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Post by TBeholder on May 20, 2021 0:04:27 GMT
[Jones gives Anthony a blinker stone and a quick primer on how to use it] Give me ten minutes, then look through it.... I just wanted this side of you to see her. I'm not sure how else you would.Alas, not everyone can use a blinker stone, and Jones and Don are among the ungifted. Given Tony's general etheric failness, I'm sure he is as well. TONY: "Ah, but suppose I surgically replace one of my eyes with the stone? Direct connection to the optic nerve and all?" JONES: "Anthony." TONY: "...I mean when you think about it, it's not like I really deserve both eyes...just need to find a demon to walk me through the finer details...I'm sure they won't trick me into permanently replacing half my visual field with a mind-blasting hyperdimensional kaleidoscope of Annieness or anything like that..." JONES: "Oh, for eternity's sake. Just use the nannycam." Heh. That would be like him. But… Tony's problem with etheric weirdness was in the attitude. He was philosophically irritated by the approach. But the ability… once he went crazy enough, he managed to make and activate that stupid Hand of Glory thing, after all. Looks like he has some potential. Or maybe something rubbed in? |
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Post by Polyhymnia on May 20, 2021 3:08:31 GMT
What Annie says in the last two panels reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time: "You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father." Of course, the person saying that, who is trying to dissuade Meg from rescuing her father there, is an evil representative of IT, which is incapable of comprehending the concept of love and is trying to destroy it wherever it finds it in the interest of total conformity, so how applicable it is here is questionable. I'm sure it's possible to interpret what Annie's saying here as something similar, though – she wants a family, and she wants a father, and she's misinterpreting that as love – but I don't think so. She's seen what he's like when not crippled by his disability, so she's got some idea of how that disability warps and twists what he wants and tries to say and do, and it seems she's able to reinterpret everything he's done in that light. Again, this doesn't excuse any of what he's done, nor does it make it all OK, but it does mean that there's a possibility of a healing process ahead. Not an easy one, though. The Wrinkle in Time parallels are apt,* but I think fundamentally different on a storytelling level. The quote in question actually comes from Meg, who being interrogated as to why she cares about her father from an entity that cannot comprehend love. And we know that Meg feels things strongly but struggles to appropriately verbalize her feelings when she's confronted, so she's unable to find the words to answer the question "why," even though the narrative provides ample understanding. IT views love as a social construct that's unnecessary in a society with complete social conformity, and even destructive in that it causes conflict and IT views any and all conflict as bad. How do you really argue with that?
Both stories involve protagonists with absent fathers who did not fit in well at school and dealt with a community who strongly disapproved of said fathers. Both fathers work for shadowy organizations that are quite possibly meddling with the fabric of reality, though with Mr. Murry it's a lot more "Manhattan project" than the court.
There are some important differences: Meg has her mother and family, while Annie's left alone. While Tony had traveled before working on the Omega project, as far as I can tell, the whole "not coming back to the court" thing was entirely because he didn't want to face it. Mr. Murry was in a literal prison halfway across the universe, and ended up there completely by accident.
The biggest difference, though, is that the narrative makes it clear that Meg misses him because he is one of the only people who actually understands her. He's the one who plays math games with her and understands why she's frustrated at school but also knows how to deal with people when she doesn't and her mother won't (though to be fair to Mrs. Murry--she's not going to change anyone's mind since they all believe she's pining for a husband who abandoned her for another woman). Annie also can't verbalize why she cares about her father apart from his father-ness, but it's a lot less clear why. Annie loves her father even though they don't speak the same language; Meg loves her because he speaks hers.
On a storytelling level, Tony's return amplifies Annie's problems. His presence puts her at odds with people socially, as others now have more opportunities to criticize him and she feels the need to defend him. Annie finds it normal for people to dislike her father (consider: Mr. Eglamore, her sympathetic classmates, Reynard, etc. They do it out of care for her, but instead of sympathy she feels attacked since they don't seem to understand that she still cares about him even though she's extremely conflicted). She also has to examine her feelings about Tony, but does so privately.
Meg just wants her father back so she's not as alone and people stop it with the "smugly vicious gossip" and unfounded criticisms, so Mr. Murry's return is a resolution. Meg pretty much immediately confronts her father about recent events/uses them as a proxy for any resentment about years of feeling abandoned. (Though there's very little obvious resentment and much more parental adoration. Meeting him shatters her image of him as the person who is able to fix anything and she has to realize he's only human). Mr. Murry also didn't really do anything wrong apart from work for said shadowy government organization, whereas Tony actively tried to run away. So there's less to forgive, I think.
