The good news is that what you said is unlikely. The Mist Gate Guardian said there really is an Eye to be retrieved in the Egg. It’s not a question without a right answer.
That said, it’s given that figuring it out is not easy. :-/
And yet, this may not be the “real” Egg of Koschei the undying. Thus ALL of it created, (and RUN,) by Veles as a testing ground.
If Veles is running the test he would have changed the legend of Koschei the undying so that the knowledgeable magic / psychic hero would be trapped by that knowledge.
As we have all seen every “test” has been a teaching moment, so Veles could find his most worthy opponent. May be he’d already found his opponent before the testing them and thought some lessons were needed.
No, Baba Yaga gave another clue – “The eye is just THAT, called by NO OTHER NAME” – so anything that has an eye in it, or looks like an eye, but could be called something else, is not “The Eye”, it’s just “an eye” – an eyeball, a lamp made of eyes, Peter Capaldi’s eye, etc.
Once you find something that is not possible to call anything other than “the eye”, you’ve found it.
Or “The I”. The whole journey to the center was set up to teach 84 about who she really is. She’s at the center. She just has to realize that she is “The I”.
it follows the classical ‘hero’s Journey’ model very well. Call to adventure>Refusal>Forced into it>Magical Assistance>Series of tests. She’s at the ‘earning the victory’ stage, soon to be followed by the ‘realization that the person who returns home will not be the same ‘you’ as who left.’.
The only problem with that, as pointed out on the previous page or two, is that this puzzle has been around for a very VERY long time. It works in english, but what language was it originally conceived in?
But THIS instance of the puzzle IS in english, right down to all the inhabitants (including Baba Yaga) not only speaking english, but reasonably modern english at that, so the puzzle relying on english usage does not seem beyond the pale.
It also fits the old (albeit overused) trope of “the power was in you all along”. She is the “I at the centre of the egg” and once she realises it the puzzle will be complete.
It’s also something that the creator of the egg did not call an eye.
The fog portal said, “It was clever to call it that, so you could get past the guardians of the first gate.” And if you go back to that panel (2014-12-10), the guardians say there is no “eye” on the list of things they’re supposed to protect.
But that is just the issue, is it not?
Everything that is has at least two names.
According to wikipedia “An eye is an organ of vision.” So it is called an eye. And an organ of vision.
Of course there have been some Films and Episodes called “The Eye”, maybe she is just looking for a DVD/VHS casette?
“an organ of vision” is a description, not what it’s called. How often do you go around talking about your orbs of vision? Now how often do you mention your eyes? See the difference?
Hmm, “eye” and “heart” can both refer to the center of something. “Eye of the storm.” “Heart of the matter.” I wonder if it’s at the center of the room, or something the rooms is centered on.
anything and everything can be called something else, there is literally nothing which could have no other name, the answer then is literally nothing the correct answer is to take nothing, something that seems quite likely to occur if only by accident when time runs out.
that does seem like it would be in keeping with the style of the challenge thus far, a trap to outsmart those who over think the challenge because every answer is the wrong one.
I wonder if it will turn out to be a matter of 84 declaring ” – I – am the opponent you seek”. Gives the second speech bubble in the first panel a certain meta-humour if so.
This room being full of eyes makes the perplexity of the first guardians at being told the party was looking for an eye surprising… unless the room has magic to show illusions matching what is in the hero’s mind, but still, it’s a bit weak there.
They aren’t necessarily tasked with guarding everything in the area. For that matter, the eye itself might not be something they care about. It could be that it just happens to be in the same general area as the heart.
Unless the vast majority of that stuff is only there for confusion/misdirection value and isn’t actually on the list of stuff they (the first guardians) are supposed to guard. Maybe there’s only the real “eye” and a handful of treasures; everything else is expendable.
If the very theme of “inside the egg” last room is eyes, that means someone knows the heroes would be looking for an eye. If that someone built the room, he built the guardians… so why are the guardians perplexed by a quest for an eye since it is obviously (given the room) expected that the heroes would look for it? It is illogical as far as obstacle consistency goes… unless the room’s content only reflects all possible incarnations of what is in the hero’s mind… or if all this is not made by koshei at all but is simply a test by Veles (in which case, there are some other problems with the story)
It actually might be deliberate – related to “clues increasing the lasting power of magical wards” (as Conjurer stated way back when).
