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Underground > Comic Books >

Is Ragged Robin the Barbelith?

20:31 / 08.04.04

Okay, so maybe this will fall on deaf ears or maybe not.

A while ago, someone asked an Invisibles question concerning the Hand of Glory, and how it was in fact the misunderstood manifestation of the timesuit after it collided with the timerip event and sent backward all over time. It existed as the Hand of Glory and finally fell to rest in the church in Philadelphia, where John "tried it on", and fell outside of time.

Now, this person also cited the scene where Dane soaks a rubber glove in a vat of boiling water.... and wanted it to reconcile with his understanding of the timesuit/Hand of Glory. I couldn't do it, I thought that scene was SUPPOSED to be Lynch-y and poetic representation.

Now, assuming that the timesuit itself collided with the event and was affected, becoming the Hand of Glory/veggie orgy of the church, could it be assumed that Robin was transformed and pushed backward through time? Could she have become the super-consciousness of the Barbelith? I cite the presence of her cheek circles and her relationship to time in the Invisiverse.

Anybody got any thoughts?

20:40 / 08.04.04

not sure. quite possible. it's interesting to note that KM merges with the Supercontext through Rags as everything else is merging into the more traditional Barbelith manifestation.

here's a question: the timesuit/shoggoth/Freudian vagina is discarded and when John steps inside. when (and i get a wee bit confused as to what that even means here) and why did Robin discard the timesuit, especially in relation to her stowing the timesuit in the basement in SF? could it have been at the emergence into the Supercontext in 2012, shed like a cocoon and shot "backwards" as Robin emerged? it would be yet another birth trauma type deal...

20:42 / 08.04.04

She does have red hair, and the Barbelith satellite is red...

20:50 / 08.04.04

Okay, the story of the timesuit begins with Takashi building the timesuit from scratch in 2012. They put RR in it and send to the 80s, where she stores it in a basement until she's ready to show a younger Takashi in the late 90s, who fixes the timesuit and they put RR back into it, and fire her back to the future, where she collides with her own exit point, and rips 2012 open. At that point, the RR and timesuit that left 1997 and crashed in 2012 are blasted into the supercontext and from their un-aligned entry INTO the supercontext, are thrown backward through time. RR, aware of the nature of the universe, changed psychically into the Barbelith, and the timesuit is shed and turns into a weird misshapen thing that makes your hand look like a claw.

Izzat clear? I din't think so...

02:21 / 09.04.04

That's basically my interpretation of things, Chad.

As for Robin becoming Barbelith itself, I don't think that's completely accurate. As the first time traveller, and first one into the supercontext, she obviously a connection with it, but I don't think she becomes the mind behind it, largely due to the fact that the forces that created Barbelith are no longer concerned with individual identity, it's about mergining into the supercontextual whole.

Of course, the line about Robin being pregnant does tie her to it, but I think it's more about her being the mother of the new universe by being the first into the supercontext, not about her actually being the Barbelith consciousness.

13:10 / 10.04.04

do anyone else ever see robin as eve,and km as adam?she offers the absolute and he takes the apple.this time however there's no division between them and 'god',so punishing oneself for being courageous and adaptive doesn't quite make sense.it's eden with the fear dissolved.thoughts?

13:28 / 10.04.04

My thoughts on Adam and Eve aren't riddled with Guilt, but Responsibility.

Sure Adam and Eve ate of the apple and learned Fear and Knowledge, but how else was God supposed to learn those things without US to do it? It's our divine responsibility to engage the intricacies of the mind and seek a more powerful and thicker understanding.

So yeah, when RR and KM eat the apple,they know they're doing the Right Thing. When we all fall into the Supercontext, it's that Knowledge that will transform us all.

The Natural Way

09:32 / 12.04.04

I'm so pleased someone else sees eye to eye with me on the pregnancy thing, Patrick. Bloody idiots describing it as a "red herring".....

It's more than just the red hair thing - she actually wears little 2D Liths on her cheeks. I think it's safe to describe Robin as an...."emanation" of Barbelith. She definitely takes on the Holy Mother/Maddona role. Yeah, I guess you could think of her as the doorway/cipher through which we reach the cosmic egg.

12:12 / 12.04.04

I thought the Hand of Glory was, you know, wassername, Edith's freind. "Queen Mab", when young Sir Miles chopped it off to prove he was a complete bastard, or something.
And was David Bowie the Barbelith when he had the red circle on his forehead as Ziggy Stardust?

01:02 / 13.04.04

maybe. Shae Fox had one on her head, too.

11:15 / 13.04.04

Christ, Spalliruncox posting on an Invisithread. Thought he'd given that shit up.

05:39 / 02.07.05

But how does that gell with the assertion Satan and Dane make that Jack Frost created Barbelith?
Perhaps on the same note, does Jack look like a young John-O-Dreams to anyone else, or is it just wishful thinking on my part?

08:31 / 02.07.05

I still think the barbelith symbol is actually a slowly opening eye from the PoV behind it's surface, two lenses opening back, and such.
Aside from that, barby can be Jesus, use Mason as a travelling recorder, so why not be Robin, too. It's all of us, after all, or something we - the post-fifth-dimensional-rebirth we - put there in case of emergency infoplacental midwife and all.
Don't know about anybody else, but certainly I've often been struck by the random nice things life tosses at me, and been half-convinced I'd probably set this sort of thing up ages in another direction. I may not, ultimately, be responsible for all the factors through history that result in my sitting here, typing this, drinking hot chocolate and rereading 'Lolita', but, y'know, if I were in a position to control and direct such thing, yeah, I'd probably set myself up just like I am.
What I mean to get across by this - just putting it in a different context, for perspective - is that were Robin BARBELiTH, she'd probably do exactly what it is BARBELiTH does, so in a sense, it doesn't particularly matter, does not change anything, if she is or isn't. Put here, walked here, no difference - central tenet of 'The Invisibles' and a much more sensible maxim than 'apples and oranges' or 'I am right so you must be wrong.'