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Post by Yin on May 1, 2009 7:00:55 GMT
 Answers to questions we didn't ask?!
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Post by edzepp on May 1, 2009 7:04:01 GMT
I see tiny eyes in the trees.
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reyo
Junior Member
BANNED
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Post by reyo on May 1, 2009 7:04:27 GMT
Donny: WHAT WAS THAT JUST NOW!?
Anja:...uh...swine flu!!
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Post by Yin on May 1, 2009 7:05:40 GMT
I see tiny eyes in the trees. I'll take odd and distantly related answers for 200, Alex! How did Shadow 2 come to the Court? |
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Post by eightyfour on May 1, 2009 7:05:57 GMT
SCORE for the freak! ;D Now that doggie doesn't look like it just wants to play. Note the eyes in the shadows between the "trees" on it's back. Shadowpeople? |
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Post by edzepp on May 1, 2009 7:08:40 GMT
I see tiny eyes in the trees. I'll take odd and distantly related answers for 200, Alex! How did Shadow 2 come to the Court? I have a feeling we may find out soon. |
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Post by Casey on May 1, 2009 7:17:01 GMT
Anja was already awesome, but she just now got about 3x more awesomer.
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Post by Count Casimir on May 1, 2009 7:25:10 GMT
SPANG indeed.
Li'l Magic Anja is so adorable.
I assume Shadow2 was stranded if and when his ride home gets destroyed by robots. Dang robots, always messin' with honest folk.
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Post by orpheus on May 1, 2009 7:29:24 GMT
It looks like the Treefox was aiming specifically at Anja. Almost as if they were trying to RECLAIM HER SOUL FOR THE FOREST WORLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.
But in all seriousness I think it may be possible that Anja may have previously been from the forest. Unless I missed out on the Word of God or something.
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Post by Casey on May 1, 2009 7:31:49 GMT
I LOVE the panel where Anja throws her hands up. The perspective in that panel is awesome.
Lesser artists would have drawn her hands fully within the frame, but not Tom, no sir. That touch really adds to the sense of panic or urgency with which she threw up her shield.
Well done.
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picaro
Junior Member
Dandy Highwayman
Posts: 66
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Post by picaro on May 1, 2009 8:31:27 GMT
This comic really has the best sound effects. Spang is just awesome
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Post by Ulysses on May 1, 2009 8:41:20 GMT
Is is just me, or does Dogwood 2 look much more... feral than Dogwood 1? In panel 1 especially it looks almost hairy, plus there's leaves and bits of bark falling off it. Maybe it's made from an older tree...
At least now we have a vague idea of what they're doing there. Presumably there was a bunch of Shadow-People in the Court (captured, lost, on an adventure or whatever) and the Dogwoods are there to take them back to the Forest.
I'm laughing at the fact that this is right after Anja did her whole empathy glowing thing, so the conversation's gone:
Anja: *does slight magic*
Donny: What was that?
Anja: DEFINITELY NOT MAGIC! HoHoHo, magic, what a joker you are, Donny.
Dogwood 2: Rarr.
Anja: Oh My Pizza! *does massive magic*
She's not going to cover this up by going "uh...umm..."
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Post by hyrune on May 1, 2009 8:50:03 GMT
Gotta love the sound effects. And yes, this is obviously how Shadow 2 ends up at the Court.
On an unrelated note, Gunnerkrigg Court is now rated twice on Top Web Comics, someone might fix this if they know how.
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Post by wombat on May 1, 2009 10:30:39 GMT
The eyes in the trees on the dog are creeeeeeeeeeeeepy.
And Anja is awesome! I wish I could make magic purple bubble things.
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Post by Rasselas on May 1, 2009 10:40:17 GMT
Mostly you guys have already said what I would've wanted to say. But I have one thing left to say: I love everything about this and it's awesome!
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Post by todd on May 1, 2009 10:44:56 GMT
It's also possible that the shadow-people came with the dog-tree creatures from Gillitie on whatever errand they're running - probably to serve as their controllers (the way that the shadow-man was controlling Robot in Chapter Seven) so that they could carry out their instructions.
