Coooooooooopout.

 

Eidolon's interlude was really well done, especially during the flashbacks where you feel sorry for the poor guy. And that cliffhanger? Why am I not surprised...

 

Buuuuuuuuullshit.

 

I really felt for Eidolon. He wanted to do what was best - to save the world - and sacrificed everything for it - conscience, family and personal glory. The only thing he has is being a hero - fighting monsters and saving people; and when his power goes, so does his life's meaning. As he tells Taylor, it is "the only thing I have"; Taylor herself is moving in this direction.

Honestly, I find Eidolon to be the most interesting of the Triumvirate. From the start, Legend was clearly the good guy, uncomfortable with doing morally questionable things for the greater good. Alexandria was the opposite - willing to do evil things for the sake of saving the world. Eidolon was always more mysterious in a way, though we knew that he, like Alexandria, accepted the need for Cauldron's morally ambiguous acts.

I think this interlude paints a satisfying picture of the man who for thirty years carried the burden of saving the world from Endbringers. Eidolon's motivation - of being a hero, saving as much lives as possible - is both admirable, and also very relatably human, especially in light of the sacrifices he personally made. The part about children was rather touching; while Legend has a husband and a kid to go back to everyday, Eidolon only has duty, a growing sense of uselessness, and being able to look forward to an endless series of Endbringer fights where so much depends on him that he doesn't even have the right to die.

 

Nevermind...

 

Okay, some ideas I've come up with/things I've noticed since this interlude came out.

1) Eidolon has the remains of the Second Entity as his Passenger. That's why Scion hates him so much and why he's able to change his powers as he does. Where other Cauldron capes got their powers from the various shards the Second Entity released, Eidolon got the original. The Second Scion, if you will.

2) Scion should not have been able to use Contessa's power on Eidolon. It was literally set up in this chapter that Contessa had to make a mental model of him in order to get her power to work, which she could only do because she knew him so well. So, Scion could not have used that power on Eidolon.

3) Glaistig Ulaine is going to claim Eidolon's Passenger, which is the reason she stuck around with him after everyone else had left. She wants to take his power, add it to her own and then use it to kill Scion and claim his power as well. Following on from this, she stated in (I think) Marquis or Panacea's interlude that she's looking forward to the time when the Faeries rise.

Given that she's confirmed that Faeries = Passengers, I think she's going to claim both of the Entities powers and try to complete the cycle herself.

 

Remember, the powers granted to humans come with in-built limitations - no sussing out passenger stuff being a big one. I think Contessa's power doesn't work on Eidolon because he falls within the 'passenger stuff' block, as the Scion counterpart to the other entity. These blocks aren't intrinsic, however. When Scion uses a power, it doesn't have the block.

 

Possible, but then why establish that point a couple of times over the course of the chapter and then casually ignore it at the end?

EDIT: Besides, if Eidolon does have the Second Entity Passenger, he'd be uniquely positioned to counter Scion since he'd be effectively on a level footing with him.

 

Doesn't the Manton Effect (and related blocks) only affect capes possessing Scion's shards, specifically because he made those changes? The second entity may have done similar but since Contessa's power does not originate with either of them, we can't really assume that the block is in place for her.

I thought that was the whole point, to be honest. It's why I'm confused that he's apparently been blasted.

 

I read in the comments that Scion could have just used Dinah's power and Eidolon mistook it for Contessa's. I mean, what was Scion going to mutter in 4 words that would prove he had Contessa's as opposed to Dinah's power anyway?

 

"I have Contessa's power."

Four words. It throws Eidolon for a loop, distracts him. Then Scion blasts him.

The thing is, Contessa's power doesn't have the same blocks, because her power originates from the Third entity. Not to say that she doesn't have blocks- just that the specific blocks Scion set up do not necessarily apply to her. I suspect her inability to use her power on the Endbringers is because the Endbringers come from the Third Entity, and so her power is blocked from that.

Speaking of which, I believe Glaistig Uaine could be another Third Entity cape.

 

Ehh, I don't know. I doubt that he actually said "I have Contessa's power".

emphasis mine

It wouldn't need to dawn on Eidolon if Scion had actually stated it aloud. Dawned implies that he made an inference, that it was a deductive as opposed to inductive conclusion. That's what the word choice leads me to believe, anyway.


Also, I don't think that the powers are the same, entity pair to entity pair. I wouldn't think that Scion would be able to have the exact same power that Contessa does because her powers come from the 3rd entity which had a different path of evolution than Scion and his dead companion.

 

"I banged your mom."

Guaranteed 100% effective.

 

Hey, does anyone remember if Miss Militia is ever shown to be affected by Imp's power? Because since she remembered the passengers (and remembered forgetting them), I think she should have been immune to it- or at least, able to shake it off.

 

Was never clarified; she doesn't seem overtly surprised in 18.3, when Imp emerges, but it could've been glossed over.

Also, Wildbow is a dick.

 

Scion, king of trolls.

 

I really don't get how the words make sense.
How do they indicate to Eidolon that Scion has Contessa's power?
Anyone who'd been at a couple of fights with Eidolon, has observed his strength decreasing (like Scion almost certainly could), and now sees his renewed strength, could have told him the same thing.

 

The prevailing theory is that Eidolon's power made the Endbringers. Or at least that's the conclusion Scion wanted him to come to.

 

Well I had much the same reaction but the comments gave some interesting possibilities. For one:

For another it being the implication that Eidolon needed worthy opponents and so the Endbringers were born...