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Post by faiiry on Mar 14, 2018 15:29:32 GMT
I have said it before and I shall say it again. I think the underlying theme of Gunnerkrigg Court is the reconciliation between science and religion. Well, in this page, religion has, both metaphorically and literally, rejected/destroyed their bridge with science.
I dunno, I just think that's interesting.
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Post by blazingstar on Mar 14, 2018 16:40:57 GMT
So if the bridge was built for diplomatic relationships (among other things), does that mean they are both effectively fired?  Honestly, I've been wondering the same thing. What's going to happen to the Forest Medium and Court Medium if trips to the forest are prohibited again? We'll be right back where we started, at the beginning of the comic, before either position was filled. |
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Post by faiiry on Mar 14, 2018 16:54:47 GMT
A more pressing question - are Annie, Smitty and Parley getting paid for their work?  I never thought about the position as an actual career before, but Surma being the medium as an adult kind of implies that it IS a paying job (unless she had other work). |
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Post by Spoopy on Mar 14, 2018 17:18:35 GMT
A more pressing question - are Annie, Smitty and Parley getting paid for their work? I never thought about the position as an actual career before, but Surma being the medium as an adult kind of implies that it IS a paying job (unless she had other work). That has me thinking . . . Have we ever even seen money exchanged within the court? Has monetary cost ever been even mentioned? I'm not sure the concept of money even exists within it, off the top of my head. It may be some sort of post-scarcity Star Trek-like place. |
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Post by fia on Mar 14, 2018 17:46:19 GMT
A bridge scene in a fantasy story where the heroes get across before it crumbles and there is not a single reference to Gandalf and the Balrog? Is that even legal? I admit last night I was sorely tempted to provide a link to that scene alongside my post, but it's my first-ever page thread (I'm never up that late but I'm currently 2 timezones moved) so I wanted to just play it straight... As to the current situayshe, though. Yeah, the Scooby Gang are going to be in trouble alright. |
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Post by faiiry on Mar 14, 2018 17:54:21 GMT
A more pressing question - are Annie, Smitty and Parley getting paid for their work? I never thought about the position as an actual career before, but Surma being the medium as an adult kind of implies that it IS a paying job (unless she had other work). That has me thinking . . . Have we ever even seen money exchanged within the court? Has monetary cost ever been even mentioned? I'm not sure the concept of money even exists within it, off the top of my head. It may be some sort of post-scarcity Star Trek-like place. I remember Tom saying that the court provides everything you need. Here, he says you don't need money in the court. Here, he says that the court provides makeup and clothing. I guess once you're accepted into the court, you're just given what you need. But that's kind of ominous in its own way, too. If the court provides its employees with everything they need, but doesn't pay them, then they won't have any savings to build a life elsewhere if they want to escape. It seems nice on paper, but it's a trap. |
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elebenty
Junior Member
Better than bubble wrap.
Posts: 83
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Post by elebenty on Mar 14, 2018 19:51:16 GMT
Don't give Y ideas! Off Topic During his final address Tillerson reminded me so much of Ys. Wooden, a little bewildered, using formality to save face. (Not a fan of the man, but he, too, would gobble up his 'old boss' given the chance to wield that power.) |
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Post by Runningflame on Mar 14, 2018 20:24:26 GMT
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Post by faiiry on Mar 14, 2018 20:52:22 GMT
On this page, immediately after the bridge there's a grassy area. However, on gunnerkrigg.com/?p=113 and 114, it looks like the steps from the school lead directly onto the bridge - no grass. A continuity error? |
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Post by pyradonis on Mar 14, 2018 21:41:15 GMT
A more pressing question - are Annie, Smitty and Parley getting paid for their work? I never thought about the position as an actual career before, but Surma being the medium as an adult kind of implies that it IS a paying job (unless she had other work). I cannot imagine the Court paying Annie in any way, the headmaster said they would not support her in any way when Coyote offered her the job. As Spoopy and you pointed out, the Court provides everything needed for everyday life. I assume, though, that the better your position within the Court, the more benefits it offers in terms of housing, clothing, funding of personal research etc.... On this page, immediately after the bridge there's a grassy area. However, on gunnerkrigg.com/?p=113 and 114, it looks like the steps from the school lead directly onto the bridge - no grass. A continuity error? On this page, it seems the grassy area is before the bridge, while directly before the school's steps the ground seems to be grassy but greyish. On this page, it seems to be a very narrow strip of not very healthy grassy ground. Edit: Looking closer at page 113, and comparing the most extensive panel, on this page, it seems to me that there is a strip of land between the building and the bridge, which in the beginning of the story is naked earth but by the time of chapter 31 (about one and a half years later?) has overgrown with not very healthy looking grass. |
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Post by faiiry on Mar 14, 2018 21:45:53 GMT
All this talk about the Court providing for needs raises an important question. Where is the court getting all the money for this? They're like a self sustaining little city, but if no one buys anything or gets paid for their work, and the court doesn't sell anything...
