October 27th, 2017
27 Oct 2017 · page 743 of 1306
Cast: Enid O'Malley, Harriet Barber, Jack O'Malley
Comments (50)
Events
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central
Sometimes Enid's spirit looks like a swan, sometimes like herself, and she fills the room with her presence. Will we see how she breaks little Jack from his prison?
Grace, beauty, fire, calm, determination, she already has broken Jack from his prison twice, his prison of self pity then when he was a child and now.
She certainly has. :)
In the latter case with an assist from Harry. ;)
Yeah, well-put - though I wouldn't call it self-pity when he was a kid, more despondency (with cause).
And as if he didn't lay in full depression ten minutes ago!
All fresh and ready to "give as good as he gets"! :)
A good Mum or Gran can do that for you. ^_^
"I like Blue"
"What color is this?"
"Blue"
"...I like blue."
Her spirit is showing how interested Mrs. O'Malley is in the lonely little boy. :) She's good people.
I like how nobody seems to be able to accurately describe these types of spirit. "He's very...there." "Is Wolfe still, ah...?" "Her spirit, it's..."
These pages are unbearably sweet, not least for adult Mal's nostalgically fond smile.
Shoes ON the bed sheets?!? If he was caught doing that, it would be unforgivable!
Still, better the sheets than shoes on the mattress. At least sheets can be washed.
I guess if they're about to be changed anyway?
Spirit be like "tweet tweet"
Mrs. O'Malley is a cleaner of all kinds, sweeps cobwebs from the heart.
When Mal looks at wizards, can he get a sense of what they're feeling, or is it all just noise? Does the noise change or fluctuate in a way that gives him any insight?
Beautiful page, btw!
If you look anew at Ben's and Mal's collaboration in the ch5, you'll see many changes in Ben's aura - in its colour, chape and even in its size.
All this is accompanied by clear and undoubted changes in expression of Ben's feelings.
But his aura never gets a human or animal form.
This question also made me go look up when we've seen Sid's aura, I believe it's only been twice. Same texture and shape, but changing color.
[http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-23rd-2012/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-23rd-2012/")
[http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/august-17th-2016/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/august-17th-2016/")
Love how she is keeping an "eye" on him even while she is working.
I REALLY like the way the focus of the spirit's gaze shows what a person is really thinking about. Like when she came in and her spirit looked straight back at Acedia like, "What the heck, lady?"
It's heartwarming too, like, usually with a muted, rather uncommunicative person, this attachment and affection would be invisible to those around them. Communication would make it hard to figure out.
But Mal sees her and in spite of all the awful he's been through, he's immediately 'this is good people.' Like, the prickly distrust and paranoia that such a background would normally cause in him . . . Isn't there. Because spirits don't lie! It doesn't matter how dishonest or crappy people are to him or how abused he is, when he comes across a good person, he KNOWS.
It's an enviable thing.
...I know that she's not going to bust what will be soon 'her' kid out of this joint by ripping the window bars out via a convenient brewer's wagon and a team of wise-cracking Cockney rough diamonds, then spend the next decade or so running the Pigeon Drop with Jack in the south of France. I mean, yeah, I get that. But that's going to be my head-canon until Kate tells me otherwise.
Where do I put my money in?
My guess is that she probably left the door unlocked
Well, that would be the classic Weatherwax-style play.
But your version does explain Mal's love of France and why he keeps wanting to go back there.
Not many.
If there were more, the world would be a lot nicer place.
I wonder if you can choose to be the kind of person with a spirit like that. If you can "feed" your spirit until it's full and flourishing.
Out here in the real world, this "nourishing of spirit" is the point of Christianity. We are all called to be saints.
Practice good habits and virtues.
I completely agree.
But I kind of meant in terms of comic-world magic canon.
Oh... In that case, you have a good question! Here is my guess:
There should be a demand for virtuous things like courage or intelligence, if it were possible. So I suppose that these enhancements are beyond the capabilities of magic.... or the natural controls against these moral steroids are so severe that no one dares.
Whereas the Deadly Sins are more like addictions than enhancements. Always a black market for shortcuts to happiness.
To paraphrase perhaps an all to simply analogy from Star Wars.
"The power the Dark Side offers is no greater than that offered by the Light Side. It's just...easier."
A noble goal. It is unfortunate that nearly all major religions contain too many who build themselves up by laying others low instead.
A few too many, yes.
Most of the world's great religions encourage their followers to be good and to do good. The few ugly zealots who practice shame and violence are a scandal; they do not represent the billions of good Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists throughout the world. (And the Sikhs! Mustn't forget the noble Sikhs in any list of great religions.)
IMHO it's rather buddism?
Yes! yes you can. But it will take effort, at first.
I'm not sure. Based on what we've seen, a lot of it seems to be innate. Mal's reactions showed that young Wolfe was 'very there' from the start of the flashback about how they met.
We don't yet know about Enid O'Malley. She might possibly have achieved that, um... forceful serenity... at the end of the choices and experiences of a long life. My guess, though, is that, like Wolfe, she was born that way. A rare natural gift, comparable to being a witch, but of a different order.
Wolfe was indeed "very there" when they met, but Wolfe was also "very Wolfe" by that point.
I'm just suspicious of claims of innate ability as an end point.
Yes, but Wolfe doesn't seem to have worked at it. Initially he didn't even know that other people weren't like him. You'd think if he'd started from somewhere else, he'd have been aware of having made a journey.
I wouldn't call it an end point, though -- more of a starting point. What counts is what you do with what you're given.
Wolfe's naivete about others doesn't necessarily mean Very Thereness is innate. If he was simply taught the right things to cultivate it early on, it might not occur to him at that age that not everyone gets so good an upbringing. Heck, he might not even realize it's something he's learned if he learned it really young. It SEEMS innate because he can't remember a time before he learned.
Wonder if the Big Villains, as well as the Heroes, are also very....
Wolfe has a similar aura do you think thats why o mally likes him?
Lovely. You made me tear up there. And even without words, even with her face looking fierce (thinking of Acedia, probably), she lifts him out of that slough of despond. Her spirit is so clear and nurturing - it even looks like he can touch a strand of it. And when Mal finds those not-many-but-enough people, he stays with them as much as he can.
>And when Mal finds those not-many-but-enough people, he stays with them as much as he can.
That must be why he asked Wolfe to travel with him almost right away after they met - he already knew that being around people like that makes him feel better.
You can tell that Enid already Has Plans that Acedia would wind up hating her for. Not least for totally wrecking the depth of the careful funk she tried to put the little witch into. :)
I wonder if Harry will be the one to break the pattern and ask about her own spirit.
Here's a nice little fact for you all - the name Enid comes from an old Welsh word "eneit", meaning purity but it's literal translation is soul.
Our word for the virtue of Charity comes from the Latin caritas, which is often translated as love. But it is also the root for the English word care.
The virtue of Charity is "the habit of self-giving love which desires the highest and best for the beloved." Enid's spirit has sized up poor little Mal, and she has already decided to do the best for him that she can -- whatever that turns out to be.
The fun part is that her conscious mind may not even be aware of this yet! Her spirit has found someone in need of love. The rest of her will catch up in due time.
Such a beautiful representation of love and care... I love the spirit looking at the child Mal.
Enid's spirit even breaks down the boundaries between panels - the space is suddenly less claustrophobic. Beautifully done.
W H O L E S O M E