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Post by pendell on Apr 7, 2015 14:30:11 GMT
Theory:
Anthony, for whatever reasons, is a crippled human being socially. He has survived in society because of his sheer brilliance. For him academic brilliance, however cold and cruel, is the path to health and survival while emotions and other people are distractions which serve only to tear one down. Most likely an unpopular child and adolescent, Anthony has always struggled with people but been gifted in his studies, reinforcing his own path in life as an unlikeable, but extremely brilliant and accomplished, scientist.
Seeing his daughter failing in school, he perceives the best possible outcome is to steer her onto what he believes is the path to success -- emphasis on studies, complete isolation from any friends or distracting influences.
In other words, to turn his daughter into a clone of what he himself is == brilliant, successful, cold, priggish, completely unable to relate to other human beings.
The path to health, I think, would start with Anthony seeing that he is not himself healthy. That a human being needs social connections as well as academic brilliance, and that even a brilliant scientist is more successful in life when s/he has less brilliant friends looking out for him/her.
Until he realizes that, he is going to keep trying to make Annie in his image, with the results that we see.
And so, yes, he loves his daughter and is really trying to do what is best for her, but because his idea of what it is to be human, and what it is to love, is so twisted, he's in real danger of turning her into the same kind of stunted emotional cripple he himself is.
Abusive? Heck yes.
And that's why other adults need to be involved in this, people who can call Anthony out on the way he does things, and not simply defer to him as if he were some oracle of all things good and pure or something.
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Post by Refugee on Apr 7, 2015 18:30:10 GMT
But cheer up, folks. Even if she doesn't say no to him today she's still a kid. That grants her licence to cave now and then go and do whatever she wants later when he's not looking. Or to talk to other people, like the Donlans, or Wandering Eye, or even Kat, and see how that plays out. But yes. Trying to fight him now will only make things worse. And again and again and again: she's giving in because she knows he's right. She may well try to negotiate later (particularly when it comes to Reynard), and she certainly has legitimate gripes about his past behavior, but now is not the time. She's truly penitent, and that speaks very well of her. Her capitulation is not a sign of her weakness, but of her goodness and strength. |
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Post by Daedalus on Apr 7, 2015 21:36:50 GMT
And again and again and again: she's giving in because she knows he's right. She may well try to negotiate later (particularly when it comes to Reynard), and she certainly has legitimate gripes about his past behavior, but now is not the time. She's truly penitent, and that speaks very well of her. Her capitulation is not a sign of her weakness, but of her goodness and strength.  ...where the hell did you get all that from? She is agreeing because she's entirely disassociated from herself, and so shocked she'd say anything right now. I really don't know how you could read anything else from the last few pages. |
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Post by Refugee on Apr 7, 2015 23:19:46 GMT
And again and again and again: she's giving in because she knows he's right. She may well try to negotiate later (particularly when it comes to Reynard), and she certainly has legitimate gripes about his past behavior, but now is not the time. She's truly penitent, and that speaks very well of her. Her capitulation is not a sign of her weakness, but of her goodness and strength. ...where the hell did you get all that from? She is agreeing because she's entirely disassociated from herself, and so shocked she'd say anything right now. I really don't know how you could read anything else from the last few pages. My assumption is that she's "dissociated from herself" because her Father has shown her an aspect of herself that she doesn't like. And yes, I'm serious. I really mean this. I actually think Annie's responding this way because she is a good person. And I think that if her Father really had been treating her unfairly, in her opinion, she would not have caved. I have personally been been confronted with one or two unpleasant aspects of myself, and it can indeed be a devastating experience. Is Anthony cold and uncaring? Perhaps. Is he a bad parent? Maybe, although I think we don't know enough to judge him. But truth is, I really don't care that much about him. I care about Annie, and I believe she is good enough to be shocked by her own behavior, and strong enough for this to make her even stronger. |
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Post by machival on Apr 8, 2015 0:09:09 GMT
...where the hell did you get all that from? She is agreeing because she's entirely disassociated from herself, and so shocked she'd say anything right now. I really don't know how you could read anything else from the last few pages. My assumption is that she's "dissociated from herself" because her Father has shown her an aspect of herself that she doesn't like. And yes, I'm serious. I really mean this. I actually think Annie's responding this way because she is a good person. And I think that if her Father really had been treating her unfairly, in her opinion, she would not have caved. I have personally been been confronted with one or two unpleasant aspects of myself, and it can indeed be a devastating experience. Is Anthony cold and uncaring? Perhaps. Is he a bad parent? Maybe, although I think we don't know enough to judge him. But truth is, I really don't care that much about him. I care about Annie, and I believe she is good enough to be shocked by her own behavior, and strong enough for this to make her even stronger. I'm not buying that, given that the two distinct times when Annie experiences detachment from her surroundings (as evidenced by the art-shift), have nothing to do with her own personal flaws. She experiences the first art-shift when walking to the bathroom to remove her make-up and the second when her father demands Renard. If you're idea was accurate, the art shifts would have occurred when Kat came in the room or during the beratement over the cheating. Antimony's dissociation is the product of the nightmare scenario she's currently facing, namely that of her estranged father returning to her life for the sole purpose of reprimanding her (likely in ways that are reminiscent of prior abuse). It's clear from prior chapters that Antimony desires greater intimacy with her father, and has long feared that her father doesn't love her. For him to return to her life, only to be the hostile disciplinarian rather than a celebrant in a joyful reunion must be extraordinarily painful for her given this context. |
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Post by Chancellor on Apr 8, 2015 0:39:21 GMT
