Oh boy. That look… this can’t be good. Was it Selkie’s clan who started the civil war? Or the one that almost got wiped out because of it? Is it Friday, yet?
Gotta love it when a bombshell is dropped, and the reader doesn’t know why it’s such a bombshell.
Time to start speculating before they start in with the “as you know” exposition.
Is she the Last Of Her Clan? Is Jin’Sorai Sai Fen’s Clan? Maybe it’s a guilty association due to misdeeds of this clan?
I’m guessing ‘The colony’ refers to the supposed great lake city, making it as new as the Save our fish act, and the SOFA wasn’t a peace treaty granting covert sovereignty, but a covert refugee acceptance. The only problem with this idea is that there’s no comparable freshwater place to put Sarnoth proper. Unless I’m overestimating the Sarnoth population, and ‘the colony’ is on land, making the SOFA (Seriously that acronym deserves a few headline jokes) a declaration of non-interference on the civil war.
The problem with the idea that there’s a city in one of the Great Lakes is one of temperature: The Sarnothi don’t handle cold temperatures well and the Great Lakes get darn cold in the winter and are always cold at the depth they’d need to hide the city at.
But neither the ocean water nor the Great Lakes water get below their respective freezing points. (And, incidentally, the minimum possible temperature of the Great Lakes – while remaining liquid – is slightly warmer than that of the ocean.)
In midwinter, the upper Midwest outside air gets colder than that. Significantly so.
They could live in Lake Nicaragua or Lake Baikal (I don’t know if I spelled that correctly) in Russia. There are lots of large freshwater lakes all over the world.
Deep lakes all around the world are cold under a certain depth. Unless we’re talking about volcanic area lakes, but those tend to have no oxygen in the deeper waters. Heck, most of the Black Sea’s (I know, it’s a sea, but it’s damn near a saltwater lake) water body is anoxic.
I’ve got a question I’m hoping someone can clear up.
I may be misremembering, but when Dr Pohl was first shown, I remember Authorial Voice saying he was NOT the same species as Selkie, which meant there were more than one race of sentient water-dwelling non-humans running around. And that explained his difference in coloration. Am I remembering totally wrong? Because now it looks like they are the same species. Or are they different the way that, say, someone who’s Chinese and someone who’s Ethiopian are different… the same species but different ethnicity, culture, language and appearance?
I tried going back through the archives but couldn’t find the first time he showed up, which makes me really appreciate David Willis’ habit of tagging each comic with character names. 🙂
So that makes Lake Superior the colony, leaving the question of whether or not they have a terrestrial origin.
As for the cliffhanger, my guess is that that’s THEIR clan, and they had believed it all but wiped out.
This is bad. Phol’s family may be ok with her, but if her clan is causing trouble, Selkie might become a TARGET for a Sarnothi hate-crime.
The knife that Sai was using a few pages ago looked nasty enough, and that was just a sculpting tool. I’d hate to see what a REAL weapon looks like, especially one being handled by an angry Sarnothi.
The knife itself might not be much, but consider what else the Sarnothi might be capable of…
According to the transcript on page 379, the knife was both too brittle and too dull to sculpt with, and yet it cut through the stone like butter.
Also, on page 215, Selkie’s mom was able to make a handgul of peple’s float on a whim.
Finaly, the transcripts of p378 indicate they can even use this “magic” to make phone calls untraceable.
If it hasn’t sunk in, the Sarnothi can manipulate objects in ways that should be physically impossible. As fascinating as this may be, it opens up the potential for some NASTY weapons, and after a harsh civil war, said weapons would be numerous and widespread.
It’s a good thing Selkie is under the radar for now; if a Die-hard Sarnothi Racist from a rival clan learned of her location…
Given Selkie’s different colouration and the fact that she was obviously hidden at the orphanage by her mother separate from refugees and before the save our fish act, I think that marks the very beginning of the war and makes
Selkie a member of their ruling family.
In any militaristic civil war with hereditary rulers, one of the goals of the uprising side is to remove all possible candidates for rule, simply because without them it makes an effective rebellion to restore the status quo more difficult. If Selkie is a lost princess and the last princess of the Sarnothi then it puts her in danger from the rebels, who need to get rid of her, and the traditionalists, because they need her as a figurehead for their war effort and as the future ruler.
I think the Jin’Sorai clan is a clan that is either the aggressor or the victim in this civil war. Or a nearly extinct clan, destined to re-unite the clans? :p
Well sh…it….What a twist….kinda figured that Selkie would have been from an unique clan after all she’s the main character. Dave have to say Aw Dr. Bunnyman has two little ones!
We will be victorius, for we are Purple and you are green! And we have honored our ancestors, and you have not, for you a green and We are Purple. Yeah, I’m betting on ethnic cleansing, and Selkie is in danger… But not from Dr. Bunny-Ears.
