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Post by ctso74 on Aug 2, 2013 13:17:47 GMT
... she can walk it off.
With the exception of flashbacks, I imagine that's all he wrote. Though, I can't imagine not hearing about her again. There many unanswered questions, from the origin of her condition to Rey's motivation in seeking her company. I wonder, if after the next rain, Zimmy will ask, "Do ya smell something burning?"
The door is far more interesting, however.
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Post by freeformline on Aug 2, 2013 13:25:43 GMT
I bet the person behind the door is the sixth member of the old gang. Brinnie, I believe her name was?? That would be pretty neat. I'd be a little surprised if she was still at the Court, but it would be interesting. Of course, we have not so far seen any indication that Renard ever interacted with her, or would have any motivation to do so. |
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Post by Maeniel on Aug 2, 2013 13:34:23 GMT
 Bye bye bye, Hetty. |
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melkior
Junior Member
Nice Hat!
Posts: 84
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Post by melkior on Aug 2, 2013 13:47:09 GMT
Looks like that's all for Hetty. Except maybe for some backstory another time.
Now everyone is asking, what's behind the brown door? (Or rather, who)?
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Post by darlos9d on Aug 2, 2013 14:00:12 GMT
I would be quite disappointed if Hetty came from nowhere and went nowhere in the course of a single chapter, just to provide a little exposition about Renard's motives. I hope that she'll make further appearances, either through miraculous survival or flashbacks. She would have precious little point if this was her only appearance. Fortunately, I doubt that Tom would succumb to such a crude method of storytelling. Y... yeah. I think I said my piece on this whole bit of narrative in the last thread. Suffice to say I agree with you wholeheartedly. She looks pretty friggin' dead though. For better or for worse. If we don't get to see what the deal with this door is in this chapter (and then probably not for a while) I think this might quickly become my least favorite chapter. |
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Post by exdevlin on Aug 2, 2013 14:41:47 GMT
I just realised the doll is smiling as it burns. I may never unsee that. I made the same realization as I was trying to properly orient the head in the scene. I couldn't figure out which was the head was facing until I realized which was the eyebrow and which was the smile. Creeped OUT. I would be quite disappointed if Hetty came from nowhere and went nowhere in the course of a single chapter, just to provide a little exposition about Renard's motives. I hope that she'll make further appearances, either through miraculous survival or flashbacks. She would have precious little point if this was her only appearance. Fortunately, I doubt that Tom would succumb to such a crude method of storytelling. Y... yeah. I think I said my piece on this whole bit of narrative in the last thread. Suffice to say I agree with you wholeheartedly. She looks pretty friggin' dead though. For better or for worse. If we don't get to see what the deal with this door is in this chapter (and then probably not for a while) I think this might quickly become my least favorite chapter. I think the bit of character development on Renard's part was worth it. Though if this was true Marvel-style, some hellish offspring that Hetty had and didn't tell Renard about will come back for vengeance, or one of these other "possessed" will show up to take revenge, or.. I was honestly glad to see her go, but a niggling worry has now been introduced to the back of my head that she'll make it back one way or another. So whose door are you knocking on, Rey? Another new character? |
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Post by The Anarch on Aug 2, 2013 15:25:15 GMT
I am so convinced that Hetty will be back that I have started making HETTY LIVES! bumper stickers and carving her name into my very flesh. When she does make her second coming, the comic will be renamed Hettykrigg Court, and all shall rejoice as the streets are set aflame with her splendorous wonder, even if I have to set them aflame myself.
Believe it!
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Post by Goatmon on Aug 2, 2013 15:38:05 GMT
Hmmm... graphically killed on screen. Empty husk of her body burning. If ever we needed a guarantee of her showing up again  ... Exactly. Nobody introduces a character with that much depth and then just burns them to a cinder. Hetty will rise again. I really, really doubt it. She's a very memorable character, but this whole chapter so far has basically been exposition for Renard. She's just been Tom's way of helping Renard confess his motivations to us, by pairing him up with someone in very similar circumstances, who is exactly the sort of person that Eglamore sees when looking at Renard, but is clearly totally different from him. And in doing this, it shows us, the reader, how truly evil Renard could have been all this time, even within the constraints of being bound to follow Annie's orders. Through his speech, we can finally understand more about what he has been so loyal to Annie, beyond simple affection for her (and her mother). |
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Post by Per on Aug 2, 2013 16:16:12 GMT
Exactly. Nobody introduces a character with that much depth and then just burns them to a cinder. Hetty will rise again. I really, really doubt it. She's a very memorable character, but this whole chapter so far has basically been exposition for Renard. Yeah, write me up as another person who thinks Hetty's narrativational presence will be confined to this chapter. Edit: We may get a throwaway reference to Adam feeling better later on. |
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Post by Goatmon on Aug 2, 2013 16:22:10 GMT
Also remember that Tom typically gives us bits and pieces of a character to go by, making us curious and more excited when said character/s make return appearances.
