“Is Modest a boy or a girl?” Thats the question I hear most often from new readers. I think that Modest is refereed to as “she” and “her” often enough that by the time you read through the first season of the comic the answer becomes apparent. But the response to a strip late in Season 1 put an idea into my head and made me start thinking about what Modest’s species actually is and how it works:
- Modest and her sisters are the juvenile form of a magical species of multi-headed serpents called Hydra. Young Hydra look very much like human children (but with tails and snakes for hair), which is a defense mechanism to allow them to live near human and humanoid settlements.
- Hydra are birthed in litters and all have the same “generation name”. Modest and her sisters are all named Medusa. The Gorgon and her sisters are all named Gorgon. Auntie Naga’s full name is either Naga Gorgon or she’s from a different generation as her sister (or possibly her adopted parents gave her a different name). There are about 45 traditional generation names that are used over and over again, all based on mythical snake monsters.
- Young Hydra are dumb as sticks. They don’t seem to learn anything at all until they leave their mothers. Traditionally Hydra will find a safe home for their children where they can grow up and hunt. Usually this is in isolated wilderness areas where they’ll be safe form all Yeld’s horrible crap, but sometimes young Hydra will be given to families of other species to raise. For example, Naga was raised by Fairies in a village that also contained other kinds of people. Hydra mothers don’t live too long normally after they have kids, but while they do live they’ll visit their children and help them learn and grow. The Gorgon’s mother brought her books to read and dolls to play with. Hydra sisters will write and visit each other if they can (Modern Yeld has an okay mail system, and ancient Yeld had a system of Serpent Temples).
- Eventually Hydra will begin to transform into their adult form. Sometimes this happens when they’re young (like with Xbox), sometimes this happens in their late teens or even early adulthood (like with Gorgon). The transformation usually takes weeks or months. The snakes that make up their hair grow larger and larger while the juvenile body starts to wither away. One of the 4 snakes will become dominant, and that snake will grow much larger than the other three. As the transformation continues the Hydra’s personality and intelligence is centered in the dominate snake, and the juvenile body eventually dries up and falls off like a husk. The newly grown Hydra retains her personality and intelligence, although the trauma of transformation and the perspective they gain from their new form can cause their personality to dramatically change. The Gorgon seemed to change pretty dramatically, but Xbox seems to be mostly the same (although we didn’t really get to see what she was like before). Adult Hydra still have three smaller snakes growing from the mid point of their body. Naga does not appear to still have her snakes.
- Hydras probably only live about 40 or 50 years, and die a few years after having their final litter of kids (Naga implied that not having children allowed her to live longer, although the nature of her longevity is still a mystery). In ancient times (way before the Prince and the Old Kings) Hydra were respected as the children of the Serpent God and some were worshiped in temples as the god’s Oracles. Modern Yeld doesn’t see to have a religion and no one cares about serpent temples anymore. Modern Hydra are pretty rare and most live deep in the wilderness. Many spend their entire lives sleeping in deep caves or underwater. A few, like Naga, do interact with Yeld’s society, become War Serpents or study magic.
- The Prince revealed that Hydra can extend their lives and possibly live forever by eating their own young. This is not a natural practice, is totally repulsive and almost certainly involves some pretty serious Black Magic. The Gorgon may not have been able to do it at all without the Prince’s help (and the Prince indicated that he was trying to “make monsters”).
- The transformation from juvenile humanoid to adult snake allows Hydra to lay eggs and hatch children. Not all Hydra go through this transformation. A small percentage of Hydra have “boy hair” (meaning that the snakes growing form their head are male). These Hydra will grow into adulthood and live their entire lives without undergoing the transformation that their sisters experience. Traditionally adult Hydra with male hair are introduced to non-related adult female Hydra for breeding purposes. I haven’t put a lot of thought into whether these pairings are traditionally romantic or sexual at all. Hydra have been around long enough as a species that anything is possible. I think that the Serpent Temples, in addition to being places of worship, were probably where female Hydra came to breed with Hydra with male hair. Female Hydra can also breed with non-Hydra males. I have no idea how that works, but the results are always more Hydra. The children always look the same.
