|
Post by calpal on Oct 25, 2017 18:11:15 GMT
"You... and HIM?!" "No, me and the OTHER Anthony we met out in the jungle." "..."
|
|
|
Post by youwiththeface on Oct 25, 2017 18:16:17 GMT
Except there seems to be literally nothing else to him. She might as well have fallen in love with a mannequin. Well, there is the brilliant mind. Oh, and the handsome looks, I guess. You can get one from a computer, and the other, again, from a mannequin.
|
|
|
Post by snipertom on Oct 25, 2017 18:23:24 GMT
Wow. I wrote a really long post and then forgot to post it then updated my computer. Anyway I kind of empathise with all 3 of them while finding all 3 of them kinda jerky. I've been Eggers, Surma and Anthony at various points. I don't think S & E's relationship was that great, and I also think S & A could have waited to hook up. But at the same time, well, humans. Unfortunately these things happen. Also upon re-reading, a couple of other things: Plus it seems that Eggers punching out Hyland to defend Surma's honour was the event that led to him becoming the Court Protector dude...
|
|
|
Post by aline on Oct 25, 2017 18:30:21 GMT
Well, there is the brilliant mind. Oh, and the handsome looks, I guess. You can get one from a computer, and the other, again, from a mannequin. Well, this *is* a comic including two separate romantic relationships with actual metal robots.
And I'm not even counting the robot-ship unrequited love for gigantic crab storyline.
|
|
|
Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 25, 2017 19:10:09 GMT
But Surma is still just being a shitty person here. Like the best thing you can say is that she's being honest about having cheated on him. Yes she is. Totally agree with you on that. No real big surprise here, she was also shitty with Renard. And James has done nothing wrong yet. But I don't know, his reaction is weird. "You have got to be joking. You and him?" <- What even do you mean guy, if it was with somebody else it would be better or something? And yeah, maybe it would be easier for James to lose Surma to someone he respects. We know James never liked Tony even as kids, and it sounds like James is about to massively shit on Tony, his social awkwardness and his lack of manly muscles or whatever, instead of dealing with the fact that his girlfriend has cheated on him and that they obviously had relationship issues. Be angry with the girl, James. It was her fucking decision to cheat and break up. Deal with the actual James / Surma relationship instead of trying to convince the world that Tony is an unworthy inferior creature who hasn't earned the right to touch your girlfriend. I could be wrong, we'll see the next few pages I guess. This is all pretty fair enough. Tony still has some responsibility, he knew Surma was cheating, but she's definitely more at fault than him.
|
|
|
Post by Deepbluediver on Oct 25, 2017 19:15:53 GMT
Look, James, you shouldn't criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away. And you have their shoes. What I'm saying is, James and Tony need to go on a life changing field-trip together. And then they should make out.
|
|
|
Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 25, 2017 19:23:05 GMT
As for cheating, consider this: once Surma realized she had fallen for Tony, she informed James, face to face, at (what appears to be) the first reasonable opportunity to do so. She was not, at any point, in supposedly-romantic relationships with both of them. Sure, it would have been better to let James know she was breaking up with him before hooking up with Tony... but that's what was missing, the "letting know". And she fixed it ASAP. Yes she was? Like she is in a romantic relationship with James (from what we can gather, and presumably an exclusive one) up until the moment she informs him of a break-up. Her making a personal resolution to do that later does not constitute an end to the relationship. What if she had made that decision because Tony was so hot in the jungle and she was just feeling super horny and then later when she's back in the court and Tony's being a robot again and James is beefed out she changed her mind back? That's the kind of thing you can do when the only thing going on is intentions in your head. The relationship was still on in the jungle. But rather than wait to end the relationship properly, she decided to... idk did they boff? I gathered that they boffed but even if they were just making out and heavy-petting that's still cheating, although less so. Like maybe James will over-react and be the bigger jerk in the next few pages but right now Surma is the one who behaved irresponsibly and callously. That doesn't make her a reincarnation of Hitler but she's definitely being a jerk here.
