‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 521

Colors by Audrey with edits and everything else by me.

Last time we saw Jane.

Whis pers.

She speaks.

43 Comments

Well sh**.

And then Jane gives Kat an Esone she somehow procured off of the jerk-group from before :-D. Right, that’s what’s going to happen? Sunshine & happiness & smiles all around?

She can’t kill what’s already dead, right? Takes pleasure out of it

Kleya just got off ghost mode, now she has respawned and can be killed again, but without a Esone next death will be permanent.

Probably was talking about the trees.

That I recall, this is a well traveled area, and well traveled areas are hard to find Esona in. So any esona found would not be idle finds on the other team.

I’d be more than a little surprised if you could steal esona, seems the way to eliminate a player is to break all their esona by killing them repeatedly.

Okay, so the other group wasn’t able to subdue her. I hope we will get to see what she did.

Sooo: What is Sandra’s little agent going to do to win Kat’s trust? Saying a classic bully line won’t help, but maybe she will put more effort into it in the coming pages. 🙂 It’s nice to see that it’s that plot line’s turn to develop now.

….*Jane hands kat esone* *kats all like wtf?!*

Okay, now that is something I didn’t consider yet, but it would certainly be a smart move. And it would make sense if she looked out for Esones during her grinding. Heh, maybe she took 3 Esones from Aza’s group. I remember that one guy shouting at Kat “Your Esone is m—“, so maybe it’s possible to take them.

I’m pretty sure it’s possible. I think Esones are destroyed only when there’s a hit to it. If a player with their Esone placed over the heart got beheaded, I don’t see why the Esone would not be fine and end dropped as loot.

“Ha HAAAA, try your best, foul villain, for you can never gain my Esones. I have placed them near my heart, so to destroy me, you MUST destroy them-”
*Enemy cuts off Dopey’s head, dopey goes into Ghost Mode*
“Ah @$%^%$$^….”

The phrase “I want off this island” is NOT inherently a bullying phrase. That is Jane stating a personal (not character) request to her teammate. Context is king of course – but I bet the next sentence will request co-operation with Kleya to achieve that objective. (“Jane” will still be mocking “Kat” out loud tho)

I said “saying”, not “whispering”. 😉

Jane SAID “Did the little Kitty die?” which sounds pretty mocking to me, but her whisper obviously reveals her true intentions…

I’m guessing saying things that mock someone makes them not want to help you…

My point exactly.

Omg Jane’s cooperating <3

That's gotta be one odd friendship… odd-looking to the viewers, I mean particularly

Jane killed them all, she took their Esones, she will make a dead with Kleya in exchange of a Esone, help her to leave the island maybe.

Kleya will ask a Esone for Danni. Jane refuse. Conflict ensue.

“deal” not “dead”… not that Jane wouldn’t like that, though.

I can only guess that the three players from the other team were dealt with quickly and violently by Jane prior to this little meeting.

Kat’s skill stands out as a sore thumb, Jane already knows she can ask Kat how to get off the island. It makes me wonder if this Jane’s first time playing, she seems somewhat skilled but also ignorant. (I suppose it is possible that Jane is not asking but commanding: “I am your group leader, get ready to leave this island.”)

Now why would Jane want to get off this island, if she is an experienced player, then maybe this island brings back bad memories. Seen as I am now in full conspiracy mode now, I also wonder if some of Jane’s true voice gets through the whispers and Kleya recognizes it.

to Jon: Not Jane’s first time playing. Before she was the infamous ‘Bloody Mary’ who killed all the members on her own team for her own advantage. Of all the players, she is probably one of the least ignorant. It’s just thas island is the exact opposite of her alignment– and thus a very difficult (if not dangerous) place for her to be.

For the whisper– it’s Jane’s whisper. It’s a function of the game.

I know it’s pretty much all but fact that Jane was Mary, but iirc, this still hasn’t actually been confirmed, has it? It’s just an assumption that everyone is making? I’m not (yet) saying she isn’t, but I do think it might be an interesting curveball to consider. That being said, she probably is.

When Waterman claimed that Jane was the banned Bloody Mary so she should not be in the game, Jane answered “I reset as demanded”.

Other than that yes, nothing straight forward has been told one way or another, although there has been plenty opportunities for such. However almost everyone included the Trials’ host believe Jane is BM.

I mean, even with her more or less confessing there, she could very well be some other person passing herself off as bloody mary for intimidation purposes or some other reason we’re not privy to yet. It *is* the internet we’re dealing with here, you can never be completely sure who someone is, heh.