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Post by pyradonis on Mar 14, 2018 22:01:39 GMT
All this talk about the Court providing for needs raises an important question. Where is the court getting all the money for this? They're like a self sustaining little city, but if no one buys anything or gets paid for their work, and the court doesn't sell anything... Do we know they don't sell anything? With all its tech, the Court might be able to produce certain things much cheaper than regular manufacturers. They might sell it via straw businesses. Alternatively, they might really produce everything themselves, robots doing the labour, and sophisticated Court tech minimzing the need for space and resources. Who knows what kind of fabrics they use to make their uniforms, for example. And think of the food which is bugged. The Court must make sure that no one of its residents has any incentive or means to purchase food from the outside world. |
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Post by Corvo on Mar 14, 2018 23:11:22 GMT
All this talk about the Court providing for needs raises an important question. Where is the court getting all the money for this? They're like a self sustaining little city, but if no one buys anything or gets paid for their work, and the court doesn't sell anything... Do we know they don't sell anything? With all its tech, the Court might be able to produce certain things much cheaper than regular manufacturers. They might sell it via straw businesses. Alternatively, they might really produce everything themselves, robots doing the labour, and sophisticated Court tech minimzing the need for space and resources. Who knows what kind of fabrics they use to make their uniforms, for example. And think of the food which is bugged. The Court must make sure that no one of its residents has any incentive or means to purchase food from the outside world. |
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Post by todd on Mar 15, 2018 0:19:14 GMT
What's going to happen to the Forest Medium and Court Medium if trips to the forest are prohibited again? We'll be right back where we started, at the beginning of the comic, before either position was filled. Don't forget, also, that the forest leadership at present is clearly no longer in the state of mind to welcome or agree to diplomatic meetings or negotiations, and is likely to remain in that mood for a long while. The Court, once it receives the news about Ysengrin's change, will most likely conclude that the time for Mediums is over and past - there's no longer any hope of that, unless Ysengrin's transformation is undone, or a new leader comes to power in Gilltie who's calmer than Ysengrin and more mature than Coyote. Which raises the question of what its move will be: pretend that the forest isn't there, or take a tone of "Time for us to do what we should have done long ago" and order an air strike (or whatever the Court technology's equivalent is) on the wood? (Let's hope not the latter; the last thing we need is to escalate the conflict.) |
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Post by davidm on Mar 15, 2018 1:13:03 GMT
Don't forget, also, that the forest leadership at present is clearly no longer in the state of mind to welcome or agree to diplomatic meetings or negotiations In my opinion too soon to be sure of that. Forest has had change of leadership and his more hard nosed, but still may be way to do diplomacy. Eg they can make the symbol in the sky with blinker stones and ask. Annie in past had some friendly terms with the new leader of woods, coyote in past explained diplomacy of not showing fear/being strong, possible that a good diplomat could give the forest what it considers "respect" and have at least some diplomacy to avoid war. |
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Post by darlos9d on Mar 15, 2018 2:05:46 GMT
Don't forget, also, that the forest leadership at present is clearly no longer in the state of mind to welcome or agree to diplomatic meetings or negotiations In my opinion too soon to be sure of that. Forest has had change of leadership and his more hard nosed, but still may be way to do diplomacy. Eg they can make the symbol in the sky with blinker stones and ask. Annie in past had some friendly terms with the new leader of woods, coyote in past explained diplomacy of not showing fear/being strong, possible that a good diplomat could give the forest what it considers "respect" and have at least some diplomacy to avoid war. Yeah this webcomic doesn't feel like one that's just going to end with "well, time to fight and defeat the bad guy!" I'm hoping for a more interesting diplomatic (and character development based) solution. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 15, 2018 2:40:05 GMT
All this talk about the Court providing for needs raises an important question. Where is the court getting all the money for this? They're like a self sustaining little city, but if no one buys anything or gets paid for their work, and the court doesn't sell anything... I don't believe that's ever been answered. The Court doesn't receive funding but provides whatever is needed for their people, even Antimony's makeup. Presumably they do it with the proceeds from unpaid robot labor and expertise in etheric problem-solving. Some things they may directly manufacture themselves but other things, like brand-name crisps for example, would have to be imported which implies that there exists at least some sort of trade relationship where money changes hands, at least on paper. Though they don't get paid as such, some people are more important that others and can apparently ask for more compensation; there appears to be some sort of gains and returns system in place. Of course that begs the question of who decides who needs what when, and who's contribution is worth what, and that also hasn't been answered. From what we have seen (a