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Post by darlos9d on Nov 8, 2017 18:14:20 GMT
Regarding this whole side of this thread where people are basically arguing about arguing: in these circumstances I'm always reminded by the author of Homestuck, and how sometimes he'd go on a diatribe about "serial vs archival" reading. As he always said, I think we get worked up over plot details more when we have to wait a week between pages. This gives us a lot of time to dwell on and speculate upon things that, if this were a complete graphic novel that we were just reading straight through, we wouldn't dwell on. Like two pages ago it sounded like some people were up in arms about Anja's commentary as if it were some example of poor writing. Possibly myself included. The thing we didn't realize is that this whole freaking chapter was working towards Annie finally asking the question of "okay so why does he only seem to not like ME?" The question we were repeatedly saying needed to be asked, as if we were assuming it might never get asked, because we were so fatigued by having to wait around for it. If we had gotten the whole chapter at once and read it all and THEN talked about it, our conversation would have been a lot different.
My point is when you're reading something like this in a serial manner you kinda have to step back, be patient, and give the current chapter or arc time to conclude and reveal its "point" before you go claiming what is and isn't wrong with it. Some of us have failed to do that with this chapter, and we're failing to do that with the Annie/Tony arc in general. While I feel a bit fatigued by it myself even, I'll wait until their relationship gets resolved before I sit down and say with surety whether it was a good arc or not. I suggest we all try to do the same.
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Post by youwiththeface on Nov 8, 2017 18:18:03 GMT
How about 'despite what the characters claim, we've now gotten two whole chapters devoted to Tony to try to play off his treatment of Antimony like it's only a part of his personality and thereby not something she should be that troubled by'? The characters may say something like that, but the narrative seems to be saying something else. I wouldn't say these two chapters have been about "playing off" Tony's treatment of Annie. So far, the only character to make excuses and downplay Tony's treatment of Annie... is Annie. The chapter linked and this chapter are experiences and stories for Annie to get to see and hear about a part of her father that she doesn't see. Ultimately, all this Tony backstory is for the benefit of Annie's character, not Tony. Actually, that's not true. We've had at least two Annie blow-ups about her father. One with Ysengrin and the one with Kat and her mom after she found Tony and Kat working together. Both instances were brushed aside, albeit for very different reasons and in two very different ways. With Anja, she's missed the point. The point was not whether or not Tony and Surma fell in love, the point was that things are so bad between Tony and Annie (and so bad between Tony and a hell of a lot of other people) that Annie actually considered brainwashing as a thing he could've done to her mom. The chapter has now ended with this unaddressed. What is part of Tony's personality is his stone-faced-ness. What is also part of his personality is being open and emotive around singular persons. These chapters (and Donny's story about Brinnie) illustrate that, and thus make Annie aware that, no... her dad isn't being manipulative, he didn't brainwash anyone, there really is a legitimately likable person behind her father's mask, and that for some reason she isn't privy to this part of his personality. I would argue this should have come to a head way back in the linked chapter.... but that was when Annie was deep into her cut-off-emotions arc. What I would ask though, is how important this is? Especially since it shoves aside a lot of development and time Annie could be getting, when she's the one who has been hurt by all this. And really, we haven't learned all that much that we didn't already know. We learned what Tony was like with other people from Annie and The Fire. This past chapter was just a super long, super boring rehash of that. There's a lot we know. A there's a lot we know that Annie doesn't. Not really. Most of the comic is told through Annie's perspective, so we know very little she doesn't. I think the only really big things are Coyote and Ysengrin's true relationship and what the robots are up to. Those two things are important, but they don't amount to us knowing a LOT of things that Annie doesn't. Why? If you're thinking this kind of thing upsets me, or I make my arguments in anger then I have to correct you. I love talking about these kind of things. I love dissecting a story, looking for hidden meanings or foreshadowing or what have you. And some times when you dissect something, you come across some bad things, like the evidence of cancer or tumors, or even just something like a cold. That kind of thing doesn't dispirit me; it's part of the process, it helps me understand how a story is written and the pitfalls that story writers can fall into. Studying things like that helps me learn how said pitfalls can be avoided, and to appreciate authors who know how to avoid them all the more. I live for this shit. All of it, the good and bad. I honestly wasn't really addressing you as much, nor have I been reading your comments, so I really have no assumptions about you for you to correct. I love dissecting a story too, but I don't always engaging in that particular way with this particular story on this particular forum. Anyway, like I've said, absolutely continue engaging in the way you have been if it enhances your experience. I was simply expressing an approach that has helped me enjoy the comic more, should anyone else want to consider it. I can only speak for myself, so that's what I'm going to do. *shrug* I can't very well talk about why everybody else decides to come here and talk about what they do when there's no way for me to know. I owe them more credit than that. |
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Post by rhiu on Nov 8, 2017 18:21:41 GMT
