The Will Smitty Die Poll

[zbeeblebrox]

I can't believe this wasn't already made. The other poll about who will survive still has Smitty in 3rd place, so it doesn't really give us a good idea what the consensus is on his survival. Plus I saw people idly asking about a poll.  So here you go everyone. Place yer bets! Life or death?  Keep 'er or Reaper?  Totally stoked or totally croaked? Relievement or bereavement?  Does the bell toll or does the man stroll? To Smits or not to Smits?  THAT is the question!

Polls will close upon Smitty's death or the end of the chapter, whichever comes first

[todd]

I voted "no", because, as I said, I think his death would raise too big an obstacle for the story's continuation. That is, his death couldn't be concealed from the Court, and once it investigated, it would soon find out about Annie and Kat's involvement (Kat's involvement is critical; before, when Annie was in serious trouble with the Court, such as "Spring-Heeled" or Antony's return, we could at least switch to Kat for a while; we won't even have that option after that)- and once it did, it would have to come down hard on them for their enterprise leading to a student's death (and the Court Medium's, at that - a position that could take years to find a new candidate for). And after that, Tom would either have to give us page after page of Annie and Kat sitting quietly in detention and nothing else, or promote someone else to the role of the leads, which would have its own problems.

So, for the sake of the story's future, Andrew has to live - or else Tom's going to need to come up with some really inventive reason for why the remainder of "Gunnerkrigg Court" won't be panel after panel of Annie and Kat sitting silently at their desks in Detention.

[csj]

gkc, Chapter 61

Post-traumatic stress

[Jelly Jellybean]

I am going with Yes, because the introduction of Bunny Boy made the comic exceed the number male characters allowed in socially acceptable stories these days. Some one has to go.

[snowflake]

I voted no, because Tom has been keeping us in suspense for a resolution to this for almost a month now, and if the outcome is death that would just make all the teasing seem cruel and in poor taste.

Jan 21, 2017 14:54:05 GMT Jelly Jellybean said:

I am going with Yes, because the introduction of Bunny Boy made the comic exceed the number male characters allowed in socially acceptable stories these days. Some one has to go.

Hahaha.

[imaginaryfriend]

I voted no because I think that wound would be survivable with prompt treatment, all things held equal.

Of course, if they panic and don't take Smitty to a care center, if the wound is magically fatal because it's ghost-caused, if George freaks out and decides the best thing to do is stick Diego's arrow into herself or Smitty's wound as a way of making sure he stays around, if the 'pomps announce that Smitface and Parley have to be the new guardians of the Annan because reasons, or some other twist happens, then that's what will happen. But the cause for those things happening, if they happen, will be something other than the wound itself.

[clover]

As a notably unlucky individual who is most known for being unable to influence events around him in a positive way, Smitty is unquestionably doomed, and will definitely die.

[Gulby]

I would have loved an in-between answer along the line of "Not really but his ghost will stay with the group for some chapters until someone realizes how to reunite it with his stased body". But I chose "No".

[chrisjenl]

If is ts yes than something really big like a meager invasive from the forest so it don't mither so mats any more.

[fish]

I'm voting no but I'm not going to try to explain it. It's mostly a gut feeling anyway. But I wonder how Tom will manage to save Smittface in a non deus-ex-machina way. If Muut waves his hand and the wound disappears, that would be rather anticlimactic.

However, I'm not disinterested in seeing Tom continue the story after a character death like this... I want to see the next page is what I'm saying.

[todd]

Jan 21, 2017 21:20:14 GMT lisanela said:

I think his death would have too many consequences, story wise. For 20 chapters you would just have a bunch of kids trying to deal with a traumatic event - Annie is still struggling with her mother's death, can you imagine her dealing with this? She cut herself in half to try and function normally after her father returned. And I'm only talking about emotional consequences because I can't even imagine how the court/Andrew's parents/all the adults/rey would react to this. 

Another good point - in fact, the combination of those two could risk shutting down the comic even more (short of either a time skip to when Annie and Kat have grown up and are no longer students, or substitute leads to take their places). They'd be immobilized by both the Court's response and their own grief and guilt, to the point where they'd probably be just numbly going about their regular routines as students, unable to bring themselves to get involved in the weird goings-on any more.