Headmaster exists and there are people higher than him, The Shadowmen are a thing, and there's a throne-like chair in the meet and greet room) and how long ago it was founded I think we can infer that the Court is run by some sort of oligarchy (possibly hereditary) supported by a loose-ish bureaucracy. It has also been Formsprung that the Court was not exactly a military organization, at least at some point, and the current men in black are probably paramilitary. We do know the residents of the Court do not vote in general elections in the UK. We also know that some people are told they have particular jobs (or they can volunteer and go through application processes). Perhaps the oligarchy rules through consent of the governed via popular opinion instead of elections, but given the existence of a paramilitary arm and a secret police this system of governance would appear to be... problematic. One could reasonably expect that those in charge also decide who needs to know what on a regular basis (at least some of the research is secret and the cover-up after Jeanne's death didn't appear to present much of a problem) and therefore the general population's support of the oligarchy is not as well-informed as it could be. Small wonder that there are a few people who are not fans and take measures to protect themselves from Court surveillance. The best thing that can be said of the Court's organization is that the small population means that leadership can't be too far removed from those who carry out the orders in an organizational sense, though the large size of the sparsely-populated Court may counteract that on a practical level and there are probably a number of social barriers that we haven't seen too much of. We do know that class is a factor (re: Janet/Winsbury) but religion is probably not. |
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Post by mturtle7 on Mar 15, 2018 4:50:29 GMT
All this talk about the Court providing for needs raises an important question. Where is the court getting all the money for this? They're like a self sustaining little city, but if no one buys anything or gets paid for their work, and the court doesn't sell anything... I don't believe that's ever been answered. The Court doesn't receive funding but provides whatever is needed for their people, even Antimony's makeup. Presumably they do it with the proceeds from unpaid robot labor and expertise in etheric problem-solving. Some things they may directly manufacture themselves but other things, like brand-name crisps for example, would have to be imported which implies that there exists at least some sort of trade relationship where money changes hands, at least on paper. Though they don't get paid as such, some people are more important that others and can apparently ask for more compensation; there appears to be some sort of gains and returns system in place. Of course that begs the question of who decides who needs what when, and who's contribution is worth what, and that also hasn't been answered. From what we have seen (a Headmaster exists and there are people higher than him, The Shadowmen are a thing, and there's a throne-like chair in the meet and greet room) and how long ago it was founded I think we can infer that the Court is run by some sort of oligarchy (possibly hereditary) supported by a loose-ish bureaucracy. It has also been Formsprung that the Court was not exactly a military organization, at least at some point, and the current men in black are probably paramilitary. We do know the residents of the Court do not vote in general elections in the UK. We also know that some people are told they have particular jobs (or they can volunteer and go through application processes). Perhaps the oligarchy rules through consent of the governed via popular opinion instead of elections, but given the existence of a paramilitary arm and a secret police this system of governance would appear to be... problematic. One could reasonably expect that those in charge also decide who needs to know what on a regular basis (at least some of the research is secret and the cover-up after Jeanne's death didn't appear to present much of a problem) and therefore the general population's support of the oligarchy is not as well-informed as it could be. Small wonder that there are a few people who are not fans and take measures to protect themselves from Court surveillance. The best thing that can be said of the Court's organization is that the small population means that leadership can't be too far removed from those who carry out the orders in an organizational sense, though the large size of the sparsely-populated Court may counteract that on a practical level and there are probably a number of social barriers that we haven't seen too much of. We do know that class is a factor (re: Janet/Winsbury) but religion is probably not. Some important clues you missed: the Court assisted in the war effort during WW2, under the condition that it was kept absolutely secret. Also, at least according to Jimmy, "not as well-informed as it could be" is a huge understatement; bureaucracy doesn't even begin to describe it. I think I always had the impression that the Court has just mastered the art of compartmentalization, so that everyone knows what their job is right now and which individual told them they had that job, and nothing else. And then, they're usually so busy with that job and/or so happy with the reward that they don't really question the system. Who/what is at the bottom of it is a mystery I'm hoping will become more unraveled later in the comic. And incidentally, I don't think there's actually any class struggle involved in Janetbury. They just act like that because they're melodramatic idiots and Janet's dad happens to be the school principal. |
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Post by melkiorwiseman on Mar 15, 2018 5:46:52 GMT
Recon Confirms: The bridge is down!
