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Post by edzepp on Mar 31, 2015 1:48:16 GMT
Of course. I doubt he only came back for that - or let's say, I would be quite disappointed if that was such an important matter for this comic that Tom wasted a character potential of Anthony to just to get Annie back in school. At any rate, I do get it. Some of us have gone overboard (or still are) on judging him harshly. But I think it's important to keep in mind that it's possible to go overboard in defending him as well. Crediting him for when he's right is a good thing to do, while not dismissing the possibility that he's wrong in some of his other actions or methods. I mean sending her to Gunnerkrigg Court isn't necessarily even problematic as long as he's still willing to be there to reach in some fashion. Financial care and good education are nice, but social development and emotional support are just as important when making it in the world. And while things have worked out for Annie in terms of friends and the like, that's really more a case of luck working in her favor. Very much agreed. I concur that maybe some are getting overly upset, zimmyzims, but (and I'll be frank) sometimes when I've read some of your past arguments it seems like Anthony can do no wrong and in fact has done no wrong, in any way. And that's just not an extreme I'm willing to go to either. The kid is still a mess on the inside, he's rather largely responsible for that, and he will have to answer for it. Annie cheating or no. |
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Post by KMar on Mar 31, 2015 2:01:46 GMT
A hearing carries certain connotations - an official process with rules, involvement of certain figures of authority, options of appeal, a presumed lack of bias/conflict of interest, a chance for consultation/preparation before, documentation of the hearing and statements made etc etc, depending on the kind of hearing. Anthony, a biology teacher on his first day, - not anyone known to authority beyond any other teacher- conducting a private hearing with a student (who also happens to be his daughter) in the minutes between classes, who had not been made aware prior that she would be facing a hearing, let alone one after being put through the ringer emotionally and mentally by Anthony's appearance and his treatment of her in class, while also threatening another student with serious discipline should she be found to be involved.... No, this is no hearing. A hearing would be involve other stakeholders, such as the principle, and the question "what do you have to say for yourself?" (or something like it) would have been asked before the authority figures started talking about the penalty they were going to impose. Have you ever been to school? An involved teacher could just send her an email and tell she's been caught and ask whether she confesses it or not and that would be the hearing and then the officials could expel her regardless of her answer. Possibility to appeal would of course exist, but there's no question on whether it wouldn't exist in this case nor is there any place for that anymore as she already pleaded guilty and the punishment is definitely not unexceptionally harsh. Re: the bolded part. What the [inaudible]? That's not a procedure or a policy, that's just arbitrary misuse of power and malpractice... I have not words. "Send an email"? Doesn't that violate just about any concept of sensible way of doing things? You have very weird standards, if you're talking seriously. (In general:) Of course, this is a work of fiction, but really, projecting "the school policy" part of all this (without counting the ethereal gimmicks side of story) in to real world, this is quite indefensible. While repeating a year isn't unheard of as a punishment (if it makes sense from educational viewpoint, as the student didn't pass the curriculum and isn't capable to continue to more advanced classes), this is not how it should be done: letting the cheating to go on so long so that measures that harsh are in the picture. Especially if Anthony's words are to believed, the fact that the Court wasn't going to anything about this, but then just one teacher can just show up, just 'correct' some grades, and say "nope you'll redo the year". If that's not malpractice, then I don't know what is. Anyway, Anthony acting both as the school official with authority to order these things and the parent (whose task would be seek into interests of their child against possible wrongdoing by the school) screams quite gigantic conflict of interest. Given that he did effectively abandon her (disappears with no way to her or her school to contact him? outside of boarding school fiction, hello, in real life, this where the authorities should step in), this situation just shouldn't exist in the first place. So, summa summarum, if this was happening in the real world, it would be horrible. Which is point of this. (Of course, horrible things happen in the real life, too.) |
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Sadie
Full Member
I eat food and sleep in a horizontal position.
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Post by Sadie on Mar 31, 2015 2:21:09 GMT
I got a lot of sympathy for Anthony. He's clearly someone who has struggled with emotions his whole life -- both his own and others. He had such a hard time trying to process his feelings for a girl and figure out how to respond to her feelings for him that he nearly had a breakdown over it.
