[382]Watch your step

[edzepp]

Jones brings the hurt in more ways than one.

You go girl.

[Count Casimir]

Oho. The plot thickens like delicious soup.

Or maybe not. Either way, Jones still rocks. Bringing my grand total of Jones plugs to one thousand, seven hundred eighty-three.

Seems like Jones doesn't think Eggers should be so distant from Antimony. Or else she respects Annie's matriarchal heritage more than the alternative.

Panel four is gorgeous.

[edzepp]

Panel four is win.

[popo]

'Jo'

[Mezzaphor]

countcasimir said:

Seems like Jones doesn't think Eggers should be so distant from Antimony. Or else she respects Annie's matriarchal heritage more than the alternative.

Or she thinks Eggers is too focused on Annie's parents -- that he's treating her differently because she's the daughter of Surma and Anthony, and Jo considers this a mistake.

[popo]

I think this comic could really benefit from some sweet lens flare.

[mudmaniac]

If words were like swords, Jones would be the one with the surgical scalpel that takes down the man with the Claymore.

"Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee." Mohammad Ali would be proud.

In the end tho, despite being rather taciturn, she ain't the stereotypical Ice-queen character I would have expected.

[zingbat]

What point does Eglamore think she's trying to make?
Maybe just that women can be badasses, too?

countcasimir said:

Oho. The plot thickens like delicious soup.

Darn it, now I'm hungry.

[brice]

mezzaphor said:

countcasimir said:

Seems like Jones doesn't think Eggers should be so distant from Antimony. Or else she respects Annie's matriarchal heritage more than the alternative.

Or she thinks Eggers is too focused on Annie's parents -- that he's treating her differently because she's the daughter of Surma and Anthony, and Jo considers this a mistake.

I think it's more likely she's telling Eggshells whose side she's now on. Antimony is now her charge. If Eggers screws up, Jones is warning him that she can make him fall like Humpty Dumpty.

Must be nice to be a robot with an invulnerable (to swords) skin. She kinda reminds me of Triss in BladeRunner. Like she was a "pleasure-bot" in a former life, but she rebelled. Someone already labelled her a femme fatale. Fembot fatale.

Now she's just deadly... serious.

I doubt she can teach Antimony her moves. It seems her style relies on the fact she's invulnerable to nicks and cuts and scratches. So she can wait till the sword is within reach and then use her ultra-fast tai chi, etc. stuff to gain the upper hand.

Outdoors, probably the best Eggers could do is drag things out by jumping around. Even without that pencil skirt, she may not be able to move as fast as he can over longer distances.

She's like a spider waiting in the center of her web. Get too close... Jones is a trap for the unwary, the wary, anyone. Everyone must underestimate her.

It will be very interesting to find out what her weakness(es) is (are).

[Mezzaphor]

With the way she puts her hand on his wrist in the last panel, it seems more like Jones is offering advice than making threats.

[mudmaniac]

mezzaphor said:

With the way she puts her hand on his wrist in the last panel, it seems more like Jones is offering advice than making threats.

I agree. I think for the most part Jones cares for James' emotional wellbeing and wants him to come to terms with his emotional baggage. Also, to stop tying that baggage to Annie.

[edzepp]

Interesting thought: I don't believe Eglamore has ever referred to Antimony by her first name, correct? Now I can see why he didn't.

[popo]

he's referred to her by her mother's first name. that's close enough right?

[mudmaniac]

I must admit I did not notice that until now.

[Mezzaphor]

edzepp said:

Interesting thought: I don't believe Eglamore has ever referred to Antimony by her first name, correct? Now I can see why he didn't.

I don't think he's referred to any student by their first name, ever.

Some of the teachers do use first names, some of the teachers don't.

[alya1989262]

I hereby officially declare James as Annie's Real Father.

[tonie]

mudmaniac said:

mezzaphor said:

With the way she puts her hand on his wrist in the last panel, it seems more like Jones is offering advice than making threats.

I agree. I think for the most part Jones cares for James' emotional wellbeing and wants him to come to terms with his emotional baggage. Also, to stop tying that baggage to Annie.

Agreed and agreed. Poor Eggers, I feel for him in the last panel. He was trying to keep a light tone, but revealed his ambivalence about Annie, which is of course a liability. And I think this also shows that Jones herself doesn't dislike Annie.

And yes, Jones looks gorgeous in panel 4, and fab perspective. But hey, Eggers looks good too, very handsome, especially panel 3, so not sure what Tom's comments are all about.

[todd]

Tom might have been referring to the responses to the first page in this chapter featuring Eglamore, when a lot of people didn't immediately recognize him (because the character design had changed).

[Boksha]

Hm. I can't help but read "Is that how you think of her?" as "Is that really how you think of her?", as in, Jones is assuming (and I think correctly assuming) that it's not how Eglamore sees Annie. In fact, Carver is Anthony's last name, not Surma's, yet when Annie fell of the bridge Eglamore yelled Surma's name.

[rallan]

countcasimir said:

Seems like Jones doesn't think Eggers should be so distant from Antimony. Or else she respects Annie's matriarchal heritage more than the alternative.

Since everyone else is wading in on what Jones means, I may as well have a punt as well.

I don't think it's the fact that Jones thinks he's too distant or that he underrates Annie's heritage, or even that she's warning him that Annie's her responsibility now.

