Page 1108…
So first off…
If you’d like to see Tracy’s designs for the wraiths from the nightmare realm….vote.
And don’t forget to visit Catena….
Also…
I’d love to hear what you all think of this…
This part of the story is essential. But I had to break a rule here…
The sword is telling the story. And the sword is OBVIOUSLY not in Dreamland here and now.
Knowing this…I feel compelled to tell you all. But I’m also hoping that there’s something I overlooked.
Please let me know.
🙂
Scott
Just because the sword isn’t there, doesn’t mean it didn’t get the story second hand somehow, such as having someone/thing spy on Nick 😛 Just my .02$
Nick, Nick… what are you plotting?
Could the sword have overheard someone speak? =) I see a lot of eye-witnesses there. This is getting really interesting!
Haha, great minds think alike!
… either that or you are just as dumb as me XD
*GASP!!!! He IS in league with the Nightmare Realm!
Wow…you are keeping me on the edge of my seat with all the possibilities as to how the sword got into dreamland in the first place. It reminds me of the announcer voice on the old batman show “How will they escape this trap? Tune in next time. Same bat time, same bat channel!”. Good job. And the artwork is cool to. I especially love the shading around the wraiths. It’s just enough to give you a creepy feeling.
– Stop pestering me, or I’ll call the Nigthtmare Realm!
– I’m in league with the Nightmare Realm.
– You ARE the Nightmare Realm!
You know, it sounds like he’s actually trying to prevent an uprising… almost enough to convince that he really did have Dreamland’s best interests at heart… at first…
Yeah, I’m thinking the sword has to know SOME back-history to fill in details it didn’t witness. Perhaps have Arthur lamenting about this clandestine meeting in the sword’s presence or mayhap the sword learned of the details of this meeting from old Nic himself, after the sword was placed in the stone, and old Nic was going over the steps that led to the sword being placed there, wondering how his plan to rule all of Dreamland went so awry that he can’t have the sword, and can only hide it from being found… Until a giant falls in the sea and makes a small earthquake and reveals the hidden entrance to a young Dan… Just some ideas, Scott… Hope they help. BTW, ABSOLUTELY LOVE my purchased print! ^^
Nice twist. Dreamland is rife with fantastic racism and Nicco may not be a cardboard villain.
hmmm, so far so good. still a very reasonable and calm discussion here. wonder how long it’ll take to change… until arthur brings the others or will it be even before that.
to be quite honest, I already had kinda forgotten that the sword was telling the story, so I didn’t think anything about it until I read the reminder. not a long attention span I have here. XD
maybe this is something the sword just tells in a different order? could be that when arthur came back into dreamland, he’s been told about this meeting by someone and as such, the sword would know.
but IF it was that way, then this would be the moment when even the sword can not be sure anymore if it’s still telling facts or if they’ve been lied to – meaning that what we see now would not necessarily have to be what really happened. so if nic does have secret evil plans that he’s been hiding up till now, he could now start setting them in motion and nobody but nic and the creatures of the nightmare realm would ever know, unless there was a somebody present who would tell our present-day heroes afterwards. such a long-hidden secret would give nic a serious advantage in his dealings with alex and co.
if this scene was was told by the sword from arthur’s point of view after nic strikes against him (and that’s most likely what’ll happen), then I guess this meeting would not be this calm. arthur feeling betrayed would give this part of the story much more malicious touch, because arthur would be assuming that they plotted sinister things behind his back instead of discussing the matter relatively civilly like they seem to be doing now.
other than that, I agree to the “the sword must have heard of the events somewhere” theory. 🙂
I don’t see it as racism so much. Humans already enter Dreamland with several unique and powerful abilities, and whatever magical pact the sword’s part of right now means that humans – outsiders – walk in and have the right to rule the country.
Like letting a stranger move in to your house and suddenly take charge of the place.
I’m surprised that such a system ever started; somewhere in the past of Dreamland, a powerful human must have done something amazing to gain such status. Something epic, like saving the entire realm itself, and then taking charge in helping rebuild it.
—-
On the topic of breaking away from what the sword knows – I think it’s a perfectly valid idea. Having a character that knows too much but doesn’t act on it in some way doesn’t make sense, and telling a story purely from a single character’s viewpoint makes it extremely difficult to get some points across. It also stifles the other characters a bit, since you mostly just see them interacting with the main character, and rarely in any other setting.
