SPOILER if you haven’t been to Mutton Island yet!
[spoiler]The priestly fellow is wearing an elaborate feathered head-dress and little else. The other locals surround him in a circle, hunched over in hooded robes. One holds an ear of corn, another a stone jug, another a clay tablet. The priest speaks to his congregation. He persuades, cajoles, demands. You can’t make out the details. The bent robed figures answer him in hissing whispers.
Finally, they nod in agreement. The circle turns as one to grab one of their number, a man (or woman?) with a lamp. They carry him (or possibly her) to the edge of the cliff and hurl the flailing body over the edge, down into the oily black waves far below. [/spoiler]
So, is this a re-enactment of The Drowning? The "robed figures speaking in hissing whispers" are most certainly meant to be Masters. The one with the ear of corn could be Mr Apples, who was known as Mr Barley once. The others would be Mr Wines and Mr Pages, I suppose. But who is the priest with the feathered head-dress? The Pharaoh?
Even more interesting is the fact that the drowned figure is holding a lamp. Is this is a hint to Mr Eaten’s former identity? Candles do play an important part in the SMEN storyline. [Edited:] Though Mr Fires deals in candles nowadays, maybe "luminosity" was originally Mr Eaten’s portfolio?
Of course, the ceremony might not be exactly recreating the original circumstances. Maybe some details were lost. Maybe the whole thing is made up. But the Custodial Chef does take tradition very seriously, as we see with the well-water and the Rubbery Lumps.
And yes, this would also provide a (very worrying) backstory for the origin of Rubbery Lumps, and why they call him Mr Eaten. I shall leave the details to your imagination…
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 4/4/2015
[quote=Wieland Burandt]Of course, the ceremony might not be exactly recreating the original circumstances. Maybe some details were lost. Maybe the whole thing is made up. But the Custodial Chef does take tradition very seriously, as we see with the well-water and the Rubbery Lumps.
And yes, this would also provide a (very worrying) backstory for the origin of Rubbery Lumps, and why they call him Mr Eaten. I shall leave the details to your imagination…
edited by Wieland Burandt on 6/19/2012[/quote]
That would be outright creepy! But I think it’s quit established that the lumps themselves aren’t particularly exotic in origin - as long as [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]tentacular monters of the deep go in the Neath; it’s the water they’re boiled in that does the trick[/color].
I just read the update in the Fingerkings thread, and I was thinking… All the pantomime does seem Aztec-like, from the feathered head dress to the human sacrifices, and for what we know about the Fingerkings, they live in a place resembling a lush pluvial forest, and, according to a Newspaper storylet, they actually look a bit like Quetzalcoatl, the bird-serpent. Wild guessing - what if the whole ritual was about the Fingerkings, and not the Masters? Wilder guessing: we know that the Masters don’t react politely to any mention of Mr Eaten, probably because he committed a great crime and they punished him. But what if the Fingerkings were actually responsible for Mr Eaten’s demise, and the other Masters are trying to cover up the story to cancel the stain of their first (only?) sound defeat at the hands of other entities?
[quote=Wieland Burandt][SPOILER if you haven’t been to Mutton Island yet!]
And yes, this would also provide a (very worrying) backstory for the origin of Rubbery Lumps, and why they call him Mr Eaten. I shall leave the details to your imagination…
edited by Wieland Burandt on 6/19/2012[/quote]
Dear God. I never even thought of that possibility…
A stations of the cross for Mr. Eaten? He must be more important then I originally believed.
I wouldn’t be too surprised if the Fingerkings were somehow involved. And yes, the pantomime and the feathered head-dress sounded very Mesoamerican to me, too. Which brings me to the question: are we certain the downfall of Mr Eaten happened during the Second City? Or did only his betrayal happen there, and his punishment came in the Third City?