It’s somewhat surprising to hear Jane sound rational and not be a creepy monster. It gives me some small hope that she actually has some depth to her character, and can be a team player.

If she decides to work with Kat, they can probably be powerful allies together.

Remember, Jane is in cahoots with their group’s managers in direct opposition of Bandit. Much like Bandit and Dude, Jane is merely playing a role and isn’t letting on how much she knows.

Where was this said again (about opposing Bandit, that is)? I remember something along those lines, but it’s been a good long while since I browsed the archives.

It was mentioned in passing when Pat was designing their new avatars. You can find the conversation(s) here:
http://navcomic.com/not-a-villain/page-235/
236 and 237 are Kat talking with Pat and aren’t relative to this subject.
http://navcomic.com/not-a-villain/page-238/
http://navcomic.com/not-a-villain/page-239/

What is important, and I feel people have forgot, is that the party is divided in more ways than just “Tenka v. Kat”. Of course, many would say Tenka v Bandit v Kat, since Bandit is “technically” a double agent of sorts. But then there is a third party with unknown intentions. That party is Sandra, Pat, and Jane.

Then poor Danni is stuck in the middle.

Personally, I think she’s Mina’s mom. Jane has made a few comments about the desperation of someone in a hard to reach place (like Mae who appears to have her arm stuck under something), has a hatred for Tenka, has two little dolls that look like Mae and Mina….. it’s a suspicion growing in my mind.

That theory has been discussed, and subsequently dismissed, before. After the game trials(where Danni got 6th place) Mina’s mom runs up asking for help. She could have been playing Jane in that tournament at least. I have my own theory that Jane could still be Mina’s dad, and that the character was probably invented by Mina’s mom(and that the two could be taking turns), but it is a rather flimsy theory without much to back it up.

You had my attention. Now you have my interest.

Not entirely surprised that Jane wants off the island. Jane has shown several times that, while she can work in a group dynamic, she prefers solo work. Now if she prefers avoiding VOLUNTARY group situations (or at least tries to give that impression- the whole Sandra thing makes that a bit questionable), its not too big of a surprise that she would avoid an island that could strip her of her free will. That said, I wonder what would have caused her to eliminate her previous team. So far she has essentially followed Sandra’s every order in the game (or at least attempted to), which makes me wonder if Jane was managed by Sandra LAST TIME, and, if so, if Sandra was the REAL reason behind Jane wiping out her previous team. (Stepping out of line, perhaps?) Of the two, Sandra appears the more insidious individual so far to me.

Not as insidious as TENka, perhaps, but certainly more insidious than some Outsider struggling to support her kids IRL.

Still, appearances must be upheld, both to the audience and the mark. Get ready for a deliciously triple-layered conversation about how Kat should give up on the rest of the group and pair with Jane. Aneeka has given us a lot of Kat’s inner dialog before, but I wonder if she’s ready to do that for Jane yet.

Still, the conversation might be too hard to follow otherwise, unless Kat knows about Jane’s actual agenda…there hasn’t been any real indication she doesn’t know, since so far it hasn’t been apparent that Kat would even care. But now…now it is time to start caring about what Jane wants and how to reconcile that with what Danni needs.

What I get for reading the page while half asleep. I missed that the final bubble was a whisper bubble. And when I realized that I’d first assumed it was Kat. Kat’s whispers get a strong shade of pink…. So the last bubble must be Jane.

Anyway, I don’t think we’re playing with a clue-ball or idiot ball here, which gives the statement something like context… Unless nigh-teleporting travel is possible from any point, that’s a long reaching statement – off the island while somewhere in its wilds.

But it’s also up to the team leader to set goals and keep order. We’ve seen the kind of order the team gets when it’s split from its leader, surely adding a teammate killing leader to the mix can’t possibly make things worse…

So… Jane is a true gamer. Putting on one face for the audience, but there’s method to her madness. For her, the game may be a true life and death situation– and since she is forced to deal with life and death every day she has taken a pragmatic solution: the fast and easy way that’s very showy. The audience loves a villain, so “Bloody Mary” gives them what they want to up her ratings. But she either likes Kat (unlikely) or realizes Kat can be a powerful ally (or maybe a bit of both, with some respect thrown in). Jane may even realize who Kat is. She may respect Jane taking down the game at one time, realizing the game has enslaved mankind. Okay– I’m just guessing. But evidently there is more to Jane than “Bloody Mary”.

