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Post by joshrb on Mar 16, 2017 19:40:13 GMT
Plot twist: now equipped with sensation, we get Robot's outlook on the situation.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Mar 16, 2017 20:20:03 GMT
That isn't Annie apologizing for her behavior. If you hadn't ironically forgotten what happened in the preceding page she was just telling Red she was sorry she was having nightmares. It's an "I'm sorry your dog died" not, "I'm sorry I killed your dog." Are you sure? Despite your claims that Red gave Annie plenty of opportunities to defend herself, here she cuts her off before we see whatever it is she's actually trying to say. Yes? Yes I am 100% sure. Why am I 100% sure? Because if Annie had been starting to apologize for her recklessness, manipulation etc., she wouldn't then act staggered with surprise five seconds later when Red brings those things up. She wouldn't be sputtering lame excuses, she would be, "Ah, yeah, I really fucked up, I'm so sorry." Like come on man this is just ridiculous at this point, of course we know that's not what she was trying to say. This is just silly now. Again, no, you're missing the point. Maybe some people are flipping about because they like Annie, but most of us are expressing disappointments for entirely different reasons- that this "what the hell, hero?" moment is being delivered by the worst possible person, and in a very poorly framed way. Except you're wrong and you keep saying obviously, objectively wrong things trying to make that case. Like remember all of a few hours ago when you were like, "Well Red didn't suffer any harm so how dare she" because you forgot she was literally traumatized and couldn't sleep because she kept waking up with nightmares? Like you might try to simplify Red into some goof comic relief character, or some annoying villain or whatever to dismiss her, but she isn't any of those things. And her delivery is completely fair, calm, and rational. Tone-policing here is just more rationalizing to justify an unreasonable reaction. Also the idea that your concern is just the way the message was delivered and not the message itself is belied by the rest of your posts, so, again, rationalization. A lot of this seems to boil down to you believing Red and Ayilu being totally uninformed about any kind of danger. In effect you are claiming they are like children who don't have any sense of perspective of danger or death. That seems silly- given that Ayilu pretends to die on a regular basis as a way to draw attention and Red realizes that Jeanne attacking Annie was a bad thing ("Hey! Stop that!"). And now they (or at least Red is) are clearly traumatized because Annie didn't protect them. Except that Annie is barely older or more experienced- it's like you're saying "Annie needed to have her head smacked around for not taking this risk seriously" and in the same breath saying "Red and Ayilu are totally blameless because we can't have expected them take the risk seriously". At worst, IMO, Annie helped Red learn a valuable life lesson. Maybe it could have been done differently, but again it would seem like that holds Annie to a dramatically higher standard than anyone else. First of all, no actually it's mostly tangential, and that's not my claim; that's you trying to twist around and make up some new stance you can maybe try to rebut. It's a simple fact that fairies don't really understand mortality. That's not because they're children, it's because they're fairies. Dying was literally part of the entrance exam for them. If you somehow ignored that reality, it wouldn't make Annie's actions okay; Smitty and Kat aren't fairies and she was still being shitty to them. But it is an extra layer of fucked up in Annie's behavior here. Yeah Red was really helped out by developing ptsd. Again, one has to wonder if you're being serious with these arguments. Again, missing the point. I said it was bad writing IF getting your audience so riled up causes them to miss some other point your trying to make, or if you are trying to deliver a lesson but do it badly. I fully expected there to be repercussions from this, I didn't expect Annie to be handed the idiot-ball so she couldn't defend herself. I'm pretty sure Tom will continue to do whatever he wants- he's a big, successful webcomic artist and doesn't need you to defend him. But if you're going to publish a webcomic and then pace it like a longform novel, you have to expect some level of pushback from people who don't have your (the authors) insight into where this is going. Annie wasn't handed the idiot ball, she couldn't properly defend herself because there was no proper defense for the way she acted. Sometimes people do shitty things and they have to take responsibility for that, even if they're not Literally Hitler. Maybe some people are capable of appreciating that reality without being spoonfed a bunch of calming reassurances that "But don't worry, Annie is still the protagonist and will be the hero of later arcs."
