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Post by Hatredman on Jun 29, 2024 23:35:55 GMT
You know now that I'm reading that story again I would be delighted if all the post-apocalyptic stuff in the intermission pages with Tom and Tea is actually the end result of killing the kid in the Court hole. Me too, but I think that, if it comes to this, it would not be Tom's original intent. |
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Post by Hatredman on Jun 29, 2024 23:46:12 GMT
Totally different question - why does Annie think Zimmy is in torment? Nobody has seen Zimmy nor talked to her since this all started. For all we know she could be fine. That's what I'm wondering. Annie's doing a bit of assumption here without having all the facts. Based on Zimmy's history, and Antimony's experiences concerning her, I would easily assume that too! |
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Post by Hatredman on Jun 29, 2024 23:53:14 GMT
Observation - we saw that the court is continuing with their plan, calmly loading up a ship at the dock, despite the distortion. I've been assuming that this was happening inside the distortion - Omega certainly still thinks she's inside it! What we didn't see is a painful-looking energy funnel sucking energy out of Zimmy (i.e. tormenting her). Tony said that "contact with the interior of the court has been disrupted" and "there are many people lost". For me this is a clear indication that they are OUTSIDE of the distortion. OTOH, if Evil Meg has a distortion-generated body, they must have some links to it. |
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Post by drmemory on Jun 30, 2024 5:57:04 GMT
Observation - we saw that the court is continuing with their plan, calmly loading up a ship at the dock, despite the distortion. I've been assuming that this was happening inside the distortion - Omega certainly still thinks she's inside it! What we didn't see is a painful-looking energy funnel sucking energy out of Zimmy (i.e. tormenting her). Tony said that "contact with the interior of the court has been disrupted" and "there are many people lost". For me this is a clear indication that they are OUTSIDE of the distortion. OTOH, if Evil Meg has a distortion-generated body, they must have some links to it. That would mean that Omega's zapping powers were able to take them out of the distortion, and that she should now be attached to the court computers again. The way she was talking made me think she was still independent. Also, when she offered to zap Annie to various people in the distortion, Tony was one of them.
I'm basically thinking that Tony's house is in the distortion, and that it looks normal because Tony is very literal. I don't think we need to worry about Tony warping them into somewhere weird or conjuring up something scary! Unless someone reminds him of Surma or of the bad etheric beings that tricked him, of course. That would place the docks in the distortion too, as we've never seen anyone be able to see out from a distortion.
The other option is that Omega can zap freely between the real world (such as it is) and the distortion. That doesn't sound right, does it?
On the other hand, Annie is clearly getting spun up here because Omega isn't going along with what she demands. I'd guess we're about to see Annie affect what's going on pretty dramatically, at which point it'll become clear that they are in the distortion still. Or that they aren't, of course, but that seems less likely to me.
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Post by drmemory on Jun 30, 2024 6:34:45 GMT
Anyone else think Omega is spinning up Annie on purpose? As discussed above, Annie actually isn't in charge of anything here - her only actual roles are medium of the forest (which may not apply since the forest and court merged) and psychopomp or psychopomp trainee. She doesn't actually get to decide what the court should do or not do, and I have to think that anyone in the court power structure is probably pretty sick of her making decisions and taking matters into her own hands. She is, after all, a teenage student, one of many in their school, and she almost certainly doesn't get to decide policy. I like Annie and the scoobie gang, a lot, but I also think there may be a reckoning coming here. Miss Omega, who actually DOES have an official role in the court, and is probably part of the near-mythical inner circle, is gently pointing this out. The court apparently has done a lot to help a lot of people over the years. They have done stuff that has affected world events behind the scenes. They have power too - consider how they tracked down Tony, and how they are able to find people of interest in cities far away, even though they are in a very real sense not a part of the greater world (physically, at least). They have immortals and beings of power working for them, which gives them an unusual level of continuity over the decades (centuries?). Clearly, some of what they do isn't too cool, but it isn't entirely clear whether they are evil or just bureaucratic. I suspect they are more amoral than evil, just like any other long-lived organization. They are probably more self-serving than your typical corporation, just because they are privately held. None of this makes it seem likely that they would feel obligated to modify their actions to placate a single student, even if she is semi-human. Not like there aren't a lot of other semi-humans and even odder beings around! She's not even the only student in her class with powers, nor the only one trying to help Zimmy! She's had an influence far outside of her real roles simply because Coyote likes her, and because of her friend Kat being a genius. None of that puts her in charge nor forces the court to do what she demands.
