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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Oct 20, 2015 12:02:36 GMT
It has always appeared that the timing of Annie's arrival at the Court was because Surma could not live any longer.
But maybe Surma knew it was time for Annie to go to the Court, couldn't go to the Court with Annie, and choose to complete the fire elemental transfer at that time so Anne could go to the Court without her. And Annie joined the Court about halfway into Year 7 because sacrificing yourself like that is not an easy thing to do if you could continue living a while longer.
To me, the weakest part of this theory is Surma not being willing to go to the Court with Annie. We know that Surma is the one who cut the ties with the Court and Anja. It appears that Surma could have returned, but wouldn't. It is a stretch to accept that Surma would sacrifice herself by completing the fire elemental transfer so Annie could go to the Court, but Surma wouldn't reverse her decision to stay away from the Court and just take Annie there herself.
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 26, 2015 7:24:08 GMT
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 26, 2015 7:35:11 GMT
is the Forest okay with this, and if so, why? Would the Wood be wary? I don't think they'd assign much importance to it if they knew. Would the Wood even be aware of it? |
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Post by warrl on Oct 27, 2015 4:03:23 GMT
It has always appeared that the timing of Annie's arrival at the Court was because Surma could not live any longer. But maybe Surma knew it was time for Annie to go to the Court, couldn't go to the Court with Annie, and choose to complete the fire elemental transfer at that time so Anne could go to the Court without her. And Annie joined the Court about halfway into Year 7 because sacrificing yourself like that is not an easy thing to do if you could continue living a while longer. To me, the weakest part of this theory is Surma not being willing to go to the Court with Annie. We know that Surma is the one who cut the ties with the Court and Anja. It appears that Surma could have returned, but wouldn't. It is a stretch to accept that Surma would sacrifice herself by completing the fire elemental transfer so Annie could go to the Court, but Surma wouldn't reverse her decision to stay away from the Court and just take Annie there herself. It isn't a stretch to surmise that Surma might have thought herself already too weak to make the trip and accomplish anything useful while in the Court. |
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Post by Count Casimir on Oct 27, 2015 8:40:58 GMT
Wow, nostalgia.
So what'd I miss?
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 27, 2015 8:57:37 GMT
Wow, nostalgia. So what'd I miss? Depends on how long you've been gone, heh! And how long, if at all, you've been lurking  |
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Post by Count Casimir on Oct 28, 2015 7:03:04 GMT
Depends on how long you've been gone, heh! And how long, if at all, you've been lurking Well, it looks like my last post was in 2010. So a little while. |
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 28, 2015 7:08:15 GMT
Depends on how long you've been gone, heh! And how long, if at all, you've been lurking Well, it looks like my last post was in 2010. So a little while. May I direct you to my primary contribution to the board's speculation? You've also missed several epic forum-spanning arguments about homosexuality, the ethics of child pornography, and whether Anthony is, in fact, the most lowly creature to ever crawl across the surface of this earth. There have been a bunch of spambots, GKSierra's been promoted to moderator, Coyote Himself has deigned to join us lowly mortals on the forum, roleplays and an IRC have been started, translations of GKC are occurring into other languages, and, um, lots more things. Welcome back! I salute my most esteemed predecessor  |
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Post by matoyak on Oct 28, 2015 7:34:16 GMT
the ethics of child pornography BOY does THAT sound like a fun one. What on earth caused THAT discussion? |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 28, 2015 7:42:59 GMT
the ethics of child pornography BOY does THAT sound like a fun one. What on earth caused THAT discussion? You mean in the context of [unauthorized] fanart? (If not I guess I missed out on a good one. Or at least a big one.) |
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 28, 2015 7:59:21 GMT
BOY does THAT sound like a fun one. What on earth caused THAT discussion? You mean in the context of [unauthorized] fanart? (If not I guess I missed out on a good one. Or at least a big one.) Sort of? Explanation for anyone unfamiliar: |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 28, 2015 8:18:28 GMT
It started as a discussion of whether a certain piece of fanart should be reported to DeviantArt's admin staff, and kind of snowballed from there into a more general argument. Ah yes, I remember that now. I cited one example and then shut up. |
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 28, 2015 8:26:56 GMT
It started as a discussion of whether a certain piece of fanart should be reported to DeviantArt's admin staff, and kind of snowballed from there into a more general argument. Ah yes, I remember that now. I cited one example and then shut up. I...did not. I poured fuel onto the fire. Mistakes were made. Oh well. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 28, 2015 8:34:28 GMT
Ah yes, I remember that now. I cited one example and then shut up. I...did not. I poured fuel onto the fire. Mistakes were made. Oh well. No criticism intended. Also I haven't gone back to reread the thread but from what I remember it wasn't that bad. |
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 28, 2015 8:40:46 GMT
I...did not. I poured fuel onto the fire. Mistakes were made. Oh well. No criticism intended. Also I haven't gone back to reread the thread but from what I remember it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad, agreed. But I still use it as the archetypical example of "bad argument thread" because it's easy to find and makes the point well. |
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freeman
Full Member
That 70's Coyote!
