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Post by alevice on May 25, 2021 17:19:19 GMT
My gripes with the whole overall Tony relationship stuff:
Tony was incredibly mean and downright humilliating to Annie in front of his classmates. He berated it badly shortly after without even saying hi. I know this was in part forced by the Court to not have her exiled from the program, but still, Tony never addresses this to Annie.
He apologizes for Annies cheating to the Donlans, when no one requested it.
He put her away from any of her friends with a bullshit excuse about the dorms.
Then Kat and Tony became friends. Kat who has often berated anyone doing wrongs to Annie, decides become friends with her father BEHIND ANNIES BACK, just because he is funny. Never even once is addressed if at least Kat talked to him for how he treated her best friend.
He apologizes to Donlan for how things happened and he shows regret but he never tries to awkwardly say sorry to Annie.
Then shit happens and "I understand now"
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Post by rylfrazier on May 25, 2021 17:46:25 GMT
Obviously this is the story Tom wanted to tell and it's important to him for whatever reason for Tony to behave in this very extreme way and create very extreme changes in Annie, and he is trying very hard now to get the readership on board with this as a net positive and / or something they want to read. Based on the reactions in this forum, twitter and on the "comic wall" I would say it's not going great.
Saying "oh well she could have left her solitary empty room whenever she wanted" when the authority figure in her life had just stripped her of all of her friends, all of her support, told her specifically that there was no place for her anywhere to exist but the white expanse, sure...she could have become homeless whenever she wanted, she wasn't literally chained to a wall. That said, I will tell you if I had a child and kept that child in similar circumstances to Annie, I feel like CPS would be rightly concerned.
This reminds me a good bit of the "bean dad" thing - most of Tony's actions read as abuse. Isolating the victim: abusive. Humiliating the victim: abusive. Removing the victim's friends: abusive. Controlling every detail of the victim's life up to the details of her appearance: abusive. Reducing the victim to tears and offering no comfort: abusive. Making "extra" demands of victim and offering no warmth or praise for her work: abusive.
Like "Bean Dad" tried to reinvent all of those actions as just a fun joke Tom is now I guess once again "showing us the other side" of Tony, that actually at some point deep inside himself he wants to be a good dad but he can't, and that he actually does have a warm, loving side that comes out just never around his daughter, I mean all of that may be to some degree true in the world of the comic but it also reads a ton like the kind of fiction that abusive people present. There are many abusive parents who are only cruel to their kids and are "everyone's favorite mom/dad" to the world. There are many abusers who claim they have no choice but to abuse. Tom turning something which is fictional and an excuse very often in reality to a actual thing (a character who for some reason can only be cold and indifferent to his daughter but also has to run her life) is a choice that from what I can tell a lot of people are reading as a fictionalized version of justifying abuse, and I think that reading is pretty reasonable. This is a fictional world and none of these people are real - there's no particular reason we have to imagine that Tony has a mysterious mental disorder and magical circumstances that happens to pretty perfectly simulate being an abusive parent, and if we accept that for some reason this is part of the story I think the question of *why* circumstances in the story would need to conspire to force all the characters into a circumstance that very closely simulates an abusive parent/child relationship even if we assume that "actually there was no abuse" - it's just an extremely weird narrative choice.
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Post by antiyonder on May 25, 2021 18:08:38 GMT
I singled out the makeup thing because it was the one element that had nothing to do with school and is in my opinion the least reasonable thing he did. The white room thing might have been debunked, but still question the idea of not informing Annie of being sent back a grade and letting her come to class as if nothing happened. Okay, do you think breaking a rule merits any and all kinds of punishment (disappropriate retribution)? But I guess that depends on whether you think doing something to embarrass her in front of the class instead of keeping the punishment between them is overkill. Maybe. But I guess I would ask if maybe employing punishments that go beyond the reasonable stuff is a step in that direction. |
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Post by warrl on May 25, 2021 19:03:42 GMT
Is he {Tony} guilty of child abuse by the way he has ignored/neglected his daughter, or the way he treated her when he belatedly returned? IMHO, yes. Not everything he did was abusive, but the way he did some of it qualifies. In particular, that first class session with him should NOT have happened - Annie should have been informed of her punishment earlier, by him, in private, and thus would not have been in that class at that time to be repeatedly humiliated in front of her peers in the very moment of renewing contact with her father. IMHO, yes - but not necessarily from his daughter, and that patience need not extend to tolerating his abuse of Annie (nor come from Annie). I am extremely skeptical of Jones' supposed lack of emotion. She certainly doesn't show emotion on her face the way most people do, but there are plenty of other signs. Seriously, a photo album? |
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Post by Gemminie on May 25, 2021 20:29:22 GMT
The white room thing might have been debunked, but still question the idea of not informing Annie of being sent back a grade and letting her come to class as if nothing happened. Yeah, that was a pretty nasty move too. It's part of the whole academic part of the punishment, though, unlike the makeup thing. The Court planned it, I think, most likely Llanwellyn. Evidence is pretty strong that the Court concealed Tony's return from every other teacher – even James, Don, and Anja were unaware he'd returned, even though in ordinary schools teachers would have gotten contact lists and had meetings in the week before classes began, so they kept his return secret. I think it's also likely that Antimony's being held back was also concealed from the faculty until after classes began – otherwise, there'd have been memos, and what's more, every Year 10 teacher whose class she'd been dropped from and every Year 9 teacher whose class she'd been added to would have gotten updated class lists, and word would certainly have gotten around. In fact, they might even have blindsided Tony with it too – he doesn't say this explicitly, but once we saw the story from his viewpoint, he certainly acted like someone who wasn't prepared to see his daughter in his classroom. He may well have assumed that she'd be in a different class that period. This is speculation, but it's not terribly farfetched. I don't think Tony was prepared for those events to happen then, as they did. He may have been planning to meet with her at the end of the day, or that evening, but the Court had other ideas. I'm not sure they could have predicted just how Tony would react, but I think they planned for at least Annie to be caught unawares for maximum disciplinary impact. I think punishment needs to be proportional to the crime. But plagiarism is one of the most serious academic offenses that exists. Students are regularly suspended or expelled for it. Combine that with the fact that Annie has endangered the Court (trespassing in the Forest, and/or revealing that the Court encouraged Surma to entrap Renard, thus risking retribution that could have escalated into full-blown conflict in which people could have died) and, well, I'm not kidding when I say they might have been within their rights to lock her in jail in chapter 32, not just humiliate her in class. She's been (literally, at times) playing with fire. "A step in that direction" implies making a start along a path. Could disproportionate punishments be that? They could. They could also not be. The fact that Tony has taken no other steps to discipline Annie, as far as we have seen any evidence for, indicates that it was an aberration. I guess he's given her homework to do, but every other student gets homework too. |
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Post by rylfrazier on May 25, 2021 21:05:53 GMT
Blaming Annie for the forest's reactions to things Annie does seems like a stretch. Annie is a child. Coyote's powers seem pretty limitless and he has clearly been toying with the court for ages. Part of his little game with the court is allowing people he finds interesting in and talking with them and playing around with them. Saying "after Annie's visit x happened therefore she did x and should be in jail" feels like reaching a very long way to justify Tony's extremely harsh punishment.
