[2467] "It doesn't excuse it."

[imaginaryfriend]

It doesn't excuse it. Just explains it.

[edit] Or as the comment at the bottom of the page says, kinda explains it. Like I said before, it's good enough for now. [/edit]

[faiiry]

Glad to see an explicit acknowledgement that it doesn't excuse it, only explains it. I do feel a lot of sympathy for Tony, but at the end of the day, he's an absent father who messed up his kid, even if he didn't mean to.

[antiyonder]

I'm fine with it. I do think it's understandable why some don't care for it as it could come off to some as saying you have an obligation to stay with someone who caused you pain abuse or no, or to forgive them lest you be worst.*

I am more for forgiveness and/or redemption myself, but I think it's good to understand the turn off of one's own preferences.

*I mean as odd as it may sound some people can still cut someone from their life and still be fair/civil towards them.

[dramastix]

It's almost like Tom knew how the forum was going to react....

I am glad, though, that Antimony has the maturity for this more complex evaluation. It makes me feel better about my qualms from earlier, that we were sweeping Tony's actions under the rug in the name of Reconciliation and Forgiveness.

[Fishy]

The whole page kinda gives the vibe, but panel 4 especially feels like “Yes, I hear you, forums. Here’s the clarification so you don’t whine.”

The peeps who want to whine are gonna do it anyway, but it’s still nice learning Annie is aware of her father’s condition.

I think there’s something exceptionally sweet about the way she just... loves Tony. She’s without reason to, and I don’t mean that as a dig at Tony. If he’s never been able to be himself with her, then Annie’s never seen his softer side until a couple months ago. In fact, she’s seen far darker depths. And yet she loves him anyway and always has, unconditionally. It’s kind of cute in a weird way.

[wies]

I am tickled that my earlier comparison of Annie's cutting her Fire away and Tony's Mindcage also shows up in-comic. This is also why I am squinting a bit about Annie's declaration that "she was able to undo it".

Maybe you were, Annie, but it was not you who undid it. Though to be fair, she was still working on connecting again with the fire afterwards.

[imaginaryfriend]

She didn't say she undid it, she said she was able to undo it. That plus the next line leads the uninformed to assume that she undid it. 

Gotta keep the mask on in front of Jones.

[V]

It's not the first time we see someone's life crippled by an unexplained power that others either can control, or are not affected by, but someone just got the wrong combo. Could Tony possibly be an interesting anomaly of some sort brought to the Court? I know this sounds too wild but I'm still looking for the reason why they value him so.

[madjack]

May 14, 2021 7:36:05 GMT Fishy said:

The whole page kinda gives the vibe, but panel 4 especially feels like “Yes, I hear you, forums. Here’s the clarification so you don’t whine.”

The peeps who want to whine are gonna do it anyway, but it’s still nice learning Annie is aware of her father’s condition.

And it happens every time, too. I've said it before, but this is a story that it's really important not to judge until it's over. Same goes for chapters or scenes, even when they drag out a bit.

Edit: I suppose this could come off as a bit backhanded, but it's not really meant that way.

[0o0f]

May 14, 2021 9:01:54 GMT madjack said:

And it happens every time, too. I've said it before, but this is a story that it's really important not to judge until it's over. Same goes for chapters or scenes, even when they drag out a bit.

Edit: I suppose this could come off as a bit backhanded, but it's not really meant that way.

Now I wonder if I find this more noticable than usual since I have been paying more attention to the forums lately (the "this doesn't excuse it"-thing has even been said before as well). It seems almost a bit heavy-handed, but I suppose this is a case where it's better to be safe than sorry

[rafk]

May 14, 2021 7:36:05 GMT Fishy said:

The whole page kinda gives the vibe, but panel 4 especially feels like “Yes, I hear you, forums. Here’s the clarification so you don’t whine.”

The peeps who want to whine are gonna do it anyway, but it’s still nice learning Annie is aware of her father’s condition.

