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Post by Lightice on Nov 14, 2013 13:02:29 GMT
Except S1 didn't have a noticeable nose and was a fencer in that script. The Seraph was a stand-in, not a self-portrait. The Robot certainly identifies as masculine in spite of lack of physical sex, but whether that in any way reflects the Court robots in general is less clear. Shadow is most definately male just as certainly as Mort. Whether that makes their relationship homoromantic or not is a somewhat open question. |
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Post by snipertom on Nov 14, 2013 13:30:55 GMT
Do we have Word of Tom that the shadow people are sexless? They were Coyote's imitation of humans; do they have "shadow parts"? Would the same rules still apply to Shadow, since he apparently went through quite a transformation when he was cut from the ground. Further, we have very little to go on, but I never had the impression that the Courtbots had any concept of gender for themselves. They are both referred to as "he", but that could be for convenience. Anyway, I wouldn't call them straight either. Had an interesting thought while typing this up: What if shadow wasn't cut from the ground by the tooth, but reverted back to the original shadow people form after coming into contact with a part of his creator that had abandoned his people long ago, leaving them to fade into shadows? No, I mean, there's no word of Tom on that. There's an opposite word of Tom, i.e. that Shadow2 is a guy. Or so I was convinced back then. It was a point I made, that since shadows and robots do not reproduce sexually, sex is non sense when speaking about them. Of course, in fiction, and particularly in fairy tales, this is not so: just check Disney's fairies. And it resonated sweetly with my laughter.  Well, the shadow-people were copied from humans, and they have families and seem to be able to reproduce. The implication there is that they have sexual reproduction, most likely of the male/female kind. There are shadowladies out there, it's just that we haven't met them yet. Shadow himself is a boy, apparently one going through adolescence as earlier it was noted that he was quite young. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Nov 14, 2013 14:20:33 GMT
No, I mean, there's no word of Tom on that. There's an opposite word of Tom, i.e. that Shadow2 is a guy. Or so I was convinced back then. It was a point I made, that since shadows and robots do not reproduce sexually, sex is non sense when speaking about them. Of course, in fiction, and particularly in fairy tales, this is not so: just check Disney's fairies. And it resonated sweetly with my laughter. Well, the shadow-people were copied from humans, and they have families and seem to be able to reproduce. You sure? Okay then. |
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Post by snipertom on Nov 14, 2013 14:27:42 GMT
Well, the shadow-people were copied from humans, and they have families and seem to be able to reproduce. You sure? Okay then. Sorry, I misread, do you mean you asked Tom and he replied with...? |
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Post by nightwind on Nov 14, 2013 15:19:27 GMT
And there was much rejoicing! Oh yeah, I forgot that part. Also the robots would mention the exact value of the voltage, the temperature of the fire, the chemical composition of the smoke and the length of the kiss to the nanosecond.  |
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Kuraimizu
Full Member
Master Librarian
Posts: 177
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Post by Kuraimizu on Nov 14, 2013 15:22:39 GMT
I thought Tom said Shadow 2 was a boy. I'm pretty sure he did I was not aware of this. in such case I am incorrect. |
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Post by sidhekin on Nov 14, 2013 15:32:29 GMT
Well, the shadow-people were copied from humans, and they have families and seem to be able to reproduce. You sure? Okay then. tells us Shadow 2 had a family (who kicked him out of the forest). Also, several characters have noted that Shadow 2 is young. This would imply they're somehow able to reproduce. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Nov 14, 2013 15:36:20 GMT
Sorry, I misread, do you mean you asked Tom and he replied with...? No, I mean somebody else asked and he said that Shadow2 is a guy. My argument was completely not relying on Tom's authority, but I stopped fighting against it as this is his comic. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Nov 14, 2013 15:37:44 GMT
gunnerkrigg.com/?p=969 tells us Shadow 2 had a family (who kicked him out of the forest). Also, several characters have noted that Shadow 2 is young. This would imply they're somehow able to reproduce. Yeah, so I was wrong in that respect too. But I recall I actually ran the argument more on Robot (you can go through the archives for it if you wish to, I don't), and quite unarguably the robots do not reproduce sexually but are built. Edit: Oooh! Another double-post, this time on the very same subject so no excuses! You're welcome Toloc!  |
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Post by scaramousche on Nov 14, 2013 17:18:42 GMT
Meanwhile, the robots are completely rewriting their heretofore established definition of “friend.” May not bode well, either.
