Level 12: #11
Chapter: Level 12 — Post-Mortem
Rusty & Co.
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“Turns out I share my permanent record with anti-maddie, so there was a lot of fire when I woke up”
That’s actually interesting. Maybe she wasn’t allowed into the afterlife proper BECAUSE she was forcibly separated drom Anti-Madeline and could not be properly judged?
Clearly, she needs to find Anti-M and keep her in a bottle or jar. The Vassal of Time Outs.
Okay, conspiracy theory time!
The fiends on this page (https://rustyandco.com/comic/level-8-191/) mentioned a “prodigal daughter”. Could they have been referring to Madeline? Does Maddie have some kind of fiendish connection that would tether her soul to the lower planes?
We don’t know anything about Madeline’s family, so my theory is that Maddie has a fiendish ancestor. I know that being part-fiend doesn’t doom you to the lower planes in D&D, but this comic has its own distinct setting and can play by different rules. As a side note, being part-fiend might explain why Maddie survived being plunged into molten lava!
Another theory is that this is somehow Anti-Madeline’s fault.
Well, goodlaw would be an odd name for a fiend.
As though families cannot change names. Just ask the Windsors…
We don’t even know if it’s a family name. Could just be a byname.
It could be that somehow Maddie is touched by the Python and having her evil removed has left lingering effects.
The Viscount also in the prior panel where the prodigal daughter is mentioned said that ‘The paladin’ will likely share her experiences with the afterlife with her friends soon, and in a way that it implies doing so fits their plan.
Unlock the next portal, I wonder if it means that they intend to use Maddie to unlock the next portal somehow, kind of like how it happened when she fought the hipster vampires. Or maybe her and Anti-Madeline, or a combination of both. Maddie is quite predictable, after all.
How they intend this kind of manipulation? Not sure yet. But they have been shown to have a lot of resources and influence at their disposal.
“You are late!”
Derek: “I am also 2 miles East of the usual place. Along with the whole castle. Oh, and I am engaged.”
OK, our pacifist and polite Cleric will never be so antagonistic.
Also, he is too happy to be that sarcastic.
Last panel – uh-oh. Mood about to plunge.
Yeah. That’s a mood switch all right.
And a NEUTRAL GOOD ship is launched! And it appears Zar doesn’t have perfect 20/20 foresight. Or he’s watching the wrong universe.
Even better, a divergence from what Zar knows could be what he was attempting. If enough changes occur then his “known” disaster will not happen in this reality/timeline.
“It will be a completely DIFFERENT disaster this time!”
Conspiracy theory time!
On page 191, the fiends mention a “prodigal daughter”. We don’t know anything about Madeline’s family yet, so perhaps she has a fiendish ancestor or parent? If Madeline is part fiend, it might explain why she couldn’t get into the heavens despite being relentlessly good. It might also explain how she survived being dunked in molten lava!
Alternatively, perhaps her run-ins with extradimensional horrors have made Madeline’s soul vulnerable to being kidnapped (soul-napped?) after death.
Final theory, this is all Anti-Madeline’s fault.
(Sorry for the duplicate comment, my first comment disappeared and I thought it had been removed because it included a link)
Yeah, comments with links require approval before being shown, but there’s no indicator of this when you post them.
So, my best guess on this, looking back at some of Zar’s quotes:
“One day ago for you, and five weeks for me, was the largest sustained breach our reality has ever experienced.”
“Things pass through all the time, and reality is becoming a little frayed.”
So, whatever happened in the Level 6 adventure, it’s fraying reality. Now ordinarily, people don’t remember afterlives when they’re dead. But Maddie remembered her’s and took some penalties from it beyond the ordinary level loss from a raise dead spell. I’m guessing that because of the breach(es) in reality, souls are going elsewhere besides the afterlife they’re supposed to, however it works in this comic’s cosmology.
So my theory is that Maddie’s soul went to the hells instead of the heavens. And this is the fiend’s plan: To fray reality to that every soul goes to the hells instead of the heavens. Zar said before that Maddie had information on this group of fiends motives, even if she didn’t realize the significance of her own experience. It would make perfect sense if her own experience is a microcosm of a larger plot, being applied to everyone.