So – assume the target really is the needle’s eye. Allowing a clever response to get past the first guardians enhances the longevity of the magic, so “eye” is left as a “backdoor password” while the more-likely-to-be-stated “needle” will invoke the guardian’s wrath. Thus, those who get through are likely to be looking for an “eye”, hence the use of many distracting “eyes” in the final room.
Nope, that doesn’t fit the clues, not only because they were presented to us as text written “eye” (and not “I” at all), but also because Baba Yaga’s clue doesn’t fit either – she would never call herself “The eye”, but there are lots of names she does call herself, “me”, “myself”, “Julie”, and “84” all come to mind. The eye she’s looking for is not called anything but “the eye”.
That’s the same reason it can’t be “The Eye of Rassilon” as suggested by The Other Mike, since “of Rassilon” is part of that one’s name.
Some people have already pointed out that ‘the eye of the needle’ would be classically appropriate.
No other name for it is really good, it’s a ‘hollow’ or a ‘passage’ one supposes, but those are descriptions in general.
A big gem can be called ‘The Eye Of Carlsbad’ or whatever but it’s also ‘a ruby’.
And the big thing is that the guards out front, when she said she was looking for an eye, wouldn’t have cared because they are really guarding a needle. The eye comes along with it.
So… do we know for sure that it is “Eye” and not “I”? could it be a voyage of self-discovery, a test of identity? Baba’s clue seems ambiguous though, if that’s the case. But some of the other clues/tests seem to resonate with that theme, at least for me…
“Volume 9” covered about 11 months of posts, and was divided into 6 “Issues”, each of which can be reached through the pull-down menu in the link bar.
“Volume 10” has been going on for a year now with no subdivision.
Add to that the fact that each post is named for the date it was posted, and there isn’t a predictable number of days between posts, and … searching for exactly what Veles said about the eye is kinda difficult, because it isn’t particularly close to either the beginning or the present.
Volumes 1-9 were compendiums of the print runs. Hence, they have the individual issues as subdivisions. Aaron remarked somewhere or other that he wished he had gotten rid of that for the print/online compendiums, since the stories were more long arcs by the end.
To be clear, I was not asking for chapter breaks in the story, I was asking for some way to access the archives that does not involve paging through one post at a time.
A page that lists every post by the date it was posted would be excellent. It would probably be kind of hard to implement. But if there could be a few links to waypoints throughout the past year, it would be massively helpful.
I… don’t know how much effort this would entail, but getting a database to cough up the pages in a couple of search functions would be super-useful, and get more useful the longer the story goes. (It’s been a while since I looked through the archives so forgive me if I mention a function you’ve already worked out.)
Kevin and Kell, Selkie, and some others have gotten in the habit of adding tags so you can find all the pages that contain (or reference) a certain character, which is great if you’re looking for an infrequent character like, say, Suzy. And letting the fans submit the tags makes it easier on the webmaster, plus you end up with unusual tags for fan-named phenomena (we might end up creating a term for Tyler and Toby on the same page, or Zodon’s censored swearing, or times when Ambriel’s guardian protects her, or backstory explanations for certain characters whose details get stretched over time).
Erfworld lets you look up thumbnails. Being able to see at a glance how a dozen or so pages look can easily let you know if you’re in the right area, without having to let each page load one at a time (frustrating for the user, and it uses more resources than it needs to).
Put them together, and you could look up all the pages that include “The Eye” and see thumbnails to figure out which one you need to load to find the info you’re after. See? You could also figure out how frequently certain characters or objects show up in the comic, just by searching for them (or seeing a sidebar based on frequency).
A few commenters have been suggesting that she should be looking at the exact center of the room, but is this room actually the heart of the egg?
The reason this might be something to question is that if you flip back a few pages, where the Mist Guardian hints that she has to figure out what “the eye” actually is, and we see the words from (what will turn out to be) Baba Yaga, 84/Julie is flying to the door over a cobble or brickwork patio.
The cobbles or bricks are arranged in a concentric semi-circular pattern, and it sure looks like the center of the pattern is under the threshold of the door itself.
So maybe she was supposed to open the door, and immediately look down?
My post last page (drag the entire room back to Velis and make him sort it out) seems like a better idea all the time. Definitionally, SOMETHING would be included in EVERYTHING, even ten year olds (and possibly even gods) get that part of set theory.
Baba Yaga said the eye is THAT, called by no other name. So Julie needs to find something that makes anyone who sees it say “what is THAT?” and there is no name for it because it’s just too weird. Anything that is identifiable as an eye is therefore wrong….
