Page 1277…
Hi all!
Thank you for reading along this week!
The thoughts and notes about the cracking pier really helped. I shall go back and make some tweaks when time permits.
Again. The perfect storm of a wonderfully climactic and difficult part of this story is hitting at the same time when I am selling a bunch of movies, writing a screenplay, and several other events in our lives.
So thank you for your patience with me going to 3 days a week for a short time. You are so incredible to me and my family. Thank you.
I hope you enjoy the weekend. And look forward to showing you Monday’s page. I think you’ll really like next week.
🙂
Scott
Wow.
Does he honestly believe what he’s saying??
Of course he does. Do you know too many villians who do whatever it is they do without actually thinking it was a good idea in some form (whether it be “greater good” or good for their own gain)?
Wow!
I am impressed at how Alex is leaving finger marks through rock/stone/whatever precisely this ledge is made of.
IF I were Nic, I would attempt to snap Alex’ neck, right now, and not merely bother with trying to throttle him to death. Doing that (throttling) would probably take just enough of a few seconds more that someone else (be it Nastajia or Bognok) intervene and prevent Alex from dying.
I wonder if Alex’ superstrength would be enough to prevent Nic from either throttling him or snapping his neck.
Anyone notice the Matrix quote? Agent Smith says the same thing to Morpheus in the first movie when they’re trying to hack his mind (the thing about humans being a virus) xD
That was my first thought as well, though as David points out, he does believe he’s doing the right thing. Is his thinking really because of King Arthur’s desire to bring adults to Dreamland or did it begin before that?? I need to go back & re-read that part. 😉
Another, completely unrelated thought…
“I alone have sacrificed everything for my world”… Sure, you did… I’m sure it was a real sacrifice, for you, to kill the first few hundred Dreamlanders… though I doubt you even thought about it twice, once you got past those numbers… Seems to me that the Dreamlanders themselves have sacrificed way more than he did. He “merely” (though probably not an easy feat, at first) had to overcome his reluctance at hurting Dreamlanders for what he believed was a “good cause”…
I was thinking of that, myself…
Ha! Now that is a twist. All along the ‘hero’ is actually the bad guy, and the bad guy is giving all and sacrificing everything to save the world from the good guy…
Go Nick! >:^D
I’m thinking that more and more as I read this too! Are the good guys really doing what’s good? Or will they stop Nick, but then realize they were very, very wrong?? ._____.
Oh, almost certainly. Look up the concept of ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ some time. People who feel they are required to do something morally questionable will usually rationalize it. The longer it goes on, the harder they work to convince themselves of their rationalizations. Eventually it gets to a point where there is no real way to justify their actions… at which point it becomes emotional, and entirely a matter of ‘I cannot admit that I was wrong’; they dig their heels in twice as hard, doing everything in their power to continue on their current course because to do otherwise means admitting that they have committed a large portion of their life and self image to a lie. And that would probably break them.
As the old saying goes, ‘You cannot reason someone out of a position that they did not reason themselves into…’
Yes, NOW Nic is talking too much, NOW he’s monologuing to justify his actions, when killing Alex immediately is what he SHOULD be doing. He’s going to regret that, I think. Especially if the pier IS starting to split in two from Alex driving the Sword into it. Nic trying to squish Alex is putting a lot of stress on one section, and if the whole thing is weak…
I would doubt it. Remember, Dreamland prospered for a long, long time with humans ruling it and human children visiting in their dreams; under Nic and his anti-human tyranny it appears to have decayed. Also, consider how doubtful it is that Dreamland’s situation – an adult human, wise and strong in the waking world, made King in Dreamland and wielding a sentient sword of great power, with magics governing succession – could have come about by accident. I suspect someone DESIGNED Dreamland to function as it has, and by interfering Nic may be putting the whole place at risk…
Honestly I don’t see Nicodemous’ side of things as being right, I understand his motivations, but I think Nic is being manipulated by the nightmare people. Those things that talked him into what he did certainly don’t seem like they belong in Dreamland to me. I think they wanted humans removed form power because that way the nightmares could attack freely. Nic is NOT the good guy, what Arthur was trying to do may have been a mistake, but really all Alex and his friends are trying to do is restore the natural order of things in Dreamland. The sword is a living thing, it is part of Dreamland, and it is the mark of the king of Dreamland. The king is human, humans are SUPPOSED to go to Dreamland as children, both for their own benefit and for the benefit of the Dreamlanders they meet, and one human is supposed to become king and rule over Dreamland as they slumber. When you try to change the natural order you don’t make things better, you make them worse. Look at what happened to the Earth because of all our urban development! Nic isn’t the bad guy and neither is Alex, they are both just trying to do the right thing, one of them, at the very least, is misguided and going about it the wrong way.
