November 27th, 2020
27 Nov 2020 · page 1037 of 1306
you know. for example.
Cast: Lei Feng, Verity Cunningham
Comments (76)
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31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
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It's good to be able to pick out traits in a person... that are exactly the opposite of what you're looking for.
Maybe Lei does have the right teacher on how to be a good person! She just needs to use the George Costanza approach, and do the opposite of whatever Verity does.
Actually, there's a certain truth to that. Every time she sees Verity do something which violates one of the norms of a "good person", she learns to recognize that temptation as something she should resist.
I don't know if Kate intends to make Lei a high-functioning sociopath, but that's what she's started to build: Lei doesn't have built-in compassion, but she's trying to learn to fake it.
Han Solo's Third Maxim
That's actually due to George Burns. (Who attributed it to Mark Twain, but there's no record of Twain actually writing it.)
Doesn't surprise me that it was via George burns. Not at all.
I wonder what that dockworker in panel 1 is upset about. Something wrong with the cargo?
Missing packs of biscuits, likely.
Not Vee's fault if it wasn't properly packed. Anyway, any damaged cargo is the property of the dockers.
If it's opened, even if nothing's missing, he'll get blamed for the damage.
Welcome to the Americas! XD
So, the date is August 9th, 1834. I love that the American flag is accurate (twenty-four stars for twenty-four States). I'm assuming this is a port in a northern State, since it makes more sense coming from England. I wonder whether this America has Slave States or not.
Also, have there been any guesses as to the 4th anchor? Mine is Machu Picchu, which would mean a real fun trip for Lei. /S
Well, we know from the cauliflower ([not introduced IOT until the 1900s](https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/school-nutrition/pdf/fact-sheet-cauliflower.pdf "https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/school-nutrition/pdf/fact-sheet-cauliflower.pdf")) that there's already been a significant alteration to local agriculture; and the clothes argue against it being a southern port, because August on the East Coast, pre-air conditioning, can be miserable. I'm thus pegging the port as New England; and [IOT the African-American population was miniscule enough](https://userpages.umbc.edu/~bouton/History407/SlaveStats.htm "https://userpages.umbc.edu/~bouton/History407/SlaveStats.htm") that actually seeing somebody not-white selling things in public like that would be extremely rare. I was already skeptical that there would be chattel slavery anyway - a slave with access to magic would be dangerous, even in the places where magic is weak* - and this scene doesn't persuade me otherwise.
*There's also the minor detail that Pemberton Bryce managed to get through an entire London trip without uttering one racial slur, IIRC.
Did not know about the cauliflower. The oranges caught my eye moreso as I wondered if they were common enough then to just sell on the cart.
As for chattel slavery, the more I think about it, the more magic prevents it. Not only by it's intentional use by victims, but also the probable buggerups such negative actions would summon would make crimes against humanity much more dangerous.
And now I'm wondering how war and magic interact. Or colonialism.
I knew that oranges were common enough that you could buy them at the Globe Theater, because that's exactly the sort of mildly useless factoid that I'd expect to retain from college (instead of, say, my entire intro to statistics class).
AND the word "orange" entered the English language as a colour due to the fruit {before the fruit was introduced, it was just considered a shade of red} ... but the "N" had to migrate from the front of the name of the fruit {"naranja" in Spanish} to the end of the article - that is, "a norange" became "an orange" because English really doesn't like words that begin with certain consonant sounds...
That's a very good point about chattel slavery and magic, or at least magic in the way it functions in this world, with its direct connection to emotion, lack of controllability around the edges, and non-exclusive nature.
The potential for catastrophic bugger-up-ery would be one thing. For another, if you had a country with chattel slavery, it would be a massive magnet for the Deadlies. Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride would never hang out anywhere else.
Come to think of it, Ms. Ashwin has mentioned that racism isn't really a thing in this world, and the way magic works is a perfect explanation of why this would be that doesn't require even the slightest bit of "because I don't want to go there". Be racist, get Pride, culture collapses in on itself.
Does make you wonder about war... but maybe that's where Wrath is doing its job.