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Post by atteSmythe on Mar 16, 2017 20:31:56 GMT
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jocobo
Junior Member
Posts: 78
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Post by jocobo on Mar 16, 2017 20:48:45 GMT
You know, it's amazing how quickly we can forget things in the space of just a few pages- such as when Annie tried to apologize and Red cut her off: gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1801 That isn't Annie apologizing for her behavior. If you hadn't ironically forgotten what happened in the preceding page she was just telling Red she was sorry she was having nightmares. It's an "I'm sorry your dog died" not, "I'm sorry I killed your dog." The moment Red brings up Annie's responsibility, she immediately switches to excuse making, and indeed begins all of her statements through the rest of the chapter with, "But." I guess I will briefly address some of the major forms: "But Annie's still basically a good person, she's not Hitler!": Okay, that's fine. She still fucked up here and was shitty towards other people in some specific instances and sometimes that has consequences. "Oh, so Red and Blueilu don't have autonomy now?": Sure, but the responsibility for having been manipulated by someone acting callously and recklessly is not the same as being the person manipulating someone callously and recklessly. "Red and Ayilu were fully aware of the danger because they were there when Annie first encountered Jeanne.": This one is actually laughable. This is a sequence in which they ask Annie to smash them with a rock and shortly before they are gleefully eaten by Ysengrim. The next time we encounter Red she reacts with shock to the concept of being able to cut her hair and has to be physically restrained from seeing what happens cutting off her fingers. Literally the entire point of where Red is explaining her trauma is that the realness of mortality is something new to fairies, that they have difficulty understanding. And just like the relative importance of Naming, Annie has every reason to know this from her personal experience.
"It's bad writing.": Something upsetting you doesn't make it bad writing. Something ruining your expectations for how a thing would go doesn't make it bad writing. Tom, please ignore the whining, this chapter was jaw-dropping in its magnificent perfection. We don't know what Annie was going to apoligize for actually seeing as Red cut her off before she could. You are being presumptuous. not that I think Annie owes Red of Ayilu any appology. They made a choice, buyer's remorse is not the fault of the seller. Perhaps this is a disagreement of premise: a) I don't see where she was shitty to anyone here. If someone makes a request of you and you agree to it and it bites you in the behind, it's your fault for agreeing, not theirs for asking. B) You say manipulative and callous but I'm not seeing it. Manipulation requires deception or being unscrupulous. Ayilu wanted a name, Annie offered her a name. That naming means nothing to Annie is irrelevant. The value of a good is the price the consumer is willing to pay for it. Furthermore, there was no existential or long term consequences for Ayilu saying no. No one twisted her arm. Her eagerness and shortsightedness is her own seeing as she could have waited to get a name the normal way. ALL value is relative. If being named wasn't good enough an exchanged for Ayilu to go into danger, she should have bargained for a better deal of refused. The deal was fulfilled. The fairies were not double crossed. That Red thinks it's stupid in retrospect is irrelevant. Red's trauma is irrelevant since no one invited her in the first place. She choice to be there of her own accord. Annie didn't even ask her to be there. I have zero sympathy. Honestly, this argument is the most ridiculous I've heard. "Naming isn't important to Annie! So it was an unfair deal!" Not how exchanges works, sorry. Indeed, the very premise of an exchange is offering something of lesser value to yourself in return from something someone else has that you think is of greater value.
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Post by kukapetal on Mar 16, 2017 21:04:55 GMT
My issue with Annie's behavior is that she never should have used "giving a name" as a motivation in the first place. Either getting a name is a serious rite of passage that should only be granted when the ex-fairy is deemed ready by the court, in which case Annie shouldn't be interfering in that process, or it's a meaningless gesture of no actual value, in which case it's lousy behavior to withhold it in order to bribe someone to do something dangerous for you. Annie is rather messing up Ailyu's life by naming her prematurely or she's being lousy by withholding something important to her unless she puts herself in danger.
Red, on the other hand, can F right off. Again, she was just fine with Aliyu being in danger until she realized how lousy iwhatbthey were doing was. But then, this is just the continuation of a long line of behavior of treating her supposed friend like crap.
I hope someday Aliyu wises up and tells Red to never talk to her again.
