Since he went to Toronto and followed Fell to meet Conquest ever since then its felt like he has been constantly reacting to things, rather then pro-actively dealing with situations he waits for something to happen.

I want to see him going out and making things happen. He showed some more assertive signs like gathering his friends together for the awakening ritual and getting a familiar but then he snaps back into waiting for other people to tell him what to do. At least to me it feels like he is kind of drifting through the plot aimlessly relying on others to point him towards an objective all the time.

A lot of the things you talk about were Rose's ideas not his - getting the implements, binding conquest using the library, summoning others like the Tallowman and Covidale - at least Rose plans things out and attempts stuff Blake kind of idles along waiting for stuff to happen.

This last instalment kind of crystallised it for me he has slipped through the cracks I expected him to be fighting his hardest to maintain some semblance of himself but he kind of wanders aimlessly internally monologuing about how the place was wearing him down until he runs into the old witch Zoey who tells him what he needs to do.

I'm probably not expressing my frustration very clearly but you keep seeing glimpses that Blake has a more forceful personality but it never emerges.

 

How would you have liked to see him be more forceful?

Personally, I'm not seeing how a more forceful personality would have been an asset at any point in time. Blake was at a disadvantage in knowledge and experience from the jump. It's going to be difficult to take the initiative when you're constantly moving from one assassination attempt to another. He primarily wants be left alone, so it's probably not reasonable to expect him to go out and cause more trouble in order to meet this goal.

Once he got to Toronto, Conquest, Lord of the city and Incarnation, tried to force him to summon demons/retrieve the books. Blake realizes that Conquest is not as powerful as he seems and manages to work it so that he's collecting Pauz, The Hyena and Ur. At the end of that chapter, 4.3, Blake leaves that meeting with Conquest plotting to gather local support in order to overthrow him. This is not passive, it's a pretty assertive move that he comes up with all on his own to try an get rid of an adversary that is stronger than him. It can only be called reactive in that Conquest was the one to initiate contact with Blake. Things go wrong in the pursuit of this plan, but c'mon, that has nothing to do with a lack of initiative or assertiveness on Blake's part.

Also, he has not snapped "back" into a mode of crippling passivity in this Arc. He got wrecked by the Ur demon and woke up in some strange purgatory place. He didn't know what the dangers were, was literally falling apart at the seams, and was without any tools with which to act. So yeah, he wandered around for a bit and he told the guy at the settlement area that he wasn't really sure what he was doing anymore. Very shortly thereafter...

This is not something that someone else is telling him to do, it is self initiated.

So then he goes and seeks out the witch lady to try an get some more definitive answers about how to go about achieving his new goal, i.e. break out of the Void.

He's constantly getting thrown back into the deep-end. I'm not quite sure what you expected of him.

 

I've been ignoring this as I'm waiting for it to get finished, but hurr durr common question here.

How does it stack up to Worm? What is better/worse? Is it as durpy dark as Worm is?

 

Yes, it's just as dark, but the protagonist's not as ruthless. I like Worm much more, but that might be personal preference. Pact has a lot of exposition and rules of magic.

 

Well, I was not expecting that.

 

Wildbow sure knows how to throw things at you that you didn't expect.

 

Shit just went down. Rose is still a bitch though.

 

Damn, so maybe, Rose is cool actually. If she tried her hardest to keep Blake real by fudging the ritual, it might mean she does care about him somehow. That is if she really did know what was happening.

Edit: Scratch that, Fuck Rose senior.

 

I'd had an inkling that this was the case, but damn if Wildbow can't make a dramatic reveal.

 

So did Blake just shunt some poor guy out of his reality and basically took over his memories when he was created?

Why were Alexis and Carl the only real memories? If the others being blurred meant that they were created memories.

So the reason Blake didn't really like being touched was because he was programmed like that by Grandma Rose and memories were created to give reasons why?

Which brings us to the largest question. Is Blake a faerie? we know that they are so adept at glamor that they can adopt the strengths and weaknesses of what they change themselves into, so instead of it all being grandma Roses fault. Blake actually glamored up his entire life?

 

He's a vestige, same as what Rose (the younger) was thought to be. Rose Senior created him as part of a deal with Barbatorem. It is capable of creating mirror images of people, which is probably why Rose Junior purposefully screwed up her Awakening ritual: if one is a mirror of the other then chances are if one has magic the other cannot. Blake doesn't have magic any more so Rose is now able to Awaken. That said, the connection between them is broken now, eaten by Ur, so I reckon Blake could probably Awaken again if he wanted to (or regain his powers when he lands topside).