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
Just a theory. If the masters are indeed angels like several have been speculating and this is a reenactment of the drowning then it follows that eaten might in fact be Lucifer who’s name roughly translates to, if I remember correctly, morning star and has been called the bringer of light .[color=000000] Like I said it’s just a theory but it does make you wonder.[/color]
edited by LucasDixon on 8/11/2012
[quote=Wieland Burandt]I wouldn’t be too surprised if the Fingerkings were somehow involved. And yes, the pantomime and the feathered head-dress sounded very Mesoamerican to me, too. Which brings me to the question: are we certain the downfall of Mr Eaten happened during the Second City? Or did only his betrayal happen there, and his punishment came in the Third City?
edited by Wieland Burandt on 6/20/2012[/quote]
It could of course be that his betrayal is what caused the second city to be abandoned, so his punishment would have to have come in the third.
It may be that the betrayal is not as black and white. Think Fires vs Stone. Maybe he had a conflict with another Master… and lost.
edited by Devoted_pupa on 8/12/2012
Or won… but in a way that disrupted the balance too much.
So I was on the right trail after all…
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
So I was on the right trail after all…[/quote]
Did you ever ask the Sacks in white what his name was at Christmas?
spoiler Mr Eaten was once Mr Candles spoiler
That’s exactly what I was hinting at.
The sacrifice is quite intriguing; the body falling as the defeat of Mr. Eaten, or something…I read somewhere that Mr. Eaten’s story will be heading North, and Mrs. Plenty wanted to head that direction as well someday, if I recall correctly. The story arc here just feel enormous.
It’s the re-enactment of an employee being booted off the proverbial cliff by his colleagues and employer.
The Masters are the contracted servants of the Bazaar. Roughly 1/3 of the way through his contractual period, Mr Eaten was fired – and not in the usual way he liked, but the “discharged and laid off” sort of “fired”. His well is the proverbial alcohol-infused “drowning of woes”. Mr Eaten isn’t as upset about being fired as he is about the lack of severance pay. In a fit of drunken rage, this disgruntled ex-employee will return to the Bazaar for his pension pay even if it means devouring the Neath to do it. He’ll probably shout something like “Yoush promisshed me aaall shaaall be weeeell!” when he does it. The current Masters don’t want to see him back because it’d be an awfully awkward and embarrassing reunion for all involved.
Mr Eaten’s successor, Mr Fires, should watch his back. He’ll be the new sacrificial scapegoat when the next centennial financial report comes out red. The Mutton Island scene isn’t about an esoteric and occult ritual of power, deceit and blood. It’s about office politics… And before anyone says it, yes, they’re sometimes linked. :P
I’d better stop speaking of these Bazaar contracts. Supposedly, someone was hung and shipped to the Tomb Colonies decades ago for mentioning them.
It has been implied, with Mrs. Plenty and others, that high level Seekers can be given large bribes to give up the quest. Which suggests some interesting choices to come with the next five candles and beyond.
I’m raising a thread from the dead, I know, but…something odd has occurred to me. It’s mentioned several times that Mutton Island has corn beer, which isn’t a British thing in particular. What it is is Mesoamerican in origin.
Aside from affirming the Third City links already made here, it makes me wonder; how long has there been a Mutton Island in the Neath? I’d thought it was a bit of London suburb caught out at Zee, but that seems dubious in light of the backstory.
You do know that in British English, "corn" means "wheat" or "barley"? What Americans call "corn" is "maize" in Britain… ;)
Apart from that, I don’t think Mutton Island and Hunter’s Keep are among those "suburbs" of London that fell… I think they’re part of the general Unterzee geography and therefore far older than Fallen London.
:edit: for clarity
edited by phryne on 9/3/2016
Yes, I did know that. But it still makes more sense to me that they’re drinking a Third City drink to go with their Third City re-enactment. At least, I find it more exciting that way. Wheat beer wouldn’t have any particularly interesting lore connotations.
There’s a definite connection between "corn beer" and the Seeking storyline.
The process to get a second Weeping Scar involves seven tankards of "sacramental beer brewed with corn".
[li]