(In response to the many emails by the intellectually curious readers of Trial By Tenderness.  New readers please note that spoilers lurk within these dialogues)

 

Questions and Answers Page 1

 

Your take on the gods and demons is rather interesting. It sounds as if Tyyr and Freiija are more afraid of humanity. It seems as if the gods wish to eradicate humanity because we're a potential threat in a distant future that may never happen.

Note that Odeyn and Kami-sama both felt regret about the war with the Demons millennia ago. Belldandy's philosophy of being harmless is an ideal...but if you look at the Multiverse in a rational, non-judgmental, non-emotional perspective, it becomes a reality. Using antiphagal agents as an example...they destroy infectious bodies in order to maintain homeostasis...which suggests the relationship between the Gods, Demons and humanity. There is also the mysterious "Central Light" that is the 'hub' of the two world-tree realms...it figures into the climactic story arc. How do Souls effect Balance with non-Souls? What if the two Multiverses are alive in their own right...and Gods/Demons/Mortals don't know it?

The main agitant, Mara, has been effectively removed as a threat and now she is little more than an annoyance.  Belldandy's parents don't pose a threat anymore.

Mara's removal as an agitant won't be the last gasp for an antagonist. There is a very definite antagonist in the current story arc, plus there will be a number of errant characters in the concluding story arc that become antagonists, but of the mischievous kind, rather than pure evil.  If you read thru to Chap 70, you'll notice that Bell's parents are a threat, albeit through their own machinations rather than overt aggressions.

The battle between Cevn and the ultimate demon was what seemed to me to be the climax. In the chapters after that things just seem to tone down and become ho-hum.

Urd's assault and the death of Isilblius was an intended climax, but I decided to go on with some additional story arcs, as you noted. I sense that I feel like Fujishima might feel...it seems like AMS has gone downhill in storyplot since the Peorth storyarc, despite the improving quality of the artwork...yet there's still that monthly chapter to put out. To me, the Peorth plot was a climax, because the whole K1-Bell love thing becomes really explicit by the time it's done. I'm reediting chapters 40-70 to try and spice things up...as you already know, the rest of the story does have a sort of dullness to it in tone.

On the not so good side it may have deflated the series to show the source of Cevn's power. I knew the man was incredibly powerful but I thought he got it from something else entirely. In fact I believed him to be a fragment or separate "manifestation" of the ultimate demon. Seeing as how the god and demons are so fond of multitasking it would seem reasonable. 

The virtual omnipotence of Cevn was 'loaned' to him by the UF, thus instead of becoming an agent of balance via his actions, he *is* the agent of balance by attribute. It resembles the Tibetan projective meditation...the meditator has to project a mental image of themselves meditating before they can actually travel along delog or karpa paths towards enlightenment. Thus, the omnipotence is a bestowal, and has definite limits, which is why Cevn had to get rid of it (or did it rid itself of Cevn?). Besides, it would have been boring to "dummy plot" things and have the UF fix everything while Cevn was omnipotent. In fact, there is a serious undoing of things that happened during that story arc that will get addressed at the end of the current story arc. TBT will take a very heavy look at the issue of 'balance' from a variety of viewpoints...

Two story arcs left...the current one will get into some heavy stuff (the avatar character, Cevn, is going thru some major stuff circa Chps 69-70). The last arc will be anti-climactic in the sense that it will have some humor and romance. I am not going to write any more than this, because TBT is already getting too much into the 'serializing' vein of things! I'm don't plan on including all the new characters introduced in the movie either. After the final two arcs, there will be a postlude of a chapter or two, and an envoy to finish the work.

I don't know where the series can go but into falling action. Was Urd's assault and the death or the ultimate demon the climax? Perhaps you could have a third party from outside the Multiverse system step-in and mess things up. Perhaps a god-human from the future comes back to the distant and mortal past to initiate things that will result in humanity's ascension? What would this take? Perhaps the tweaking of the human genome to hasten the process. Perhaps it would take an act of savagery to ward of humanity's potential executioners? The question remains how powerful will humanity become?

