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Post by Casey on Sept 18, 2009 17:19:52 GMT
Those are two strange reactions to my thoughts.
It's possible for someone to take issue with someone else's post, without disparaging the person themselves. My post was not intended to disparage any person, only to call out the errors I saw in the argument.
A person can make statements that are wacky and unfounded, without the person being wacky and unfounded, and I would like to believe that you all can tell the difference between when a person is arguing against a statement, and arguing against a person.
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Post by Per on Sept 18, 2009 17:21:22 GMT
Fixed. Also, I have a problem with this! Annie in panel 1 is showing how big the fish was that got away but we never even saw them fishing! And Kat is like looking at the fish but it's not there!
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Post by judgedeadd on Sept 18, 2009 17:25:06 GMT
Annie in panel 1 is showing how big the fish was that got away but we never even saw them fishing! And Kat is like looking at the fish but it's not there! (GASP) What! Such a fault in a supposedly perfect comic like this! GC is now (ahem) (all spotlights on me!) RUINED-- FO-RE-VER!!!!EDIT: Wait, I can fix that!
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Post by Aris Katsaris on Sept 18, 2009 17:26:46 GMT
When you accuse someone of trolling, you do disparage that person.
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Post by Casey on Sept 18, 2009 17:59:32 GMT
When you accuse someone of trolling, you do disparage that person. If that's a universally held standard of disparagement, then I was unaware of that fact, and I apologetically retract that statement in my post.
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Post by Rasselas on Sept 18, 2009 18:17:57 GMT
Ehhh, I think the Hyland thing is stretching my disbelief a bit hard. Too many connections to the past makes it too visible that this is a story, to me. Regardless, I wonder if Annie or Kat recognize the name. "Ties" wasn't from their perspective, after all. Oh, but that's just storytelling - the author showing us only the relevant parts. It's why we got to see Hyland get punched by Eglamore, and not interaction with an unimportant person (except the photographer, but he's a necessary prop in the scene). I'd say it's a property of storytelling and not actual stretching of disbelief that it could all happen that way. My reaction was more like "oh shit it all clicks together." You could argue that it's strange that so many parents have enrolled their children in the same school, and then to have those children meet. But I think that the same argument applies to this as well, it's storytelling and we just don't hear about the irrelevant characters or happenings. Otherwise there'd be a lot of uninteresting downtime. Say, you wanna see Antimony brush her teeth, or eat lunch every day? Edit: Also, now we know that the cows dislike Eglamore and probably Sir Young, but they seem to like Hyland. Hyland has an empathic connection with robotic beings, perhaps in a similar way as Annie has to beings of the ether. However, robots in GC are also connected to the ether, so this might tie in in an interesting way. Also, I wonder what Hyland would think of Diego's menagerie.
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Post by Goatmon on Sept 18, 2009 18:20:32 GMT
An interesting note here is that Jack's dad had no etheric ability, based on how he treated those that did. Which lends credence to the idea that what's happening to Jack isn't based on himself, but wholly the doing of his exposure to Zimmy World. Plenty of people have gifts and talents that go to waste. It's more probable that he had no proper etheric training. He may or may not have had any gifts, but his behavior suggests that he had no interests in pursuing that path even if he did. Whether he did or not is indiscernable at this point.
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Post by Casey on Sept 18, 2009 18:30:29 GMT
Also, now we know that the cows dislike Eglamore and probably Sir Young, but they seem to like Hyland. Hyland has an empathic connection with robotic beings, perhaps in a similar way as Annie has to beings of the ether. However, robots in GC are also connected to the ether, so this might tie in in an interesting way. Also, I wonder what Hyland would think of Diego's menagerie. It might be helpful to differentiate between Jack Hyland and Mr. Hyland Sr... the first time I read this, I was confused as to which you meant "However, robots in GC are also connected to the ether"Well... they appear to be -powered- by etheric means, as that seemed to be Diego's specialty (much like Anja and Donny and their supercomputer) but I'm not sure we could say that they are connected to the ether, in the sense that Annie, Rey, etc are. Now if it were possible for Annie to communicate with Robot, or any of the other robots, etherically, that would be pretty cool. But sadly, I don't see that happening.
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Post by Rasselas on Sept 18, 2009 18:41:56 GMT
Casey, you're totally nitpicking me. I think my meaning was clear enough to get what I meant. You did, after all! Oh, and I wanted to add something. In my personal experience, I've had even stranger coincidences and connections from the past, so perhaps that's why my sense of disbelief is untouched by this occurence.
