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Post by legion on Mar 13, 2010 6:54:26 GMT
Xheralt, thank you; for the robots' chip thing, this could be interpreted as to say that the chip *is* their soul!
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Post by Yin on Mar 13, 2010 14:50:35 GMT
I just discovered, in a House of Mystery collection, a tale titled '1000 Eyes of Death'. It concerned a sheep farmer in the Old West who had a vendetta against eagles which stole his sheep, eventually culminating in his death by those eagles. Interestingly, one of them took human form... therefore my theory: the Tictocs are able to change their shape have alternate bodies which they are able to swap between much like S13's original, mouse and parkour bots. Where those alternate bodies come in... ehh. Gimme a lil' more time.
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Post by eddurd on Mar 14, 2010 20:41:19 GMT
Something that just popped into my head the other day ... ghosts tend to be connected to the place where they died. Mort is possibly a former student at Gunnerkrigg (which others have suggested before).
But how did he die? Note that Reynardine fell in love with Surma, and took the body of a young man (Chapter 20, pages 21 through 23). And of course, when he left that body ... the young man died. Could that have been Mort?
Did Mort know Surma? Was she attracted to him? Is that why Reynard chose that person to possess (hoping Surma would return the affection without catching on)? If Mort (when alive) did have feelings for Surma, it would explain why he's so attracted to Surma's daughter. It also raises the question: how much of his mortal life does Mort remember?
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Post by digikitty on Mar 14, 2010 22:19:02 GMT
actually, Tom has said in the "Questions to Tom" threads that Mort wasn't a student at the court, its just where he was stationed.
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Post by todd on Mar 15, 2010 10:49:54 GMT
I've mentioned this before, but I think it possible - even likely - that Mort's not even a ghost in the sense of the spirit of a deceased human, stuck in this world (like Jeanne and Martin), but an etheric creature who'd always been that way. ("The Lore of the Land", a book on English folklore which I mentioned in another thread, says that many "ghosts" in England's legends and folk-tales seem to be that way - always "ghosts", rather than once living.)
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Post by FrozenTrout on Mar 15, 2010 22:53:02 GMT
www.formspring.me/gunnerkrigg/q/310693996, "Does Mort remember his life, back when was alive. Yes." Which implies he was alive at some point before becoming a ghost. I think there was another question or two also (and possibly more) relevant about Mort, but I don't want to keep clicking the "More..." button over and over again (when it actually works). I really wish formspring had a "show all" button.
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Post by Rasselas on Mar 16, 2010 9:53:15 GMT
It would be really great if someone would compile all the comic-relevant formspring bits on the wiki or someplace. Of course, unless Tom objects.
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Post by judgedeadd on Mar 17, 2010 5:46:40 GMT
I think someone is already doing that, judging from the wiki's Recent Changes.
(And that's not me)
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Post by shouqi on Mar 17, 2010 11:14:16 GMT
Good Lord, this thread is gigantic.
OK, I've pawed through the first ~quarter or so of the thread, but I've got to get to work soon and can't finish my scan. Therefore, some of these ideas have likely been posted before.
Surma, despite being a very effective mediator, was also a rogue in the eyes of the Court. She preferred the company of etherics (Anja, Brynnie) to that of normal people. Her strong convictions gave her admirers and enemies. In addition, she was a free-spirited individual and chose who to love and not love, regardless of physical shell.
Reynardine possessed Anthony Carver in order to grow closer to Surma. They conceived Antimony together. Anthony died when Reynardine left his body, but lives now somehow... more on this when I come up with it. Reynardine is exiled from the forest for consorting with a human that way; the fact that the human "died" is secondary to the crime of Court-Forest love. Notably, Coyote has never made it clear who exactly barred Rey from returning, and it's implied that Rey himself is behind his alleged exile.
Rey "attacked" Antimony and faked much of the assault in order to possess her toy, which Surma had created much earlier. Rey and Surma had laid out this plan before Surma died, in order to allow Rey to get close to Antimony and keep her safe; hence why the toy conveniently had a alchemic seal on it before Rey made the jump. He couldn't break cover without making Annie reject him, but his fatherly instincts live on. It may also be that Rey was attempting to find his "kit" when he broke into the school.
Mort was a guard at Gunnerkrigg when the court was first formed. I don't know how he died, but it's relevent. He has a great deal of information rattling around in his head about the beginnings of the Court, information that could prove useful to Antimony in solving the problems at the Court's core.
Eglamore loved Surma desperately, but never got the chance to be with her. This is relatively obvious.
Jones is Jones. She is an entity unto herself and cannot be considered human; I believe she is a homonculi. She cannot be harmed by normal means, but she can be struck down by etheric might. Consider Eglamore's comments immediately before their duel. He uses raw physical abilities in melee combat, but can charge his sword with energy and hurl it at range. I suspect that would disable Jones relatively easily if he hit her. I've always wondered if there was some connection between Jeanne and Jones, since they look so much alike - it could be that the act of killing Jeanne was intended not only to seal the Annan Waters, but also to act as the sacrifice necessary to create the homonculi.