I’m pondering the scene with Baba Yaga a bit more.
She seems to suddenly know quite a bit about Julie’s background, including specific knowledge about the stories she knows. Now, maybe it’s because she’s the goddamn Baba Yaga and can just do that, but I also wonder if the item being sought has a power, called “the eye”. That is to say, it confers magical insight. And Baba Yaga uses that power to understand Julie. But Baba Yaga can’t claim the item itself, because she is prevented from doing so by the egg.
That might also be why Baba Yaga leaves the scene, rather than stay and point out the exact item to Julie, so that she can leave the trap she’s been in. Julie could then gain magical insight into Baba Yaga, and Baba Yaga would rather not experience that.
And having that power for herself might make Julie a more worthy opponent for Veles than just her FISS powers alone.
If his original plan was to have “eye” be “I”, or have Julie take back the building, then I certainly hope he changes it. Because way too many people are guessing those.
No, I think he’s probably too competent and too confident to throw away a long-planned, well-set-up element that fits both the posted story and his future plans just because some readers (as he would know to expect regardless, and even more so with the extended presentation time of a webcomic, and yet even more with the added technical delays) accurately interpreted the foreshadowing.
An interesting point: The Stone Guardians got confused when Julie said “We’re looking for an eye.” Specifically, “There’s nothing WE know of past here called ‘an eye’.” Whatever it is, they did not know it by that name– And if Baba Yaga is to be trusted (that the eye can be called by no other name) then…
One more idea: An item that could have a feature or decoration that looks like an eye (and that feature would be called an eye and nothing else), but would not be called an eye itself, is a headband or diadem.
And now that I’ve written that, it feels familiar. Has there been a character wearing a headband with an eye?
Veles said “[claim] the eye at its heart and brings it to me”.
Grigor said “This place was made by Koschei the undying to protect something *most dear* to him”
The First Guardians said “Know that we can read the souls of mortals and *know* when they lie! If you would steal something we protect, your *end* shall be *swift*!” and then “there’s nothing *we* know of past here called ‘an eye’ ”
The Mist Guardian said “It was *clever* to call it that, so you could get past the guardians of the first gate. *Not* so clever if you can’t realise what it means in time.”
Baba Yaga said, (in response to “But what *is* the eye?”) “The eye is just *that*, called by *no other name*.”
Baba Yaga said that after she tricked the mist gate, she is “*bound* here until some … finds Koschei’s treasure” and she expects if Julie succeeds to be “quit of this place”.
So to the completely obvious: it’s Koschei’s treasure, precious to him, he doesn’t want anyone (and especially folk such as Baba Yaga or Veles or their proxies) to succeed. So I don’t think it’s an “I”-self thing. (Tradition says it’s going to contain Koschei’s soul, and in the eye of a needle. But that’s
There’s an obvious split between “an” eye and “the” eye.
There’s the weird fact that Koschei didn’t put “an eye” on the list of protected items, but felt it worthwhile to fill a whole damn house with eye-things at the heart of the egg. That’s probably an example of “even the most powerful magic defences have weaknesses or built-in ways to bypass them *if* you’re *clever* enough.”
And yet people who knew what it actually is, probably wouldn’t be able to honestly call it just “an eye” to the First Guardians, even though Baba Yaga says it has no other name to “the eye”.
OK, so I think it is literally going to be “The Eye at the centre of the Egg”. Not some eye-thing, like we’re seeing, but a Great Big Eye. But the eye contains something else, and claiming the eye gets that something else. And that something else is Koschei’s treasure, his soul possibly, what keeps him undying, and that’s what Veles and Baba Yaga really want(ed), so they couldn’t honestly say they just wanted the eye, because what they really wanted was what it contained (which *is* on the First Guardians protected list).
Oh, hey look, is that an enormous pupil forming behind Julie in the last panel?
Oops, typo: (Tradition says it’s going to contain Koschei’s soul, and in the eye of a needle. But a needle’s probably a bit too obvious at this point).
And the final note: that to actually perceive The Eye at the heart of the Egg, to claim it, you need to stop seeing all the distractions, like all the eye-thing clutter.
“The Eye”.
I don’t know what it is, but when we see it, it will unquestionably be “The Eye”.
Not AN eye, but The Eye.
That’s why the First Guardians were confused: the thing she seeks isn’t called “an eye”, but that’s what she said (and believed).
That’s why the Mist Guardian said it was clever to call it that, but Baba Yaga said it is “called by no other name”. It’s name is “The Eye”.
