|
|
Post by madjack on Apr 13, 2021 1:52:56 GMT
I wonder whether Gillitie Wood has any coastline.
It does. Maybe not the easiest to go for a swim, though. There was also the freshwater pool that Kamlen swam in in AiTF. |
|
|
|
Post by aline on Apr 13, 2021 6:33:02 GMT
Otherwise, the Court functions much like certain South Sea Island tribes where, after actual infancy, the kids are left to socialise together apart from the adults until inducted into formal adulthood. A Western Enlightenment paradigm often clashes with what makes the Islander arrangement work. I'm not ruling out a certain amount of hip, postmodern "unschooling" and "free range childhood" elements in play at the Court, either. This isn't taking into account the fact that the Court itself is actually very controlling. They may not interfere with kid's lives in any obvious way but all the children have trackers on them. They are observed by teams of shadowmen. The adults are taking it as a given that they are under surveillance even in their own homes. The Court institutions are very manipulative, leaving Annie to her cheating practices in order to use her against her own father at a later point (note that Tony was also followed and tracked down despite having left the Court for years, then was blackmailed into going back. There are cults that are easier to leave than the Court). We all accepted the separation of kids from their families as a premise from the comic (and it's also a big classic for a british teen story, sure). But in the context of Gunnerkrigg, it's worth interrogating the purpose of the Court when keeping children away from their parents. Is it meant to foster independance? Or is it meant to reinforce the Court's influence and control over them? Funny thing is, I was about to write that to me, Anja and Donald seemed way too relaxed with what they let Kat do. Yeah, "clingy" was probably the wrong word. I was thinking more about their emotional and social availability--but as you mention, that might just be because they live and work nearby, and because Kat's a main character. And because she's chosen to go into their field, I suppose. Kat was depressed and burned out with stress for weeks (months?) and we never got an indication that Anja and Donnie noticed. It didn't occur to Kat to go to her mom with her problems before Annie pointed out she had relevant expertise. They are there for her when she does show up with her problems, sure, but I wouldn't say Kat is super close to her parents. |
|
|
|
Post by speedwell on Apr 13, 2021 8:13:08 GMT
Otherwise, the Court functions much like certain South Sea Island tribes where, after actual infancy, the kids are left to socialise together apart from the adults until inducted into formal adulthood. A Western Enlightenment paradigm often clashes with what makes the Islander arrangement work. I'm not ruling out a certain amount of hip, postmodern "unschooling" and "free range childhood" elements in play at the Court, either. This isn't taking into account the fact that the Court itself is actually very controlling. They may not interfere with kid's lives in any obvious way but all the children have trackers on them. They are observed by teams of shadowmen. The adults are taking it as a given that they are under surveillance even in their own homes. The Court institutions are very manipulative, leaving Annie to her cheating practices in order to use her against her own father at a later point (note that Tony was also followed and tracked down despite having left the Court for years, then was blackmailed into going back. There are cults that are easier to leave than the Court). We all accepted the separation of kids from their families as a premise from the comic (and it's also a big classic for a british teen story, sure). But in the context of Gunnerkrigg, it's worth interrogating the purpose of the Court when keeping children away from their parents. Is it meant to foster independance? Or is it meant to reinforce the Court's influence and control over them? Yeah, "clingy" was probably the wrong word. I was thinking more about their emotional and social availability--but as you mention, that might just be because they live and work nearby, and because Kat's a main character. And because she's chosen to go into their field, I suppose. Kat was depressed and burned out with stress for weeks (months?) and we never got an indication that Anja and Donnie noticed. It didn't occur to Kat to go to her mom with her problems before Annie pointed out she had relevant expertise. They are there for her when she does show up with her problems, sure, but I wouldn't say Kat is super close to her parents. Absolutely agree. I will only add that "constant surveillance" is clearly not the same as "protection" in either case, much less "nurturing". |
|
|
|
Post by todd on Apr 13, 2021 12:54:26 GMT
We all accepted the separation of kids from their families as a premise from the comic (and it's also a big classic for a british teen story, sure). But in the context of Gunnerkrigg, it's worth interrogating the purpose of the Court when keeping children away from their parents. Is it meant to foster independance? Or is it meant to reinforce the Court's influence and control over them? As I mentioned above, influence and control for a specific purpose - to ensure that the next generation will have the right mindset to continue the Court's work. The Court's project has clearly lasted several lifetimes, and they must have realized it early on, that they weren't going to solve the problem of finding a scientific explanation for the ether in Sir Young and Diego's day. So they need successors, and the simplest way of obtaining them is the children born in the Court - but you have to make certain that the children will have the mindset needed for the work (the "white whale" obsession with solving the "what makes the ether work?" question, a willingness to ignore conventional morality if it gets in the way of achieving your goals, a skill at covering up those moments when you ignored morality, etc.). (It raises the question of what the Court would have been like if Sir Young, Diego, and their associates had had access to an immortality elixir.) |
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Apr 13, 2021 16:12:25 GMT
(Side note: how the heck do y'all quote multiple people in the same passage? am dumb.) I do it by right click->open as new tab on the quote button of each post I want to quote. Then I copy all the quotes into one of these posts (but the BBCode, not the Preview) and close the other tabs again. I didn't even know about the other method described earlier. 