The falling action is actually interpenetrated with a gradual buildup to a second climax that will (hopefully) exceed the first in many ways.  Bell and Keiichi's wedding starts off another story arc (hint: in the prose Edda, there are *13* Norns...the three Norn thing being a common mistranslation from the Nordic MS into Latin).

As far as I know the gods and demons only number in the billions but humans are much more prolific. With trillions of god-like beings bolstering its ranks will humanity be able to throw off the shackles of both divine jailors. No matter what peaceful BS Belldandy spouts I'm convinced that the divines will destroy humanity if there is a chance that we become a threat to them because they had little compunction about killing an entire race that was equal to them. That is the reason why they are trying to steer man towards their way of thinking. So ultimately it will probably come down to a cataclysmic battle between the two divine races and humanity. Perhaps that is the cycle of things. Every few billion or so years the guy at the top of the food chain is supplanted by some lesser creature.

The eradication of humanity is akin to a process of cleansing by divine "antibodies"...a race that is too 'devolved' cannot threaten the Gods or the Demons, because they are useless; they cannot  become either 'apprentice Gods' or 'apprentice Demons'. Thus, when either the Gods or the Demons take an initiative to destroy a race, it's because the race doesn't fit into the balance. In effect, the continued presence of such a race would reduce the chances of *other* species becoming Demi-Gods or Demi-Demons. I kinda went into this in the Hiroshima chapter, but your email makes it clear that I need to revisit that chapter or explicate it more in one of the current chapters. Right now, humanity is in the process of being 'cultivated' by both the Gods and the Demons. Hence, the existence of the Goddess Relief Office and the Demon Grief Office is one means of 'nudging' them in either direction towards the Next Level, whereby they'll either wind up being 'apprenticed' on either the "God-track" or the "Demon track" of evolution. They cannot surpass the Gods or the Demons (who are protected by the Uber-Gods Kami-sama and Oni-sama...so all the humanist conjectures that you premised about humanity surpassing the Gods/Demons on the evolutionary scale aren't really an applicable plot device in TBT (although it certainly would be a very interesting "what if"!!!). I was especially intrigued by your observation about the Gods/Demons being "divine jailers"...I will probably incorporate that question/perception into Keiichi's character a bit during the rewrite of Chaps 40-70 (if you don't mind!); it fits right in with his perception of his role as the 'test mortal'.

The Gods are supposed to represent all that is good and true while the Demons are just plainly nasty. It's hard to think of the apex of evolution terminating at that point.

There is the aspect of the area in between the two realms, which is the 'fusion' of both. In the Mid-Light, there is a breakdown of all individuality, hence all the Souls that wind up there when they "die" (functional death) lose their individuality...it's the price they pay. The individuality (love) is removed from the Soul, and then converted to the energies that power the Multiverse, Yggdrasil and Vanagdrasil.  So the next step in the evolution is what happens in the afterlife where all Souls, Gods/Demons/Mortals are piled together without the discretion of individuality. This question will get answered in the climactic story arc...it's similar to the Renaissance humanism of Pico De Mirandola or even later in Georgino Bruno...the UF functions as a magnet; but to us and the divines who are 'on the outside', it appears to be an active agent of control.


Also it would seem that the Uber-gods (i.e., Kami-sama/Oni-sama) themselves aren't invulnerable, omniscient, nor omnipotent. In fact, Kami-sama was duped rather easily by Isilblius. Oni-sama seems to be the more sensible of the two of course he hasn't had much of a part in the story.

Yep. Both have been duped. They are nowhere near perfect, and not invulnerable...because Isilblius can kill them both. And plans to. I'm working up thumbimages of Kami and Oni, should have those up on the Cast page soon.  I'd really like to see if one of the readers could work up some art in the style of Fujishima...then I could touch it up, color it with Photoshop and then credit them.

One scene I thought was funny was the drinking scene with as BD put it "God" and "The Devil".

