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Post by spritznar on May 4, 2017 2:38:00 GMT
That is something to consider. Has there been any signs before hand in the comic that fairies don't seem to get that people will perform services for reasons beyond payment? i don't know how much evidence there is to support this, but i read the fairies and other forest natives as basically following animal kingdom ethos; go about your business of living, and if something's not bothering you and yours, leave it be (especially if it's dangerous). i don't think fairies would be self motivated to free jeanne because that's a whole lot of "not my problem" it seems to me a particularly human desire to poke around in things that don't concern us and muck with them just because we can (and think they should be different)... perhaps this is also why we have such strong ideas about right and wrong, because if we can and do try to shape the world to our desires, then the state of it becomes our responsibility (especially the parts previously meddled with by humans *cough*jeanne*cough*) that took a bit of a philosophical turn... i have a lot of feelings on humans and their relationship with nature |
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Post by tc on May 4, 2017 12:35:10 GMT
Well the story never implied such a thing to begin with, youwiththeface. Red did. As have a few posters, to be fair (almost to the point of trolling in a couple of cases)... Which shows a degree of amnesia IMO : - Kat and Annie resolved to help Jeanne because they were the first (in story terms) to discover what happened to her, and as such wanted to heal the trauma Jeanne's murder caused in the robotic (Kat) and etheric (Annie) aspects.
- Parley and Smitty were in because it took Parley's encounter with Jeanne to bring their love to fruition.
- In my opinion, Annie offered Ayilu a name in exchange for her help because it would only be fair to offer something as valuable to a Fae as that which motivated the others.
But I'm more interested in that change to the character's psychology. Before Jeanne, I would have said that she has never shown any deep feelings at all. Yup - Fae are (in human terms) practically immortal. The whole concept of permanent loss would never have entered Red's way of thinking up until that moment. Plus, while I can definitely agree with the notion that Annie does tend to be reckless... Not recently - she went down there in the certainty that in the worst-case scenario she would have to surrender to the psychopomps *and did so without hesitation knowing full well what the consequences were*. She's seen what the outcome of a "no-win" scenario did to her father, and stood as surety between life and death regardless. |
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Post by Per on May 4, 2017 13:02:21 GMT
Has there been any signs before hand in the comic that fairies don't seem to get that people will perform services for reasons beyond payment? If you count City Face as canonical there are indications to the contrary: Polo was eager to help City Face because of a personal conviction that this helped not destroy the world. Ogee and Torus also instructed birds for no obvious recompense but seemingly because of their own behavioural quirks more than any specific goals. |
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Post by spritznar on May 4, 2017 14:15:40 GMT
Has there been any signs before hand in the comic that fairies don't seem to get that people will perform services for reasons beyond payment? If you count City Face as canonical there are indications to the contrary: Polo was eager to help City Face because of a personal conviction that this helped not destroy the world. Ogee and Torus also instructed birds for no obvious recompense but seemingly because of their own behavioural quirks more than any specific goals. i don't think that the fairies are unwilling to help people, i think it's the helping others when it may be detrimental to yourself that they don't really get. the fairies in city face didn't lose much except time and energy and may have also gained entertainment value from their... task |
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Post by antiyonder on May 4, 2017 14:19:02 GMT
If you count City Face as canonical there are indications to the contrary: Polo was eager to help City Face because of a personal conviction that this helped not destroy the world. Ogee and Torus also instructed birds for no obvious recompense but seemingly because of their own behavioural quirks more than any specific goals. i don't think that the fairies are unwilling to help people, i think it's the helping others when it may be detrimental to yourself that they don't really get. the fairies in city face didn't lose much except time and energy and may have also gained entertainment value from their... task So to put it simply, they don't believe in taking part in a risky mission out of friendship/loyalty alone, correct? |
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Post by spritznar on May 4, 2017 14:24:57 GMT
i don't think that the fairies are unwilling to help people, i think it's the helping others when it may be detrimental to yourself that they don't really get. the fairies in city face didn't lose much except time and energy and may have also gained entertainment value from their... task So to put it simply, they don't believe in taking part in a risky mission out of friendship/loyalty alone, correct? that depends on how much the friend means to them. red went down there for ayilu, but she's really more of an acquaintance to annie and the gang than an actual friend. but, while it can be argued that smitty and kat were there out of friendship and loyalty, annie and parley, the drivers of the plan, were not |
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Post by GriffTheJack on May 4, 2017 17:10:41 GMT
I would still argue that Kat's connection to Diego and the robots gave her all the impetus she needed to help Jeanne, hence my "three heroes" post on heroic responsibility. A helpful poster pointed out that Smitty was definitely acting as a true companion to Parley in this case, so it's down to the three of them.
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Post by mordekai on May 4, 2017 19:32:57 GMT
Careful now, Kat. Your next words are going straight to the RoboBible. We don't want a Robo-Crusade against the humanized fairies, do we?
