Did Surma lie to Antimony?

[madragoran]

I tried searching for this but had no results. So let me ask your opinion.

Did Surma lie to Antimony? Did she send her into danger?

and if she did not send her into danger should we all relax and just get popcorn and wait for the end of the comic?

link to the quote "Remember I will never send you into danger"

[Trillium]

We don't know all of what Surma told Annie or what she thought she told Annie. She did not tell Annie about her heritage with the Fire Elemental. That seems to be a huge oversight. We don't know how that happened. Either Surma thought she had more time but had a sudden decline and she was unable to think clearly enough to tell Annie or she left it to someone else possibly a god parent of some kind. As for the strange school Gunnekrigg Court she must have felt Annie would be up to it. She was holding her own with discussions and field trips with Psychopomps. It is probable Suma felt Annie would be more than capable and expected Tony to be more available and helpful instead of abandoning Annie after sending her there. We just don't have enough info.

[warrl]

Gunnerkrigg Court in this era seems plenty safe enough on its own for most kids. The dangers Annie has faced there come from either her father's emotional abandonment and horribly unethical interventions (which Surma probably did not predict), and persons/beings Annie chose on her own to associate with plus her tendency to deal with things on her own rather than seek assistance or turn problems over to suitable authorities.

Going back to early days. She could have told a teacher about Shadow2; she chose to solve his problem herself. She could have grabbed an existing robot (rather than attempt to construct or reassemble one, a task she apparently had no experience or training for) and told it to escort Shadow2 across the bridge then return to its normal duties. When Robot returned, she didn't have to run out onto the bridge to meet him; she could have just waited in the building, or ignored him altogether. When the roof over her bed was broken in, she could have worked on climbing down (to the floor where everyone else was) rather than up (to the roof where who-knew-what was). Four situations where it would have been at least equally sensible for her to take a different course of action that kept her out of the middle of things - and, also, NOT initiate the series of events that have largely defined her life since then. There have been ample other opportunities since then for her to take the less-dangerous path.

Granted, this would be a much less interesting story. But the point is, while she did not (possibly with a few exceptions) create the dangers she has faced, she did behave in ways that contributed to her being the one to face most of them.

Surma did not send Annie into danger. She sent Annie into a situation where it is possible to put oneself in danger and even to create danger where there isn't any. Also known as "everywhere".

[Daedalus]

I feel like Surma probably could have prepared Annie better, but Annie did choose to put herself in danger all of this time.

[aline]

Oct 19, 2015 20:06:05 GMT madragoran said:

Did Surma lie to Antimony? Did she send her into danger?

and if she did not send her into danger should we all relax and just get popcorn and wait for the end of the comic?

Isn't there an option missing?

Surma didn't send Antimony into danger. She and Anthony were probably quite sure that Annie would be safe at the Court. But Surma was never superwoman, and besides, she is dead. She has no control of events, she couldn't possibly have foreseen everything, she can have been wrong about a number of factors. For example, her daughter becoming the forest medium, before she was even of age, was probably not something she planned on. 

That doesn't mean she lied. As long as she believed it was safe, she was speaking honestly.

[madragoran]

Thank you so very much about your answers. But..
The thing is that the court as we have seen it, is a dangerous place by definition. Surma did know about Coyote and Isengrin being there (aka the bad guys). She did know about the war waged (in secret) between the two factions. More than anything she knew about Rey being there. And she knew all the shady things the court does, having been a court agent (who partly trapped Rey into this mess by pretending to be his friend). She knew her daughter would be a fire elemental and by definition be a bit, how to put it, wild? Still the major thing is she ran away from the court while pregnant, to protect her child. Why did she sed her child back into danger? I think the court is not as safe as it seems. While we rarely glimpse other kids lives and only in connection to Annie or Kat (I would love more Z and Γ), they also seem to live "interesting" lives. Annie is headstrong and stubborn and a bit arrogant. I wonder where did she learn to only depend on herself?

I think we need a chapter showing how Surma ended up with los... erm with Anthony and why did she get pregnant. Maybe Surma had to send Annie to the court cause she Knew Anthony couldn't be trusted (lesser of two evils).

You are the best.

[aline]

Oct 20, 2015 8:47:59 GMT madragoran said:

Still the major thing is she ran away from the court while pregnant, to protect her child.

That's not what's written in the comic. She didn't want her child to get born there. We don't know why, we certainly don't know that it would have been dangerous for Annie to grow up there. Kat grew up there, and the Donlans don't strike me as people who want their kid to be in danger.

