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Summary  King Mob, the Marquis DeSade and Boy find themselves inside the Ontic sphere - which has taken an imprint off a postcard. As they move they realise that the reality they are in is also modelled on the castle of Silling - one of the Marquis' institutions. Meanwhile back in the Windmill, Orlando eats the tip of Jack's finger and he snaps from his trance. Orlando grabs him and holds him up against a wall, but is distracted by an attack from Lord Fanny. Back at the castle, all manner of things are being performed while King Mob, Boy and the Marquis sit there and watch. They leave the castle after it blows itself up through Nuclear sexual suicide and drive a spirit car towards San Francisco. At the windmill, Orlando wounds Fanny and turns back to Jack. Finally, Robin is at Rennes-Le-Chateau meeting the Blind Chessman - she enters the church to find the Cyphermen protecting the head of John the Baptist. Characters o Marquis DeSade o King Mob o Boy o Jack Frost o Orlando o Lord Fanny o The Blind Chessman o Ragged Robin o George Byron o Percy Shelley o The Cyphermen Analysis o Marquis De Sade |
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Annotations
[Arcadia (part 3) "120 days of sod all"]
o This issue is an explicit variation on Sade's "120 Days of Sodom", adapted into film in the 1970s by controversial Italian director/poet Pier Pasolini. For those looking for Pasolini's film version of "120 Days of Sodom," it's called "Salo." [EB] the title: American readers might not get that "Sod All" in the title of the issue is equivalent to "fuck-all" in the US, i.e., "nothing." The pun is actually a bit literal-minded since "sod" is an abbreviation of "sodomy/sodomite" -- therefore equivalent to "bugger" and therefore used more or less interchangeably with "fuck." [EB] o [page 2] [panel 3] I suppose this is the setting from Sade's book...but maybe the snow in these scenes is not a coincidence? Perhaps it has something to do with the other end-of-time/"snow" scenes in the series? [JB] o [page 9] [panel 2] Venice. The name of the bridge is "Ponte dei sospiri." [PV] [panel 3] what kind of flower is that? It's the same yellow flower that appear in page 19, panel 5 and in page 20, panel 1. [PV] [panel 4] "Laon and Cythna" are characters from a Shelley poem of the same name; according to Benet's, it's an "allegorical poem on the French Revolution" and later revised it into "The Rise of Islam" the last poem he wrote before leaving for Italy in 1818. The poem "is similar in ideological content to Shelley's 'Queen Mab' [also the nickname of an Invisible in 2.08-2.10!!!] ...[which was] written in 1812-13, a long work inveighing against orthodox Christianity and secular tyranny." [JB] o [page 11] [Also page 18]: These descriptions of the scientific addiction to obsessive categorization, and the modern-day culmination and consequence of the age of reason, closely match the ideas of the linguist and philosopher Jacques Lacan. Lacan held that to assign a name and meaning to an object/process is masculine, the object/process merely IS, and the conceptual space between the object/process and its name is feminine. The four men, the banker, judge, bishop and duke represent a world where everything is sacrificed to pure reason. In magickal studies to name something is to gain power over it, a power granted to Adam in the book of Genesis. The men in the castle are the extreme end result of that power granted to mankind in the Garden of Eden. [JH] panel 3: The barcode--a sign of late-20th-century commodification. [JB] o [pages 14-15, 23-24] Ragged Robin is visiting an unidentified man who seems to be St. Germain [see 1.06 and 2.06, page 6 for other appearances]. [JB] Again: from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail": Berenger Sauniere (BS) renovated the church at Rennes le Chateau (RlC) and somehow came into money at the same time. There is a lot of debate as to what the treasure at RlC is, but there is the idea that it is related to the head which the Templars worshipped. The order of the Knights Templar were later suppressed due to their heresy and worshipping of graven idols. The painter Nicholas Poussin (who painted King Mob's postcard) enters the story as he made a hint in a letter about a great treasure. He was later imprisoned, and held incommunicado. Louis XIV then hunted down the original of the painting 'Les Bergers d'Arcadie' and when he found it hung it in his private quarters. The tomb shown in the picture, reading IN ARCADIA EGO, was found in the early 1970s in...Rennes le Chateau. The story leads to the discovery [pages 23-24]of the 'Prieure de Sion,' an ancient conspiracy who guard the bloodline of Christ, ready to reveal it when the conditions are right (the model for the Grail in Preacher- yes, all the UK comics writers rip off the same sources :) ). [JBU] Knights Templars. From Benet's: "An order of knighthood founded about 1118 to guard the passage of pilgrims to Jerusalem. Begun in poverty--the seal shows two knights riding on one horse--it was joined by many noblemen who brought great wealth to the order. Their independent conduct on the battlefield eventually became an embarassment rather than an aid to the king of Jerusalem, and their wealth and political power a threat to the kings in Europe. Thus the order was savagely crushed by many rulers, notably Philip IV of France, and officially suppressed by the Pope in 1312." [JB] Poussin: See notes in 1.05 annotations. o [pages 17-19] I dunno...is this the metaphorical button that brings on Eschaton? Are KM, Boy and Sade wandering through the snow-like apocalypse? [JB] The "button" here is, I presume, the nuclear holocaust button. Here Morrison is writing his own ending to de Sade's book, adding the General to the cast and suggesting that there's no other logical conclusion to the orgy of destructive control. [EB] o [page 20] [panel 2] "Mazeppa": anyone know anything about this Shelley poem? [JB] |
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