PaRARGdox 83
More death and destruction: Back to Olga, Brelvis, Olaf, Sun and Jasmeen… we pick up from page 7.71, without barely a second passed.
Olga references the “healing” of the deceased Svetty in The Olaf Mystery. Myth has it one needs to pay the ferryman to reach the afterlife… so maybe one needs to pay to come back to life too. Gee, wonder what that might be? As Vile Terror and I have a vested co-interest in Olaf, I sent them a preview of this page. They have some interesting insights and thoughts on developments which I’ve invited them to share in the comments below.
Ornak is the short, blue, shapeshifter… last seen with the others on page 7.11. I’ve realised that, with Olga, Olaf and Ornuk, there are a lot of cadets in this year whose name starts with ‘O’. Makes like difficult for Brelvis, no doubt!
Patrons: Over on Patreon page 86 is now up…. 😎
Next update: Sunday December 7: Go!Anna, calling Magellan USA…?
Eww *oohh… flashback to p33*
Hey! Have you thought about writing horror?
The more people die, the more I REALLY hope all this is reversed via time shenanigans, but the more meaningless this entire sequence of events is if nobody remembers it. I mean, it’s great for us readers, but for the characters, it doesn’t really provide development. I still really don’t like so many people being ‘revived’ at a mysterious cost to their souls… and I hope that cost is null and void if their deaths are undone by time. It’s going to be REALLY depressing if this isn’t reversed…
As for whenever the stated paradox is going to happen, Grace, do you have a number of pages you can give us? I’m thinking of maybe waiting until then before reading all the pages in between, just because there’s so much happening in so little story time over so many weeks real time. It’s perfect for comic book pacing. Which is why I’d prefer to read it in one shot.
Perhaps it will be like in the Justice League (possibly Justice League Unlimited, my memories are fuzzy) episode, where Batman and Green Lantern remember everything that happens after the entire two-part’s events are undone by time travel while everyone doesn’t remember, including Wonder Woman who had accompanied them for most of their travels but faded out of existence because the timeline got too muddled and she ended up never leaving the island or even being born.
I’m thinking some, probably those that survive all the way to the very “end point” where the black hole happens, will have “ripple-proof memory” while those that die during the course of the events won’t remember a thing…….which could make for an interesting divide in the future between students, Magellan heroes, and everyone else who shares space together as some of them can no longer really relate to what the rest have gone through. If she gets revived, Freya is gonna have her work cut out for her!
Took me a bit to parse Olaf’s way of speaking, but he seems to be saying that the soul of the deceased gets to decide whether or not they want to be revived, and they are made fully aware of Olaf’s price before they decide to pay it.
That makes me wonder why Yasmeen is revived, since she clearly wasn’t comfortable with the idea before…
Indeed, more mystery!
Well, perhaps being dead gave her new perspective.
Or having the price made clear to her resolved her fears.
Or Olaf is lying. Or Olaf is wrong. Probably one of the first two. Maybe.
It might be a more automatic sort of agreement with the soul. A bit like how your body has a compact with gravity and will drop, even if your mind isn’t very happy about it.
They do say that the prospect of imminent execution does wonders for the concentration. It’s no great stretch from that to say that the knowledge of existing demise can be very persuasive.
Thanks for the shout-out, Grace!
As ever, just want to take a moment to express my appreciation to Grace for creating such a rich and engaging setting as Magellan, and especially deep appreciation of her letting me collaborate with her in it.
Back on page 71 of this chapter I commented that I was surprised to see Olaf doing some of the things Olaf was doing, and vowed to bring some co-author commentary to the proceedings.
Commentary WITH the disclaimer caveat of: All of the ideas I express here are merely speculation, based on my reading of the conversations which Grace and I had during the planning phase of writing the Olaf Mystery short story. As such, these may not be accurate to what Grace has in store for Olaf and us, dear readers.
There were three factors which surprised me:
– Olaf apparently slicing one of the Rarg in half. I had no thoughts to Olaf having any offensive capacity.
– Olaf getting Yasmeen to consent to revivification. However, given this latest page, the deeply fundamental aspect of requiring consent has been preserved, so I’m glad to see that! It was one of the aspects which I was very eager to see play out. It still leaves me wondering HOW Olaf convinced Yasmeen to agree, of course. Appealed to her noble desire to fight for saving the earth? Her fear of dying? Something else entirely?
– The people Olaf reanimated up and walking around on their own, without being in physical contact with Olaf. This was what I had meant to be THE big limitation of Olaf; direct physical contact was required to maintain an entity’s reanimate nature. In the case of Svetlana, the idea was that Olaf was keeping her preserved until they were able to get her to the infirmary and have a TRUE healer restore her to actual life. Whether this incongruence was due to me failing to adequately describe my idea to Grace, Grace changing the nature of Olaf’s power, or Olaf using some other form of actual necromancy in the context of this current story . . . I do not know.
There are still some more secrets as to Olaf’s nature that have yet to be revealed, but many of the clues have been laid bare here and in The Olaf Mystery.
Notably, and just repeating what some readers have already stated:
– Olaf gave Olga a psychic impression that Olaf’s mind was a “chorus,” democratic, and fragmented.