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Post by Deepbluediver on Mar 16, 2017 21:10:50 GMT
Like come on man this is just ridiculous at this point, of course we know that's not what she was trying to say. This is just silly now. No, we really don't, because after about 30 seconds of conversation (mostly one-sided, from Red), she ends the discussion entirely. I'm pretty sure if I thought someone I considered a friend attacked me I'd need more time than that to get my head straightened out. I already conceded that point- but is that something Annie could have reasonably expected to be an outcome? When have her prior experiences, either with or without the fairies, indicated anything else? What is she then? Up until this point, when has she exhibited any other traits? If we don't take her seriously, she's just comic relief. If we do take her seriously, she's controlling and emotionally abusive. If that you mean she waited until Annie was alone, set her up with a sudden emotional shock, and then ended the debate before Annie had a chance to collect her thoughts, then sure, I guess. Why can't it be both? Calling someone out unfairly is wrong, having a hypocrite call someone out unfairly is worse. You dismissing anyone who disagrees with you just because you think we only idolize poor, sweet, unfairly maligned Annie though is borderline trolling. Which would bring us back to the point that if the fairies had no concept of danger or death, so how was Annie supposed to know this kind of thing could traumatize them so badly? Ok, you're going to have to spell that one out for me then. Smitty is older than Annie AND her counterpart in court/forest relations. Plus his girlfriend wanted a rematch with Jeanne. Are you actually buying Red's theory that taking a few seconds to get Smitty magically healed was the WRONG decision over risky surgery and likely months of physical therapy to recover, if he did at all? Remember, Annie didn't ask the pscyopomps if they COULD help- she knew that already. She hardly seemed to think about it before agreeing to be bound in servitude somehow in exchange for Smitty being healed. If you're going to claim that Annie had so much more knowledge of the danger that she is totally responsible for everyone else, then you can't turn around and blame her taking responsibility to get Smitty healed again. And for Kat....I really don't get that bit at all. Kat is the same age as Annie and has many of the same experiences. Annie encouraged her to try to find a solution, and she did so. It's not like Kat has hesitated to tell Annie when she was being a ponce in the past, so why does that dynamic suddenly change here? Again, is this something Annie could have forseen? Is she suddenly a trained psychiatrist or military veteran? In your opinion. Here's the thing- when you're attacked, it's human nature, instinct, to defend yourself. A lot of military and emergency response training is design around BREAKING that instinctive response, because while it's helpful for purely short-term physical threats, it's highly detrimental to anything mentally more complicated. So by shocking Annie with the suddenness of the accusation and then walking away without giving her time to formulate a well-reasoned response, Red ensure that Annie is always on the defensive while Red never has to defend her own hand in things. I eagerly await your enjoyment of the chapter when Red finally gets her own "reason you suck" speech for all of HER shitty behavior. When the person doing the calling out has had plenty of her own asinine, unlikable moments then and walks away with no repercussions, are you telling us that we're wrong to feel that it's an Aesop poorly-delivered? That someone, we should just gloss over this "do as I say and not as I do" moment?
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Post by kukapetal on Mar 16, 2017 21:19:23 GMT
He was claiming Annie was being lousy to Kat and Smitty, not Parley and Smitty. Just trying to save you a rude reply regarding your reading comprehension I personally feel like we aren't given enough information on Kat and Smitty's feelings about being involved to make a judgement about whether Annie was being lousy to them or not. We don't have all the info yet and neither does Red.
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Post by Deepbluediver on Mar 16, 2017 21:22:54 GMT
He was claiming Annie was being lousy to Kat and Smitty, not Parley and Smitty. Just trying to save you a rude reply regarding your reading comprehension I personally feel like we aren't given enough information on Kat and Smitty's feelings about being involved to make a judgement about whether Annie was being lousy to them or not. We don't have all the info yet and neither does Red. My mistake then, thank you. I'll correct it. I personally feel like we aren't given enough information on Kat and Smitty's feelings about being involved to make a judgement about whether Annie was being lousy to them or not. We don't have all the info yet and neither does Red. Yeah, I feel like that's part of what's causing all the disagreement here. We went from "we're going to do this thing" straight into "look at us we're doing the thing!" If we didn't see any of the interim, why not? If it wasn't important than any speculation you have on what went on seems irrelevant. If it WAS important, why did Tom choose to actively hide it from us?