Well, I dunno how the term is derogatory, but I hate the overuse in media far more than I hate the trope itself. If it's used to invalidate a trope that is already not valid, then good. I'm tired of seeing stories where a woman has suffered and died, and the story's focus is on the man left behind and the brooding angst he feels while he sits in his chair alone in a dark room with a single tear running down his face. Serious question: how would you like Tony to handle it? Given his personality, his lack of social aptitude, and the fact that he seems to be on poor terms with the Court, what would you find an in-character acceptable, flawed way for him to deal with that that also doesn't make you hate the presentation? Is there a way? As for the term being derogatory... you explained why with the rest of your post. This is how multifaceted relationships and situations work, though. If he didn't feel at least a bit of shame about treating her like that, he'd be very far into villain territory and I would happily characterize him as a sociopath. You're reducing Annie's pain down to nothing but something related to Tony, when the actual comic has focused on her pain (and her horrible coping mechanisms of cutting her anger out of her) for several chapters since this has started, as you acknowledge a few sentences after this. You're dissatisfied with Tony feeling any kind of remorse for his actions towards her? People who do bad things often have reasons that are empathizeable, even if their actions aren't. Understanding does not equal excuse, and I don't remember seeing anywhere in the comic where Tony's actions were excused, merely where we were given opportunities to understand why. Tony is an important character to Annie's backstory, of course he's going to get fleshed out. I do take issue with your statement that Annie's feelings haven't been openly discussed much. The "openly" seems like a qualifier that just technically proves your point, but we've gotten just as much (if not more) of Annie's thoughts on the matter with her actions. There was an entire chapter where we literally got to see the physical manifestation of her feelings be super pissed off, all the time. This past chapter was Tony and Surma getting together, and was just as important for Surma's development and didn't focus on ~man pain~ in the slightest. If you're talking about the drinking with Donny chapter, that's the only real one I can think of, and I don't think that's excessive, again, for an incredibly important person in Annie's (the protagonists') life. We've gotten chapters on the thoughts of other non-protagonist characters. We also don't get to see Tony's thoughts unless he articulates them, while Annie's can be shown in all of her actions because 1. we know her better, and 2. we follow her around a lot more (and she's probably a lot more interesting than Tony to follow around). Again, understanding isn't excusing, and very few people think they're actually being horrible people. I'm getting the impression that you're actually dissatisfied that Tony isn't being made a 2D villain and unilaterally denounced by his former friends and family for being a jerk to Annie when he came back. You might be oversensitive to this trope, because I believe that you're categorizing merely humanizing characters and giving forgiveness to others as 'man pain excuses'. Characters are allowed to deal with their tragedies in destructive ways, that's what makes them flawed and better reflections of ourselves. PS: I don't intend to be a Tony apologist, despite all my posts being about him. I dislike how he's acting as much as anyone and think it's inexcusable... but understanding him isn't an 'overused trope'. |
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Post by lunaleaf on Nov 8, 2017 18:31:27 GMT
Actually, that's not true. We've had at least two Annie blow-ups about her father. One with Ysengrin and the one with Kat and her mom after she found Tony and Kat working together. Both instances were brushed aside, albeit for very different reasons and in two very different ways. With Anja, she's missed the point. The point was not whether or not Tony and Surma fell in love, the point was that things are so bad between Tony and Annie (and so bad between Tony and a hell of a lot of other people) that Annie actually considered brainwashing as a thing he could've done to her mom. The chapter has now ended with this unaddressed. Well she certainly missed the point at first, but I doubt she's missed it now. It might not have occurred to her that Tony treats his daughter differently in private than he would someone else. She's not there to see it, which is one reason that neglected or abused children in real life can go so long without someone else noticing. Abusers are often someone close to the child, but we don't always see the signs because we often have bond of trust with the people responsible. The forum in general has beaten the abusive/not abusive topic to death, but in this case I think the comparison in behaviour is relevant. Are the signs totally obvious? I'd say yes, but Anja would be aware of very different things in comparison to us as readers. There's also the point that not all teachers are particularly good at managing this kind of emotional turmoil. She jumped to reassure Annie without investigating the root issue, which is an extremely common reaction to emotional outbursts. It's not resolving the issue but it feels like the right thing to do because it addresses the problem for them, and thus removes the immediate stress they feel about the situation. |
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Post by fish on Nov 8, 2017 18:59:54 GMT
For those who have been enjoying the comic less as of late (so, mainly referring to faiiry), have you considered disengaging some from the forum? I mean, don't get me wrong, you should have every right to continue being part of the forum if you want. And the forum can add elements to the story that make it more interesting, so if you feel it enhances your experience, then by all means, carry on. I personally feel, however, that sometimes engaging deeply with the forum detracts from my enjoyment of the comic, and so I like to take breaks, only skimming the threads for periods of times and only posting occasionally. It helps me enjoy the comic more for what it is, and also, I think, helps lessen the pressure on any given page. If each page is something that has to be discussed (sometimes to death), there becomes a lot of importance given to each update, when sometimes it might be better to let an update just exist as a page in a story. I still love GKC, though it has changed over the years. But I've been following it since it was in chapter 18 (holy crud), so I'm pretty invested by this point. And while I love both fun aspects of fandom and analyzing texts, it's often more important for me to continue my enjoyment of this text that was in many ways my intro to webcomics. For other people enjoyment might look different, or it might be differently prioritized, but if you're not experiencing this comic in a way you find beneficial, that might be something to consider. I'm doing the same thing, taking a break from the forums from time to time, only skimming occasionally. Whenever I feel the discussion is going in a direction I don't like to follow. Saves me some time and also nerves.  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2017 20:16:15 GMT
