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Post by jayne on Jan 5, 2011 23:36:55 GMT
Like a magnet, or a medium...NOW. Something that's bothering me. Coyote says the passing of the fire spike and subsequent death of the mother is "fate of [Annie's] kind". Can we assume that this refers to the human hybrid, and not the original fire elementals? A creature that can only have one child per couple is going to experience exponential population decline and rapidly go extinct. (Actually, that particular mutation would never survive natural selection, if we assume evolution applies to magical creatures.) Anyway, a further dilution of the fire spike with human blood explains why Annie does not seem as proficient with etherics as was her mother. Annie's mom could only have a girl so there's more going on than one child per couple. It seems to be a 1:1 replacement of the mother. Maybe there are no male fire elemental and hybrids are the only choice. Its my theory that Surma was the last of her kind so she choose to have a child, even at risk of her life, to keep her kind going.
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ryos
Full Member
Posts: 175
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Post by ryos on Jan 5, 2011 23:49:13 GMT
Annie's mom could only have a girl so there's more going on than one child per couple. It seems to be a 1:1 replacement of the mother. Maybe there are no male fire elemental and hybrids are the only choice. Its my theory that Surma was the last of her kind so she choose to have a child, even at risk of her life, to keep her kind going. Do you have a source for that? I don't recall anything in the comic or the Words of Tom that suggests that Surma could only have had a girl. That's not to say that a male would not also be subject to the passing of the fire spike—I'm sure he would be. A species without males? Where do the pureblooded females come from then? Unless you're suggesting that a) a Creator made the fire elementals, b) only females were created, and c) they're likely immortal (except for the whole childbirth thing), because what would be the point of creating a creature that could not reproduce, unless they're immortal? It all sounds a bit farfetched to me.
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Post by jayne on Jan 6, 2011 0:03:11 GMT
Annie's mom could only have a girl so there's more going on than one child per couple. It seems to be a 1:1 replacement of the mother. Maybe there are no male fire elemental and hybrids are the only choice. Its my theory that Surma was the last of her kind so she choose to have a child, even at risk of her life, to keep her kind going. Do you have a source for that? I don't recall anything in the comic or the Words of Tom that suggests that Surma could only have had a girl. That's not to say that a male would not also be subject to the passing of the fire spike—I'm sure he would be. A species without males? Where do the pureblooded females come from then? Unless you're suggesting that a) a Creator made the fire elementals, b) only females were created, and c) they're likely immortal (except for the whole childbirth thing), because what would be the point of creating a creature that could not reproduce, unless they're immortal? It all sounds a bit farfetched to me. I can't link it anymore but from formspring:
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Post by paxjax123 on Jan 6, 2011 0:12:58 GMT
The Court could always keep her in a fireproof room and put something in her food that suppresses her etheric abilities. Kat wouldn't stand for that. She cook up a way to bust her out. ... Now I want to see this happen, just so Kat can get that epic moment.
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Post by todd on Jan 6, 2011 0:24:25 GMT
The Court could always keep her in a fireproof room and put something in her food that suppresses her etheric abilities. Kat wouldn't stand for that. She cook up a way to bust her out. Yes, unless the Court came up with some subterfuge, like making it look as if Annie had died in an accident (complete with a memorial service for her). Which it probably would do, in light of its past record.
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Post by zylonbane on Jan 6, 2011 0:24:54 GMT
I'm pretty sure it was the fire, given 353. I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the fire, given 351.
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Post by Per on Jan 6, 2011 0:30:45 GMT
*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* I am disappointed in myself for posting my ideas about a phoenix being a distant ancestor to Annie on here. It seems so pointless to argue over theories, which is inevitable if you reveal your own because others will post questions and counterarguments. There's nothing wrong with speculation in itself; you should speculate if you like to do so. (But perhaps in the designated threads etc.) The problem is when people start thinking the process of second-guessing the premise and plot is some kind of game played for brain currency. I look around in wonder at all the people saying that no one guessed X (which is always false) so that means Tom is smart. Does it follow that if some people did guess X (which is always true), Tom is not smart? Of course not, because the idea is flawed to begin with; there's just a dartboard full of darts and whether someone was "right" or "wrong" doesn't tell us anything at all. That's not the point of storytelling. Edit: As I understood it, the lizard was first a lighter/matches, then became the fire, then also acted the part of the alarm.
