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Post by imaginaryfriend on Apr 19, 2021 7:02:50 GMT
I can understand how Anthony would feel that way. But yes, as many predicted, we've circled back to Jones and Anthony. |
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Post by shinkaii on Apr 19, 2021 7:06:26 GMT
That's a harsh thing to say. Lost a daughter? So he didn't feel like court Annie was his daughter?
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Post by antiyonder on Apr 19, 2021 7:06:52 GMT
Yeah it did feel like the death of a character even though it was two Annies remerging.
Basically GC's version of Peter Parker Spider-Man #75. Especially if later versions have extra pages.
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Post by flowsthead on Apr 19, 2021 7:09:02 GMT
I brought this up in another thread, but the Court really needs therapists.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Apr 19, 2021 7:11:46 GMT
That's a harsh thing to say. Lost a daughter? So he didn't feel like court Annie was his daughter? Welcome to the forum! And to take a stab at your question, I'm not 100% sure but I think Anthony's missing some of the interaction he used to have when there were two Antimonies. [edit] Intellectually Anthony knows that they were both the same Antimony but it didn't feel/seem that way. [/edit] They used to do things differently, probably on purpose sometimes just because the other existed but there were more genuine differences too. One was months older and had interactions with him that were significant though maybe not entirely good or welcome. The other was a chance to do things over with, do things better. This new Antimony 4, who is hopefully the sum of Antimony 2 and Antimony 3, whatever else she may be, isn't in two places at once and that would feel like a loss. |
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Post by Eversist on Apr 19, 2021 7:18:15 GMT
That's a harsh thing to say. Lost a daughter? So he didn't feel like court Annie was his daughter? Maybe he's not talking about Court or Forest Annie here, maybe he's talking about how he feels after returning to Annie's life in general...after not being there for her for years. Or maybe he felt like both Annies were his daughters and he felt like he lost "one" when they fused again.This is my current interpretation. |
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Post by glyphomatrix on Apr 19, 2021 7:19:05 GMT
I brought this up in another thread, but the Court really needs therapists. Jones should make it another part of her vocations, 'among other things'. A therapist with rich experience stretching back to the Hadean Eon. Could counsel a Cambrian arthropod if she needs to. Speaking of which, isn't Lindsey a therapist of some sort? |
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Post by Timberwere on Apr 19, 2021 7:20:53 GMT
That's a harsh thing to say. Lost a daughter? So he didn't feel like court Annie was his daughter? My take on it is that he felt like he had twin daughters in the two Annies, and now that they are fused, there is only one. That would be the opposite to believing Court Annie was not his daughter. He can only feel that he lost her when she was a daughter to him before.
PS: And to me, it shows that he did feel deeply for both of them and did love both of them even though he behaved differently towards Court Annie vs. Forest Annie, making me think that there is some reason for this discrepancy that we haven't been shown yet, but that we now, maybe, hopefully, will in the talk with Jones.
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Post by blahzor on Apr 19, 2021 7:24:56 GMT
I brought this up in another thread, but the Court really needs therapists. The Court: hmm lets see how all this suffering plays out for another century for the data points |
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Post by madjack on Apr 19, 2021 7:27:04 GMT
I brought this up in another thread, but the Court really needs therapists. I don't think Anthony, after everything he's been through, would even trust a therapist working for the court..... He'd trust one working for the Court even less than one who was not. |
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Post by csj on Apr 19, 2021 7:28:49 GMT
PS: And to me, it shows that he did feel deeply for both of them and did love both of them even though he behaved differently towards Court Annie vs. Forest Annie, making me think that there is some reason for this discrepancy that we haven't been shown yet, but that we now, maybe, hopefully, will in the talk with Jones. Based on his personal turmoil re; his relationship to Surma and its effect on his parenting, I'd say Courtnie's active decision to more closely ape the former's appearance and the like is a rather opaque factor. |
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Post by atteSmythe on Apr 19, 2021 7:36:43 GMT
You know? The good one, not the crap one I’ve been stuck with this whole time
/s?
