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Post by zimmyzims on Aug 27, 2014 15:35:41 GMT
2. Annie and Harry are both orphans ("semi-orphan", in Annie's case, since Anthony is presumably still alive - but his abandoning her comes close) with remarkable abilities, but as penguinfactory pointed out, plenty of protagonists are orphans. Also, their skills are different; Harry's magic is more conventional, while Annie's is tied to the specifics of the setting (she can see the Guides, dispel illusions, and enter the etheric realm). Not to mention that the manner in which they became orphans is also different; Surma died from a long illness, rather than being murdered. I have actually been waiting for someone to make a comparison between these two. As was already hinted: A child with a tragic background (often orphaned) and with some form of special (often supernatural) ability becoming a hero is a very common theme. Frodo Baggins, Peter Parker and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all fit into that template. Examples can be found all over in pop-culture for the last fifty years or so (and I'd bet you can even find some in ancient history or greek mythology, but I don't know that well enough). An example: I don't think many people here will know Demonology 101 - back when that comic was active, people made the very same connection between Buffy and Raven (the heroine of D101) that's now being made between Harry and Annie. I believe D101's creator stated then that she hadn't even seen Buffy before creating the comic, very much the same as with Tom and Harry Potter. History repeating? ;D I think the tragic-past-superpowered-kid thing is just so common because writers have found it to work very well. And people actually do have the same, or at least very similar ideas, independently. That doesn't make any of these characters any less unique, they all still have lots of personal traits. There's an explanation to this tendency of the main protagonist being an orphan, which becomes obvious when you realize that it is not restricted to this fantasy scene, but is omnipresent in children's literature: parents have it in their nature to limit the adventurous potential of their children, they can be huge drags for the story line. Once the parents are off the way, the child hero(ine) is free to do all whatever comes in mind, joining most unbelievable adventures. It is a nice bonus that it adds a tragic effect. Edit: This may be illustrated with an example of Harry Potter himself. I have seen the last part of Harry Potte movies. There he has child(ren) - were there two? I wasn't maybe too attentive. Now, suppose he doesn't die. What will you expect from the life of his son? Will he go to crazy adventures? Or will he perhaps have a great academic career in Hogwarts? My money is on the latter, but that storyline undeniably would have less best seller potential than Harry's life story.
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Post by warrl on Aug 27, 2014 16:40:42 GMT
There's an explanation to this tendency of the main protagonist being an orphan, which becomes obvious when you realize that it is not restricted to this fantasy scene, but is omnipresent in children's literature: parents have it in their nature to limit the adventurous potential of their children, they can be huge drags for the story line. Once the parents are off the way, the child hero(ine) is free to do all whatever comes in mind, joining most unbelievable adventures. It is a nice bonus that it adds a tragic effect. Edit: This may be illustrated with an example of Harry Potter himself. I have seen the last part of Harry Potte movies. There he has child(ren) - were there two? I wasn't maybe too attentive. Now, suppose he doesn't die. What will you expect from the life of his son? Will he go to crazy adventures? Or will he perhaps have a great academic career in Hogwarts? My money is on the latter, but that storyline undeniably would have less best seller potential than Harry's life story. But in the case of Harry Potter - or for that matter Antimony Carver - the parents dying is not really needed. What is needed is *separating* the child hero from the protective parent. Which can be achieved by, oh, sending the kid to a boarding school. (Unless, of course, the protective parent is part of the school staff or faculty. But I haven't noticed Katrina Donlan's life being particularly lacking in weird adventures.) Idea for an inversion webcomic: the dull suburban middle-class parents send their kid off to boarding school... and get their superhero costumes out of the box in the back of the closet.
