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Obverse & Reverse Ch6 Page 13

Obverse & Reverse Ch6 Page 13 published on 48 Comments on Obverse & Reverse Ch6 Page 13

Hey Jimmy they can HEAR YOU.

How are y’all doing? Are you staying cool? I’m not. I live in the Heat Dome now. My dog has melted.

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48 Comments

I mean, Lorne DOES raise a good point – They weren’t supposed to even go off the path in the woods, yet they did. Why NOT befriend a bandersnatch?

The reason some races don’t have medallions is because Sphinx Council decided they were too aggressive/dangerous to have them and refused to make any. Presumably because they figured they would end up attacking or hunting humans and out everyone else in the process.

So there was already stigma against the “monsters”, or they at the least were disliked by the Sphinxes, who then solidified this by cutting them out and making them into a clearly dived category.

I… thought that was just an issue with the dragons.

Maybe this got mentioned somewhere else, but I always thought some beings, like Eleanor here, -couldn’t- get medallions because of what they are, not because someone said they shouldn’t get one.

All medallions are keyed to a specific species, and only that species can use them. The sphinxes who created the medallions were racist and kind of arbitrarily declared certain species to be ‘monsters’ undeserving of medallions. This included the dragons, who were in the process of being hunted to extinction by humans, and as a consequence went to war with the sphinxes to try and claim the secret of medallion crafting. Both sides wiped each other out, so the secret of making medallions was lost, so the races that have them and the races that don’t are fixed. And bandersnatches don’t.

Let’s not forget that Nemion Lions, like Lorne, were classified as ‘monsters’ because the sphinx council decided they were to dangerous to be given medallions, and the only reason Nemion Lions even have medallions (and so aren’t ‘monsters’) because one (technically two) sphinxes broke the rules. So there is a great deal of irony in Jim making this argument,. To Lorne. Of all people.

But, Wonderland was founded in 1522(Dug back to the November 2013 Reader Questions to find that one again) – I got the feeling that the Great War may have happened before that, and thus Wosret and Jocasta hid before Wonderland, and given Bandersnatches are unique to Wonderland, how would anybody have been able to even get a Bandersnatch medallion? (I wish I could add emojis to this, it’s a good place for the ‘thinking’ one – I genuinely don’t know if the war happened before 1522 or not, but I’m taking an educated guess since there’s also no mention of The New World)

Feathered serpents apparently have medallions. Feathered serpents are Mesoamerican creatures. Therefore, the last medallions have to have been produced after European contact with Mesoamerica, which happened in the early 1520s.

Umh, there also is the possibility that some sphinges tried to get away from the dragon-sphinx war, made it to South America before the 1520s (magic, that’s how!), and somehow decided not to call back to Europe to announce their new address …

Then it doesn’t make much sense that they’d have remained in hiding. The Great War ended with the belligerents reduced to (as far as we know) a single pair of sphinxes and a single clutch of Dragons (who are in another plane). No one remained who would have tried to strike out against the sphinxes. There is no reason not to resurface, if the Great War ended by the 1520s.

Also, it would be clear from the fact that there were medallions among the Mesoamerican mythicals after the Spanish conquest that the sphinxes had been there previously, and it seems implausible that this wouldn’t have been followed up on.

Worldwide trade could have been just another aspect of the masquerade. The last sphinx surfaced in America after all, Maybe that’s where some of Michelle’s ancestors went to hide. We know her father is a descendent of Jocasta, but what about her mother? It’s possible that she has sphinx ancestry too, just not enough to turn until her latent sphinx traits were re-concentrated in Michelle. Genes are more likely to be expressed when inherited through the female line.

For that matter, the archaeological record demonstrates that there was world spanning trade as early as the bronze age. The so-called “age of discover” was really “the age of literacy”. People were crossing oceans long before they started writing about it.

If this was due to pre-Columbian worldwide trade, we should see a whole lot of Asian creatures with medallions, because pre-Columbian trade routes from the Old World to the New World generally went through Siberia and Alaska (as far as I know, anyway). Per World of God, very few non-Western creatures have medallions.

This is most consistent with medallion crafting generally being confined to Europe and the Near East, with some minimal crafting efforts being made for species from other regions.

Heck, invite her to go home and live with you! :p

I think the issue was more complicated than that. Each species needs their own medallion, but also each person needs one too. The sphinxes would not only need to invent new ones for each species, but then mass produce them, too! They’re also involved in strong magics to create, meaning it takes even more time! What if the sphinxes weren’t even close to finishing their work before the dragons culled them? Overtime, it was probably reasoned that the sphinxes judged all the non medallion species as monsters, forgetting why there’s a scarcity in the first place.

Makes me wonder, when this whole “folks without medallions are monsters” thing started.
I mean, calling someone a monster is very human – just because non-medallion users were prone to be different only because they cannot change, well – let’s say I find it a tad overbording to shun another mystical being because of this minor thing and even calling it a literal abomination.

Oh well, racism etc. in a nutshell.
Not that it makes much sense in “the real world” either.

The reason some races don’t have medallions is because the Sphinx Council decided they were too aggressive/dangerous to have them and refused to make any. Presumably because they figured they would end up attacking or hunting humans and out everyone else in the process.

So there was already a stigma against the “monsters”, or they at the least were disliked by the Sphinxes, who then solidified this by cutting them out and making them into a clearly dived category.

Wouldn’t you also get races without medallions if there just happened to be none of that race that were able to get a Sphinx to make one? They all didn’t live near Sphinxes, or they were just back of the queue and the Sphinx got eaten by a dragon first or something?

