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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jun 3, 2024 7:05:13 GMT
The Court did nothing to me I didn't want? Or the Court did NOTHING I didn't want? Hmmmm... |
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Post by madjack on Jun 3, 2024 7:09:43 GMT
More food for thought, there's a mouse or a rat depicted in the last panel depicting the small animals she can control. No rats in the Court though? Edit: She's drawn on this page in a lot of traditional villain poses isn't she? Probably is really really thrilled to be animate again though. |
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Post by basser on Jun 3, 2024 7:10:19 GMT
Smitty either utterly ruins this power or he's got the lite edition.
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Post by stclair on Jun 3, 2024 7:48:25 GMT
Looking VERY Coyote in panel 2.
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Post by liminal on Jun 3, 2024 7:53:54 GMT
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preus
Full Member
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Post by preus on Jun 3, 2024 8:04:45 GMT
I like you, Omega. For both our sake, please tone down the villain face.
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Post by philman on Jun 3, 2024 8:05:23 GMT
More food for thought, there's a mouse or a rat depicted in the last panel depicting the small animals she can control. No rats in the Court though? Edit: She's drawn on this page in a lot of traditional villain poses isn't she? Probably is really really thrilled to be animate again though. No rats in the court, but Zimmey mentions talking to rats, much like Omega controls them here. More hints that Zimmy is another version of Omega perhaps? |
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Post by yellowb on Jun 3, 2024 9:14:42 GMT
More food for thought, there's a mouse or a rat depicted in the last panel depicting the small animals she can control. No rats in the Court though? Edit: She's drawn on this page in a lot of traditional villain poses isn't she? Probably is really really thrilled to be animate again though. No rats in the court, but Zimmey mentions talking to rats, much like Omega controls them here. More hints that Zimmy is another version of Omega perhaps? Frankly, I don't think that Zimmy is a "version" of anyone or anything, nor a "creation" of anyone but her biological parents (who, btw, don't even remember her - Word of Tom). I'll go out on a limb and say all similarities between Omega and Zeta are coincidental. |
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laaaa
Full Member
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Post by laaaa on Jun 3, 2024 9:16:05 GMT
The Court did nothing to me I didn't want? Or the Court did NOTHING I didn't want? Hmmmm... Apart from the looming possibility of villainy this raises a lot of questions about free will and fate and stuff. The interpreter called the world "a dead thing". There was a lot of talk about pre-determined future and stuff. If the events of the world were already determined and unchangeable, then there was really no need for Omega to do anything except survive until the distortion. If the changes were possible and Omega could alter the distortion by moving people like a chess master moves pawns then this is... honestly terrifying, even if her intentions were benign. It would make her nearly omnipotent, at least as long as the Court's power is backing her up. And this raises more questions on the Court's plan to leave. Her powers work because of the ether: she can't follow in the new, sterile world. She's stay behind. But without the Court manning her equipment, how would her mind keep functioning??? One last thing: without ever able to explain it, I always had the inkling that the Court sent Surma and Tonny in that forest specifically to check if they would fall in love (it was the parallel between watching the snails go at it heh. I always thought the couple bonding was the actual "event" the Court wanted to check). Which didn't make ANY sense... ...but it makes A LOT MORE SENSE if it was Omega pulling the strings because she was able to predict that The Girl Who Should Not Be would be born from this relationship. |
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Post by Hatredman on Jun 3, 2024 11:31:59 GMT
That was a Hospital. You would expect there are no rats in any hospital. |
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Post by csj on Jun 3, 2024 12:01:14 GMT
Calling ravens simple-minded is a big diss
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Post by csj on Jun 3, 2024 12:04:54 GMT
That was a Hospital. You would expect there are no rats in any hospital. My old hospital had possums but I suspect that was more a local problem |
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Post by bicarbonat on Jun 3, 2024 12:51:35 GMT
Calling ravens simple-minded is a big diss [Corvids, deliberately dropping nuts in traffic to be crushed open by cars, launching open-ended vendettas against people who slight their human friends, and paying (dodgily-obtained) money for a bag of Fritos]: EXCUSE YOUR MOUTH |
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Post by Igniz on Jun 3, 2024 13:51:32 GMT
No rats in the court, but Zimmey mentions talking to rats, much like Omega controls them here. More hints that Zimmy is another version of Omega perhaps? There might be rats in the Court, with the place's size, the students and creatures involved and whatnot, but judging by scene's context, in that instance Zimmy is more than likely using the phrase in a similar way to the common saying "a little bird told me", which usually doesn't refer to a real bird. |
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Post by silicondream on Jun 3, 2024 13:55:35 GMT
Calling ravens simple-minded is a big diss Half the nonhuman creatures in this comic understand English and shit, so Omega may have remarkably high standards. Alternatively, maybe serving Omega is like a high-school dropout job from the corvid point of view. "Two years old and you can't even untie a human's shoelaces within thirty seconds? Sigh. Go work for the witch and let her massage your brain for a while. Maybe in a year you can pass your GED." |
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morrahadesigns
Full Member
Skinamarinky dinky-dink. Skinamarinky doo.