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Post by zimmyzims on Aug 27, 2014 17:30:28 GMT
There's an explanation to this tendency of the main protagonist being an orphan, which becomes obvious when you realize that it is not restricted to this fantasy scene, but is omnipresent in children's literature: parents have it in their nature to limit the adventurous potential of their children, they can be huge drags for the story line. Once the parents are off the way, the child hero(ine) is free to do all whatever comes in mind, joining most unbelievable adventures. It is a nice bonus that it adds a tragic effect. Edit: This may be illustrated with an example of Harry Potter himself. I have seen the last part of Harry Potte movies. There he has child(ren) - were there two? I wasn't maybe too attentive. Now, suppose he doesn't die. What will you expect from the life of his son? Will he go to crazy adventures? Or will he perhaps have a great academic career in Hogwarts? My money is on the latter, but that storyline undeniably would have less best seller potential than Harry's life story. But in the case of Harry Potter - or for that matter Antimony Carver - the parents dying is not really needed. What is needed is *separating* the child hero from the protective parent. Which can be achieved by, oh, sending the kid to a boarding school. (Unless, of course, the protective parent is part of the school staff or faculty. But I haven't noticed Katrina Donlan's life being particularly lacking in weird adventures.) Idea for an inversion webcomic: the dull suburban middle-class parents send their kid off to boarding school... and get their superhero costumes out of the box in the back of the closet. I like that idea.... but in fact, I think it has been done too. Anyway, about whether parents dying or being distant is really needed, think about it again. Of course, already being put in a school away from parents does some work. Jack was able to wander around the Court though his father, at least, appears to be alive and in contact with him. But that's not the full effect really, not for the long storyline. For Potter-series that I know much less about, I only gave you this example of Harry's own son being less likely to get into big time adventures. In GKC it is much more obvious. Kat, your own example, is not actually getting involved in all the adventurous roaming that Annie does. Of course, there are other reasons why Annie gets to the forest and Kat doesn't even want to go there, but take, for example, the time she ran to the forest and stayed there for a summer. Now, had she had parents living and present, would she have been allowed to stay there? Would she even have wanted to stay there? Seen that the whole reason why she went there was that her mother was dead and her father distant, it is a safe bet that the answer to both is 'no'. As for Kat, from the formspring: "Q: Would Kat's parents allow Kat to come into contact with beings like Coyote? A: No Q: Sorry, when I asked if Kat's parents would let Kat meet supernatural beings like Coyote, I probably used a bad example. Would they let her meet other etherical beings that weren't completely insane? A: If it wsn't dangerous then they wouldn't think it was a big deal" Kat is about to dive to the deep end of the robot adventures without her parents realizing it, partly because she doesn't seem to realize it herself either, but that's a bit different, that is likely to be an apparently accidental turning of rather everyday events (her "tinkering" which is not very normal kind, but quite everyday hobby in the GKC for her) into something dangerous by a fast escalation of things, a development that we might call her fate, rather than by her using a freedom to roam to leave for voyage that is already known likely to be dangerous. While Anthony clearly will play yet another role in this, as he is not dead, and Surma's death, too has been given a role, already that in the beginning of the story Annie was able to do a lot of exploring of the Court that the others would not have done, was, amongst other reasons, because she did not have parents to go to for holidays, so she was left alone in an empty "school". The absence of parents is not simply an insignificant and accidental factor, but as in a huge amount of children's literature, it here too, regardless of whether Tom really planned it just for that, plays, and played particularly in the beginning, a role in allowing the freedom of adventuring to the main protagonist. Once the parents are there, the question "why are her parents not worried?" will be asked every time the heroine gets into a long and dangerous quest. Even if it is just the Headmaster calling her parents for her misbehaviour. I actually tell people it's like the Harry Potter of webcomics because it has a lot of the unique aspects that drew people to Harry Potter: Boarding school setting, Dickensian protagonist, supernatural elements, complex but easy to digest story, a sense of humor that doesn't compromise the drama, memorable characters, and most importantly, attractive to a broad spectrum of people. Gunnerkrigg is absolutely the thing that would draw people to comics just as Harry Potter drew kids to reading 800 page books. Without wanting to be pedant, I think 'unique' cannot be what you mean here, or then you are just wrong about the uniqueness of these aspects you list: 1. Boarding School setting is not unusual amongst the British youth literature, is it? 2. Dickensian protagonist by definition cannot be a unique aspect, except arguably if you talk about Dickens' books. 3. Supernatural elements? I guess I don't have to explain this one. 4. Well, complex but easy to digest story, I guess this is one up to personal judgement, but I'd say the "easy to digest" part is more the medium, whereas the story itself in GKC hardly is easier to digest than most of literature/comics. Complex, that it is, for sure. But let's say, the story telling is unusually (although not uniquely) pleasant, which I don't think necessarily is the case with Harry Potter which to my mind, with my little experience on it, does not really differ much from other fantasy youth literature with regard to that. 5. A sense of humour that doesn't compromise the drama, unarguably, has been a rather usual part of tragedy at least since Shakespeare's Hamlet. Of course, it takes skill to make it work, but not that much that it had not been successfully done plentifully. 6. Memorable characters? This is another one that needs no explanation, seen the amount of characters in the history of literature that have continued to live outside their original stories. 7. How broad is the spectrum of people attracted by GKC, is yet to be seen, but even just amongst comics and cartoons works such as Tintin and Mickey Mouse have attracted a pretty much all kinds of people. It wasn't that kind of versus (I should have come up with a better title) - but I think we got a taste of it in the guest comic where Harry wound up duct taped to the flagpole twice (assuming that it was the "real" Harry and not a would-be-Harry; he didn't have a forehead scar). Thanks guys. You made me (yes, I blame it on you!) use good 1,5 work hours yesterday to archive binge Afterstrife. It was worth it.
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Post by todd on Aug 28, 2014 11:41:38 GMT
There would be no "leviOsa" jokes. All the more likely since Annie doesn't come across as quite as much a showoff as Hermione was.
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Post by sapientcoffee on Aug 28, 2014 18:46:57 GMT
More that Annie's not as studious Hermione is.
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Post by todd on Aug 29, 2014 0:32:40 GMT
More that Annie's not as studious Hermione is. At least where the kind of hard science that Kat's good at is concerned. She might get magical topics better. On other matters of that scenario, I can't imagine Annie being paired up with Ron Weasley - though if they were, their daughter might be the ultimate fire-head girl.
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