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Post by Casey on Jun 22, 2009 5:54:56 GMT
I have to wonder if, based on the headmasters comments to Jones during chapter 14, if she dealt with morphing mythical creatures not unlike Ysengrin. Or ones that were seeded like Robot was. Maybe a group of people devoted to studying the animals of Gillitie Wood? That once had an incident with two canines that ate some seeds? My interpretation is simply that the Headmaster was making a joke, that Jones has seen so much in her life that anything she has never seen would disturb him. Not that she has any particular knowledge of body modification, but simply that she is very worldly. This is one of those situations where I think Occam's Razor applies. (Which is: "The simplest answer is usually the right answer".)
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mjh
Full Member
Posts: 179
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Post by mjh on Jun 22, 2009 8:32:28 GMT
My interpretation is simply that the Headmaster was making a joke, that Jones has seen so much in her life that anything she has never seen would disturb him. That’s why the headmaster’s remark can be argued as favouring the “Jones is much older than she looks” theory.
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Post by Casey on Jun 22, 2009 14:36:57 GMT
Or that she's just been very, very busy.
Oh here's another thought that just occurred to me as I was typing this. What with Dr. Disaster being so friendly to her, it's possible that over the years she has used the imaging chamber extensively to experience, and therefore be prepared for, all sorts of ghoulish and unimaginable things, and that's why she has seen so much in such a short time. Just a wild speculation.
I'm still curious to know why Surma disliked her so much back in their school days...
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picaro
Junior Member
Dandy Highwayman
Posts: 66
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Post by picaro on Jun 22, 2009 15:37:24 GMT
I just assumed Stibnite was her professional name if you will. I had a few teachers who kept their maiden names and appended Ms purely to keep their professional and social lives separate. She made her name as a medium and that's what she's known for so it kinda makes sense. Either way I dont think it's much of a point to quibble over. Maybe Jones isn't able to be a medium because she isn't considered trustworthy on her own. She doesn't ally herself with either and although the Headmaster asks her for advice we don't know how often that happens, or what that advice is connected to... If it comes down to negotiations between Court and Forest maybe it's thought that she might take up her own agenda. Whilst mediums are supposed to be unbiased, I get the impression that they're supposed to be unbiased from the Court's point of view. None of the kids training to be mediums are ex-Forest are they? Even though one would assume that ex-Forestians have some sort of etheric abilities (I could be completely wrong here, feel free to step in and rip me to shreds. I don't really have a grounding for any of this other than: "I feel") Maybe Jones simply doesn't want to be a medium. And the Court chooses the medium: www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=580Could be internal politics kept her from the post and she's too ticked about them to go back
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Post by Casey on Jun 22, 2009 16:15:57 GMT
Actually, you raised an interesting point that I never thought of. Jones said that the Court sees the people of the Wood as nothing more than simple animals; a nuisance. The Forest seems to be the party that is (or was) more interested in live and let live (back in the day at least... clearly Ysengrin has other ideas)... so WHY is it then that the Court, who professes not to care what the Forest thinks, is the one raising and providing the mediums? Why should the Court bother if it genuinely doesn't care what the Forest has to say?
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mjh
Full Member
Posts: 179
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Post by mjh on Jun 22, 2009 16:59:12 GMT
I'm still curious to know why Surma disliked her so much back in their school days... In my experience, girls that age don’t need much of an excuse to dislike each other intensely (they may have been inseparable just a few days ago, but now the other is “stupid” and not worth talking to). It’s not an entirely rational thing. Now that’s assuming that Jones was a girl back then, i.e. that she did age normally. If she didn’t, there could have been all kinds of reasons.
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Post by Per on Jun 22, 2009 17:29:49 GMT
In my experience, girls that age don’t need much of an excuse to dislike each other intensely (they may have been inseparable just a few days ago, but now the other is “stupid” and not worth talking to). It’s not an entirely rational thing. It's a hair thing. Jones' hair apparently did not go up.
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Post by Count Casimir on Jun 22, 2009 17:53:22 GMT
How the blue hell did I manage to miss SO MUCH AWESOME?! I'm very upset with myself.
Alright catchup rant time. Some of this might pertain a bit more to other pages than this one.
The Obvious: WOOHOO more Doc Disaster! I'm certain somebody called that and has probably already been congratulated.
The Even More Obvious: *swoon* Jooooones! Concerning the scarf; a hint of color for the previously emotionless superlady?
The Jealousy: Curse you Randy!
The lady Parley: If George really has a Samus poster, she's my hero.
Smitty'n'George: I hesitate to squeal as it may kill some dogs. I guess it'd also be pretty embarrassing.
Annie: Much better matchmaker than she used to be, hmm? She's even becoming a somewhat snarky lass.
The Reynardine: Enigmatic conversation, lechery, and hints of the old life. Looks like he still has the Forest's mistrust of tech.
Alright, I imagine I've said a lot of the same things as other people. Gotta lot of reading to do.