I think the Court is probably doing a good job on that front. Actually, they may have done such a good job they've already reached their end goal. (waits for the Omega Device to rise up from the center of the lake like the Legion of Doom fortress) I do think they need to finish whatever they are planning soon though. The Court has done a good job of separating out people with similar interests. The fact that both That Guy and Anthony distrust the Court but are unaware of each other's distrust of the Court is a major point in the Court's favor. Anja seems like she believes in the Court first. It makes sense, the Court has done a lot to take them in, especially those that felt like outsiders everywhere else. On the other hand, I don't think the new generation feels the same way, and they talk to each other much more often. Annie, Kat, Parley, and Andrew would pretty clearly take their own side before the Court's and their awareness of the Jeanne issue predisposes them against the Court. Zimmy and Gamma are much more likely on Annie's side than the Court's. Jack could probably be counted on as well. Jones is largely a neutral party, but if push came to shove I imagine she would also side with the Annie/Kat duo. Winsbury's group is a bit more unclear. I don't think they know much about what Annie/Kat have been up to, and so they might take the Court's side just from ignorance. Paz is Kat first, obviously, but the fact that she believes whatever rumors are around about Annie despite knowing so much from Kat means she is not a certainty either. It's still a huge difference from Surma's days. I agree... And yet Bud called the current generation "a good bunch of kids just having some fun", while thinking back of "the trouble most of their parents used to cause". We haven't really been shown much of this supposed trouble, so I wonder if there will be some more relevations about the former generation down the line. |
|
|
|
Post by maxptc on Apr 13, 2021 18:40:57 GMT
(Side note: how the heck do y'all quote multiple people in the same passage? am dumb.)Â I do it by right click->open as new tab on the quote button of each post I want to quote. Then I copy all the quotes into one of these posts (but the BBCode, not the Preview) and close the other tabs again. I didn't even know about the other method described earlier. I do think they need to finish whatever they are planning soon though. The Court has done a good job of separating out people with similar interests. The fact that both That Guy and Anthony distrust the Court but are unaware of each other's distrust of the Court is a major point in the Court's favor. Anja seems like she believes in the Court first. It makes sense, the Court has done a lot to take them in, especially those that felt like outsiders everywhere else. On the other hand, I don't think the new generation feels the same way, and they talk to each other much more often. Annie, Kat, Parley, and Andrew would pretty clearly take their own side before the Court's and their awareness of the Jeanne issue predisposes them against the Court. Zimmy and Gamma are much more likely on Annie's side than the Court's. Jack could probably be counted on as well. Jones is largely a neutral party, but if push came to shove I imagine she would also side with the Annie/Kat duo. Winsbury's group is a bit more unclear. I don't think they know much about what Annie/Kat have been up to, and so they might take the Court's side just from ignorance. Paz is Kat first, obviously, but the fact that she believes whatever rumors are around about Annie despite knowing so much from Kat means she is not a certainty either. It's still a huge difference from Surma's days. I agree... And yet Bud called the current generation "a good bunch of kids just having some fun", while thinking back of "the trouble most of their parents used to cause". We haven't really been shown much of this supposed trouble, so I wonder if there will be some more relevations about the former generation down the line. Just based on the one flashback we saw, and the context I feel Bud meant trouble and good kids (less magic/mystery shenanigans/issue for the court, more sneaking out, being bullies and smooching) I don't think it's that hard to picture the old friend group being a bit more trouble for Bud, who is kinda just a fancy RA. He isn't really concerned with what they are doing in a grand overall sense, more the amount of added effort at his job they require. |
|
|
|
Post by flowsthead on Apr 13, 2021 23:19:50 GMT
I do think they need to finish whatever they are planning soon though. The Court has done a good job of separating out people with similar interests. The fact that both That Guy and Anthony distrust the Court but are unaware of each other's distrust of the Court is a major point in the Court's favor. Anja seems like she believes in the Court first. It makes sense, the Court has done a lot to take them in, especially those that felt like outsiders everywhere else. On the other hand, I don't think the new generation feels the same way, and they talk to each other much more often. Annie, Kat, Parley, and Andrew would pretty clearly take their own side before the Court's and their awareness of the Jeanne issue predisposes them against the Court. Zimmy and Gamma are much more likely on Annie's side than the Court's. Jack could probably be counted on as well. Jones is largely a neutral party, but if push came to shove I imagine she would also side with the Annie/Kat duo. Winsbury's group is a bit more unclear. I don't think they know much about what Annie/Kat have been up to, and so they might take the Court's side just from ignorance. Paz is Kat first, obviously, but the fact that she believes whatever rumors are around about Annie despite knowing so much from Kat means she is not a certainty either. It's still a huge difference from Surma's days. I agree... And yet Bud called the current generation "a good bunch of kids just having some fun", while thinking back of "the trouble most of their parents used to cause". We haven't really been shown much of this supposed trouble, so I wonder if there will be some more relevations about the former generation down the line. True, we don't know enough about that generation. I guess I was thinking of it more that Surma and Anja seem much more interested in whether or not they belong, rather than whether what they were doing was morally justified. Even the way Anja talks about Surma manipulating Renard from the point of view of the Court: "Besides, it's what the Court has decided, and they want him to stay." I think it's interesting, and important, that the last time Annie said his name here in Spring Heeled Part 2 she used Reynardine, while immediately after finding out her mother manipulated Renard, she switches to Renard, and this seems to be a permanent change, as even in her ugly fight with him later in the same chapter she still calls him Renard. It's important that even when she knows she is being cruel towards him, she calls him by his actual name. |
|
|
|
Post by Gemminie on Apr 14, 2021 1:01:56 GMT
There are several tantalizing hints of the things that Surma and Anja got up to. I'd love to see more about their adventures. I wonder, though, how much of the kids' "fun" Lindsey and Bud actually know about at that point. It's doubtful that they know about Annie and Kat's discovery of the ancient robots and Jeanne's shrine. Also, when they said this, it was chapter 34. Annie hadn't yet been named Forest medium by Coyote. Chapter 49 hadn't happened yet. Jeanne hadn't been freed. Annie hadn't even accidentally named Red. I kind of think that they wouldn't be saying that now, after the appearance of Loup and his god-powered attack on the Court. On the other hand, Brinnie took one look at the doubled Annies and laughed it off as more Court shenanigans. But she may have only glanced superficially at the situation and made some unwarranted assumptions. |
|
|
|
Post by maxptc on Apr 14, 2021 1:06:45 GMT
On the other hand, Brinnie took one look at the doubled Annies and laughed it off as more Court shenanigans. But she may have only glanced superficially at the situation and made some unwarranted assumptions. "Remeber that time we had four Donalds and only three quarters of a Tony? Good times." |
|
|
|
Post by flowsthead on Apr 14, 2021 1:35:18 GMT
This is a bit unrelated but not sure where to post this. I've been watching some of the retrospectives and apparently I have been pronouncing almost every single name wrong. Also, does anyone know when those are coming back? Or does Tom just do those in batches and it hasn't been enough for a new set?