Aaand ,with that little monologue, Nic signed his own death-warrant, and in one breath proved what I already thought: He does not understand the place of dreamworld in all things.
Humans dream, by that they, basically, create dreamland. No humans to visit->no use for it.
As I see it, dreamland is not some “otherworld” or “dimension’, but something that exists by grace of human children, dreaming-up all that is there.
were is naj
Hear hear! I was going to write something along those lines, but you beat me to it! 😀 Nic seems to believe Dreamland can exist (or should exist) without humans…if that were to happen, it would no longer have a reason to exist.
I’m hoping we see some of what Nic is referring to, when he says has “sacrificed everything for my world.”??? Unless he is referring to those he has killed, or had killed?
He will protect dreamland from anyone doing harm to it?? looks like the one that is doing all the damage is him… destroying dreamland to protect it?? that is not right on so many levels.
Don’t forget to vote, everyone! Dreamland belongs to the top 10!
http://topwebcomics.com/vote/4274/default.aspx
This. Is. EPIC!
I tend to agree, especially about Dreamland having been designed by someone as a piece of larger whole. I can’t help think that destroying Alex, unlike suspending Arthur in limbo, would cause a catastrophic occurance in Dreamland and beyond. Great storytelling, Scott. Keep up the good work!
Next comic
Alex: *Guh*… Prove… it…!!
EXACTLY!!! oh, and don’t forget we’re also a cancer and a plague ^_____^ happy happy~ miss agent smith so much~~
ahhh… i wish there would be this kind of plot twist~~ but considering how the nightmare realm people and guards in astoria behave under Nic’s rule.. and considering eee’s comments about Dreamland prospering before, I doubt it =/ Though I also do not understand why Dreamland must be ruled by humans instead of something more native to Dreamland…. Or why the sword isn’t more of a “equal opportunity employer”, choosing humans when the right human comes along, but choosing another species when that individual of another species comes along…
as for eee’s comments ’bout Nic destroying a certain design, thereby leading to risk… are you referring to concept of “perfect design” therefore any deviance from it would put the world “at risk”? or are you referring to idea of punishment from creator for interfering w/ his/her/its creation? =3
which reminds me… does anyone remember if the sword said anything about its origin?
eat him
Wow… seeing more that line blur between “good” vs “bad” guys.. very interesting.
On a side note… Nic is a dragon and he’s… strangling Alex? O_o I suppose so!
Remember we still have 1/3 of the story to go–plenty of time for plot twists and suchlike.
I doubt it. What with Nick arranging for pirates to come and take kids, banishing them from Astoria, scarring Nicole, manipulating Felicity, kidnapping (and possibly worse) the king and queen of the elves, and trying to find a way to close the gap between the two worlds so humans can never come again, I’d say Dreamland is better off without him.
That is exactly what I though when i first read the lines of Nic!
Maybe he thinks he’s Agent Smith, or something like that…
Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure. Can you hear me, Morpheus?
Yup, first thing that popped into my mind when the page loaded up XD
I kinda half expected more of the sort 😛
Sorry. I must have had some Matrix in my subconscious.
🙂
On a related note…did you know that in my original script…Alex’s name was….Nemo?
Not Neo…but close.
Bad-To-The-Bone.
He has the best motive in the kinds of worlds we can imagine to do it…
But nothing from those worlds excuses genocide…
Of course Nicodemus believes what he is saying. He is so delusional he believes his own lies, misconceptions and evilness. Nicodemus can no longer tell what is right or wrong. He has ruled Dreamland for so long, it’s going to take a human like Alexander to literally knock some (!) sense into the thick skull of the dumb dragon.
Right now, I would like Nastajia to to shoot a light arrow into one of Nicodemus’s eyes. I am so upset at Nicodemus hurting Alexander.
Why is megalomania is soooooo entertaining and irratating at the same time? Come on, Alex! Time to catch your breath, dude!
Lawl, Neo and Nemo.
Also, if anyone has played Fable 3, put Nic in the Hero’s brother (Richard I think?) position. Now, Alex knows nothing about the threats that lay outside Dreamland (Nightmare Realm included) and Neither did the Hero in Fable until after he got the throne in the Revolution.
Now on the other hand, the brother did. The brother was trying to save his kingdom, but in order to do so, he had to make a lot of bad choices. When you get the throne in Fable 3, you are put in the same position: Do you satisfy the needs and wants of the people, or do you build your army and hoard money for the coming threat, at the cost of harming your people? If you do the things to save your people, ultimately your the bad guy, but you had to make those decisions in order to do it.
