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Post by Nepycros on Oct 12, 2016 17:21:33 GMT
Or alternatively, I don't remember seeing Andrew actually develop/train any of his skills since he's been introduced. Most of the other characters have shown a progression in ability over time, but what about Parley's orderly husbando?
So, let's discuss. What reasons would there be for Tom to not show us Smitty's development? And what might be some way he could introduce character progression for Mighty Eyebrows Boy?
Personally, I figure it could be chalked up to any number of things, such as:
1. Smitty might be lazy, but he's pretty invested in his friends' activities, and has been training to become a medium for years. So it's probably not that.
2. Order is too boring, and he literally can't make his powers any better... But that would be super boring, even if it's likely.
3. All the training's already happened, and we missed out on all of the juicy moments where making things fortuitous ends up making things very unfortunate.
4. Tom doesn't love Smitty the way I do. </3
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west
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Post by west on Oct 12, 2016 17:44:48 GMT
I think he's been learning the rules under which his powers operate. Could be interesting: he seems pretty confident that he can make things happen at substantial range (wherever Parley and Eglamore went for training), and the more significant limit is what he can do without it twisting into a monkey's-paw situation. If he's been low-key exploring more subtle or complex ways of manipulating probability to push those boundaries (say, so that instead of creating an emergency that makes Parley teleport to him for help, she just realizes she forgot her cell phone or something), then that could have some very fun applications down the road. |
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Post by jda on Oct 13, 2016 14:40:20 GMT
I think he's been learning the rules under which his powers operate. Could be interesting: he seems pretty confident that he can make things happen at substantial range (wherever Parley and Eglamore went for training), and the more significant limit is what he can do without it twisting into a monkey's-paw situation. If he's been low-key exploring more subtle or complex ways of manipulating probability to push those boundaries (say, so that instead of creating an emergency that makes Parley teleport to him for help, she just realizes she forgot her cell phone or something), then that could have some very fun applications down the road. Yes, I concur. Smitty is the most powerful character, as in: he could wish the world to end right now in a orderly fashion. |
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Post by CoyoteReborn on Oct 13, 2016 19:48:27 GMT
Smitty is the most powerful character. |
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west
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Post by west on Oct 13, 2016 20:15:43 GMT
Smitty is the most powerful character, as in: he could wish the world to end right now in a orderly fashion.
I hear he's about 200% better at marble retrieval than every god on record too |
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Post by CoyoteReborn on Oct 13, 2016 21:02:36 GMT
*low growl of disapproval*
I hear he's about 200% better at marble retrieval than every god on record too That may be true. After all, I lost my marbles years ago, ha HA! |
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Post by warrl on Oct 13, 2016 23:26:12 GMT
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Post by zaferion on Oct 14, 2016 3:47:29 GMT
I personally think that Tom hasn't shown much of Smitty's training because it would reveal too much about the Court. We would learn about the higher ups and their secrets, a mystery that the story's childishly innocent tone needs. Furthermore, I think Smitty's powers are a big Chekhov's Gun and Tom's waiting for the right moment to show it to us--we've been told and teased about what Smitty's powers are/can do, but we haven't seen them in a truly meaningful way. The first big moment his powers get are when Annie saw the strings.
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Post by warrl on Oct 14, 2016 7:29:01 GMT
We were told, right up front, what Smitty's power is, and it's obvious why we don't spend more time on it.
He has the power to make things boring.
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 16, 2016 3:58:42 GMT
What in the world is that link? |
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 16, 2016 4:29:36 GMT
Or alternatively, I don't remember seeing Andrew actually develop/train any of his skills since he's been introduced. Most of the other characters have shown a progression in ability over time, but what about Parley's orderly husbando? So, let's discuss. What reasons would there be for Tom to not show us Smitty's development? And what might be some way he could introduce character progression for Mighty Eyebrows Boy? Personally, I figure it could be chalked up to any number of things, such as: 1. Smitty might be lazy, but he's pretty invested in his friends' activities, and has been training to become a medium for years. So it's probably not that. 2. Order is too boring, and he literally can't make his powers any better... But that would be super boring, even if it's likely. 3. All the training's already happened, and we missed out on all of the juicy moments where making things fortuitous ends up making things very unfortunate. 