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Post by Casey on Sept 18, 2009 18:55:26 GMT
I only nitpick you because I love you.
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Post by tyler on Sept 18, 2009 19:10:10 GMT
We don't know that Jack was stealing the blinker stone. He definitely picked it up off the ground, but there's nothing in Annie's etheric perceptions of the event to tell us that he took it very far from that spot or that if she came out of her tent he wouldn't have handed it to her or even struck up a conversation about it.
Jack came on strong in the hallway, and he crossed the line as far as normal civilized discussion goes, yes. People under extreme mental duress do it all the time. Rey and Annie's responses in the moment were not too surprising or something I would disagree with.
Given what happened in the Hallway, I can see Jack being hesitant to approach Annie again. There's danger there. Annie feels that he's dangerous, too. He might just be. The spider thing may or may not have been under his control, and either way it's something she should be wary about.
We don't know he was stealing. Picking up an object someone left on the ground and looking at it is a far cry from stuffing it in your pocket and running away. And it's that sort of characterization I was commenting on. One assumes he's stealing, why? From his perspective, Annie and Zimmy have both proven to be capable of strange mystical things. If he comes from a technology-based paradigm as, say, Kat does, then his behavior as far as what we've seen of the blinker stone incident are no different than what Kat would do. She's curious about it. Kat's just lucky enough to have an in.
If Zimmy pulled you into a world that hurt your brain, and Annie was her friend who was less scary, you'd approach Annie. His approach was unbalanced, unstable, and scary. Rey showed him that Annie was also somehow linked to the supernatural. Then she uses her blinker stone to provide a fire. He wants to know more about his experience in Zimmingham and also the people connected to it. She leaves the stone outside, his curiosity is going to compel him to look at it. Which is what we see him do. I don't see anything that indicates it would be reasonable to assume he wanted to steal it.
I can see why he might have stolen it, but if he intended to use it as leverage he would have pocketed it and then done so. More likely Annie would have found it in his pocket before he could have. Nonetheless, examining and stealing are two different things.
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Post by Casey on Sept 18, 2009 20:03:57 GMT
More likely Annie would have found it in his pocket before he could have. Before I respond, I didn't understand what you meant in this sentence. Can you explain?
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Post by the bandit on Sept 18, 2009 20:27:41 GMT
Keep fighting the good fight, tyler.
And he means Annie could retrieve the blinker stone before Jack could possibly use it as leverage. For all we know, that's exactly what happened. But then again, for all we know, he was just looking at it after it got left out all night.
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Post by Casey on Sept 18, 2009 20:38:58 GMT
Wait. Why is his side "the good fight"? What kind of bias is that?
Jack did bad things. Even those people who try to say that it was okay for him to do those bad things because he's messed up in the head, don't deny that Jack has done bad things. So really I see there are two points of disagreement here: One, whether or not Jack's "condition" excuses his bad behavior, and Two, whether or not what he did at night with the blinker stone constitutes stealing. Which one should we discuss first?
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pages
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Post by pages on Sept 18, 2009 21:06:35 GMT
Those are two strange reactions to my thoughts. I didn't quote you, so I was actually responding to the whole thread in general, previous to my post. Sorry for the confusion! :) I'm probably not the right person to answer the first question because ethics discussions frustrate me, generally haha. But as to the second, when I go back to the page where Annie finds Jack with her stone (no linky cause I'm not forum-savvy yet), you can't really tell if he's in the same area where she left it at or not - which makes the whole theft argument largely inconclusive, for me. If I had to guess, I'd say that he 1) picked it up to have a closer look at the weird thing Carver put down, because he thought it might be part of the larger puzzle including Zimmy or 2) didn't see that it was Annie's, but could sense, etherically, that it was extra-normal, and therefore picked it up to look at it more closely. I'm also curious as to whether people think he purposefully did the whole creepy etheric-spider thing or not. IMO, he seemed extremely confused by Annie's presence, and not sure at all how to investigate it. He might be etherically-inclined (thus showing up in Zimmingham) but unable to channel/control it, or even unaware of it altogether. In his confusion about the stone and the presence he could sense, I think he may have accidentally channeled his mind (which has been altered by Zimmingham) through the stone. I just ask because there were comments I noticed (can't remember where they were) that inferred that Jack did it on purpose.
