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Post by smurfton on Jun 21, 2014 19:28:48 GMT
So, there's something that I've never understood. In The Terror Castle of the Jupiter Moon Martians, Renard makes it sound like he never met the founders of the court, but on page 488 and page 489, Coyote says that he brought Renard with him to the Court, and then made the Annan waters, which Jeanne proceeded to die in. So, why didn't Renard know who Jeanne was, or any more than just basic information about the founding of GC? He likes to make friends with humans, so I can't see him just not trying to meet them or something. As a side note, has anyone here read up on Reynard and Isengrim? EDIT: All I know on the subject is that they are not gods in any form of the word, and that the English versions of their names are Reynard and Isengrim. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2014 21:44:38 GMT
I remember posting about Renard and Ysengrin's literary legacy (I've actually seen the latter as "Easgrim" in an English translation, or rather rendering, of Goethe's Reineke Fuchs that also transformed the original unrhymed hexameters into Elizabethan iambic verse): gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/thread/2117/surprised-noticed-reynardines-nameI saw the Roman de Renart, among others, in a secondhand bookstore just yesterday - not as a facsimile, sadly! With respect to the Jeanne problem, it seems that the conflict between the Court and Forest had already begun before Coyote appeared, and Coyote forcibly ended that conflict by creating the Annan Waters, which also served to make the two forming factions clearly distinct from each other, and led them into allopatric evolution. At the time of Jeanne's death, communication between the two sides had already ceased - that's why she relied on Steadman to secretly send her letters by arrow (a task he must have botched up intentionally). |
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Post by keef on Jun 22, 2014 10:24:12 GMT
So, there's something that I've never understood. In The Terror Castle of the Jupiter Moon Martians, Renard makes it sound like he never met the founders of the court, but on page 488 and page 489, Coyote says that he brought Renard with him to the Court, and then made the Annan waters, which Jeanne proceeded to die in. So, why didn't Renard know who Jeanne was, or any more than just basic information about the founding of GC? He likes to make friends with humans, so I can't see him just not trying to meet them or something. As Korba said they arrived after the war had started, so he never met any of the (human) founders. Gods no, but mythical beings yes. And if you look Renard up, you'll find a trickster of the really unpleasant kind, so you might call him a demon. Renard changed from a real asshole in the legends to a quite agreeable chap in modern storytelling, probably because the sense of humour of people in the middle-ages was a bit more crude. Nowadays we don't think rape and murder very funny. A pet theory of mine is that in the Gunnerverse Ysengrin the wolf is shaped by medieval ideas about wolfs (cruel dumb violent) wile Renard in his wolfs body gets his shape from modern ideas about wolfs (smart social beautiful). |
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Post by KMar on Jun 22, 2014 10:50:26 GMT
ple in the middle-ages was a bit more crude. Nowadays we don't think rape and murder very funny. A pet theory of mine is that in the Gunnerverse Ysengrin the wolf is shaped by medieval ideas about wolfs (cruel dumb violent) wile Renard in his wolfs body gets his shape from modern ideas about wolfs (smart social beautiful). I've thought Renard's 'transformation' more as the general influence of being forced to reside in Annie's plushie (by 'influence', I mean both the ethereal forces possibly caused by the toy doll being made by Surma, owned by Antimony and bearing her symbol, and Renard thus being in her control, and the more 'mundane' psychological consequences of spending extended period of time in company of comic's main cast); Renard was quite more like his old demon self in the beginning chapters. Interesting theory! |
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Post by warrl on Jun 22, 2014 15:39:32 GMT
Renard changed from a real asshole in the legends to a quite agreeable chap in modern storytelling, probably because the sense of humour of people in the middle-ages was a bit more crude. Nowadays we don't think rape and murder very funny. A pet theory of mine is that in the Gunnerverse Ysengrin the wolf is shaped by medieval ideas about wolfs (cruel dumb violent) wile Renard in his wolfs body gets his shape from modern ideas about wolfs (smart social beautiful). A bit of clarification. Ysengrimus in the original stories (a long Latin poem named "Ysengrimus") was a Catholic priest (not explicitly, but he often spoke and acted like one) - of the sort who gave medieval Catholic priests a bad name. His primary attribute was greed; he sponged off the peasants and abused his authority. Reinardus's role in the stories was to be Ysengrin's antagonist. Yes, he was more than a bit of an asshole, but Ysengrin bore nearly all the brunt of it, so he was also a folk hero. In later works (primarily the Old French "Le Roman de Renart") this was expanded: he became the antagonist of abusive nobility as well. ("Roman" in this context literally became the modern "romance" but figuratively was equivalent to "novel". The same phenomenon accounts for "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" which is a fictionalized history of a 100-plus-year period of Chinese civil war.) The Old French word for "fox" was "goupil", but there was a superstition that mentioning the fox was bad luck. So they used the name of a popular fictional character as a euphemism - and by Middle French it had almost entirely replaced the original word. (Kind of like how anti-profanity filters in the US often object to the term "as s", which is a species of animal, while the corresponding spelling-checkers don't recognize "arse", which is the part of the body one normally sits upon.) |
