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Post by nyaroon on Aug 17, 2015 15:55:37 GMT
Thats not Surma sadly, that's Annie's scar. It's...something in between, perhaps? The spirit of the Elemental, appearing to him as his wife? If that's what it is, did Jeanne's sword damage Annie and all of her previous selves to the core? It IS Surma!!! Oh my GOD! I mean, it's not entirely her but think about it, the fire elemental that once was Surma is now Annie!! I don't know if it works as some kind of.. symbiotic relationship between Annie "the host" and the fire elemental "the parasite", but it can also be like a "past life"!!! Imagine! Surma's spirit lives on inside Annie, blending and evolving with what Annie has grown.... Ok ok... Let's make it simpler... The fire elemental passes on to the offspring of the first one, right? And that continues on and on..., so taking into notice that Anthony saw Surma but she has Annie's scar, then that means that it IS Surma, but her etheric form doesn't match hers completely anymore since it's beginning to match Annie's as she matures!! but not only that, this can sort of work like an "avatar" (from the Last airbender") thing, meaning that, if Annie tried, she could tap into the fire elemental's pontential and even... remember what her mother, grand mother, great grandmother experienced! I don't think she would see them or even talk to her since they are HER, it would be more like remebering the past :0. Oh my GOD this could have SO much potential!! My mind has been blow. |
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Post by rinabean on Aug 17, 2015 16:06:42 GMT
So Surma turns to him ... opens her eyes ... makes eye contact ... and with her kind of thick accent says, "Message from your little girl, mate!" ... and decks him hard across the mouth ... Definitely not - Surma had a Yorkshire accent, Zimmy is a Brummie. Could sound like Annie though I don't know what kind of accent she's meant to have. Good Hope Hospital is here in Birmingham but I can't really picture her with a local accent even though I picture most characters subconsciously with my own accent or similar.
Tony is so stupid. This kind of action should be a last resort but it doesn't seem he's tried anything but medical things which Surma knew wouldn't help. Fear of the Court spying is irrelevant - he could have asked his wife's best friend/best friend's wife about this and I'm sure she also knows how to sweep a room for bugs. If she couldn't answer his questions she would have helped find the answer in ways that didn't require self mutilation - and this is all assuming he absolutely cannot not ask his daughter/his wife's daughter/his wife's soul! |
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 17, 2015 16:27:28 GMT
Thats not Surma sadly, that's Annie's scar. Yup. While the face and hairdo are Surma's... Well, we know if he did reach Surma at all, it was done through Annie, and besides at this point things cannot get "too weird" anyway... Still, once Annie was involved in any way, the device probably functions not as intended - unless this thing was made specifically for working with elemental-descendants, by someone who knew about them much more than they do themselves. Surma's Guide is mostly-human and never took anyone else (at that point), while her lifeforce was gone before death rather than being taken later, and instead of being "recycled" is partly intact. If someone assumed a human, those are absurdly abnormal conditions. If Tony misinterprets what happened in Divine as Annie punching him and yelling "...Dad's a jerk!", it would partially explain his emotional distance. I actually won't be too surprised if Anthony thinks people referring to themselves in 3rd person is nothing special. Given how messed up he obviously is and how tenuous his connection with the rest of the world seems to be, he probably would meet someone wearing a pigeon on the head and conclude that it's probably but another twist of fashion, nothing to see here. Or maybe... he really doesn't care? I hope not. Or he habitually pretends that parts of the world he doesn't like don't exist and thinks it's their job to notice the hint and go away. Imagine if Surma goes to speak to him and it's Zimmy's lines that come out. Starting from which moment? "Heh, you want this, yeah?" (after she gone "deeper") or all of it including mention of a green boyfriend and "Oh, she got a thing for Jonesy too?"Of course, this would be both amusing and not good for Tony's sanity (well, what little was left of it) in either case. |
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Post by Per on Aug 17, 2015 16:39:26 GMT
And how about those guides Tony found? Aren’t they just the creepiest bunch of creeps? They're doing the equivalent of clapping their hands, going "woo" and "human ways are so funny! Little more tea, dear?" And then when "Surma" morphs Zimmy teeth and punches Tony, they'll cheer and throw their knittings into the air. This is the most interesting thing to happen to them in decades. I decide this, and if it's not exactly the truth, then well gamed, Tom, you magnifisly foxbastard, you'll have outgamed me again, in this little game of ours, and surely I'll throw a sandwich across the room. |