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Post by darlos9d on Mar 16, 2017 21:28:22 GMT
Quicksilver remains disappointing in my eyes (and a strange outlier in what is perhaps my favourite "period" of Gunnerkrigg), all the more because it should have been a great chapter and it jarred with the usual nature of the comic, wherein conflicts are not easily resolved, or even evaluated in clear favour of one side. (Even Diego was, at the very least, enthusiastically devoted to his creations, including his idea of Jeanne, but broke down into inhuman cruelty when faced with life not of his design. The seed of cruelty may never sprout as long as the dice roll kindly; perhaps that's why Smitty is so utterly likable?) -- I love Hetty's design, as I love how Tom tacitly showed that she had reworked her original mint-condition outfit, and up to her inexplicable bloodlust the chapter was well-narrated; then it collapsed and Renard's passage of ethics at the end did not remedy it, although his meeting Eglamore was a high note of surprise again. Any merit to Hetty's position that Renard was "enslaving" himself to a girl who had, in fact, exploited others with little respect for them on occasion (copying Kat's homework without asking, clumsily enacting her bizarre scheme of revenge on Jack, or promising Ayilu a name because it required next to no commitment) was undermined by her complete and banal madness. Man... I COMPLETELY forgot about that chapter, and Hetty. Which is particularly weird because, looking back, I remember having strong feelings about that chapter. Because at first it was like, hey, look at this cool new character! And this cool relationship with Renard! And personally I tend to like characters with a dark-ish bent so I was particularly excited. But then yeah she turned out to be some complete psycho and then was killed and the chapter turned out to be some completely self-contained thing and then that's probably why I forgot about it. It didn't really end up mattering at all, so there was no point in remembering it. This comic is a nice piece of art a lot of the time, but it isn't always perfect, that's for sure. But let's say Annie does bear responsibility for asking in the first place: the guides asked Annie. In fact they manipulated her to even get her interested in the case of Jean to begin with. Wouldn't that mean the real responsibility lies with everyone who encouraged Annie to pursue this? Now this is something I definitely haven't forgotten about. The sudden shift of the psychopomps in the last chapter to being a singular, harshly self-interested force was a little jarring in its own right. When in the past they seemed to have some degree of individuality, personability, and maybe even a little compassion. But, nah, I guess they're just kinda dicks. Yeah I get there's some ancient high-minded "death comes to all and we have to accept it humbly" notion that runs a lot of their psychology, but when the agents of death come to YOU humbly for help with a highly demanding task, and you SUCCEED in helping them, them instantly shifting back over to that mindset without a seeming shred of sympathy just seems... wrong, on their part. Now that I'm thinking about it, there is no small number of parallels between the psychopomps last chapter, and Red in this chapter. Where its just like "thanks for giving us what we wanted, now excuse us while we just crap all over you."
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Post by red4bestgirl on Mar 16, 2017 21:39:12 GMT
Yeah the Hetty storyline was weird, and not very well done. It presented Hetty as motivated by a banal bloodlust and psychopathic nature, and ignored the more obvious and natural problem which was that she was trapped by some kind of magic (that was never fully explained) and obviously wanted to be free. Renard's response was really off-key and didn't correspond to her situation; like, okay, he felt regret over trying to kill Annie to escape. But that's because of his personal feelings for Annie. Hettie didn't even know these other kids, and would be justified in using lethal force in trying to escape imprisonment, that's a form of self-defense. Instead it's presented as merely motivated by sadism, which was never Renard's motive anyway. It was all just kind of baffling, self-contained irrelevance that didn't make any real point.
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jocobo
Junior Member
Posts: 78
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Post by jocobo on Mar 16, 2017 21:49:01 GMT
Yeah the Hetty storyline was weird, and not very well done. It presented Hetty as motivated by a banal bloodlust and psychopathic nature, and ignored the more obvious and natural problem which was that she was trapped by some kind of magic (that was never fully explained) and obviously wanted to be free. Renard's response was really off-key and didn't correspond to her situation; like, okay, he felt regret over trying to kill Annie to escape. But that's because of his personal feelings for Annie. Hettie didn't even know these other kids, and would be justified in using lethal force in trying to escape imprisonment, that's a form of self-defense. Instead it's presented as merely motivated by sadism, which was never Renard's motive anyway. It was all just kind of baffling, self-contained irrelevance that didn't make any real point. ....Did you forget the part where the kid Hetty was tormenting didn't even know Hetty existed?! gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1223She never once tried to inform the kid of her existence and just, you know, ask for release. Had he refused, then maybe she could justify armed resistance. But the little boy was completely innocent. He Inherited control over Hetty because his sister died( also murdered by Hetty); he didnt ask for it and in fact couldn't because again HE DIDN'T KNOW SHE EXISTED. The boy didn't trap her, he wasn't keeping her there from any decision he made, he didn't even know she was a thing. Hetty admits to actively hiding from him. Hetty's very first method of getting freedom from the kid was torturing him and conspiring to murder him. At no point did she ever speak to him. She defaulted to murder.
