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Post by Per on Sept 12, 2017 13:24:04 GMT
Sudden Wildspec: what if Tony is "in deeper than most" with the Court because his parents are like really higher-ups in the Court??? I think he's just really good at deep-frying. He fries deeper than most |
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Post by Zox Tomana on Sept 12, 2017 14:14:05 GMT
Sudden Wildspec: what if Tony is "in deeper than most" with the Court because his parents are like really higher-ups in the Court??? I think he's just really good at deep-frying. He fries deeper than most The Omega Device is just a highly advanced pressure fryer. |
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Post by pyradonis on Sept 15, 2017 12:43:19 GMT
Interesting thought, however I doubt they would threaten to expel their own granddaughter to rein in their son. Tony is a decent, smart and funny guy when he is alone with one person (in most cases). My theory: Robots do not count against the one-person-limit.  |
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Post by tc on Sept 16, 2017 7:51:31 GMT
...getting lengthy and veering off-thread... I'd say that's a bit of a tricky distinction to make regarding that particular subject (the "Tony debate") and this chapter, which to a large extent seems to be about providing significant retrospective character development for both Surma and Tony. Not that I'd presume to second-guess Tom, I can't help but notice that almost every time Tony has appeared in the storyline from "Annie And The Fire" onwards, the intent seems to lean towards humanising him and at least giving more background to his circumstances. It goes without saying that his behaviour immediately after his reappearance was written to intentionally shock the reader, but I do wonder if the way it was done might have caused a stronger and longer-lasting dislike for Tony amongst some readers than was originally intended. Not that there's anything particularly admirable about his quest to pull Surma back from the ether. All he says is that he went to find the psychopomps - it's neither stated nor implied that "pull[ing] Surma back" was his intended goal. It's a little like the scene in "Aladdin" where our hero tricks the Genie into breaking them out of the cave without using up a wish, except in this case it's the "immortals" doing the tricking. As soon as he finds them, the 'pomps tell Tony they can help him "see" Surma again, and in an out of character moment he takes them up on it without asking if there's a catch. The implication seems to be that the 'pomps made the offer before Tony could ask them anything. The relevance to this chapter (the way I see it at least) is in the assumption from some readers that Tony must have some kind of selfish/egotistical streak driving his actions, and that this entire chapter seems to demonstrate the opposite. Every time the opportunity to put another's best interests ahead of his own has presented itself, he has taken it. [EDIT : To be clear, I'm not putting Tony up for "Dad Of The Year" - in particular the way he chastised Annie over her make-up was nigh-on inexcusable - it's just that I can't help but get the sense that the character is being judged harshly on the basis of his actions in those first couple of chapters in which he appears... ] |
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Post by saardvark on Sept 16, 2017 12:23:26 GMT
...getting lengthy and veering off-thread... I'd say that's a bit of a tricky distinction to make regarding that particular subject (the "Tony debate") and this chapter, which to a large extent seems to be about providing significant retrospective character development for both Surma and Tony. Not that I'd presume to second-guess Tom, I can't help but notice that almost every time Tony has appeared in the storyline from "Annie And The Fire" onwards, the intent seems to lean towards humanising him and at least giving more background to his circumstances. It goes without saying that his behaviour immediately after his reappearance was written to intentionally shock the reader, but I do wonder if the way it was done might have caused a stronger and longer-lasting dislike for Tony amongst some readers than was originally intended. Not that there's anything particularly admirable about his quest to pull Surma back from the ether. All he says is that he went to find the psychopomps - it's neither stated nor implied that "pull[ing] Surma back" was his intended goal. It's a little like the scene in "Aladdin" where our hero tricks the Genie into breaking them out of the cave without using up a wish, except in this case it's the "immortals" doing the tricking. As soon as he finds them, the 'pomps tell Tony they can help him "see" Surma again, and in an out of character moment he takes them up on it without asking if there's a catch. The implication seems to be that the 'pomps