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Obverse & Reverse Ch5 Page 13

Obverse & Reverse Ch5 Page 13 published on 46 Comments on Obverse & Reverse Ch5 Page 13

C’mon Michelle! This sounds more than fair to me!

 

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46 Comments

Selfish?! She literally offered them to create medlaions that can finally give them to chance to live fuckong normal life on earth, but she is selfish for not wanting to be a hell buttery?!

She’s offered for them to go into a new kind of exile where they have to hide their true selves for fear of mass persecution and threat of slaughter.

Given how badly the war went, I imagine a looooot of people in Avalons would be very, very, very hesitant to welcome dragons back in. There likely would be some violence against them.

Humans are a bit less prone to hunting down things like this and outright killing them- but honestly if a human got their hands on a dragon, it’s very likely that dragon would be taken in and studied. They would risk losing their freedom and undergoing who knows what form of tests.

The dragons were struggling against humans when our main weapon was the sword. How will they stand against nukes and machine guns?

Earth is not a safe place for dragons to live.

Theoretically, Hell is a place that dragons can safely live as themselves. And if it genuinely were powered so that they could live full and fulfilling lives- honestly that’s a better option.

Sacrifice one person to save an entire race from persecution. There are endless philosophical debates about the ethics in that question.

Of course- in this case it’s complicated as she appears to be the last sphinx. So they’re proposing the extinction of all sphinxes. Heavy stuff.

Except, because all of the currently living dragons view each other as siblings, they will not reproduce. There will be no more dragons to continue the species. What Dis Pater is doing is definitely under the guise of preserving his species, but it’s clear his intentions are just to be the one worshiped and in control. With Medallions, his children would be able to leave his control and realize they are being controlled, but they would also be able to form real bonds outside of their own species and with the help of Medallions they could reproduce with the chance that their children will either be dragons or carry the dragon gene.

Their survival as a species completely depends on getting out of Hell, and I am fully convinced that Pater knows this. He is insane, yes, but if it turns out that Pater wasn’t originally the one to rescue the eggs but he took credit for it? I will not be surprised. He doesn’t care about his children. He manipulates them, even physically and emotionally abused Bloodcarver. There is absolutely no love in his heart for his children as people, only as pawns that he can play in whatever direction he pleases to make himself feel good.

And this so-called “father” now not only wants full control of his children, but he wants his power back. He calls himself The Father for a reason, that much is clear to me. He thinks himself a god.

Not reproduce? See each other as only siblings? Bloodcarver has flat out said he has a wife. You don’t marry your sister. Bloodcarver is also very old according to him and some of those dragons don’t look nearly as old as him. I don’t see why growing up together would matter to every single dragon when it comes to romance and reproduction when they aren’t actually related. Especially since it’s established that at least one of them has married.

https://www.skindeepcomic.com/archive/issue-five-page-31/

Yeah, this is ABSOLUTELY how emotional blackmail and abuse works.

Ooof tell me about it.

And the fact that this dragon is the only one with any knowledge of the time before hell, and appears to have the sole contact with these demons…

I don’t trust him to be telling the truth. Not one little bit.

Not this way. A solution that requires a sacrifice of this magnitude is not right for any species to take, not even the sphinxes or dragons. Its wrong, and there are other options to do so.

Playing devil’s advocate here, but in a way, it’s what most of humanity did. For Jesus to give his life so that humanity can be saved in heaven…not direct parallels, but there are similarities.

except the one making the decision was jesus, and it was noted as an extraordinary sacrifice
while here the one wanting to sacrifice michelle is someone that hate her, after refusing a solution as good that would not involve sacrifice

Just had a conversation with a character like that about certain companies, their wokeness and the ultimate usefulness of the said wokeness…

“So where do you think these people get their ideas?”
“For example, social media?”
“Social media?! Like Twitter or Facebook or such?”
“Yes.”
“So you think if some one person writes about things on their tweet, then that’s where they get their ideas?”
“No…”
“But you just said so!”
“No, I actually didn’t…”

That sounds like a failure in communication than one person being right or wrong. Assuming you spoke first, it didn’t seem like you actually cared about what they had to say and just applied your own ideas to their argument.
They gave you 5 words of dialogue and you applied 20 words to their stance. So you actually said more about their stance than they did.