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Post by maxptc on May 25, 2021 21:26:57 GMT
I think this is the one of the big things that drives how people here feel and see and even talk about Tony and the tone/message of the story. Some take his actions upon return as unintentional acts followed by no further incidents, others as intentional acts followed by a continuing unhealthy pattern. We are/have been literally examining two different characters, and it's easy to understand why he is seen both ways. But regardless of how we interpreted his actions, you could make a case for either side. Now the narrative is pressing one of those as more right, without really showing anything that would convince people who aren't already there. Long and short, I don't think the Tony arguing is gonna be going anywhere even with this chapter. |
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Post by Gemminie on May 25, 2021 21:39:32 GMT
Blaming Annie for the forest's reactions to things Annie does seems like a stretch. Annie is a child. Coyote's powers seem pretty limitless and he has clearly been toying with the court for ages. Part of his little game with the court is allowing people he finds interesting in and talking with them and playing around with them. Saying "after Annie's visit x happened therefore she did x and should be in jail" feels like reaching a very long way to justify Tony's extremely harsh punishment. I'm not saying it. Jones said it. And if she said, with her unemotional equanimity, that Annie's endangered everyone in the Court, I don't think it's a stretch that there are those in the Court leadership calling for Annie's head. Am I saying this justifies what Tony did? Where did I say that? But I am saying that the Court could have justified just about any punishment on those grounds. What Annie did was not exactly jaywalking. |
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Post by rylfrazier on May 25, 2021 21:40:18 GMT
I just think that pointing to Tony's brain as the source of the problem is missing the point. All of our brains are the source of all of our problems. There is no "other" good version of Tony.
I'm sure most people who are cruel to their children at some level some of the time wish that the part of them that is cruel to their children would "let them out" or "free them" from whatever drives them to be cruel to their children.
It's not that I don't understand the "he has no choice" perspective, I just think it's a conversational and moral dead end - if Tony has no choice, then nobody has a choice and nobody can be held responsible for any of their actions or failures.
The idea that people can be stamped "absolved from wrongdoing - actually a great dad" because they articulate "I feel like I'm in a cage" is IMO not a useful way to go through life and a dangerous way to handle your expectations for others.
In terms of a narrative, the idea that Annie should be punished extremely harshly for "choosing to cheat" while Tony should be loved and embraced for "choosing to be a dad the very best he can even though he has a sad bad brain" is just applying weirdly and wildly different standards for the emotionally distant man for really no reason. Why should the audience or the characters in the narrative forgive all of one character's actions as the result of "mental illness" thus morally neutral, while expecting the audience to be on board with "the girl adventurer must pay for her sins"?
To me it feels like an instance of "it is the woman's job forgive and heal the problematic man, men are difficult to understand and important and girls should expect to be the adult to their fathers, and women should just expect to do all the emotional labor for men, since men literally cannot be held responsible for their behavior as they are sad and have sad unknowable feelings".
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Post by rylfrazier on May 25, 2021 21:52:57 GMT
Blaming Annie for the forest's reactions to things Annie does seems like a stretch. Annie is a child. Coyote's powers seem pretty limitless and he has clearly been toying with the court for ages. Part of his little game with the court is allowing people he finds interesting in and talking with them and playing around with them. Saying "after Annie's visit x happened therefore she did x and should be in jail" feels like reaching a very long way to justify Tony's extremely harsh punishment. I'm not saying it. Jones said it. And if she said, with her unemotional equanimity, that Annie's endangered everyone in the Court, I don't think it's a stretch that there are those in the Court leadership calling for Annie's head. Am I saying this justifies what Tony did? Where did I say that? But I am saying that the Court could have justified just about any punishment on those grounds. What Annie did was not exactly jaywalking. What she did was run across a bridge, then use her powers (powers she was never trained to control) on one person. How that "endangered everyone at the court" I have no idea, but sure, Jones did say that, however that outcome is in no way predictable from Annie's behavior so holding Annie responsible for it isn't something I think makes moral sense. If the "sharing the info" with Ren or Coyote is the issue, if *a child* comes into information which that child later shares in a way that creates a problem, the idea that the child is responsible for the problem is IMO maybe not that logical. If you don't want supernatural creatures to be mad at you when they find out you're messing with them, stop messing with supernatural creatures, don't harshly punish the child who happened to tell the wrong supernatural creature the wrong secret thing you did. Now of course, the court being generally incompetent, arbitrary and evil could have decided to punish her for whatever outcome on whatever basis they wanted - but assuming that because the court could choose to do something that Annie "deserved" any of Tony's behavior and/or any of Tony's behavior is in any way justified is not a position I agree with. |
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yinglung
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It's only a tatter of mime.