made the offer before Tony could ask them anything. The relevance to this chapter (the way I see it at least) is in the assumption from some readers that Tony must have some kind of selfish/egotistical streak driving his actions, and that this entire chapter seems to demonstrate the opposite. Every time the opportunity to put another's best interests ahead of his own has presented itself, he has taken it. [EDIT : To be clear, I'm not putting Tony up for "Dad Of The Year" - in particular the way he chastised Annie over her make-up was nigh-on inexcusable - it's just that I can't help but get the sense that the character is being judged harshly on the basis of his actions in those first couple of chapters in which he appears... ] I was taking a narrow view of the thread subject - specifically, the current page. Related topics are fine of course, but when they get very long and take up a significant fraction of the total word-space... it might be time to look for a more relevant thread and continue discussion there. Otherwise, any appearance of Tony, say, threatens to hijack the current page thread into a "Tony debate" thread, which kinda ruins the whole point of their being separate page threads in the first place. It is a bit of a judgement call tho, I agree. Its a tribute to Tom's writing that he can change our attitudes about characters so radically and yet plausibly... I take it as an object lesson in "don't be too quick to judge before you have all the facts". The more we learn about Tony, the more we see him as a very complex character, a mix of deep flaws and surprising strengths, instead of the near purely awful person he seemed when he first returned. I don't think its clear that the creatures Tony met on his pomp-quest really were psychopomps. The seemed (to me at least) to be more like some sort of malicious demonic sorts. They don't match any known pomps, and were engaging in rather un-pomp-ish behavior with Tony. Pomps are all about taking souls into the ether (not bringing them back out), "keeping the world turning", and very rule driven. The beings Tony met are more malicious tricksters....chaotic evil vs. lawful neutral (real pomps), maybe. |
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Post by warrl on Sept 16, 2017 19:48:56 GMT
[EDIT : To be clear, I'm not putting Tony up for "Dad Of The Year" - in particular the way he chastised Annie over her make-up was nigh-on inexcusable - it's just that I can't help but get the sense that the character is being judged harshly on the basis of his actions in those first couple of chapters in which he appears... ] Actually, a substantial share of the harsh judgment is based on the first quite-a-few chapters in which he did not appear (aside from a brief flashback or two). |
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Post by fish on Sept 17, 2017 9:26:25 GMT
[EDIT : To be clear, I'm not putting Tony up for "Dad Of The Year" - in particular the way he chastised Annie over her make-up was nigh-on inexcusable - it's just that I can't help but get the sense that the character is being judged harshly on the basis of his actions in those first couple of chapters in which he appears... ] Actually, a substantial share of the harsh judgment is based on the first quite-a-few chapters in which he did not appear (aside from a brief flashback or two). That one cold stare at Surma's death bed probably didn't help either, haha. |
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Post by tc on Sept 18, 2017 16:22:33 GMT
Actually, a substantial share of the harsh judgment is based on the first quite-a-few chapters in which he did not appear (aside from a brief flashback or two). That one cold stare at Surma's death bed probably didn't help either, haha. Sure, but in both those cases we're talking about subjective interpretation of what we were shown (and, crucially, what we haven't yet been shown). In the "Wild Speculation" thread I said that I wondered whether the decision to have Tony embark on his research expedition while Annie attended the school could have been a mutual one between Surma and Tony (and possibly even Surma's idea initially). I'll leave my theory as to why that might have been in that thread (where it belongs) though. Equally, with the "stare", all I can see is a man who has been crying - heavily - and appears to be emotionally overwhelmed (and doing so openly, as we now know, is out of character for Tony). Surma's reassuring words ("He still loves you very much") are very much open to interpretation; it could just be because he left the room without speaking to Annie. After all, Tom has outright stated that Tony and Annie both share a tendency to bottle up their emotions - particularly when they feel responsible for something which has gone wrong, they often become stoic to a point which isn't healthy for their own well-being. |
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