This scene is important; it fleshes out your main antagonist in a way that he hasn’t had a chance to be yet. Even though the sword doesn’t technically know about it, it’s not quite as important for the characters in the story to know Nicodemus as it is for your readers to. 🙂
Don’t be worried about changing characters when you feel it’s necessary. It’s actually better storytelling, in my opinion.
Actually, I believe he still has Dreamland’s best interests at heart. Sometimes, often even, a usurper feels “I alone have (Dreamland/Middle Earth/MutantKind/etc)’s best interests in mind. Anyone who disagrees with me is my enemy.” Alex and Co. just further prove to Nic that his position is the right one, regardless of whether the King of Dreamland is supposed to be human.
Just because it is important to US that this scene is shown, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is being told by the sword to Alex. When reading comics I usually take “Meanwhile…” to mean, well, ‘this is happening behind the scenes, but the protagonist(s) have no idea it is happening. Enjoy.’
you’ve got a good point about the human leader here. never thought about it before. why would dreamland want one?
maybe it’s as simple as having someone rule the place who understands the little dreamers that come over whenever they sleep.
the gratitude thing would work for the first king, but for it to become tradition, it would have had to be something he accomplished that was tightly related to his humanity. the question now: will the “problem” be addressed in the comic? I’d love to hear the official version. 🙂
It’d depend on how integrated that person became into the society.
Considering that Arthur is currently a king, it’s not impossible that the first one was also royalty; they could have explained the situation of their own home government to the citizens of Dreamland, and had the realm adopt the policy.
It’s looking like a lot of the novelty of the idea is starting to fade from the Dreamlanders’ eyes now. As it probably should be – a ruler who’s absent most of the time living a totally different life wouldn’t be the most able ruler, once Dreamland had a functioning government of sorts. If Dreamland had any wars of any kind, it would be nearly impossible for its human king to coordinate anything.
“Jeez, guys, sorry, I was awake. How long has it been?”
“Two days. We lost everything we were trying to make plans for last time.”
“Ah.”
The solution is simple.
What the sword learns while not being present is by someone telling it to the person wearing the sword.
So do add a scene where someone who is at the dreamland meeting tells Arthur or any other using the sword.
It can even be Nico telling it the sword by recalling how clever he was while putting it in the cave.
Ooooo…scary wraiths! I wonder if they are related to Nick somehow, and what will he do to “convince” Arthur, I just have to wait it out.
I have a solution. The sword is not just from Dreamworld, but a functional component of it. Even when it is physically in our world, its awareness is in both. And in those odd cases when it is separated from Dreamworld, the moment it returns, it knows everything that has happened as it becomes “whole” again. Every brick and grain of dirt is its eyes and ears in Dreamland.
Of course this might also mean that there is its opposite… a Nightmare Blade forged of fear and darkness. 😀
XD
another good point. and it not only applies to dreamland, but to the real world, too. if any king slept longer to solve dreamland problems, it wouldn’t be too good for his original kingdom either.
though the arrangement seems to have worked before.
maybe with the novelty of there being suddenly two (alex and dan), things might be different now. we will have to see.
hmmm… random, unrelated thought: what are the chances of ever having a queen in dreamland? 😉
HA HA HA! Nice PB reference! ^.^
Best solution I can think of:
Later on, when Nic locks the sword up, he has a moment of guilt and starts talking to the sword, trying to rationalize what he did. You don’t even need to show the whole scene, just the beginning of a one-sided conversation with nic trying to explain himself as he puts the sword away.
Not knowing all of what this part of the story unfolds, the people in the foreground could be party of why the tablets are cast to tell the history of dreamland in the first place…. Thus one of these trusted “extras” could be party to why the sword was returned to the hall of the kings(for lack of memory), thus lamenting part his history/ witnessing. So far as i can tell the sword does not need to be in party of the king to record history. Else why would the Centaur seek to obtain guidance/awaken it.
but enough of that rambling you will find the way.
I wonder if there are any dragons other than Nicodemus outside of the nightmare realm. I mean there are oriental and celtic dragons that didn’t tend to ravage the countryside…
Nicodemus: “Arthur is headstrong. We will need high-powered tools to break his head open.”
Agreed. All that’s necessary for the sword to reasonable recreate this scene for Alex is a sentence from Nick at a later time saying “I tried reasoning with the wraiths from the Nightmare Realm.” Also, strictly speaking, even that isn’t really necessary. The sword can be making a reasonable guess as to “what went down” during this meeting based on what happens later in the story.