- Adult Hydra have their own magic, passed down from Mother to daughter. Many Hydra become very powerful spell casters. Hydra with male hair aren’t more naturally inclined to magic than their sisters, but traditionally they were more likely to interact with the other peoples of Yeld in their role as Oracles of the Serpent Temples and had a greater chance to learn a wider variety of magic.
So by the time we met Modest’s sisters at the end of Season 2 I had pretty much worked all of this out. If you look back through the comic you’ll see a few instances of Modest referring to her hair as “He” or “Him”. Readers regularly ask if Modest has brothers, and many of you were convinced that Hole was a boy when she first took the bucket off her head. And of course the question I hear more than anything else is “Will Modest REALLY turn into a giant snake?” I hope this finally clears everything up.
– Jake
Sending Modest down that path is a really cool decision. Thank you, Jake.
I didn’t know that the gender of Modest’s hair made a difference
This answers a lot of questions.
As for putting “he” or “him” in. i think there are at least a few of us that wrote that off as a typo not that you were planning months ahead in your strips and had purposely did it.
Years ahead.
Oh my god. That’s one of the most hillarious strips you’ve ever made, Jake!
Though it’s really hard to connect modest’s “why is she all grown up?” question to the rest. And even to get its meaning. Do you thing you can re-phrase it a little?
You did a great job explaining everything in the text, but you won’t be putting all of this description in the middle of a printed book, right?
Yeah, I may have to re-letter this. the bot about the Knight kind of comes out of nowhere and makes it seem like Modest’s question isn’t connected to what XBOX is telling her.
I’ll probably include all of this in some kind of notes in the back of the eventual book.
Oh, and yeah, I re-read this and still have no idea what “She’s not a snake” means. Auntie Naga is a snake! Isn’t she?
In the last stone-looking panel there is an adult hydra that isn’t a snake. The oracle one. She’s asking about that one.
Seems clear to me. Modest is looking at and asking about the carving of the Oracle in panel 4, because she doesn’t understand how an adult Hydra can keep their humanoid appearance.
Yes, my intent was she was talking about the Oracle in that panel and the statue.
Modest was referring to the statue depicting the Oracle.
Wait, so Medusas/Gorgons/Naga/Whatever their race is called are EXCLUSIVELY female? Do they reproduce asexually? Is Modest stillgoing to grow as big as her sisters? And this would be cool setting for a fantasy tabletop RPG I think.
The description beneath the page explained that bit. They either breed with male-haired Hydra, or with males from other species. When the Hydra race was plentiful and powerful, the Serpent Temples probably saw a great deal of visitations, with mothers seeking sires for their children in the oracles.
I suspect in the centuries since then, with male-haired hydra harder to find, Hydra relied on other species to reproduce. They might have seduced the males…somehow, or offered to trade their “seed” for some favor. They are huge snake beasts who know magic, so the Hydra would have a few things they could offer other races. And, of course, there are the less…ethical Hydra, who decide that a male’s consent is unimportant…
RPG coming soon.
Juvenile Hydra all appear to be female. The snake hair is the part of the body that determines sex, and most Hydra are female and shed their humanoid body during their transformation. A very small number of Hydra have “male hair”. Since they won’t lay eggs their body doesn’t go through the same transformation as their sisters. Instead, they simply age like humans would and never become giant snakes.
I don’t wanna be ‘that guy’ but…how does she know she has boy hair? Does her….does her hair have genitals? If he hair has a gender, then is it possible for her hair on it’s own to reproduce more snakes? if so, are they medusa’s or regular snakes or some kinda Tangela monstrosity of snakes?!
This Hair Gender thing is an awsome concept, that it makes a difference, but the fact that her hair has a gender raises so many questions x-x
Oh god if her hair can reproduce then collage is gonna be hell. I mean, having a roommate that has friends ‘stay the night’ is bad enough, but imagine if it’s your HAIR!
Also, so why is her hair talking to her in the form of nightmare fuel crown snake? Is that just like…her FEARS of becoming a giant snake?
Her hair stared at Jenny’s boobs. Yes, we could go into the whole issue of hydra hair and gender identity (how do you know it wasn’t lesbian snake hair staring at Jenny’s boobs?), but that would be another 2 or 3 pages for Jake to write up and for now let’s give him a break.
