|
Post by mturtle7 on May 12, 2017 17:29:00 GMT
I wonder why exactly the psychopomps needed Surma's "help" in the hospital. Presumably it's for the same reason Annie had to help Martin in chapter 16: because sometimes you just need a human element. Although I can't help but wonder why these all-powerful beings can't just ignore the human element and take whoever they want into the ether. It seems like they needed Annie to calm Martin down before they could take him, but does that imply that recently-deceased ghosts are more powerful or dangerous than psychopomps, or did they just not want to cause a fuss? So many questions. Actually, that one I do understand. Any one psychopomp can probably take ghosts like that without too much trouble, but in this case they needed to actually talk to him and break the bad news to him because they needed him to make a choice between the two of them. Exactly who gets to claim which soul is always pretty important for these guys.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on May 3, 2017 5:28:38 GMT
red4bestgirlNever, in all the months I have frequented this forum (including the time I spent lurking) have I seen a single person turn the forum into a blazing inferno with such ruthless, unrelenting, obsessive, efficiency. You have my admiration, sir. Now please excuse me while I run for dear life before the aftershock hits.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on May 1, 2017 18:12:05 GMT
Idea: Actually, Kat DOES have a few opinions about what they could have done better with the Jeanne situation, but she really, really, wants to end this conversation quickly so they don't get around to talking about her venture into the ether.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Apr 24, 2017 22:19:27 GMT
so, some thoughts on robot since people are bringing him up. (and i missed my chance to discuss this when it originally happened) what was he even doing down in the ravine? he wasn't shown there with the others until he's suddenly attacking jeanne, making it difficult for ayilu to mantain the illusion. was he supposed to be there? why did he attack jeanne when they were trying to keep her calm? also; oh man, robot can feel pain now, can't he? being sliced in half is suddenly more consequential and horrifying than the first time it happened... Some of this might have been discussed when it was first clear Robot was down there, but here's a couple of ideas: (1) maybe Robot was always part of the plan - an extra distractor for Jeanne, buying extra time - since they figured Parley would only be able to hold her off so long (which proved true). They perhaps didn't figure it would be hard for Ayilu to maintain the illusion with Robot. (2) Robot lept to the rescue/aid of goddess Kat, when he was alerted to where they were/what they were doing (though how he would be alerted is not clear). I like (1) better. (Apologies if this has all been gone over before...) As I remember that scene, Jeanne had just felt Annie touch Diego's device, and became certain that something weird was in her idyllic landscape, despite Ayilu and George's best efforts to calm her. That's when Robot jumped in with a hasty etheric disguise from Ayilu so she would fixate on him instead of figuring out the whole illusion. I assume they used Robot because they needed a relatively good sword fighter to distract Jeanne, and there would be less risk of him actually dying (permanently, that is). I'd also agree with saardvark that they hadn't known how hard it would be to keep Jeanne in the illusion once she started fighting in the real world.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Apr 21, 2017 23:12:05 GMT
Fun Fact: today is the Day of Silence here in the U.S., a day when many people choose to stay silent for the whole day to spread awareness of the LGTBQ people that have been bullied and harassed into silence. I'm honestly not sure if this is a coincidence or not, since I don't think they do this in the UK.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Apr 16, 2017 3:03:47 GMT
1. The way I see it, Annie has agreed to become an agent of Psychopomp Co., doing their bidding as she previously has done a few times in the past, the difference being that, now, she will do so whenever and wherever they want her to, without questioning and without arguing on Annie's part - she's not turning into a psychopomp herself. 2. More than with Surma and Annie's bloodline, I think it has to do with a couple of things: - Their "hybrid" nature. Fire elementals are etheric beings, so being half-breed / having one inside would make these individuals naturally attuned with etheric, paranormal and supernatural matters, thus rendering them ideal candidates for certain tasks and jobs such as medium or psychopomp avatar, given their "in-betweener" status as mortal + etheric. In other words:
The pomps seem kind of passive by their very nature, but a living being can be more proactive about it. - The psychopomps know Annie since she was very little and, given their previous "work" association with Surma (whom they most probably met during her tenure as Court Medium), as well as their "Uatu the Watcher" nature, it's only logical that they chose her to fulfill the role they signed her with.