4. Tom doesn't love Smitty the way I do. </3 Honestly, I find Smitty's powers to be extremely interesting. I posted about this a while ago (link is here), but what we know is that his most basic power is to decrease entropy. In other words, he inverts the Second Law of Thermodynamics in his vicinity when he puts his mind to it. Now, on the forum we've mostly been conceptualizing him as a probability manipulator (not least because he often refers to his own powers as "luck", and that's how he usually uses it). But I just realized that it's not a 100% accurate description...because one of the key traits of entropy is that (in physics) it defines the direction time flows. We've seen hints of this in his abilities: he can cause effects retroactively (as we saw here). Furthermore, consider this page. Originally, we assumed that he just was lucky enough to be standing next to where the squirrel buried his nuts. But another explanation is possible, and fits better with the recent explanations Smitty has given: Smitty pointed to that spot, and suddenly the squirrel had decided to bury his nuts there all along. It's possible that Smitty's ability caused the effects to precede the causes (similar to some variations of quantum many-world theory). Even more interestingly, we know of one other effect that can cause effects not bound by the timeline: the creation of etheric beings before humans even existed. What if Smitty's powers represent a much more powerful version of how the human mind creates the Ether? There have been hints that his abilities border on honest-to-goodness reality warping (not least that the Court selected him as a candidate for medium for their own inscrutable purposes). If his power really can directly warp the ether, I now have a new candidate for the catalyst of Kat's ascension... |
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Post by warrl on Oct 16, 2016 7:37:53 GMT
What in the world is that link? It's a chapter in a fanfic (part of a fanon universe shared by some rather prolific writers, and a few less-prolific ones). A little bit into that chapter, someone comments about someone else admitting something... |
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Post by snowflake on Oct 16, 2016 7:39:51 GMT
I hear he's about 200% better at marble retrieval than every god on record too That may be true. After all, I lost my marbles years ago, ha HA! You are, however, darn good at taking Ysengrin's marbles away. And yeah, I only now picked up on that visual pun, embarrassing as it is to admit. |
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Post by keef on Oct 16, 2016 10:46:49 GMT
*nods sagely* That may be true. After all, I lost my marbles years ago, ha HA! You are, however, darn good at taking Ysengrin's marbles away. And yeah, I only now picked up on that visual pun, embarrassing as it is to admit. Your link is broken. Proboards probably ate it. Happens all the time. |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Oct 16, 2016 14:05:45 GMT
What if Smitty's powers represent a much more powerful version of how the human mind creates the Ether? There have been hints that his abilities border on honest-to-goodness reality warping (not least that the Court selected him as a candidate for medium for their own inscrutable purposes). I am kind of surprised that the Court hasn't tried to get Smitty and Zimmy to work together with the objective of using Smitty to control Zimmy's indisputable reality warping power so it can be exploited by the Court. Gamma moderates Zimmy, but she doesn't provide a way to harness and exploit Zmmy's power. Jack may be filling that role, but we haven"t seen any indication yet that Jack can provide a control function. |
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Post by snowflake on Oct 16, 2016 20:34:22 GMT
Your link is broken. Proboards probably ate it. Happens all the time. Fixed, thanks. |
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Post by feraldog on Oct 16, 2016 23:39:30 GMT
What if Smitty's powers represent a much more powerful version of how the human mind creates the Ether? There have been hints that his abilities border on honest-to-goodness reality warping (not least that the Court selected him as a candidate for medium for their own inscrutable purposes). I am kind of surprised that the Court hasn't tried to get Smitty and Zimmy to work together with the objective of using Smitty to control Zimmy's indisputable reality warping power so it can be exploited by the Court. Gamma moderates Zimmy, but she doesn't provide a way to harness and exploit Zmmy's power. Jack may be filling that role, but we haven"t seen any indication yet that Jack can provide a control function. They may want Smitty to be more experienced (and possibly more obedient- I'm not too sure they were happy about him immediately being willing to defend Annie when she took the Forest Medium job) before trying something that drastic. It sounds like a good idea but here I am thinking of ways that "Zimmy can now control her powers" could go very wrong. |
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Post by bgb16999 on Nov 17, 2016 23:42:26 GMT
I am kind of surprised that the Court hasn't tried to get Smitty and Zimmy to work together with the objective of using Smitty to control Zimmy's indisputable reality warping power so it can be exploited by the Court. Gamma moderates Zimmy, but she doesn't provide a way to harness and exploit Zmmy's power. Jack may be filling that role, but we haven"t seen any indication yet that Jack can provide a control function. They may want Smitty to be more experienced (and possibly more obedient- I'm not too sure they were happy about him immediately being willing to defend Annie when she took the Forest Medium job) before trying something that drastic. It sounds like a good idea but here I am thinking of ways that "Zimmy can now control her powers" could go very wrong. How much more obedient do they expect Andrew to become? He seems to have a clear internal idea of what he considers right and wrong, and it doesn't always jive with the Court's. He also seems to genuinely care about the forest creatures, which means it would be harder to convince him to do anything like what Surma did to Reynard. Also, like most people his age, Smitty is deeply influenced by his friends, including Annie and Kat. If the Court wants to turn Andrew into another Ysendrin or Surma, they will have their work cut out for them. Then again, we don't really know what Surma was like at this age. Maybe the Court has methods for stamping their ideology into key employees. Maybe we will see a long and slow process in which Andrew is pushed more and more into the Court's power. Even if turning him into another Ysendrin is beyond their capabilities, making Andrew at least as submissive as Surma was might be something Jonathon thinks is possible. (Obviously, the Court doesn't see Annie as being as controllable as Andrew, hence why they didn't make her the Medium.) |
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