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Post by yinglung on May 25, 2021 23:13:34 GMT
What she did was run across a bridge, then use her powers (powers she was never trained to control) on one person. How that "endangered everyone at the court" I have no idea, but sure, Jones did say that, however that outcome is in no way predictable from Annie's behavior so holding Annie responsible for it isn't something I think makes moral sense. If it was merely crossing a bridge, that would not endanger anyone. However, as a potential representative of the court, openly and recklessly making a firestorm on the bridge while running towards the forest... that could have been misinterpreted. Indeed, everyone of the forest except Coyote and Ysengrin were scared of her. Of course, she has the favor of the rulers of the forest, but that can be just as bad. Coyote or Ysengrin might take her distraught state as an excuse to cause catastrophic damage to the court, which isn't too far from what happens later. Obviously, Annie can't be held responsible for what Coyote does, but she is responsible for crossing a demilitarized zone with the intent to meet a general and a tyrant while being emotionally compromised. These aren't circumstances a child should be in, but the court has no choice given how Coyote has taken an interest in Annie. I've already linked to what can happen if they deny Coyote his new toy/favored person. |
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Post by Gemminie on May 25, 2021 23:25:10 GMT
What she did was run across a bridge, then use her powers (powers she was never trained to control) on one person. How that "endangered everyone at the court" I have no idea, but sure, Jones did say that, however that outcome is in no way predictable from Annie's behavior so holding Annie responsible for it isn't something I think makes moral sense. If it was merely crossing a bridge, that would not endanger anyone. However, as a potential representative of the court, openly and recklessly making a firestorm on the bridge while running towards the forest... that could have been misinterpreted. Indeed, everyone of the forest nearby except Coyote and Ysengrin were scared of her. Of course, she has the favor of the rulers of the forest, but that can be just as bad. Coyote or Ysengrin might take her distraught state as an excuse to cause catastrophic damage to the court, which isn't too far from what happens later. Obviously, Annie can't be held responsible for what Coyote does, but she is responsible for crossing a demilitarized zone with the intent to meet a general and a tyrant while being emotionally compromised. These aren't circumstances a child should be in, but the court has no choice given how Coyote has taken an interest in Annie. I've already linked to what can happen if they deny Coyote his new toy/favored person. All of this, but more – Ysengrin openly hates humans and has an army of minions (a wide variety, as we've seen, with various different powers and abilities) who share his hatred of humans. They're all just waiting for an excuse to go charging across the bridge and wreak havoc – nothing Jeanne could do about it. Annie could have provided them with their excuse that day. And what actually happened later isn't the point; the point is what the Court's officials imagine could have happened if things had gone slightly differently. Why did Jones show up so soon after Annie did? Because the Court pleaded with her to go try to defuse the highly volatile situation. The Court and Forest were in a state of cold war that came very close to becoming a real war that day, as it later actually did. So the Court certainly blamed her for nearly igniting open conflict. They see it as luck, and maybe Jones' diplomatic skill, that prevented it. Or so I theorize, at least. That's the kind of trouble Annie was in. |
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Post by maxptc on May 26, 2021 0:12:13 GMT
If the "sharing the info" with Ren or Coyote is the issue, if *a child* comes into information which that child later shares in a way that creates a problem, the idea that the child is responsible for the problem is IMO maybe not that logical. If you don't want supernatural creatures to be mad at you when they find out you're messing with them, stop messing with supernatural creatures, don't harshly punish the child who happened to tell the wrong supernatural creature the wrong secret thing you did. Now of course, the court being generally incompetent, arbitrary and evil could have decided to punish her for whatever outcome on whatever basis they wanted - but assuming that because the court could choose to do something that Annie "deserved" any of Tony's behavior and/or any of Tony's behavior is in any way justified is not a position I agree with. yinglung addressed the bridge thing way better then I could, but imma try with the telling secrets part. It seems the Court had stopped messing with them. The Court had limited contact with the Forest, since Surma left at the latest but it could have been a bit before that(when they tricked Rey). The whole relationship started back because Coyete was interested in Annie. Is your belief that Annie shouldn't have been allowed in the Forrest to begin with, in case she knew things she shouldn't? They told Annie about Rey because she wanted to know if Rey could come with her and Kat outside the court. Was telling her a mistake? Maybe, but she was training to work for them, so it seemed like a minor risk they could justify easily(after all her mother took part in the plan and didn't mind lying), it could even have been a test as well(will she lie for us like her mum). I think it was, one she failed spectacularly in a way they didn't predict and is primarily the reason she isn't Court medium. Annie and other teenagers are old enough to be trusted to keep secrets, at least in the Court's eyes. She choose not to and to share it with a rival. It seems the Court thought that the best soultion/punishment was to figure out a way to keep her out of the Forrest, but that didn't work out very well in loads of ways, starting with her being made Forrest medium ending with a building going boom. I agree that the Court is ultimately truly responsible for the situation, but Annie is definitely to blame from where they sit(we did what we had to and why isn't she like Surma) and she bares some the responsibility imo for spilling state secrets out of anger/sadness. That should always be done out of morality/strategy. What's weird is that they didn't expell or banish her then, but I assume they feared how Coyote would react. Goes without saying things were not handled well by the Court or Tony. |
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Post by rylfrazier on May 26, 2021 0:12:33 GMT
