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So, here's a post I was going to run when Reading Cerebus (which I'm beginning to suspect ISN'T going to be coming back from its hiatus,) got to issue #36, "The Night Before." It's a little fan theory of mine from back in my simply enjoying Cerebus days.
I'll let you guys decide if it's an
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| Fan theory |
Okay, so the backstory to set this up. In Issue #6, Cerebus met Jaka:
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| All images courtesy CerebusDownloads.com |
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| We'll come back to issue #16... |
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| An Iconic appearance to say the least... |
Remember, at this point in High Society, Cerebus is on the rise, and is trying to prove he should be the Ranking Diplomatic Representative to Iest from Palnu. He's also hitched his rising star to Astoria, Lord Julius' ex-wife. In Issue #35, "The Evening Before" while Cerebus and Astoria are entertaining the Prime Minister of Iest, Lord Julius shows up.
Here's the last three pages of Issue #35, to kinda show the point I'm leading up to:
Basically, Lord Julius is master of manipulation. He's holding Petuniacon at the Regency, and nominating Elrod to be Cerebus' replacement as ranking diplomatic representative. All to mess with Cerebus.
But that's not all, knowing that his Ex is working with Cerebus, Julius sends his niece to seriously throw Cerebus off his game.
AND, my "proof" is Jaka's outfight in "The Night Before":
Now where have we seen a shirt like that before?
That's right, Issue #16, the last time Cerebus and Lord Julius were together before Issue #35...
Back in the Yahoo Cerebus Group, I brought this up, and we made it the Wildcard question in our 5 Questions to Dave for Volume 13: GOING HOME:
Which blows my theory out of the water...WILDCARD: Julius appears to be a master at manipulating Cerebus (anong others). The last time we see Lord Julius and Cerebus together in the first volume, Cerebus is wearing the furry black shirt (when Cerebus leaves Palnu, he is in shadow and we can't see what he may or may not be wearing.) We also learn that Jaka is soon to arrive in Palnu (which "debunks" the theory/story told in "Jaka's Story" that Jaka was missing and nobody knew where she was and Julius was looking for her (itself debunked at the end of "Jaka's Story")) and that she has made Julius aware of her connection to Cerebus. Then the next time we see Cerebus and Jaka (in High Society page 209), Jaka is wearing a furry black shirt. Given the context of the story (Cerebus has just changed into his Candidate duds to impress the Prime Minister of Iest, whom Cerebus was entertaining with Astoria when Lord Julius walks in and berates Cerebus. When Cerebus is informed that Jaka is there to see him.), I have the supposition that "The Night Before" meeting was set up by Julius in order to throw Cerebus off his game for Petuniacon (Cerebus's game, not Julius's). And Jaka's wardrobe was a very subtle clue to this. Jaka DID want to see Cerebus and give him his sword, but Julius was the one who decided when and where Jaka could do that. In fact, looking at Jaka's furry black shirt, it looks to have aardvark proportions, theoretically, it's the same shirt from issue 16. So my question is this: Is my supposition correct? (Regarding the meeting, not the shirt.) Was Jaka sent to meet with Cerebus by Julius to mess with Cerebus's head? Also, was Julius using Jaka to try to manipulate Cerebus later in "High Society" (page 467-ish)?DAVE: After the Big Trauma, Lord Julius never again had any kind of influence over Jaka for obvious reasons. She was certainly capable of portraying herself as the loving niece and completely ignoring the Big Trauma in her dealings with her uncle but always on her own terms. I mean, picture the level of profound wilfulness that would allow a twelve-year-old princess to be dancing in taverns. The sensible thing for Lord Julius to do was to send some people to get her, but the Big Trauma was pretty well incandescent to the point of emitting its own level of radiation capable of melting lead. All you could do was to keep a few Iestan undercover guards nearby and let her dance in taverns and hope for the best. You see it a lot in our society where you have this disproportionate awareness of the GAMMA RADIATING FEELINGS of little girls which leads to outright capitulation to those FEELINGS in more and more instances which really skews families in weird directions causing them to adopt as realities peculiar notions that are actually just immature female fantasies. It’s certainly, it seems to me, more sensible to hold to the view that Big Traumas are actually little traumas blown out of proportion and to enforce that view by force if necessary until the little princess figures out that she only thinks she’s the center of the universe. But the potential is always there once capitulating to little girls becomes (as it has become in our society) the new normal..The furry tops was really just because I liked doing fur textures with the Hunt 102 pen nib. Like Charles Shulz with his raindrops. We all have our favourite textures.In the case of the sweater that Jaka is wearing, that was actually a sweater that Deni owned and that she bought when we had only been married a short time. It was an expensive item, as I recall, and versatile because it was black so it went with everything. It had that exaggerated scoop neck that showed off nice blouses very well and mid-length sleeves. I think she owned it for a few years before she noticed one day that the label was in the front, which, of course was when she realized that she had been wearing it backwards all along. It was actually a crew neck collar in the front with a scooped back. She tried it on that way and it looked terrible but she still had to fight with herself to wear it after that because she had become acutely aware that it was on backwards and never felt quite comfortable wearing it again. Even though it looked great when she was wearing it backwards and lousy when it was on the right way around.A woman’s lot is not an easy one.
Next Time: Or does it?
8 comments:
Kewl.
I forget (I have had stuff on my mind...), what is that Big Trauma?
... Wait, let me guess: first menses?
Eolake,
The Big Trama was Jaka's 12th birthday party.
Matt
... Oh yeah, that rings a bell... Julius had arranged some kinda nasty surprise for her.
You forgot to say "Spoiler Alert."
No I didn't.
It's been at least 14 years...
Matt
I have to admit, I also thought Julius brought her along when I first read it (although I didn't know much about her backstory then). At the very least, Julius could have still engineered a situation which would have had her appear to Cerebus at that time (unbeknownst to her) as part of his plans.
I missed the reoccurring fuzzy sweater motif, but it would have made sense as a "subtle visual hint" as to which side she (as Julius's niece) was really/inadvertently working for, since it also occurs with Elrod when he first shows up in High Society wearing the same Palnu Unicorn Tunic that Julius's son Silverspoon is first introduced as wearing (foreshadowing that Elrod is on Lord Julius's "team", before we find out he's actually working with Julius and been nominated by him to be the next Ranking Diplomatic Representative).
Aw, heck with it Matt; in my version of the story, Julius had SOMETHING to do with her showing up then, regardless of what anyone says ;)
Eddie,
And Cerebus was a diplomat in Iest, I can't imagine that the staff of the Regency would let just anybody go up and see him. Jaka HAD to have EITHER played the "Julius' niece" card, or Julius had to have set up the meeting.
Matt
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