I think Nic is thrown in the same position, only the threat is the Nightmare realm, which Dreamland has a treaty with, clearly stating that there was not suppose to be more then one human in Dreamland at a time, at any given time. Thus, Nic was making the necessary choices to save his people, at the cost of him becoming the bad guy.
Did I read that well?
Oh ya, if you choose to satisfy the needs and wants of your people, they die when the Shadows come.
Yes, I believe he does.
Or maybe humans really have a lot in common with some viruses. The comparison is much older than the matrix movie.
It is important to keep in mind that human scientists and medical professionals research the viruses that cause illness in humans, livestock and pets. They mostly ignore the vast majority of viruses which do not cause illness. Viruses play an important roll in the ecosystem. Most viruses form helpful symbiotic relationships with host cells. A significant part of the human genome is made up of endogenous retroviruses. Some strains prevent a mother’s immune system from attacking an embryo.
Nick is probably not aware of the beneficial strains.
Nemo, eh? I don’t suppose that was a shout-out to Nemo in Slumberland?
Hmmm… put Quadaffi or Salah, or any of a dozen dictators in the frame and tweak the words a bit… and perfect fit… Nic believes his own press, that he’s Dreamland’s savior and only hope. He’s sincere. He really does see Alex as the bad guy… he’s become so lost in centuries of power that it’s inconceivable (you keep using that word, I don’t thin it means what you think it means) that he could be the bad guy in his mind.
And Nastajia puts an arrow in Nicodemus’s eye in 3…2…1…
Let go, Alex… You can FLY!
And could someone bean Nic in the noggin to distract him?
Excellent storytelling, Scott. You have me on the edge of my seat with every update.
I was thinking this same thing. First time commenting just to question this. Why doesn’t Alex let go, drop into the crack and fly out?
The treaty with Dreamland came after Nic usurped the throne and wiped all record of human kings from Dreamland, save the ancient tablets. And there were ALWAYS more than one human in Dreamland at a time, almost every child goes to Dreamland when they sleep so they’re all there at the same time. The Nightmare Realm has nothing to do with the number of adults in Dreamland, that was all Nic and his specter’s own unwillingness to risk it. They were convinced more adults than the king would destroy Dreamland because, unlike children, adults often try to force their will upon others.
Alex has no desire to bring more adults into Dreamland, he just wants to return things to they way they SHOULD be. Nightmare Realm kept outside Dreamland rather than Nic allowing them to raid Dreamland and attack children as much as they like. Nic is letting them attack human children all they want so long as they leave the rest of Dreamland alone because without a human king they got bold and started getting aggressive.
He’s rationalizing his every action because none of it was for Dreamland really, it was all for himself. HE wanted to rule. HE wanted humans gone. HE killed countless innocents to do it. All the current problems in Dreamland are his doing, but he refuses to see that fact because then it would mean he was leading Dreamland to destruction. I don’t think Dreamland is the product of human dreams, if it were adults would still go there, no, Dreamland is another world which children are able to access when they sleep because of the innocence and openness of their minds. As they get older they lose this openness and Dreamland becomes lost to them but one is meant to become king to help guide Dreamland, keep it safe for human children, and keep it safe for Dreamlanders.
One piece of evidence that Dreamland is not merely a product of our dreams is the fact that things FROM Dreamland can cross into our world, and things from our world can cross into their’s if you use the right methods. Yes rulers sometimes have to make hard choices to hurt their people to save them, that does not make them the bad guy, it just makes them the hated good guy. Nic was not making those choices, Nic was trying to purge humans from Dreamland because he personally wanted them gone.
Your point about children going to Dreamland for their own benefit got me thinking about Daniel… considering he’s never had a dream before, how would that affect him? Dreams are a place of imagination and untold possibilities, where the mind runs wild and free as it were. A cathartic state in which stress is relieved.
For someone without that kind of release, what would happen? He would rest, but would it be the same? And for Alexander, who didn’t dream again after the Sword of Kings was pulled from the stone dais when he turned 12… the two brothers didn’t dream for 8 years until Alex got the necklace again. Alex at least experienced dreams.
Daniel didn’t… I’m just curious how not dreaming at all would affect someone. Obviously from a canonical perspective, neither brother was really hurt too much by it… but I wonder if Alexander’s stories are one of the reasons why Daniel is as stable and open-minded a person as he appears to be.
ok, now I can’t hear Nic speak other than in Hugo Weaving’s voice. All this needs now is for Nic to add “Mister Anderson.”
