Shadows House (Official Colored) - Vol. 17 Ch. 184 - The Two Intruders

[Doomroar]

"She is 30? wild! anyway, cool story bro go back to your work"

 

[zanonyn]

A lot of interesting information and surprises buried in this. I think one of the biggest is simply that we now have a firmer sense of how long the Shadows House has existed and timelines. Assuming the "3rd Floor" are all first generation, or at least the first successful generation if there were "prototypes" that didn't work while GGF or whomever figured the process out, then it's only been 30-50 years maybe since the fall of the Mirrors. That fits in with guesses based on the apparent aging of Kate's mother's attendant but still good to have a harder number. It also means that fundamentally the Shadows House including the "Adults" don't actually have that much raw experience yet, there is no one who is like, 80 years old or something. That ties back in with Kate saying she doesn't think the SH system is "perfected yet", there are holes in their net. Candy is even more of a potential resource than I thought, the first real actual adult of any level who may be fully on the Children's side and can give them a ton of different perspective, plus on top she spent decades in the greater world which is possibly pretty unique even amongst the Shadow and island adults period.

On the immediate plot, Edward clearly overreached. He did do some real investigation, though he's still missing key facts and players, but his ambition and indulgence in his own sense of cleverness and ladder climbing efforts are also clear and a weakness. It may be how they're raised, but politics is an interesting blindspot for him.

Definitely really cool cover. Guess we're now heading into the real crunch moment with Lou & Louise, and Anthony still lurking in the background of it all completely quiet. The wheels continue to spin faster, all the build up is quite something.

Scariest possibility I can imagine is that they don't care about doing an investigation because, if the children become troublesome enough, they are willing to just eliminate all of them and start over, not caring who the "troublemakers" are.

Of course? This has always been the big guillotine hanging over everything. The adults have such confidence in the awesome power of brainwashing, their whole system, and their isolation, that they've got huge blind spots to covert operations; they've never needed to really think about counterintelligence or infiltration for example so they don't. But as was painfully demonstrated with Maryrose vs Edward, the Adults have had an absolute advantage in sheer, raw power, and the tactical situation is grim. The Children have no easy escape and are fully dependent on external supply to live as well. The Children's House is a pretty well designed prison, albeit a luxurious one. So there has always been the balance, as long as they operate in the shadows (heh) they can do a lot under the Adults' noses, but it doesn't change their core situation either. At some point they need to take open action, and at that point it's a direct fight. And the runup to that is insanely risky, because they're necessarily doing more and more "strange" stuff that could get them exposed, but aren't actually ready to fight directly either.

And most if not all of the Adults are clearly perfectly loyal to the GGF and overall system if not each other and utterly ruthless as necessary. I've never doubted they'd wipe out all or most of the kids and start over again if threatened enough, they've got plenty of new "stock" and spending another decade or two building back up with more safeguards in place wouldn't bother them much.

So remains a very tight balancing act for rebellion. Kate probably only gets one shot.

 

[Claresilver47]

To me the scariest possibility is that Joseph already knew about everything that Edward investigated but is disappointed about his conclusion. He either might have already known that Kate is also an intruder and plans to figure out what she is exactly OR he is in contact with Christopher and knew that Kate was unique and that Edward's investigation did not provide the information he desired. In fact I'm concerned about whether or not Joseph had cared enough to learn the name of Kate's human and this was the first time he heard her name, the possibility that there is still someone who remembers Kate's mother and the maid who worked for her...

 

[swimminginsand]

Oh no, she's a hag

 

[EFMD]

Damn lolibaba. Altho, this seems like it is based from the horror movie orphan, which was also inspired from a real life event. An adult woman who pretended to be a child and blends on an unsespecting family and then murder them. I think her name was Barbora or something.

Considering that this is a "house" and she infilrated it. I am sure it was inspired from that.

 

[TestAddress]

OK. Legal loli aside ( dame that girl's got some BUSH! ). The GRANDFATHER SHOOED EDWARD.

Spoiler: ...

I BET Grandfather knows the name "KATE".

 

[TestAddress]

Oh no, she's a hag

She's ripe?

 

[TestAddress]

I think that the shadows don't care too much about the origin of the faces. Candy might be a concern to them with her age, but Emilyko isn't. They just use the selection process for convenience. Also anyone who observes Kate and Emilyko closely can tell that Emilyko isn't the brains by a long shot.

Edward looked like a redditor in front of the panel of interviewers.

 

[TestAddress]

Maybe adults just hate body hair. It stinks and may get fleas and ticks which mimics will copy.

Now that I think about it, is there any reason they put an age limit to be able to join the shadow house? Seeing how Candy easily break the mind control, maybe the younger they are, the easier to control?

 

[Werebearguy]

Her being 30 makes sense as to why Emilyko calls her "Master" at least. Part of me is expecting the third floor shadows to want Kate and company to join them because they're so good at pissing Edward off.

 

[zanonyn]

Wait, so were there... two completely separate parties who just so happened to decide to infiltrate the manor at the exact same time?

I don't think it's clear anyone "decided to infiltrate the manor" per se except Kate? And not exact same time, same year, I think at least some number of months have gone by since Kate first infiltrated? Emilyko was obvious happenstance from the circus, and Candy might be the same though for a different reason. She may have just learned about the selection, figured she could pass, and in turn figured it'd be an easy way to a cushy life as a noble (or maybe she wanted to infiltrate and then steal a bunch of stuff then leave). Then discovered that it was a secret horror show after the fact. So her motivation could have been "honestly selfish" so to speak, like yeah she didn't have pure intentions but not part of some conspiracy either. She's just an experienced adult who hops from job to job and wasn't particularly happy with the circus or the intelligence and management abilities of its circus master, so was ready to jump at a new opportunity. The only sorta-coincidence would be Kate and the Circus both being around in the same year, but apparently the Shadows House is only recently actually opening up to more outsiders and trying to start spread to the mainland, so that wouldn't really be much coincidence either. They and other outsiders were there because for a few decades before nobody could.

 

[Ingway]

I think mister smoker man has some self interest in letting things play out to the detriment of the grandfather's regime. Probably wants to grow in power himself by letting them disrupt the house.

 

[Yurisivel]

A credible infiltration into the group by an unknown party: I Sleep

The loli is a lolibaba: REAL SHIT!

 

[Weebius]

Hag surprise, no one expects it

Ngl, I felt for Edward getting shut down so hard

 

[Wakipai]

Hear me out... Legal loli ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[LordofAlI]

Wait wtf she's 30! Damn she's really built different

 

[Hikineet]

Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Unapol]

Jesus fucking christ, she's THIRTY

Now there's a twist no one fucking saw coming.

But also.... All the big pants shadow apparently not giving a shit? Now that was suspicious/alarming....

I think they don't care, all that matters is that more shadows are produced. A rebellion probably isn't a threat, neither are intruders.

 

[homogenized]

• Also, would like to know what happened with Christopher since, as far as we know (it could still be a lie or something), they're the first unification pair where the human survived over the shadow and gained the shadow abilities. He claimed Christopher committed suicide but ofc we wonder if it was murder. I can't wait to see their backstory and find out if behind the scenes Anthony was actually always cruel and played up the generous kind star bearer act. Kinda how Stella and Candy have an opposite dynamic behind the scenes.

Hold up, I thought what (was claimed to have) happened was Christopher and Anthony didn't unify, and that Anthony is still just a plain ol human?

 

[TestAddress]

I guess grandfather knows Anthony is actually a shadow. You cannot shadow someone who is already a shadow.

I think they don't care, all that matters is that more shadows are produced. A rebellion probably isn't a threat, neither are intruders.