[Vuk(Wolf)]

Jan 21, 2017 12:50:43 GMT todd said:

I voted "no", because, as I said, I think his death would raise too big an obstacle for the story's continuation. That is, his death couldn't be concealed from the Court, and once it investigated, it would soon find out about Annie and Kat's involvement (Kat's involvement is critical; before, when Annie was in serious trouble with the Court, such as "Spring-Heeled" or Antony's return, we could at least switch to Kat for a while; we won't even have that option after that)- and once it did, it would have to come down hard on them for their enterprise leading to a student's death (and the Court Medium's, at that - a position that could take years to find a new candidate for). And after that, Tom would either have to give us page after page of Annie and Kat sitting quietly in detention and nothing else, or promote someone else to the role of the leads, which would have its own problems.

So, for the sake of the story's future, Andrew has to live - or else Tom's going to need to come up with some really inventive reason for why the remainder of "Gunnerkrigg Court" won't be panel after panel of Annie and Kat sitting silently at their desks in Detention.

Detention?
If they are involved in student's death, they are facing serious punishment "or worse, Expulsion" ;D

[todd]

Jan 22, 2017 7:29:58 GMT Vuk(Wolf) said:

If they are involved in student's death, they are facing serious punishment "or worse, Expulsion" ;D

And which would make the webcomic all the more difficult to continue in a recognizable form. Possibly the only way out after that would be for Tom to create two new characters, another girl with etheric talents and another girl with scientific/technological talents, have them come to Gunnerkrigg, become friends, and take over the investigations that Annie and Kat began - and even that would have its problems.

No, for the sake of more "Gunnerkrigg Court", Smith has to live.

[bedinsis]

If Andrew were to die the protection he offered to Annie would be null and void. I wonder what that would mean, i.e. if they would expel her immediately when that offer was ended.

On the other hand Anthony is perhaps protecting her similarly right now. So I wonder if Andrew is necessary for that plot point to not play out.

The way the comic is unfolding at the moment makes it look like Andrew WILL die, but maybe I'm to fond of him to accept that.

And I also wonder how the comic will be able to continue on the same trajectory if Andrew dies. Which makes it all the more worrying that this is the first chapter of the new book; this could be an initial event to signal that things will be different; both in tone and in trajectory.

Parley would probably be in the biggest trouble of them if Andrew died; it was her duty to keep him safe.

One possibility though: he does die, but in a kind of Deal with Devil kind of scenario, he is brought back. There must be some setback, otherwise death becomes far too cheap in this setting. I wonder though if Coyote would be able to do something like that, he's good at providing tainted gifts.

As a side note: the way this thread's headline is capitalising the first letter of each word makes it seem like someone really dislikes Will Smith.

[todd]

Jan 22, 2017 14:52:04 GMT bedinsis said:

If Andrew were to die the protection he offered to Annie would be null and void. I wonder what that would mean, i.e. if they would expel her immediately when that offer was ended.

On the other hand Anthony is perhaps protecting her similarly right now. So I wonder if Andrew is necessary for that plot point to not play out.

The way the comic is unfolding at the moment makes it look like Andrew WILL die, but maybe I'm to fond of him to accept that.

And I also wonder how the comic will be able to continue on the same trajectory if Andrew dies. Which makes it all the more worrying that this is the first chapter of the new book; this could be an initial event to signal that things will be different; both in tone and in trajectory.

Parley would probably be in the biggest trouble of them if Andrew died; it was her duty to keep him safe.

Yes, I think that Parley will get the sack if Andrew dies. (Not just for punishment, though. It'd probably take years for the Court to find a new medium and then train him or her for the position - and with the position vacant for that stretch of time, there'd be no reason to have a protector to the Court Medium - and thus, no reason to keep Parley in that position.)

I still don't think that the Court will actually expel Annie (again, they'd want her where they can keep an eye on her); more likely they'd have her (and Kat, if they find out about Kat's role in this) placed under house arrest for a very long time.

It *is* possible that, if we really are in for a "big change", and if that big change is Annie and Kat getting in trouble with the Court over this, that Tom might plan to use it as an opportunity to examine some of the supporting characters (Paz, Shadow2, Winsbury, Janet, Sullivan's John, Margot, etc.) more closely - with Annie and Kat "put on a bus" for a while to make room for them.

[mturtle7]

This is a tough one. On one hand, I'm seeing a lot of good points about the potentially comic-breaking consequences of a death like this. On the other hand, everything we've seen so far has been perfectly set up for Smitty to die, especially since he's clearly dying as a noble sacrifice to save his girlfriend. And well, I'm just going to have to grow a third hand now, since I actually really love Smitty as a character and I can't really imagine him dying permanently.
That's two hands against one, so I clicked the "No" button.

[twilightfire]

annie's probably a kick the psychopimp's butts for leaving jeanne for so long, then make a favor or something to let Smitty to live on as a ghost, working as a medium for the court. Though he's gonna need a medium too, for all the... ghostieness.