Posts: 222
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Post by morrahadesigns on Jun 3, 2024 15:06:49 GMT
"The court did nothing I didn't want." Boy that's a mindf*ck for anyone who isn't in Omega's shoes.
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Post by pyradonis on Jun 3, 2024 15:24:29 GMT
Someone's leaning into the villain poses here, huh? That was a Hospital. You would expect there are no rats in any hospital. There's been at least another instance of someone explicitly saying there are no rats here, though. |
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Post by batsugars on Jun 3, 2024 15:26:00 GMT
I can't figure out how the ability to control animals could come from seeing the movements and reactions of atoms. Does anyone else understand it?
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Post by ctso74 on Jun 3, 2024 15:52:01 GMT
Wait. That some villain framing, right there. Is the other shoe about to drop? Maniacal laughing included. She could be the Court's villain. Maybe, her plan is to send all "Court minded" people, straight into the Ether equivalent of a black hole. Seems to be working. Calling ravens simple-minded is a big diss Corvids are unusually intelligent. Not to mention the New Zealand Kea. Maybe by simple, she means unmuddled. |
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Post by silicondream on Jun 3, 2024 15:57:41 GMT
"The court did nothing I didn't want." Boy that's a mindf*ck for anyone who isn't in Omega's shoes. I think that's probably true for most Court personnel, actually--most human personnel, at least. We're always seeing the Court from the PoV of its most marginalized members: robots, etherics, former fairies and animals, etherically sensitive humans, and those who love them. For everyone else, it's a pretty nice place to live. Think of it this way: in however many centuries, the worst human rights violation we've ever heard of in the Court is what they did to Jeanne, and that was so unacceptable that the Founders had to orchestrate a massive cover-up. Public health is fantastic (barring mental health for the severely afflicted), everyone has food and shelter and quality education and fulfilling employment, there are no jails, there's no capital punishment. For the normal human, the Court is a utopia. |
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Post by novia on Jun 3, 2024 16:07:47 GMT
No rats in the court, but Zimmey mentions talking to rats, much like Omega controls them here. More hints that Zimmy is another version of Omega perhaps? There might be rats in the Court, with the place's size, the students and creatures involved and whatnot, but judging by scene's context, in that instance Zimmy is more than likely using the phrase in a similar way to the common saying "a little bird told me", which usually doesn't refer to a real bird. I always assumed Zimmy was talking about Paz's lab mice, and just using imprecise language. |
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caber
Junior Member
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Post by caber on Jun 3, 2024 16:14:07 GMT
That was a Hospital. You would expect there are no rats in any hospital. "You know there aren't any rats here." www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=198 |
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Post by novia on Jun 3, 2024 16:16:29 GMT
I can't figure out how the ability to control animals could come from seeing the movements and reactions of atoms. Does anyone else understand it? It doesn't. She has two powers. |
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Post by Gemminie on Jun 3, 2024 16:18:04 GMT
After Omega says she's free now, Annie asks why the Court would do such a monstrous thing (presumably meaning putting her mind into a machine). Omega replies, with a frankly creepy side-eyed expression, that she wanted it (which was made clear during the previous flashback sequences). She then clarifies that her existence before Charles found her was a torment. There's even a frame flashing back to the flashback. Renard asks her if she can read minds, but she says no. In front of a backdrop of colliding atoms or other particles, she says that all she sees is how events lead to others. She also clarifies that her ability to manipulate simple-minded animals at short range was just some sort of side effect of her abiity, something she developed in order to survive. We see a number of red-eyed creatures in the background here. Tom's comment: "It's what she wanted."
So rather than asking Omega to answer any questions, Annie instead focuses on her well-being, though she makes the assumption that no one would prefer an existence inside a machine. Omega seems perfectly fine with explaining things here, though why she didn't do so earlier is a mystery. I'm still not clear on how the ability to see and speak through animals is related to the ability to see connections between events, but I'm willing to accept that she developed another ability in order to survive. I kind of suspect that Omega may be the same kind of being Coyote is, given that Coyote has the ability to know everything but chooses not to, and has the ability to decide that he has whatever powers he wants. I'm not fully certain that Omega was ever human, in other words. Maybe she was, though. Zimmy's human as far as we know, and she also has an ill-defined ethereal ability with terrible side effects.
