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Post by inhumandecency on Apr 23, 2015 1:31:20 GMT
I want to talk about Annie's mask.
Anthony is obviously working some etheric mojo on Annie, on top of his mundane abusive parent mojo. And a lot of folks have commented that Annie's gone back to acting the way she did in the early chapters. But... she may have been reserved back then, but she was always willful and independent. I mean, I'm pretty sure her dad didn't send her to the court with instructions to be good, pick lots of locks, and hang out with mysterious dragon monsters.
So, was her detachment something he imposed on her, or was it somehow a way of protecting herself from him?
On p. 1503, we see Annie starting to break down. In a series of images reminiscent of ch. 38, she looks like she's under attack by etheric bone spikes, and then she puts on her mask and is calm again. Was that a sign that she's being controlled? Or did she push the spikes away by composing herself?
If her father were forcing her to be calm, then in her dream back in "Divine" I'd have expected to see him giving her the mask. Instead she received it from Jones, a mentor who supports her independence (and also, another woman who appears detached while secretly pursuing her own agenda). Later, when her mask cracks she "gets her fight back," but that doesn't cause her to recover from her father's intrusion -- Zimmy still has to go clock him.
Over the last couple of weeks we were all hoping that Annie would eventually get mad and fight back against her father. But we don't know what would happen if she did that. If he's trying to do something creepy to her fire spirit side, then perhaps she's struggling against him _by_ keeping it out of sight.
Does anyone else have thoughts about masks?
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Post by Onomatopoeia on Apr 23, 2015 1:40:04 GMT
The mask is called maturity. She's wearing it because she realizes that breaking down and screaming like a helpless child for someone to murder her father for being mean to her isn't productive.
Something her supporters would do well to learn.
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Post by inhumandecency on Apr 23, 2015 1:57:35 GMT
The mask is called maturity. She's wearing it because she realizes that breaking down and screaming like a helpless child for someone to murder her father for being mean to her isn't productive. Something her supporters would do well to learn. That sounds like a bit of a false dichotomy. |
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Post by GK Sierra on Apr 23, 2015 2:48:31 GMT
Something her supporters would do well to learn. This is your first reminder to please watch your tone. Friendly banter and debate is fine, but people who cross the line into flaming/trolling often find they cannot post anymore. Trust me, we love snark, let's just not be snarky at each other, okay?  |
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Post by machival on Apr 23, 2015 15:59:36 GMT
I want to talk about Annie's mask. Anthony is obviously working some etheric mojo on Annie, on top of his mundane abusive parent mojo. And a lot of folks have commented that Annie's gone back to acting the way she did in the early chapters. But... she may have been reserved back then, but she was always willful and independent. I mean, I'm pretty sure her dad didn't send her to the court with instructions to be good, pick lots of locks, and hang out with mysterious dragon monsters. So, was her detachment something he imposed on her, or was it somehow a way of protecting herself from him? The mask is most likely something she learned from Anthony himself. Hiding one's true feelings and maintaining a particular sort of exterior seems to be a big part of how he gets through life, and Antimony followed his example. They're not bone spikes. The tears in the image and the shifting background are meant to be evocative of the art-style shifts that occurred earlier in this chapter, a sign that Antimony nearly had a break-down in front of kat before regaining her composure and her ability to hide her emotions. Any appearance of bones would require ether-vision, and by all reasonable appearances we haven't been shown anything in this chapter that is only visible in the ether. As other forum members have pointed out, Jones giving Antimony her mask is likely a metaphor for Jones giving antimony her make-up while she was in the forest. Her make-up is a physical representation of her mask, and having it washed away (by her tears under the cherry tree, or on the orders of Anthony) is a visual metaphor for the mask faltering and her inner emotional state becoming exposed to the outside world. I highly doubt Antimony has any understanding or awareness of anything her father might intend to do with her fire elemental nature. Zimmy and gamma are probably the only ones who have any inkling of that. |
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Post by bedinsis on Apr 23, 2015 16:10:53 GMT
The mask is called maturity. She's wearing it because she realizes that breaking down and screaming like a helpless child for someone to murder her father for being mean to her isn't productive. You honestly think Annie harbours feelings such as wanting to murder her father? |
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Sadie
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Post by Sadie on Apr 23, 2015 19:44:42 GMT