This reminds me of the scene in “Princess bride” during the battle of wits…..I actually remember back 1987 trying to figure out the answer before it was revealed…..when it was revealed as “both glasses”…I had my first facepalm….
….why do i think this answer is going to cause a similar reaction?
It can’t be the eye of the needle. It has to be an eye that is known by no other name. An eye of the needle could be called something else. Besides, the only needles we’ve seen so far are darning needles. They don’t have an eye.
It could be a mirror. No matter who looks into it will see “the eye”- their own. Each eye that is seen will be known by no other name- “my eye”. Every other eye in the room could be described any number of ways by whoever looks at it. I think I see the silhouette of an old mirror frame in the background. Also, the answer must be clever and only obvious after it is picked.
She needs to find the Eye. The eye of the storm, the central core of calm captured in chaos.
And then the eye she seeks? Will be the “I” she is. “I am I.”
It occurred to me that it might be possible to arrange 15 and ¼ items in a hollow pattern with 1¼ items in the center, something vaguely like this (and maybe the ¼ item on top of the one in the middle)(I hope this doesn’t come out looking too horrible):
***
* *
* . *
* * *
* *
***
And it is the pattern that would be called “the eye”, and by no other name.
I wonder if it matters what she brings back, as long as she brings back something from the room. Koschei will know that she made it all the way through the guardians.
What about the big, Egyptian-style obelisk – sometimes they’re called needles (think Cleopatra’s needle). And what is that grey thing just to its right in Julie’s flight path?
84 has got this… Just once she calms down the answer will come to her.
Yeah, just pick up the entire house.
Unless the life lesson is sometimes there is no right answer. Or to put it another way sometimes you just can’t win.
Personally, I think, (really really hope,) that it will be neither of these. But you just never know.
The good news is that what you said is unlikely. The Mist Gate Guardian said there really is an Eye to be retrieved in the Egg. It’s not a question without a right answer.
That said, it’s given that figuring it out is not easy. :-/
I don’t think this is a Kobayashi Maru situation here. Everyone so far that would know has said this is a solvable puzzle.
And yet, this may not be the “real” Egg of Koschei the undying. Thus ALL of it created, (and RUN,) by Veles as a testing ground.
If Veles is running the test he would have changed the legend of Koschei the undying so that the knowledgeable magic / psychic hero would be trapped by that knowledge.
As we have all seen every “test” has been a teaching moment, so Veles could find his most worthy opponent. May be he’d already found his opponent before the testing them and thought some lessons were needed.
I’d be panicking too in her place.
I’m wondering if we’ve already seen it. But “eye at the heart” is the only real clue.
No, Baba Yaga gave another clue – “The eye is just THAT, called by NO OTHER NAME” – so anything that has an eye in it, or looks like an eye, but could be called something else, is not “The Eye”, it’s just “an eye” – an eyeball, a lamp made of eyes, Peter Capaldi’s eye, etc.
Once you find something that is not possible to call anything other than “the eye”, you’ve found it.
Or “The I”. The whole journey to the center was set up to teach 84 about who she really is. She’s at the center. She just has to realize that she is “The I”.
Your interpretation is crazy enough that it just might be true.
it follows the classical ‘hero’s Journey’ model very well. Call to adventure>Refusal>Forced into it>Magical Assistance>Series of tests. She’s at the ‘earning the victory’ stage, soon to be followed by the ‘realization that the person who returns home will not be the same ‘you’ as who left.’.
The only problem with that, as pointed out on the previous page or two, is that this puzzle has been around for a very VERY long time. It works in english, but what language was it originally conceived in?
But THIS instance of the puzzle IS in english, right down to all the inhabitants (including Baba Yaga) not only speaking english, but reasonably modern english at that, so the puzzle relying on english usage does not seem beyond the pale.
It also fits the old (albeit overused) trope of “the power was in you all along”. She is the “I at the centre of the egg” and once she realises it the puzzle will be complete.
Yeah, that’s what I’m guessing too. It’s called that and nothing else. The Letter “I” fits that criteria.
Got a hunch it will be something like “I am the hero you seek” or “I am the one”
maybe it’s the center. Like “The Eye” of the storm?
Or…. she just needs to center herself, then she becomes the eye in her own storm.
It’s also something that the creator of the egg did not call an eye.
The fog portal said, “It was clever to call it that, so you could get past the guardians of the first gate.” And if you go back to that panel (2014-12-10), the guardians say there is no “eye” on the list of things they’re supposed to protect.