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Post by hal9000 on Jan 6, 2011 0:45:10 GMT
Kat wouldn't stand for that. She cook up a way to bust her out. Yes, unless the Court came up with some subterfuge, like making it look as if Annie had died in an accident (complete with a memorial service for her). Which it probably would do, in light of its past record. Since Kat knows about Jeanne, I imagine this would be a fairly transparent ruse. And since she was willing and able to engineer a working hovercycle from scratch over the space of a few hours to rescue Annie, her wrath would probably be biblical in scope. Think Skynet, or Global Thermonuclear War.
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Post by gumbamasta on Jan 6, 2011 0:52:44 GMT
I'm pretty sure it was the fire, given 353. I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the fire, given 351. Actually the way I've understood it it was first a lighter or a match, which he dropped when he burnt his hand on the flame, then when then the flames spread like the growth that coverd the room which caused the fire alarm to ring. Also notice that the fire only then takes it's real form when Annie realises that the sound reminded her of a fire alarm.
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haunt
New Member
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Post by haunt on Jan 6, 2011 0:54:40 GMT
I'm pretty sure it was the fire, given 353. I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the fire, given 351. The creature was a lighter. Note the "chk, chk" sounds when the boy is holding it, and how on the final "chk," its teeth come out, it bites him, he drops it, it spreads. The boy was playing with a lighter, it burned him, and he dropped it, setting his house on fire and starting the alarm. But this is irrelevant. Earlier, when Jones was trying to make Annie angry, she wasn't only assessing her "character"--she was assessing just how well Anthony's genes had diluted Annie's fire. She probably did a similar thing to Surma once upon a time, or saw someone testing Surma's emotions in a similar way.
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Post by gumbamasta on Jan 6, 2011 1:52:20 GMT
On a different note... what will she say to Reynardine when she returns? What sort of reprecussions will she face?
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Post by Yin on Jan 6, 2011 2:55:54 GMT
Going back to elementals and souls: If they have no souls, what is it that is "led away" when they die? But Yin says they can earn souls. Why can't the psychopomps take this? Annie sapped Surma's life as she grew. Was Surma giving her her own soul? Would Annie have died without it, or did Surma have no choice? I was thinking about the original Little Mermaid when I said this. When she killed herself (instead of her prince), she was taken into the sky by the 'daughters of the air'. To earn a soul, she had to spend 300 years doing good deeds. But humans can't live that long... What’s passed on could be that part-soul that’s being formed. Misinterpreting common colloquial "medium" for "Court Medium" will result in needless argumentation. Yin was not referring to a position within the court. When has GK used the term "medium" to mean anything but the Court position? Perhaps you should let Yin speak for herself instead of presuming to speak for her. illelatro is right; I did mean medium (psychopomp-seeing, etc) instead of Court Medium. Couldn't think of any other word when I posted.
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Post by edzepp on Jan 6, 2011 2:56:07 GMT
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Post by Tobu Ishi on Jan 6, 2011 6:05:46 GMT
Hunh. The Stibnite-Carver ancestress was a Phanto. Interesting.
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Post by warrl on Jan 6, 2011 6:41:08 GMT
And in story, if the Sutton's have children, they'd be part tree! And then they grow up and leaf. Come to think of it, do we have any idea why Surma didn't help/wasn't able to help with Jeanne? Jeanne spends all her time at the bottom of the gap, alongside the Annan River. Surma presumably went to the forest via the bridge. That is the customary route, and the route Annie has used every visit except once. It's entirely possible that Surma never knew of Jeanne's existence. Now then, regarding this strip, in light of what we now know, does that mean Eglamore anticipated something like that might happen, or is he just crazy prepared? His jumping ability is obviously etherically enhanced, and he's friends with a technomage who works with diagrams. I imagine he knows several. How many schoolteachers do you know who are ready to draw a fire extinquisher on no notice? (He needs one he can draw faster though.)
