I realise that in previous pages, lots of people (with more level heads than mine) note that being turned into a fine piece of vellum will be a fitting tribute to Ed and his deeds and such, seeing the tribe may not take him back even in death. But narrative be damned, my liver is twisting in knots about this. The tribe made him into this: hunted, eaten, bard and hero. They Should Know.
I wonder if we could get them to deliver the nicely inscribed skin back to the hyenas when it’s done…[/idealist]
Personally, when I die, after organ donorship, I want whatever bits are left to be allowed to decompose and fertilize the plants above me with a minimum of interference. If I MUST have a coffin, it will be cheap, lightweight, and, if possible, cardboard.
This is a good thing. His skin shall be treasured amongst these people. And as much as Digger is liked within the hyena tribe, there’s really no other way for poor Ed to be properly respected in death. Nobody else would even consider taking him. But here, here he will be revered. Yes. 😛
BarGamer — your suggestion made me chuckle. HORRIBLE UNCOMFORTABLE CHUCKLES, lol. To wear Ed would be about as appropriate for Digger as when she had to eat the liver… It would fit the skins’ mythology, but for her: massive squick.
Remember, Ed was a “skin painter” – i.e., a tattoo artist. Under the skins’ care, at least one of his works will last forever (or thereabouts). I think Ed would rather appreciate this particular kind of immortality.
i think the lizards should get the skin, and Digger eat the liver, perhaps Murai will join in with the liver. Boneclaw mother may or may not join in as well, depends on whether or not she can maneuver the tribe into accepting it.
I trust Ursula to resolve the question of Ed’s remains in a befitting way.
*If,* however, at *any* point, the possibility of Ed’s liver being eaten by his tribe is raised and some tribe-member-here-deliberately-left-nameless wants to raise a fuss about it? *That* had better be stomped on *HARD.* …There will be a Reckoning.
She should definitely ask them for “a liver to carry”.
I don’t see Muray eating hyena liver though…
I can see Digger suffering through it on her own volition to honour Ed.
And I can also imagine Boneclaw mother running kicking a** of anyone from the tribe refusing to do so 😀 😀
She possibly still feels guilty for the trials outcome back then, and she doesn’t strike me as the sort of lady who would let pass a last opportunity to compensate her past errors or faults, I mean…and “I am not that young to sit and wait for next chance, specially since his liver is unlikely to be here twice”
*groan*
I don’t normally say anything and granted everyone else said it but It makes me happy that they want to preserve ed that way. Yeah weird, ya it’s kind of creepy, but long after we are all gone into dust part of Ed will still be going.
I think Ed would appreciate both the respect and the irony of being painted with purple ink he himself taught the skins how to make.
Then again, I’m with ShinyHappyGoth. Distribute whatever parts of me are still usable, and then take the rest and burn it, scatter it, and get it the heck out of the way. I have no interest in having my remains molder in a hole forever. But then, I’m of the opinion that once I’m no longer in my body, I’m DONE with it. I realize that others have different views.
I imagine hyenas don’t have much respect for the idea of preserving corpses, though, given that they see it as a Good Thing to eat parts of them.
And actually, I’m struck by the LACK of morbid mood in our discussions of all this. 🙂
So, my vote: Ed’s skin to the skins, Ed’s liver to the tribe, remainder of Ed probably left here because jeez, heavy.
He-Is’s liver should also be dealt with at some point, but I think that’s gonna require the whole tribe; if it’s on the same scale as the heart, ribcage, and hand, there’s no way Digger can get it to the surface, even if both skins help. Then again, maybe the scavengers will handle the liver. Oh! Actually, maybe they NEED to leave the liver here to keep the scavengers busy.
ShinyHappy, MadamAtom, if it makes you feel better about recycling your corpses, remember than in a paltry few billion years the odds are pretty good that those atoms currently on loan to your consciousnesses will be floating out around in space, there to form another generation of stars, planets, and if we’re really lucky, some other conscious beings…
It may be disturbing to us, but the skins are trying to accord Ed the highest of honors. I respect them for that, as too few in the world above woud be willing to do the same. And burial practices are one of those really culturally divisive things: peoploe who believe in the ressurection of the physical body consider cremation to be an abomination, while others might consider it extremely disrespectful to let the body of a loved one rot in the ground.
