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Post by Polyhymnia on Jan 24, 2020 17:51:45 GMT
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I'm struck with the parallels in the beginning chapter between Annie releasing Robot and Shadow into the forest, and Annie taking her mother into the ether. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=11It's hard to tell with the earlier art style, but Annie seems sad on this page. It's been less than two weeks since she came to school, and she's been alone to deal with the death of her mother. She hasn't befriended Kat yet. Annie is dealing with survivor's guilt deepened by the fact that she was the one who took her mother into the ether. Even if she never said, I can easily imagine Annie wondering what would have happened if she just didn't take her mother with her. I think she must unconsciously blame herself for her mother's death. "Do I have to come back? ...Only if you want to." Even though she knows people don't come back, I wonder if part of her thinks there was something wrong with her that her mother didn't stay, if there wasn't something she should have done to make her mother want to stay. She shows little emotion saying goodbye, like she's steeled herself against it. This is emphasized in the last panel when Robot glibly walks off and Annie is standing alone on the stairs, blank and stark against the background. Robot says "Bye mommy!" which brings Surma back to Annie's mind. By human standards, it seems cruel to ask a child to send her mother off to death, but that's exactly what Annie did. Compare that page to this one: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1351 Similar blankness to mask her sadness. I never realized how thematically appropriate the first chapter is. It ends with Annie at the boundary between two worlds, releasing Robot and Shadow into the unknown. This mirrors her actions as a spirit guide throughout the comic, but also highlights that Annie has been left behind, and how that hurts her. You see some of that resentment when Muut comments on her anger a few chapters later, and again when Annie accepts the psychopomp's offer to heal Smitty. I also didn't realize how close this was to her mother's death. Granted, it could have happened any time within the past year, assuming she wouldn't come to the court until first term, but it couldn't have been too far behind. I can't imagine Tony just waiting around for months and then abandoning Annie--I feel like he must have left fairly quickly.
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Post by jda on Jan 26, 2020 7:56:41 GMT
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Post by saardvark on Jan 26, 2020 16:29:54 GMT
Huh. Maybe if Eggs would draw a REALLY REALLY BIG sigil, they could use it and decommission the robots on shield duty.... ?
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Post by Polyhymnia on Jan 28, 2020 13:07:13 GMT
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Post by wies on Jan 28, 2020 14:45:34 GMT
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Post by Runningflame on Jan 29, 2020 3:12:50 GMT
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Post by argent on Jan 29, 2020 20:23:24 GMT
Posting from mobile, so my apologies for the lack of formatting... This is less of a “cool thing”, and more “in appreciation of Tom’s attention to detail that adds implicit meaning to scenes.” Stop me if this is old news! I may just be slow on the uptake. When Annie first meets Renard in Sivo’s body, we get a very clear view of the fact that Sivo’s wings are absent. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=42On my first few read-throughs, this didn’t register on me - perhaps because we weren’t primed to see Orjaks as winged creatures at that point, and the “bones” sticking out of Sivo!Renard’s back look almost like they could belong there, as they’re the same color as his horns. Noticing that detail of the scene made me stop and wonder about when, chronologically, in Renard’s possession of Sivo did the de-winging occur. And really, that just made me want to learn more about what led to Renard being captured by the court after Surma tricked him, and then how he took Sivo’s body, being subsequently re-captured, escaping again, etc...I hope we get to see some of these events “on-screen” in the future!
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fanofts
Junior Member
Watching gunnerkrigg.fandom.com
Posts: 64
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Post by fanofts on Jan 29, 2020 23:47:57 GMT
... When Annie first meets Renard in Sivo’s body, we get a very clear view of the fact that Sivo’s wings are absent. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=42 ... Well I certainly didn't notice, so it's news to me! The only time, I think, we see Sivo alive (unpossessed) is on page 1215 at www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1215 . Also, gunnerkrigg.fandom.com/wiki/Rogat_Orjak shows Zimmy's 'future distortion' hallucination which could be interpreted as showing where one wing was removed.
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Post by Polyhymnia on Jan 30, 2020 23:17:56 GMT
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Post by shaihulud on Jan 30, 2020 23:52:18 GMT
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Post by alevice on Jan 31, 2020 13:05:44 GMT
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Post by pyradonis on Jan 31, 2020 13:47:43 GMT
I know it is kind of obvious since Shadow 2 is central in the panel, but somehow I noticed just now. Maybe someone else had forgotten it as well.
