|
|
Post by calpal on Jul 3, 2015 10:11:16 GMT
Annie sure seems to be walking around with her eyes shut a lot lately. How's she keeping from running into walls and stuff? Is this evidence that she has ESP even though she seems to have removed the magic part of herself? I mean, how else can she tell where she's going? Thank goodness she has a Wandering Eye to guide her. *BA DUM TSH* |
|
|
|
Post by Sky Schemer on Jul 3, 2015 13:17:09 GMT
I thought the fire-thing's expression looked familiar, but now I was able to place it. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=778 I don't really have any more doubts about the fire-entity's temperament, given that it's shared with a creature that's basically held together by hatred. That was my first thought, too. A lot of people suspected something similar in the last chapter, too, but we didn't have this much face detail. Now that we have a nice close-up...  compare.jpg (70.61 KB) |
|
|
|
Post by Sky Schemer on Jul 3, 2015 13:23:14 GMT
You know what this looks like to me? It looks like Annie is transferring some of her emotions, and possibly just her anger, to the fire spirit. This is a theory that's been tossed around in the past few days.
Granted, there's not a lot of detail in the first panel, but the fire thingy's face looks a lot more neutral there than it does in panel 4. And Annie is definitely concentrating on something in panel 3.
|
|
|
|
Post by aline on Jul 3, 2015 13:46:22 GMT
Drawing characters with closed eyes is a common convention to give the impression that the face is like a mask. Tom is using it, presumably to underline her being expressionless and emotionless. There's a TV trope on this one.
As for the elemental, even from a distance the eyes form a frown. I'm pretty sure it is bloody furious all the page through.
|
|
|
|
Post by Daedalus on Jul 3, 2015 13:48:26 GMT
So, exactly no new information or conclusions to be made XD
|
|
Bill
Junior Member
Posts: 68 
|
Post by Bill on Jul 3, 2015 14:23:38 GMT
The fire elemental seems to have a cut on its cheek, distinguished by not pointing towards the center of the face, although it's situated on the wrong side compared to Annie's Etheric wound (that might be significant, too). Good eye! Though it is closer to the ear and shorter, and there is another above the eye. Thanks for the side-by-side. It appears that all of the lines on Jeanne's face are indeed radial ... except for mark on the right (our left) cheek that looks almost exactly like Annie's cut except for the color. But to discuss that mark, which may be thin black lines instead of thick red to disguise it but is probably just her cheekbone and which only appears in that picture of Jeanne (just checked all of them), would be to derail the thread. |
|
|
|
Post by chrisjenl on Jul 3, 2015 15:20:03 GMT
I read that it's a fire prove room but the tree in the park were also not fire prove.
Why can't the fire spirt not "say" what she want to burn and what not
I hoop the spirt go to the forest and talk to coyote and do her forest medium things
|
|
|
|
Post by Eisenblume on Jul 3, 2015 15:49:35 GMT
Last chapter most people seemed to think it was a sign of rebellion. I wasn't sure of that then and I'm increasingly unsure of it now. I don't think this is a good thiiiiiing...
|
|
|
|
Post by nero on Jul 3, 2015 16:42:45 GMT
So will we see how the fire elemental spends her days, or can see what Annie does even outside of the room?
|
|
|
|
Post by Refugee on Jul 3, 2015 18:56:47 GMT
So, Annie was happy to return to the room she shares with her elemental, and is sad to go back out to the Court without her. Meanwhile, the elemental is willing to stay hidden in the room, and the anger on her face seems not be directed at Annie.
I do wonder, though, if that's not anger on her face so much as pain.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2015 19:39:50 GMT
I do wonder, though, if that's not anger on her face so much as pain. I assume this to be the case, as according to Annie, Surma and she couldn't bear to be apart while at Good Hope, presumably because Annie had inherited the Fire, or was in the process of acquiring it from her mother. Perhaps the cut hair serves to mitigate the pain for Annie, besides having been required, as it seems, for her self-performed intercision. |
|
|
|
Post by Rasselas on Jul 3, 2015 19:48:37 GMT
Yeah, that's what I was going to remark. In style, they're superficially similar but the emotions they convey aren't the same. The elemental looks more like a child to me. I would call Jeanne's expression livid. Not just anger, but sheer fury; with a deep undertone of sorrow. She is lost, and what's left is barely a person. It's just an etheric skeleton of one. The elemental is in distress, suffering pain. It's very much alive and vibrant, but cut off. I don't see anger as the dominant emotion, so much as pain. |
|
|
|
Post by warrl on Jul 3, 2015 20:02:28 GMT
One thing I'm fairly confident in predicting is that this day will NOT be what most of us would call normal.