ShinyHappyGoth reminded me of Tibetan Sky Burial: people ask that their remains be delierately left out for the vultures so that their flesh goes on to sustain other lives. Some people consider this disgusting, others find it a beautiful final sacrifice.
I think Ed would not have objected to the skin lizards proposal. He was very good at giving himself away. And I cannot immagine many skins better suited for the secret names of god.
*Charline de Lyon feh* I could care less what happens! He’s just a dirty hyena… *lions hate hyenas, BTW, and Charline is the most speciest of them all!* ;3
I too want to be plant food and keep telling my family to bury me under a tree in a cardboard box which given the laws in Canada I doubt I’ll get. Rita Mae once said that for some people being cougar food would be the only produtive act in an otherwise useless life (loosly quoted that). The problem with war is after the battle you can’t always honour your dead in the most fitting way. Whatever Digger does I’m certain Ed won’t hold it against her. He certainly knows you just do the best you can with what you’ve got.
Giving Ed’s skin to the skin-lizards is very appropriate and all, yeah….but darnit, I want the hyena tribe to have to recognize his sacrifice and death. Remember that Ed was told to leave no remains “where a real person might eat them”….the skin-lizards, according to hyena-logic, are not “real people”, and thus their memorial isn’t the one that’ll shove those words back down the tribe’s throats.
Not trying to disrupt the flow of conversation, but those wanting to know about the simpler methods available for body disposal, google the phrase “green burial”. There are a few cemeteries here in the U.S. that are licensed for such a process.
Regarding Ed: skin to the skins, liver to the tribe, memories – to everyone. Love to Digger
Remember, Ed was a “skin painter” – i.e., a tattoo artist. Under the skins’ care, at least one of his works will last forever (or thereabouts). I think Ed would rather appreciate this particular kind of immortality.
Yeah…that was my first thought. It seems weirdly fitting.
So, here’s what I would do if I were Digger. First, I’d tell the skins that if they help me carry Ed to the surface, they could have his skin upon delivery. Second, I’d consult with Boneclaw Mother about burying Ed’s remains, or eating his liver, or anything else they could do to stretch tradition. After all, Ed just helped to rid the world of a great evil (and the enemy of She-is-Fiercer). Perhaps an exception is possible, the ultimate symbol of redemption.
Let the Skins have Ed’s body.. What greater comeuppance for the tribe that drove him out, than to be denied the strengh of the one who killed a foe that even the Gods could only contain?
In the spirit of the comic and the death of He-is, it’s perhaps best for Ed that he rests properly. This continued “living” as a skin doesn’t seem like something Ed would necessarily like…..o.o
Unless the skins are using “life” in the metaphorical sense, in which case, it should be fine! 😀
It seems to me that the hyenas ate about everything _but_ the skin…so maybe the skins could have the skins, and the hyenas can take the rest? although delivering a skinned body to them seems a little…odd.
Honestly, that’s bizarrely sweet. They’re being helpful, in their own way. Didn’t Ed and Digger have a conversation about that once? Digger realised that, some nice bracing in a few tunnels aside, the only memory of her in a thousand years’ time might be one of Ed’s cave drawings. I think Ed had said something about living through art and memory, but I can’t remember.
Dunno. The memory of that conversation, at least that I have, makes me think Ed would approve.
Reapicheep– I also feel the need to mention that He-is wasn’t the enemy of She-is-Fiercer. They loved each other; I don’t believe that ever died, in the story. His crime was too great for her to fully forgive, but Ed mentions that love, even in the battle.
It seems oddly ironic that, while Ed was alive, he was shunned……. but now that he’s dead, it appears (to judge from the comments) that everybody wants a piece of him……. 7@=e
A few people have implied that the hyena tribe might not want Ed’s body back, since his name had been eaten and all, but that may not be the case. I seem to recall, back when the tribe first discovered Digger in Ed’s cave, that Digger tried to stop them from eating her by playing to their superstition, and shoving it in their faces that she was “tainted”. To which the hunt-leader(I forget her name) responded, “Death is the ultimate purifier.”
