[2471] "It seems you are doing well"

[justhalf]

Seems like what Jones said at (near?) the end of this chapter triggered some people here. =/

[todd]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I think that the point of this sequence is not to excuse or to defend Anthony, but to simply answer the question: why? Why is he so distant and remote to Annie (which was going on, the webcomic has established, long before the events of "The Tree")? Why was he more open to Forest Annie than to Court Annie? (And I thought the chapter offered a good answer to the latter question.) Part of the purpose was also to show Annie maturing, coming to understand her father and why he is the way he is.

It'll probably seem less long and boring when this chapter is in book format, and we can read it in one sitting rather than having to wait a couple of days for the next page.

[saardvark]

thanks for restarting the thread with a proper title...

[frogspawned]

Annie's doing well. That's good.

[ohthatone]

I'm actually surprised the chapter didn't end here. My guess* would be we follow jones to whoever asked her to ask around.

*proven wrong 100% of the time but at least I'm consistent.

[lemmingatk]

Nearly identical Tomment (Tom comment) as 9 pages ago.
"Jones doesn't get it but also gets it." - 2462
"Jones doesn't get it, but she also gets it." - 2471

[bedinsis]

May 24, 2021 15:06:22 GMT lemmingatk said:

Nearly identical Tomment (Tom comment) as 9 pages ago.
"Jones doesn't get it but also gets it." - 2462
"Jones doesn't get it, but she also gets it." - 2471

Well this is a really talky chapter. Must be hard to think up something interesting to say at each individual page.

[laaaa]

I liked this chapter?? I get why some people might find Tony boring and this chapter boring etc, but I loved it. It felt like a great veil had been removed, letting you peer into a confusing character. My questions were answered. I was pretty hooked.
And, hmm, well... It appears that Annie and Annie were not... exact copies of Annie. Indeed, they appeared to be *SPLIT* instead of *copied*.
Courtnnie was more assertive and put her foot down when having to deal with her father. She demanded to start wearing makeup again.
Sylvannie was not sure he'd let her, *but even when she found out he'd let her, she STILL didn't start to wear make up*.
Courtnnie was more keen on remembering her mother, while Sylvannie was more willing to let go.
And when they recombined, both of those issues were somehow... settled. Annie learnt how to love her father AND be upset with him, and how to let go of her mother without forgetting her.
Remember, Zimmy had seen people getting "split" before, in the Zimmyverse, with multiple outcomes. It's quite possible she had a better understanding of the whole getting "split" thing than anyone else, AND apparently a better understanding on how it could be fixed.
It's also quite possible the Court was aware of the split precedents in Zimmyverse, and that they understood what it meant better than us.
In Annie, it really appeared to mean that warring sides of her were highlighted and then reconciled. If anything else, the fact that Annie is at peace with herself is proof that the recombination was complete, that the reconciliation was successful.

[aline]

May 24, 2021 15:15:23 GMT laaaa said:

I liked this chapter??

So did I? Annie seems to have gained a new awareness not just about her dad but also herself. She no longer thinks of him being distant as being an "Annie problem". She gets that it's purely a "Tony problem". She decided she was going to support him but not fix him (which is a really healthy step if you want to stay in the life of a person who has serious mental health issues). She allows herself to love him but also occasionally hate his guts.

She's grown and healed a lot.

[Elysium]

I found this chapter boring, because it's about Tony, couldn't care less about what that failure is up to. That said, I'm not Tony's child, Annie is, and I find her viewpoint interesting, she accepts her father whole, with his strengths and (many) weaknesses, which I think is a good thing since Tony, for all his infuriating shortcomings, is not actively harmful.

[todd]

I've more to say about this later, but I do think that a lot of the threads in "Gunnerkrigg Court" aren't for everyone. For example, I've generally found my interest waning during the "Kat's robot project" chapters (for various reasons, such as Annie having a minor role in them), but I can see why they're in the story (to illustrate how the ether and belief can produce deities, and to offer a small-scale parallel to what the Court's doing that will help us understand the nature of its project better). What is important here, I've noticed, is that where the Anthony thread's concerned, the divide is somewhere in the middle. It isn't "All the readers dislike it" but "Some of the readers dislike it, some of them like it".