I will note that, no matter what else is going on, Lei did not realize the danger of imbuing her constructs with Pride.
She was, however, entirely willing to murder three people, one of them a guy who she even had some genuine romantic interest in, entirely and exclusively in service of her pride.
So her choice of a literally murderous emotion and hazardous location for applying it causing her plan to self-destruct just makes her an exceptionally poor planner, not much else.
I don't know that I buy the magic system disincentivizing slavery out of existence. I mean, if Kate wants a United States that never had slavery, I'm not knocking that choice. But I would think that, since magic requires education to do well (barring extraordinarily talented and/or witches), I'd imagine that the slaveholders would be the ones who either are wizards or hire them. (Teaching slaves to read was illegal in most of, if not all, the slave states, so I'm sure the same legal principle would extend to allowing them to learn wizardry. I'm sure some slaves would do their darndest to keep their magical traditions alive, but they'd also be targets for especially brutal crackdowns.)
And the things wizards could do to slaves could get very disturbing very quickly. Magically tracking escapees, pain-inducing magic as punishment... and that's before what might happen if someone Stateside heard about Doctor Flack's technique and was able to reverse engineer it....
Man, this magic system in a more cynical (realistic) version of history could be downright horrific.
I was just re-reading some old storylines and it’s been made pretty clear that how magic works in this world is that everything is tapping into an emotion spirit of some sort from another plane of existence (or the like).
Which tells us that even cynically if you go imbuing things with negative emotions, it’s pretty much guaranteed to backfire eventually.
So even from a realistic standpoint, there are only two options in this world: You don’t mess with nasty emotions, or you eventually end up destroying yourself, your town, or your entire civilization. I’d think that sort of imbuing or summoning would be pretty much self-limiting, because anyone who messes with it eventually takes themselves and the vicinity out of the game entirely.
There are plenty of real-world societal-level versions of “You either don’t do this, or your society destroys itself.”
Even if you tried to be super-careful, you or someone you were oppressing would eventually summon a Deadly and set it free in a society awash in whatever emotion it fed on, which would be the equivalent of a biological weapons release.
If anything, the cynical version would be that people would be terrified of magic after a few disasters with wrath or envy wiped out cities or governments and have fierce cultural taboos against its use.
You can come up with horrific ideas from just about anything, but it seems like the most likely horror-movie alternative would be the exact opposite--that you imbued the food or chains or whatever with emotions that kept people as happy as possible.
Also of note is that we’ve got strong indication other civilizations have powerful wizards as well--quite possibly more trained than England and culturally similar places--so the power imbalance caused by technological advances that made a lot of pre-modern-era colonialism possible might have been offset by using magic instead.
That magic helped level the colonial era playing field is, to me, a more plausible reason why slavery might never have gotten started in the first place.
As for the using magic to induce artificial happiness and/or loyalty, that's exactly what I was imagining someone who imported Flack's technique doing.
But this also gets tangled up in how quickly magical potency falls off as you move away from the nearest Anchor.
I dunno, I guess it's just that all of that unpleasantness is so deeply baked into US history that a version without it kinda breaks my brain.
Very late to add: The bad stuff deeply ingrained into US history from a very early period making it hard to imagine a recognizable United States without it is a completely different issue, and one I'm in pretty much full agreement with.
That said, Australia never went there to anywhere near the degree that the US did, and ended up being a bit similar culturally, so who knows.
Unfortunately with the US having spread across past the Appalachians, colonialism is looking alive and well. Still, we could choose to assume that it was only the smallpox plague and regular war instead of the same level of active genocide that we see in our world. In that case we'd expect to see substantial Native American populations and settlements spread through the US. If the majority of this plot takes place here, hopefully we'll have an opportunity to find out.
Really?
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauliflower "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauliflower") pegs its introduction to Europe {France, anyway} as the 16th Century: introduced to India by the British in 1822.