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Post by warrl on Jun 22, 2009 21:48:52 GMT
Hey, let's look at some age factors.
We know that Surma, Anja, Donald, James (Eglamore), and Anthony Carver are pretty close to the same age.
Surma and Anja were close friends, with Anja hot on Donald and Surma after James, when they were about, oh, 17. (Don't know when Surma got interested; Anja was after Donald when they were about 13.)
In the tattoo scene, Anja, James, and Donald looked a good bit older, probably at least 25. Surma, for what it's worth, was not in the scene.
NOW, how old are they? I'd say that Anja, Donald, and James look a touch over 40. If they are, say, 42, then Annie and Kat were born when they were 30.
So what happened between age 17 and age 30?
That's **13 years**.
Two things we know happened in that period: Surma, as the medium, impressed a lot of people and other beings; and... well... Reynardine.
The Surma we saw in the forest with Reynardine wasn't 17. Closer to 25.
I think the Reynardine incident marked, and probably caused, the end of Surma's association with the Court and most of her friends. Apparently she parted with them on very bad terms. Which resulted in her marrying Anthony rather than James, and Annie was born a few years later.
Rough timeline, using Surma's age as dates:
<18: Students, good friends 18-22: Beginning careers, good friends 24 or so: Beginning of Reynardine incident 25-26: Rift over how to deal with Reyndardine. Surma/Donald depart and go incommunicado 28-30: Annie born, also Katerina born about the same time by pure coincidence. Sometime within 5 years after births, Surma hospitalized 35-40 somewhere: Surma and Anthony have a chat and decide that while they (probably she) are not ready to resume contact with the Court, that whole battle has nothing to do with their daughter and after Surma dies the Court will be the best place for Annie. Meanwhile Anja is wishing Surma would try to mend fences, but can't find her (doesn't know she's married to Anthony, has no clue she's sick,...) 40-42: Surma dies, Annie shows up in the Court.
With a backstory like that, Annie showing up in Court with Surma's necklace (and with the extremely similar name*, and probably her mother's name on the records transferred from whatever school she had been attending) - but with Surma still not having any contact with her former friends - WOULD say, to a bunch of people, that (a) Annie is Surma's daughter, and (b) Surma is probably dead. Not as a definitive fact, but as a strong suspicion. Why else would she permit her daughter to go to the Court, but not make any attempt to contact anyone herself?
* Extremely similar name: Stibnite is a mineral that is one of the major sources of Antimony.
Now as for Jones: Tom told us once that Jones did NOT attend classes at Gunnerkrigg Court. And yet she was there when the other major adults were kids. She appears to be about the same age as James, perhaps slightly younger, but I do not believe that to be the case. James has been tall compared to others his age in every shot we've seen, yet in spite of Jones being shorter than Parley her behavior toward James reflects a relationship formed when she was *taller* than him.
I think Jones has been faculty/staff for more than 20 years.
And while I doubt that she's a robot, I also don't think she's exactly human.
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Post by Casey on Jun 22, 2009 21:55:20 GMT
Eglamore is currently in his mid-to-late 30s ( source). Edit: Therefore it would be safe to assume that the others are too, since they were in the same grade at school. So if Surma would have been ~37 now, then she was ~25 when Antimony was born. That would make it about a span of 10 years between the flashback scene with Anja and Surma talking about Eglamore being away so "offen", and the year of Annie's birth.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jun 23, 2009 4:39:47 GMT
Jones being a robot would be a handy explanation for why she doesn't serve as a Medium. The technophobic Gillitie denizens would probably never speak with a robot mediator.
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Post by bisected8 on Jun 23, 2009 9:45:44 GMT
* Extremely similar name: Stibnite is a mineral that is one of the major sources of Antimony. Plus stibnite is also one of the minerals that can be used to make the traditional cosmetic "Kohl", also known as surma (more specifically in parts of South Asia). Stibnite is essentially Sb (the modern chemical abbreviation of antimony) in a metallic bond to sulphur (man its been a long time since GCSE chem), another classical alchemical element. Note that gives both Surma and Antimony (the characters, not the substances) a connection to nature, as this is the association alchemy had with Sb (as far as my google-fu can tell).
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Post by TBeholder on Jun 23, 2009 14:06:06 GMT
Maybe Jones has a history that prevents her from serving as a neutral medium, like some past incident that would make the forest unwilling to negotiate with her. Maybe Jones isn't able to be a medium because she isn't considered trustworthy on her own. She doesn't ally herself with either and although the Headmaster asks her for advice we don't know how often that happens, or what that advice is connected to... If it comes down to negotiations between Court and Forest maybe it's thought that she might take up her own agenda. Whilst mediums are supposed to be unbiased, I get the impression that they're supposed to be unbiased from the Court's point of view. ... Could be internal politics kept her from the post and she's too ticked about them to go back So far, "Jones is not in the good position to be a neutral arbiter because she's associated with some other force" version fits here well. Aside of Court and Forest, there's also psychopomps, gods and who knows what. I still bet on divine variant, of course.
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