[1780] Go

[Daedalus]

BUT WHAT ABOUT SMITTY

[Trillium]

Jan 16, 2017 8:00:26 GMT Daedalus said:

BUT WHAT ABOUT SMITTY

I don't know...

[Fishy]

You know, for such an inventive mind you'd think that Kat would remember to take her fog machine out of the boat before they gave it away.

[tiberius]

and what about robot?

[arf]

Bye Bye Jeanne.
Bye Bye Green Guy, though we knew ye not...

(Actually, this all seems a bit anti-climactic. No final words for the ROTD's archives?)

[bedinsis]

Okay, their souls have been put to rest, now it's time to bip the heck out of there. Probably this Wednesday.

[Daedalus]

Jan 16, 2017 8:04:01 GMT arf said:

No final words for the ROTD's archives?

You'd think she'd have learned from last time.

[mangotango]

Ugh, forgetting about a certain young boy right now, I LOVE this page so, so, much. Something about it makes it feel so, complete, imo. They've done it! It's peaceful, reassuring, and profound. Tom, you definitely have proven yourself in the area of pacing— suspense, significance, and all! Of course, this is all opinion, but I've been caught up in every page since the arc started

(I know that one of the party members has most definitely bled out by now, but I'm just letting myself freak out one page at a time. Proper funeral arrangements will be made by me very shortly.)

My favorite panel definitely has to be the one showing Annie's back. Usually that kinda stuff showcases strength and courage, which is very fitting for the stage of development that she is in right now. Am I also the only one who notices how /tall/ she looks ?? With this comic being over a decade old it's kind of a given that Annie and the rest of the cast has grown up quite a bit, and I seem to forget that a lot, haha.

In other topics, we are definitely running out of straws (and time) to possibly save Smitts. Tom is either doing it For Realsies or he's currently being possessed by Chekhov rofl . I got a bit rambly since it's a little past 3 AM my time but it's definitely a good note to fall asleep to!

[blackmantha]

Jan 16, 2017 8:00:26 GMT Daedalus said:

BUT WHAT ABOUT SMITTY

Two down, one to go?

[zbeeblebrox]

Annie's gonna turn around all, "We did it!" and everyone will already be gone

Jan 16, 2017 8:15:19 GMT mangotango said:

My favorite panel definitely has to be the one showing Annie's back. Usually that kinda stuff showcases strength and courage, which is very fitting for the stage of development that she is in right now.

Not to mention highlighting what fantastic posture she has

[gideonwells]

Is it just me, or does Annie look a bit like her father in panel 3?

[fish]

Annie is doing a psychopomp's duty, maybe she just doesn't prioritize taking a final record. Maybe no one from the RotD wanted to lend her a camcorder. Or maybe final records can only be taken if the ghost understands that he/she is dead. Ooor Annie just goofed up as usual.

[noone3]

So, we can finally start to think about some serious questions.


Like... will the rubber dinghy get to the afterlife with them, now?

[TBeholder]

But what about the boat? Unless it's going with them (but why?), will it reappear in the river... or become a rubber Flying Ductchman?

Jan 16, 2017 8:50:06 GMT fish said:

Annie is doing a psychopomp's duty, maybe she just doesn't prioritize taking a final record. Maybe no one from the RotD wanted to lend her a camcorder. Or maybe final records can only be taken if the ghost understands that he/she is dead. Ooor Annie just goofed up as usual.

Or all of the above?

[fish]

Jan 16, 2017 9:20:43 GMT TBeholder said:

But what about the boat? Unless it's going with them (but why?), will it reappear in the river... or become a rubber Flying Ductchman?

Destroying evidence perhaps? It will become just another piece of garbage in the ocean.

[theonethatgotaway]

Maybe she doesn't want any last records of these two, to keep 'em safe? Or they're so "old" that they couldn't remember their last records if they wanted to?

[imaginaryfriend]

Jan 16, 2017 9:20:43 GMT TBeholder said:

But what about the boat? Unless it's going with them (but why?), will it reappear in the river... or become a rubber Flying Ductchman?

My guess is that it's going into the ether and will never be seen again.

But if it doesn't... If I saw something like the Annan in real life I'd figure the water would eventually flow underground. Depending on the force with which it does so, a raft will either get sucked down or bob around on the surface until it wears out or gets stuck somewhere. But, since the Court is maybe not quite connected to reality in exactly the same way it may be the case that the level of the ground adjusts back to the same as that on either side as you leave the boundary, so it would then normally flow into the ocean or some other body of water, again assuming it doesn't get stuck somewhere. I'm guessing from an answer to a question that Mr. Siddel once gave (about how Jeanne and Green could walk normally from where they were to meet to somewhere else they planned to go) that the latter is probably what will happen. Junk may float down the Annan so infrequently that the Court doesn't have any in-place plan for catching anything that might cause concern, so likely the men in black will appear and quell any searches for presumably-lost boaters, not that we will see anything like that in the comic.

[Rasselas]

I think it's about priorities. Priority one is to get these two into the ether, because they've been stuck for too long. Psychopomps seem to have some strong impulse drawing them towards their work, so Annie is probably drawn by the necessity of this task. Besides, the immediate danger doesn't pass until Jeanne is out of the picture.

I too would've preferred a final record, but consider: these souls have been trapped so long, they barely knew where they were anymore, or why. They'd be confused and potentially dangerous. Remember how boy-Mort didn't even know he was dead.

It feels momentous to be reading this page, after I've been following the story for so long. We knew it would happen someday, but not how or when, and now it's here. Ahhhhh.

Also, Smittypanic!!!