Posts: 242
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Post by freeman on Oct 29, 2015 22:05:17 GMT
Annie also reverted to an younger state This is very interesting case, so I did some research. Short answer, both normal Annie and potty-cut Annie are within error margin "28B". I also found out that normal Annie is 161 cm tall, but couldn't work out her potty-cut height due lack of reliable references. If you (plural, oblique) don't like the idea of a teenage cartoon girl being measured way more meticulously than necessary, you may not want to continue reading.
To see if Annie has, infact grown younger due her self-alterations, I decided to measure an easily quatifiable variable, her brassiere size. I also wanted to do a height measurement, but unfortunately was unable to find a good reference picture due Annie's constant hunched posture and the funky perspectives used in the comparatively few pages she is in. Maybe someone could get something out from them, but I am not a trained artist. Thankfully, for the important variable, there was barely enough data. To measure Annie's dimensions, one needs to find a reliable size reference. I choose door frames, as those tend to be quite uniformly 210 cm high. In ideal picture one would have been able to measure both Annies's bust and waist in the same picture as the doorframe, but the pictures where neither haven't been blocked either by her hair or hand or jacket are very rare. I consider myself lucky that I was able to find two unobtrused pictures. The original intent to measure her elemental form or the pure elemental had to be abandoned due lack of references. In the best circumstances one would have been able to measure Annie's height (now only as a sanity check) and both her bust and her waist diameter (referred as "minor axis" in pictures, see below) next to a door. But due extreme rarity of both door shots and bust plus waist shots, I needed to resort measuring only her waist next to door and use that as a scaling factor to measure her bust. As an aproximation from side-view diameter to something more close to real circumference, I decided that ellipse is an aproximation good enough. Now we do know that while waist follows that somewhat, the bust is almost more like a rectangle [citation needed]. How ever, it's better to make only one shitty approximation rather than two, so let's just assume that things compress under our imiginary measuring tape. What's delightful, someone else actually has thought the exactly same thing, run clinical trians with 62 subjects to measure their true waist circumference and body width and then calculated a correction factor to get ellipse minor axis from the major axist to calculate an elliptical aproximation for waist circumference from waist width alone. As most of the test subjects in the trials were slightly obese seniors, I took the liberty to use the lowest factor provided: 0.873 which is 1.146 from minor axis to major axis. See the study to believe: www.google.fi/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCMQFjAAahUKEwjupJbTx-jIAhULESwKHYpSCVE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpdf.posterng.netkey.at%2Fdownload%2Findex.php%3Fmodule%3Dget_pdf_by_id%26poster_id%3D116964&usg=AFQjCNFvY8iNgH9hh-wcCuaZuCvKCGRayg&sig2=YpecPV3m4RH0-7Nluoupqw&cad=rjaFor ellipse diameter ("perimeter"), I choose to use Ramanujan approximation: π(3(a+b) - sqrt((3a+b)(a+3b))) With this armament, we are finally ready to run the numbers. The really important values are really just the relative diameters of her bust, this will tell if there's any measurable difference, but since we have the both values anyway, it's only rigorisity to run the final ellipsis approximation to get the numbers that the everyman can understand. Firstly, we obtain annies height and waist diameter comparing her next to a doorframe:  creepiness1_2.jpg (396.24 KB) So we see our numbers are about right as the height in both measurements is 161 cm. For her waist, let's use average which is 18.0 cm. Then, to the science or bust:  creepiness3_4.jpg (483.97 KB)
Which is not encouraging to your theory at all, as we see that the diameters are essentially the same!As a final courtecy for completeness, we shall estimate her waist and bust circumference: function ret = ramanujan(a,b)
ret = pi*(3*(a+b)-sqrt((3*a+b)*(a+3*b)))
endfunctionramanujan(18/2,18/2*1.143) = 61 cm for waist. Within reasonable? She's like super slim, but that may cause some problems at the lingerie department, as we are soon about to see. Then the two busts: ramanujan(21.4/2,21.4/2*1.143) = 73 cm for bust.ramanujan(21.1/2,21.1/2*1.143) = 71 cm for bust.And for the garment size, we use professionally crafted software calculator: www.sophisticatedpair.com/bra-size-calculator/ (Seriously, the lookup tables are CRAZY.) 73 cm -> 28B (24D preferred). 71 cm -> 28B (24D preferred). (In both cases, the calculator helpfully says that her ideal size would be 24D, but that's rare. This can be explained for her still being a growing girl, after all.) Oh boy, I can't wait the private messages. |
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Post by Druplesnubb on Oct 30, 2015 10:13:59 GMT
So has anyone suggested the theory that Janet is descended from Steadman? We know that she has supernatural archery skills, and it could very well be something that runs in her family. Her dad seems to be the highest authority in the Court, and it's not unreasonable to assume that her family has a long history of important positions inside it. |
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Post by keef on Oct 30, 2015 10:37:33 GMT
So has anyone suggested the theory that Janet is descended from Steadman? We know that she has supernatural archery skills, and it could very well be something that runs in her family. Her dad seems to be the highest authority in the Court, and it's not unreasonable to assume that her family has a long history of important positions inside it. Yes, fwip suggested it earlier. Good speculation, I would almost be disappointed if not true. |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Oct 30, 2015 11:13:20 GMT
So has anyone suggested the theory that Janet is descended from Steadman? We know that she has supernatural archery skills, and it could very well be something that runs in her family. Her dad seems to be the highest authority in the Court, and it's not unreasonable to assume that her family has a long history of important positions inside it. And Janet's hair doesn't go up! Ipso facto she is related to Steadman... by no more than six degrees of seperation. |
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Post by Daedalus on Dec 16, 2015 9:05:22 GMT
Crosspost!