Oh, I like the idea of a Nightmare Realm counterpart to the sword. Although I would think with Nic’s current ties to that realm it would already be in play by now if such a thing existed.
The sword IS magical. There’s no need to explain a magical artifact’s knowledge. If it is magical, it could know everything at every moment.
Anyway, who cares ? The story is so fascinating that me too lost the fact that the sword was telling it … ;P
Besides, it would be funny if tomorrow shows up an interlude page in which someone of the party ask the sword how could it possibly know of Nic’s assembly with Nightmare Realm and the sword that reply angrily “shut up dumbass, you need to hear the story to understand” 🙂
I think that we forget that the story of the sword begins by telling Alex that the sword is the keeper of Dreamland’s history.
This means the history of Dreamland’s human leaders.
And also the history of their mistakes.
So i think that now we watch the unraveling one of the greatest mistakes made by one of the (greatest?) human leaders of Dreamland.
This story is told by the sword in order to prevent Alex from making the same mistakes.
And to let him know what is going on.
Having a single ruler at the top of the government isn’t about that one person doing everything. They are more responsible for guiding the country towards what they think is best. I’m pretty sure that Arthur didn’t design Camelot, he just placed importance on the idea and a team of his advisors and other skilled craftsmen went to work on creating his dream.
The kingdom of Dreamland seems more like a UN type ruling body with each of the cities allowed to deal with it’s own small problems. If anything big ever came up I’m sure a Dreamland advisor/general would be put in place to handle the situation how Arthur would want it done while Arthur wasn’t available.
It has been stated that Cleopatra was queen of Dreamland at one time. There may have been others but they haven’t been mentioned.
So first off i’d like to say that the wraith’s are really cool looking, though if you plan on making creatures that are stronger that are in a panel that only talk, keep their faces covered in the shadows or something like that. Second with the issue on the sword not being there what you could do is that when the physical sword is not there, the spirit of the sword is still watching everthing in dreamland.
I’m glad I wasn’t crazy by wondering how the sword heard this story. But I do like the idea someone brought up about the sword being around Nic for so long, this is probably something he was talking to himself, or someone else about around the sword. So the sword is then able to incorporate this into it’s story.
Definitely!!! Don’t overthink this – you are telling the story, not the sword.
I do believe there was a Queen Ester, and there would have been others, had Arthur not been the last King
Are you really implying that the Legendary Sword Demon Howler really exists?
LOVE the wraiths, LOVE! Can’t believe I’m actually rooting for Nick now, eager to see him beat Arthur into the ground for all his stupidity.
Those were my thoughts as well. Even though it’s the sword telling a story, this portion does not have to be from his POV; it could easily be a “while Arthur planned to stop the madness, sinister things were going on in the Nightmare Realm”.
It’s actually a technique that’s employed in a lot of things. To be honest, I actually forgot the sword was telling the background of events; I was going with the ‘here’s the flashback of how it all went down.’ lol
I’m loving it, even if I don’t comment as much. You’ve got a fascinating and interesting history going on that’s just…wow. just wow.
yeah, i think at this point the sword would have to get the story second hand as well (this IS a tricky plot hole.)
maybe not necessarily an outright spy, but someone who turned back to Arthur (“Dude, you should know that Nic is…”)
LOL awesome XD
I think several people have hit the nail on the head: Nicodemus loves to MONOLOGUE. There is nearly ZERO chance that Nicodemus wouldn’t have ranted about this meeting at least once in the sword’s presence at some time in the last 600 years!
(Don’t forget to VOTE! Nice wraith designs, BTW … )
Guys guys, you are forgetting sword is Magical. And its created purpose was to recorded the history of Dreamland. It may very well have a direct tap in to _every_ thing that has _ever_ happened in Dreamland after it happens.
Wow, that gives me the Big Brother HeebiJeebies.
Maybe the sword is friends with one of the spider clasps, and THAT’S how it got its information.
As for a human king, I imagine that it was a human who united the diverse factions and was accepted as king since he didn’t have ties to any one side. If more human adults are allowed in, the king would no longer be impartial.
The sword probably works for Arthur just like it does for (whatever the main characters name was again), turning into a sword shaped necklace or some other seemingly useless trinket, therefore it would be there the whole time.
