[2068] That's what he did. (alternate Antimony)

[Jelly Jellybean]

Other Annie's hair is shorter than Annie's hair was before visiting Loup.  Kat's longer hair is consistent with Forest Annie's hair.

[madjack]

She could have had it cut, perhaps the barberbot is somewhat back in commission like those other ones a few pages ago.

[Deepbluediver]

Alternate theory: there isn't actually a second Annie, because none of this is real- it's all an illusion crafted by Loup for gits and/or shiggles.

[todd]

Nov 9, 2018 8:05:50 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Not sure that was the best strategy for "Loup" though.

Yes, that's been my chief concern with this being the trick Loup pulled. It would make it much harder for Annie to get the objects Loup wanted, since she'll be seen as an impostor.

I can think of two possible solutions for that:

1. Loup never intended Annie to succeed in her mission; it was just a ploy. His plan was to:

a) Have her fail to recover the objects, so that he could have an excuse to attack the Court on the grounds that she didn't do what he'd said. (And never mind that he sabotaged the errand.) He could still recover them from the ruins of the Court (assuming he was telling the truth about needing them). Besides, he'll have to destroy the Court anyway - and I think that he and the army of monsters want to attack it, not just because they see the Court and its experiments as a threat to them (though they are, which is the root of the quarrel) but also because they look upon war as fun and entertaining, a sport.

b) With this "Annie-doppleganger" replacing her at the Court, and in the affections of everyone close to her there, Annie can no longer live in the Court (apparently) - and Loup would see that as a way of getting her to live with him in Gilltie Wood after all - this is his Plan C, after Plans A and B (threats and temptation) had failed. (Though, since it'd be obvious to Annie that he was the one responsible for the "Annie-doppleganger" in the first place, I doubt that she'd be willing to live with someone who'd pulled such an underhanded deception. Of course, there'd be the question of where else she could go in that case, if both Court and Forest are closed to her. The only other place she knows is the hospital, and going back there isn't an option.)

2. Loup honestly didn't think it through. And, given just how crazy he's been acting, that seems plausible, a case of "I should have considered the long-range consequences of my actions".

[faiiry]

Well.

This twist is certainly WAY better than “it was all a dream,” but I’m somewhat disappointed that we won’t get to see Annie’s friends & family’s reaction on reuniting with her after thinking she was dead for months.

[manxy]

Nov 9, 2018 8:39:57 GMT philman said:

The hairclip also seems to have conveniently disappeared from the Annie from the forest.

I was wondering that too, but I think it's just hidden under her hair. She still had it when she came out of the forest. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2066

[todd]

As a side-thought:

I've speculated above that Loup didn't really want back the things that Coyote gave to Parley and Smith, that it was just his "back-up back-up plan" for getting Annie to stay with him in Gilltie Wood when his first two schemes (threatening the Court, and tempting her with an idyllic life in the Wood) failed. But I hope there's more to it than that; there has to be more significance to those objects than a wild-goose errand.

[darlos9d]

Ah... now this is the old Gunnerkrigg I remember.

Maybe I've just gotten so used to its contents, but back when I originally got into this comic, I recall sticking with it partially because of how gosh darned strange it was. First chapter is about a weird girl with a second shadow. At some point Kat gets a boyfriend who then turns into a bird. They make a friend who is a bedsheet ghost. Renard was a weird stuffed animal and you weren't sure if he was trustworthy. Robots! Psychopomps! The forest is weird and mysterious! This one girl bends reality! Even visually, everything seemed a lot more darkly colored and shaded and everything was just slightly off-putting.

There's been a lot of character development and art evolution, and characters and concepts that seemed strange originally, I've gotten used to as we've learned more about them. That's natural, of course. But... man, I miss being confused by abjectly weird shit. Maybe Loup is what I needed.

[ohthatone]

Tony is trying very hard to process what he seeing.