|
|
|
Post by spritznar on Oct 25, 2017 19:25:24 GMT
Well, there is the brilliant mind. Oh, and the handsome looks, I guess. You can get one from a computer, and the other, again, from a mannequin. yeah, but neither of them have a very good sense of humor...
|
|
|
Post by faiiry on Oct 25, 2017 19:44:12 GMT
Page 436-437 seem a little weirder to me now. First of all, it might just be the art style evolving, but Surma (and Anja, to a lesser degree) look much older on that page than they do here - and yet, unless Surma and Eggers got back together after the whole Tony debacle only to split up a second time, page 436-437 must have taken place before the current chapter. Also, I want to figure out what's the deal with Surma's short hair! Maybe it was just a hairstyle, but I doubt it. Nothing in the comic, ESPECIALLY hair-related things, are meaningless.
Another thing: Surma's pronounced accent has disappeared. A little disappointing for me - it was a cute little character quirk. Maybe it was harder to write that way, but I enjoyed it.
|
|
|
Post by Zox Tomana on Oct 25, 2017 19:57:52 GMT
Look, James, you shouldn't criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away. And you have their shoes. I don't care about anything else in this thread. Deepbluediver, you earn all the cookies. XD
|
|
|
Post by autumnrook on Oct 25, 2017 20:36:23 GMT
Well, there is the brilliant mind. Oh, and the handsome looks, I guess. You can get one from a computer, and the other, again, from a mannequin. You're free to date computers and mannequins all you want. Most people don't form feelings for those, and prefer flesh-and-blood partners though. Assuming that every relationship has to have some amazing, spectacular spark to it that everyone can see from miles around is a very immature expectation. If that was what was required, most people wouldn't ever fall in love, or have someone fall in love with them. This is a very realistic portrayal of love slowly building over time. If you want white-hot romance, I suggest the Romance section at your nearest Barnes and Noble.
|
|
|
Post by machiavelli33 on Oct 25, 2017 20:49:47 GMT
I've been where James is right now. You can't expect the people in your life to hold out when your life gets busy, and takes you away from them. Doubly so when it's a young n' hot n' loose couple like Surma and Eggers, where they're an "item" but hey who knows how official it was, who knows how serious it was.
Expecting people to wait when you're gone literally all the time is hard on the waiting party, and borderline unreasonable if you haven't already thought about the long term, and haven't really thought about things Super Seriously.
Here's hoping James takes it okay. It's a life lesson to be learned - not a fun one, nor a fair one, but an important one nonetheless. But given his continued bitterness towards Tony, I kind of doubt it.
------
On a corollary note, it's interesting to see the conflict between Tony and James, and what it sort of represents. It's everyman vs. superman. Tragic figure (later on, at least) vs. victorious hero.
In some ways, Surma moving on from James to Tony feels almost like she's maturing. There comes an age when you stop preferring bad boys and meatheads for your partner and start looking for someone softer, stabler, relatable and reliable. James in this chapter is clearly the strong meathead. He's away training to be a dragonslayer hardass, he's got irons in the fire, Surma dreams of him as a brick face with muscles, and his very first appearance and words in this are pretty hard and aggressive "you've got to be joking". No "did I do something wrong", no "what happened", no "wait can't we talk about this"....just "really?" and "*him*?" I mean, there's definitely going to be more talk after this, but it's not a great first look, for James. So Surma moves on from big bad strongboy to quiet gentle natureboy.
It's even more ironic since that the desire for a softer and stabler person is theorized to be meant to be someone who could better take care of your kids, and well...Tony clearly has a lot to make up for on that front.
