June 9th, 2017
9 Jun 2017 · page 704 of 1306
Bye.
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Heinrich Wolfe, Sidney Malik, The Butler, Verity Cunningham
Comments (54)
Events
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central
Famous last words, Ben!
I'm glad Sid thought of thanking Mr. Gula. I wonder where he's going to go? To Lux? Does he know Lux is about? So many questions!
"I wonder where he's going to go?"
To a steakhouse or a cafe, probably. Either that or to find an eating disorders therapist.
Well, Ben is strong enough to hold up Wolfe, at least. And he does tempt Fate, again. :) Especially given that the next one is Pride.
Verity's response... is good for a start, I guess.
>Well, Ben is strong enough to hold up Wolfe, at least.
And since he's the shorter of the two, it's probably easier than doing it the other way around, where Wolfe has to stoop down to get Ben's arm over his shoulders: [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-13th-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-13th-2014/")
Damn, Ben.
Didn't you learn your lesson the other time when you didn't even get to finish the sentence before Nemesis landed with both feet?
There it is!
[17 August, last year](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/august-17th-2016/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/august-17th-2016/") - Ben manages to get so far as to say "Really, could this day get any..."
And Vee shows up.
And the say is STILL getting worse.
So many questions! Is Gula his real name? (All the other members of Luxes group had pseudonyms). Is he connected with Hotel Gula in some way? Where is he going? How is it he hasn't aged? Where in time does he belong? What is his backstory? Why does he have such a strong connection with Gluttony whereas the others don't have the same connection to the other Sins?
It seems like Gluttony's ability to pull people from other points in time could strand them there if it's strong enough?
"Is Gula his real name?"
I certainly don't know, but given that the hotel he founded is named Gula, I'm tempted to assume the answer is yes, in this case. But it's far from clear. Unlikely though it is, maybe they all really had those names? Maybe the ageless Luxuria, who was summoned centuries earlier, has spent time literally cultivating people (even whole family lines?) corresponding to the various sins, up to and including having their names legally changed to their favorite vice.
"Is he connected with Hotel Gula in some way?" It was said that he is the founder of that establishment.
"How is it he hasn't aged? Where in time does he belong?"
We saw him time-snatched just after returning to the hotel after the debacle with Luxuria in the days of Henry and Isabella. So it seems clear he belongs to that time. He hasn't aged because he was moved to the future by Gluttony's peculiar time powers. He's now been displaced by two generations of time.
"Why does he have such a strong connection with Gluttony whereas the others don't have the same connection to the other Sins?"
Maybe they do? We haven't seen a scene which contains one of the vice thralls and the corresponding spirit together, other than Gluttony and Mr. Gula. But if they did show up together maybe we'd find the same kind of effect. My interpretation has been that the spirit can control the person because the person has given himself/herself wholly over to the sin. So I would expect the same effect all around.
>My interpretation has been that the spirit can control the person
because the person has given himself/herself wholly over to the sin.
I think you're right. That's certainly how it worked with Voss and Envy - even to the extent that Envy was able to possess Voss's mind briefly.
Well, there it was more of a literal giving over of oneself, by way of a bilateral deal with implications that were lost on Voss.
I meant rather that individuals who are utter slaves to their own vices are going to be slaves to the spirits which are manifestations of those vices.
About slaves, well, the example of Mr Gula shows that being a slave to gluttony don't exclude ability to rebel against Gluttony. (If we suppose that he did it over Gluttony's refusing food to him.)
In general, I think "Find the Lady" implies that it isn't in human nature to be an utter slave of the single vice. We are too complex and messed-up creatures, for that. )))) Voss was quite close to this state, before his summoning Envy, and it still didn't work, even with him. (Though I think Voss was very lucky in that regard, much more than he deserved with his deeds. Maybe, it was a compensation for his being very unlucky in getting near the Anchor.)
Oh, indeed! Mr. Gula ultimately does overpower his vice and rebel. But it took a lot for him to do so. Until he was dragged to such an extreme situation of being bullied by the spirit, I don't think the concept of disobeying his vice was within his consciousness. It's an addiction, ultimately. I see his choice to rebel as a kind of "admitting you have a problem" epiphany.
And I am confident we can blame Luxuria for helping to cultivate the addictions of each of his charges - they didn't become caricatures on their own.
In general, I would differentiate between the Luxuria crew of Henry's day, and our later-day characters even as they may nevertheless be associated with a vice. It's a whole different league.
The new "vice-team" isn't a "league". For example, Fairbarn isn't lazy at all... But we have around Acedia instead :)
What allows to preveiw some interesting sub-plots :)
Oh, hey, this comic suddenly fed a backlog of updates to Piperka. I wonder what happened.
No idea! Got no control over that whatsoever. I assume it just reads my RSS feed?