If it was merely crossing a bridge, that would not endanger anyone. However, as a potential representative of the court, openly and recklessly making a firestorm on the bridge while running towards the forest... that could have been misinterpreted. Indeed, everyone of the forest nearby except Coyote and Ysengrin were scared of her. Of course, she has the favor of the rulers of the forest, but that can be just as bad. Coyote or Ysengrin might take her distraught state as an excuse to cause catastrophic damage to the court, which isn't too far from what happens later. Obviously, Annie can't be held responsible for what Coyote does, but she is responsible for crossing a demilitarized zone with the intent to meet a general and a tyrant while being emotionally compromised. These aren't circumstances a child should be in, but the court has no choice given how Coyote has taken an interest in Annie. I've already linked to what can happen if they deny Coyote his new toy/favored person. All of this, but more – Ysengrin openly hates humans and has an army of minions (a wide variety, as we've seen, with various different powers and abilities) who share his hatred of humans. They're all just waiting for an excuse to go charging across the bridge and wreak havoc – nothing Jeanne could do about it. Annie could have provided them with their excuse that day. And what actually happened later isn't the point; the point is what the Court's officials imagine could have happened if things had gone slightly differently. Why did Jones show up so soon after Annie did? Because the Court pleaded with her to go try to defuse the highly volatile situation. The Court and Forest were in a state of cold war that came very close to becoming a real war that day, as it later actually did. So the Court certainly blamed her for nearly igniting open conflict. They see it as luck, and maybe Jones' diplomatic skill, that prevented it. Or so I theorize, at least. That's the kind of trouble Annie was in. So a bunch of adults and gods are at a state of near open war and then Annie did something. This didn't actually cause a problem at all other than Coyote invited her to hang out in the forest for the summer, but it could have so the court could I guess do anything it wanted to her up to and including death and/or actual "jail." I feel like by that standard Annie could have been in big trouble literally at any time. The court and Coyote could have gone to war at any time, and with Annie as medium, she could have been blamed at any time. Because the court is an arbitrary and incompetent organization they could always choose to do bad stuff to Annie. Why the readership or the comic would decide to sign off on their actions as reasonable and/or moral I don't see. This whole "Annie was in big trouble" thing is such a red herring - the court was mad at a child because the child took an understandable action for a child so it decided to I guess harm the child or threaten to harm the child to get Tony involved so in response Tony is absolved from handling the whole situation in the worst possible way despite the fact that he knew that the court is, was and will always be dangerous and incompetent? This just seems like child abuse with extra steps. |
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laaaa
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Post by laaaa on May 26, 2021 6:55:35 GMT
It's not that I don't understand the "he has no choice" perspective, I just think it's a conversational and moral dead end - if Tony has no choice, then nobody has a choice and nobody can be held responsible for any of their actions or failures. Um, I think that's a huge stretch, and also an underestimation of the difficulties people with actual mental illness go through. It's the difference between being lazy and being burnt out, the difference between being vain and having a narcissistic personality disorder, the difference between being sad and being depressed, the difference between being shy and having social anxiety, etc. I'd say it's the other way round: the more mentally healthy you are, the more you are responsible over your actions. That's not to say that people who struggle with some sort of mental illness or disability are NOT responsible over their actions, but that responsibility is shared by whatever caused the illness in the first place (e.g. an abusive parent, a traumatic childhood, a genetic pre-disposition). It doesn't mean that in a relationship with a person who faces mental difficulties the "healthy" one shouldn't prioritize their own well being in favor of the other one "not being able to help it", either. If you switch from mental to physical illness, it becomes more easily understandable. If I have an illness that causes me pain whenever I move I may be less inclined to help around the house. I still have to choice to move, but I face a much bigger difficulty than a healthy person to do any chore. That's very different form the kind of person who wants to sit on the couch all day and play videogames. That doesn't mean that my SO should do all my chores for me because I can't help it, but the difficulties we face are NOT the same. It's not that Tony has no choice, but that taking action is a lot more difficult for him than it would be for me or you. That's why I find it kind of weird that people are mad that he hasn't apologized to Annie, when the truth is he hasn't apologized YET. It's not like he has grown old and still refuses to apologize out of vanity. He's trying to find the strength/way/self-control to do it. And the more I think of it, the more I blame Surma for this situation. However frail she eventually grew, for the first years she definitely had her mental faculties not only intact, but she also had the energy to take care of Annie and apparently homeschool her herself, so it's not like she spent her time in the hospital staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes. Why on earth didn't she push for Annie and Tony to bond more?! SHE knew the difficulties her husband was facing. And even if he worked non-stop in his effort to save her, she still should have AT LEAST talked to Annie about him. Instead it looks like Annie knew virtually NOTHING about her father. Why didn't she tell Annie that her father has difficulties expressing himself? Why didn't she tell Annie stories of their past years together, in order to help her picture her dad as a person instead of "father"?? The Donlans were the ones to do it instead, years later. Why didn't she tell Annie about how they met or how they fell in love? (She could even leave the cheating out of it or embellish the events but keep the spirit of it intact, sheesh). Instead she did nothing. |
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Post by aline on May 26, 2021 8:26:08 GMT
And the more I think of it, the more I blame Surma for this situation. However frail she eventually grew, for the first years she definitely had her mental faculties not only intact, but she also had the energy to take care of Annie and apparently homeschool her herself, so it's not like she spent her time in the hospital staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes. Why on earth didn't she push for Annie and Tony to bond more?! SHE knew the difficulties her husband was facing. And even if he worked non-stop in his effort to save her, she still should have AT LEAST talked to Annie about him. Instead it looks like Annie knew virtually NOTHING about her father. Why didn't she tell Annie that her father has difficulties expressing himself? Why didn't she tell Annie stories of their past years together, in order to help her picture her dad as a person instead of "father"?? The Donlans were the ones to do it instead, years later. Why didn't she tell Annie about how they met or how they fell in love? (She could even leave the cheating out of it or embellish the events but keep the spirit of it intact, sheesh). Instead she did nothing. I don't think Surma and Tony tried nothing at all. We only have snippets about Annie's childhood but we have at least one image of Tony teaching her martial arts, and given she seemed relatively proficient when she arrived at GC, it must have been something that occured regularly for several years. So they have at least one hobby they shared. Annie's strength in biology might also come from her dad (it's his specialty after all). He was, in her own words, "a quiet man" around her but it doesn't mean they didn't spend time together. We see him sharing things and spending time with his daughter now, even though he can't find the words to be casual with her. We also saw Surma reassuring Annie that her dad loved her. I mean they could have communicated better, but Annie was also pretty young and figuring out what is appropriate to tell your child when they're little kids can be difficult, when the truth is heavy and complicated. Surma was also not telling Annie she was dying because of her, or that she used to be the Forest's medium, or really anything about her own childhood at Gunnerkrigg. Maybe they were trying to protect her. Maybe that attempt was misguided. That's a very widespread kind of parenting fail. You wouldn't believe how many kids grow up with serious mental health issues that put them in and out of hospital (like early onset schyzophrenia or bipolar disorder) and don't even know their own goddamn diagnosis or understand their own treatment because their parents think it would worry them or they're too young to understand. |