I think there’s something exceptionally sweet about the way she just... loves Tony. She’s without reason to, and I don’t mean that as a dig at Tony. If he’s never been able to be himself with her, then Annie’s never seen his softer side until a couple months ago. In fact, she’s seen far darker depths. And yet she loves him anyway and always has, unconditionally. It’s kind of cute in a weird way.

It's not a "clarification so the forum doesn't whine" but a key bit of the character development very much needed, even if the Tony apologists didn't think so.

I'm much more comfortable about the direction of the storyline and characterisation at this point - not 100% yet.

It's an oddity of the webcomic format that in a book one would absolutely give the author the benefit of the doubt until the storyline plays out, but webcomic time being what it is I do think webcomics can't expect people to wait literally 5 years+ of real time of following the comic for a hint that the story isn't taking the abuser's side (at least after many chapters which came across to many people as trying to get readers to sympathise with Tony) with content like this and that it was a misstep for Tom to have taken this long to show this is the direction we are going. Writing webcomics like books has always had this problem (I say as someone who has been reading webcomics over 20 years) but even more now with concerns about triggers for this kind of issue that weren't really considered or respected 20 years ago.

[puntino]

May 14, 2021 10:17:31 GMT rafk said:

May 14, 2021 7:36:05 GMT Fishy said:

The whole page kinda gives the vibe, but panel 4 especially feels like “Yes, I hear you, forums. Here’s the clarification so you don’t whine.”

The peeps who want to whine are gonna do it anyway, but it’s still nice learning Annie is aware of her father’s condition.

I think there’s something exceptionally sweet about the way she just... loves Tony. She’s without reason to, and I don’t mean that as a dig at Tony. If he’s never been able to be himself with her, then Annie’s never seen his softer side until a couple months ago. In fact, she’s seen far darker depths. And yet she loves him anyway and always has, unconditionally. It’s kind of cute in a weird way.

It's not a "clarification so the forum doesn't whine" but a key bit of the character development very much needed, even if the Tony apologists didn't think so.

I'm much more comfortable about the direction of the storyline and characterisation at this point - not 100% yet.

It's an oddity of the webcomic format that in a book one would absolutely give the author the benefit of the doubt until the storyline plays out, but webcomic time being what it is I do think webcomics can't expect people to wait literally 5 years+ of real time of following the comic for a hint that the story isn't taking the abuser's side (at least after many chapters which came across to many people as trying to get readers to sympathise with Tony) with content like this and that it was a misstep for Tom to have taken this long to show this is the direction we are going. Writing webcomics like books has always had this problem (I say as someone who has been reading webcomics over 20 years) but even more now with concerns about triggers for this kind of issue that weren't really considered or respected 20 years ago.

I don't quite understand this argument. The story or author doesn't have any obligation to take the sides you agree with, much less in a "reasonable" time.

Maybe the story would shift completely to show Tony's development and be about that. It's not really our choice, and the most we could do is just... stop reading.

That being said, the storyline so far has showed plenty of very direct situations where annie was able to experience the nuance in her father's communication abilities and deficiencies. Although we could not really define what was Antimony's stance on her father, we knew deep down that she had the tools to better understand him.

Still, I feel something drastically changed every since she merged back. I'm considering the merger as a figurative event, but I can't quite put my finger on what it relates to in real life.

[yinglung]

I think it's a good narrative echo. The first time Annie got a good look at a different side of Tony, when Donny helped her spy through the blinker stone, she was still processing and Donny specifically told her that this didn't excuse Tony. This was from Donny, the person that knew him best, who is one of the more sensible characters in the comic. Now that Annie has a more holistic view of Tony, she can say that herself, without rose or jade colored glasses.

[Karretch]

May 14, 2021 8:10:10 GMT wies said:

I am tickled that my earlier comparison of Annie's cutting her Fire away and Tony's Mindcage also shows up in-comic. This is also why I am squinting a bit about Annie's declaration that "she was able to undo it".

Maybe you were, Annie, but it was not you who undid it. Though to be fair, she was still working on connecting again with the fire afterwards.

