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Post by jayne on Oct 18, 2010 15:05:30 GMT
I'm not saying she's abnormal... I'm saying she's very normal... like any younger sister. My post was not in rebuttal to yours. But you didn't answer my question either.
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Post by Casey on Oct 18, 2010 15:23:09 GMT
I've never had a little sister or had friends who did, so I couldn't say whether it was like that, Jayne.
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Post by zylonbane on Oct 18, 2010 15:28:32 GMT
Kat's expression in panel 4: brilliant! Kat is the pusher robot. Aspie Annie must go up the stairs. Do you have stairs in your house?
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Post by jayne on Oct 18, 2010 15:36:04 GMT
I've never had a little sister or had friends who did, so I couldn't say whether it was like that, Jayne. I'm the youngest child and I remember being like this with my older brother and sister.
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Post by evilanagram on Oct 18, 2010 16:06:12 GMT
Would a better interpretation be that Annie is like a little sister who won't take a hint that they'd like to be alone? Kat gets it, Annie doesn't. I think that Annie is fully cognizant and perhaps even -more- aware than most people about the full spectrum of human emotion--she is being trained as a medium, after all--I just think that some of those emotions make her feel uncomfortable. But then only at certain times. I mean she clearly wasn't uncomfortable teasing Smitty about his own obliviousness to Parley's feelings, which is almost the same thing as her going "Parley and Andrew, sitting in a tree!" which one wouldn't do if one were generally uncomfortable with emotions. Another occasion where Annie pick up on subtle body language, in a room full of otherwise oblivious students, is here: www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=376www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=383Which again she had no problem with pointing out, even teasing, when talking to Kat here: www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=403In fact, pages 403 and 404 are the ones I think of most often when people get up to talking about how abnormal Annie is, because those two pages for me really show how NOT abnormal Annie is. While we see Annie acting like a normal girl her age in several places, we almost exclusively see her acting this way around people she's close with (or at least comfortable around). We've also seen plenty of evidence that she has difficulty relating to most of her peers, who see her as creepy, cold, and withdrawn. While you're assertions that she is fully aware of the full spectrum of human emotions and is a keen observer of human behavior are both accurate, I think it's a mistake to say that Annie isn't a little abnormal, given the trouble she has relating to many of her classmates (though, to be fair, she seems to have gotten better at it by the end of Residential).
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Post by Aurelia Verity on Oct 18, 2010 16:13:22 GMT
I agree, I am also the youngest in the family and was always mystified by the behavior of teens and the BIG SERIOUSNESS attached to stuff like hugging, kissing and later sex. At that age it's not that you don't know about romance, or physical attraction, you do, the media and books and adults around you supply most of the information you need. It's just that some kids fail to see the big deal of it all. The "drunk with love" effect in which nothing else matters is something that: a) if you are very realistic and cynical (Annie) you have to experience for yourself to believe or b) if you are more susceptible to romance (Kat) you believe in because you're seen it elsewhere. Kat is more on the ball here because she's been exposed to media where such behavior exists frequently, and also her parents are happily married so she has an extra vantage point there. Also Kat already had a romantic experience (Aly) so she's a bit more in tune. Annie on the other hand grew up in a hospital without much TV or film to influence her and it is not certain how her parents interacted in front of her. We've also yet to see her having romantic feelings for anyone. Her heart didn't glow which means she's not in love. We know Annie is good with telling apart people's emotions. we've seen her do it with Parley and Smith several times and also in A Week For Kat. it's just that she fails to see it from the couple's perspective, possibly because she's never experienced the same feeling heself.