As much as I like this as the trick and can't wait to see where it goes, I always cringe a little when clones/copies of people are presented. How much do they know? How many memories of the person they are copies of do they possess? How much do they think they are a real person?  

[neonmoon]

Ugh. I’m calling that Loup managed to do what Anthony and Antimony both failed at, and separated the fire elemental and human parts of Annie; Court Annie and Forest Annie. Both Annies are real, and now Annie has to actually confront all of her issues about Anthony not wanting both her human and etheric selves in the physical world.

[bicarbonat]

I'd love to see Annie2 primed to (even passively) feed intel to Loup. If it's a kind of "live stream," then she'll have relayed months(?) of info while Loup was dilly-dallying with time. If it's a "recall" thing, then you could have the interesting conundrum of keeping a doppelgänger indefinitely or releasing/destroying her and yielding who-knows-what back to Loup.

Mayhap Annie2 was a backup plan to see if Loup could rustle up what he needs (or set in motion some Rube-Goldberg traps), since Annie has that action-hero vibe of "go along with the terrorist, but constantly look for opportunties to revolt the entire way".

[faiiry]

Wait a second, how is it that A) It’s supposed to have been several months, B) Kat’s hair has grown significantly, C) But Fake Annie’s hair has barely grown?

[theonethatgotaway]

OTHER POINT: Wouldn't this mean Loup created a DubblegAnnie THAT COULD PASS THROUGH THE SHIELD???

[jda]

Nov 9, 2018 15:01:18 GMT theonethatgotaway said:

OTHER POINT: Wouldn't this mean Loup created a DubblegAnnie THAT COULD PASS THROUGH THE SHIELD???

A pretty good question, although Doppelganger!Annie (Dannie for her friends) could have simply popped in from the hollow roots beneath the ravine THE very next minuter when they started searching Prime!Annie (Pannie from now on). stepped into the Forest

[ctso74]

Nov 9, 2018 11:06:55 GMT TBeholder said:

Well, if there was a bet on participants of the incident that finally beats Parley's "Most Awkward Scene" record, Anthony most likely would be in "Top 3"… But really, are they confused too, or they did this?
If that's just a gynoid made by Kat, what's the point?
If that's a magic creature who duped them, it had to fool not only Annie's little friends (some of whom have non-trivial ways to check if they have a shadow of doubt), but probably also a handful of ether-aware folk, starting with Anja.
Speaking of which, will Annie this time do the smart thing and use ether vision immediately?

Better yet, the Renard Test. Does Renard obey her? Does she own Renard? The more I think about it, Court Annie has to be Annie, especially with etheric people around. So either, Tom is doing DS9's Whispers(great episode!) and we're seeing things from an unknowing imposter's POV, or Loup "split" Annie. Court Annie and Forest Annie might actually both be Annie, which would open up a very interesting story arc.

[ohthatone]

Nov 9, 2018 14:37:53 GMT bicarbonat said:

I'd love to see Annie2 primed to (even passively) feed intel to Loup. If it's a kind of "live stream," then she'll have relayed months(?) of info while Loup was dilly-dallying with time. If it's a "recall" thing, then you could have the interesting conundrum of keeping a doppelgänger indefinitely or releasing/destroying her and yielding who-knows-what back to Loup.

Mayhap Annie2 was a backup plan to see if Loup could rustle up what he needs (or set in motion some Rube-Goldberg traps), since Annie has that action-hero vibe of "go along with the terrorist, but constantly look for opportunties to revolt the entire way".

The Court started looking for her almost immediately (Forest time) so he would have created Annie2 well before telling Annie what he wanted. Which begs the question, why couldn't he just get Annie2 to bring him the goods? Maybe Annie2 was plan A and Real Annie was the backup.