Of course, given that there are several things that Tom has left unexplained as of yet and that the plot is still ongoing (I feel that, definitely, there's something dark and sinister about the death and return of Superman Surma), one can suppose things such as, for example, the Shinigami Club having different plans from those Annie (and us) is expecting, and Annie's pledge is in reality part of a plan to save her from a terrible fate. Huh...that's an interesting idea! When you put it that way, I can only think of one other character who might have a similar 'hybrid' nature. I wonder now if Anja could see the psychopomps, and whether she might have done a bit of work for them as well.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Apr 12, 2017 20:26:48 GMT
seems, though, so far at least, that the Pomps have been using Annie for the special "tough cases": (1) her mom... when there was nothing left for them to do it; (2) Mort, by his special request (a confused ghost); and (3) Jeanne, who was so dangerous, she'd taken out several career Pomps. You're forgetting Martin; when there was a dispute over who should get to claim him, and they couldn't him to come out and choose. Apparently there's something about Surma and Annie's bloodline which naturally helps with these sort of disputes - which fits in with this " special empathy with etheric beings" Jones was talking about. Of these four cases, it seems like the Pomps only really needed her for Martin and Jeanne - her mom was simply because none of them could be bothered to do it themselves, and like you said, Mort was a special request. Maybe it's something specific about ghosts not willing to come along with any of the Pomps? I'm still not sure how that connects to the fire elemental bloodline, though.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Apr 6, 2017 23:25:21 GMT
We have to remember that Ysengrin is a wolf. A pack animal. He may have been an Alpha at some point but he certainly isn't now. Coyote is his Alpha and the whole forest is his pack. Because of that social structure he can move freely and not fear or fight for his own space. He is loyal to Coyote because Coyote is his Alpha, and Coyote's strength is the strength of the pack, and his strength. He gets angry when Coyote says things that make Coyote seem weak. Because for canine packs the strength of the Alpha is everything. I think we are seeing the dog side of Ysengrin, the side that is strong only because of the Alpha. A pretty good point, but one thing I couldn't help thinking about was that Ysengrin was never just a wolf - he's also a medieval legend. From what I know, he was always the big, nasty, authority figure to Renard's trickster. And after he came to the Forest, he became the proud general of an army of monsters. It takes more than pack instinct to change the great Ysengrin into a mere servant of Coyote.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Mar 24, 2017 3:09:31 GMT
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Mar 9, 2017 0:49:19 GMT
In page 724 Jones reveals that the court tracks students through their food. In page 977 Jones reveals that if the court ever tracks down Shadow Annie might never see him again. In page 978 she gives him sweets, conveniently from a plastic bag as you might buy at a store. I.e. something we can be sure the court has not messed with. Quite considerate of her. Incidentally, I only now realized that this is probably why Annie explicitly said that he needed food. If the food didn't make Shadow traceable she probably could've just smuggled some food from the cafeteria every day, or if not her, Shadow could just have sneaked into the school kitchen occasionally. I will mention that Shadow had already learned that he liked sweets before that meeting, so it's not like Annie and Kat hadn't been giving him any food before then. But yeah, everything else you're saying is actually blowing my mind right now.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Mar 9, 2017 0:34:05 GMT
I-what-holy- I can't believe what I'm seeing here. *shakes head in bewilderment* I really can't. You people have just diminished my faith in the entire human race. I'm not sure I can come back to this forum anymore.
It's been SIXTEEN HOURS since this thread was started and NO ONE has made a SINGLE PUN about a fire elemental being "burned" by someone else for once. HOW DARE YOU, YOU HUMORLESS MONSTERS!!! I came to this thread expecting to see AT LEAST THREE separate puns about this, and what do I get!? A bunch of completely boring arguments about some totally irrelevant "ethical issue"!
Honestly people! Surely you can't tell me that such a simple, terrible, fire pun was... too hot to handle.*
*not even sorry in the slightest
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Mar 7, 2017 5:46:23 GMT
Aside from the whole question of Annie being at fault for Red's trauma... ...Is anyone else here half hoping that Tom will suddenly reveal at some point that Red and Ayilu are actually sisters? Because that seems like exactly the sort of thing that neither of them would ever think was worth mentioning out loud to any of their increasingly confused friends. This...WOULD be a pretty damn mind-blowing kind of reveal, but I can't quite see it happening. The way Red sees Ayilu on this page is too damn romantic for this to be sisterhood. In my opinion, anyway. I appreciate the wildspec though!