|
|
|
Post by tc on Oct 25, 2017 21:23:10 GMT
As for cheating, consider this: once Surma realized she had fallen for Tony, she informed James, face to face, at (what appears to be) the first reasonable opportunity to do so. You typed the words right out from under my fingers. Also, the other day fia expressed a point which has been bouncing around my noggin for some time : (3) Tony is clearly a caring, nurturing guy with Surma. He holds her when she feels scared, doesn't baby her, but is a self-starter and doesn't shy away from offering to make food, prepping coffee, ensuring she has what she needs, checking in to see if she is comfortable, etc. These are marks of maturity. We dunno what James is like. But going by his raw passion in this segment, James has less temper control by far than Tony; and he has not forgotten or forgiven or constructively moved on from what happened with a former girlfriend over a decade ago, which may make sense under certain circumstances, but is the mark of a pretty heavy and possibly possessive person. Just my 2¢. We know from the beginning of "Ties" that Jimmy (before he was Sir Jimmy) had an instinct for using his strength to throw his weight around, and within that there is an implication that he had the potential to turn into a bit of a bully had Mr. (Sir) Thorn not intervened and encouraged him to put his talents to a more noble end. It's a truism that first impressions have a tendency to last, and I think it's interesting to see how many of us as readers have responded to this situation, given that Sir Jimmy was introduced to us as a heroic character and our first significant introduction to Tony was rather different. We've basically been shown explicitly that Tony's actions in the classroom were coerced out of him by the Court using the very real threat of sending Annie into permanent exile (which also carried the implied threat of making a cure for her "condition" impossible if/when he left with her), and yet a lot of us still seem to harbour significant enmity towards the guy in spite of that. It also seems to have led to an assumption that the decision to send Annie to the Court's boarding school and have Tony leave on an unspecified "mission" was Tony's, when we've been shown several times prior to the current chapter that Tony was complying with Surma's wishes on a lot of things - and in this current chapter we've seen concrete evidence (particularly on this page, which Anja is recalling from her own memories) that Surma was "calling the shots" on many key decisions. We know about the extra physical and etheric prowess that Knight Protector training confers (having seen it with Sir Jimmy and Parley), and yet on this page we see Surma resolutely facing Jimmy down and standing by her decision regardless. I can only speak for my own view on the matter, but I just can't picture Surma having zero say on what should happen to her daughter (or what her husband should do) in the event of her death, nor can I picture Tony going against her wishes after the fact. But back to Sir Jimmy. Yes, he has channelled his impulsiveness and strength and tempered it with a chivalric code of sorts, but up until now he has pretty much had everything his way. As far as he's concerned, he's the knight in shining armour and it's only logical that his chosen "lady" find him irresistible; after all, isn't that the way the stories we grow up with (and let's not forget, right now the gang are still teenagers) tend to go? Some readers are finding fault with Surma in this, but let's be honest with ourselves - how many of us actually end up with our childhood sweethearts? How many of us are attracted to the same aspects of a person at 18 that we thought we would be when we were 13? How many of us embarked upon a romantic relationship when we were young, only to find that we wanted something different as we grew and had to end things (or have had the other partner end things for the same reason)? Surma and Jimmy were teenagers - they weren't betrothed (much less married), and - as others have said - we don't even know if they'd agreed to date exclusively! Arguably, Jimmy could be said to have been taking their relationship status for granted - based on the fact that five or six months seem to have passed between the first time we see Surma express her feelings about his training keeping them apart and the second time at the start of the current chapter. I think it's telling that in the earlier flashback, Surma implied that she felt somewhat inadequate ("two short planks") compared to Anja and Donny. Jimmy's dedication to his training certainly made him the knight he had the potential to be, but it left Surma spinning her wheels - and she's clearly not the "damsel" archetype! Her time abroad with Tony not only challenged her preconceptions about herself on the surface (from "I *hate* bugs" to being fascinated by entomology), not only allowed her to prove to herself that she actually *was* smart, but also that exploring her etheric abilities with an interested partner opened her up to the potential she had within herself on a deeper level. Put another way, traditional epic stories have a lot to say about heroic knights winning the love of the fair maidens, but invariably avoid talking about the ensuing decades in which the lady of the demesne is stuck in the castle doing tapestries whilst her beloved is always off adventuring... And yes - as others have said, the fact that Sir Jimmy seems less hung up on the fact that Surma left him than the fact that she left a man of his calibre and nobility for an outwardly awkward geek like Tony does seem to hint at an underlying streak of arrogance in Sir Jimmy's character.