I imagine that trying to reconcile his feelings about his daughter's life leading to the death of his wife was agonizing, if not out right impossible for him.
I'm also very curious about how the entire incident in "The Divine" looked from his perspective. I'm sure it seemed to him that he'd just gotten everything set up only for a strong, evil power to rip it free and suckerpunch him. Did he hear Zimmy say the retaliation was on behalf of Annie? Does he think that she now wishes him physical harm, for whatever reason? Assuming that he genuinely has her best intrests at heart, it must have been unnerving to realize that his daughter is involvedd with people who can reach inside her like that. If his goal is to isolate her, it could be to remove those elements from her life.
Again, assuming he has her best interests at heart.
I also have a lot sympathy for Annie. Maybe even more, because at the end of the day, Annie is a minor and still in need of adult care.
No matter how much pain Anthony may well have been in, it was his obiligation to make sure Annie had emotional support and clear adult guidance, It's perfectly understandable if he was unable to provide that directly - parents are humans, not superheroes, and he deserved the chance to heal too - but he had the resources to find a suitible substitute.
In the long run, everything he's done may end up being out of the genuine desire to help and protect Annie, by whatever means he thought best --- but well-meaning, well-intentioned people who are struggling with their own pain can still to extreme harm to others.
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Post by edzepp on Mar 31, 2015 2:25:23 GMT
Well hey, I think we can all rally around that post. One like for you.
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Post by bluevitriol on Mar 31, 2015 3:22:54 GMT
I got a lot of sympathy for Anthony. He's clearly someone who has struggled with emotions his whole life -- both his own and others. He had such a hard time trying to process his feelings for a girl and figure out how to respond to her feelings for him that he nearly had a breakdown over it. I imagine that trying to reconcile his feelings about his daughter's life leading to the death of his wife was agonizing, if not out right impossible for him. I'm also very curious about how the entire incident in "The Divine" looked from his perspective. I'm sure it seemed to him that he'd just gotten everything set up only for a strong, evil power to rip it free and suckerpunch him. Did he hear Zimmy say the retaliation was on behalf of Annie? Does he think that she now wishes him physical harm, for whatever reason? Assuming that he genuinely has her best intrests at heart, it must have been unnerving to realize that his daughter is involvedd with people who can reach inside her like that. If his goal is to isolate her, it could be to remove those elements from her life. Again, assuming he has her best interests at heart. I agree with this. So far all we have seen is the beginning; we have not yet been given further information on Anthony, what his plans are, what he was doing, what his goals are now. I think many are judging him before knowing everything and casting him in a light based on previous chapters. What if he is NOT HER FATHER? What if Surma and Eglamore had a fight and broke up and she was pregnant and TONY manned up to take care of her... That could explain why Eglamore doesn't understand why she chose Tony, perhaps it was to save him the grief of her passing due to having a child. Wouldnt THAT be a bomb for Tony to drop. *(The preceding was all wild speculation from the Aether, keep calm and carry on.) All of this aside I think I still like Anthony and look forward to finding out more. |
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Post by antiyonder on Mar 31, 2015 3:26:58 GMT
Very much agreed. I concur that maybe some are getting overly upset, zimmyzims, but (and I'll be frank) sometimes when I've read some of your past arguments it seems like Anthony can do no wrong and in fact has done no wrong, in any way. And that's just not an extreme I'm willing to go to either. The kid is still a mess on the inside, he's rather largely responsible for that, and he will have to answer for it. Annie cheating or no. I would also say that such stance is arguably a problem in universe as well. Now perhaps Anthony does have legitimately decent qualities that resulted in him having friends. But sometimes being a good friend requires a willingness to tell a buddy that they need to adjust their attitude, especially if it's emotionally harmful to a child. Yet as seen, his friends let their affection and respect blind them to his faults unwilling to be critical even in a civil sense. |
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Post by Elysium on Mar 31, 2015 3:27:45 GMT
She always had the choice not to cheat, and she was never abandoned, just put in a private school where only kids whose parents teach there see their parents during the school year. Only she cheated throughout two years. Oh yeah great idea, I too will send my daughter into a boarding school and left her with no contact or parental support, what could possibly go wrong with letting a teenager try to figure out things by herself ? |