Coyote is exactly what he says he is; however, I believe he is artificial, an Ether Drive creation. This doesn't really change his raw power or his mindset.
More to come when I come up with it. This is all wild speculation and I can't defend much of it from a detailed analysis.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Mar 17, 2010 14:41:44 GMT
Reynardine possessed Anthony Carver in order to grow closer to Surma. They conceived Antimony together. Anthony died when Reynardine left his body, but lives now somehow... more on this when I come up with it. Reynardine is exiled from the forest for consorting with a human that way; the fact that the human "died" is secondary to the crime of Court-Forest love. Notably, Coyote has never made it clear who exactly barred Rey from returning, and it's implied that Rey himself is behind his alleged exile. The one problem with this theory is the timing. Anthony didn't disappear from the hospital until after Annie's enrollment at the Court. When Annie came to the Court and met Reynardine, he'd already been in possession of Sivo's body for five years. On the subject of whether or not Rey was really trying to possess Annie, there's an older thread here that covers that in-depth.
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Post by linnabean on Mar 17, 2010 16:05:49 GMT
Reynardine possessed Anthony Carver in order to grow closer to Surma. They conceived Antimony together. Anthony died when Reynardine left his body, but lives now somehow... more on this when I come up with it. Somewhere on formspring Tom has said that the man Reynardine possessed was not Anthony, nor was he any character we have met or heard of it. He said it was "impossible" to guess who Reynard had possessed. He also said that once possessed by Reynardine, the original owner of that body dies immediately.
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Post by Casey on Mar 17, 2010 16:06:01 GMT
Tom has already stated that it wasn't Anthony that Renard possessed... that the character he possessed hadn't been introduced yet so there was no possible way of knowing or deducing who it was.
BTW the singular form is "homonculus".
EDIT: Ach, linnabean beat me to the post while I was verifying the spelling of "homonculus".
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Post by linnabean on Mar 17, 2010 16:10:14 GMT
haha my bad. Props for the vocab though.
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Post by shouqi on Mar 17, 2010 16:19:12 GMT
Thank you for your responses. I've investigated the links you've so thoughtfully provided and will have revisions later today.
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Post by shouqi on Mar 18, 2010 21:52:46 GMT
Later today turned out to be much later than planned. I still don't have a clue, but it's kind of the point... lots more GC to be unveiled.
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Post by todd on Mar 19, 2010 12:20:41 GMT
Not exactly a *wild* speculation, but does anybody besides me have the uneasy feeling that the Founders arranged a nasty accident for the guy who walked out of the meeting, refusing to have any part in the plan to sacrifice Jeanne? They obviously wouldn't want him to talk.
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Post by Mr Pitchfork on Mar 25, 2010 16:39:20 GMT
I get the feeling that he was an important guy, not just some guy.
Whether this has anything to do with whether or not he would be assassinated by the founders, I don't know.
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Post by grinningcat on Mar 30, 2010 8:46:42 GMT
Well, since this IS wild speculation...
I suspect that the reason Jeanne can't leave is because her physical body hasn't died yet.
I suspect that the reason why Jones can't use a blinker stone is because she has no soul.
Why?
Jeanne is her soul. The arrow used to kill Jeanne might have instead separated her body and soul. Jones is then left in the court. Perhaps that's the reason why she is so stoic.
In addition, Janet Llanwellyn is about to become important. Well, as soon as we get some Jeanne thing sgoing on anyway. Janet's name means Little Jeanne. I looked into her surname but only found that it was a place somewhere in Pennsylvania.
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Post by warrl on Mar 30, 2010 21:37:39 GMT
In addition, Janet Llanwellyn is about to become important. Well, as soon as we get some Jeanne thing sgoing on anyway. Janet's name means Little Jeanne. I looked into her surname but only found that it was a place somewhere in Pennsylvania. Llanwellyn is the name of a parish in Cornwall, which was probably one of the last bits of modern England to fall under the control of the Anglo-Saxons. Unfortunately it looks like there was a conspiracy about 300 years ago to insure that no matter what Cornish name you do a Google search on, you would find Pennsylvania.
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optern
Junior Member
Posts: 84
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Post by optern on Mar 31, 2010 1:25:35 GMT
I don't know... Jeanne's eyes are green [651], and Jones' are always shown as black (right?). Also, Jones has no accent, and Jeanne has a French accent. I guess that could easily have changed if "Jeanne" no longer inhabited the body, though.
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Post by grinningcat on Mar 31, 2010 2:05:05 GMT
Well, seeing as how eyes can grey out as one gets older, couldn't Jones be suffering a more extreme case of this?
