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Post by crater on Feb 23, 2022 22:41:56 GMT
Lou-rrek cleanly sidestepping a "I've seen things you People wouldn't believe..." moment. Ah, the frustration of being secretly, sanctionably prodigious: Gunner's Crag contains more iterations than a matryoshka doll. IVE READ CHILDRENS BOOKS YOU WOULDNT BELIEVE |
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Post by blahzor on Feb 23, 2022 23:13:10 GMT
How exactly is kat keeping the new people hidden from the Court? If there were only a few of them I could see it, but there seems to be a lot of new faces eating up the track suit inventory. "that's not my problem that's for the engineers to figure out" |
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Post by blahzor on Feb 23, 2022 23:17:09 GMT
Lana didn't know what might happen after her Powermove? Check. Jerrek is annoyed? Check. I think the library probably only had age-appropriate materials, that wouldn't go further than handholding. Even a lot of fairly adult material tends to just "fade to black" at the precipice of naughtiness, under the assumptions its readers would understand what was going on in the time-skip between "our eyes met over the candlelight..." and "...the next morning, as I prepared us breakfast..." I can see that going right over her head. It's also possible that, depending on how completely literally a robot might take something they read, she's read sex scenes so caked in metaphor and euphemism she had no idea that's what they were. Something like, "our souls intertwined on into the night..." says nothing about the, uh, actual mechanics of the activity after all. New People definitely need some courses on Humanity 101. In this way they share parallels with the faeries and animals who became people, lacking knowledge of the nuances of human social interactions. from what we know only Arthur got any sex related education when they were trying to figure out the "boy stuff" but there's probably some cold and instructive info if they got genitalia |
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Post by outofpseudonyms on Feb 24, 2022 0:06:33 GMT
Lou-rrek cleanly sidestepping a "I've seen things you People wouldn't believe..." moment. Ah, the frustration of being secretly, sanctionably prodigious: Gunner's Crag contains more iterations than a matryoshka doll. IVE READ CHILDRENS BOOKS YOU WOULDNT BELIEVE And then burned them with black flames? |
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Post by warrl on Feb 24, 2022 1:51:22 GMT
but Loup's components certainly have enough combined experience to see how that situation was about to spin out of control without intervention. But that's assuming it WAS about to spin out of control. Maybe Lana was actively looking to get laid. By all three of the elf boys. In which case no, nothing was anywhere near going out of control - or if it was, they might need rescued from her. Maybe the boys knew exactly how far they were willing to push things, and they were at that limit. In which case no, nothing was likely to go out of control. There are plenty of other possibilities. I don't know exactly what might have been going to happen - but at the time Jerrek forcefully intervened, such action was not justified. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 24, 2022 2:51:15 GMT
Like I said before, reality is complex (and so is this comic). Lana may have been a keen observer of human behavior for hundreds of years in various robot bodies. Lana may have been sexually active in her current incarnation and knew exactly what she was doing. The elf kids may have needed protection from her, or maybe not because maybe the elves have strict cultural standards against premarital sex they wouldn't even violate with a sexually aggressive unreal person. We can't even be sure Lana's custom bod is anatomically female or if that would have mattered. There's all sorts of possibilities that could be relevant that we don't know about. Sure, we as readers need to keep in mind what we know and what we are just assuming but I think there is such a thing as a reasonable assumption given circumstances. Going primarily by that solitary question mark in panel 3 of #2587 I think it is reasonable to assume that Lana is unaware of the consequences of her interactions and it follows that intervention of some sort, paternalistic and condescending as it may be/may be perceived, is warranted. Nonviolent intervention might have been possible but considering that we're talking about a borderline-insane forest wolf deity what he did was shockingly minimal. It might have been more useful to wait until Lana was actually in distress, but would that have been better? |
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Post by drmemory on Feb 24, 2022 4:33:07 GMT
Kat's version of Asimov's laws: "Huh? What are those?"
I think the robots in general have a lot more experience in existing but far less in being human, even less than your basic typical teenage girls. Decades or centuries of the first, hours or days of the second!
Which makes me wonder what Lana will do now. Argue with Jerrek? Demand to know why he thinks she is naive, possibly leading to his exposure? Go running to our favorite cult leader or the Angel? Can't wait to see!
Or perhaps Annie will wander by, coincidentally. Dues ex Annie-na.