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Post by Casey on Oct 18, 2010 16:51:00 GMT
I think that Annie is fully cognizant and perhaps even -more- aware than most people about the full spectrum of human emotion--she is being trained as a medium, after all--I just think that some of those emotions make her feel uncomfortable. But then only at certain times. I mean she clearly wasn't uncomfortable teasing Smitty about his own obliviousness to Parley's feelings, which is almost the same thing as her going "Parley and Andrew, sitting in a tree!" which one wouldn't do if one were generally uncomfortable with emotions. Another occasion where Annie pick up on subtle body language, in a room full of otherwise oblivious students, is here: www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=376www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=383Which again she had no problem with pointing out, even teasing, when talking to Kat here: www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=403In fact, pages 403 and 404 are the ones I think of most often when people get up to talking about how abnormal Annie is, because those two pages for me really show how NOT abnormal Annie is. While we see Annie acting like a normal girl her age in several places, we almost exclusively see her acting this way around people she's close with (or at least comfortable around). We've also seen plenty of evidence that she has difficulty relating to most of her peers, who see her as creepy, cold, and withdrawn. While you're assertions that she is fully aware of the full spectrum of human emotions and is a keen observer of human behavior are both accurate, I think it's a mistake to say that Annie isn't a little abnormal, given the trouble she has relating to many of her classmates (though, to be fair, she seems to have gotten better at it by the end of Residential). If you don't mind, I'd like to offer a differing view on each of the three links you provided. In the first one: We see evidence later in this chapter that Annie is already worried about what the others think of her. People point to her saying "Okay" instead of "you're welcome" or whatever as being some sign that she's developmentally abnormal, but I think that's a shallow view that doesn't take into consideration what's going on in her head. I've been in social situations where I felt like I was the outsider and the others didn't accept me, and it's a very uncomfortable feeling. Her terse response is a result of that, not because she's antisocial. But what you also have to realize is that the reason the interaction took place at all was because Annie, off-screen, overhears the problems they are having in starting a fire, and on her -own volition- decides to step in and help... despite the fact that they think of her as an outsider. If she has the courage to step in and help the very people who mistreat her, how is that her developmental shortcoming? Quite the contrary, I argue. In the second one: How is this evidence that there's something wrong with Annie? On the contrary this is evidence that there's something wrong with -Jack- (namely that he's an asshole, albeit inspired by the white-legs to be so). In point of fact, we see Annie facially react to Jack's verbal assault, and then demonstrate a greater, more mature restraint than Kat by telling her to forget it and walking away. His words were intended to hurt Annie, and they did, feeding into the fears about her classmates that I already mentioned and that are evidenced on the next page. None of this is developmentally abnormal. Even despite being treated like an outcast by her peers for being different (talking to ghosts, going off school grounds, getting to interact with the leader of the Forest, being pulled out of class by the mysterious woman that no one knew) she still has the foresight to avoid unwinnable conflict by pulling Kat away, and that shows greater maturity than her peers. The third link: doesn't show any social difficulties on Annie's part at all. It shows a social difficulty on -John's- part, acting the way the other students are in treating Annie like an outcast just because she's different. On the next page, she -yet again- bucks the social pressure that they are all putting on her and does the social thing despite her misgivings about their opinion of her. So you offer three separate links as "plenty of evidence" that she has difficulty relating to her peers, and I show each one to in fact be evidence that her peers have difficulty accepting -her-, and yet in each case she rises above it and take the more mature view. And because of her courage in doing so, it is not Annie who later in the chapter gets better at interacting with her peers... it is her peers who grow up a little and start getting better at treating Annie as an equal.
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Post by jayne on Oct 18, 2010 16:52:37 GMT
May I suggest discussing Annie's social issues, if any, in another thread?
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Post by Casey on Oct 18, 2010 16:52:51 GMT
We know Annie is good with telling apart people's emotions. we've seen her do it with Parley and Smith several times and also in A Week For Kat. it's just that she fails to see it from the couple's perspective, possibly because she's never experienced the same feeling heself. I think I agree with this idea.
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Post by Casey on Oct 18, 2010 16:55:18 GMT
May I suggest discussing Annie's social issues, if any, in another thread? Not everything has to be broken off into its own thread, Jayne. This is an ongoing discussion that's been happening in various threads for years. It's worthwhile talking about when it comes up, but it's not so important to anyone that it needs to be preserved in its own thread, I don't think. Hence why the Nature of Good and Evil thread didn't take off.