Yes, take 27502 random mini stories (which is the number of tropes there are currently on that site) and you will probably find some kind resemblance to everything that has happened throughout my life (I guess it's underwhelming?), let alone a comic with less than 2000 pages. What I mean is I don't have a great opinion of that webpage. Sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to say. Classifying plot devices is bad? Plot devices are bad? Plot devices are good but classifying them implies that they're bad? Could you please clarify? There's no particular difficulty with grasping the argument against TV Tropes, which is always the same, but I'll start with an example. There is, for instance, some Russian movie that opens with a close-up shot of littoral hydrophytes, whose tendrils are calmly retraced one hour later by the frills of a woman's clothes; think of it as a match cut whose reward is deferred. Apart from establishing the meaning of "water" within the movie further (which is a question the characters themselves are concerned with, but only for a limited time before they get distracted first by self-confrontation taking its place, then by their finding a human purpose to the "water" they encounter - an apt analogy of bad readers; the upcoming device is used once again), thereby you would feel the resurgence of memory just as the man in the story when first looking at said woman, but slightly earlier (because he is still asleep when she first appears) and for a different reason ("she" is born, without him realizing at first, from his memory -- but looks different from the woman in the photograph, which you will, once again, immediately notice while the characters cannot). More abstractly, you're simultaneously influenced towards a similar perspective and made aware of how they differ. I like this device very much. As far as I can see, nothing of this is mentioned on the corresponding TV Tropes page at all. (Nor is any painting by Bruegel the Elder. Or snow.) But to make up for not minding this, the TV Tropes page helpfully points out that you can see her nipples when she tries to kill herself by drinking liquid oxygen (and stows this away under "Fanservice", i.e. interchangeable titillation at odds with purposeful writing -- quite an assumption to make about the author's intent), which fails because she cannot die; and this supposedly induces "Mood Whiplash" in the viewer because boobs are always a bonus, but she's also to be pitied by the recent drastic event: the director should have made up his mind. (Alternatively, one could gripe about how hatefully exploitative the movie is. This isn't really any closer to critical thought, but it looks that way to some.) -- Regarding what I wrote above, TV Tropes practice would probably be to note the Quaint Establishing Shot and the Use Of Warm Colours and her Female Enigmatic Smile instead (on that note, TV Tropes often seems to require "ironic distance" to function, in which first everything is interpreted as a cliché because some lesser work invoked a similar emotional response; then the reader proceeds to mock the perceived cliché), and compare that latter to the image of Cleopatra that Pushkin's Neapolitan improviser conjures up, and a thousand other tricks (of which using arbitrary numbers to suggest the fruitlessness of counting is one...), and come to the conclusion that it is all horribly clichéd. If you want that in the abstract, it seems that TV Tropes usually fails to explore how signs interlink to establish new meanings within a story, and replace them with weak or laughable general ideas (see below) in the interest of "analyzing" the text that much more easily, such that you might as well consult a dream almanac and drill yourself to grow deaf to differences. That wouldn't make a good entomologist. Second point: dilettantism at odds with the mission statement. Whether the incorrect use of terms established among grammarians for 2,000 years before, such as "trope" (in the same vein that one will distrust "New Age" guides with their vitalistic palaver of "energy" etc.), or the death-touch of fast-talking pop psychologists (think Myers-Briggs personality tests and such) in the rampant misunderstanding of how to write with purpose, e.g. "Chekhov's gun" (toss-up of the author's name being misspelled) in the same manner that you'd fail to impress first-semester students of physics if you were to talk to them of how totally interesting Schroedinger's cat is, while knowing nothing of linear algebra. Besides, following the Wikipedia model with even fewer barriers to, uh, "contribution" ensures that your "encyclopedia" gets swamped by people noting superficial similarities, since that is easy enough and can be done on the flyby in an afternoon. This also leads to people believing, in a rather comical spin on the Great Dispute, that a master's art aims to push the buttons closest to your liver with industrial precision and economy, by disguising the simple cause-and-effect of the abstrahized tropes with the uncomfortable, arbitrary, but sadly necessary, third-hand draperies of matter -- in so far as their flight cannot be cancelled. Perhaps Dionysos needs to head for the underworld again. Finally, many "tropes" seem coloured with moral judgments (which don't translate well to their supposed general applicability) and emotional immaturity, sometimes even mixing these two ("Magnificent Bastard"), yet they wear the pretense of intuitively-reached objectivity. This is rather dangerous. Others are so generalized as to be wholly pointless to note; see below for examples (I think Big Fancy House is my favourite). The effect is somewhat akin to reading horoscopes. Moreover, actual and much-less-obvious throwbacks within a work are commonly ignored (and here's an example of what I mean -- discovered iirc by