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Post by Polyhymnia on Feb 24, 2022 5:40:23 GMT
Hang on, the elves have always been written as quite bolshy, heart on sleeve types. What's Loup on about them not being used to someone being forward? Look at Eglamore's elf girlfriend. Feels like a very clunky way to soften Loup's characterisation. Presumably as a way to make the audience care about his impending "death". I think it’s more like “they’re not used to someone so forward (who doesn’t mean it/is too naive to realize what they’re asking for.)” I totally buy that elf culture is generally forward, but if you’re emotionally forward, what you say is supposed to be what you mean and people should be able to take you at your word’s worth. Lana was essentially propositioning without realizing it, and the elves were expecting to take her at her word. But when Loup’s trying to explain this to Lana, what he’s getting at in a fairly diplomatic way is “you don’t seem to understand sex, but they do, and they’re not used to someone coming on them like that who isn’t 100% committed.” (Also probably not used to someone responding that enthusiastically, and thrilled to take her up on her presumed offer.) Disclaimer: that’s not to excuse the boys’ behavior or say any hypothetical harm that would have resulted is Lana’s fault. She lacks some basic self-protection instincts, but that’s not her fault and anyone taking advantage of her would be doing just that and it’s on them. |
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Post by Polyhymnia on Feb 24, 2022 5:47:59 GMT
Also as a general question, I wonder if the NP’s bodies have the same design flaws as humans? Like…will they face the joint and back problems of our bipedal design? Can they menstruate? If you hit their “funny bone,” does it tingle?
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Post by bedinsis on Feb 24, 2022 6:12:45 GMT
Lana wanting the elf kids to pay her lots of attention for being cute and Lana not knowing much/anything about sex on a practical level are not mutually exclusive possibilities. My own read is that since Lana picked and designed her body herself her flaunting it is akin to someone saying "Hey, wanna take a look at this *sick* tattoo I just got? I designed it myself.". |
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Post by speedwell on Feb 24, 2022 7:57:34 GMT
Despite the immense amount of clues and evidence we have that the New People had an existence as robots so constrained that their new bodies were literally overwhelming to them, and that the robots themselves are shockingly naive and trivially easy to take advantage of, we still have people here on this forum trying to make out that Lana knows exactly what she's doing.
Pathetic.
While we're on the subject of robots being easily-led and naive, furthermore, I can see a plot element at some point having to do with a handful of New People who are sorry (or persuaded by the Court and/or robots who didn't choose bodies to be sorry) that they took up their new bodies. I don't really expect this, though; it's just a possible element.
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Post by blahzor on Feb 24, 2022 10:04:03 GMT
Lana wanting the elf kids to pay her lots of attention for being cute and Lana not knowing much/anything about sex on a practical level are not mutually exclusive possibilities. Also the possibility she's Salma Hayek in Dogma |
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Post by pyradonis on Feb 24, 2022 12:23:01 GMT
Hang on, the elves have always been written as quite bolshy, heart on sleeve types. What's Loup on about them not being used to someone being forward? Look at Eglamore's elf girlfriend. Feels like a very clunky way to soften Loup's characterisation. Presumably as a way to make the audience care about his impending "death". Seconded on just about everything. I remember when Idra first showed up after her night with Eggers and didn't seem at all embarrassed by her near nudity, which didn't fit with what we saw of the elf cultures in Annie in The Forest. In general, I feel like there is an issue with the elves not having consistent characterization as a culture. I think Idra is simply not your typical elf. The girls Annie talked to about flirting during her stay in the Forest had a very different approach indeed. "You've got to show him your cold shoulder, like. Then he's bound to come chasing you, tail waggin'." If that's representative, then it makes sense that these elf boys are not used to a girl being so forward.