Oh. Oh. Oh. My. God.
And other people’s gods. I’m not picky.
Panel-by-panel breakdown of “WTF?!”-worthy moments:
P2: Kudos, Pohl, for suggesting that you’re going to tell the Smiths more.
P4: “The colony”? “FRESH FROM SARNOTH”?! I’m starting to think the “aliens with a colony here” theory is prevalent. That, or they’re not as freshwater as we think…
P5: See P2.
P6: “Civil war”: we have confirmation.
P7: Holy! Mother of mountains this is serious … just what is so horrific about Jin’Sorai that in…
P8: Sai Fen would drop her phone?
I want to know, and I really hope this isn’t what we all think it is. All I can say is this: the De’Medeias look worried, and sad, and a little shocked. They do NOT look angry, which bodes marginally better than if they were.
“Fresh from Sarnoth” makes me suspect another planet origin as well.
And I have to agree with the “worried, sad and shocked” – I’m thinking something along the lines “But weren’t Jin’Sorai’s destroyed entirely? AND ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO BE THE ONES TO TELL HER THAT?”
I was going more with Atlantis than alien. And where did the “fresh water” theory come from? Most people seem to suspect they live in Lake Superior (which is technically part of the Atlantic Ocean, i.e. salt water, but also highly polluted by cities).
We have no good evidence as to salt-water or fresh-water, or if that even matters to them. Selkie flushes her gills with fresh water for convenience, but also fills it with “medicine” which could easily correct for a salt deficiency in the water if that was needed.
Lake Superior, like all of the Great Lakes, is entirely fresh water, not salt, and it’s not even slightly part of the Atlantic. (There are, curiously enough, some very salty wells near the shore of the western lobe of the lake, but that’s extremely ancient water which has been encapsulated in waterproof basalt for billions of years.)
Ooooh. Could he know because her skin color or her eye color? I remember the anatomy sketch saying green eyes were very rare—yet both Selkie and her mom had green eyes.
I’ve been reading this comic since the early days, and I’ve really enjoyed watching the progression of your art, Dave. The storyline, as well, is fantastic!
I’m wondering (if you are willing to divulge, that is) how many different ethnic groups that the Sarnothi have? If more than two, how many are involved in the civil war?
Last but not least, thank you for sharing your talent for storytelling with us!
Eehhh, not sure how I feel about bombshells being dropped and right now it’s empty information. IMO, I really hate it when writers put information into a story that doesn’t make sense to the reader only to be relevant five pages late. Which in our case is a week in half. Which means I’ll have to double check what that info means later unless Dave dumps the next bit on Fri.
I am sure well will know what the Pohl and his wife are talking about in a bit…
one more thing, just from the last page (speaking of pet peeves) I hate when little kids speak and it’s ‘toddler talk’ if they’re over the age of 2. I work with small kids both with language delays and without. 4 year olds can speak in sentences, it’s cadence and speed that is usually the problem. So Suko can say “That’s my sistah! My sistah!” and it should be in his language grasp. However Suko being bilingual he is probably switching from English to Tensai a lot and picking English words that are easy to pronounce and probably speaking more Tensglish then anything else. I am not sure how language develops for Sarnothi kids, but yeah, I am so not cool with baby talk with preschoolers unless they have a language delay.
I will keep in mind the language delay. I am horrible in trying to grasp aproprate language development in child characters.
I’m not sure if the revile of Selki’s Clan is a bomb shell. There’s been some lead up that she was left for some reason and the Grandpa figured some of it out from what Agent Brown both said and didn’t say. What ever happened to cause Selkie to be adopted out was probably pretty bad and politics are probably involved. So to me the ‘bombshell’ makes senence with the information I’ve been picking up.
If there’s a civil war going on (which they happen a lot in the world) that could be a reaction to indicate that clan was the worst hit and not many got out. Or worse, some of the kids made it out and none of the adults did. So double hit of no home, no family for Selkie.
I hope that’s the indication.
I will be slightly put off if it turns out the clan is royal and this is another “lost princess” story. Child of parents who started the rebelion or were heavily involved in it I could probably stand, but not royal.
I’m sorry for my spelling. This public computer has a horrible key board and I’m in a hurry.
thats just it, we just don’t know what Selkie’s family is. There is a lot of tell and not enough show IMO. Language acquisition is something that folks miss, my best friend and coworker is a speech pathologist, so get to see how that works. Googling childhood language development should bring up some interesting results. With fantastic species though you should have a guideline on how language work with them and apply it with said research.
in regards to the language talk-
i don’t think it’s because of the age of language development, but it could be because he’s bilingual, if you think about it, anyone who comes from another country that doesn’t speak english and then learns it will still have those different inflections/different emphases until they properly condition their tongue to not use it at all (if they even can)
or, it could just be because of his accent. if it’s true that they’re from different ethnic groups, it could be because his version of tongue/language is conditioned to having that accent. Selkie often adds unnecessary S’s to works, perhaps his ethnic group has a lack of “er” sounds, so instead he uses a different accent. When he said “air plane”, it’s shorted to “a’pane,” which is another sound of “er”, “aer”.