shaihulud ; interesting differences include that Kat's gesture is subtly altered to mirror her shaping movements in The Torn Sea, while Annie's pose gains another layer of meaning from her growth into her diplomatic role -- or that sun and moon exchange positions to accommodate the characters, rather than swapping the characters', whose gestures apparently took precedence for Tom here; and by the way, I cannot tell you what it all means, I suppose you'd have to read the book if you're curious -- or perhaps a modern primer on alchemy). But let's not linger with generalities, to which the argument might arise that I fire shots "ad hominem". I'd rather illustrate what I mean with an example. For that purpose, I've chosen another work in which the heroes are named "Annie" and "Kat", or close enough anyway, written by someone who had been studying Ancient Greek at the time, which I'm sure means nothing at all, since it's not mentioned on TV Tropes, even though I'd bet that "Meaningful Name" has a page there (because that's a rare occurrence in art when an Andrew and a George lie crossed). TV Tropes breaks the book down like this (this is just a selection): Apart from the astonishing insight that nobles of some specific nation and century usually live in Big Fancy Houses (and that's not an ironic name; this really is the extent of the "trope": that there occurs a "big fancy house" in a story), I'm amused by how there isn't a single quote from the book to be found on the whole page. It suggests a sloppy method, and little care for the book itself, rather than how it can be pressed into already-supplied schematics. That said, you'll have noticed that I've done the same -- don't trust me, either; go to the sources you live by and think. After all, it's a wise man who can honestly claim to know half a dozen books. And in the interest of this my latest crusade, from among Chekhov's short stories, I'll recommend "Gusev" both for expert gunning and the refusal thereof (is Gusev's daughter opening her fur coat playfully mirrored in his sailcloth being torn open by a shark at the end? what does Chekhov suggest by making Gusev flow more sideways than vertically? what is the meaning of the clouds, which include a pair of scissors? etc.)
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Post by flowsthead on Nov 8, 2017 20:47:08 GMT
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Post by flowsthead on Nov 8, 2017 20:59:33 GMT
But let's not linger with generalities, to which the argument might arise that I fire shots "ad hominem". I'd rather illustrate what I mean with an example. For that purpose, I've chosen another work in which the heroes are named "Annie" and "Kat", or close enough anyway, written by someone who had been studying Ancient Greek at the time, which I'm sure means nothing at all, since it's not mentioned on TV Tropes, even though I'd bet that "Meaningful Name" has a page there (because that's a rare occurrence in art when an Andrew and a George lie crossed). TV Tropes breaks the book down like this (this is just a selection): You just made me read their Anna Karenina summary at the top of that page and oh my god do I hate it hate it hate it. Just, it feels like someone who did a summary after reading the Cliff Notes version. Reductive doesn't even begin to cover it. |
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Post by aline on Nov 8, 2017 21:27:46 GMT
I'm so confused. People are using Tony as a catalyst to accuse Tom of making Surma's entire character revolve around dying to fuel Tony's tragic backstory? What on earth is going on? Why wasn't anyone talking about this with Annie? People are reducing Surma and Tony's relationship to a trope to whine about it [...] No. People are saying that they've felt bored with the story since Tony showed up, and tried to explain why they're not having so much fun anymore. I don't think there's a need to be so outraged about that. |
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Post by machiavelli33 on Nov 8, 2017 21:34:46 GMT
Also worth noting that before Tony returned, our entire volume of information on this entire scenario has been how Annie feels about it. I sympathize with the whole 'manpain is ugh' thing. But while there *is* manpain, it's been comparitively peripheral - the story has been primarily about how Tony's actions have affected Annie, and how it's influenced who she is, why she does what she does, and other parts of her personality. Not to mention Surma is decidedly her own character - one with a depth that hasn't even been fully explored yet (like, to name just one thing, her evidently downright devious work as court medium). It's not a statement to be made boldly of course - this is Annie's family we're talking about, so any discussion of Annie is inevitably going to be closely tied to both Tony and Surma - especially when they've had as destabilizing an effect on Annie's personality as Tony has. Of course, the dramatic reveals of Tony's personality could have been done differently - instead of a conversation over scotch, it could have been a sweeping dramatic fight, where Annie's friends confront him and make him explain himself. But not only woudl that not be in character for any of Annie's friends (except maybe Eglamore), it wouldn't be in character for the *comic*. So instead, we get scotch, conversations on couches in living rooms, and subdued revelations with monumental consequences. It fits, in a way. Other stories of a more fantastical nature have abounded with fantastical and dramatic devices. Renard's introduction has dragons and broken roofs. Annie's medium training has a sick beast-fight in the woods. Nearly every interaction with Coyote involves something being broken (whether it's a lying-ass bug, our brains, or an entire building). But this story isn't about anything crazy like that - it's about what makes people the way they are. Ysengrin and Coyote's perspectives on the Tony/Annie hardships seem like wild external upheavals when they happen. It should be that way. Annie's hangups and mental issues shoudln't be addressed with fairies and wolves and adorably stupid robots. And the issues would be muddied quite badly if they were, I think. |
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Post by ih8pkmn on Nov 8, 2017 22:30:16 GMT