|
|
|
Post by faiiry on Oct 25, 2017 21:36:44 GMT
And yes - as others have said, the fact that Sir Jimmy seems less hung up on the fact that Surma left him than the fact that she left a man of his calibre and nobility for an outwardly awkward geek like Tony does seem to hint at an underlying streak of arrogance in Sir Jimmy's character. This could say something bad about Eggers, sure - he's too arrogant to believe a girl could ever reject his hotness. However, it might also say something bad about Surma. Maybe she has always been the type who had a roaming eye for other men, and Eglamore isn't surprised at the idea that she left him - only that she left him for Tony.
|
|
|
Post by tc on Oct 25, 2017 21:42:08 GMT
However, it might also say something bad about Surma. Maybe she has always been the type who had a roaming eye for other men, and Eglamore isn't surprised at the idea that she left him - only that she left him for Tony. Even though she was clearly dreaming of Sir Jimmy at the start of the chapter?
|
|
|
Post by faiiry on Oct 25, 2017 21:43:46 GMT
However, it might also say something bad about Surma. Maybe she has always been the type who had a roaming eye for other men, and Eglamore isn't surprised at the idea that she left him - only that she left him for Tony. Even though she was clearly dreaming of Sir Jimmy at the start of the chapter? Don't really see what that has to do with anything. You can be interested in two men at once, you know.
|
|
|
Post by jda on Oct 25, 2017 22:01:22 GMT
This thread is already 3 pages long after 14 hrs of the update, with a lot of posts being walls of text. Do someone knoes which has been the longest thread yet?
|
|
|
Post by tc on Oct 25, 2017 22:26:43 GMT
Don't really see what that has to do with anything. You can be interested in two men at once, you know. Oh, undoubtedly... But I was only using that as a single example - let's be honest, if Surma was the kind of person who had a roving eye it's highly improbable that none of their circle would have picked up on it by this point, and Tom is far too good a storyteller to be that clumsy as to not have dropped a hint in that direction by now. Also, I'm neither badmouthing Sir Jimmy nor claiming he's a bad person! One of the reasons I love this story as much as I do is the fact that all of the characters are flawed and therefore believably human (even including the characters who aren't technically human!).
|
|
|
Post by antiyonder on Oct 25, 2017 22:44:22 GMT
Not really shocked/bothered by them doing so in particular as I hold no pretense on either making the best possible choices. And when said get together is explained by the person who said that Surma falling in love was worse, yeah it makes a lot of sense. I've been where James is right now. You can't expect the people in your life to hold out when your life gets busy, and takes you away from them. Doubly so when it's a young n' hot n' loose couple like Surma and Eggers, where they're an "item" but hey who knows how official it was, who knows how serious it was. Ok, but if they were going steady (or if Surma intentionally led him on) why not just break it off with him before he goes on his trip if waiting isn't her thing? Consenting to a relationship even without a ring present does entail accepting the bad with the good. Though the benefit of such relationship, however, is that you can legitimately break it off if you're not certain you can handle the hardship. Yeah on topic maybe I just don't have enough personal experience to judge but this doesn't seem like the sort of conversation you have with an audience. Just mentally piecing together how it could've gotten to this point, I'm almost sure there was a better way to go about this. So I'm glad they didn't. More human. Mistakes are made. Surma's actions in general are reading as "flawed but very very human" to me. It's crappy and immature, but it's also... not uncommon before people learn that a) Wanting to Break Up is Enough, and b) just biting the bullet is kinder for all involved. i'm also in the camp of "no one's really the bad guy here so far, just a bunch of messy humans" Anyway I kind of empathise with all 3 of them while finding all 3 of them kinda jerky. I've been Eggers, Surma and Anthony at various points. I don't think S & E's relationship was that great, and I also think S & A could have waited to hook up. But at the same time, well, humans. Unfortunately these things happen. Hmm. While I do get that cheating isn't the worst thing possible and is overblown, I still think it's appropriate to consider that it's possible that it's underblown if that makes sense. Regardless, I have to wonder if it's really that unheard of for someone to sort out complicated relationships without cheating. I mean exaggeration/generalization of the truth is arguably still not an entire truth.