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Post by arf on Apr 19, 2021 7:39:53 GMT
I wonder if this is because Tony could interact with one of them, at least. (I notice he can interact with Jones.) I brought this up in another thread, but the Court really needs therapists. Jones should make it another part of her vocations, 'among other things'. A therapist with a rich experience stretching back to Hadean Eon. Could counsel a Cambrian arthropod if she needs to. Speaking of which, isn't Lindsey a therapist of some sort? ... and who taught Lindsey? |
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Post by flowsthead on Apr 19, 2021 7:45:47 GMT
I brought this up in another thread, but the Court really needs therapists. I don't think Anthony, after everything he's been through, would ever trust a therapist working for the court..... Probably fair, but you don't have to reveal everything to a therapist to get something out of it. |
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anag
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Post by anag on Apr 19, 2021 7:50:32 GMT
That took a dark turn
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Post by Eversist on Apr 19, 2021 7:52:29 GMT
I brought this up in another thread, but the Court really needs therapists. I love this idea, but I'm putting in my headcanon that the Court would consider it an "etheric science," hahaha.  |
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Post by shinkaii on Apr 19, 2021 8:03:29 GMT
I thought he was talking about losing forest Annie since he was acting sweet to her and now that court and forest Annies are fused he (might be) indifferent to her again. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Apr 19, 2021 8:04:55 GMT
I wonder if this is because Tony could interact with one of them, at least. (I notice he can interact with Jones.) Jones should make it another part of her vocations, 'among other things'. A therapist with a rich experience stretching back to Hadean Eon. Could counsel a Cambrian arthropod if she needs to. Speaking of which, isn't Lindsey a therapist of some sort? ... and who taught Lindsey? It's not said who taught Lindsey but she has claimed to be an accredited couples therapist. Accreditation would typically mean that she's undergone some minimum amount of training plus certification by the appropriate professional organization. The training might be something she could take mostly online but I'd assume to get certified she'd have to at least shadow another therapist. That being the case, I'd figure it'd have to be someone in the Court. Best guess: There's a veeery small professional mental health community (maybe as few as two people) in the Court who approved of Lindsey as a couples therapist. The school at the Court may have designed a curriculum specially for her and if so maybe her training and education was entirely done in the Court. If she was already learning engineering maybe she needed some electives to get an actual degree, found the classes interesting, and decided to finish it up into a certificate. Not sure how much therapy business she sees. Kinda skeptical she needs regular recertification. |
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Post by machiavelli33 on Apr 19, 2021 8:05:15 GMT
That's a harsh thing to say. Lost a daughter? So he didn't feel like court Annie was his daughter? *A* daughter. As opposed to THE daughter, or perhaps his daughterS. Evidently, Tony took the appearance of a second Annie as "I have a second daughter now" - and even though he intellectually knew they were the same person, emotionally he was leaning to the idea of having two children. Except now its only one again. There's no way for him to have two children back without ripping apart the self-actualization that came with the merging process. So it would seem events have left Tony, once again, to suffer. Man. If this were a comedy strip, there'd have to be some recurring gag for Tony to lose his ice cream every time he's given some, or something. |
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Post by bicarbonat on Apr 19, 2021 8:37:42 GMT
That's a harsh thing to say. Lost a daughter? So he didn't feel like court Annie was his daughter? *A* daughter. As opposed to THE daughter, or perhaps his daughterS. 100% agreed. I'm surprised that so many people are taking this dark/heartless interpretation. For all of his faults and difficulties, one thing the remains true is his love for his family. Doesn't show itself like the Donlans, but it's there. And he is likely abnormally triggered by loss because inability to reach out or intervene is his deepest wound. Anthony is somewhere between Charlie Brown, forever missing the football that the weird universe keeps yanking away, and Job - except there's no God trying to prove a point. |
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V
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I just think it's a pity that she never wore these again.
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Post by V on Apr 19, 2021 9:03:25 GMT
I'll toss in a guess: what we see here is Tony's drowning in blaming himself.
It must be said that he handled the situation quite rationally from the very beginning, one of the first things we saw him do was even taking responsibility for Forest Annie and actively defending her when others wanted to keep her under guard. Rey may have been joking that he had two daughters but I think he never really took it any other way, despite treating them differently. That just underlines how much they were two individuals in his eyes.
