Some thoughts on Annie

[owl]

Yeah, she was quoting Kat, but I don't think she would even have mentioned him being a jerk, before. And neither Robot nor Shadow2 nor Zimmy nor gamma have been updated. Perhaps they soon will. Tom's a busy man.

[Aspen d'Grey]

My impression was that the cast page hasn't updated in a while. x.x
Zimmy & Gamma need updates, certainly.

[mrw]

aspengrey said:

My impression was that the cast page hasn't updated in a while. x.x
Zimmy & Gamma need updates, certainly.

Yeah, I'm a little confused. I don't recall seeing the "grade A jerkface" comment about Reynardine even 2 days before my original post. But no other character's info has been updated. So maybe I'm just hallucinating. Or my browser had a really old cached page.

[La Poire]

I'm pretty sure he has updated it quite recently. I don't remember the spelling error in Shadow2's description. The one about Sivo was different too, I think.

Edit: and I prove myself right: web.archive.org/web/20060426130753/www.gunnerkrigg.com/cast.html
Really a handy web site.

[todd]

Jumping back to an earlier part of the thread:

I hope that, if Annie's armor is going to shatter entirely, it doesn't do so until the end of the comic (as in, the last chapter or so). Her calm response to the bizarre and level-headed resourcefulness form such an important facet of "Gunnerkrigg Court" that it would lose much of its effectiveness if they were lost.

[mrw]

todd said:

Jumping back to an earlier part of the thread:

I hope that, if Annie's armor is going to shatter entirely, it doesn't do so until the end of the comic (as in, the last chapter or so). Her calm response to the bizarre and level-headed resourcefulness form such an important facet of "Gunnerkrigg Court" that it would lose much of its effectiveness if they were lost.

I agree most wholeheartedly. I've got to believe that her armor is more a function of her personality than a reactionary facade, as some have proposed. If that is the case, while her armor might break down during an especially traumatic period (chapter), it will reform as she recovers and she will remain the Antimony we love.

(For some reason AluK's vector coloring of Annie in the art thread keeps popping into my head as I write this. Something about the expression on her face and the crisp lines just projects strength... )

[Aspen d'Grey]

Hmmph, then why wasn't the rest of it updated.

Very much agreed on the 'She's not grieving, that's just the way she is'. I've ptu forth other theories but this is the one I've personally viewed as canon since A Handful of Dirt.

[La Poire]

She seemed to be just as calm in the flashback in Broken Glass, so I've never considered her extreme calmness as anything other than a personality trait, certainly not a facade she put on after her mother died. If it was, I don't think it would take as much to break it.

[mrw]

Yeah, though I would expect she would augment it a little bit after her mothers death. The fact that she did break down at all by the cherry tree shows that there was indeed something to break.

Rereading that chapter shows that she was present at her mother's death. I wonder if that was the moment she learned the Guides' true purpose.

[Ben²]

mrw said:

Yeah, though I would expect she would augment it a little bit after her mothers death. The fact that she did break down at all by the cherry tree shows that there was indeed something to break.

Rereading that chapter shows that she was present at her mother's death. I wonder if that was the moment she learned the Guides' true purpose.

If it is, it's likely the very reason why she has such animosity towards Muut. Perhaps he's the one who took Surma away.

[todd]

Which is a bit harsh on Muut, since he says in Chapter Eight (when he refuses to kill the suicide fairies) that he and his fellow Guides just escort the souls of the dead and don't actually bring about their deaths. In other words, Muut wasn't responsible for Surma's death; her long illness was. (But you can't confront a long illness the same way that you can confront an owl-headed "death-god".)

[Ben²]

Yup, that's certainly true. But it's also true that Annie, for all her supposed maturity and stuff, is still just a little girl who lost her mother unwillingly. The disease doesn't have a face she can hate or put the blame to, but Muut does... even if he isn't actually responsible.

[todd]

That was the point that I made in the last sentence: "you can't confront a long illness in the same way that you can confront an owl-headed 'death-god."

[julieth]

I do think she's developed a very thick set of armor, but todd's probably right, come to think of it. If she has a breakdown, I expect she'll remain the same calm girl, only slightly more emotional. But she's never going to be the life of the party.

[La Poire]

It would be fun to see her at a party, though. It would be really fun to see her (in the future sometime, she's only about twelve, isn't she?) really drunk, at a party. She probably wouldn't be the first to start drinking, though. Kat, I don't know about.

[mrw]

Annie's definitely the one I'd most want to hang out with at a party. We would probably both stand there not saying much of anything but just watching other people have a good time. Boring but not bored.

I rather doubt Annie would ever get deliberately drunk. She seems like the sort who wants to remain in control of herself, and that is a trait I very much respect.

[La Poire]

mrw said:

I rather doubt Annie would ever get deliberately drunk. She seems like the sort who wants to remain in control of herself, and that is a trait I very much respect.

I agree wholeheartedly to all of that, but still, it would be interesting. I'd be too intimidated to talk much to her at a party anyway, I'd probably hang with Mort (he probably can't get drunk) or try to talk to Gamma. I doubt Zimmy would let me much, wouldn't want to face her drunk (either me her or both).

