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Post by lordofpotatoes on Apr 8, 2016 14:07:47 GMT
I forgive you Tom, I think it's true that even if some of us did understand it directly, me and others thought iit was obvious to everyone/they just didn't care and so we thought they weren't secretly a couple any more, but thats like the only thing in the comic that is a bit weak of conveying the point, this is my all time favourite comic still.
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Post by warrl on Apr 8, 2016 14:22:13 GMT
Winsbury saying "Looks like they don't believe us." does not mean that they don't believe them! Winsbury is not a mind reader! I think it could be fun if they are still trying really hard to keep it secret, but most of the class know it. (It's relevant that Annie was off having a relatively-private conversation with Jack during the story-telling.) |
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Post by alexsl on Apr 8, 2016 14:32:38 GMT
I actually agree in principle - humans have to behave like humans, otherwise I can't enjoy the story. But this is a webcomic with humour, and the obliviousness of everybody about their relationship is played for laughs. So disregard the magic - is it less acceptable than laser cows?
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Post by fish on Apr 8, 2016 15:01:10 GMT
I actually agree in principle - humans have to behave like humans, otherwise I can't enjoy the story. But this is a webcomic with humour, and the obliviousness of everybody about their relationship is played for laughs. So disregard the magic - is it less acceptable than laser cows?Laser cows are, just like magic, part of the setting (i.e. fancy robots exist in this world) and as such I wouldn't use their existence as an argument in this case either. A better comparison would be: "If the Seraphs can hide their "secret base" by sticking "NO"s on the signs and fool everybody, why is the success of W+J's secret so unbelievable?" BUT the Seraphs fool nobody who cares enogh to look for them, so this argument is invalid. By the way, I failed to mention I actually agree with you on the W+J thing. Since they always acted quirky around each other it's not that hard for me to accept that they could hide their secret in plain sight by acting extra quirky in Faraway Morning. |
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Post by TBeholder on Apr 8, 2016 15:06:51 GMT
Dear Tom! I for one, completely understood that Janet and Winsbury's relationship was still a secret after all the events mentioned here by Tea. I was surprised when people started arguing about it not being a secret anymore. Perhaps other fans do not cherish this comic as much as I and easily forget important plot points. (I know my post count is pretty low but I read every single comic discussion thread) Alas. It's called "mind blindness", or "failing Sally Anne Test". |
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Post by Señor Goose on Apr 8, 2016 17:00:10 GMT
Nice damage control, Tom
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Post by Trillium on Apr 8, 2016 17:20:48 GMT
Ok, so we've sorted out that Janet and William have a relationship that they have been keeping secret for a long time. Some young people like to keep their relationships secret especially if their parents wouldn't approve. Janet and William are adament that Annie keeps their secret.
Looking back to Faraway Morning we see that Bud says Janet's dad would go crazy if he thought for a moment...these two were in a relationship. Janet and William could be a call back to Jeanne and her Anwyn lover. Hopefully this leads to more back story on what happened and how Jeanne can be set free.
Annie is getting her act together. Hopefully we'll be getting back to solving some of the mysteries that were brought up in past chapters.
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Post by goldenknots on Apr 8, 2016 20:07:18 GMT
Might be interesting to find out why Janet's father is so uptight about this. More backstory to reveal at some point?
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Post by aline on Apr 8, 2016 21:53:18 GMT
Looking back to Faraway Morning we see that Bud says Janet's dad would go crazy if he thought for a moment...these two were in a relationship. Janet and William could be a call back to Jeanne and her Anwyn lover. Hopefully this leads to more back story on what happened and how Jeanne can be set free. Well, we don't really know how seriously we should take Bud's comment. Maybe Janet's dad would be truly horrible in a Romeo-and-Juliet-tragedy kind of way, he doesn't seem to be a nice person in general... But people also just tend to say those things about fathers. "Oh, if he thought his daughter was going out with this dork, he'd be so mad." Because fathers are sort of traditionally expected to react badly to their teenage daughter's boyfriend, especially if said boyfriend looks like Winsbury (not really ideal son-in-law material, right?). If the dad in question also tends to look a bit strict and traditional, most people will just expect him to hate their daughter's first date, on the basis that this is how the universe runs. It doesn't mean he'd actually do anything worse than go "Aaaaaargh, does it have to be him? Does he even shower?".
I'm not sure if we should read so much into it. Until now, Janet and Winsbury's relationship has always been comic relief. While Jeanne's story has been full blown excruciating tragedy in the ancient greek style.
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Pig_catapult
Full Member
Keeper of the Devilkitty
Posts: 171
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Post by Pig_catapult on Apr 9, 2016 3:09:35 GMT
I am choosing to believe that Winsbury has a special magic power and that is Perception Filtering.
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Post by Trillium on Apr 9, 2016 4:20:30 GMT
Looking back to Faraway Morning we see that Bud says Janet's dad would go crazy if he thought for a moment..
I'm not sure if we should read so much into it. Until now, Janet and Winsbury's relationship has always been comic relief. While Jeanne's story has been full blown excruciating tragedy in the ancient greek style.
