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Post by fjodor on Dec 28, 2009 22:40:53 GMT
Ah, completely forgot about that one, thanks for reminding me. *throws idea out of imaginary window*
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Post by Mezzaphor on Dec 29, 2009 16:49:35 GMT
With this latest chapter appearing, it really reinforces my belief that Jones is a robot. Albeit Diego's masterpiece, a combination of technology and etheric elements, but a robot none-the-less. And yes, it also means that she's VERY old if the above holds true. Edit: Argh, I completely forgot about that photo shoot that mentions Jones. That confuses things, but I'm certain that Jones is a robot! Also, hello everyone. Jones was present at the Court back when Surma and Eglamore were being taught, but she was not there as a student. Rey did say that Jones is not a robot, but it's not out of the question that he's simply wrong. Though that's not what I think is going on. My pet theory is that Jones is a goddess who possessed a gynoid body as an avatar.
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Post by rosewind26 on Jan 23, 2010 5:48:36 GMT
My pet theory is that Jones is a goddess who possessed a gynoid body as an avatar. I like that one especially sinse Rey said even Coyote wouldn't know what she was. My own personal crazy theories Surma was a witch/siren seriously other than Anthony at least 2 other beings have expressed outright romantic love for her. And everyone in the forest loved her (according to coyote) Then she gave that power to Annie (Mort mentions how "attractive" she is, and even if he didn't mean her looks maybe that's how ghosts react to it) A lot of stuff I can't even speculate on though I think that Zimmy was some sort of experiment gone awry, possibly using Gamma's DNA (It is insinuated that Gamma is a year older than her) that's why those MIB types were following her.
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Post by idonotlikepeas on Jan 23, 2010 8:26:18 GMT
Random: Ysengrin will choose to die as a wolf rather than a wolf wrapped in a tree.
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Post by La Goon on Feb 7, 2010 9:11:33 GMT
At some point after the “fortification” of the Annan Waters Sir Young (or one of his successors) slays a dragon, thus giving the protectors of the Court the title “Dragon slayer”. This dragon was a friend of Ysengrin and under his command. For a period the Forest has tried to adopt military organisation and tactics as a countermeasure to the Court’s experiments with controlling nature and etheric forces. Ysengrin takes the rank of general, and the dragon is his second in command. The loss of his friend and loyal officer however makes Ys scrap the military approach as a failure (in present when the headmaster calls Ys “General” he does so mockingly).
Ys also swears revenge. This is why he desperately clings to the power Coyote gives him and pretends to love and worship him. Coyote of course knows it’s only a ruse but plays along for the heck of it. He also uses this position to make Ys take on a more diplomatic approach an shortly after the negotiations about construction of the bridge begins. The Court gets to set the terms, because hey – they just slew a dragon!
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Post by legion on Feb 10, 2010 21:54:08 GMT
Doo dee doo, let's speculate (I hope you like text): I think that the Court's robots are the closest thing the Court has to generic judeo-christian believers. First thing, I noticed that, while in Gunnerverse all religions seem to be true simultaneously, and so each individual believer actually gets to experiment what he actually believes in, we are yet to see anything that would account for the presence of jews, christians or muslims. Antimony met many psychopomps in Good Hope's hospital, but they all belonged to non-abrahamic religions, including pre-christians western beliefs which, in our world, are largely extinct. So we could just conclude that in the Gunnerverse, abrahamic religions simply never developed, precisely because the other gods are real and thus people are more likely to cling to their original beliefs and less likely to convert to new religions. But then, I noticed that the Court's robots believe in angels and in Heaven, which is quite abrahamic to begin with. So I thought about this for a while and I began to notice many other parallels: — Robots do not have a psychopomp; while it is not fully clear if there are literal psychopomps in abrahamic religions, or merely allegorical personifications of death as a concept, it is often assumed that the souls of the deceased christians, jews and muslim get to heaven or hell on their own, without the need of a psychopomp. —The robots have a trinity, with Diego filling the role of the