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Post by Refugee on Aug 17, 2015 16:56:00 GMT
Another beautiful piece of art from Tom. The poor fool. If he thought Annie acted to break the link his bitterness towards her is not surprising. Does Don know enough to realize that Anthony's bone antenna was what put Annie down? Heck, does Annie know that? |
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Post by Trillium on Aug 17, 2015 17:12:57 GMT
Another beautiful piece of art from Tom. The poor fool. If he thought Annie acted to break the link his bitterness towards her is not surprising. Does Don know enough to realize that Anthony's bone antenna was what put Annie down? Heck, does Annie know that? Unless there is some way to link up everyone's time line Zimmy might be the only one who knows. Tony doesn't know. |
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Post by Refugee on Aug 17, 2015 17:47:47 GMT
Does Don know enough to realize that Anthony's bone antenna was what put Annie down? Heck, does Annie know that? Unless there is some way to link up everyone's time line Zimmy might be the only one who knows. Tony doesn't know. I'm thinking Kat might put things together when Annie relates what she is now seeing. |
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Post by sherni on Aug 17, 2015 18:05:45 GMT
There is what looks like a "ta"- त right above Surma's head as well- below the um... hand. And that definitely looks like ह. Lots of ways to write them, after all. Did Anthony somehow wander to India, then? But what would the random letters mean? Could it be the strange creatures laughing? Hm... maybe... But then he would have placed a matra to add the the vowel sound. Like this- हा .
That would add the 'A' sound at the end. Otherwise it's just the 'H'. |
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Post by Nepycros on Aug 17, 2015 18:11:57 GMT
Unless there is some way to link up everyone's time line Zimmy might be the only one who knows. Tony doesn't know. I'm thinking Kat might put things together when Annie relates what she is now seeing. "I had a dream about Zimmy, too! ... She um... said my dad was a jerk and punched him in the face..." If she remembers the dream, she now has the final piece of the puzzle. |
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Post by zbeeblebrox on Aug 17, 2015 18:12:00 GMT
I'm starting to suspect that Surma *is* Annie's elemental, and that Annie and the fire will be having a little chat about this, soon. If Tony misinterprets what happened in Divine as Annie punching him and yelling "...Dad's a jerk!", it would partially explain his emotional distance. Speaking of jerks, I'm keeping an open mind as to Coyote's involvement in all this. (Current thought: not his style) I'm of the theory that Annie, Surma, and all that came before them are the same person. A fire elemental soul perpetually semi-reincarnating over and over. Yes! It's more than just me who thinks that! Thank god! Man, before I typed that theory out here on the boards a few months ago, I just assumed it was how everyone thought the fire elemental worked. I had no idea there were so many competing theories, and that this one wasn't even that popular, let alone the leading theory. |
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dreki
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Post by dreki on Aug 17, 2015 18:37:06 GMT
I'm sympathetic to criticism of Surma for not preparing Antimony more, though that was useful from a writing standpoint because Antimony became the gateway for the reader to experience Gunnerkrigg Court. Surma had a negative view of the Court and didn't want Anja and Don to see her last days, among other things, and prioritized those above what would help her daughter later in life. That may well have been selfish and shortsighted. But I think you partly respond to your first point in your second when you mention Surma's fire being transferred. Surma may have planned to do things "better" than her mother did but simply underestimated how debilitating that would be or how quickly that would set in. I actually wonder how quickly things happened. Surma's personality entirely changes from her Court days to her hospital days, and Annie gets a lot of her fire even from a young age. I agree she may not have realized just how quickly things would have changed. It also can be very hard to know when to bring it up. It's not like she could say it from day one (well: she could have, but it'd have no meaning, a newborn can neither understand nor remember such a thing). She may have been putting it off as long as she could, not wanting to burden a young child with such a thing. It's also possible that she fared better than her mother and truly thought Tony could fix it. It's possible that most elementals die in birth when they pass their fire on, that Tony was successful in keeping her alive far longer than she should've been. I know there's a lot we don't know, so I'm not saying she's horrible- but I'm also highly suspicious. I don't feel she did enough to get Tony to be a father or to prepare Annie for what was happening. I can't help but feel like both of Annie's parents were too selfish, putting their comfort above her needs. It's actually not uncommon- it just usually isn't so devastating. There's actually a strong parallel between Hank Pym in the latest Ant Man movie and Tony. Brilliant men who lost their wives and were convinced they could bring her back, shipped their daughters off to boarding school instead of comforting them. |