While we're talking tropes, here's a fun one to bring up that helps explain why so many people dislike Tony: Arc Fatigue. Basically, a story arc goes on so long and/or is handled so poorly that people start getting sick of it. This is especially a problem with story-heavy webcomics, as you can imagine, due to the majority of them being released 2-3 times a week, at most. Let's face it: Chapters 51, 52 and 53 were an almost non-stop parade of angst for Annie. Combined, they make up 77 pages, counting the title and 'bonus' pages; at three pages a week, this makes up 25.6 weeks, or almost six months of comics tearing apart a protagonist we'd gotten to known over the course of ten years. Over the course of that, the status quo was shaken up pretty badly in ways besides Tony returning, with Rey being taken away, Annie being held back a year, and Gilette Wood losing its medium because Annie's denied access. Not helping that is the massive amount of plot points and characters that haven't shown up in a long time; remember the radio that Kat gave Annie so she could talk to her? Not been mentioned since Chapter 51. The arc with trying to reunite Annie and her fire seems to have been forgotten for quite some time. The last time we saw Rey was Page 1650. Regarding Jeanne, they dropped Coyote's Tooth entirely without any explanation, not even a footnote of "it's too dangerous"; keep in mind that they had it stored in Rey, who Kat now owns. She could have just told him to cough it up. Zimmy and Gamma were absent for the entirety of the sixth volume (Chapters 51-59), something that has never happened before. The first time Jones has appeared since Tony got back is in this chapter. Jack wasn't present in the big reunion chapter with Winsbury, Janet and co. And then there's the entirety of the Torn Sea, which I'm almost convinced is some kind of fever dream from the complete lack of people bringing it up; as of writing, it is Gunnerkrigg Court's Big Lipped Alligator Moment. I think the reason a lot of people dislike Tony, in the end, is the sense that he's taken over the comic because of the lack of a lot of characters and concepts that have been in the majority of the comic; no Jack, no Zimmers, no Jones, very little Eglamore (present-day Eglamore, at least), very little Rey... a lot is pushed to the side in favor of Anthony, and combined with his horrid attitude towards his daughter, people are suffering from Arc Fatigue because of the majority of the other plot threads in the comic vanishing with his appearance, and use Anthony as an outlet for that frustration. |
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Post by keef on Nov 8, 2017 22:46:18 GMT
Any bets for the bonus page? My guess: back to that tree in Brazil.
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Post by flowsthead on Nov 8, 2017 22:50:25 GMT
Not helping that is the massive amount of plot points and characters that haven't shown up in a long time; remember the radio that Kat gave Annie so she could talk to her? Not been mentioned since Chapter 51. The arc with trying to reunite Annie and her fire seems to have been forgotten for quite some time. The last time we saw Rey was Page 1650. Regarding Jeanne, they dropped Coyote's Tooth entirely without any explanation, not even a footnote of "it's too dangerous"; keep in mind that they had it stored in Rey, who Kat now owns. She could have just told him to cough it up. Zimmy and Gamma were absent for the entirety of the sixth volume (Chapters 51-59), something that has never happened before. The first time Jones has appeared since Tony got back is in this chapter. Jack wasn't present in the big reunion chapter with Winsbury, Janet and co. And then there's the entirety of the Torn Sea, which I'm almost convinced is some kind of fever dream from the complete lack of people bringing it up; as of writing, it is Gunnerkrigg Court's Big Lipped Alligator Moment. I think the reason a lot of people dislike Tony, in the end, is the sense that he's taken over the comic because of the lack of a lot of characters and concepts that have been in the majority of the comic; no Jack, no Zimmers, no Jones, very little Eglamore (present-day Eglamore, at least), very little Rey... a lot is pushed to the side in favor of Anthony, and combined with his horrid attitude towards his daughter, people are suffering from Arc Fatigue because of the majority of the other plot threads in the comic vanishing with his appearance, and use Anthony as an outlet for that frustration. What need is there to show the radio? You can assume "off camera" that they talked. You don't have to show them actually talking. Annie and her fire were reunited when Ysengrin broke her blinker stone here: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1579And Jeanne's arc took up four chapters at minimum. Of course some side characters are going to be short served when we focused so heavily on Jeanne. We got a ton of chapters with Andrew and Parley because of this, a fair amount of Ysengrin, and Red and Ayilu are for the time being seemingly out of the story and they got a send off of sorts. It hasn't been Tony, Tony, Tony every time. We've spent a lot of time with a few specific characters. |
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Post by fia on Nov 8, 2017 23:38:32 GMT
I am a committed card-carrying feminist, but I am not sure I see what you're seeing. We're learning about Tony because he is Annie's dad, and Annie is the main character. She's shown on the majority of the comic's pages and she is frequently shown having emotions, as she is on today's page. She also wants to know what the heck Tony's emotions are because she can't parse them by herself. But presumably we know how Annie feels: somewhat angry still, a lot of pain, some sense of abandonment, a healthy amount of confusion, but also attachment (of the disordered kind, surely) and love. She wants her dad to love her and be there for her, and doesn't understand why he's not. Right now she's evidently grappling with feeling intensely neglected and perhaps unloved; but she has testimonial evidence of his love of her, so how is she meant to reconcile that? We as readers are grappling with her same issues. There is no way the comic is biasing us to see only Tony's side. If that were true, few of us would resent Tony on Annie's behalf, but many of us do (and I include myself, who loves the Tony character in part because he's believable, not because he's a paragon of virtue). A lot about the comic is revealed by your words when you refer to Annie's thoughts and feelings. "Presumably." "Evidently." We know what Tony's thinking. We've been given whole chapters and flashbacks dedicated to him. Annie? Not so much. That's my whole