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Post by blix1ms0ns on Jun 23, 2014 1:47:18 GMT
Can Coyote do stuff with his memories? I remember that at some point it is mentioned Coyote can't tell a lie (probably does not apply to Renard and/or his memory could had been tampered with ). Coyote said "I don't exist" and hopefully Coyote do not have any form of omniscience. At least the depiction of Renard is not similar to the one from the second novel in the Magicians series. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magicians_(Grossman_novel) |
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Post by smurfton on Jun 23, 2014 2:40:34 GMT
Can Coyote do stuff with his memories? I remember that at some point it is mentioned Coyote can't tell a lie. ...but I really don't want to do this conversation again. |
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Post by quinkgirl on Jun 23, 2014 14:03:56 GMT
Can Coyote do stuff with his memories? I remember that at some point it is mentioned Coyote can't tell a lie. ...but I really don't want to do this conversation again. ...Wait, he physically can't tell a lie? |
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Post by smurfton on Jun 23, 2014 14:27:24 GMT
...but I really don't want to do this conversation again. ...Wait, he physically can't tell a lie? It's in a medium beginning that Jones says that. But on page 665, he does introduce himself as Jolly Elfsburry, and says that Coyote sent him.
I'm at the point of not being sure if he doesn't lie unless necessary for fun, or doesn't lie because it isn't as fun.
Edit: or doesn't lie habitually. |
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Post by goldenknots on Jun 23, 2014 15:56:05 GMT
I think that Jones is making the point that what Coyote says is unlikely to be a direct lie, but should be regarded with a certain wariness, since telling the truth can be just as deceitful if it is handled cleverly. But no, it's not a conversation we need to re-revisit.  |
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Post by Intelligence on Jun 23, 2014 15:56:20 GMT
...Wait, he physically can't tell a lie? It's in a medium beginning that Jones says that. But on page 665, he does introduce himself as Jolly Elfsburry, and says that Coyote sent him.
Well, at that point he is appearing as a jolly elf, and, technically, he sent himself. |
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Post by Daedalus on Jun 24, 2014 22:10:06 GMT
We've done this discussion before multiple times, and pretty much explored all of the options to death. No one can ever agree on whether Coyote can literally tell a lie or not. However, I will say two things: 1) I personally think Coyote follows the mythological precedent of *technically* telling the truth, though I cannot entirely 'prove' it. 2) Renard appears in this page: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=773 - continuity error? Or is Rey lying later? Someone correct me if I'm mistaken. |
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Post by keef on Jun 24, 2014 23:19:57 GMT
pretty much explored all of the options to death. No one can ever agree on whether Coyote can literally tell a lie or not. 'nough said page 770No war yet, Jeanne and Green Dude date. page 771Hot couple, Diego spies, jealous. page 772War brakes out, couple still hot, now seen as traitors? Coyote arrives probably with Renard and Ysengrin, they're not in the picture yet page 773Coyote's mighty paw divides Court and Forest, and unknowingly Jeanne and G.D. Rey is not watching the couple, but witnessing Coyote's awesomeness.  That's how I read it. |
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gary
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Post by gary on Jun 25, 2014 17:04:05 GMT
What Renard actually says is 'this was a little before my time. Coyote, Ysengrin and I didn't arrive until.."
And then he's interrupted.
Which fits perfectly into what we know, because this scene is about the founding of the court and the three canines have all said they arrived once the court was already founded and war had already broken out.
Renard never says 'we didn't arrive until centuries after this'. He says it was a 'little' before his time. Which it probably is only about a decade before his time in the area.
There is no contradiction.
It makes perfect sense that while he was in the woods at the same time that diego and co were in the court, he wouldn't know them. Because the relationship between the two sides simply wouldn't have been good enough at the time for the kind of meetings that the two sides have now.
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