Gunnerkrigg Court

Quite a lot on him: he basically warned her in the form of being a demon father coming down like a tonna. The Court can't call him out for favouritism, even though he's spiked their wheels on Plan A.

Plan B might be "put a wedge between her and everything early" — but, I'm now suspecting that Tony is rolling with his own Plan C.

He does know Don, after all...

Still: talk directly to your kid about all this, you prick. He's got reasons, but he's a bull in a china shop when it comes to Annie. -_-

edited 26th Aug '15 4:06:56 AM by Euodiachloris

I can see why he didn't, I mean she's got a fire-spirit in her right? That makes her kind of impetuous, and letting her know the court's onto her might push her in the wrong direction.

This. Or, at last, talk with his fucking friends. You know, the ones who can help. He shouldn't have waited until Don have come to him. It was his daughter well being that was on stake, don't be an idiot just because you are awkward, specially since you do have someone you are not awkward with.

PS:Also, I wonder if Annie would even care about being expelled post graduation. What does she wants to do? What being affiliated with the Court mean? Maybe if Tony had talked with his child, he would have learned that nothing of that was necessary.

edited 26th Aug '15 5:34:46 AM by Heatth

Well part of it is his social awkwardness, but he had to be at least authoritative to deliver these changes to Annie. "Do you please want to do year 9 over?" doesn't really work with teenagers. If he wasn't going to be strict, there was no way to save her education.

I wonder how many of these changes were the court's suggestions and how many were Anthony's idea to save her education. On one hand the court was fine with turning a blind eye and failing her at the last minute, but on the other I can totally see them going "we'd let her graduate if this and this happens, but we're not going to tell her. YOU tell her."

Being even a very little more open would go quite a ways. "Annie, the Court was going to expel you for your cheating, but you can redo the previous year to avoid that."

edited 26th Aug '15 5:42:52 AM by Adannor

He's messed up.

Tom is doing good, he's got us thinking on why Tony had her repeat year 9.

Well, the makeup thing was still dick.

Pretty sure there were many ways to do this without being a deliberate dick to her and humiliate her in front of her friends. Like, he could at last have talked to her before class. That wouldn't been be favoritism. That is how these things go normally. No school would wait for a student to attend the wrong class so they could warn them there.

Also, the whole "place her in a sterile room" thing. What is wrong with the dorms again?

Wow duck you too, court.

Even in the unlikely event that Tony acted like a dick towards Annie because of pressure by the court and to avoid showing favoritism, there is no reason why he couldn't have talken to her privately about everything that's transpired since he abandonned her several years ago.

If the problem is that the court was monitoring him and his conversations, well why not simply invite Annie into your super secret house where no surveillance is possible?

If anything, this last chapter makes me feel even less sympathetic towards Tony. He only came back because he was pressured by the Court. Not because he wanted to come and see Annie, not because he wanted to explain what happened to her, not even because he felt guily about leaving her....

He came back because they were going to expel her, and apparently her academic status is more important than her emotional well-being and her hapiness.

Man, I don't remember the last time I disliked a fictional character like this :-)

He's not a vilain and the author is not trying to make him Obviously Evil or anything. You dislike him because of what you know of his character and how it affects those closest to him.

Some powerful writing in these characters.

edited 26th Aug '15 6:29:49 AM by GutstheBerserker

Didn't he just say that he should've died out there? If anything, he probably (before the court approached him) felt that not returning would be been better for her well being, after the satellite incident.

Good point.

The suicidal tendencies and severe depression are definetly something that his friends need to help him address. He can't keep being around Annie like this.

And that, I think, is precisely the issue. After what he's been through, none of his friends would have turned him down if he would have just talked to someone like he's doing right now.

He's trying to to do what's best for Annie in his own way, but he clearly needs help himself.

edited 26th Aug '15 6:54:15 AM by edvedd

Tony badly mishandled this but he's a lot less of a dick in my opinion. I have to give credit to Tom. He made Anthony's character do an almost complete 180 without it coming off as Character Derailment.

I felt like this was almost too on-the-nose in terms of vindicating Tony, but judging by reactions here, it's still not that clear-cut apparently, so that's good.

Oh, it's not, definitely. Annie's side of things has to be addressed, or all those moments are kind of wasted storytelling.

It helps that it doesn't come as a huge shock that the Court is full of vindictive assholes.

It does come across as a little "and, water is wet", doesn't it?

Yep...that point was established with Jeanne's murder and it really doesn't seem to have progressed any.

Hmm... I think I see something in this that Tony can't, because he lacks the appropriate information.

Sure, I bet the whole thing with the forest has cheesed off The Powers That Be at the Court, but Annie has several allies in the power structure as well. I don't see the Court doing a full-on burn on Annie (heh, burning a part-fire elemental) just purely on what happened with the choice of mediums. Besides, if they thought about it, having the Gillitie Medium heavily associated and working in the Court is a huge boon to them; kicking Annie out would probably be a net negative if that's all there was to it.

That said, if the Court has been keeping that close of an eye on Annie and knows what she's doing, I bet the real reason that they're looking to boot her is her search for information on the foundation of Gunnerkrigg Court and the Seed Bismuth. They're not pulling the trigger yet because they don't think she's that close, but if there were anything that the Court would do anything to protect, it'd be the truth about the origins of the Court.

I think the whole thing about academics is a convenient excuse; the whole reason they haven't talked to Annie before about it is that they want to have that over her head as cover for their actions. The only reason that they're giving Tony the chance to do things his way is because they know he'll rein Annie in and keep her from progressing in her search - it's just another way to neutralize her.

Dollars to donuts, Tony doesn't know any of that; the Court most likely just told him about the academics, and Tony is foolish enough to buy that explanation as a whole.

This doesn't change the fact that Tony is a Jerkass Woobie With a Heart of Gold who Did What He Had To Do because he's unable to see a better option, of course, but the Court itself is the real problem, seeing as they're manipulating two broken people purely to protect their own secrets.

That... sounds about right, yeah.

i feel like tony's only talking right now because he's drunk, which is why he hasn't gone out of his way to tell anyone before. probably thinks he can figure this out all on his own.

I feel like I should point out that it almost feels like Tony...doesn't know how to dad. Which makes sense; he was doing research into Surma's pregnancy while working for the Court and she didn't see him all that often, being primarily raised by Surma.

I certainly wouldn't want to go from "0" to "raising a teenage girl by myself." Smart Tony may be, but no one's prepared to handle that. Combine it with the depression and social anxiety that Tony obviously feels, and it's no wonder he's coming off as a prick. He literally has no idea what he's doing.

Which is the reason he shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Or, at last, he should have sought his friends who do know how to dad, and not to dismiss their opinions.

I agree the whole academics thing is an excuse, but I'd say it isn't about the court's origins, which have been glossed over to the point that I don't think even the current headmaster knows what happened. Instead, I propose Theory B: it's about Antimony's position as forest medium. Specifically, the court doesn't want a forest medium that a lot of court residents have any sympathy for. They'd rather have Ysengrim instead, since the court people are less inclined to trust him. This holds doubly true since the court medium would necessarily be Antimony's friend (either Smitty or Parley).

Of course, the headmaster can't actively censure her himself, since that would draw even more ire of a lot of people (who are already a little upset over the fact she's not the court medium). So he brought in the one person who could restrain her from acting as forest medium, in a way that makes people more upset at him instead of the court. (See: Kat's reactions.)