Cakes
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Post by Cakes on Oct 26, 2012 9:58:02 GMT
As soon as I saw the desert I thought of Coyote's explanation as to how he came to exist... Hmm
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alexh
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Post by alexh on Oct 26, 2012 10:36:14 GMT
Going to cast in my official vote for the Jones origin. It is mostly old talk, but I'd like to tidy the ideas up in one place: The Stone is what's been referenced here: www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=1072As this is likely Jones's chapter (Tom said she'd have one) and it is titled The Stone, she is likely not a self-made alchemist or created through alchemy, as some have predicted, but myth created by man, as Coyote has basically flat-out told us. As for when she was created, it could therefore not possibly be before man existed, unless the myths of man included her as existing before them. But that's crazy time-travel talk and that's awesome. But anyways... As for WHAT she is... She is likely one of these: 1- A rock elemental 2- A mirage 3- A golem (but not the kind Annie mentioned, for that is from alchemy) 4- A golem created by Kat. This is the least likely. It is also my favorite theory. There's actually a LOT of circumstantial evidence for it, but anyway... 5- The Venus of Willendorf (the third treatise has something that looks like it, but certain features are off) 6- Some other old paleo-old-cavepeople thing brought to life because ether 7- A star (the sun? What the desert people looked up to?) Of these, I think it is most likely, that Jones is d.pr/n/11ri
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lukaswhite
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The World Continues to Spin
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Post by lukaswhite on Oct 26, 2012 11:07:41 GMT
Wow...just...wow. Tom is an excellent artist, gorgeous comic today. My brain is exploding. I definitely think Jones is a myth of some sort, but what? I'm of the opinion that she is an Earth deity of some kind, but what cultures have Earth Goddesses besides Greece/Rome? *One Google-Fu later*
Well she could be Cybele, from Phrygia. There are a lot of Earth Goddesses, but which she might be, I don't know.
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Post by blimpofevil on Oct 26, 2012 12:01:42 GMT
Well she could be Cybele, from Phrygia. There are a lot of Earth Goddesses, but which she might be, I don't know. That actually would make lots of sense as Cybele was strongly associated with rocks and stone and was worshipped in the form of a meteorite. So being a star? Check. References to stones? Check. Being able to smash through stone walls? Check. I think I may have found my new favorite theory.
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Post by wynne on Oct 26, 2012 12:25:30 GMT
As an archaeologist, this is getting exciting. Like, super, super exciting. Can't go back much further than the neanderthals, though, and according to wikipedia we shouldn't even be able to go back that far. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blond#Evolution_of_blond_hairAnyway, given recent discussions, I'm throwing my hat into the golem ring. I'm not quite sure how that would work, but there you go.
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Post by pineapplegoat on Oct 26, 2012 12:26:57 GMT
Wow the monicker "Wandering Eye" is really fitting. It's also intensely depressing. A Chronicler of civilization, always present but never truely part of it. I wouldn't smile either. It would be just too painful.
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Post by thebirdnerd on Oct 26, 2012 13:21:37 GMT
Well she could be Cybele, from Phrygia. There are a lot of Earth Goddesses, but which she might be, I don't know. That actually would make lots of sense as Cybele was strongly associated with rocks and stone and was worshipped in the form of a meteorite. So being a star? Check. References to stones? Check. Being able to smash through stone walls? Check. I think I may have found my new favorite theory. And there's also this, thought to be a statue of Cybele: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seated_Woman_of_%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk It's seated, but it's similar to the statue in the treatise. Cybele could very well work! Nice catch!
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quoodle
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Just a man on a planet
Posts: 168
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Post by quoodle on Oct 26, 2012 13:54:43 GMT
Wow - what is Jones? Just a stone. Our anthropomorphising her into a woman is a human thing. This ties into the Coyote "doesn't exist" thing. In a sense, so doesn't Jones. (well, stones exist - but are "just" so) Side note: We don't know what time this is - it could predate Man. Though if it predates humans, how does she take her form (perhaps just by "our" looking back in time),
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Post by zimmyzims on Oct 26, 2012 13:56:32 GMT
So we are now in current area of Mongolia/China. Perhaps Jones is Tocharian. They looked very much as Europeans. I think that we transfer back to nowadays during two next week. Good find! "J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair argue that the Tocharian languages were introduced to the Tarim and Turpan basins from the Afanasevo culture to their immediate north. The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BC) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Central Asian steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture (c. 2000–900 BC) enough to isolate the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization.[8] Tarim mummies The Tarim Basin mummies (1800 BC) have been found in the same general geographical area as the Tocharian texts and frescoes from the Tarim Basin (3rd to 9th centuries AD), and are both connected to an Indo-European origin and point to Caucasoid types with light eyes and hair color. However it is unknown whether the mummies and frescoes are connected."