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Mar 2, 2017 6:11:07 GMT
Does the Court have a janitor? they are gonna be pissed when they come to this room. I think it's basically just robots that do all the cleaning & grunt work. And honestly, they've had much worse cases than this, so I don't think they'll be too mad. A few examples of what they have had to fix: this door, this roof, this bowling alley, and - of course - this entire goddamn building. A little graffiti and a broken vase is nothing.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 27, 2017 23:04:39 GMT
Based on this page I'm actually wondering if fairies can even name each other. That would be cheating! Fairies aren't allowed to cheat.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 26, 2017 22:44:12 GMT
The Omega Device itself would have to be powered by both etheric and mechanical means, and likely the reason the Court allowed Tony to go on his mystical wilderness adventure. He now possesses firsthand experience in separating through the layers of reality to divide between the ether and the non-etheric world. This is also why they've brought him back, and why he is so deep into the inner circle of the court. The Court, also probably resentful of the fact that to truly and finally separate themselves from Gillitie Wood they must utilize etheric means, understands that there is no other way to achieve their end goal. The Court knows that if they remove enough ether from Zimmy's surroundings, she will be forced to generate an essentially endless amount of it, which could be used to power the device. Also I just think it's thematically likely that our friend Zeta and the Omega Device are connected just based on name alone. It's implied in Chapters 52 and 53 that Donny is involved in the Omega Device research. If your theory is right, it would make perfect sense for the Court to employ him and Anja, since they're some of the Court's only engineers with experience combining mechanical and etheric science. I can't picture that either of them would willingly work on a device for severing people's connection to the ether, but the Court's level of bureaucracy could easily allow them to believe it has some other purpose - emergency defense against Coyote, for example.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 22, 2017 6:06:04 GMT
Personal headcanon: Until this moment, Annie has never had any idea that these two were a couple. She just thought they were BFFs. This page is the beginning of a very rude awakening for her.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 16, 2017 0:34:00 GMT
It's like Annie didn't learn anything from their first trainwreck (over hair). I should point out that was only a trainwreck from Annie and Kat's perspective. As far as Red and Blue were concerned, it was an amazing, awesome, miracle that ended well for everyone. That's also pretty much how Chapter 36 (Red Gets a Name) went, and yeah I'll bet this chapter'll be the same. *sigh* Annie will never understand fairies, will she...
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 9, 2017 0:36:13 GMT
If this is Annie who's giving the name: this is the young woman who named a robot "Robot," a shadow "Shadow," and a red-haired person "Red." I mean... I'm just sayin'... Annie is kinda... unimaginative with names =P A good point, made even better when I realized that it's pretty much confirmed by Annie herself. Turns out she's is entirely aware of how unimaginative she is.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 6, 2017 23:40:15 GMT
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 6, 2017 23:21:57 GMT
Welp, this latest page has just completely and utterly killed my wildspec.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 5, 2017 0:21:49 GMT
I was thinking exactly of the shadows. The first chapter makes a point to show the lights on the bridge are there to specifically stop them. And shadow folks are pretty hateful of humans and can control robot actuators. Now they have an easy passage... I wasn't thinking about Ysengrim, but from what I got from that storyline you linked, I dont think that was all his army or that all of it scorn him. Oh, alright, alright, I admit defeat. Both of your points make a lot of sense, and actually sound like they would lead to some pretty cool developments in the story. It's just that I've seen a lot of people declaring that, without a doubt, that this chapter will be followed by some sort of all-out war between the Court and Forest, so I thought it would be fun trying to counter that.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Feb 2, 2017 0:16:55 GMT
So. Jeanne out of the picture is a major change in the status quo. Has anyone already "wildspecced" about what will come of it? Now the shadow men and other beings can cross the Annan at will against Court Wishes, and vice versa. Wonder if the new book will be called Gunnerkrigg Court: Black Ops As a matter of fact, I DO have a theory for this, and it's the wildest, craziest one you can imagine. I hereby theorize that there shall be absolutely NO SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES that will result from Jeanne's demise. For Annie and the main cast, there are obviously consequences going on due to the fight, but in terms of Court-Forest relations...NONE WHATSOEVER. Because we as readers have known about Jeanne for years and years, I think we tend to forget that other than Annie & co., NOBODY is aware of Jeanne's existence. All that anyone in the Court or Forest or indeed anywhere else knows is that you can't cross the Annan Waters. No way, no how, and why is irrelevant. Noone's crazy enough to even try, and it's been that way for ages. The only ones who knew the nature of this sentinel were the ones who created her, and not only are they dead, but they totally wiped out all records of her. Well, okay, Coyote might or might not know, but he swore that he would leave the Court alone, so it's