[Gemminie]

(My usual personal policy of not reading others' comments on this page until after posting this, so these are my first impressions)

Annie was just talking about how she was going to stick with her father through thick and thin, and the art went to schematic illustrations that suggested to me that the current scene was over. I was wrong, but this one really does look like it ends the scene, but again, not the chapter. Annie has been talking while facing away from Jones again, but here she turns back toward her and asks if this satisfies her. She actually uses what I assume are audible quotes around "mental state." I wonder if that's a bit of a pointed jab at, not really Jones, but whomever has been questioning Annie's sanity. I notice that Annie hasn't been smiling while facing away from Jones, but smiling when facing her. Again I think the simplest explanation for this is that she's talking about emotionally uncomfortable subjects while being aware that she's being evaluated.

Jones' reply is that Annie seems OK, but her expression is, of course, unreadable. Annie continues to smile and confirms. Her smile doesn't look faked, though. We've seen Annie fake smiles before, and she's notoriously terrible at it; she's almost as bad at lying as a robot.

Then we have a crane/drone shot, looking down from high above as Jones and Annie say some things we can't hear – possibly conversation-ending small talk that Jones is mimicking because it makes humans comfortable and that Annie takes as a sign that Jones is done here. We then see Jones leaving, walking off down the cross-street in the opposite direction from the long down-the-street perspective in the previous page's first panel. Annie watches her go, and we don't see her expression. Super kudos to Tom for some really consistent buildings in this chapter.

And then, after those two panels of leaving these two behind, we go to a super-high drone shot above the entire neighborhood – I can't even spy the Carver house with any certainty, so that suggests to me that it may be the establishing shot for whatever the next scene is. I mean, I could be wrong about that, but the chapter clearly isn't over yet (no antimony symbol), and the house we've just been hanging around outside is nowhere to be seen, so we might be going to someone else's house. Maybe it'll be Kat's house? Are we going to see Kat and Paz?

Or maybe the Donlans' house? I had a thought that (wild speculation ahoy) perhaps Tony wasn't inside when Renard went in. He'd gone to ask the advice of Anja, the only person he knows who might agree to talk to him and could possibly help him with something – namely, a way to use his old etheric antenna, the one he made from the bones of his hand, to directly communicate with Annie in a non-harmful way. I mean, do we know what happened to that thing after Zimmy long-distance-punched him and cut off the connection? Did he just leave it in the wilderness, where anyone could potentially pick it up and use it to harm Annie or him (a legitimate concern, considering there were ethereal demon creatures who had just harmed both Annie and him)? Did he destroy it, or was he uncertain about how to safely do that? Or did he perhaps bury it, then, once he'd agreed to come back to the Court, retrieve what remained of it, not wanting to leave something that etherically potent lying around for just anyone to find? I doubt that at the time he would have considered using it for anything again, but he might have considered it best to make sure no one else used it, and he might not have known a good way to ensure that besides just keeping it out of anyone else's hands. So Jones inadvertently gave him an idea, and then he asked Jones to stay there to wait for Annie to return while he went to talk to Anja. Anyway, crazy idea I had over the weekend.

Now I get to read what other people thought of this page.

[rylfrazier]

I really don't think Tom is doing himself or the fans any favors with this chapter for reasons I think I've already covered (I simply do not agree with what appears to be his / the comic's clear 'take' on how to deal with parents like Tony, and I also feel like the execution has been pretty heavy handed) but it appears to be almost over, so that's a positive in my book.

[lisanela]

Mmm I do wish Annie (who was willing to talk so much about personal matters with Jones, which is good!) had talked more about dealing with grief.