But that is just the issue, is it not?
Everything that is has at least two names.
According to wikipedia “An eye is an organ of vision.” So it is called an eye. And an organ of vision.
Of course there have been some Films and Episodes called “The Eye”, maybe she is just looking for a DVD/VHS casette?
“an organ of vision” is a description, not what it’s called. How often do you go around talking about your orbs of vision? Now how often do you mention your eyes? See the difference?
Hmm, “eye” and “heart” can both refer to the center of something. “Eye of the storm.” “Heart of the matter.” I wonder if it’s at the center of the room, or something the rooms is centered on.
Or another name, “I”, meaning her heart, herself?
Love the fez on the lamp (nothing to do with eyes, but it’s there because fez’s are cool), which makes four who references in the last two pages.
Gaa! Autocorrect math error! 2+1 = three, not four (though it may approach four for sufficiently large values of 1 and 2)!
I’m calling it now. What with all the Who references, she’s looking for the Eye of Rassilon.
So she just hefts the whole house full of eyes back and says “its in here somewhere” ? lol
But possibly that Baba Yaga clue
That would probably count as ‘getting clever’. If Baba Yaga can’t get away with it, I doubt Julie will.
anything and everything can be called something else, there is literally nothing which could have no other name, the answer then is literally nothing the correct answer is to take nothing, something that seems quite likely to occur if only by accident when time runs out.
that does seem like it would be in keeping with the style of the challenge thus far, a trap to outsmart those who over think the challenge because every answer is the wrong one.
I wonder if it will turn out to be a matter of 84 declaring ” – I – am the opponent you seek”. Gives the second speech bubble in the first panel a certain meta-humour if so.
This room being full of eyes makes the perplexity of the first guardians at being told the party was looking for an eye surprising… unless the room has magic to show illusions matching what is in the hero’s mind, but still, it’s a bit weak there.
They aren’t necessarily tasked with guarding everything in the area. For that matter, the eye itself might not be something they care about. It could be that it just happens to be in the same general area as the heart.
Unless the vast majority of that stuff is only there for confusion/misdirection value and isn’t actually on the list of stuff they (the first guardians) are supposed to guard. Maybe there’s only the real “eye” and a handful of treasures; everything else is expendable.
If the very theme of “inside the egg” last room is eyes, that means someone knows the heroes would be looking for an eye. If that someone built the room, he built the guardians… so why are the guardians perplexed by a quest for an eye since it is obviously (given the room) expected that the heroes would look for it? It is illogical as far as obstacle consistency goes… unless the room’s content only reflects all possible incarnations of what is in the hero’s mind… or if all this is not made by koshei at all but is simply a test by Veles (in which case, there are some other problems with the story)
It actually might be deliberate – related to “clues increasing the lasting power of magical wards” (as Conjurer stated way back when).
So – assume the target really is the needle’s eye. Allowing a clever response to get past the first guardians enhances the longevity of the magic, so “eye” is left as a “backdoor password” while the more-likely-to-be-stated “needle” will invoke the guardian’s wrath. Thus, those who get through are likely to be looking for an “eye”, hence the use of many distracting “eyes” in the final room.
Perhaps the “I” is 84 herself
I wonder if Mike Wazowski (or a toy version) is in there somewhere. . .
She is overthinking it. The Eye at the Heart is probably her…. as in “It’s me! “I” am the Heart”
Simple. The ‘Eye’ that she is looking for is… herself. It’s a voyage of self-discovery that can only end when she finds ‘I’
Nope, that doesn’t fit the clues, not only because they were presented to us as text written “eye” (and not “I” at all), but also because Baba Yaga’s clue doesn’t fit either – she would never call herself “The eye”, but there are lots of names she does call herself, “me”, “myself”, “Julie”, and “84” all come to mind. The eye she’s looking for is not called anything but “the eye”.
That’s the same reason it can’t be “The Eye of Rassilon” as suggested by The Other Mike, since “of Rassilon” is part of that one’s name.
Some people have already pointed out that ‘the eye of the needle’ would be classically appropriate.
No other name for it is really good, it’s a ‘hollow’ or a ‘passage’ one supposes, but those are descriptions in general.
A big gem can be called ‘The Eye Of Carlsbad’ or whatever but it’s also ‘a ruby’.
And the big thing is that the guards out front, when she said she was looking for an eye, wouldn’t have cared because they are really guarding a needle. The eye comes along with it.