Ys popping the blinker stone didn't fix Annie, it made her so angry that she reconnected with her fire . It wasn't her intention to, but Ys couldn't have forced her any which way. She undid her split by herself, just not actively/conciously.

[yinglung]

May 14, 2021 8:47:17 GMT V said:

It's not the first time we see someone's life crippled by an unexplained power that others either can control, or are not affected by, but someone just got the wrong combo. Could Tony possibly be an interesting anomaly of some sort brought to the Court? I know this sounds too wild but I'm still looking for the reason why they value him so.

I'm betting it's because Tony showed signs of being a prodigy, while also having a troubled home life. He also naturally isolates himself, which makes him easier to manipulate and less likely to form inconvenient loyalties. That's probably the reason why he is deeper in the court hierarchy than most.

Much more mysterious is why Eglamore was scouted by the court. He was pretty young, had parents, and Jones specifically scouted him and will be his friend until the end of his life. Maybe she has that dynamic with all the children she scouts, I dunno.

[Gemminie]

Now Annie is surmising about what her father realizes about himself. She continues to face away from Jones as she speaks. She's correct that he wishes he weren't caged when she's around. And she isn't smiling anymore. That first panel is interestingly composed, with Annie in profile and her word balloons in front of a backdrop of purple buildings lining a street that goes off toward the horizon under a purple sky.

She thinks back to when she cut the ragefire out of herself in chapters 51-54, and there's an accompanying thought illustration, beautifully drawn by the way. Annie compares what she did to what she thinks things are like for Tony, noting that it wasn't permanent for her – although she says that she undid it when in fact Ysengrin did so. She's correct here, too, in that Tony is unable to control this separation; there's nothing he can do about when the cage drops and when it lifts. I suspect that it's his influence that allowed her to perform that trick.

Then there's a faraway shot that looks like it's seen from the top of a building, or perhaps a crane, drone, or helicopter, if this were a movie. It looks as if there's a planter around their front porch with nothing growing in it at all, not even weeds. Plants can grow in the Court, as evidenced by Young's Park, but perhaps that's Marcia's influence, because it does seem pretty rare to see them. Although there's also the cemetery from chapter 43, but perhaps that's near Young's Park. Is the Court normally barren of plant life and wildlife? Again Annie's correct that Tony struggles with the phenomenon that he likens to a cage. And then she seems to begin to actually express her feelings. Maybe the memory of being so angry with him has shifted her train of thought in that direction.

She looks back toward Jones, but it's hard to say whether she's actually looking at Jones. She's certainly not looking toward the camera, which seems to be perhaps somewhere near Jones. And she says that although this all explains Tony's behavior, it doesn't excuse it. Is she about to talk about how she feels? Jones is letting her monologue all she wants with no prompting, perhaps because she isn't showing any sign of stopping.

EDIT: pyradonis is correct; Annie isn't saying that she herself undid what she'd done to herself; she's saying that she would have been able to undo it if Ysengrin hadn't crushed her blinker stone to dust first. There's no way to know whether she's correct and that she really would have been able to (or would have wanted to), though. There probably isn't much point in speculating on what might have happened, however. Also, I changed "chapter 46" to "chapter 43" above; thanks for pointing that out!

[pyradonis]

May 14, 2021 7:36:05 GMT Fishy said:

The whole page kinda gives the vibe, but panel 4 especially feels like “Yes, I hear you, forums. Here’s the clarification so you don’t whine.”

Eh. Tom creates a page months before it is uploaded... In my opinion, most forums of webcomics vastly overestimate their importance and influence on the comic's writing.

May 14, 2021 8:47:17 GMT V said:

It's not the first time we see someone's life crippled by an unexplained power that others either can control, or are not affected by, but someone just got the wrong combo. Could Tony possibly be an interesting anomaly of some sort brought to the Court? I know this sounds too wild but I'm still looking for the reason why they value him so.

I don't think so. Interesting anomalies are sorted into Chester. It is most likely the Court mainly was interested in Tony's high intelligence. Although it is true there are still mysteries in his backstory, like what's up with his parents.