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Post by Ulysses on Sept 18, 2009 21:40:20 GMT
Ehhh, I think the Hyland thing is stretching my disbelief a bit hard. Too many connections to the past makes it too visible that this is a story, to me. Regardless, I wonder if Annie or Kat recognize the name. "Ties" wasn't from their perspective, after all. You mean the Laser Cows, demons and magic powers didn't tip you off? I'm going to be difficult and say "Hyland is not Jack's father, he's his uncle!". You know, just in case I'm right. I'm probably not, but what is life without a little risk. Not too much risk. A little risk. I too am very much looking forward to seeing Annie/Kat's reaction when they find out Jack's dad uncle also went to GKC. I'd hate if Monday's page is some clunky attempt at exposition where Annie's all like "Hyland? My mum told me about a jerk she went to school with called Hyland. IS HE YOUR DAD?" However, knowing Tom's storywriting skills that won't happen. Just putting it out there as a thing I wouldn't like to see. Also: Kat has her hair in a ponytail for the first time ever. I think it looks cute. Prefer it loose and tentacley though ;D
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Post by Casey on Sept 18, 2009 21:56:51 GMT
But as to the second, when I go back to the page where Annie finds Jack with her stone (no linky cause I'm not forum-savvy yet), you can't really tell if he's in the same area where she left it at or not - which makes the whole theft argument largely inconclusive, for me. If I had to guess, I'd say that he 1) picked it up to have a closer look at the weird thing Carver put down, because he thought it might be part of the larger puzzle including Zimmy or 2) didn't see that it was Annie's, but could sense, etherically, that it was extra-normal, and therefore picked it up to look at it more closely. No, you're doing fine. This is actually a strong, positive argument. If he didn't leave the area, and he was actually just standing over the spot where the stone was laying, then the argument that he was stealing it is a lot weaker. To which I want to point out two things. One, in the fifth panel of this page we can see that he is not in the place where the stone was. So he did pick it up and carry it to some place away from the tents. Two, in panel (?) one of this page, he is seen to be sitting on a large stone or boulder. There are no large boulders shown anywhere near the campsite in any of the pages of the chapter so far. I do realize that this is indirect evidence, as absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence... but I do think the two facts together make it a strong argument that he went somewhere far away from everyone else in order to examine the stone or whatever his purpose was.
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mjh
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Post by mjh on Sept 18, 2009 21:57:40 GMT
If someone demands that you give them personal information about a friend of yours RIGHT NOW, they are crossing the line. He didn’t demand from Annie to give him information “right now”. He had merely asked where Zimmy was (i.e. “Where is she right now?”, not “Where is she? Right now!”). As a matter of fact, my perception of this scene was totally different from yours. There was Jack, previously sucked into Zimmingham without ever understanding what had happened to him and still suffering from it. And there was Annie, seemingly taking all of this in her stride, apparently unaffected and, Jack would naturally assume, understanding what was happening. But Annie didn’t care or explain as all she saw was a threat, probably because she has a strong desire to be left alone and has trouble to get along with anyone except Kat. I find this more troubling than Jack’s behavior, actually.
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Post by Casey on Sept 18, 2009 22:07:53 GMT
If someone demands that you give them personal information about a friend of yours RIGHT NOW, they are crossing the line. He didn’t demand from Annie to give him information “right now”. He had merely asked where Zimmy was (i.e. “Where is she right now?”, not “Where is she? Right now!”). I think it is supposed to be clear, from the fact that those words were bold faced, that he was crossing the line in pressing her for information. Are you saying that from your perspective, he was NOT crossing the line? If we agree that he was crossing the line, then we have no dispute and this is a moot point. If you believe that the way he behaved was completely within the bounds of reason, then that's something to discuss. So wait a minute. Are you saying that from your perspective, Annie is the bad guy for not giving in to Jack's demands for her to help him deal with his trauma? First of all, he didn't ask her for help in dealing with his trauma. He only demanded to know information about Zimmy. And secondly, Annie DID try to help him. She started to try to explain it and he cut her off, impatiently waving off her explanation with his hand, and continued -advancing on her- and demanding to know where Zimmy was RIGHT THEN... as if Annie could even know that. These are simply NOT the actions of a person seeking help from a friend in dealing with a problem. You say that you read that chapter and what you got from it was that Jack was acting perfectly normal and Annie was the one who was being cold, antisocial, and callous to his plight. Well, if you say that, then I guess I have to believe you. But I just have a hard time seeing how anyone could interpret THOSE clear, emphasized messages in that way.