I think it's more she's getting the distinct impression that the Court won't be able to just keep on making whatever plans and keeping whatever expectations it has been, because the consequences of involving Annie might be a bit harder to predict than they expect.

I mean consider what Jones knows about Antimony Carver, beyond the girl's parentage. She grew up in a hospital rather than the Court, and interacted with stuff that (while not harmful, and not necessarily anything to do with the Wood) were definitely what the Court would consider the unknown aethery kind of stuff. When she's finally sent to Gunnerkrigg to further her education she's aloof from most of the other students, not particularly interested in sciencey stuff, and almost immediately starts poking around every weird phenomenon she can find from sneaking into Robot HQ to sneaking across the bridge to Gillitie Wood to winding up in charge of Reynardine to finding out an awful lot about Zimmy, all with no idea of the rules or forces involved, and all without giving any impression that she's on the Court's side per se. Throw in the meeting with Coyote, and Annie's definitely a girl to keep an eye on because she just keeps on doing unexpected things.

So the point might be that while Eglamore seems to be thinking of her as "the Carver girl", Jones has got the feeling that whatever awesomeness Annie gets up to, it'll be her own brand of awesome and it might not be smart for everone to assume she'll do something suitably Surma-ish.

[cenit]

When Annie first appeared in front of James, he seem to have taken her as a second version of her mother (they look alike) and that's why he cut her so much slack and everything. Of course, Annie is not precisely her mother, so when Eglamore couldn't pretend anymore that Annie=Surma, he went to the other side, calling her "Carver" drawing her closer to her father, a person that he hates...

I think that James doesn't have a clear picture of Annie for what she is...for him is either like dad or mom... and Jones is referring to that.

[Midnight Meadows]

popo said:

he's referred to her by her mother's first name. that's close enough right?

I will call her.......*camera zooms in*.....MINI-SURMA!

[bluerose]

I think this comic reinforces my belief that Jones doesn't hate Annie at all, and is being tough on her because of high expectations--and is actually on her side.

Nice going.

[monkeybucks]

Guys I kinda took it to mean that Eggers is still hung up over the whole surma/anthony thing. You know, instead of surma/him. He's always dissin that guy, he needs to let it go.

[todd]

Good point on Annie, rallan. I'd have to agree that she's become (without intending to) a liability to the school - and they can't even transfer her to a different school (one that doesn't have a forest nearby full of potentially hostile mythical beings), because of Reynardine. So the faculty will need to do something to ensure that she doesn't doom the Court - and Eglamore's referring to her by the surname of his old rival isn't part of that.

[Mezzaphor]

Everyone's always ragging on Eggers for "not getting over" Surma. Really, if I had fallen in love with someone who went and married a mutual friend and broke my heart, and now their daughter is constantly getting into trouble and causing diplomatic crises and she seems to hate me for no apparent reason, I know I would be having just as much trouble getting over it.

...No, I'm not speaking from experience.

[platypusninja]

cenit said:

When Annie first appeared in front of James, he seem to have taken her as a second version of her mother (they look alike) and that's why he cut her so much slack and everything.

When did Eglamore cut Annie slack? I remember that one time when he gave her a lecture about not getting caught and then assigned her a lot of detention. Does that count as slack?

calling her "Carver" drawing her closer to her father, a person that he hates...

Do we have evidence that Eglamore hates Carver?
Do we even have evidence that Eglamore liked Surma?
Both of these seem likely but I don't think I've seen anything in the comic that suggested either.

[Mezzaphor]

platypusninja said:

cenit said:

When Annie first appeared in front of James, he seem to have taken her as a second version of her mother (they look alike) and that's why he cut her so much slack and everything.

When did Eglamore cut Annie slack? I remember that one time when he gave her a lecture about not getting caught and then assigned her a lot of detention. Does that count as slack?

I wrote a bit about that here. The relevant portion:

mezzaphor said:

Annie's already been given considerable leeway from the faculty: In chapter 3, she is caught sneaking in a restricted area, nearly freeing a dangerous criminal in the process, but Eglamore doesn't even lecture her. In chapter 7, she reveals that she had been harboring an escaped criminal (at least, that's how it appeared to Eggers and the Donlans), whom she refuses to return to their custody; again, she gets off scot-free. In chapter 9, Eglamore knows that the incident on the bridge may have triggered a diplomatic crisis, but all he gives Annie is a week's detention and a half-hearted lecture that "we have rules for your safety".

Do we have evidence that Eglamore hates Carver?
Do we even have evidence that Eglamore liked Surma?
Both of these seem likely but I don't think I've seen anything in the comic that suggested either.

The Egg-man still carries around a knife that Surma gave him. And upon hearing who Annie's mother was, Coyote assumes that Eggers is her dad. We don't know for sure that he hates Anthony, but Eglamore certainly doesn't have a very high opinion of him.

[gdwarf]

In addition, when Antimony falls off the bridge, what does Eglamore yell? Not "Carver!", or "Antimony!", but "Surma!"

He clearly sees her, at least partially, as part of her mother.

[Boksha]

Interesting to see all the people on the frontpage seem to think Jones is lecturing Eglamore here. All I see is her trying to soften the blow in the second panel and giving him a sort of "I can't always look out for you" kind of warning in the final one, even holding his arm and, again, calling him by his first name.
Something else; despite Tom's sneer at complaints about how he draws Eglamore, I feel he's actually looking more like his old self on this page, especially in panels 1 and 3 and 6.