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Post by TBeholder on Nov 14, 2013 17:24:22 GMT
Had an interesting thought while typing this up: What if shadow wasn't cut from the ground by the tooth, but reverted back to the original shadow people form after coming into contact with a part of his creator that had abandoned his people long ago, leaving them to fade into shadows? Could this be one and the same? Of course, in fiction, and particularly in fairy tales, this is not so: just check Disney's fairies. Eww. What Disney have to do with fairy tales? Other than hunting them down and devouring messily? And it resonated sweetly with my laughter. Mwahaha? |
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Post by Daedalus on Nov 14, 2013 19:29:51 GMT
"This would imply they're somehow able to reproduce." The comic has certainly implied this. Thinking about how that would work, though...2D, a la Flatland? Also, I wonder if, biologically, our friend Shadow is not a new species... :? |
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Post by GK Sierra on Nov 14, 2013 19:30:20 GMT
Meanwhile, the robots are completely rewriting their heretofore established definition of “friend.” May not bode well, either. Dear diary: Today we introduced the robots to a new concept: friends with benefits. They are taking well to it, but I must keep an eye on them to ensure deleterious effects do not emerge. PS: Paz has invited me to her dorm tonight, she wants to play a card game called "President". I don't know what it is, but it sounds fun. |
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Post by philman on Nov 14, 2013 19:42:06 GMT
"This would imply they're somehow able to reproduce." The comic has certainly implied this. Thinking about how that would work, though...2D, a la Flatland? Also, I wonder if, biologically, our friend Shadow is not a new species... :? Eggs perhaps? They aren't necessarily the same biologically as humans (are they even biological?) |
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Post by stef1987 on Nov 14, 2013 20:22:22 GMT
I can't see Annie beeing homophobic or anything, I mean she doesn't seem to care about any of that, and she never cared about Gamma and Zimmy's relationship. But, given the chapter title, and Annie beeing a selfish jerk sometimes, and the fact that this is a work of fiction, I fear this won't go well. Maybe it starts just as a small argument between Kat and Annie (Annie beeing upset Kat never told her ofcourse), but then escalates. For some reason I fear that Annie will return with someone else, Kat's parents, a teacher, ... I dunno. Dunno why she would do that though. A long time ago, when Catalyst was current, someone pointed out that a catalyst is something that speeds up a reaction. What is the reaction? Well for a long time it's been obvious that tensions between the Court and the Forest are rising. I think that Kat and Annie are going to put their friendship to the test when duty calls. But what's the catalyst? You tell me... What singular event happened in Catalyst? Are you... agreeing with me? it seems that way, but the way you say it sounds like you disagree. but actually, it doesn't seem to me that tensions between the Court and the Forest are rising, at least not in the time Annie joined Gunnerkrig |
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Post by zimmyzims on Nov 14, 2013 21:22:04 GMT
Of course, in fiction, and particularly in fairy tales, this is not so: just check Disney's fairies. Eww. What Disney have to do with fairy tales? Other than hunting them down and devouring messily? If that's not "having to do with" then I don't know what "having to do with" means No, but seriously, it was just the word fairy that had me thinking the so "eww" Disney. Disney's fairies born from the first laughter of a baby, so they do not reproduce sexually, yet they have extremely sexual phenotypes, a bit like barbies. More than a bit, really. And I mean, they are of two sexes that are either really masculine or really really ultra-feminine. It goes way beyond them having boobies, although that already is quite unexplainable. They even seem to date or so. Maybe. But even if they don't, the rest of it still does not makes sense. As does pretty much nothing in Disney's Tinker Bell fairy stuff. Thank you for letting me moan about this. It was a burden to hold it inside. Don't ask me why I've seen that crap. I didn't choose to. And oh, there's still soooo much more, all that other stuff I didn't detail here but that makes no sense whatsoever. There still is a burden that I'm carrying, a burden of Tinker Bell's outrageously science-defying story-line and utterly nonsensical world, this was maybe just the general top of it all that keeps on amazing me from one shot to another. |
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Post by quinkgirl on Nov 14, 2013 21:50:57 GMT
Eeurgh. I love Disney's music, but its concepts have more than a few holes. I didn't follow the tinkerbell thing much.
