#dio v is more like. i’m you but an even worse version.

[frienderbender]

thinking about dio v and charles interacting, of all people

like i genuinely think dio sees a bit of his past, younger self in charles. he sees someone truly passionate about law but who has, in his own ways—through money, fame, time—become more disconnected to it. maybe not entirely so in charles’s case, but that same spark he had fresh out of law school isn’t burning as bright anymore.

but it’s interesting, dio remarks, because are they not both lawyers-turned-conmen? dio’s done his homework, he knows charles lies to the band for their own sake, but that’s just part of the job, isn’t it charlie? they’ve both done less-than-admirable things in their times since being regular old lawyers, but that’s how they got ahead. that’s how they got to this point. charles can ignore or deny it all he wants, and dio says he knows charles could kick his ass—but he won’t, because it’s so much easier to tell someone else to do it, to keep your own hands clean.

idk! i was inspired by a lot of different things when i created dio v but parallels to charles was always a big one, even if they were meant to be subtle. i think you could argue if the money and fame went to charles’s head he’d be like melmord, but i think melm is more…..conniving? than that? i feel like if melm’s plan had succeeded he wouldn’t keep up the “cool hip boss” persona forever, but the band would still listen to him regardless bc they don’t know any better. i get the sense melmord was more obviously faking any sort of attachment to the band, but in dio v’s case, he DEFINITELY plays up the “for the benefit of others” angle. he does what he does out of the goodness of his heart, and definitely not the thousands of dollars per session.

all that said let me be abundantly clear that charles DOES genuinely care about the band, even if he does some underhanded things for their sake. dio v does not care about his clients for the psychic readings, but he DID care about his clients when he was doing pro bono defense work a lifetime ago.

[popculturespiritwow]

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #32: ARTISTIC SACRIFICES

Sigh.

JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY

Once again we return to Laura lying on her bed smoking, when Sakhmet shows up to say something matter of fact. You know, like she murdered Amaterasu. Just another day in the life.

What follows between them is an unexpectedly intimate scene, as they lie in bed and Sakhmet asks Laura about the things she shared with her previously. It’s an incredibly dangerous moment for Laura, the kind of moment any of us would try to fill with as many plausible lies as we can. But Laura is instead completely straight about having betrayed her.

In retrospect, fom a strategic point of view that is actually probably the only survivable choice, as it’s the one move that does not put Sakhmet in the position of the fool.

NEVER PUT BABY IN THE CORNER OR SAKHMET IN THE POSITION OF THE FOOL.

But if Laura has any strategy, I find myself wondering if it isn’t once again, What’s the thing I can do that can put me out of my misery once and for all? Kill me now, please.

There’s also, What’s the choice that respects our relationship? There’s something strangely loving in Laura’s honesty, and an unexpected care in Sakhmet as well. Rather than her typical predator/prey stuff (see: what follows), here she actually seems to breaking her own script, asking real questions, lying in bed with her lover, you know, loving.  Could it be that Laura is the one person that Sakhmet actually loved?

Laura’s explanation for her choices is interesting, too.

Given what we’ll learn next issue, how she’s blamed herself for her family’s death, is this how Laura has understood herself this last arc, as someone who has had to lock herself away because she hurts people?

DIO-LOGUING

After Dionysus awakens to find Woden has ripped off his whole thing, we actually get an internal monologue from him. First inspiring, then devastating internal monologue.

I’m pretty sure Dio is only the third person we’ve ever gotten to hear from in this way, after Laura and, actually, Woden. (I’m surprised we haven’t heard from Cassandra, too. To me she’s second only to Laura as our POV character.)

It would be interesting to think about why we’ve been granted such special access to these characters and not the others.

Actually, let’s step back and think about that... In a sense Tara’s unsent letter to her fans in issue 13 was a way of accomplishing the same thing, and the upcoming Christmas issue will actually see her deliver internal monologue.

We can’t get internal monologue from Baal and Mini because their secrets are too important.The Morrigan is too lost at this point. Sakhmet’s lack of an internal monologue is a fundamental part of her character; it’s her silences that tell us everything. Similarly, Inanna’s gift really is transparency. What he says is who he is, what he believes. An internal monologue would be redundant.

Ammy can’t have an internal monologue because she’s way too invested in being a god to allow herself to check in with her authentic, so broken self. And that makes for an interesting comparison with Cassandra, who clearly has an internal life, but her superego is so freaking strong it drowns everything else out. If we ever going to hear from her, I wonder if it wasn’t going to be during Dio’s test rave. But I hold out hope.

Baphomet couldn’t have an internal monologue before now without probably ruining the reveal of what happened to him, what he’s been through. (Though we did have moments early on where he was talking to a disembodied head version of himself. Always with the severed heads...) But he’s grown so much over the course of the series, both personally in our eyes, I think I sort of hope at some point we’ll hear from him.

