Comments on: “Torch” — Part V, Page 39

By: PaulC

PaulC — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:57:04 +0000

Hi Speed,
Do you have any Finder T-Shirts for sale, preferably showing people dancing?
I dance alot and like to have lots of cool t-shirts to change into.
TIA

By: Speed

Speed — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:58:34 +0000

True dat. But I’ll swap ten of ‘em for one screech-owl. Those little boogers can blast the most seasoned camper out of their bedroll.

By: Drooling Fan Girl

Drooling Fan Girl — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:08:47 +0000

trufax about whippoorwills, the males call at night, I would assume to assert territory. I learned this while camping and trying to sleep with one in a tree above us. It got old really fast.

By: Liza

Liza — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:29:27 +0000

Nightjar and Jack have a lot of mutual young Ascian friends, to any of whom she’d feel comfortable calling Jack “bitch,” so it could be any of them (or indeed Jaeger.) We may well find out next page.

(I’m pretty sure it’s Jack she’s calling “bitch”, given their history, rather than Rachel.)

That lettering is an astonishingly accurate rendering of a whippoorwill’s call.

And I look forward hugely to being able to acquire a paper copy of “Voice” (be it book or download) so that it can sit beside all its siblings on my shelf.

By: Oneiros

Oneiros — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:59:06 +0000

And, yes, who the heck IS Nightjar talking to that is high above her (talking from an alcove above? Or some secret passageway? Or is the voice some divine entity in her own life?)? It doesn’t sound like Jaeger to me.

By: Oneiros

Oneiros — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:55:22 +0000

And maybe in the women’s kitchen, come to think of it, speaking of Jaeger’s conversation with “mama-da”, when he suggests to the auntie that Rachel needs a mom, Rachel will find one (she’ll probably have her cup overflowing there).

By: Oneiros

Oneiros — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:53:37 +0000

There are ways of asserting yourself that don’t involve stomping and snarling.

Of course, there are, Owlmirror. I think Speed was speaking of that means of assertion as a minimal primitive effort. If Rachel had at LEAST done that, she’d have gotten some respect from the aunts.

And yes, Jaeger has got a whole spectrum of expression and asserting himself. He can get quite physical, as with fights and throwing Jack upside down. And he can express himself with a great level of etiquette and delicate tact, as with the Nyima and with Coward. And the example you gave was an excellent one. Jaeger’s got many many years of being a Finder AND a Sin-eater to learn from and develop such a level of expression.

But Rachel’s path as a Finder has just begun. It did begin many years ago just with her relationship with Jaeger and her putting the tattoo on with a marker. But getting into the clan took a new level for her, I guess like a birth, where what Finder influences were in her life before were like her gestation period. Her becoming a Finder was her learning to “jump” where before she did not, that time when someone took physical advantage of her, and she did not resist. She is still learning, and has much to learn, as we can see.

By: Owlmirror

Owlmirror — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:11:08 +0000

In panel 3 — is she singing “whip poor will”, or making a whip-poor-will call (which sounds kind of tricky — it has rapid trills I’m not sure human lips can pull off), or is she doing a “wolf whistle”?

I note that the whip-poor-will is a species of nightjar. I don’t think that’s a coïncidence.

Scrolling further down the Wikipedia page for the bird, I note:

One New England legend says the Whip-poor-will can sense a soul departing, and can capture it as it flees. [...]. This is likely related to an earlier Native American and general American folk belief that the singing of the birds is a death omen.

Hm!

And of course, she’s doing this while holding up that lacy, sexy bra. Sex and death — another subtle Lilith reference?

By: Owlmirror

Owlmirror — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:38:26 +0000

There are ways of asserting yourself that don’t involve stomping and snarling.

Kind of like Jaeger did at the beginning of part 3.

By: Speed

Speed — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:12:40 +0000

Yes, she should have asserted herself. It still might have gone horribly wrong in six or seven different ways, but if she’d stomped and snarled a little, the old ladies would at least have thought of her as an adult.