God! I cannot remember the scene! If you reply to this, let me know what chapter it's in! Please!

Which chapter is the drinking scene in the temple where BD introduces K1 to "the devil" and "God"? I believe that it is in chapter 55 somewhere around midway. As to how K1 should act that's a good question?  I'm suprised K1 didn't so much as squeak granted that he was just killed by Isilblius.

Should he? I thought that scene was a little underwritten...I wanted to focus on Belldandy's internal conflict with his death. Based on your observation, I'll make him "squeak" in the rewrite. Suggestions on how he should squeak?


 I don't see why anyone would really care about the whole Le Mans thing.  It's pretty much a fact that if K1 enters a race he's gonna win. Could this be his demi-divine nature tipping the scales of reality oh so slightly?

 At least you didn't carp on the Le Mans thing...a number of readers have complained about "how can NIT students conceivably win the Le Mans?" My answer...the same way that Voyager got home in the ST universe...it's a rah-rah-rah story arc...it's not too serious and it sets up a couple things for the final two story arcs.  Truthfully, however, one must recall that Keiichi redesigned the Nissan racer while under the IQ-enhancing influence of Skuld's Electro-Intellihancer; his super-genius intelligence allowed him to innovate a new-style of engine that was superior to the rest of the Le Mans' field in many ways.  In the TBT world, there is a basis for the NIT MCC's victory in the 75th Le Mans.

Yep. He is like a divine magnet, in the sense that he has 4 sisters involved in the race. He binds Bell, Urd and Skuld by making them promise not to interfere...but then there's Mara. She's evolving from seeing Keiichi as a Ernie Doll to torture...to seeing him as a potential bro-in-law, now that Bell is family. I would suspect that the half-Goddess part of her is  compassionate...and the half-Demon part of her wants to embarrass him to death. I want to really focus on how this sudden shift messes up her internal schema in the next chapters...it's definitely underaddressed in Chapts 57-on.


Without a connection to a power source like the Worldtrees or the UF, how can K1 pull off his feats of thoughtcasting. Is his divine nature solely physical or is evolution a spiritual process too. I've always considered spiritual growth and development to be on the individual scale and occurring during one's lifetime.

Yes. It's both. He has an angel, which makes him a novelty. Also, his brain chemistry was 'rerouted' by Skuld's Electron-Intellihancer, circa Chp 46.  Man isn't supposed to be telepathic until the 26th Century, if they survive the "Probation". Cevn's "Magnum Organum" speeds this up by introducing Yggdrasilian concepts 2 centuries early. In the divine evolutionary scale...an Angel manifestation comes much later than telepathizing...thus Keiichi is a 'mutant' of sorts. 

There is a spiritual process at work here, which is what draws Bell to love K1 in the first place (Chs. 55-6). By loving him, she catalyses the growth of his spirit (via reciprocity).  There's no past live stuff for mortals in TBT, although others can and do have past lives (such as the Norns, who were the Fates in an earlier aspect). These other Divines remain, but when they die, they travel thru the White Zone...which strips away their individuality. It's like coring an apple, then painting it blue. Underneath the external  blue skin (attribute) is the internal apple flesh (essence) and the cored emptiness (energy). 

The physical part changes both Bell and K1...after all, all contacts between Gods and Mortals are one-shots: She comes, grants a wish in an instant, then is summoned back to Yggdrasil once the wish had been fulfilled. Keiichi brings out the mortal in Belldandy (see Ch. 38 where she and Urd discuss this), while Bell brings out the Divinity in Keiichi (see Chs. 55-56 with the birth of his Angel, Heroic Vermillion Swift).

In the TBT timeline is there a collective soul of a species that changes with generations. Is this evolution subject to mere physical conditions like its phenotypic counterpart or does the actions and thoughts of a race effect the destiny of its collective soul?

