Okay, so first of all, @shinesurge's comic Kidd Commander fucking rules. I feel like I could talk about so many aspects of it at such extensive lengths. They usage of symbolism, the efficiency of the storytelling, how Mx. Bell does pay through on the "every page, every panel, ever line is important," promise, the constant thread of apathy-as-the-enemy.
But right now I feel like posting about Ulrich. Specifically, about Ulrich's character introduction, waaaay back in Chapter Four, because I realized something on a recent readthrough that made me cackle out loud.
Ulrich. An ego that defies description.
(KC Spoilers for everything!)
Which like. Go off king. We see him run smooth as glass, a lot, Ulrich's good at stuff, he's a professional...but to my eye...he's never really seemed.
Egotistical.
In the way that most people think about the word. Like. Phineas? Phin's egotistical, she's got enough greed to fuel a star (literally), her whole shtick is that she does have that all-consuming sense of self-importance that lets her walk up to gods of various descriptions and punch them in the face.
Ulrich's a team player, a chessmaster, he's pretty humble and subdued when he wants to be? He downplays his own successes unless he's trying to do something with him being brash and confident.
...so that got me thinking. Why did Aria describe Ulrich as having an ego defying description?
And then it hit me. The description isn't egotistical. It's an ego that defies description.
Now, like everything that comes from Freud originally, I'll look at the ego with a sense of skepticism, but that third description is fascinating: the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality, especially by functioning both in the perception of adaptation to reality.
One of Ulrich's...most consistent perspective tags is the fact that things get. Fucky. There are flower petals that aren't there, he hears voices, and there appears to be an extra person entire just sorta. Hanging out? A construction, maybe -- with one of Ulrich's eyes.
Bel shows up when Ulrich is working. She'll talk to him, walk him through things, but that's not all she can do.
Bel showed up when Ulrich was fighting off Decodenn's spores. This is, first of all, hilarious, iconic, the man turned anxiety into a superpower.
But also...what's he doing here? Ulrich is Silverspeaking himself, consciously maneuvering himself into a position, responding to the world, becoming the person who, well, isn't quite affected by the Spores. He needs his Grip, so he has his grip.
We see it everywhere else, too. People with insight can clock Ulrich as a smooth operator, as a liar and a conniver who has plans of his own. Ulrich's always playing towards a goal which we as readers don't know, always adapting, never really showing everyone how Ulrich is doing, almost always playing a role or a part on purpose.
I think this character card is another great little demonstration of Aria's craft in designing characters and arcs. We draw a conclusion about Ulrich from what it says...and the conclusion is just so subtly off, in a way that he would want us to think.
Happy birthday to @shinesurge! I'm going to give them the gift that every creative wants: FAN ENGAGEMENT.
This one's about PHINEAS KIDD, the sunchaser, the girl who is so pissed about how the universe is run that she is going to go take it up with management. Because she can do better.
...right?
Spoilers for all of KC below!
One of the core themes at the heart of KC, by my reckoning, is the evil of indifference. A lot of the major antagonists we've seen either directly or indirectly have been built around indifference to people and the world around them, either wrapped up in their own idea of what's right, what's righteous, or what's good.
This is, naturally, contrasted with Phineas Kidd. The girl* who cares, cares so so so fiercely that it is the core of her monstrous strength, to randomly pick fights with demigods and devils for no other reason than she kinda likes one of the people inconvenienced by them.
Phin cares, and she cares deeply. This care and connection is the core of who she is.
We see this throughout the book, where Phin comes up against all sorts of people, sometimes who frustrate her deeply, like Monterey and Raven and the Caravan -- but ultimately she seems very devoted to the idea that you care for people around you. She gives Raven Slight a kind ending, she stays for Agatha, and even offers to let her go if she wants, time and time again she picks people.
She gets angry, sure, but in my experience anger can be a very caring emotion -- you get angry on behalf, not because you don't care, but because you do, and Phineas exemplifies that wonderfully. Phin genuinely seems to care about the people around her, and tries to treat them kindly even if they're afraid or terrified of her.
She's not always good at it, but that's besides the point.
A fact which is also true is that Phineas is...distant. She notes it, people around her note it -- she gets all up in her own fury, sometimes, stuck in her head and her righteous certainty of what things should be. This is her strength...but it's also a very well written character flaw, IMAO, especially because distance and indifference are related.
There is one notable example where Phineas does not show mercy, and that is to the Tain in the starstone mines.
The Tain...fascinate me. I'm a sucker for a good entropic force, a good death god and dark mirror, and the Tain are a wonderfully done example. Every star has a shadow, and the shadow is the universe's cleanup crew, recycling, devouring, and generally janitoring it up.
Phineas chooses not to give mercy to the Tain.
Rather emphatically.
The Tain respond with the following:
Godhood and distance and indifference all seem interlocked in KC. Phineas is halfway between godhood and humanity, and self-professed has been wanting to make god human.
But we do see Phineas go distant and cold and indifferent, at times. We see that righteous certainty operating in her, that same righteous certainty that lets her challenge the Sun in the first place also causing no small amount of trouble.
Phineas, sometimes, will choose to not care.
This is very interesting, because nobody likes the Tain. Surely, surely, they're acceptable targets for her righteous indignation, yes?
Buuut.
This doesn't seem to be the case.
Agatha, for whatever reason, relatively easily accepts her shorn shadow, and develops a fuckin' adorable relationship to the wee bugger. It picks up a name.
So we have, as Phineas' first two crewmates, a character who is plagued by doubt and uncertainty of whether she can cut it, enough greed and ambition to drag the sun from its throne, and enough god in her soul to go drifting into indifference...
...are two people who have demonstrated their remarkable ability to connect, care, and ground Phineas.
Anyway, I just love how Phineas' character contains this contradiction, this thread of divine Surety that looks so so so so similar to the gods and demigods she's throwing hands with.
She's a microcosm of the narrative as a whole -- and only time will tell whether she's able to beat the odds and defy everyone's expectations, or whether she'll be another in an endless chain of would-be-saviors ruling with an iron fist.
