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Post by Epsilon Rose on Aug 12, 2015 19:03:35 GMT
He says he couldn't reply. But, if this is the phone call, he did reply to give her the message to pass on to Donny. Something remains to be explained here. We know something replied. Might not have been him. The Tony we see here still doesn't fit with the cold, dismissive, semi-emotionally-abusive Tony we saw in Chapter 51... So I'm guessing that, whether or not the 'antenna' worked, he blames Annie for the destruction of the link at Zimmy/Annie's hands. And depending on what he saw, possibly Surma's death as well? Actually, we already have an explanation for that. He thinks she hates him and blames him for her mother's death. He's avoiding her because he things she must not want to be around him. The grounding and other stuff is him trying to do parent-y (making sure your kid is doing well in school/not cheating, making sure they don't hang out with the wrong crowd, providing for them yourself, ect.) It just comes off as cold and harsh because A) he's trying to give her space, B) he's an idiot, and C) He's not naturally a social butterfly and her resorts to a very abrupt and efficient demeanor when he's out of his depth. I cannot get over how much "they showed me how to construct an antenna... one that would reach out into this... ether" bothers me. 1) Building antenna/devices that reach into the ether is 100% a Court activity, not in the least something that an etheric/non-human being would give a shit to do. They have no need! Even the creatures that don't use the ether wouldn't, because they probably know someone who can do it naturally or they just accept that it's not in their wheelhouse and move on with life. But what the hell would the Court gain from tricking Anthony Carver into trying to contact his dead wife? Do they, too, not know about Surma's fire going into Annie or were they creating a scenario to test or prove that concept? But again, why go through this elaborate set-up? 2) "into this... ether" - Ok, all this time, I haven't bought into the idea that Tony doesn't know about the ether, because he a) went to school at and worked for a place that studies the ether, b) his best friend married a woman that uses it and picked up using it himself, c) he married a woman who both uses it and isn't fully human. Now he's here talking like it's a completely new, foreign concept and I'm baffled, boggled, and completely suspicious. I mean, Kat is our resident cynic and she's apparently learned more about the ether and the afterlife after three years of being Annie's friend, than Tony apparently did after 12 + years of being married to Surma. We've already seen that there is a, literally, insane anti-magic bias within the court. I'm pretty sure that back during the flashbacks to their youth, we saw a girl from the nominal magic group doing magic in front of a bunch of regular students and they just passed it off as her being weird. Tony might no some of this stuff is possible, but he might not have a good grasp on the details or, worse, he might have a completely wrong picture of what's going on.
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Post by Per on Aug 12, 2015 19:10:36 GMT
He wasn't trying to perform surgery on his daughter, so that is a relief. Instead, he was just meddling with forces he did not understand, with consequences he did could not have predicted, to do something he wasn't sure was possible, based on faith in beings he neither knew nor trusted, via means he did not know existed. Nope. Nothing wrong there. He forgot to bring a companion that says "Uh, I don't think that's such a good idea" at every juncture.Tony is being judged extremely harshly from an extreme position of privileged information. The main characters have never been commonly condemned as assclowns for repeatedly going seat-of-their-pants into supernatural situations that might just as well have meant extreme danger to themselves and others, but then it wasn't dangerous after all/they got away by the skin of their teeth/it got fixed in a later chapter/the story would have suffered if they didn't/it's just that kind of narrative. How many here are going to take this "lesson" of credulous gumption and apply it to the rest of the cast as we move forward? This chapter continues to throw all speculations into a tailspin. And yet I suspect very few will conclude that they should be more judicious about their assumptions and/or speculation.
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Post by diztrakted on Aug 12, 2015 19:14:30 GMT
Ah, we still don't get to see Tony's right hand... I seriously think this is where it got damaged to the point of having to amputate it later. I think that the "connection fee" that Tom jokingly refers to in today's comment might be a literal, physical sacrifice - possibly including his arm. It probably doesn't help that, if the bone lasers are his metacarpals, Zimmy may have also set them on fire. Wait a second. He needed scalpels... the antenna looks like bone... carefully hidden right arm in Divine... I bet the antenna/bonelaser is made out of his flesh-stripped arm bones. Well that's pretty freaking gross.