And now one is gone. He hasn't seen them much since the merger, has he? I assume he was just spending the whole time overthinking stuff. He must have been aware how his relation to Court Annie was hurting her. By living with her and having her assist the surgery, he even got somewhat closer to her (and nicer, comparing to his assessment of Annie's work earlier), but his sudden amiability towards Forest Annie later dwarfed all these small steps. It's quite possible that the recent events made him realize this and that he believes now it's Forest Annie that stayed and Court Annie is gone for good. That he lost her, specifically, by pushing her away. That maybe, if he was able to force himself behave better, things might have just stayed that way.
Marrying Surma he knew he could never get two children (a luxury, by the way, not enjoyed by any of his friends, either), he's not the kind of man who would forget and move on, and especially not so when Annie is grown up. But suddenly that's where he is and in my eyes, he's quite relishing it, in his own way. And now one is gone... and in his head it's entirely his fault... again.
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Post by aline on Apr 19, 2021 9:19:59 GMT
We saw Tony develop different kinds of bonds with the two Annies. He knew which was which even when they tried to disguise it. He perceived the subtle differences in them. It makes sense he'd be disturbed by this turn of event.
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Apr 19, 2021 9:33:41 GMT
Two ships...
One ship, one ship, three ships, then two ships... Maybe the number of ships represent a numerical sequence that will be plot relevant? That starts with a hidden 113...
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Post by zbeeblebrox on Apr 19, 2021 10:48:28 GMT
TBH, this is a lot more like the expected response to this situation. All these other characters are so used to weird magic crap happening that they shrug it off, but we're lacking an outsider's perspective on this besides Tony. We've only gotten hints at the fact that most the non-etheric side of the Court doesn't even believe in magic, but I don't think the implications of that have ever been truly investigated. There's probably a significant contingent of students at Gunnerkrigg who have rationalized that Loup's attack was just an earthquake - or at the most outlandish, the result of tree bioengineering gone wrong. I mean, you'd be surprised what people can rationalize away. But then what happens when you're confronted with the hard yet impossible reality of a situation and there's no way to rationalize it?
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Post by fia on Apr 19, 2021 11:50:22 GMT
This forum is pretty funny guys. An uncharitable interpretation of the forum: Annie fuses and the forum freaks out like wait what this can't be normal!!! AAAAA And when we are shown characters who just kind of accept it it is like WHY ARE THEY NOT CONCERNED When Jones is concerned the forum is like whew But then Anthony gets brought up and stuff gets spiky And now we see Anthony is the one guy who is also concerned about Annie going from 2 to 1 and the forum is like HOW DARE HE anyway this is the uncharitable take; I know the activity is not due to the same persons throughout, just a kind of collective phenomenon. It's fun to observe though anyway. Here's my take: From the beginning when Annie split I was super distressed because on no view of personal identity is it possible for one person to become two people and that first person to still exist as the first person. After a while I got used to it and accepted that now we had two people. When Annie re-fused I was concerned that Annie post-fusion may be quite different metaphysically from Annie pre-fusion; it is also the case on many accounts of personal identity that if two people fuse into one person, the later person is not the same as either of the earlier ones. So we have not one but two discontinuities. However! This is Comic Book Logic, and in comic book logic it might be possible that the Annie of today is the "same person" as the Annie before fusion, and her being two people was just kind of an anomaly. But Tony strikes me as a Parfettian. (More on Parfit here on the IEP). Fission is less of a problem because one person can "survive" as two people, even if the two people are non-identical to the original. Parfit can even be quite jovial about the possibility of fission. What's so bad about there being one more person who is continuous with you? It's like you've survived + 1 ! Going from 1 to 2 is a bonus, it's not like death or dying at all. But fusion is a different matter; if two people fuse into one, the one may be continuous with the two, but there is one fewer person than before. Going from 2 to 1 is a -1 operation. It's just as if someone had died - when you go from 1 to 0 people who exist. For present Annie, she may not be experiencing a problem; she is not the one who is "dead". But to Tony, who had formed a relationship with each of the Annies, and now has a relationship with one other Annie who is not quite either of the other two, it must feel like a loss. And he must be able to recognize it's largely in his head because his daughter doesn't feel like it's a big deal, so he's probably processing it privately as usual. Poor dude. |
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Post by fia on Apr 19, 2021 12:02:37 GMT
