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Post by another on Feb 20, 2009 19:56:22 GMT
I think shes being possesed by Reynardine. There was no symbol on his head in spirit form and the moment "Annies" Presence returns to the room "She" Automatically asks about the symbols restrainning Reynardine. And now she tells Mort to get lost, Raynardine Jealousy!
Just a theory
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Post by lingus on Feb 20, 2009 20:55:15 GMT
Maybe the "just a ghost" is a reference to Annie's need for physical contact (not in a romantic way perverts). But her father is missing, her mother is dead. If she wants any kind of relationship, platonic or otherwise (and I don't agree with the otherwise) I think she'd like a physical presence. If we were to get a little Freudian on this, the first romantic interest after losing her father would be a bit of a father replacement. And Anthony wasn't a huggy kinda guy from the impression I got. In short Annie needs hugs. Okay that wasn't quite what I meant. But really there is something deeper going on here. I'd like to tie this in with the Surma=not a ghost, why is Mort argument but I'm feeling a bit Scarecrow today. Actually, that's exactly what I had thought. I was thinking that she has issues with dead people, namely her mom. I'm not a psychoanalyst or anything, but maybe it's like you said that she is jealous that Mort is present as a ghost but her mother is not. Or, maybe she just can't see herself spending her life with someone that will remind her of other dead people, namely her mother. The other side of this is that I also agree with the fact that Annie needs to feel in control. I do NOT agree with the whole social ineptness theory. She actually deals with people rather well... She's in training to be a medium. She's training to deal with people's issues, and she has shown a natural talent for it. She has to have some degree of social skills to be dealing with people at that level. Not to mention, we see Annie hanging out with numerous other people besides Kat throughout the course of the comic. If you go based on a majority of the pages, yes, she spends MOST of her time with Kat... But I tend to think that other things happen "behind the scenes" that we just see because it's not interesting enough. Annie hanging out with regular people that has nothing to do with the main plot line probably doesn't get shown in the comic because it doesn't need to be.
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ding
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Post by ding on Feb 20, 2009 22:03:36 GMT
I'm not certain the Antimony's outburst was entirely uncalled for. Everyone's enamored with Mort, appropriately so, but tricking her into an implied relationship was kind of a dick move.
That said, Antimony's been flying under the social maladjustment radar by being introverted, but when she actually gets around to showing emotions, I think we'll see they are quite abnormal.
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Post by sandjosieph on Feb 20, 2009 22:05:13 GMT
By my estimates, I'd say with about six pages to go, this whole thing might not get sorted out in this chapter.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure a) Annie's going to confront Muut about the thing, b) the Blinker Stone is going to return itself to Annie, as a way to remind her of her new duty as a medium, c) Kat's going to tell her mother, who will in turn tell Jones, d) Coyote will find out and say something along the lines of "What a pity..." e) all the above, or d) Monster Trucks and Electric Guitars.
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Post by rsyzygy on Feb 20, 2009 22:21:11 GMT
Has anybody thought about what Mort's "claim" might actually be? He had Muut deliver the stone for him when Annie was trapped in the Ravine (Ch. 8). Muut referred to him as young and inexperienced. Maybe Mort is a soul collector in training? Perhaps she thinks Mort isn't wooing her, but laying claim to her soul (see chapter 16, pages 11 and 12). Annie would certainly be upset if she wouldn't get to see her mother again due to a different spirit staking claim to her. It could be all just a misunderstanding...
-wool
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Post by another on Feb 20, 2009 23:21:19 GMT
Has anybody thought about what Mort's "claim" might actually be? He had Muut deliver the stone for him when Annie was trapped in the Ravine (Ch. 8). Muut referred to him as young and inexperienced. Maybe Mort is a soul collector in training? Perhaps she thinks Mort isn't wooing her, but laying claim to her soul (see chapter 16, pages 11 and 12). Annie would certainly be upset if she wouldn't get to see her mother again due to a different spirit staking claim to her. It could be all just a misunderstanding... -wool Now thats a good theory
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Post by sandjosieph on Feb 20, 2009 23:23:56 GMT
Come to think of it, she probably does have various school projects in her other classes where she has to work with students we don't ever get to see.
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Post by slagpenumbra on Feb 20, 2009 23:30:22 GMT
For some reason the outburst struck me as vaguely out of character. I mean, it seems like she leaped to a conclusion, which is something I don't think I've seen before.