After the past few weeks, it seems to me Arthur is an idiot, and Nicodemus is actually doing his job properly. If I was a character in this story I’d HELP the practical-minded dragon overthrow the senile king!
Wow. Great ideas all of you.
THank you all so much!
A lot to think about.
Glad you’re enjoying this.
For those of you who were wondering….
Nicodemus DOES have Dreamland’s best intentions in mind.
He’s trying to keep peace.
If you want to maintain that the sword is telling this to Alexander & Co., then I believe that the sword could have “witnessed” the event by Nicodemus telling the story of the events in the presence of the sword, either when Nicodemus takes the sword from Arthur, or some time while the sword was in the cave.
However, as a story teller yourself, Scott, these pages can be “reader info” not character info.
Having story telling rules and sticking to them are important, but I don’t think that writers should become slaves to the rules. For example: I liked most of the Harry Potter series, but after the first books all followed a format of 1) summer vacation 2)1st semester 3) holiday breaks 4) Last semester and go home, Rowling kept to that even in the seventh book when Harry wasn’t even in school. The format didn’t work for me in the last story. Also, if you pay attention, MOST of the story is told of what only Harry sees, hears, knows, but there are some scenes that don’t follow that rule, either.
Just my two cents.
Casey
Maybe, after the current King is gone, the Sword somehow gains knowledge of the things that the King was unaware of in life, so as to help the next gen?
hmmm,
Nic actually does have Dreamland’s best interest in mind? that makes him a trickier bad guy. this whole time i thought he was doing what was best for himself, using the guise of helping Dreamland.
wow, that kicks up the depth of this story for me–so is Alex going to hear the story and think “maybe Nic was right?” does he get tempted to go to the dark side because of delicious cookies?
oh the possibilites come flooding!
Wow I’d love to know the whole truth behind all this 😀
You know, they had this issue in The Blues Brothers movie. In the original script (Akroyd’s, which was cut significantly), the script explained why their car could do the amazing flips and driving feats. For the curious, it involved being stored next to a generator, and a few other things. Landis cut all that stuff. In his commentary, he and Akroyd were talking about that. And what Landis says is, he decided that this is the movies (trans: “it’s magic”), and it happens “because we said so.” As long as the story moves forward properly, that works; indeed, the explanations tended to introduce unproductive segues into the movie, and interrupted that flow. So out the door they went. Leaving people to speculate on how it works.
Which is fine… as long as future materials don’t create conflicts that affect suspended disbelief. Which means the author EITHER (a) knows the answer; or (b) doesn’t ever do anything to contradict the answer that eventually emerges, either because it’s such a minor thing, or because it’s left as a mystery (just what IS that Omega 13 device?).
I’m not sure if anyone has brought up this train of thought yet, but perhaps because the sword was forged early on and MAYBE had the ancient earth, the very substance of dreamland forged into to it, its role as a chronicler (not sure abt that spelling) is that it is privy to all events in dreamland, but only after they occur…?
That and, I sincerely doubt that its coincidence that the wraiths happen to be reptiles…Are they and dear old nick related? Coz we totally dont see any other dragons throughout the story and these fellows are coming quite close…
oooh, nice. I really like this idea!
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MST3KMantra
Secret Society is Secret.
These delegates from the Nightmare Realm remind me a lot of Skeksis.
very sweet page scott, i love it!~
Hmm, I see your point, but wouldn’t that make it impossible for Nickodemus to keep any secrets from Arthur? =) The sword is with him at all times, and right now it is not even in dreamland. If Nick could not keep secrets from Arthur to begin with I don’t think he would have been able to keep his alliance secret for so long.
Rulers of Dreamland that I recall: Odysseus, Solomon, Cleopatra, Arthur–and was there another?
One problem with reading it here one page per day: in the printed version, you get the story much faster, so little things (like who is telling the story) don’t get lost so easily.
How about Elric’s Stormbringer? Now there’s a nasty sword!
Thanks for the clarification–but also I remember that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and people who have some good in mind, but are willing to use evil means to get there, like that nice, broad road.
I would love to see the unblurred model for that creature in the right foreground of the first panel. It looks awesome. As an avid fan or creature design, my eye was drawn to it. |D
In other news, I’m loving this story. This page really helps set an ominous mood for what I believe will happen soon. Since there’s no narration from the sword, I don’t think you need worry about this page. The sword knew an uprising happened, so it could be filling in the blanks here.