|
|
|
|
Post by Refugee on Jul 3, 2015 20:44:17 GMT
Thanks for the side by side, but I must take slight exception to your analysis. Jeanne's radials seem to be more vertically oriented than horizontally, in contrast to the elemental's. Some of them go down to her mouth, where the elemental's mouth-area is unlined. I also note the slit nostrils of Jeanine, and her heavy, nearly horizontal eye holes. The expression on the Elemental's face is not pleasant, but I do not think it yet includes hatred. I do not think she and Annie are adversaries, exactly, but their interests may not completely coincide, either. I would not like to be Anthony if he should come to her notice. Speaking of whom--I see some hint of these radials in Anthony's face, too. It is very faint, but it is there. His expression, too, is set and hard to read, but it is not favorable. I would like to suggest, hesitantly, that it is neither Annie nor her Father that put those lines on the elemental's face, nor who separated Annie and her elemental. No, it was Zimmy, trying to send a message to an ailing girl's remote Father. |
|
|
|
Post by aline on Jul 3, 2015 21:45:33 GMT
The expression on the Elemental's face is not pleasant, but I do not think it yet includes hatred. I do not think she and Annie are adversaries, exactly, but their interests may not completely coincide, either. Whitemask-Annie looks satisfied with the situation and in control. Elemental-Annie looks very very unsatisfied with current events and does not appear to have freedom of her movements. I think it's fair to assume they have a great number of interests that they do not currently share. You are taking the pencil line analysis quite far without any story line basis for it. Zimmy never hit Annie the way she hit Anthony. And we have very little comparison basis to what an elemantal's face should look like, but Annie has taken both her etheral form and her fire form since the Divine events and there wasn't even the hint of a scar that could have resulted from the encounter. gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1370Does she look like she's scarred or cut off from her elemental side to you? |
|
|
|
Post by TBeholder on Jul 4, 2015 1:13:22 GMT
Annie sure seems to be walking around with her eyes shut a lot lately. How's she keeping from running into walls and stuff? Is this evidence that she has ESP even though she seems to have removed the magic part of herself? I mean, how else can she tell where she's going? Remote control? It wouldn't be too much if keeping the blinker on her body is enough to maintain the link. she must have chosen to live in that fireproof hermit's cave No such thing.  |
|
|
|
Post by Refugee on Jul 4, 2015 1:45:27 GMT
Whitemask-Annie looks satisfied with the situation and in control. Elemental-Annie looks very very unsatisfied with current events and does not appear to have freedom of her movements. I think it's fair to assume they have a great number of interests that they do not currently share. "White-mask Annie"? I must have missed that interpretation. Yes, it's wild, unsupported speculation. I understand that happens here sometimes. Still: Zimmy, I think, broke the connection between the elemental and Anthony, if that's what the bone lasers were. And I think the elemental took injuries from that as well as Anthony, and I speculate that those injuries are what eventually resulted in the separation we see now. Annie herself is, physically, untouched. And Tom likely has something else entirely up his pencil-case. I have no idea, because I do not know by how much her fire powers depend on the elemental, and how much might now be due to her blinker stone, and to her own innate talents. And again, the actual disconnect might not have taken place at the time of Zimmy's visit. Have we ever seen Annie in direct communion with her elemental? I just reviewed the chapters where she and Parley were attacked by Jeanne, through the point where Annie returned from the forest, and didn't see it there. |
|
|
|
Post by machival on Jul 4, 2015 2:15:08 GMT
Have we ever seen Annie in direct communion with her elemental? I just reviewed the chapters where she and Parley were attacked by Jeanne, through the point where Annie returned from the forest, and didn't see it there. No, we haven't seen Annie commune with her fire (before this, at least). Past comics gave me the impression that such a communion would be like talking to one's own soul. (Though if the Nerevarine can talk to six different incarnations of himself in a cave, then surely something like this could make sense) |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2015 5:21:48 GMT
No such thing. Witness the power of the Platonic Defense: I assume that the hermit will always pick an abode which the humans he shuns would perceive as uninhabitable. Since the hermit necessarily strives for self-perfection by avoiding what he regards as all too human, the ideal cave to pick would have to seem perfectly uninhabitable to all other humans. Therefore, an underground cavern on Mars must be closer to the idea of a hermit's cave than any basalt grotto for blasé grognards that Earth would have to offer. |
|
|
|
Post by Daedalus on Jul 4, 2015 14:19:36 GMT
No such thing. Witness the power of the Platonic Defense: I assume that the hermit will always pick an abode which the humans he shuns would perceive as uninhabitable. Since the hermit necessarily strives for self-perfection by avoiding what he regards as all too human, the ideal cave to pick would have to seem perfectly uninhabitable to all other humans. Therefore, an underground cavern on Mars must be closer to the idea of a hermit's cave than any basalt grotto for blasé grognards that Earth would have to offer. Best part about that NASA article? One of those caves is tentatively named Jeanne. I would not send people into that one. |