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laaaa
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Post by laaaa on May 26, 2021 9:00:52 GMT
And the more I think of it, the more I blame Surma for this situation. However frail she eventually grew, for the first years she definitely had her mental faculties not only intact, but she also had the energy to take care of Annie and apparently homeschool her herself, so it's not like she spent her time in the hospital staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes. Why on earth didn't she push for Annie and Tony to bond more?! SHE knew the difficulties her husband was facing. And even if he worked non-stop in his effort to save her, she still should have AT LEAST talked to Annie about him. Instead it looks like Annie knew virtually NOTHING about her father. Why didn't she tell Annie that her father has difficulties expressing himself? Why didn't she tell Annie stories of their past years together, in order to help her picture her dad as a person instead of "father"?? The Donlans were the ones to do it instead, years later. Why didn't she tell Annie about how they met or how they fell in love? (She could even leave the cheating out of it or embellish the events but keep the spirit of it intact, sheesh). Instead she did nothing. I don't think Surma and Tony tried nothing at all. We only have snippets about Annie's childhood but we have at least one image of Tony teaching her martial arts, and given she seemed relatively proficient when she arrived at GC, it must have been something that occured regularly for several years. So they have at least one hobby they shared. Annie's strength in biology might also come from her dad (it's his specialty after all). He was, in her own words, "a quiet man" around her but it doesn't mean they didn't spend time together. We see him sharing things and spending time with his daughter now, even though he can't find the words to be casual with her. We also saw Surma reassuring Annie that her dad loved her. I mean they could have communicated better, but Annie was also pretty young and figuring out what is appropriate to tell your child when they're little kids can be difficult, when the truth is heavy and complicated. Surma was also not telling Annie she was dying because of her, or that she used to be the Forest's medium, or really anything about her own childhood at Gunnerkrigg. Maybe they were trying to protect her. Maybe that attempt was misguided. That's a very widespread kind of parenting fail. You wouldn't believe how many kids grow up with serious mental health issues that put them in and out of hospital (like early onset schyzophrenia or bipolar disorder) and don't even know their own goddamn diagnosis or understand their own treatment because their parents think it would worry them or they're too young to understand. I agree with everything you said. They did try, but considering Annie saw her father in a very distant way, and it took Anja and Donny describing their interactions with Tony for Annie to BEGIN seeing him as a person, it means that whatever Tony AND Surma did, it wasn't nearly enough. I don't see Tony as an abuser nor Surma as an enabler, I'm saying that they both failed to build the father-daughter relationship that Annie needed. I'm not stating this as an accusation; I understand that parenting is hard, and that an X approach that would have worked well for one child would fail spectacularly for another child. |
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Post by pyradonis on May 26, 2021 11:01:52 GMT
I singled out the makeup thing because it was the one element that had nothing to do with school and is in my opinion the least reasonable thing he did. The white room thing might have been debunked, but still question the idea of not informing Annie of being sent back a grade and letting her come to class as if nothing happened. Indeed one of many very crappy things done to Annie on that day. Although also one of many things where one has to ask the question if all other adults are okay with this? Which school would act like that? |
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Post by todd on May 26, 2021 12:36:16 GMT
Which school would act like that? I've thought myself that a regular, responsible school would have confronted Annie on her cheating as soon as it had confirmed that she was cheating, instead of holding back the information to use as a pretext for controlling her if her extra-curricular activities were inconveniencing it (and sticking her father with the role of "front guy" so that he'd get all the blame). But then, remember that the Court isn't really a school; the school is just one division of a "mad scientist organization", designed to train the successors of the current generation so that they can continue the work when the current generation is gone. (Given, as I mentioned in another thread, that the Court appears to be on the verge of completing the Omega Device, the school may no longer be necessary; the goal is being achieved during the lifetime of the present generation after all. I suppose it's a case of "Old habits are hard to break" - not to mention that something unexpected could happen with the Omega Device to set work back, so just in case....) |
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Post by pyradonis on May 26, 2021 15:43:57 GMT
Which school would act like that? I've thought myself that a regular, responsible school would have confronted Annie on her cheating as soon as it had confirmed that she was cheating, instead of holding back the information to use as a pretext for controlling her if her extra-curricular activities were inconveniencing it (and sticking her father with the role of "front guy" so that he'd get all the blame). But then, remember that the Court isn't really a school; the school is just one division of a "mad scientist organization", designed to train the successors of the current generation so that they can continue the work when the current generation is gone. (Given, as I mentioned in another thread, that the Court appears to be on the verge of completing the Omega Device, the school may no longer be necessary; the goal is being achieved during the lifetime of the present generation after all. I suppose it's a case of "Old habits are hard to break" - not to mention that something unexpected could happen with the Omega Device to set work back, so just in case....) I wonder how the Court would react if the British government decided to inspect the practices of their "school". |
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Post by rylfrazier on May 26, 2021 16:22:01 GMT