creator/Father ( they actually call him "father"), Jeanne in the role of the Son/martyr-saint, and the mysterious divine creator of the tic-tocs as the Holy Ghost. On this page, we see, over the doors, what may or may not be trinity symbols (if it's an alchemical symbol, it's not one I can identify). —The robots have an original sin, "She died and we did nothing", which is actually a subtle reversal of the christian motto, "He died for our sins"! —They also have a messianic figure, Robot S13 (complete with death and resurrection). —Diego however, is not an omnipotent/benevolent god, but an imperfect/malevolent god, a Demiurge, which brings the robots closer to early/gnostic christians. —The Demiurge status of their god is revealed to them by angel-Kat, which makes her a sort of positive Lucifer; if we put her particular connection with birds in this equation, we get Melek Taus, the peacock angel of the Yazidi religion who refused to worship Adam (and is thus generally assumed to be the devil by other religions, but is considered the leader of the angels by the Yazidis). —The divine creator of the tic-tocs, however, is closer to the idea of the benevolent and omniscient watcher god of modern christianity, especially if we assume that Gamma's collective designation of the tic-tocs as The Thousand Eyes implies that they are merely parts of a much bigger being ( an interpretation the robots seem to partially confirm). Or, in connection with the previous point, they could be angels as well. —They also have, of course, a religious leader, played by the Robot King, who seems to have a thing for medieval-style processions. In the same vein, they seem to be fond of relics such as the last possessions of Diego, and sacred places like Jeanne's tomb. —The robots also seem to be associated with the affectionate christian stereotypes: they're pretty gullible, but well-meaning; they have an optimistic, hopeful vision of life even though they're at the bottom of the Court's hierarchy, and considered little better than slaves; there's also their over enthusiasm when it comes to suppress dissent. There's probably more to be said about this; I apologize for the length of this post!
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Post by Casey on Feb 10, 2010 22:25:21 GMT
legion: +1 (insightful)
I like all that you said, very interesting to think about!
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Post by Ulysses on Feb 10, 2010 23:19:29 GMT
I hadn't thought about it that way before. Interesting. As for a robot psychopomp - if we are comparing the robots to Abrahamic followers, I'm unsure who the Jewish psychopomp might be, not being very familiar with Jewish tenet, but with Christianity if anybody is a psychopomp it would be Jesus himself. He did say " I am the way, the truth and the life; nobody will enter Heaven except through me". That seems fairly psychopompy to me. On this page, we see, over the doors, what may or may not be trinity symbols (if it's an alchemical symbol, it's not one I can identify). I think it's a flux capacitor ;D
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Post by Mezzaphor on Feb 11, 2010 1:12:07 GMT
On this page, we see, over the doors, what may or may not be trinity symbols (if it's an alchemical symbol, it's not one I can identify). I think it's a flux capacitor ;D I've wondered for a while whether there's some connection between that triangle and the symbol we've seen on The Donlan's house and Anja's computer.
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Post by rosewind26 on Feb 11, 2010 5:40:25 GMT
As for a robot psychopomp - if we are comparing the robots to Abrahamic followers, I'm unsure who the Jewish psychopomp might be, not being very familiar with Jewish tenet, In original Jewish belief there was no afterlife or very little idea of an afterlife so there would not be a psychopomp in that fashion.
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Post by legion on Feb 11, 2010 20:36:53 GMT
I hadn't thought about it that way before. Interesting. As for a robot psychopomp - if we are comparing the robots to Abrahamic followers, I'm unsure who the Jewish psychopomp might be, not being very familiar with Jewish tenet, but with Christianity if anybody is a psychopomp it would be Jesus himself. He did say " I am the way, the truth and the life; nobody will enter Heaven except through me". That seems fairly psychopompy to me. Well, I would interpret this passage as having more to do with salvation and judgment; that is, Jesus does not lead you to heaven, he decides whether or not you can enter once you get there. ----- On the topic of symbols, I also noticed that the alchemical symbol for antimony ( which the robots happen to have on their banner here, just below the tic-toc's head) happens to look exactly like a globus cruciger.