The reason he didn't like being touched is because vestiges are fragile; physical contact damages them, even just light things like a touch or holding hands. Grandmother Rose created his back story so that he would limit physical contact as much as possible; it's a self defence measure.

I'm not sure about Carl and Alexis; you could be right that Blake took up the connections of some other poor bloke that joined a cult, same as how Padraic took over Maggie's.

EDIT: Got it. Corvidae. The demon-ghost thing that swaps connections around. Grandmother Rose used him to take the connections of Alexis and Carl from some random bloke and gave them to Blake. We know there was some predestination involved in Blake's death, so it's not too much of a leap to assume that Grandmother Rose knew about him eventually heading to Toronto. Alternately, it could be that she wanted to give Rose Jr. a ready made cabal by setting Blake up with a group of friends in another city, should they need to flee Jacob's Bell.

The swapped connections would end up with Alexis returning to Blake and Carl would likely have turned up at some point as well, given the way Corvidae works. It fits.

 

I thought Vestiges can't be practitioners?



Where did the ghosts Conquest and Laird sicced on Blake come from? The other guy that Blake replaced?

I'm beginning to understand just how Rose would be frustrated with Blake, if she knew all along.

Also, where does Molly factor into all this? According to Rose she is the top pick for heir, so why did Molly get the inheritance first?

 

Think I should finally start reading this, is there an epub version of this flying around that is mostly up to date like there was with worm? Mostly have time to read when I am on the train.

 

Not sure if there is. Its still a little bit early, with the first major arc done(Think Leviathan coming to Brockton bay) so I don't think anyone has done it yet.

I'd suggest you wait it out a bit longer, at least for the latest arc to end before beginning. Its preferable to waiting for chapters(I can't wait for Thursday now).

 

Why not? The only reason we thought that was because Rose didn't Awaken, but now we know that she messed it up on purpose. Also, Blake himself proves it. He is a vestige, he could do magic.

Then again, Blake didn't know he was a vestige and magic in this world is heavily influenced by belief. If Blake believed he was human and could do magic, chances are he'd be able to do it no matter his origin.

From the Shepard. He's the one that controls ghosts in Toronto.

Me too.

To make the enemies that are willing to kill reveal themselves in taking out Molly, which would make them easier for Rose/Blake to deal with.

 

But those ghosts were Blake's past experience, he said so himself, he relived it, which doesn't make sense if his past is fabricated.

 

So glad someone else noticed the whole thing with Corvidae, Aekiel.

Also: re the the whole belief thing. It's been established that Others (of which Vestiges qualify) can delude themselves into thinking they're something that they aren't (specifically with the Faerie). Then they actually change. So it's totally conceivable that since Blake can only see himself as a practitioner, that's what he is.

But yeah, big reveal this chapter. It also makes the whole dream sequence in 1.1 make a lot more sense. The reason Blake was able to see those things was because the connections were only just forming in the real world. The seismic shift, so to speak, was reality filling in the blanks and making room for him.

I really quite like the idea the Rose Sr. scalped someone with a desirable history out of reality in order to lay the groundwork for Blake personality. Corvidae would be totally in as well, just on principal. As I understand it, he tends to swap connections in a way that makes both affected parties suffer. Blake was destined to die from the moment Rose Sr. thought him up. Meanwhile, Blake's friends lose an integral part of their lives and can't even remember who the original guy that Blake's connections belonged to was. What's worse, it's almost an inevitability that Blake would draw them into the bloody world of Practitioners eventually.

Corvidae would love that. Absolutely love it.

Wildbow has said there'll probably be a Thursday chapter this week. So, like, 30 hours until we find out what's up with Blake now.

 

Blake didn't exist before the start of the story, so any memories he has of before that point are fabricated. What Blake remembers of Alexis and Carl are not his memories, but they may be real ones stolen from some other guy that Blake got swapped with by Corvidae.

 

That was awesome. Your boy has managed to claw his way out of purgatory. Nice.

I'm not really sure how I feel about Rose though. She has a legit excuse for acting the way she did, her being the real Thorburn heir and all. However I still get the feeling that she's not a good person. Still getting that sneak-ho vibe.

 

Oh she's most definitely not. Seems to me she's a diabolist more in the vein of her grandmother than Blake; power for power's sake with apparently little regard for anyone but herself.