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Post by pyradonis on Nov 2, 2021 10:35:15 GMT
Brrr. I hope not. It's probably just me, but I just can't stand his unctuous face. Makes me really aggressive. I hate it even more than "I can explain." "No... I understand." That half-child-half-adult, neither-male-or-female, uncanny-valley sort of look is also evoked with purpose in drawings and paintings of Hindu gods, particularly Lord Shiva, who is often intentionally depicted as a half-male-half-female "Avalokiteshvara" form (literally half one and half the other, not an androgyne form, that is). The intention is to cause the viewer to react to the being as something not natural - in the case of Shiva, supernatural, and in the case of Robot, artificial. Your aversive reaction is not unexpected; you'd expect the viewer to experience mixed attraction and repulsion and a feeling that there was something wrong with the being. I actually used to hate what I saw as saccharine, effeminate portrayals of Shiva until I understood what was going on artistically. When the god is portrayed in Hindu films, the actor chosen is a conventionally handsome man. Robot, even though he apparently identifies as male, seems to view his personification as an artistic, creative expression and not as an expression of his humanity. I had thought that was something else that set him apart from the other robots, his creative urge and willingness to be something out of the ordinary. It's all of a piece with his personality, really. Haha, due to the great interest my parents have in Hindu and Buddhist spirituality I have actually seen quite a lot of portrayals of the Hindu Gods. And yes, you are absolutely right, it is very typical to see many male figures with facial features usually associated with feminine beauty - full lips, soft edges, rounder jaw... I've been seeing those pictures around the house for all of my childhood and never thought about how androgynous they actually look. But... Robot's angel avatar (how fitting calling it an avatar, when we were just speaking of Hindu mythology) to me looks nothing like those, and neither does it remind me of European depictions of angels which have their fair share of androgynyny as well. In fact, the uncanny valley part of this face for me is not that it looks neither male nor female, but that it looks neither childlike nor adult. And that's still not what I hate about it.  Instead it's simply that to me this face screams arrogance, aloofness and a general attitude of "Wow, look at me, I'm so holy, I'm watching you poor mortals with pity." Still, your analysis makes a lot of sense, and is probably much nearer to what Tom intended... |
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Post by speedwell on Nov 2, 2021 14:27:59 GMT
That half-child-half-adult, neither-male-or-female, uncanny-valley sort of look is also evoked with purpose in drawings and paintings of Hindu gods, particularly Lord Shiva, who is often intentionally depicted as a half-male-half-female "Avalokiteshvara" form (literally half one and half the other, not an androgyne form, that is). The intention is to cause the viewer to react to the being as something not natural - in the case of Shiva, supernatural, and in the case of Robot, artificial. Your aversive reaction is not unexpected; you'd expect the viewer to experience mixed attraction and repulsion and a feeling that there was something wrong with the being. I actually used to hate what I saw as saccharine, effeminate portrayals of Shiva until I understood what was going on artistically. When the god is portrayed in Hindu films, the actor chosen is a conventionally handsome man. Robot, even though he apparently identifies as male, seems to view his personification as an artistic, creative expression and not as an expression of his humanity. I had thought that was something else that set him apart from the other robots, his creative urge and willingness to be something out of the ordinary. It's all of a piece with his personality, really. Haha, due to the great interest my parents have in Hindu and Buddhist spirituality I have actually seen quite a lot of portrayals of the Hindu Gods. And yes, you are absolutely right, it is very typical to see many male figures with facial features usually associated with feminine beauty - full lips, soft edges, rounder jaw... I've been seeing those pictures around the house for all of my childhood and never thought about how androgynous they actually look. But... Robot's angel avatar (how fitting calling it an avatar, when we were just speaking of Hindu mythology) to me looks nothing like those, and neither does it remind me of European depictions of angels which have their fair share of androgynyny as well. In fact, the uncanny valley part of this face for me is not that it looks neither male nor female, but that it looks neither childlike nor adult. And that's still not what I hate about it. Instead it's simply that to me this face screams arrogance, aloofness and a general attitude of "Wow, look at me, I'm so holy, I'm watching you poor mortals with pity." Still, your analysis makes a lot of sense, and is probably much nearer to what Tom intended... Oh, totally. I'm happy to see that I am not the only reader who noticed how breathtakingly arrogant Robot's assumption of the "high priest" role is. Edit, almost an hour later: Speaking of arrogance and a style of masculinity unlike the modern one, here is notorious 17th-century rakehell John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who can still, through his very portrait, evoke a very irritated "yeah, to be honest, would hit that" from a post-menopausal woman in the current day, hah. |
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Post by mturtle7 on Nov 2, 2021 23:22:24 GMT
