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Post by TBeholder on Jan 15, 2011 20:39:54 GMT
Aka: the ones that have self-control? Yeah, I completely agree that reminders can help them lots, if that's how they're wired. Granted, I question whether or not something that's the equivalent of a highway patrol following you everywhere to make sure you don't speed (re: the fashionable hand removal bracelet) actually helps improve your self-control. [...] So again, throwing a really huge consequence at someone because the small ones don't seem to be working is an awful way to teach them self-control. A good reason for them to exercise their existing self-control? Maybe; Uh, it's not D&D3 with Feats. It's not either near-catatonic or a crazy monk. Even people outstanding in this regard may have problems that are stronger still. The key word is exercise. To get more, have to use it, just like with everything else. Annie's cold fury was inconsiderate, but deft enough to say it wasn't running wild; she's good enough when not exhausted - but now the emotions are hotter, and she's not up to it. Sirens or bracer, details are irrelevant. Anything that floats the boat goes. The problem is, some boats need more than others to stay afloat. Reminder just keeps the attention on the goal to ensure the effort will happen at all. If it's routinely ignored, got to find one that works. As simple as this. Also, it was a TEST of their existing self-control. A TEST. Not a lesson on how to control themselves; a test to see how well they've mastered the skill. Not just a test. A rite of passage. The point of any such rite is - pass it, and you'll never be the same anymore. A good exercise is less dramatic - not a jump over the abyss, but a step - but works the same way. It can be passed, it should be passed, it requires an effort to pass, and the effort changes the subject (feelings of an achievement included). That's what i meant under "slightly different". The other problem with the "just make it worse for them if they're a loser" method (sigh) "worse" is irrelevant. It just should not be ignored, or it's completely useless. If nothing less than a knife at the throat works, well... is that it's an act of control on the part of the person imposing the consequence. Sure, they may justify by it saying they're controlling the person because they can't control themselves, but it's rarely done with their consent. "Go or go on kicks" isn't nice, but it's not have to be. It's not about a hobby or pastime. That's the whole point: the choice ends at the doors. Leaving "but maybe i can stop and sleep in the snow a little and then continue" option is very counterproductive at best and needlessly dangerous at worst.
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Post by todd on Jan 15, 2011 23:23:27 GMT
Whoever said that the court is disliked alot more than the forest, I completely agree. The court killed a women and her lover and left her to stay there smothered in her own hate Not to mention rewriting the history books to omit any mention of Jeanne, which still seems to me uncomfortably close to the practice of a totalitarian dictatorship. That is a good point; the old generation of Founders is gone, and the people currently running the Court weren't even alive at the time. Though their lying to Reynardine could be seen as a sign that they still have a tendency to slide into "ends justify the means" behavior. One other remark in favor of the Court faculty; they really do seem to be doing this out of an interest in science. I've seen plenty of cases of "mad scientists" in fiction (not just comic-book super-villains; "N.I.C.E." in "That Hideous Strength" also serves as an excellent example of the phenomenon) who seem less interested in science than in exploiting it for their goals (such as taking over the world). But the Court staff, from what we've seen of them, do indeed seem motivated by an interest in learning things and figuring out how they work, without any ulterior motive behind it. Thirteen. Sorry to keep going through this, but this is the end of Annie's second year, not her third year. Annie was 11-12 in her first year, so she's 12-13 in her second year. Though I fear it's too late now; she's given her consent, and the rules of the forest probably won't allow her to withdraw it.
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Post by binarytears on Jan 15, 2011 23:25:16 GMT
But jayne: Coyote doesn't lie. If he says it's gonna cut off her hand if she leaks word about the sword, that is exactly what it's going to do. Coyote's status as someone who doesn't lie makes him very, very effective at threatening people: everyone knows that if he goes so far as to threaten someone, there is no chance of it being an empty threat. Also, being Coyote, he didn't say anything about not restoring her snipped hand afterwards. Which he totally could. So it's both an effective truthful threat and a very Coyote-like trick. It's neat how that wormy band thing appears to be Coyote's lower jaw - which is missing in that frame where it's beginning to wrap around her wrist. It's quite trippy, trying to imagine what Coyote really looks like in the flesh, with the way he's always morphing and often the scenery morphs along with him. I gather his 'body' is really just a projection of some kind, that the real Coyote-being consciously presents to those he's talking with.