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Post by blinkerstoned on Jan 6, 2011 7:24:08 GMT
And in story, if the Sutton's have children, they'd be part tree! And then they grow up and leaf. How many children will they have?Tree ;D
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Post by basser on Jan 6, 2011 7:43:14 GMT
Well I guess this makes Renard's obsession with Surma slightly less disturbing. Foxes have been traditionally associated with fire in asian cultures, at least, so I suppose there's some history there. Also, if Renard and Surma had a baby, would it have grown up to be the world's most popular open-source internet browser? Hur hur. :B
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Post by blahzor on Jan 6, 2011 7:56:08 GMT
Quick Everyone speculate about what kind of elemental Jones is if we were in the Wild Speculation thread i'd say she was Captain Planet
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Post by Snes on Jan 6, 2011 9:20:48 GMT
And then they grow up and leaf. How many children will they have?Tree ;D They just want to make some new roots.
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Post by mojojojo on Jan 6, 2011 11:26:44 GMT
Come to think of it, do we have any idea why Surma didn't help/wasn't able to help with Jeanne? Surma spent a long time as a student at Gunnerkrigg Court, and presumably years there as Court Medium as well, and it seems she didn't get so much as her name. Annie, on the other hand, is 13 (I think?), has been there 2 years, and has already gotten huge amounts of backstory on her. I wonder what that's about? Jeanne's ghost has been down there for a long, long time. Might there be some reason the psychopomps/the Court (I forget which) didn't ask Surma to help with her? Did she only come to their attention recently for some reason? I've wondered about this before. I think it's wrong to assume Annie's mum knew nothing of Jeanne... the robot shrine was in Anja's old basement, for a start. Here's some wild speculation. Jeanne's ghost seems to be a being of rage - she's aware that the Court, which she hates, wanted her to attack anything crossing the Annan waters, but she does it anyway because of her anger. Several times it's been mentioned that Surma had a "fiery temper", and it seems that she deliberately tried to make her own child have better control of her temper. So maybe Surma couldn't help Jeanne because she couldn't control her own anger, and deliberately raised Annie to have better control of her own anger so that she would have a chance of controlling Jeanne's anger. Like most of my speculation, it ties together neatly (in my mind) but has very little supporting evidence. This partly comes out of me finding it diificult to accept the idea of having a child and knowing it will kill you, unless there is some other motive.
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Post by Yin on Jan 6, 2011 11:40:42 GMT
It's true that the shrine was in Anja's basement, but remember, Robot had to hack through a wall to access it. I doubt Anja or Surma would have bricked it over or blocked it up after discovering the shrine themselves.
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Post by todd on Jan 6, 2011 11:45:44 GMT
Since Kat knows about Jeanne, I imagine this would be a fairly transparent ruse. Unless they followed it up by advising Anja and Donald to send Kat away to another school on the grounds that "being here in the school where her best friend died would be too traumatic for her". (They'd also lose one of the most skilled future scientists/technologists, but they might consider it a necessary sacrifice.) Reminds me of the image I'd had once of the following scenario: the Court arranges an "accident" for Annie to keep her from meddling in everything (maybe having her fall into an incinerator while holding Reynardine in his doll form, to solve the problem about him alongside it), Kat finds out the truth, and not long afterwards, more and more of the faculty members start turning up dead, with a mysterious "Dark Avenger" involved. At last, only Anja and Donald are left; as they try fleeing the Court, the "Dark Avenger" accosts them as well, and turns out to be Kat. Anja and Donald protest, "But, Kat, we're your parents!" Kat, taking aim, replies, "I have no parents."
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Post by mojojojo on Jan 6, 2011 12:00:00 GMT
It's true that the shrine was in Anja's basement, but remember, Robot had to hack through a wall to access it. I doubt Anja or Surma would have bricked it over or blocked it up after discovering the shrine themselves. Well, yes, but that's a bit of a mystery in itself. Anja seemed to know the warehouse held more than just empty space*, and it seems unlikely that she would never have gone down to the basement, even if she didn't have a key. We never saw if Annie or Kat mentioned the basement to Anja or what her response was. If you accept that Surma deliberately raised her child to rescue Jeanne, it's not too much more of a stretch to suggest that she (with Anja's help) reset the robots so they could reveal some of Jeanne's history. Everything is stretched pretty far by this point anyway. The robot court didn't seem to know of the shrine before Annie and Kat discovered it though, so... meh The shrine is a bit of a mystery though. Who made it, and why? How come Anja, or anyone else, never discovered it before Annie? Annoyingly I suspect there won't be any answers to these questions. *and potential.
