[273] not good enough

[Mezzaphor]

Early update

Daaaaang.

Allow me to ignore the big stuff and focus on a really minor detail: Mrs. Donlan previously called the two students by their last names, Parley and Smith. Here she calls them Andrew and Parley. I guess Parley is the young lady's full name. ;D

Also, confirmation that part of the General's right ear is missing.

[mudmaniac]

I dunno. maybe her name is Parley Parley?
Stranger things have happened.

somehow i dont think that his disapproval of his mediums are anything about training, but rather the exceptional talents of one Surma Stibnite.

[yeochild]

Hmm. Why would he want a medium specifically? He can already talk through his own form, can't he?

Or is it just that Surma, while being a diplomat, was also a medium, and is remembered as such by the people of the Wood?

[todd]

Incidentally, it must have been several years since the forest-folk last sent an embassy (whether the General or someone else) to Gunnerkrigg Court, since Surma had been hospitalized ever since Annie's birth, and thus would not have been present to receive him.

[rallan]

mudmaniac said:

I dunno. maybe her name is Parley Parley?
Stranger things have happened.

Maybe it's Parley Parley Parley Parley and her name's part of the secret magic words to get past the singing bush

[Goatmon]

I'm guessing Parley has a regular last name, but dislikes formalities and prefers going by Parley; She seems like the type to avoid following that sort of stuff when it isn't required.

I'm also guessing that by "Us" he may mean the wolf creature that's tagging along with him. It's possible that not everyone can see/understand both of them, and require a medium.

However, I'm thinking it could also just be ritualistic; More out of traditional than actual necessity. I'm starting to get the feeling that this school has been around for a VERY long time.

[Yin]

Orrr she could just be Parley. Like Madonna.

[Boksha]

mudmaniac said:

I dunno. maybe her name is Parley Parley?
Stranger things have happened.

Just this morning I saw an article where some mum by the last name of Storms had apparently named her kid Storm.
Cruel parents I guess.

I get the idea the wolf-tree isn't exactly the reasonable type. His hand had a nervous twitch when he walked in and it's getting worse. Kind of feels like the sort of anger you sometimes see in religious fanatics, which isn't really surprising if, like Reynardine said, the forest people detest technology bad enough to require a huge chasm to seperate them from the Court.

[UbiquitousDragon]

rallan said:

mudmaniac said:

I dunno. maybe her name is Parley Parley?
Stranger things have happened.

Maybe it's Parley Parley Parley Parley and her name's part of the secret magic words to get past the singing bush

Heh, Major Major Major Major.

Teachers often asked, in my experience, preferred names. Could be Parley doesn't like her first name. Smit I think, however, prefers Andrews ;D

EDIT: Note how he says 'you expect us to talk to children'. Perhaps then, as someone said in one of the earlier threads, the General is not, in fact, the god but his strangely coloured pal beside him. (Gah, hideously long sentence, sorry ...)

EDIT2: Or he could just be speaking figuratively. Ponderous.

[fjodor]

I'm with the Dragon Lady: the fox creature must be the god, and the tree-wolf his general. I have a feeling that we will discover in this chapter that Annie has inherited more from her mother than just her looks. But that's more a thing for the wild speculation thread.

[Yin]

I still think that the General is actually two beings- wolf-guy and wood-guy.

[Count Casimir]

If Wolftree IS the God, then his "us" is probably a royal we. It seems likely that Annie is about to be introduced as Surma's daughter, but I wonder who will do it? And will Rey make an entrance any time soon?

Also, concerning Yin's avatar: spoiler warning, dudette!

[Mezzaphor]

fjodor said:

I have a feeling that we will discover in this chapter that Annie has inherited more from her mother than just her looks. But that's more a thing for the wild speculation thread.

Annie being a medium / mediator makes a lot of sense, but since this meeting was most likely precipitated by something she did, I suspect being forced to speak with Annie would just make the wolf tree angrier.

It was commonplace for European royalty to refer to themselves in the plural rather than singular; maybe that's what the wolf tree is doing. Of course, that only makes sense if the wolf tree is the god mentioned at the beginning of the chapter.

I love the name wolf tree. That's what I'm calling them until I figure out their real name.

[todd]

One thought that I had. We know that Surma was bedridden after giving birth to Annie (about twelve years ago), and spent the rest of her life in the hospital until she died. Parley (the older of the two apprentice mediums) is in Year 10, so she could only have begun her apprenticeship at Gunnerkrigg at most three years ago (when she'd have been in Year 7), long after Surma would have to have left the Court due to illness. That means that (so far as we know), they only began training Surma's successors relatively recently.

Could the school faculty have believed for a long time that Surma would recover from her bedridden condition and be able to rejoin them, and only began training Parley and Smith after they realized that that wasn't likely to happen? I don't know as yet, but it is a possibility.

(Of course, one other unanswered question is who's been training them to become mediums, and why their teacher wasn't present.)

[CoyoteKing]

todd said:

One thought that I had. We know that Surma was bedridden after giving birth to Annie (about twelve years ago), and spent the rest of her life in the hospital until she died. Parley (the older of the two apprentice mediums) is in Year 10, so she could only have begun her apprenticeship at Gunnerkrigg at most three years ago (when she'd have been in Year 7), long after Surma would have to have left the Court due to illness. That means that (so far as we know), they only began training Surma's successors relatively recently.

Could the school faculty have believed for a long time that Surma would recover from her bedridden condition and be able to rejoin them, and only began training Parley and Smith after they realized that that wasn't likely to happen? I don't know as yet, but it is a possibility.

(Of course, one other unanswered question is who's been training them to become mediums, and why their teacher wasn't present.)

It is never said that Surma was the school's last medium. Just that the last one has passed on since the last visit from the people(things?) in the forest.

[todd]

coyoteking said:

It is never said that Surma was the school's last medium. Just that the last one has passed on since the last visit from the people(things?) in the forest.

True. Because the medium in question was referred to as "she", and because we know that Surma was a medium and has passed on, it's easy to assume that Anja meant Surma - but we could turn out to be wrong. I find myself thinking of:

* WARNING - HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS SPOILER *

how, when in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", Aunt Petunia was talking about her sister chatting with "that awful boy", it seems as if she's talking about James Potter, and then it turns out in the final book in the series that it's Snape instead.

* SPOILER ENDS *

[rastarogue]

I get the feeling that more beings are present then we can currently see. There is the General and his trusty hound, but remember not all of the forest folk have very solid large forms (The Shadows) and The God could be a spirit, along with other residents of the woods. I believe that is why they need a medium.
Personally I think that Anja was referring to Surma, "She" is a rather weird term for someone who seems to have an important function, it seems either more personal, like Anja and the medium were friends, or it sounds like Anja is trying to dissasscociate herself with said medium, as though she is trying to spare herself the pain of remembering that Surma is dead.
I could be reading way to much into this.

Edit- The title page for this chapter loooked rather like a spiritual wolf to me, which may explain the need for a medium. Which could also mean that the General took a wolfs head to honor his God.

[Aspen d'Grey]

Oi, your back, rasta. WB. What happened?

[Yin]

countcasimir said:

Also, concerning Yin's avatar: spoiler warning, dudette!

Only if you haven't read HP1, silly

Maybe the Forest is split into two camps, and the General is the 'good' side. AFAWK, anyway.