My impression is that the Court no more dangerous than any other place, at least for normal students. Even though they have interesting lives, as you put it, they are monitored carefully, and are watched by protective entities even when they think they're sneaking off. There is a huge ravine that no one can cross between the Court and the dangerous creatures of the forest. And a very loud alarm goes off if you try anyway... (Honestly, there should have been no reason for Annie to meet either Coyote or Ysengrin so early if it wasn't for many special circumstances. I'm guessing even Surma didn't get to until she was a medium, which might well have been after her graduation. Most students never saw them even from a distance).

As for whatever shady things the Court does with ether stations and so on, none of this seems to affect the student's lives, except when they eagerly put their nose into it (and even then they have to make quite the effort to get remotely close, as those are also closely guarded).

Meanwhile they are kept away from things that commonly kill or harm teenagers, such as street violence, motorbike accidents, drugs, etc.

[Jelly Jellybean]

Oct 20, 2015 8:47:59 GMT madragoran said:

Thank you so very much about your answers. But..
The thing is that the court as we have seen it, is a dangerous place by definition. Surma did know about Coyote and Isengrin being there (aka the bad guys). She did know about the war waged (in secret) between the two factions. More than anything she knew about Rey being there. And she knew all the shady things the court does, having been a court agent (who partly trapped Rey into this mess by pretending to be his friend). She knew her daughter would be a fire elemental and by definition be a bit, how to put it, wild? Still the major thing is she ran away from the court while pregnant, to protect her child. Why did she sed her child back into danger? I think the court is not as safe as it seems. While we rarely glimpse other kids lives and only in connection to Annie or Kat (I would love more Z and Γ), they also seem to live "interesting" lives. Annie is headstrong and stubborn and a bit arrogant. I wonder where did she learn to only depend on herself?

I think we need a chapter showing how Surma ended up with los... erm with Anthony and why did she get pregnant. Maybe Surma had to send Annie to the court cause she Knew Anthony couldn't be trusted (lesser of two evils).

You are the best.

I was going to say that I thought Surma sent Annie to the Court because it was the least bad choice Surma knew about, but while I was looking through the FormSpring database I found the following that throws a wrench/spanner into that theory:

Q:  Did Annie's parents consider other schools for her, or were they always set on sending her to the Court?
A:  They were pretty much always going to send her there

So Surma cut ties with the Court, but at some point relatively early in Annie's life Surma decided that she would send Annie there.  There are obviously large gaps that would have to be filled in to understand that.

[Gotolei]

Oct 20, 2015 11:42:27 GMT Jelly Jellybean said:

]I was going to say that I thought Surma sent Annie to the Court because it was the least bad choice Surma knew about, but while I was looking through the FormSpring database I found the following that throws a wrench/spanner into that theory:

Q:  Did Annie's parents consider other schools for her, or were they always set on sending her to the Court?
A:  They were pretty much always going to send her there

So Surma cut ties with the Court, but at some point relatively early in Annie's life Surma decided that she would send Annie there.  There are obviously large gaps that would have to be filled in to understand that.

What other place would be fit for Ms. Antimony Not-fully-human Volatile-fire-elemental Carver to go to? The Court may not have an actual parenting-style support net in place, but at least there's some known friendly units there (Donlans mostly, maybe Eglamore) and there's people at the Court would know how to handle/defuse any incidents.

There may or may not be Court equivalents in other countries somewhere, though they're pretty far and few between if Paz' side comic is anything to go by. Even for an entity like Jones, the court isn't an easy place to find accidentally. Why bother scouting another one out when there's a perfectly good one right there?

[Trillium]

Could not agree more, Gotolei. Well put. 

[Gotolei]

Re: initial poll
Antimony seems to go out of her way to put herself in danger, and in that regard she is very much her mother's child.
While I don't expect Surma expected nothing to ever happen ever, maybe she was hoping "her father's influence" would lead to Annie being more calm and sensible than she was?

[Trillium]

Oct 20, 2015 16:01:23 GMT Gotolei said:

Re: initial poll
Antimony seems to go out of her way to put herself in danger, and in that regard she is very much her mother's child.
While I don't expect Surma expected nothing to ever happen ever, maybe she was hoping "her father's influence" would lead to Annie being more calm and sensible than she was?

Annie's recklessness may in part be "acting out" having lost her mom, been sent away to a school...besides it being her mom's heritage.  Annie also came to school with experience walking with Psycopomps, lock picking (she came to school with her own set of picks for crying out loud) and a powerful curiosity emboldened with scientific training. She's an interesting mix.