It's not that I don't understand the "he has no choice" perspective, I just think it's a conversational and moral dead end - if Tony has no choice, then nobody has a choice and nobody can be held responsible for any of their actions or failures. Um, I think that's a huge stretch, and also an underestimation of the difficulties people with actual mental illness go through. It's the difference between being lazy and being burnt out, the difference between being vain and having a narcissistic personality disorder, the difference between being sad and being depressed, the difference between being shy and having social anxiety, etc. I'd say it's the other way round: the more mentally healthy you are, the more you are responsible over your actions. That's not to say that people who struggle with some sort of mental illness or disability are NOT responsible over their actions, but that responsibility is shared by whatever caused the illness in the first place (e.g. an abusive parent, a traumatic childhood, a genetic pre-disposition). It doesn't mean that in a relationship with a person who faces mental difficulties the "healthy" one shouldn't prioritize their own well being in favor of the other one "not being able to help it", either. If you switch from mental to physical illness, it becomes more easily understandable. If I have an illness that causes me pain whenever I move I may be less inclined to help around the house. I still have to choice to move, but I face a much bigger difficulty than a healthy person to do any chore. That's very different form the kind of person who wants to sit on the couch all day and play videogames. That doesn't mean that my SO should do all my chores for me because I can't help it, but the difficulties we face are NOT the same. It's not that Tony has no choice, but that taking action is a lot more difficult for him than it would be for me or you. That's why I find it kind of weird that people are mad that he hasn't apologized to Annie, when the truth is he hasn't apologized YET. It's not like he has grown old and still refuses to apologize out of vanity. He's trying to find the strength/way/self-control to do it. And the more I think of it, the more I blame Surma for this situation. However frail she eventually grew, for the first years she definitely had her mental faculties not only intact, but she also had the energy to take care of Annie and apparently homeschool her herself, so it's not like she spent her time in the hospital staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes. Why on earth didn't she push for Annie and Tony to bond more?! SHE knew the difficulties her husband was facing. And even if he worked non-stop in his effort to save her, she still should have AT LEAST talked to Annie about him. Instead it looks like Annie knew virtually NOTHING about her father. Why didn't she tell Annie that her father has difficulties expressing himself? Why didn't she tell Annie stories of their past years together, in order to help her picture her dad as a person instead of "father"?? The Donlans were the ones to do it instead, years later. Why didn't she tell Annie about how they met or how they fell in love? (She could even leave the cheating out of it or embellish the events but keep the spirit of it intact, sheesh). Instead she did nothing. Um, in my opinion the actual "huge stretch" here is asserting with any kind of confidence that Tony is "actually mentally ill". Mental illness means "diagnosed with an identifiable mental disorder by a mental health professional." Tony, not being a real person obviously hadn't been diagnosed by a mental health professional. He also has not been diagnosed by anyone with anything in the "world of the comic." If we decide we want to "armchair diagnose" him, the closest match I can find is alexithymia - that is "a general problem with expressing emotion" which is considered linked to autism spectrum disorders. The issue with this is that alexithymia is so broadly defined and poorly understood that even it is more of a "general category" rather than an officially recognized "mental illness" per the DSM-5. Alexithymia thumbnail sketchTaking what Tony has said at face value, he clearly has a different or unusual brain. Leaping from that to "Tony is clearly mentally ill thus entitled to special treatment?" why? We all have different, special brains. Most of us make it through life without abusing our children anyway. And as far as Surma goes, Surma knew him better than probably anyone on earth. Maybe she had a reason to think he could pull it out and be a good dad. Maybe he wasn't like this with Annie before her death? Maybe she was just thinking about the fact that *she was about to die* rather than the very special man, his very special brain, and his very special needs. Again, Tony = not a real person so nobody can actually "diagnose" him, but I really question if he is "mentally ill" in the world of of the comic at all. Being able to be charming around the cute girl you like when she's not in front of her boyfriend doesn't really seem like a "mental illness" it seems like "a guy who struggles with social situations but can get past it when he puts in the extra effort". Maybe Surma saw that and *assumed that after she died he'd put in the extra effort with annie* rather than throwing a 3 year pity party for himself. She thought the best of him - he utterly failed at it. I have a very hard time blaming her for that choice. |
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yinglung
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Post by yinglung on May 26, 2021 17:01:11 GMT
Again, Tony = not a real person so nobody can actually "diagnose" him, but I really question if he is "mentally ill" in the world of of the comic at all. Being able to be charming around the cute girl you like when she's not in front of her boyfriend doesn't really seem like a "mental illness" it seems like "a guy who struggles with social situations but can get past it when he puts in the extra effort". Maybe Surma saw that and *assumed that after she died he'd put in the extra effort with annie* rather than throwing a 3 year pity party for himself. She thought the best of him - he utterly failed at it. I have a very hard time blaming her for that choice. It's not a matter of extra effort, This is not the hand of someone who can just push past it. Tony outright told her that he can't function well outside of one-on-one interactions. Frankly, I don't see how a person can look at Tony's crippled ability to socialize and dismiss it as a matter of effort and willpower. Plenty of people on these forums have shared similar experiences and the toxicity of the viewpoint that they just need to try harder. For perspective, imagine Tony had a medical condition that made walking feel like stepping on broken glass instead of his social disorder. He would still be responsible for his actions and inactions, his neglect and myopia. But it would be needlessly cruel and unempathetic to demand that he forgo a wheelchair because it's "special treatment" and walk Annie to school on his own two feet. Because he is experiencing a psychological problem, there is no simple, mechanical solution like a wheelchair. To be fair to Surma, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that Tony would be fine in one-on-one interactions with Annie. Once it became apparent that that was not the case, there wasn't a lot of time to diagnose or address the problem, especially since Tony was likely working himself to the bone trying to stop Surma from dying. It was a complicated, traumatic time for pretty much everyone involved, so I don't think it's fair to cast blame too readily. That said, I highly disagree with the idea that Tony was throwing a 3 year pity party for himself. That would look like alcoholism, depression and other forms of dissipation. It would not look like seeking out every lead towards a method of bringing Surma back, culminating in a deal with what turned out to be devils for what turned out to be false resurrection. Then he had what can uncharitably be called a pity party as he waited for death after harming what little family he had left. Obviously, it would have been better for Annie if he had accepted Surma's death and remained to take care of Annie. Unfortunately, magic exists, and thus there was still hope of bringing Surma back, which prevented Tony from completing his grieving. |
