you might just be right as well!

It was before the break, but wasn’t the section of Hell they are slumming in named Dis?

It is, yeah. Or at least the outskirts. The “Father” is…

…He rules as though he were a king or god, and doles out punishments accordingly, as we’ve seen on Bloodcarver. :/ He also seems to seek to craft His own reality on His “children.” What the young dragons know and believe is…this twisted mirror that He’s given them.

The Father can’t seem to let go of the past. While The Bloodcarver acknowledges the need for change on some level and seems somewhat open to building on it, The Father doesn’t seem able to see past his own hate.

I’m really enjoying the contrast between the eyes of the two dragons in panels 5 and 6. In the past, we’ve seen dragons with the pupils of geckos (the white dragon seen in the flashback) or the classic vertical slit pupils as we see with The Father. The Bloodcarver’s rounded pupils look straightforward and really convey an urgent compassionate pleading while The Father’s seem to call for revenge. Well done!

Can we all take a moment to gush over that last panel. It’s gorgeous.

Bloodcarver grew up in hiding, long after the war, and presumably never has met any Sphinx except Michelle. The Father was there during the war, quite possibly has never met (or heard of) a Sphinx that wasn’t a mortal enemy, and has been living ever since in a place where change can’t happen.

The existence of Sphinxes is an existential threat to everyone and everything the Father cares about. While I disagree on his Michelle kidnapping policy, he’s got reasons for it.

Well…yes and no? Think on it this way: one group passed along a ruling to commit genocide. The other didn’t, and said to hide. In the comic with the group of sphinxes using their power to hide/defend, their actions appeared more defensive.

This ofc doesn’t excuse people yelling at eachother–but one began by setting fire to someone’s home, and a means by which _everyone else_ could be protected.

The dragons don’t know the sphinx chose to hide rather than fight – they thought all the sphinx were dead. Even assuming you are correct that the sphinx were defensive about their side of the war, the dragons don’t know that. So father can’t really have that as part of his evaluation of the sphinxes.

I am also not sure it is fair to say the sphinx were defensive – I believe passive would be a better term. Didn’t the sphinx choose to hide as a matter of survival – not out of a selfless desire to stop the war? I really see the dragons as a species fighting for their survival – and for all we know they may have exhausted the peaceful means at their disposal before resorting to violent self-defense (and we do actually see a few things to hint at this).

The sphinx knew (we saw in the flashback) that their medallions were essential for mythics to live in the human world – to live without being hunted by humans. They knew that by denying the dragons medallions, they would prevent the dragons from doing anything but hiding, and that humans would hunt them to extinction – assuming the mythics didn’t do it first. They knowingly refused the medallions to the dragons, knowing it would ultimately bring an end to their species. They were passively committing genocide and knew it. So umm, the sphinx don’t seem pure as the driven snow to me.

I think of the flashback we saw to the sphinx with the white dragon alot with this. White Dragon tried to talk, she tried to appeal to their better selves (see my prior comment about no medallion for a dragon = death sentence for a dragon), but was met with accusations about burning down a village – she denied it as she flew into a rage. Wouldn’t you fly into a rage if a group of people was constantly accusing you of things you hadn’t done and refusing to even listen to your replies? If people with the ability to save your people instead said they’d stand by and watch your people be hunted to death rather than help because of that thing you didn’t do? It either makes you angry, or it breaks your spirit.

And what of that burned village? There was no proof it was dragons, but just “what else?” sort of dismissal when someone asked if he was so sure it was dragons.
“burned village, gotta be those dragons again.” But what about other humans? Accidental fires? Demons trying to instigate war?

So mythic civilisation was highly biased against dragons – even more so than against humans. Remember that humans were such a threat that they needed to create medallions to hide from humans and yet the dragons were even worse than humans to the mythics – but the mythics had never attempted to hide their existence from dragons. Humans, known to use fire, couldn’t be the ones burning the villages. It just feels like something else is missing. Did dragons really do anything bad or were they just convenient scape goats? Had dragons advocated war against humans and mythic rule over the earth? Did a small minority of bad dragons bring the wrath of the whole mythic community on their species?

I am really excited (and hopeful) to see where the comic goes with Dis (pun!). Are the dragons the victims of bias (as the nemean lions nearly were! – too dangerous for a medallion), was it the decision to lock them out of the modern world that made dragons into what they appear to be in this scene and in the flashback – angry, resentful, and distrusting. Outraged at being denied a chance at a full life and having only the option of cowering in Dis for the rest of time (and possibly for something they didn’t even do). They cannot experience joy in Dis, only stultification. They cannot grow as spiritual beings in dis. They’re trapped with no one to listen to their pain, with only demons whispering hatred and calls for violence in their ears. Trapped with their pain and with the ‘knowledge’ that there is one mythic-race that had the power to help them, and therefore only one to blame: the sphinx. For a thousand years.

It’s a true miracle that Bloodcarver has the capacity to reconsider any of this and look for way forward that isn’t bloodshed.

“Trapped with their pain and with the ‘knowledge’ that there is one mythic-race that had the power to help them, and therefore only one to blame: the sphinx. For a thousand years.”