[saardvark]

Nov 9, 2018 15:14:40 GMT ctso74 said:

Nov 9, 2018 11:06:55 GMT TBeholder said:

Well, if there was a bet on participants of the incident that finally beats Parley's "Most Awkward Scene" record, Anthony most likely would be in "Top 3"… But really, are they confused too, or they did this?
If that's just a gynoid made by Kat, what's the point?
If that's a magic creature who duped them, it had to fool not only Annie's little friends (some of whom have non-trivial ways to check if they have a shadow of doubt), but probably also a handful of ether-aware folk, starting with Anja.
Speaking of which, will Annie this time do the smart thing and use ether vision immediately?

Better yet, the Renard Test. Does Renard obey her? Does she own Renard? The more I think about it, Court Annie has to be Annie, especially with etheric people around. So either, Tom is doing DS9's Whispers(great episode!) and we're seeing things from an unknowing imposter's POV, or Loup "split" Annie. Court Annie and Forest Annie might actually both be Annie, which would open up a very interesting story arc.

Indeed.  And presents an interesting contrast... Loup needs to be split back into Ys and Coyote, while Forest-Annie (bearing the fire) and Court-Annie (standard issue human) need to be reintegrated.

If Loup did split Annie, I wonder if the two have different personalities as well, which might explain the side-eyes Annie2 is getting: Tony and Kat both suspected that Annie2 wasn't the same as original-Annie.  Missing something, like her fire.  Perhaps then Forest-Annie is also different - maybe she got all the "fiery" side of Annie, and is more emotional, impulsive, confrontational, etc.

[lonestarf1]

Nov 9, 2018 14:04:43 GMT manxy said:

Nov 9, 2018 8:39:57 GMT philman said:

The hairclip also seems to have conveniently disappeared from the Annie from the forest.

I was wondering that too, but I think it's just hidden under her hair. She still had it when she came out of the forest. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2066

Hell, she had it on the last page as well. So yeah, just hidden.

[imaginaryfriend]

Nov 9, 2018 12:50:14 GMT todd said:

Though, since it'd be obvious to Annie that he was the one responsible for the "Annie-doppleganger" in the first place, I doubt that she'd be willing to live with someone who'd pulled such an underhanded deception.

There's lots of paths to "Loup" gaining an excuse to destroy or subjugate the Court or trash Antimony's relationships with people there but he'd need more than plausible deniability, he'd need ironclad proof of innocence or be blamed by Antimony anyway.

Probably the sneakiest thing he could have done would to have had the clone publicly criticize the Court higher-ups. Annie II could, for example, have blamed Court leadership for provoking the conflict with the Wood and for being generally undemocratic, repressive, and the opposite of transparent. "Loup" wouldn't even have to know that much about the Court to point Annie II in that direction. Then when her friends and family warn her to be careful she can handle it badly, maybe do some petty acts of sabotage and civil disobedience, and tell those close to her that she's going to escape back to the Wood and stay there for a while until the heat dies down. Antimony would eventually figure out there was a doppelganger involved but by then it would hopefully be too late. She'd probably opt to live anywhere other than the Court and Wood at that point, though.

I can think of a couple other things that a trojan-horse Antimony would have been good for but the mere fact that she isn't in chains and prison attire, or a hazmat bubble, demonstrates that isn't the case.

And why leave Annie II around at all? Having her disappear when the need for a distraction was past would at least cause some confusion about what happened. I guess Annie II is a real girl in some way shape or form, whether she has a copy of the fire or not. Really, the main thing that the doppelganger's good for now is for Antimony to see "herself" interacting with Kat (and other people to a lesser extent) from the outside. Maybe she'll disappear once that's over.

[avurai]

This is the most excited I’ve been about the comic in like a year.

This is nuts. I love it.

[tustin2121]

I say it's time-travel shenanigans. At the end of this arc, Loup sends Forest-Annie back in time to become Annie-Prime we're meeting here, who re-lives her life for several months until this point in time...

That, or when Forest-Annie touches Annie-Prime, she's going to "GOP" into her hand... and it'll be Loups version of Zimminham that caused it or something...

[CoyoteReborn]

Nov 9, 2018 10:35:55 GMT hnau said:

So, Coyote is dead and living the lives of an ant Annie and Loup at the same time?