(Giggles)
Anyone else remember Quake II?
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Post by jda on Mar 15, 2018 7:00:43 GMT
So if the bridge was built for diplomatic relationships (among other things), does that mean they are both effectively fired? Honestly, I've been wondering the same thing. What's going to happen to the Forest Medium and Court Medium if trips to the forest are prohibited again? We'll be right back where we started, at the beginning of the comic, before either position was filled. Even more pressing matter: since in conflict the mediator is required to be On the Side (figuratively) of its representee, will it be required of Annie to STAY ON the Forest, otherwise ysenyote claiming his medium it is being sequestered? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2018 8:07:57 GMT
On this page, immediately after the bridge there's a grassy area. However, on gunnerkrigg.com/?p=113 and 114, it looks like the steps from the school lead directly onto the bridge - no grass. A continuity error? That's not the bridge, it's what Smitty is stepping on here: gunnerkrigg.com/?p=764I think the underlying theme of Gunnerkrigg Court is the reconciliation between science and religion. There's also a theme of false conflicts. Coyote drew the Court-Forest divide in the first place, although he would likely claim he was merely pointing out the obvious after the original union of Sun and Moon had been lost (but Court and Forest apparently still grow from it?). Annie and her father are both roused to intense shame and admiration when they think of each other, neither of which they express in the other's view, and whose mixture essentially leads to their isolation (of course, there's jealousy over "irresistible" Surma, who might have been air-headed sometimes, as recent chapters showed, but was also most definitely fire-headed; Annie's "mind control" thing, which I still think was overdesigned, revealed that she also "purifies" her mother, although of course that was already during their shared metempsychosis). By contrast, Kat adapted rather quickly from her barely-concealed hatred but remains puzzled over why these two won't just play Scrabble with each other, or whatever happy families (such as hers is by all signs) do. There's Andrew and Parley, who would probably still not have crossed crosses if not for Jones' and Jeanne's manipulation. There's the curiosity of Forest residents for their medium. There's the misguided attempts of the seraphs to decipher the Creator's power by force (to be fair, Kat would likely not have been able to reshape the ship in Bristol Birmingham fashion had they not abducted Zimmy; how's that for a twist; I suppose the most pertinent point of Katurday was that everything just goes right for the girl, to the point that one suspects this is her special Etheric ability: not "fate" or "luck" as Smitty passively alters, but a combination of will and genius that, yes, veers towards divinity, as do Jones and Coyote -- and with the same exalted disregard, at times; or so Renard, who received one of Coyote's powers and killed Daniel in vanity, feared... je suis belle, ô mortels, comme un rêve de pierre...!) -- I.R.L., there has never been a need for "reconciliation" between science and religion, except where political power was assumed in the name of religion. From what I've seen, monotheistic faith has no direct bearing on whether you can be a successful scientist (haven't I mentioned this before? Euler, Riemann, Pascal (might well ought to be in bold print), Alhazen...) or not (Turing, Nabokov*...) -- except in how you are received. Though the reception of Aristotle during the Middle Ages (both by say Averroes and the Scholastics) did sometimes stumble over theological problems, and though Dante felt compelled to give a whispered yearning alone, but still a punishment, to the virtuous pagans in Limbo (a still quite-freshly obsolete institution to contemporary (well, non-Utrecht) Catholics, because "think of the children" apparently forms a sufficient excuse to screw over Aristotle), and though science still habitually serves political interests (warping both of these terms) instead of the right way around... this rift is mostly not created within individual bounds and responsibility. In so far as it does, I would generalize that into the conflict between observation and will (which has a more elementary outlet in the comic's world than ours). [* Somewhat unrelated to the comic: In his case, he later claimed "religion has never interested me" and the afterword to Lolita dourly complains that there are only two "subjects" with which he could have roused the same indignation: "a Negro-White marriage that is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children and grandchildren, and the happy atheist dying in his sleep at the ripe old age of 108 after a productive and fulfilling life." Careful readers will note that he talks a lot of God and the Christ in his poems of youth; he explained this as "a period of looking for Byzantine imagery" iirc, but I'm not so quick to trust him. (Oh yes, science. He