On the other hand, I still suspect that the whole "new world" thing is a scam and that what the court is doing or is being tricked into doing is exactly the problem that Coyote's master plan is intended to address. But we'll see...
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Post by silicondream on Jun 30, 2024 10:04:01 GMT
Anyone else think Omega is spinning up Annie on purpose? As discussed above, Annie actually isn't in charge of anything here - her only actual roles are medium of the forest (which may not apply since the forest and court merged) and psychopomp or psychopomp trainee. She doesn't actually get to decide what the court should do or not do, and I have to think that anyone in the court power structure is probably pretty sick of her making decisions and taking matters into her own hands. They've been sick of her doing that for years now. That's why they were going to expel her upon graduation. The last time the Court actually asked her to do anything was to go with the Shadow Men to meet Loup, and she completely failed to deter him from attacking them. (Not that Aata really expected her to succeed, I think; he was just using her to get close enough to Loup for the powerdrain.) Pretty much the only reason she's granted any Court privileges at this point is because she's close to people the Court does respect: Tony and Kat. Part of the reason Omega may be escalating the argument over Zimmy right now is that Tony's a witness, and she wants to clarify his position. Jack's got more or less the same Court status as Annie, which is why he's not invited to the new world. Apparently spending your youth on exciting rebellious adventures at the margins of society does not improve your career prospects. I'm not sure what "evil" means in this context, or "amoral" for that matter. The Court seems to have a well-defined ethical mission: to empower humanity to control as much of its own destiny as possible. We've seen several facets of this mission: permitting individual humans to "live full lives of their own choosing," as Anja described;* to advance human understanding of conventional and etheric sciences as far as it will go; and to reduce the power of etheric beings over humanity. The faction currently in control seems to be prioritizing the last facet. But if anyone at the top has been acting to enrich or empower themselves at the expense of the rest of the Court, we have yet to meet them. The highest-up dude we've gotten to know is Aata, and he's certainly a true believer; the most selfish thing he's done is save Arizona. *Of course this does not include choosing to be free of Court tracker devices in your food, but as Sir Young probably said, the price of freedom is eternal surveillance. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jun 30, 2024 11:59:10 GMT
I wouldn't choose the words "spinning up" but it did occur to me that Omega has pushed several of Antimony's buttons in the last few pages. So far it can be put down to Omega's excitement at finally being able to interact with the people she's monitored/contemplated for so long, plus maybe massaging the situation so that she gets a new body or at least makes the distortion last longer... but it may actually be the case that Omega is hitting various nerves to reach a very particular outcome. To put it another way, maybe Surma Surma Tony Tony Court Court Elves Zimmy is her up up down down left right left right B A.
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Post by guntherkrieg on Jun 30, 2024 14:12:43 GMT
From Omega's perspective, everything up til now has been ordained, so that surety that things are correct has got to be hard to break.
