January 28th, 2020
28 Jan 2020 · page 960 of 1306
There are more senses than sight, turns out
Cast: Harriet Barber, Nyree
Comments (59)
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if one sees, one smells/taste ... what about the other tohunga, does one hear them ? :D
O'Malley can both see and hear them. The Malforms at least.
perhaps there's one that only feels it when a spirit slides through them?
it's the touchy witch!
Ever get goosebumps or chills? Now imagine if everyone did that to you in some way or another.
Imagine being able to hear a leitmotif for every person around you at all times. Would probably explain why most of these folks seem to be hermits...
yeaup, that'd drive me razy
Mal's good luck is that he don't have it! Or else he couldn't enjoy Wolfe's music as he does. Maybe only at times they are alone, and he'd need no violin for that, Wolfe's own music would be enough!
Wolfe's spirit would sound amazing, though.
So just like all color except spirits is muted for Jack, are her senses of smell and taste mostly muted except for peoples spirits? Because if so whatever she cooks probably has to have STRONG flavors to get over that and Harry is about to eat something with more spice than she's ever experienced.
she was sniffing into a jar a few pages ago
Well she has to have some sense of smell to know what smells to compare to Harry’s spirit, but I mean if it’s missing something the same way mal only sees monochrome.
Maybe she knows how strong something tastes/smells, but that's it? Like maybe sewage and bath-bombs might smell the same.
But then, she is able to identify charcoal and licorice, so probably not.
She KNOWS what charcoal and licorice smell like - the O'Malley doesn't know the names to describe the colours he sees.
Or she cooks more based on feel and look rather than taste. Which, uh...
Well, Harry's British, so it's going to be spicier than anything she's ever had before regardless.
But she's also a well-traveled Brit, so she might have a wider range of experience than someone who's never left their hometown.
From a British cookery book: "...and boil until grey."
SOP for British cooking. And quite right too. Nothing worse than crunchy vegetables.
Under many circumstances I'd agree, traditional British cooking is pretty dubious, but I have to report that Maori cuisine isn't too great either. Though some of their traditional crops have quite strong flavour (e.g. the sweet potato), there were no spices before the european arrival.
...it may just be a different definition of "spice". Salt, at least, is used almost everywhere/everywhen. I'd presume there are other minerals or some native plants that were added to change a food's basic flavor.
I can relate to this, with a very muted since of smell. Most of my cooking is either bland as heck or offensively strong to others.
Maybe Jack's just naturally colorblind, and his brain was like "Well we're not using these neurons for anything else and I keep getting inexplicable sensory input, it must be this 'color' thing of which I've heard so much.
I love this idea, but it wouldn't really explain why, when he got the Sight via Envy, Ben stopped being able to perceive physical colors. Unless Envy stole both Mal's colorblindness along with his Witchsight. Though I'm not sure how a lack of an ability (to perceive physical color, in this case) counts as a thing you can steal?
It might be one of those "don't think to hard about the fine details" things, really. I mean, with anything involving magic, there comes a point where, no matter how thoroughly thought out the magic system, the explanation hits a wall of "Because it just does, OK!?" Otherwise, it wouldn't really be magic, would it? :-P
I also love the idea put forth by Boba. But your explanation dismissing magic is a bit premature; our universe calls essentially calls magic stuff that does not adhere to the natural laws. But that isn't the case in the Widdershins world. It might as well be a natural law, with a proper amount of jargon to go with it, if you give the research a couple of centuries.
The whole idea of our universe being structured on different energy fluctuations (in a nutshell) can be seen equally as magical to a universe that doesn't use such rules.
Anyways, entropy sucks.
Sorry, what I was aiming for is that, while internally consistent and normal for the setting, trying to explain everything in terms of our physics/chemistry/biology/etc. is ultimately going to hit a wall at some point. So the closer you get to whatever the underlying difference is, the more technobabble really starts to emphasize the babble part.
It reminds me of a bit of Eddie Izzard doing stand up in French I saw, specifically about English speakers getting hung up on the grammatical gender of objects in French (or any other language where everything is gendered, really). (Apologies for translating AND paraphrasing.)
-"Why is a chair feminine?"
-"Because it's a chair."
-"Yes, but what makes a chair feminine?"
-"It just is."
-"But why?"
-"BECAUSE IT JUST IS, OK?"
Fair enough, but even our explanations for our own system is flawed. We can make as much inferences as we want, but the Universe is under no obligation to care. If anything, having your thoughts or ideas directly influence reality is what magic is.
And to blow your mind, chairs do not exist.
He started seeing color when his witch vision was stolen though right? And it's not like he got something from ben in an exchange, ben just got in the way of where the witch-vision was going.
But Mal can do that too, though. Usually he just sees them, but he could smell the influence of Sloth, and he can hear the malforms, so does the single-sense perception only count for people’s personal spirits, and spirits get more real when they’re drawn into the world by magic or something? So like Nyree can smell your mind but if there’s a buggerup she’s be able to see and hear it too?
Oh! And if Mal is colourblind, does that mean that Nyree’s senses of taste and smell are bad or completely gone? Probably not all gone, if she knows what licorice tastes like, but maybe dulled somehow?