was "the foremost expert on American blues". Which, if you haven't heard of him, dear reader, might surprise you by what it means here. :) And my Russian is dreadful, by the way. -- "By the way, I shall perish if I cannot...") -- Regarding that, there's also the one time he did drop the ostentatious disaffection and calmly explained that the book, contrary to claims he made, does have a simple moral (among other things; he wanted to call attention away from that, lest this would drown out everything else going on in the book, such as polar bears sitting down quite circumstantially, or the elevator clatterans, or Monique's explosion "je vais m'acheter des bas!"): "do not harm children." When the interviewer commented, "I believe I hear the Church speaking", Nabokov answered, "Nature, in this case, takes the side of the Church." There's also the "indivisible monist" comment... and for all that I cannot decide whether he was a pneumaticist or believed in unconditional universal salvation (both are, of course, heretical views). -- By the way, one of "Lolita"'s misfortunes is that throughout the entire book, she is never given a name that she could live with: "Dolores" (pain; abbreviated address of honour to Mary, who watched her son die); "Lo" (her mother's sparse usage), "Lola", "Lolita" (given to her by her initially-admired tormentor, and sharing in the what she hates: "and develop a wholesome personality; be a cake, in fact"; "we loved to sing songs [...] around the fireplace and under the darned stars"; the German translation amplifies it to "moonshite"), "Dolly", "Mrs. Richard F. Schiller".] But to return to GkC, the opposition of Coyote and Jones is also expressed in how they treat names: Jones has many of them and takes them only for a time, and gives names to nobody. Coyote gives new and single-minded, pseudo-essential, cacophonic names to everyone and accepts, tellingly, only one for himself (but his name is not descriptive; he is not even a coyote in the Ether). Both show, in different ways, that they are imposing their will (and cannot do otherwise); Jones claims "merely to observe" but I think that pure observation is just another form of will (because what will is required for such impartiality -- or see also what happened to Mort, where Jones changes Mort's fate, ostensibly because she believed she had interfered, against her will, to change it in the first place). The need to find balance between them is more recognizably human than either extreme. |
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Post by xheralt on Mar 16, 2018 19:30:36 GMT
Dam it all, anyway!
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Post by faiiry on Mar 16, 2018 20:15:14 GMT
Just thought of something. Unless there were absolutely NO forest creatures in the part of the trees that Coysengrin crushed (super unlikely), he probably just killed a bunch of sentient creatures.
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Post by todd on Mar 17, 2018 0:20:51 GMT
Just thought of something. Unless there were absolutely NO forest creatures in the part of the trees that Coysengrin crushed (super unlikely), he probably just killed a bunch of sentient creatures. If Coyote was the one directing the act, I doubt he'd have cared. If Ysengrin, he was too blinded by his fury to give thought to the fact that he'd be killing his fellow forest-folk. |
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CGAdam
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Post by CGAdam on Mar 17, 2018 1:09:41 GMT
With every subsequent page I'm thinking more and more he's actually closing the gap. This was definitely my first thought. The bridge is down, but the waters now have a rocky pass right on top. With Jeanne gone, doesn't this mean anything can just saunter over to the Court side now? As in, all those critters that Ysengrin fought way back when Annie almost got killed by a wasp? |
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Post by jda on Mar 17, 2018 1:17:22 GMT
On this page, immediately after the bridge there's a grassy area. However, on gunnerkrigg.com/?p=113 and 114, it looks like the steps from the school lead directly onto the bridge - no grass. A continuity error? That's not the bridge, it's what Smitty is stepping on here: gunnerkrigg.com/?p=764I think the underlying theme of Gunnerkrigg Court is the reconciliation between science and religion. There's also a theme of false conflicts. Coyote drew the Court-Forest divide in the first place, although he would likely claim he was merely pointing out the obvious after the original union of Sun and Moon had been lost (but Court and Forest apparently still grow from it?). Annie and her father are both roused to intense shame and admiration when they think of each other, neither of which they express in the other's view, and whose mixture essentially leads to their isolation (of course, there's jealousy over "irresistible" Surma, who might have been air-headed sometimes, as recent chapters showed, but was also most definitely fire-headed; Annie's "mind control" thing, which I still