She talks about accepting that she might never see the other side of Tony again, which is a huge loss to accept, but she doesn't really talk about her mother and dealing with losing her. I thought grief for Surma would be the theme of the chapter especially since Tony is still dealing with it, that the two Annie's last moment was about their mother, and that in the end she decided not to wear makeup and kinda move on. I guess it is about how two people deal very differently with trauma and emotions (Annie doing it a little bit better haha?), but it kinda went into a different direction than the one I expected. When Annie asks "does that clarify my mental state" I kinda want to answer that it doesn't really? It clarifies her relationship with her father and it shows she has her head on her shoulders but it wasn't really a conversation about her.

I'm glad she's not miserable though - a lot of Gunnerkrigg recently has been about bad things happening to Annie or people blaming Annie for things she really wasn't responsible for, and I just want her to have a break and relax.

[puntino]

I'm still very confused by the entitlement of people to think that a story has to take into account all the life experiences of their readers.

It's not always in life that thinks go smooth, or that all corners are covered. This is actually the exception, and the comic stands by this reality by having all characters act and exist in a less than perfect fashion.

And it's weird that people mention that the only disagreeing voice in the comic is coming from Eglamore. As far as I know, everyone shown so far, bar Antimony and lately Kat, are either neutral or straight up dislike Tony for his behavior. They are simply not vocal about it, which is the usual behavior when dealing with someone you have no direct ties with.

[atteSmythe]

Annie, alone, breaks down in 3..2..

[antiyonder]

May 24, 2021 18:06:40 GMT puntino said:

I'm still very confused by the entitlement of people to think that a story has to take into account all the life experiences of their readers.

It's not always in life that thinks go smooth, or that all corners are covered. This is actually the exception, and the comic stands by this reality by having all characters act and exist in a less than perfect fashion.

And it's weird that people mention that the only disagreeing voice in the comic is coming from Eglamore. As far as I know, everyone shown so far, bar Antimony and lately Kat, are either neutral or straight up dislike Tony for his behavior. They are simply not vocal about it, which is the usual behavior when dealing with someone you have no direct ties with.

1. It's his story yes, but the opinions of readers are just as valid and a writer has no business telling us how to feel. Not sure Tom is there yet, depending on how this chapter ends for example.

2. Going to respond to you and this post from the other thread from last night:

May 24, 2021 11:30:23 GMT yinglung said:

May 24, 2021 10:05:26 GMT antiyonder said:

And again the person (James Eglamore) most vocal and remaining against Tony does seem to suggest that if you don't start liking the man, you are clearly the most irrational human.

I think that this particular point is missing the point, as it were. Annie herself says that it's a valid viewpoint to dislike and even hate Tony. Annie has shared that viewpoint from time to time. She said that the way he acts makes people dislike him. It's not their fault, it's Tony's. The reason why she is willing to deal with Tony is because she has gained enough understanding of his character but also because she still wants a father and family, even if he is dysfunctional. She literally doesn't require any one else to like him. Even if other people gain a similar understanding, they would lack her motive of wanting family, and thus may very well still rationally dislike Tony.

That's all well and good, but that falls into "show don't tell" territory.

Story really should have another recurring
character say more critical of Tony than say Annie or Don for example. Dislike, but more controlled than say James. A person with legit reasons to dislike him, but won't let it cloud his/her/their judgment.

Again most vocal Tony detracted hated him even before he did anything to wrong James.

[maxptc]

Mark(name I gave the guy in charge of student health, who I imagined)-So is the Annie situation all good?

Jones-Yes, she loves her Dad anyways and seems to be doing well.

Mark- The fudge does that mean or have to do with anything? She might have two minds in one body! Is that okay? Is she gonna cause a gaint fire explosion or is there weird synaptic activity or did Loup breech our defenses? How did she unsplit, and is it worth examining? You had a job women! Do not tell me you wasted the entire day talking to her about her family life.


Jones-You said there was concern for her mental state.


Mark- Based on curiosity about her recombination! Did you get any information about that! We know Tony is weird and has a weird relationship with his daughter, he has a weird relationship with everyone and we know cause we've been stalking him for his entire life. Do you seriously not know anything about the part we cared more about?


Jone-Oh she explained everything about that right afterwards, off screen.


