Post by todd on Jan 16, 2015 23:33:48 GMT
Since next Monday begins the next set of chapters, here are a few thoughts on what's likely to be ahead - and what I hope will be in the new chapters.
First, things that I hope will be there:
1. Annie returning to stage center. She's been a bit overshadowed by Kat lately, and while I know that Tom seems to have conceived of Annie and Kat as joint-protagonists (especially in light of the treatise pages), it does seem that Kat's come to the fore more and more, with the stories revolving more around her concerns (such as her robot project and her relationship with Kat), and Annie's part of the story more in the background. Something which does seem a bit awkward, given that we began with Annie, who served as narrator in the opening chapters and was almost always the point-of-view character and focus throughout. (I wondered recently whether the shift towards Kat might have been partly to make "Gunnerkrigg Court" seem less evocative of Harry Potter - switching attention from the student with no parents and magical abilities to the student whose parents are alive and whose abilities are more high-tech, if with a touch of the magical - or, more accurately, etheric.)
2. Some look at the consequences of the events in "The Torn Sea". I don't think that what happened on the cruise can stay secret for long - too many witnesses, for one thing; even if everybody tries to stay quiet about it, somebody will let slip eventually, and the Court administration will need to find out at some point why the cruise ship's CPU has been removed, at the least. And when it does become public, or at least reaches the administration, things are going to become lively.
Let's look at a hypothetical real-world parallel for a moment. On a school trip, one of the school employees, who's handling the trip, tries forcing the children on it to help him seduce a married woman (who's, incidentally, another member of the school staff). He's assisted by a group of cultists who've developed a creepy religion around one of the students (and who are actually using the would-be seducer as a tool to advance the interests of their religion), and they're equipped with stolen school property. Fortunately, the scheme is foiled, the man who tried compelling the students to assist him in his pursuit of the married woman is apprehended, and the students make it back to school unharmed - but there'd be plenty of questions about how safe the school is if this could happen, and how the conspirators were able to pull that off without the rest of the school staff finding out about it and thwarting them. Furthermore, though the front man has been apprehended (and presumably has been relieved of his position at school and sent to prison), the cultists are still at large, and though they seemed alarmed at how things turned out, are still in a position to carry out other schemes if they think it'll advance their cause. The kind of scenario that no school wants to face, I'm certain.
I'm sure that the Court will survive the icident even if it becomes public (Tom's not about to end the story yet), but I suspect there'll be some uneasy times ahead. Let's hope that one of the results isn't the Court administration feeling distrust towards all of the robots (the Robot King and his followers coming to the rescue might make this less likely, but I still can't help thinking of cases in history where such acts by a few members of a minority group result in all the members of the minority group getting blamed - I can certainly imagne a few people at Court ready to take the position "The only good robot is a paper-clipped robot"). I wonder if there might be some concern about the robot religion growing around Kat and whether it's dangerous - with the problem of how to do something about it without creating martyrs and possibly turning the robot community against the Court. It's probably too late even to try discrediting it and arguing to the robots that Kat is just an ordinary schoolgirl and not a deity (I'd say it's especially too late after her briefly assuming the "robot god" form near the end of the chapter). If anything, those members of the Court staff who *would* try such an approach might only wind up becoming part of the robot religion in the role of the Devil or the "anti-Kat" (complete, perhaps, with robot theologians having to explain how these "forces of darkness" are able to give "Our Creator" detention).
As for other matters that are likely to be brought up in the chapters ahead, I can think of a few: (alongside the continuation of Kat's project):
1. The fairy and her rabbit friend who's going to become a human.
2. More development for the new character of Jenny.
3. The continuing quest to free Jeanne (which seems all the more a challenge after Annie's visit to the Realm of the Dead and discovery that even the Guides are helpless agianst Jeanne's sword).
4. The mystery continuing over where Anthony is and what he's doing.
5. More of what Coyote's up to and the interactions between the Court and the Forest.
6. A few more clues, perhaps, of what the Court's goal and true nature is.
Let's hope for some great stories ahead.
