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Poor Bloodcarver. I hope he survives and manages to get to Wonderland for sanctuary while he works out a way for more of his kind to not live in Dis. Michelle doesn’t know if she can do anything for him right this moment.

All I know is that if she is as powerful as she is….I would have probably tried to at least get Bloodcarver out of there.

Michelle is in that classic powerful hero phase where she doesn’t have her own instruction book yet. Of course, this is what makes the story interesting. If Dorothy has known how the silver slippers worked right after she put them on, the Wizard of Oz would have been two chapters long. The Witch of the North, who could have told her, was setting her up.

If you mean the book, she wasn’t. The Witch of the North never knew what the powers of the silver shoes were. Glinda, the Witch of the *South*, knew, but Dorothy didn’t meet her until almost the end of the book.

If you mean the movie, the shoes were ruby and you’d be right that Glinda was setting her up.

While in a perfect world I would hope Michelle would have stayed to help Bloodcarver, this comic (to it’s strength) enjoys showing more realistic reactions, which include noping out of there!

She can’t help Bloodcarver now… but she CAN heal his injuries afterwards, just as she did with Jim so long ago, and back up Bloodcarver’s case that way.

Unless Bloodcarver (Or someone else) has a trick up their sleeve quickly, I don’t think there’s gonna be any healing him. Father is quite clearly going for the kill here this time, not to punish. And with that grip all it takes is a good rip or twist and it’s over. :(

And yet, Michelle’s reverted death/near-death before with Jim’s Momo wounds. That was with her knowing infinitely less than she does now, so the only question is if that same protective instinct’s going to kick in again for someone she’s much less familiar with. I’m personally thinking it will, because it’s clear enough that she’s starting to understand where Carver’s coming from and empathize with him, despite earlier disagreements.

Or Michelle just runs like hell, feels guilty for abandoning Carver and turns around, Invokes her Power with “Save Bloodcarver” as her foremost thought, planning to go fight Father… and -pop-

Bloodcarver is laying next to her, bloodied and beaten, and decidedly not where he was a moment ago.

That leads to an excellent question….
Can you actually die in hell?
Father might kill him, knowing he will just regenerate in a while.

Or maybe he is just being a classic abusive parent, and beating his child within an inch of his life because he can.

What I wonder is if the Father had always been like this or if he’s become more and more demented over the years. His own PTSD from the War plus literally living in Hell could mean that, initially, he was a warm and loving father figure to the dragons, and we see some of that initially here. But the years in this dimension could have twisted his mind so he’s now more abusive than loving. The dragons, remembering his more loving self from their younger days, could really want that back.

More and more demented over the years, IMO.

He’s been trapped in literal Hell for centuries. Unable – unwilling? – to return to Earth, for whatever reason.

We know there were human dragon hunters, to say nothing of any mythos who would be peeved at the Dragon-Sphinx war and the apparent extinction of the Sphinx at the hands of the Dragons.

There are still some folks old enough to remember. But sometimes, the biggest threat to a long life and long memory – is yourself. And Father can’t forget the war and all that happened. And probably assumes everyone else remembers it just as vividly…. and still blame the dragons.

Happy Birthday! Don’t worry! You won’t feel really old until someone points it out.

No, until you think it so. Like having nostalgia pangs when someone posts animated GIFs of old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Poor Bloodcarver. Michele knows she doesn’t have the knowledge to protect him from Father. She barely knows how to heal someone her size, much less a dragon…

I don’t think the Father is going for the kill; he doesn’t strike me as the type. Too cruel and embittered for that. He’s going for the maim, strip Bloodcarver of the ability to fly and every other symbol that makes him a dragon, leave him helpless… but alive, as an example to anyone else who might dare his authority.

Geez. I wasn’t expecting Dispater to react well to Bloodcarver speaking his mind, but whatever expectation I did have, he’s thoroughly disappointed it.

I’d take even money on him being a former real hero who’s decayed over his centuries of isolation vs. him having always been a toxic tyrant who did the right thing just once. Either way, the sheer cruelty of that “my most loyal Bloodcarver” schtick tells me that he hasn’t been a wholesome individual in a very long time.

I see a lot of “Poor Bloodcarver, Michelle could have helped him in these comments, and tbh I’m a bit like “…wait, what?”

