|
Post by philman on Sept 17, 2019 7:45:29 GMT
Some guessing about Forest ninja chick: She was unfrozen by Loup when he saw Annie 2 was in a predicament, and he placed a binding on her with instructions to make sure both Annies are safe... Only he didn't specify a time frame on purpose because he's that kind of asshole, and when she tries to bail after getting them all out of the wisps' nest, the binding will consider that a breach and slice her arm off. This will serve to keep her in the Court (for character development) because Kat can make replacement limbs. Or she was just off hunting when the big Loup event happened, then came home to find everyone frozen and unable to do anything to help. The thing on her arm though, is it possible that it is a binding from Coyote that Loup doesn't know about? Maybe she got it before the Loup event and that somehow protected her from the time freeze, but she doesn't trust Loup and so is seeking out others, or the medium specifically, to help her?
|
|
|
Post by madjack on Sept 17, 2019 8:03:00 GMT
Some guessing about Forest ninja chick: She was unfrozen by Loup when he saw Annie 2 was in a predicament, and he placed a binding on her with instructions to make sure both Annies are safe... Only he didn't specify a time frame on purpose because he's that kind of asshole, and when she tries to bail after getting them all out of the wisps' nest, the binding will consider that a breach and slice her arm off. This will serve to keep her in the Court (for character development) because Kat can make replacement limbs. Or she was just off hunting when the big Loup event happened, then came home to find everyone frozen and unable to do anything to help. The thing on her arm though, is it possible that it is a binding from Coyote that Loup doesn't know about? Maybe she got it before the Loup event and that somehow protected her from the time freeze, but she doesn't trust Loup and so is seeking out others, or the medium specifically, to help her? She would have had to been hunting well off the beaten track though, since Loup apparently froze the whole forest? But then how did the creatures in the Court get over... Before the freeze maybe? She would have had to get out then or never. And I suppose Coyote is certainly capable of setting the Annies up with a secret protector and set the binding so she can't tell anyone, but that's a bit of a risk when you don't know what will happen to her in the interim between being chosen and her being needed. To keep her 100% secret he would have needed to have put that binding on and sealed its memory away in the goose bone, and that was given to Andrew months? in advance.
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Sept 17, 2019 11:13:27 GMT
Putting this cover over Annie's binding was an idea Kamlen had to help Annie get it off her mind for the moment. Odds that every Forest citizen puts the same kind of cover over that kind of binding (and that it happens often enough for them to have introduced a special cover) are...low. I am 99.5 % sure that it is just a fashion accessory.
|
|
|
Post by madjack on Sept 17, 2019 11:25:27 GMT
Either that or it's covering an injury. But that's just not wildspec.
|
|
|
Post by madjack on Sept 18, 2019 7:15:46 GMT
Well philman gets the cookies since she was outside the freeze area, and panel 5 of today's page clearly shows her with two unbandaged arms so the binding theory is shot. It's almost certainly covering an injury. Unless she's lying...
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Sept 18, 2019 9:15:16 GMT
Well philman gets the cookies since she was outside the freeze area, and panel 5 of today's page clearly shows her with two unbandaged arms so the binding theory is shot. It's almost certainly covering an injury. Unless she's lying... Would she need to draw the flashback panels herself then?
|
|
|
Post by Eily on Sept 18, 2019 20:10:11 GMT
Did Coyote actually say that he didn't know why his power didn't work correctly with Rey and Ysengrin?
I'm thinking he might have known exactly what the problem was, and exactly what would be required for a creature to be able to use each of his power. This would explain why he was trying so hard to give his power to Rey, despite Ysengrin basically being for them. He knew that whichever aspect of himself was required to keep the Forest alive was totally absent in Ysengrin, but present with Renard.
If that's the case, I'll go with the shifty personality. Because Renard can turn a simple toy into a vastly changing body just by being himself, while Ysengrin got the power to change the shape of trees, and uses it to give himself a constant form. Ysengrin and Loup's one track minds might not be fitted for the tree-like structure of the Forest's core.
So Ysengrin being unfit for the power to change trees makes sense, but I wonder what would make Rey kill his body hosts. Intention maybe? Because Rey is trying to actually become whomever he jumps into, rather than just wanting to try their shoes.
|
|
|
Post by DonDueed on Sept 25, 2019 12:58:32 GMT
I have some thoughts about wisps.