not like he can do anything about it if he did. Conclusion: if a ghost dies in a ravine, and noone knows about it, it doesn't have any effect on any political or military plans. Even if people did know that the Annan Waters were now cross-able, I don't think it would change much. The only Forest denizens who might want to invade the Court are Ysengrin and his army, as well as the Shadow people. The Shadow people have already gotten into the Court, and Ysengrin and his army aren't exactly working together anymore. So that's out. And the Court honestly couldn't care less about those brainless animals in the Forest, and long as they keep their plants and magic stuff away. If anything, thanks to Annie and Andrew, relations between the Court and Forest are downright friendly! Most of the larger action from here on is actually going to be with the psychopomps and the inner working of the Court, with the occasional break to deal with problems in the Forest and/or Coyote's schemes. Relations between the Court and Forest might not be ideal, but Jeanne's death certainly won't change anything.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Jan 26, 2017 6:16:05 GMT
Well,there's no way I can match that epiphany (or that degree of madness), but I can certainly try. You see, there is one other character (or rather, set of them) who seemed to be incredibly important way back in the past, and yet their actual significance to the narrative was left unexplained. Figures of a long-standing mystery, who desperately require a comeback. Who have actually saved a man character from certain death in the Annan Waters ONCE BEFORE. These guys. AND, WHATSMORE, they have demonstrated EXTRAORDINARY powers of growth and regeneration BEFORE. Mechanical growth, similar to the work of Katerina Donlan, who happens to have plenty of tools to work with RIGHT HERE. *sanity slowly fading* It's the PERFECT callback. Possibly even outdoing the hairclip a few pages ago. And it WILL HAPPEN, do you hear me! THE TIC-TOCS WILL SAVE HIM.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Jan 23, 2017 3:32:15 GMT
This is a tough one. On one hand, I'm seeing a lot of good points about the potentially comic-breaking consequences of a death like this. On the other hand, everything we've seen so far has been perfectly set up for Smitty to die, especially since he's clearly dying as a noble sacrifice to save his girlfriend. And well, I'm just going to have to grow a third hand now, since I actually really love Smitty as a character and I can't really imagine him dying permanently. That's two hands against one, so I clicked the "No" button.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Jan 23, 2017 3:18:48 GMT
Wildspec about the events from here on out: Smitty dies but is taken into the RotD. Since he is allowed to take whatever form he wants as a ghost, he chooses to look the same. He goes back to the Court, acts like nothing happened, and continues serving as their medium. Nobody at the Court notices the difference. Coyote notices right away, but he thinks it's hilarious so he decides not to say anything about it. (This won't happen, but it would be pretty funny. As funny as Smitty dying can be, of course.) Granted, he'd still be required to scare people, which seems a LITTLE conflicting with his duties as a medium. But hey, with the illusionary powers of a ghost, combined with the powers he already had in life, he could probably pull it off.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Jan 16, 2017 6:07:00 GMT
Not sure about how the meeting itself goes, but I figure it's in a huge room, with massive columns supporting a high, domed ceiling, but with most of the space unused. Just a table in the middle. The Court has SO MANY buildings that are like that. In fact, they deliberately change which huge, empty, room they meet in, every month, just so they can pretend that all of those rooms have a purpose.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Jan 12, 2017 2:46:56 GMT
Nice catch! Now we'll just have to start wondering what THAT means! I feel like the Anja/Surma/Annie hair clip is larger than Jones', and a lighter color. I might be wrong! But it is also the case that Anja/Surma/Annie all wore it in the same spot, and Jones has it over her forehead. It's just like Tom to be a troll; but Jones has worn so many different hair implements I'm not sold on this being the same one. Honestly, I don't care whether or not it was intentional, or even logical. At the very least, it's a pretty amazing headcanon, so I declare it to be true. With a few minor improvements, that is. Just a few. The Ongoing Saga of the Blue Hair ClipThe Blue Hair Clip was originally made by Edward Jones out a nigh-indestructible plastic he invented, for Jones. Jones being Jones, that hair clip had to endure some pretty rough situation, and was lost twice. Both times, though, it miraculously returned to her after only a couple of years. Later, Jones gave it to Anja as a graduation gift, although she did not explain it's incredible significance. Soon afterwards, during the big fight with Reynardine, it fell into a sewer grate, but it was later picked up by a group of sentient sewer rats which later, by sheer coincidence, became involved in another of Anja and Surma's adventures, so Anja got it back after all. Later, Anja decided to give it to Surma as a farewell present (as fish already speculated). It's next 12 years or so were relatively uneventful, except for that one time a passing psychopomp accidentally took it with her into her realm, but she realized her mistake and gave it back to Surma pretty quickly. Surma gave it to her daughter as a birthday present, and I think we all know more or less what happened to it. Annie falls into the river, hair clip falls off but miraculously sinks directly onto Diego's Arrow and the elf's body, and stays there for a few years until the current chapter. If only Annie knew that hair clip's full history...