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Post by Eversist on Aug 17, 2015 19:31:16 GMT
First off, what a heartwrenchingly beautiful page. Something that I don't think has been pointed out yet (ctrl+f'd "dress" and "flashback," but haven't read through the whole thread yet)... Interesting that Tom chose to have Surma/Annie depicted in the same dress that Surma is wearing in the flashback with Rey: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=790 Could mean something, could mean nothing. -- Brainfart I had concerning Tom accidentally drawing the wrong hand; totally messes with the reading of the page (traditionally left-to-right in English-speaking countries), but here's what it would look like if he just flipped the image. Not so bad, TBH!  |
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Post by antiyonder on Aug 17, 2015 20:12:34 GMT
I actually wonder how quickly things happened. Surma's personality entirely changes from her Court days to her hospital days, and Annie gets a lot of her fire even from a young age. I agree she may not have realized just how quickly things would have changed. It also can be very hard to know when to bring it up. It's not like she could say it from day one (well: she could have, but it'd have no meaning, a newborn can neither understand nor remember such a thing). She may have been putting it off as long as she could, not wanting to burden a young child with such a thing. It's also possible that she fared better than her mother and truly thought Tony could fix it. It's possible that most elementals die in birth when they pass their fire on, that Tony was successful in keeping her alive far longer than she should've been. I know there's a lot we don't know, so I'm not saying she's horrible- but I'm also highly suspicious. I don't feel she did enough to get Tony to be a father or to prepare Annie for what was happening. I can't help but feel like both of Annie's parents were too selfish, putting their comfort above her needs. It's actually not uncommon- it just usually isn't so devastating. See, as I mentioned before I hold no believe that Surma is the innocent snowflame who needs to be defended. Heck, to add to how much she messed up, she doesn't seem to have made any attempt to curb Tony's equal (i.e. maybe trying to persuade him to get help from others before going through with testing fate). But at the end of the day, so what? Unless Surma is revived, she really isn't in any position to change. Tony, being alive still has a chance to make good, thus benefits more from the criticism. True enough, only the pacing is much different in that we don't have to wait for years or months to have a reason to look past that or see that he genuinely cares for his daughter. Even before they reconcile, Scott points out that the reason Pym is putting all bets on him is because he doesn't care about Scott's well being . Meanwhile in Gunnerkrigg, we have no bit of Anthony that gives us a reason to respect him or believes he gives a damn about Annie's safety* ( and I do not see sympathy as something respect worthy). Heck, I figured that Tom had been trying to make Anthony so unlikable that the reason he strongly withheld on giving us Anthony's motive right away is that it would have compromised our ability to dislike/hate him. But given how it arguably evokes more disdain than sympathy, I question why these revelations had to be withheld when it would have arguably helped to make him even more unlikable. *People bring up "well he obviously stripped Annie of her forest duties and took Renard custody out of concern": 1. He describes the forest duties as nonsense which implies that even if Annie had been doing well on her studies and without cheating, he'd still demand that she quite her duties because he wants her to make the same path of career he did. 2. Fine, being distant from one's child doesn't mean that one is a jerk or is cold/uncaring, but if you have the inkling that said child is at risk from the evil Fox, then you don't wait until it's convenient to your schedule to take action. Get your ass to the Court post haste. But no, he takes action long after Renard has been making a solid effort to become a better person. |
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Sadie
Full Member
I eat food and sleep in a horizontal position.
