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Post by Isildur on May 31, 2022 14:29:25 GMT
This doesn't make sense to me. Why would a more deterministic place have less rules and restrictions? Precisely the opposite was pointed out just a few pages back. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2607 |
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Post by todd on May 31, 2022 18:26:44 GMT
Careful there, Kat. "You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny." - Queen Jadis of Charn (aka the White Witch)That does sound like the Court itself. |
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Post by drmemory on May 31, 2022 22:23:40 GMT
I...ok, I get the gist of what's supposed to be the emotional tone of this scene, but logically speaking I'm rather confused about what "rules and regulations" Kat is talking about. As far as we've seen, the upper echelons of the Court are literally the only people who've ever tried or wanted to impose any rules or regulations on her research...hell even her parents have been aggressively enthusiastic about letting her do science freely and unsupervised! Furthermore, I thought the entire reason the Court was moving away was so they could escape Etheric contamination, and the Ether is pretty much the opposite of "the regular rules and restrictions." I can see why Kat would feel trapped and restricted lately, but again, there's no damn way that leaving would help with that. As far as we've seen, all her most recent research either involves one of three things: etheric artifacts like the Arrow or Anja's Computer, the New People (ex-robots), or Loup's primordial wood-stone substance. Every single one of those avenues of research requires her to stay right where she is! What's she getting all wistful about, then??? Good question. I really think she has this backwards and I can't figure out how she got there.
Literally nothing she has done lately would be palatable to the court, based on everything we've been told.
The only thing she's done that we know the court likes was the hand prosthetic for Tony, and that fits in with their attempt to become God. You know, immortality by replacing parts? So I imagine she'd be allowed to work on that, and perhaps human experimentation. I would expect the court to treat animals and robots and etheric beings pretty much like they treat Paz's mice. Which, honestly, she may not have a problem with.
Remember this? And later, this? For another example of situational ethics, we need only consider how she treats the golem robots... She may be concerned about the robots and NP on the surface, but she's also perfectly happy to use them in ways that may be ethically questionable. She has a history of initially being appalled by things, then doing what she wants anyway. There is also the question about how exactly they are linked to her due to the contract and the arrow.
Dark Kat, anyone?  |
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Post by Gemminie on Jun 1, 2022 14:09:18 GMT
Oops, Memorial Day happened; gotta get caught up!
At the end of the previous page, Kat was worried about the "ex-robots" being left all on their own. Here, Annie knows that she's being left behind and seems absolutely sure that Kat will stay behind too – and is very upset at even the possibility that she might not. Kat's opinion seems to be that she won't be going, although it's tempting. Kat seems to believe that she could research anything she wanted, without any restrictions.
I'm not sure what about her previous experience at the Court makes her think she'd be unrestricted – after all, hasn't she had to keep a lot of what she's been doing lately secret from the Court? And wasn't it the Court who took away her anti-gravity flying machine much earlier in the story? She must be thinking about some other set of restrictions.
And Annie's response, that it would be terrifying, suggests what sort of restrictions Kat's talking about here. She's talking about laws and scientific regulations, a lot of which have to do with environmental and ethical restrictions. Annie finds this scary, I think, not because Kat would violate such things, but because others might.
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Post by DonDueed on Jun 1, 2022 18:54:26 GMT
I'm not sure what about her previous experience at the Court makes her think she'd be unrestricted – after all, hasn't she had to keep a lot of what she's been doing lately secret from the Court? And wasn't it the Court who took away her anti-gravity flying machine much earlier in the story? She must be thinking about some other set of restrictions. Perhaps she's thinking about Saslamel and her contract situation. I wonder -- has she ever read the fine print on that thing? |
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Post by drmemory on Jun 2, 2022 23:05:34 GMT
I'm not sure what about her previous experience at the Court makes her think she'd be unrestricted – after all, hasn't she had to keep a lot of what she's been doing lately secret from the Court? And wasn't it the Court who took away her anti-gravity flying machine much earlier in the story? She must be thinking about some other set of restrictions. Perhaps she's thinking about Saslamel and her contract situation. I wonder -- has she ever read the fine print on that thing? Ya I don't think moving her lab to a new site is going to help her escape contract enforcement. Also, I suppose it's possible she may have skimmed the contract, though unlikely. More likely than Annie reading her "Familiars for Dummies" book though.  |
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