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Post by todd on Sept 18, 2009 22:18:23 GMT
Ehhh, I think the Hyland thing is stretching my disbelief a bit hard. Too many connections to the past makes it too visible that this is a story, to me. Since the evidence we've been given so far indicates that generations of the same family are attending Gunnerkrigg (so many of the children we've met at the Court - when they didn't start out as fairies or something else - are the offspring of teachers or other people connected to the Court), it doesn't seem so far-fetched. Indeed, in light of Gunnerkrigg's nature, it would make sense that most of its pupils would come from families closely connected to it. They can preserve their secrecy better if there are fewer "outsiders" about. (Zimmy and Gamma were an exception - there's no indication that their families had any ties to Gunnerkrigg - but presumably their etheric nature outweighed that.)
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mjh
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Post by mjh on Sept 18, 2009 22:36:37 GMT
Are you saying that from your perspective, he was NOT crossing the line? I don’t feel like passing out moral judgement; that’s not what I see as my responsibility as the reader of a web comic. I can understand why Jack behaved like he did, and nothing bad followed from it, so what? I don’t get it why anyone would get so excited about this – any reader, that is; Reynardine’s reaction is a different matter. Are you saying that from your perspective, Annie is the bad guy for not giving in to Jack's demands for her to help him deal with his trauma? She’s a character in a comic strip, for crying out loud … If a real person did behave that way, she would strike me as unusually detached from her fellow human’s issues. As a character from a comic strip this just adds to my picture of her. She started to try to explain it and he cut her off, impatiently waving off her explanation with his hand, and continued -advancing on her- and demanding to know where Zimmy was RIGHT THEN... as if Annie could even know that. He clearly wasn’t behaving entirely reasonable, indicating the troubled state he is in. And wasn’t that to be expected? It is Annie apparently keeping her cool in the face of truly strange and terrifying situations that is really odd. We shouldn’t suppose everyone would be like that.
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Post by Rasselas on Sept 18, 2009 22:40:22 GMT
You guys. While I love a good heated discussion, you get so worked up over insignificant minutiae that I tend to skip the posts entirely. I prefer posts that notice new details or insights on the comic. Unfortunately, the world doesn't revolve around me. So, I suppose, carry on.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Sept 18, 2009 22:51:26 GMT
It's funny how everything in this comic is connected, so every New Page thread has the potential to spawn discussions about random older chapters. Way back in ch 19, after I speculated that Jack might have etheric powers, my next thought was that Jack's powers were control of electronics (based on the fact that Jack, like Kat, hacked his dorm's motion sensor to sneak his pals out; but unlike Kat he didn't have a knapsack of electronics with which to do any hacking). Jack's interaction with the Laser Cow here are consistent with this hypothesis. Then how did he get to Zimmy World in the first place? Zimmy, Gamma, Annie, Jack - all of the other three have something etheric going on with them. When it happened, Zimmy seemed to think that anyone could have wound up in there. Whether Zimmy's assessment can be trusted depends on how she arrived at it. Before ch 19, had she ever transported anyone besides Gamma into Zim City? (If yes, how many of them had etheric powers?) Or had she only transported Gamma before? It's a big question mark, so we can't draw any conclusions either way. Ehhh, I think the Hyland thing is stretching my disbelief a bit hard. Too many connections to the past makes it too visible that this is a story, to me. Regardless, I wonder if Annie or Kat recognize the name. "Ties" wasn't from their perspective, after all. Tom said somewhere that a large portion of the Court staff were formerly students there. This suggests that the Court has some insular tendencies -- which would be consistent with them having a large proportion of legacy students. So I think it makes sense in context that some of Annie's classmates (how many so far, two?) would be relatives of her parent's classmates.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Sept 18, 2009 22:56:06 GMT
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Chrome
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Post by Chrome on Sept 18, 2009 23:29:03 GMT
Isn't Hyland also the last name of the guy Eggers popped in the jaw in the Surma flashback chapter?
I'm just...wondering, cause that name's ringing bells.
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12th
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Post by 12th on Sept 18, 2009 23:53:01 GMT
I disagree with your interpretation. We see in the first panel he does cut her off, but we don't see any indication that she even tried to answer any of his subsequent questions. It more seemed to me like he was frustrated and impatient. He wanted to cut to the chase, but she was just foundering about and not answering him. Not that I blame her, she's hardly social and probably didn't know HOW to answer him. But to me, the pacing of the panels suggest that he wasn't giving her no opportunity to do so. And we know Rey tends to be overprotective. While Jack was probably being over aggressive, I do not think he was doing so in a way that was unpardonable.