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Post by speedwell on Dec 20, 2015 8:15:56 GMT
A throw WAY back... I was reading the TV Tropes Headscratchers page, and at the top are a number of speculations about why the bridge over the chasm is built in that spectacularly strange and unfinished way, without even a gate to prevent people from just walking across. Someone speculated that Jeanne is the "gate", but that's not right since we have never seen her on the bridge. I've been thinking for a long time that the bridge was perhaps designed the way it was, incomplete and odd, solely to prevent it from appearing to be a bridge at all in the Ether, and thus invisible to Jeanne, whose perceptions are presumably all Etheric.
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Post by keef on Dec 20, 2015 11:36:45 GMT
A throw WAY back... I was reading the TV Tropes Headscratchers page, and at the top are a number of speculations about why the bridge over the chasm is built in that spectacularly strange and unfinished way, without even a gate to prevent people from just walking across. Someone speculated that Jeanne is the "gate", but that's not right since we have never seen her on the bridge. I've been thinking for a long time that the bridge was perhaps designed the way it was, incomplete and odd, solely to prevent it from appearing to be a bridge at all in the Ether, and thus invisible to Jeanne, whose perceptions are presumably all Etheric. There is no gate, but there is an alarm, and there was always the certainty the forest creatures would not exactly welcome you. About Jeanne and the bridge.Most interesting point to me is the fact Coyote admits the Court build the bridge on their terms. |
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Post by todd on Dec 20, 2015 12:27:02 GMT
Also, most of the students at the Court don't seem that interested in the weirdness; even when they snuck out to see the goings-on at the power station, they seemed more interested in their socializing with each other than in the power station itself. The Court, I think, simply hadn't counted on getting a student like Annie whose unusual life before coming to Gunnerkrigg made her more prone to investigate the strange events around her than in engaging in the regular activities of children her age.
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Post by Daedalus on Dec 21, 2015 10:19:39 GMT
Random late-night musing... I wonder if in the future we'll look back on the point around ~Ch49 as when Cerebus Syndrome set in. Not to say it's a bad thing, of course, but the whimsical aspects of the universe have mostly been put on hold over the last year or so (outside-comic time) to be replaced with drama and more menacing events. Consider: Ch49 was the first time a large number of characters were in explicit, genuine danger, followed by a subdued tone in Ch50, and the emotional hammerings that were Chs51-54. At the end of Chapter 54 there was a little breathing room with the Rabbit-Sniffles interactions, but as soon as Ch56 begins, we're embroiled in a creepier-than-ever robotic masochism cult out of nowhere – the masochism, not the cult itself, that is. These are darker than the average tone of the comic, and rarely do we have so many negative events grouped so close together. I almost wince every MWF upon loading the new pages. I wonder when (if?) it'll get happier and lighter again. Again, more serious drama isn't a bad thing, but I feel like it used to be the background where it is now the foreground, and the tone of the overall work has shifted a bit. |
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Post by l33tninja on Dec 22, 2015 22:51:48 GMT
Random late-night musing... I wonder if in the future we'll look back on the point around ~Ch49 as when Cerebus Syndrome set in. Not to say it's a bad thing, of course, but the whimsical aspects of the universe have mostly been put on hold over the last year or so (outside-comic time) to be replaced with drama and more menacing events. I wonder about this a little, too. Perhaps Tom is approaching the END and the time for light-heartedness is done, or the time is passing on as Antimony and Kat mature. Or perhaps he is impatient for the end and doesn't want to move forward at the necessarily slower pace that keeping the drama in the background dictates. Of course I know nothing about what he is thinking or doing (except for that ONE page about Reynardine . . . I did help write that, you know, and no I'm not going to let that go). I also think that authors evolve with their work, and a webcomic like GC that has gone on for so long says to me that Tom is probably a different person than he was at the beginning. Perhaps he just doesn't feel as lighthearted about it as he once did. |
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Post by todd on Dec 23, 2015 0:54:16 GMT