Yeah, it's definitely far from a likely thing that this is for altruistic reasons. To summarize what's been said already: - He could just be preserving his pawn - His "mask" could be influencing him - As something somewhat animalistic this kind of suicidal action could just REALLY annoy him This could easily take a turn somewhere, but until he starts having some internal conflict I'm just gonna assume its too early for it. Add: - He's got things to do and might simply have no interest in wasting time - The wolf in him might feel strongly about protecting members of his pack, and since he is posing as an NP, they are his "pack" now
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 24, 2022 12:49:05 GMT
Despite the immense amount of clues and evidence we have that the New People had an existence as robots so constrained that their new bodies were literally overwhelming to them, and that the robots themselves are shockingly naive and trivially easy to take advantage of, we still have people here on this forum trying to make out that Lana knows exactly what she's doing. Something that I think is in danger of being lost in this conversation is that Lana is an individual. In the absence of evidence to the contrary I think it is reasonable for us readers to assume that she is naïve with respect to sex and such but the evidence for her being naïve in the comic is a bit tenuous. She is a New Person (former robot) and former-librarian but her membership in those two groups that are stereotypically naïve should not be mistaken for knowledge about Lana the individual. I think Jerrek's intervention is justified by that single question mark but I also think that by doing so he is taking away Lana's choice. He meant to protect her but he is treating her like a child creature and it wouldn't surprise me if in the next update she protests that even if she was making a mistake it was her mistake to make. I do not believe Lana understands the stakes in that choice (which is why I think intervention was justified) though I also think that the motives of "Loup" are ego, annoyance, and utility instead of any real concern about the well-being of Lana. As he gets to know her better perhaps that will change but I think it is fair to call what he's doing paternalistic and condescending, justified by her being child-like. If she proves not to be child-like then in hindsight I'll think of the intervention as being unjustified except through utility; the outcome is better for Lana to think Jerrek's a jerk than for Lana to suffer sexual exploitation and abuse unless, of course, Lana repeats her flirting behavior in a similar situation when there's nobody around to help and the final result is worse abuse. Either way, Lana the individual will at some point have to be responsible for her own choices and will learn from making mistakes; let's hope that there are people that watch out for her and keep those mistakes from being too serious along the way. |
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Post by speedwell on Feb 24, 2022 16:56:22 GMT
Despite the immense amount of clues and evidence we have that the New People had an existence as robots so constrained that their new bodies were literally overwhelming to them, and that the robots themselves are shockingly naive and trivially easy to take advantage of, we still have people here on this forum trying to make out that Lana knows exactly what she's doing. Something that I think is in danger of being lost in this conversation is that Lana is an individual. In the absence of evidence to the contrary I think it is reasonable for us readers to assume that she is naïve with respect to sex and such but the evidence for her being naïve in the comic is a bit tenuous. She is a New Person (former robot) and former-librarian but her membership in those two groups that are stereotypically naïve should not be mistaken for knowledge about Lana the individual. I think Jerrek's intervention is justified by that single question mark but I also think that by doing so he is taking away Lana's choice. He meant to protect her but he is treating her like a child creature and it wouldn't surprise me if in the next update she protests that even if she was making a mistake it was her mistake to make. I do not believe Lana understands the stakes in that choice (which is why I think intervention was justified) though I also think that the motives of "Loup" are ego, annoyance, and utility instead of any real concern about the well-being of Lana. As he gets to know her better perhaps that will change but I think it is fair to call what he's doing paternalistic and condescending, justified by her being child-like. If she proves not to be child-like then in hindsight I'll think of the intervention as being unjustified except through utility; the outcome is better for Lana to think Jerrek's a jerk than for Lana to suffer sexual exploitation and abuse unless, of course, Lana repeats her flirting behavior in a similar situation when there's nobody around to help and the final result is worse abuse. Either way, Lana the individual will at some point have to be responsible for her own choices and will learn from making mistakes; let's hope that there are people that watch out for her and keep those mistakes from being too serious along the way. Treating children as children does not seem to be that complicated. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 24, 2022 17:20:47 GMT
Children are still people.