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Post by kukapetal on Mar 16, 2017 21:50:39 GMT
If I remember correctly, Hetty's master didn't even know she existed and was not deliberately holding her prisoner. Lethal force would therefore not have been justified in that particular situation.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Mar 16, 2017 21:59:23 GMT
Yeah the Hetty storyline was weird, and not very well done. It presented Hetty as motivated by a banal bloodlust and psychopathic nature, and ignored the more obvious and natural problem which was that she was trapped by some kind of magic (that was never fully explained) and obviously wanted to be free. Renard's response was really off-key and didn't correspond to her situation; like, okay, he felt regret over trying to kill Annie to escape. But that's because of his personal feelings for Annie. Hettie didn't even know these other kids, and would be justified in using lethal force in trying to escape imprisonment, that's a form of self-defense. Instead it's presented as merely motivated by sadism, which was never Renard's motive anyway. It was all just kind of baffling, self-contained irrelevance that didn't make any real point. ....Did you forget the part where the kid Hetty was tormenting didn't even know Hetty existed?! gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1223She never once tried to inform the kid of her existence and just, you know, ask for release. Had he refused, then maybe she could justify armed resistance. But the little boy was completely innocent. He Inherited control over Hetty because his sister died( also murdered by Hetty); he didnt ask for it and in fact couldn't because again HE DIDN'T KNOW SHE EXISTED. The boy didn't trap her, he wasn't keeping her there from any decision he made, he didn't even know she was a thing. Hetty admits to actively hiding from him. Hetty's very first method of getting freedom from the kid was torturing him and conspiring to murder him. At no point did she ever speak to him. She defaulted to murder. Yeah that was literally my point? She's presented as being in a situation where use of lethal force would be justified to escape (maybe I should add "if necessary" here for clarity,) but then that seems to be irrelevant because that's not her active motive, she seems to just act out of sadism and cruelty. It renders the whole "being imprisoned" thing irrelevant and makes us ask what the point of that plot detail was. It in fact makes us ask why Renard ever seems to have been friends with her; their situations were never really alike, even when he tried to kill Annie it was out of a desperate attempt to escape, not just being a psychopath which seems to have been Hetty's entire deal.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Mar 16, 2017 22:04:45 GMT
Put another way: The story is just conflicted in what it's about.
If Hetty is acting to be free then her actions can be justified, and this storyline has parallels to Renard's.
But then it doesn't seem like that's the actual motive, because she just wants to torture/kill this kid to "punish" him or whatever and it's revealed she hasn't even tried anything else.
But then the terms on which Renard confronts her are still implying that there's a parallel between the two, when to the extent that they're similar, Hetty can be justified, but the reasons why he's presumably killing her are exactly the extent to which they don't parallel. It's a confused mess.
Also "his sister left her doll to her brother in her diary" is just incredibly contrived as a plot element.
So basically this is lazy/bad writing that's trying to work backwards to a predetermined conclusion. The author wants Renard to basically confront/redeem himself in his own past actions, but his attempted killing of Annie is actually morally justifiable. So then he makes Hetty a psychopath that no one could feel sympathy for. But then the final confrontation acts like there's still any actual parallel. It's very inorganic.
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Post by antiyonder on Mar 16, 2017 22:06:42 GMT
I personally feel like we aren't given enough information on Kat and Smitty's feelings about being involved to make a judgement about whether Annie was being lousy to them or not. We don't have all the info yet and neither does Red. Good point. Also another reason besides forum policy to be civilized is because contrary to popular beliefs, insults don't strengthen an argument, but rather obscure the valid points. If your main interest is in having your valid points heard, then it's best to just leave it as said points rather than leaving in pointless distractions (insults, lies, exaggerations, etc).
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Post by crater on Mar 16, 2017 22:10:19 GMT
Well, whether Red's reaction is justified or not, I do think it's interesting to ask why Antimony didn't bring Jones in once she knew what was going on. Jones has been practically begging Antimony to learn to recognize when she needs help. Progression: gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1125It seemed like Annie brought the best help the court had to offer (that we know of) minus Jones and possibly Renard. It's just the threat of Jeane was unprecedented. Think Smitt, Parley, Robot and Ay would have had an easier time holding down Jones than they did Jeane. Page 1125 is especially relevant and after the last chapter... kind of sad. Seems like Annie's life of mortal peril is a forgone conclusion to Jones, Coyote, and the Court.
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Post by Deepbluediver on Mar 16, 2017 22:15:51 GMT
Well, whether Red's reaction is justified or not, I do think it's interesting to ask why Antimony didn't bring Jones in once she knew what was going on. Jones has been practically begging Antimony to learn to recognize when she needs help. Progression: gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1125It seemed like Annie brought the best help the court had to offer (that we know of) minus Jones and possibly Renard. It's just the threat of Jeane was unprecedented. Think Smitt, Parley, Robot and Ay would have had an easier time holding down Jones than they did Jeane. Page 1125 is especially relevant and after the last chapter... kind of sad. Seems like Annie's life of mortal peril is a forgone conclusion to Jones, Coyote, and the Court. Do you think Jones actually would have helped? Offered advice, maybe, but she seems to generally take a policy of non-interference, especially on larger matters. Also, she's etherically mute, for all intensive purposes. I'm curious if she would have been able to interact with Jeanne at all.