If this memory is accurate, it could mean that Ed’s body would be honored by his tribe, as it should be.
@Silver Guardian: The conditions of Ed’s exile were to leave no body or bones where a person might eat them. They ate his name and condemned him to being a nothing person, to rot, unwanted.
…personally, I’m still hoping that whatever rest to which Ed is ultimately laid is at least in some way informed by wombat burial traditions.
Of course, wombat burial traditions may simply be along the lines of “don’t be needlessly disrespectful, and don’t put the body anywhere that will end up tainting the groundwater,” but still.
And the “secret paintings” line reminds me that we still don’t really know the social meanings of “skin painting” for the hyenas. Presumably the fur must be shaved for the tattoo artist to see the skin, and apparently it grows back afterwards – so the tattoos are NOT visible to all as they would be on a human… this definitely implies some sort of magical/spiritual aspect to the tattooing. Getting inked may be a rite of passage, like baptism or Bar Mitzvah.
Yes. I’m convinced. It is a good idea. Yes.
Yep, called it.
I realise that in previous pages, lots of people (with more level heads than mine) note that being turned into a fine piece of vellum will be a fitting tribute to Ed and his deeds and such, seeing the tribe may not take him back even in death. But narrative be damned, my liver is twisting in knots about this. The tribe made him into this: hunted, eaten, bard and hero. They Should Know.
I wonder if we could get them to deliver the nicely inscribed skin back to the hyenas when it’s done…[/idealist]
It’s almost certainly what he’d want.
Personally, when I die, after organ donorship, I want whatever bits are left to be allowed to decompose and fertilize the plants above me with a minimum of interference. If I MUST have a coffin, it will be cheap, lightweight, and, if possible, cardboard.
I want to be recycled, dangit!
I’m just going to say it again: To the skin lizards, this is a sign of RESPECT.
What Digger should do is, let them skin Ed, but DIGGER gets to wear him.
This is a good thing. His skin shall be treasured amongst these people. And as much as Digger is liked within the hyena tribe, there’s really no other way for poor Ed to be properly respected in death. Nobody else would even consider taking him. But here, here he will be revered. Yes. 😛
From artist to canvas.
Probably a more fitting fate than the smorgasbord, anyway.
BarGamer — your suggestion made me chuckle. HORRIBLE UNCOMFORTABLE CHUCKLES, lol. To wear Ed would be about as appropriate for Digger as when she had to eat the liver… It would fit the skins’ mythology, but for her: massive squick.
I bet she says ok but asks for the liver.
Remember, Ed was a “skin painter” – i.e., a tattoo artist. Under the skins’ care, at least one of his works will last forever (or thereabouts). I think Ed would rather appreciate this particular kind of immortality.
i think the lizards should get the skin, and Digger eat the liver, perhaps Murai will join in with the liver. Boneclaw mother may or may not join in as well, depends on whether or not she can maneuver the tribe into accepting it.
I trust Ursula to resolve the question of Ed’s remains in a befitting way.
*If,* however, at *any* point, the possibility of Ed’s liver being eaten by his tribe is raised and some tribe-member-here-deliberately-left-nameless wants to raise a fuss about it? *That* had better be stomped on *HARD.* …There will be a Reckoning.
“i think the lizards should get the skin, and Digger eat the liver, perhaps Murai will join in with the liver. ”
GOD things are getting really morbid in the comments section.
*sniffle* The skins are starting to grow on me. I find that vaguely disturbing.
“things are getting really morbid in the comments section.”
yeah, death will do that…
Like Ryusi, and others say, tattoos are meant to be seen, and the skins respect that .
It will be good. Yes.
Is any one else worried about what’s going on up top?
I’m thinking that by now Mother Hiena has kicked some captin of the gard ass.
don’t forget to vote: http://topwebcomics.com/gpages/default.aspx?id=10180
She should definitely ask them for “a liver to carry”.
I don’t see Muray eating hyena liver though…
I can see Digger suffering through it on her own volition to honour Ed.