And Luci...? Well, she’s only around one arc before she gets got. In some ways the Christmas issue is her internal monologue, with her comments to both the fanboy reporters and the newly-ascended Ammy telling us what’s going on inside her. But here again, I’m hoping post-33 that we might actually get something more.

ANNNNDD....SCENE

Dio’s journey through the first half of the issue follows the visual structure of his hivemind rave, each image paired with a number counting the beat. But now that idea has been (brilliantly) (devastatingly) folded into the Pantheon idea of the 4 beat countdown to death. 

And even before Dio falls into his coma, the final image on each of the 4 pages laid out like this--even the number of pages part of the countdown-- foreshadow his doom. He loses touch with his powers at the end of three of the four, and in the fourth (the second page) he admits it’s getting hard to breathe.

Once more, sigh.

I love that Dio’s ending is, as repeatedly warned, all tied up in his desire to help. His self-belief is a form of pride, I guess, but I don’t think of him in those terms. He’s the guy who thinks being a god is about leaving it “all out on the field”, giving everything for others. And that’s not so much arrogant as it is beautiful and foolish. One of the most awful (devastating) (I really hate what happens to Dio, you guys) realizations of this issue is the fact that his sacrifice is not only a failure but that it’s completely unnecessary. The Norns wake up and shut this whole thing down immediately after he drops. I mean literally the same page, three panels later.

(God I love the Norns’ spider-web eye thing.)

In a way Dio ends up very much like The Morrigan; rather than embracing the truth of himself he’s made himself a character in a story, The Savior, and even though that seems like a much better choice than Selfish Shakespeare Goth Lady, in the end it’s just as ruinous.

THE MADDENING CROWD

I don’t know which is worse, Dio dying for nothing or the fact that the crowd that he invited to this amazing experience in the end are just as happy with Woden’s Shithead Hack of their Lives as Dio’s Life-Affirming Rave.

Actually never mind, this is worse, as it means not only did Dio not need to save everyone but they are ultimately not interested in being saved by what he’s been doing. They just want an experience. Humanity, why are you/we?

MOMENTS OF (UN)TRUTH

Cutting back to the Pantheon v. Sakhmet Underground Fight, we get first the truth about Laura: As much as she fashions herself Destroyer, in the end she just won’t pull/snap the trigger.

Then from out of nowhere we get Mini’s moment of truth, which marries Sakhmet’s particular form of Nihilism to Baal’s.

Buried in the background of Laura’s journey there has been an ongoing somewhat parallel story about Mini. She’s the sweet kid that’s so good-intentioned when she almost kills Brunhilde she can’t leave her bedside.

Then in the face of Ananke and her parents and the Great Destroyer she’s pushed to consider another way, in fact not just another way but the very way that her parents were killed in front of her. And finally, she has given in to it.

She Has Done What She Had to Do. She Has Chosen Predator. She has Become Ananke.

(Or has she? When did that happen? Still so confused about that.)

CASSANDRA VS. THE DESTROYER: ROUND ONE

The Norns see through Woden’s “derivative shit”. Of course, they don’t ask derivative of what? Still, it’s a deeply satisfying moment. 

And so is the wisdom this whole experience seems to bring Cassandra.

Even as she’s spent so much of the series trying to understand everything, her fatal flaw is some combination of the fact that she actually thinks that’s possible and most of the time she thinks she’s already done it. In a sense Imperial Phase has been a slow descent into humility for Cassandra, with Dio’s test rave, Cass visiting David’s house, the Norns just now being so easily betrayed, everything to do with the machine and then next issue finally learning the truths about Woden and Laura each a step along the way to real insight – and humanity. That scene of her comforting Laura next issue is such a beauty.

Here of course, even after being fooled so very badly she’s still not quite there yet, and she has for Laura nothing but condemnation.

Which of course has got to be very much the voice of some of the audience too at this point. I mean Jesus Christ, Laura, you chased this so hard despite everything saying this is not what you think it is and then it cost you so much and still all you can do is wander around sad?

But I love how Laura turns that back on Cassandra, and how it also draws in Dio. In Save everyone versus save no one, try to learn everything versus not even bother to try has not only not panned out for the “good guys”, it’s been proved to be destructive and foolish. It’s all the same in the end, all just b.s.

Given the arc’s through-line of characters trapped playing out roles and narratives, there should be something liberating to Laura’s take, too. Except even as she’s saying all this, she’s also mostly interpreting herself in terms of a role. She says that role is Destroyer, but actually given how much she think she knows, the doom she sees coming for all of them, really she’s the one that ought to be called Cassandra.