You know, it totally never occurred to me before watching this video that Kat probably has no idea just how incredibly important the change of mind & sensation is to the robots...when Robot comes out of his meeting with the newcomer, all she asks about is the body they want, and that's all Robot reports to her! Continuing the pattern, I suppose, where she has absolutely no self-awareness with regards to her own messiah status... Also, wow I had no idea people had such extreme reactions to Robot's chosen appearance ( speedwell, pyradonis). I mean, I agree that it's kind of naturally condescending, and certainly very androgynous, but I didn't really think either of those qualities (especially the latter) are particularly deserving of such rage??? Whatever, differing opinions I suppose. Oh! And that reminds me, it's really nice to be able to pinpoint now what imagery Robot/Tom was inspired by in making that avatar. Obviously I could tell it was sort of angelic/holy as soon as we first saw it, but thanks to this video I now know it specifically evokes old European paintings of guardian angels! The paintings Tom brought up even depict the angels specifically watching over children as they run around and explore, which fits Robot's situation here pretty darn well (not that the new robot is a child exactly, but they're as new to the basic human experience as a child). |
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Post by speedwell on Nov 3, 2021 9:18:19 GMT
You know, it totally never occurred to me before watching this video that Kat probably has no idea just how incredibly important the change of mind & sensation is to the robots...when Robot comes out of his meeting with the newcomer, all she asks about is the body they want, and that's all Robot reports to her! Continuing the pattern, I suppose, where she has absolutely no self-awareness with regards to her own messiah status... Also, wow I had no idea people had such extreme reactions to Robot's chosen appearance ( speedwell , pyradonis ). I mean, I agree that it's kind of naturally condescending, and certainly very androgynous, but I didn't really think either of those qualities (especially the latter) are particularly deserving of such rage??? Whatever, differing opinions I suppose. Oh! And that reminds me, it's really nice to be able to pinpoint now what imagery Robot/Tom was inspired by in making that avatar. Obviously I could tell it was sort of angelic/holy as soon as we first saw it, but thanks to this video I now know it specifically evokes old European paintings of guardian angels! The paintings Tom brought up even depict the angels specifically watching over children as they run around and explore, which fits Robot's situation here pretty darn well (not that the new robot is a child exactly, but they're as new to the basic human experience as a child). "Rage"? Not at all. There's always been something sinister about Robot's cult-leader aspirations, however innocent (and even more so because of their innocence and purity, characteristic of robots in general). Angels, too, are portrayed as terrifyingly innocent beings without the capacity for independent judgment in the Classics and in the writings of Renaissance alchemist-philosophers such as Paracelsus (and when angels deviate from Divine will and subsequently sin, they become demons, after all). It is possible for literate people to note the parallels without rancour. Such parallels actually underlie quite a lot of early serious sci-fi involving human-AI relations; I was at a lecture for writers many years ago in which Isaac Asimov touched on this briefly (though it was not the main point or even a minor point of the lecture). |
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Post by madjack on Nov 6, 2021 21:12:34 GMT
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Post by bedinsis on Nov 7, 2021 9:42:24 GMT
Since they talked about readers being able to predict twists, I'd like to share my own experience regarding the "Kat made the Tic-tocs"-twist: When it was first proposed I dismissed it as implausible and ridiculous. Then as the years passed by and the discussions never proposed anything that refuted that theory I slowly internalized it as true until www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2309 arrived and my reaction was not "Oh wow! It turned out that that far out idea actually was true!" but "What I already knew has been confirmed, plot point gone through.". It just goes to show how interacting with a community warps one's perspective around a story. It also reveals how one tends to forget one's own history, since when the member that first proposed the theory started getting the cookies for having predicted it I mentally went first to the place of thinking of "Come on, everybody already knew this would happen." before remembering what my own initial thoughts had been. |
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Post by pyradonis on Nov 8, 2021 12:27:58 GMT
You know, it totally never occurred to me before watching this video that Kat probably has no idea just how incredibly important the change of mind & sensation is to the robots...when Robot comes out of his meeting with the newcomer, all she asks about is the body they want, and that's all Robot reports to her! Continuing the pattern, I suppose, where she has absolutely no self-awareness with regards to her own messiah status... Also, wow I had no idea people had such extreme reactions to Robot's chosen appearance ( speedwell , pyradonis ). I mean, I agree that it's kind of naturally condescending, and certainly very androgynous, but I didn't really think either of those qualities (especially the latter) are particularly deserving of such rage??? Whatever, differing opinions I suppose. Oh! And that reminds me, it's really nice to be able to pinpoint now what imagery Robot/Tom was inspired by in making that avatar. Obviously I could tell it was sort of angelic/holy as soon as we first saw it, but thanks to this video I now know it specifically evokes old European paintings of guardian angels! The paintings Tom brought up even depict the angels specifically watching over children as they run around and explore, which fits Robot's situation here pretty darn well (not that the new robot is a child exactly, but they're as new to the basic human experience as a child). I beg to differ. Rage is not what I felt at all.