Mark- '-'




Yes, I'm happy enough with that to repost it.

[V]

May 24, 2021 18:31:46 GMT antiyonder said:

That's all well and good, but that falls into "show don't tell" territory.

Story really should have another recurring character say more critical of Tony than say Annie or Don for example. Dislike, but more controlled than say James. A person with legit reasons to dislike him, but won't let it cloud his/her/their judgment.

Again most vocal Tony detracted hated him even before he did anything to wrong James.

Well, it's hard. Out of the recurring people we have those who
- dislike Tony for what he did to Annie (Annie's classmates and Parley)
- dislike Tony for what actually Surma did to them (James and Renard)
- dislike Tony for generally being human (Ysengrin)
Reasons 2 and 3 are not legit and cloud the characters' judgement. I would say 1 counts, but others have said before that that's all indirect blame, word of mouth, etc. so I don't know. If you take it like that, there are not many people that Tony did any direct harm to, right? Brinnie, perhaps. He's not popular with others but they just don't care enough. They will just finish any business with him they must and leave him alone.

Tony's not the person to go around hurting or aggravating people, except his daughter, and less of that lately, too. In return they don't go around criticising him vocally, except in Annie's defense again. But those who are closer to Annie than to him, they did their part in the chapter beginning or earlier.

Or did you mean the story should have had another character for this purpose?

[yinglung]

May 24, 2021 18:31:46 GMT antiyonder said:

That's all well and good, but that falls into "show don't tell" territory.

Story really should have another recurring
character say more critical of Tony than say Annie or Don for example. Dislike, but more controlled than say James. A person with legit reasons to dislike him, but won't let it cloud his/her/their judgment.

Again most vocal Tony detracted hated him even before he did anything to wrong James.

We actually got that fairly early. And this is after Coyote breathed deep and smelled all of him. Considering Coyote could see the war in Tony's mind, I think this is as close as a character can get to having an objective and complete understanding of Tony and disapproving of him. Coyote has no vendetta against Tony, he was satisfied with showing how unacceptable Tony's treatment of Annie was and getting Annie permission to visit the forest.

[antiyonder]

May 24, 2021 19:11:58 GMT V said:

But those who are closer to Annie than to him, they did their part in the chapter beginning or earlier.

Or did you mean the story should have had another character for this purpose?

It might be too late at this point, but yes. Not being a potential person's core trait mind you.

But I guess the most doable thing is just letting James go through a bit of growth where like Kat he has to cooperate with Anthony and comes to an understanding with him.

Still not friends, but as long as he does better to be there for Annie he will attempt to ease up on the hate and admit he has been petty.

[taothegreat]

I'm kind of neutral on Tony where I find the idea of him very interesting and have been fairly torn on how that idea has been explored. I like the chapter where he's talking to Donny as Annie observes secretly. I like the part of this chapter where him and Jones are speaking. I LOVE the chapter with him and Surma in the woods. I hate that Kat suddenly forgave him off panel because he was charming, when her coming to respect and forgive him over time could have been such a strong arc. I also hate that Annie's feelings about him were presented in a long monologue, to a character with no particular reaction.

I wish this had been more of a back-and-forth conversation. As it was it was a very flat way to find out vital information about the protagonist. I'm disappointed this is how this conversation is wrapping up.

I feel like, for many people, Tony is just someone they have no interest in exploring, and that's fair enough. He's a hard character who did some incredibly cruel things. I also feel like more people would be on board with this chapter if its content had been presented a bit more dynamically. Text heavy pages in a comic are always a slog.

[puntino]

May 24, 2021 11:30:23 GMT yinglung said:

That's all well and good, but that falls into "show don't tell" territory.

Story really should have another recurring
character say more critical of Tony than say Annie or Don for example. Dislike, but more controlled than say James. A person with legit reasons to dislike him, but won't let it cloud his/her/their judgment.

Again most vocal Tony detracted hated him even before he did anything to wrong James.

I agree with the "show don't tell" part, and this chapter has been harder on direct exposition than what I usually expect from visual stories.