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Sadie
Full Member
I eat food and sleep in a horizontal position.
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Post by Sadie on Jan 15, 2011 23:35:03 GMT
It's not either near-catatonic or a crazy monk. Even people outstanding in this regard may have problems that are stronger still. The key word is exercise. Yes, exactly - exercise! It's like weight lifting. If you can condition yourself to lift a ten-pound weight, you can condition yourself to lift a fifty-pound weight. But if you aren't strong enough yet to lift that fifty-pounds, increasing your reasons to do so won't make you stronger. You have to go back and work on the lighter weights until your muscle builds up. If you don't know that you need to do this, you're left forever straining and failing to lift those fifty-pounds. A good-enough-for-you goal can keep you on an exercise plan, but it's useless if that exercise plan doesn't exist in the first place. And to take the weight lifting metaphor further, if you've spent all your time just building up your arm strength, you're piss outta luck when you encounter a weight that needs strong legs. We have no idea if Annie knows what she needs to do to control her temper and/or get better at doing so. She's usually very good at keeping her calm, so she does have some strength already, but we don't know if she just needs to keep exercising that skill, or start working on an entirely different set of self-control muscle groups. The other problem here is that the 'weight' isn't the secrets Annie is supposed to be keeping. Annie didn't fling the secret of Surma tricking Rey because it was too heavy for her to carry; she flung it because she was so mad she wanted to hurt someone and it made a good weapon. The 'weight' is Annie's temper. She needs to learn carry it so she isn't thoughtlessly using secrets as weapons in the first place. We don't even know how good a weapon Coyote's secret is and Annie has lot of others. She could get into a screaming temper-tantrum and burn down the Forest (or singe it a little) while always keeping that one secret safe. They really aren't. Can't build a house without the right tools, can't reach a weight goal without an exercise plan, can't give a boat enough water to float in unless you've made sure it doesn't have a leak first. What I've been trying to get out the entire time is that this "good lesson on self-control" DOESN'T take into account WHY Annie couldn't/didn't control her temper in the first place. Any plan that doesn't take the 'why' into account is a rubbish plan. (Also, you missed my point. A person being followed everywhere by highway patrol has to exercise very little self-control. After all, they'll never face those little dilemmas of "well, if I get caught, I'll get a speeding ticket, but if I don't get caught, I'll get to work on time". Now, they'll always get caught. It makes the advantages they got from speeding in the first place less viable. Less viable means less tempting, and therefore, less effort to avoid. Because they aren't exercising their self-control enough to strengthen it, what do you think happens when highway patrol goes away?) Heh. How do you know that the consequences being ignored is the source of the problem? And if it is what's happening, do you know why they were ignored? It's important. If Annie ignored the risks of revealing Anja's secret because she hates the Court and doesn't care what happens to anyone in it, that could be solved by addressing the reason she hates the Court. If she ignored the risks because the risks weren't defined or serious enough to be important her, that could be solved by helping her to understand their severity. You know, with words and listening, not, you guessed it, the threat of higher consequences. Thanks for explaining further. What you're saying is all true, but has nothing to do with whether or not sufficiently huge consequence can get someone do something.
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Spike
Junior Member
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Post by Spike on Jan 15, 2011 23:37:59 GMT
That's one cool wristb-- oh it can snip her hand.
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Post by atteSmythe on Jan 16, 2011 0:10:28 GMT
I really wasn't advocating one way or the other. She has shown she won't keep secrets - whether she had a good reason for telling those secrets is an entirely different issue. And coyote knows of this because of Annie's blurt-out of the secret about her mother just a few pages back. Personally, I think there's a big difference between telling Rey that he was tricked and telling Coyote that Rey was tricked. Showing that she won't keep a secret under this set of conditions doesn't show that she won't keep secrets, period. Speaking of, what pages was it where Annie blabbed the secrets about Jeanne, the robot's video of Diego, what was up with Jack, the fact that Robot is up and about when he should be a box of paperclips, Shadow 2's return to the Court even though Forrest Creatures aren't allowed inside without permission, and the students' night time visit to watch the Power Station? I mean, she really can't keep her mouth shut for anything, she must have shared these things with all the worst possible people. She won't unconditionally keep secrets. That was just shown. Saying that she won't keep all secrets is not the same as saying that she will keep no secrets. Maybe Coyote giving that tooth to Annie was in fact a great betrayal. If it was a betrayal of anyone, it would be of Ysengrin, and maybe to his 'side' as a whole. Annie has developed some empathy with Ysengrin, and that's partially Coyote's doing. The pattern isn't blabbing secrets. The pattern is Annie's history of defying authority when she feels the cause is just. Coyote's the authority here, and his methods trend towards the underhanded. Maybe he's not being capricious, and feels that this threat is proportional to the damage that would be caused by revealing the secret. Or maybe he's just being a bastard. It's a little early to tell.