May 14, 2021 12:03:56 GMT Gemminie said:

Annie compares what she did to what she thinks things are like for Tony, noting that it wasn't permanent for her – although she says that she undid it when in fact Ysengrin did so.

No. She says she was able to undo it, not that she did. At most, she insinuates she undid it herself.

Although there's also the cemetery from chapter 46, but perhaps that's near Young's Park.

I assume you mean chapter 43?

Is the Court normally barren of plant life and wildlife?

Not completely, although it is surely rare, and IIRC apart from the lab mice no animal bigger than insects and spiders has been seen. By the way, chapter 43 has more plants than just the grass on the cemetry, but again they are a rather sad sight.

[maxptc]

May 14, 2021 13:03:42 GMT pyradonis said:

Eh. Tom creates a page months before it is uploaded... In my opinion, forums of webcomics usually vastly overestimate their importance and influence on the comic's writing.

It is a bit weird, when something in a comic echos something the fourm has previously posted, the thought is typically "author is sending us a message/responding to us/echoing the fourm." when I think it means "some of our theory was spot on". I guess the feeling of having influence on the story is a bigger draw then being right about author intent. That make sense to me, who doesn't want to directly be part of why something the love was created, its one of the few things better then being right.

[rafk]

May 14, 2021 11:06:00 GMT puntino said:

May 14, 2021 10:17:31 GMT rafk said:

It's not a "clarification so the forum doesn't whine" but a key bit of the character development very much needed, even if the Tony apologists didn't think so.

I'm much more comfortable about the direction of the storyline and characterisation at this point - not 100% yet.

It's an oddity of the webcomic format that in a book one would absolutely give the author the benefit of the doubt until the storyline plays out, but webcomic time being what it is I do think webcomics can't expect people to wait literally 5 years+ of real time of following the comic for a hint that the story isn't taking the abuser's side (at least after many chapters which came across to many people as trying to get readers to sympathise with Tony) with content like this and that it was a misstep for Tom to have taken this long to show this is the direction we are going. Writing webcomics like books has always had this problem (I say as someone who has been reading webcomics over 20 years) but even more now with concerns about triggers for this kind of issue that weren't really considered or respected 20 years ago.

I don't quite understand this argument. The story or author doesn't have any obligation to take the sides you agree with, much less in a "reasonable" time.

Sure, and nobody has the obligation to read it or like it either.

Let's assume the author wants his story to be read, and doesn't want people turned off and stop reading because of misunderstandings. It's up to the author whether he reads feedback at all let alone takes it into account, but why gatekeep people giving feedback? The whole point of a forum like this is so people can discuss what they like or didn't like about the comic, however relevant or irrelevant our personal opinions are to the author.

[sebastian]

May 14, 2021 8:47:17 GMT V said:

It's not the first time we see someone's life crippled by an unexplained power that others either can control, or are not affected by, but someone just got the wrong combo. Could Tony possibly be an interesting anomaly of some sort brought to the Court? I know this sounds too wild but I'm still looking for the reason why they value him so.

Because he is really, really smart?

Everyone that worked with him agree that the man , with all his flaws, is a genius. I seems to remember that even his students, while complain how hard are his lessons, admit that they learn a lot from him.

Also, he mistrust etheric solutions, which for the Court is a big bonus.

[Gemminie]

May 14, 2021 13:03:42 GMT pyradonis said:

May 14, 2021 12:03:56 GMT Gemminie said:

Annie compares what she did to what she thinks things are like for Tony, noting that it wasn't permanent for her – although she says that she undid it when in fact Ysengrin did so.

No. She says she was able to undo it, not that she did. At most, she insinuates she undid it herself.

I see what you mean. She's saying that it was undoable, not that she undid it. I added a note to that effect, and thanks for pointing that out!

Although there's also the cemetery from chapter 46, but perhaps that's near Young's Park.

I assume you mean chapter 43?

Oops, yes, sorry, I meant the cemetery from Quicksilver, another example of a large green space I remember seeing in the Court. Again, thanks!