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Post by todd on Feb 20, 2009 23:33:03 GMT
I think shes being possesed by Reynardine. There was no symbol on his head in spirit form and the moment "Annies" Presence returns to the room "She" Automatically asks about the symbols restrainning Reynardine. And now she tells Mort to get lost, Raynardine Jealousy! Just a theory Um, once again, the rules of the story have established that WHEN REYNARDINE POSSESSES SOMEONE, THAT PERSON DIES. (Sorry about the caps, but I think it's important to stress that.) If Reynardine has possessed Annie, then that means that she's dead and (barring a deus ex machina) is out of the story - but since she's the narrator/protagonist who's telling us about her time at Gunnerkrigg from a period at least two years after the end of her first school year there (and therefore at least one and a half years after the present point in the comic), that means that she can't die yet. So Reynardine possessing her is out of the question, unless Tom's got a miracle planned to restore her to life (and a miracle that was denied to both the young man whom Reynardine possessed and Sivo). I don't see why we have to resort to possession to explain Annie's behavior here. She's done other bad things in the comic (lying to Eglamore, stealing the photograph, copying Kat's answers) without any suggestion that she was possessed then. Why can't her shouting at Mort come from her own character flaws rather than from a possession?
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Post by warrl on Feb 21, 2009 0:14:23 GMT
Annie's an introvert. She lets very few people inside her shields - so far we've seen her close to her mother, Kat, and arguably Reynardine. And maybe some of the psychopomps *before* her mother died, but then one of them took her mother - so much for that.
Finding out that she's been carrying a courting gift around for months... basically that someone else has staked a claim on a place inside her shields *without her consent or even knowledge*... yeesh. An extrovert might be amused or flattered (in addition to possibly being affronted)... an introvert, outraged. If she had instead discovered that Mort was spending nights under her bed, it would not have been worse.
But, as if that were not sufficient to set her off, her expression in panel 8 makes me think that some other raw nerve got a bit of sandpaper. We may find out more about that Monday. If so, bring a bucket and a mop.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Feb 21, 2009 0:38:27 GMT
Has anybody thought about what Mort's "claim" might actually be? He had Muut deliver the stone for him when Annie was trapped in the Ravine (Ch. 8). Muut referred to him as young and inexperienced. Maybe Mort is a soul collector in training? Perhaps she thinks Mort isn't wooing her, but laying claim to her soul (see chapter 16, pages 11 and 12). Annie would certainly be upset if she wouldn't get to see her mother again due to a different spirit staking claim to her. It could be all just a misunderstanding... -wool Tom says that in the Gunnerverse afterlife, everyone ends up in the same place, but how you get there may vary. So Annie can't be eternally separated from her mum, but she may not know this. or d) Monster Trucks and Electric Guitars. Holy crap yes please.
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Post by cespinarve on Feb 21, 2009 5:52:15 GMT
Oh Annie. Oh, Annie, Annie, Annie. Don't be so- teenagerish.
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Post by sandjosieph on Feb 21, 2009 6:13:02 GMT
I must admit, Annie looks quite good in panel 8. If only you could see the rest of her face, then it would make for an awesome avatar!
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snes
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Post by snes on Feb 21, 2009 6:30:43 GMT
Did anyone notice that you can see Mort in panel 6? He's down near the bottom of the panel, still with the same expression as panel 5.
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Post by martinjh99 on Feb 21, 2009 7:23:43 GMT
I reckon Annie is going to regret giving the blinkerstone back - Right when she needs it in the forest or somewhere like that...
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Post by Uglyhead on Feb 21, 2009 13:27:48 GMT
I hope the shock of this doesn't make Mort disappear forever or something, Annie might not like him anymore but I know I'd miss the lil' guy showing up in the comic from time to time.
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Post by sebastian on Feb 21, 2009 13:40:16 GMT
I'm not certain the Antimony's outburst was entirely uncalled for. Everyone's enamored with Mort, appropriately so, but tricking her into an implied relationship was kind of a dick move. That assuming that a) Mort knew about the romantic implication of gifting a blinker stone and, b) he thought that Antimony didn't. the first could go both way, after all he made the gift, but OTOH he is very inexperienced, he could not be aware of all the implication, the second, well, she is the daughter of a famous medium, she is on a first name basis with several powerful spirit guides, she have the spirit of Reynardine the great in her wolf toy, how could she don't know it? Unless it is a very esoteric fact that only people in the arcane business know, but then point A become even less probable. But even in the worst case scenario (Mort knew and he thought Annie didn't) Annie IMHO overreacted in blowing up that way.