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Post by todd on Mar 16, 2017 23:56:32 GMT
I thought it was obvious from the story that they were using Jeanne's ghost to keep the forest-folk out. Could be, I guess. It seemed to me that there should be more to it than that though. If Jeanne hated the court for what they did, why did she fall so easily into their plans? Yes there was powerful magic involved, but she didn't really strike me as the kind of person who would sit around mourning her lover's death until she wasted way. The course of action I'd expect would be more like, Jeanne dives into the river, swims 20 miles downstream to where the cliffs are less rugged, claws her way to the top barehanded with her sword clinched in her teeth, sprints the entire distance back to the court, and proceeds to wreck bloody havoc upon anyone and everyone within arm's reach. Maybe Tom simply didn 't think of that. As I've mentioned before, he's writing this story on his own, without (as far as we know) any beta-readers to point out such things to him. It's possible that you've simply spotted a hole in the story that Tom didn't notice. I reread the flashbacks in "Skywatcher and the Angel" and Sir Young did state clearly that their goal was "to fortify the Annan Waters and protect the Court". He didn't say from what, but the obvious candidate would be the forest-folk. If it was anybody else, that person or group has yet to be mentioned in "Gunnerkrigg Court", while the Court's problems with the inhabitants of Gilltie Wood have been one of the major threads throughout.
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Post by Polyhymnia on Mar 17, 2017 0:15:27 GMT
Hi! I'm new here--I've been reading since about the point Tony showed up again. I'll add to the voices saying Red's voice felt out of character. I agree with her words, though there are some flaws in them, and Annie probably does need to hear them from a peer rather than Eglamore (I don't know how to easily find pages, but the one where he basically tells her be more careful not to get caught) or Jones (before she goes into the forest). But Red's expression came of as unnatural, especially after her big displays of emotion immediately before. The only thing that makes sense to me is the "I'm gonna please Ayilu and finally show her she's more important than Annie now that she's my equal (and I've realized what she means to me after this trauma)." Also, Red doesn't have any kind of chip on her shoulder against the Court. Annie does. Red probably sees it as utter stupidity not to ask the powerful people for help, whereas Annie questions their goodness. On the other hand, the first time the fairies saw Annie, they berated her for lack of empathy. At the same time, they had a very childlike thought process in that they seemed to think if they could understand Shadow, everyone could. It reminds me a bit of this scene, but WAY toned down and with minimal consequences. gunnerkrigg.com/?p=128I hope Kat or Reynardine will be a voice of reason. Not the "It wasn't your fault!" kind, but the "let's logically assess what is and isn't your fault, what's the net good, and how can we avoid this in the future" kind. I don't think the court is forcing her to say any of this, but it does look to me to be another setup for some kind of war with the court. Either they finally try to take down Annie, or Kat's cult of Robots comes into play, or there's all out war with the forest and the court wants Annie locked away out of action. I feel like Red and Ayilu would provide the personal connection to make such an arrest. Or maybe, Kat is the weapon they want harnessed against the forest (again, cult of robots). Red and Ayilu might take the "it's for her own good, we're protecting her against Annie who's a bad friend" route. The Red Guard uniform is chilling, as it implies to me that Foley house will be manipulated into fighting (whether it be the forest or Kat's robots or the robots acting as sentient things in the name of a religious crusade, etc). As for Jeanne, I definitely think she wasn't put down there just for Evilz. I assumed it was so the Court could do things on its own terms, as they didn't exactly have a Coyote equivalent.
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Post by todd on Mar 17, 2017 0:27:33 GMT
As for Jeanne, I definitely think she wasn't put down there just for Evilz. I assumed it was so the Court could do things on its own terms, as they didn't exactly have a Coyote equivalent. While I don't think anyone here has suggested that the Court murdered Jeanne and her lover "just for Evilz", it recently occurred to me that the big flashback on how and why the Founders did it (in "Sky Watcher and the Angel") focused on Diego and his jealous anger, with the rest of the Founders and their interest in setting up a defense for the Court being more in the background. (Not to mention that it's not only our source, but Annie and Kat's, as well.) Giving a strong feel of it being as much a case of "So you won't go out with me? Then take that!" as the Court's "end justifies the means/for the greater good" mentality. (In C. S. Lewis's terminology from his "Deep Space" trilogy, Diego's motive was "broken", where the rest of the Founders' motive was "bent".)
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Post by warrl on Mar 17, 2017 1:10:55 GMT
Like if I know someone is desperately trying to pay off their college debts or whatev and I bribe them to do something dangerous and illegal, how the hell is that not exploitative? How is that not inconsiderate and gross and manipulative and just bad, evil behavior? How about if you offer to pay them to do something legal but dangerous, fully inform them of the danger to the best of your ability, and provide safeguards for them to the best of your ability? Which is what Annie apparently did. And so does your local restaurant. After all, someone could burn themselves cooking the food. Here's the thing. The restaurant values a certain amount of money less than it values a certain amount of reasonably-competent labor. The employee values the time, energy, and risk less than the money. So who's exploiting whom? Annie valued the assistance more than the name. The fairies - including Red - valued the name more than the assistance and risk. So who's exploiting whom? Putting people at risk? Annie knew she needed someone who could neutralize Jeanne for a while. If Ayilu had not accepted the deal, Annie would not have gone down there. So Ayilu put Annie at risk. Please note: I am not saying Annie is blameless. I'm saying there's plenty of blame for everyone, if blame is to be assigned, and Ayilu gets a substantial share of it.
