Crimson King revisions (and other things)

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

It's more that + seemingly occupying the same level of existence as Roland + supposedly needing a horse to reach the Tower, which is why I'm dubious.

"Unknown, possilby Immeasurable" could work, but maybe MrKing could find something for Los' speed before we fully alter his tier and such.

 

[Aeyu]

Why wouldn't that just count as PIS though?

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Because PIS would imply he was shown to have or suggested to have immeasurable speed before taking any of that into account, whereas this is us assuming he should have it based on his nature, despite it never being shown or suggested.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

I mean that's like saying that Pennywise can't be universal because he took the form of a clown and struggled against kids.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

That form of Pennywise isn't universal, though. It also ignores the context of why he struggled, whereas we don't have some sort of section of the story where it tells us Los' should move beyond linear time but doesn't (unless someone can dig that up).

 

[Antvasima]

Being spatially higher-dimensional does not automatically significantly affect speed at all going by mathematics.

To get immeasurable speed, a character should transcend linear time.

 

[Aeyu]

Well, Los is essentially a more powerful version of Pennywise/IT.

 

[Aeyu]

I would also like to apologize if I sounded confrontational earlier, as I've been having a pretty rough time as of late, and I may have been relying on that one respect thread too much, although I still defend many of the things I've brought up. That being said, I plan on skimming the books very soon.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Don't sweat it.

 

[Antvasima]

So is the conclusion here that nothing should be changed?

 

[Aeyu]

Well, we're still trying to hammer out the details. Gan/Bessa may receive upgrades, Crimson King's weaker key will receive a downgrade, and CK's prominent key is still being discussed.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Here's hoping we can try this again.

I've looked back at the novel and comic info surrounding Los', Maerlyn, the Crimson Queen, etc. (the latter two are relevant here, so bear with me) and I've gathered the details that should settle the case in regards to Los' and his AP/speed tiering.

I'll post them in a moment.

 

[Aeyu]

Go ahead, I was wondering when we'd resume this.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

I wasn't going to until I was absolutely sure I'd found everything we need.

Give me a minute and I'll have the scans up in a post.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Alright.

First off, let's start with the fact that his mother, the Crimson Queen, originates from the Prim. Aside from the whole thing about numerous Prim creatures being nowhere near Low 2-C (let's not get into that again until later), the main issue with using this as a justification is that the Prim itself isn't anything but a sea of creation.

No, I'm serious. All of the references to it being a "great primordial sea of chaos/magic/etc." are literal. In fact, the people of Arthur Eld's kingdom even managed to build dams to keep the waters of the Prim at bay once they had started to recede:


Gan causing the Prim to recede comes from the fact that he turned it into the physical universe. That's what the whole thing about how "From the magical waters dripping out of his navel, Gan spun the physical universe." means when put in conjunction with the numerous other quotes about how the Prim's creatures became "stranded" on the new worlds of creation.

These creatures don't predate Gan, by the way. Gan was the first to be born from the Prim, and literally everything else besides the Prim came after him:


The notion of the Prim being made up of literal waters of magic makes this scene of Maerlyn "catching the drops in his hands" and "racing back to his cave on the shores of the Prim" in The Laughing Mirror Part I seem a whole lot more logical and less akin to flowery, metaphorical nonsense:


...


So basically, there's nothing special about "originating from the Prim". Literally everything originated from the Prim as per Gan's will, and the Prim itself was merely a sea of magic which Gan made the multiverse out of. A literal one that normal humans (Not the Old Ones, either) were able to hold back with man-made dams.

Moving onto the Prim's creatures and the Crimson Queen, the Maerlyn's Rainbow short story goes on to give us this scene:


Not only are Maerlyn's troupe of Prim-borns very much physical and three-dimensional, but Sir Kay Deschain was able to mortally wound the Crimson Queen with his sword. Now before anyone starts to say anything about PIS or whatever, bear in mind that this is the only physical showing that the Queen has throughout the entire breadth of the series' continuity. At all.

