ezpak
New Member
Posts: 14
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Post by ezpak on Dec 27, 2023 8:05:14 GMT
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Post by blahzor on Dec 27, 2023 8:27:43 GMT
Til Kat builds a new system accidentally to solve this one problem
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Post by gpvos on Dec 27, 2023 9:35:51 GMT
Annie... understands.
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Post by silicondream on Dec 27, 2023 10:36:50 GMT
She's always had that streak, especially about etheric matters. To Court kids, human authority is the status quo and the etheric bureaucracy are weird meddlers who need to be analyzed and resisted. For Annie, it's basically the other way around. This is probably due to her upbringing; Tony rarely expresses any group loyalty, and Surma raised Annie as a "good citizen" of the ether. Helping the guides was her equivalent of volunteering for a school fundraiser. |
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Post by guntherkrieg on Dec 27, 2023 10:44:07 GMT
Annie representing fatalism and Kat batting for Free Will. Thus we drill down to one of the core themes of the comic.
In terms of story construction Annie is the A-Story, she then meets Kat who is the B-Story (and representative of the B-World, the Court). The A and B characters are meant to teach each other something.
Annie is (I believe) in the story to learn how to be an independent agent. Her whole deal is she's been born with various chains binding her. A) a lineage of fire elementals that will one day lead to her death if she gets pregnant. And that may happen even if she doesn't find a partner, if the old parthenogenesis wild spec theories come true. B) the emotional chains of her father which she's now (with time) broken. And C) the duties to the psychopomps.
Kat is there to teach Annie how to be a normal girl and not just be a pawn in someone else's life / machinations.
A) and C) are still in play.
Kat, meanwhile represents breaking the rules. She's something new. Someone SO science-y she's managed to become a powerful etheric entity by mastering the "mundane" nuts and bolts of reality. Her lesson to be learnt appears to be finding her place in pantheons of the ether but, as we're seeing, her questioning nature and ability to find loopholes (to hack the system essentially) means she won't just be railroaded into a position. However, she'll need Annie's guidance and support.
Moving back to the outstanding questions of A) Annie's death by reproduction and C) her duty to the psychopomps.... I do wonder if Annie choosing to be a psychopomp and "existing outside of space and time" will nullify the death part as she'll no longer be subject to normal Time and Process.
EDIT: After having a cup of tea, I've decided that Kat's other story lessons are about finding limitations and things you just have to accept (death, the mechanics of the ether, etc), whereas Annie is about breaking the limitations or restrictions forced upon her. She went through this once with Alistair the Bird Boy.
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Post by csj on Dec 27, 2023 13:18:59 GMT
when the magical space demigods don't understand the concept of consent
what's new
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Post by ctso74 on Dec 27, 2023 15:33:22 GMT
Annie seems too casual about living outside the confines of the physical world, but if that's what she always believed, I guess it's just another day that ends in Y.
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Post by Gemini Jim on Dec 27, 2023 19:06:58 GMT
It's starting to feel like Kat is acting as Annie's lawyer, asking the tough questions, cross-examining the hostile cream puff, doing everything short of yelling "Hold It!" like an Ace, making sure that Annie knows her rights, and especially that she doesn't sign up for anything that she doesn't fully understand - especially as that went so well the last time. Good for her. Especially since Annie is being fatalistic, and: A: "It's OK Kat, I'm willing to do this." Let's see if Kat can manipulate the laws of the Ether about as well as she tinkers with machines and science-y stuff. |
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Post by Runningflame on Dec 27, 2023 21:13:55 GMT
Moving back to the outstanding questions of A) Annie's death by reproduction and C) her duty to the psychopomps.... I do wonder if Annie choosing to be a psychopomp and "existing outside of space and time" will nullify the death part as she'll no longer be subject to normal Time and Process. It does seem like A and C are going to be mutually exclusive. Recall that Surma, still alive but having already reproduced, told the psychopomps, " You know I would be of no use to you. Not anymore." |
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Post by drmemory on Dec 27, 2023 21:23:48 GMT
"I won't force you to do it, but according to my calculations you'd be the one best suited to take care of my precious NP."
- Kat, paraphrased
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Post by Gemminie on Dec 27, 2023 22:51:56 GMT
After Helper Ghost ominously intones that the guides are living but don't live among mortals, Annie takes Kat aside and asks her why she's asking all of this. Annie kind of knows all of this already, but Kat doesn't (and we readers don't either). Kat knows Annie's not exactly happy about having to work for the psychopomps one day, and although there's no one she'd want more than Annie to help her look after the NP, she doesn't want to force Annie into it. There are a few flashbacks to Annie's guiding experiences in the background, but otherwise, it's just Saslamel in the background, and the Interpreter looks in on the first panel.