|
|
|
|
Post by blazingstar on Apr 14, 2021 2:58:46 GMT
I agree with Idra here. I always thought the custom of boarding schools was a barbaric practice, and when I first was introduced to the concept (thanks to "The Worst Witch" and Harry Potter, of course) it seemed very strange to me. I barely trust teachers to raise children for 8 hours in American schools; I wouldn't be able to fathom having children LIVE there. ALL THE TIME. And only being able to visit on weekends or holidays. Don't those people miss their kids?!
Here, boarding school is something only for "bad" children.
|
|
|
|
Post by flowsthead on Apr 14, 2021 4:57:43 GMT
I agree with Idra here. I always thought the custom of boarding schools was a barbaric practice, and when I first was introduced to the concept (thanks to "The Worst Witch" and Harry Potter, of course) it seemed very strange to me. I barely trust teachers to raise children for 8 hours in American schools; I wouldn't be able to fathom having children LIVE there. ALL THE TIME. And only being able to visit on weekends or holidays. Don't those people miss their kids?! Here, boarding school is something only for "bad" children. I see your point. But there are plenty of average or terrible parents out there. For their kids boarding school would be an improvement. I mean, even using Harry Potter as an example, the Dursleys are awful, and Hogwarts is clearly better for him in so many ways, even just in terms of being able to eat regularly. Calling it a barbaric practice seems a little much. |
|
|
|
Post by fia on Apr 14, 2021 11:08:43 GMT
Yeahhh I have to say, growing up in Mexico, I'm siding with Idra. I cannot IMAGINE as a parent shipping my kid off for over half the year to a boarding school in perpetuity. It's a good children's lit trope but not very defensible. I have a friend or two who got shipped off and it was fairly traumatic, even as bad as their parents were. Uprooted from friends, family, your culture... Cared for by people that are caring for dozens of others... For college, it makes sense. Grade school? No way. Haha, I was just thinking of Mexican vs. American families as a really good example of the kind of cultural difference Idra is talking about. Not directly - I'm pretty sure we both have fairly similar expectations of underage kids staying with their parents - but I remember talking with a Mexican friend of mine about how it's way more normal in Mexico for people to stay with their parents even when they become adults, while here there's a really really strong expectation that you're supposed to move out into your own place by that point. I think England might have a bit of a similar cultural difference, considering the strong tradition of boarding schools that isn't really present here in the Americas...especially in the upper classes and with men, it's just more common in general to have a traditional attitude of "kids should be left to deal with their problems on their own, to toughen up and build character." I'm sort of conflicted on whether or not it's ok for me to judge these kinds of differences...kids being sent of to boarding school seems about as unimaginable to me as a 30-year-old living with their parents, but in both cases that might just be a result of my own cultural bias! On the other hand, things are changing in all our countries so those traditional attitudes are less common, so maybe it's a moot point? I dunno. I know I shouldn't be so quick to judge; it's just when a practice seems cruel to me that I get huffy. The Mexican practice *can* be cruel –– insofar as it's very gendered. Men are often permitted or even expected to go get their own apartment or house or whatever before they marry, because it's important to their independence, or just important to the household to get another worker to contribute financially and also feed themselves. As a rule, women are never supposed to move out of home until they get married. I broke that rule very early because I was living abroad for College, and my mother did not handle it well. I had a boy I was dating stay in my rental apartment (shared with my friends) for my College graduation and she had a conniption. I moved in with my now-husband during graduate school before we got married and that also gave her a conniption. (Somehow it was conceptually better when I had my "own" place. My mom's not a practicing Catholic either; it's entirely social bias). On the other hand, the Mexican practice has its virtues. My sister is finishing med school and, while she lived away for college, moved back home for medical school to save on rent, etc. In Mexico it's not thought of as "living with your parents" as much as "living in your childhood home". It's everyone's house usually. If parents get older, the fact of having a child there is a boon for them sometimes. My great-aunt, who was also a nun, lived with my great-grandmother and cared for her into her old age (it also worked vice-versa). They were very close. Where I'm from if your parents get old and need caring for, you invite them in to live with you. Not everybody does that (my own grandmothers were independently minded and financially stable enough to hire help at home), but it's the default. Family cares for family; the family is independent together, as it were. It's thought of as impractical to have people living in two separate places when they are expected to talk all the time and be around and eat together several times a week. (Growing up I ate with my grandparents once a week at a minimum). I admit living far away I