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Post by rylfrazier on May 26, 2021 17:39:11 GMT
Again, Tony = not a real person so nobody can actually "diagnose" him, but I really question if he is "mentally ill" in the world of of the comic at all. Being able to be charming around the cute girl you like when she's not in front of her boyfriend doesn't really seem like a "mental illness" it seems like "a guy who struggles with social situations but can get past it when he puts in the extra effort". Maybe Surma saw that and *assumed that after she died he'd put in the extra effort with annie* rather than throwing a 3 year pity party for himself. She thought the best of him - he utterly failed at it. I have a very hard time blaming her for that choice. It's not a matter of extra effort, This is not the hand of someone who can just push past it. Tony outright told her that he can't function well outside of one-on-one interactions. Frankly, I don't see how a person can look at Tony's crippled ability to socialize and dismiss it as a matter of effort and willpower. Plenty of people on these forums have shared similar experiences and the toxicity of the viewpoint that they just need to try harder. For perspective, imagine Tony had a medical condition that made walking feel like stepping on broken glass instead of his social disorder. He would still be responsible for his actions and inactions, his neglect and myopia. But it would be needlessly cruel and unempathetic to demand that he forgo a wheelchair because it's "special treatment" and walk Annie to school on his own two feet. Because he is experiencing a psychological problem, there is no simple, mechanical solution like a wheelchair. To be fair to Surma, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that Tony would be fine in one-on-one interactions with Annie. Once it became apparent that that was not the case, there wasn't a lot of time to diagnose or address the problem, especially since Tony was likely working himself to the bone trying to stop Surma from dying. It was a complicated, traumatic time for pretty much everyone involved, so I don't think it's fair to cast blame too readily. That said, I highly disagree with the idea that Tony was throwing a 3 year pity party for himself. That would look like alcoholism, depression and other forms of dissipation. It would not look like seeking out every lead towards a method of bringing Surma back, culminating in a deal with what turned out to be devils for what turned out to be false resurrection. Then he had what can uncharitably be called a pity party as he waited for death after harming what little family he had left. Obviously, it would have been better for Annie if he had accepted Surma's death and remained to take care of Annie. Unfortunately, magic exists, and thus there was still hope of bringing Surma back, which prevented Tony from completing his grieving. Again, there is a spectrum and a lot more nuance than "mentally ill thus gets a pass on everything" and "normal and subject to normal expectations". In this exact comic, he is described as getting "more and more quiet" in social interactions - implying that like a non-mentally ill person, he *was* able to interact in a group setting to some extent but then gradually had a harder and harder time as the social pressure increased. Clenching your fist so hard that you leave small red marks on your palm is absolutely something that could happen to someone who is just very concerned about a social interaction but is not diagnosably mentally ill. Tony is capable of experiencing endless pity for himself and his circumstances. This isn't someone with a "flat affect". He has emotions and he expresses them all the time - just not around certain people or in groups of people. There is no "real world" mental disorder that specifically stops any communication of empathy or regret for the harm caused by his actions to one person specifically. People with severe emotional disorders have trouble expression all emotions at all times, sure, but "I just can't tell this specific person I'm sorry" mmmmmm I'm going to call BS on that "disorder". Additionally, even if we assume that exists somewhere in our universe or in the GC universe, there has been no diagnosis in the story of a "mental disorder" that actually stops him from writing Annie a letter, recording a message, asking a message to be conveyed to her, etc. etc. He is able to tell Donny at length about his regrets, sorrows and struggles but can't add the words "could you please tell Annie how sorry I am and how much I love her?" This seems like an extremely selective "disorder" and again, one that nobody in the story has diagnosed. To me, this looks very little like a disorder and more like a personality. There are a lot of elements to Tony, some good (dedicated, focused surgeon, charming at times, etc) but in addition, a prideful, self-pitying personality obsessed with making the right impression and doing the right thing to the point where he has developed a pattern of valuing his own comfort and staying 'in the cage' over the painful act of reaching out not knowing what might happen. As far as Tony's "quest" - there's no indication that any character in the GC storyline has ever returned from the dead, so I would say even in the "world of the book" abandoning your daughter who you know needs you and who is going through the loss of a parent and instead pursuing a "quest" which you have no reason to think will be successful seems extremely self indulgent and self pitying to me. |
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yinglung
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Post by yinglung on May 26, 2021 19:30:48 GMT
Again, there is a spectrum and a lot more nuance than "mentally ill thus gets a pass on everything" and "normal and subject to normal expectations". Agreed. Probably diagnosably on the spectrum, Assuming the psychology of the time could do so. This is pretty close. Not to mention People with social anxiety disorder are more prone to shame. If you are looking for "stops any communication of empathy or regret for the harm caused by his actions to one person specifically" as a symptom, then you are purposefully holding up a specific scenario and wondering why it isn't explicitly listed among the broad diagnosing criteria. Tony likely also has a comorbidity of some form of survivor's guilt, ie PTSD from watching his wife die while nothing he was doing could save her. Personally, I think the latter is where his difficulties communicating with Annie spring from. He sees his wife slowly dying, and he sees an uncanny resemblance in his daughter. He specifically holds himself responsible for Surma's death. So Annie is simultaneously proof of his contribution to Surma's death, someone who he thought he could show love to but failed, and a reminder of his inability as a doctor to save his loved ones. I think that this conflux of guilt and shame was slowly building as Surma weakened. I would be a lot more surprised if he was able to interact with Annie in a normal manner without going through the grieving process and coming to terms with his part in the death of his wife. It's not surprising that no-one diagnosed Tony. Mental health disorders have only begun to shed their stigma in recent times, and even assuming the comic is set in modern day, it started in 2005. Up until Surma's death, Tony had been steadfastly ignoring the ethereal side of things. And when you consider that a lot of mythical beings are found among the ether faction, it's a lot more reasonable that some sort of resurrection is possible. There is the minotaur, who has survived since ancient Greece. That would imply that Hades and Orpheus were real, which may imply that the realm of the dead is not as one-way as secularists would believe. Ghosts are real, and Reynardine could jump from body to body. It would not surprise me that if Surma was not part fire elemental, then it would have been possible to give her ghost a new body. |