– Yasmeen noted (indirectly) that there is overlap between what psychics call “astral projections” and what mystics call “souls.”
– Olaf asks oddly morbid questions about when people might be expected to die.
– Olaf’s head bears striking similarities to some kind of relic known as a Soul Sphere.
And established in this very page:
– Olaf has stated that a price must be paid, but “the soul” has the option to reject the offer of revivification.
With these tidbits in mind, I think some of you out here might be piecing together what exactly is taking place with Olaf.
Where Grace intends to TAKE things, however, are still up in the air. I offered her some ideas back in 2015, and mayhaps I shall share those ideas with all of you the next time Olaf appears (again, with Grace’s permission).
Yes, plenty of opportunity with this character.
Regarding “people Olaf reanimated up and walking around on their own, without being in physical contact with Olaf…” I hadn’t interpreted Svetty’s reanimation as simply that, but also a full healing. In the Magellanverse, even the best of healers would have had a next to impossible time getting Svetty – with her snapped neck and head trauma – back to anything approaching functional or normal. So she needed a lot more to ensure she remained as a cadet who didn’t require months or years of rehab, which Olaf gave her. I really like the idea of Olaf being a 100% healer…but only where the person has died first; it adds a very unsettling aspect to the whole transaction.
My guess, then, is that a portion of the target’s soul is cleaved off and joins the Olaf hive-mind/chorus/democracy. This is consistent with people gaining a strong emotional attachment to Olaf (his presence literally completes them, after a fashion), as well as Olga’s classmates getting a wee bit murdery (lacking a portion of one’s soul probably makes for reduced inhibitions, I would think. I do wonder if Olaf’s healing requires the target to be dead, or just that he holds a portion of their soul – is he able to heal those who he previously revived without them needing to die again? For that matter, is restoration of life a one-time deal, or can he keep doing it to the same person, cleaving off more and more of their soul as he goes?
As for convincing Jasmeen, I’d say once her soul communicated with the soul fragments within Olaf and learned how the power worked, she realized there wasn’t anything nefarious going on, so was willing to go along with it to both stay alive and be able to help her classmates. She probably doesn’t remember any of that, however.
Speculation alert!
The soul and the mind are often seen as two different things. In this case, the soul would need to agree to give up a bit of the persons mind (which will be placed in the Olaf hivemind), in order to heal the persons body. Perhaps the piece of mind given is specifically the one that deals in ethics and morals, so that such matters can be decided in the hivemind instead of by the individuals – thus Sun and Yasmeen gets all murdery when the hivemind decides this is the correct approach.
Makes sense. Might be entirely wrong, might be entirely right.
Nothing nefarious? Probably no nefarious intent, but sometimes democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what’s for dinner, e.g. Moral decisions is a tricky subject.
VT said “– Olaf apparently slicing one of the Rarg in half. I had no thoughts to Olaf having any offensive capacity.”
I guess ALL of us were surprised by that😲😕 I am reminded of Sun’s statement to Jasmeen back on p12 about Olaf ‘handing her ass to her’. In retrospect, that seems like a tell of the cadets knowing Olaf had some attacking power.
And with the slicey Olaf could do it literally.
Is it possible that Olaf did not possess this power before? Perhaps, as more fragments of people’s souls join his continuum, he gains power. Perhaps related to the absorbed soul, or perhaps they simply strengthen his existing powers, allowing him to do more with them?
Before this story, you mean? It’s possible, but note the reaction of Brelvis and Olga on p71 was to the sudden violence displayed by Olaf rather than the power he uses. And on this page they are not talking about “Since when could he do THAT??” but “Why are Sun and Jasmeen acting funny??”. That suggests that they might have already known he had this ability. Strengthening his powers – that’s an interesting idea, but we’d have to have something to compare it to.
Just revisited p. 71. Perhaps Yasmeen & Sun’s getting all murdery is fueled by a determination that no one else will have to pay the soul price.
Don’t their actions on this page belie that idea? If they are actively looking for dead victims of the Rarg attack for Olaf to resurrect, then you’d have to assume that they are okay with the possibility of those victims paying Olaf’s ‘price’.
Well, those who are already dead can only be brought back by paying the soul price, so it’s necessary. But the rargs could have killed living students, that don’t need to pay the soul price to be saved. Exterminating as many rargs as possible as fast as possible means less people will have to be ressurected.
Grace and VileTerror, how does Olaf get that uniform over his giant head?
It zips up the side 😉
Oh… that’s clever! I thought it was the same way Charlie Brown did it🙃
Lord Psiot VIII puts it on Olaf.
A.K.A.: A wizard did it.
For all of Olaf’s unsettling creepiness, it’s not a malicious creepiness. He’s mostly open to discussing his powers with people who have questions, and it seems he DOES ascertain the subject’s will before resurrecting them. indeed, his biggest problem is a lack of understanding on HIS part – he doesn’t understand why people are bothered by his power, or to quite grasp the ‘uncanny valley’ his power opens up, how his subjects don’t behave quite right after he ‘fixes’ them.