First, some commenters have worried that our heroes have been killing wisps indiscriminately (and even eating them), as they seem to think wisps are sentient beings. I don't think we have any evidence that they are sentient -- in fact, they seem to be behaving much like other social insects (bees and wasps in particular) with the one addition of the ethereal power to create illusions in their prey.
For example, Annie's first encounter included the wisp causing Annie to imagine she was talking to the Seed Bismuth. But was this a specific illusion that the wisp was directing deliberately, or did it simply cause a hallucination that allowed Annie's mind to expand on thoughts that she was already having (i.e. her curiosity about the origin of the Court)? She also believed she was being asked to take the SB with her into the Court, but that too could simply be the wisp projecting its innate desire to migrate into Annie's hallucination -- or perhaps, Annie picking up on that urge due to her own ethereal abilities and weaving it into her hallucination.
A similar argument could apply to the events of the current chapter. Our friends were invading the wisp nest, so the induced hallucinations were colored by the wisps' defensive response and (possibly) their instinct to capture prey for food.
So that brings me to my wildspec, which is simply that wisps are a species of social insect in every sense, which means that this colony has several different kinds of wisps -- workers (the only kind we've seen so far), drones (whose only role is to fertilize the myriad eggs), and -- wait for it -- one and only one QUEEN WISP.
Workers are mindless, not sentient, and only create illusions as an innate ethereal ability. They're not doing anything different than a hornet is when it stings you if you disturb its nest. If there is any intelligent agent at work, it's the queen. And we have not met the queen... YET!
|
|
|
Post by madjack on Sept 25, 2019 13:24:37 GMT
If you're implying what I think you're implying I like it: That Idra is the queen wisp trying to find out what the hell they're after in the nest.
|
|
|
Post by DonDueed on Sept 25, 2019 14:42:52 GMT
If you're implying what I think you're implying I like it: That Idra is the queen wisp trying to find out what the hell they're after in the nest. Could be that, but I was thinking more along the lines of the closing scenes of Aliens -- i.e. breaking through into the royal chamber and meeting something out of your nightmares...
|
|
|
Post by saardvark on Sept 25, 2019 15:05:16 GMT
If you're implying what I think you're implying I like it: That Idra is the queen wisp trying to find out what the hell they're after in the nest. Interesting idea, but would Idra/queen wisp eat her own roasted young to concoct her "elf" persona? (Unless they are all still hallucinating... tho if they never really woke up/broke free, they are no threat, so why would Idra/queen care?)
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Sept 25, 2019 18:22:55 GMT
If you're implying what I think you're implying I like it: That Idra is the queen wisp trying to find out what the hell they're after in the nest. Interesting idea, but would Idra/queen wisp eat her own roasted young to concoct her "elf" persona? (Unless they are all still hallucinating... tho if they never really woke up/broke free, they are no threat, so why would Idra/queen care?) That is my wild spec. It was an elaborate two-layered illusion to make them think they have successfully defeated the wisps they had been expecting.
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Sept 25, 2019 18:42:04 GMT
Workers are mindless, not sentient, and only create illusions as an innate ethereal ability. They're not doing anything different than a hornet is when it stings you if you disturb its nest. If there is any intelligent agent at work, it's the queen. And we have not met the queen... YET! But she is surely looking forward to it.
|
|
|
Post by madjack on Sept 26, 2019 7:47:41 GMT
If you're implying what I think you're implying I like it: That Idra is the queen wisp trying to find out what the hell they're after in the nest. Could be that, but I was thinking more along the lines of the closing scenes of Aliens -- i.e. breaking through into the royal chamber and meeting something out of your nightmares... Also good. Interesting idea, but would Idra/queen wisp eat her own roasted young to concoct her "elf" persona? (Unless they are all still hallucinating... tho if they never really woke up/broke free, they are no threat, so why would Idra/queen care?) What's the price of a few workers in a hive to find out if there's something valuable enough for people who've been (presumably) ignoring you for months to storm a wisp's nest? Might be good leverage if you can get your hands on it.
|
|
|
Post by Polyhymnia on Sept 26, 2019 20:44:36 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Corvo on Sept 27, 2019 3:58:49 GMT
Wait a second... what are those finger-like things protruding in from the left in Panel 7? How did they end up embedded in solid ironwood? Are they about to grab whoever tries to reach in for the bone?
I believe those are shelves that got "wrapped" in the wood when the tree grew.
|
|
|
Post by gpvos on Sept 27, 2019 7:19:42 GMT
I think Idra will soon remember that she's Coyote.
|
|
|
Post by todd on Oct 13, 2019 0:07:54 GMT
Kat will defeat Loup by confronting him and pointing out how all his various super-abilities are scientifically impossible.