Well.. 84 hasn’t tried to call it yet.
Wonder if it would come to her if she called it by name?
If only she knew what name to call it. Oh. Well, it’s a thought. I’m sure 84’s will be better.
After all, she’s the Champion of Earth.
It is only called “eye” and nothing else. So the name is “eye.”
the answer is “I” maybe?
So… do we know for sure that it is “Eye” and not “I”? could it be a voyage of self-discovery, a test of identity? Baba’s clue seems ambiguous though, if that’s the case. But some of the other clues/tests seem to resonate with that theme, at least for me…
Maybe it’s one of her own eyes?
Eye for one would be very disappointed if the answer does turn out to be “I” as in “I am Julie”. That’d be just plain poor storytelling.
Can I joggle the webmaster’s elbow?
“Volume 9” covered about 11 months of posts, and was divided into 6 “Issues”, each of which can be reached through the pull-down menu in the link bar.
“Volume 10” has been going on for a year now with no subdivision.
Add to that the fact that each post is named for the date it was posted, and there isn’t a predictable number of days between posts, and … searching for exactly what Veles said about the eye is kinda difficult, because it isn’t particularly close to either the beginning or the present.
Volumes 1-9 were compendiums of the print runs. Hence, they have the individual issues as subdivisions. Aaron remarked somewhere or other that he wished he had gotten rid of that for the print/online compendiums, since the stories were more long arcs by the end.
Volume 10 is a stand-alone graphic novel.
Chapterization is a good thing. This is not really chapterized enough.
Look at other comics such as YAFGC for clean chapterization. there should have been a chapter break around the time they enter the egg.
WebGuy Drew here, I have no control over Aaron. And as Prairie Sun said, Aaron wanted to get rid of the issue chapters and just tell a story.
To be clear, I was not asking for chapter breaks in the story, I was asking for some way to access the archives that does not involve paging through one post at a time.
A page that lists every post by the date it was posted would be excellent. It would probably be kind of hard to implement. But if there could be a few links to waypoints throughout the past year, it would be massively helpful.
clink on the link below the comic marked “Issue: Chapter 1: 84 and the Ones Before” will take you to http://ps238.nodwick.com/issue/chapter-1-84-and-the-ones-before/ which seems to be what you want.
Web Guy Drew, any chance of fixing the problems with Nodwick?
1: Images are shown at the wrong size in pages. (Right-click on a comic image, choose “Open image in new tab”. The image in new tab will be larger.)
2: There are missing comics. For example, on http://comic.nodwick.com/?chapters=webcomic-saga&paged=18 there’s a several month long skip in the middle of one storyline to the middle of another.
I… don’t know how much effort this would entail, but getting a database to cough up the pages in a couple of search functions would be super-useful, and get more useful the longer the story goes. (It’s been a while since I looked through the archives so forgive me if I mention a function you’ve already worked out.)
Kevin and Kell, Selkie, and some others have gotten in the habit of adding tags so you can find all the pages that contain (or reference) a certain character, which is great if you’re looking for an infrequent character like, say, Suzy. And letting the fans submit the tags makes it easier on the webmaster, plus you end up with unusual tags for fan-named phenomena (we might end up creating a term for Tyler and Toby on the same page, or Zodon’s censored swearing, or times when Ambriel’s guardian protects her, or backstory explanations for certain characters whose details get stretched over time).
Erfworld lets you look up thumbnails. Being able to see at a glance how a dozen or so pages look can easily let you know if you’re in the right area, without having to let each page load one at a time (frustrating for the user, and it uses more resources than it needs to).
Put them together, and you could look up all the pages that include “The Eye” and see thumbnails to figure out which one you need to load to find the info you’re after. See? You could also figure out how frequently certain characters or objects show up in the comic, just by searching for them (or seeing a sidebar based on frequency).
I nominate ‘twinfest’ for Tyler/Toby scenes. Just for the mindfrack.
Something else (besides a needle) that has a feature called an eye, but is not itself an eye: a peacock feather.
That’s…actually pretty good. Better than all the other suppositions over the last page. Still fails the ‘only called an eye’ test.
One more possible red herring to ponder:
A few commenters have been suggesting that she should be looking at the exact center of the room, but is this room actually the heart of the egg?
The reason this might be something to question is that if you flip back a few pages, where the Mist Guardian hints that she has to figure out what “the eye” actually is, and we see the words from (what will turn out to be) Baba Yaga, 84/Julie is flying to the door over a cobble or brickwork patio.