[bgb16999]

Jan 22, 2017 12:31:57 GMT todd said:

Jan 22, 2017 7:29:58 GMT Vuk(Wolf) said:

If they are involved in student's death, they are facing serious punishment "or worse, Expulsion" ;D

And which would make the webcomic all the more difficult to continue in a recognizable form. Possibly the only way out after that would be for Tom to create two new characters, another girl with etheric talents and another girl with scientific/technological talents, have them come to Gunnerkrigg, become friends, and take over the investigations that Annie and Kat began - and even that would have its problems.

No, for the sake of more "Gunnerkrigg Court", Smith has to live.

Eh, not really. 

Parley may get demoted for failing in her job as the Court Medium's protector, but there's a pretty big gulf between fighting really hard and failing to protect him and causing his death.  She might get punished, but she could probably be safe from expulsion.

Annie could get "expelled," but what would that really mean?  She wouldn't be taking normal acedemic classes anymore, but we barely see those anyways.  She might not be able to live in on-campus housing, but, again, barely anything happens in her current house.  She still has a home very close to Gunnerkrigg Court, and she still can still go there regularly, both as a medium (the Court couldn't refuse when the previous medium wanted to come to the Court), and possibly as a psychopomp (does Paz have any animals with a fire-connection?)  All in all, Annie wouldn't really lose much by getting expelled.  It might even set off the next development in the Reynard story (e.g., with Annie living in the forest, the Court decides to forcibly take Reynard from Annie and Kat, so Kat and/or Annie break him out and he goes to live with Annie in the forest).

Kat is the one who probably has the most to fear as far as punishment from the Court goes.  She's not allowed to be off-campus at all, regardless of who dies.  The Court can nomrally track her position through food, so they'd know she was involved.  However, Kat was involved with the plan to fool the Court's tracking device in Faraway Morning, so it's plausible that she would have done something similar to prevent the Court from knowing her location while this fight is going on.


However, I still think Smitty is going to live, for a few reasons.  Firstly, the fact that Annie and Kat just sat back and watched during the time between disabling the arrow and the elf meeting Jeanne means that one or both probably could have prevented Smitty's death (if e.g. after disabling the arrow, Annie had joined the fight for the time it took for the elf to climb out of the water).  If Smitty dies here, it makes the main characters look pretty bad.

Moreover, we really haven't seen Annie do much yet in either this chapter or the last.  Kat, Parley, and Andrew have done almost everything (with some help from Blue), since Annie couldn't solve the puzzle in the arrow.  We may be about to see Annie really contribute by healing Andrew.  She might be able to heal him with her own etheric powers, or her diplomat skills could be the key to persuading the psychopomps to do something in Smitty's favor.  And on the off-chance that Smitty's wound is entirely physical (i.e., Jeanne's departure got rid of any etheric injury), they are just one bip away from Anthony and his super-medicine. 

[Jelly Jellybean]

Jan 23, 2017 5:14:34 GMT bgb16999 said:

...

Annie could get "expelled," but what would that really mean?  She wouldn't be taking normal acedemic classes anymore, but we barely see those anyways.  She might not be able to live in on-campus housing, but, again, barely anything happens in her current house.  She still has a home very close to Gunnerkrigg Court, and she still can still go there regularly, both as a medium (the Court couldn't refuse when the previous medium wanted to come to the Court), and possibly as a psychopomp (does Paz have any animals with a fire-connection?)  All in all, Annie wouldn't really lose much by getting expelled.  It might even set off the next development in the Reynard story (e.g., with Annie living in the forest, the Court decides to forcibly take Reynard from Annie and Kat, so Kat and/or Annie break him out and he goes to live with Annie in the forest).

Kat is the one who probably has the most to fear as far as punishment from the Court goes.  She's not allowed to be off-campus at all, regardless of who dies.  The Court can nomrally track her position through food, so they'd know she was involved.  However, Kat was involved with the plan to fool the Court's tracking device in Faraway Morning, so it's plausible that she would have done something similar to prevent the Court from knowing her location while this fight is going on.  

If Smitty dies and punishment is levied...

Annie getting expelled would separate her from Kat (her only true fried) and her father (whom she still wants in her life).  She could live in the Forest, but losing the few human connections she has would be punishment.

I really don't see Kat getting expelled because I believe the Court sees her as a Court prodigy.  I see the Court blaming almost everything on Annie to excuse everyone else's culpability.