Even if they do use the same accent, he might just have a thicker one because he’s with his biological family, and may not be subjected to humans on a daily basis like Selkie is.
I feels though that Suko is still taking baby talk in the last page, this isn’t about accents or being bilingual, I mean what four year old that doesn’t have delay says ‘uppa uppa’ and ‘me sistah’? That sound like baby talk. If it was a Tensai to English issue, he would be speaking in sentences but omitting words or replacing them with Tensai equivalents. I mean my godson is bilingual with Spanish/English he is also 2 and half and has good vocabulary and is forming sentences. Like “Dis one!” and “Make it so numbah one.” (raised by trekkies) and sometimes he uses Spanglish.
Also Sel didn’t get exposed to English until she was FIVE, and yet has good diction and sentences and a slight accent. That is less time than Suko and he is still speaking toddler talk.
My point is that Suko shouldn’t be talking like he is my godson’s age.
Bilingual children do have a slowed language development, but not half as slow as people think. This is “slow” in the sense that an 18-month old bilingual child displays the same level of word comprehension as a 13-month old monolingual child, but the bilingual child will have already learned to distinguish their languages at 13-months of age.
Overall though, bilingual children reach their language milestones at almost indistinguishable ages, and early on in development (i think just before the 2-year mark) the bilingual child actually overtakes the monolingual child’s in terms of vocabulary size.
Bilingual setbacks are almost completely nullified by age 2, and by age 4 should be undetectable.
My cousins are bilingual, and I know their language development dragged behind about until they went to school. Then they quickly caught up with others, but I remember some other relatives wondering if there was something wrong with the oldest of them when he was little.
My first thought was “civil war – green versus blue – but Dr. Bunnyear’s last statement – “I wasn’t sure at first” – wouldn’t make sense. As soon as he sees her – boom, she’s blue, not green. What’s to “not be sure”?
So I’m thinking it’s like the English Civil War. Either they are Royalists, who had to leave the country for the Colony, after the Roundheads took over, and, “Honey, I saw this little girl today, and I’m certain she’s a Stuart”. Yippee, yippee, some of the royal family survived.
Or they are Roundheads, and he’s torn between “she’s a Stuart, and must be destroyed” and “my oath as a doctor”. That would explain both the anguish on his face, in the next-to-last panel, and the look on hers in the last one.
“Civil war”
Caaaaaalled it. (Me and half the fan base lol)
So the options for this clan, organized into one place, are: (1) Aggressor (2) Wiped out – except for Selkie (3) Long-lost royalty (4) Destined for something (5) combo of #2 plus #3 or #4
Gentlemen (and ladies!), place your bets!
Also, lol potty mouth rubbing off on the kid. Love how Pohl just casually chides the kid and not the mom he’s getting it from, haha.
I think (2) is a little too severe. We still don’t know that Selkie’s mom is dead (she just left) so we can reasonably sure Selkie isn’t the LAST of her clan. But a wiped out clan with a handful of survivors is still fair game.
Random speculation: I’m guessing Sarnoth isn’t another planet, but is basically Atlantis, somewhere really deep underwater, and the Sarnothi aren’t very populous, so they haven’t moved out until recently. They have a colony that is more accessible to human view, so now there’s culture clash.
Established: “The Colony” is not Sarnoth. Looks like “the colony” is the settlement/city in Lake Superior, and Sarnoth is another planet. There was/is a civil war. Clan Jin’Sorai are something very special, and Selkie is one.
The civil war may be between the two ethnicities (Selkie’s blue race, Pohl’s green race) but Clan Jin’Sorai are not the ethnically blue people — otherwise Pohl would have recognized Selkie as Jin’Sorai immediately, instead of saying “I wasn’t sure at first …”
The biggest question in this comic is why Selkie’s mother ditched her at a human orphanage without explanation. Looks like the Jin’Sorai have powerful enemies, and Selkie’s mother was trying to hide her. Not sure if that makes Selkie the secret Princess Ozma, or Hitler’s love child, or what. Me, I’m rooting for Jin’Sorai as lost royalty, and Selkie as Secret Princess.
OK earlier I wasn’t that sure about the “secret princess” theory … but now I want her to be Princess Ozma because, well, THE HAIR. AND THE CROWN. THEY ARE AMAZING.
And waitaminnit… perhaps she’s not a princess. We all know what happened to Ozma…
Why would Sarnoth has to be another planet? The US was “The Colonies” for a very long time. Hell, some people still use the term. I’d say Sarnoth is an underwater continent and/or city and the colony is an offshoot.