Just to add: Remember folks there are many kind of losses. Moving away from one city or one home to a new place may qualify as a loss. Breaking up with a longtime partner or fighting with a good friend may be a loss. Losing a job is definitely a loss. If your parents get divorced, that is a loss. Etherically going from having 2 daughters to 1, even if it's not the same as death, can probably correctly be described as, "I feel as if I have lost a daughter." Speaking for myself - when my parents divorced, one of the toughest parts was having to form individual relationships with each of my parents, and realizing that it was like forming a new relationship altogether, that the parents I had had until that point were different parents in a way to the parents I had post-divorce. It was excessively painful and hard to explain; people thought that because my parents got divorced as an adult that it wasn't so bad. On my view, not knowing what it is like for small children, it was still very difficult; people I had known for over 20 years were now not the same, I did not have one joint two-person parent but two separate people who each had individual needs and deficiencies. They could be bad together but they also kind of calmed each other or informed each other and now I had to go from one conversation with two people to double the number of conversations, trips, lunches, dinners, holidays – where none of those was like they used to be before. Tony is living through something like that but inverted. Home was probably more fun with two daughters to interact with each other, cook with, who would talk and joke together, maybe a way for him to learn about them by just observing without having to work to get information through conversation. I get it. I used to be able to learn about my parents passively through the other parent, and when they separated, that was impossible. The less open one is now a big huge opaque mystery.  Doesn't like talking about himself and avoids difficult topics. Bet it's the same with Tony towards Annie; she probably wasn't very forthcoming with him, either. Maybe the "younger" one was, because he was able to start afresh with her, and that was a huge boost for him. And now the "younger" and "older" Annie are both, well, gone, and it's a new Annie that had both relationships with him, but whose mental state he can't easily access, and who maybe he can't easily joke with because he doesn't know how to react and can't quite start over because he's still grieving. Really, poor guy. |
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Post by Polyhymnia on Apr 19, 2021 12:04:35 GMT
Goodness, I feel bad for Tony here. It seems like when he bonds to people, he becomes very attached, even if it’s not always apparent from the outside how much they matter to him. He found himself the father of twins, and now there’s only one and no one even wants to *talk* about it, especially not Annie (because for her the recombination was a positive experience!). So he’s grieving the loss of Annie almost akin to a death that no one else seems to be acknowledging (the characters have been willing to talk to Jones, but I highly doubt they’ve wanted to broach the elephant in the room with the concerned parties). In the last, we’ve seen Tony making a effort to bond with Court Annie even though it was very uncomfortable. Given my own experience with social anxiety, that feels like it counts for something; he persisted in trying to talk because their relationship did matter to him. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2387 |
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Post by AluK on Apr 19, 2021 12:06:50 GMT
Evidently, Tony took the appearance of a second Annie as "I have a second daughter now" - and even though he intellectually knew they were the same person, emotionally he was leaning to the idea of having two children. Taking this to its logical conclusion explains why he acted differently towards Forest!Annie vs. Court!Annie: Court!Annie is the obvious continuation of the daughter he always had (she never left), whom he shared a lifetime of memories and experiences. She carried all the weight of their shared past. Tony is just a human mountain of anxiety and, anyone that has generalized anxiety disorder can attest to you, dealing with a painful shared past can be paralyzing. It often is. Forest!Annie was a discontinuity, a daughter ex nihilo. Not a clean slate, but close enough that he could just... be himself. |
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Post by pyradonis on Apr 19, 2021 12:11:03 GMT
It feels like... There are only grey houses with grey or purple doors. I don't think Anthony, after everything he's been through, would ever trust a therapist working for the court..... Probably fair, but you don't have to reveal everything to a therapist to get something out of it. I can confirm that from personal experience. |
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Post by todd on Apr 19, 2021 12:48:23 GMT
I brought this up in another thread, but the Court really needs therapists. The Court: hmm lets see how all this suffering plays out for another century for the data points Which, sadly, seems likely. Not to mention that they might also think that mentally stable people might not be as keen on taking part in the Court's more bizarre projects. (I certainly suspect that the Court does all it can to eliminate, among its students, "I don't think this experiment is a good idea; it could have a lot of dangerous side effects" thinking.) |
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Doesn't like talking about himself and avoids difficult topics. Bet it's the same with Tony towards Annie; she probably wasn't very forthcoming with him, either. 