Not to be ‘that guy’ myself, but the snake hair has been shown to have minds, or at least distinct personalities, of their own. Given they’re a magical race, that’s probably enough for the snakes to have genders, and there hasn’t really been any indication that they can do much besides eat, speak (to the hydra) and grow (to become the hydra’s body).
As for the crowned snake, it could be her subconscious, or it could be some sinister remnant of Yeld, or even something else entirely.
Well, Modest didn’t know she had “boy hair”. XBOX did. Probably it’s pretty obvious to other hydra, in the same way that males and females of a species can look the same to humans but don’t have trouble identifying each other. Maybe theres a smell? We’ll probably never know how Hydra reproduction actually works, but presumably the male hair does have genitals of some kind. Hydra reproduction does require an adult female Hydra, so Modest couldn’t reproduce on her own when she was older. Hydra children are ALWAYS more Hydra (and they all look identical), no matter if the male parent is a Hydra, Fairy, Human or whatever.
Her nightmares about the Crowned Snake could be a lot of things. It could be the personalities of her hair snake trying to communicate with her. It could be her subconscious fears. It could be something else. Remember, Jake also had that dream.
it could simply be that the “oracle” part is really true and the crown represents her connection to the source for the oracle’s power. if it is something along these lines, it would be natural that as close as jake is to her that he might see it at times in dream/trance states.
has the crown always been in one single snake head that we can tell?
another thing, if she is the only oracle type medusa around and thus only “male” (as much as male is defined for medusas under this mythos), modest may actually legit be the heir to being the “queen/king” of all medusas. its pretty clear the oracle type medusas were considered a higher type in some way if for nothing else due to rarity, so would it being a royalty type line be that difficult to imagine.
Maybe the hair does have genitals. I mean… they are snakes. It is all internal. Maybe the flaps ahve been hanging out this entire timem and we just didn’t notice because we are mammals.
“There are about 45 traditional generation names that are used over and over again, all based on mythical snake monsters.”
Or rather, what we call mythical snake monsters are actually based on the traditional names of Hydras.
Could be either way, yeah.
OMG. That’s why the prince picked modest as his heir. As a hydra w/ “male” hair she is the closest thing to a “son” a Hydra can have. Also when fully grown she can mate w/ other hydra giving the price lots of grand children. As grand children they would owe fealty to the prince. Giving him an army of hydra and guaranteeing his line of rulers forever.
That could be it.
So a hydra’s role in reproduction is determined by the gender of their snake hair? That’s interesting. Guess Modest got a lucky break then, ‘lucking out’ on that snake transformation. One less thing to worry about I suppose.
Yeah. The hair is the main deal.
So to state the obvious answer, “Modest is a female (her body) her hair is male, (snakes) with their own thoughts. Correct?
Thats it.
i guess thats why her hair can´t take over her body, because they´re a different gender….however, while she´s clearly showing a great talent for magic so far, i´m struggling a bit with the ‘wise’ part 😉
Gorgon mated with Dragul, so I would say reproduction of hydra is very flexible thing.
Also, please do not use ‘gender’ when you clearly mean ‘sex’. 🙂
Was this addressed at me? I don’t think I used “gender”.
No. Just some people in the comments did. 🙂
Oh dear, you’re one of those types that mindlessly follow baseless ideas just because they are popular, and then self-righteously force and judge everyone based on your ignorant beliefs that you say are true, yet yourself don’t know why it is true or have any reason, proof, evidence or anything at all to assume it’s fact.
….shouldn’t you be at a white supremacist rally with your fellow bigots?
Also, Gender/Sex factually are the same thing, They are synonyms and have been that way for over 2000 since the words were created. Please don’t spread misinformation about topics you haven’t even tried to actually learn about.
Gender and sex are not the same thing. Please see https://www.facebook.com/tidbitfoodfarmandgarden/
Edit… that was a link to some local food carts. Sorry. Here’s the link I meant to share.
Also, please do not come here and insult people. No one here is forcing anyone to do anything or judging anyone. Thats not appreciated or allowed. Please behave in a civil manner or don’t post here.
This reminds me of the sequence in The Dark Crystal when Jen and Kira are trying to get away from the garthim (the crabby monsters), they fall off a cliff, and Kira pops out her wings. When Jen comments that he doesn’t, Kira replies (I think the quote is correct), “Of course not…you’re a boy.”