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Post by Daedalus on Aug 12, 2015 19:16:08 GMT
I think that the "connection fee" that Tom jokingly refers to in today's comment might be a literal, physical sacrifice - possibly including his arm. It probably doesn't help that, if the bone lasers are his metacarpals, Zimmy may have also set them on fire. Wait a second. He needed scalpels... the antenna looks like bone... carefully hidden right arm in Divine... I bet the antenna/bonelaser is made out of his flesh-stripped arm bones. Well that's pretty freaking gross. Some people think so! It's been floating around in the Wild Speculation thread for a while This chapter continues to throw all speculations into a tailspin. And yet I suspect very few will conclude that they should be more judicious about their assumptions and/or speculation. My friend, "speculation" and "judicious" should never be in the same sentence. The point of this entire board is to speculate with the information we have about what will happen in the future. Not our fault if pages like today's come out of left field. We all have to come to conclusions based on assumptions from what we've learned so far. Now, the converse is that we should recognize that nothing is set in stone, and not cling to our opinions after evidence contradicts them*... *We are all guilty of this here...
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Post by sherni on Aug 12, 2015 19:58:13 GMT
Well, this new revelation is both better and worse. He wasn't trying to perform surgery on his daughter, so that is a relief. Instead, he was just meddling with forces he did not understand, with consequences he did could not have predicted, to do something he wasn't sure was possible, based on faith in beings he neither knew nor trusted, via means he did not know existed. Nope. Nothing wrong there. Certainly looks like it. I wonder what he was actually trying to do with the 'Bone Lasers' and the scalpel. Was it him at all? It could have been the creatures, and unfortunately Anthony got in the way of Zimmy's punch. Or will the next page reveal that his mind snapped entirely and he tried to revive Surma by draining Annie? Honestly, I have no idea. Mr Siddell has been throwing us for a loop so often that I'm too dizzy to think now. One thing that does stay constant is that Anthony is an utter idiot. And he really did ditch his daughter. He could have contacted her before, but didn't.
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Post by Per on Aug 12, 2015 20:23:33 GMT
I disagree that anything in this chapter comes completely out of left field. It's a perfectly reasonable scenario for the comic. Mr Siddell has been throwing us for a loop so often See, this only happens because people think they know things they actually don't know.
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Post by mordekai on Aug 12, 2015 21:41:28 GMT
You guys are saying he was duped into reaching to the fire elemental because it was once part of Surma, but I don't think that's where this page leads us. Firstly, because Anthony KNOWS that Surma's elemental is now part of Annie. His initial "mission" was exactly to stop Surma from dying from that transfer. I don't think Anthony even knows or understands that. If he did, he wouldn't need to find an answer, he would already know what happened to Surma. And he would have known that medical science couldn't help Surma. I think Surma knew all along that Anthony couldn't help her and resigned herself to her fate, but she kept that information form him. Secondly, his wording on what the alleged psychopomps said was pretty clear and specific: "they said the dead continue to exist in a world beyond our own". Of course, it could be a lie or a half-truth hiding some catch, and they could be something other than psychopomps. But it seems they were refering to all the dead actually existing in some other plane of existence... Not just special cases, like elementals who used to be part of mothers and now live inside daughters. That's the point. We know that that's a lie, because we know that people's spirits go back to the Ether and lose individuality. We have even seen Mort lose his memory during the process. Whatever creature spoke to Tony, it lied to him and tricked him into doing something making him believe that he could contact Surma. I think that the "connection fee" that Tom jokingly refers to in today's comment might be a literal, physical sacrifice - possibly including his arm. It probably doesn't help that, if the bone lasers are his metacarpals, Zimmy may have also set them on fire. Wait a second. He needed scalpels... the antenna looks like bone... carefully hidden right arm in Divine... I bet the antenna/bonelaser is made out of his flesh-stripped arm bones. Well that's pretty freaking gross. Yes, that's what I think too...
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Aug 12, 2015 22:47:58 GMT
Tony is being judged extremely harshly from an extreme position of privileged information. The main characters have never been commonly condemned as assclowns for repeatedly going seat-of-their-pants into supernatural situations that might just as well have meant extreme danger to themselves and others, but then it wasn't dangerous after all/they got away by the skin of their teeth/it got fixed in a later chapter/the story would have suffered if they didn't/it's just that kind of narrative. How many here are going to take this "lesson" of credulous gumption and apply it to the rest of the cast as we move forward? Tom presented Anthony’s return as an open invitation to dislike Anthony and I accepted that invitation. I am ready to continue modifying my opinion of Anthony as more of the story comes out. I fully expect that one day I will warmly think of him as an ass-that-nobody-has to-worry-about-anymore. I should go make a list of ass contractions that may be useful in the near future. Wait, that doesn't sound right. What I really don’t know is how much more damage Anthony is going to cause. Or whether Annie will end up repeating some of the mistakes her parents made, such as running away or driving away your best friend who is the best person to care for your daughter after you die.