Didn't Mal get some temporary ability to see colors better at some point?
He swapped the ability with Ben at some point. Does that mean that Ben was temporarily the witch then?
No, he remained a wizard, with a poor aura clearly seen in the mirror.
Perhaps colorblindness isn't mandatory, just an unlucky coincidense in a witch?
No, Envy said about Sight clearly, "only a side effect of something that even I can't steal". It meant "being a witch", apparently.
Ben only got the Sight during that episode, not the rest of Mal's abilities. Remember how the buggerups reacted to him: "You are not the O'Malley!" "Why does he not see?"
Strictly speaking, Mal can See and Touch "personal spirits" (and move them, too). I wonder if other witches can handle them in this way, "stealing" included?
Four witches, four senses? (Out of the five 'traditional' senses, taste and smell being combined in one) I suppose Mal can also hear them if they speak or grunt or squeak, but that might be something different from "feeling the presence by sound".
(edit) Spinning this wonky thread a bit further with some thin lines: The mountain witch could be "the one who feels"? I base this purely on the observation that our favourite suspect for the mountain witch is the knitting lady who told Voss that he is "holding great emotion" in his heart, which sounds more like feeling than hearing to me. Anyway, this might just be a limitation of language to describe this kind of thing, or it's all unrelated because I'm down two or three levels of speculation now. Can't wait to see the actual plot unfold! :D
Also if the spirits refer to Mal as "the one who sees", then Nyree must be "the one who smells"...I hope Mal can think of a tactful way to tell her about that :P
He can hear standalone spirits, but I don't think he's ever heard anything from the ones attached to people. I could be wrong though.
So there would be "The one who Hears" and "The one who Feels"?
I suppose hearing could be that spirits manifest as sounds, like music or types of ambient noise such as running water, etc. Anger or Wrath might sound like crackling flames? Would feeling be like those sensation you get from time to time, like chills or tingling?
I wonder if Nyree would get "sensory overload" from his "witch senses" in crowd like Mal does... or maybe she can turn them off, unlike him?
Also, it is interesting that Acedia asked about "people who could see things" in her search of Witch... did she know for sure that Widdershins Witch has (or should have) Sight? It is a legit question as well if she knew for sure Widdershins Witch was born at that moment. Maybe, Lux informed her about that?
It would explain why she lives on the remote island by herself, although I guess that's just a side effect of being near the anchor
Charcoal and licorice? So: does she smell in black and white...?
Now it explains why Ben was able to see (in Mal's sight) blue Mal's eyes: [https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-6th-2014](https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-6th-2014 "https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-6th-2014")
His eyes "hold" his Witch sense, so to speak. (Did the-Witch-before-him have blue eyes for the same reason?)
Good catch!
I'd imagine that the way each witch senses spirits is tied to their personality, not the anchor. So, the previous witch of Widdershins wouldn't necessarily have seen spirits they way Mal does.
Also, the blue eyes are a nice confirmation that Mal was still the witch even without his sight power. Envy did say that the spirit vision was "[only a side effect of something even I can't steal](https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/august-29th-2014 "https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/august-29th-2014")."
I already like her. And it seems Harry does, too. <3
Reminds me of a silly werewolf romance fic I co-wrote with a friend. We summed up each person's scent as a combination of two terms.
I am now imagining that Nyree wears a clothespin on her nose when entering Witchspace.
"Sounds awful": I'd say, Witch Hearing and Smelling have his own negative side. :/ Imagine bad "human spirits" smelling foul to you or making awful noise, so you have to cover your nose or ears!
I like how Harry refers to Mal as Jack in conversation, as well as calling him that just before she left (“I’m counting on you, Jack”).
Charcoal and licorice? That's not Harry's "spirit."
That's the lingering aroma of pipe tobacco.
Doesn't take a magic nose to know that Hungry Harry must have a great story to share.
Must take a lot of smoking for the smell to get into your spirit, much less your clothes or hair.
I'd love to share a meal and a cuppa with 'Arry.
I love how Harry and Nyree are getting along so well. :)
Ah, a connoisseur of good tales, I see. Nyree should pop over to Widdershins and see Harry's grandfather for a tale or three. I'm sure she'd LOVE to hear stories of bounty hunters, as actiony and romantic as they are!
Oh and let's guess the scents of each Seven Deadly Sin:
Sloth: Alcoholic
Envy: Salty and bitter
Wrath: Smokey and sharply spiced
Lust: Flowery and leaves a strong aftertaste
Greed: Almost perfect, but seems slightly lacking
Pride: Good, but overly complex in taste
Gluttony: Extremely heavy with umami
Stories? I like stories.
me, a loyal reader for years: who tf is jack
me, an embarrassingly long time later: 'mal' is not mal's full name you dingdong
The witches are all synesthetes!
Supernatural smell of spirits would be SO much better than super sight of spirits if you ask me!
It depends :)
I wonder if each witch has a unique method for sensing spirits?
Interesting...it may be less intrusive and overwhelming than Malik, but it also sounds a lot less informative.