Again, assuming you spoke first, correct me if I’m wrong about that.

especially as two of those word were “for example”
what came next seem like someone trying an oversimplification to better attack a position (ie a strawman) and the other unable to place a word

and without knowing who “these people” refers to, there is little this small piece of argument actually show about the position

this said “with a character like that” make me think Velgar is actually the second speaker, with the first aggressively rephrasing in term that arrange them without checking for validity
(rephrasing is a useful tool in communication, but it must not be a one way imposition), similarly to what Dispater is doing on this page

I was indeed the second one.

They went against surprisingly minor details and turned out they were under the impression I had specifically watched “wokeness is terrible”-streams and speakers to get my opinions when in fact I just thought goblins really didn’t need to have backstories for us to accept them as “simply evil” in our games or that drow didn’t need a change from black simply because of people’s inability to distinguish fact from fiction.

Or in Disney’s case that I couldn’t have from personal viewings of their material and after hearing comments from reviewers, news and whatnot put together a picture that they might be just a smidge “woke”, but was rather guided to think thusly by sources that “get angry over other people being angry”.

With no regard to the fact that just as stupid it is to get actually angry over someone else getting angry over nothing, so is too the getting angry over nothing because of things that you should get angry over, but you somehow draw an association from it to next to not relevant thing that shares only some characteristic with your source of anger and because of that want to change things…

And I swear I wrote that several times over trying to not make it a bush fire to signal people over for heated debate. But kinda wanted to highlight too how when debate starts to get out of hand like with Dispater and Michelle, there is rarely just the one person yelling. Sure, people follow the loudest among us, but even greatest demagogue needs something to work with. And if Michelle can hold a level head and just point out the flaws in Dispater’s logic calmly, I think she’ll have pretty good chance winning these dragons over.

And no, I’m not cool headed. I’m terribly opinionated as well and I think a whole load of things happening today is total bull from both sides. I’m just one good rant away from Dispater as well. XD
But in example given, I’d like to think I was more Michelle. 0:)

Um, unless sphinxes have an unusually long life-span, this will only benefit the dragons for say, 70, *maybe* 80 years? Dragons live _much_ longer if you don’t outright kill them. So unless they find a way for Michelle to have sphinx children, it’s a short-term fix. Plus, enslaving Michelle & her future babies as reparations goes over the line. (And can the dragons trust the demons? Yes, they’ve been allowing dragons to live on the outskirts of their realm, but what else are they trying to gain?)

Michelle currently carries the power of the entire Sphinx Race. That power has lasted for thousands of years. It seems that without someone to actively use it, it’s continued existing waiting to be re accessed.

She’s not a human, she’s a sphinx. It is conceivable that they can use Michelle to directly harness the power of the entire sphinx race in perpetuity.

So…Ok, giving the Demons the Phoenix Egg would be rife with all kinds of problems, I get that. But, I’m curious to know whether it’s worthwhile to even consider that option. Like would it’s magic reserves just be a drop in the bucket of Dis or would it actually be enough to help (or for that matter would it be an objectively better battery than Michelle, as it won’t run out for hundreds of years and won’t be screaming the entire time?)

….Huh. Was this the demon’s plan from the beginning?

“…Hey, this shade looks like it was an untransformed sphinx. Weird.”
“…Huh. What’s that he’s mumbling? Something about a kid?”
“….Ooh. Oooooh! I got an idea!”
“What?”
“Ok, so…We give the shade a medallion, then we “lose” it up on Earth, we let it find it’s kid and turn her, she gets all the Sphinx magic, then we grab her, bring her down here, and steal her magic to run Dis forever!”
“Hmmm…. what if things go wrong?”
“Eh, those Dragons hate Sphinxes. We’ll get one of them to grab her.”
“Perfect!”

I feel like that’s the kind of plan the Brothers Grimm would cook up, given how full of holes and complications it’s turned out to be.

A classic example of an “Either/Or” or “Black and White” fallacy. Dis Pater is presenting there as being only 2 options- eternal servitude for the Sphinx, or eternal servitude for the Dragons. When in reality, there are MANY more options available.

Sadly, Michelle apparently never participated in Debate Club, and so is unable to point out the fallacy.

“Or, I could just tear your head off, then make Medallions for all these nice dragons here.”

