The Popess appears in the final sequence of the Gary cycle as a guard or ritual-authority figure. The phrase “Marian and the other is the popess” implies a duality or pair of figures. The title evokes the Tarot figure (II, The High Priestess).
Context
- The cycle belongs to Gary, the New World (Gary, Indiana, 1987).
- She resembles the guardians of the Zodiacal Platforms, where each platform has two guardians in dispute. Under the Dual Corruption, whoever kills a guardian inherits the office.
- Jean-Baptiste, a guardian of Scorpio, emerges in the same cycle.
- The guardians of the cycle appear in the Crystal Tower, an underground dungeon.
- Iron Mountain is the cosmic epicenter of the cycle.