I can neither confirm nor deny such a strange rumor

But I never existed to begin with, hahaHA! How quickly you mortals forget My Great Secret, yes yes!

What does mere "death" mean to one like Me, especially a death delivered by an idiot like Loup?? (bleh) 

I live on as long as My memory persists, as long as one animal laughs at the expense of another, as long as the stars I placed burn in the heavens!

And I live forever in the memory of those who have read this comic, all who have enjoyed My antics and My madness over these many years. "Do you not know that a man Coyote is not dead while his name is still spoken?" - Terry Pratchett

[Igniz]

[davidm]

Nov 9, 2018 14:37:15 GMT neonmoon said:

Ugh. I’m calling that Loup managed to do what Anthony and Antimony both failed at, and separated the fire elemental and human parts of Annie; Court Annie and Forest Annie. Both Annies are real, and now Annie has to actually confront all of her issues about Anthony not wanting both her human and etheric selves in the physical world.

"her issues about Anthony not wanting both her human and etheric selves in the physical world." That is your interpretation of situation, may not be true.

Anthony wanted his wife back. He may have had no idea he would instead hurt Annie. Anthony may also not want Annie to die after she has a kid. Anthony loved Surma, may be a case of opposites attract and he liked her fire, and he also may like fiery aspect of her daughter but not want daughter to hurt herself or others by having it go out of control.

[shaihulud]

So does one have fire powers and the other has Alchemy/Reaper powers? She had two different symbols above her head in the ROTD.

[liminal]

Nov 9, 2018 9:08:05 GMT heranje said:

Nov 7, 2018 23:36:59 GMT heranje said:

Loup's Trick - Personally leaning toward some kind of decoy Annie as the trick. I think Loup either sent back a corpse that looked like Annie, a walking talking doppleganger to take her place, or perhaps had a doppleganger come up to the edge of the forest and declare that Annie was leaving the Court and was going to live in the forest now.

hahahahaa

Now the question is - is this Annie a perfect copy, or just a very good mimic? And will she disappear now that real-Annie is back?

If she doesn't, and she is a perfect copy rather than a mimic, that could be a factor in Loup's favour - making forest-Annie feel superfluous in the Court, perhaps with her friends not believing that she is in fact the original, and driving her back to the forest.

Oo, the idea of there being two Annies - a Forest-Annie and a Court-Annie. Too convoluted narratively to last probably, but a pretty interesting thought nevertheless.

Cookies! With all of the speculation around Loup's trick, I couldn't help but think of Tom's comment on this page.

I also wouldn't be surprised if !Annie includes the fire, considering how easily Loup was able to manipulate it.

[jda]

So, when asked to Staaaaaaaaand and Deliver her money or her loife, Annie surrendered her Loife?

[bedinsis]

Nov 9, 2018 14:42:00 GMT faiiry said:

Wait a second, how is it that A) It’s supposed to have been several months, B) Kat’s hair has grown significantly, C) But Fake Annie’s hair has barely grown?

Fake Annie obviously got a hair cut.

[faiiry]

Nov 9, 2018 20:17:23 GMT bedinsis said:

Nov 9, 2018 14:42:00 GMT faiiry said:

Wait a second, how is it that A) It’s supposed to have been several months, B) Kat’s hair has grown significantly, C) But Fake Annie’s hair has barely grown?

Fake Annie obviously got a hair cut.

In this comic hair = character development. If she got a haircut, it wouldn't be without good reason - eg, continuing to suppress her fire spirit, which we know from previous events she isn't willing to do anymore.

[faiiry]

Hmm, I think it's possible Kat DID get taller.



In the first example, she comes up to Tony's chin, and that's when he's slightly bent over (to be fair, she is too, but still). In today's comic, she comes up to his nose, almost to eye level. 

It could easily just be a variance in how they're drawn, but it could also be an indication that Kat has aged...