If there’s a way for Michelle to kill him without deliberately having blood on her hands, I think I would like to see that. Hopefully in a way where she doesn’t get bad PTSD.

In a world that I suspect will never come to pass.

Mich: Okay, Dis Pater. Let’s Negotiate. Your opening is my life for every dragon here. My counteroffer is My Life and YOUR head, severed from your neck.
Pater: SELFISHNESS.
Mich: Really? You’re not willing to give your life for these hatchlings you’ve cared for so very long? You are asking for my everything, and thus I ask YOU to pay your everything in kind. Are you not willing to sacrifice just a little more for your precious children? They have bloodcarver and your other elder children to care for them. How much could one tired old dragon turn those tides?

The point is simple: This isn’t about sphinxes and dragons, this is about an offer the demons dangled in front of the dragon patriarch. This is about someone who already got the short end of the deal before doubling down on their past failure without understanding WHY they are still in a bad situation.

All the demons had to do was choose some long-lived stubborn dragonic schmuck and ensure they be the one holding the negotiating powers the next time they came to the table. This dragon isn’t alive because he was smart, he’s alive because he’s an easily exploitable target.

More dangerous than a manipulative asshole, a manipulative asshole that’s also a victim. Why more dangerous? Because one may commit the mistake of letting them off the hook.

Not saying that you did, by the way, I think your comment was illuminating. However, it does happen, both around real people and fictional characters.

How DARE you not sacrifice yourself for all the subjectively evil stuff… SOMEONE ELSE DID A THOUSAND YEARS AGO? The most painful thing here isn’t that this may work to an extent (Mish won’t concede but she may still be left feeling guilty, and the dragons will likely take the bait that she’s a bad person for not conceding), but that it’s rather transparent due to the supernatural elements. In real life, things like this can be subtle enough that we don’t notice them till it’s too late.

Let’s not forget that the dragons started burning things down “so no one else could have it, either.” Not saying either side was great, but they kicked off the violence, and passed down the lessons of genocide against others for generations.

I feel like this really highlights the fact that I’m pretty sure while the demons know she’s the last sphinx, I think they’ve lied to the dragons and just told them “Hey, get us a sphinx, any sphinx really, and we won’t drain you, we both know they’re still on the Mortal Plane” while still giving the illusion that sphinxes are a thriving species and not one that’s near-functionally extinct.

Whether or not this leads to the dragons getting booted out of Dis due to earlier dealings (like “we will let the dragons stay in Dis so long as there are sphinxes on the Mortal Plane, and now that you’ve brought all of them here you have to GTFO”) or the demons are really okay with also keeping the dragons in Dis on top of having the last sphinx due to other plans (like, “now we can possess the sphinx and start eradicating humans en masse”) it definitely seems like it’s going to be a tough call for Michelle no matter what decisions she makes.

After all the suffering the dragons did i would say they are the once to understand how it feels to be locked up in one place.
I know a way out. They say it’s One Living Sphinx. But when if that requirement met? Does it have to be the intire person… or is it just her energy. What if Michelle, just like the mother of Anothy, give up on her being a Sphinx, but somehow transform the ‘sprinx-being’ in some kind of form, let say a battery, they can use.

Okay but real talk serious question, when do we get to order just those bobbins because they are ADORABLE

I don’t know if this has come up before (most of the comments in this arc have seemed either to paint the father as either a monster/evil or a demonic dupe), but given the nature of Dis is its changelessness, it occurs to me as a possibility that while the father is clearly not stable, that instability might be rooted in having crossed the threshold into Limbo full of rage and pain, and the death of his whole species. He’s clearly nursed that ever since, but I’m wondering if it’s not potentially driven by his not being able, by the fiat nature of the place, to change, to set aside those feelings, maybe even not able to get accustomed to the way he’s feeling. His demands are clearly unreasonable, as are his actions, but I’m wondering if they’re rooted in not being able to put the war away, not able to accept the thought of change; things here return to their original state, after all, and it took Bloodcarver being out in a world where change is possible to even consider not folowing the father’s command. And I wouldn’t at all put it past any demon worth the name, knowing the nature of their home, to be happy to keep a powerful creature suffering and growing steadily less rational against the day it was a useful tool. They don’t much seem given to empathy, after all. But that’s just my thought on the matter, and I’m just newly caught up; I imagine people’s value may differ.

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