The Distortion and the Worker of Clay
Nov. 15th, 2020 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingA Magnus Archives thought:
If the Distortion is the fear of false friendship or betrayal by a friend, it occurs to me that this might put a new spin on its relationship with Gabriel (the Worker of Clay) and his suicide.
Gabriel calls the Distortion his friend when he makes a really unnerving sculpture of a door. Gabriel kills himself after the Spiral's ritual shatters. The shattering is triggered by Michael Shelley merging with/being eaten by the Distortion.
One might assume a true friend would attempt to save Gabriel from despair and death, but the Distortion does nothing of the sort. My initial assumption was that it was confused and distracted by suddenly becoming Michael, but now I'm wondering.
See, if the Distortion was always the fear of false friendship (in addition to the fear of what might be lurking behind a door, plus the general Spiral I-eat-Euclid-for-breakfast nonsense), then it seems to me it might well have eaten Gabriel's despair at losing a supposed friend. We already know that being linked to the same Fear doesn't mean avatars can't target each other (Hunters seem particularly prone to this), and as per Ivo Lensik's statement, the Distortion does seem to have taken on human-ish form before the Great Twisting -- not to mention that friendship need not be limited to humans. The Distortion could probably pull that "but are they really on my side?" trick while wearing any number of forms.
The counterargument, of course, is that the Distortion may have changed its fundamental nature when it merged with Michael Shelley -- maybe it used to only be the fear of what's lurking behind a door, but the addition of a human consciousness twisted it into a new orientation and it kept the old one as camouflage (since you can still fear a door even if you know it's a trap, but the false friendship thing requires victims not to notice).
Anyway, mostly I am now very curious about how a man who might or might not be made of animated clay and an embodiment of false friendship/impossible doors got to know each other, and whether the Distortion was eating Gabriel's fears all along.
If the Distortion is the fear of false friendship or betrayal by a friend, it occurs to me that this might put a new spin on its relationship with Gabriel (the Worker of Clay) and his suicide.
Gabriel calls the Distortion his friend when he makes a really unnerving sculpture of a door. Gabriel kills himself after the Spiral's ritual shatters. The shattering is triggered by Michael Shelley merging with/being eaten by the Distortion.
One might assume a true friend would attempt to save Gabriel from despair and death, but the Distortion does nothing of the sort. My initial assumption was that it was confused and distracted by suddenly becoming Michael, but now I'm wondering.
See, if the Distortion was always the fear of false friendship (in addition to the fear of what might be lurking behind a door, plus the general Spiral I-eat-Euclid-for-breakfast nonsense), then it seems to me it might well have eaten Gabriel's despair at losing a supposed friend. We already know that being linked to the same Fear doesn't mean avatars can't target each other (Hunters seem particularly prone to this), and as per Ivo Lensik's statement, the Distortion does seem to have taken on human-ish form before the Great Twisting -- not to mention that friendship need not be limited to humans. The Distortion could probably pull that "but are they really on my side?" trick while wearing any number of forms.
The counterargument, of course, is that the Distortion may have changed its fundamental nature when it merged with Michael Shelley -- maybe it used to only be the fear of what's lurking behind a door, but the addition of a human consciousness twisted it into a new orientation and it kept the old one as camouflage (since you can still fear a door even if you know it's a trap, but the false friendship thing requires victims not to notice).
Anyway, mostly I am now very curious about how a man who might or might not be made of animated clay and an embodiment of false friendship/impossible doors got to know each other, and whether the Distortion was eating Gabriel's fears all along.
