December 29th, 2015
30 Dec 2015 · page 551 of 1306
A good one to end the year out on.
Cast: Mr Avaritia, Mr Luxuria, Ms Acedia, Ms Invidia, Ms Ira, Ms Superbia, The Butler
Comments (54)
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Reminds me of the story of that count that invited all his rivals at a banquet. And poisoned it.
Which one? In Rome while the Borgia's were in charge you get the impression it was pretty much standard operating procedure.
Now he has someone for the Deadly Sins to inhabit... if they just happen to be summoned to the area.
Inhabit? Or just one technically still-alive offering per sin?
Well, remember we saw Gluttony earlier in a later adventure. (Something you can only say in context of a flashback-type story!)
That last panel is perfect in every way.
Huh ... did he give them specific glasses? Because knock-out drugs rely heavily on dosage. A small person would need less than a large one, etc. If he just gave them the same large amount, the smaller people, like Invidia, could die.
Yes, I would say that is the plan. At this point, their survival would be... Inconvenient.
Are you sure? I was betting on Luxuria wanting to use their bodies to house the other deadly sins or something.
To be fair you would need bodies that matched the quality or traits of said sins... not one part required them to be ALIVE. Just that the bodies are intact.
Think necromancy, but without the corpse like skeletons.
Drinks spiked with sloth, maybe?
Probably just morphine or something
You can still overdose (= stop breathing) or just not get an effect from morphine. It's not exactly a "one size fits all" drug.
It's the Victorian era. They had maybe 35 drugs tops, and at least 10 of them were secretly cocaine (not including cocaine, which was very openly cocaine). "One size fits all" drugs hadn't been invented yet, but everything that had was treated as one. As far as sedatives go, it's basically either morphine, opium, or booze, and you can't really spike someone's drink with booze when it's already booze. I trust that Luxuria is skilled enough in the villainous arts to know how to slip a small group of people proverbial mickies without killing them, even if it means different doses.
I was wondering something similar- it seemed odd to me that Mr. Gula dropped before Ms. Superbia, despite clearly being the bulkiest of the bunch.
He sucked down two glasses while everyone else were taking their first sips.
That would be in character...
I'm thinking it might just be poison. i.e., use enough, and it'll do the job on anyone.
"Mithridates, he died old" -- A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad
"...But I doubt it, Bunter. In this case I very much doubt it." (Lord Peter Wimsey)
...although Luxuria sounds more like Mithridates than like Norman in this case.
You officially made my day, Dee! I love those books.
Luxuria may well be immune to whatever it is anyway, he being not entirely human (he's survived being 400, surviving poisoning himself should be easy). If not, yep, making himself immune to something in case it came in handy later sounds like just the kind of thing you could rely on him to do.
Anyway, glad to see you're OK, Kate, and not flooded out. I'm enjoying this no end!
Thanks! We lost some small chunks of the village, but made it through pretty okay. Very glad our house is on a hill!
Except strychnine - an overdose of that makes you sick enough you might actually vomit it back up.
it's iocane powder (of course)
This appears to be an example of [One Dose Fits All](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneDoseFitsAll "http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneDoseFitsAll") (warning: TV Tropes contained), although a magic-imbibed drink, as suggested by Pizkie, would be quite plausible as well.
I'm favoring the 'drink as material component to the spell' theory, too. Or perhaps 'drinking the glass as the SOMATIC component.' Less likely to show up on any thaumaturgical scan for traps.
Is Luxuria really drinking? If so, it must be a potion of some sort, not a conventional drug or poison.
=========
Final panel, yes, he appears to be drinking.
I vote for the 'magic' theory!
Given the attention paid to proper dosing in the Gluttony chapter, I don't think that Kate would write a one dose fits all drug unless Luxuria were stupid, magic was involved, or he's just trying to off them.
maybe he doesn't care if they die . . .
It's probably noteworthy that Invidia and Avaritia felt it early on, and Acedia, Ira, and Gula all fell after them. I'd hazard a guess that Gula got a double dose, but the rest got the same dosage, which took longer to down Superbia.
The Shaw Sisters would approve.
I honestly cannot see why any of them fell for that. Seriously. why would they even begin to trust someone like that?
He DID follow through on giving Ira, Avaritia, and Acedia what they wanted, so there's a baseline of credibility. Plus, it may not be the first time they've shared drinks.
Even so.
Considering that she appears to be reaching for Luxuria I'd guess that it's the former.
In a story in "Supergirl" when Peter David was writing it (the only time when the title was regularly ever any more than pleasantly mediocre), Lex Luthor is running for President, and it's a running gag that he's been running into a bunch of people who exclaim "You!"
And then he comes face-to-face with Supergirl (with whom he sort-of had "history"), and she exclaims "You!"
And he says "{sigh] Me."
And of course...
[http://www.girlgeniusonline...](http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100726 "http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100726")
Hands up anyone who didn't see this coming. Oy! You six on the ground! I said hands up! D:
I kid, I kid.
As a matter of fact, I didn't, but I wasn't really thinking about it or I might have pushed up my estimate of when & how he'd betray them all.
Janet! Brad! Rocky! Doctor Scott!
Bullwinkle!
All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon When we're poisoning peons in the park Every Sunday you'll see my sweetheart and me As we poison the peons in the park
When they see me coming The flunkies all try an' hide But they still go for champagne When loaded with cyanide
TOM LEHRER!!!
If people haven't heard the original, you need to: [https://www.youtube.com/wat...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY")
Thank you, I could not have lived without knowing of this. :)
Applause
Ok, I understand the rest, but why Acedia?
I think he needs all seven sins present for the next step in his dastardly scheme.
Also, why not Acedia? It's entirely possible he doesn't actually care about her at all, and was just using her attraction to him as bait to lure her into being a vessel (similar to how he tricked the woman that released him). Lust as an emotion is all about wanting, so I'd expect him to be selfish. Not that any of the other spirits seemed worried about the well being of mortals - too much of a gap between us and them?
Of course, it could be that Lust is actually in love with Sloth...
Man in Black: "They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to Iocane powder"
Despicable me.
I don't think he cares if he kills them or not. they have all served their purpose for him and therefor are no longer needed. so he may of just dosed the whole bottle w/ enough to knock out (or kill) the largest of them, knowing that the others would all go down too. he took an antidote 1st so it wouldn't effect him of course.
He took you to a strange place and had you all drink Champagne.
How did nobody think the drinks were poisoned?