Uh huh. I loved that movie when I was a kid.
That was the first thing I thought of, too! Nothing like a little species isolation to leave you utterly poleaxed after learning some basic biological info.
WHAT
That has to be so confusing since her humanoid body is female. It makes sense, though. The prince called her the smallest and in a number of snake species (mostly boas and pythons—boids), males are smaller than females. But where would the snake hair genitalia be? It’s usually a couple inches away from the end of a snake’s tail and their snakes seem to be attached to the modusa heads 1/2 to 3/4 down their bodies.
…Yes, I am totally overthinking this. XD
Super cool reveal! 🙂
Yeah, who knows how Hydra reproduction actually works. We won’t explore that.
I’m totally okay with that. XD
atleast not for the next 10-18 years(assuming 1:1 timescale which is not true).
Sister, you got boy hair.
So… Modest is a male Hydra, then? Or as close as they have to males…
Kind of. Modest identifies as female (all Hydra probably do), but it’s the hair that is the part of the body where the reproductive organs are. Since they’re all one creature, you could call Modest a male and her sisters female. But the Hydra seem to see their hair as both distinct from themselves and part of themselves. So XBOX sees Modest as a “girl with boy hair”. But who knows if this is a traditional view?
so, its the hydras ‘hair’ gender that matters, and the bodies with personality we attribute as being the hydra, are just some sort of aesthetically disarming avatar?
is this like plants and their fruit, or something similar to dawkins selfish gene idea?
Thats a good way to look at it.
And Modest’s snakes are looking at her like they’re trying to say: “Didn’t you know we’re male?”
Also… It seems EcksBocks is actually the smartest of the Medusas. Is this because she broke away from the “litter,” or has she been the only one to be given Hydra sex ed from Auntie since she was an early bloomer? Either way she seems more…thoughtful.
She’s spent a lot of time with Naga, but she’s also had a lot of time to think by herself. It’s possible the transformation might have helped too.
More time with Naga (who probably wanted to explain a lot of stuff to her to keep her from being scared by her transformation) and more time by herself to think.
Great work with the carved Hydra reveal, to both Modest and us. Beautifully done.
Thanks!
I have been reading this comic for a very long time (actually went back into the archives and saw some of my early comments a few months ago) and have photographic memory, so I actually knew or suspected much of what your breakdown included. So, rather than comment on the reveal, I’ll just say that I really love the snakes in the last panel all turning and looking at Modest like, “yes, didn’t you? It was so obvious.”
Thanks. I know not everyone remembers all the little things, but its nice to hear someone does.
This actually explains a lot about our own myths and legends, if you assume that this world has a ‘bleed through’ that causes humans of our world/Jake’s world to see glimpses of this magical realm.
The Hydra is said to be a beast that can’t be defeated… cut off one head and two more take its place. What if what the Greeks witnessed there was a family of hydras in a battle… one falls and two more rise up for revenge. As for gorgons there are only three… just as Male-haired medusas are very rare.
It also makes me wonder if we won’t find more variants. For example, maybe there is a breed of medusa that, due to either magic or some other outside force, their puberty causes two of the snakes to became more wing-like and thus the legend of the feathered serpent is born, along with tales of wyerns and dragons.
Totally possible. Although Yeld had Dragons at one point.
…Whoa. That’s… awesome! And weird! I NEVER would have thought of that! I can’t wait to see how the story unfolds!
…Ooh, wait, does this mean Modest’s hair really IS separate from her, unlike her sisters’? They’ve been saying things about their hair being parts of their personality, rather than separate entities. So, is Modest a tomboy, or is it like conjoined twins?
Probably more like conjoined twins?
Conjoined fraternal “half-twins?”
(Recent findings have suggested that various forms of human “chimera” might be much more common than previously thought, including individuals made up of non-identical twin…but there is very little study being done, mainly because in the rare instance a human made of multiple, distict genetic codes, the dominate cell-line contributes well over 99% of the tissue…)
Fantasy critters are weird. I’m really enjoying the thought and creativity you’ve put into everything, Jake.
Oh god I can’t stop drawing parallels to Zelda – Modest(‘s hair) is Gannondorf!
I feel bad for assuming Modest’s hair’s gender.
Don’t feel bad. Modest did it too.