The cobbles or bricks are arranged in a concentric semi-circular pattern, and it sure looks like the center of the pattern is under the threshold of the door itself.
So maybe she was supposed to open the door, and immediately look down?
Especially since she just emphasized the word “down” while looking downward?
My post last page (drag the entire room back to Velis and make him sort it out) seems like a better idea all the time. Definitionally, SOMETHING would be included in EVERYTHING, even ten year olds (and possibly even gods) get that part of set theory.
Baba Yaga said the eye is THAT, called by no other name. So Julie needs to find something that makes anyone who sees it say “what is THAT?” and there is no name for it because it’s just too weird. Anything that is identifiable as an eye is therefore wrong….
I like the way you think
I’m pondering the scene with Baba Yaga a bit more.
She seems to suddenly know quite a bit about Julie’s background, including specific knowledge about the stories she knows. Now, maybe it’s because she’s the goddamn Baba Yaga and can just do that, but I also wonder if the item being sought has a power, called “the eye”. That is to say, it confers magical insight. And Baba Yaga uses that power to understand Julie. But Baba Yaga can’t claim the item itself, because she is prevented from doing so by the egg.
That might also be why Baba Yaga leaves the scene, rather than stay and point out the exact item to Julie, so that she can leave the trap she’s been in. Julie could then gain magical insight into Baba Yaga, and Baba Yaga would rather not experience that.
And having that power for herself might make Julie a more worthy opponent for Veles than just her FISS powers alone.
Personally I think she will realize the answer is “I”
do you suppose all this critique is slowing down production as Aaron has to change things just to keep it a surprise?
If his original plan was to have “eye” be “I”, or have Julie take back the building, then I certainly hope he changes it. Because way too many people are guessing those.
Nah – every now and then he lets somebody get it right.
A million monkeys at a million keyboards…
… would probably still not produce a single intelligible sentence.
They might replicate the U.S. Tax Code, though.
No, I think he’s probably too competent and too confident to throw away a long-planned, well-set-up element that fits both the posted story and his future plans just because some readers (as he would know to expect regardless, and even more so with the extended presentation time of a webcomic, and yet even more with the added technical delays) accurately interpreted the foreshadowing.
An interesting point: The Stone Guardians got confused when Julie said “We’re looking for an eye.” Specifically, “There’s nothing WE know of past here called ‘an eye’.” Whatever it is, they did not know it by that name– And if Baba Yaga is to be trusted (that the eye can be called by no other name) then…
I dunno. But I do think it’s relevant.
Ah. It has to be 84 herself, because the villain wants a new, worthy opponent, so 84 would be the “I” in the center that he wants.
One more idea: An item that could have a feature or decoration that looks like an eye (and that feature would be called an eye and nothing else), but would not be called an eye itself, is a headband or diadem.
And now that I’ve written that, it feels familiar. Has there been a character wearing a headband with an eye?
Dr. Strange’s Eye of Agamotto ?
The “I” is just that, called by NO OTHER NAME.
Julie`s the one that didn`t select another name to be called by, identifying by her number instead.
“I” is rather famously also called “me” and “myself”.
The clues so far?
Veles said “[claim] the eye at its heart and brings it to me”.
Grigor said “This place was made by Koschei the undying to protect something *most dear* to him”
The First Guardians said “Know that we can read the souls of mortals and *know* when they lie! If you would steal something we protect, your *end* shall be *swift*!” and then “there’s nothing *we* know of past here called ‘an eye’ ”
The Mist Guardian said “It was *clever* to call it that, so you could get past the guardians of the first gate. *Not* so clever if you can’t realise what it means in time.”
Baba Yaga said, (in response to “But what *is* the eye?”) “The eye is just *that*, called by *no other name*.”
Baba Yaga said that after she tricked the mist gate, she is “*bound* here until some … finds Koschei’s treasure” and she expects if Julie succeeds to be “quit of this place”.
So to the completely obvious: it’s Koschei’s treasure, precious to him, he doesn’t want anyone (and especially folk such as Baba Yaga or Veles or their proxies) to succeed. So I don’t think it’s an “I”-self thing. (Tradition says it’s going to contain Koschei’s soul, and in the eye of a needle. But that’s
There’s an obvious split between “an” eye and “the” eye.