It does not have to be as dire as a tragedy but I am hoping it could lead us back to some information. Janet may be in a position to know some important backstory and who knows what William might reveal? I don't think we've been spending time with J&W for grins. Their relationship has been weaving in and out of the story for some time now. Maybe we won't find out any thing but there sure are a lot of bread crumbs. |
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Post by zbeeblebrox on Apr 9, 2016 7:05:36 GMT
I was also surprised that some people didn't remember that nobody believed J&W. Then there is the argument that it is unrealistic for nobody to believe that they are in a relationship. In unrelated news, fire elementals don't exist IRL, so obviously it is impossible to enjoy this comic... This, I feel, is some kind of logical fallacy that I see way to often in fantasy/sci-fi fandoms. It's the assumption that, just because I had to suspend my disbelief for the story-setting (e.g. magic does exist) I must now suspend it at every turn in the story. "You have a problem with the plausibility of a certain scene? Well, why did you not have a problem with the unrealistic setting then?" Because setting and characters/plot are not the same and I'm trying to discuss the one and not the other. I'm sceptical of knockout arguments like: "You feel the author didn't do a good job? Well, magic isn't real, so get over it." ...Really?  alexsl , this is not a stab against you, just musings about fandoms in general!About the situation at hand: The problem here might be... GC characters usually act in a realistic way and don't require much suspension of disbelief. W+J however are played as a running gag and their relationship does require some mental gymnastics which the average GC reader is, maybe, not used to? I don't know... I have lost my faith in "reasonable readers" ever since the Jenny=Zimmy fiasco. I've seen this called "Big Lie, little lie" by authors. It's the principle that readers will accept Big Lies without complaint (and that's why I like it more than "suspension of disbelief", since that implies effort and what the reader does in these cases doesn't feel like effort to me), but readers will defect if you tell too many little lies. I personally don't see their relationship as a little lie, because I've known people who have successfully hid REALLY OBVIOUS things from their friends, and without even needing to be very good at keeping secrets. But of course, like many principles of storytelling, "Big Lie, little lie" can be subjective. Also, there's the other principle of storytelling - that readers are more likely to believe a fiction that aligns with their expectations of reality than they are a truth that does not (the famous example being the writer of a true story being criticized for having a scene that's too contrived), but maybe that's me putting too much weight on my own anecdote  |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Apr 9, 2016 14:00:20 GMT
I'm not sure if we should read so much into it. Until now, Janet and Winsbury's relationship has always been comic relief. While Jeanne's story has been full blown excruciating tragedy in the ancient greek style.
It does not have to be as dire as a tragedy but I am hoping it could lead us back to some information. Janet may be in a position to know some important backstory and who knows what William might reveal? I don't think we've been spending time with J&W for grins. Their relationship has been weaving in and out of the story for some time now. Maybe we won't find out any thing but there sure are a lot of bread crumbs. Maybe I am reading too much into this, but I think Janet and Williams are an example of the relationship and tension between the Court and the Forest. Janet and her father represent the Court while William represents the Forest (given his hair's obvious Foley/Forest heritage). Her father (the Court) may not want there to be a relationship between the two, but love finds a way. Tom could use Janet-William to reveal more about the current Court-Forest relationship, to bring tension to a head without impacting other story lines, or they could just serve as a baseline for other story lines. The other more obvious Court-Forest story lines being Kat-Annie and Robot-Shadow. |
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QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
Posts: 142
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Post by QuotePilgrim on Apr 9, 2016 17:11:25 GMT
(Reminder that Tom writes the comic at least three months in advance.) That does not necessarily mean he doesn’t occasionally draw a page a day before publishing it, nor that he doesn’t make changes to a page a few hours before it’s published. I mean, he could have predicted how some readers would react (that’s not a very hard thing to do), but I highly suspect he did actually draw this page after seing their reactions, possibly dropping whatever bonus page he would’ve uploaded instead. The art in this page looks a bit rushed to me, even if just slightly. --- Now, here’s what I think about the Janet/William relationship thing: even though the other students didn’t believe them in Faraway Morning, I find it very very improbable that it would still be a secret much longer after that. The other students would all be wondering, “what if they were telling the truth?” and start to pay close attention to how they behave near each other. The secret shouldn’t last as long as it did. The fact that it did, IMO, shows that their classmates are incredibly oblivious. |
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Post by warrl on Apr 11, 2016 1:04:53 GMT
The "this thing is unrealistic and you accept it, so why can't you accept this other unrealistic thing?" generally fails because the first thing IS realistic in the context of the fictional universe as we've been shown it works - e.g. YES THERE ARE fire elementals in the Gunnerverse - and the second thing still seems implausible. Edward Verres (in the EGSverse) may be capable of obfuscating - and being near-universally believed - like Janet and Willy allegedly did but we've seen nothing to indicate that THEY or ANYONE ELSE in the Gunnerverse are capable of it.
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anisky
Junior Member
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Post by anisky on Apr 11, 2016 13:25:26 GMT
The "this thing is unrealistic and you accept it, so why can't you accept this other unrealistic thing?" generally fails because the first thing IS realistic in the context of the fictional universe as we've been shown it works - e.g. YES THERE ARE fire elementals in the Gunnerverse - and the second thing still seems implausible. Edward Verres (in the EGSverse) may be capable of obfuscating - and being near-universally believed - like Janet and Willy allegedly did but we've seen nothing to indicate that THEY or ANYONE ELSE in the Gunnerverse are capable of it. While I don't disagree in principle, there are a lot of powers in the Gunnerverse, and every reason to think there are plenty of different powers possessed by students at Gunnerkrigg Court that we haven't yet encountered. Do I think Will and Janet have kept their secret because of a secret power? No. But lack of evidence so far that anyone is capable of a particular feat in the Gunnerverse isn't actually a strong reason to think that there aren't people capable of it. |
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