Gunnerkrigg status: Still rad!

[Octopus Prime]

We’re all overlooking another probable situation;

Tony literally has a magical brain cage that keeps him from liking his daughter.

He lives in a fantasy world with a Tree-Dog-God weirding things up. A sizeable chunk of the student body is “literally a gremlin”

It ain’t off the table that he is not speaking metaphorically here.

 

[Nodal]

We’re all overlooking another probable situation;

Tony literally has a magical brain cage that keeps him from liking his daughter.

He lives in a fantasy world with a Tree-Dog-God weirding things up. A sizeable chunk of the student body is “literally a gremlin”

It ain’t off the table that he is not speaking metaphorically here.

I don't see what it being metaphorical has to do with it being literal.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Well! Looks like Tony found his sass.

 

[Violentvixen]

That page with the context of the previous one hurt to read. I teared up. I have my own internal conversations between a thought process like Jones and one like Tony all the time. The simple solutions just... aren't there most of the time.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

That page with the context of the previous one hurt to read. I teared up. I have my own internal conversations between a thought process like Jones and one like Tony all the time. The simple solutions just... aren't there most of the time.

Yeah, this sequence is... really effective, I think. I really don't like to judge GC page by page, because the chapters and ongoing storylines come together over time in ways like this.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Yeah, the beginning of this one hits home pretty hard.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

"He is what he is" - wow, what a ringing endorsement

 

[Octopus Prime]

It’s the kind of insight you can only get when you recently stop being two people

 

[Violentvixen]

I wonder if all this implies that Court Annie was more in tune with her Surma side, or piece of Surma or however the inheritance works? It's still pretty unclear how the fire elemental bit is passed on.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Again, I'm still unsure how to feel about these Tony revelations, and I guess it's still going to depend on whether or not he's going to start seeking help going forward.

 

[gogglebob]

I feel like what is important about these Tony revelations is that we are at the point where Annie understands and accepts her father, and no longer sees him as an outright antagonist. Is Tony still a jackass? Yes. Is he the perfect father? Never. But Annie at least "gets him" on some level now, so he is no longer the foreign alien that invaded her Gunnerkrigg life when he was formally introduced. You are allowed to feel however you feel about Tony (as ever!), but at least you can see where the protagonist is coming from on why she now accepts him.

... Also, in young adult fiction, about ten seconds after the child accepts the difficult parent is usually about the point that said parent bites the big one in a generally heroic sacrifice. So I'm not saying this clears the way to blast Tony off the table, but...

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I think reconciliation/understanding is a strong way to go. Tony was a big mystery from the start, and now he's not, for us or for Annie. That doesn't mean his balance is cleared, but it's growth for Annie, who spent so much of the series in conflict with Tony, and possibly a path to it for Tony himself. It's still messy, not pat. Reminds me a bit of Dr. Manhattan's revelation about Laurie's parentage. (Though without the, ya know. "Attempted rape but then it got better" angle.)

Sometimes all you can really do is understand someone better. Tony will never be the father she'd want, but at least now she knows something of the father she has. (And he's still an asshole wrecked by grief, but maybe someday he won't be.) And I feel like the trend of Tony storylines has been toward conveying why he is Like This without letting him off the hook.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Well, that definitely isn't not ominous...

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Well, that definitely isn't not ominous...

For a second before I read the time stamps, I couldn't tell if you meant Wednesday's comic or the one that just dropped. Because

Is actually way more ominous to me than Wednesday. But I realized you couldn't have been talkin' about that.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Well, glad that’s resolved. I was worried something ominous was going to happen.

 

[FelixSH]

A shadow organization, that answers to nearly no one, and that nearly no one knows about? Hmm...

Also, I'd really like to know what the director and the court are actually up to. This comic has run forever, and we still know nothing about that. Feels a bit, like I'm reading One Piece, in that regard.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Man, should have brought a little spritz bottle; that bad dog is getting salty

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

 

[Eishtmo]

Coyote would have laughed so hard at Annie becoming one person again. The whole thing would have been amusing for him.

 

[Bulgakov]

Loup has a few confidence issues, it seems.

 

[conchobhar]

Split them again, Loup!

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

He really should split them again, it's kinda messed that they got rejoined to begin with.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

They don't seem to mind; this is a reverse Tuvix situation.

 

[Paul le Fou]

He'll show them - this time there will be three Annies!

 

[q 3]

Or he could always split himself in two...

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

They don't seem to mind; this is a reverse Tuvix situation.

Which is exactly why it's so messed up! Tuvix was created on accident, and his creation necessitated the erasure of two unique individuals. Nobody would ethically choose to create Tuvix. And undoing him was a necessary evil since the rights of the two originals, plus the crew that relied on them both, superseded that of this singular new entity. Here though, two were created from one. The original wasn't erased so much as duplicated, so there is no pressing need to undo the original creation act. But in the intervening months, they became their own unique people. Putting them back into one person served no urgent purpose or need, and it didn't serve any other people's interests as well since Tony was happy to have two daughters now, her friends had all come to terms with two Annies. To add to that, the two of them had already made up and become friends/sisters as well. Like, the more I think about it, the more I find this entire scenario really upsetting and off-putting.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

All right, but the difference here is that Tuvix begged to not be separated and therefore killed, while Annie does not seem to have an issue with being recombined even if she didn't ask for it, AND both of her halves are present in the new whole. Which is why it is a reverse Tuvix situation.

Tony wasn't happy to have two daughters, he was happy to have ONE daughter he could get along with, and still couldn't get along with the other one.

 

[Bongo]

She says she took matters into her own hands, but... that's... that's not how I remember it happening. So that leaves us with the question of why she's saying that to him.

 

[SpoonyBard]

It could go either way, she could be saying that specifically to bait him for some reason, or she's just trying to avoid having to explain Zimmy's powers in front of Loup and/or the Shadow Men.

 

[Octopus Prime]

On the other hand, given how poorly Zimmys powers are explained, maybe it was totally Annie’s call all along, if only in a weird metaphysical sense