Chapter 272 Weekly Discussion - "Mirror, Mirror"

This chapter is one that many of you have been waiting on and wondering about for a long time.

Discussion welcome. :slight_smile:

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A thought occurs - what is Claudio made of?

Because he has no organs, and yet his eye leaks and he gets blisters. It points at weirdness in his physiology (and perhaps that of Aberrants in general, but they are all so different so perhaps not?).

I love that Siobhan is still so defiant, so uncowed, even in the face of so much adversity, even while she faces the remnants of her mother (who is lucid - those messages were not the result of an unthinking mind) and contemplates with horror her suffering and the awfulness of her fate.

There’s something so awful and heartbreaking about a mother who is so twisted and broken but still trying to communicate with her daughter, still trying to protect her, in a way.

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So much to digest (ehhehe) in this chapter

Titan name drops, genuinely corrupting magic. I imagine the idea of blood magic corrupting the will may as well have come from magic in the past that genuinely does warp people by, I guess spiritual proximity? Siobhan’s walking through the spirit realm coming by virtue of Claudio is interesting. As its ability does seem to be binding the spiritual to the physical I wonder if that’s related to how it is forcibly bound to Siobhan in the present.

Another thought is that Siobhan’s town seems suspiciously like a mini black wastes. A location that is growing and corrupts the wills/minds of those in or near it. Is the black wastes the corpse of another titan bleeding into the mundane realm?

more info on the nature of aberrants is always nice, in particular that the sorcery is not an option for them. This is evidence against the theory that Siobhan is an aberrant.

also Claudio’s predecessor comparing themselves to Myrddin is very interesting. I wonder how old Claudio is. I don’t really trust it’s perception of time.

gah! I’m going to have to do a full reread now. How dare you Azalea!

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Siobhan observed that her mind-prisoner was fragmented. And at the very end of Cauldron of Bitterness the prisoner was conflicted/confused about its desires. Siobhan also wondered while traversing the dream realm if it could even exist without being hosted seeing as it didn’t have a shadow. I’m curious if the prisoner isn’t just Claudio but is also stitched together from other aberrants/beings like Miakoda as sometimes the being looks quite a bit like Siobhan.

Very interested in why gramps shoved it into a prison in her head instead of destroying it seeing as the prison is probably more work than pure destruction but probably just means that Cluadio (+friends?) was already in her head and sealing it was the only way to preserve her.

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Wow. What a cliff! So many things going on here. I did not expect that. Way too lucid, but it may explain how lucid aberrants are created. By being anchored or bound to something more in the moment of breaking so that they can become more than the purpose of the spell. Moonsable was charming people and maybe broke while being connected to her suitor.

Interesting that there seems to be more to magic than people realize. The void. And Siobhan already connected to it once, when severing Thaddeus’ spell. Magic never really made sense. Like when sacrificing heat to facilitate an effect. That is basically a perpetuum mobile of the second kind. So the work is done by the will but where does it get its power from? Aberrants are apparently using that medium directly to power their effect instead of just using it to source another power source. But I think Myrridin was on the right track, he could measure the will. Also using the will to influence people is already an anomalous effect so to say. How interesting. I smell a power up if she can connect the dots (refer to cap. Monster Egg :grinning_face:).

And where is gramps? Probably trapped on some plane. I guess Claudio shoved him through the mirror and then changed the place it points to.

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I would suspect that its own ability to make conceptual spaces got somewhat turned against it. And so even as it has continued to develop new concepts, Siobahn is its sole anchor/conduit and sonit has patterened off of her even as it has kept other elements of itself. Which is…useful potentially

Oh… maybe Claudio has some cultists working for him in Gilbratha.