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Post by Corvo on Mar 31, 2015 4:20:51 GMT
Did Annie kill Surma by being alive or did Tony kill Surma by having impregnating her? Both. Which means Annie is also a reminder for Anthony that he killed the one true love of his life. Or neither, who's to say... (Tom. Tom is.) |
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Post by edzepp on Mar 31, 2015 4:39:53 GMT
Very much agreed. I concur that maybe some are getting overly upset, zimmyzims, but (and I'll be frank) sometimes when I've read some of your past arguments it seems like Anthony can do no wrong and in fact has done no wrong, in any way. And that's just not an extreme I'm willing to go to either. The kid is still a mess on the inside, he's rather largely responsible for that, and he will have to answer for it. Annie cheating or no. I would also say that such stance is arguably a problem in universe as well. Now perhaps Anthony does have legitimately decent qualities that resulted in him having friends. But sometimes being a good friend requires a willingness to tell a buddy that they need to adjust their attitude, especially if it's emotionally harmful to a child. Yet as seen, his friends let their affection and respect blind them to his faults unwilling to be critical even in a civil sense. I'm just agreeing with a lot of people lately, it seems.  My starting point with Anthony is this: If I was a father who left his daughter to work through her issues in a strange boarding school for 2 years, and then after that period I decide I want to re-establish a connection with her, should my first gambit really be to show up abruptly, get her into a state of emotional panic (and I can't believe he hasn't noticed by now), and then tell her how disappointed I am in her? Yeah, even if I had a reason to be disappointed, that's still a crappy way to handle anything. |
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Post by AnUpliftedCuttlefish on Mar 31, 2015 5:30:01 GMT
Have you ever been to school? An involved teacher could just send her an email and tell she's been caught and ask whether she confesses it or not and that would be the hearing and then the officials could expel her regardless of her answer. Possibility to appeal would of course exist, but there's no question on whether it wouldn't exist in this case nor is there any place for that anymore as she already pleaded guilty and the punishment is definitely not unexceptionally harsh. First: as I noted it depended on the hearing. Not all hearings allow for appeals processes - true. The ones that don't tend to be very transparent, official and comprehensive to avoid accusations of things like 'abuse of authority' or bias/discrimination/etc. I doubt one would call this "hearing" transparent, official, and comprehensive. Second: yes, I have. Up till recently in High School. Now in university. Most schools make their policy on cheating/plagiarism available to students/parents, often including how it'll be handled. Depending on the circumstances involved teachers tend to handle minor cases of cheating within their classes themselves, typically within a set framework of punishment and rehabilitation - emphasis on rehabilitation, hence why in serious cases kids get asked for their side of events/reasoning etc. Makes it hard to rehabilitate a student in trouble, if you don't know why they're in trouble. So in serious cases of cheating, or anythings that involves a risk of suspension or expulsion, it is not handled through a direct email from a single (uninvolved) teacher to student asking a single closed question (that is making an accusation, and only allowing the kid to say yes/no). And they are not resolved with those in authority never speaking to the child - even if we're talking the breaking of zero policy rule. At minimum a relevant department typically needs to be involved. Anthony is involved as a parent, not a teacher, since Antimony has not cheated in his class. Possibly in no biology class. He could be involved as a teacher if we discover why he apparently has the power to conduct a hearing, that is not in fact a hearing. Leading to... Third - I would ask how exactly this fits the definition of hearing, since Antimony is not being heard. Unless one wants to say being allowed a single word response to an accusation constitutes "being heard". Or being prompted to jump in to protect a friend being threatened by the accuser. As to whether the punishment is harsh? Not inherently - it's tends to be the most serious penalty in school plagiarism policies, (rarely it is expulsion, but remember - rehabilitation). But in the context of "what is best for the student?". Hence my point - this is not a hearing. Anthony, nor GC, are getting to the root of any issue. Which makes one doubt their intentions. |
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Post by arf on Mar 31, 2015 5:33:18 GMT
"Arrangements to repeat Year 9"
Coming from Mr. Precision, this doesn't say he's taking Annie out of Year 10.