Bloodcarver has forcefully kidnapped Michelle twice now. He may have coaxed an agreement out of her to come with after the fact this time, but it was only to put a stop to this nonsense. His reasoning aside, he’s still not a good dude. Or at the least he’s maybe a good dude behaving in a shi**y way. I get why he’s a sympathetic character, it’s a bad situation the dragons are stuck in, but none of that is Michelle’s problem or her responsibility to fix, if she even can. Did it seriously never occur to him to approach her and explain the situation, rather than leading twice with “Hey, you. SPHINX. *yoink* WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT”?

I can see Michelle helping because it would be the right thing to do in a sense, but at this stage giving them the middle finger and flying back home wouldn’t be out of line either. To her at this point it’s just escaping from a bad situation. You don’t get to kidnap someone and then dictate to them about moral responsibility.

I’m thinking that there may be something in dragon society as a whole that any discussion or negotiation begins with a threat or show of strength. It’s how Bloodcarver acts with Michelle, and also in Michelle’s memories of Jocasta. From the sphinx/our point of view, they may be willing to talk but the dragons escalate immediately and it shuts down negotiation. But maybe the dragons look at it as, “Everyone up front with their claws! Okay, formality is out of the way, let’s get to- wait, what are you doing? We haven’t even – well FINE! Be that way! I tried to give you a chance, now it’s ON!”

My view there is that he’s an honorable individual doing his best in a situation that’s several kinds of bad.

The first time around, Dispater told Bloodcarver that a surviving enemy sphinx had been located, and that he should go take her prisoner. Sure boss, off I go. The trip showed him how much more real than Limbo the mortal plane is, and he realized (then or later) how wise the Father was to capture a potential medallion-crafter. But after capturing Michelle, he realized that she wasn’t anyone’s enemy and that taking her prisoner was unethical, and then he released her even though he knew he would be punished.

The second time around, he was told that he WOULD bring the sphinx back, no excuses. He tried to satisfy both objectives by negotiating, but Michelle just ran away, so he decided to force her to parley. Admittedly, through the hostile act of forcibly dragging her to an isolated spot, but fairly excusable given that he was trying to parley. The whole conversation, on the island and in Limbo, he was visibly forcing himself to be reasonable despite his utter self-righteousness.

And as far as he could tell, it was working. Michelle was taking his arguments seriously, and seeing the dragons’ desperate need. She still thought of them as an adversary, but the possibility was there, so surely the Father will be able to arrive at an understanding with her.

It’s only when they actually arrived at the throne that he finally realized that Dispater wasn’t thinking like him at all, refused to see the sphinx as anything but an enemy, didn’t even see a need for medallions, and just wanted to spread the suffering. Bloodcarver’s response was to try and act as a shield for Michelle while he desperately tried to convince Dispater to seek the peaceful resolution Bloodcarver thought he wanted all along. And in response, Dispater savagely attacked him for the crime of speaking his mind, even after completing the mission he had set.

Yeah, Bloodcarver has obvious flaws, but he’s definitely making a good faith effort to be the better person, which makes him someone to root for. Unfortunately, power or no power, Michelle is not in the right headspace to see any of this. All she sees is that the scary dragons still won’t leave her alone, and now they’ve turned violent.

Yes. This. THANK YOU.

Not to mention trying to help bliodcarver means putting her life on the line for someone who has done absolutely nothing to deserve that from her. Michelle didnt ask for any of this. A few weeks ago she thought she was a normal human college student. Ok, so she has powers, but so what? Even the last sword in the world is useless in the hands if someone who doesn’t know how to wield it. Michelle is doing exactly what she should be doing–running from a deadly situation that she has no control over.

This is a pretty pure invocation of the “Hero Test.”

Hey Michelle. Here’s somebody whom you owe nothing. Somebody you might even have a good reason to be angry at. In a situation where, if you don’t intervene, absolutely nothing changes about your life.

And he needs your help, at grave risk to your personal safety and in an action that will radically unseat all the stability you have in the world, leading to an uncertain future for everybody you ever knew.

He needs your help, so badly he can’t even beg you for it.

So. What do you do? Are you the hero? Or are you someone else?

For all those people that are wondering why i am in the Poor Bloodcarver camp. I have a small affinity for feeling for someone stuck in a situation where they have to follow orders or be dealt great harm. A bit part of me feels that he is trying to do what he can to make things better for his kind. even if it means working with their previous enemy. Michelle while having no need to actually intervene would be welcome if she did do so in my eyes.

Does not help that I also deeply fall into the affinity to Dragons in general. Especially the idea of a dragon that could turn out to actually be the good guy in the end. Come on blood. You can make it out of this. with both you and Michelle safely out of here.

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