#BLESE tungle put this in the tags

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

Now that we know the Not-Mayor is celestial, I doubt he has truly and permanently been Brought Down to Normal. His title before working for White Bone Spirit was “Chief of War”, so he must have been pretty powerful even without assistance from her Spooky Ghost Nonsense.

WBS probably wanted to keep him dependent on her, so whenever he needed power she’d have him draw from her reserves instead of his own. This caused his own reserves to atrophy like an unused muscle, such that he’d be too weak to betray her should he have second thoughts or should she, y’know, no longer consider him useful and yank her Spooky Ghost Nonsense out of him to implant into someone else.

It’s curious that he’s still loyal to her- is he just brainwashed, from being under her control for so long? Or did she never actually control him? Did he genuinely serve her of his own free will?

As the Chief of War, he was probably giving orders far more often than he was actually fighting- and he may have been in the Celestial Realm guarding the Emperor far more often than that.

The man has a second form clearly for the express purpose of Extreme Violence. I imagine being only rarely able to commit Extreme Violence frustrated him.

Ivory Lady took notice of his ability and frustration, deciding to "persuade” him to work for her. When she found an opportunity to speak with him alone, she started on her whole “imperfect world” spiel, trying to put doubt in his mind so he would be easier to control. But before she even got the chance to do any Spooky Ghost Nonsense, he was like “YES I am tired of being nice, YES I just want to go ape shitt, YES I want to destroy everything, can we start with the Emperor? I fucking hate that guy.”

How fortunate! She wouldn’t have to expend energy keeping him under control if he was already in agreement with her. Pleased that they were on the same page, she tested him by giving him a sliver of her power- and with his murder of the Emperor, he passed with flying colors.

His “loyalty” to her came later as she gave him more and more bits of her power, worming her way deeper and deeper into his brain. Now that she’s gone, it will likely fade over time- though I’m not sure he’ll start to have negative feelings towards her. If he truly was Evil All Along, he might be like “yeah, gradually messing with my head over time was a clever way to keep me from getting bored and leaving whenever she didn’t have anyone for me to kill at the moment. And de-powering me in exchange for controlling Sun Wukong was a solid strategy, I would have done the same thing.”

He may well be furious at the heroes, however! He had a good thing going and they ruined it. I doubt he’ll just sit around and sulk, so I propose that the Not-Mayor will be the main threat of either Season 4 or 5.

Season 4 seems most likely; as the former right hand of someone who’s already been defeated, he’s “old news”. Since Season 4 will probably only hint at the next arc threat, it’s the Not-Mayor’s best shot at relevancy.

On the other hand, Spider Queen was a one-episode threat in Season 1 and got upgraded to a season threat in Season 2, the same happened with Macaque in Seasons 1 and 2 before getting upgraded in Season 3. Perhaps the Not-Mayor needs some time to regain his strength and will wait until Season 5 to start Causing Serious Problems.

I have some ideas for what that might entail... but I’ll save them for my next post.