RE the dangers of Nic messing things up: When a system – government, biological life form, nuclear reactor, world, whatever – is set up to work a certain way, and you start interfering with that, you can’t tell what the consequences will be. Dictatorship, death, destruction, things can go REALLY bad. In the case of Dreamland, if it WAS designed, we’re handicapped in not knowing what it was designed to do. Maybe keep the Nightmare Realm subdued, provide a sanctuary for beings who used to live on Earth but had to leave, help human children grow to good adults: All of these, none of these, and/or something else entirely is possible. But it would appear that, whatever, a human is supposed to rule Dreamland – rather like C.S. Lewis’ Narnia – and when that doesn’t happen, in Dreamland as there, things don’t go well. Now, as Nic has been screwing things up for about 500 years, if who or what-ever established Dreamland existed and is still around, he/she/it is either unable to intervene and set things right, or is willing to see if the problem will self correct. So the danger isn’t external, it’s if things blow up or not if Nic isn’t deposed…
As to the Sword, I don’t think it has ever discussed its origins, but if anyone bothered to ask it, it probably could tell them. Whether it WOULD or not is uncertain, it seems to have a will of its own. (Dan must be half nuts with frustration. He’s got this whole, massive, vibrant realm to find out about, and his only sources of information are short letters in the Medicine Bag and whatever Alex remembers. If the Sword could just talk while in the waking world, I doubt Dan would leave his room anymore, he’d be too busy learning from it.)
Nah, Nah. Say what you really mean, Nic.
Another great page, Scott. Us viruses will be looking forward to next week.
Agent Smith…. you know what I hate about this place??….. It’s the SMELL! *mutters* If there is such a thing…
More like a “direct ripoff”
🙂
Dreamland started out as “what happened to Nemo when he grew up?”
I have to say this. The only creatures that can dream and pass into dreamland are humans. And it has been said multiple times in the past that Nic as the King is unnatural. One he is immortal (How many of us would want to have a politician be immortal?? I for one am glad that Dreamland needs a human and fallible king. not some over grown lizzard that won’t die. But then that is my not so humble opinion.
Note the whenever Nick starts talking, its always me, me, me.
Ooh, ooh, ooh! “You know what I hate MOST about you humans? Its the SMELL! I feel… SATURATED by it. I can… *pulls other hand’s finger through Alex’s hair* TASTE… your STINK, Alexander. And every time I do, I fear I’ve somehow been INFECTED by it. Its inconcievably REPULSIVE. 😉 I MUST GET YOU HUMANS OUT OF HERE!”
Aahh… Alex! No….!
Hmm, reminds me of Mr. Smith. Humans are a Virus….eh? Eh?
Love the page! I noticed, though, that Nic’s upper teeth are upside-down in the last panel.
That begs the question, though: who “dreamed up” the Nightmare Realm, and what is its purpose?
Can’t wait to find out …
😉
Nicodemus: “Now I have to put on my shades and get my little earpiece.”
From the words, Hugo Weaving comes to mind. But for the stature, the sheer force of the character, I can hear no one other than Tim Curry.
I always hate villains who are evil for the sake of being evil (and getting to laugh the evil maniacal laugh) a good villain is a hero in his own story. He sees him/herself as a savior or doing the right thing… Thinking long term… all those buzz words. And the hero of the story mostly focuses on the here and now and wants to end torment.
In the dragon’s defense… Starting with the assumption that he did not begin evil but was led to evil during the King Arthur business… Nicodemus has lost a lot. Before that, he had a pretty good deal: live in a nice castle, advise the human kings, and was presumably respected by the other leaders in Dreamlands as the wise dragon he was. And then he decided to sacrifice that entire arrangement for (what he thought) the good of Dreamlands, even going as far as making a deal with the Nightmare Realm to preserve the Dreamlands that he knew. Though Nic’s hatred of humans is clear, I think he understands that Dreamlands is not ‘as good’ as it was, and that this decline goes back to when he took power. And he has not been able to prevent this.
Granted, this is not specifically stated anywhere; I’m trying to consider what Nic could have sacrificed. The answer: his friendship with Arthur, his pleasant life-style, Dreamland’s independence from Nightmare Realm, and the ideal that was Dreamlands. So yeah, Nic is acknowledging that his course of action has cost Dreamlands, and by extension himself, much.
“Me, also.”
Easy for you to say that… but “right” and “wrong” aren’t objective factors. They’re pure subjectivity… mere opinion.
He hasn’t lied, and his perception of necessity is a product of his experiences.
He wants peace as much as anyone else… possibly moreso … but the kind of peace he imagines is one where everyone is ruled with an iron fist so they daren’t step out of line. Peace by force… for no other way seems viable.