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Post by justcurious on Aug 13, 2015 0:57:48 GMT
I disagree that anything in this chapter comes completely out of left field. It's a perfectly reasonable scenario for the comic. Mr Siddell has been throwing us for a loop so often See, this only happens because people think they know things they actually don't know. He makes things look one way but the actual explanation is something different but something which in hindsight makes more sense than the immediately obvious explanation.
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Post by SilverbackRon on Aug 13, 2015 7:15:04 GMT
Personally, I don't think this is the RotD or the Guides. Neither has a reason to lie to him, and it just feels wrong somehow. On the other hand, on a meta level, they both are going to be more tied into the story eventually, so it's possible. I'd assume that Kat and Anthony would see the ether in a similar way? If so, this can't be the RotD. Seeing the Ether and seeing the RotD aren't the same thing. I agree with almost everything you have posted in the current thread, but I question this bit. I have no evidence to disprove what you say, but with the RotD we only saw Kat's, then Annie's POV. For all we know everyone could see something different. Kat was just extremely skeptical. Anthony was deliberately trying to search for something and wanted to see. So this could be the RotD... but then again we didn't see anyone say the secret password. Still so much to learn over the next week of updates...
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ozie
New Member
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Post by ozie on Aug 13, 2015 7:58:37 GMT
This is just heartbreaking. I can't hate Anthony. While not a perfect parallel, his journey is reminiscent of Orpheus. The extent of his efforts show his love for Surma, and he probably came to understand the implications of having reached Antimony, rather than Surma, with the bone lasers.
If it was difficult for him to look at Antimony without feeling the loss of his wife before now, imagine how it must be now that he knows the extent to which Surma was sacrificed for Annie; she not only gave her life, but her soul. There's no chance for Anthony to meet her again, either in life or in death. Even Orpheus got one last look.
Tom =(
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wlerin
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Post by wlerin on Aug 13, 2015 9:43:44 GMT
That dog sure does look a lot like Coyote...
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arzeik
Junior Member
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Post by arzeik on Aug 13, 2015 9:58:50 GMT
Hand-made (doubly, actually) antennas: they expand the range of your Wi-Fi by at least 20% and even allow you to contact your dead relatives!
Now seriously, I'm really intrigued by what we'll see in the rest of this chapter. Anthony has an interesting story and we have Annie and (probably) Renard listening to it, and I don't have a single clue about how this all will end up.
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Post by keef on Aug 13, 2015 11:18:36 GMT
... you poor deluded fool. I love how Tom takes the "lone hero, looking for answers, and offering even bits of himself up" and turns it around into "because I couldn't ask anyone for help I almost killed myself and my daughter". Seems being the lone hero is dramatic but inefficient. Love makes you act in strange stupid ways. The Tony we see here still doesn't fit with the cold, dismissive, semi-emotionally-abusive Tony we saw in Chapter 51... Alcohol and the company of a trusted friend can do that, no doubt. There are no real hints in the comic about that, but yes maybe all memories of all Annie's foremothers are stored somewhere in the elemental, waiting to be unlocked. She at least has memories(Annie's or her own?) , and she seems capable of thinking for herself.
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Post by mordekai on Aug 13, 2015 13:30:43 GMT
I think the tale will end something like this:
Anthony: And when I woke, the antenna was gone and the Psychopomps had taken my arm, all flesh stripped from the bones... Donald (softly): Tony...can you remember what supplies did you ask for that day? Anthony: Oh yes, wire, a screwdriver, a battery... Donald (even more softly): No. Anthony: No? Donald (even moooore softly): They were a scalpel, a saw, pincers, bandages, needles...surgical equipment... Anthony:....No...you are wrong...I clearly remember.... Donald: You took a poison to induce a near-death experience on yourself, didn't you? Anthony: ....Yes. Donald: And there was a phone in the room, wasn't it? Anthony:..... Donald: I think you arm WAS the antenna. Anthony:.... Donald: And you did use the phone to call Annie. You just can't remember it because you were in a state of altered consciousness... Anthony: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
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Post by pxc on Aug 13, 2015 18:08:59 GMT
I'm coming around to the idea that Anthony is not abusive. For me the etheric bone surgery was an important pillar of that charge, and it looks like that was actually just an attempt to contact Surma, and that he had no idea what he was doing. And to a lesser extent the idea that he resented Annie was another pillar to that argument. That clearly isn't the case, he blames himself and thinks she'd be justified in hating him. Which is backwards thinking and very frustrating, but hardly abusive or malicious.