{The underlined "Wikipedia" is a clickable link - this board software does not set colours - or underlines - for links. You can manually add the underline, but not the colour.}
Well, that's what the [state of Wisconsin](https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdpi.wi.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimce%2Fschool-nutrition%2Fpdf%2Ffact-sheet-cauliflower.pdf%3ALACcvaOcvLTTqaCR5nFnzrsrJMc&cuid=1086527 "https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdpi.wi.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimce%2Fschool-nutrition%2Fpdf%2Ffact-sheet-cauliflower.pdf%3ALACcvaOcvLTTqaCR5nFnzrsrJMc&cuid=1086527") says. :) I suspect that it was grown in South America a while before it was grown in the USA.
Hmmm...
I know, it sounds weird, right? I mean, cabbages came over in the 17th century and broccoli in the 18th, so you'd think cauliflowers would have showed up early, too.
It looks like it was introduced by German and Northern European immigrants, which would be more consistent with Wisconsin's time line.
while not widely domesticated in america, them arriving to port city would lean possibly of exported cauliflowers (which were european product post middle-ages)
Even in Boston those clothes would probably be pretty miserable in August.
I'll also add Sedona, Dudleytown, Manoa, Shin-u-av, the future site of Sherman Ranch, High Rock Tower, and Puerta de Hayu Marca, to [my prior list](http://disq.us/p/2bt0por "http://disq.us/p/2bt0por").
Ummm ... am i missing something plainly visible?
Behind Verity when she's talking to the kid selling paper it says Wednesday August 9th
Ah and also hah.
Not the most observant person around.
If it's Wednesday 9 August {i had to copy the image to PSP 9 and enlarge it to even SEE the date}, it's not 1834 - 9 August was a Saturday that year:
I was a Wednesday in 1837:
[https://cdn.rocketcalendar....](https://cdn.rocketcalendar.com/preview/1837-08.png "https://cdn.rocketcalendar.com/preview/1837-08.png")
{I'm not trying to be a smartarse here; i'm genuinely interested in when this might be in its own universe.}
The reason I'm saying is 1834 is that the Envy party happened 13/03/1834. (Comic date 19/2/16) Find the Lady and Curtain Call take place over two days shortly after that event, then Harry spends three months at the island anchor, so that places Witch Hunt at roughly mid to late June (25/8/20). It's roughly a month to sail the Atlantic, so the timeline fits for it being still 1834.
I'm not sure about the Wednesday. Assuming it's not a mistake (an assumption I freely make with this comic. Damn these details are so good...) it implies that the history of the calendar is different. My first thought was the lack of leap years, but that didn't work. It might be the eleven lost days off September when the leap year was adopted in 1752. The math works for that.
IIRC, there's a cue in Find the Lady which shows that Sturzkampf is right here: [http://disq.us/p/2dhooqq](http://disq.us/p/2dhooqq "http://disq.us/p/2dhooqq") . If se, then the calendar is actually right.
And this is the kind of absurd little detail Kate takes care about. If it says "Wednesday," she almost certainly means Wednesday.
The link just takes me to the front page again. Do you know which comic date?
"{I'm not trying to be a smartarse here; i'm genuinely interested in when this might be in its own universe.}"
Look, people are looking up the histories of brassicas and the US flag in order to reverse-engineer Kate's worldbuilding. I don't think you need to excuse your behavior. :)
You're forgetting that the World of Widdershins still uses the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar used in our reality.
Eliza believes that the fourth anchor is at the antipodes of the anchor in the Himalayas. (Nyree's anchor is at the antipodes of Widdershins.)
Yeah, but the direct antipode of Everest (Chomolungma, as named by Swift in comic 4/12/18) is well off the coast of Peru. So I'm guessing the most famous site nearby.
I'm just gonna toss this in here: If there's a fourth anchor in existence, and Eliza is right about the anchors being in pairs that are antipodes of each other, then what if there are two more anchors out there somewhere, for a total of six? It's possible to locate six points on a globe that are all equidistant from each other.
Everyone not part of the Illuminati Lizard conspiracy knows that there are six anchors.
My head canon is now that there are 16 other anchors, since it's possible to find twenty points on the surface of a sphere which are pairwise equidistant from one another. (The 20 vertices of a regular dodecahedron.)
The world is a d20? That explains EVERYTHING!