get pretty homesick. Not so much for my own house, as for the hustle and bustle of extended family. In that respect it might be a little like boarding school – lots of kids your age and older and younger, lots of running around and getting in trouble somewhat unsupervised (the adults don't really police you unless there's a fracas, they're all off hanging out with each other), but all within the safety of a community. Food's always available somewhere. There's always someone's house you can borrow for a backyard party. And this coming from me, a person who is among the most introverted members of my family. My husband is always overwhelmed when we go to visit my parents – one time before we married and we were staying with my parents, my cousins arrived lunch at 2pm at our house and were still there late afternoon and he turned to me at 8pm and said, "When is this party supposed to end??" and I looked at him and said, "End??" My cousins didn't end up leaving until about 2am, we ordered take-out for dinner, and it was fine with everyone. In Mexico there is no such concept of an end time for parties. If you have guests and they are family they can stay as long as they well please. There does come a point when you're very much allowed to chase them out gracefully or with a broom depending, but in this case it was a posada (a Christmas dinner) over a holiday, so 8pm was far too early to chase anyone anywhere, haha. My poor husband. He was really shocked. I think he was upset I didn't warn him, but to be honest it hadn't crossed my mind that he would have thought even his family was invited for only a set amount of time if they visited his house. Anyway so yeah I guess boarding-school mentality is nearly unimaginable from that perspective. Then again – as you can see with the migrant border crisis – lots of Latina/o/e families from impoverished backgrounds will instinctually try to send their kids away to live with aunts or uncles in the US if they can manage, because they know Americans cover public school and even food for children, among other things; and maybe they'll manage to get citizenship if they go young enough. I think to really grasp the magnitude of the human rights problem on the ground you have to understand sending your kids away to strangers or far-flung family flies against every Latino/a/e parent instinct. The Court boarding-school rationale for a distant parent must be something along the lines of, "Our kid is special - they have no chance of flourishing anywhere else; we can't give them this training or these experiences, we have to let them go". Like parents whose genius kids train for the Olympics, you know. I get it from that angle but it still makes me very sad. |
|
|
|
Post by speedwell on Apr 14, 2021 11:50:07 GMT
I agree with Idra here. I always thought the custom of boarding schools was a barbaric practice, and when I first was introduced to the concept (thanks to "The Worst Witch" and Harry Potter, of course) it seemed very strange to me. I barely trust teachers to raise children for 8 hours in American schools; I wouldn't be able to fathom having children LIVE there. ALL THE TIME. And only being able to visit on weekends or holidays. Don't those people miss their kids?! Here, boarding school is something only for "bad" children. When I was growing up, "being sent away to school" basically meant juvenile prison ("reform school"), too. Here in the British Isles it's just school for the posh. You can get a good many English people to do anything if you persuade them posh people do it, heheh... |
|
|
|
Post by saardvark on Apr 14, 2021 12:24:08 GMT
Haha, I was just thinking of Mexican vs. American families as a really good example of the kind of cultural difference Idra is talking about. Not directly - I'm pretty sure we both have fairly similar expectations of underage kids staying with their parents - but I remember talking with a Mexican friend of mine about how it's way more normal in Mexico for people to stay with their parents even when they become adults, while here there's a really really strong expectation that you're supposed to move out into your own place by that point. I think England might have a bit of a similar cultural difference, considering the strong tradition of boarding schools that isn't really present here in the Americas...especially in the upper classes and with men, it's just more common in general to have a traditional attitude of "kids should be left to deal with their problems on their own, to toughen up and build character." I'm sort of conflicted on whether or not it's ok for me to judge these kinds of differences...kids being sent of to boarding school seems about as unimaginable to me as a 30-year-old living with their parents, but in both cases that might just be a result of my own cultural bias! On the other hand, things are changing in all our countries so those traditional attitudes are less common, so maybe it's a moot point? I dunno. I know I shouldn't be so quick to judge; it's just when a practice seems cruel to me that I get huffy. The Mexican practice *can* be cruel –– ... On the other hand, the Mexican practice has its virtues.... Thanks for this ... I think you've really given nice insight into a cultural viewpoint. Very mind opening.... |
|
|
|
Post by DonDueed on Apr 14, 2021 16:04:21 GMT
Here, boarding school is something only for "bad" children. Not so! There are quite a few boarding schools that cater to the very uppermost of the 1% class. Usually they are only for high school level kids, but not always.