Still, I don't think the story necessarily needs a character to address the Tony situation from a more clear, level-headed point of view. Most life situations don't have the luxury of having such a person, so I don't see why the comic should.

If readers can judge Tony and discuss his behaviors outside of the comic, why is the author required to create a device to do exactly that?
This feels like some sort of desire for confirmation on your opinions, or even how the story is expected to progress going forward.

Aside from that, I agree that there are some weird things about the Tony development.

I'm kind of neutral on Tony where I find the idea of him very interesting and have been fairly torn on how that idea has been explored. I like the chapter where he's talking to Donny as Annie observes secretly. I like the part of this chapter where him and Jones are speaking. I LOVE the chapter with him and Surma in the woods. I hate that Kat suddenly forgave him off panel because he was charming, when her coming to respect and forgive him over time could have been such a strong arc. I also hate that Annie's feelings about him were presented in a long monologue, to a character with no particular reaction.

This one being my biggest complaint about the story. I don't really understand how Kat went from hating Tony to the point where she confronted him in front of her family and Annie, to casually joking around with him in a lab. This is not the kind of thing that is done off-screen, it should require a chapter, much like this one, to explain the process in which the characters arrived at such state.

[warrl]

May 24, 2021 16:59:02 GMT rylfrazier said:

I really don't think Tom is doing himself or the fans any favors with this chapter for reasons I think I've already covered (I simply do not agree with what appears to be his / the comic's clear 'take' on how to deal with parents like Tony, and I also feel like the execution has been pretty heavy handed) but it appears to be almost over, so that's a positive in my book.

As a writer myself who sometimes writes characters I don't entirely approve of (great characters are not necessarily good people), I want to point out the hazard of interpreting the writer's opinions from the actions of a single fictional character.

Particularly when there are already a bunch of other characters who have expressed different views.

[antiyonder]

May 24, 2021 21:12:43 GMT puntino said:

Still, I don't think the story necessarily needs a character to address the Tony situation from a more clear, level-headed point of view. Most life situations don't have the luxury of having such a person, so I don't see why the comic should.

If readers can judge Tony and discuss his behaviors outside of the comic, why is the author required to create a device to do exactly that?
This feels like some sort of desire for confirmation on your opinions, or even how the story is expected to progress going forward.

Just because we give suggestions, doesn't mean we're entitled.

Yeah the character and story certainly have the makings of a tense discussion, but it doesn't help matters to say belittle all posters critical of Tony. I think that's why Eglamore being the most vocal detractor is a sore spot.

It may not even be intended, but can you honestly say that James doesn't fit all trademark of how all Tony detractors are assumed to be?

If you have problems with any who are neutral or anti, fair enough, but maybe more direct critiques rather than broad insults.

When we give ideas to what should have been done or could be done it's not even literally/figuratively telling Tom what to do, but to better explain why we feel critical.

In short having the only frequent/vocal detractor being often hothead and making things worse isn't usually done unless it's a take that.

[imaginaryfriend]

This chapter was an encapsulation of Antimony and Anthony's relationship up to this point. I guess some people are upset because Antimony is being disingenuous in a couple places and that makes it seem like a happy face is being put on things by the author... but it's a happy face being put on things by Antimony (or in other words, a mask).  I strongly doubt she's okay with people trashing her dad and she didn't undo what she did to herself with her blinker stone by herself.  

May 24, 2021 18:14:11 GMT atteSmythe said:

Annie, alone, breaks down in 3..2..

That's only one way things might go when the mask slips. I'm thinking something's going to catch fire.

[jocobo]

I disagree that the hatred of Tony has been adequately shown in the comic. I also disagree that it doesn't matter if we see opposing views in comic. In doing so I hope to explain why this is ringing flat for a lot of people.

