Very long image set but there were lots of images I wanted to include.
Anyway got inspired to make this after re-reading sword of azrael. Review from LOCG below a cut
From what I recall* this is the first time we see what the system looks like in jean paul valleys head. We also delve back into his guilt and status of being perpetually at war with the programming that was installed in him since he was a baby.
What I really think helps this not be just another comic is the analysis of the rhetoric around righteous violence. Jpv says that the system uses righteous fury because it's easy to manipulate, it feels good, and he's proven right. Brielle and the character of azrael (program of the system) justify the violent acts they have committed as being part of a higher power - poor fellow appeals to brielle by asking her if knowing that the people she killed were part of her finding her true path, and the fact that angels are not beholden to human morality, makes it better and Brielle says yes. Azrael (program) shuts down in horror after finding out his orders founder did not believe he was ushering in God's mercy or w/e but rather creating a tool he can use** - because of azraels actions exist without the justification of it being gods will, they are simply sin.
Jpv works against a world where murder is acceptable with the right rhetoric, and he also has to confront that he can't blame azrael/ the system on everything. The fact that azrael shuts down When he's fighting Satan, the first angel the order created, and jpv is the one who has to fight and then kill Satan, because if Satan gets back to the machinery that has kept him alive for the last 800 years, he will keep killing people in the nearby town to maintain his life. And jpv gets mad at azrael because isn't this violence supposed to be his job? If azrael doesn't do it, jpv has to accept that he has that capacity in himself, without the system, and cannot blame it on another being (which I think foils azrael really well , whereas in either case the violence committed is removed and the committer imagines he has less responsibility - in azraels case the violence is an act of God and a good thing, and becomes abhorrent when he can no longer justify it that way, and in jpvs case the violence is bad, but can be necessary however he can remove himself of the responsibility by letting the system commit it). Then jean paul valley uses this experience, of having killed Satan, to engage with azrael and admit that they are not necessarily so different.
There is a LOT of good character work and interesting rhetoric anyway is what I'm saying
They should bring back Lilhy……I understand the Poor Fellow and Sariel fill her role of being the Azrael parallel but no one could do it the way she did. I also think she could benefit greatly from being written by someone else.