So that's how Kat feels about this. How does Annie feel about this? Lots of talk about her but not much from her. Is she really ready to take on this burden? I mean, what if she's not allowed to leave the Pomp Realm except when a NP dies, and the rest of the time time doesn't flow there, so she may never see her dad again? We don't know whether that's the case, but we don't know it isn't either. Maybe Annie knows the answer already, but we don't.
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Post by blahzor on Dec 28, 2023 10:05:16 GMT
Annie seems too casual about living outside the confines of the physical world, but if that's what she always believed, I guess it's just another day that ends in Y. I mean she lived in worse places. Like London |
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Post by silicondream on Dec 28, 2023 12:01:34 GMT
Annie is (I believe) in the story to learn how to be an independent agent. Her whole deal is she's been born with various chains binding her. A) a lineage of fire elementals that will one day lead to her death if she gets pregnant. And that may happen even if she doesn't find a partner, if the old parthenogenesis wild spec theories come true. B) the emotional chains of her father which she's now (with time) broken. And C) the duties to the psychopomps. I would say that Annie's story is more about breaking her mother's chains than her father's. A) and C) are both aspects of her relationship with Surma. She's inherited her mother's soul, her mother's powers, her mother's duties as medium and guide, her mother's limited life span, her mother's looks and etheric charisma, her mother's makeup, and her mother's relationship with her father. It was Surma who appeared in Zimmingham, and Surma's former admirers who have become both her found family and her worst enemies. Over and over, Annie has to figure out exactly how she resembles or differs from Surma, and whether she wants to emulate Surma in this way or that. Tony's distance and absence created a big hole in Annie's life, but it was relatively easily resolved within the story because she'd already grown up adapting herself to that hole. All she really wants from him now is occasional family time and a few words of approval; there was never any question of her following in his footsteps, professionally or socially, or relying on his advice for anything other than passing her classes. And the thing she always admired most about him was his devotion to her mother. He's more like a pet than a parent at this point. "I won't force you to do it, but according to my calculations you'd be the one best suited to take care of my precious NP." - Kat, paraphrased I knew you'd find a way to make it creepy.  But yeah, she acknowledges Annie's competence but also respects her agency. Isn't that what a friend should do? It would be both incorrect and hurtful if Kat claimed that Annie wasn't the best person for the job. |
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Post by drmemory on Dec 28, 2023 20:09:36 GMT
"I won't force you to do it, but according to my calculations you'd be the one best suited to take care of my precious NP." - Kat, paraphrased I knew you'd find a way to make it creepy. But yeah, she acknowledges Annie's competence but also respects her agency. Isn't that what a friend should do? It would be both incorrect and hurtful if Kat claimed that Annie wasn't the best person for the job. Hmmm. Creepy isn't quite what I was going for. More "do whatever is necessary to meet my goals, ignoring morals and ethics and such". Like when she used the golems that had intentionally given up their lives, because she needed more labor.
Ok, maybe that is a bit creepy.
I really do think she likes Annie, but her attitudes and actions are still colored by Dark Kat.
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 28, 2023 21:51:00 GMT
I mean, what if she's not allowed to leave the Pomp Realm except when a NP dies, and the rest of the time time doesn't flow there, so she may never see her dad again? We don't know whether that's the case, but we don't know it isn't either. Maybe Annie knows the answer already, but we don't. Well, we've seen at least two instances of psychopomps arriving without any being dying - when Ankou turned up in the RotD (although this was not the physical realm, and he obviously had business there), and when all of the psychopomps turned up after Jeanne was freed. This was not exactly a casual visit either, though it probably wasn't necessary for the whole bunch to get there... Why did so many of the psychopomps get there, anyway? Just to say thanks? Or did they already expect the opportunity to recruit Annie? |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 28, 2023 23:10:31 GMT
I'm way behind on forum posts because of the holidays but will dribble out some fast thoughts. Apologies to anyone who already said these things, if any. Kat should easily be able to bridge the communication-with-psychopomp problem so they don't have to kill anyone/anything to force a 'pomp to appear to pass a message. Also inanimate objects that gain sentience/etheric abilities through their place in stories/magic/what-have-you should be a different department and there aren't very many Noobmens at all so Antimony will probably be the least busy 'pomp in history for the indefinite future. She should be able to visit Kat as long as she doesn't affect any other living people by doing so, at least not significantly, and if that becomes an issue Kat can visit her in the RotD by virtue of their contractual relationship. Not sure what the consequences of breaking that no-interference rule are but we've seen Muut at least bend it; potentially they broke it saving Smitface in a transactional way. Antimony becoming a 'pomp shouldn't affect her familiar contract with Renard; he's a being of the etherium so she can probably bring him along to the RotD though I dunno if he'd want to live there. Leaving him in the muggle world might be an issue if she's not supposed to affect the living, as it would be a way by proxy Antimony could get around that prohibition and do whatever, but then again the other 'pomps seemed to want to use Antimony in a similar way so maybe it's no problem at all.