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Post by Sadie on Aug 17, 2015 20:39:17 GMT
At this point, I'm genuinely wondering how much anyone (in universe) is going to be able to connect the dots between Tony's story and the events in Divine. Annie may if he mentions getting called a jerk and punched, and Kat might remember the 'bones reaching far off into the sky' if*/when Annie relates this story to her, but it's not a sure bet. After all, it's not like she is also seeing the vision of her mother with a conspicuous cheek-scar, and even if she was, she personally doesn't know that scar exists.
Donnie making the connection to Annie's collapse the previous year hinges on how much he knows and believes about her fire elemental side. 'Cause before this chapter, I would've told you that Anthony was fully aware of what Surma was and Annie is, but apparently not, so I can't take the knowledge base of any Gunnerkrigg adult on faith.
Man, I want to see how Annie is responding to all this information.
*Normally I would assume that Annie tells Kat everything, but I could see her try to keep quiet about most of this to protect her dad. Or not, depending on how she's feeling right now
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Post by stef1987 on Aug 17, 2015 21:24:12 GMT
So he is seeing Annie as Surma. And I won't be surprised if he sees Zimmy as Annie. Seeing as Zimmy's hair turned red-ish, and she got Annie's scar, that's more than definately possible. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1044To everyone saying next will be Zimmy's punch, remember that Annie was out for a while, at least a couple of hours. So it should take some time before that. Ofcourse it's possible time didn't go as fast for Tony or something. And about Surma being Annie's past life, don't forget they were alive at the same time for years (8? or how old was Annie when Surma died?) So I really can't see them being the same person, just the same fire. |
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freeman
Full Member
That 70's Coyote!
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Post by freeman on Aug 17, 2015 21:24:43 GMT
First off, what a heartwrenchingly beautiful page. Something that I don't think has been pointed out yet (ctrl+f'd "dress" and "flashback," but haven't read through the whole thread yet)... Could mean something, could mean nothing. That's her men-wooing dress, duh. Anthony must have fallen for it pretty hard too. (Nothing to do with Surma, all the magic of that sexy empowering pretty dashing dress). It's possible that most elementals die in birth when they pass their fire on, that Tony was successful in keeping her alive far longer That would make sense, that they thought Annie was cured so they never told her. |
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Post by Per on Aug 17, 2015 21:59:16 GMT
Brainfart I had concerning Tom accidentally drawing the wrong hand; totally messes with the reading of the page (traditionally left-to-right in English-speaking countries), but here's what it would look like if he just flipped the image. Not so bad, TBH! Except that you also flipped the hand that was cut off.  It's probably less work to say we're seeing the hand reflected in a big piece of freaky cave crystal. |
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Post by pinkkea on Aug 17, 2015 22:05:23 GMT
But at the end of the day, so what? Unless Surma is revived, she really isn't in any position to change. Tony, being alive still has a chance to make good, thus benefits more from the criticism. No offense but they are both fictional characters with their storylines pretty much set already. Our criticism affects neither of them. Unless you mean in-universe criticism in which case I'm sorry. Personally, I'd like to see more criticism of Surma, if only to point out that she's not the perfect mother too good for this sinful earth. Characters like that are pretty flat. |
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Post by antiyonder on Aug 17, 2015 22:26:46 GMT
But at the end of the day, so what? Unless Surma is revived, she really isn't in any position to change. Tony, being alive still has a chance to make good, thus benefits more from the criticism. No offense but they are both fictional characters with their storylines pretty much set already. Our criticism affects neither of them. Unless you mean in-universe criticism in which case I'm sorry. Personally, I'd like to see more criticism of Surma, if only to point out that she's not the perfect mother too good for this sinful earth. Characters like that are pretty flat. Did I infer or say straight out that I find her to be the "perfect mother too good for this sinful earth"? Yeah, I'm all for Surma still getting some in story criticism, especially since it's usually the male half who gets the earful for bad parenting while the female half