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Post by spritznar on May 4, 2017 19:49:01 GMT
i was in a rush and didn't really complete that last thought, sorry. i definitely think kat had her own reasons to want to rectify the jeanne situation, but she did seem a little hesitant (possibly only because etheric stuff isn't her forte) and annie pushed her through it. but even if kat and smitty were there mainly out of friendship, they still understood annie's and parley's reasons for doing it.
i think my main reason for thinking red doesn't understand the urge to free jeanne is because red said the gang was all helping so annie could "get something [she] wanted", but what exactly did annie get? it wasn't a 'want' so much as a duty she/they felt compelled to complete. this is the part that's foreign to red, helping a complete stranger (jeanne) at great risk and/or cost to yourself without really getting anything in return...
... what do people get out of that? (not really rhetorical, altruism is weird and mysterious) i assume there must be psychological gains, if nothing else... a sense of achievement? a better self image? personal pride? social plaudits? (although not that last one in this case)
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Post by spritznar on May 4, 2017 19:50:47 GMT
Careful now, Kat. Your next words are going straight to the RoboBible. We don't want a Robo-Crusade against the humanized fairies, do we? honestly, a god say's something once and no one ever lets them forget it... |
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Post by zbeeblebrox on May 5, 2017 0:37:18 GMT
Well the story never implied such a thing to begin with, youwiththeface. Red did. Red is not the story, she's just a character. |
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Post by youwiththeface on May 5, 2017 0:58:47 GMT
Red is not the story, she's just a character. For one, I never even said the story implied those things in the first place. I was talking about forum posters and Red. For another, I think it's splitting hairs to say that, as many authors use their characters as mouthpieces for what they want their story to say. It's an unsubtle and arguably bad conceit, but that doesn't make it uncommon. |
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Post by phantaskippy on May 5, 2017 4:06:17 GMT
Red was there because she was childish and didn't realize what real danger meant. For a character who begged Annie to kill her to suddenly face death made her aware of much more than how she felt about Ayilu.
for the first time she is really finding out what she has become, what it means to be Human. As a spirit there is no seriousness, there are insults instead of genuinely facing how we feel about each other. There are really simple power levels in relationships instead of complex webs of value. There is death is a lark and lets go be human, and then suddenly facing something real and fateful. Something genuinely shaking.
Annie did not realize what she was doing to Red. She didn't realize either that Red hadn't taken these steps or failed to recognize that Red could.
Red grew up really fast out there. But it wasn't because Annie took her into danger, it was because until she faced her friends mortality she hadn't let herself face her own feelings.
Annie is facing her first crisis of leadership, and red is facing her first crisis of realizing just how vulnerable her feelings make her.
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Post by zbeeblebrox on May 5, 2017 9:33:37 GMT
Red is not the story, she's just a character. For one, I never even said the story implied those things in the first place. I was talking about forum posters and Red. For another, I think it's splitting hairs to say that, as many authors use their characters as mouthpieces for what they want their story to say. It's an unsubtle and arguably bad conceit, but that doesn't make it uncommon. And it's a conceit that doesn't really apply to Gunnerkrigg, does it |
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Post by youwiththeface on May 5, 2017 13:20:58 GMT
For one, I never even said the story implied those things in the first place. I was talking about forum posters and Red. For another, I think it's splitting hairs to say that, as many authors use their characters as mouthpieces for what they want their story to say. It's an unsubtle and arguably bad conceit, but that doesn't make it uncommon. And it's a conceit that doesn't really apply to Gunnerkrigg, does it Occasionally. |
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Post by mordekai on May 5, 2017 22:40:13 GMT
Careful now, Kat. Your next words are going straight to the RoboBible. We don't want a Robo-Crusade against the humanized fairies, do we? honestly, a god say's something once and no one ever lets them forget it... |
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Post by zbeeblebrox on May 6, 2017 4:33:06 GMT
And it's a conceit that doesn't really apply to Gunnerkrigg, does it Occasionally. I've never once seen Tom channel himself through a character |
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Post by puntosmx on May 8, 2017 3:14:35 GMT
Plus, while I can definitely agree with the notion that Annie does tend to be reckless... Not recently - she went down there in the certainty that in the worst-case scenario she would have to surrender to the psychopomps *and did so without hesitation knowing full well what the consequences were*. She's seen what the outcome of a "no-win" scenario did to her father, and stood as surety between life and death regardless. I think Annie was aware that the worst case scenario was a TPK. I mean, a wipe..... I mean, everybody dies. And because none of the crew could deal peacefully with Jeanne is that she bargained with Blue, creating a plan where the first contention layers would be the ones that involved the least risk, and more daring (and desperate) meassures would be taken when the previous were defeated by the ghost. Ironically, the only process she didn't consider a plan-B for was her own intervention. Kat simply saved the day by designing that green tuning fork. ... what do people get out of that? (not really rhetorical, altruism is weird and mysterious) i assume there must be psychological gains, if nothing else... a sense of achievement? a better self image? personal pride? social plaudits? (although not that last one in this case) There are people that think that altruism doesn't exist. By helping someone, you may be gainig a debt to be repaid later, gaining social acceptance or moral superiority, following an instilled behavior like a chivalry code.... The positive rewards (moral superiority) release neurotransmitters that makes us feel good. The negative rewards (following a code or duty) appease the anguish caused by not following the code. Now, there's another reason to make favors, treat well and even sacrifice your life for aonther, and is tied to the survival of your genes. It's tied to gene similarity than actual blood ties, so you are more likely to sacrifice yourself for a stranger that cassually happens to have a similar gene pool to you than your sibling (average 25% simmilarity). Though, the case of such high genetic simmilarity is quite unlikely. In this case, your sacrifice may allow your gene pool to survive. Rough deal, if you ask me. |
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Post by youwiththeface on May 8, 2017 7:07:50 GMT
I've never once seen Tom channel himself through a character Not channel himself, channel messages and morals. |
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Post by warrl on May 9, 2017 1:25:01 GMT
As a writer, I could make a case that every significant character should channel messages and morals.
