[669] Coyote, what are you up to?

Humor AND intrigue. That's really all I need to have a good day.

I love how Coyote's smile takes up the whole right side of the last panel.

I love Annie and Cayote's relationship. She's so relaxed around him, I bet many would be very nervous and stiff, no wonder he likes Annie.

Ah, I bet what we see of Ysengrin will be terrifying. Hahaha.

Coyote is so charming! And yes, it does seem like Annie's more relaxed with him. I just can't wait to find out what he knows about Jeanne and that nasty business...

What's going on here, eh? Maybe Ysengrin has to absorb water once a month to keep his limbs looking their best.
He's going to bathe in the pond, we'll get to see what he looks like under the robe! Maybe.

I can see this ending up with a very angry Ysengrin.

Coyote's face in panel 4 is THE BEST.

Makes me laugh right along with him.

Hoping Ysengrin hasn't become Perma-Tree'd or something like that (i.e. he just stands there doing nothing because the poor bloke can't move anymore).

Not surprising, since Annie's unusual childhood at Good Hope has rendered her unfamiliar with the things that most kids that age are into (such as video games, pop music, movies, etc.). Even Kat, despite being Annie's best friend, probably welcomed the opportunity to finally have someone (in the form of Alistair) to discuss those with.

lkm -- Stop those filthy thoughts!

They seem oddly familiar for a "third date".

I've sometimes wondered whether some of Parley's annoyance might stem from a feeling that Annie's getting away with things too easily - her meddling causes a diplomatic crisis between the Court and the Wood, leading to Ysengrin and Coyote showing up to lodge a complaint (or Ysengrin, at least - Coyote's more there to have fun), followed by Annie slapping Coyote when he sticks his nose up her skirt, thus provoking a berserk rage from Ysengrin - and the school's response is to invite Annie to take medium classes rather than to punish her for her act. (She got punished for going out onto the bridge, of course - but not for slapping Coyote.) Parley might be seeing Annie as getting favored treatment (and knowing her, is probably jealous).

I think Parley's annoyance, if one wants to call it that, stems from the fact that she wants to be special, because she's surrounded by kids that are special, and her father was special, and (until the bed incident) showed no signs of being special herself. I'd be willing to bet that her attitude will be different now that her specialness has manifested. I don't think it had anything to do with Annie per se, other than that Annie was indeed very special and she wasn't.

Also... I kind of have to take issue with some of these characterizations of Annie. The actions that started the primary chain of modern events in the story were not meddling, they were two acts of compassion. Annie wanted to help Shadow2 get home, and she wanted to give Robot free choice. I'm not sure how those acts could be viewed as meddling, especially when she was completely oblivious to their ramifications, having just arrived at the school.

And then you say that Annie was the one that provoked the situation at the meeting by spanking Coyote... that seems rather like looking for things to blame the poor girl for. Coyote was the one who provoked that situation, intentionally. He tried to provoke Eglamore too, with comments about Surma, and Annie's parentage. He's a trickster god, he wanted some chaos... and Ysengrin wanted an excuse to surreptitiously drop the seeds. Blaming Annie for the incident, then, seems far off base to me.

I don't think that Annie has done anything for which she should have been punished and wasn't. Even when she did break the rules by leaving the Court grounds, it was again out of compassion and concern, and she weighed the consequences and took her appropriate punishment. But to characterize her as a hellion and troublemaker who gets rewarded where she should be punished is, in my opinion, grossly unfair and off-base.

Omission isn't the only way to color the truth. After all, Obi-Wan was perfectly truthful when he said Vader killed Luke's father.

Ah, well if we're speaking in terms solely of Parley's perspective, then, and not making a statement of one's own perspective (as I had gathered that Todd was), then I would have to bring up the point that Parley wouldn't know anything about having sent Shadow2 and Robot over the bridge in the first place, and therefore that can't be used as part of an argument for her perspective. Recall that when Robot came back over and Eglamore called Annie into his office to give her detention, she didn't even admit to him that she knew anything about why Robot was in the forest to begin with. No one knows other than Annie, Kat, Rey, Robot, and Shadow2. So if we're speaking only about Parley's perspective, then the whole original argument to which I responded has to be tossed out as well.

... all that says is that Parley knows Annie was on the bridge and fell off. How does one go from that, to the idea that Annie was "meddling" and caused a "diplomatic crisis"? On the contrary, Ysengrin himself says that when they'd heard that someone from the Court had fallen to their death, he was content to forget about the whole thing.

And none of this, by the way, addresses my counter-argument that Parley is really motivated by trying to be special, and resents any form of interference, to wit: the entire beginning of chapter 23.