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Post by Casey on Sept 19, 2009 0:24:52 GMT
It more seemed to me like he was frustrated and impatient. He wanted to cut to the chase, but she was just foundering about and not answering him. What's the difference between this, and what Mezzaphor said? Only whether or not you think Annie was trying to answer him. Either way, you're agreeing that he cut her off and didn't let her answer. That would mean that she -couldn't- answer--NOT that she refused to answer because she was being callous and cold and uncaring. Your double negative threw me here. Are you saying that he did not give her any chance to answer, or are you saying that he did give her a chance to answer? If the first, then I agree with you. If the second, then please show me where he gave her a chance to answer.
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thor
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Post by thor on Sept 19, 2009 0:40:31 GMT
Here's another wrinkle on the theft issue. Why should Jack assume that the blinker stone was valuable personal property? For a little context, here's the strip where Antimony starts the fire. - 1. It is very likely that none of the campers know what a blinker stone is. Neither Kat nor Annie knew what it was or what it did until it was explained to them.
- 2. Annie pulls this shiny thing out of mid-air, dumps it on the ground, sets it on fire, and then walks away from it with barely a glance back. This is not the way one typically behaves with a valuable object. Her actions seem more likely to connote that this was a useful, but fully disposable object.
If Annie had conjured a log and set it on fire, and in the morning if Jack had taken the remains of the log off to examine more closely, would anyone here be accusing him of being a thief?
- 3. If we do assume that Jack knows what a blinker stone is and does, this mitigates his "crime" considerably. If he knows about the properties of blinker stones, then he knows that he cannot actually steal it -- that is, he cannot deprive her of the use or possession of the object. True, this would mean that he's messing about with her personal property that she left outside overnight, but that's a lesser infraction; it's more rude than criminal.
So either Jack is either just poking innocently at the remnants of Annie's spell, trying to figure out how she did it, or he's examining her blinker stone with the full knowledge and expectation that she'll retrieve it when she wants it. The former is innocent curiousity, the latter is merely rude and creepy. And if the latter is the case, I suspect that we will find that the after-effects of Zimmy-world are influencing him, mitigating his responsibility for his actions. After all, from what little we saw of him before the Zimmy incident seemed to indicate that he was very much in spirit and temperament like Kat.
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Post by TBeholder on Sept 19, 2009 0:53:00 GMT
Looks like Jack's intentions were innocent this time.Hope that guy gets better... It does mean he's more rounded and complex than we initially thought, though. It mostly means that it's a good distraction to do something you used to, especially when going nuts is not a very distant prospect otherwise... AND to top it all off she messes up his prospects with Kat and they would totally be great together. BTW, yes. Speaking of ambiguity, the first panel was pretty chuckleworthy. And there was Annie, seemingly taking all of this in her stride, apparently unaffected and, Jack would naturally assume, understanding what was happening. ...because Jack is likely to believe in explanations, much like Kat did until she got a tour outside of this. Yeah. But Annie didn’t care or explain as all she saw was a threat, probably because she has a strong desire to be left alone and has trouble to get along with anyone except Kat. I find this more troubling than Jack’s behavior, actually. Methinks, Annie grew too self-reliant and expects the same from others. Kat? Another loner. And she asked Zimmy how about trying to control her stuff, remember? Thus, in her eyes his behaviour is conducive to compassion even less than it would be with other people. That is, actively harassing her with his own problem out of the blue. And, well, what was his problem, compared to Zimmy's?..
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Post by maratanos on Sept 19, 2009 0:57:32 GMT
I would have thought it was obvious that there's a certain amount of merit in both extremes. On the one hand, Jack showed every sign of being a normal, happy, well-adjusted teen until he got left behind in the ether, after which point he very quickly shows increased signs of irritibility and disturbance. So it's not really his fault, and I would agree with anyone saying that somebody should try to help him. On the other hand, he's also pretty clearly behaving in ways that are not considered acceptable by most social norms ever since the event. There's a good deal of evidence that Jack is considerably closer to Annie in the scene with Reynard than would typically be considered acceptable between two people not emotionally involved with each other. And he DOES steal the blinker stone. As a result of which, it doesn't seem too surprising to me that Annie reacts in the way she does. It's probably not the best choice she could have made, all things considered, but I would bet that the vast majority of young women would make pretty much the same choice when confronted with men behaving like Jack has since the event. That said, I don't really see this being a permanent affliction, nor one causing irreparable harm, given that Jack and Kat's dynamic before the event had every sign of being quite able to develop into a relationship. If we follow the alchemical motif that has characters in each generation manifesting certain roles (Sir Young, the old game teacher, and Eglamore; Anja and Kat; Antimony and Surma), it would be unsurprising to find Kat eventually being paired off with another character filling the role in the story of Donald. For example, Jack.
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