-We have Eglamore, whose majorly biased and easily dismissed
-Parley, biased and based on Eglamore's bias and therefor dismissable
-Kat, who changed her mind.
-Surma who loved him
-Renard, who seems completely over any resentment you used to have
-The Donlans who are his friends and remain as such
-Jones who is incapable of hate
-Juliette who at least trusts Tony enough to come to him for help
-Coyote who was angry, then took one whiff and then found him more amusing and pitiful than worthy of scorn
-The classmates which was more presented as students gossiping about that one strict teacher than actual hatred

And I think that's everyone we see him interact with in person?

No one really hates him except Eggs.

That's why when Annie says she knows how badly they hate him and talk about him it seems almost nonsensical. Because the worse thing I think her classmates said was....they didn't get why she would want to live with him? And that he gave her a lot of homework. You know. Things teenagers say about ANY authority figure they see as strict.

That is not how teens express hate.

But Annie expresses that she accepts their hatred because Tony's attitude sometimes justifies it but...

Out of all those people.....none of them actually have any negative emotions toward Tony for his attitude, whatever it is, that prevents him from being open around more than one person. All of their concerns, which for the most part are far too mild to be called hate, are born out of concern for Annie, because she had a mental breakdown when he came back. Not dislike of him as a person or for his anxiety.

The only place we really see Tony get treated with hatred as a person...is the forums. Which is why so many people feel this is Tony preaching at the audience.

Had we been shown people treating Tony disdainfully, with real hatred for being different, we might understand how this monologue and Annie's conclusions are rational.

This lack of showing here makes this monologue feel misplaced because it isn't addressing the situation as presented in universe. This is where more balanced perspectives in universe would have helped.

The sheer length of Annie's monologue, and the melodramatic way it's framed, is hard to justify both narratively and structurally with what has been shown in universe. Because without this visceral hatred the literal entire world is supposed to have for Tony ever appearing on screen, I must conclude the hatred being referenced to is meta-textual.

Does that make sense to anyone?

[fia]

It's cool people have diverse opinions. Me, I just don't understand how anyone sees Tom as representing Tony as anything other than flawed. I don't think he's making excuses for Tony as much as explanations (as the characters, specifically Annie, keep saying).
This story hasn't really ever been like a morality play or a moral fable. Even Coyote makes tongue in cheek jokes about leaving behind a "moral" like "be careful what you wish for" or "don't be a dead goose in a bush by a lake". When Annie asks if what she did with Jeanne was right or wrong she doesn't get a straight answer — the fairies think no, Kat yes, Jones won't say. The entire comic has been slightly about ambivalence, that moment between comfort and discomfort. The 'uncanny,' if you will.
Freud called it 'strangeness in the ordinary, Jacques Lacan wrote that the uncanny places us "in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good, pleasure from displeasure", resulting in an irreducible anxiety that gestures to the Real.

If there's a moral direction here I'd say it is that. Not at all a schmaltzy "he's my dad so he's great as he is shut up" or "he's my dad and I guess I have to deal", but instead "he's my dad, he's got some stuff, this is the Choice I Am Making about it," existentialist self-definition stuff.

[antiyonder]

May 24, 2021 21:57:23 GMT jocobo said:

Does that make sense to anyone?

Yeah and agreed mainly.

Just that it's not that he needs to be hated without friends. Just that it might have been better to have one who isn't:

1. Kind of an enemy (Coyote sort of)

2. Eglamore who would hate him even if Tony never did give him a good reason to.

3. One like Parley who based those feelings on James' bias.

4. Various classmates who don't have the full story.


Basically one person who dislikes him for founded reasons only and is level headed about it. Meaning that he/she/they* considers Eglamore's more irrational feelings to be petty and annoying.

To put it this way, when it comes to his Tony hate, is there anything that gives Elgamore some credibility over some of the most vocal Tony critiques?

*Neither here nor there, but as I wasn't familiar with the term until later 2010s, are any characters canonically Non-Binary?

[yinglung]

I would still say that Coyote qualifies, but has no reason to care about Eglamore's opinions and whether or not they are well-founded. Coyote only cares about Tony insofar as he affects Annie, and took action to correct Tony's treatment of her.

As for non-binary characters, the closest I can think of is the rabbit here, though other forest-to-court migrants may also qualify.