And I am sure I would have never said anything if it were only two or three pages where the angel avatar was seen. But you know how long and drawn out it can feel reading a chapter at the pace of one page every two or three days. And when GKC is the webcomic I normally look forward to reading the most each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, it is just more jarring to wait only to open it up and again be greeted by that unctuous super-arrogant face, over weeks and weeks.
That, and like speedwell said, S13's behaviour itself is very arrogant as well, styling himself first as high priest and now even as an angel.
EDIT: I just reread the chapter again to see if I still feel the same, and yes, I still hate the angel avatar's face. But I also remembered something else. The simple arrogance of deciding the other robots' fates. All the time the angel is telling the unnamed robot how he "must", "needs to..." etc. The possibility of choosing not to get a new body is not even given. It is claimed there is no other possibility. Who does S13 think he is, pushing the other robots into a life changing event that can never be reversed like that?
And thinking further, who does Kat think she is? That is, assuming S13 is just relaying her thoughts here. I could imagine Kat actually wants all the robots to freely choose whether they want to be transferred or not, and S13 just omits that choice because in his religious zeal he believes that of course it is each and every robot's ultimate goal to become alive.
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Post by DonDueed on Nov 20, 2021 21:00:05 GMT
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Post by mturtle7 on Nov 21, 2021 0:33:37 GMT
Around the 9:20 mark of the video: "Going into what the Norns would look like to Brinnie...would probably just raise more questions than it would answer." And WHEN exactly has that stopped you before, TOM?! |
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Post by maxptc on Nov 21, 2021 5:25:52 GMT
Tony was completely right to be nervous and unsure of how to handle Brinnie. At least he didn't slap her or trick her into murder. Between Rey, Coyete and Brinnie it's hard to say which would be the scariest partner, but my vote is all of them. Immortals are drawn to that bloodline like bees to pollen.
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Post by Druplesnubb on Nov 22, 2021 7:46:28 GMT
This video had Tom literally just straight up confirm that original timeline Kat will come up again in th efuture.
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Post by pyradonis on Nov 22, 2021 12:36:40 GMT
This video had Tom literally just straight up confirm that original timeline Kat will come up again in th efuture. Where did he say that? |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Nov 22, 2021 23:15:11 GMT
This video had Tom literally just straight up confirm that original timeline Kat will come up again in th efuture. Where did he say that?
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Post by DonDueed on Dec 11, 2021 18:46:55 GMT
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Post by Per on Dec 18, 2021 20:29:22 GMT
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Post by Corvo on Dec 19, 2021 7:28:44 GMT
For what it's worth, I really like this chapter and don't see any need to change it.
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Post by Per on Dec 19, 2021 9:00:46 GMT
I don't see a need to change it either given that it accomplished what it seems he wanted it to do. But really the only thing he talks about as problematic is that it wasn't clear that the recombination wasn't a specific power of Zimmy's but more of an optional feature of unwinding Zimmingham. The things about the chapter that left some readers dissatisfied, including the reversed Tuvix problem of going from two divergent persons to one person being completely glossed over; the fact that the duration of the split, the timeline implications and the 6-month gap in the end seemed to turn out to be arbitrary to the plot or Loup's plans; and that Zimmy did the recombination with no input whatsoever from Annies, are not addressed at all. Which doesn't mean there couldn't be answers, even if it's just "etheric stuff means that's fine" or "I never thought that was important", but when I first saw the video was nearly 30 minutes I was looking forward to some discussion on that.
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Post by taothegreat on Dec 20, 2021 16:15:07 GMT
I thought this was the most important retrospective so far. I took away most of what Tom wanted from that chapter, but not everything, and I did feel a little frustrated with it. It was good to know the background behind it all, including Tom's creative struggles and how the rigid update schedule left him without time to really get past them before doing his writing.
Like, I generally figure when a piece of writing feels a bit off it's because the author is going through some stuff but it was nice to have it all spelled out, as well as his original intent. I didn't really get before now that the Annies were two separate sides of the same person, I definitely thought they were two full copies.
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Instead it's simply that to me this face screams arrogance, aloofness and a general attitude of "Wow, look at me, I'm so holy, I'm watching you poor mortals with pity."