On p. 1503, we see Annie starting to break down. In a series of images reminiscent of ch. 38, she looks like she's under attack by etheric bone spikes, and then she puts on her mask and is calm again. Was that a sign that she's being controlled? Or did she push the spikes away by composing herself? They're not bone spikes. The tears in the image and the shifting background are meant to be evocative of the art-style shifts that occurred earlier in this chapter, a sign that Antimony nearly had a break-down in front of kat before regaining her composure and her ability to hide her emotions. Any appearance of bones would require ether-vision, and by all reasonable appearances we haven't been shown anything in this chapter that is only visible in the ether. I'm still on the fence about whether the white shapes around Annie's head are supposed to be anything other than artistic representations of emotional collapse, but as to "Any appearance of bones would require ether-vision" eeeehhhh... the line between "in the ether" and "in the real world" is a super shaky one in this comic. The Realm of the Dead was made 'real' by the ether, which enabled Kat to see it with her normal, non-etheric vision*. Of course, it wasn't actually really real and Kat, being Kat, still saw under what ROTD's creators wanted it to be, into the faky fake show it was. Speaking of dead things, Mort and Jeane are also embodiments of ether with enough hold in the real world to be visible. *Though yes, you could argue that this was only because she was pulled into an etheric realm the way Zimmy pulls others into her horrorshow version of reality, but it's still up in the air exactly how all that works. But having said all of the above, I don't think Kat saw the white shapes. So they could still be something occurring in the ether, or through etheric means, and we're only aware of it through Audience Omniscience. Later, when her mask cracks she "gets her fight back," but that doesn't cause her to recover from her father's intrusion -- Zimmy still has to go clock him. No, see, Zimmy cold clocks Anthony, then Annie is shown hauling on Zimmy's hair (implying some fight), THEN her mask cracks and she starts really lashing out. Notice, Annie tried to fight Zimmy for her mask earlier, but didn't have enough fight to pull it off. She put it on entirely after Zimmy let her have it. Hiding and repressing her emotions is Annie's deal. Having her 'fight' - energy, spirit, resistance - repressed is Anthony's. |
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Post by machival on Apr 23, 2015 20:07:54 GMT
They're not bone spikes. The tears in the image and the shifting background are meant to be evocative of the art-style shifts that occurred earlier in this chapter, a sign that Antimony nearly had a break-down in front of kat before regaining her composure and her ability to hide her emotions. Any appearance of bones would require ether-vision, and by all reasonable appearances we haven't been shown anything in this chapter that is only visible in the ether. I'm still on the fence about whether the white shapes around Annie's head are supposed to be anything other than artistic representations of emotional collapse, but as to "Any appearance of bones would require ether-vision" eeeehhhh... the line between "in the ether" and "in the real world" is a super shaky one in this comic. The Realm of the Dead was made 'real' by the ether, which enabled Kat to see it with her normal, non-etheric vision*. Of course, it wasn't actually really real and Kat, being Kat, still saw under what ROTD's creators wanted it to be, into the faky fake show it was. Speaking of dead things, Mort and Jeane are also embodiments of ether with enough hold in the real world to be visible. *Though yes, you could argue that this was only because she was pulled into an etheric realm the way Zimmy pulls others into her horrorshow version of reality, but it's still up in the air exactly how all that works. But having said all of the above, I don't think Kat saw the white shapes. So they could still be something occurring in the ether, or through etheric means, and we're only aware of it through Audience Omniscience. Important thing with the ROTD though is that someone was actually looking at it. Usually, ether content is only viewable to the audience when some character is looking at ether content, and even then it may be obscured on a per-panel basis if the perspective character doesn't have a reason to see it (It should be noted, Mort is some character, even if he's a ghost). If we look at the example of the bones specifically, in Divine they only became visible to the audience when Zimmy becomes aware of them. They're not there from the start. Same goes for the pigeon that appears on Kat's head. It isn't shown to the audience until Zimmy and Gamma spot it. Given that neither Kat nor Annie are presented as being able to see bones, and Divine previously established that a character needs to be aware of 'em before the audience will be shown them, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the spikey bits are meant to be viewed in the context of the visual metaphors used in the chapter they appear in. tl;dr, Audience omniscience isn't in effect when it comes to something like the bone-lasers. |
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Sadie
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Post by Sadie on Apr 23, 2015 20:47:32 GMT
tl;dr, Audience omniscience isn't in effect when it comes to something like the bone-lasers. This getting into some narrative choice territory here. The long and the short of it is that if Tom wanted to alert us (the audience) that the bone lasers are something that still exists and are impacting Annie right now before/without explicitly stating it in the narrative, there's no reason for him to adhere to in-universe rules when doing so. Much like how we got to see Annie's etheric scar lingering long before other characters pointed it out and despite Annie's lack of awareness. |
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Sadie
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Post by Sadie on Apr 23, 2015 21:25:09 GMT
If we look at the example of the bones specifically, in Divine they only became visible to the audience when Zimmy becomes aware of them. They're not there from the start. Same goes for the pigeon that appears on Kat's head. Meant to add to above; the narrative reason we don't see either the bones or head-pigeon until after Zimmy is aware of them is to establish character point of view. The scene starts with Kat's perspective to establish her perception of the surrounding, then changes to show us that Zimmy (and Gamma, initially) see a different reality. This way, when there are pages that overlap the different realities , the audience clearly understands which character is seeing what. I want to say again that I don't fully buy that the white shapes around Annie's head are supposed to represent the bone laser. My point is that since the bone lasers are something the audience is already familiar with, there are narrative reasons we could be shown them that don't depend on in-universe restrictions. |
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