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Post by idonotlikepeas on Feb 11, 2010 20:42:31 GMT
Might be more correct to say that it wasn't a big emphasis in early Jewish belief. There are (brief) references to the afterlife throughout the Torah, but worrying about it wasn't considered to be something as important as taking the correct actions in the present life. A Jewish psychopomp would probably either be an angel (Gabriel or Sandalphon?) or a particularly revered ancestor (Abraham, Elijah).
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Post by Mishmash on Feb 11, 2010 20:50:45 GMT
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Post by legion on Feb 11, 2010 21:06:00 GMT
Mishmash > well according to my sources, this: ♁ is actually one of the symbols for antimony (we mean the metalloid element here, not the character :3)
The symbol in the page you're showing is another symbol for antimony; alchemy symbolism was not standardized and thus there are several ways to represent different elements (one of the web sites I'm using as reference gives 17 different symbols for Gold alone).
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Post by Mishmash on Feb 11, 2010 22:04:50 GMT
Weird! Thanks for the info =]
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Post by rosewind26 on Feb 12, 2010 5:20:09 GMT
Might be more correct to say that it wasn't a big emphasis in early Jewish belief. There are (brief) references to the afterlife throughout the Torah, but worrying about it wasn't considered to be something as important as taking the correct actions in the present life. A Jewish psychopomp would probably either be an angel (Gabriel or Sandalphon?) or a particularly revered ancestor (Abraham, Elijah). that makes sense and I think I meant to mention that (or something like it I don't know) but I usually am on the forums when I can't sleep and am therefore not in the correct state. I also should have mentioned I was just excited to be able to comment on that as I am not an expert in Abrahamic belief by any means but it was a recent topic covered in the religion class I am taking Mishmash > well according to my sources, this: ♁ is actually one of the symbols for antimony (we mean the metalloid element here, not the character :3) Thanks for the info I have been wondering about that symbol for a while now
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Post by legion on Feb 12, 2010 20:27:40 GMT
While we're dealing with that banner, the complete rundown of alchemical symbols on it seems to be, top to bottom: a symbol for antimony, a symbol for bismuth, a symbol for sun or gold, and another symbol for bismuth (or maybe a symbol for taurus, but it looks more like bismuth). So we get Antimony B(ismuth) S(un) Bismuth > Antimony Bears the Seed Bismuth!!!
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Post by rosewind26 on Feb 12, 2010 21:06:50 GMT
but what about the tictoc at the top???
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Post by legion on Feb 12, 2010 21:13:11 GMT
It's not an alchemical symbol so it does not count/It's just watching, you know, like tic-tocs do!
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Post by legion on Feb 15, 2010 17:56:05 GMT
I apologise if that one was already brought up: While reading again chapter 11, I noticed that one of the creatures appearing the visions of Zimmy looks like a mix beetween Sivo's Reynardine-possessed restrained body and Reynardine-possessed wolf toy. So methinks Zimmy's power is actually the ability to get highly distorded visions from the future (and so, in the same vein, this would be a deformed vision of Ketrak, the insect's guide), and also from the past.
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Post by Mr Pitchfork on Feb 15, 2010 18:04:42 GMT
I always thought that was just the average day in Birmingham!
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Post by todd on Feb 15, 2010 23:26:24 GMT
A thought about the Founders of Gunnerkrigg Court. We've assumed that they were refugees fleeing a war - presumably as in the frightened villagers who've discovered that their village lies between two armies about to battle each other, and struggling to get out of the way of both sides. But what if they weren't so innocent? What if they had been part of a failed rebellion - or a deposed tyranny - and were fleeing to escape punishment by the victorious side? That would explain why they're still in hiding in the Court (if they were just refugees, it's probably safe for them to emerge by now, unless the Britain of this universe is still locked in a civil war) - and we've seen that the Founders were unscrupulous enough (with one exception) to murder Jeanne.