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Post by silicondream on Dec 29, 2023 0:40:42 GMT
I knew you'd find a way to make it creepy. But yeah, she acknowledges Annie's competence but also respects her agency. Isn't that what a friend should do? It would be both incorrect and hurtful if Kat claimed that Annie wasn't the best person for the job. Hmmm. Creepy isn't quite what I was going for. More "do whatever is necessary to meet my goals, ignoring morals and ethics and such". Like when she used the golems that had intentionally given up their lives, because she needed more labor. Ok, maybe that is a bit creepy. I really do think she likes Annie, but her attitudes and actions are still colored by Dark Kat.
<Trigger warning for suicide-related stuff> She didn't use the golem who had requested to remain dead, and according to my morals and ethics, it's OK to revive an attempted suicide and offer them a new chance at life. I also don't think you need to withhold lifesaving treatment for somebody just because somebody else says, "No, trust me, we all really wanted to die." The golems aren't a monolith, and each of them can make their own choice about whether to live in the current era. I've been suicidal. I was severely depressed, I had a (subjectively) well-thought out rationale for why I should die, and I intentionally acted on it. My friends and medical caregivers did not respect my wish, and for that I'm grateful. Of course I do support medical aid in dying, but the golems weren't dying. They weren't breaking down physically or suffering chronic pain or losing their mental faculties or anything like that. They were just really depressed, because their megalomaniac "father" had died and they were all super-codependent, so they no longer saw any point to life if they couldn't serve. By giving them a new mission centered around reviving and liberating their descendants, Kat gave them a new reason to live. I'm OK with that. Others don't have to be, of course, but I'd suggest that Kat's morals simply differ with yours on this point, rather than that she doesn't have them. She was conflicted about it because she's a moral person, and her respect for autonomy was clashing with her concern for robot welfare. |
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Post by drmemory on Dec 29, 2023 1:33:59 GMT
Hmmm. Creepy isn't quite what I was going for. More "do whatever is necessary to meet my goals, ignoring morals and ethics and such". Like when she used the golems that had intentionally given up their lives, because she needed more labor. Ok, maybe that is a bit creepy. I really do think she likes Annie, but her attitudes and actions are still colored by Dark Kat.
<Trigger warning for suicide-related stuff> She didn't use the golem who had requested to remain dead, and according to my morals and ethics, it's OK to revive an attempted suicide and offer them a new chance at life. I also don't think you need to withhold lifesaving treatment for somebody just because somebody else says, "No, trust me, we all really wanted to die." The golems aren't a monolith, and each of them can make their own choice about whether to live in the current era. I've been suicidal. I was severely depressed, I had a (subjectively) well-thought out rationale for why I should die, and I intentionally acted on it. My friends and medical caregivers did not respect my wish, and for that I'm grateful. Of course I do support medical aid in dying, but the golems weren't dying. They weren't breaking down physically or suffering chronic pain or losing their mental faculties or anything like that. They were just really depressed, because their megalomaniac "father" had died and they were all super-codependent, so they no longer saw any point to life if they couldn't serve. By giving them a new mission centered around reviving and liberating their descendants, Kat gave them a new reason to live. I'm OK with that. Others don't have to be, of course, but I'd suggest that Kat's morals simply differ with yours on this point, rather than that she doesn't have them. She was conflicted about it because she's a moral person, and her respect for autonomy was clashing with her concern for robot welfare. Yikes! That went dark! I'm not going to touch the personal stuff. Sorry.
All I'm saying is, she didn't ask. The one that she put back had said "we intentionally deactivated". Not just him, they. Reference
Then later on, after she failed to hide what she had done from Annie, Kat said "but I needed their help!" After Annie called her on it.
Nothing about suicide was intended. I was just saying that they had voluntarily self-terminated and that the one she actually talked to wanted to go back to being shut down, and she broke her commitment to leaving them be. So they could do work for her. We don't know what she said to them, we just know that they had been done and had decided to leave things to the next generation. We do know that others knew she had done it - Juliette and Robot were clearly in on things - but it was Kat's action.