I used to live quite close to one of these schools: Groton. |
|
|
|
Post by blazingstar on Apr 14, 2021 23:56:47 GMT
I agree with Idra here. I always thought the custom of boarding schools was a barbaric practice, and when I first was introduced to the concept (thanks to "The Worst Witch" and Harry Potter, of course) it seemed very strange to me. I barely trust teachers to raise children for 8 hours in American schools; I wouldn't be able to fathom having children LIVE there. ALL THE TIME. And only being able to visit on weekends or holidays. Don't those people miss their kids?! Here, boarding school is something only for "bad" children. I see your point. But there are plenty of average or terrible parents out there. For their kids boarding school would be an improvement. I mean, even using Harry Potter as an example, the Dursleys are awful, and Hogwarts is clearly better for him in so many ways, even just in terms of being able to eat regularly. Calling it a barbaric practice seems a little much. Okay, so my wording was a little extreme. But I'm not saying "some parents would be better than no parents for all children". I'm asking "for children, especially young children, with at least one perfectly good parent, why the heck are they being sent away to live somewhere else?" |
|
|
|
Post by blazingstar on Apr 15, 2021 0:14:59 GMT
Here, boarding school is something only for "bad" children. Not so! There are quite a few boarding schools that cater to the very uppermost of the 1% class. Usually they are only for high school level kids, but not always. I used to live quite close to one of these schools: Groton. A fair point. Which brings me to speedwell's post: When I was growing up, "being sent away to school" basically meant juvenile prison ("reform school"), too. Here in the British Isles it's just school for the posh. You can get a good many English people to do anything if you persuade them posh people do it, heheh... Perhaps it's not just the British Isles. In one of the television shows I'm watching ("Queen Sugar", for anyone who's curious), a debate is currently raging between a 10-year-old child's parents, who have just realized he is intellectually gifted, and his grandmother, who wants to use her wealth and influence to send him to Sidwell Friends, the Washington, D.C. private school that all the President and Congresspersons' kids go. The parents live in Louisiana, so he would have had to move away from his parents to live with his grandma, whom he had only met a few times. The grandmother sees this as a fair trade-off for a better life and better opportunities that he otherwise might not have in Louisiana (which, admittedly, doesn't have the best public schools in America, and his parents are not rich). His parents see this as ripping their only young child away from them so that he can be turned into a snobby high-class racial token (all the family members are black). It was an interesting look at how people have different cultural views of sending kids away to school, even in the same country, even in the same family. |
|
|
|
Post by maxptc on Apr 15, 2021 1:01:30 GMT
Not so! There are quite a few boarding schools that cater to the very uppermost of the 1% class. Usually they are only for high school level kids, but not always. I used to live quite close to one of these schools: Groton. A fair point. Which brings me to speedwell's post: When I was growing up, "being sent away to school" basically meant juvenile prison ("reform school"), too. Here in the British Isles it's just school for the posh. You can get a good many English people to do anything if you persuade them posh people do it, heheh... Perhaps it's not just the British Isles. In one of the television shows I'm watching ("Queen Sugar", for anyone who's curious), a debate is currently raging between a 10-year-old child's parents, who have just realized he is intellectually gifted, and his grandmother, who wants to use her wealth and influence to send him to Sidwell Friends, the Washington, D.C. private school that all the President and Congresspersons' kids go. The parents live in Louisiana, so he would have had to move away from his parents to live with his grandma, whom he had only met a few times. The grandmother sees this as a fair trade-off for a better life and better opportunities that he otherwise might not have in Louisiana (which, admittedly, doesn't have the best public schools in America, and his parents are not rich). His parents see this as ripping their only young child away from them so that he can be turned into a snobby high-class racial token (all the family members are black). It was an interesting look at how people have different cultural views of sending kids away to school, even in the same country, even in the same family. Eyerywhere in the world and even within one family, economic and social status is a shockingly big part of how people look at these types of situations. What is considered family responsibility vs societal responsibility vs personal responsibility is not set in stone and what people think of as "normal" and "best" for a child shifts a lot between the the different economic classes. For a lot of rich people, boarding and private school is seen as giving your child a huge advantage, as well being a status symbol. In fact happily having others deal with some aspects of raising a child is very common in high society, nannies and tutors and what have you. |
|
|
|
Post by jesslc on Apr 15, 2021 4:55:33 GMT
Delurking after years of reading the forum because apparently I have a lot to say on the topic of boarding schools. 🙂
It's interesting to read other people's thoughts on this especially being from a place where boarding schools are somewhat common due to logistical reasons. In Australia, or at least the part where I live, we have both:
a) private boarding schools where rich people from regional and rural Australia can send their kids, and
b) public boarding schools for kids from areas so rural that the local education opportunities are limited to just a primary school or maybe a primary + partial high school (up to year 10).
Western Australia is a very big place and rural WA is a very tiny proportion of the population. For much of rural WA, your options are basically either home schooling - which not everyone is good at or capable of managing -Â or sending your kids off to boarding school when they outgrow the local school at age 13 or 16.
Regional WA - bigger towns like Geraldton, Busselton, Narrogin - each have at least one public high school that goes all the way to the end of secondary schooling here (year 12). In very rural areas, however, there'll probably just be a tiny primary school with only the principal and 1 teacher to split the teaching of maybe a dozen kids varying in age from 5 up to 12 yrs old. Smaller regional areas or more populated rural areas might have a primary school extended with a junior high (up to year 10, usually age 15).
Public boarding schools are essentially just boarding houses for kids next to the main public school at a major regional centre. Since the quality of public school education here can be iffy - a few public schools have great educational reputations, but most don't - rich parents often choose to send their kids to a private boarding school in Perth or Bunbury instead.
I know people who went to private boarding schools and people who went to public boarding schools and none of them had a great experience with it as a teen. But at least for the public boarding school people, their parents didn't have really have much of a choice. The alternatives were to let their kid leave school early or homeschooling (not feasible in the cases of the people I know).
The parents who sent their kids off to private boarding schools did have a choice. I'm quite curious now - the next time I talk to a person from that group, I'll ask them what they thought of their parents' decision in hindsight. How did they find boarding school overall, do they think they would have been better off if their parents had kept them home and sent them to the local public high school instead.
I can speak on one case - my own - without having to ask anyone and the answer is: I don’t know. My parents were well off but not super rich and my first two years of high school were spent as a day student at a private school in Perth thanks to an academic scholarship. When I was 14 and had completed year 9 my parents and younger siblings moved 3 hrs away to country WA, approximately 30 minutes drive from the nearest regional town (Busselton). My parents gave the choice to me - stay at my school and switch from a day student to a boarding student, or come with them & switch to the school in Busselton.
Boarding school was not a good experience but I don't know that moving with my family would have been better. Sure I would have been with my family year round rather than just during the school holidays, but our relationship has always been strained. I would have left all my friends behind in Perth and had to start over at a new school. Busselton has a choice of high schools now but back then it only had one high school - a public one which had a pretty terrible educational reputation. And, a minor thing, but I would have also had at least double the bus commute I had had in Perth (with all the stops to pick up kids, the buses that bring kids to Busselton schools from outlying areas take way longer than a car).