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Post by speedwell on Feb 24, 2022 18:01:56 GMT
Children are still people. Of course they are. And grown people have the responsibility to take their needs and inexperience into account just as much as they have the obligation to take their wishes seriously. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 24, 2022 18:44:07 GMT
Children are still people. Of course they are. And grown people have the responsibility to take their needs and inexperience into account just as much as they have the obligation to take their wishes seriously. I would add, "...and to do these things with an eye to the adults that they will be as well as the children they are now." The New People are even more complicated than human adolescents because they can be fully adult in some ways while completely innocent in others and with that comes long-standing beliefs and values from when they were robots. |
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Post by speedwell on Feb 24, 2022 21:31:59 GMT
Of course they are. And grown people have the responsibility to take their needs and inexperience into account just as much as they have the obligation to take their wishes seriously. I would add, "...and to do these things with an eye to the adults that they will be as well as the children they are now." The New People are even more complicated than human adolescents because they can be fully adult in some ways while completely innocent in others and with that comes long-standing beliefs and values from when they were robots. It reminds me a lot of the state of mind of people leaving a restrictive deprived or oppressive culture, like Scientology or North Korea. I don't mean to say that being a robot was miserable and oppressive. I mean to say that even adults coming out of such a restricted environment are highly vulnerable and trained to do things that don't make sense in the context of freedom and adequacy. |
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Post by warrl on Feb 24, 2022 22:01:25 GMT
Lana was essentially propositioning without realizing it Probably true, but unproven. On somewhat shakier ground (but not disproven). |
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Post by warrl on Feb 24, 2022 22:04:10 GMT
Despite the immense amount of clues and evidence we have that the New People had an existence as robots so constrained that their new bodies were literally overwhelming to them, and that the robots themselves are shockingly naive and trivially easy to take advantage of, we still have people here on this forum trying to make out that Lana knows exactly what she's doing. I haven't seen any of that. I HAVE seen people asserting that your assumptions have not been proven to be correct. (While carefully not asserting that they've been disproven, either.) Therefore it COULD BE that Lana knows exactly what she's doing. |
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Post by fia on Feb 25, 2022 3:10:49 GMT
Despite the immense amount of clues and evidence we have that the New People had an existence as robots so constrained that their new bodies were literally overwhelming to them, and that the robots themselves are shockingly naive and trivially easy to take advantage of, we still have people here on this forum trying to make out that Lana knows exactly what she's doing. I haven't seen any of that. I HAVE seen people asserting that your assumptions have not been proven to be correct. (While carefully not asserting that they've been disproven, either.) Therefore it COULD BE that Lana knows exactly what she's doing. Yeah, fwiw, when I commented about this, I wasn't saying we had evidence one way or another, just that it's an interesting question to ask. I mean the ethics of transforming a being into a new sort of being are really (and I say this as a professional philosopher) nebulous. That is, the "they are children" analogy isn't quite right at all. One can be a new being *and* be a child (I am also currently pregnant so believe me, something I'm thinking about), but this New Person scenario isn't like making a baby human or, on the other provided analogy, integrating / deprogramming a cult survivor or a refugee. As we've seen with Robot, he learns new things every time he changes bodies, but as we know from Robot and Arthur, much of their emotional intelligence, introspective capacity, and romantic aptitude were there well before getting a new body. Or consider the ship AI. There are individual differences about this between the robots/AI, but robots have proven to be extremely observant, even the tiniest like the weather insect robot. Some aspects of human or elf culture might come more easily to some of them than others. We don't know what Lana was like before, so there's a lot of possibilities for how "innocent" she is about her new body, if we want to use that word. But whatever she is, she is not a child. And we have no reason to assume she is ignorant about everything we or Loup might think she is ignorant about, beyond that a lot of it might well be new because the experience of the phenomena she knows about is new, or a new angle on it. But like it could well be (just one more hypothesis I guess) that it's more like a person who did 3 years of a language in college and is now visiting a place where it's the main language, and they know a lot but connecting the factive knowledge to practical action might take some, well, practice. But they're adults. Just fumbling some stuff because it's a new mode of expression and a firsthand experience of the culture they've only read about in textbooks and gotten hints of from instructors. |
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Post by mochakimono on Feb 25, 2022 3:16:07 GMT
Maybe Lana was actively looking to get laid. By all three of the elf boys. In which case no, nothing was anywhere near going out of control - or if it was, they might need rescued from her. A situation in which one is outnumbered 3-to-1 is not one under control, unless the "1" has super strength or mind control powers. Maybe the boys knew exactly how far they were willing to push things, and they were at that limit. A situation's safety being contingent on whether or not the party which outnumbers the other agrees to be polite and respect boundaries is also not one under the outnumbered person's control. I don't know exactly what might have been going to happen - but at the time Jerrek forcefully intervened, such action was not justified. That's fair. A more reasonable de-escalation would be to speak up ("hey, slow down" or "what are your intentions with my coworker?" or something, which would also let Lana make a more informed decision about things once she hears what the elves are thinking). I'm not saying jumping straight to violence is the best option. But I am saying that whatever outcome Lana wanted is ultimately irrelevant to how much real control she had over it happening, unless it turns out she can dead-lift oxen or knows kung-fu. It all would come down to whether or not the elves would respect her, though now we won't know if they would or not since Jerrek/Loup stepped in first. |
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Post by warrl on Feb 25, 2022 4:21:07 GMT
Normal everyday life. Restaurant workers are frequently outnumbered by their customers; in turn, they tend to outnumber their bosses. Other than the lower ranks of active pilots, military officers are routinely outnumbered by the people under their command. Schoolteachers are outnumbered by their students; same for college professors.