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Post by binarytears on Jan 16, 2011 0:13:00 GMT
Everyone, and I mean everyone, is assuming that by 'controlling her temper' Coyote means learning to suppress it. But that's not right at all. You are all seeing this from a fully human viewpoint. Wrong! Neither Coyote or Annie are normal humans.
Consider: Coyote, talking about Annie's inner fire-elemental: "But still, deep inside you, do you sometimes feel your temper flaring? Perhaps if you had somewhere to learn to control your inner feelings..." Jones: "That's enough Coyote."
Coyote is talking about teaching Annie how to 'control' as in 'grasp and direct' her own inner nature - her fire elemental. He's talking about teaching her how to be *really* dangerous. Jones knew that, and didn't like the idea at all.
And I still think the bracelet is not intended primarily as a lesson, but rather a practical way to stop her blabbing about something that's important to Coyote, probably because it's a key element of some plan he's got in progress involving his tooth, the Court, and possibly Reynard. A plan that only works if it's a secret.
That the bracelet is also going to make her very angry, and that might help with teaching her how to 'control' (ie express) her fire-nature, is probably a useful secondary benefit. He's doing the same as Jones did - deliberately goading her. Except he's much better at this than Jones, and has a very different purpose.
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Post by foxurus on Jan 16, 2011 0:28:09 GMT
It doesn't have to be visible to anyone else, just Antimony. Might show up the way the cut on her face does. No, so far ether-vision was all or nothing, and the cut is not visible while this band is. Really?
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Post by jayne on Jan 16, 2011 0:30:55 GMT
No, so far ether-vision was all or nothing, and the cut is not visible while this band is. Really?Actually yeah... Zimmy sees in ether-vision.
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Post by Quizzie on Jan 16, 2011 0:40:44 GMT
Maybe she will get a tree hand like Robot did in the forest. Or maybe she will find Robot's missing robotic arm and wear it, hehe!
The wristband somehow reminds me of the antimony symbol on Reynardine's forehead. Maybe... Antimony has power over Rey. Now Coyote has power over her. Does it mean Coyote has power over Rey too? Power to free him?
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Post by foxurus on Jan 16, 2011 0:42:00 GMT
Actually yeah... Zimmy sees in ether-vision. Annie's hair is normal in that strip(?). The only etheric thing is the cut. That's not "all or nothing". And Coyote sees in ether-vision too, doesn't he? He's probably powerful enough to make Annie be able to see the bracelet as well.
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Post by Stately Buff-Cookie on Jan 16, 2011 1:55:29 GMT
One thing I didn't expect.
I got my answer why Surma would be so willing to go secret agent firehead very quickly. Coyote may be good for a laugh, but you keep him at arm's distance. The court really doesn't get enough slack on this board. How easy it is forget that coyote is nothing short of a madman.
Oh he doesn't mean harm! So what's a lost hand between friends? Coyote just wants to a coyote, but why does that make his antics okay? I just bet, by the end of this, we have plenty of coyote apologists pop out and say, "Hey, no one got hurt. So it's all in fun! Forest forever!" I think the court might have a point. It's just a matter of time till Coyote does something truly and genuinely horrific if he means to or not.
[because it's coming: I'm not defending what they did to Jeanne or other underhanded things, but The Court is not 'the bad guy' in this tale. Nor is Coyote 'the good guy'. It's not the other way around either.]
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haunt
New Member
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Post by haunt on Jan 16, 2011 2:24:38 GMT
For everyone fussing about Annie blabbing secrets and not being able to control her temper:
Annie has really and seriously lost her temper twice: once to Mort and once to Renard & co. With Mort, she lashed out and seriously hurt his feelings; ditto for Renard. In almost every other instance, Annie is the most level-headed character in the comic. Barring Jones.