point. The large majority of my sentences likely contain words like "presumably" and "evidently", I'm afraid. I have a PhD in philosophy and it's just how I talk, I like to be precise, and to qualify my statements so as to reflect a certain humility about my hermeneutic skill. It's a bit unfair (in philosophy we would say 'uncharitable') that you are taking my wording to indicate that there is no clear evidence about Annie's emotional states, rather than humility about my ability to correctly interpret text. On that note, "evidently" is a word much closer to "obviously" than it is to "as far as I can tell"... I would actually argue that we know much less with certainty about Tony than we know about Annie. We just know he has strong feelings. But not a lot about his thoughts. (For instance, I had to infer, about an earlier page, that Tony must have had a crush on Surma for a long time. But that's just a guess. We see Surma's thought bubbles and even inside her dreams, but never Tony's, unless he says them out loud! And we have 50+ chapters of Annie faces, thought bubbles, and dialogue.) |
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Post by todd on Nov 9, 2017 0:18:44 GMT
To Wombat: I can certainly side with your suggestion to avoid the forums (or just skim them) if I'm feeling frustrated with things. (I confess that I often think I should do that when I find that most of the conversation about a page focuses around a side-issue - say, a pop culture allusion or a gag - than around whatever important happened on that page.)
What maybe concerned me most about this chapter (and the last few pages of the one before it) was that we got only a brief explanation for how Kat changed her mind about Antony - something that I was far more curious about than how Surma wound up with Antony rather than Eglamore. I know that it's the union which produced the main character, but even so, I wanted to find out more about Kat's softening towards him, and fear we might never get that properly explored now.
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Post by maxptc on Nov 9, 2017 2:52:34 GMT
To Wombat: I can certainly side with your suggestion to avoid the forums (or just skim them) if I'm feeling frustrated with things. (I confess that I often think I should do that when I find that most of the conversation about a page focuses around a side-issue - say, a pop culture allusion or a gag - than around whatever important happened on that page.) What maybe concerned me most about this chapter (and the last few pages of the one before it) was that we got only a brief explanation for how Kat changed her mind about Antony - something that I was far more curious about than how Surma wound up with Antony rather than Eglamore. I know that it's the union which produced the main character, but even so, I wanted to find out more about Kat's softening towards him, and fear we might never get that properly explored now. Don't wanna talk about fourm drama, bit meta for me. But Kat feelings about Tony talk is very interesting to me. So I assume, based solely on those two almost panels (and the previously seen body, but that might not have been ready and could have hand five digit hands), that Tony was able to help Kat figure out the final details about five digit robot hands. If so, in addition to being pretty neat (more Robot stuff coming I hope), consider Kat has been working at that for a while. It helps explain why she is changing her mind about Tony. Kat is very much about results, so him being able to significantly advance her work helps explain why she is warming up to Tony. It kinda explains Tony's "charm" in general: he is consistently able. Being helpful and good at what you do goes a long way, more so in work environment. I dunno about you, but I've formed a favorable opinion about people I've worked with based on little more then them being good at the job. Its a little weird considering Kat is Annie's best friend, but the phenomenon still exists. |
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Noka
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Post by Noka on Nov 9, 2017 2:54:28 GMT
Korba, because I approve of the point you're making, but also think you're writing like a person from a Renaissance film over-dedicated to accuracy, I wanted to decrypt what you're getting at. Let me know if I'm understanding these things wrong. Sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to say. Classifying plot devices is bad? Plot devices are bad? Plot devices are good but classifying them implies that they're bad? Could you please clarify? There's no particular difficulty with grasping the argument against TV Tropes, which is always the same, but I'll start with an example. Take any work you've ever seen with a solid grasp of artistic merit. The director implements things like matched cuts, strong symbolism, and so on in order to create the given or desired tone, alongside declaring what is meaningful in the work, and what the work means. Garnish this however you like; just understand that the director is using complex methods to create a solid narrative and artistic meaning to certain parts of the work. TVTropes' page on this work, however, is not likely to provide an actual analysis of the pieces used to create each scene, or the meanings of those parts.TVTropes is a wiki, and because of that, it will always be dominated by people pattern-matching the lowest common denominator. What the pieces come together to mean doesn't often matter to TVTropes: what matters is the most surface level presentation. Of course a scene is fanservice if you can see nipple, even if the nipples are, say, in the middle of a horrific scene, because of course it's "sexy" bits shoved in that are at odds with the purpose of the piece. What TVTropes essentially provides is not an actual analysis of a work: it is identifying pieces. The argument to be made against TVTropes is that pieces of a work cannot just be taken apart. You can't look at a tit and decide it's fanservice. TVTropes is not a work designed to declare how parts interlink; it is a work designed to tear a piece apart and deconstruct it into easy to understand blocks called 'cliches'. Considering that a single good practice is often repeated, and that it takes many good practices to create a good movie, it is also easy to look at TVTropes, view a perceived 'cliche' that failed in a few original works standalone, and use TVTropes to decry the new piece, completely ignoring how the pieces interconnect.