I thought I’d take a whack at the dialogue that confused me, since Jake also thought it needed work.
Panel 6, change “But why is she a…” to “But this statue…”
Panel 8, change Modest’s to “Mom said that too, Why am I different”
Panel 9, change Modest’s to “My hair? My hair is the same as yours”
Panel 10, change XBox’s to “No, big sis”
I think these changes improve the reveal in panel 10 without the spoiler in panel 9, and remove 4 buts (which Is a lot of buts). I thought the part about the knight was fine, personally.
I may make some of those changes.
craaazy man. now I can’t help but imagine each snake with lil hemipenes pokin’ out, trying to make the world’s most tangled mating ball with a girl-snaked medusa while the two humanoid bodies are just making idle chitchat (possibly comically aligned, back to back or something) and trying to ignore what their hair is doing.
This nutty mythology-bridging transforming species has just gotten even weirder, and I love it. It’s downright inspiring.
Well, the female Hydra can’t breed till after they go through the transformation and shed their humanoid bodies, so…
Ohh that makes sense. Until then, they’re baby snakes
….
buuut.. the adult medusae with adult female bodies (with boobies) but male snake hair… their snake hair is .. wayyy too tiny to actually mate with those gigantic female hydra snakes..
You know, it may be a GOOD thing you aren’t going to go into detail on the actual mechanics of reproduction. Not just for purposes of taste (because honestly I love that kind of thing) but because it’s kind of like the question of pregnant Ranma. At a certain point you can nerd a little TOO hard. I know I can.
Perhaps the breeding can be summed down to simply “magic”. Given that no Hydras exist on our earth (as far as we can assume) perhaps earth’s thaumatological field isn’t strong enough to allow them to breed. Therefore only in high concentrations of magic (such as a temple) is it possible for breeding to occur. Perhaps hydras can drain portions of souls into themselves (wether the victim is willing or not) and merely infuses their own life force and their victims (resulting in shortened lifespans for the mother) into each egg and voila, new medusas. Because the mothers life force is in each baby, that could explain why eating a child increases the life force, because it replaces what was lost!
Maybe, yeah.
umm, we have been told that 3 of the snakes remain small in the normal adult hydra. this could explain why that is the case…. they are likely somewhat in proportion to the size the male hair reaches.
still makes for a weird positioning when conjoined.
this could even explain why naga seems to lack the 3 small snakes, their removal may have been to ensure she doesn’t have kids.
Makes a weird amount of sense
But.. the small snakes aren’t THAT small
Naw I’m gonna stick with my “I shouldn’t be thinking about this this hard” tack
So, uh.. how do we know the, uh, snakes are, uh, female? Do we, uh, go around the, uh, park and flip their skirts?
I knew we needed Professor Oak here to make a verdict! Goodness knows she’s played most of the games.
So she’s eternal lamia-form, huh? That’s pretty interesting. Although, now I’m starting to draw Rydia (from Final Fantasy 4) parallels. Are we going to do a dramatic Older Modest reveal later on? Does time flow differently in Yeld?
Probably the Hydra can identify each other as male and female pretty easily, in the same way that animals that look identical to us have no problem identifying each other.
Some of them do 🙂
https://tapas.io/episode/691784
That’s… that’s a bit of a bombshell. And, boy howdy, does it raise a lot of questions!
No wonder this strip took so long to post. Wenk.
“Are your hair staring at my boobs ?” Now that we know that her hair is male and like boobs, I expect to see some rule 34 older modest fan-art soon. I just hope whoever do it really know how to draw, realistic proportions are important imho.
Jake, you should know your art has truly inspired people when there’s porn of it.
Aw, it’ll be okay, Modest, you can identify however you feel regardless of your hair’s sex.
Yeld, the game, was mentioned above and leads me to a question:
When a human child is too long in Yeld, they become a monster (per Mara transforming, and your chainsaw unicorn t-shirt). Is there a conservation of gender? If a boy changes, can he become a medusa and would he have male hair? Or is a medusa a non-available form?
The way we decided to gamify this was for characters to change into monsters at the age of 13 by choosing a Monster Job. In the game right now there are a few choices: Werewolf, Vampire, Deep Mage, Hunter in Darkness and Oracle of the Serpent God. As the game expands there wi;; be more. Oracle is something very much like a hydra, with snake hair and serpent features. Oracles specifically have come under the power of the Serpent God and have been transformed to serve her.