Nothing excuses his abandonment of Annie just after Surma's death, and his idea that he needs to be cruel and cold to her because she would hate him if she "knew he killed her mother" reaches incredible levels of stupid. He has a lot to make amends for, and I doubt he has the tools to ever be much of a father to Annie. But no, after learning this about the antenna, I'm not sure I'd use the word abusive anymore. Some other words I might use though include arrogant, overconfident, emotionally and socially retarded, deluded, dense, self-centered, neglectful, ignorant, and oblivious.
I'm also becoming curious about the nature of his relationship with Surma. He didn't just love her, he was obsessed with her. Her death broke him. That seems like some sort of unhealthy co-dependence, but we have very little to go on. Given that obsession, why would he agree to father her child? Was he that confident in his ability to save her? Did she not tell him until after she became pregnant? How did that process go?
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 13, 2015 18:55:40 GMT
The antenna didn't reach Surma, it reached the fire elemental inside Annie. That's why she was in coma, that's where the bone fingers came from. She reported the call to Donlans and participated in launch while in coma?
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Post by mordekai on Aug 13, 2015 19:33:11 GMT
The antenna didn't reach Surma, it reached the fire elemental inside Annie. That's why she was in coma, that's where the bone fingers came from. She reported the call to Donlans and participated in launch while in coma? Nope. He called Annie by phone, asked for equipment, built the "antenna", and then he did the bone laser thing that put Annie into coma.
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Post by antiyonder on Aug 13, 2015 19:46:01 GMT
He wasn't trying to perform surgery on his daughter, so that is a relief. Instead, he was just meddling with forces he did not understand, with consequences he did could not have predicted, to do something he wasn't sure was possible, based on faith in beings he neither knew nor trusted, via means he did not know existed. Nope. Nothing wrong there. He forgot to bring a companion that says "Uh, I don't think that's such a good idea" at every juncture.Tony is being judged extremely harshly from an extreme position of privileged information. The main characters have never been commonly condemned as assclowns for repeatedly going seat-of-their-pants into supernatural situations that might just as well have meant extreme danger to themselves and others, but then it wasn't dangerous after all/they got away by the skin of their teeth/it got fixed in a later chapter/the story would have suffered if they didn't/it's just that kind of narrative. How many here are going to take this "lesson" of credulous gumption and apply it to the rest of the cast as we move forward? It's easier to grant other characters some benefit of the doubt as they tend to have respectable traits/moments. Minute that Anthony does something completely selfless or respectable, then I will grant him some leeway as well.
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Post by Sky Schemer on Aug 13, 2015 20:44:21 GMT
and how many times has Annie taken it upon herself (and only herself) to do similar? "Apple", indeed. Indeed. Certainly, the bulk of the story we are reading stems from her decision in Chapter 1. Much of what has happened has been a consequence of sending that robot into the forest without understanding what she was doing. Annie has since, however, had the benefit of having had this pointed out to her. She has at least been present to see the consequences of her actions, and only on rare occasions now has she truly acted alone--she has had the input and assistance of her friends, occasionally from adults, and even from Jones. In short, she's been able to learn from it. Anthony had none of these things. He was solo all the way, and with no support line. He probably has no idea what his quest to find Surma really did. If Donny makes the connection here, then he's about to find out.
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Post by Sky Schemer on Aug 13, 2015 20:55:20 GMT
Tony is being judged extremely harshly from an extreme position of privileged information. The main characters have never been commonly condemned as assclowns for repeatedly going seat-of-their-pants into supernatural situations that might just as well have meant extreme danger to themselves and others, but then it wasn't dangerous after all/they got away by the skin of their teeth/it got fixed in a later chapter/the story would have suffered if they didn't/it's just that kind of narrative. How many here are going to take this "lesson" of credulous gumption and apply it to the rest of the cast as we move forward? Antimony has had the recklessness of her actions pointed out to her on many occasions. We don't feel the need to judge her harshly because she's been around to see the consequences of her actions and have her metaphorical ass handed to her by the adults in her life. Anthony, on the other hand, is an adult. It's up to him to think things through on his own.