Most likely there would be many cases like that but the main association would be with the ones who were denied. Fair or not they would be lumped together and that is how it would be perceived. After all, we separate groups into broad categories so we know how we are suppose to treat them and don’t have to waste time on worrying about silly things like context, circumstances and individual merit!

I would also suspect that Bandersnatch falls into the former category since the poem they are from (out of universe) is hunting and eating people but that is beside the point.

Note: I’m not saying this is any way justified, it’s just where no medallion = dangerous comes from.

Ok, but, like, kelpies and nixies are said to spend their lives luring humans into the water so that they can drown/eat them and those species both get medallions. It really does seem pretty arbitrary.

Kelpies don’t have medallions, but are natural shapeshifters anyway, so don’t need them. Ironically, this means they can avoid the stigma, despite meeting similar criteria as nemean lions and bandersnatches as being ‘monsterous’ by the standards set by the ancient sphynxes.

Again, it’s almost like this is an arbitrary stigma leading to fantastical racism. :P

Just wait until they find out that the only reason Nemean Lions aren’t “Monsters” is because one lone Sphinx went rogue and basically made every N.L. medallion herself. …which probably won’t happen until Michelle returns from Limbo. Young!Jim sure isn’t going to remember this conversation by then. The other three maybe, but certainly not Jim.

There’s also the problem that comes into play where in a group might’ve been eligible for medallions but were too rare/remote/unlucky to get into the queue in time while the medallions were in production. For region specific critters this is liable to be even worse since most of the medallion makers were both on the ‘old world’ mainland and perpetually on the run and having their mints trashed.

I can’t imagine, for instance, that the snotty satyr from the flashback got his medallion given that the shop was burnt to the ground shortly after the huge batch of nemien lion medals came through. But he still would get the benefit of the doubt from OTHER satyrs having medallions.

Depending on how long ago wonderland became a ‘thing’ and how rare banders are compared to other divergent WL species, they might’ve been eligible but just got unlucky. After all there were only two Sphinx within range of the wonderland.

Heck. Given that amulets have to be passed down by bloodline, it’s possible some banders DID get amulets but never got the chance to pass them along.

As a side question: Do amulets for related species work if passed along bloodlines? i.e Do griffs and jubs have distinct amulets or are they ‘close’ enough in species to be able to use one type?

Likewise, what happens to amulets in crossbred families? It’s been noted in blanche’s family you inherent one mythic or another but not both. Presumably said crossbreed isn’t a carrier for both species (i.e. No surprise hippoelyctron in a family of centaur and pegasus just because your great gran on one side was one). By laws of probability some lines are going to get unbalanced in their inheritance ratio and end up with a parent unable to pass down their medallion because their kids are the other parent’s species.

Has it been outright said that blanche couldn’t have a granddaughter that is a Peryton?

Only if ‘Bambi’ doesn’t marry a Peryton. He explained that the child gets its species from one parent only but that can be one or the other. So if Blanche parents decide to have another child it could be either a white stag (or doe) or a Peryton.
And if Blanche marries a Peryton their children could be e either as well. Crossbreeds are very rare and not very well accepted if what Ike said is true.
And if you are missing a medallion for your child… you go to madam U shop and buy one.

Getting the right kind of medallion for a kid is a given. The problem I’m wondering about is what you do with a medallion that has no one of an appropriate species left to inherit it in a given family.

There are liable to be a lot of sphinx medallions out in the wild for instance.

From purposes of another example, Take a family consisting of a Bugbear and a Jubjub. This pair end up with two kids who turn out bugbears in their life time who can inherent amulets along their bugbear family tree. What happens to the Jubjub medallion if they have no suitable relatives to ‘pass it down’ to because their kind are not only rare but this particular jub might have been the last branch in their particular family.

Does the medallion in this case remain bloodline locked and forever unusable? Does it ‘unlock’ and accept ANY jub to come into contact with it?

By extension I am wondering if some medallions ‘exist’ for monsters like Bandersnatchs and Harpies but have been lost or locked-out over time due to relatively small populations with certain lines dying out.

Whoof, that’s rough when kids repeat things that they probably got from their families / society that they live in that they don’t understand (or at least don’t completely understand).

At least we know in the future Jim and Eleanor are friends and that things work out (and also definitely why Eleanor probably left wonderland as soon as she was able to). It’s early enough that the attitude didn’t seem to stick. One can only hope that later in the future that if Michelle wanted to pursue it, that she could start making more Medallions for traditionally considered “Monsters” who through one way or another didn’t get Medallions made for them (be it systematic issues and prejudice like with Dragons or issues about remoteness like it seems to be with Bandersnatches).

This does beg the question on what the attitude is for creatures who didn’t get Medallions but didn’t need them because they could shapeshift like Bugganes and Kitsunes. Would they be considered monsters as well? I suppose it depends on who you ask but Lorne raises a good question at least in regards to those who haven’t gotten Medallions yet. It also certainly doesn’t seem like a whole lot of wonderland inhabitants (even those not considered monsters) are wearing Medallions (although I don’t remember which ones, if any, had Medallions made for them).

Debates on why Bandersnatches don’t have medallions aside – Rupert is going to be the tie breaker. And he is, as the brain-addled gents back in town said, “A good boy!” I think he’ll do the right thing and keep playing with Eleanor… That being said, he probably will lose his good boy status in town with that move – which may be part of why he comes off as a moody teenager later – but he will be the BEST BOY in our eyes.

Lesse… Bander… snatch… ah here. Fuming and furious maybe because people stay away and don’t play with them. Red eyes, breathes fire, long sharp claws, long sinuous body… oh and fluffy! I suggest lots of hugs and cuddles, but ask first.

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