She screwed up. Oh boy, did she screw up. She's got to learn to control the temper flares before someone gets hurt. But the message I'm getting from some folks in this thread seems to be, "Coyote's gotta do whatever it takes to stop her from being so destructive!"--and Annie isn't destructive, not really. She's a thirteen-year-old girl who's either beginning puberty or has been undergoing it for some time, and she lost herself to anger today. That's wrong, but it doesn't make her a bad person, and it doesn't make chopping off her hand a worthy consequence.
I think Coyote is being pretty straightforward here. "Tell someone about the tooth, and I'll cut off your hand." He's got some secret reason for the tooth to remain a secret, and he's going to be damn sure that she won't tell anyone, even offhand. This isn't some test to control Annie's temper or keep her from telling secrets (which, again, she rarely does); this is to keep the denizens of the Wood from hearing about the tooth.
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Post by antoids on Jan 16, 2011 3:43:52 GMT
he's going to be damn sure that she won't tell anyone, even offhand. I laughed.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 16, 2011 3:57:56 GMT
Well, she's done a good job so far this chapter of proving that she cannot keep secrets. Annie didn't honor the Court's wishes that a secret be kept, so he just upped the ante a bit. Putting aside the question of what and how Coyote knows and/or doesn't know what the Court asks Annie to do --- So hey, any of you guys remember that time long ago at the beginning of the chapter when Anja told Annie an awful secret about someone very close to her that was yet another example of the Court liking to control those around them? And then a bunch of people got on the forums and some advocated her sharing that secret for good reasons -- the Court was untrustworthy, Reynardine was more her ally, Surma tricking him was wrong in the first place -- and some advocated her not sharing that secret for good reasons --- Reynardine isn't fully trustworthy, Annie doesn't have all the information, Anja may be right about the danger -- and every opinion in-between? While maybe no one reached a consensus over which was the best or more 'right' choice in the context, there was enough doubt over the nature of the secret itself that any answer required considerable deliberation and a paragraph-long justification to fly. So then Annie chose the answer "to tell" with the justification of "because I was mad and hurt", which pretty much even the people said "okay, Reynardine started it" agreed was the 'wrong' reason to have revealed the secret. And now it's turned into "Annie needs to learn keep secrets better". You mean the secret that a bunch of people had to justify being worth keeping in the first place? I guess what I'm getting at here is that the lesson of "you should keep secrets, even potentially unsafe and dangerous ones, because someone told you to and you won't like the consequences" is really awful lesson. I think the real lesson is that one shouldn't trust the "consensus" of an internet forum for interpreting the lessons imparted by a story, particularly a story with a jigsaw puzzle plot and moral ambiguity, and especially particularly a story that's still ongoing.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 16, 2011 4:03:37 GMT
Something i've wondered about ever since Coyote gave Annie the tooth: Coyote is a powerful god, what if the sword that comes from his tooth is one of the few things that can actually harm him? If he has enemies in the forest, or at least beings who dislike him or plot against him, it makes sense that he is relieved at the fact that the tooth is back at the court. this would explain why he says "Even Ysengrin" (Ysengrin is devoted to Coyote, he wouldn't go against him, but Coyote wants to make sure that the the tooth/sword is never mentioned in the forest) and why he goes to such lengths to keep Annie from telling anyone about it. I suspect Coyote is more likely to have enemies in the Court than in the Forest. So if he is worried about someone using the tooth against him, I think it would be safer to have the tooth in Gillitie. Annie: Hang on, hasn't it always been part of my character that I'm secretive and close mouthed and this is the first secret I've been careless with ever? I'd say rather that Annie's good at keeping her own secrets, but has no qualms about revealing other people's secrets for the greater good, or on the rare occasion that something knocks her off-balance. In review: 1. Eggers asked Annie to keep the events of Ch 3 a secret. Later, Kat is present for the aftermath of said events. Soon afterwards, judging by this page, Annie apparently filled Kat in on all the details of Ch 3. Her "Oh!" of surprise here makes me think that she forgot that any of that was even supposed to be a secret. 2. Annie revealed to Eggers and the Donlans that Reynardine was hiding in her wolf doll. She hadn't been pledged to secrecy, but she was aware that revealing this secret would make Rey's life more difficult, and she clearly felt it was important that the Court leadership know. 3. Anja told Annie how important it was that Rey didn't learn that Surma had used him. Annie told Rey anyway, primarily because she was hurt and saw this as the most efficient way to hurt Rey back. 4. Annie tells Coyote that Surma tricked Rey. I think item #2 above is the closest precedent for this: Annie had been charged to keep this fact away from Reynardine, not from Coyote—but methinks the reason no one explicitly told Annie not to tell Coyote was because they assumed it was absolutely flipping obvious that Coyote shouldn't know. I suspect that Annie felt at the time that it was for the greater good that Coyote learn of the Court's subterfuge, but it's also highly likely that Annie wasn't thinking completely straight, due to the aforementioned hurting. Anyway, I find myself agreeing more with the people who view the dismemberment bracelet as a sign that Coyote really wants this secret to stay secret, and not as an intentional life lesson from Coyote.