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Post by justcurious on Mar 17, 2017 1:35:51 GMT
People are forgetting that Annie wanted to talk to Jones about Jeanne but it was Parley who opposed it. She said not to talk to anyone untill she could confront Jeanne again. She did this because she was angry at being called a coward by Jeanne. Annie was wrong to accept this but it was in character. What as really unfair was the psychopomps claiming that Annie should not have involved others. She had to. The arrow had to be neutralized. Annie and Kat were both needed for this. The needed someone to run interference for them. It is hard to see what better plan they could have come up with. They knew they could not outfight her. Distraction was the best option.
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Post by Runningflame on Mar 17, 2017 4:39:44 GMT
People are forgetting that Annie wanted to talk to Jones about Jeanne but it was Parley who opposed it. She said not to talk to anyone untill she could confront Jeanne again. She did this because she was angry at being called a coward by Jeanne. Annie was wrong to accept this but it was in character. Interesting point, so I looked up the page in question. It actually runs like this: Smitty says "We should tell someone." Annie says "No, the Court wouldn't want it brought up again." Kat says "What about Ms. Jones?" And then Parley says "Don't tell anybody." So it's Smitty and Kat who had the idea to involve someone else, and Parley and Annie who said "Let's not." (Also, apropos to the current chapter, it's quite clear from the end of The Coward Heart and the beginning of The Realm of the Dead that all four of Annie, Kat, Parley, and Smitty are working together with the common goal of doing something about Jeanne. Annie didn't drag any of the others into it. Which is probably what they will tell her when she comes to them next chapter feeling guilty about having dragged them into it.)
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Noka
New Member
Posts: 22
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Post by Noka on Mar 17, 2017 4:44:55 GMT
I don't get why people think she's being completely negative. Red doesn't seem to consider the events that caused her to realize how much she cared about Ayilu trrribly negative. Like, she was super scared... but she doesn't look like she's angry about it. She doesn't seem too positive on it, either, but she isn't making a mad or sad face at Annie. She's probably going to thank her and tell her to never do something like that again. Red has always been concerned with the end result more than the process, so it doesn't make too much sense that she'd get mad at Annie over this. Any more than usual anyway. Abooooooout that... I was half right! That's what I get for actually enjoying Red's basic existence though.
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Post by atteSmythe on Mar 17, 2017 5:18:16 GMT
It seemed like Annie brought the best help the court had to offer (that we know of) minus Jones and possibly Renard. It's just the threat of Jeane was unprecedented. Think Smitt, Parley, Robot and Ay would have had an easier time holding down Jones than they did Jeane. Page 1125 is especially relevant and after the last chapter... kind of sad. Seems like Annie's life of mortal peril is a forgone conclusion to Jones, Coyote, and the Court. Do you think Jones actually would have helped? Offered advice, maybe, but she seems to generally take a policy of non-interference, especially on larger matters. Also, she's etherically mute, for all intensive purposes. I'm curious if she would have been able to interact with Jeanne at all. Yet, she managed to help in Spring Heeled...yeah, I think she could have brought the appropriate people. Even if The Court proper preferred the status quo, I doubt you could have kept eglamore out of this if you tried. Edit: she helped with shadow as well. I think she's proven that she's an ally, or at least capable of being one for the right cause
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clover
Junior Member
Posts: 79
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Post by clover on Mar 17, 2017 5:29:24 GMT
Well, whether Red's reaction is justified or not, I do think it's interesting to ask why Antimony didn't bring Jones in once she knew what was going on. Jones has been practically begging Antimony to learn to recognize when she needs help. The rather straightforward answer is this: 1. Antimony is a child. 2. More importantly, she is a child with an outsized capacity to influence events. 3. She is impetuous enough to act repeatedly in a way which we know involves ignorance or disregard of the danger of her actions. 4. As a result, she is unaware of the true consequences of her actions, and she is unaware of what machinations she has actually served with her actions. Note that none of this is a flaw of the storytelling, it is a feature! These elements of Antimony are brilliantly written, and her impetuousness is a delightfully integrated component of the story! The dramatic consequences of her actions are simply inevitable, and yet we have such a sympathetic direct portrayal of the individual committing these acts that many of the comic's followers will defend these actions wholesale. If Antimony were somewhat wiser, she would have involved Jones in a lot of her plans and asked her direct advice on many things and would not have deliberately concealed a great many things like Coyote's Tooth or the plan to free Jeanne from her, and Jones would likely have positively intervened in these situations and prevented a great amount of future chaos. But Annie not telling Jones is integral to the concerns and considerations of her character, and so too will the story go. Myself, I cannot wait to see what it is that Antimony's acts have wrought!
