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Post by fronzel on Dec 16, 2010 16:04:30 GMT
That...that's amazing. Is that some world-building in my fairy comedy chapter? With Tom I wouldn't be surprised.
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Post by zylonbane on Dec 16, 2010 19:06:36 GMT
"callback". And I don't really see how.
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Post by paxjax123 on Dec 16, 2010 19:37:09 GMT
"callback". And I don't really see how. Actually... Also, I think Max means the scene looks similar. Annie's makeup is removed, and she silently rests on a wolf companion.
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Post by Max on Dec 16, 2010 21:09:01 GMT
I was responding to thebutterflygirl's comment about her make up being gone. I didn't actually notice the "wolf companion" connection though.
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Post by Mylian on Dec 17, 2010 4:42:05 GMT
Very little of what I've seen of Annie says "she would never hurt them." She's clearly willing to " hurt a fly", if it advances her ends. And she'll go for the below the belt shot, or throw 200 feet of fire at you, if she's annoyed at the moment. Maybe if "never" means "for the most part, unless I was in a bad mood or got defensive, or got really mad, or needed to get in touch with Muut again". Annie isn't lying: she believes she would never hurt them. I would never harm a forest creature but I'm willing to kill a spider or a fly*. Does my willingness to kill a bug mean I will harm forest creatures? As for causing forest creatures emotional pain.... I think for most of them, this is a moot point. *I do feel bad about killing the bugs though... usually I'll try to catch them and let them go but if not, I'll swat them. Are the bugs of the forest not forest creatures too?
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Post by jayne on Dec 17, 2010 6:18:01 GMT
Annie isn't lying: she believes she would never hurt them. I would never harm a forest creature but I'm willing to kill a spider or a fly*. Does my willingness to kill a bug mean I will harm forest creatures? As for causing forest creatures emotional pain.... I think for most of them, this is a moot point. *I do feel bad about killing the bugs though... usually I'll try to catch them and let them go but if not, I'll swat them. Are the bugs of the forest not forest creatures too? If you want to argue semantics, then yes, but what does that achieve? Do you think Annie was referring to not seeing any bugs in the forest? (I want to go to that forest if this is the case!) When she says "forest creatures" I'm not even sure that includes birds and small animals, although Tom hasn't drawn any. Maybe the forest doesn't have any regular fauna.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Dec 17, 2010 6:20:27 GMT
Your criticism of Annie's hyperbole is itself hyperbolic. Annie's treatment of Rey, though unjustified, was still the result of this page's worth of complete dickery from Rey; her use of the firewall, though unjustified, was a reaction to a foundation-shattering unpleasant revelation. In other words, throw enough crap at Annie, back her into a corner, and she'll eventually start lashing out. If events analogous to the events of this chapter are what it takes to make Annie start lashing out, can we really say that Annie is dangerous to the people of the forest?
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Post by todd on Dec 17, 2010 11:37:42 GMT
Don't forget, also, that Tom doesn't have an editor to point these things out to him while he's drawing and writing each individual page. He might not have had the ant incident in the uppermost layer of his thoughts at the time.
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Post by jayne on Dec 17, 2010 13:48:04 GMT
Don't forget, also, that Tom doesn't have an editor to point these things out to him while he's drawing and writing each individual page. He might not have had the ant incident in the uppermost layer of his thoughts at the time. Even if he had, most people don't equate killing a bug with harming an animal. If you ask someone passing by if they'd ever killed an animal, (if they aren't a hunter/fisherman), they'll typically say no even if they have swatted a mosquito or two (or a thousand.) If you'd like a finer point, right now Annie's immune system is killing forest germs! Oh no!
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Post by Mezzaphor on Dec 17, 2010 14:14:55 GMT
Considering that Annie's on a first-name basis with the Guide of insects, I'd hope that she of all people would understand the gravity of killing an insect. (I'm not entirely sure that I do.)
I do wonder whether the people of Gillitie would consider killing an insect to be a big deal.