Both again. That's why Mara was able to devolve the humans, causing Kami-sama to Flood them out (see her 'life-story' in Chap 66). She basically solved the complex maths that are axiomatic to phenotypical evolution; armed with the formula, she wrecked havoc and destabilized the phenotypes. In one sense, she was able to use a Taoist approach...find the essential monad. The monad in this case is fundamental to environment and thought/actions...so once she found it, then she was able to destabilize indiv/collective souls (since there's no longer a difference between the two) by 'tweaking' the environment (by introducing randomness) and thought (by bringing grief to certain lives according to her 'formula').


Have you ever played warhammer 40k this whole collective soul thing reminds me of that.

Never even heard of it.


In Cevn's travels through the TimeStream he makes mention of god's reverting back to mortality. How would they do this and more importantly does it take the direct action of an Uber-divine like Kami-sama or Oni-sama for a species to transcend physicality?

Several Uber-divines exist in TBT. Kami-sama and Oni-sama, to be sure. The Ultimate Force which even Kami and Oni can't change in some aspects. Yggdrasil and Vanagdrasil. The Mainframes of each realm. The Reaper/Little Boy and his whole realm (the in between spaces/the Mid-light of Chap 29) The forces that shape the TimeStreams (as yet undisclosed, but Cevn assumed that role when he restructured reality to undo Isilblius's depredations). The challenge of the climactic story arc is to bring them all together in a sensible pattern.


Another thing I don't see why humanity couldn't go toe-to-toe with the divines. Tyyr's soulgun works in 3-D space which means it conforms to the laws of that universe.

There are nine dimensions to the Multiverse in TBT; to represent the nine realms of the Nordic Earth-tree.  Tyrr's Soul Gun can be recreated in dimensions 3-9, and in fact is harnessed by Aoshima in 2047, as he actually re-engineers it to from a Soul-destroyer to a Soul-dissector (Chapt 39). So your assertion is correct, mortals can
modify God-tech/Skuld-tech to their own ends. But that was a vagrant timeline, remember...

If this is true its effects can be duplicated by us, eventually.

Yep. That's how Aoshima was able to keep Tyyr in line in 2047. Please note that I totally rewrote major stuff in that storyarc...you may be reading an older version.

Also it seems that you can kill a sealed god or demon by destroying its manifested shell.

Actually, both. Manifest shell death is a representation of the Real Death...since there is nothing left to be the creator of a manifest shell.  It's like the battle of the Q episode in Voyager...the crew saw wounded Qs, but didn't see the actual injuries to the Qs energy forms. When the energy-essence of a divine being is 'killed'; there is no source to produce the constantly remanifesting atomic structure that Belldandy describes in the manga (which is used in TBT as well).  The inverse is true too...it's possible to use the continually reconstituted atomic structure of the manifest shell to 'feedback' a death circuit to the energy-being of a God or Demon (note..this is how Urd gets infected when Isilblius rapes her...he raped her physical manifest shell...which caused a virus to drain away her energy).


When Isilblius melts the polar icecaps BD makes mention that she didn't drown because she was unsealed. Skuld is choked to death and Mara is beheaded.  Granted the argument could be made that Isilblius did it and there was more to it than meets the eye but BD said that she would've drowned. Of course if my episodic memory is wrong and I misread it this argument is moot.

Bell and Skuld are sick with the wasting disease that is 'killed' Urd, thus they're functioning on 'gas fumes' as far as divine powers go. Without unsealing her powers, Bell would die, either by Isilblius or by certain physical/magical threats. I had to do this as plot device so I could have Bell go one-to-one with Isilblius...and plant the seed that Cevn discovers 7 trillion years later. But you're totally right, this is a blatant contradiction...Isilblius can kill Skuld and Mara, but Belldandy's mortality is threatened by a physical displacement of the ocean. I better address that in the rewrite, huh?


The Norns are always bowing to and placating Kami-sama. If Belldandy, a creature that can make and unmake a world while unsealed, openly and without hesitation admits her subservience to another being...that being must be incredibly powerful.  The Norns perceive Kami-sama to be so powerful they try to quiet K1 while he was cursing him out. This is in the chapter where the Norns are summoned back the heavens to simulate the demon virus and be cured again to stop another war. I'm sorry if I don't pepper this email with chapter numbers but I remember plot events much better. I digress, how might K1 react by coming to face with the MAN himself and his infamous counterpart.