Is the Court normally barren of plant life and wildlife?

Not completely, although it is surely rare, and IIRC apart from the lab mice no animals bigger than insects and spiders has been seen. By the way, chapter 43 has more plants than just the grass on the cemetry, but again they are a pretty sad sight.

Yes. It seems, at least, that plants and animals (larger than insects/spiders) don't grow in the Court unless someone wants them to. That goes along with the whole ethos of the Court, in which nature serves the human race's purposes. So I guess there are no plants in the planter because nobody's been trying to grow any there; the default is that nothing grows.

[warrl]

May 14, 2021 10:17:31 GMT rafk said:

It's not a "clarification so the forum doesn't whine" but a key bit of the character development very much needed, even if the Tony apologists didn't think so.

It certainly goes with Annie's character development - in the sense of growing up.

She's recognizing that the way her father sometimes treats her is wrong, and it is because of his flaws not hers...

... and she forgives him. Not in a "he's my father, he must be right, I just don't understand" way, but in a "he effed up, but I still love him" way.

Nobody else can hurt you half as much as the people you love can... and if you spend a lot of time around them, it approaches certainty that they will hurt you occasionally (whether they mean to or not)... so being able to forgive them - while not blaming yourself - is important.

(However that forgiveness must not be unlimited.)

[phantaskippy]

And just like that, Antimony has become the adult in the relationship.

Let's see if Tony can step up to the plate and meet here there.

[lisanela]

This is why I was taken aback when Idra said Annie was spoiled - if I had this level of maturity and introspection as a teen I'd be the god of wisdom by now! She's also generally very caring and forgiving (Rey, Ysengrin, Jeanne and her dad nearly killed her) and has empathy towards creatures and people others don't understand at all. 

This whole discussion around understanding your parents and trying to mend relationships reminds me of Fruit Basket (where the discourse is going strong aha). Not to go too deep into spoilers for the manga but there's a point where the characters kinda have to move on and there's no real clear moment where apologies and explanations are given - I think that's very realistic. I know so many life stories where parents and children only have a good relationship as adults and past problems have never been discussed. 

[puntino]

May 14, 2021 13:36:25 GMT rafk said:

Sure, and nobody has the obligation to read it or like it either.

Yes, hence what I said in my second line from the answer you've quoted. All we can do is just move along, usually, and not expect things from the writer. (I know this feeling very well because I'm a Hunter x Hunter afficionado 😭)

May 14, 2021 13:36:25 GMT rafk said:

Let's assume the author wants his story to be read, and doesn't want people turned off and stop reading because of misunderstandings. It's up to the author whether he reads feedback at all let alone takes it into account, but why gatekeep people giving feedback? The whole point of a forum like this is so people can discuss what they like or didn't like about the comic, however relevant or irrelevant our personal opinions are to the author.

I also agree, and apologies if my first reply sounded like gatekeeping.

I think my main point is that a lot of people read these comics expecting different things.

Besides discussing the events of the story itself, which is the main purpose of the forums imo, I feel it's weird discussing the editorial decisions the author is taking, with the intention to nudge him in a certain direction.

As other people may not have the same opinion, I personally wouldn't quite follow the "feedback" unless it came in unison.

Meta-discussions such as these are rarely productive, anyways. I stand by my earlier point that Antimony has been much more affected by the merger than Tom is letting us know.

[silicondream]

I can't help smiling at the parallels between this and Annie's "I'm Ysengrin Fan Club Member #ALLOFTHEM" scene while talking to Loup. She'll accept criticism of loved ones, and she'll challenge them to the degree she thinks they can endure, but she'll burn before she lets anyone else estrange her from them.

There's an undercurrent of...not hostility to Tony's Courtly critics here, but more of amused resignation. After all, she's never been more secure in her relationship with her father. He's staying at the Court specifically for her sake, she's able to spend as much time as she wants with him, and everyone who's genuinely close to Annie--even Ysengrin!--has signed off on their relationship at this point. The disapproval of Paz and Winsbury and Eglamore and even Parley...she's not going to lose much sleep over that, since they've never really been on her wavelength. Annie's little speech to Jones here is, I think, a rehearsal for her canned reaction to all her peers from now on: thank you for your concern, I'm aware of the issues you raise, I'm dealing with them, we're genuinely happy, time to move on.