is overlooked when they are sometimes just as wrong or even worse. I mean fact of the matter is that criticism isn't just about listing why someone sucks, but is also meant for telling a person how they can improve. Though I will say that even if not a good reason for her to be spared criticism in-universe, people in general (fictional or real) tend to prefer focusing on the good aspects of the dead, especially as doing so tends to make their absence less painful. Anyway, if there's another problem I find that makes the Ant-Man comparison iffy, well even if Pym put more stock in trying to find his wife, at the very least he didn't put himself in a position where he would have to sacrifice Hope's life to save Janet. Afterall, giving the working of the fire elemental, people have been speculating that even if Surma was brought back to life, Annie may have to die in the process. |
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kralex
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Post by kralex on Aug 17, 2015 22:34:10 GMT
Thats not Surma sadly, that's Annie's scar. Imo it is Surma. Annie is Surma - same soul. When Tony looks at it, he sees it how he remembers her, as Surma. It was the same deal with Rey and Coyote when they first saw Annie. Jeanne's blade cut Annie's soul, so Tony sees the scar on Surma's face here. On a wildly speculative note: I wonder whether Tony realizes that Surma's soul lives on in Annie's body, and if he does, how that might mess with him. Maybe he sees his beloved Surma even when he physically looks at Annie. Then again, she is also his daughter. Maybe he is so cold towards Annie because he's scared to death that he might develop inappropriate feelings towards her and as a last resort chooses to suppress all emotion whatsoever. Edit: the thread title "Divine" may have been a verb, not an adjective. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Aug 17, 2015 22:51:59 GMT
I actually wonder how quickly things happened. Surma's personality entirely changes from her Court days to her hospital days, and Annie gets a lot of her fire even from a young age. I agree she may not have realized just how quickly things would have changed. It also can be very hard to know when to bring it up. It's not like she could say it from day one (well: she could have, but it'd have no meaning, a newborn can neither understand nor remember such a thing). She may have been putting it off as long as she could, not wanting to burden a young child with such a thing. It's also possible that she fared better than her mother and truly thought Tony could fix it. It's possible that most elementals die in birth when they pass their fire on, that Tony was successful in keeping her alive far longer than she should've been. I know there's a lot we don't know, so I'm not saying she's horrible- but I'm also highly suspicious. I don't feel she did enough to get Tony to be a father or to prepare Annie for what was happening. I can't help but feel like both of Annie's parents were too selfish, putting their comfort above her needs. It's actually not uncommon- it just usually isn't so devastating. Two thots: 1. Lots of people are still pretty immature when they start families. When the baby actually arrives it's a wake-up call; sometimes the people rise to the challenge and grow up a bit more, but sometimes they hit the snooze button, pull the covers over their heads and get worse. 2. Debilitating disease is always devastating even when you know it's coming; not just for the individual in question but for their support structure. Even simple day-to-day activities start eating up more and more time so the people around them have to take up more and more slack as the disease progresses. Often there are no showy symptoms in the early stages so this breeds resentment; younger friends who were gung-ho about helping in the beginning feel that they're being taken advantage of, relatives see the time being taken away from their own kids and spouses and feel the strain. This starts a whole stress clusterf*ck that can isolate the patient (because the patient doesn't want to deal with this crap it's just easier to tell people they're not needed even if they are, at least early on). I understand why you are suspicious. What I want to know is, why didn't Surma leave a video diary or a regular diary for Antimony with some of the information that Antimony would need? If she didn't leave something like that it would make me think that she didn't want to face her own thoughts on what was happening. But if she did make a video diary and Anthony just kept it so he could watch it for his own private pity party, which may well have happened, then he is a big floppy donkey weenie. It's possible that most elementals die in birth when they pass their fire on, that Tony was successful in keeping her alive far longer That would make sense, that they thought Annie was cured so they never told her. Misattributed quote- that was actually dreki what said that. |