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Post by Hatredman on Jun 30, 2024 21:43:08 GMT
I like Annie and the scoobie gang, a lot, but I also think there may be a reckoning coming here. Miss Omega, who actually DOES have an official role in the court, and is probably part of the near-mythical inner circle, is gently pointing this out. The court apparently has done a lot to help a lot of people over the years. They have done stuff that has affected world events behind the scenes. They have power too ... Clearly, some of what they do isn't too cool, but it isn't entirely clear whether they are evil or just bureaucratic. I suspect they are more amoral than evil, just like any other long-lived organization. They are probably more self-serving than your typical corporation, just because they are privately held. None of this makes it seem likely that they would feel obligated to modify their actions to placate a single student, even if she is semi-human. Someone sent me this today and I found it fitting for all Court-lovers. The caption is in portuguese but it roughly translate as: "How you, the reader, feels when the villain in the book follows the same train of thought as you"  |
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Post by Hatredman on Jun 30, 2024 21:52:44 GMT
I wouldn't choose the words "spinning up" but it did occur to me that Omega has pushed several of Antimony's buttons in the last few pages. ... or that, a cheatcode for something only Omega knows - not even the Court. |
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Post by drmemory on Jun 30, 2024 22:50:13 GMT
"Spinning up" may not be quite the right way to say what I was thinking. I was trying to point out that Omega was saying things that she knew Annie would disagree with - almost certainly what she really thinks. Omega is immune to "pretty girl syndrome" and has no reason to keep anyone happy with her, other than the inner circle of the court. A lot of the people we know are nice to Annie because she is cute, or because they knew and liked Surma, or they felt bad because her mother was dead and her father absent, or for some other reason. The last time we saw someone unconnected actually say what they thought about Annie was when Idra talked about her being spoiled when Jones was interviewing everyone, and most of the people present defended her and said she wasn't that bad (paraphrased). In the present conversation, Omega is calmly saying what she believes, which happens to contradict what Annie believes. She's carefully watching Annie while she does this. I don't know that she is trying to anger her on purpose, but I do think she knows what she's doing. It just struck me that a LOT of people not in Annie's inner circle have been tired of her shit for some time. I'm still a big Annie fan but I can also see why not everyone would be! Particularly the upper people in the court. A couple of examples - Annie was a total scofflaw when they tried to give her detention. Several people made comments to her at the time. When the court tried to keep her from going to the forest so much, Coyote knocked over a building, so they couldn't control her by just telling her what to do either. Just the fact that she continues to live broke their prediction engine! I don't think that pissed off Omega; she actually incorporated it into her plans for getting a body she could walk around in freely. I don't think Omega is an enemy here, but I do suspect she's going to tell Annie some things she doesn't want to hear. The only one who has had any luck controlling Annie's behavior has been Tony, and gosh he has other issues... even the psychopomps had to trick and manipulate her to get their way. I'd say that Coyote also used her in his plans more like a game piece than a friend. Again, people in the court didn't mess with her because of Coyote and Ysengrin, and people in the court didn't mess with her because of her friends, Renard, and because she could light them in fire if she wanted to. To summarize, Omega is a mature adult woman, at least a century old, with a lot of perspective about people (thanks to her powers of being able to see what everyone does and has done) and probably more insight than anyone we've met into what the court actually does and has done in the past. Annie is a teenage girl, often driven by her emotions, who gets her way a surprising amount of the time. Omega is giving her some hard truths that she will probably not like to hear. Interestingly, she's doing it in an adult manner, not arguing with what Annie says (like her unproven assertion about Zimmy's current state), but is instead calmly making her points. I'm not sure what will happen next. If they are still in the distortion, as I believe, then Annie's emotions may be about to cause some real excitement. Or Annie could calm down and talk about things calmly. My money is on "drama".  |
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Post by lurkerbot on Jul 1, 2024 0:56:22 GMT
To summarize, Omega is a mature adult woman, at least a century old, with a lot of perspective about people (thanks to her powers of being able to see what everyone does and has done) and probably more insight than anyone we've met into what the court actually does and has done in the past. With the possible exception of Jones, depending on how much understanding about Court operations she'll confess to possessing. |
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Post by Gemini Jim on Jul 1, 2024 2:28:42 GMT
Is Tony's house (and the Star Ocean, for that matter) outside the Distortion? Meg in panel 3 says "you saw what it was like inside." Not present tense. Everything looks normal, but that doesn't prove anything. Of course, I've assumed that Meg needs to be inside the Distortion, but maybe she just needs the Distortion to be up and running. They're on the outskirts of the distortion, where the Star Ocean is sucking up ether, so it's not as distorted there. "Inside" = closer to the center of the distortion, where the ether is stronger. I had this thought too, that the Distortion might be weaker around the edges. Especially if the Court is trying to escape from the Ether; surely the Distortion would weigh them down, unless they "weigh anchor". |
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Post by worldsong on Jul 1, 2024 5:46:10 GMT
It's rather unfortunate that when somebody finally reminds Annie that the world doesn't revolve around her it's in the process of explaining that she might have to let her friend get Omelas'd.