It merely says that Annie has to redo the 'deleted' Year 9 assignments. She may be permitted to continue Year 10, *if* she can keep up (she has already been accepted). Hard, but I think it strikes the right level of penitence.
I would still like to find out a) why the Court knowingly let this continue, and b) what say Carver has in this.
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Post by SilverbackRon on Mar 31, 2015 6:15:20 GMT
Just tossing in my two cents: Since this chapter started, almost every page has evoked discussions that perhaps Anthony has some form of Autism or Asperger's. I agree he has trouble showing emotion (from what little we have seen) but both of these are real-world conditions. But this is a fantasy comic. I don't recall anyone having a "normal" illness (well, unless you count Betty's husband). I am sure Tom has something interesting cooked up, can't wait for the next couple pages! Whatever it is still won't excuse Anthony's behavior though.... |
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 6:45:25 GMT
She always had the choice not to cheat, and she was never abandoned, just put in a private school where only kids whose parents teach there see their parents during the school year. Only she cheated throughout two years. Come one, even if other kids don't see their parents all that often none of them had them disappear from the face of earth. They (or their teacher) can call home if they have a problem, they get to see them for holidays, they know they won't be homeless if their school expells them, they get to know wether their parents are alive or dead and whether they're going to see them again. It's completely abnormal for a school, boarding or not, to have no means of contacting the kid's parents. In any real world situation there would be police involvement as soon as someone found out. The only reason everyone in Gunnerkrigg accepts this is because, well, it's a comic and the author said so. |
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Post by AnUpliftedCuttlefish on Mar 31, 2015 6:48:56 GMT
"Arrangements to repeat Year 9" Coming from Mr. Precision, this doesn't say he's taking Annie out of Year 10. It merely says that Annie has to redo the 'deleted' Year 9 assignments. She may be permitted to continue Year 10, *if* she can keep up (she has already been accepted). Hard, but I think it strikes the right level of penitence. I would still like to find out a) why the Court knowingly let this continue, and b) what say Carver has in this. That'd be quite a interesting solution. Has potential. At any rate, I do get it. Some of us have gone overboard (or still are) on judging him harshly. But I think it's important to keep in mind that it's possible to go overboard in defending him as well. Crediting him for when he's right is a good thing to do, while not dismissing the possibility that he's wrong in some of his other actions or methods. I mean sending her to Gunnerkrigg Court isn't necessarily even problematic as long as he's still willing to be there to reach in some fashion. Financial care and good education are nice, but social development and emotional support are just as important when making it in the world. And while things have worked out for Annie in terms of friends and the like, that's really more a case of luck working in her favor. Well said. She always had the choice not to cheat Indeed - that was her choice, and she does need to accept responsibility for that. Of course it can be said that there might have been factors that contributed to why she did it.Antimony has a responsibility for her actions, others might bear some responsibility for creating the situation where she acted as she did. It's not the same responsibility, however, but it is a responsibility. Much like GC bears some responsibility if they knew, and did nothing. They didn't make her cheat, but they let her cheat and didn't intervene to find out why, help her, or to encourage her to stop it. We don't know enough about familial situations at GC to say that isn't the case, but based on actual private schools - what Anthony did is a lot closer to abandonment, than just being a parent of a child at a private school. Kids at actual private schools communicate with their families plenty, see them multiple times over the course of the year on holidays/school event days etc etc etc. Private schools =/= orphanages. That we know of (though she is likely the only one that cheated consistently over two years). Again you could be entirely correct, but other than ex-Forest students, and Zimmy (maybe Gamma),the rest presumably do have parents they could speak to, or who could be spoken to, if needed. I'll speak personally - I think I'd be comforted by the knowledge I could communicate with my parents if I needed to, if I was a boarder at a private school. Emotional support is nourishing for many, even at a distance. Anthony gave Antimony practically none. You mean other than seeing her through the holidays, like any other parent? Literally the only way he could see, or communicate, with Antimony (except when he needed something), was to become the biology teacher? Anthony Carver is worse at communicating than Sirius Black? Now it's possible there was some barrier so great he couldn't possibly do that. Ok. But you're saying the only time he can be motivated enough to overcome that barrier and get involved in his child's life is "when they very personally failed". Unless he has some other reason to be at GC. In that case it seems he can only be motivated when it coincides with other things. That makes it sound like the only important thing a parent offers is discipline, and as long as they come back to discipline the child it doesn't matter if they are non-existent in their lives for years at a time. That all said - we do know he has an interest in Antimony. He put her in a coma, after all. We can question his motivations, whether it'll turn out well in the end - but at the moment it's a question of "do the means justify the end?" We don't know for certain why he's acting like his is, but for my part I don't think his intentions - no matter how noble - will excuse how he's handled things. From leaving Antimony alone for so long, to how he has treated her since returning. Unless he does have some condition (other than an unusual hand). |
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sotha
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Post by sotha on Mar 31, 2015 7:14:02 GMT
I suppose it is understandable that he would be displeased with her.