Thanks! I have the Yeld-Bible-11 (beta?) Yeld rules but never managed to read them!
Most of the text box seems unnecessary to me since the comic already implies it well enough.
I wanted to gether all that info up in one place because its all stuff I get asked about a lot. Not every reader notices everything or comes to the same conclusions.
This creates more questions than it answers. >_>
Also, just imagining the Rule 34 of this development is… distressing, to say the least.
Well as long as her Snakes don’t decide to become a Boy Band it should be ok.
After reading this comic since the beginning I kinda guessed that the hair was male and modest was female. But I figured out a nice( though odd) way for male Hydra to reproduce with females! Snake bites! Male hydra bits female hydra’s hair boom! Fertilization occurs! Just like bedbugs( for the love of all that’s holy don’t Google it) do!
That sounds painful, but maybe!
explains why modest hair biting someone might not turn them to stone as well. maybe just the full female form does that and the male hair doesn’t.
though don’t want to consider what it might mean her hair bite really did then.
Modest’s hair impregnated her friend back in the real world…. >:P That is so wrong.
Hmmm… One question: how many male-haired children can they have in one generation? Because after all this explanation it seems to me that small Hydras who are quite more intelligent are ‘boys’. Like Glados.
Well, Glados wasn’t any smaller than her sisters, and probably isn’t really any smarter.
It’s not clear how many “males” are in each generation, but it’s probably very few. There may not even be a male in each generation since they aren’t actually required for reproduction. Since Hydra are probably a result of magic or divine design instead of natural evolution the “males” may be an unintended side effect. It could be that there were only ever supposed to eb females and that they were only supposed to breed with other races.
What happened to Auntie Naga’s secondary snakes?
Its a mystery.
Important question: Can EckBocks use her little snakes like noodley arms?
A little bit.
So this is what the prince was after the whole time, a personal oracle!
Momdusa was just a way to get one? Bought with immortality and royalties?
So what about that hydra in the stone carving? She seems to have a pretty um… Female appearance? Is that still a male hydra, can they actually have a female juvenile body and male hair? (Because that would be confusing and hilarious) XD
As mentioned before, all juvenile Hydra, whether they have male or female hair, look like young human girls (except with snake hair, a tail and blue skin). Most are females and shed their humanoid body as they grow into their adult snake form. The males do not shed their humanoid body. Instead the humanoid body continues to age in the same way as a human, and eventually grows to look like an adult human female (except with snake hair, a tail and blue skin). It’s not clear if the humanoid bodies have reproductive organs of their own. So the Hydra in the stone carving does have male hair and is a male of the species, but looks like a human woman. As far as Hydra are concerned, all of them are female.
Think of it this way… You’re a Hydra and you and your entire family and everyone like you is a girl. You know boys exist because you’ve met humans before, but there are no Hydra boys. You know that most Hydras grow up to become big snakes, and they have babies that are all girls too. You also know that some Hydras have boy hair, and they don’t grow up to be big snakes. Instead they just get older and look more like older human women. And thats all completely natural and not confusing to you because thats how its always been.
Modest doesn’t know all of this of course, and thats not what shes used to anyway so shes probably in for some confusion. But Modest has always thought of herself as a girl and had no reason t doubt that, so thats unlikely to change.
The boy hair was actually quite obvious when you think about it, her hair was shown as being a little bit of a perv in the early comics.
The perfect unseen plot twist!
Kinda sexist, with all the other medusas being idiots.
Well just to be clear, they’re all dumb as hell. They get smarter as they get older and as they’re exposed to more outside influences. So for now Modest has the advantage of them. But only for now.
OMG, did Auntie eat her heads?!?
We haven’t gotten there yet, but yes. I think you’re the first person to come to this conclusion.
I thought maybe Auntie had eaten xbox, or gave up breeding/ate eggs to live longer but with pointing out the absent spares it seemed logical.
However, I was sure the transformation was the human body into a snake with proportions maintained so the new snake body although larger, was the same thickness bigger than the small snakes as the girl to the hairs. Looks like I missed something – and the transformation is scarier.
Its more like one of the snakes Hulks out, and the humanoid body just dries up and flakes off.