This time around, we pretty much got everything we needed to know about her all at once, and soon Hetty - along with the dilemma she was both the cause and introduction for - was apparently put to rest.
I doubt things would have progressed this fast if Tom had any plan to make use of her character again.
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Post by Goatmon on Aug 2, 2013 16:27:30 GMT
Oh, one other thing... Anyone else think Renard will not tell Antimony about any of this, and will omit this incident or minimize it into irrelevance if she asks him what he's been up to? I inferred the same thing shortly after reading today's page, yeah. |
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Post by The Anarch on Aug 2, 2013 16:31:57 GMT
Tom creating a character for a single chapter, never to be seen again, and almost purely for the development of one of the main characters?! Surely that would never happen. |
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Post by Goatmon on Aug 2, 2013 16:43:25 GMT
The HELL you say.
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Post by darlos9d on Aug 2, 2013 16:57:33 GMT
Tom creating a character for a single chapter, never to be seen again, and almost purely for the development of one of the main characters?! Surely that would never happen.I knew which chapter that was before I even looked at it. Difference being in that chapter is that we experienced the whole span of their interaction. It felt "complete." Imagine if that chapter started with her having a guy she liked and had apparently known for a while but we've never seen before and then he just turns into a bird out of nowhere. That's this chapter. |
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Post by The Anarch on Aug 2, 2013 17:01:13 GMT
Difference being in that chapter is that we experienced the whole span of their interaction. It felt "complete." I don't feel that's a difference at all, personally. I think we pretty much got to see the entirety of Renard and Hetty's relationship in a nutshell in this chapter. Felt pretty complete to me. |
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Post by facelessminion on Aug 2, 2013 17:06:22 GMT
Personally, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Hettie isn't just coming back, but is going to be the one opening the door come Monday...
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Post by Lightice on Aug 2, 2013 18:23:36 GMT
I don't feel that's a difference at all, personally. I think we pretty much got to see the entirety of Renard and Hetty's relationship in a nutshell in this chapter. Felt pretty complete to me. The problem is that we still don't know how Renard and Hetty became acquainted, what their relationship was and how the issue with Adam never entered into it. We also still have no idea what Hetty actually was and how she came to possess the doll. Nor do we know what brought on her insane fixation on Adam in the first place. In short, there's tons of stuff that we still know nothing about that are pretty vital for this chapter and her character. As such, I find it quite likely that we're going to see or hear about her again, if only in some flashback. |
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Post by The Anarch on Aug 2, 2013 18:26:51 GMT
In short, there's tons of stuff that we still know nothing about that are pretty vital for this chapter and her character. I would disagree that these details are vital at all, primarily because this chapter isn't about Hetty. It's about Renard. |
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Post by Lightice on Aug 2, 2013 18:34:40 GMT
I would disagree that these details are vital at all, primarily because this chapter isn't about Hetty. It's about Renard. It would have been perfectly possible to reveal every single detail that Renard did in this chapter without introducing a new character, at all. Since Tom went through the trouble of introducing Hetty and Adam in such detail, the conventions of narrative pretty much demand that we need to return to them sooner or later. |
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Post by The Anarch on Aug 2, 2013 18:52:10 GMT
Firstly, conventions of narrative are more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. They can demand all they want, but ignoring them from time to time does not necessarily result in bad narrative. In fact, going against the conventions can actually result in the best scenes and stories from time to time, and I'm pretty sure we know at least one webcomic creator who has a penchant for defying expectations. Secondly, things you may want to know about things in a story are not necessarily things you need to know as a reader. Thirdly, I wouldn't say we got much detail at all on Adam. All we really know is what little Hetty told us, and she is obviously an unreliable judge of character. Fourthly, it could have been possible to reveal all this stuff about Renard without introducing a new character, but it could have been possible to reveal all this stuff about Renard with introducing a new character too. Just because an opposing possibility exists doesn't mean the other possibility is inherently bad.