Actually, a d12. There must be some weird monster in the Widderverse with a lot of hit points per level...
Just got there so won't bother to change my post. How many anchors for a d20? :-) edit = 12. Seems a bit more manageable.
... any guesses as to the 4th anchor? ...
I'm holding out for the Islas Desventuradas - the Unfortunate Islands. The closest land to anti-mountain-anchor and with an excellent reason to be untenanted most of the time.
I reckon Easter Island, allowing for a bit of creative Geography.
Yeah. Kate has shown herself to be perfectly willing to engage in creative geography when it served had story-telling, and a batch of rocky islands with no habitation and no fresh water seem like the perfect place for the fourth anchor.
Unless, of course, it's under a mile of water, which is my current bet. The witch of the fourth anchor is a whale.
If it's a whale maybe Kate can draw a singalong with Wolfe, er in watercolour?
The fourth door is present but 'greyed out' - indicating the potential but also the absence of a Witch.- An anchor with potable water for only half a year and thus habitable only on years when you can get a boat out there AND BACK would likely have a part-time witch at best - How would such a witch's door appear?
I vote for dolphins. If they're smart enough to leave the planet pre-Vogon explosion, they're smart enough to be a witch of the fourth anchor. :P
Oh, the dolphins never worried about the Vogons.
I mean, have you ever heard dolphin poetry?
I've considered the Atacama (home to the Nazca Lines) likely. Enough history and occult association for it to qualify. Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is also a possibility, but besides thr heads, it doesn't have much going for it.
That being said... there's always the possibility that Eliza's theory may not be 100% correct. Also, given that Everest and that place in New Zealand aren't inherently known for their occult properties, that means potential anchor sites aren't limited to "magical" ones in our world. With that in mind, it could be anywhere in the Americas, though if Verity is hunting a potential location, it's likely located within the US. Cahokia or Lovecraft Country, maybe?
Or Cleveland. Hey, anything's likely at this point.
Lovecraft Country, for sure.
Let's all sing the alma mater for Miskatonic U.
Yes, it's tough, but doesn't Ms Feng realise this all part of the apprenticeship? You've got to be bold, tough and assertive to get your hunter's licence.
Perhaps this trip will finally put Verity into a better frame of mind. We Americans have a proven track record of putting boots up British backsides when and where necessary. ^_^
I have some guesses all of the anchors have some sort connection windershins and the one in new zealand are realtivly flat while the other anchor is in the himilayas I have a feeling that it is in yellowstone if someone owns a globe they could test the theory with dowel rods no need to blow it up
...Maybe no need, but...
...but not nearly so much fun...
Well, the arc where Feng had the largest role involved a trick with guns, so it makes sense for her to go to gun country.
I admit, I didn't think Vee engaged in so much ...petty larceny before. Granted, she got hired to stage an attack on the anchor and did a number of crimes before that, but none of them were petty.
I wonder if it's money trouble?
going places
Really failing the ol' My Little Pony test there, Verity
OMG were on a new chapter hell yes. i love these two's dynamic
The year is 1826, the only year Wednesday fell on August 9th between the years 1821 and 1836, the period that saw 24 stars on the US flag. In less than a month on September 3, the USS Vincennes will set sail from New York City, and circumnavigate the globe, the first US warship to do so. It sailed south around Cape Horn and up the Pacific coast before sailing across the Pacific. Want to make a bet on two passengers/stowaways.
I realize that I'm alone in this, but I'm acquiring a deep distaste for Verity.
Her attitude to Lei's criminal history in ch 7 was quite telling, I suppose.
I agree she's a difficult person, but she isn't all bad by any means. Remember this page? [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-13th-2017 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-13th-2017")
Like I said, I realize I'm alone in my view. :P
Well, Lei, a better person could refuse have a runaway criminal as their assistant, couldn't they?
Oh no, an entire country full of Americans.
skipping another update :| again, i'm so sorry, but i really need to get these books out and i refuse to fall into the "working all night til it literally makes me sick" trap once again
Take all the time you need!
Definitely don't do that! Take care of yourself!