I'm concerned about free will here, and violating their choices. If they are happy about it, well, that wasn't shown. The fact that she skipped the one she had talked to before is what has always made me suspect her actions were rather sketchy.
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Post by silicondream on Dec 30, 2023 5:01:00 GMT
Yikes! That went dark! I'm not going to touch the personal stuff. Sorry. Didn't mean it to be dark! I was just using myself as an example. By and large, if someone says "Could you please kill me? I've outlived my time and I think my corpse would make a good monument to my father," we still don't kill them. We certainly aren't morally obliged to kill them, except under very exceptional circumstances. Honoring people's wishes is an excellent moral principle, but for most of us it's not the only one, and other considerations can outweigh it. Right-to-die decisions usually involve three-way moral tension between the principles of autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence. We should respect others' choices; we should help others and improve their well-being; and we should not harm others. So what if someone asks to be harmed--killed--because they think they're better off that way? There's no way to fully satisfy all three of those principles. It is entirely understandable that Kat would be guilty and conflicted about whatever choice she made, and it's also understandable that her choice would change as she grew and matured and the circumstances of the robots changed. The "right answer" for a mid-teens Kat, living in a fairly stable Court where the robots are relatively safe and secure, is not necessarily the "right answer" for a more powerful late-teens Kat, living in a collapsing Court where the robots are facing genocide. To use another example from the comic, Annie was guilty and conflicted after Red criticized her leadership in the Jeanne rescue. But, as Kat pointed out, that doesn't mean Annie actually made the wrong decision. She was faced with a very tough challenge, and every possible solution had benefits, drawbacks and risks, to her and to other people. Could she do better next time? Sure, maybe. But she did the best she could. Yes, but it was still him making that claim, about other golems who were not him, and about their choice in an earlier situation instead of the current one. That doesn't carry the same moral force as his saying "In this situation, I want to be deactivated now." Each of us is the final authority on our own current wishes, but not on anyone else's. But voluntary self-termination is suicide, no? To someone who values robots and people equally, as Kat does, they're exactly the same thing. I understand that the topic is "yikes" and laden with negative emotions, but I think that's exactly how Kat is experiencing it. To her, "Please kill me again and don't resuscitate my friends" is a very dark and troubling request, just as it would be if a human made it. She didn't break her commitment to leaving that one be, and she never made any commitment to the others. She didn't even promise him that she'd never try to revive the others…though even if she had I don't think it would be binding, because he doesn't have the right to decline treatment on behalf of every other golem. His choices are not their choices. Kat may have committed herself to not reviving them at the time, and then changed her mind years later, but that's just…changing her mind. No promises were broken. So they could do work with their descendants for her. There's a big difference between "Please stick around so you can be my general lab monkey" and "Please stick around so you can help me care for your family." But if they knew she had done it, that's yet more people—people who are unusually concerned with robot rights and welfare—who were okay with what she did. Even Annie, you'll notice, did not have a problem with the golems' new life. Kat was obviously worried that she would, that's why she kept quiet about it. And Annie was initially shocked when she found out, because it showed how much was going on with Kat that she didn't know about. But nowhere afterwards did Annie suggest that the golems might want or deserve to be killed again. She didn't even hint that Kat should explore the question. Apparently, she considers it satisfactorily resolved. Now Annie is a principled Guide, and the most fervent human proponent of "sometimes, dead is better" in the comic. She risked her life and her friends' lives to free Jeanne from an afterlife worse than death, and she has never hesitated to call it out when she thinks Kat might be making the wrong decision. If she thought that the golems should be deactivated again, either because they're better off that way or because their past choice to die is still the most important consideration, she would absolutely say so to Kat. So would Juliette, who was happy to pressure Kat when they first met. Actually, it was shown for one of them. This golem contemplated her new task and its challenges, and ended up in a state of religious ecstasy because she understood a little more of the Creator's ways. Some might find that a bit silly, but it seems clear to me that she's making her own choices and finding meaning and purpose in her new life. And why wouldn't she? The golems express two main motivations: to glorify the Creators, and to prepare their descendants to inherit the world. The first golem Kat revived looked around, saw that modern robots were doing fine, and decided his work for them was done. But when Kat revived the rest of the golems, the robots were facing extinction after the Court hacked their CPUs and Loup's attack trashed their bodies. By helping them transition into New People, the golems are ensuring the survival and liberation of their descendants, exactly as they've always wanted. Of course they're happy to help. As for violating their choices…that first golem was not shy about asking Kat to re-kill him, despite his respect for her. If the other ones had decided that their new life was still not worthwhile, I'm sure they would have made the same choice, and Annie would have supported them, and Kat would have complied. But they couldn't even make that decision unless Kat revived them first! Dead people can't choose things. To me, that's the most considerate thing Kat did. The one she'd talked to before was the only golem who'd seen the present day and made the informed decision to stay dead anyway. So she honored his request, even though she and Robot could probably have pressured him into helping out too. Where you see a suspicious inconsistency in her approach, I see a reassuring complexity; Kat makes different choices with different golems because they each have their own set of circumstances. |
