Vodnik: Could He (God) not have just told Abraham that?
Zebulon: Yes, my friend, He could have, which is why I wrestle with it so.
Cass: Why didn’t Zebulon just say that?
Kazi: Yes… There are many things I don’t understand about this universe. One of the most confounding things: Effie and Zebulon Mucklewain.
I actually love this parallel because it both harkens all the way back to the beginning where Gloria asks “the wrong way” about what to expect on the planet they landed on and draws one hell of a parallel between the Mucklewains and God. BuuuUuUuuUt, it also serves as a reminder of where they came from: Chuck.
Chuck made Effie and Zebulon for Caspar. Chuck exists at all moments simultaneously, which is about as close to confirmation of God as it gets in the classical sense. There’s no physical form there, just envoys. Effie and Zebulon. But because Chuck made them “in his image” for lack of a better turn of phrase, they’re also limited by what they can communicate. Both because they are what Chuck perceived the “real” (physical) Effie and Zebulon Mucklewain to be, and because Chuck doesn’t fucking understand things like death. He sought to remove Clementine because she was an aberration, but didn’t realize that doing so meant killing her. Because he exists at all time simultaneously. Hell, the first time they interact with “Chuck” he didn’t even realize he got the timing wrong. He was having a conversation days in advance, which, admittedly, is still pretty good timing for a singular being with no concept of time since they ARE time and space in a way.
So you get this commentary on religion, where you think, God could have told Abraham this up front instead of following the pattern of the old ways and THEN breaking it, but they sneak in a seed of doubt for both religion and the story in front of us. The simple answer to the question is yes — Christian god could have told Abraham, Chuck could have communicated more clearly, Zebulon could have to Cass that’s what he was doing. But what if they don’t have the words or the time to do that? What if it’s too much to explain because it would take more time than the circuitous route that seems meandering to the observer? What if it COULDN’T have been explained until it was done the “weird” way or the “wrong” way.
Effie and Zebulon can’t explain it because they’re 1. Arkansawyers from the… 20’s? I don’t remember. And 2. Because they’re an extension of Chuck, who is essentially God, and a God that doesn’t understand things like timing and life or death because he/they/it exists in a state of perpetual being. They’re not stupid, by any means, but they lack the vocabulary to explain themselves, and not just to others. To even themselves. Effie can’t explain how she knows, but she does. Zebulon can’t explain how he’s able to sabotage things so effectively, but he can. Because they were cut from cloth and made into a set of weird collapsing wave forms. Adam and fucking Eve right there.
So what the fuck does any of this mean for Krok? Because, in my mind, it’s all but established that Chuck is his little brother. Krok came before time and space and loathes his departure from “pure existence” knowing that all things now have an end. An end he wishes to avoid. But then there’s Chuck, who exists… in a perpetual state of being, yet doesn’t understand death. And then, we know on top of all this, that the universe is a stage play, where even though the curtain falls, it will rise again.
So, who, then, is it up to to get through to Krok? Yet another God that can’t explain himself and refuses to have things explained to him? He’s omniscient like Chuck, and yet neither of them, for all their power, seem to see The End of Things. There are still blind spots.
the arm studies actually take a good part in this painting :D
I’d like to practise painting more! Also, I kinda like the idea of having 9 arms... it’s kinda god-like? :D
Blood Moon Evelynn is a kind of funny skin for Riot to make when they did considering how god-like and fun the old Evelynn in Blood Moon was. Is this their way of honoring her? How the mighty have fallen.