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Post by jayne on Dec 17, 2010 14:42:51 GMT
Considering that Annie's on a first-name basis with the Guide of insects, I'd hope that she of all people would understand the gravity of killing an insect. (I'm not entirely sure that I do.) I do wonder whether the people of Gillitie would consider killing an insect to be a big deal. I think forest folk would make less of killing than humans do. They don't have grocery stores with packaged foods so they understand killing is a part of life. I ate dinner last night because someone else was willing to kill a chicken.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Dec 17, 2010 15:25:20 GMT
Yes, forest creatures probably would have fewer moral qualms about someone killing, but they would still try to defend themselves and avoid persons they consider dangerous. If they knew of Annie killing that ant, would they regard her as more likely to kill one of them?
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Post by dismalscientist on Dec 17, 2010 15:31:56 GMT
I think forest folk would make less of killing than humans do. Exactly. That's the way things work -- I'm a vegetarian, squeamish about even looking at an animal the wrong way, but when my cat went outside freely she killed rodents and birds; I couldn't help but praise her. That's what she's supposed to do. If there isn't a revolt every time Ysengrin eats a fish (and probably other, smarter things), then my guess is the forest creatures probably don't care that you slap a mosquito occasionally.
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Post by dismalscientist on Dec 17, 2010 15:35:36 GMT
If they knew of Annie killing that ant, would they regard her as more likely to kill one of them? Why would they? Killing an ant is different in all sorts of ways from killing, say, a deer: it's dumb as a rock; likely can't even think or conceive in the same way; possibly can't even feel pain; certainly can't defend itself (well). If you're Joe Sapient Buck, why would you be afraid of a 13-year-old girl because she happened to kill an ant?
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Post by jayne on Dec 17, 2010 15:39:44 GMT
Yes, forest creatures probably would have fewer moral qualms about someone killing, but they would still try to defend themselves and avoid persons they consider dangerous. If they knew of Annie killing that ant, would they regard her as more likely to kill one of them? They don't know anything about Annie and yet they fear her because she "comes from that place" If they knew she killed an ant, they would probably be equally afraid of her since to them, killing an ant is not an unusual behavior. Some Guy: "Hey Mister Forest Creature, Annie killed a bug for no other reason than she wanted to contact Muut." Mr. FC: "Good for her... I just killed my 7 billionth flea and I'm not done yet" *gnaws on fur*
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Post by Mezzaphor on Dec 18, 2010 1:42:14 GMT
If they knew of Annie killing that ant, would they regard her as more likely to kill one of them? Why would they? Killing an ant is different in all sorts of ways from killing, say, a deer: it's dumb as a rock; likely can't even think or conceive in the same way; possibly can't even feel pain; certainly can't defend itself (well). Yet they have souls, and a psychopomp dedicated to guiding those souls into some sort of afterlife. I wouldn't be scared of her physical prowess. I might consider her more ruthless than I otherwise would, but that depends on how a Gillitie resident would view an insect, which is a big unknown.
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Post by Stately Buff-Cookie on Dec 18, 2010 1:46:01 GMT
One thing to keep in mind is that.. well..
Insects are different. Really really different. They do a lot of this, biologically speaking, that only work because of the weird way insects work. Ants in particular. An individual ant should be seen less as an individual life and more as a single braincell in a larger entity. Ants tend to behave like that. Able to be smart through some weird group think thing. A single colony of ants tends to make decisions like a single larger organism.
At least that's what I read last time I bothered finding anything out about ants.
Suffice it to say. Insects are weird as all hell. The same rules don't apply. Like bees. Do you know what happens to bees that get drunk? You don't want to know. It's rather horrific, and I don't mean they die from being drunk. At least not specifically. They die from the hive guards severing their appendages for coming home drunk, I'd think.
Insects are screwed up. It's like God asked Lovecraft to come up with a form of life to put on earth.