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Post by basser on Jan 6, 2011 12:12:20 GMT
It's true that the shrine was in Anja's basement, but remember, Robot had to hack through a wall to access it. I doubt Anja or Surma would have bricked it over or blocked it up after discovering the shrine themselves. Plus the only reason Kat even tried putting an modern CPU into one of the ancient models was because Annie suggested it, and they just happened to have a disembodied S1 model robot hanging around with them who didn't mind having his CPU installed in random things. The S1 was specifically the robot designed to represent Diego, so even if Anja and Surma also happened to also have a robot buddy it probably wouldn't have been the right model to start the bullbot sequence anyway even if they DID decide to stick it's CPU in one of the old robots. Basically the sequence of events leading to the discovery of Jeanne's tomb was one massive chain of lucky coincidences on Annie's part.
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Post by philistine21 on Jan 6, 2011 14:01:44 GMT
I don't know, some of that does sounds like Annie, while other parts don't.
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Post by berserkas on Jan 6, 2011 14:16:20 GMT
...i made an account just to say this... ... i cannot believe what i'm reading here. I read some thread here because i was interested in the speculation, but it looks like i'm almost the only one here who actually read the comic. The Court is the very reason why Jeanne is stuck down there. They killed her/her lover. what he said. It was specifically stated that Anja couldn't get the robots to move, so the shrine couldn't be uncovered, as robot in his s1 body did it. There was a flashback scene, in wich Anja and Surma were talking about that underground stadium. But being there was as far as she got, she couldn't make the robots move. It was also quite specifically stated and is a fact that Diego built that shrine. Do i sound obnoxious? Hell yes. Am i right? hell yes. Welp, i'm outta here. Bye bye.
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Post by jayne on Jan 6, 2011 15:08:07 GMT
<snip> it looks like i'm almost the only one here who actually read the comic. BAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! /snicker.. You made a new account to post this and you forgot to mention there are robots and ghosts in the story? Have you even READ this comic? Yeah, okay, close sarcasm tag inserted here...
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Post by paxjax123 on Jan 6, 2011 15:55:33 GMT
I'm full of myself wow. You could at least be a little nicer when you're pretty much calling all of us stupid.
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Post by fish on Jan 6, 2011 15:59:43 GMT
Yeah, you know, this comic is kinda long. Sorry for not cross-checking every single detail before posting anything. :/
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Post by kalechibki on Jan 6, 2011 16:48:11 GMT
The S1 was specifically the robot designed to represent Diego, so even if Anja and Surma also happened to also have a robot buddy it probably wouldn't have been the right model to start the bullbot sequence anyway even if they DID decide to stick it's CPU in one of the old robots. Basically the sequence of events leading to the discovery of Jeanne's tomb was one massive chain of lucky coincidences on Annie's part. Alright, now I'm curious...There were dozens of other robots in the room. We know what the S1 sequence is...I wonder if you found the right style chip for the other robots, what they would do. Do they each have a sequence? I also wonder if the Seraph (S#) series were designed based upon Jeanne's body type and field of excellence by Diego. Given that angel is embedded in their name (though Seraph is a lot cooler sounding that Angel, IMO), I think there's a good chance of that. Which also might explain why it would be S1 (or the original - Jeanne) who Diego, in his own warped reality, wanted to take down Sir Young (who always looks very old in every picture we see of him....at least all that I can recall at this moment). And when it comes to Annie finding Jeanne, I know Kat's name has been mentioned, but I think we forget that Kat is just as important to the fact finding about Jeanne as Annie is. Kat's abilities set her apart. I agree that she got lucky with S13's chip, but, Anja is a good roboticist who got a lab of her own, Donald is better (given what we saw in Chapter 22...wonder if he also got his own lab somewhere...or maybe he still has his, since Anja had her old key, and now they share), but they both don't hold a candle (hehe) to Kat. Let's not forget Kat, the scientist, built the anti grav not for flight, but rather for protein Crystal growth in zero-g. I think we see that Kat owns everyone on the science front given that she not only built the hovercraft, but it seemed like when she was relaying the events to Annie and admitted Donald helped her with it...that Donald truly HELPED, while Kat designed and directed. ....and someone else mentioned Rey's reaction when Annie gets back. I wonder what Kat's reaction is going to be. I really hope Annie doesn't burn her... EDIT: Thanks Jayne for noting my mistake in writing Kat's Mother's name (edit is italicized).
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