I’m laying my money on Last Of Her Clan, with possible shades of High Rank and/or Royal Blood. That would explain pretty much everything in this panel, as well as why Nei Li’s mother felt the need to hide her among human children in an orphanage. That would definitely be the last place a rebel faction would think to look for a child of royal blood.
To clarify, while the great lakes /might/ be big enough to support a species of human-sized apex predators, I don’t believe the population size and resulting genetic variation would be enough to result in different racial and ethnic groups, especially if the only lake involved is Lake Superior.
I suspect that deep down or far away wherever sarnoth is, the culture is a lot different than over here in america and so “fresh from sarnoth” is a reference to that. Like how some native from southamerica 100 years ago wouldnt know anything about pale faces.
“the colony” is a more modern/less secluded site inhabited by the mer peoples who are probably exposed to and know about surface culture/technology and serve as a gateway for mer people that wanna live on the surface.
they will slowly encroach into society and entrench themselves enough that by the time some pundit “reveals” them half the population will already know and be like “whatevers”
This, of course, raises the question as to whether ‘clan’ refers to family groups, ethnic groups, or a social status. I’m guessing the clan Jin’Soria is either one the De’Mediea family knows personally or one that is particularly notorious for some reason.
Maybe Selkie’s clan doesn’t possess “magic” like we saw Sai Fen using to carve the statue. Maybe it’s not that she’s superior in some way (ie: royalty) but part of a group of racial “defectives” and the civil war was about this group having been treated as slaves or property because of their sub-sarnothi racial lack.
If she’s being hidden for her own protection, the name change might be deliberate. Other Sarnothi might realize she’s an orphaned Sarnothi, even possibly a particular ethnicity, but if she doesn’t go by a name easily re-transliterated into “Nei Li”, it might not be as obvious that she’s of that specific clan.
My guess is that Dave is waiting to reveal the origin of Selkie’s name in a flashback episode. I was hoping it would be because of her seal-face sleepers (shown in one of the bonus sketches), but that would have been before she was dropped off. A related idea is that when she first arrived, she picked out seal-themed sheets or pajamas or something.
But I’m having trouble with the whole idea that they had to create a new name for her in the first place. It’s fairly easy to pantomime “My name is Lillian; what’s yours?”, after all. And we know that Agent Brown was there early on, and could have corrected any name confusion!
Oh boy. That look… this can’t be good. Was it Selkie’s clan who started the civil war? Or the one that almost got wiped out because of it? Is it Friday, yet?
What makes that look even worse is the fact she dropped the phone.
I just hope she didn’t drop Suko! >.<
It’s clear to me that Sai Fen has put Suko down by panel four. I just hope the phone didn’t klonk Suko.
He’d get over it. The phone is an awesome airplane.
I just hope she doesn’t drop the bass.
…it’s for dinner, after all.
Sorry Selkie, but it looks like you’re the mer-folk equivalent to Adolf Hitler’s secret love-child. :S
Oh…oh no.
Not…
NOT CLAN JIN’SORAI!!!
Anything but them. Please, Dave, this has gone too far, and I don’t think I can handle this emotionally anymore.
Want a hug?
GROUP HUG ERRYBODY
Yesss! We must do this!!
I’m in.
*Gets in the hug*
Gotta love it when a bombshell is dropped, and the reader doesn’t know why it’s such a bombshell.
Time to start speculating before they start in with the “as you know” exposition.
Is she the Last Of Her Clan? Is Jin’Sorai Sai Fen’s Clan? Maybe it’s a guilty association due to misdeeds of this clan?
I’m guessing ‘The colony’ refers to the supposed great lake city, making it as new as the Save our fish act, and the SOFA wasn’t a peace treaty granting covert sovereignty, but a covert refugee acceptance. The only problem with this idea is that there’s no comparable freshwater place to put Sarnoth proper. Unless I’m overestimating the Sarnoth population, and ‘the colony’ is on land, making the SOFA (Seriously that acronym deserves a few headline jokes) a declaration of non-interference on the civil war.
In regards to the first section of your post, see my post above.
The problem with the idea that there’s a city in one of the Great Lakes is one of temperature: The Sarnothi don’t handle cold temperatures well and the Great Lakes get darn cold in the winter and are always cold at the depth they’d need to hide the city at.
The ocean is also pretty cold at depth.
But neither the ocean water nor the Great Lakes water get below their respective freezing points. (And, incidentally, the minimum possible temperature of the Great Lakes – while remaining liquid – is slightly warmer than that of the ocean.)
In midwinter, the upper Midwest outside air gets colder than that. Significantly so.
It doesn’t need to be freezing, it just needs to be well below their core boby temperature.
*core body temperature*
I don’t wanna hear none of your smart talk!