The second point to be made is that amateurs are, unfortunately, vulnerable to the Dunning-Kruger effect. By dressing itself up in intelligent-sounding language, TVTropes appears to be a den of intellectuals, but to anyone actually experienced in analyzing works, most of the terminology used is swamped in superficiality and has no true depth. This leads to people deciding that mastery of writing fiction involves aiming to launch a barrage of superficial tropes to precisely strike your humors and make you give a shit, though I (Noka) have trouble deciding what the actual meaning of the last line is here.Finally, because these tropes are descriptive in nature, many tropes are heavily encoded, often with moral judgments and emotional immaturity. The problem with this is that they have a pretense of objectivity, which is dangerous; many of these tropes are ultimately superficial with randomly percieved depth, and much of their perceptions are based on how perceptive the people who enter things in are.But let's not linger with generalities, to which the argument might arise that I fire shots "ad hominem". I'd rather illustrate what I mean with an example. For that purpose, I've chosen another work in which the heroes are named "Annie" and "Kat", or close enough anyway, written by someone who had been studying Ancient Greek at the time, which I'm sure means nothing at all, since it's not mentioned on TV Tropes, even though I'd bet that "Meaningful Name" has a page there (because that's a rare occurrence in art when an Andrew and a George lie crossed). TV Tropes breaks the book down like this (this is just a selection): Apart from the astonishing insight that nobles of some specific nation and century usually live in Big Fancy Houses (and that's not an ironic name; this really is the extent of the "trope": that there occurs a "big fancy house" in a story), I'm amused by how there isn't a single quote from the book to be found on the whole page. It suggests a sloppy method, and little care for the book itself, rather than how it can be pressed into already-supplied schematics. That said, you'll have noticed that I've done the same -- don't trust me, either; go to the sources you live by and think. After all, it's a wise man who can honestly claim to know half a dozen books. And in the interest of this my latest crusade, from among Chekhov's short stories, I'll recommend "Gusev" both for expert gunning and the refusal thereof (is Gusev's daughter opening her fur coat playfully mirrored in his sailcloth being torn open by a shark at the end? what does Chekhov suggest by making Gusev flow more sideways than vertically? what is the meaning of the clouds, which include a pair of scissors? etc.) To respond to this beyond my simplification, I agree with you and wanted to bring up something that always amused me: Tropes are not quite treated as undeniable doctrine, but man if the concept of "YMMV" (Your Mileage May Vary) wasn't just a ridiculous page entirely. YMMV was created, in my opinion, to get rid of conflict, but what it actually did was create a situation where any actual narrative depth in a work is sealed behind a "THIS MIGHT BE TRUE" banner, and it makes everything else on the page just reek of "we only allow this to exist because it is an undeniable fact". I will say that the few tropes I like on any TVTropes page are things like Truth in Television, where analysis is supplemented by "yes, this matches history", because they often accompany literary analysis. But I will note that TVTropes, also, is at least mildly self-aware, and a lot of the people who I've seen on TVTropes pages seem to at least be aware of some of these ideas. Not every Troper believes that 'tropes' are unimpeachable truths; a grand few of them seem to understand that TVTropes is about as complicated a literary analysis page as magazine is a legitimate newspaper, and that more tropes does not a bad work make. But I'm not sure the goal of TVTropes is to provide an accurate, heavily-deconstructed analysis of a work, page by page, either; by the nature of its wiki-esque status, I can't even imagine that most people on it think that a "Trope" page is the same as seeing the work. TVTropes provides a service; but most people should probably realize that the service TVTropes provides is not "100% accurate, absolutely applicable, nail-gripping literary analysis". It's barely even close. Almost all of the premises it exists on are faulty, but it at least provides something entertaining and surface-skimming to read. (It is also much better at things like personality, and anaylsis within the world of a work; It is very bad at analyzing authorial intent or influence, but it can sometimes hit on valid points about the world the author created.) |
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yinglung
Full Member
It's only a tatter of mime.
Posts: 190
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Post by yinglung on Nov 9, 2017 3:06:22 GMT
I actually enjoyed this chapter. It's not often that I see this sort of character in media, and it is good to see what Tony was like before he was traumatized and triggered by familial resemblance. I'm definitely looking forward to how Annie and Tony's relationship develops, especially given how similar they are to each other.
