Is Annie a Medium?

[the bandit]

Answer: No, not yet.

Just a matter of clarification. There's a tendency on the board and in the comments to use "medium" in a vague sense that includes Annie's special empathy with etheric beings. This is inaccurate and confusing.

It is, of course, an understandable mistake. The psychopomps are a medium of sorts between the realms of the living and the dead, and Annie has served as sort of a medium between the psychopomps and a departed soul, as well as guided her own mother. Furthermore, her mother had the same prosoetheric empathy as she and served as the Court's Medium, which conflates the two in the minds of many.*

HOWEVER, Annie is in a training class to be a Medium. Her abilities do not make her one, and it is an abuse of the term (by what has been revealed so far) to call her a Medium. As Jones recently pointed out, whether or not Annie will be a Medium is ultimately up to the Court.

So! The term Medium applies to the official mediative position appointed by the Court, a role filled by an unbiased and objective person who can mediate between the Court and the Forest. Annie is not a Medium yet, and may never be.

Another part of the problem is that no clear, succinct label has been laid out for Annie's special ability to act as / see psychopomps and easily gain rapport with etheric entities. Here I might humbly offer a few ideas for this, and I'm sure someone will come along with something even better just a few posts down that will make me think, "Hey, why didn't I think of that?" But, my suggestions include:

• Living Psychopomp
  
• Etheric Entity Empath (EEE) or Tripley
  
• Prosoetheric Empath (my personal favorite)
  
• "medium" vs. the official capitalized position of "Medium"
  (suggested by Ulysses)
  
• spirit medium
  (implicitly suggested by Mezzaphor)
  
• "medium" vs. "court appointed medium"
  (suggested by The Stranger)

Thanks all.

*I readily admit that it's possible that the two attributes (special empathy with etheric beings and mediumship) are indeed strongly dependent or a matter of destiny, i.e., that one is born a medium. However, that is not how Jones defined or characterized the position of Medium, so unless Tom reveals that bombshell further on, it is merely speculation to conflate the two.

[Rasselas]

She might not be "the Court's medium" in the sense of official position, but she is "a medium" between the etheric and human creatures, and has acted as such in numerous occasions. I believe that using the term "medium" as a more general designation is much more practical than any mashed-up designation that we could come up with. Medium is not a new term, and as such it doesn't only mean "diplomat mediating between the Court and Gilitie Forest in the Gunnerkrigg Court webcomic". It's a pretty general term that can encompass a lot. My first association with the word is usually a hokey spiritist trying to contact ghosts, completely unrelated to GC.

However, it is useful to be reminded that Annie still hasn't been officially appointed as the Court's medium/diplomat.

[King Mir]

Mort said that Annie was "attractive ... like a medium". Clearly he did not mean an ambassador of the court in that case. But it also suggests that being attractive is not enough to be called a medium.

And I agree it's confusing to have the same term used in two different ways.

[Ulysses]

I suggest the use of capital letters. An employee of the Court would be a 'Medium', given that it's a job title, whereas someone with the ability to converse with psychopomps etc. would just be a 'medium'.

Simplez

[Mezzaphor]

I think the Court brought this confusion by using the term Medium for their Mediator / Intercessor position. But considering that the other side includes a god and other supernatural beings, it's likely this mediator will need some of the skills associated with spirit mediums, so I guess this usage is justified.

But yes, Annie is a medium, but not yet the Court's Medium.

[the bandit]

Jul 17, 2009 20:08:55 GMT Ulysses said:

I suggest the use of capital letters. An employee of the Court would be a 'Medium', given that it's a job title, whereas someone with the ability to converse with psychopomps etc. would just be a 'medium'.

Fair enough, though a subtle difference to which I doubt many will catch on.

[The Stranger]

I think you're just monopolizing the word medium to mean "an official court appointed representative that mediates the affairs of the court and the wood." From that perspective, certainly, Annie isn't a medium. However, Annie certainly does possess an ability to see and communicate with the dead, and she does mediate between the supernatural and natural. In the traditional, more general sense, this is sufficient to qualify her as a medium. When people refer to Annie as a medium, most likely they mean the latter definition. You're simply calling out people on failing to conform to the definition for medium you endorse, and here that strikes me as both strange and somewhat futile.

Honestly, lets stick to using "court appointed medium" when we mean exactly that and "medium" when we just mean medium, as we have been all along.

[the bandit]

I'm not attempting to have people conform to my own definitions. I am not that arrogant, nor do I have any influence capital on these boards to buy results, nor am I that ignorant of the nature of the Internet.

I'm pointing out an area of confusion and recommending the definition of the word medium endorsed by the story. It only makes sense to do so, just in the same way that when I refer to "etheric" in these threads, I'm not referring to a chemical compound or a material from outer space.

If nothing comes of it, no worries, it'll be as if I never said anything. If it means you'll always use "court-appointed medium" to differentiate meanings in your own posts, Stranger, then I'll be satisfied with being able to understand your meaning.