I’m sorry, but talking smart is something I strive for.
I’m going for she’s Royalty and left to be raised by humans for her protection due to the war! 😛
Now that’s a message I could support. 🙂
Her hair bow is the mark of a divine princess, lol
They could live in Lake Nicaragua or Lake Baikal (I don’t know if I spelled that correctly) in Russia. There are lots of large freshwater lakes all over the world.
Deep lakes all around the world are cold under a certain depth. Unless we’re talking about volcanic area lakes, but those tend to have no oxygen in the deeper waters. Heck, most of the Black Sea’s (I know, it’s a sea, but it’s damn near a saltwater lake) water body is anoxic.
I’ve got a question I’m hoping someone can clear up.
I may be misremembering, but when Dr Pohl was first shown, I remember Authorial Voice saying he was NOT the same species as Selkie, which meant there were more than one race of sentient water-dwelling non-humans running around. And that explained his difference in coloration. Am I remembering totally wrong? Because now it looks like they are the same species. Or are they different the way that, say, someone who’s Chinese and someone who’s Ethiopian are different… the same species but different ethnicity, culture, language and appearance?
I tried going back through the archives but couldn’t find the first time he showed up, which makes me really appreciate David Willis’ habit of tagging each comic with character names. 🙂
They’re the same species. They’re not the same ethnic group.
So that makes Lake Superior the colony, leaving the question of whether or not they have a terrestrial origin.
As for the cliffhanger, my guess is that that’s THEIR clan, and they had believed it all but wiped out.
Oooh. Two obvious Wham Lines on one page, and we only know the significance of one.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!!!!
http://www.dramabutton.com
hahahaha I love the drama button!
Thank you for that.
This is bad. Phol’s family may be ok with her, but if her clan is causing trouble, Selkie might become a TARGET for a Sarnothi hate-crime.
The knife that Sai was using a few pages ago looked nasty enough, and that was just a sculpting tool. I’d hate to see what a REAL weapon looks like, especially one being handled by an angry Sarnothi.
while correct, lets be fair here.
unless they can REALLY throw them there not that dangerous.
The knife itself might not be much, but consider what else the Sarnothi might be capable of…
According to the transcript on page 379, the knife was both too brittle and too dull to sculpt with, and yet it cut through the stone like butter.
Also, on page 215, Selkie’s mom was able to make a handgul of peple’s float on a whim.
Finaly, the transcripts of p378 indicate they can even use this “magic” to make phone calls untraceable.
If it hasn’t sunk in, the Sarnothi can manipulate objects in ways that should be physically impossible. As fascinating as this may be, it opens up the potential for some NASTY weapons, and after a harsh civil war, said weapons would be numerous and widespread.
It’s a good thing Selkie is under the radar for now; if a Die-hard Sarnothi Racist from a rival clan learned of her location…
By show of hands, who else just googled “Jin’Sorai” and couldn’t possibly care less about the NPC in WoW named Jin’Sora?
The same way we couldn’t care less that Suko may be names after a certain angst scarred cartoon character 🙂
*named
I think that’s Zuko, not Suko. Pretty close, though.
Hey Zuko was a badass, screw you guys! 😛
He IS a badass!! But undeniably also scarred and angsty. 😛
When Sai Fen dropped the phone I had this sudden urge to hunt down a gif of Toy Story when Rex tipped the walkie talkie off the nightstand.
“It’s a what? WHAT IS IIIIT~!?”
Plus sign is positive minus is negative! No no, the other way!
My first assumption was that Selkie’s clan were a “black sheep” clan that had done horrible things and then been wiped out. Like the Nazis!
I’m more leaning towards the untwist that they’re just on the opposite side from Pohl’s family in the war.
Given Selkie’s different colouration and the fact that she was obviously hidden at the orphanage by her mother separate from refugees and before the save our fish act, I think that marks the very beginning of the war and makes
Selkie a member of their ruling family.
In any militaristic civil war with hereditary rulers, one of the goals of the uprising side is to remove all possible candidates for rule, simply because without them it makes an effective rebellion to restore the status quo more difficult. If Selkie is a lost princess and the last princess of the Sarnothi then it puts her in danger from the rebels, who need to get rid of her, and the traditionalists, because they need her as a figurehead for their war effort and as the future ruler.
So basically you thinks she’s the Anastasia of fish people?
I suspected so since strip #98. 😉
Doesn’t have to be royal family. She could just as easily be from a sarnothi ethnic group that the majority has turned on for whatever reason.
The other shoe is halfway to the floor and accelerating
I think the Jin’Sorai clan is a clan that is either the aggressor or the victim in this civil war. Or a nearly extinct clan, destined to re-unite the clans? :p
could just be a ethic thing. God knows we have enough of that on are planet.
Ooooooo, exposition! Love exposition!
