Gunnerkrigg Court

@22400 You mean, take what the Court told Anthony at face value? Possible, but if you solely look at the medium situation, I think it's pretty obvious that it's a net negative to remove Annie from the Court, even if you're concerned about people feeling sympathetic to the forest (which is strongly implied to already be the case anyhow). Tony is almost certainly too distraught over, well, everything to see that kind of thing at the moment, but I just don't think it quite adds up on its own.

Admittedly, my theory does rely on reading a bit into comments others have made (particularly Jones) regarding who knows what. That said, I somehow suspect there's things that are more known than it first seems.

Also, even if the Court's administration doesn't know the truth, if they were put in such a paranoid state that they think the truth shouldn't get out no matter what, it wouldn't matter if they knew the truth or not - it would only matter what they'd do to contain that information, regardless of whether or not someone actually has it.

Yoooow. Y'know, the Court has always been dicks, but more of the "End justifies the means, period, what do you mean stepping on a hundred baby rabbits to get to the other side of the road isn't nice" variety. This is just pure petty dickery.

Oh yeah, I forgot to comment about this. The fire elemental's face stopped being all line-y. Was it surprised by something?

Probably the expulsion plan.

It was pissed because Anthony. It's now shocked because it found out at least one thing Anthony did was in Annie's best interests.

@22402 Funny thing about doing evil actions as an "end justifies the means" response. At some point, you find that it becomes much easier to justify worse means for lesser ends.

Well, it was pointed out that Annie's been doing an uncomfortable amount of personal research into Jeanne, and her best friend is doing an uncomfortable amount of personal research into "living" robotics. Disabling the device or letting Jeanne "pass on" would kinda give the Forest means to infiltrate the Court that they can't guard against (it's much, much easier to guard a bottleneck than literally every inch of earth underneath your feet). And we've already seen what happens when robots run amok.

The Court could just be holding all of this over Annie with the intention of using it as blackmail material. In which case, they wouldn't give it up unless they thought they had something else they could hold over her. Like, maybe, a severely depressed father?

So they're holding the most worthless possible person hostage to keep the most dangerous person alive in check.

The only thing that's happened here is that Annie has been informed of the trap before the court springs it on her.

I hope that after Anthony has finished recounting his story, Donny takes some time to talk some sense into him.

If all he does is listen to the story and let his daughter listen in, all it's going to do is make Annie sympathetic towards him without adressing Tony's cold behavior.

In light of recent revelations, I'm wondering, did he put her back because he objected to her cheating, or because the Court told him to, or simply to buy time for him to find a way to blackmail them?

I assumed that he failed her now so the Court couldn't do it later in a much more drastic manner. Better to repeat one year then fail high school entirely.

So he's abusing his authority to protect his own family and there's nothing wrong with that of course.

Pretty sure that staying quiet about violations of academic integrity, so that you can bring it up years later to expel the student during graduation, all out of spite for the student's decisions regarding the local political structure, is a far worse abuse of authority.

edited 27th Aug '15 3:55:12 PM by Enlong

1559

And on and on.

The court ordered the repeated year? Then why hide that?

"Hey kiddo, The Court wanted to expel you at graduation, but I made a deal where you're getting held back a year instead. Also I'm totally not having an anxiety attack and have gone into robot mode as a result of it (just like you are right now)."

Alright, now I'm feeling sympathy for Tony.

They're both so bad at dealint with their feelings. :(

So the theory of him making her get rid of her makeup because she looked like Surma confirmed.

Dude has issues.

I wonder how Kat would react if she knew.

If I didn't think it felt out of character at least for Tony, I'd expect after all the revelations that things won't be resolved without some kind of argument or shouting match between Tony and Annie.

I can also definitely see Annie getting sparked enough now to go on a Calling the Old Man Out tirade, but with all this I think Tony would just take it rather than try to argue back.

Fortunately Donald seems prepared to play neutral third party for them both.

This doesn't justify him being awful to Annie at all.

So just like Annie, Tony completely shuts down emotionally when experiencing extreme anxiety/stress.

Well, my sympathy for him has gone up. Bust still, call me old fashioned, but the guy really needs to learn that his inner-turmoil comes second to his daughter's happinesss.

I mean, I get him now. I really do. I have a tendency to shut down as well when in similar, high-stress situations. But the fact that he kept up the cold persona even after he had time to process seeing his daughter again and that he just refused to communicate anything is just messed up.

Annie deserved to know all of this. I get that it's hard for him to see his daughter again after everything he's been through, but continuing to mistreat her after the fact is wrong.

I have to admit though, I am this close to truly understanding Tony and forgiving his behavior.

It's actually pretty impressive story-telling that I went from intense dislike to grudging - if conditional - acceptance.

edited 28th Aug '15 7:48:36 AM by GutstheBerserker

Of course, the information that the Court has been monitoring her in such a way complicates things a bit. When is a safe time to tell her the whole story?

Any time she is in the super-secure and surveillance-proof room that he just so happens to be in right now. :-)

Hey, for all we know, the Court might have a hidden magical camera in Antony's pillow. They're funny that way.