[imaginaryfriend]

That whole "etheric attractiveness" that makes Antimony a good medium may also have a role in drawing her into dangerous situations. Or better to say, drawing dangerous situations to her. Luckily, it also helps her get out.

[todd]

It's also possible that Tom simply didn't think about whether or not the Court counted as "danger" when he wrote that scene.

[rinabean]

I always interpreted that scene to mean "the court is dangerous and you'll go there over my cold dead body" which is exactly what happened. She never sent Annie into danger - actually she never sent her anywhere, they were always in the same building for crying out loud. Annie definitely wasn't prepared for life at the Court

[Druplesnubb]

The Court isn't really dangerous as long as you don't explicitly enter areas students aren't allowed to be in or get yourself involved with the forests (which students aren't allowed to visit). The only example I can think of of any students who followed the rules and safety protocols ever being in danger is Chapter 49, and that was a pretty unique event (and I'm still not sure what would have actually happened to the studnets if the boat had turned into a whale).

[aline]

Oct 30, 2015 10:41:00 GMT rinabean said:

I always interpreted that scene to mean "the court is dangerous and you'll go there over my cold dead body" which is exactly what happened. She never sent Annie into danger - actually she never sent her anywhere, they were always in the same building for crying out loud. Annie definitely wasn't prepared for life at the Court

Surma always wanted Annie to go to the Court after her death.

That's pretty much what Tom said:

www.chrysoprax.org/gunnerkrigg/results?term=They+were+pretty+much+always+going+to+send+her+there

So obviously she didn't think it would be such a horrid place to grow up in. And she was damn right about that. Annie Fire Elemental Carver would have been a lot sadder in about any other school the world has to offer.

[todd]

Nov 1, 2015 19:59:13 GMT Druplesnubb said:

The Court isn't really dangerous as long as you don't explicitly enter areas students aren't allowed to be in or get yourself involved with the forests (which students aren't allowed to visit). The only example I can think of of any students who followed the rules and safety protocols ever being in danger is Chapter 49, and that was a pretty unique event (and I'm still not sure what would have actually happened to the studnets if the boat had turned into a whale).

And, of course, the incident wouldn't have happened if not for Annie and Kat's earlier adventures that led to the robot religion.

The Court takes few precautions against those dangers, though; no telling the students about why they should avoid certain places, a security system that the students can easily disable, and an atmosphere of, not "Don't break the rules" but "Don't get caught breaking the rules".

[aline]

Nov 1, 2015 23:49:21 GMT todd said:

The Court takes few precautions against those dangers, though; no telling the students about why they should avoid certain places, a security system that the students can easily disable, and an atmosphere of, not "Don't break the rules" but "Don't get caught breaking the rules".

The security system is not easily disabled.
There are several layers. The first layer (the motion detectors) is there to make the students believe they can run around unnoticed, although in fact their every movement is tracked. The second layer is in the student's food. Jack avoids it by starvation, which is pretty extreme. But even after Jack designs a better way to alter the signals, thanks to his Zimmy-world-insights in technology, they still don't manage to escape attention (Bud and Lindsey watch them the whole time). The number of times the Court students really managed to avoid the Court's eye were very few and very short-lived.

It seems the Court wants the students to believe they can enjoy some freedom and sneaking around, so the trouble they create remains harmless and under control. This is actually a pretty smart way to deal with teenagers.

Edit: I would also like to add that there is no life without danger. It's impossible to send your kid to school and claim that absolutely nothing can ever happen to them for the next ten years. Normal students in normal schools are confronted to different kind of risks than those in GC, but they are not, by any stretch of the imagination, safer. On the contrary, the Court is such a controlled environment that those teenagers are a lot less likely to endanger their life than any normal teenager leading a standard teenager life.

[l33tninja]

I think we are asking a lot of Surma to expect her to know every future event in her daughter's life that could be considered "danger". Not to mention, is Surma "sending" Annie into danger just because she sent her to Gunnerkrigg Court? The knowledge that the court is dangerous in some respects, even Surma's intimate knowledge of the Forest, does not mean that Surma is sending Annie into danger just by allowing her to go to the Court. I concur with aline in that life is inherently dangerous. The mere act of birth implies impending death.

But we are missing the larger picture in this whole discussion. Surma wasn't even thinking about the Court when she said that to Annie. She was speaking of Annie's role as a Guide. She sent Annie to help the psychopomps, and her words were related to that circumstance. Extrapolation to all of Annie's life and future experiences is hardly fair.