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Post by legion on Dec 18, 2010 2:18:08 GMT
One thing to keep in mind is that.. well.. Insects are different. Really really different. They do a lot of this, biologically speaking, that only work because of the weird way insects work. Ants in particular. An individual ant should be seen less as an individual life and more as a single braincell in a larger entity. Ants tend to behave like that. Able to be smart through some weird group think thing. A single colony of ants tends to make decisions like a single larger organism. At least that's what I read last time I bothered finding anything out about ants. That's a frequent claim, but I think it's been contested. Modern theories, as far as I know, will rather speak of emergent effect: individual ants react very simply, following a small set of rules, and the seemingly swarming behaviour is an effect of these rules and of the number of ants interracting. It's been demonstrated that you can simulate an ant colony very easily on a computer or with robots, by giving a really simple, individual programmation to each entity, with no explicit instruction to collaborate, and the collective behaviour just emerges from this.
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Post by jayne on Dec 18, 2010 2:27:09 GMT
Why would they? Killing an ant is different in all sorts of ways from killing, say, a deer: it's dumb as a rock; likely can't even think or conceive in the same way; possibly can't even feel pain; certainly can't defend itself (well). Yet they have souls, and a psychopomp dedicated to guiding those souls into some sort of afterlife. I wouldn't be scared of her physical prowess. I might consider her more ruthless than I otherwise would, but that depends on how a Gillitie resident would view an insect, which is a big unknown. I'm quite confused by this.... how is a girl killing single bug more ruthless than a wolf killing a billion fleas... I mean, each wolf would have a bug psychopomp just living on it for convenience.
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Post by Stately Buff-Cookie on Dec 18, 2010 2:48:49 GMT
One thing to keep in mind is that.. well.. Insects are different. Really really different. They do a lot of this, biologically speaking, that only work because of the weird way insects work. Ants in particular. An individual ant should be seen less as an individual life and more as a single braincell in a larger entity. Ants tend to behave like that. Able to be smart through some weird group think thing. A single colony of ants tends to make decisions like a single larger organism. At least that's what I read last time I bothered finding anything out about ants. That's a frequent claim, but I think it's been contested. Modern theories, as far as I know, will rather speak of emergent effect: individual ants react very simply, following a small set of rules, and the seemingly swarming behaviour is an effect of these rules and of the number of ants interracting. It's been demonstrated that you can simulate an ant colony very easily on a computer or with robots, by giving a really simple, individual programmation to each entity, with no explicit instruction to collaborate, and the collective behaviour just emerges from this. That's kind of how more complex singular organisms come into being though, isn't it? They just sort of start working together. Not really following complex instructions on their own. It's the collective individual behaviors that breed what looks like one big complex being. Anyway, scientists not agreeing on how ants work aside, I hate insects. The more I learn the more freaky and scared of the little #*(% I get. I only appreciate them from a necessary to the life cycle standpoint, and I wouldn't doubt the woods view them in the same manner. Annoying. Freakish. Necessary. Probably not that different from how a lot of them view each other. We all know the residents of the wood are very aware of their place in the cycle of everything. "Hurting" in this case might simply mean the court's tendency to be unusually cruel as well as performing weird experiments. At least being eaten by a predator has some dignity.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Dec 18, 2010 5:39:55 GMT
I'm currently writing my Master's thesis on black pecan aphids. I'm somewhat familiar with insects' cognitive abilities in real life.
But considering that pigeons in the Gunnerverse are self-aware and capable of speaking intelligently with Zimmy, I'm somewhat loathe to make any assumptions about the cognitive abilities of other animals in the Gunnerverse.
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Post by warrl on Dec 25, 2010 8:12:30 GMT
I do wonder whether the people of Gillitie would consider killing an insect to be a big deal. Dunno about people, but for a substantial share of forest creatures - including a lot of insects - the killing of insects is called food.
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Post by todd on Dec 25, 2010 11:42:41 GMT
And I still think that the most likely explanation is that Tom had simply forgotten about the ant incident when he drew and wrote this page. It was ten chapters before, the comic has a lot of characters and threads in it, and he works on it alone. He may not have remembered that he had Annie kill an ant so many pages earlier.
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Post by 0o0f on Dec 25, 2010 15:09:19 GMT
Or maybe Annie herself wasn't thinking about it at the moment.
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