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clover
Junior Member
Posts: 79
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Post by clover on Mar 17, 2017 5:56:53 GMT
It should be noted that as much as people may consider Red's judgment to be harsh or her spontaneous rejection of Annie to be uncouth or abrupt, practically nothing about the way Red and Ayilu handled things is at all inconsistent with their established characters, or honestly that odd considering the myriad of mysterious and weird ways fairies are always acting.. The least one should take from this is that this probably serves as an object lesson in that you should probably NOT bribe fairies into service and psychologically traumatize them in a way which, if they really pick it apart later, seems kind of lame and crappy to them. See, despite how unpleasant, annoying and just plain nasty I found Red in the past, I always gave her the benefit of the doubt because she was a fairy and they seem to think/behave differently and have different morals than humans. But if Red understands human morals enough to judge Annie for violating them, then she herself is now qualified to be judged by them. And she's a nasty jerk. Seriously, every single appearance of hers since she became a human has ended with me wanting to see her get punched in the nose. And now I can say she finally, definitely, fully deserves it Ah, almost didn't see this! For all of Red's issues, I took a look back at this chapter after its conclusion and find that I ultimately cannot fault her reasoning, despite the abrasiveness of her typical behavior. Red did go into this naive and unaware, and it took almost losing her lifelong companion (and now having to deal with the psychological trauma of this fact) to awaken her to the fact that when analyzed, none of this was very good and annie strung them into it with a junky deal.
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Post by Zox Tomana on Mar 17, 2017 6:25:07 GMT
I see some back and forth on the Court and Annie's motives for not telling them...
This is the continuance of the group that put Jeanne down there and expunged her from history. They are authoritarian enough that Anthony's wanderings across the globe were allowed because he was also furthering their research on the Omega Device, whatever it is. This is a guy who is mourning the death of his wife, and at some point just wants to die. And when he considers not going back, they hold his daughter over him. No idea why it was so important to him for Annie to stay in the Court after her graduation... but still... They put some kind of tracking material into their students' food, have the fairies doing computational work for them (if someone in this comic is exploiting former fairies and Forest dwellers, it's the Court) in return for what could be (and is) considered a basic human right (that is, a name, an identity [geez, as if trading naming for this kind of danger wasn't bad enough] ), and are tampering with a fundamental part of the fabric of the Gunnerverse. This is not an organization you want finding out you're doing something which could represent a threat to them, even if the threat doesn't ever materialize.
Annie's personal reasons may or may not be mature, valid reasons, but not wanting the Court to find out that you're removing (or have removed) something which benefits them and keeps potential threats away is totally reasonable in my book. Regarding the discussion they had in which Annie said she didn't think the Court would want it brought back up... it's a little weird because the current Court may or may not have any idea Jeanne exists, so bringing up a rage ghost doesn't seem that bad of an idea. Connecting the Court WITH the rage ghost... I think it's more the Court wouldn't want to be connected to that particular event, and thus bringing it up in that way would be a bad idea.
That being said, there are forces within the court to which Annie could have turned. Namely, as others have pointed out, Jones. Jones allows the Court to research her and gives advice. In return, they give her a home to return to. That is the stated extent of her alliance with the Court, and she's been shown not to be privy to all the decisions of the inner circle. Jones is a good outsider and neutral party.
I wish we'd gotten a Jones-talking-to for Annie that would probably have been a bit more balanced while still strongly in favor of "You dun' f**ked up, child."
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Post by Runningflame on Mar 17, 2017 6:40:44 GMT
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Post by zbeeblebrox on Mar 17, 2017 7:22:51 GMT
Uh yeah, so? That doesn't mean she's their problem. OR that they had a clue how powerful she was, just that she had etheric abilities. The point isn't that she's their problem, the point is that if Red's argument is that Annie used the faeries' lack of knowledge about Jeanne to manipulate them into doing her bidding, then her argument is BS because both fairies saw up close and personal just how dangerous Jeanne is. Except they didn't because literally the next page over from the one you linked they watch Jeanne get scared away by a little girl on a flying machine No offense, but your argument for not liking this chapter has been weak sauce from day one.
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