Even if NONE of it is Anti-Madeline’s fault, she’s gonna want bloody revenge on you for waiting until your final theory to note that it MIGHT be.
It’s hard to imagine what could’ve kept Madeline ‘good is to Maddie what water is to a fish’ Goodlaw out of the heavens.
It was that one library book she forgot to return when she was 11 years old. Bummer :/
Silly Pterocards, there is no way Maddie reads.
She does… people just don’t realize it because she just took an obscure feat so she can do it with her eyes closed.
There was also the”Staff Only” sign and the monogrammed invitation.
Why are we thinking she can’t read?
Or is this a joke that’s gone right over my head?
I think it’s just a jab at INT being her dump stat.
It’s definitely not THAT low though
Yeah it’s about her int being low.
That said, I was going more for “Madeline doesn’t read books for fun” rather than “Madeline is actually illiterate”.
It’s even harder to imagine a religion where one gets into heaven by being good since real world religions use heaven as a reward for obedience, obedience as an excuse for intolerance, and intolerance as an excuse for violence.
What an intolerant comment.
I can’t help but notice that you didn’t say the comment was *inaccurate*…
It was, of course, but P was doing exactly what he was blaming others for.
How so? Be specific.
What if the reason Maddie went someplace other than the Heavens is because she was *needed* somewhere else?
I find it weird that Derek’s and Madeline’s relationship apparently makes great strides forward during an episode when she’s ‘only’ Goodeline and anything spicy has been entirely outsourced to Badeline. I explicitly don’t (!) want to discuss the consent angle here, but more my premonition that this doesn’t bode well for their relationship once Madeline is whole again. Besides, I may be entirely partial due to my love for Minimaladine, but I personally would find loving a wholly, purely, unwaveringly, eternally good person boring in the long run. Every soup needs a little spice.
You’re not Derek.
Well, obviously.
I’m not Madeline either.
But, as readers, many of us reflect on what is happening and react with personally coloured emotions, questions, or conjecture.
The Python didn’t suck out Madeline’s bad side and leave her purely good; otherwise the Viscount wouldn’t have been able to make multiple copies of Calamitus with it. Instead, it just made a copy of her evil side, without the rest of her. Madeline isn’t a divided being, and neither per se is Anti-Madeline.
Madeline’s the same person she’s always been, which you can see comparing her in Another Notch in the Belt and most of Fangs For Nothing to her being exactly the same after Anti-Maddie popped out and her appearance in Circus Minimus. The big personality difference only happened after resurrection, due to trauma from dying and… probably ending up in freaky eldritch monster-land given the sound of that one thing screeching was what triggered her memories.
Ah, that would make sense, thank you for clearing that up for me. But the essence of the point still stands; she still hasn’t (fully) recovered from whatever caused her moral/emotional destabilisation, and in my eyes that might turn out problematic in the future.
Crazy to think Maddie’s death happened eight years ago for us. Is this what it’s like to be Zar?
Indeed. The creation of Mr. Hyde as a distinct entity doesn’t turn Dr. Jekyll into a saint.
The obvious reason she didn’t go to the Heavens: https://www.enworld.org/media/paladin-in-hell-1-jpg.96814/full
Could this imply that Maddie and Derek are adding a new member or two to the party?
Going back to the idea that Madeline may have fiendish ancestry or some similar connection, I toy with the the thought that maybe her strong pro-good stance in a reaction to her past. But I don’t think that’s very probable as her understanding of evil is very simple and seems almost childlike (https://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-40/). I would expect it to be more detailed and developed if she have experienced evil first hand. My first guess is that there is something unknown with Madeline’s past that will trigger and open the castle portal somehow. I’d also throw out the idea of some metaphysical interaction caused by the creation of Minimadeline. The two of them just don’t seem to act like they’re linked at all.
The last part that I’m waiting to see it what Minimadeline and the Genre Belt have. Perhaps the Genre Belt is the key to opening the portal, but I think that is too random to be forseen. Perhaps she will throw the upcoming Hellish invasion into chaos with the belt. I do notice that she is Chaotic Evil. Meaning she would rather cause problems then work along with an organized evil force, which also spells for fun.