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Post by thechron on Feb 21, 2009 16:39:36 GMT
Antimony is socially inexperienced, but too sensitive to be inept. If you haven't figured out yet that there is a legitimate reason for all of the things that she says and does at this point, you probably never will. Chances are that you are prone to socially inept, irrational outbursts yourself and so it seems reasonable to you that everyone does it, even someone as controlled as Antimony.
All else is speculation, but I look forward to finding out exactly what Mort knew and understood about the implications of giving the stone.
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Post by todd on Feb 21, 2009 23:24:50 GMT
One thought on Annie saying that Mort's a ghost, not a boy. As I've mentioned elsewhere, we know nothing about what Mort's life was like before he became a ghost, unlike Martin or Jeanne (well, in Jeanne's case, we've mostly got hypotheses, but at least we've more information about her when she was alive than we do about Mort). He seems to be almost a "professional ghost", that is, an etheric being who looks like a bedsheet with a face and goes about haunting the Court as if it's his job, with no hint of what his pre-ghost past was like (or if he even had one).
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Post by strainofthought on Feb 21, 2009 23:36:58 GMT
A few points I don't think anyone's covered: 1) Annie is, as almost everyone has agreed, way too angry about this given the information we the readers have. Some have predicted that Annie has some reason to be angry we are not privy to. I'd like to further speculate that it has something to do with the nature of ghosts in GC. Like, what has to happen to you to result in you leaving behind a ghost, what a ghost's existence is like, how strong their connection to their previous life is, and so on. Annie of course has good reason to know something about the nature of ghosts, and she's never expressed any curiosity about who Mort is or what he does. (Neither has Kat actually, aside from being astounded at first meeting Mort, which is kinda weird. Maybe she's still too much of a kid for the right questions to occur to her.) I suspect Annie's "He's just a ghost." statement is not totally unfounded, even if it is callous. EDIT: As an example, if you have read the original Peter Pan you may shocked at just how creepy Peter turns out to be- to say nothing of insensitive and irresponsible- and this has been repeatedly speculated by fans to be because Peter Pan is actually a child's ghost. It's still quite a good book, mind you. It's just not all happy thoughts and flights of fancy. The ending is extremely bittersweet. Creepiest quote: "I always forget them after I kill them." 2) In light of this chapter, several events related to Annie's fall from the bridge make no sense. Page 155 especially does not make any sense to me anymore. Mort seems very uninformed about what happened, even being surprised that Annie knows Muut! (Frankly some of this could have been spotted earlier.) This raises further questions about when, how and why Mort asked for the stone to be delivered. 3) Boxbot is terrible, and nobody likes him. 4) A lot of argument has been going on over the quality of Annie's social skills. I'd like to point out that the social skills one uses in one's public and private lives can be very different. I think it can be correctly said that when dealing with strangers or formal matters, Annie's social skills are outstanding, even if she does have her own certain style of doing things. This does not mean her skills for dealing with personal matters cannot be simultaneously awful. Certainly this is partly due to experience: (as has been said) Annie has lots of experience in formal interactions with ethereal beings, but little experience in simply having friends.
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snes
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Post by snes on Feb 21, 2009 23:40:49 GMT
One thought on Annie saying that Mort's a ghost, not a boy. As I've mentioned elsewhere, we know nothing about what Mort's life was like before he became a ghost, unlike Martin or Jeanne (well, in Jeanne's case, we've mostly got hypotheses, but at least we've more information about her when she was alive than we do about Mort). He seems to be almost a "professional ghost", that is, an etheric being who looks like a bedsheet with a face and goes about haunting the Court as if it's his job, with no hint of what his pre-ghost past was like (or if he even had one). Tom just recently said that Mort's past may be reveled, but not as a full story arc. So I think we can assume that his past isn't that significant to the story. And I'm pretty sure he was a human before he was a ghost.
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neal
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Post by neal on Feb 22, 2009 0:56:13 GMT
I don't know if I think Annie's response is uncalled for. I mean, it isn't ideal, but I'd be pretty angry in her situation. She's embarrassed, she feels tricked. She likes having control, and she just revealed a gap in her own knowledge. I'd have been furious, and probably reacted the same way.