[todd]

Jan 23, 2017 12:44:00 GMT Jelly Jellybean said:

Annie getting expelled would separate her from Kat (her only true fried) and her father (whom she still wants in her life).  She could live in the Forest, but losing the few human connections she has would be punishment.

I really don't see Kat getting expelled because I believe the Court sees her as a Court prodigy.  I see the Court blaming almost everything on Annie to excuse everyone else's culpability.

I don't think the Court would expel Annie, because then it wouldn't be able to keep a close watch over her.

But I do think that the most likely response from the Court will be to place so many restrictions on Annie and the others to keep incidents like this from happening again that there'd be barely any potential for new stories after that.

The only possible way out of that if Smith dies, I think, would be something like blackmailing the Court - threatening to make public to all the students about the Founders' cowardly double murder, and thereby disgracing the Court, if the Court leaders act against our heroes.

[fish]

The only reason I can see for the Court not to expel Annie immediately, in case of Smittface dying, is Anthony. They have already threatened him with Annie's expulsion, somehow I doubt they were bluffing. She is a non essential nuisance too the Court at this point, and the only reason she's still here is because the Court needs Anthony to work on the omega device and for some reason Anthony wants Annie to continue in some ominous program. So if they really wanted to kick her out, they'd at least need something else to blackmail Tony with.

[kiapet]

Jan 22, 2017 0:33:44 GMT fish said:

I'm voting no but I'm not going to try to explain it. It's mostly a gut feeling anyway. But I wonder how Tom will manage to save Smittface in a non deus-ex-machina way. If Muut waves his hand and the wound disappears, that would be rather anticlimactic.

It wouldn't be anticlimactic if Annie and friends have to convince him to do so- then it's just another battle to win.

I said no because if he died I feel like there wouldn't be this much buildup. Having the psychopomps be able to save him and refuse would just be cruel.

[fish]

Jan 23, 2017 13:41:29 GMT kiapet said:

Jan 22, 2017 0:33:44 GMT fish said:

I'm voting no but I'm not going to try to explain it. It's mostly a gut feeling anyway. But I wonder how Tom will manage to save Smittface in a non deus-ex-machina way. If Muut waves his hand and the wound disappears, that would be rather anticlimactic.

It wouldn't be anticlimactic if Annie and friends have to convince him to do so- then it's just another battle to win.

True, true. I was picturing it more in the line of

Annie: Now fix this!
Muut: Okay.

[eureka]

I'm going with no because I selfishly want to see other questions answered rather than chapters of grief. Also, because there is a lot of grief/heartache everywhere about big real world things right now and I need my escapism to give me hope that good guys can win.

Also, you know, because Smitty is pretty great and stuff so he needs to live.

[jda]

No.
1. Betting on a heavy case of dextrocardia, as an ultimate DeusExSmitty.
2. Even if not, Annie may still sell her Elemental soul to the Psychopomps in exchange for Smitty's life.
3. Parley may still remember her basic training and her Heal potions (unless the secrecy of the mission required her not to bring them).

[warrl]

In the next page or four:

Muut: "No, we won't heal him. We aren't allowed to meddle with the living. You ARE living, and therefore are allowed. Go do it yourself."

Annie: "I can't, or I don't know how."

Muut: "Here's how..." {off-camera explanation}

[Per]

Muut: First, unleash your maximum hellblast to turn him to ashes.

Smitty: I'm not dead y-

*FWOOOSH*

Annie: And now?

Muut: Haha, just wanted to see you do that. No, he was a goner, bye.

[Jelly Jellybean]

Jan 23, 2017 19:25:33 GMT Per said:

Muut: First, unleash your maximum hellblast to turn him to ashes.

Smitty: I'm not dead y-

*FWOOOSH*

Annie: And now?

Muut: Haha, just wanted to see you do that. No, he was a goner, bye.

Funny, but I think that is more Coyote's style than Muut's.

[zbeeblebrox]

For the record, I voted "yes". Not because I expect him to die, but because if he does die - after being devastated over the loss of my favorite character, I'll be able to take consolation in the fact that I won my own poll.

Jan 21, 2017 23:18:48 GMT Gulby said:

I would have loved an in-between answer along the line of "Not really but his ghost will stay with the group for some chapters until someone realizes how to reunite it with his stased body". But I chose "No".

I decided against an in-between because despite the comic having afterlife type options, they all still involve definite death happening. So even if the circumstances aren't necessarily 100% permanent, they are 100% either life or death. Schrodinger's Smitty just ain't happening.

[Glim Glam]

I personally don't think Smitty will die. Something will end up saving him, whether it's Annie herself or the Psychopomps.