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Post by GK Sierra on Aug 2, 2013 18:54:08 GMT
I really, really doubt it. She's a very memorable character, but this whole chapter so far has basically been exposition for Renard. Yeah, write me up as another person who thinks Hetty's narrativational presence will be confined to this chapter. Edit: We may get a throwaway reference to Adam feeling better later on. If Hetty is only one example of a much wider phenomenon that is about to be explored, then I guess it's no big deal. I just don't like inferred/implied history when it is that big. If we really do never hear a peep out of Hetty again, then we know almost nothing about her, and she's just this weird animated doll that shows up for about a dozen pages who happens to be sweet on Renard and enjoys power and torturing children. |
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Post by Goatmon on Aug 2, 2013 20:14:47 GMT
She mentions that she's stuck in the doll and that she is bound by a contract similar to Renard, and there's the emblem on the doll's forehead.
Because we already know what that means, via Renard's history in the comic, there was very little that needed to be said to understand what her basic deal was.
From there, what we didn't already know was what her motivation was, and how she planned to go about her business, which is what we got.
We learned that she was torturing a boy out of spite because she desperately wanted to escape her confinement, and was guiltlessly willing to murder innocent children to do so.
Tom has always gone with a minimalistic approach to storytelling. I think this chapter is some of the best we've seen yet, in that regard.
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Post by SerenaJo on Aug 2, 2013 20:21:09 GMT
Eh, you guys shouldn't freak out until the chapter's over.
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Post by darlos9d on Aug 2, 2013 20:34:52 GMT
Eh, you guys shouldn't freak out until the chapter's over. I'm still holding out for there to be more of a point to this. We'll see for sure next week. |
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 2, 2013 20:49:24 GMT
Here goes the tasty seafood.
Let's hope it will not missed by Bud & Lindsey.
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Post by todd on Aug 2, 2013 22:19:57 GMT
Hetty (and the people whom she tormented, Adam and his sister) were connected to the main cast only through Reynardine. There was no indication that they'd ever met any of the other regular characters, no suggestion that Adam's sister was a classmate of Annie and Kat's, etc.
Tom might have been able to integrate them more into the story (for example, having several chapters ago a story about Annie's class having a memorial service for a girl in it who'd died under mysterious circumstances, and how they deal with it, and later revealing her to be Adam's sister), but we don't know if he'd even come up with them before he began planning this chapter.
Coming up with a way to reveal that Reynardine really did intend to possess Annie but has since become sorry that he tried to do so without including a "one-shot" foil might have been possible, though I'm not sure how Tom could have done it. (Revealing the identity of the man whom Reynardine possessed and killed could be done without Hetty's presence, by simply having Reynardine visiting the man's grave and remembering - but I'm not sure how to do the new look at the events in "Reynardine" with Reynardine on his own.)
Maybe Tom simply failed to realize that Hetty had, in the eyes of many of his readers, outgrown her function in the story (assuming that she was meant simply as a foil for Reynardine to make these revelations about him). I remember that, in writing a story once, I included a villainous character whose sole function was to set up a situation where the protagonist would have to do something to help someone that the villain was threatening, but in a way that would change his relationship for the worst. But my beta-reader pointed out that I'd wound up making the character too big for such a function, and so I revised the scene to find a different way to set up the situation without the villain.
(And it's not the first time that Tom's created minor characters whom a lot of the readers have found more interesting than the main characters and story - consider the case of Dr. Disaster, for example.)
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tpman
Full Member
Posts: 161
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Post by tpman on Aug 3, 2013 1:42:53 GMT
I'm calling it now. Reynard was investigating Hitty at the behest of the court.
Bonus prediction - That's Eglamore's house.
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Post by dreadedwave on Aug 3, 2013 4:46:48 GMT
Actually on Monday the door opens and....Hetty is inside.
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Post by The Anarch on Aug 3, 2013 5:41:08 GMT
Renard waits patiently as the door opens, and inside he finds . . . Renard.
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Post by maxptc on Aug 3, 2013 6:48:03 GMT
Pffft, like he'll actually show us instead of leaving us hanging for years. Yeah, call me cynical but I expect a cut away to Annie and Kat returning from classes to Rey reading in his room "How was your day Rey?" "Fine child" End of chapter. |
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