But to say that one dies every time someone says they aren't real must have them going extinct.
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Post by Toloc on Nov 14, 2013 21:55:25 GMT
Had an interesting thought while typing this up: What if shadow wasn't cut from the ground by the tooth, but reverted back to the original shadow people form after coming into contact with a part of his creator that had abandoned his people long ago, leaving them to fade into shadows? Could this be one and the same? If you mean that cutting him from the floor caused him to revert to the form of the old glass eyed men, that would be possible too. But what I meant was that he wasn't cut at all. He came in contact with the tooth-blade and changed. Coyote abandoned them and they became flat shadows. He might be the first to come into direct physical contact with his creator again. Admittedly that seems unlikely, as the rest of the shadow people live together with Coyote in the forest. They were "born from the body of Coyote". The glass eyed men might have some weird connection to Coyote and thus to the tooth. Coyote explicitly forbid Annie from talking about the blade in the forest by danger of losing her hand. Additionally even if he was separated from the ground he was on, the blade didn't actually cut Shadow himself. And he was pressed up against the blade. We do not know how the blade interacts with other "etherstuff", but it has been implied that it should cut basically anything. So why did it cut Shadow from the floor, but not through Shadow himself? It is farfetched and really makes no difference in the end I guess, but it is something to think about. And this might belong more into the Wild Speculation thread... |
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meltea
Junior Member
Heavy rain of snow
Posts: 51
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Post by meltea on Nov 14, 2013 22:10:42 GMT
A bit late to the thread party, but I am going for the 'walk-away-awkwardly-fast' option. Annie just seems so reasonable and balanced for it to be anything else...
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Post by Daedalus on Nov 14, 2013 22:26:49 GMT
Oh, this discussion again: I went to this battle about their sex and gender before, like chapters ago, arguing that despite all gender stuff they are unable to represent any sex as they do not belong to sexually reproducing species, i.e. there is really no such thing as male or female shadow. So it makes no sense to talk about male or female shadow. However, the overwhelming consensus was that they are guys because Tom has said that they're guys. Unfortunately to me and my great argumentation, authoritative arguments tend to hold when we're asking for purposes of the author about his work. All despite them being intellectually loose. Do we have Word of Tom that the shadow people are sexless? They were Coyote's imitation of humans; do they have "shadow parts"? Would the same rules still apply to Shadow, since he apparently went through quite a transformation when he was cut from the ground. Further, we have very little to go on, but I never had the impression that the Courtbots had any concept of gender for themselves. They are both referred to as "he", but that could be for convenience. Anyway, I wouldn't call them straight either. Had an interesting thought while typing this up: What if shadow wasn't cut from the ground by the tooth, but reverted back to the original shadow people form after coming into contact with a part of his creator that had abandoned his people long ago, leaving them to fade into shadows? Edit: Hahah!! A quadruple-post (if I got right what you mean??), take that you double-post haters! Yeah, I wept a little. Two good points to highlight here. First, I like the speculation that Shadow reverted. A lot. Plus, people later in the thread have given a reason...tentatively. Now, where Tom could go with that is a mystery, but still, intriguing. Second: Tom has said they identify as male: as in, obviously they are androgynous physically (as far as we have seen), but they think of themselves as male (making them transexual, I guess?). In their perception (the perspective that matters), the relationship is homoromantic. People may have beat me to saying this. |
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Post by feraldog on Nov 14, 2013 22:29:21 GMT
Disney's fairies born from the first laughter of a baby, so they do not reproduce sexually, yet they have extremely sexual phenotypes, a bit like barbies. Actually, I'm pretty sure the 'born from baby's first laugh' thing was in the original Peter and Wendy. (Of course, the rest of the details about Peter Pan and the fairies are left out: The fairies have no morals, and are only capable of holding a single emotion in its purest form at any given moment. Tinkerbell was downright homicidal in the novel, or would have been if she had the chance. Adaptations left out a lot of other things, too, like Peter killing off any Lost Boys who showed signs of growing up, or forgetting anyone he hadn't seen in a long enough time (even Tinkerbell and Wendy). |
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Post by Daedalus on Nov 14, 2013 22:34:38 GMT