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Post by zimmyzims on Oct 26, 2012 13:57:47 GMT
Wow...just...wow. Tom is an excellent artist, gorgeous comic today. My brain is exploding. I definitely think Jones is a myth of some sort, but what? I'm of the opinion that she is an Earth deity of some kind, but what cultures have Earth Goddesses besides Greece/Rome? *One Google-Fu later* Well she could be Cybele, from Phrygia. There are a lot of Earth Goddesses, but which she might be, I don't know. I doubt this for the mere reason that she is supposed to be something of Tom's own invention, so not from any particular mythology. Anyway, I think this page suggests that in the next one we will see her origin. ....or then a frame in which Jones laconically says to Annie "and so, that's quite much it" leaving the latter confused.
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Post by legion on Oct 26, 2012 15:05:52 GMT
Holy hell, Jones. Now we're at several millenia ago. The next jump should put us well before the Stone Age (assuming the next leap jumps back 10,000 years). The stone age started 2.6 million years ago. It would put her before the neolithic, but still in the stone age (which is composed of three periods: paleolithic, mesolithic, neolithic).
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Post by Mitth'raw'nuruodo on Oct 26, 2012 15:49:08 GMT
Holy hell, Jones. Now we're at several millenia ago. The next jump should put us well before the Stone Age (assuming the next leap jumps back 10,000 years). It has been suggested, and seems likely to me, that Tom is following a literary amount of time. So decades, centuries, millennia. The issue is that we have now left the ordinal named times of tracing history. We can enter, "epochs", which is a term meaning "an age", but the actual time is undefined, or "aeons", which means "forever", but we have reached the end of the english language's ordinal names for time. So unless Tom wants to transition to numbers, we are nearly there. I would guess one or two more back, at best, to "many millenia ago" and then we have arrived. Let us see.
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Post by aaroncampbell on Oct 26, 2012 15:49:12 GMT
I'm immediately reminded of this curious natural phenomenon. I'm doubt it is truly Jones' origin, but the resonance between it, the chapter title and this page are pleasantly strong. What do you think? EDIT: Fixed the link. Thanks for catching the typo, all!
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eldras
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Pestis eram vivus...moriens tua mors ero
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Post by eldras on Oct 26, 2012 16:02:05 GMT
Logged after a long time just to say this: that image of Jones walking in the desert made me remember that picture Annie saw in one of the earlier chapters. www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=23I know Tom has said before that it was part of an aborted plot, but maybe he's planning to do a retcon here and somehow include it in the new story?
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quoodle
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Just a man on a planet
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Post by quoodle on Oct 26, 2012 16:19:55 GMT
The stone age started 2.6 million years ago. It would put her before the neolithic, but still in the stone age (which is composed of three periods: paleolithic, mesolithic, neolithic). If Jones is "The Stone", then her origins would most fittingly put her in the "Stone Age". Artistic note: That bluish tint on the horizon is not water, it's a mirage. Poetic note: Jones is walking out of a mirage, into camera, and back into the mirage. Jones is in a sense an illusion.
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Rafael
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Cute and spunky
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Post by Rafael on Oct 26, 2012 16:21:41 GMT
Chapter 40: The Stone -In which every page is stunning, and the readers learn a bunch of things, except about Jones.
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Post by GK Sierra on Oct 26, 2012 16:34:29 GMT
No wonder Jones is so emotionless. After all she's been through, you could say she's... Burnt out. (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
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alexh
Full Member
Posts: 113
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Post by alexh on Oct 26, 2012 17:28:08 GMT
Logged after a long time just to say this: that image of Jones walking in the desert made me remember that picture Annie saw in one of the earlier chapters. www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=23I know Tom has said before that it was part of an aborted plot, but maybe he's planning to do a retcon here and somehow include it in the new story? I think that would require the next page to be from about the same time, but I hope you're right!
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Post by grahamf on Oct 26, 2012 17:51:37 GMT
Perhaps Jones is the Seed Bismuth? And civilization grows in her footsteps?
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Post by zimmyzims on Oct 26, 2012 18:13:15 GMT
Logged after a long time just to say this: that image of Jones walking in the desert made me remember that picture Annie saw in one of the earlier chapters. www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=23I know Tom has said before that it was part of an aborted plot, but maybe he's planning to do a retcon here and somehow include it in the new story? ooh! a brilliant finding!
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unrequited
Junior Member
Tormentor of the Heart, close friend of the Spleen
Posts: 74
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Post by unrequited on Oct 26, 2012 18:21:29 GMT
Very soon, she'll be kicking Neanderthal butt with her Cro-Magnon buddies!