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Post by jayne on Oct 18, 2010 17:07:41 GMT
May I suggest discussing Annie's social issues, if any, in another thread? Not everything has to be broken off into its own thread, Jayne. This is an ongoing discussion that's been happening in various threads for years. It's worthwhile talking about when it comes up, but it's not so important to anyone that it needs to be preserved in its own thread, I don't think. Hence why the Nature of Good and Evil thread didn't take off. Actually, I've never had a spawned thread work BUT it does usually end the off topic discussion in the current thread. There weren't anymore good/evil questions after that. I'd just like to be able to skip the "Annie is odd" discussion. I think Annie is a normal kid with a different set of experiences than say Kat has.
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Post by Casey on Oct 18, 2010 17:28:24 GMT
Not everything has to be broken off into its own thread, Jayne. This is an ongoing discussion that's been happening in various threads for years. It's worthwhile talking about when it comes up, but it's not so important to anyone that it needs to be preserved in its own thread, I don't think. Hence why the Nature of Good and Evil thread didn't take off. Actually, I've never had a spawned thread work BUT it does usually end the off topic discussion in the current thread. There weren't anymore good/evil questions after that. I'd just like to be able to skip the "Annie is odd" discussion. I think Annie is a normal kid with a different set of experiences than say Kat has. I think the same. But why would you want to actively kill a topic that others are participating in, just because you don't? That's not very sportsmanlike IMO...
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Post by jayne on Oct 18, 2010 17:38:26 GMT
Actually, I've never had a spawned thread work BUT it does usually end the off topic discussion in the current thread. There weren't anymore good/evil questions after that. I'd just like to be able to skip the "Annie is odd" discussion. I think Annie is a normal kid with a different set of experiences than say Kat has. I think the same. But why would you want to actively kill a topic that others are participating in, just because you don't? That's not very sportsmanlike IMO... It just doesn't seem very productive. Some people think Annie is weird: link, link, link and other's don't think she's weird because they interpret the same links differently. The only thing we've managed to achieve is the idea that people can interpret things differently. You learn that doing jury duty too!
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Post by Casey on Oct 18, 2010 17:50:00 GMT
Well... welcome to the Gunnerkrigg Forums then.
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Post by evilanagram on Oct 18, 2010 17:56:09 GMT
If you don't mind, I'd like to offer a differing view on each of the three links you provided. In the first one: We see evidence later in this chapter that Annie is already worried about what the others think of her. People point to her saying "Okay" instead of "you're welcome" or whatever as being some sign that she's developmentally abnormal, but I think that's a shallow view that doesn't take into consideration what's going on in her head. I've been in social situations where I felt like I was the outsider and the others didn't accept me, and it's a very uncomfortable feeling. Her terse response is a result of that, not because she's antisocial. But what you also have to realize is that the reason the interaction took place at all was because Annie, off-screen, overhears the problems they are having in starting a fire, and on her -own volition- decides to step in and help... despite the fact that they think of her as an outsider. If she has the courage to step in and help the very people who mistreat her, how is that her developmental shortcoming? Quite the contrary, I argue. In the second one: How is this evidence that there's something wrong with Annie? On the contrary this is evidence that there's something wrong with -Jack- (namely that he's an asshole, albeit inspired by the white-legs to be so). In point of fact, we see Annie facially react to Jack's verbal assault, and then demonstrate a greater, more mature restraint than Kat by telling her to forget it and walking away. His words were intended to hurt Annie, and they did, feeding into the fears about her classmates that I already mentioned and that are evidenced on the next page. None of this is developmentally abnormal. Even despite being treated like an outcast by her peers for being different (talking to ghosts, going off school grounds, getting to interact with the leader of the Forest, being pulled out of class by the mysterious woman that no one knew) she still has the foresight to avoid unwinnable conflict by pulling Kat away, and that shows greater maturity than her peers. The third link: doesn't show any social difficulties on Annie's part at all. It shows a social difficulty on -John's- part, acting the way the other students are in treating Annie like an outcast just