Chapter 234 - "Spite" Discussion Thread

The weekly discussion thread for the latest chapter, Spite.

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So the curse is indeed real, I was on that camp but it’s nice to have a confirmation.

I wish we had Lacer’s POV too, to know what he is thinking about the discoveries (including the one where Siobhan admitted being there for the duel, not affected by his spell which could be interpreted has her being stronger than him and close enough to hear him talk to Sebastien).

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Thank you for getting this to us this week, despite Thanksgiving! It was a wonderful treat to see it in my inbox tonight!

I really enjoy how Liza’s doorknob is developing as a character. It really does match her personality.

Setting that aside - YES! Finally she’s going to get someone to test her magic on! I can’t wait to see what happens.

Also, lol at her conversations with Thaddeus and Kiernan basically misconstruing things and wink wink nudge nudging them on.

So many questions and so few answers - and answers that raise even further questions!

I’ll probably reread this several times tomorrow to eke out all the nuance I can find. I feel like there’s so much - especially that “illusion” in the book.

Edit: oh my god, I just realised what was nagging at me - The Work! It’s been mentioned a few times, self charging artefacts are a component, and now we know that identifying the Will and the Soul are also major components and “ If I can find the answer, it may solve several of my other problems and be a huge step toward completing The Work”.

Immortality? If the will and the soul are connected and flesh can be endlessly duplicated and renewed then all you need is an artefact to house the will and soul if your flesh fails and transfer you to a new body.

Clearly tomorrow’s project will be scouring all the chapters for any mention of the Work to see what references I can find.

I’m also intrigued to see if the Work is in anyway connected to the Way that Thaddeus has been teaching Sebastien about. Hmmm.

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The Way is, I think, just from general rationality philosophy: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7ZqGiPHTpiDMwqMN2/twelve-virtues-of-rationality

Myrddin’s Work is much more interesting though. The most hinting quote to me is:

I find before me the endeavor of a lifetime, a goal truly worthy of all my efforts, and I can only lament that I wasted so much time on foolishness and self-indulgence. I will make penance for the consequences of my actions by fixing the wrongs I have caused, if it is the last thing I do. Please wait, and though I do not deserve it, please forgive me, as I can never forgive myself.

Myrrdin seems to think something really bad that affects everyone is his fault, and the Work is (at least in part) atonement for that.

My vague theory is that it has something to do with Thaddeus’ research into pre-Cataclysm break events / the accelerating rate of aberrants. Maybe doing big magic stuff like Myrrdin did weakens reality?

Also, this quote is super interesting:

What is the Will? Oh, yes, I have heard many explanations since I came here,

Since he came here? Came where? Wherever he came from didn’t have Will?

Plus Myrrdin knew about quantum superposition a thousand years ago. Maybe he really was a time traveler!

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Oh, yes, I have heard many explanations since I came here, each more vague and platitudinous than the last.

As you say; Myrddin isn’t from this world. S and TL don’t even comment on it. They don’t notice it at all. How did Myrddin get here then?

I found the shift in tone from his exhausted and humble preface to “that jackass Tarquin” to be so jarring that I felt the preface had to have been written after journals. Like the journals were a clue to what he did and he’s expecting a specific person to read them.

Also, he spoke about his native tongue and how it would feel awkward after all these years, so I wonder if “here” is what Siobhan refers to as the known lands and Myrddin came from somewhere further afield…perhaps the same continent as the blood emperor? Or maybe he really was raised by the Fae and is unfamiliar with the human perspective on sorcery? The way Siobhan also has crucial gaps in her education that mean she’s more unfettered than her peers - no one ever taught her she couldn’t, so she just did.

In a way glyphs are a crutch, anchoring your ideas to the larger fabric of collective consciousness. Perhaps in another place they had a different way or a different consciousness to anchor to?

It’s so exciting! :joy:

I can’t believe Myrrdin is an isekai protagonist

Siobhan thinking process also distinctly works differently than a humans leading me to believe that she never was actually human.
Wheat we know:

  • She does not build muscle memory
  • When she gets too focused she just completely collapses because she has to directly focus on moving muscles to do anything
  • she can think about multiple things at once (both splitting her will as well as listening and taking in general conversation while focusing her thoughts on something else. We saw that early in the school chapters)
  • she does not get will strain from casting more than 6h/day (hell she has been casting at least one spell minimum for like a month at this point)
  • her will seems to be entirely out of scope even for an arch mage
  • she escaped from a blight type aberant event that resulted in the village having to be eliminated when all things point to her being at the centre of that event somehow

my current theory is that she is either a somehow special kind of aberant bound by some experiments (and that other side is literally just her or something) or she is some other entity bound into the flesh of a human (also by those experiments that where apparently performed on her in her childhood)