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Post by snipertom on Mar 31, 2015 7:14:38 GMT
You take criticism of Anthony very personally indeed and I wonder why that is?
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Post by youwiththeface on Mar 31, 2015 7:26:14 GMT
You're assuming. For all we know, everything here is Anthony's idea and the Court has no idea about what he's planning. Anthony has clarified that the Court knows Annie's been cheating and suggests that they've initially informed him about it. So, they know and there is no blackmail here. I'm truly amazed of this... it seems like if Anthony gives Annie a choice, then you celebrate the parent who decides everything over his children's life. I bet, if he doesn't give her a choice, but she just has to repeat 9th year, then you will come back with that she should have had another option, which you now define as a blackmail. Anthony said the Court knew she was cheating, but he wouldn't let it stand. So he seems to be suggesting this was more his idea than theirs. |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 31, 2015 8:04:04 GMT
I guess once again the beauty of Tom's writing is that there is actual complexity. If Tom wasn't such a good writer, we wouldn't be having an argument about Anthony and whether he is "good" or "excusable" or not.
Regards parenting, I do think things are contextual. Let us imagine, for example, that Kat had been doing *something bad* (perhaps involving ROBUTTS) while her parents were away and out of contact. Extrapolating Donny and/or Anja's reaction, there probably would be some sort of warm reunion before getting down to business. Honestly, Anthony's behaviour is bizarre and cold from a parent. There is obviously something we're not aware of and some explanation because as it is, it makes no sense.
Regards dealing with your kid cheating- I don't think anyone on here disagrees that some sort of suitable remediation for cheating is in order. Being passed despite being below par is not good. The means for remediation are kind of varied; I failed a subject at uni and was given the chance to re-sit the same exam 2 weeks later and passed, which would be a logical course of action. Repeating the year is also logical (though at school it is kind of humiliating).
Regards Anthony's degree of responsibility over Annie running wild- honestly, considering being emotionally abandoned she's done reasonably well for herself. Many in that situation - especially one in which she had no idea for more than a year if her sole remaining parent was even alive - would be far more troubled as adolescents. Depression, severe anxiety, self-harm, drugs, eating disorders, all these things are very real consequences that have a fairly high (less than 50% but still high) chance of occurring. I think it's important to remember who the parent is here. Of course Annie has some measure of responsibility for her own behaviour but all of this has happened at an age where she is incredibly vulnerable (adolescence is the age with the 2nd biggest period of brain development after infancy). She's got emotional issues for sure, but she's almost surprisingly mature. And cheating is a strategy that adults, supposedly mature and 'respectable' adults, use frequently. It's hardly evidence that she's irrevocably messed up. She just needs help and guidance. And maybe a parent, something she's lacked for years now.
I think if anyone has an issue about Anthony's behaviour is that in the context of a warm, loving relationship his behaviour is perfectly reasonable and normal, but in the context of his rather... absent... style of parenting it is both bizarre and cruel.
I don't think it is explicable by autism. I have a brother with autism. He isn't touchy-feely at all but he isn't cruel and cold either.
