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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jan 4, 2024 6:37:48 GMT
Surma was always a moderately deceptive person. Cheating on James, conning Renard...I'm not saying she didn't value honesty, but it was far from her top priority. (I speculate that she also held back a lot with Annie in particular, either because she wanted to present herself as an ideal mother for the short time she had left, or because she knew Annie would already have enough trouble defining herself as a separate person from her mother.) My take on Surma is that she was... fiery, and a bit toxic. Being passionate I figure she wanted things every which way, dictated by whatever she wanted at the moment. The same skills that allowed her to see things from other sides to resolve disputes likely also aided her in rationalizing doing/saying whatever would get her what she wanted/needed both at the moment and in hindsight, as I feel is evidenced by the way she publicly dumped Eggers in a way that would constrain his response. She probably considered herself super-honest (most of the time) and she didn't have to give much thought to how her actions affected others... before Renard merc'd Dan Smith. After that? Anthony probably did whatever she wanted so I don't know but I'd like to think she was less... toxic, for lack of a better word, though I suppose with a name like Stibnite a little toxicity can be expected. Of course, after her fire started to bleed away Surma's personality changed to match. |
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Post by Hatredman on Jan 4, 2024 7:11:58 GMT
Damn it, posted something here that belonged somewhere else. Sorry for that.
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Post by silicondream on Jan 5, 2024 12:31:41 GMT
Surma was always a moderately deceptive person. Cheating on James, conning Renard...I'm not saying she didn't value honesty, but it was far from her top priority. (I speculate that she also held back a lot with Annie in particular, either because she wanted to present herself as an ideal mother for the short time she had left, or because she knew Annie would already have enough trouble defining herself as a separate person from her mother.) My take on Surma is that she was... fiery, and a bit toxic. Being passionate I figure she wanted things every which way, dictated by whatever she wanted at the moment. The same skills that allowed her to see things from other sides to resolve disputes likely also aided her in rationalizing doing/saying whatever would get her what she wanted/needed both at the moment and in hindsight, as I feel is evidenced by the way she publicly dumped Eggers in a way that would constrain his response. She probably considered herself super-honest (most of the time) and she didn't have to give much thought to how her actions affected others... before Renard merc'd Dan Smith. I see her as less toxic and more pragmatic. She did plan how she'd dump Eglamore, but that was a great idea considering that he's a super-strong warrior dude with imperfect self-control and a temper; he might have hurt Tony badly otherwise. Likewise, Surma wasn't just flirting with Renard for fun, she was doing it for a Court honey trap. Not particularly honorable, but secret agents can't afford to be honorable. I think her reaction to Renard bodyjacking Danny wasn't so much "oh no, my actions have consequences!" as "Wow, I suck at predicting those consequences." She must have retained some faith in the Court until the end, or she wouldn't have asked Tony to send Annie there. Yes, her anger would have guttered out over the years. And as you say, with a husband and a daughter that both idolized her, not much to be angry about. She still kept a lot of secrets, though. Tony might not have ghosted Annie and chopped his hand off if he knew more about the etheric side of her life cycle and the entities beyond the veil. |
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Post by blahzor on Jan 5, 2024 17:38:39 GMT
I think it's more Surma sent Annie to the court for Anja more than anything
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Post by TBeholder on Jan 6, 2024 10:54:00 GMT
Nah, more like an excuse to make a convoluted mechanism to find the deceased NP souls... And then apply it to every other soul in existence just because "it's right there, why not use it?" A convoluted mechanism? Obviously, she must construct a robotic walking device…  |
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Post by Gemminie on Jan 6, 2024 16:31:36 GMT
Catching up with the usual "my impressions about what is happening on this page" ... so the Arbiter agrees that it's acceptable for Kat to take Sam into the Ether now and make a decision about a permanent guide later ... however ...
Now we get to the "however." It's that the Arbiter only showed up in order to assign guide duties for the New People. He'll help Kat this time, but next time a NP dies, he won't show up until Kat is ready to assign a permanent psychopomp for the NP. That means that in the future, Kat won't have access to any of the "tools or skills" that guides get. She'll have to figure it all out herself.
The dead NP will remain separate blobs of unclaimed Ether, waiting to be guided, unless they're grabbed by somebody who wants to grab Ether and use it for something else. We have a panel where the Arbiter appears to be illustrating his point by materializing a bunch of grabby hands around Sam, who seems to be able to see them, looking apprehensively upward.
Kat ponders for a moment, then resolutely says that she'll figure it out. She's not willing to dump this on Annie against her will. That's the kind of person Kat is.
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Post by eyemyself on Mar 1, 2024 1:43:40 GMT
[ I think you're on to something, but also assigning the arbiter, Saslamel, both more potential power and less actual authority than we've seen evidence of in the text. Saslamel definitely serves an important role re: dispute resolution, but I don't think he has authority of the guides, ROTD, or other mechanisms related to death beyond conflict resolution. And it's seems like he only gets called in for very high level stuff even then, since a lowly caseworker from the ROTD gets called to rule on Mort's case when Jones disputes Ankuo's claim to his spirit and even though Ankuo is an afterlife guide, he abides by the ruling with only minimal protest. My headcanon is that Saslamel avoids Jones like the plague because a) she's older than him and b) she actually remembers his language. Legit theory. I’d say that’s a safe bet. She and his interpretation ghost may be the last other beings who do. |
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