It seemed like it was a stand-in for Diego in that scripted fight scene, so it identifying as male makes sense. Except S1 didn't have a noticeable nose and was a fencer in that script. Diego could have made S1 to represent what he wanted to be, rather than what he was - both in the sense of physical form and skills (remember, Jeanne was a master fencer) |
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Post by kukapetal on Nov 15, 2013 1:49:44 GMT
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Post by Marnath on Nov 15, 2013 2:09:08 GMT
No, I mean, there's no word of Tom on that. There's an opposite word of Tom, i.e. that Shadow2 is a guy. Or so I was convinced back then. It was a point I made, that since shadows and robots do not reproduce sexually, sex is non sense when speaking about them. Of course, in fiction, and particularly in fairy tales, this is not so: just check Disney's fairies. Gender identity and physical sex are not related, it's not hard to believe you can have the former without the latter. |
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Post by zbeeblebrox on Nov 15, 2013 2:34:00 GMT
TWIST: Paz was also going out with Annie on the side. This is a genuinely new bet. No. 8: Annie is shocked to see Paz cheat her. I find it very unlikely, though, that Tom would surprise us with a story line that has been developed completely behind the scenes, without any hints to its existence at any point in the comic. But okay, it is possible and definitely is not same with any of the aforementioned. I find it highly unlikely too, but the notion made me laugh so I had to post it ;D |
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Post by thedoctor on Nov 15, 2013 10:37:41 GMT
No, I mean, there's no word of Tom on that. There's an opposite word of Tom, i.e. that Shadow2 is a guy. Or so I was convinced back then. It was a point I made, that since shadows and robots do not reproduce sexually, sex is non sense when speaking about them. Of course, in fiction, and particularly in fairy tales, this is not so: just check Disney's fairies. Gender identity and physical sex are not related, it's not hard to believe you can have the former without the latter. Ok, that's a bit much. They may not be ENTIRELY related, but I'm pretty sure that, whether through innate tendencies or societal mores, gender identity and phsyical sex are VERY MUCH related, so much so that the vast majority of the population of both physical sexes tends to identify with their respective gender. The relation may be argued to be of one kind or another, but it is there. That said, the point is accurate in that (in-story at least, and in many other stories) creatures can have gender identity without physical sex. |
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Post by snipertom on Nov 15, 2013 11:36:05 GMT
Gender identity and physical sex are not related, it's not hard to believe you can have the former without the latter. Ok, that's a bit much. They may not be ENTIRELY related, but I'm pretty sure that, whether through innate tendencies or societal mores, gender identity and phsyical sex are VERY MUCH related, so much so that the vast majority of the population of both physical sexes tends to identify with their respective gender. The relation may be argued to be of one kind or another, but it is there. That said, the point is accurate in that (in-story at least, and in many other stories) creatures can have gender identity without physical sex. Maybe they're related for SOME or MANY, but extending that to ALL (or robots!) is kind of the issue we're talking about  Gender is the term for self-image while sex is the term for what you're born as. While the majority might identify their gender as exactly the same as their sex that's not a complete given and the number of people who are transsexual, transgender or identify somewhere in the middle isn't so small. Most people these days (at least in Aus, living in a city) would know a couple of people who are trans. Shadow is a boy, robot identifies as a boy. So, it's either homosexual or queer/'other' if you consider him to have no sex but to be male gender. Even if someone were to insist that he has neither sex nor gender, then it's still queer/'other'. |
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Post by TBeholder on Nov 15, 2013 12:47:29 GMT
(remember, Jeanne was a master fencer) ...my point exactly? |
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Post by Nnelg on Nov 15, 2013 14:22:53 GMT
You have forgotten another option: Annie is retreating out of shock. The forum seems to have concluded from this page that Annie at least suspected Kat's relationship, but that isn't necessarily the case. If she was in fact oblivious up until now, such a sudden revelation would certainly incite a state of panic. The last 4 options are basically "Annie retreats out of shock" with reasons why she would be shocked. Annie's unawareness of Kat's and Paz's relationship is at least to some extent supposed in each of these. You can work them out with her being aware on some level, but not completely. And quite many in this forum have chosen amongst options 3-6. No, I mean specifically "shock not compounded by any of these other reasons you gave". |
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Rymdljus
Full Member
Beautiful songbird
Posts: 207
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Post by Rymdljus on Nov 15, 2013 14:33:31 GMT
Sex is biological, gender is cultural, right?
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