Annie knows she's not going to suddenly convince everyone else in the Court that Tony's a great guy to be around--nor does she necessarily want to, because his social isolation is one of the things that counterbalances the mind cage and lets her still be his #1 girl. This whole scene isn't a defense of Tony, it's a defense of her intimacy with Tony.

There's also, perhaps, a nod to her shared inhumanity with Jones here. No ordinary mortal can perform the kind of controlled dissociations that Annie is learning to achieve, and from her point of view it must be a bit ironic when humans dump on each other for not having the same sort of mind cage.

May 14, 2021 7:32:03 GMT dramastix said:

It's almost like Tom knew how the forum was going to react....

AFAIK, Tom has always said that the fan reaction to Tony back in the Tree was exactly what he was hoping for. That said, I don't think this is Annie talking to the online fans. This is her talking to the Court community, which is fairly similar to the online fanbase in its distribution of opinions on Tony.

May 14, 2021 8:10:10 GMT wies said:

Maybe you were, Annie, but it was not you who undid it. Though to be fair, she was still working on connecting again with the fire afterwards.

I would say it was Annie; Ysengrin just gave her a push. The blinker stone wasn't maintaining the split, it was just allowing her to hold the Fire at a distance so that it wouldn't affect her actions or generate actual heat.

Ysengrin's shattering the blinker stone made reintegrating a lot more urgent, because now the Fire could easily reach the physical world and injure the people around her. But she was still split, and stayed that way until her meditations started to pay off in "Get it Together." We got an external indication of that at the end of the chapter, followed by a visual demonstration during Jeanne's rescue.

*Edit*
Cross-posted, so imma just tuck this in here:

May 14, 2021 16:56:49 GMT lisanela said:

This is why I was taken aback when Idra said Annie was spoiled - if I had this level of maturity and introspection as a teen I'd be the god of wisdom by now!

Thing is, Annie has the power of a (very minor) god, and as Coyote's medium she has the status of one too. The expectations are gonna be different: great power, great responsibility, etc.

Idra and Khepi have very similar takes on Annie, I think--so do most of the elves. They know she's a kid, but she's a kid with physical and social power over them, and she did deliberately accept at least part of that when she became Coyote's chief student and medium. Their own safety, and the safety of their community, requires them to be a bit judgier than they would be otherwise.

Also, the elves are just really good at keeping their social obligations in mind, because their culture is less individualistic, and probably based more on custom than codified law. That makes them kind of terrible at understanding people like Zimmy, who can't help her isolation; why doesn't she just not be scary and unpleasant to the people around her? She must be a demon, because no one is that much of a social failure by accident. I imagine that elven expectations in that area are higher even with young children.

[fia]

May 14, 2021 16:56:49 GMT lisanela said:

This is why I was taken aback when Idra said Annie was spoiled - if I had this level of maturity and introspection as a teen I'd be the god of wisdom by now! She's also generally very caring and forgiving (Rey, Ysengrin, Jeanne and her dad nearly killed her) and has empathy towards creatures and people others don't understand at all. 

I don't disagree, I just saw that as a cultural difference, and a remark more on her relationship with adults and with obligations than a remark about her emotional maturity. When Annie arrived in the forest, she arrived unannounced, stayed in someone's house at the 'polite' request of a literal God, didn't bring a gift or payment, didn't understand the customs, seemed taken aback when she was asked to help around the house, and then ended up getting sloshed at a party (unintentionally I know, but still) and the blame was placed on one of her hosts. I can see how hearing the gossip about all of this would have led someone to say she was spoiled.
It's like if Person A grew up doing chores and gained an allowance only by working a job, bought toys or video games only when they earned enough by themselves, and they meet Person B in college, who doesn't even know how to turn on a laundry machine and got a weekly allowance even if they misbehaved, in addition to any present they wanted whenever they wanted it. Person A has to work hard to get lots of items on their resume to find a job, and Person B gets a job through nepotism. Person A will think Person B is spoiled, even if they're mature, kind, willing to learn, etc. And they won't be wrong.