There’s the weird fact that Koschei didn’t put “an eye” on the list of protected items, but felt it worthwhile to fill a whole damn house with eye-things at the heart of the egg. That’s probably an example of “even the most powerful magic defences have weaknesses or built-in ways to bypass them *if* you’re *clever* enough.”
And yet people who knew what it actually is, probably wouldn’t be able to honestly call it just “an eye” to the First Guardians, even though Baba Yaga says it has no other name to “the eye”.
OK, so I think it is literally going to be “The Eye at the centre of the Egg”. Not some eye-thing, like we’re seeing, but a Great Big Eye. But the eye contains something else, and claiming the eye gets that something else. And that something else is Koschei’s treasure, his soul possibly, what keeps him undying, and that’s what Veles and Baba Yaga really want(ed), so they couldn’t honestly say they just wanted the eye, because what they really wanted was what it contained (which *is* on the First Guardians protected list).
Oh, hey look, is that an enormous pupil forming behind Julie in the last panel?
Oops, typo: (Tradition says it’s going to contain Koschei’s soul, and in the eye of a needle. But a needle’s probably a bit too obvious at this point).
And the final note: that to actually perceive The Eye at the heart of the Egg, to claim it, you need to stop seeing all the distractions, like all the eye-thing clutter.
The item is located in the final panel. See the circle? Either that circle in the background is the eye, or, well…
“The Eye”.
I don’t know what it is, but when we see it, it will unquestionably be “The Eye”.
Not AN eye, but The Eye.
That’s why the First Guardians were confused: the thing she seeks isn’t called “an eye”, but that’s what she said (and believed).
That’s why the Mist Guardian said it was clever to call it that, but Baba Yaga said it is “called by no other name”. It’s name is “The Eye”.
Well, she could always ask the occupant of the room, I suppose.
Next page appear already. I just want to see her “solve” this one.
This reminds me of the scene in “Princess bride” during the battle of wits…..I actually remember back 1987 trying to figure out the answer before it was revealed…..when it was revealed as “both glasses”…I had my first facepalm….
….why do i think this answer is going to cause a similar reaction?
superstrength to emulate nodwick’s hench packing
Its the WII,the bored god wants to play videogames with her
It can’t be the eye of the needle. It has to be an eye that is known by no other name. An eye of the needle could be called something else. Besides, the only needles we’ve seen so far are darning needles. They don’t have an eye.
It could be a mirror. No matter who looks into it will see “the eye”- their own. Each eye that is seen will be known by no other name- “my eye”. Every other eye in the room could be described any number of ways by whoever looks at it. I think I see the silhouette of an old mirror frame in the background. Also, the answer must be clever and only obvious after it is picked.
I like my answer. I think I’ll stick to it. 🙂
I think it will be Koschei, he is undying. Who’s at the center of it all? I am replied Koschei….
She needs to find the Eye. The eye of the storm, the central core of calm captured in chaos.
And then the eye she seeks? Will be the “I” she is. “I am I.”
the answer is nodwick
Watch it be a DVD/BluRay… more specifically… “The Eye”
It occurred to me that it might be possible to arrange 15 and ¼ items in a hollow pattern with 1¼ items in the center, something vaguely like this (and maybe the ¼ item on top of the one in the middle)(I hope this doesn’t come out looking too horrible):
***
* *
* . *
* * *
* *
***
And it is the pattern that would be called “the eye”, and by no other name.
Maybe.
“… and that takes a lot of concentration”. con=”with, together, or joint” ; centrer=”put or move to the center”
Something to do with the center? The heart? Maybe, slyly, the center of the egg?
/overthinking, probably
Eye of the storm? (storm being the mess of a room…)
Or your idea… center of the egg — though the ‘yolk’ might be on 84 if she chooses that.
I wonder if it matters what she brings back, as long as she brings back something from the room. Koschei will know that she made it all the way through the guardians.
To be obvious, all those eyes, we have yet to see a heart.
Poor Julie – it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or, more likely, a needle in a needlestack.
The publication rate is starting to remind me of _A Distant Soil_. Maybe we could get 1 page a week? Or 1 page every two weeks? Or somethig?
Oh. Those aren’t shadows on the walls of the room.
Those are the shadows of things seen in the distance.
The heart of the Eggverse appears to be bigger on the inside than the Eggverse itself.
Explains the Time Lord references.
anyone else mentally listening to eye of the tiger right about now?
What about the big, Egyptian-style obelisk – sometimes they’re called needles (think Cleopatra’s needle). And what is that grey thing just to its right in Julie’s flight path?