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Post by wies on Jan 31, 2020 19:27:42 GMT
So it is! Thank you! Man, it is amazing how early Tom drops things he will explore later.
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Post by saardvark on Feb 8, 2020 1:16:51 GMT
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Post by arf on Feb 14, 2020 9:14:03 GMT
So it is! Thank you! Man, it is amazing how early Tom drops things he will explore later. ... in fact, on the same page (panel 3), is that a representation of Arbiter Saslamel hanging on Egger's office wall!? (It also appears on the chapter title page)
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Post by wies on Feb 14, 2020 11:14:05 GMT
Could be, but it is also not similiar enough to be sure, imo. By the way, I read this page and it struck me that Jones seems to wear the hairpin. I guess she gave it sometime to Anja?
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Post by mturtle7 on Feb 14, 2020 21:34:54 GMT
Could be, but it is also not similiar enough to be sure, imo. By the way, I read this page and it struck me that Jones seems to wear the hairpin. I guess she gave it sometime to Anja? The total appearances of the legendary Blue Hairclip are listed on the wiki under Mysteries. Personally, I also like to think that the hairclip is almost 100 years old, practically indestructible, and keeps getting totally lost and then randomly found by all of its owners (Jones, Anja, Surma, and now Antimony).
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Post by arf on Feb 17, 2020 2:36:03 GMT
Maybe the blue hairclip is like the Great Machine in Babylon 5, which was never created, but which exists in a thousand year time loop?
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Post by wies on Mar 5, 2020 9:24:44 GMT
Not really on reread, but "Spring Heeled" was always the only chapter title I never understood until I stumbled on this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-heeled_JackMaybe it has already been mentioned long ago, but I only got now why Tom titled those two chapters that way.
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Post by Per on Mar 5, 2020 15:23:20 GMT
Those of us who grew up with books like Reader's Digest's Strange Stories, Amazing Facts would know.
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Post by Druplesnubb on Mar 6, 2020 18:15:37 GMT
Not really on reread, but "Spring Heeled" was always the only chapter title I never understood until I stumbled on this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-heeled_JackMaybe it has already been mentioned long ago, but I only got now why Tom titled those two chapters that way. Do you know what the meaning behind "The Tree" is?
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Post by blackmantha on Mar 6, 2020 18:38:25 GMT
Not really on reread, but "Spring Heeled" was always the only chapter title I never understood until I stumbled on this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-heeled_JackMaybe it has already been mentioned long ago, but I only got now why Tom titled those two chapters that way. Do you know what the meaning behind "The Tree" is? I always interpreted it as in a family tree. Given the chapter image it might also have been a reference to the phrase "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree", but that doesn't really come through in this chapter.
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Post by wies on Mar 6, 2020 19:01:24 GMT
Do you know what the meaning behind "The Tree" is? I always interpreted it as in a family tree. Given the chapter image it might also have been a reference to the phrase "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree", but that doesn't really come through in this chapter. In chapter Annie and the fire it is shown Tony, like Annie, went mentally to pieces at their first meeting. In that sense the apple didn't fall far. For the rest, yeah, I agree! The tree is either Tony, or the band between him and Annie.
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Post by arf on Mar 11, 2020 8:34:36 GMT
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Post by pyradonis on Mar 11, 2020 14:44:53 GMT
Nice find. By the way, the difference between "forget about him" and "forget about it" is significant. She still cares about Paz, of course.
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Post by saardvark on Mar 26, 2020 13:24:33 GMT
When Loup complains about the Court "working on something" www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2046he says it functions "essentially opposite" to the branches Coyote constructed in the ether to "hold the Forest together" www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2030These etheric "branches" are described as chaotic in nature, and stronger in disarray. If you take the "opposite" literally, the Court is working on something ordered/orderly/well-structured that is stronger for being that way. It sounds like it could some sort of research project/device specifically designed to understand the ether and how it works (science is certainly orderly and stronger for being that way). Further, use of this research/device will do the opposite of "hold the Forest together" - it will literally tear it (and the ether?) apart. Others speculated along these lines at the time (todd, ctso74) but the main new thing that reading it this way suggests to me is that the Forest/ether destruction that this research might cause is unintentional... the Court is after understanding and ends up destroying in the process. To go nerdy, its a bit like measurement in quantum mechanics. A electron in an orbital exists as a probabilistic cloud (a chaotic wave function if you will) until it is measured (science introduced!) whereupon the wave function collapses (chaos destroyed!), the particle located (order established!) and you lose correspondingly some info on its momentum (mass x velocity) by Heisenbergs uncertainty principle. By just wanting to "know" the ether/Forest (science it), the Court threatens to unwittingly destroy it. Maybe this is a wild spec?