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Post by paxjax123 on Jan 16, 2011 6:08:43 GMT
*stares at Monday* Get back here. Get back here, now. Come on, we need to save Annie, so stop running away.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 16, 2011 6:13:19 GMT
Also, I really like the irony that Annie tried to run away from the Court because she didn't like all the secrecy, and she turned to Coyote for refuge, and now he's promising to cut off her hand if she doesn't keep a secret for him.
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Post by jayne on Jan 16, 2011 6:24:49 GMT
Today's forest visit began with Ysengrin stating Annie was weak. Maybe Coyote thinks she's weak too... and maybe she is, but I'm much more forgiving toward a 13 year old girl. Coyote and Ysengrin probably don't even make that distinction. I believe this visit is about making Annie strong enough to handle all the TONS of stuff that have been dumped on her so far in life.
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Post by TBeholder on Jan 16, 2011 8:43:58 GMT
How much longer before we have to call her 'Stumpy' Stibnite I wonder... It's Carver. Annie running into the forest was the biggest mistake she could have made. It isn't a safe haven. It's good in it's own way, but it is certainly not a place for humans. A safe haven is not what she needs right now, especially because she couldn't have it anywhere - the greatest danger is in herself. Given the alternative, even Coyote's rough lessons look like a reasonable risk. Also? Isn't exactly human. It doesn't operate on the same rules or expectations. On the same... as who? Annie is better off at the court even with it's flaws. Better off? How? Once more: leaving aside strangers, her "friends" forgot to mention something which to her will be literally of life-and-death importance. Also, the other choice is not the Court, but some tourist route. Not that the Court was the best place for a girl with firestormy powers and uncontrollable rages either. It's not the awful place some think to be sure. That is, of course, unless Annie feels like giving up her humanity. Then she's better off at the forest. It's not like she feels like giving up her fire either. Even if it's possible. Dude, A+! "I don't know about (insert slang for people who suck and are worthy of scorn), but" is the best response to someone's point! I am so giving you a debate-cookie. Terribly horrified as i am about lack of a cookie... I don't know whether emo call themselves so to point out they "suck and are worthy of scorn", but it's more or less what was described. Sure, they kept secrets from Annie, but guys, she's 14(ish), it's highly likely they would have told her eventually when she can deal with this better. ...provided she's around to hear, they're around to tell and they are still intended? Ugh. As far as Annie is concerned, the Three Happy Friends were quiet on the issue defining when she's going to die. The end. James was lucky she flipped out too much to think and saw him only as a pursuer - in such a condition... When she did find out she ran out of the court into a forest filled with a pissed off tree-wolf and a god, scaring pretty much everyone and risking her life. I think that is exactly what they did not want to happen. Hmm... I think that is exactly what they did achieve by acting like this.