Did I make the right decision to stay in Perth at the school I knew & where my friends were? I can't say for sure since I never got to experience the path not travelled. But I think if I could go back in time, I would probably make the same choice again.
(Perhaps it would have been better for my parents to have never put me in the place where I had to make that choice in the first place...? But they wanted to move and with 3 kids spread out in age, there was never going to be a good time that wouldn't have disrupted at least one kid's schooling unless they had waited over a decade til my youngest brother was out of school).
Edited to add:
The way Gunnerkrigg Court puts all its students into boarding school is a bit weird though. None of the many people I know who went to a boarding school had parents who lived just round the corner like Kat does. If someone had parents nearby(-ish) that just meant only a 1.5 - 2 hrs drive, instead of 6 hr drive or a plane flight. So I have to agree with the forum members speculating that GC approach may be about manipulating the next generation.
|
|
|
|
Post by blazingstar on Apr 16, 2021 6:24:27 GMT
Delurking after years of reading the forum because apparently I have a lot to say on the topic of boarding schools. 🙂 It's interesting to read other people's thoughts on this especially being from a place where boarding schools are somewhat common due to logistical reasons. In Australia, or at least the part where I live, we have both: a) private boarding schools where rich people from regional and rural Australia can send their kids, and b) public boarding schools for kids from areas so rural that the local education opportunities are limited to just a primary school or maybe a primary + partial high school (up to year 10). Western Australia is a very big place and rural WA is a very tiny proportion of the population. For much of rural WA, your options are basically either home schooling - which not everyone is good at or capable of managing - or sending your kids off to boarding school when they outgrow the local school at age 13 or 16..... (I hope you'll forgive me editing your comment for brevity.) Thank you SO MUCH for your perspectives on this (the more cultural perspectives in this discussion, the better, I think!) I don't know why it never occurred to me that there would be places in the developed world where boarding school is the ONLY option, even for the rural and poor. Am I right in understanding that the issues of class and wealth are still factors, but it's less about exclusion from the system and more about varying levels of quality within the boarding school system itself? And welcome, former lurker! I was a longtime forum lurker myself before I decided to jump into the deep end. Thanks for deciding to post. |
|
|
|
Post by saardvark on Apr 16, 2021 12:39:55 GMT
Delurking after years of reading the forum because apparently I have a lot to say on the topic of boarding schools. 🙂 welcome to the forum, jesslc ! thanks for your insights! |
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Apr 16, 2021 15:31:00 GMT
Here, boarding school is something only for "bad" children. Not so! There are quite a few boarding schools that cater to the very uppermost of the 1% class. Usually they are only for high school level kids, but not always.
I used to live quite close to one of these schools: Groton. Sounds like the name of some comic book alien. |
|
|
|
Post by jesslc on Apr 19, 2021 8:45:38 GMT
Thanks for the welcome! Something else I find kind of weird about the GC boarding school (Harry Potter too) is teachers looking after the kids after hours. Since these are both are written by British authors maybe that's just how it's done over there, I don't know. Or perhaps it's simply conservation of detail from a story perspective. My school had separate staff for each part. The educational side of the school was full of teachers who went home at the end of their day job, just like at any other school. And none of the boarding staff were teachers - we had a Head of Boarding, a number of "house mothers", kitchen & cleaning staff, and maybe someone who staffed the school library in the evening (though maybe that was rotated between the house mothers, I don't quite remember). I think this is the usual kind of setup for boarding schools here, so the idea that teachers who have already done a full day's work teaching/marking/prepping lessons would be looking after the boarding students is quite strange to me. Thank you SO MUCH for your perspectives on this (the more cultural perspectives in this discussion, the better, I think!) I don't know why it never occurred to me that there would be places in the developed world where boarding school is the ONLY option, even for the rural and poor. Am I right in understanding that the issues of class and wealth are still factors, but it's less about exclusion from the system and more about varying levels of quality within the boarding school system itself? I'm not sure. My parents valued education very highly and so I heard a fair bit of discussion about how schools were performing compared to other schools, etc. After I'd left home I'd still hear them discussing it because of my younger brothers. So I always saw the public/private school debate from that perspective. Over here, at least, most private schools consistently outperform most public ones (measured by their year 12 students' final results). Of course there are exceptions in both directions - but in general, it's true. I talked to my boyfriend about it and he said he thinks it's a mix of both. He spent his final 2 years of schooling at a public boarding school but a lot of the friends he had in primary school were sent to private boarding schools in Perth for all of high school. My boyfriend thinks that for those families it was a combination of class reasons / connections as well as about wanting a better education for their kids. He assumes this was the case because many of those kids ended up coming back & taking over the family farm. And it's not like you really needed an expensive private school education for that - they could have gone off to one of the public agricultural colleges instead (still boarding though). His comments reminded me that there were quite a lot of kids at my boarding school who were from similar-ish family backgrounds - land rich, cash poor farming families. I didn't keep in touch with any of those kids so I don't know if any of them ended up end up taking over their families farms. But I'd say this background probably described about half the boarders in my year. I'm not an expert on class at all, but I feel like this is maybe a bit different to the class motivations behind sending your kids to a boarding school in the UK or US. (Or maybe not. Like I said - not an expert here). I didn't think of it before - but perhaps this is a networking/making connections thing but in a good way..? Farming in rural Australia can mean being very isolated. I can see farmer parents might think that one of the main benefits of boarding school is that it will give your kids the opportunity to meet and form close friendships with other kids who will be in a similar situation to them once they grow up. If keeping your kid home with you meant your teen would have 5 years of only rare/infrequent contact with kids their own age... well that's not such a simple question any more, is it? (And it's not like you can just up and move to a more populated area - unless you want to give up the family farm and your