But not the same ones - characters should differ from each other in many ways, including that.
And it should generally be subtle.
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Post by zbeeblebrox on May 9, 2017 3:38:47 GMT
I've never once seen Tom channel himself through a character Not channel himself, channel messages and morals. Completely different. Every character has a moral framework they see the world from. But Tom has never preached to us. Unless you'd like to show evidence proving otherwise? |
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Post by Darkfeather21 on May 21, 2017 6:14:53 GMT
If I had to make a guess, I'd say Red was there as emotional support for Aliyu. I sure hope they're not 3 Laws compliant. The 3 Laws are flawed as shit. Most of Asimov's robot stories were about flaws in the 3 Laws. So if the 3 Laws weren't flawed, we wouldn't have those stories. And without those stories, we wouldn't have the 3 Laws. Oh yeah, I know (Huuuuge Asimov fan). Which is exactly why I hate when people hold the 3 Laws up as if they're a perfect system that will solve the potential problem of AI uprisings. |
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Post by puntosmx on May 21, 2017 21:20:03 GMT
Most of Asimov's robot stories were about flaws in the 3 Laws. So if the 3 Laws weren't flawed, we wouldn't have those stories. And without those stories, we wouldn't have the 3 Laws. Oh yeah, I know (Huuuuge Asimov fan). Which is exactly why I hate when people hold the 3 Laws up as if they're a perfect system that will solve the potential problem of AI uprisings. Although they would indeed solve the killer robot dilemma. Previous stories about robots were all about how robots would certainly kill us because nothing prevented them from doing so. Now, we know that electronics eventually break down due to use and that programming develops bugs from unforeseen circumstances and simple long-term use? Our own electronics already suffer from it. What can we expect from a positronic brain after a millenium of endless work? |
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Post by Darkfeather21 on May 22, 2017 8:07:29 GMT
Oh yeah, I know (Huuuuge Asimov fan). Which is exactly why I hate when people hold the 3 Laws up as if they're a perfect system that will solve the potential problem of AI uprisings. Although they would indeed solve the killer robot dilemma. Previous stories about robots were all about how robots would certainly kill us because nothing prevented them from doing so. Now, we know that electronics eventually break down due to use and that programming develops bugs from unforeseen circumstances and simple long-term use? Our own electronics already suffer from it. What can we expect from a positronic brain after a millenium of endless work? Well, theoretically part of an AI's mental capacity would be dedicated to self-repair, much like our own to some degree. However, much like our own brain to some degree, the physical component of an AI's brain could be subject to flaws and damage that would result in unforseen problems. Really, a true AI with a mental break theoretically won't be any more dangerous than a human with a mental break: Basically as dangerous as the physical form allows them to be. |
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Post by warrl on May 24, 2017 1:47:27 GMT
Software does not develop bugs from long-term use. It can go 100 years without an update, and handle any given combination of data (valid or otherwise) exactly as well as it would have when it was last updated.
But...
Long-term use creates more opportunities to encounter bugs that were actually there all along, and to face circumstances (or combinations thereof) that the designers didn't anticipate. The latter, in fact, becomes progressively more likely as time goes on, because the world changes around the software.
(Here's one tip I learned for making robust software: Try to redefine the problem in a way that eliminates special cases. For example, if the client says "each of these will have one of those, except this special case where there'll be two" you redefine as "each of these will have one or more of those".)
(It's standard database-design practice that there is no such thing as "two". The quantities things come in are: one, zero or one, zero or more, and one or more. That's it, there are no other possibilities.)
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