Idra of course doesn't quite know Annie or how tough she's had it, losing her mom and her dad going AWOL. She just sees her as a kid who didn't get socially educated "right" for an elf.

[machiavelli33]

Honestly, if this page really rings so clearly with forum and community reactions despite being planned out months in advance, it just means Tom's very sociologically savvy - at least when it comes to subjects he's writing about.

Tom knows what he's doing. He once said "there are no villains in this story", and if we feel there is one - maybe we oughta take heart from what Surma whispered to Antimony, before sending her to that little ghost boy's room.

"I will never send you into danger."

Let's see where it all ends up then, shall we?

[Polyhymnia]

Not exactly relevant to the current discussion, but I really like how the elemental embodiment of Annie’s anger illuminates her from behind.

[wies]

May 14, 2021 11:29:15 GMT Karretch said:

May 14, 2021 8:10:10 GMT wies said:

I am tickled that my earlier comparison of Annie's cutting her Fire away and Tony's Mindcage also shows up in-comic. This is also why I am squinting a bit about Annie's declaration that "she was able to undo it".

Maybe you were, Annie, but it was not you who undid it. Though to be fair, she was still working on connecting again with the fire afterwards.

Ys popping the blinker stone didn't fix Annie, it made her so angry that she reconnected with her fire . It wasn't her intention to, but Ys couldn't have forced her any which way. She undid her split by herself, just not actively/conciously.

I doubt it was a case of "make her so angry by popping that stone so she has to reconnect,' because the Fire is her ability (first panel especially) to feel and express anger. As long Annie was separated from her Fire, she can't be angry. Shattering the stone itself ended the separation.

May 14, 2021 8:44:18 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

She didn't say she undid it, she said she was able to undo it. That plus the next line leads the uninformed to assume that she undid it. 

Gotta keep the mask on in front of Jones.

True, I should have expressed it more clear that what I am questioning is that she would have been able to undo it in her own.

May 14, 2021 17:16:44 GMT silicondream said:

I would say it was Annie; Ysengrin just gave her a push. The blinker stone wasn't maintaining the split, it was just allowing her to hold the Fire at a distance so that it wouldn't affect her actions or generate actual heat.

Ysengrin's shattering the blinker stone made reintegrating a lot more urgent, because now the Fire could easily reach the physical world and injure the people around her. But she was still split, and stayed that way until her meditations started to pay off in "Get it Together." We got an external indication of that at the end of the chapter, followed by a visual demonstration during Jeanne's rescue.

If the blinkerstone was allowing her to hold the fire at a distance so that it wouldn't affect her actions or generate actual heat, is that not maintaining the split?


Also, my larger point was about the comparision with the Mind Cage (that she herself made too!) and no one else seems to have commented on it, so I will express it more clear:

In my interpretation this is Annie starting to realize that her father's Mind Cage might have a similar origin as her split from her Fire. She stresses the differences, which do exist, but I think it is more similiar than she makes it out to be.

Because I think if she hasn't had friends who supported her and a mentor who took it upon himself to challenge her, the Split might have endured and the distance between might have grown so far she would have great trouble to restore it.

I speculate what did happen to Tony is that due to a combination of circumstances and the make-up of his psyche he made a Mind Cage. And because it was there from very young, no one in his environment could or would accurately recognize it and didn't make an attempt to at least rattle his Cage. And through age, the Mind Cage has grown so strong it manifests against his will. I do not think Annie could have undone the Split on her own, and it signals that had Tony managed to form a network of support like Annie has, he might have freed himself from the Cage in time.

Basically, I think the Split shows us that Annie could have become like (doesn't mean exactly the same!) Tony if the circumstances were different.