And I can also imagine Boneclaw mother running kicking a** of anyone from the tribe refusing to do so 😀 😀
She possibly still feels guilty for the trials outcome back then, and she doesn’t strike me as the sort of lady who would let pass a last opportunity to compensate her past errors or faults, I mean…and “I am not that young to sit and wait for next chance, specially since his liver is unlikely to be here twice”
*groan*
Ed and the Skins understood each other. As hard as it is for Digger, I think she knows that.
I don’t normally say anything and granted everyone else said it but It makes me happy that they want to preserve ed that way. Yeah weird, ya it’s kind of creepy, but long after we are all gone into dust part of Ed will still be going.
I think Ed would appreciate both the respect and the irony of being painted with purple ink he himself taught the skins how to make.
Then again, I’m with ShinyHappyGoth. Distribute whatever parts of me are still usable, and then take the rest and burn it, scatter it, and get it the heck out of the way. I have no interest in having my remains molder in a hole forever. But then, I’m of the opinion that once I’m no longer in my body, I’m DONE with it. I realize that others have different views.
I imagine hyenas don’t have much respect for the idea of preserving corpses, though, given that they see it as a Good Thing to eat parts of them.
And actually, I’m struck by the LACK of morbid mood in our discussions of all this. 🙂
So, my vote: Ed’s skin to the skins, Ed’s liver to the tribe, remainder of Ed probably left here because jeez, heavy.
He-Is’s liver should also be dealt with at some point, but I think that’s gonna require the whole tribe; if it’s on the same scale as the heart, ribcage, and hand, there’s no way Digger can get it to the surface, even if both skins help. Then again, maybe the scavengers will handle the liver. Oh! Actually, maybe they NEED to leave the liver here to keep the scavengers busy.
… rambling. Pardon. 🙂
A fitting tribute. But please… inscribe the RIGHT-hand names of God on him.
But the left hand names are the names of hidden power: seems more Ed’s style.
TBH I think that before Digger and the skins have finished debating this point, the tribe, Murai, Boneclaw Mother, et al should show up.
Or we should see the denouement of that drama topside, and see them heading down-tunnel.
BTW Digger slipped down in the votes to 33! *whine* It deserves to be a top 20
ShinyHappy, MadamAtom, if it makes you feel better about recycling your corpses, remember than in a paltry few billion years the odds are pretty good that those atoms currently on loan to your consciousnesses will be floating out around in space, there to form another generation of stars, planets, and if we’re really lucky, some other conscious beings…
It may be disturbing to us, but the skins are trying to accord Ed the highest of honors. I respect them for that, as too few in the world above woud be willing to do the same. And burial practices are one of those really culturally divisive things: peoploe who believe in the ressurection of the physical body consider cremation to be an abomination, while others might consider it extremely disrespectful to let the body of a loved one rot in the ground.
ShinyHappyGoth reminded me of Tibetan Sky Burial: people ask that their remains be delierately left out for the vultures so that their flesh goes on to sustain other lives. Some people consider this disgusting, others find it a beautiful final sacrifice.
I think Ed would not have objected to the skin lizards proposal. He was very good at giving himself away. And I cannot immagine many skins better suited for the secret names of god.
*Charline de Lyon feh* I could care less what happens! He’s just a dirty hyena… *lions hate hyenas, BTW, and Charline is the most speciest of them all!* ;3
I too want to be plant food and keep telling my family to bury me under a tree in a cardboard box which given the laws in Canada I doubt I’ll get. Rita Mae once said that for some people being cougar food would be the only produtive act in an otherwise useless life (loosly quoted that). The problem with war is after the battle you can’t always honour your dead in the most fitting way. Whatever Digger does I’m certain Ed won’t hold it against her. He certainly knows you just do the best you can with what you’ve got.
Giving Ed’s skin to the skin-lizards is very appropriate and all, yeah….but darnit, I want the hyena tribe to have to recognize his sacrifice and death. Remember that Ed was told to leave no remains “where a real person might eat them”….the skin-lizards, according to hyena-logic, are not “real people”, and thus their memorial isn’t the one that’ll shove those words back down the tribe’s throats.