It uses a web crawler that finds the comic pages and tries to interpret them as an archive. The [FAQ page](http://piperka.net/about.html "http://piperka.net/about.html") says that the easiest thing for it to read is pages with individual URLs and tagged links to the next comic page (like <link rel="next" href="...">). This is present on your site, so it should be able to read them fine.
It stopped finding Widdershins updates after about [here](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-17th-2017/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-17th-2017/"). Today, 16 new pages popped into the update list. However, it still doesn't seem to have found today's update; it currently lists [this](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-6th-2017/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-6th-2017/") as the 'last known page'. Looks like it found today's update, too, a little after I posted this.
I'll email the creator and ask about it, and maybe look at the source code.
It may be connected to me flagging the Piperka feed as Not Working - the fix happened a few minutes later.
Oh you didn't just say that, Ben.
Let me add my voice to the chorus of weary swears at Ben.
Poor, poor Ben. I don't know what's going to happen at the university, but I already feel sorry for him. facepalm
Well, one thing that seems likely to happen is that the others will discover that Sid does NOT have a degree, so Ben's not the only one who will get to be uncomfortable.
Yeah, I think it is inevitable. Maybe if Sidney had seen the university "marked" on the map before Benjamin asked about his education, he wouldn't have tried to conceal something that was going to turn out anyway. But he got it only later.
Perhaps he is about to learn that his "low" degree from a "lesser" institution is nothing to be ashamed of.
I would like to hope that will be the case, perhaps by the end of the story. But more than that, I would like to see him in a situation where he's really invaluable to the team.
My feelings, exactly. :) I really hope for Sloth in this regard, especially given that it was Ben's summoning.
Oh yeah, that would be neat! But whatever the case, I too am hoping Ben gets a chance to overcome his doubts soon. : )
It seems the encounter with Gluttony has wounded their ... Pride.
No I'm not sorry.
Oh, no! He just jinxed them.
So Pride is next, then? I can't instantly think how greed or sloth could be terribly embarrassing. Now imagining Ben "I'm so pretty, oh so pretty".
Tempting fate there, Ben. Or worse, Luxuria...
Vicar: And do you, Verity Cunningham, take Sidney Malik to be your lawful wedded husband?
Vee: grinds teeth, glances at belly I do.
Vicar: I now pronounce you man and wife!
Vee: resigned sigh holds out finger for ring
Organist: plays recessional: the finale from Act 1 of _The Magic Flute_
Harry: beams Don't they make the perfect couple? Come on, Mister and Captain Thackerey, let's go and see who's catching the bouquet! sets off, commences filling pipe
Ben and Nicola: frown at her retreating back glance at each other in mutual irritation follow
But, you might ask...
Luxuria: appears in desummoning circle hits Harry and Mal with ALL the LUXURIA MOJO
Harry: NO!
Mal: JUST NO!!!!
Luxuria: ...Damn!!! sheds tears of impotent rage
Harry: Phasmia permissum de loco isto. Habes ibi nulla libertas...
Luxuria: glances despairingly from Mal to Harry and back, sags in resignation
>:=)>
Could be worse. Could be Harry and Gren.
Vee's not glaring at Sid - that's a start, at least...
Dude, they were the WORST at this one so far. That level of incompetence is just painful....
...Let's see them screw up again!
Damnit Ben, why do you say these things!?
I like Gula's dignified exit here. He was probably a pretty lousy person, but he did a good turn, and that's enough for me.
Now we'll never know what the Butler's voice sounds like.
Perhaps, to paraphrase J.K. Rowling, his voice perished from lack of use...
I know exactly how the Butler feels. I'm always cranky if I miss breakfast too.
The next one's gonna be even worse, isn't it. My money's on pride. (though it could also be greed.)
It's in reverse order of when we met them/were bound so pride next, then sloth, then greed, before dealing with luxiuria.
Now I'm wondering if the butler has mutism (selective or otherwise) or if he just doesn't feel like speaking, ever...
Time spent talking is time your mouth is too busy for eating. So maybe it's just a kind of extreme gluttony discipline.
He'd have to eat his words.
Ben, STOP. The next one will probably be pride, and you'll have to try and out-pretty it by wearing a dress or something.
You do this to yourself, you know.
Ben, Ben, have you no genre-savviness at all? You just don't say stuff like that.
That's just for fhis little flaw, if I am not mistaken, you did blame Emil yesterday? :)
All they tend to make the same blunder :)
I did! It's all too common a flaw. Nice to see a fellow SSSS traveler. :)
She's not the only one.
I know! I recognize a number of others from the comments. Good taste, the lot of us. :)
Sush, you'll summon the deadly.
Ben, has anyone ever told you that you have the bad habit of setting yourself up?
I'd say the butler's fed up. I'm sure it's been said before, but it's certainly clear on this page.
Oh no, Ben no! This is even worse in retrospect!