Well sh…it….What a twist….kinda figured that Selkie would have been from an unique clan after all she’s the main character. Dave have to say Aw Dr. Bunnyman has two little ones!
We will be victorius, for we are Purple and you are green! And we have honored our ancestors, and you have not, for you a green and We are Purple. Yeah, I’m betting on ethnic cleansing, and Selkie is in danger… But not from Dr. Bunny-Ears.
Isn’t there a purple/green fight-off in Babylon 5 by one of the alien species? I know one side was green, can’t remember if other was red or purple.
My guess is that Clan Jin Sorai is the royal clan, the one with the extra powers that made them the royal clan in the first place…
Now to try and hang on until Friday….
Oh. Oh. Oh. My. God.
And other people’s gods. I’m not picky.
Panel-by-panel breakdown of “WTF?!”-worthy moments:
P2: Kudos, Pohl, for suggesting that you’re going to tell the Smiths more.
P4: “The colony”? “FRESH FROM SARNOTH”?! I’m starting to think the “aliens with a colony here” theory is prevalent. That, or they’re not as freshwater as we think…
P5: See P2.
P6: “Civil war”: we have confirmation.
P7: Holy! Mother of mountains this is serious … just what is so horrific about Jin’Sorai that in…
P8: Sai Fen would drop her phone?
I want to know, and I really hope this isn’t what we all think it is. All I can say is this: the De’Medeias look worried, and sad, and a little shocked. They do NOT look angry, which bodes marginally better than if they were.
“Fresh from Sarnoth” makes me suspect another planet origin as well.
And I have to agree with the “worried, sad and shocked” – I’m thinking something along the lines “But weren’t Jin’Sorai’s destroyed entirely? AND ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO BE THE ONES TO TELL HER THAT?”
I was going more with Atlantis than alien. And where did the “fresh water” theory come from? Most people seem to suspect they live in Lake Superior (which is technically part of the Atlantic Ocean, i.e. salt water, but also highly polluted by cities).
We have no good evidence as to salt-water or fresh-water, or if that even matters to them. Selkie flushes her gills with fresh water for convenience, but also fills it with “medicine” which could easily correct for a salt deficiency in the water if that was needed.
Lake Superior, like all of the Great Lakes, is entirely fresh water, not salt, and it’s not even slightly part of the Atlantic. (There are, curiously enough, some very salty wells near the shore of the western lobe of the lake, but that’s extremely ancient water which has been encapsulated in waterproof basalt for billions of years.)
Ooooh. Could he know because her skin color or her eye color? I remember the anatomy sketch saying green eyes were very rare—yet both Selkie and her mom had green eyes.
He also heard Agent Brown call Selkie by her real name, Nei Li.
I’ve been reading this comic since the early days, and I’ve really enjoyed watching the progression of your art, Dave. The storyline, as well, is fantastic!
I’m wondering (if you are willing to divulge, that is) how many different ethnic groups that the Sarnothi have? If more than two, how many are involved in the civil war?
Last but not least, thank you for sharing your talent for storytelling with us!
Some background emerges…along with the burning question of: “Who *are* Selkie’s ‘people?'” And will Selkie see it the same way?
Eehhh, not sure how I feel about bombshells being dropped and right now it’s empty information. IMO, I really hate it when writers put information into a story that doesn’t make sense to the reader only to be relevant five pages late. Which in our case is a week in half. Which means I’ll have to double check what that info means later unless Dave dumps the next bit on Fri.
I am sure well will know what the Pohl and his wife are talking about in a bit…
one more thing, just from the last page (speaking of pet peeves) I hate when little kids speak and it’s ‘toddler talk’ if they’re over the age of 2. I work with small kids both with language delays and without. 4 year olds can speak in sentences, it’s cadence and speed that is usually the problem. So Suko can say “That’s my sistah! My sistah!” and it should be in his language grasp. However Suko being bilingual he is probably switching from English to Tensai a lot and picking English words that are easy to pronounce and probably speaking more Tensglish then anything else. I am not sure how language develops for Sarnothi kids, but yeah, I am so not cool with baby talk with preschoolers unless they have a language delay.
I will keep in mind the language delay. I am horrible in trying to grasp aproprate language development in child characters.
I’m not sure if the revile of Selki’s Clan is a bomb shell. There’s been some lead up that she was left for some reason and the Grandpa figured some of it out from what Agent Brown both said and didn’t say. What ever happened to cause Selkie to be adopted out was probably pretty bad and politics are probably involved. So to me the ‘bombshell’ makes senence with the information I’ve been picking up.
If there’s a civil war going on (which they happen a lot in the world) that could be a reaction to indicate that clan was the worst hit and not many got out. Or worse, some of the kids made it out and none of the adults did. So double hit of no home, no family for Selkie.
I hope that’s the indication.