|
|
|
Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 25, 2017 23:41:49 GMT
And yes - as others have said, the fact that Sir Jimmy seems less hung up on the fact that Surma left him than the fact that she left a man of his calibre and nobility for an outwardly awkward geek like Tony does seem to hint at an underlying streak of arrogance in Sir Jimmy's character. This could say something bad about Eggers, sure - he's too arrogant to believe a girl could ever reject his hotness. However, it might also say something bad about Surma. Maybe she has always been the type who had a roaming eye for other men, and Eglamore isn't surprised at the idea that she left him - only that she left him for Tony. Guys there's a page where he interprets this as a sign that there's something fundamentally flawed about him, people have posted it or quoted it itt like five or six times. It's definitely not, "I'm so awesome, no one could be as worthy as I am!" and more, "But Tony's a creepy robot without emotions. Holy shit am I worse than a creepy robot without emotions?" Also like this is 100% a valid way to interpret Tony from what James knows of him.
|
|
|
Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 25, 2017 23:42:01 GMT
And, honestly, from what the reader knows of him.
|
|
|
Post by Per on Oct 25, 2017 23:51:52 GMT
Look, James, you shouldn't criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away. And you have their shoes. I don't care about anything else in this thread. Deepbluediver, you earn all the cookies. XD (It's from Jack Handey)
|
|
|
Post by TBeholder on Oct 25, 2017 23:56:54 GMT
Surma's look in the second last panel is so Annie... Or should that be vice versa? Expressive back? I don't see this. Also, Donald's face is my favorite. How to describe it? "goggles-bending level of confusion"? Last I remember, Annie didn't know that her mother had a relationship with Eglamore. A lot of people could have told her, but I think this is the first time in comic that we've seen Annie confronted with the information. I won't bet on this. Annie is rather observant. And could have seen the inscription on that knife. Also, she could compare Renard and James seething about Anthony and being somewhat confused by Annie resembling her mother, and at least suspect something.
|
|
|
Post by tc on Oct 26, 2017 0:24:16 GMT
It's definitely not, "I'm so awesome, no one could be as worthy as I am!" and more, "But Tony's a creepy robot without emotions. Holy shit am I worse than a creepy robot without emotions?" I'd argue that's a matter of perspective - it still boils down to the notion that Sir Jimmy considers himself "the better man" on some level. I don't think anyone's arguing otherwise. The crux of the matter as I see it is not that Sir Jimmy's interpretation of things is invalid, so much as that interpretation has become somewhat of an emotional crutch. Sir Jimmy never seems to have allowed himself any further self-analysis as to why it happened, and the part he played. I first heard it from Billy Connolly, so regardless of who first coined it, I'll always hear it in Glaswegian...
|
|
|
Post by kukapetal on Oct 26, 2017 1:35:31 GMT
Let me guess, he loses his temper and punches Tony for messing around with his girlfriend behind his back, forgetting about his newfound strength, and ends up accidentally putting Tony in the hospital. This will make him the bigger jerk in this situation (since putting someone in the hospital is worse than cheating), retroactively justifying Surma's, Tony's, Annie's, and the narrative itself's appalling treatment of him. Practically everything I learn about this guy just makes me feel more and more sorry for him. How DARE he not have the perfect and most convenient (for them) reaction to his friend hooking up with the love of his life behind his back?? To the Garbage Character Bin with him! Or maybe that won't happen, and I'm just a cranky windbag
|
|
|
Post by Geekette on Oct 26, 2017 2:55:08 GMT
Not an ex yet, and that's the point. He is by the time she says "Our relationship is over" which obviously just happened. He is an ex now. Whatever Tony was referring to when he said "that business with James" is something that hasn't happened yet (or is starting right now). Yes she cheated and that's shitty, we are in agreement. But when we discuss whatever it is that happened with James, it's something that happened after Surma ended her relationship with him. Which does not make the cheating disappear, but does make it something that happened in the past. And cheating or no cheating, James' reaction is pretty weird. He's not saying "How could you do that to me", but "How could you do that with him". Personally, I don't actually think James and Tony are friends, or ever really liked each other. I think they just ended up in the same social circle - Donny being Anja's boyfriend as the major link between the two. They may not have had any real beef with each other before, but I always figured that the two more regarded each other as friend-of-my-friends-that-I-don't-really-have-anything-in-common-with. So because James and Tony has never spent any time together outside of the group as a whole, James only knows Tony as oddly cold and all business, and clearly not at all someone bright and forcefully opinionated like Surma would like very much herself.