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Noka
New Member
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Post by Noka on Nov 9, 2017 3:08:29 GMT
A lot about the comic is revealed by your words when you refer to Annie's thoughts and feelings. "Presumably." "Evidently." We know what Tony's thinking. We've been given whole chapters and flashbacks dedicated to him. Annie? Not so much. That's my whole point. The large majority of my sentences likely contain words like "presumably" and "evidently", I'm afraid. I have a PhD in philosophy and it's just how I talk, I like to be precise, and to qualify my statements so as to reflect a certain humility about my hermeneutic skill. It's a bit unfair (in philosophy we would say 'uncharitable') that you are taking my wording to indicate that there is no clear evidence about Annie's emotional states, rather than humility about my ability to correctly interpret text. On that note, "evidently" is a word much closer to "obviously" than it is to "as far as I can tell"... I would actually argue that we know much less with certainty about Tony than we know about Annie. We just know he has strong feelings. But not a lot about his thoughts. (For instance, I had to infer, about an earlier page, that Tony must have had a crush on Surma for a long time. But that's just a guess. We see Surma's thought bubbles and even inside her dreams, but never Tony's, unless he says them out loud! And we have 50+ chapters of Annie faces, thought bubbles, and dialogue.) I think the most unfair part of claiming that we understand Tony better than Annie is that I feel like part of it is that, quite simply, we've been spoiled. We see Annie more, and we often receive Annie's feelings directly, but there is an amazing amount to infer from her behavior - in fact, part of understanding Annie as a character in GKC is understanding that her character is actually deeper than the introspection we've seen. (Is Annie's statement that she understood what the glass felt like back in our first year with her a statement of calm acceptance, or suppressing anger?) There is an amazing amount of things we know about Annie only via observation - almost never through the medium of text - and I think part of the reason we're spoiled is that we get actual insights now and again into Annie, and it's easy to feel like that's "enough", or "how deep Tom took it", when it often isn't, and it's too easy to assume that. Annie is a deep and complex character. Tom essentially never gives everything in an introspection scene; the only place this isn't true is when people would supply complex, introspective narratives (Surma to Anja for the story, for example). But it is far, far too easy to feel like we just know Tom's not respecting Surma or Annie's character, when really all that's happening is that he's communicating around text, rather than with it, and that block can be hard to identify and overcome when reading a work. |
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Post by maxptc on Nov 9, 2017 3:43:00 GMT
I actually enjoyed this chapter. It's not often that I see this sort of character in media, and it is good to see what Tony was like before he was traumatized and triggered by familial resemblance. I'm definitely looking forward to how Annie and Tony's relationship develops, especially given how similar they are to each other. I agree, I was very interested in learning about pre poor life decisions Tony. I'll admit the chapter was a little long for the focus not being on Annie, but I find Tony very interesting. The strong feelings some people have towards Tony are very noticeable, so it is hardly surprising a chapter focused on him draws a lot a criticism, but I hope we get more. I think Tony is one of the most interesting things in the comic, but I've always had a soft spot for tragic characters. |
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Post by arf on Nov 9, 2017 4:40:45 GMT
Any bets for the bonus page? My guess: back to that tree in Brazil. I'm expecting quiet laughter, as Coyote remembers who he is. My expectations are frequently unfulfilled. I wonder if the Omega Project is really a study of Tony Carver? (undertaken because the Court had no concept of "TV tropes") |
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Post by maxptc on Nov 9, 2017 5:52:24 GMT
Any bets for the bonus page? My guess: back to that tree in Brazil. I'm expecting quiet laughter, as Coyote remembers who he is. My expectations are frequently unfulfilled. Now I want Coyote to be the slugs. But I doubt he operates outside the forest, aside from his court visits. |
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Post by speedwell on Nov 9, 2017 7:10:41 GMT
Did anyone seriously expect that Anthony would NOT do whatever he had to to ingratiate himself with the only person in the Court doing ongoing successful research into robot anatomy and prosthetics?
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Post by philman on Nov 9, 2017 9:13:26 GMT
Any bets for the bonus page? My guess: back to that tree in Brazil. One of the slugs dies, while their baby slug suddenly gains fire powers and the surviving parent slug goes on a long journey to the next-door jungle and loses one of his antennae. |
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Post by frogspawned on Nov 9, 2017 9:20:56 GMT
Maybe i'm just insane, but to me it's obvious that Tony and Antimony are never alone. Does nobody else get that feeling?
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Post by speedwell on Nov 9, 2017 9:55:06 GMT
Maybe i'm just insane, but to me it's obvious that Tony and Antimony are never alone. Does nobody else get that feeling? No. We see them alone several times, from the time that he and she had a martial arts lesson together, all the way up to walking back and forth to and from dinner at the Donlan's together. |
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Post by frogspawned on Nov 9, 2017 10:21:44 GMT
No. We see them alone several times. I've never seen them alone. Maybe you have, but i've only ever seen them alone together with Surma. |
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kefka
Junior Member
Posts: 98
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Post by kefka on Nov 9, 2017 11:46:39 GMT
They've been alone plenty of times. Now, you could argue that his social problems are an aetheric quirk instead of autism or whatever it is, so they're triggered by knowing Annie has her ancestors inside her in a way, but I doubt it.
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Post by speedwell on Nov 9, 2017 14:59:20 GMT
No. We see them alone several times. I've never seen them alone. Maybe you have, but i've only ever seen them alone together with Surma. Yeah, kindly quote my entire statement. |
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Post by maxptc on Nov 9, 2017 15:30:25 GMT
Maybe i'm just insane, but to me it's obvious that Tony and Antimony are never alone. Does nobody else get that feeling? I wouldn't say insane, just wrong. The comic has shown them alone together and Annie has said they have been alone together. |
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