entire livelihood). These days with widespread internet access, video calling, etc it might be different but I finished high school some years before Skype even existed. My boarding school did also have some kids from super wealthly parents though. To give one extreme example, we had a few international students in my boarding school and one of them received a brand new BMW convertible - with her own chauffeur - for her 16th birthday! (Earliest you could start driving lessons then was 16 yrs + 9 months). My boyfriend grew up in a WA country town that only has a district high school - that's the usual name for a school that covers both primary and early high school (up to year 10). When he outgrew it, his parents decided to put him in a public boarding school at Narrogin for his final 2 years. He didn't get a say in the decision. He's a bit older than me - this was in the late 80s. There was a town with a senior high school (goes up to year 12) that was a bit closer to where he grew up than Narrogin so I asked him if commuting to the closer school was considered as an option by his parents. He said that it was considered but it would have been a 2.5 hr round trip for his mum to drop him off/pick him up and it also had a reputation for being a pretty rough school. He doesn't know if there was a bus he could have taken. If there was, it would have been significantly longer than driving - probably at least 3.5 hrs on a bus each day. He hated boarding school and says he would have preferred to stay home if that had been possible (eg. if there was a bus), but he didn't get a say in the matter. So I wasn't quite right in saying that it's a choice between homeschooling or boarding school though I'm sure that there are parents here who do have to make that choice. At least in my boyfriend's case, it was a choice between letting him leave school after year 10, boarding school, a very long commute, or homeschooling. Also of note is that the WA government subsidises the cost of the public boarding schools. And then there are extra subsidies available if a child lives over a certain distance from a suitable government school, or if the parents' income is below a certain level. The overall cost to parents of a public boarding school if you qualify for all possible subsidies is very low. Maybe this was a factor. I know my boyfriend's parents were very poor and they would have met the distance requirement. Apart from my boyfriend, I've known quite a number of people who went to a boarding school (mine or a different one) but now I'm only still in contact with 3 of them and only occasionally. If I do end up catching up with one of them though, I hope I remember to ask about their experience because this discussion has piqued my curiosity. |
|
|
|
Post by drmemory on Apr 19, 2021 17:55:04 GMT
This isn't taking into account the fact that the Court itself is actually very controlling. They may not interfere with kid's lives in any obvious way but all the children have trackers on them. They are observed by teams of shadowmen. The adults are taking it as a given that they are under surveillance even in their own homes. The Court institutions are very manipulative, leaving Annie to her cheating practices in order to use her against her own father at a later point (note that Tony was also followed and tracked down despite having left the Court for years, then was blackmailed into going back. There are cults that are easier to leave than the Court). I tugged this piece out because it reminded me of something. How does the court track the children? Through their food. Jones confirmed this.
So I wonder what the court's tracking system showed when we went from two Annies to one Annie? If anyone was looking, or it was recorded/logged (which seems likely), they ought to be able to tell which Annie body vanished, or if both vanished and this is a new whole person, or even if they merged (and thus had both tracking identifiers).
Tom doesn't usually go into tech things like this, but I'm really thinking there is at least one person in the court somewhere, probably a member of the Shadow Men organization who doesn't get out much, who knows just what has happened here. At least the physical part.
Hard to predict if this will matter at all. The Court does tend to sit on the info they collect and use it when it benefits them, and they probably wouldn't want to reveal details of their surveillance system just to settle questions about one teenage girl. On the other hand, maybe Tom told us about the food tracking via SpiderJack and Jones all those years ago JUST so it could come into play now. Who knows? 
So maybe this doesn't matter it all, maybe it will matter later, and maybe whatever the surveillance operator saw was disturbing enough for Jones to be tasked with evaluating Annie's mental health. Who can say?
|
|
|
|
Post by Gemminie on Apr 20, 2021 4:09:50 GMT
So I wonder what the court's tracking system showed when we went from two Annies to one Annie? If anyone was looking, or it was recorded/logged (which seems likely), they ought to be able to tell which Annie body vanished, or if both vanished and this is a new whole person, or even if they merged (and thus had both tracking identifiers). That's assuming they have tracking identifiers at all. Food's pretty imprecise; how do you know who eats what? I don't see how they get more information than "there's a pair of tracked people at such-and-such coordinates. No, wait ... there's one tracked person." (They don't track Zimmy, and it doesn't seem that she actually physically approached the Annies anyway. They can't track Renard, or at least not the same way, because he doesn't eat. If the tree elves are now eating Court food and thus being tracked, they don't seem to have physically approached the Annies, so they wouldn't have shown up.) I suppose there might be some sort of DNA sensor in the trackers that can tell whose body it's in. But even then, it's a pretty good assumption that the two Annies had the same DNA, so that probably wouldn't help determine which one disappeared. Hmm, or they could remotely program the microtrackers in everyone's body with their identity whenever they pass checkpoints, such as when they leave the dining hall. That would detect the difference between the two Annies. But it still might not tell them which Annie vanished, because it seems likely (to me, at least), that both vanished, replaced with a new/reconstructed body with no trackers. (My speculation is that what Loup did to Annie is something she could have done to herself, had she known how and had the inclination, and what Zimmy did was basically show her how, or rather how to do the opposite. After all, if you have a flame, you can always make another one by lighting another torch with it. And you can light a bonfire by tossing two torches into it at once.) |
|
|
|
Post by warrl on Apr 20, 2021 5:19:08 GMT
If they are putting trackers in the food, the things must be tiny (or they'd be picked out of the food) and probably numerous.
Any given student would have multiple trackers - a population changing over time.
Their computers could monitor the changing population of trackers in each student, and if at any point in time a given student has been identified as being the one with a particular group of trackers then they would be able to track that student indefinitely - as long as they are regularly eating the Court's food. Go on a few weeks' vacation and they'd lose it. But of course it could be re-established the same way easily enough.