|
|
|
Post by gunnerscrag on Oct 26, 2017 3:10:45 GMT
Feeling bad for Eggy Eggs
|
|
|
Post by spritznar on Oct 26, 2017 3:25:33 GMT
Let me guess, he loses his temper and punches Tony for messing around with his girlfriend behind his back, forgetting about his newfound strength, and ends up accidentally putting Tony in the hospital. This will make him the bigger jerk in this situation (since putting someone in the hospital is worse than cheating), retroactively justifying Surma's, Tony's, Annie's, and the narrative itself's appalling treatment of him. Practically everything I learn about this guy just makes me feel more and more sorry for him. How DARE he not have the perfect and most convenient (for them) reaction to his friend hooking up with the love of his life behind his back?? To the Garbage Character Bin with him! Or maybe that won't happen, and I'm just a cranky windbag yeah... i don't recall tom ever committing character assassination like that before? doesn't seem like his style...
|
|
jocobo
Junior Member
Posts: 78
|
Post by jocobo on Oct 26, 2017 3:48:57 GMT
As for cheating, consider this: once Surma realized she had fallen for Tony, she informed James, face to face, at (what appears to be) the first reasonable opportunity to do so. She was not, at any point, in supposedly-romantic relationships with both of them. Sure, it would have been better to let James know she was breaking up with him before hooking up with Tony... but that's what was missing, the "letting know". And she fixed it ASAP. She kissed Tony before breaking up with Eglamore. Deciding your gonna tell him your leaving at the earliest convenience isn't the same as actually dumping someone. So yes, unless we learn they agreed to not be exclusive, she's a cheater. Also I find this concept of she had to tell him immediately right then before he could set a bag down to be unreasonable. I find ti further unreasonable she had to invite Tony to do it. She couldn't have asked to talk to him in private as soona s he got home? Or told Donny and Anja what happened and that when Eglamore arrived she wanted to speak with him alone so she could break it to him? As far as we know, Surma and Eglamore were friends before they were dating. I think that's what bugs me about this. Dumping someone in this fashion seems to be needlessly mean and insensitive to the other person. Just in general, there are better kinder ways to dump someone. So I'm going to assume Surma is being intentionally callous here until shown otherwise. Maybe she's been harboring resentment for Eglamore being gone, feels her feelings have been neglected so she's disregarding his at the moment? I don't know. It's definitely dulled the polish on her character for me.
|
|
|
Post by youwiththeface on Oct 26, 2017 5:11:22 GMT
You can get one from a computer, and the other, again, from a mannequin. Well, this *is* a comic including two separate romantic relationships with actual metal robots.
And I'm not even counting the robot-ship unrequited love for gigantic crab storyline.
That's another thing. The robots have more personality than Tony. You can get one from a computer, and the other, again, from a mannequin. You're free to date computers and mannequins all you want. Most people don't form feelings for those, and prefer flesh-and-blood partners though. Is that all Tony has to offer though? That he's made of meat? Kind of looks like it. Assuming that every relationship has to have some amazing, spectacular spark to it that everyone can see from miles around is a very immature expectation. If that was what was required, most people wouldn't ever fall in love, or have someone fall in love with them. This is a very realistic portrayal of love slowly building over time. If you want white-hot romance, I suggest the Romance section at your nearest Barnes and Noble. I don't believe a relationship has to have some amazing, spectacular spark that everyone can see for miles around. That's a strawman. What I think is that it seems pretty sad that the only reason it looks like Surma fell for him was because he was there when Eggers wasn't, because he doesn't seem to have much else going for him. I'm also wondering how a relationship based on so little managed to last.
|
|