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Post by rafk on Jul 1, 2024 9:16:36 GMT
Jack's got more or less the same Court status as Annie, which is why he's not invited to the new world. Apparently spending your youth on exciting rebellious adventures at the margins of society does not improve your career prospects. Everyone with etheric abilities was never invited to the new world no matter how well behaved they were. I also remain of the opinion that most of the people who make the trip are going to be exploited by a handful of higher ups. The big boss speaking to the group with that memory mask, and the way that the headmaster was apparently out of the loop about his daughter not getting an invite, has given me a very bad feeling about the whole thing. |
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Post by silicondream on Jul 1, 2024 9:30:06 GMT
Jack's got more or less the same Court status as Annie, which is why he's not invited to the new world. Apparently spending your youth on exciting rebellious adventures at the margins of society does not improve your career prospects. Everyone with etheric abilities was never invited to the new world no matter how well behaved they were. Jack doesn't have 'em, though. That's why he was waxing wistful about how he could have gone if things had been different; it's his life choices that made him ineligible. (Specifically, his incorrigible simping for magical girls). Well, the trip itself is a decent justification for the secrecy. Maybe once they've all arrived and shut the door behind them, memetic contamination will no longer be an issue and they'll enter a golden age of freedom of information! You know, just like the US repealed the Patriot Act as soon as it brought freedom to the Middle East. |
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Post by eyemyself on Jul 1, 2024 18:09:00 GMT
If the chair turning blue was intentional (to suggest local "distortions"), it has one drawback; it's potentially distracting. We wind up focusing on the chair and ignoring what Annie and Omega are saying. (I had a similar feeling about one of the pages where Annie and Jones were discussing Annie's freeing Jeanne and its consequences while passing through the force field, and the way the force field was drawn puzzled so many readers - based on the discussion about that page here - that it got more attention than the conversation itself. I find it much more plausible that the blue chair is a mistake on Omega's part than that it is a mistake on Tom's part given the nature of the computer generated art process. That color doesn't appear anywhere else in recent panels and it's got the same texture as the tan chair, making a fill error unlikely. Similar, to me it reads like Omega has a much better grasp of what is going on than Annie does, knows it, and feels confident she holds all the cards. She already has her new body, and, she's fulfilled her obligation to the court. All she has to do is sit back and wait and she gets what she wants. Annie has to figure out how to stop the court and then gather what she needs to free Zimmy. Omega doesn't need to negotiate unless the situation changes. |
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Post by pyradonis on Jul 2, 2024 19:22:32 GMT
Everyone with etheric abilities was never invited to the new world no matter how well behaved they were. Jack doesn't have 'em, though. That's why he was waxing wistful about how he could have gone if things had been different; it's his life choices that made him ineligible. (Specifically, his incorrigible simping for magical girls). Unclear. The Whiteleg possession gave him the power of flight and left him changed, and Gamma thought he might be able to do some of that magical crap also after they were gone. |
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Post by Hatredman on Jul 2, 2024 19:26:53 GMT
Jack doesn't have 'em, though. That's why he was waxing wistful about how he could have gone if things had been different; it's his life choices that made him ineligible. (Specifically, his incorrigible simping for magical girls). Unclear. The Whiteleg possession gave him the power of flight and left him changed, and Gamma thought he might be able to do some of that magical crap also after they were gone. "He has been tainted by that demon girl". |
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Post by silicondream on Jul 2, 2024 20:07:28 GMT
Jack doesn't have 'em, though. That's why he was waxing wistful about how he could have gone if things had been different; it's his life choices that made him ineligible. (Specifically, his incorrigible simping for magical girls). Unclear. The Whiteleg possession gave him the power of flight and left him changed, and Gamma thought he might be able to do some of that magical crap also after they were gone. True, but it didn't seem like he followed up on that potential in later appearances. And if the Court didn't notice Kat's etheric potential, despite her occasional Machine Angel manifestations, I'm guessing they didn't notice Jack's either. |
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Post by drmemory on Jul 2, 2024 22:45:10 GMT
To summarize, Omega is a mature adult woman, at least a century old, with a lot of perspective about people (thanks to her powers of being able to see what everyone does and has done) and probably more insight than anyone we've met into what the court actually does and has done in the past. With the possible exception of Jones, depending on how much understanding about Court operations she'll confess to possessing. Also, how well she really understands emotions. |
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Post by Geekette on Jul 3, 2024 0:12:40 GMT
Okay but guys now that Omega's officially put it out there, when do we start talking House of M and Wandavision in relation to the distortion?
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