|
|
|
Post by TBeholder on Jul 5, 2015 12:47:19 GMT
No such thing. Witness the power of the Platonic Defense: I assume that the hermit will always pick an abode which the humans he shuns would perceive as uninhabitable. Since the hermit necessarily strives for self-perfection by avoiding what he regards as all too human, the ideal cave to pick would have to seem perfectly uninhabitable to all other humans. Therefore, an underground cavern on Mars must be closer to the idea of a hermit's cave than any basalt grotto for blasé grognards that Earth would have to offer. I don't see how this demonstrates anything about the given issue, much less proves how fireproof qualities of that room or "hermit caves". Or, well, pretty much anything. We could look at it in terms of "sufficient heat" - much like with "sufficient velocity", the question here is "how much", not "whether". |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2015 17:44:21 GMT
Witness the power of the Platonic Defense: I assume that the hermit will always pick an abode which the humans he shuns would perceive as uninhabitable. Since the hermit necessarily strives for self-perfection by avoiding what he regards as all too human, the ideal cave to pick would have to seem perfectly uninhabitable to all other humans. Therefore, an underground cavern on Mars must be closer to the idea of a hermit's cave than any basalt grotto for blasé grognards that Earth would have to offer. I don't see how this demonstrates anything about the given issue, much less proves how fireproof qualities of that room or "hermit caves". Or, well, pretty much anything. If the smiley face can be taken as any indication, you have already drawn the right conclusion. Now, if I must defend my choice of words in earnest, I infer that the room may be fireproof because there appears to be a fire in the room, which does not seem to be damaging the structure despite its sustained presence. That said, of course, Annie has been shown to render her fire harmless to the touch when she wills it; the Residential chapter comes to mind. I do not know to which degree she has retained this control after the apparent split-off, nor whether the fire, seemingly sentient, could abstain from burning the walls by its own volition. Of course, the meaning of "fireproof" cannot be divorced from the threshold you set for the highest temperature likely to occur in the given environment, and you must evaluate the risk at your own discretion. I'm curious, though, if certain alchemists understood such a property as "fireproof" as an immutable Boolean value. |
|
|
|
Post by warrl on Jul 5, 2015 22:55:36 GMT
Most of Mars' surface could reasonably be regarded as fireproof due to the shortage of oxidizing agents (including, but not limited to, oxygen).
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2015 4:54:55 GMT
Well, that too -- but if I was previously arguing Platonically, I must not come close to ascribing the property of absolute fireproofness to any concrete object. You know that would just invite the third man argument to come up all the sooner, and while it's such an old hat that it rose to fame as a contemporary of the Phrygian helmet, it remains quite effective in use. Besides, according to this article, the Sabatier process can apparently make hydrogen and carbon dioxide react with each other, ideally at temperatures of 250-400 °C, to produce methane and water, the latter of which can be broken down further by electrolysis into elementary oxygen; but it requires the presence of a catalyst (traditionally nickel). So anyone who wants to incinerate my Martian refuge will have that nifty solution at hand. After all, it only takes sufficient acceleration and a well-calculated launch azimuth to ship the equipment to Mars. Speaking of electrolysis, anode means "the way upwards (or towards something)" and cathode "the way downwards (or back again)", as in Heraclit's aphorism: ὁδὸς ανῶ κατῶ μία καὶ ὡυτή, hodòs anõ katõ mía kaì houté, "the way upwards and downwards is one and the same". I might not be telling anyone anything new, but that's one reason for the girls' names, I'm sure. (Another possible allusion would link this comic to Anna Karenina.) |
|
|
|
Post by aline on Jul 6, 2015 7:27:36 GMT
"White-mask Annie"? I must have missed that interpretation. It's not a theory as such. I don't really like to name them "Annie" and "the Elemental" because for now I assume they are both (parts of) Annie. So I came up with that way to differentiate between both. Yes, it's wild, unsupported speculation. I understand that happens here sometimes. It feels like you're irritated by my comment. I'll take this opportunity to say that I really enjoy your interesting ideas. They usually make me think for a while and reread at least one chapter looking for pro or counter arguments, which is why I so often end up answering you with quotes and such. If this somehow makes you feel like you shouldn't express your ideas anymore, I'm sorry about it. On contrary. I'm always happy to read your posts. I have no idea, because I do not know by how much her fire powers depend on the elemental, and how much might now be due to her blinker stone, and to her own innate talents. I guess that's the heart of our disagreement. I never saw it as "Annie has got an elemental inside her", I always saw it as "Annie IS a fire elemental. Among other things." You can cut off my arm, but it's still my arm. Annie's elemental is Annie (in my eyes). So to me there is no difference between her own innate talents and the talents she got from her elemental nature. Have we ever seen Annie in direct communion with her elemental? I just reviewed the chapters where she and Parley were attacked by Jeanne, through the point where Annie returned from the forest, and didn't see it there. I'm not too sure what you mean by direct communion? |
|