Now how they knew that Jones - who probably doesn't eat - was next to Annie when Tony called...
|
|
V
Full Member
I just think it's a pity that she never wore these again.
Posts: 168
|
Post by V on Apr 20, 2021 6:05:49 GMT
I tugged this piece out because it reminded me of something. How does the court track the children? Through their food. Jones confirmed this. To be honest, I thought and still think it was a joke. Jones' being emotionless does not prevent her actively evoking emotions in others – we've seen her angering people, petting them, deliberately arranging Smitty's romantic gesture, why not mock them by telling them an outright lie? Tracking through food is so ridiculously overcomplicated and inherently flawed (as was pointed out) that it looks like a generic "shut-up" cover story that everyone just agreed to tell the children if they ask too much. I'm not saying they are not tracked – we've seen that on many other occassions – just that it is something else. And pretty basic at that, if they could freely roam the streets and even take a robot taxi without fear of being identified visually.
I don't even think the data is evaluated by people, aside from emergencies like leaving school grounds, so even if it could discern the two Annies, it's possible that no one just bothered to care about what the trackers say.
|
|
|
|
Post by Gemminie on Apr 20, 2021 12:30:41 GMT
If they are putting trackers in the food, the things must be tiny (or they'd be picked out of the food) and probably numerous. Hmm, what if they're some set of harmless chemicals they can scan for, ones that break down into other harmless molecules in time and must thus be replenished. Or relative proportions of the 20 (or however many) different tracking chemicals? Unique to each student because of their diet and tastes? Yes, the computers could register a known student's tracking chemical proportions when they go past checkpoints (perhaps places where they have to present an ID card or at least carry something with an RFID tag to enter) and then just scan for the tracking molecules elsewhere. If they're constantly scanning, it doesn't matter if the chemicals are continually breaking down; the computers always have a recent reading to compare against. Unless, as you say, they don't eat any Court food for a period of time. You know ... these wouldn't necessarily even have to be chemicals that aren't naturally found in food. Everyone's already got a set of relative proportion of vitamins, minerals, and other essential nutrients in their systems from their food that the body can't manufacture from other molecules. If there were a way to quickly and non-invasively scan people for their proportions of these substances, this could actually be done in the real world right now. Did they know? I didn't think the Court transferred that call, because it didn't originate as a phone call. I thought the "magic" (or etheric process, or whatever) just found the communication device nearest to Annie at the moment. |
|
|
|
Post by imaginaryfriend on Apr 20, 2021 16:32:40 GMT
The main obstacle to tracking people through their food would be making sure that the correct food goes to the correct people. The Court is a big institution and a lot of meals get served in cafeterias, other foods get sent to homes where there are multiple people in the household. We know that they used robots to monitor people and Art makes a reference to other unspecified monitoring equipment. Since they were talking about Kat's lab I'm thinking that they install additional things and assign extra robots to wherever they think interesting things might happen, with Shadow Men teams monitoring the most interesting people and places. We also know they use motion detectors and probably other conventional alarms where they need to keep things or people safe; the robots are more useful than static cameras so I suppose that's why we haven't seen more cameras. The second biggest obstacle to me would be preventing unauthorized access. There's a lot of big-brain people in the Court and a lot of ways that tracking could be abused. If they just keep it to something that's not individual-specific in the food that would make it harder for people without access to their system. A distant third on the problem list would be dead areas. I don't think even the Court has the resources to continuously scan the entire area they controlled before "Loup" attacked without irradiating their population in harmful ways. Given the nature of some of the research that the Court does I'm going to assume that there are a number of buildings that have negative impacts on coverage, and probably more places where coverage is spotty. But people have devices they work on and carry around. They have cellphones and tablets and stuff, and there's probably lots of older terminals and land-line phones. Those are gold mines in and of themselves, but with a teeny bit of tinkering they could be used to monitor their users. So yeah, what's in the food is probably just something to make their other surveillance work better. Maybe rf micro-reflectors. They may also use standard inventory control at the point-of-disposal, so for example they could track a bag of crisps through point-of-sale and then match it to a specific person through however payment works in the Court, and then record where the packaging was disposed of. That would probably keep them up to date on where the teens like to hang out even if it's a dead zone. Hyland's bugs come in pairs; one that masks the signal and another that transmits a false one but needs to be on a robot to work. I think what's in the food works like the dots on motion capture. The "transmission" is passive but makes the human reflect radio waves, and the surveillance equipment uses that reflected waves to "see" a moving human shape. So, the bug on the student breaks up that pattern so that the machines won't register it as a human but probably wouldn't interfere with visual recording or anything else, but that's enough since there are enough humans accounted for where they should be. The bugs on the robots are probably actively projecting a human-shaped signal. If someone went back and manually checked the recordings they'd probably see the kids, or alternatively notice that two of the supposed-kids were inside robots all night back in Ch 34 but the system wouldn't flag something like that. Assuming that's the case, what did Court surveillance actually do? I think the Court would have trouble locating any particular person in real-time who wasn't in or very recently in a place where they have eyes, but they could immediately pull a list of favorite places and regularly-traveled routes for all but the most paranoid of residents. They can (or could) send out alerts to the robots who are monitoring things to keep a special eye out for a particular person (in the case of some models, literally) and direct them to where the person was last on the grid. They could fairly quickly crunch some numbers and come up with recent patterns of behavior and probably take a guess about the person's mental state. They might be able to use the data to guess at where the person is likely to turn up. What they'd be good at is spotting people talking about things they shouldn't with or near their computers and other devices. |
|