He will in a few chapters....should be fun! And this time, no amnesia-type stuff in the storyplot! He's already met KS and OS in those chapters, after Cevn restores everything and seals away Isilblius. After Chapter 56, no one knows anything about any event related to Isilblius or Cevn. But you've probably picked up that I have been gradually letting some gaps emerge in that anmesic state...as things become unraveled, more 'memory gaps' will reappear. I've written in a lot of trapdoors...

Granted as far as I know K1 isn't of a Christian background so due to lack of religious dogma and brainwashing his reaction would be different then if he were per se a Catholic.

I see K1 as a typical agnostic Japanese man. I've never portrayed any of his family, or for that matter, any of the characters (excepting Abbess Sora and Abbess Chihiro) as subscribing to a particular religious path. Most Japanese under 40 can't even name all 7 Lucky Gods, and many Japanese high schoolers I talk with have never read the Nihongi. So Keiichi's one of them. I see him as struggling between his shy nature and his 'egoist' emotional leanings. But also, as I have noted a few times in TBT...from Megumi's perspective...Keiichi is the "peacemaker" type.

I think the brunt of his outburst would stem from the Norn's attitude towards Kami-sama during the entire series, pre-TBT to present. Always they have bowed, talked graciously, or in some cases with Urd spoke in hushed tones. The odd thing is that K1 takes the appearance of what popular human culture considers the embodiments of good and evil without so much as a blink. I could be wrong but I think K1 either leaves the scene calmly or sits down and tosses back a few at the same table. Perhaps K1 should have a panic attack for fear of displeasing these two beings. After all, Kami-sama seems to be rather fickle and Oni-sama has been identified as "the devil". Just coming face to face with those two beings, with all the cultural connotations they have attached to them and their very real power, would be enough to make any mere mortal faint, good thing K1 isn't any mortal.

Right. He's been living with Bell for 4 years by this point, so he can take it in stride. I tend to follow Fujishima's take on K1...in several of the manga chapters, he's bowing to Kami-sama along with the rest...and even bows to Bell when she chews out the Ninjettes. In some instances, he's 'outside the loop' when the sisters are getting razzed by the Lord...to him, it seems to be amusing when Urd gets in trouble. So his interaction with Kami-sama is varied.

When I say Kami-sama is fickle, my reason is that he went from a state of peace to a state of war because of the flimsiest of evidence. Let's not forget that he has one helluva ego. The flimsy evidence was Urd merely saying that it was a demon that attacked her. They had no real hard proof. True the demons might have been able to create the virus but why?

Isilblius created the virus, then 'framed' the Demons, making the Gods believe that the Demons made it. And vice versa...because of the Doublet System, Demons are dying too. So the Demon's are convinced the Gods did it, by way of subjective deduction. No one else could kill them, so they figure that it has to be the Gods.

Why would they do something that would ultimately kill a large portion of their ridiculously small population? Okay here comes a thought experiment. Demon R&D creates the virus and an actual demon does infect Urd with it. Things go like they did in the story and a second war is called, actually not a war more like an act of vengeful genocide or as the headman put it "Waste them all!" By the way I found that comment kind of funny it makes Kami-sama sound a bit like a street punk.

(Intentional...Kami-sama has an occasional  punkish sorta outlook...and is even depicted as  punkish in Fujishima's manga, to my eyes.)

Back to the experiment, so the demons plant the virus and fortify themselves for the coming onslaught. It is true that most of the gods would die in the battle or from the virus, but how many of the demons would survive. The number of demons surviving might be equal to the number of gods who escaped the plague if they're lucky.

