Chapter 9 | Page 9
on January 23, 2014
at 12:01 am
Thistil Mistil Kistil
by Sarah Schanze
Velkommen!
Thistil Mistil Kistil is a comic about vikings, Norse gods, and their adventures together (or against each other). Updates are on Thor’s Day.
Wow, Loki actually cares about regular mortals. Didn’t expect that.
He’s a mystery!
Probably should’ve told him that before he threw the guy in the harbor, Loki.
Well it’s not like he got a chance to. But yeah.
No coal, because then we can’t assemble a team of unlikely heroes.
Of course! Assembling a team of unlikely heroes is almost as important as actually getting the thingamabobs.
I know! Don’t poo-poo the assemblage.
Loki: Ya I could, but it would ruin the plot.
Coal: The hell is plot?!
Wouldn’t I like to know!
Are you refering to the plot right now?
Coal died at the start and was rejected from the afterlife, because of a gift he held from Loki, a chunk of I think Thor’s hammer, which Loki broke and shattered. He is now being forced by the gods to find all these pieces and went to Loki for help…. I think. It’s been like, two years since I read through this series.
This comment is either very sweet or wonderfully snarky; either way I like it.
Yeah Coal.
If you give someone a birthday present, somebody can’t just walk by and take it from them. It belongs to them now.
If I gave you a birthday present that I had stolen from someone else, is it still yours?
Well, Coal is not even the original owner so that still doesn’t excuse him.
No, Coal’s the contracted repossessor. And yes, that does excuse him. Coal has been vested the authority to collect the items by the original owners.
Yes yes, the knife was a “gift” to Ibrahim. But it was not a gift Loki had the authority to give (or if he had, he has yet to deign to justify his action to such a lesser being as Coal).
Coal isn’t exactly in the wrong here. The items belong to the gods. They are stolen property, and his task is to reclaim them. The fact that he was denied key information necessary to properly carry out that task is not his fault. Nor is the fact that his current go-to method of recovery is force, given the fact that he’s a bloody warrior.
This is a nuanced, complicated situation. Loki has, as yet, offered no mitigating reasons for stealing the pieces. He did not, until just now, explain that recovering the items would be complicated. If you go back to page 13 of chapter 2, you’ll see that Loki’s first action in the entire story is to try to kill Coal.
Coal’s job is to clean up Loki’s mess, but rather than treat Coal like a person, he’s rather continually treated him as an idiot, when Coal is clearly not (He’s young, he’s brash, he’s sometimes violent, but he’s not an idiot).
I’ll take Loki’s empathy a bit more seriously when he start’s applying it to Coal, given the fact that they basically had the exact same starting point in life. They were both runts born to violent societies that prized strength. The only difference between them is that Loki used his smarts to get by, while Coal seems to have elected to play the game straight, but well. Those are both reasonable coping strategies for a crap start in life. Loki’s supposed to be the mature one, but he sure as hell isn’t really acting like it.
Still, there’s probably magic in play here, which doesn’t have to follow modern day laws. And yeah, Loki is not being really mature but then he is LOKI. I don’t think he is supposed to be.
Coal is not a runt though. He is pretty big for 15 and would have still been growing if he was alive.
Still, there’s probably magic in play here, which doesn’t have to follow modern day laws.
The concept of ownership is hardly “modern”.
And yeah, Loki is not being really mature but then he is LOKI. I don’t think he is supposed to be.
I’m not saying he’s “supposed” to be mature. What I’m saying is that his actions feed into Coal’s.
Coal is not a runt though. He is pretty big for 15 and would have still been growing if he was alive.
Wat?
First, 15 is about the right age to finish growing. I’ve been 5’9″ since about 14. Some boys might keep growing, some might not. But he is old enough to have reasonably hit his full height. And he is the shortest character in the story, even compared to characters that are approximately his age. He’s the same height as Hedda and he’s dwarfed by Ibrahim. So, yeah. Coal’s short.
Well they could, but it wouldn’t make it right. At least he didn’t need to steal something harder to get, like Ibrahim’s hood! Though that probably woulda been funny.
There’s ALWAYS a catch.
Always! It can’t be easy, where’s the fun in that?
Coal: Well, why the heck didn’t you tell me that *before* I took it?
Loki: Who, me?
Rule #163: Always ask a Trickster for the rules up front, ’cause they’ll never tell you on their own.
Rule #163a: Then don’t believe them anyway. Because, you know, Trickster.
Good rules to live by!
Rule#163a-1: Especially if said Trickster is named Loki.
Ha, yes!
Usually tricksters don’t lie. The key to dealing with them is listening carefully to what they actually said, not what you thought they said.
Like Loki here, who once offered his head as forfeit in a bargain, and when the other party came to collect, wouldn’t let him take it because Loki’s neck wasn’t part of the deal. (He ended up with his mouth – which is part of his head – sewn shut over that one.)