Going by Roland and company, I assume Sir Kay to be at least Wall level, but I'll leave that one up for discussion.

Here's where we get to the Crimson King himself. If the above doesn't mean anything to anyone, then maybe this will:


The Crimson King (referred to as "the Red Prince" here) is only half Prim creature. Guess who else fits that description?

Proceeding to the material that actually comes from the novels, here's the bit I mentioned earlier about him riding one of his gray horses (nicknamed Nis) to the Tower:


This is spelled out for us as bluntly as it can be. He used a common spoon that he had sharpened to a point in order to "kill" himself, then mounted a horse and began making his way to the Tower.

The "gray horses" themselves aren't anything special either, by the way. That term is referring to the mechanical horses that the Warriors of the Scarlet Eye had commandeered alongside numerous other forms of Old Ones technology. In addition to their direct appearance in Wolves of the Calla, you can see them here:


As for whether or not Los' should be Low 2-C, well, there's really no evidence that he's on that level. In fact, the prior similarities that he shares with Pennywise are only similarities to the avatar of that being, not the true being itself. The appearance of the "deadlights" was only his method of traveling to one of the higher levels.

Which, for the record, happened after Ralph stabbed him in the eye with Lois' earring, then blasted him in the mouth with a "booby trap" of energy that Clotho and Lachesis had planted into his arm:


...


...


As an aside, just like with every other work, the true Crimson King never appears. Ever. The only Crimson King we see in Insomnia is the one shown in the above pages. I'll let you decide how to interpret that.

Basically, Los' is most certainly not Low 2-C or any form of Tier 2, nor is he Immeasurable speed in even the most basic sense of the phrase. What ratings should he have, then?

If you ask me, he's not any slower than Randall Flagg speed-wise, just on general principle. You could say he is due to lack of evidence to the contrary, but I find that to be illogical in-context.

As for his AP, well:


...


This can be calc'd. We know that the robotic horses of the Old Ones aren't any slower than normal horses running at top-speed, and the act of causing a violent storm to follow you around and sustain itself as you travel (because yes, these pages indicate that the storm was following him as he traveled by Odd's Lane) should net some decent results as far as a storm calc goes.

Whatever results from that can be his AP with his powers. Physically, I would put him at at least Wall level as I mentioned above, for the fact that he should absolutely not be any weaker physically than Roland, Sir Kay, Flagg or any other number of the DT characters who occupy that tier. But again, everyone else is open to discuss that further if they feel like it.

Also, I'll be getting to Dis later. I still have something of a bone to pick with him.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

No offense, but this is basically just a repeat of your original post?

Firstly, why must you focus so much on wording? The Prim is not just a sea of creation. It is much more than that. It is the primordial formless expanse of magic that existed before the creation of the Dark Tower, which contains all of existence and infinite spatial and temporal dimensions, and everything that can be thought is there, even fiction.

There is no point in trying to undersell it by focusing on the specific wording. Yes, the passage you are quoting says "Sea of Creation that predated the universe" because that reads better. You don't need to be spoon feed the entire cosmology every time something is brought up. That quote you're using just simply doesn't properly convey what the Prim or the Dark Tower is, you are meant to gather it from other quotes, which we already use.

So the Prim point is rather moot.

Secondly, why are you so admantly against scaling? Your argument for it is just bad. Nothing indicates that Los is similar to Pennywise in avatar form. He is supposed to be the greatest of the Deadlights, meaning there is absolutely no point in not scaling him to them. The fact that he doesn't destroy universes himself doesn't debunk it.

Would we downgrade all Dragon Ball Z characters who haven't even destroyed planets, even though they are above Universe-busters? I certainly hope you wouldn't advocate for Room level Dyspo going only from his own feats. Because this is exactly what this is.

