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Post by aline on Apr 3, 2015 9:25:35 GMT
I'm really getting tired of the "is he a good parent" discussion, to be honest. He's obviously not here because she hasn't behaved. There's something else going on.
What exactly is his game? Only a few chapters ago, when Annie didn't become the Court Medium, I assumed she had just skipped too many detentions and they were unhappy with her behavior. But maybe that wasn't the reason. Remember what Jones said: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1155 And what Coyote said: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1156
Both of them thought there was some kind of plot going on here. Jones knew about Annie's misbehavior and clearly did not beleive this was a valid reason to not make her the medium. And Coyote is a trickster and can probably smell a plot a mile away. They're very likely correct to wonder about the hedmaster's motivations. So what could it be the Court really want? - Keeping Annie away from the forest, for some reason? - Taking Renard away from her? Are they afraid she could turn against them? Find something they want to hide? In any case something changed since the end of year 7, when they were eager to have her trained with the other would be mediums.
Anyway... her becoming the Forest Medium was clearly not what the Court was going for. The question is where Anthony stands in the middle of all this. Is he working for them? Do they have a common goal?
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Post by aline on Apr 3, 2015 8:57:36 GMT
God, this is all just becoming extremely painful. I mean, there has to be a limit to this right? What's next? No more Renard, no more hanging out with Kat? No more anything? Just study and do what Dad says and have no life at all? Is there an end point here? And damn it, he's taking away the Friends apartment. I am all of the sads, Relax. Annie is the protagonist of this comic. Things will complicate I'm sure, but she won't end her life doing extra homework and being on time for dinner. Nor are all the characters we've met so far suddenly going to disappear. That would make for a pretty boring story.
It's something Annie has to overcome.
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Post by aline on Apr 3, 2015 8:19:22 GMT
Looking at the last two frames, Annie says, "But I work for--", and her Father interrupts, "No". That is, no she doesn't work for the Forest, or Coyote, and never has. She has always been a student and resident of the Court, which has tolerated this extra curricular activity. At the very least, the Court can refuse to accept her as envoy. That sort of thing happens all the time. Diplomatic relations must necessarily be two sided. Yeah but that would be an offense to coyote. Otherwise they already would have. I mean clearly they weren't pleased with coyote's choice and the headmaster even tried to have Jones encourage Annie to say no. But he didn't dare directly oppose it. Now if Annie resigns on her own, it's just her decision. No diplomatic incident. Even if she did so because dad said to.
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Post by aline on Apr 3, 2015 7:37:07 GMT
I think the medium thing might just be his game. I'm pretty sure the only way for him to achieve that would be for Annie to resign the position herself. Only she wouldn't normally do that. So all the punishments, isolation, I-am-so-disappointed thing might be for the sole sake of her doing that, because he told her to. In the state of mind she is now she probably doesn't even think she can say no.
If I am right then Annie will have to find out how to stand up to her father.
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Post by aline on Apr 2, 2015 14:00:00 GMT
By the end of the chapter, we will have an ending, probably with some new questions hanging in the air but with a situation for the story to keep developping in intersting ways. Let's trust Tom Siddell on that one. Other than that, we can be sure of nothing. How many of us would have guessed she wouldn't be the Court Medium? How many of us would have shrugged off the possibility, saying "the entire story builds up to this, it would make no sense otherwise?" I know I couldn't believe it when I read it! How many of us guessed she would end up being the Forest Medium? I'll enjoy being surprised this time too. Even if my wishes aren't granted.
Edit: Going back through the chapters, I can barely find any instance of Annie sitting in her classroom in the last 20 chapters. We see the dorms a tiny bit more often, but most of the time we see her in the forest, at Kat's lab, or just hanging around somewhere at GC. 99% of the story happens during the kid's free time. So even if she's in another class, I doubt that will have such a huge impact on the story. As long as Annie keeps hanging out with her friends after class, we will see them as often as we used to. And we still don't know if Annie would have to leave the dorms as well. Wait and see.
I think we all prefer to think "he can't do that!" because we don't want it to happen.
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Post by aline on Apr 1, 2015 11:01:09 GMT
Regardless of Anthony's intentions, whether he's looking to get his daughter back on track or just being a jerk, his decision alone is not going to be enough. He said he has "arranged" it. I'm sure he already has the approval of the Court on this one. Jones is unlikely to forcefully interfere with such a decision. She may try to use her influence to protect Annie but she is unlikely to threaten or squash anyone over it. Coyote already has his medium. Why should he care if she's in year 9 and not 10? Won't prevent her to come to the forest. I think he'd probably be amused. The only question for me is what the other adults will do. Possibly Donald might be able to do something, because he's Anthony's friend. But even he hasn't seen him in a long time.
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Post by aline on Apr 1, 2015 7:31:35 GMT
Annie will not be joining Kat for the remainder of the day's classes. She's gonna be too busy packing before moving out to the forest permanently. I don't think she'll do anything that rash for now. I think at the moment she's desperate for her dad's approval, as well as quite ashamed of her own behavior. She'll probably do about anything he says.