First, things that I hope will be there:
1. Annie returning to stage center. She's been a bit overshadowed by Kat lately, and while I know that Tom seems to have conceived of Annie and Kat as joint-protagonists (especially in light of the treatise pages), it does seem that Kat's come to the fore more and more, with the stories revolving more around her concerns (such as her robot project and her relationship with Kat), and Annie's part of the story more in the background. Something which does seem a bit awkward, given that we began with Annie, who served as narrator in the opening chapters and was almost always the point-of-view character and focus throughout. (I wondered recently whether the shift towards Kat might have been partly to make "Gunnerkrigg Court" seem less evocative of Harry Potter - switching attention from the student with no parents and magical abilities to the student whose parents are alive and whose abilities are more high-tech, if with a touch of the magical - or, more accurately, etheric.)
2. Some look at the consequences of the events in "The Torn Sea". I don't think that what happened on the cruise can stay secret for long - too many witnesses, for one thing; even if everybody tries to stay quiet about it, somebody will let slip eventually, and the Court administration will need to find out at some point why the cruise ship's CPU has been removed, at the least. And when it does become public, or at least reaches the administration, things are going to become lively.
Let's look at a hypothetical real-world parallel for a moment. On a school trip, one of the school employees, who's handling the trip, tries forcing the children on it to help him seduce a married woman (who's, incidentally, another member of the school staff). He's assisted by a group of cultists who've developed a creepy religion around one of the students (and who are actually using the would-be seducer as a tool to advance the interests of their religion), and they're equipped with stolen school property. Fortunately, the scheme is foiled, the man who tried compelling the students to assist him in his pursuit of the married woman is apprehended, and the students make it back to school unharmed - but there'd be plenty of questions about how safe the school is if this could happen, and how the conspirators were able to pull that off without the rest of the school staff finding out about it and thwarting them. Furthermore, though the front man has been apprehended (and presumably has been relieved of his position at school and sent to prison), the cultists are still at large, and though they seemed alarmed at how things turned out, are still in a position to carry out other schemes if they think it'll advance their cause. The kind of scenario that no school wants to face, I'm certain.
I'm sure that the Court will survive the icident even if it becomes public (Tom's not about to end the story yet), but I suspect there'll be some uneasy times ahead. Let's hope that one of the results isn't the Court administration feeling distrust towards all of the robots (the Robot King and his followers coming to the rescue might make this less likely, but I still can't help thinking of cases in history where such acts by a few members of a minority group result in all the members of the minority group getting blamed - I can certainly imagne a few people at Court ready to take the position "The only good robot is a paper-clipped robot"). I wonder if there might be some concern about the robot religion growing around Kat and whether it's dangerous - with the problem of how to do something about it without creating martyrs and possibly turning the robot community against the Court. It's probably too late even to try discrediting it and arguing to the robots that Kat is just an ordinary schoolgirl and not a deity (I'd say it's especially too late after her briefly assuming the "robot god" form near the end of the chapter). If anything, those members of the Court staff who *would* try such an approach might only wind up becoming part of the robot religion in the role of the Devil or the "anti-Kat" (complete, perhaps, with robot theologians having to explain how these "forces of darkness" are able to give "Our Creator" detention).
As for other matters that are likely to be brought up in the chapters ahead, I can think of a few: (alongside the continuation of Kat's project):
1. The fairy and her rabbit friend who's going to become a human.
2. More development for the new character of Jenny.
3. The continuing quest to free Jeanne (which seems all the more a challenge after Annie's visit to the Realm of the Dead and discovery that even the Guides are helpless agianst Jeanne's sword).
4. The mystery continuing over where Anthony is and what he's doing.
5. More of what Coyote's up to and the interactions between the Court and the Forest.
6. A few more clues, perhaps, of what the Court's goal and true nature is.
Let's hope for some great stories ahead.