I wonder about this a little, too. Perhaps Tom is approaching the END and the time for light-heartedness is done It happens a lot. The Harry Potter series, for example - once Voldemort gets fully restored, the story takes a much darker tone, more "defeat the Dark Lord", less "hijinks at a magic school". Or (since a few people mentioned that show during Anthony's return in "The Tree") more recently, "Gravity Falls" - gone definitely dark with a "Great Old One"-type creature turning the town into a surrealistic nightmare and planning to do the same thing to the rest of the world (if with a few touches of comedy in its style). |
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Post by Druplesnubb on Jan 22, 2016 23:48:28 GMT
I don't know if anyone has posted this already but here's my theory on what Jones is. I believe that Jones is the manifestation of man's belief in science over the supernatural, given life through the ether. Just like science, she has seen that Earth is billions of years old. She's cold and emotionless, instead adopting a "neutral" view on the world. Her reason for existing seems to be to watch and observe things, just like science is all about observing how the world works. Yet she doesn't teach humans any secrets that they can't figure out themselves. Just like science she is completely removed from the supernatural, being unable to connect with the ether. Even her ethnicity makes sense, since the atheistic divinity-rejecting worldview is most prominent in the western world. But my main evidence for this theory is her habit of taking the names of the people she comes across. At the surface it's easily the most odd thing about her, being the only thing she cares about besides observing stuff, and going completely against her otherwise emotionless self. I've seen no other theory that can explain this anomalous behavior, but in my theory it's obvious why she does it. |
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Post by speedwell on Jan 24, 2016 15:24:10 GMT
I don't know if anyone has posted this already but here's my theory on what Jones is. I believe that Jones is the manifestation of man's belief in science over the supernatural, given life through the ether. Just like science, she has seen that Earth is billions of years old. She's cold and emotionless, instead adopting a "neutral" view on the world. Her reason for existing seems to be to watch and observe things, just like science is all about observing how the world works. Yet she doesn't teach humans any secrets that they can't figure out themselves. Just like science she is completely removed from the supernatural, being unable to connect with the ether. Even her ethnicity makes sense, since the atheistic divinity-rejecting worldview is most prominent in the western world. But my main evidence for this theory is her habit of taking the names of the people she comes across. At the surface it's easily the most odd thing about her, being the only thing she cares about besides observing stuff, and going completely against her otherwise emotionless self. I've seen no other theory that can explain this anomalous behavior, but in my theory it's obvious why she does it. That's delightfully poetic. I just have one thing to say, and that is that Jones shows a truly epic capacity for self-deception as far as her so-called "emotionlessness" is concerned. I'd really love to be a fly on the wall if she ever explains to a therapist why she thinks that she has failed to develop emotions through contact with human beings. |
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Post by l33tninja on Jan 25, 2016 17:08:13 GMT
That's delightfully poetic. I just have one thing to say, and that is that Jones shows a truly epic capacity for self-deception as far as her so-called "emotionlessness" is concerned. I'd really love to be a fly on the wall if she ever explains to a therapist why she thinks that she has failed to develop emotions through contact with human beings. I liked that post as well, very interesting thoughts. speedwell: I agree. If she was truly emotionless, she would hardly do half the things she does. She certainly would not have bothered with Mort's untimely death, nor would she be interested in Annie's well-being. |
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Post by OGRuddawg on Jan 26, 2016 3:47:11 GMT
That's delightfully poetic. I just have one thing to say, and that is that Jones shows a truly epic capacity for self-deception as far as her so-called "emotionlessness" is concerned. I'd really love to be a fly on the wall if she ever explains to a therapist why she thinks that she has failed to develop emotions through contact with human beings. I liked that post as well, very interesting thoughts. speedwell : I agree. If she was truly emotionless, she would hardly do half the things she does. She certainly would not have bothered with Mort's untimely death, nor would she be interested in Annie's well-being. I like this theory about Jones because it shows that no matter how "objective" and "neutral" scientific-minded people want to be, their humanity still bleeds through and ultimately human desires shape how science and technology are used, aka for good, evil, or somewhere in between. I bet Jones even has a few regrets tucked away in her memories. |
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