That and we've also seen some magical effects on the eyes. Who's to say that what ever magic they used to separate Jeanne from Jones didn't change her eye color?
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Post by avurai on Apr 2, 2010 0:23:44 GMT
Tom’s obsessed with eyes. It’s his favorite visual metaphor. Maybe when someone’s soul leaves their body, their eyecolor goes away as well.
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Post by solarn on Apr 2, 2010 15:31:18 GMT
Not so much speculation as just something I noticed about the alchemical symbols in the comic. Sorry if anyone else has already said this. First off, a recap: we all know that the Court's symbol is bismuth and it shows up everywhere, and people have also figured out that the angle-y thing that is on Eglamore's armor and the facade of the Court is lead and it's obvious that Antimony's symbol is antimony. But did you know that the "dot within a circle" that shows up from time to time is the alchemical symbol of gold? Now take Page 298. There is a lot of symbolism on this page, but for now I'll concentrate on the alchemy. In the middle of the page, there's the symbol of mercury, surrounded by the symbol of bismuth (above), gold (below), fire (left) and water (right). Sadly, I'm not as well versed in alchemy as I could be, so I don't know what significance the placement of the symbols could have. Apart from that, there's also the symbol for antimony above Annie's head (of course) and a symbol I can't identify but am sure I've seen before above Kat's. Also, Kat's hammer has the bismuth symbol on it again. The symbol between them, aside from resembling the "globus cruciger" used as one of the symbols of royalty across medieval Europe, is also a stylized version of another symbol for antimony. Now, to have some speculation, remember page 499? Coyote says that the Court is "man's endeavour to become God", with the symbol for gold showing in the panel. Alchemists famously sought to turn lead into gold, but their real goal was deeper than that. Lead was a metaphor for the impure human body and gold was a metaphor for the pure spirit. They sought the essence of immortality and to transcend their humanity to become something more, which they believed they could attain through the "philosopher's stone". So I'm postulating that the entirety of Gunnerkrigg Court, including the school, is a gigantic alchemy lab for the purpose of finding the philospher's stone.
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Post by evilanagram on Apr 2, 2010 18:46:24 GMT
While I think you're conclusion takes the treatise in a direction that's a bit too literal to be plausible, I think you've you've done a great job on the metaphor.
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Post by todd on Apr 2, 2010 22:18:20 GMT
I wonder if Tom would dare bring in the Philosopher's Stone now, after the various comments about the similarities between "Gunnerkrigg Court" and "Harry Potter" (he said once that if he had read the "Harry Potter" series before he began work on the webcomic, he would have done much of "Gunnerkrigg Court" differently).
Of course, if he handles the Philosopher's Stone differently than J. K. Rowling did, it won't be as much of a problem (and American fans might not be as ready to think of Harry if the Stone enters the story).
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Post by evilanagram on Apr 2, 2010 22:54:05 GMT
Oh yeah; it's the Sorcerer's Store over here. You know, since Americans have no idea what the philosopher's stone is. Mythology hurts our simple brains. And it's not like books are supposed to have concepts that the reader might not have encountered before. Why would a publishing company called Scholastic want children to learn new things? That's just crazy.
...
...
...
...
... Fuck you, Scholastic, Inc.
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Post by solarn on Apr 2, 2010 23:24:53 GMT
Also, something I forgot to add. As I wrote, lead symbolized the human body with all of its faults and impurities, a very primal thing. It's also the symbol of the protectors of Gunnerkrigg Court. Any connection there?
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Post by warrl on Apr 3, 2010 2:06:53 GMT
Of course, if he handles the Philosopher's Stone differently than J. K. Rowling did, it won't be as much of a problem (and American fans might not be as ready to think of Harry if the Stone enters the story). "Philosopher" was considered too high-brow for a mass American audience, so it got changed to "Sorcerer" in the US publication - thus offending many Americans who knew something about alchemy, as well as destroying the obvious mythical connection.
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Post by Casey on Apr 3, 2010 2:19:07 GMT
"Philosopher" was considered too high-brow for a mass American audience, so it got changed to "Sorcerer" in the US publication - thus offending many Americans who knew something about alchemy, as well as destroying the obvious mythical connection. That isn't exactly true, the reasons it was changed. The book was written for children. The wiki article on the book has a better explanation, but I won't quote it here since I think it's best not to have a lot of discussion about H.P. on the forum for Gunnerkrigg which has been compared to H.P. in the past.
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Post by todd on Apr 3, 2010 10:39:40 GMT
I read that the U.S. publishers were afraid that "philosopher" would carry connotations of stuffy thinkers using lots of long words that would scare off the younger readers (in the time when the legend of the Philosopher's Stone arose, the word "philosopher" was closer in meaning to "scholar" than specifically to people like Plato, Socrates, or Bertrand Russell).
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