Complexity of course arises if, for example, Anthony was being blackmailed into staying away from his daughter on the threat that she'd be murdered, or some other such thing. I guess it's entirely possible. I doubt it, but it's possible, I guess. Without an explanation like that however it is very very difficult to be sympathetic to him.
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Post by edzepp on Mar 31, 2015 8:46:17 GMT
This chapter has produced a number of spirited debates and Damn Good Points.
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Post by antiyonder on Mar 31, 2015 9:03:35 GMT
It's hardly evidence that she's irrevocably messed up. She just needs help and guidance. And maybe a parent, something she's lacked for years now. As mentioned a page ago (http://gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/post/115651), I do wonder if there's any other explanation for Annie running away from Kat (who at the time formed a relationship with Paz) for the ironic fear of being left alone other than abandonment issues. |
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 10:04:18 GMT
More than the moral issue of whether the man is good or bad, I'd be very interested to know what Anthony Carver is after here.
Because frankly, if he was that interested in his daughter's schoolwork, he'd have showed up earlier. He must have another reason for coming back at the Court after all this time.
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Post by hypixion on Mar 31, 2015 10:23:30 GMT
I'm starting to feel that anthony's acts in this chapter are actually justified now. Maybe it could've been done a bit more subtle in the beginning tough. everything else? still an asshole.
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Post by sidhekin on Mar 31, 2015 10:28:41 GMT
I'm starting to feel that anthony's acts in this chapter are actually justified now. Maybe it could've been done a bit more subtle in the beginning tough. everything else? still an asshole. If Anthony has justified his acts in this chapter solely on what he's told us in this chapter, he's less than I thought he'd be. … and while I'm not one to condemn him, I can't say I think much of him already. |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Mar 31, 2015 10:34:37 GMT
What if he is NOT HER FATHER? What if Surma and Eglamore had a fight and broke up and she was pregnant and TONY manned up to take care of her... That could explain why Eglamore doesn't understand why she chose Tony, perhaps it was to save him the grief of her passing due to having a child. Wouldnt THAT be a bomb for Tony to drop. That's my queue... Maybe human-fire elemental hybrids reproduce by spontaneous pregnancy in their mid-twenties. Anthony is not Annie's biological father because she has no father. Anthony's actions towards Annie are a continuation of his attempt to help Surma, maybe even a promise he made to Surma before she died. Also would explain why Annie looks so much like Surma and why Annie might be asexual and/or aromantic. /speculation (that currently has no in-comic basis) |
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kefka
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Post by kefka on Mar 31, 2015 10:46:58 GMT
If she was going to repeat the year, he wouldn't have brought an extra book (the one on his table).
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Post by sidhekin on Mar 31, 2015 11:05:29 GMT
Hey, unless he's got eidetic memory, he's going to need one himself.
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Mar 31, 2015 11:10:47 GMT
Many readers are highly critical of Anthony as a parent. Although I agree with that criticism, I believe some of that parental criticism is due for Surma.
1. Surma didn't teach Annie anything about her fire-elemental nature. Even in Surma's final year when Annie was eleven/twelve, it appears that Surma did nothing to prepare or warn Annie. Maybe Surma didn't teach Annie about her other half because she was hoping that Anthony would excise the fire elemental from Annie and she didn't want Annie to know enough to resist. But if that was the case, then it would have made more sense to teach Annie about the fire elemental part of them and explain it as a curse.
2. It appears that Surma cut herself, and therefore Annie, off from the friends that could have been competent guardians for Annie. Instead she left Annie saddled with Anthony, a deeply flawed (some say monstrous, toxic even) excuse for a father.
I think Surma is getting a pass because we've seen in-comic that she loved Annie, and she is dead. But there is so much Surma should have done differently with the time she had. I've ranted about this before and I've only thought of or seen two fair explanations, and maybe they're both true.