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Post by hal9000 on Jan 16, 2011 10:58:24 GMT
One thing I didn't expect. I got my answer why Surma would be so willing to go secret agent firehead very quickly. Coyote may be good for a laugh, but you keep him at arm's distance. The court really doesn't get enough slack on this board. How easy it is forget that coyote is nothing short of a madman. Oh he doesn't mean harm! So what's a lost hand between friends? Coyote just wants to a coyote, but why does that make his antics okay? I just bet, by the end of this, we have plenty of coyote apologists pop out and say, "Hey, no one got hurt. So it's all in fun! Forest forever!" I think the court might have a point. It's just a matter of time till Coyote does something truly and genuinely horrific if he means to or not. [because it's coming: I'm not defending what they did to Jeanne or other underhanded things, but The Court is not 'the bad guy' in this tale. Nor is Coyote 'the good guy'. It's not the other way around either.] You know, it's possible to hate both sides in this conflict while still liking individuals from both. I don't think either side deserves slack for the bad things they do. To be honest, I think both sides destroying each-other would probably be the best outcome for the rest of the world, if Coyote's statement about the Court's true goals was correct.
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Post by todd on Jan 16, 2011 11:35:37 GMT
To be honest, I think both sides destroying each-other would probably be the best outcome for the rest of the world, if Coyote's statement about the Court's true goals was correct. That seems too extreme a solution to me. A better one, I think, would be the humans of the Court finally realizing that their quest for unravelling the secrets of the ether has brought everyone more harm than good, abandoning it, leaving the buildings of the Court to be reclaimed by the forest and returning to the human world (by now the war which drove the Founders to take refuge in Gillitie has to be over - and certainly the Donlans would hardly be going on holiday to places like Scotland, Italy, or Paris if the outside world was still dangerous).
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Post by basser on Jan 16, 2011 11:36:20 GMT
Welp.
I dunno man I don't really get the vibe that Coyote is doing this out of concern for his personal safety or position of power, as has been suggested. Dude is the embodiment of trickery and deception, if anybody starts something he can just fool his way out of it. Besides which I don't buy that a being like Coyote would use something so flimsy as a threat of bodily harm to keep a secret which might harm and/or inconvenience him. He can freaking stop time, why would he bother with a stupid arm band if not for a larger purpose?
Sooooo yeah, I'm thinking this is all just a grand setup for something else, with Annie playing the role of plausible-deniability-lass.
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Post by TBeholder on Jan 16, 2011 14:25:44 GMT
if you aren't strong enough yet to lift that fifty-pounds, increasing your reasons to do so won't make you stronger. In this case, what matters is motivations. Annie is good enough at handling little things, it's big ones that give trouble. As once said Max Frei's Most Honorable Chief Of Minor Secret Investigation Force - one should curb a hurricane, not a draft. She needs something to back up her will and now got it. We have no idea if Annie knows what she needs to do to control her temper and/or get better at doing so. She's usually very good at keeping her calm, so she does have some strength already, but we don't know if she just needs to keep exercising that skill, or start working on an entirely different set of self-control muscle groups. This one is about generic strength. Supplying her with tricks she may need to use it is still her teacher's job, of course. But by now Coyote may have a very good idea of who and what Annie is, and even better idea of what her fire is. Annie didn't fling the secret of Surma tricking Rey because it was too heavy for her to carry; she flung it because she was so mad she wanted to hurt someone and it made a good weapon. The 'weight' is Annie's temper. She needs to learn carry it so she isn't thoughtlessly using secrets as weapons in the first place. Exactly. So, now she got a very strong incentive not to - and a reminder that won't let her forget about this when her temper flares. We don't even know how good a weapon Coyote's secret is and Annie has lot of others. She could get into a screaming temper-tantrum and burn down the Forest (or singe it a little) while always keeping that one secret safe. Precisely. It's not much of a lash, except as a sign of Coyote's favour (i.e. probably Ysengrin-only). This makes keeping in line easier... But Annie can't be sure she will not find it handy on the spur of the moment. Now, she will see the bracelet and remember the risk of forgetting herself to the degree when blurting such things out begins. That's the best part: it can help a lot without the issue ever raised. But i suspect Coyote will use it directly too, though not right away. What I've been trying to get out the entire time is that this "good lesson on self-control" DOESN'T take into account WHY Annie couldn't/didn't control her temper in the first place. Because she fails to keep reins in her hands, even though tries. The point is, Annie does never give up