Isilblius planted the virus as part of his scheme to kill both the Gods and the Demons. His plan was to have the virus thoroughly decimate their ranks, then have the survivors go to war and kill off each other. This way, he conserves energy while getting his goals met. Remember, he wants to critically weaken Yggdrasil and Vanagdrasil, so that he can have a shot at succeeding in killing Kami-sama and Oni-sama...which he knows will take *a lot* of his energy.

WOW did I go off on a tangent. So not only is Kami-sama arrogant and fickle he's also impetuous.  Perhaps another way of looking at it is K1's experience with the various levels of gods. Perhaps in his mind there is a positive correlation between a God's power level and how little they think of humanity and by extent him. Case in point, the Norns and Peorth are all very nice if somewhat annoying at times. Skuld says that she hates him in the beginning but this really isn't true. Urd is simply annoying because of her tendencies toward vicarious living. BD treats him like a prince unless he really ruffles her feathers and this couldn't have been more than a few times during the entire TBT storyline. Lets step the power level up and take a look a Tyyr. As far as I understand Tyyr's license is an intermediate point between BD's and her parents', correct me if I'm wrong.

Tyyr's Military License powers are equivalent to Bell's. Just a different type. Goddess First Class is for the top Goddesses in Sysop, Goddess Relief Office, etc. Tyyr's license is also a First Class, but not a Senior, like Odeyn. I should set a ground rule that a God has to be of high rank (i.e., head of GRO, Chief Proctor, head of Energy Guild) and be 400,000 years to get a Senior License. Since Kami-sama is the bestower of licenses, I would imagine that Tyyr's particular license has additional powers during time of war (sorta like MacArthur's broad latitude when he was head of SCAP post-WW II).

So Tyyr is more powerful than BD and he has no problem with killing K1 and in fact he comes off as gleefully okay with the act. In Tyyr's eyes I suppose humans fit the same category as cows do for us; we're simply there for his betterment be it for target practice or to hurl an insult at.

Good analogy. Exactly the character trait I was trying to portray in Tyyr.

Now lets jump that power level up to BD's parents. Freiija wasn't interested in killing K1 physically but she had no problem with mortally wounding him emotionally. At first she ripped BD away from him without so much as a wink

She didn't know about K1 and Bell, thus there was no hostile intent on her part initially. Both K1 and Bell were keeping their relationship secret from their parents. Freiija's main intent was to marry Bell to a 'good' family, so she could gain 'face' with her society friends.  But once she learns of Belldandy's love for Keiichi, she seems to have no compunction about wounding him emotionally; to her, Earthrealm mortals have a very limited scope of emotions and can't really be 'hurt'. 

and the second time she justified it by calling him a stinking human and that all of his kind should be eradicated.

She's typical of the poodle-carrying socialite class who think that the homeless and starving choose their plight in life.  Be that as it may...she's quite arrogant and proud.  Odeyn is much more sympathetic to the mortals, and Keiichi in particular.

So now that a growing level of hostility has been established how might K1 act when he meets the Almighty. Let's not forget the fact the Kami-sama nearly killed his soulmate and her sisters. I'm guessing that there is quite a bit of resentment in K1 toward Kami-sama. After all, K1 had to pick up Kami-sama's mess. Perhaps K1 sees Kami-sama as a fool whose ambition is too great for the power he holds?

Perhaps. I think it is a cool idea. I'll write it in, in the sense that it will add to the suspense. It's one thing for the avatar character, Cevn, to challenge Kami-sama...especially when he's got UF power. But it adds symmetry when Keiichi challenges Kami-sama as a banner-bearer of humanity. I would expect Kami-sama to evolve to a more fatherly role towards Keiichi as TBT progresses After all, he *is* marrying one of Kami-sama's 'daughters'.  He has been quite paternal to both Skuld and Urd when they approached him (Skuld to get the license transfer token, Urd to try and get Cevn back).

I think I've ranted long enough but I have one more thing to say. It would seem as if the UF auto-balances itself by using whatever resources are necessary. If this is true then perhaps the divines are merely the frosting on a perfectly edible cake.


Yep. A totally cool analogy.  Thanks for your close reading of TBT and your observations and critiques.

 

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