And that’s a potentially fascinating story twist. : )

Of course, it could very well be this island is one of Jane’s worst nightmares and she wants to go somewhere she can slaughter people without the trees taking offense.

I usually do not read the comments (no time) but I assume it was already proposed and discussed Jane being Kelya’s mother, right?

Both Kleya and the major Tenka forces treat her mother’s death as a certainty. Both also seem to think it’s Kleya’s fault (whether it’s really her fault is unknown, but Kleya’s actions seem to indicate guilt). I think it’s more likely that Jane is the mother in that family Kleya helps out once in a while.

Yes, I know, even flashback cuts seems to point to her mother being death, but again it has not been directly stated one way or another

Actually I’m fond of Jane being Mina Lilly’s mother theory myself.

But the way Snoot just described the current situation made a click. If Jane were Kleya’s mother a few things seems to match (others no), like Jane’s hate toward the trees for instance. Also if she is hiding as an outsider and playing the opposite route to the one she always did as a cover, it would make a nice symmetry with what Kleya herself is doing.

Just a wild guess.

It has been directly stated with high confidence by characters in the comic, just not VOICE OF GOD stated outside of the comic. Within the comic, pretty much everything is related by characters with various levels of confidence and credibility.

In a story like this, where we know much of what we know the characters know is untrue/contradictory to what other characters know, anything is possible…including that “the End” was an “in-game event” that only affected people using Kido’s at the time and they are ALL stuck in a deliciously multi-layered virtual reality without realizing it. I can rate that as “unlikely” since it is one of the most hackneyed literary cheats in the book and I hope Aneeka is above that…but it wouldn’t be an impossible sell if she pulled the reveal right. After all, it became a literary cheat after some examples proved it could be done right…but the usual way to do it right is for the reality to end up being worse than the dream…at least for the protagonist. Which would completely suck for Kleya.

Kleya’s mom still being alive would be easiest to sell if “the End” didn’t really happen at all, which is to say I’m putting it at the high end of audience manipulating B.S. tricks. It is also possible for the VOICE OF GOD to lie, authors do this all the time in response to controversy they didn’t anticipate.

So I don’t really see Kleya’s mom still being alive as particularly likely even if this all turns out to have been a dream. In fact, if this all turns out to have been a dream, then the probability that Kleya unambiguously and VERY personally killed her is much higher, from a literary perspective. Most of the rest of that possibility range is filled by Kleya’s mom being a HORRIBLE mother.

So, despite the fact that our current setting is highly friendly to “the End was just an in-game event that only really affected people playing a version of the game” ending, I’m still pretty much hoping that’s not where Aneeka takes this. Cause that would be really cruel of her.

As for Jane turning out to be Mrs. Lilly…it’s not impossible but I tend to believe Kleya would have noticed that by now. I’m guessing she at least has information on location and logistical supply path for their family, we know that’s in her abilities even if she weren’t writing custom code patches for Mae’s interface. We also know it’s one of her standing interests. She peeked at Jane’s code, and Jane is now her team leader. So it would seem likely Kleya would have made the connection if there were technical means of doing so, i.e. if Bloody MaryJane Lilly isn’t secretly a better hacker than Kleya.

Still, it’s only unlikely, and pulling that reveal only requires a couple of lines justifying Kleya’s failure to dig deep enough to uncover the digital evidence (we already know Kleya is weak against ordinary human deception). It could be a fun reveal…but I think we’d have more than “we only know about two named characters who are Outsiders with kids.” Neither having kids nor being an Outsider is represented as being all that unusual, so it’s only slightly more of a connection than “oh, and both are female.”

My beef with it is that if Mrs. Lilly is really able to do her Mrs. Lilly character AND Bloody MaryJane, I don’t believe she’d have a real problem with killing children in-game. That would be a lot harder than hiding her Kido from Mina and Mae (which she’d definitely need to do but wouldn’t be hard cause they spend practically all their time in-game…at least, it wouldn’t be physically difficult). Our hypothetical Bloody MaryJane Lilly would need some reason she was pretending not to be cold-blooded enough to kill NPC kids in a game, cause while hiding her Kido from her sick daughter who’s running drastically low on painkillers is a rational decision…so is killing NPC kids in a game.

Don’t you all?

Previously on Survivor…

Finally caught up from the beginning! Which means..now I have to wait for new issues. Should I feel happy or sad? XD

Not A Villain Webcomic

Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 521