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Jan 6, 2017 2:39:43 GMT
I would like to add, only Queslett and Thornhill staff shall use it. I'm sure none of us want a repeat of that disastrous inter-house staff meeting 10 years ago. Speaking of which: Ms. Lindsey, wasn't it YOU who invited Subject Zeta's class this year? What the hell possessed you?
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Jan 4, 2017 3:13:12 GMT
I'm unsurprised at the popular theory that Jeanne can only do "etheric" damage to Smitty, but I'm rather amazed nobody has used this page yet to try and disprove it. I mean, call me a skeptic, but I'm not really going to buy any claims that Robot was only SPIRITUALLY ripped into several pieces. And no, I'm not buying the hope that disabling the arrow also made Jeanne slowly become non-corpooreal. Her sword made a quite resounding " Clang!" just a few seconds ago. The only straw I can see to grasp at right now is the hope that they'll suddenly have a way to heal Smitty, very soon. Well, that and the fact that there's no blood. But damnit, I just shot down the only two explanations for that.
|
|
|
Post by mturtle7 on Dec 16, 2016 1:38:34 GMT
You'd think, with all these crazy climatic events happening, with countless unforeseeable consequences, that my first post on the forum would be about Jeanne. Or at least, about something to do with the past two chapters. Haha, nope. It's about the Shadow men, who haven't appeared for ages. Actually, the lack of Shadow 2 recently is what inspired me to post. Y'see, the Shadow people have always puzzled me, even more than the robots. Okay, so we know they were originally created by Coyote, that they hate humans, and that they became shadows after living "in the shadows" for so long (backstory here). And we sort of have an idea where Shadow 2 came from by now: he's one of the children (grandchildren?) of these guys that somehow got into the Court on bound dogs (I'm too lazy to find all the links for the discussion around that, but I think it's supported by Tom). But if that's true, then where the are Shadow's family, the ones that came on the Bound dogs? What have they been doing all this time, and why isn't Shadow 2 with them anymore? This page revealed something interesting to me: the Court, with all it's vaunted tracking and surveillance abilities, have never noticed them; Juliet acts like a Shadow Man in the Court is unheard-of. Then this page happened and suddenly all became clear. The Shadow Men CONTROL GUNNERKRIGG COURT. That insanely compartmentalized mega-bureaucracy was incredibly easy to infiltrate, as they possessed more and more people (like they did Robot), higher and higher up the ladder, until they controlled all the departments, and NO ONE knows it. Most Court employees probably haven't even seen the leaders they possessed, much less the Shadows themselves. That perfectly explains why we've never seen these Shadow Men living in the Court. It's also why the Court seems to dislike Annie so much. That's why they've been subtly trying to take Renard (through Tony and the Headmaster): they already tried to steal him once, remember? Coyote doesn't know about this, of course; they harbor no love for the creator that scorned them. The epic confrontation with them is coming soon, now that they've been alerted to Shadow 2's status. Okay, okay, I know, this theory has TONS of holes in it. You can point them out if you really want to. But wouldn't it be more fun to, say, figure out what the Omega Device is, given that this is all true? My new WildSpec abilities are too exhausted to harvest that goldmine, I'm afraid...
|
|