I completely have to disagree with you about Charles Wallace. Charles Wallace isn't prickly whatsoever, except when he's being possessed. Dispassionate, maybe, but never prickly. I can only remember him voicing mild frustration a handful of times in the novels, certainly nowhere near as much as Meg in Wrinkle alone. He's considerate and empathetic, especially with Meg. He anticipates people's needs and tries to prepare for them, like when he boils milk for hot chocolate in anticipation of the midnight gathering. He is very easy for Meg to love--he does not hurt her and understands her more completely than anyone else. In fact, it's rather difficult to dislike Charles Wallace--nobody we meet as a character dislikes him unless they're an antagonist or a non-human creature that's frustrated at understanding/communication hurdles. (more on that later)
It's very hard to call him arrogant, either, except again when he is being possessed. Or if we talk about arrogance, it's more of the kind ascribed to neuroatypical folks than the arrogance of over-valuing one's own contributions and looking down on others. He values precision and will correct people when they mischaracterize things (though he does this with family and seems to be quiet around those he can't trust as a defense mechanism). He knows a lot of things about complex scientific concepts and will talk authoritatively and factually about them, even though he's five, which makes people uncomfortable. They often assume he's lying or making things up to make them feel stupid, when he's really just infodumping (This comes from A Wind in the Door, where he's chewed out for talking about mitochondria to a peer since the teacher assumes he's making them up to brag).
Why do people dislike Charles Wallace? (And it is generic "people": no named character apart from Mr. Jenkins in A Wind in the Door dislikes him, and Mr. Jenkins stops resenting Charles Wallace as soon as he starts addressing the reason for resentment: his own low self-esteem). It's not only because Charles Wallace is smart and they're insecure, though that's a huge factor. It's also not just because they resent his family's intelligence and outsider-ness, and suspect the Murrys of an attitude of superiority that they never display in the text. It's not just because they want to see the Murrys taken down a notch, which they rather vindictively did when they assumed he was "dumb."
No, the problem is that they are unnerved by Charles Wallace. They assumed he was intellectually disabled because he didn't speak as a young child and was quiet as he grew up, and when he shows his frightening intellect, they find it creepy. They don't like his mannerisms ( just like Tony, actually) and resent that he does not fit in. (Seriously, what adult sees a kindergarten child being routinely beat up bloody and blames it on him? The adults refusing to do anything to help makes me incredibly grateful to the activists who've fought to shift cultural attitudes towards disability, mental illness, and bullying since the 60s.) Charles Wallace, unlike Tony, can talk to people just fine--he just doesn't know how to talk like a neurotypical person and is routinely punished for not doing so. He doesn't seem to have Tony's anxiety...yet.
So I agree that there's a ton of similarity! I just don't agree with your phrasing characterizing Charles and Tony. And then there's the fact that Charles Wallace is a five-year-old in Wrinkle, and Tony's a parent who has made objectively bad parenting choices. People might be disinclined to like Tony due to his mannerisms, or be naturally uncomfortable around him like with Charles, but they also dislike him because of his choices. Annie's relationship with Tony is far more complicated than Meg's with either Mr. Murry or Charles Wallace.
*(There are other similarities, like others trying to stand in as a parent while blaming Annie's bad behavior on her father in the process. Though at this point, I kind of agree with Reynard with the cheating thing, and her later defiance does have to do with lack of parents to encourage accountability. Annie's cheating could be because she's struggling, but given more structure and accountability, she does well, whereas Meg is studying but failing to remember or shutting down in class when they expect her to do redundant things.
I'd argue a lot of Meg's problems stem less from an absent father alone and more from neurodiversity in a society not equipped to handle it--she's excellent in areas that interest her but performs extremely poorly in other subjects, struggles with memory, finds her mind wandering in class, relates more with her five-year old brother than peers her own age (who see her as childish), is emotionally reactive and easily frustrated, unable to blend in, and fidgets--so a lot of things that jive with ADHD. A Wind in the Door gets a little more into how teachers (fail to) handle unusual students, which adds to my neuroatypical reading.
"I hate being an oddball...It's hard on Sandy and Dennys, too. I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're just able to pretend they are. I try to pretend, but it isn't any help." You and me both, Meg, you and me both.)
/end tangent
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Post by Gemminie on May 20, 2021 15:37:08 GMT
The Wrinkle in Time parallels are apt,* but I think fundamentally different on a storytelling level. I just wanted to say that this is a completely awesome post, and that I was basing my thoughts on what I remember of A Wrinkle in Time, which is filtered through a few other interpretations, like the relatively recent film and a graphic novel, so I admit that my memory of the original is faulty and altered by other impressions. I think what I meant was that to others not in his family, he comes across that way – in my admittedly faulty memory. I think that he was portrayed as rather prickly (to people who don't understand him) in the most recent film adaptation, and that's where I'm getting that from. We're talking about the opinions of others toward Tony, and that's why I was talking about the opinions of others toward Charles Wallace, how he presents himself to others and how they take it. So that's where I was coming from, and you're entirely right that he isn't really that way. |
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Post by Polyhymnia on May 20, 2021 16:41:53 GMT
The Wrinkle in Time parallels are apt,* but I think fundamentally different on a storytelling level. I just wanted to say that this is a completely awesome post, and that I was basing my thoughts on what I remember of A Wrinkle in Time, which is filtered through a few other interpretations, like the relatively recent film and a graphic novel, so I admit that my memory of the original is faulty and altered by other impressions. I think what I meant was that to others not in his family, he comes across that way – in my admittedly faulty memory. I think that he was portrayed as rather prickly (to people who don't understand him) in the most recent film adaptation, and that's where I'm getting that from. We're talking about the opinions of others toward Tony, and that's why I was talking about the opinions of others toward Charles Wallace, how he presents himself to others and how they take it. So that's where I was coming from, and you're entirely right that he isn't really that way. Hehe, so I fully admit that my brain kinda shut down when I saw "arrogant" and "prickly" and then in the course of writing that post I realized that there wasn't a lot to actually rebut and we were probably on the same page. You're right on the internal qualities/external perception thing--characters can have completely divergent reputations and characters/personalities. While I haven't really interacted with many adaptions of Wrinkle, I did see the recent movie and differences in character interpretation, so it makes sense that there'd be extra-textual influences in how Charles Wallace is perceived. (I actually have loads to say about this, and how Movie Meg is very different from Book Meg but also completely recognizable as Meg, but I'll refrain. Except that Mrs. Whatsit's portrayal was character assassination).