instantly. Now she's given a good argument to deal with herself. A person being followed everywhere by highway patrol has to exercise very little self-control. [...] Now, they'll always get caught. It makes the advantages they got from speeding in the first place less viable. Indeed, except "easier" is relative. "Don't pick up bright shells - you have to resist the temptation of Bright Shiny Things" is less of an incentive than "don't pick up bright conic shells - your hand will feel like it's frying for many hours, and you may die". Keeping in line with the latter is easier, so if the exercise was easy, now it's effortless (i.e. worthless), but if it was hard, now it's negotiable. For people knowing and able to resist the temptation, but distracted from the effort by the Shiny!!!, the incentive won't work - a force may be set right, but is not applied when needed. That's when reminders help: pop up and ensure the effort happens at all. Now, things like mollusks who answer grabbing with sting aren't handy, so when the purpose is an exercise, one finds a contrived solution that provides both incentive and reminder. What you're saying is all true, but has nothing to do with whether or not sufficiently huge consequence can get someone do something. That's because i don't think "consequence" has anything to do with it, but a threat is a valid motivation. Self-preservation is a strong cause to set against most other urges. Typically it makes a good argument for convincing oneself not to do stupid things. What man hears aught except the groaning guns? What man heeds aught save what each instant brings? If ethical constrains and other less than immediate things were swept away by an impulse that brings an uncharacteristic and normally unwanted behaviour... and i doubt in this case reasonable amounts of pain would help at all (it would only enhance the rage). What else to do? maybe she is, but I'm much more forgiving toward a 13 year old girl. Coyote and Ysengrin probably don't even make that distinction. I believe this visit is about making Annie strong enough Note that Annie asked to stay only after Coyote's offer and he stopped time only after she expressed regret that she's not going to see her friends and was saddened by Jones's mention of the danger she played with. So, she demonstrated - even if not formally pledged - willingness to go through with whatever Coyote deems necessary for her to "learn to control her inner feelings". If she won't chicken out right now after discovering it's not going to be all berries and fairy dust, it means she agreed seriously... and won her first points in this game. Coyote isn't nice, but he goes easy on her dignity when he can, in his crazy way.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jan 16, 2011 22:56:29 GMT
I dunno man I don't really get the vibe that Coyote is doing this out of concern for his personal safety or position of power, as has been suggested. Dude is the embodiment of trickery and deception, if anybody starts something he can just fool his way out of it. Besides which I don't buy that a being like Coyote would use something so flimsy as a threat of bodily harm to keep a secret which might harm and/or inconvenience him. He can freaking stop time, why would he bother with a stupid arm band if not for a larger purpose? I figure threats like that are not too uncommon in the happy magic Woods. As Jones teaches us, "Creatures of the Forest try to assert their importance by posturing and baring their teeth because that is the way of the animal kingdom." Look at the way he's been talking to Jones over the last few pages. Coyote may even be going easy on Antimony because she's only a child. Second thought: Sure, bringing Antimony into the Forest may be one step to getting Renard back or sticking it to the Court in general, and I agree about Coyote being so powerful that he doesn't need to worry about his safety or own position... at least not in terms of his own survival. In terms of ego it's a whole other matter. Coyote does want people to know how great he is and even did that moon thing after Antimony said something that could be considered as questioning his greatness. He wants to know which stories about him Antimony likes and is entertained by them even when they don't always cast him in the best light. Something like that happened the first time they met as well. And the reason that Coyote gets his rocks off playing tricks on people (and sometimes being tricked if the trick is really good) is probably about attention and ego as well. Note that Annie asked to stay only after Coyote's offer and he stopped time only after she expressed regret that she's not going to see her friends and was saddened by Jones's mention of the danger she played with. So, she demonstrated - even if not formally pledged - willingness to go through with whatever Coyote deems necessary for her to "learn to control her inner feelings". If she won't chicken out right now after discovering it's not going to be all berries and fairy dust, it means she agreed seriously... and won her first points in this game. Coyote isn't nice, but he goes easy on her dignity when he can, in his crazy way. That's one way to look at it but Coyote stopping time during Jones' closing remarks may mean that it's the last chance to get Jones to do something before she goes back. Jones is turning away to leave in the previous page and I am not sure Coyote knows Antimony doesn't have the tooth before he looks her over closely.