[todd]

Somehow, based on what I've seen of Annie so far, if she was at a party, it'd more likely be because Kat had talked her into coming along and she'd be feeling out of place at it. (And I agree that she wouldn't be likely to get drunk at all.)

[Yin]

Come to think of it, I wonder what Older!Annie would act like drunk (assuming someone spiked her drink or something).

[todd]

Maybe close to the way that she was acting in Chapter Six? (Come to think of it, Tom mentioned in the notes to it that Annie and Kat had gotten a little tipsy from eating all those cherries.)

[Yin]

But worse. Maybe she'd kiss someone.

[La Poire]

sli said:

But worse. Maybe she'd kiss someone.

Then spike that punch!

[todd]

Incidentally, I find myself recalling some speculation about how the reason why Surma was hospitalized after giving birth to Annie was the side effect of the birth (as a result of Annie's unusual traits such as being able to see the Guides - the old concept of a prodigious birth being hard on the mother). I wonder what the impact on Annie would be if she discovered or even suspected that that was the case - meaning that she might be the one responsible for Surma's death. That could certainly make for a very dramatic scene.

[owl]

Annie's too pragmatic for outright self-blame, but I'm sure she'd feel something, and we'd see it in moments such as a Handful of Dirt.

[mrw]

Do you think Surma would remain hospitalized for so long after giving birth to Annie? I suppose it's possible.
What kind of injury would do that? Some sort of spiritual injury?

In any case, I think if Annie was inadvertently responsible for her mother's death, no-one would tell her...

...except Reynardine.

[owl]

And she may not believe Reynardine...unless she already has thought of the possibility.

Ooh, yeah, that could cause some drama.

[Mezzaphor]

I must say, there's some excellent discussion in this thread.

todd said:

... the overall impression that I get of Annie is that she's asexual. There's certainly no indication (apart from Reynardine's aforesaid remark, which under the circumstances, I don't take seriously) that her friendship with Kat has anything romantic in it. And Annie has certainly shown no sign of noticing boys; indeed, she seems politely bemused whenever Kat talks about Eglamore in a way that indicates that she (Kat) has a crush on him. I doubt that it's only because of her youth, either, because Kat, Janet, and William are the same age as she is, and yet all of them have had some encounter with Cupid's arrows. The overall impression that I get about Annie is that she doesn't seem prone to even pre-teen infatuations. Maybe that will change down the road, but for now, I seriously am not expecting her to have a love interest. (That is, a love interest from her point of view, as opposed to Mort's own crush on her.)

Maybe Annie is as likely as any other girl to have a pre-teen crush, but she never acts on them. Maybe it's because of the emotional armor that everyone's been talking about. Maybe it's because Annie is still too shaken up from the loss of her parents to be thinking about romance.

Or maybe (my personal favorite theory) Annie is carefully and logically analyzing her feelings and deciding, "These feelings I have for Sullivan's John are irrational, so I'm going to ignore them." In fact, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if it were revealed that Annie has some sort of spreadsheet, listing every boy in her class, along with their positive and negative points: "William Winsbury. Pro: Natural leader. Con: Juvenile tendency to seek attention by belittling others. Quarrelsome. His leadership got everyone captured by Enigmarons. Possibly already in a relationship."

I also suspect that Annie has very high standards, and she's not going to settle for anyone who falls short. Which makes me think that if Mr. Right comes along and Annie decides to turn on the charm, it'll be... interesting.
Annie: Do you know how to dance?
Mr. Right: A little.
Annie: You'll have to teach me, or I'll look like a fool at our wedding.
Mr. Right: Haha WHAT

'Course, that's all speculation. There's not enough evidence yet to say anything definite about Annie's prospects for TRU LUV.

[todd]

One thing we can be certain of: if Annie ever does get a "first love", it'll be different from Kat and Aly's story, and not just because Tom obviously isn't going to write the same thing twice. Annie obviously isn't going to be talking pop culture with a boy, and she's far more skilled with make-up than Kat is (though it would certainly be difficult to be *less* skilled with make-up than Kat is). And maybe she'd spot any paranormal elements about the boy in question far sooner than Kat did with Aly (note that it isn't until Alistair actually shows Kat the feathers growing all over him that she realizes that something bizarre is going on with him), though it's hard to tell. (Kat might not have realized that the increasing amounts of clothes and the ability to jump very high were signs of something strange about Aly because she wasn't that objective about him.)

[Count Casimir]

I'm just curious as to who Tom could dream up that would be a match for Annie.

Would he be outgoing, an extroverted attention gatherer, to provide a foil for Annie's serenity?

Or would they withdraw to the tree room and eat cherries and sit peacefully?

[todd]

countcasimir said:

I'm just curious as to who Tom could dream up that would be a match for Annie.

Would he be outgoing, an extroverted attention gatherer, to provide a foil for Annie's serenity?

Or would they withdraw to the tree room and eat cherries and sit peacefully?

That'd be interesting. I think that the latter is more likely, since Kat is already serving as a foil to many of Annie's qualities (she's exuberant where Annie is calm, is keen on pop culture while Annie is almost completely ignorant on the subject, is crush-prone where Annie is definitely not).

Annie probably isn't that impressed with "macho-ness" anyway - certainly not in light of her response to Reynardine in his muscular form.