Actually, I started a re-read and I think I forgot that Charles Wallace hadn't started speaking to strangers in Wrinkle, so people were justified in thinking him mute because the kid literally wouldn't/couldn't talk to outsiders. It wasn't until Wind that he started trying to communicate with people outside his circle.
So upon further thought I have to question my own analysis here. There are a lot of external parallels between Annie and Tony, but not a lot of touchy-feely moments, so it's hard to tell whether or not Annie feels closer to her father than she does to her peers. I'm starting to suspect that even if she can't verbalize it, she does understand him more more naturally than she understands her peers. It could be the case that their whole nonverbal thing is quite natural for them, and it's the verbal communication that's unnatural. They just haven't let go of the idea that they must communicate "normally" for it to count. Annie's figuring it out faster than Tony, I think (see: the last panel on this page, or this conversation about this incident). ETA: other parallels between Annie and Tony in the socialization department Perception among peers: 1, 2, 3, compare to thisDealing with stress and understanding emotions: Compartmentalization and control: How Tony expresses anger and other emotions ( 1, 2, 3) vs Annie's anger ( 1, 2, 3) (Consider how they conceptualize it) Considering that, their fear of pushing people away and being alone: Tony ( 1, 2, 3) vs Annie ( 1, 2 (referencing this) 3)
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Post by bicarbonat on May 21, 2021 19:37:49 GMT
So... when are we going to cut to Tony just standing at the door listening to all of this without Annie realizing? Cookies the size of bricks coming at you in 3, 2... |
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Post by pyradonis on May 21, 2021 22:37:34 GMT
Her enhanced firepower and newfound splitting skills might do the trick. What newfound splitting skills? |
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Post by mochakimono on May 22, 2021 1:19:05 GMT
I am deeply interested in hearing what the retrospection video says about this chapter. (Are those videos still being made? I hope so. They're pretty neat IMO.)
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V
Full Member
I just think it's a pity that she never wore these again.
Posts: 168
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Post by V on May 22, 2021 6:10:57 GMT
I am deeply interested in hearing what the retrospection video says about this chapter. (Are those videos still being made? I hope so. They're pretty neat IMO.) I hope so too. Listening to the retrospective on The Tree is certainly illuminating w.r.t. the author's intentions, and I think it resolves a speculation or two in that direction made in this forum. Tom seems to prefer making them in batches, the chapters 48 to 68 were done in June–September 2019, chapters 69–74 in May–July 2020. While it's been almost a year since, only 5 chapters were finished in the comic after 74, so maybe it's still just too soon for a new release. |
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Post by silicondream on May 23, 2021 12:15:19 GMT
Her enhanced firepower and newfound splitting skills might do the trick. What newfound splitting skills? I was just guessing, without much support, that physically splitting and recombining are things Annie can do for herself; Zimmy just helped her figure out how. |
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Post by agasa on May 24, 2021 14:08:14 GMT
Today's chapter feels very "at" the readership. As has a lot of this arc. Obviously all books / comics are to some extent for the readers, but this in particular seems to be designed to address the issues a lot of readers have with Tony and Annie's relationship. I would say that for me it really hasn't been successful. I knew that Tom had decided that he was going to present this as the status quo going forward, and now he has affirmed it. We got a bunch of characters' opinion on Tony and TBH precious little concern for Annie. Overall I come away from this arc feeling like GC is a colder place than I thought it was - Annie is with a man who basically treats her like furniture, though I guess we now know that from his perspective it's because he has no choice, and her "friends" and "found family" are like basically "well that makes me mad/sad/other but I'm not going to do anything about it." Again, that's something I guess we knew but it seems like making that subtext text isn't something I wanted or needed now that it has happened. So, it's a lot more like most real life treatment of mental illness and difficult family situations by strangers and friends and a lot less like what we would like it to be! This makes it harsh, but it doesn't make GC less worthy to follow. |
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