THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #17: COMFORTABLY NOM NOM NOM
What I love most about Issue 17 is just how much Sakhmet is in denial of her own emotional reality. That very first scene at the British Museum tells you everything. Actually, no that very first panel does:
Sakhmet wants to believe she feels nothing, sheās fine, sheās just a little kitty content to play with her yarn people. But she spends most of the issue numbing herself in one way or another. Pleasure not as pleasure but as escape. As Gillen points out in his Writerās Notes, every scene ends with her shutting her eyes.
And then finally she wanders off and DOES THIS.
Youāre right Sakhmet, youāre fine, no pain or trauma screaming in you, eating your dad is a thing anyone would do if they were really free.
Of course the real twist, the best twist, the oh my god no darkest twist is that she did this impossibly horrible thing while sober, that in fact itās understood amongst Woden and the Valkyrie that the time we really have to worry about Sakhmet is when she isnāt blissed out on whatever.
Sakhmet tells the reporter, āI am Sakhmet. I am war and sex and death. I feel nothing.ā She means it as this powerful statement of her identity, raw and primal and beyond all this mortal nonsense.Ā
And it makes no sense. War and sex and death are absolutely times when you feel things. Maybe too many things.
Itās the same when young Ruth stands before the statue of Sakhmet and insists she was made of stone. The statue is made of stone, sure; but that goddess, sitting on her throne half-naked, head of a lioness, upper body of a woman ā that chica is absolutely made of flesh.
We started this third arc of WicDiv with the story of a reporter ā (post-Jessica Jones I donāt know why but I always imagine Beth introduced like sheās TV child star Patsy, aka āITāS BETH!ā, but then when she comes onscreen sheās just pale and glaring with big circles under her eyes) ā who objectifies the gods to get what she wants. We then spend most of the arc having our own assumptions and prejudices revealed, and being challenged to appreciate the humanity of different gods.
(Iām not sure Iād say thatās whatās going on with Baphomet and Morrigan⦠unless perhaps their internal orbit is defined by the struggle between loving one another and using one another, dehumanizing one another? It is true, our first encounter with them has Baphomet animating a severed head of Morriganā¦and its script is nothing but praise for herā¦
Her take on making him a god is also about making him her king. It sounds like a partnership, but that possessive adjective can carry a lot of waterā¦)
And here we end with an embrace of objectification again. I love the way Gillen puts it in the Writerās Notes: āThe only person who treats Sakhmet like an object is herself.ā
(He also makes the comment, āHurt people hurt people, and occasionally eat them afterwards.ā Which encapsulates another major theme of this arc, and is also just the best sentence.)
Iām not sure that line has ever implied a greater sense of imprisonment.
Brandon Peterson does great work on the art. Those two pages of Sakhmet on the rooftops, thereās something so magical about them. For that one moment, before we get to see where sheās gone, she really does seem so happy and free.
Ā My one question: What is going on here?:
Weāre at Sakhmetās show. Usually those scenes reveal something important about the blessing of the god. But here, I donāt know, it doesnāt seem all that different from a normal concert, except for the living pastel balloon cats that people are stroking. Is this about pleasure, everyoneās on E or and enjoying stroking the kitties and basking in the red light ā like a cat, just getting that as I write this now, oh is that funny).
In a way it feels like the performance is more for the cats than the humans. The humans all blur together, painted in the red of blood; meanwhile the cats float and glow and move through as they will.Ā
Sakhmet says sheās all about pleasure, and from the post-orgy scene it seems like maybe her blessing is the numb, the escape of excess.
But thatās not whatās going on during her performance. And Sakhmet is so out of touch with the truth of herself, the only thing we can rely on is that her words should not be trusted.
Food for thought, I guessā¦