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 30, 2023 12:49:53 GMT
She didn't use the golem who had requested to remain dead, and according to my morals and ethics, it's OK to revive an attempted suicide and offer them a new chance at life. I also don't think you need to withhold lifesaving treatment for somebody just because somebody else says, "No, trust me, we all really wanted to die." The golems aren't a monolith, and each of them can make their own choice about whether to live in the current era. I agree, but if Kat suddenly came to that conclusion, it wasn't shown. She could have revived each of the golems individually and asked them about their wishes, but left them be for years * and only revived them when there was a labor shortage. They're probably happy to help their descendants, like you said in another post, I agree with that as well, but I'm not seeing Kat making any of the considerations you were bringing up here. * which I'm not criticizing at all, because that would probably be an incredibly emotionally taxing endeavor for an adult person, let alone a young teen |
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Post by silicondream on Dec 31, 2023 17:51:06 GMT
She didn't use the golem who had requested to remain dead, and according to my morals and ethics, it's OK to revive an attempted suicide and offer them a new chance at life. I also don't think you need to withhold lifesaving treatment for somebody just because somebody else says, "No, trust me, we all really wanted to die." The golems aren't a monolith, and each of them can make their own choice about whether to live in the current era. I agree, but if Kat suddenly came to that conclusion, it wasn't shown. She could have revived each of the golems individually and asked them about their wishes, but left them be for years * and only revived them when there was a labor shortage. They're probably happy to help their descendants, like you said in another post, I agree with that as well, but I'm not seeing Kat making any of the considerations you were bringing up here. * which I'm not criticizing at all, because that would probably be an incredibly emotionally taxing endeavor for an adult person, let alone a young teen Well, I'm not suggesting that Kat made a sudden change in thinking. She may have come to that position over time, or she may have always thought that reviving the other golems would be a good idea in the right circumstances. The considerations I laid out above are just reasons why such a position would be morally reasonable. What did suddenly change were those circumstances. In a few panels, the robots went from "pretty stable, albeit marginalized and arguably enslaved" to "all dead, and permanently so unless Team Kat can transition them." That made reviving the golems a good thing for both the robots and the golems themselves, because the robots were now in desperate need of help and the golems would now have a reason to live. Also, as you say, there's the emotional difficulty of the whole thing. Reviving the golems came with the risk of having to kill them again if they asked for it, plus the risk of upsetting Annie and straining their friendship. An older Kat, more confident in herself and supported by her team, was probably more willing to take both risks. And yes, this is all speculation. There's only one point she reiterated on-panel, which is that rescuing the robot minds was more work than her team could do by themselves. But presumably her internal reasoning was more elaborate than that. |
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Post by TBeholder on Dec 31, 2023 19:12:14 GMT
She's always had that streak, especially about etheric matters. To Court kids, human authority is the status quo and the etheric bureaucracy are weird meddlers who need to be analyzed and resisted. For Annie, it's basically the other way around. This is probably due to her upbringing; Tony rarely expresses any group loyalty, and Surma raised Annie as a "good citizen" of the ether. Helping the guides was her equivalent of volunteering for a school fundraiser. Good point. It’s not even loyalty (or fatalism), as much as taking familiar and accepted features as natural. It may be not perfect, sure, but that’s still just “the way things are”. The force which moves you uniformly is not directly observable, after all. For a real life example (probably understandable for anyone who can read English and is not banned from Internet), you could indeed sell bumper stickers with the text «I love my country, but I fear my government.» both in San Francisco and in Lubbock County, Texas. If you bothered to investigate further, your buyers randomly picked from either set could back this notion by reciting many examples of “how the government screws everything up”. The concepts they see behind either term, however, will be barely overlapping for the former and non-overlapping for the latter. Yet only small parts of either will involve their respective towns, and are more likely to overlap with the opposed term for the other group. Thus you could sort a gigantic yarn ball of kudzu-like power structures into 4 distinct sets: “Blue Government”, “Red Government”, “Magenta Government” (small, but disproportionately irritating to everyone), and (by elimination) the “Gray Government”.
Funny how this works, no?
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