Skip to content

49 Comments

Well, that explains why Michelle is so spaced on the last page of Illuminations Chapter 1. She’s probably processing a major information overload. I hope she just needs to sleep it off or something.

Information AND magic power, mage_cat. Don’t overlook what Ravi says in the 4th frame.
Michelle isn’t just being given information to move her to the next level, she’s being overcharged with magic power to MAKE her ready for the next level. We saw that with how much magic energy was steaming off her in the last frame of the last page of chapter 1.

O the irony of Ravi of all beings saying what he’s saying in the last panel. That’s bone snapping levels of cringe right there.

I know right, I almost want James to be looking into the camera like he’s on The Office. XD

(I wanted it, so I made it so. Dunno how to post images in this format – whether it’s html, bbcode, or just not allowed, so here’s the link.)

http://i65.tinypic.com/sg1ycm.png

I think that maybe Ravi was running on the assumption that she HAD all the information available to her already. He mentions mental blocks, perhaps keeping her from accessing some innate power or some magical collective sphinx memory, the idea that the knowledge was always available to her in some way.

So basically Michelle was unable to fully process all of the information she got out of her visions until now? Someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Being able to glean usable information from a Vision depends on the practiced skill of the observer.
How many centuries had Jocasta been doing it, when we saw her in the Vision flashback? She’d had practice, and plenty of it.
Michelle at the start of chapter 1 of Illumination, none at all. A raw brand new rookie.

Wait a minute…

Shared knowledge?

The sphinxes have a shared knowledge?? (Or “power source” as Ravi calls it.)

…that is brokenly, and awesomely, overpowered.

Nawwwww. It’s the equivalent having the internet at your fingertips.

There’s obviously some pretty serious limits still.

“It’s the equivalent having the internet at your fingertips.”

Skin Deep is actually a prequel to Freakazoid.

Didn’t see that one coming.

Her brain’s overloading
It has a chocolate candy coating
Textbook case for Sigmund Freud
Freakazoid! Freakazoid!

something something freakazoid

She turned into the Freakazoid
She’s strong and super-quick
She drives the villains schizoid
‘Cause she’s a lunatic

From what I can tell, it’s shared power but not shared knowledge.
If they had some sort of hive mind sharing knowledge, Jocasta and Wosret would not have to wonder what is happening on the mainland. And, the leaders wouldn’t have to travel to “this desolate island” for her to give them a piece of her mind.
But, I imagine they can feel their power level notching upward as the other sphinxes are killed. And, the worse the situation gets, the more they would feel it proportionally.

I think Michelle might start to get a glimpse of why the Gryphons have said that she’s practically royalty. It’s like finding out that you’re a direct descendant of Siddhārtha Gautama, and then being able to see and understand all that your ancestors could see. She has had small glimpses of her abilities, such as when she banished the two demons in the dragon’s cave. Compare that to the gyrations that Gabe had to go through to close the Hell Mouth, and it’s pretty clear how her potential power compares to Gabe’s. It’s no wonder Jocasta was so arrogant.

Near as I can figure, the Grim Brothers forcibly kept the Hellmouth open till they got through.

Pages 38 to 40 of Welcome to Dogpatch. Gabe kills the Hellmouth, but it does not close and die immediately. The Grim Brothers crawl out of the dying Hellmouth while the fight against the lesser demons is finishing. The Grim Brothers are immediately spotted by Myra, and Mikhail is captured by Myra. Gabe couldn’t figure why the Hellmouth didn’t close dead, straight after he killed it.

As the Hellmouth was dying in page 42, Damien pushed Gabe into the Hellmouth’s opened maw.

Pages 44 and 45, Gabe escapes the dead Hellmouth, and then dispels Azreal and Damien back to Dis. Mikhail had already escaped Myra’s grip in the confusion.

Look for Michelle to open her very own medallion shop in the near future!

Yepp, she may get the knowledge about the crafting of medaillons.

Makes me wonder if some species don’t have medaillons because
the sphinxes _decided_ not to create some for them and if Michelle
could change this.

We already KNOW that the Sphinx Leaders refused to create Medallions for a number of species, Nemean Lions being one such species.
Pages 28 through 31 of this chapter.

Michelle being able to create new Medallions for species the Sphinx Leaders refused, is a possibility. She has no restrictions applying to her from the Sphinx Leaders on what she does. As far as she, Ravi, and we, know she is the last Sphinx.

Wait, seriously?

There’s something Ravi never saw before?

Of COURSE Ravi would not have seen this before.
Back in the time of the flashback shown in the Vision, there were a number of Sphinxes around. It wasn’t just Jocasta and Wosret. So any new born Sphinxes would be bought up to speed by their parents and the pride.
Michelle is centuries PAST that, and has had no-one. So now, by chance, she has found a link straight to the main power of the Sphinxes. She had instinctive unconscious access to the power, (the brief flashes of it working in Orientations) but no conscious access to it.
And all that power comes with a major load of information.

I’m assuming that there would have also probably been a lot of training and prep work before sphinxes get exposed to a pheonix egg. Otherwise it would sort of be like teaching a toddler how to use power tools and handing them an instruction pamphlet on how to build a seesaw. the mental blocks are probably there to keep her from doing something stupid and hurting herself

I agree totally about the training and prep stuff for young Sphinxes. But I don’t see a Phoenix Egg as being the only access point to the Sphinxes power.
The way I read it, THIS particular Phoenix Egg is simply the one which Jocasta and Wosret used for their Medallion production, so naturally it does have links to the main power of the Sphinxes.
I don’t see it as being the only access point to that power though, and back in Jocasta’s and Wosret’s era it definitely would not have been the only access point to that power. Back then, the Sphinx Leaders would have had their own access point, as would each of the other smiths they set up, like Jocasta and Wosret.

While THIS egg might not be the only access point, it is the only one they might know about at this time. It could even be the only remaining access point.
Remember, the Dragons had been stealing or destroying anything to do with medallion creation before the Sphinx-Dragon war, and during the war they may have expanded that destruction to anything to do with Sphinx magic. This egg, however, was specifically protected.
Ravi makes a lot of assumptions about those around him, so he may have assumed that he was not the only one to think of protecting something. He probably assumed that Jocasta left her descendants something.

So right now, she is undergoing a similar process that a 5-year-old undergoes if turning off the safety preferences in search engines results in being chained to a chair and forced to watch every single fetish over the course of three days.
Ravi, have you ever wondered why people bother to TEACH history in increments?

There’s a big difference.
Learning history doesn’t also charge you like a lithium-ion-polymer battery.
What is happening to Michelle is teaching her all the skills, and forcibly charging her full of magic, like a li-po battery being over-volted on fastcharge, all at the same time.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Content Footer