I will be slightly put off if it turns out the clan is royal and this is another “lost princess” story. Child of parents who started the rebelion or were heavily involved in it I could probably stand, but not royal.
I’m sorry for my spelling. This public computer has a horrible key board and I’m in a hurry.
thats just it, we just don’t know what Selkie’s family is. There is a lot of tell and not enough show IMO. Language acquisition is something that folks miss, my best friend and coworker is a speech pathologist, so get to see how that works. Googling childhood language development should bring up some interesting results. With fantastic species though you should have a guideline on how language work with them and apply it with said research.
in regards to the language talk-
i don’t think it’s because of the age of language development, but it could be because he’s bilingual, if you think about it, anyone who comes from another country that doesn’t speak english and then learns it will still have those different inflections/different emphases until they properly condition their tongue to not use it at all (if they even can)
or, it could just be because of his accent. if it’s true that they’re from different ethnic groups, it could be because his version of tongue/language is conditioned to having that accent. Selkie often adds unnecessary S’s to works, perhaps his ethnic group has a lack of “er” sounds, so instead he uses a different accent. When he said “air plane”, it’s shorted to “a’pane,” which is another sound of “er”, “aer”.
Even if they do use the same accent, he might just have a thicker one because he’s with his biological family, and may not be subjected to humans on a daily basis like Selkie is.
I feels though that Suko is still taking baby talk in the last page, this isn’t about accents or being bilingual, I mean what four year old that doesn’t have delay says ‘uppa uppa’ and ‘me sistah’? That sound like baby talk. If it was a Tensai to English issue, he would be speaking in sentences but omitting words or replacing them with Tensai equivalents. I mean my godson is bilingual with Spanish/English he is also 2 and half and has good vocabulary and is forming sentences. Like “Dis one!” and “Make it so numbah one.” (raised by trekkies) and sometimes he uses Spanglish.
Also Sel didn’t get exposed to English until she was FIVE, and yet has good diction and sentences and a slight accent. That is less time than Suko and he is still speaking toddler talk.
My point is that Suko shouldn’t be talking like he is my godson’s age.
Bilingual children do have a slowed language development, but not half as slow as people think. This is “slow” in the sense that an 18-month old bilingual child displays the same level of word comprehension as a 13-month old monolingual child, but the bilingual child will have already learned to distinguish their languages at 13-months of age.
Overall though, bilingual children reach their language milestones at almost indistinguishable ages, and early on in development (i think just before the 2-year mark) the bilingual child actually overtakes the monolingual child’s in terms of vocabulary size.
Bilingual setbacks are almost completely nullified by age 2, and by age 4 should be undetectable.
My cousins are bilingual, and I know their language development dragged behind about until they went to school. Then they quickly caught up with others, but I remember some other relatives wondering if there was something wrong with the oldest of them when he was little.
I see one of two possibilities here.
My first thought was “civil war – green versus blue – but Dr. Bunnyear’s last statement – “I wasn’t sure at first” – wouldn’t make sense. As soon as he sees her – boom, she’s blue, not green. What’s to “not be sure”?
So I’m thinking it’s like the English Civil War. Either they are Royalists, who had to leave the country for the Colony, after the Roundheads took over, and, “Honey, I saw this little girl today, and I’m certain she’s a Stuart”. Yippee, yippee, some of the royal family survived.
Or they are Roundheads, and he’s torn between “she’s a Stuart, and must be destroyed” and “my oath as a doctor”. That would explain both the anguish on his face, in the next-to-last panel, and the look on hers in the last one.
Not blue – periwinkle! 😛
She says she’s periwinkle (it’s prettier), but if he was “the enemy”, then to him, she’d be blue.
Got out of that one, didn’t I? 😛
“Civil war”
Caaaaaalled it. (Me and half the fan base lol)
So the options for this clan, organized into one place, are: (1) Aggressor (2) Wiped out – except for Selkie (3) Long-lost royalty (4) Destined for something (5) combo of #2 plus #3 or #4
Gentlemen (and ladies!), place your bets!
Also, lol potty mouth rubbing off on the kid. Love how Pohl just casually chides the kid and not the mom he’s getting it from, haha.
I think (2) is a little too severe. We still don’t know that Selkie’s mom is dead (she just left) so we can reasonably sure Selkie isn’t the LAST of her clan. But a wiped out clan with a handful of survivors is still fair game.
It’s just one of the options. I did also simplify them all greatly for the sake of brevity.
Random speculation: I’m guessing Sarnoth isn’t another planet, but is basically Atlantis, somewhere really deep underwater, and the Sarnothi aren’t very populous, so they haven’t moved out until recently. They have a colony that is more accessible to human view, so now there’s culture clash.
Established: “The Colony” is not Sarnoth. Looks like “the colony” is the settlement/city in Lake Superior, and Sarnoth is another planet. There was/is a civil war. Clan Jin’Sorai are something very special, and Selkie is one.