think was overdesigned, revealed that she also "purifies" her mother, although of course that was already during their shared metempsychosis). By contrast, Kat adapted rather quickly from her barely-concealed hatred but remains puzzled over why these two won't just play Scrabble with each other, or whatever happy families (such as hers is by all signs) do. There's Andrew and Parley, who would probably still not have crossed crosses if not for Jones' and Jeanne's manipulation. There's the curiosity of Forest residents for their medium. There's the misguided attempts of the seraphs to decipher the Creator's power by force (to be fair, Kat would likely not have been able to reshape the ship in Bristol Birmingham fashion had they not abducted Zimmy; how's that for a twist; I suppose the most pertinent point of Katurday was that everything just goes right for the girl, to the point that one suspects this is her special Etheric ability: not "fate" or "luck" as Smitty passively alters, but a combination of will and genius that, yes, veers towards divinity, as do Jones and Coyote -- and with the same exalted disregard, at times; or so Renard, who received one of Coyote's powers and killed Daniel in vanity, feared... je suis belle, ô mortels, comme un rêve de pierre...!) -- I.R.L., there has never been a need for "reconciliation" between science and religion, except where political power was assumed in the name of religion. From what I've seen, monotheistic faith has no direct bearing on whether you can be a successful scientist (haven't I mentioned this before? Euler, Riemann, Pascal (might well ought to be in bold print), Alhazen...) or not (Turing, Nabokov*...) -- except in how you are received. Though the reception of Aristotle during the Middle Ages (both by say Averroes and the Scholastics) did sometimes stumble over theological problems, and though Dante felt compelled to give a whispered yearning alone, but still a punishment, to the virtuous pagans in Limbo (a still quite-freshly obsolete institution to contemporary (well, non-Utrecht) Catholics, because "think of the children" apparently forms a sufficient excuse to screw over Aristotle), and though science still habitually serves political interests (warping both of these terms) instead of the right way around... this rift is mostly not created within individual bounds and responsibility. In so far as it does, I would generalize that into the conflict between observation and will (which has a more elementary outlet in the comic's world than ours). [* Somewhat unrelated to the comic: In his case, he later claimed "religion has never interested me" and the afterword to Lolita dourly complains that there are only two "subjects" with which he could have roused the same indignation: "a Negro-White marriage that is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children and grandchildren, and the happy atheist dying in his sleep at the ripe old age of 108 after a productive and fulfilling life." Careful readers will note that he talks a lot of God and the Christ in his poems of youth; he explained this as "a period of looking for Byzantine imagery" iirc, but I'm not so quick to trust him. (Oh yes, science. He was "the foremost expert on American blues". Which, if you haven't heard of him, dear reader, might surprise you by what it means here.  And my Russian is dreadful, by the way. -- "By the way, I shall perish if I cannot...") -- Regarding that, there's also the one time he did drop the ostentatious disaffection and calmly explained that the book, contrary to claims he made, does have a simple moral (among other things; he wanted to call attention away from that, lest this would drown out everything else going on in the book, such as polar bears sitting down quite circumstantially, or the elevator clatterans, or Monique's explosion "je vais m'acheter des bas!"): "do not harm children." When the interviewer commented, "I believe I hear the Church speaking", Nabokov answered, "Nature, in this case, takes the side of the Church." There's also the "indivisible monist" comment... and for all that I cannot decide whether he was a pneumaticist or believed in unconditional universal salvation (both are, of course, heretical views). -- By the way, one of "Lolita"'s misfortunes is that throughout the entire book, she is never given a name that she could live with: "Dolores" (pain; abbreviated address of honour to Mary, who watched her son die); "Lo" (her mother's sparse usage), "Lola", "Lolita" (given to her by her initially-admired tormentor, and sharing in the what she hates: "and develop a wholesome personality; be a cake, in fact"; "we loved to sing songs [...] around the fireplace and under the darned stars"; the German translation amplifies it to "moonshite"), "Dolly", "Mrs. Richard F. Schiller".] But to return to GkC, the opposition of Coyote and Jones is also expressed in how they treat names: Jones has many of them and takes them only for a time, and gives names to nobody. Coyote gives new and single-minded, pseudo-essential, cacophonic names to everyone and accepts, tellingly, only one for himself (but his name is not descriptive; he is not even a coyote in the Ether). Both show, in different ways, that they are imposing their will (and cannot do otherwise); Jones claims "merely to observe" but I think that pure observation is just another form of will (because what will is required for such impartiality -- or see also what happened to Mort, where Jones changes Mort's fate, ostensibly because she believed she had interfered, against her will, to change it in the first place). The need to find balance between them is more recognizably human than either extreme. Behold the Mighty Wall of Text. We may reconstruct the bridge now. |