Not trying to disrupt the flow of conversation, but those wanting to know about the simpler methods available for body disposal, google the phrase “green burial”. There are a few cemeteries here in the U.S. that are licensed for such a process.
Regarding Ed: skin to the skins, liver to the tribe, memories – to everyone. Love to Digger
Remember, Ed was a “skin painter” – i.e., a tattoo artist. Under the skins’ care, at least one of his works will last forever (or thereabouts). I think Ed would rather appreciate this particular kind of immortality.
Yeah…that was my first thought. It seems weirdly fitting.
I would personally be totally okay with a lizard wearing my tattooed skin after I died. Sounds like a good deal.
Poor Digger!
Don’t let them, Digger…even though they like him he doesn’t need that…
So, here’s what I would do if I were Digger. First, I’d tell the skins that if they help me carry Ed to the surface, they could have his skin upon delivery. Second, I’d consult with Boneclaw Mother about burying Ed’s remains, or eating his liver, or anything else they could do to stretch tradition. After all, Ed just helped to rid the world of a great evil (and the enemy of She-is-Fiercer). Perhaps an exception is possible, the ultimate symbol of redemption.
Let the Skins have Ed’s body.. What greater comeuppance for the tribe that drove him out, than to be denied the strengh of the one who killed a foe that even the Gods could only contain?
In the spirit of the comic and the death of He-is, it’s perhaps best for Ed that he rests properly. This continued “living” as a skin doesn’t seem like something Ed would necessarily like…..o.o
Unless the skins are using “life” in the metaphorical sense, in which case, it should be fine! 😀
It seems to me that the hyenas ate about everything _but_ the skin…so maybe the skins could have the skins, and the hyenas can take the rest? although delivering a skinned body to them seems a little…odd.
Ed put a wounded god to rest and destroyed Sweetgrass voice. He was a hero, the hyenas should BEG for a chance to eat his liver.
Where do I sign up to donate my skin to lizard tattoo artists? That would be awesome.
Honestly, that’s bizarrely sweet. They’re being helpful, in their own way. Didn’t Ed and Digger have a conversation about that once? Digger realised that, some nice bracing in a few tunnels aside, the only memory of her in a thousand years’ time might be one of Ed’s cave drawings. I think Ed had said something about living through art and memory, but I can’t remember.
Dunno. The memory of that conversation, at least that I have, makes me think Ed would approve.
Reapicheep– I also feel the need to mention that He-is wasn’t the enemy of She-is-Fiercer. They loved each other; I don’t believe that ever died, in the story. His crime was too great for her to fully forgive, but Ed mentions that love, even in the battle.
It seems oddly ironic that, while Ed was alive, he was shunned……. but now that he’s dead, it appears (to judge from the comments) that everybody wants a piece of him……. 7@=e
A few people have implied that the hyena tribe might not want Ed’s body back, since his name had been eaten and all, but that may not be the case. I seem to recall, back when the tribe first discovered Digger in Ed’s cave, that Digger tried to stop them from eating her by playing to their superstition, and shoving it in their faces that she was “tainted”. To which the hunt-leader(I forget her name) responded, “Death is the ultimate purifier.”
If this memory is accurate, it could mean that Ed’s body would be honored by his tribe, as it should be.
@Silver Guardian: The conditions of Ed’s exile were to leave no body or bones where a person might eat them. They ate his name and condemned him to being a nothing person, to rot, unwanted.
…personally, I’m still hoping that whatever rest to which Ed is ultimately laid is at least in some way informed by wombat burial traditions.
Of course, wombat burial traditions may simply be along the lines of “don’t be needlessly disrespectful, and don’t put the body anywhere that will end up tainting the groundwater,” but still.
And the “secret paintings” line reminds me that we still don’t really know the social meanings of “skin painting” for the hyenas. Presumably the fur must be shaved for the tattoo artist to see the skin, and apparently it grows back afterwards – so the tattoos are NOT visible to all as they would be on a human… this definitely implies some sort of magical/spiritual aspect to the tattooing. Getting inked may be a rite of passage, like baptism or Bar Mitzvah.
someone will see the paintings after all the actual tribe is dead and remember T.T