TASOAE: 059
« First ‹ Previous ∞ Random ∞ Next › Last » And two months in, the new cast finally meets the old cast. The junior-year transition was a bit of a Wizard of Id moment for the strip, when it became sort of divorced from its foundational concept. Id is named after its wizard, which became less of a focus of the strip over the years. In a similar way, The Absolute Sum of All Evil‘s title refers to Cthulhu, who is quite evil. Neither Brynne nor Cassie is really evil, despite Brynne’s growing desire for revenge. I think I figured out a decent balance of the two casts by the end of the strip.
It’s also worth noting that Cthulhu is evil, but not always malicious. His is a distant, uncaring evil, where given the option between helping you and hurting you he will choose harm, but doesn’t care enough about you to choose a particularly painful sort of harm. Human-type people are less fundamentally evil, but are capable of far more acute bouts of malice.
Still, it seems he feels quite bad about Brynne coming up with a better, more original torture.
An elder god has his pride.
At the same time though, at (what seems like) a highly competitive college, the finals thing is less original, but may still be more torturous.