^^ Love it!
it is possible that the sword wouldn’t just offer up info at any given time. Perhaps it has to be asked, “hey, is nick plotting against me?” In fact if Arthur’s never tried asking the sword for info such as this, he might not know that he even can. The only reason Alex is getting the story is because the centaur asked the sword for information.
Note: “can not” is correct spelling, but is more often spelled as a single word, “cannot”. Furthermore, readers who are more familiar with one spelling over the other (or who were erroneously taught by their teachers that one spelling is correct and the other incorrect, as I was) may think your printed book has a misspelling when it doesn’t.
Unless it clashes terribly with your design of the wraiths, perhaps you should use the word “can’t”? It avoids the ambiguity while essentially using the form that is used most commonly in speech.
Yeah, that is a possibility. I guess I just don’t like the idea of the sword knowing everything as it would make things a little too “easy”. I guess if the sword was the “spokesman” of an even higher all seeing power it would make some kind of sense. However, I still would like to think that such a spokesman or almighty power had some kind of logical messenger or spy revealed to the reader.
That infamous blade came to my mind as well …
😉
Check The Cronicles of Narnia, Aslan says that only a human can be the true king or queen of Narnia. Maybe the same reasoning he uses there applies here.
Wel not necessarilly. But whatev.
If Alex is being told this part of the story, and he catches on that the sword was not actually there (which I doubt), then I suspect that he’ll question the sword on it.
All will be revealed, in time.
^^ That would be awesome!!!!! ^^
Third person limited-omnicient. Where there is a third party narrator who knows everything, but only reveals a limited amount of knowledge.
I don’t know that this is actually a technical point of view, but I have read enough books to know that authors use this a lot.
^^ lol. will it destroy the universe as we know it, reverse time, jump to hyperspace, or worse????
Part of it tho was the need for emphasise on the ‘not.’
It might be mispronounced, but not misspelled in this instance, in my opinion.
I say this because the spoken words are spelled the way they are pronounced, so if someone were to say “I can haz sum?” then the way it’s spelled is correct for what’s said, regardless of whether it’s proper or not.
So, was reading all these cool ideas about the sword and wondered, who is telling this story. Not the story being told to Alex, but the Dreamland Chronicles. Sure Scott is relating it and creating it. Hmm, maybe Scott is the omnicient narrator otherwise known as The Sword of Kings. j/k ^-^
But seriously, I often wonder with my books, ‘Just who is opening this time window for us to see these events? Is it really just the author? Is it a character from the story? Is it some random bard? Is it someone else? Who knows…’ And then I keep reading, because as long as the story is good, it doesn’t matter so much who’s telling it. And this story is VERY good.
Correct sah!
Chiming in a bit late here, pardon me if I’m repeating a previous post… about the sword thing, the Sword of Omens (ThunderCats) had the power of “Sight Beyond Sight”. The Sword of Kings is a magic sword. Magic swords know stuff and no other explanation is needed! 🙂
David, Solomon, and Arthur page 407
Gaius Julius Caesar page 1028
Odysseus and Cleopatra page 1087
Some day I’ll get back to making wiki pages and this is near the top of my list.
I love the fact that Nic actually has Dreamland’s best interests in mind. It makes him a much more complex villain instead of just a jerk who’s evil for the sake of being evil.
I think the way the representative of Nightmare phrased things is interesting. It’s not “we will not” allow more humans into Dreamland… it’s “we cannot.” This has some fascinating implications, does it not? Perhaps… more adult humans in Dreamland than just the current human king endangers the power of Nightmare. It certainly explains why Nightmare seems to despise humans and why Nic allies with them to betray Arthur: they are the most self-interested in supporting Nic’s treachery.
One wonders, however: if Nic really DOES have Dreamland’s best interests in mind and genuinely wants to keep peace, how does he become a bigoted murderous tyrant who allies with Nightmare to keep Dreamland under a claw and let the denizens of Nightmare harrass and attack the humans who no one seems to be concerned about? That is an incredible change for a character that actually means well but a short step for one that is pretending.
‘Tis the guardians?!
I’d help the dragon as well, but more out of fear of incineration instead of any kind of ethical or moral principle.
Soul Edge?
Is that the dwarf king in the first panel, 2nd from the end in the group of 4 individuals in the background?