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Post by todd on Feb 22, 2009 1:21:53 GMT
Incidentally, I don't think (as some people have suggested) that Mort's the guy whom Reynardine killed. The evidence from Chapter Twenty (which is where we learned about it) was that Reynardine developed his infatuation for Surma when she was in her late teens or so (judging from how she's drawn in that flashback panel), and the guy whom he possessed would have presumably been the same age. And Mort feels much younger than that - more around the same age that Annie is now (assuming that you can talk about ages for a ghost).
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Post by Azeltir on Feb 22, 2009 5:56:52 GMT
Also, I think the Word of Tom has said Mort wasn't Reynardine's victim. His words, from page 497: "No, you do not know who the guy is yet. " Ben
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Post by todd on Feb 22, 2009 13:40:54 GMT
Tom's revealed that Mort made the request for a Blinker Stone to be delivered to Annie after she fell off the bridge, so it *could* have been done for the purpose of helping her. That's all we can say at present, though.
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ding
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Post by ding on Feb 22, 2009 23:49:54 GMT
As I've mentioned elsewhere, we know nothing about what Mort's life was like before he became a ghost, unlike Martin or Jeanne (well, in Jeanne's case, we've mostly got hypotheses, but at least we've more information about her when she was alive than we do about Mort). Tom just recently said that Mort's past may be reveled, but not as a full story arc. So I think we can assume that his past isn't that significant to the story. And I'm pretty sure he was a human before he was a ghost. Mort's first appearance occurs in close proximity to a tomb Annie passes prior to encountering him: www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=61Etched in it are what seems to be the words Dulce et Dec(orum Est). Is it reasonable to consider this is Mort's tomb, and as such Mort is a war casualty? Of course, the author already stated it's not essential to the story...
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Post by todd on Feb 23, 2009 0:29:20 GMT
Do we know for certain that it's a tomb or a grave marker? It could be just another school slogan.
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Post by yummyjellygoo on Feb 23, 2009 0:57:01 GMT
Annie has been a decently strong character up to this point; I don't think controlling is a fair word to use. For all the responsibility and such that she's been dealt, she has not abused power, or asserted her opinion too forcefully on anyone else. I think she expects the same care in the arena of personal freedom, and feels hurt because she thought so highly of Mort as things stood.
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Post by strainofthought on Feb 23, 2009 1:06:02 GMT
something that could conjure up a campfire was a logical gift to send to someone stranded in a cold, dark forest at night The Guides could only visit Annie if something died nearby. Ketrak -- surely one of the busiest psychopomps -- was at the scene of the fly's death mere seconds after it expired. The death of the Shadow on the bridge -- which enabled Muut to visit Annie -- was simultaneous with Annie's fall off the bridge. While greeting Annie in the ravine, Muut seems to be implying that he came straight from the scene of the Shadow's death to visit her, and to deliver Mort's Blinker Stone gift. So, either Mort asked the Guides to give Annie a Blinker Stone sometime before she fell into the ravine, or he somehow learned of her fall the instant it happened and contacted Muut, asking him to deliver an appropriate gift, in the brief period of time before Muut went to escort the Shadow into the Aether. Really, the former sounds less stalker-ish. Well, it looks like some variation on the latter scenario is what occured, because: 2. Muut seems to consistently refer to himself as "We" when he visits Antimony by the river. Is this just an idiosyncrasy, or is he intentionally referring to all psychopomps collectively? 3. Did Mort make the request for the delivery of the blinker stone before or after Annie fell off of the bridge? 4. Who did Mort ask to make the delivery, if he was later surprised that Annie knew Muut? ( Page 155) 2, He's referring to psychopomps collectively. 3, After. 4, It wasn't shown. I feel like there could be a lot more to this. Hopefully answers will begin manifesting Monday morning.
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Post by warrl on Feb 23, 2009 16:12:16 GMT
Also, I think the Word of Tom has said Mort wasn't Reynardine's victim. His words, from page 497: "No, you do not know who the guy is yet. " Ben But that doesn't mean we haven't met the guy. I submit, though, that the Surma we see in Coyote Stories looks quite a bit older than Mort's apparent (by his behavior) age. Reynard would likely have picked a closer match in age. So Mort *could be* Reynard's first victim... but probably is not.
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