1. Surma didn't have a mother that set a better example for her. She didn't know any better and did the best she could.
2. The Court, the Forest, and maybe Anthony, manipulated Surma to the point that she thought all her options were bad. She picked what she thought was the least bad option we now see playing out before us.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 11:23:30 GMT
When Oedipus' fate was revealed to him, he sought to escape it and thereby fulfilled it; that makes him a man of tragedy. And although sphinxes and seers have gone extinct at the onset of the Iron Age, and most people will not be revealed their fates, they will often be given opportunities to glimpse it by inference; more rarely, said opportunities will be taken. Anthony's friends have long been aware of his trouble with showing affection, but recall how he had wept upon realizing that he was unable to save Surma. Now he has appeared "in vivo" for the first time, disappointed that his daughter invests little effort into her studies at what is presumably one of the most excellent schools in the world, and it seems tempting to ignore the personal backdrop and label his behaviour as "characteristic" in every possible situation. His snappy retort at Annie asking about his apparently atrophied appendage could possibly result from shameful feelings of inadequacy about whatever he failed to accomplish in Chapter 38, mixed with his present disappointment, of course. I suppose that much fewer readers dislike Jones for her inability to connect to other people. In part, this may result from Antimony being the focal character of the story, but I still wonder why that is. Regarding Annie, Jones and Chapter 38, I'd also like to point out that a naked Jones appeared to Annie in her dream, but with a strange ardour in her glance and gesture that Jones has not exhibited at any point (compare and contrast her embraces of Eglamore). I think Annie feels drawn towards her perception of Jones as one of her models of lifestyle: a solitary woman of careful and reserved demeanor, eternally youthful, whose passions are exalted by her divine inscrutability; in other words, the object of a Petrarchan sonnet. When faced with Jones' testimony that she has "little or no emotional potential", Annie does not take this "reality" (which in Jones' case is entirely a product of the Ether) for granted, but rather supplies her own Etheric interpretation. What was that about "the ability of humans to find beauty in everything, even a flame"? Stones also appear to qualify. And I have to wonder if Anthony has similar desires for shaping himself - but perhaps originating more strongly from a desire to escape what he perceives as his fate. And now this post has bitten its tail. Footnote edit: It's obviously difficult, and perhaps not even beneficial, to pin down any kind of emotion in either the collectively-imagined or the personally-imagined Jones. Perhaps now my imagination is playing tricks on me, but I do think there is something very odd about Jones pulling Annie's sweater towards her, if only because Annie appears to imagine her as a temptress when Jones is fundamentally unable to seduce Eglamore, unlike Surma. |
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 11:35:36 GMT
Many readers are highly critical of Anthony as a parent. Although I agree with that criticism, I believe some of that parental criticism is due for Surma. 1. Surma didn't teach Annie anything about her fire-elemental nature. Even in Surma's final year when Annie was eleven/twelve, it appears that Surma did nothing to prepare or warn Annie. Maybe Surma didn't teach Annie about her other half because she was hoping that Anthony would excise the fire elemental from Annie and she didn't want Annie to know enough to resist. But if that was the case, then it would have made more sense to teach Annie about the fire elemental part of them and explain it as a curse. 2. It appears that Surma cut herself, and therefore Annie, off from the friends that could have been competent guardians for Annie. Instead she left Annie saddled with Anthony, a deeply flawed (some say monstrous, toxic even) excuse for a father. Well, if she'd thought he was a toxic father, she wouldn't have made a kid with him. There is still a lot we don't know about their relationship. But she probably assumed Anthony would take care of their daughter as well as he could. And it's quite possible that in his mind, he is. We still don't have a clue what he's thinking...
As for not telling her about the fire elemental, well... I don't know if you can really explain something like that to a kid that young. Maybe everyone thought it would be best to tell this to her when she was older. It's not just Surma and Anthony. Many people at the Court knew and kept it from her.
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Post by aline on Mar 31, 2015 11:42:40 GMT
I suppose that much fewer readers dislike Jones for her inability to connect to other people. In part, this may result from Antimony being the focal character of the story, but I still wonder why that is. Jones has actually been portrayed as a person who cares deeply for the feelings of others, even when she cannot feel herself, and with a great sense of justice. I don't think Anthony has any of those qualities (Although I'm sure he has some qualities we didn't get to see yet).
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