The only drawback with the Shadow2 theory is that he's been described as a child, while if he was stranded in this story, he'd have been stuck in the Court for a generation. But we don't know how long shadow-people live or how many years it takes them to mature.
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Post by Aricos on May 1, 2009 12:32:04 GMT
Maybe the Shadowfolks are spies being sent/retrieved?  Also, I agree with picaro, this comic indeed has the best sound effects ever! |
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Post by Azeltir on May 1, 2009 13:10:04 GMT
Is is just me, or does Dogwood 2 look much more... feral than Dogwood 1? In panel 1 especially it looks almost hairy, plus there's leaves and bits of bark falling off it. Maybe it's made from an older tree... What if Dogwood 1 was sent as a diversion for number 2? What if it was sent to stop number 2? I agree that Dogwood 2 seems a lot less "noble" than number 1 - I mean, look at the penultimate strip to Monday's. Meanwhile, Surma has great senses, doesn't she? Good thing she noticed the leaves behind her, or Annie and Kat woulda never happened. Also, Anja's almost certainly in for a pleasant surprise about Donnie's attitude toward magical aptitude, which will be nice. Ben |
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mjh
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Post by mjh on May 1, 2009 13:24:30 GMT
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Post by King Mir on May 1, 2009 13:25:19 GMT
It looks like the Treefox was aiming specifically at Anja. Almost as if they were trying to RECLAIM HER SOUL FOR THE FOREST WORLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. But in all seriousness I think it may be possible that Anja may have previously been from the forest. Unless I missed out on the Word of God or something. I think the new dog-tree was trying to follow the etheric string attached to the other dog-tree, which just happens to pass near Anja's shoulder. |
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audacity
Junior Member
heLLoooo!
Posts: 57
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Post by audacity on May 1, 2009 13:40:31 GMT
Congratulations to all the people from before who predicted that there was more than one dogtreething!
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Tanya
Junior Member
work in progress
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Post by Tanya on May 1, 2009 13:49:13 GMT
ooh! little shadow people hiding!
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Post by Scheherazade on May 1, 2009 13:53:52 GMT
It does look like the dogtree was aiming at the group, but they are rather close to the edge; what if it was trying to go over them, and Anja's bubble stopped it?
Or maybe, just as there are friendly and unfriendly tree-spirits, maybe the second one (and possibly also the first, but it seemed to mostly ignore the students) is controlled by the unfriendly Shadowmen.
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Dentrala
Full Member
"I absolutely did not expect thiiiissss!!"
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Post by Dentrala on May 1, 2009 14:04:04 GMT
The post-spang pose the bonsaidog makes is very Coyote-ish.
What I wonder is how so many shadow people end up on the Court. Perhaps their creation has something to do with the court dwellers's actions?
And I'm pretty sure the only reason Bonsaidog2 jumped at them is because when you have a panicked animal whose 'mate' (or whatever) is in trouble, and very small, insignificant beings are in the way of you saving it, even passive animals would at very least show aggression to get to the other one. You find some chainsaw robots and back a dog into a corner, and I wouldn't be surprised (unless it's some pansy of a house dog) if it bared its teeth.
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Post by Scheherazade on May 1, 2009 14:08:17 GMT
Or the dogs could have been sent on a mission to collect as many as possible of the magic-users that the shadow-people had seen in their time spying... it's just on it's way out, and then suddenly there's another one, and it thinks "well, that was convenient" and tries to jump at her. If that's the case, we're likely going to see it counter/break the shield on Monday.