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Post by fronzel on Jan 16, 2011 23:45:10 GMT
To be honest, I think both sides destroying each-other would probably be the best outcome for the rest of the world, if Coyote's statement about the Court's true goals was correct. That seems too extreme a solution to me. A better one, I think, would be the humans of the Court finally realizing that their quest for unravelling the secrets of the ether has brought everyone more harm than good, abandoning it, leaving the buildings of the Court to be reclaimed by the forest and returning to the human world What harm has the Court's experiments done? Nothing we can point to. We know nearly nothing about them. Don't cite Jack; that was because of Zimmy's strange powers which the Court didn't create and can't control. And while what you describe is better then everyone dying, saying the complete surrender and displacement of one side is "less extreme" strikes me as funny.
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Post by todd on Jan 17, 2011 0:03:04 GMT
What harm has the Court's experiments done? Nothing we can point to. We know nearly nothing about them. Don't cite Jack; that was because of Zimmy's strange powers which the Court didn't create and can't control. The real problem with the experiments is that the Court apparently has to be in the Gillitie Wood region to do them, which traps it there and results in two communities that can't seem to live together in peace being stuck side by side. If the Court and the Wood really are incapable of living peacably together, then one would have to leave (Coyote's barrier isn't enough of a solution - if anything, it seems to have made the situation worse), and the forest-folk lived in Gillitie long before the humans came there, which gives them priority.
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Post by King Mir on Jan 17, 2011 7:28:58 GMT
If the Court and the Wood really are incapable of living peacably together, then one would have to leave (Coyote's barrier isn't enough of a solution - if anything, it seems to have made the situation worse), and the forest-folk lived in Gillitie long before the humans came there, which gives them priority. Is this your solution for Israel too?
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Post by TBeholder on Jan 17, 2011 12:05:15 GMT
she can basically say "this is coyote's way of make sure no harm will come to me in the Forest" If she's in ironic mood. Or that it's homework from Coyote's first lesson. Or that Coyote too thinks she may forget about lessons and just enjoying the vacation, so he left a reminder about her purpose here. Or that it's a stylish magic badge. I bet Coyote would consider it amusing enough either way. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is assuming that by 'controlling her temper' Coyote means learning to suppress it. Let's Not Speak For Everyone? Coyote is talking about teaching Annie how to 'control' as in 'grasp and direct' her own inner nature - her fire elemental. He's talking about teaching her how to be *really* dangerous. [...] That the bracelet is also going to make her very angry, and that might help with teaching her how to 'control' (ie express) her fire-nature Control is control. Either you ride your mount wherever you want to, or it drags you along, probably in an embarrassing and very dangerous pose - it's this simple. Does it mean Coyote has power over Rey too? Power to free him? Eh, vassalage is not transitive. That's good feudal ethics. Annie has really and seriously lost her temper twice: once to Mort and once to Renard & co. With Mort, she lashed out and seriously hurt his feelings; ditto for Renard. In almost every other instance, Annie is the most level-headed character in the comic. Barring Jones. I count the last one (at Jones) as a separate case (even if the bridge is not). That normaly she's the most level-headed in any company just shows how big the problem is. She's got to learn to control the temper flares before someone gets hurt. But the message I'm getting from some folks in this thread seems to be, "Coyote's gotta do whatever it takes to stop her from being so destructive!"--and Annie isn't destructive, not really. She's extremely dangerous. To herself, first of all. That she doesn't want to be a wildfire is sort of the whole point. I read it as Kat being really friend and more trusted than the three of them put together, but to say this aloud would be a little... oh... uh... faux pas. she was aware that revealing this secret would make Rey's life more difficult, and she clearly felt it was important that the Court leadership know. I highly doubt at the time she cared about "the Court leadership" at all - and didn't care much (yet) about Rey. She just saw a perfect opening to make fool of James and jumped in. Inconsiderate, but not much. It got worse by the time of the little incident with Mort, obviously.
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Post by Stately Buff-Cookie on Jan 17, 2011 16:37:23 GMT
You know, it's possible to hate both sides in this conflict while still liking individuals from both. I don't think either side deserves slack for the bad things they do. Glad you grasped my end point. As I said, neither court nor forest are the good guys in this story. They aren't necessarily the bad guys either, though. It's just important to remind people the court is the one that gets all the face time. The forest only seems preferable because of how little is known of the inner workings. We know the court's nasty secrets. I bet the forest has it's own. At the very least, Coyote isn't exactly Mister NiceGuy. ..No comment.
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