[fish]

Or maybe, after another 50 chapters pass our heroines will be stuck in the ocean after a shipwreck, desperately clinging to debris. And then, completely out of nowhere but not unreasonably so, the boat appears. After a bit of tinkering Kat will fix up the motor, make it solar powered, and the day will be saved once again.

Okay, this sounded better in my head. Let me exit the stage.

[ariestinak]

OK. This is done. I think the court is going to find out about this pretty soon. They have no choice but to bring Smithy to the court (either for a surgery or, hopefully not, for a funeral) and the court will find out what exactly happened. In any case, I don't think the court would be happy about this at all.

[todd]

Jan 16, 2017 12:30:08 GMT ariestinak said:

OK. This is done. I think the court is going to find out about this pretty soon. They have no choice but to bring Smithy to the court (either for a surgery or, hopefully not, for a funeral) and the court will find out what exactly happened. In any case, I don't think the court would be happy about this at all.

Though, as I've mentioned before, Tom would have to balance the Court's response with the needs of the story. This is the opening chapter of a new book, which means many chapters after this one. If the Court comes down hard on Annie and Kat over getting Andrew seriously injured and killed (thus leaving it without a Medium, and it would take years to find and train another one) and grounds them, that's going to limit the variety of stories that Tom can tell after that.

We obviously can't have several chapters after this of nothing but Annie and Kat sitting in a detention room, so something will have to happen to prevent that eventuality. The big question is what that will be (whether Smith getting miraculously healed by some other agency, or something else).

[todd]

Jan 16, 2017 8:13:48 GMT @dameofdiamonds said:

why is elf guy a traitor?

I still think that Diego was using the word "traitor" as just an insult, rather than in a literal way.

[fish]

Jan 16, 2017 9:56:51 GMT theonethatgotaway said:

Maybe she doesn't want any last records of these two, to keep 'em safe? Or they're so "old" that they couldn't remember their last records if they wanted to?

Hah, keep them safe from what? By now they are more than dead, they are absorbed into the ether. If anything it could keep Annie and Co. safe from the Court finding out or something?

Now the only existing record of Jeanne is in the little cam-bot matador. And perhaps Diegos ramblings in the RotD archive. And the elf is completely lost to history. Sad sad.

[Fen]

The dinghy in the first panel looks like a butt.

*coughs*

I'll leave.

[ST13R]

Hmm. Did Greenguy see GodKat and will he put his vision into the aether?


Next episode: Will RATS return to GC?! I mean, that MUST be what the court needed protecting from right?

[Vuk(Wolf)]

Now there is nothing stopping the shadow people to intrude into the court like they did in chapter:Ties.
Next chapter: Smitty's Funeral

[hp]

Jan 16, 2017 12:53:36 GMT todd said:

Jan 16, 2017 8:13:48 GMT @dameofdiamonds said:

why is elf guy a traitor?

I still think that Diego was using the word "traitor" as just an insult, rather than in a literal way.

I don't think so. According to Diego's robot "memory movie", the split between Court and Woods was during Jeanne's lifetime. Before that, their inhabitants mingled and lived in harmony and Jeanne kept a relationship with Green Guy. Then some dispute happened that made Coyote carve the river and split Gunnerkrigg Court and Gillitie Wood, and their inhabitants were segregated. Including Jeanne and GG. The quarrel was so serious that Court started removing trees from their side and Woods started razing buildings.

After being shunned, Diego devises a "scheme" for the Court, using Jeanne and her lover as sacrifice to "fortify" the Annan Waters. The Court asks Jeanne to meet with GG on the river (according to the robot's feed, it is clear she sets up the meeting against her will and she has Court staff help to go down there), planning behind her back to kill him and use him as an anchor for Jeanne's ghost... Turning her into an invincible swordsmaster guarding the river.

So: 1) GG probably had access to Court before the divide, and 2) the Court requested Jeanne to meet him on the river under the pretext of some kind of diplomatic or undercover mission.

Judging from that, I'd say GG was someone important to the Court and/or the Woods. Diego calling him a "traitor" makes me think he was part of the staff, and did something that showed his loyalty was not with the Court:
- he could have been pushing Coyote's agenda behind their backs, which caused the split;
- he could have denounced some Court project to Coyote, which caused the split;
- he could have sided with the Woods on the dispute that caused the split.

My guess is, GG figured the Court's real agenda with ether manipulations and such. So he told Coyote, which made him split both sides and ban everything Court-related from the Woods.

Diego was probably involved in those plans (since he obviously can create technology that affects ether). Maybe GG was collaborating with him on that kind of research, until he figured Diego's intentions and spilled the beans to Coyote.

[bgb16999]

Maybe the conversation they just had counted as their Final Record, and Annie recorded it without them realizing (after all, Diego's Final Record was just his last line in life). Or maybe she did record a final record and we'll see it in a flashback next chapter, after we deal with Smitty.

[calpal]

"Goodbye, norma[l] Jeanne,
Though I never - KNEW YOU AT ALLLLLLL,
You had the grace to hold yourself
While those around you crawled..."

[Per]

Jan 16, 2017 8:25:50 GMT zbeeblebrox said:

Annie's gonna turn around all, "We did it!" and everyone will already be gone

Or Annie's gonna turn around and find everyone else hunched over an intense game of Go, which is what I thought upon seeing the thread title.

Jan 16, 2017 15:17:35 GMT bgb16999 said:

after all, Diego's Final Record was just his last line in life

While it was the same line, I don't think it was the same utterance; everyone else was clearly recorded after death. And I have the general impression that recording is primarily a RotD thing, not what the psychopomps consider to be their main gig.