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Post by Sky Schemer on Aug 13, 2015 20:58:06 GMT
I disagree that anything in this chapter comes completely out of left field. It's a perfectly reasonable scenario for the comic. Mr Siddell has been throwing us for a loop so often See, this only happens because people think they know things they actually don't know. Not always. It also happens because you aren't expecting a turn of events. Whether or not you think you know something is irrelevant. It's also good story telling to construct the narrative in a way to imply one thing and then reveal something totally different. Which is the thing you said, but that is deliberate and intentional on the author's part. There is nothing wrong with it.
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Post by corruptuser on Aug 13, 2015 21:08:20 GMT
Hopefully by the end of this chapter we get answers as to what happened during Annie's coma, even if it only raises more questions.
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Post by antiyonder on Aug 13, 2015 21:38:19 GMT
Tony is being judged extremely harshly from an extreme position of privileged information. The main characters have never been commonly condemned as assclowns for repeatedly going seat-of-their-pants into supernatural situations that might just as well have meant extreme danger to themselves and others, but then it wasn't dangerous after all/they got away by the skin of their teeth/it got fixed in a later chapter/the story would have suffered if they didn't/it's just that kind of narrative. How many here are going to take this "lesson" of credulous gumption and apply it to the rest of the cast as we move forward? Antimony has had the recklessness of her actions pointed out to her on many occasions. We don't feel the need to judge her harshly because she's been around to see the consequences of her actions and have her metaphorical ass handed to her by the adults in her life. Anthony, on the other hand, is an adult. It's up to him to think things through on his own. This too. Plus, Anthony's loss was partially the result of him being 100% certain that he could keep Surma from dying. Yet aside from an admission of failure, the experience hasn't really humbled him.
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Post by AluK on Aug 13, 2015 21:43:40 GMT
Yet aside from an admission of failure, the experience hasn't really humbled him. And you know that because you live inside either Tony's or Tom's head and got some crazy insight into the story to come, because from the story as is, we can't really say either way.
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Post by antiyonder on Aug 13, 2015 21:54:41 GMT
Yet aside from an admission of failure, the experience hasn't really humbled him. And you know that because you live inside either Tony's or Tom's head and got some crazy insight into the story to come, because from the story as is, we can't really say either way. His treatment towards Annie stinks of "I know what's best".
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dd500
New Member
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Post by dd500 on Aug 13, 2015 21:57:27 GMT
Minute that Anthony does something completely selfless Spending 12+ years of his life trying to cure his wife?
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Post by antiyonder on Aug 13, 2015 22:03:16 GMT
Minute that Anthony does something completely selfless Spending 12+ years of his life trying to cure his wife? He's doing it just as much so he doesn't have to live with the guilt of being the one to contribute to her death, based on these pages: - www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1548- www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1549Especially his distance from Annie being based on not wanting to own up to that guilt. Overall, by selfless, I mean doing something entirely good for another person without any gratification or benefit towards one's self. And yeah, maybe I don't have insight on Tony, but I'm at least using material from the comic to back up my stance rather than omitting certain details.
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Post by aline on Aug 13, 2015 22:37:58 GMT
He says he couldn't reply. But, if this is the phone call, he did reply to give her the message to pass on to Donny. Something remains to be explained here. We know something replied. Might not have been him. In fact nothing replied. Antimony already heard the message by the time she started talking, or she wouldn't know the man on the line was her dad. I understand it like this: - He was given the opportunity to send a message - He formulated a message requesting the necessary supplies, and it was delivered to his daughter via that phone call because he thought of her - After hearing the message, Antimony tried talking to him, and he could hear her voice. But at that point he couldn't reply or add anything to the message that was sent because that was apparently a one time thing.*
* Which by the way I think is a bit suspicious and adds to my questions on the objectives of those beings, psychopomps or not
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Post by rafk on Aug 13, 2015 22:42:16 GMT
It's really going to bust Tony's bubble to hear he could have just asked Annie about the psychopomps, except it never occurred to him because he has no respect for her and treats her like crap. Maybe it will finally make him see what he's done.
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