because she's different. On the next page, she -yet again- bucks the social pressure that they are all putting on her and does the social thing despite her misgivings about their opinion of her. So you offer three separate links as "plenty of evidence" that she has difficulty relating to her peers, and I show each one to in fact be evidence that her peers have difficulty accepting -her-, and yet in each case she rises above it and take the more mature view. And because of her courage in doing so, it is not Annie who later in the chapter gets better at interacting with her peers... it is her peers who grow up a little and start getting better at treating Annie as an equal. I believe you misunderstood me. I was not implying that there is something "wrong" with Annie or that she is developmentally abnormal or emotionally stunted, I was simply saying that the fact that her peers have trouble accepting her is evidence that she's a little weird/abnormal. There's nothing wrong with her, but the fact is that what is and is not weird is defined by the group, and so long as the larger part of Queslett regards her as an outsider, she is weird. Jack is a dick to her, but he's right about them thinking she's creepy. John feels awkward and uncomfortable talking to Annie because Annie's demeanor is off-putting to the rest of her class. They think she's weird, and that keeps them at arm's length. At the end of the chapter, Annie is the one who has to step outside her comfort zone and make an effort to socialize because, up to that point, she doesn't. She doesn't try to get to know them, and she doesn't let them get to know her. Her trouble relating to her peers may be largely due to the fact that they treat her as an outsider, but she does have trouble relating to her peers.
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Post by jayne on Oct 18, 2010 18:10:26 GMT
Ever see the original "Miracle on 34rth Street" where Santa has to teach the little girl how to pretend she's a monkey? Her mother taught her to be very sensible but there was nothing wrong with her... she just never learned how to pretend.
That reminds me of Annie. Kat practically had to force her to play along with the moon nasties. Eventually, Annie did get into it but she needed Kat to help her understand.
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Post by Casey on Oct 18, 2010 18:11:56 GMT
Okay then yes I misunderstood you. I would still say though that it's evidence that her peers have trouble relating to her, not the other way around. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea that you are the weird one just because other people don't get you. I don't think it's Annie's demeanor that is off-putting to the rest of her class, I think it's her -reputation- that is off-putting, and her demeanor is a result of her treatment by the rest of the class, not a cause.
But this is because I don't see that the way they started treating her has anything to do with anything she specifically did or did not do to them in the pages of the comic. I think she gained a reputation by being the one who went off school grounds, who can communicate with ghosts, who interacted with Coyote, and who gets pulled out of class by the mysterious Jones. (I'm repeating myself there.) That's the reason why they treat her like she's different, and that social pressure against her would make anyone reserved and self-doubting. Though keep in mind as I pointed out, each time it comes up she takes the high road anyway and makes an effort to do the right thing.
So you say Annie is weird... I say kids are just mean and shun anyone that is unlike themselves.
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Post by jayne on Oct 18, 2010 18:23:38 GMT
"Us versus Them" starts early and continues... forever I guess.
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Post by evilanagram on Oct 18, 2010 18:36:38 GMT
I think the blame can be shared. Early on, when she was acting unemotional as she dealt with (or avoided dealing with) her mother's death, her behavior was obviously very off-putting and made others feel uncomfortable. She's moved on and broken out of her shell, but it's hard to move past first impressions like that, especially because, like you said, her reputation has grown so much. Sure, they cast her as weird and tend to shun her, but she doesn't make much of an effort to get to know them until the latter half of Residential. What's more, she realizes that she needs to make an effort, too. She can't simply expect everyone to want to be friends with her automatically (though some of us might wish the world worked that way). So, yes, kids are mean and shun people who are different, but to be fair, they have no reason to accept someone who doesn't try to fit in with the group. This doesn't mean she should stop being different or act exactly like the rest of them in order to be accepted; hanging out with the other kids by the fire seems to be enough.
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Post by Casey on Oct 18, 2010 18:40:47 GMT
I don't really think we're stating two wildly differing points of view, EA, so I'll leave it off where it is.