(Yes, that was inspired by the showdown at the end of the "Flight of Dragons" movie.)
|
|
|
Post by madjack on Oct 13, 2019 0:33:20 GMT
Kat will defeat Loup by confronting him and pointing out how all his various super-abilities are scientifically impossible. (Yes, that was inspired by the showdown at the end of the "Flight of Dragons" movie.) That stuff already bounces right off him though.
|
|
heranje
Full Member
Oh super wow!
Posts: 175
|
Post by heranje on Oct 13, 2019 14:22:16 GMT
This may have already been predicted as I haven't read through the whole thread, but I just reread a few old chapters, and particularly the one where Coyote tells the story of pretending to be a dead goose gave me a theory. At the time, Annie, George and Andrew all reacted as though this was a tedious, long story Coyote was telling for no other reason than that he loves to talk about himself, and Annie even seemed to have heard it several times, even in longer versions. However, the story really seems to point to the solution to the whole Loup predicament - and the goose bone and water are probably not random gifts, but a part of Coyote's plan. I think Coyote, like Loup said, wanted to die to try it out - but he also probably wanted to attack the Court, maybe because of the hidden nefarious activities that both Ysengrin and Loup hinted at (and that the comic constantly hints at), or maybe just for some fun chaos. So he manipulated Ysengrin and "tempered his rage" (a dual statement that could of course mean that he tried to reduce Ysengrin's rage - but could also mean that he "tempered" it as one might a sword when moulding it to purpose). Then he gave him his strength, because he wanted Ysengrin to attack him and take the rest of his power and knowledge, knowing he would then launch an attack on the Court. Right now, Loup believes that Coyote and Ysengrin are both dead and that he is a new creature. However, I think either the bone or water, or both together, are intended to remind him that he is Coyote who has infected Ysengrin like a kind of parasite to create Loup - in the same way that he needed to remember he was not a dead goose lying by a lake. Loup seems to think the bone and water contain the key elements of Coyote-ness that are preventing the forest from working properly - but maybe what's needed for the forest to work is the Coyote-ness itself. It's not broken because Loup is missing some of Coyote's power, but simply because he isn't Coyote. Coyote probably knew this, and while he wanted to use Ysengrin's rage through Loup in order to attain the state of having "no limits" to such an extent that he could attack the Court, he didn't want to remain Loup forever. So he gave Andrew and Parley the goose bone and water as an insurance policy while telling them a story that basically told them the items' purpose, though it didn't make sense at the time, and the dullness of the story served as a pretty effective sleight of hand to make the gifts seem inconsequential and his giving of them a random whim. Coyote joking about the moral of the story seems to point to that as well. Additionally, "be careful what you wish for" and "you reap what you sow" seemed like randomly-picked trite morals at the time, but they actually do apply to this situation - for Ysengrin and Coyote respectively. Ysengrin should have been careful what he wished for, having himself admitted that taking Coyote's strength and attacking him was a mistake. Coyote has been carefully sowing the seeds of this plan for a long time and is currently reaping the chaotic fruits, proving himself a great trickster once again. Second wildspec which I believe less strongly but think is fun: I think the third Annie who belongs in this timeline is in the forest, either being held captive by Loup or (my preferred theory) tricked by him into thinking that she's living there by choice with Ysengrin. The comic has had a lot of focus on the use of illusions to fool people (most recently in Perspective), which could foreshadow Loup using illusions and trickery to make Annie believe he is Ysengrin and manipulate events in such a way that she would want to stay with him willingly. If Loup truly loves Annie and wants her to be with him, why wait for her to bring back the goose bone and water when he has already demonstrated that he has the ability to make as many Annies as he wants? One for him (a bonus that it's the "real" one from this timeline), one to get his things back, and one as a decoy in the Court while he talked to messenger-Annie. Also, we already think of Court!Annie and Forest!Annie as representations of the many binaries this comic is centred around, but is Forest!Annie really a Forest!Annie at this point? She hates Loup and, while suspicious of the Court, is also protective of it and loyal to the parts of it that contain her friends. A true Forest!Annie would be someone who entirely lives in the Forest, having severed her ties to the Court - maybe even believing the Court to be the aggressors in the conflict. (An illusion making the booms in the sky when she first entered seem like bombs falling, maybe?) In the new Annie!Trinity, the one we currently think of as Forest!Annie would basically symbolise the bridge over the Annan Waters - the connection between Court and Forest, an Action!Annie who boldly goes into the hostile Forest on the Court's behalf but also still cares about the Forest and the beings in it, and wants to be an advocate for both sides. Alternatively (or parallell-ly), Loup might be planning to use the third, missing Annie (or Court!Annie) to fulfil his promise to Frannie to release her from her debt to the psychopomps. Give one Annie to the pomps so her debt is fulfilled, let the others be free. Our friend the Arbiter made it seem like ethereal contracts are a pretty big deal in the Gunnerverse, so Loup might not actually have the power he suggested he did to "swat the psychopomps away" by simply nullifying the deal Annie made.