...where the hell did you get all that from? She is agreeing because she's entirely disassociated from herself, and so shocked she'd say anything right now. I really don't know how you could read anything else from the last few pages. My assumption is that she's "dissociated from herself" because her Father has shown her an aspect of herself that she doesn't like. And yes, I'm serious. I really mean this. I actually think Annie's responding this way because she is a good person. And I think that if her Father really had been treating her unfairly, in her opinion, she would not have caved. I have personally been been confronted with one or two unpleasant aspects of myself, and it can indeed be a devastating experience. Is Anthony cold and uncaring? Perhaps. Is he a bad parent? Maybe, although I think we don't know enough to judge him. But truth is, I really don't care that much about him. I care about Annie, and I believe she is good enough to be shocked by her own behavior, and strong enough for this to make her even stronger. I personally find it reasonable to consider the cause of the dissociation differently. Annie, after receiving Anthony's phone call was in considerable emotional distress, it seems clear that anything relating to her father is a hard hitting subject with her, and if a phonecall that wasn't particularly personal after his absence put her on edge, his sudden reappearance one class with no warning, no preparation, and no buffer, I can't see how she wouldn't have a severe reaction. With the above in mind, imagine if after entire years of no contact, no assurance as to her father's location or condition or whether she'd ever see him again, the first words directed her way were instructions that could very validly be interpreted as a slight against a longstanding part of how she expresses herself after violating a rule that all seems apparent was in no clear way established beforehand. Embarrassment and hurt would be the most minor of reactions. And then, after returning (and being in no ambiguous way chastised for wasting her class' [and more importantly, her father's] time, she is (to her knowledge at the time) not given an integral tool to the day's work for no given reason, and her voiced concern to that fact rebuffed coldly with, once more, no justification. Oh, but come the end of the class, her father wishes her to stay behind a moment, thereby alone with her father (in person) for the first time since her mother's death. Can you even begin to imagine what she could have been thinking? How hopeful she still seemed in spite of the earlier bumps in the day. Finally it might be possible, with no class for either to be focusing on at the moment, to get some answers, some vindication for her consistent defense of him, despite his absence. She notices that her father appears to be missing a hand! Who wouldn't be shocked and worried to discover a family member has been significantly maimed? And when she asks, fully justifiably, about his dismemberment, does he give her an answer? A reason why he'd rather not talk about it? An assurance that in spite of things, he's alright, but thanks for being worried? Nothing. Just another cold dismissal, another invalidation of her family bond with him, and another secret added to the pile. But then comes the big whammy, her father knows about her cheating. How horrible, to learn that her father knows all about her very shameful and dishonest habit, and has in no way sugarcoated his disappointed in Annie. First time she's been near him in years and the first private conversation they have is about her cheating! But that's not all. Because of it, Annie's father is going to make her repeat a grade, transplanting her away from her peers (which she had struggled to warm up to during the multiple years she'd already been part of that class. When her best friend, the friend she had been cheating on, appears, angry, she has not only started to realize that Kat knows about it now, but her father is threatening her as well, and can only desperately assert that Kat had not been complicit. And once she's alone again, more than likely about to burst from shame and bewilderment as to how this one class could have gone so wrong, yet another revelation is dropped that she is going to no longer live with Kat, after years of dorming with her, to be transferred to live (by Anthony's wording) alone, with the justification that friends are an unwanted distraction. But not only this, her father is forbidding her to return to the Forest, the place where she's found a great deal of contentment and guidance and self discovery, in spite of her duties as forest medium. No argument, just a flat "No" disregarding and invalidating all of her feelings on the matter and the trials and successes she experienced. In the course of a few minutes, he's made great strides towards reversing all of the growth Annie made socially and etherically; all for fixing the singular problem of her cheating. The latest stop on the pain train is an effective grab for the only proof that she's any different than the girl who first came to the school after her mother died three years before: her relationship with Rey. In the same dispassionate, no room for objection or discussion or input way, Anthony has demanded custody and control of Reynardine, whose transformation into a friend and de facto guardian of Annie is a far shot from the fox spirit in a wolf plushie he was back then. Annie cannot have any illusions (if her mind is till functioning by this point) that Anthony intends to allow contact between them ever again. So by this point, in the course of a single class and a few minutes following, Annie has continually had the notion reinforced that her input is undesired, irrelevant, and will be ignored by Anthony. Her father could be a planet, for all the power she probably feels she possesses to resist him, and therefore I can see this day, plus her existing anxieties, meshing to produce such a drastic reaction. That is-dissociating into outer fucking space. All of that junk I just wrote might seem redundant, as you no doubt remember all of this just as well as I do. But I put it all down, sequentially and in one spot, to highlight just how much of an emotional beatdown this has to have been for Annie, all in the space of one class. Not even a day. Thus it makes sense to me that Annie probably isn't in geostationary orbit because she's suddenly discovered a facet of her persona that she finds disagreeable. |
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Post by antiyonder on Apr 10, 2015 8:50:42 GMT
Who is the healthy person in the Surma/Renard/Antimony constellation, though? The abuser and the murderer do not qualify, I think; but Annie has been deliberately cruel to Renard by telling him that Surma never loved him, because he had the audacity to highlight that she had been exploiting Kat for years by copying her homework. Is she "healthy", then? Is any love possible between any of these people at all? True about Annie lashing out on Renard, but: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=848She did at least apologize to him and I don't think we've seen the two at odds since or so much afterwards. |
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