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Post by hal9000 on Oct 18, 2010 21:39:48 GMT
Kat's expression in panel 4: brilliant! Kat is the pusher robot. Aspie Annie must go up the stairs. Do you have stairs in your house? I am protected.
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Post by todd on Oct 18, 2010 22:36:27 GMT
I was going to add that Annie almost seems like she is struggling to keep control of the activity. True, she started it, but like many things, it went beyond her control when Parley bipped in. Anyway, it's kind of interesting how she wants to control the discussion. This probably belongs more in the "Wild Speculations" thread, but Annie *could* be becoming concerned that the adventures at the Court are moving away from her. The Jack business turned out to be Zimmy's adventure more than hers, and now her first effort to reach out to Jeanne with the Blinker Stone turned out to revolve more around Parley than around her. Maybe a struggle to re-assert her role as the protagonist, which she fears she might be losing? In all seriousness, Annie does strike me as far more intent on the big issues at the Court than the small human ones; this is the same girl, remember, who felt absolutely no enthusiasm for the spacemonaut simulations.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Oct 19, 2010 0:25:21 GMT
What EA said. The comic generally doesn't do black-and-white morality, so I don't see why we should assign complete responsibility for Annie's distance from her peers to any one party.
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Post by aaroncampbell on Oct 19, 2010 1:29:05 GMT
I'd just like to jump in to say, "Way to go, Smitty, for taking the initiative in the penultimate panel!" He made a decision in their relationship (albeit a minor one,) even though their relationship has only just begun. Good on ya, mate! Given how strong Parley's personality is, he'll really have to step out of his comfort zone and grow his self-confidence to be a good match for her. Clearly Parley recognized his initiative, and approved of it by agreeing with him in the final panel. I am very pleased with them and have high hopes and expectations for their relationship. Thanks for showing us this side of their development, Tom! Well done, as usual.
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Post by zylonbane on Oct 19, 2010 18:55:01 GMT
He's an ordermancer. She's a psychic bip'okinetic. Together, they fight crime!
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Post by TBeholder on Oct 19, 2010 23:10:04 GMT
So Annie is both goal-oriented and kinda oblivious. I doubt Annie is oblivious to the lovey-dovey-ness going on, she just fails to see why that should take priority over Solving A Problem. I'm having difficulty believe Annie is oblivious, even though she gives no sign of catching on. ...or maybe she's both a bit vengeful and got a perverted sense of humour. While we see Annie acting like a normal girl her age in several places, we almost exclusively see her acting this way around people she's close with (or at least comfortable around). We've also seen plenty of evidence that she has difficulty relating to most of her peers, who see her as creepy, cold, and withdrawn. As long as "relating" means "incessantly chattering to", most definitely. All this proves is that her previous solo adventures made her feels mostly self-sufficient, as opposed to forlorn kid frantically trying to cling to someone - anyone. Others are obviously used to see that she "walks alone" and mostly is out of reach, but again, no evidence of anything more than this. After all, this whole company is "all-unusual". They're not the lowest common denominator, they're kids for whom it's perfectly reasonable to respond on the park bosses and teacher messing with them by taking over their house using laser cows. ;D
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Post by Goatmon on Oct 19, 2010 23:35:01 GMT
Dammit Casey, look what you started.
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Post by cannedbreadmaker on Oct 19, 2010 23:45:53 GMT
That's okay, George and Andrew. You two can smuggle on the stairs. It's not as if that ancient and terrible injustice has to be resolved today. In fact, why don't you smooch on Jeanne's grave? That'll show her!!
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Post by jayne on Oct 19, 2010 23:51:19 GMT
That's okay, George and Andrew. You two can smuggle on the stairs. It's not as if that ancient and terrible injustice has to be resolved today. In fact, why don't you smooch on Jeanne's grave? That'll show her!! There's just something about not getting horribly murdered by a vengeful ghost that just makes one want to stop and smell the roses.
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Post by Goatmon on Oct 19, 2010 23:52:38 GMT
She doesn't even have a grave. Her corpse was left to rot.
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