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Obverse & Reverse Ch 5 Page 16

Obverse & Reverse Ch 5 Page 16 published on 26 Comments on Obverse & Reverse Ch 5 Page 16

So how about that first week of the year, huh? Wowee zowee.

I still have a very small amount of 2021 Dinosaur Risograph calendars available, if you’re looking for a FUN 2021 calendar!

26 Comments

Looks like that you also cant fly in dis. There goes the aerial escape option.

at least that mean michelle dont have to check above and below for possibles attacks
(dragon fly too. and if they could fly in dis, they would have more experience than her at aerial prowess)

I also note a certain lack of breath weapons in evidence …….

Perhaps the air is thinner? not enough air for flight or sustained flame, but enough to breath? forgive me if my logic is completely wrong

It’s more magical than science, but I don’t think you’re wrong. If you bring pure physics into it, I don’t think Bloodcarver, Michelle, Jim, or anyone else we’ve seen could fly. It’s that the magic is thinner and only certain things work well enough without it… like breathing.

That was my thought, that large fliers like sphinxes and dragons rely on magical lift, and that Limbo’s magic drain sucks the wind out of their sails. If so, it makes the dragons’ plight seem even sadder, since this whole time they’ve been walking around with “heavy awkward decorations” instead of a means of flight, like an entire society of people in wheelchairs. And if *that’s* the case, then Dispater has either completely forgotten or is even crazier than he seems.

They can breath but there’s no atmosphere, because howling winds are a source of ‘change’. I don’t think it necessarily is because of some magic drain, but because everything in Dis is magically static.

Just like how all buildings erected eventually decay and ‘return’ to dust, flowing air that can provide lift to wings is a dynamic force so it doesn’t occur in DIs. A shifting atmosphere and moving air implies soil erosion or shifting weather which Bloodcarver pointed out to Michelle doesn’t really happen.

I don’t buy that. It’s perfectly possible to make changes to Limbo*, like those breath-concrete buildings the dragons make, they just decay back to ground state inordinately fast and require constant toil if you want to maintain them. Likewise, flight in dead air is possible, it’s just harder in the long run due to lack of thermals and the various other helpful forces that fliers have access to in an active troposphere.

Either way, if flight isn’t possible in Limbo, then the dragons are definitely living on the wrong side of the hellmouth.

*This scene is set in Limbo, not Dis. Dis is specifically the demon realm, which is also in Limbo but located elsewhere in it.

Mechanically speaking Albatrosses and other large birds can’t do much more then glide in the air without the assistance of ocean up currents. Jim is larger and heavier then Michelle but as far as we can tell gryphons don’t have magic to assist them with staying aloft so they are probably relying on wing strength to climb but updrafts and air currents are what actually keep them in the air.

…But I’ll digress since Bloodcarver will probably explain it assuming he doesn’t get mauled.

Does this mean that Michelle uses magic to fly? No magic in Dis means no flying.

Also, if Michelle manages to spark off some magic in Dis, does that mean that it is forever “eaten” by the realm and her ancestral wellspring is diminished?

I don’t think it’s a magic thing, there’s no air movement of any kind. I recall Bloodcarver and Michelle having an exchange on the way here that went “Do you feel the air here?” “…no?” I was afraid this would affect her ability to fly and escape. :/

This arc has been super hard for me to read – as a previous victim of gaslighting nd abuse, with friends who were victims of much worse than I, Dis Pater makes me so mad I can’t even see straight. Michelle’s inability to fly is gonna make this tough but I hope she survives so she can overthrow that monster.

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