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 14:08:21 GMT
I fully expect Tom to reveal Surma and Anthony's back story that re-humanizes these characters. Tom has lead me to think that Annie would be better off with no father and Surma should have done more for Annie. I am more than ready to move on with the story (and I have considered that it would be better for me to stop reading the comic for a month or two and then catch up). Well, Surma is human to me. She made some wrong things, but it makes her rather more human than less. Anthony, we know very little about him. We do know he used to be quite a sensitive boy, even if that wouldn't show on the outside. There's definitely a human being in there. But there are too many missing pieces. And we're like Annie and Kat, too torn about his words and judgment to actually wonder who the hell this person really is. And I think it might just be one of his goals. A diversion tactic. His aggressive behavior prevents Annie from asking the three tons of questions she should normally be asking. For example about his hand.
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 11:42:40 GMT
I suppose that much fewer readers dislike Jones for her inability to connect to other people. In part, this may result from Antimony being the focal character of the story, but I still wonder why that is. Jones has actually been portrayed as a person who cares deeply for the feelings of others, even when she cannot feel herself, and with a great sense of justice. I don't think Anthony has any of those qualities (Although I'm sure he has some qualities we didn't get to see yet).
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 11:35:36 GMT
Many readers are highly critical of Anthony as a parent. Although I agree with that criticism, I believe some of that parental criticism is due for Surma. 1. Surma didn't teach Annie anything about her fire-elemental nature. Even in Surma's final year when Annie was eleven/twelve, it appears that Surma did nothing to prepare or warn Annie. Maybe Surma didn't teach Annie about her other half because she was hoping that Anthony would excise the fire elemental from Annie and she didn't want Annie to know enough to resist. But if that was the case, then it would have made more sense to teach Annie about the fire elemental part of them and explain it as a curse. 2. It appears that Surma cut herself, and therefore Annie, off from the friends that could have been competent guardians for Annie. Instead she left Annie saddled with Anthony, a deeply flawed (some say monstrous, toxic even) excuse for a father. Well, if she'd thought he was a toxic father, she wouldn't have made a kid with him. There is still a lot we don't know about their relationship. But she probably assumed Anthony would take care of their daughter as well as he could. And it's quite possible that in his mind, he is. We still don't have a clue what he's thinking...
As for not telling her about the fire elemental, well... I don't know if you can really explain something like that to a kid that young. Maybe everyone thought it would be best to tell this to her when she was older. It's not just Surma and Anthony. Many people at the Court knew and kept it from her.
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 10:04:18 GMT
More than the moral issue of whether the man is good or bad, I'd be very interested to know what Anthony Carver is after here. Because frankly, if he was that interested in his daughter's schoolwork, he'd have showed up earlier. He must have another reason for coming back at the Court after all this time.
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 6:45:25 GMT
She always had the choice not to cheat, and she was never abandoned, just put in a private school where only kids whose parents teach there see their parents during the school year. Only she cheated throughout two years. Come one, even if other kids don't see their parents all that often none of them had them disappear from the face of earth. They (or their teacher) can call home if they have a problem, they get to see them for holidays, they know they won't be homeless if their school expells them, they get to know wether their parents are alive or dead and whether they're going to see them again. It's completely abnormal for a school, boarding or not, to have no means of contacting the kid's parents. In any real world situation there would be police involvement as soon as someone found out. The only reason everyone in Gunnerkrigg accepts this is because, well, it's a comic and the author said so.
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Post by aline on Mar 30, 2015 22:11:26 GMT
I think some of Anthony's methods are still in question and merit criticism, but Annie shouldn't be absolved because her father was absent. Annie cheated and it was her choice, and it was a bad one, sure. And she knows it, look how ashamed she is. But kids are kids and they make bad choices all the bloody time. That's what parents are for. Being a parent means to be responsible for your kid. The biggest fault lies with Anthony in this. The cheating is really a ridiculously small offence compared to abandoning your child for so long.
And the worst of it is that his punishment would lead to her being separated from the only person who has supported her while her family was completely absent: Kat.
On the plus side, Anthony is attempting to be a father now (hopefully). On the minus side, he's kinda three years late. Also he's making a mess of it.
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Post by aline on Mar 30, 2015 19:27:27 GMT
Tony is about to get it I imagine. Ann cheated for alot of reasons, typical ones, but she also cheated because she is so utterly so alone. Yeah, she started cheating in year 8 after his dad failed to show for summer vacation.
Part of the reason repeating a year would be so cruel is because it would separate her from Kat, the one person she's closest to while her family was gone. But I don't think it'll go this way. I'll just wait and see.
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Post by aline on Mar 30, 2015 17:59:16 GMT
I guessed that she wouldn't take his class, but to be put back a whole year is too much. It seems like this is all his decision, which the Court can't really deny as he is the father. I agree. The Court had plenty of time and opportunities to call her on her bad behavior. We can only guess as to why no one saw fit to intervene earlier here. All she got was vague and informal advice to be more careful, for years of cheating and ditching detentions. That sort of thing would never exist in a real school. As for sending someone back to last year after the school year started, it's simply ridiculous, even if a parent wanted it it would never happen in reality. But hey, it's a comic. There's an immortal woman with an indestructible body out there.
Anyway, I think it's clear that the Court never even tried to change Annie's behavior. They merely observed it, and drew conclusions from it, basically treating her more like a rat lab than a student.
No, this is entirely Tony's call: coming back, teaching her class, sending her back to year 9... and I think he might be a tiny bit afraid of his own daughter at that point.
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