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Post by todd on Mar 18, 2018 0:13:56 GMT
What's going to happen to the Forest Medium and Court Medium if trips to the forest are prohibited again? It recently occurred to me that perhaps the most remarkable part of the Medium business was that the Court ever agreed to the notion of having those meetings with the forest that required Mediums, in light of their looking down upon the forest-folk as mere animals. I can just imagine their leaders saying "Meet with those creatures as if they were humans? Next you'll be suggesting that we ask those mice [the ones Paz was looking after] for permission before doing experiments on them!" Of course, Coyote and Ysengrin are formidable, and the Court's dismissive tone towards the inhabitants of Gilltie Wood didn't stop them from murdering Jeanne and enslaving her ghost to keep them out, or capturing Reynardine. Still, I suspect that the "Lords of the Court" must have felt that those negotiations with the Wood conferred a dignity upon Gilltie that, in their opinion, it did not deserve. (At least the Headmaster and the others don't seem to have tried - yet - to convince themselves that Coyote and Ysengrin aren't really talking, just making "wild canid" noises, followed by their becoming too good at it and being unable to hear them speaking, only baying, yipping, and growling.) |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2018 0:34:14 GMT
jda: Yeah, I write for myself. It's a quiet surge of happy incredulity when someone else cares as well, and is willing to put up with some cruft, and obvious sketch lines, and plain economic laziness (same feeling as when you read with that understanding), but I don't find that mandatory in the public sphere of a forum (in fact, freely speaking as you grew seems to be the purpose of one), just in private talks.
Half of the above can be recognized as pointers to much better writers and to things I find interesting, which don't often include myself (was surely different in adolescence).
If you think a wall of text is useless, it would make sense not to emptyquote it.
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Post by jda on Mar 18, 2018 22:54:02 GMT
If we consider the bridge as only an "in-between" thing, an imposition on the Forest by the Court, there is the possibility thqt the Court would neglect its destruction as only a minor fuss, at least ob the public side.
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Post by jda on Mar 18, 2018 23:11:26 GMT
If we consider the bridge as only an "in-between" thing, an imposition on the Forest by the Court, there is the possibility thqt the Court would neglect its destruction as only a minor fuss, at least on the public side.
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I never thought about the position as an actual career before, but Surma being the medium as an adult kind of implies that it IS a paying job (unless she had other work). 
And my Russian is dreadful, by the way. -- "By the way, I shall perish if I cannot...") -- Regarding that, there's also the one time he did drop the ostentatious disaffection and calmly explained that the book, contrary to claims he made, does have a simple moral (among other things; he wanted to call attention away from that, lest this would drown out everything else going on in the book, such as polar bears sitting down quite circumstantially, or the elevator clatterans, or Monique's explosion "je vais m'acheter des bas!"): "do not harm children." When the interviewer commented, "I believe I hear the Church speaking", Nabokov answered, "Nature, in this case, takes the side of the Church." There's also the "indivisible monist" comment... and for all that I cannot decide whether he was a pneumaticist or believed in unconditional universal salvation (both are, of course, heretical views). -- By the way, one of "Lolita"'s misfortunes is that throughout the entire book, she is never given a name that she could live with: "Dolores" (pain; abbreviated address of honour to Mary, who watched her son die); "Lo" (her mother's sparse usage), "Lola", "Lolita" (given to her by her initially-admired tormentor, and sharing in the what she hates: "and develop a wholesome personality; be a cake, in fact"; "we loved to sing songs [...] around the fireplace and under the darned stars"; the German translation amplifies it to "moonshite"), "Dolly", "Mrs. Richard F. Schiller".]