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mjh
Full Member
Posts: 179
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Post by mjh on May 1, 2009 14:15:36 GMT
It does look like the dogtree was aiming at the group, but they are rather close to the edge; what if it was trying to go over them, and Anja's bubble stopped it? That’s what I thought. There isn’t much sense in attacking the kids, so I suppose it just jumped too short. There isn’t much space on that roof (see panel 3 of Monday’s page); it was a bit awkward to jump from there. |
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Post by Ulysses on May 1, 2009 16:26:23 GMT
The only drawback with the Shadow2 theory is that he's been described as a child, while if he was stranded in this story, he'd have been stuck in the Court for a generation. But we don't know how long shadow-people live or how many years it takes them to mature. I like the idea that the Shadow People age slower than humans, it makes much more sense than the other thought I just had: The Shadow People that exist now aren't the same individuals as the ones Coyote created originally. The only way we know this is that Shadow 2 is described as a child, meaning that some Shadows are older/younger than others. This means that either when they die Coyote creates a replacement (or not, they might be dying out?), or they have some way of breeding. Perhaps it was not Shadow 2 that got stuck in the Court, but his parents? (Or parent - maybe they breed by mitosis). He would have been born (budded?  ) in the Court and grown up there. At the start of the story he wants to get back to the Forest because that's where he came from, but once he got there he realised that he didn't belong there, he belonged in the Court. The Court was his true home all along! That's why he decided to come back with Annie. That's rather far-fetched, however... |
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Post by Casey on May 1, 2009 17:00:25 GMT
I like your line of thinking there, Ulysses. There has to be some reason why Shadow2 wants to come back. It would make a lot of sense to find that, when Annie took him to Gillitie (via Robot), that was his first time there, and he didn't like it. Of course, you'd have to have some really strong reason to not like the place where every single other member of your species lives....
On another note, this thread has made me consider some possibilities for the tree-dog that I hadn't considered before, namely that the tree-dog is there to rescue shadow-men and bring them home. The revelation that there are shadow-men in the trees opens up three possibilities that I can see:
1) The tree-dog is a taxi for bringing the shadow-men to the Court, for unknown reasons.
2) The tree-dog is a taxi for taking the shadow-men home from the Court, also really for unknown reasons (unknown how they got there and what exactly they were doing there)
-2a) They could have been left there for some mission that is now completed
-2b) They have been stranded there since the splitting of the Court and the Forest
-2c) They are prisoners of the Court who are escaping
3) The shadow-men are the tree-dog's "drivers" and they came with it and are trying to leave with it, being on some unknown mission for the Forest
Now here's something else that I was thinking about, especially considering there are Shadow-men in the tree-dog. We know that when Ysengrin planted one if his seeds inside Robot and gave him an arm, that allowed a shadow-man to take over Robot and control him. Could a shadow-man have taken over Robot without the seed being planted? It is just in their two-dimensional nature to be able to manipulate mechanical things? Is the tree-dog, effectively, a mechanical thing from the Forest? Was it created from one of Ysengrin's seeds?
Someone once said that for every answer Tom gives us, he opens up three more. (Actually I just said that.) And this seems to continue to be true with this new revelation!
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Post by warrl on May 1, 2009 18:34:45 GMT
Now here's something else that I was thinking about, especially considering there are Shadow-men in the tree-dog. We know that when Ysengrin planted one if his seeds inside Robot and gave him an arm, that allowed a shadow-man to take over Robot and control him. Could a shadow-man have taken over Robot without the seed being planted? It is just in their two-dimensional nature to be able to manipulate mechanical things? Is the tree-dog, effectively, a mechanical thing from the Forest? Was it created from one of Ysengrin's seeds? Remember that Robot - and we think this is unusual for robots, but we aren't certain - is partially etheric. There's that extra bit on his CPU that Kat thought was strange, and the fact that putting his processor into the S1 body activated that body and a bunch of others - even though none of them have any mechanical actuators. (This isn't just a matter of lacking a controller. Without mechanical actuators there's nothing to control, at least as far as causing movement. And yet, once the processor chip was in place, they moved.) |
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Post by Mezzaphor on May 1, 2009 19:11:42 GMT
@ Casey: I don't have the link handy at the moment, but I'm almost certain that Tom said the Glass-Eyed Men have children via sexual reproduction.
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Answers to questions we didn't ask?!
) in the Court and grown up there. At the start of the story he wants to get back to the Forest because that's where he came from, but once he got there he realised that he didn't belong there, he belonged in the Court. The Court was his true home all along! That's why he decided to come back with Annie.