|
|
|
Post by DonDueed on Oct 13, 2019 15:58:39 GMT
Some good stuff there, heranje. Your ideas about the bone and water are pretty close to what several others have speculated but you've added quite a bit of detail.
Regarding Forest!Annie and the possibility of a third Annie still in the forest -- I don't think the Annie we're calling Forest!Annie was ever so called because she was seen as more closely aligned with the forest ideologically. It was just a short way to identify her, i.e. "The Annie who remained in the forest while the other Annie was in the Court". At least that's how I remember it and interpreted those monikers. On the other hand, more recently F!Annie has dressed the part of the forest advocate while C!Annie has stuck with Court colors, so maybe Tom did intend for them to be perceived that way.
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Oct 13, 2019 22:40:50 GMT
On the other hand, more recently F!Annie has dressed the part of the forest advocate while C!Annie has stuck with Court colors, so maybe Tom did intend for them to be perceived that way. In a way, it is like in other media, when a main character gets split into to halves with opposite alignments (usually good and evil) by a the transporter accident of the week / Megavolt's tronsplitter / whatdoiknow.
|
|
heranje
Full Member
Oh super wow!
Posts: 175
|
Post by heranje on Oct 14, 2019 8:05:50 GMT
Regarding Forest!Annie and the possibility of a third Annie still in the forest -- I don't think the Annie we're calling Forest!Annie was ever so called because she was seen as more closely aligned with the forest ideologically. It was just a short way to identify her, i.e. "The Annie who remained in the forest while the other Annie was in the Court". At least that's how I remember it and interpreted those monikers. On the other hand, more recently F!Annie has dressed the part of the forest advocate while C!Annie has stuck with Court colors, so maybe Tom did intend for them to be perceived that way. I mean, Tom is too much of a subtle storyteller to be too strongly limited by simplified binaries. But - I do think there are significant differences between C! and F! Annie which align them more with the Court and Forest respectively. The colour coding is the most obvious, but there's also the fact that C!Annie is generally more uptight and restrained, which made her read as having "regressed" to a past Annie-stage to some readers, but which might just be a natural consequence of having spent six months in the Court without access to the Forest. It was spending time in the Forest that really enabled Annie to loosen some of the strict control she had placed on herself, and it seems like during six months away from the Forest, C!Annie's walls have begun to come up again. As a kind of symbol of this, rather than a wild burst of flame, C!Annie's fire is now a focused laser, which gives it a tech-y and Court-y connotation and fits with the theme of being restrained and "buttoned up". From she returned, F!Annie has also continued to dress more practically, in similar clothes to the ones she started wearing when she started spending more time in the Forest (remember how shocking her "princess Mononoke" getup seemed when she first returned from summer camp?). Meanwhile, C!Annie dresses more "civilised" - a difference demonstrated by F!Annie side-eyeing her for complaining about her dress and shoes when they were running from the Ashray. That whole encounter also demonstrated how C!Annie seemed to have been "softened" by life in the strictly regimented state-of-emergency Court, wanting to wait to be rescued by Parley while F!Annie was Action!Annie, taking charge of the situation. Of course, all these differences aren't just construed to make them "representations" of Court and Forest - they also make a lot of sense. C!Annie seems to have generally taken a hit to her confidence by not feeling very useful in the time after the attack - Annie's biggest contribution to the Court has always been her role as a liaison with the Forest and etheric forces, which now means "liaison with the enemy" - probably not a position that makes you highly trusted or liked among a population under attack. Sure, she claimed credit for "stopping the attacks", but I wonder if she really believes it herself - after all, all she did was step into the Forest and then immediately be shooed away by "Ysengrin." Instead of being the center of the adventure as she's been used to, she seems to have spent her time in the last few months helping the others with their areas of expertise, which are more useful in this situation. It must be a pretty deep blow - "I'm the Forest expert, I should be able to do something about this. Instead, I caused it all by manipulating my friends to free Jeanne." At the same time, Parley, Smitty and Kat, who are all more or less her age and who to this point have kind of been her "sidekicks," have much more important roles in the current state of affairs (I've known people who have "protagonist syndrome," like Annie has - it can be a pretty big blow when friends you've subconsciously seen as revolving around you start to develop their own gravitational fields, even though you consciously make an effort to be happy for them). Add to this the fact that Annie was already struggling with feeling useless and guilty prior to entering the Forest, and going in to answer the call of the symbol was supposed to be her big heroic moment. F!Annie got to have that heroic moment in a harrowing conversation with the erratic and dangerous Loup, and returned with a quest - C!Annie got shooed away at the border and sent back to a Court that doesn't trust her and where her skills are not of much use currently. Hence, also, her prickly attitude toward Eglamore in the previous chapter. No wonder she was mad at F!Annie when she arrived, too - with all this insecurity, the last shred she could hold on to was that her entering the forest did make "Ysengrin" stop attacking, even though they didn't speak much - so to have that taken away too must have been rough.