–> Yeaaaaah… that is a long time to chew upon one’s own tail, and refuse to think outside the box. It is a sort of bitterness tunnel vision. I think this is a good point about the effects of Dis, even though it’s triggering my “bad vampiric romance novel trope” trigger. XD

Oh god. Vampiric romances. “The suffering of eons…the lonliness…suffuses my form…”

Maybe all of those were written in Dis, and we in the mortal realm never knew. Maybe. This is totally my hc, now. XD

But yeah, agree about Dis and its stunting anything. :D

Well, perhaps… is it possible that, within human nature and especially within the geek community, many of us have been picked on at some point in our own lives, and therefore would wish to see situations as a misunderstanding? Or, as humans, wanting to see equilibrium, and therefore a “both sides” sort of deal?

Or, for a species so traditionally heroic/awesome as dragons, to not see them as a villain?

And…I get that. I really do. We want to see the best in others, we want to say, well, “both sides” contributed.

…but, sometimes, the scales tilt somewhat more than we’d like them to, you know? I think at times too, while the sphinx are not lily-white, such tendencies are worth checking. For example, go back several pages, there were posts making excuses for the Father’s abuse. :/

As human beings, we do tend to find reasons to excuse abuse, or try to find equal fault, because some things are hard to believe in–or we just wish they did not exist. We try to rationalize. Excusing abuse happens too often, and in situations like this one–we must be so very careful.

So no, the sphinx are not lily-white. Yet, abuse like the Father has committed and perpetuated IS abuse–and one He has chosen to sustain and perpetuate for many, many years.

Now…as to “who is at fault, first?” Let’s accept that the sphinxes are not lily-white. You make a good point–many of them were as racist as the rest of the mythics.

Dragons had dealt with this–but they’re creatures everyone was afraid of. Strength, magic, might. Dragons are powerful and long-lived. So perhaps, until that point, they could afford to look at the other mythics with a sort of distain. And if they wished a thing, they were powerful enough to demand it.

The sphinxes’ refusal in that context must have stung. It might explain the sudden, devastating retaliation. A species who until that point, could demand their way around the system.

Just exploring, mind!

Too, say it’s possible that given the sphinxes finding ONE solution, that everything appeared as a nail (hammer, nail!)–and instead of looking in other directions, the dragons, and many others, could only focus on one thing.

In which case–in this case–the dragons, already smarting, chose blindness and violence instead of looking inwards, and finding their own solution. Because, well. NAIL.

Which. That’s not happened in history EVER, you know? >.> In this case, it could be instead of a “both sides are equally bad,” it could be yes, while the sphinxes were not lily-white…

…what ultimately could have felled the dragons was the fault of something historically tied to dragons–pride–going having hit too many triggers. They, being used to being at the top of the food chain, reacted badly to the refusal of THE NAIL, and therefore developed tunnel vision.

…which over time, led to very, very bad things in a prolonged chain of events.

The Pride of Dragons could explain the Father’s extended series of actions, too.

In which case–just exploring this scenario, it isn’t as much about US vs THEM or “both sides,” but “a series of triggers that ran hard against an internal trait, and set it off like a series of fire-bombs gone nova.”

And in WHICH case–we must be careful not to fully blame others for this. It is not others’ responsibility to manage someone else’s anger. Yes, we may offer occasional care and guidance–but it is not our job.

“Oh yeah? How many dragons did this sphinx kill?”

Her dad or his parents probably owned… I mean killed dragons. So it’s only right for her to pay for it. :D

If she’s really not following her races’ decisions, she should give all the dragons free medallions and help and endorse them in any and every capability that she possesses, or she is a dirty sphinx-supremacist. And if they throw against her slurs and hateful comments, she should just accept them as they are just and correct statements against which her own actions bear no meaning.

She should check her sphinx-privilige.

His last statement really does beg the question of “If all sphinxes are mortal enemies of dragons / all sphinxes do is kill dragons, why bring one alive to where the remaining dragons are and what does that actually accomplish for the dragons?”. Especially if she’s not there to help them, why bother with all the effort?

As much as I could see it as a weird mutual-punishment / revenge / personal vendetta thing, I also think that the Father is being more pragmatic than his emotions are letting on. He certainly made a point of pointing out how significant Michelle could / would be as a symbol for the Mythic community.

My thought would honestly either be that he wants Michelle there as a leverage / bargaining point for other sphinxes / mythics (assuming the Father does know about how the sphinxes’ magic works but does not know that Michelle seems to be the endling sphinx / All other mythics assuming that sphinxes are extinct) or a way to bargain the dragons out of Dis (since it’s acknowledged that living here does have a cost and I’m certain that both Bloodcarver and the Father recognize at this point that it’s not a sustainable option for the dragons to continue living there for much longer).

Wait, what? Believing that sphinxes only kill dragons, you had one brought here? To the only place where any dragons still live? Did you stop and think this through? Would you like to reconsider your plan, or did your plan involve dying from the start?

Dis is a miserable place, but … Seriously? Was it really your intent to commit suicide?

I believe it is HIM that promised Michelle to the Dark Lord. As in Dis Pater here promised to get the sphinx for the DL in order to get something in return. Very likely something akin to the medallions. Because it seems like the dragons trust the demons and DIS and DL far too much, even when they know that demons and such are not ‘just being kind’. So it makes sense to BRING her to DIS or as close to it, so they send Blood Carver to fetch her.
IF we don’t see any more dragons doing a lot of magic then it stems to reason he was chosen specifically because of that talent.

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