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Post by ctso74 on Aug 17, 2015 23:00:40 GMT
Imagine if Surma goes to speak to him and it's Zimmy's lines that come out. Starting from which moment? "Heh, you want this, yeah?" (after she gone "deeper") or all of it including mention of a green boyfriend and "Oh, she got a thing for Jonesy too?"Of course, this would be both amusing and not good for Tony's sanity (well, what little was left of it) in either case. If this goes on for a while, then Zimmy's perception of Annie's dream(if that's what Divine was) could have been a conversation on Tony's side, that Annie/Zimmy was interpreting. We may get to see a conversation of symbols from two different points of view. That would interesting. Probably confusing, but interesting. |
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Bill
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Post by Bill on Aug 18, 2015 0:17:58 GMT
Surma looks very dead here with that slack, expressionless face. And her hair is redbrown (maybe it's just the lighting). As though this is what Surma would look like without the elemental. The only indication of fire is the lighting behind her, as though they are separate. Just to throw another theory in there to complicate matters. Though it kind of still fits the "Annie, Surma, and Fire share the same soul to an unknown degree" interpretation.
Oh, and the creatures might also be looking on in shock and alarm at realizing that this is Surma. We have no indication of whether Tony told them his wife's name. Which, if they be psychopomps, is the difference between good and bad intent on their part.
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Post by AluK on Aug 18, 2015 0:50:28 GMT
Could sound like Annie though I don't know what kind of accent she's meant to have. Good Hope Hospital is here in Birmingham but I can't really picture her with a local accent even though I picture most characters subconsciously with my own accent or similar. If I'm not mistaken, Tom has mentioned before that Annie has a fairly scrubbed Yorkshire accent, and has mentioned she sounds not unlike Kate Rusby - she's from Barnsley, so, South Yorkshire. |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Aug 18, 2015 2:32:32 GMT
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 18, 2015 3:08:28 GMT
Ouch. Then best wishes to him. He even used his coyote skull as a background. Now that's life imitating art! Skulls or not... I'm not going to worry about Tom's sanity as long as he doesn't try to graft himself a variant Hand of Glory. Of course, my system of reference may have had this particular axis... reindexed a few times too many. |
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Post by csj on Aug 18, 2015 3:34:14 GMT
'...and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids'
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Post by SilverbackRon on Aug 18, 2015 3:46:24 GMT
I really need to spend more time reading in the WildSpec thread. It has been long understood that the "fire that burned inside" Surma passed on to Annie. Early revelations. But I am now leaning (as of this chapter) to see it as a separate entity that is host-jumping each generation. It can exist in both Mother & Daughter at birth, but moves fully over time, leaving the mother as the burned out shell. Or something like that. Before I was seeing it as a "cross-breed" situation, like a Half-Elf from D&D. But since every generation of bodies is human (both father and mother) wouldn't that dilute the Elemental by another 50% of what remains each new body? Apparently not. And on an unrelated note: Please put your Ant-Man spoilers behind spoiler tags! I haven't seen it yet! |
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Post by Deepbluediver on Aug 18, 2015 3:54:04 GMT
Thats not Surma sadly, that's Annie's scar. But there's an etheric connection between mother and daughter- hence the power being drained from one to the other. I think it could be some combination of their souls or energy. |
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Post by Eversist on Aug 18, 2015 4:21:51 GMT
Brainfart I had concerning Tom accidentally drawing the wrong hand; totally messes with the reading of the page (traditionally left-to-right in English-speaking countries), but here's what it would look like if he just flipped the image. Not so bad, TBH! Except that you also flipped the hand that was cut off. It's probably less work to say we're seeing the hand reflected in a big piece of freaky cave crystal. Sure, but fixing the side the nub is on is much easier than altering half of the page. Tom will probably put in the effort to fix it completely, just wanted people to see what it looked like. |
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