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Post by smjjames on Oct 26, 2012 18:22:41 GMT
Holy hell, Jones. Now we're at several millenia ago. The next jump should put us well before the Stone Age (assuming the next leap jumps back 10,000 years). It has been suggested, and seems likely to me, that Tom is following a literary amount of time. So decades, centuries, millennia. The issue is that we have now left the ordinal named times of tracing history. We can enter, "epochs", which is a term meaning "an age", but the actual time is undefined, or "aeons", which means "forever", but we have reached the end of the english language's ordinal names for time. So unless Tom wants to transition to numbers, we are nearly there. I would guess one or two more back, at best, to "many millenia ago" and then we have arrived. Let us see. He could still do tens of millenia and hundreds of millenia, after that are millions of years, however, I think we are going to stop the time travelling within a strip or two. So we are now in current area of Mongolia/China. Perhaps Jones is Tocharian. They looked very much as Europeans. I think that we transfer back to nowadays during two next week. Good find! "J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair argue that the Tocharian languages were introduced to the Tarim and Turpan basins from the Afanasevo culture to their immediate north. The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BC) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Central Asian steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture (c. 2000–900 BC) enough to isolate the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization.[8] Tarim mummies The Tarim Basin mummies (1800 BC) have been found in the same general geographical area as the Tocharian texts and frescoes from the Tarim Basin (3rd to 9th centuries AD), and are both connected to an Indo-European origin and point to Caucasoid types with light eyes and hair color. However it is unknown whether the mummies and frescoes are connected." Given that the precursors of the Silk Road date back to the second millenium, that could place it about then. Logged after a long time just to say this: that image of Jones walking in the desert made me remember that picture Annie saw in one of the earlier chapters. www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=23I know Tom has said before that it was part of an aborted plot, but maybe he's planning to do a retcon here and somehow include it in the new story? I think that would require the next page to be from about the same time, but I hope you're right! Maybe it's just a reference from way back in the comic, or a 'brick joke' kind of thing. As far as running out of recorded history, we still have some 2,000 years of it to go, so if we slow down the time jumping (this one was on the order of 2,000 years, maybe even 2,400 to be more precise), we may still see the Old Kingdom or the Early Dynastic period. If the next jump is a similar doubling, then we will see the 7th or 8th millenium BC, after the Ice Age has ended and during the rise of agriculture. After that, it's the Ice Age and we will just have to enjoy the ride from there on back.
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Post by sapientcoffee on Oct 26, 2012 19:12:58 GMT
Time to change my wallpaper! Gorgeous page, Tom.
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ryos
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Post by ryos on Oct 26, 2012 19:17:40 GMT
Nobody has yet asked: is she going TO China or FROM it? I suspect the next page will show us which.
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Post by legion on Oct 26, 2012 20:58:28 GMT
Hey maybe she did come from America originally, via the Beiring Strait during the last glacial period!
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Post by euendo on Oct 26, 2012 21:12:42 GMT
I'm immediately reminded of this curious natural phenomenon. I'm doubt it is truly Jones' origin, but the resonance between it, the chapter title and this page are pleasantly strong. What do you think? This link is broken I can see the actual URL in the html when I quote you, but for ease of access I'll repost here: www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/deathvalley/rocks.htmlI love LOVE this theory: Jones as a rock elemental. Fits the canon in that Annie's also part-elemental. Maybe Jones is exactly half human and half rock elemental, born at the very first (only?) conception between the two species, which would explain her age. (I have no evidence to back me up here, I just like to imagine this was the case. ;D) But then again I guess it doesn't account for Coyote's comment about her: "She's the perfect example of what I was talking about!" The fact that she only exists because of humans willing it to be so. Or something like that.
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Post by euendo on Oct 26, 2012 21:15:48 GMT
Nobody has yet asked: is she going TO China or FROM it? I suspect the next page will show us which. The fact that she starts from the right of the page, going to the left, suggests she's traveling from east to west, so leaving China. And! We know she ends up in Rome, after all.
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Post by eightyfour on Oct 26, 2012 21:27:14 GMT
I don't think it matters much which way she's going. At this point I'm willing to believe that Jones has quite literally seen it all.
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alexh
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Post by alexh on Oct 26, 2012 22:03:58 GMT
... But then again I guess it doesn't account for Coyote's comment about her: "She's the perfect example of what I was talking about!" The fact that she only exists because of humans willing it to be so. Or something like that. Eh, it kinda does! Ysengrin himself said that her ancestors were then created in the same way, remember? So Jones would be an elemental born from the myths of man; same as Annie's ancestors. Some of these theories can be combined as well. She could be an incarnation of the Willendorf doll and from that, get her elemental powers. It's all up for grabs at this point.
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itg
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Post by itg on Oct 26, 2012 22:55:21 GMT
I registered to say that my personal theory is that Jones is a reimagining of the root cause of the myth of Lilith.
Her way with men could be interpreted as seduction by the fearful masses. She seems to have a tendency to latch on to children, which could square with Lilith as a child stealer/eater. In some myths she is made of clay, in others she is described as dispassionate. She's linked to Lamia, a monster doomed to never close its eyes. There's some description of her as a demon of the desert.
It's hardly solid evidence, surely less robust than others that people here have put forth. But it's still my pet theory.
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