This page is largely just a clarification of what we've already seen, not really pushing the plot forward. But the fact that an entire page is devoted to this clarification suggests that the clarification will be important sooner or later. She can't read minds, so that means someone could carefully deceive her or lie to her, as long as they do (and have never done) nothing inconsistent with what they say up to the point of betrayal. We still don't know whether she can detect events occurring in the Ether, but since she can't read minds and can only see things like atoms and forces, I suspect not. Annie and Renard could communicate ethereally, and Omega wouldn't be privy to that. Not that Annie and Renard are going to betray Omega, but if Omega has some nefarious purpose, this page supports ways that Annie and Renard, at least, could get around her knowledge of everything.
I'm wondering whether Omega's goal now is to ensure that this distortion becomes permanent. She's free now, after all, and she'd want to stay free. Whatever's going on at the heart of the distortion involving Zimmy, Coyote, etc., she wants it to continue. If Annie's goal is to rescue Zimmy from it, Omega probably doesn't want that. But she knows that Annie tries to help her friends. What's she going to do? Zimmy saw that Annie was going to kill Loup, and that Kat was going to use Omega to kill her (Zimmy). Maybe that's not accurate anymore, but it could still happen, if Annie and Kat try to go to the center of the distortion and deal with things.
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Post by Gemminie on Jun 3, 2024 16:18:55 GMT
More food for thought, there's a mouse or a rat depicted in the last panel depicting the small animals she can control. No rats in the Court though? Edit: She's drawn on this page in a lot of traditional villain poses isn't she? Probably is really really thrilled to be animate again though. Doesn't mean she didn't control rats before being brought to the Court. |
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Post by Igniz on Jun 3, 2024 16:52:08 GMT
I always assumed Zimmy was talking about Paz's lab mice, and just using imprecise language. It could be, we know she's kind of boorish and along with her broken Birmingham accent we have seen her using a wrong term on a number of occasions. |
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Post by Elysium on Jun 3, 2024 18:39:09 GMT
I'll go out on a limb and say all similarities between Omega and Zeta are coincidental. Living life on the edge I see. |
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Post by Gemini Jim on Jun 3, 2024 19:17:29 GMT
If she is a villain, at least she seems to be the "this is for your own good" type; rather than the evil type, which would be totally out of character for GKC.
But yeah, that "did nothing I didn't want" is just ambiguous enough to be paranoia inducing.
IF she had a grand plan for the Court, Annie would be a major flaw in that plan, and flaws must be corrected... or maybe it's been just a giant (predictable!) game of gambit chess to her, and she now has to adjust to Annie's unpredictable moves.
In the last page, Meg sounded downright happy that Annie upset the balance, because it allowed her to be set free.... even if she didn't deliberately predict that, it has certainly turned out OK for her.
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Post by ophidiophile on Jun 3, 2024 22:02:51 GMT
I can't figure out how the ability to control animals could come from seeing the movements and reactions of atoms. Does anyone else understand it? The operation of neurons that control the movements of animals is based on chemistry, which is atoms reacting with each other. Much like those fungi that infect ants and force them to climb high on a plant and then clamp down with their jaws to hold them in place. Reading thoughts would be too complicated, since thinking relies on previous chemical reactions. An analogy would be a computer and the difference between hardware and software. Operating the hard drive, CD reader tray, lights, etc., would be fairly simple, but trying to change how Windows runs? Or figuring out what Windows is even doing? Even if you could see the interactions of millions of transistors, there would be no way you could analyze them faster than they would be changing.
That said, I would not expect those abilities alone to allow her to see the future. Nature might be deterministic, but humans are not 100% predictable; there will always be a certain amount of unpredictability. And I have no idea how the Ether would affect the world. Or how much effect the Ether has on the world outside of the Court.
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Post by csj on Jun 4, 2024 0:19:03 GMT
Calling ravens simple-minded is a big diss Half the nonhuman creatures in this comic understand English and shit, so Omega may have remarkably high standards. Alternatively, maybe serving Omega is like a high-school dropout job from the corvid point of view. "Two years old and you can't even untie a human's shoelaces within thirty seconds? Sigh. Go work for the witch and let her massage your brain for a while. Maybe in a year you can pass your GED." It's probably a contentious topic in the corvid community |
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