Thirdly, why even bother dividing physical strength and power? Roland's bullets have some special properties to them so you cant really say Los' durability is shit based on that. I'm pretty sure that the storm feat isn't even his best, either.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

I'm not trying to undersell anything. The quotes above and the others that describe the Prim refer to it in the same manner; as a soup of creation that, once parts of the physical multiverse start to exist, became tangible to people. Yes, it was a primordial expanse of formless magic, and yes, it predated creation. But there's no waving away the fact that the Prim itself had become physical by the time Mid-World had managed to truly hit its stride, or the fact that the people of Mid-World were able to aid in holding back its waters. The inhabitants of Arthur's kingdom most certainly had no special qualities about them in a physical sense, and they were so vehemently against using the tech that the Old Ones had built that they outright dismantled as much of it as they could and scattered it across the land. (Not that they would have had much proficiency in using it anyway)

Comparing this to DBZ is a false-equivalency for multiple reasons, and you suggesting that I would "advocate for Room level Dyspo" at any point is a strawmanning of phenomenal proportions. Dragon Ball characters' scaling comes from the fact that many of them have either traded blows with or possess direct statements of being superior to other beings in their verse. Los' has not traded blows with Pennywise, and there is nothing that directly states he is supposed to be "the greatest of the Deadlights".

Los' doesn't scale to Pennywise's true form because even the implications that suggest similarities between him and It only reference the avatar that we see in the IT book. Chief among these statements is his own words of "You may not know it, but shape-changing is a time-honored custom in Derry." in Insomnia, which is a direct reference to the Derry avatar's shapeshifting abilities that we see throughout IT. Its true form did not do this, or in the IT novel's words, "It did not dress when it was in its own home." Beyond that, Los' was born from the union of a Prim creature and a human. Pennywise's true form is "a titanic, glowing core" of "unshaped destroying light" that is retroactively implied to be one of the greater Demon Elementals which came into being at the same time as/existed opposite the Beam Guardians, and its avatar is repeatedly stated to not be human in any respect, right down to the statement that said avatar didn't even originate from any location where human population exists. It fell to Earth from space after having already existed for billions of years beforehand, and is implied to have fed upon other worlds prior to its arrival in the location that would eventually become Derry.

Regardless of these clear-cut differences, Los' clearly resembles the avatar far more than he does the true being which exists in the Macroverse. Not only are they both shapeshifters, but they both emit their "true colors" whenever they change forms. (orange for Pennywise, red for the Crimson King) Both are shown casting illusions, mind-controlling massive numbers of beings and manipulating the weather, and both of them revert to disturbing and inhuman forms whenever they are severely damaged in some way. (A giant, ugly female spider for Pennywise, an "ancient and twisted" being that's "less human than the strangest creature to ever flop or hop its way along the Short-Time level of existence" for the Crimson King)

I haven't mentioned anything about Roland's bullets at all, and that's certainly not the sole reason for giving the King's avatar Tier 9 durability. The King's mother, who was a purebred creature of the Prim, was nearly killed by the very much human Sir Kay Deschain and his sword, which held no special properties to speak of. (Arthur Eld's sword apparently did since its metal is what was used to make Roland's special guns, but that's beside the point) Los' is quite explicitly half human, half creature of the Prim, and going by the stories, neither of his parents were inherent physical threats to the universe at all. And Los' himself has shown nothing that suggests he is different them in that regard.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Since this has been dormant for almost a week, I suppose I'll go ahead and touch on Dis/the "True" Crimson King and where things stand with that one's tiering.

I believe I've found some actual evidence for a High 1-B rating for Ram Abbalah's key, some of which ties into prior known info. But I'm going to be perfectly honest; there are some genuine misconceptions in regards to most of the quotes that Matthew posted, and they should most certainly be addressed before said new evidence is presented.

However, this thread has gotten somewhat long, so it may be better for a new one to be made as a continuation. With this one linked to it, of course.

I'll leave the link to the next thread here once it's been posted.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

New thread is up.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. I will lock this one then.