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Post by sebastian on May 26, 2021 21:01:53 GMT
Mental illness means "diagnosed with an identifiable mental disorder by a mental health professional." By that logic if we eliminate all mental health professionals we'd eliminate all mental illnesses, too. I wonder if that would works with other diseases. If so, one should avoid going to the doctor, ever. Because as long as you are not diagnosed, you are not ill. |
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yinglung
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Post by yinglung on May 26, 2021 21:09:05 GMT
Mental illness means "diagnosed with an identifiable mental disorder by a mental health professional." By that logic if we eliminate all mental health professionals we'd eliminate all mental illnesses, too. I wonder if that would works with other diseases. If so, one should avoid going to the doctor, ever. Because as long as you are not diagnosed, you are not ill. To be fair, rylfrazier is probably speaking out against armchair diagnosticians with that comment. It's a valid criticism, but it's also valid to look at a character's behavior and backstory and point out similarity to real world conditions. |
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Post by rylfrazier on May 26, 2021 21:52:54 GMT
Again, there is a spectrum and a lot more nuance than "mentally ill thus gets a pass on everything" and "normal and subject to normal expectations". Agreed. Probably diagnosably on the spectrum, Assuming the psychology of the time could do so. This is pretty close. Not to mention People with social anxiety disorder are more prone to shame. If you are looking for "stops any communication of empathy or regret for the harm caused by his actions to one person specifically" as a symptom, then you are purposefully holding up a specific scenario and wondering why it isn't explicitly listed among the broad diagnosing criteria. Tony likely also has a comorbidity of some form of survivor's guilt, ie PTSD from watching his wife die while nothing he was doing could save her. Personally, I think the latter is where his difficulties communicating with Annie spring from. He sees his wife slowly dying, and he sees an uncanny resemblance in his daughter. He specifically holds himself responsible for Surma's death. So Annie is simultaneously proof of his contribution to Surma's death, someone who he thought he could show love to but failed, and a reminder of his inability as a doctor to save his loved ones. I think that this conflux of guilt and shame was slowly building as Surma weakened. I would be a lot more surprised if he was able to interact with Annie in a normal manner without going through the grieving process and coming to terms with his part in the death of his wife. I will agree with you (as I think I have said above) that Tony's brain and the way he thinks is not typical or usual - that said the specific idea of him being mentally ill in a manner that justifies his behavior and absolves him from responsibility for his many bad choices I still very strongly object to. Depending on who you ask and what statistics you believe, around 1/5 people meet the standard of "some degree of mental illness." I would posit that not all of those people are exempt from the expectation that they not be awful parents. Per my original statement that as I recall started this line of conversation, all of our brains are unique and special. All of us have challenges we need to go through. That doesn't mean that expecting Tony to not specifically be cruel to Annie is reasonably similar to expecting a paraplegic to walk. I think it's more similar to asking someone who is not naturally athletic, or to use a "loss model" someone who is missing a toe to practice jogging until he or she learns to jog. It might not be natural or easy, but I think the evidence supports that it's possible, and when what's on the line is your daughter's well-being, I think it's reasonable for that difficult effort to be expected. We can recognize that Tony is unusual and it will be harder for him to be a good dad without deciding to join Annie in "but we'll just love him super hard anyway". We can (and I do) say "based on my limited understanding of how this fictional character's mind works, I think this person can do better, should have done better, and I am comfortable dislinking this character because I think they have been and are making an insufficient effort to do better." From that starting point, I am comfortable adding on "while I like and respect Tom as a writer generally, I think that this story about Annie deciding to unconditionally love Tony and defend him from all comers looks too much like advocating for excusing abusive parental conduct for me to enjoy or like it, and I hope either the story goes a different direction or at least doesn't keep coming back here" |
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Post by maxptc on May 26, 2021 23:29:43 GMT
Mental health disorders have only begun to shed their stigma in recent times, and even assuming the comic is set in modern day, it started in 2005. I think we know it's set in modern times or the close future/past, based solely on Kat, Rey and Annie playing certain videos games amd watching movies. |
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yinglung
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Post by yinglung on May 26, 2021 23:36:30 GMT
Mental health disorders have only begun to shed their stigma in recent times, and even assuming the comic is set in modern day, it started in 2005. I think we know it's set in modern times or the close future/past, based solely on Kat, Rey and Annie playing certain videos games amd watching movies. My point is, when it comes to the possibility of in-universe diagnosing the mental illness of an adult, we should be applying 2005 standards, practices, and stigmas, not 2021 versions of the same. |
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Post by todd on May 26, 2021 23:43:41 GMT
I wonder how the Court would react if the British government decided to inspect the practices of their "school". The Court has probably obtained enough of a "sovereign status" to make that unlikely, though it would be amusing to see. (I doubt it would fit the story in its current state, though. The Court might be more concerned with the school inspectors finding out about Loup and his army than how they'd respond to the Court's practices.) |
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