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Post by mochakimono on Feb 25, 2022 5:19:06 GMT
Normal everyday life. Restaurant workers are frequently outnumbered by their customers; in turn, they tend to outnumber their bosses. Other than the lower ranks of active pilots, military officers are routinely outnumbered by the people under their command. Schoolteachers are outnumbered by their students; same for college professors. You're very close to getting my point, and offer an excellent argument in favor of unionizing  However, except for the waiters vs. customers, all those people wield some sort of significant social, financial, or other authoritative power over the people that outnumber them. It doesn't have to be kung-fu. It can just be the threat of school expulsion. But say, if those college students or military members decide to just all group up and beat their teacher / C.O. / what-have-you in a back alley...? Then yes, actually, those numbers matter, and what holds them back from doing that is whatever punitive consequences will occur (if not morality). Again: People choosing to be respectful is the important part of a situation with a power imbalance. A waiter in the best of times is under the thumb of customer whimsy. And those working in customer service or hospitality and getting cornered and harassed by a group of strange men is in fact not remotely safe or under control. So my point still stands there. But none of those examples quite match what's going on here. The elves and the robots have zero authority over one another in either direction and from what we can tell, they've barely interacted before at all. There's no pre-established working relationship. These are just two groups of randos who happen to live in the same city now, ran into each other by chance, and stumbled into a misunderstanding that then came to violence. ANY kind of forthright communication to try to find out what everyone's intentions or boundaries were would have been better than immediately flashing, grabbing, or threatening anyone. |
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Post by blahzor on Feb 25, 2022 6:05:46 GMT
What if as a Library Bot Lana was big mad she couldn't confess to a human and get together like Arthur did and this is the source of her behavior on top of reading all the books
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Post by blahzor on Feb 25, 2022 6:42:55 GMT
The animals/fairies that get human bodies are more like children than the NP would be, because they haven't been around humans all of their lives outside of Annie and Shurma if they were a animal that lived that long
They would have ideas of human interactions, a memory that doesn't/shouldn't fail also
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Post by speedwell on Feb 25, 2022 12:40:45 GMT
Despite the immense amount of clues and evidence we have that the New People had an existence as robots so constrained that their new bodies were literally overwhelming to them, and that the robots themselves are shockingly naive and trivially easy to take advantage of, we still have people here on this forum trying to make out that Lana knows exactly what she's doing. I haven't seen any of that. I HAVE seen people asserting that your assumptions have not been proven to be correct. (While carefully not asserting that they've been disproven, either.) Therefore it COULD BE that Lana knows exactly what she's doing. We have an entire CHAPTER dedicated to the existential issues of getting a new body with new sensations and capabilities, dude. Plus the multiple instances of "of robots don't lie" and the fake antennae (that the vast majority of robots don't even have, so the fact that they were fooled is ludicrous).
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Post by maxptc on Feb 26, 2022 18:07:37 GMT
Hang on, the elves have always been written as quite bolshy, heart on sleeve types. What's Loup on about them not being used to someone being forward? Look at Eglamore's elf girlfriend. Feels like a very clunky way to soften Loup's characterisation. Presumably as a way to make the audience care about his impending "death". I took this as they aren't use to someone being so forward if they aren't serious. The entire culture seems much more direct from the read I have of them. The danger is that they thought Lana knew what she was implying, and they could become some level of upset at what they would take as dishonest/manipulative behavior, coming from a person that they aren't even sure is real. Loup was just reacting without thinking, and while Loup isn't a good guy, he is still the combination of Coyete and Ys, so him having protective impulses makes sense to me. |
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However, except for the waiters vs. customers, all those people wield some sort of significant social, financial, or other authoritative power over the people that outnumber them. It doesn't have to be kung-fu. It can just be the threat of school expulsion. But say, if those college students or military members decide to just all group up and beat their teacher / C.O. / what-have-you in a back alley...? Then yes, actually, those numbers matter, and what holds them back from doing that is whatever punitive consequences will occur (if not morality). Again: People choosing to be respectful is the important part of a situation with a power imbalance.