|
|
|
Post by madjack on Dec 18, 2019 7:37:25 GMT
Wildspec dropped off main general discussion page!? We can't have that. Anyway, this doesn't fit in any of the recent page threads so here's another guess at why Paz is so angry at Kat: She was at Kat's workshop and noticed the Seraphs hanging around like Annie did. Given everything that happened in The Torn Sea, Paz felt that they couldn't be trusted and that Kat was endangering herself having them around and didn't take Kat saying otherwise very well.
|
|
|
Post by bedinsis on Dec 18, 2019 8:18:44 GMT
When Coyote transferred his strength to Ysengrin he did so by tearing off the red patch on his back revealing the brown "naked skin" underneath. Since that is not the only part of his body that is brown I speculate that the other patches missing represent other abilities that Coyote has given out. A quick image search revealed that the crafts that no doubt influenced how Mr. Siddell chose to depict Coyote did not have any brown patches. The only other known ability that Coyote has given away was Renard's body snatching ability, which one of the patches should represent in that case.
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Dec 18, 2019 12:57:38 GMT
When Coyote transferred his strength to Ysengrin he did so by tearing off the red patch on his back revealing the brown "naked skin" underneath. Since that is not the only part of his body that is brown I speculate that the other patches missing represent other abilities that Coyote has given out. A quick image search revealed that the crafts that no doubt influenced how Mr. Siddell chose to depict Coyote did not have any brown patches. The only other known ability that Coyote has given away was Renard's body snatching ability, which one of the patches should represent in that case. And control over the trees!
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Dec 18, 2019 12:58:08 GMT
Copied from a page discussion:
Silly me, I thought that since the elves were pretty much human they'd be able to go through the barrier. I'm sure they could have stashed the elves somewhere other than between the Wood and the Court, if they wanted to. My theory: We know the Court puts tracking nanites or something similar in the food each of its residents. The barrier could be programmed to simply keep out everything organic that does not have the tracking nanites inside.
|
|
|
Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 18, 2019 17:18:13 GMT
Copied from a page discussion:
Silly me, I thought that since the elves were pretty much human they'd be able to go through the barrier. I'm sure they could have stashed the elves somewhere other than between the Wood and the Court, if they wanted to. My theory: We know the Court puts tracking nanites or something similar in the food each of its residents. The barrier could be programmed to simply keep out everything organic that does not have the tracking nanites inside. If so that provides an easy solution to bringing the elves into or across the barrier. Just feed them something with the nanites.
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Dec 19, 2019 18:16:19 GMT
Copied from a page discussion:
My theory: We know the Court puts tracking nanites or something similar in the food each of its residents. The barrier could be programmed to simply keep out everything organic that does not have the tracking nanites inside. If so that provides an easy solution to bringing the elves into or across the barrier. Just feed them something with the nanites. Of course we do not know whether even the Court knows what is affected by the shield and what is not.
|
|
|
Post by Gemini Jim on Dec 19, 2019 19:27:44 GMT
If so that provides an easy solution to bringing the elves into or across the barrier. Just feed them something with the nanites. Of course we do not know whether even the Court knows what is affected by the shield and what is not. "Elf #242, eat this and walk through there." *chew chew chew chew walk walk walk bonk* "OK, Elf #243, same thing, only eat more sandwiches this time."
|
|