The civil war may be between the two ethnicities (Selkie’s blue race, Pohl’s green race) but Clan Jin’Sorai are not the ethnically blue people — otherwise Pohl would have recognized Selkie as Jin’Sorai immediately, instead of saying “I wasn’t sure at first …”
The biggest question in this comic is why Selkie’s mother ditched her at a human orphanage without explanation. Looks like the Jin’Sorai have powerful enemies, and Selkie’s mother was trying to hide her. Not sure if that makes Selkie the secret Princess Ozma, or Hitler’s love child, or what. Me, I’m rooting for Jin’Sorai as lost royalty, and Selkie as Secret Princess.
OK earlier I wasn’t that sure about the “secret princess” theory … but now I want her to be Princess Ozma because, well, THE HAIR. AND THE CROWN. THEY ARE AMAZING.
And waitaminnit… perhaps she’s not a princess. We all know what happened to Ozma…
I agree with prypry obvious foreshadowing is obvious, now the main concern is just what selkie truly is (super sub-race or clan).
Why would Sarnoth has to be another planet? The US was “The Colonies” for a very long time. Hell, some people still use the term. I’d say Sarnoth is an underwater continent and/or city and the colony is an offshoot.
Could be, but if it’s freshwater, that eliminates most of this planet’s surface.
Is it freshwater? Perhaps they’re far less choosy about salinity than we thought…
Dave has stated before that they’re a freshwater species.
I can’t wait two+ days to find out what happens! 🙁
…DOCTORRRR, I need to borrow the TARDIS…
I’m laying my money on Last Of Her Clan, with possible shades of High Rank and/or Royal Blood. That would explain pretty much everything in this panel, as well as why Nei Li’s mother felt the need to hide her among human children in an orphanage. That would definitely be the last place a rebel faction would think to look for a child of royal blood.
I was wondering how the great lakes were big enough to support an entire species of human-sized apex predators. I mean, they’re huge, but…
Now I’m sort of wondering if the lake superior community is the colony, and Sarnoth is… somewhere else.
Again, Lake Superior is big, but not big enough for the hints of size we’ve been getting.
To clarify, while the great lakes /might/ be big enough to support a species of human-sized apex predators, I don’t believe the population size and resulting genetic variation would be enough to result in different racial and ethnic groups, especially if the only lake involved is Lake Superior.
Hey all got the sketch up and am now finish it all on my tablet.
hears what its going to look like
http://31.media.tumblr.com/4999701abc7c50cad82f0d5bb73327f2/tumblr_mufnqwKMLi1rhopzmo1_1280.jpg
Devilish! 😀
I suspect that deep down or far away wherever sarnoth is, the culture is a lot different than over here in america and so “fresh from sarnoth” is a reference to that. Like how some native from southamerica 100 years ago wouldnt know anything about pale faces.
“the colony” is a more modern/less secluded site inhabited by the mer peoples who are probably exposed to and know about surface culture/technology and serve as a gateway for mer people that wanna live on the surface.
they will slowly encroach into society and entrench themselves enough that by the time some pundit “reveals” them half the population will already know and be like “whatevers”
This really brings the fact that I’m invested in this comic to light in the best of ways.
This is amazing.
This, of course, raises the question as to whether ‘clan’ refers to family groups, ethnic groups, or a social status. I’m guessing the clan Jin’Soria is either one the De’Mediea family knows personally or one that is particularly notorious for some reason.
Maybe Selkie’s clan doesn’t possess “magic” like we saw Sai Fen using to carve the statue. Maybe it’s not that she’s superior in some way (ie: royalty) but part of a group of racial “defectives” and the civil war was about this group having been treated as slaves or property because of their sub-sarnothi racial lack.
But her mother does have that talent — so if it’s genetic, and Selkie doesn’t have it, then the defect must have come from her biological father.
Why didn’t Selkie end up named Nelly?
If she’s being hidden for her own protection, the name change might be deliberate. Other Sarnothi might realize she’s an orphaned Sarnothi, even possibly a particular ethnicity, but if she doesn’t go by a name easily re-transliterated into “Nei Li”, it might not be as obvious that she’s of that specific clan.
My guess is that Dave is waiting to reveal the origin of Selkie’s name in a flashback episode. I was hoping it would be because of her seal-face sleepers (shown in one of the bonus sketches), but that would have been before she was dropped off. A related idea is that when she first arrived, she picked out seal-themed sheets or pajamas or something.
But I’m having trouble with the whole idea that they had to create a new name for her in the first place. It’s fairly easy to pantomime “My name is Lillian; what’s yours?”, after all. And we know that Agent Brown was there early on, and could have corrected any name confusion!
…I’m just gonna start reading again from here.