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Post by wies on Mar 26, 2020 15:00:38 GMT
To go nerdy, its a bit like measurement in quantum mechanics. A electron in an orbital exists as a probabilistic cloud (a chaotic wave function if you will) until it is measured (science introduced!) whereupon the wave function collapses (chaos destroyed!), the particle located (order established!) and you lose correspondingly some info on its momentum (mass x velocity) by Heisenbergs uncertainty principle. By just wanting to "know" the ether/Forest (science it), the Court threatens to unwittingly destroy it. It always messes with my mind how an electron exists as a probalisitic cloud. How does that work?! The universe of the miniscule is very strange to me. And yeah, I like that comparision. It could be like that. It would be weird in a comic full of shades of grey that the Court would work on an great and awful weapon. They have always been more characterized as being foremost interested in acquiring knowledge and surpassing human limitations.
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Post by migrantworker on Mar 26, 2020 17:16:15 GMT
It always messes with my mind how an electron exists as a probalisitic cloud. How does that work?! Heh. Think of it like taking a child to a playground in a park, and then letting it to its own devices for a while (let's assume you got carried away while contemplating the latest developments at Gunnerkrigg Court). As you then try to locate the child again, there would be some places where it is more likely to be. For example, it would be quite likely to be somewhere within 5 metres of its favorite playground structure, say a slide or maybe a carousel (high probability density) - but it may just be somewhere else. It would be quite unlikely to be within 5 metres of a certain blade of grass in the middle of a big lawn (low probability density) - but it may just happen to be in that very area. It can also tunnel through an expanse of a low-probability area towards some distant high-probability area, like an ice cream van across the big lawn. But until you spot it, all you can tell is that it's out there somewhere. You're welcome...
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Post by wies on Mar 26, 2020 17:37:21 GMT
It always messes with my mind how an electron exists as a probalisitic cloud. How does that work?! Heh. Think of it like taking a child to a playground in a park, and then letting it to its own devices for a while (let's assume you got carried away while contemplating the latest developments at Gunnerkrigg Court). As you then try to locate the child again, there would be some places where it is more likely to be. For example, it would be quite likely to be somewhere within 5 metres of its favorite playground structure, say a slide or maybe a carousel (high probability density) - but it may just be somewhere else. It would be quite unlikely to be within 5 metres of a certain blade of grass in the middle of a big lawn (low probability density) - but it may just happen to be in that very area. It can also tunnel through an expanse of a low-probability area towards some distant high-probability area, like an ice cream van across the big lawn. But until you spot it, all you can tell is that it's out there somewhere. You're welcome... Okay, but that basically means that particular electron could be everywhere. Just with more likely places than others. As I understand it, that would mean the very matter of our universe is governed by loose laws. Lucky for us that the difference in probability is very high, or otherwhise it would be hard for things to be.
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Post by migrantworker on Mar 26, 2020 20:13:07 GMT
Heh. Think of it like taking a child to a playground in a park, and then letting it to its own devices for a while (let's assume you got carried away while contemplating the latest developments at Gunnerkrigg Court). As you then try to locate the child again, there would be some places where it is more likely to be. For example, it would be quite likely to be somewhere within 5 metres of its favorite playground structure, say a slide or maybe a carousel (high probability density) - but it may just be somewhere else. It would be quite unlikely to be within 5 metres of a certain blade of grass in the middle of a big lawn (low probability density) - but it may just happen to be in that very area. It can also tunnel through an expanse of a low-probability area towards some distant high-probability area, like an ice cream van across the big lawn. But until you spot it, all you can tell is that it's out there somewhere. You're welcome... Okay, but that basically means that particular electron could be everywhere. Just with more likely places than others. As I understand it, that would mean the very matter of our universe is governed by loose laws. Lucky for us that the difference in probability is very high, or otherwhise it would be hard for things to be. As I said, much like children...
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