(On the other hand, the Court's genuinely interested in scientific inquiry, which makes it unlikely that they're "take-over-the-world"-type mad scientists; those kinds of guys aren't really interested in science, only in exploiting it for their ends. A true scientist - like Kat - is interested in the pursuit of science and discovery for its own sake.)
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Fen
Junior Member
Posts: 86
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Post by Fen on Feb 27, 2010 11:24:02 GMT
Minor womdering that just occurred to me. In chapter 15, Red is shocked to find out that having your hair cut off doesn't hurt. But she had hair as a Fairy, so does that mean that it DOES hurt if a fairy gets their hair cut off?
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Shenko
New Member
Umbrae Sumus
Posts: 27
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Post by Shenko on Feb 27, 2010 18:56:14 GMT
Minor womdering that just occurred to me. In chapter 15, Red is shocked to find out that having your hair cut off doesn't hurt. But she had hair as a Fairy, so does that mean that it DOES hurt if a fairy gets their hair cut off? Well, if you look at Red here, you can see that Reds hair does not appear to be hair, but something closer to tentacles in a way. Im not sure about Blue, but I'm assuming its the same.
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Post by Seth Thresher on Feb 27, 2010 19:35:28 GMT
As for a robot psychopomp - if we are comparing the robots to Abrahamic followers, I'm unsure who the Jewish psychopomp might be, not being very familiar with Jewish tenet, In original Jewish belief there was no afterlife or very little idea of an afterlife so there would not be a psychopomp in that fashion. Then what about the Jewish concept of Sheol? That is my understanding of the Jewish afterlife, and it's pretty in line with what other cultures in the area believed at the time.
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Post by judgedeadd on Feb 28, 2010 7:12:31 GMT
Well, if you look at Red here, you can see that Reds hair does not appear to be hair, but something closer to tentacles in a way. Im not sure about Blue, but I'm assuming its the same. So, Red has a tentacley head? THEORY: Fairies are avatars of Cthulhu.
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Post by evilanagram on Feb 28, 2010 20:41:29 GMT
Minor womdering that just occurred to me. In chapter 15, Red is shocked to find out that having your hair cut off doesn't hurt. But she had hair as a Fairy, so does that mean that it DOES hurt if a fairy gets their hair cut off? Well, if you look at Red here, you can see that Reds hair does not appear to be hair, but something closer to tentacles in a way. Im not sure about Blue, but I'm assuming its the same. Her hair as a fairy doesn't seem all that different from her hair as a human after she got it to stick up. I always thought fairy hair just didn't grow like human hair does; instead it grows as the fairy grows, then stops.
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coyotagoat
Junior Member
Helluva poker face.
Posts: 65
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Post by coyotagoat on Mar 2, 2010 2:17:32 GMT
The fairies seem to me to be kinda... made out of a different "stuff" than humans/mundane things. They almost seem kinda like what would happen if you threw an animation into real-life, kinda 'who framed roger rabbit' style... not quite real, or not all there maybe. I dunno :I
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Post by avurai on Mar 12, 2010 18:41:05 GMT
Jack is Coyote in disguise. Coyote brought Buddha back from the dead and made him a Court official. They made a deal, so when Coyote jumped out the window and Shell lost track of him, Buddha would discourage her from continuing her chase. And god knows what he wrote in that note!
It all fits!
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Post by xheralt on Mar 13, 2010 3:12:12 GMT
legion, great post. I would venture to say that robots don't have psychopomps because they are functionally immortal? Remember, the only remaining (and significant) original part of Robot is his *chip* -- which is non-volatile storage, Robot's "self" persisted even after having no electricity applied to it for an extended period of time. Of course, who knows what happens if a court-bot's chip is physically destroyed? Possibly not enough 'bots have so perished to merit the existence of a psychopomp, and that one will arise if/when it becomes necessary.
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