Girl Genius

Oh. Dear.

I just thought of something.

Yes, I had thought perhaps Klaus would bring Anevka-bot's head.

But...what if he's got the old tank holding Original Anevka's body?

Or both.

Leaving Tarvek with three, or even four hostages to fortune? (Four if Tarvek considers the head and the original Anevka as two separate people worthy of being cared about...)

And one thing poor, silly, angry Violetta still hasn't figured out. She's not a mere "If you'd do that for me..." She's someone he would make a serious effort to save. She's not just kin, she's among the kin he loves.

edited 29th Mar '13 10:51:06 AM by Hippogrif

Agatha would have been within her rights to kill Gil, certainly, but that she didn't, even in the madness place, could only have made Tarvek love and trust her more. It's unthinkable to kill Gil even in that state and given what he was doing; that shows the core of her, loyalty and love.

Given the opinion of Sturvorauses Klaus has expressed, he may not realize he has any hostages.

edited 29th Mar '13 10:41:33 AM by Lightningnettle

It's not just that Agatha would have been "within her rights." It's that under the circumstances it's too possible Gil himself could have made that the only practical option open to Agatha. Again, she's on a rooftop in the middle of a storm with a war raging below, trying one desperate last-ditch effort to save her town, her people, and her friends, and Gil, a seasoned fighter, is trying to stop her. Gil is good enough that Agatha might have found that the only option open to her.

That Gil did not trot out his best game leaves a lot of interesting questions for us, as well as for Agatha and Tarvek.

Hippogrif, just how much do you think the circumstances of the Boy Detective scene affected Tarvek? How much did it matter to hi—and his worldview—that Enemy Gilgamesh was someone trying to save him, that some connections, many connections, between players are just more real than the games being played?

My own take is that the situation gave Tarvek the key he needed to decode some critical elements. Since being thrown off Castle Wulfenbach and then "persecuted" in Paris, he'd concluded that no matter how much he still cared about Gil, Gil had never really cared about him — and had indeed "always hated" him. And there's no blame to him for having thought so: it's the ultimate picture Gil and Klaus between them were painting in some blend of intent and accidental serendipity.

Finding himself in the Si Vales turns everything around: Gil can't hate him, if Gil's one of the core people trying to save him at risk of his own life. That's even more so when Tarvek realizes he's Gil Wulfenbach, not Holzfaller. At that point from Tarvek's POV it all turns into a role Gil's been playing for reasons of survival and inheritance — which makes *perfect* sense within Tarvek's frame of reference — and Gil's still willing to risk everything, including secrecy, to save Tarvek.

QED: It was never about hate...and it may even still be about friendship.

Now, Tarvek then has to go through more processing and observation to work out further that Gil's not actually a dissolute sonofabitch womanizer out to abuse Agatha. And he's still working out what options are open to all of them in terms of who's going to rule Europa and how: I suspect that's still a work in progress in Tarvek's mind. Given his efforts to retain "Storm King" standing, he wants a voice. But given his willingness to preserve the Empire, save Gil's life, and even accept Gil's standing as Heir Presumptive, I'm not sure he wants to dump Gil out of the Emperor slot. He may be leaving all their options open while he works out the "art of the possible."

Whatever is going on, Gil cared about Tarvek from the beginning, even if there's also real anger and distrust and resentment, and Tarvek cared about Gil from the beginning, even when he thought he'd been betrayed, rejected, humiliated, and abused.

One of the very real possibilities here is that the truest, or at least the deepest love relationship among the three is the friendship between the boys. It's life-long, and it's proving strong enough to weather some insanely vicious storms. I am not doubting the boys love Agatha, or vice versa: but it's young love for all of them. What Tarvek and Gil have, as friends/brothers is strong stuff.

BTW, it's looking more and more like it's going to be "Enkidu" going down into "death/hell" to save Gilgamesh, reversing the mythic name trope. Been waiting to see if they'd ever get around to using that nod to mythology.

edited 29th Mar '13 11:36:58 AM by Hippogrif

Tarvek implied he considered ceding Agatha to Gil and made a point of telling her that Gil loved her before he kissed her. I don't think he would have said that if he still felt Gil was still a womanizer.

Willing to burn down hell? Wonder if we'll see Mechanicsburg in flames again.

edited 29th Mar '13 12:14:38 PM by Lightningnettle

Hopefully it works out better than when the Sumerian tried it.

Ooh, that makes the "burn down hell" line even better, if he's going to pull a pseudo-Orphean Rescue.

Oh, yes. I'm not doubting that. But it took him some processing to reach that conclusion. There was awhile there when Tarvek kept swatting at Gil the cad and lech, and it appears to have been true belief that the Paris-role had been "real."

(Gawd, this is bad: I've been waiting for the Orphean/Gilgamesh thing so long I'm gloating like the "burn down hell" pun is my own — I've been waiting that long for it to be clear to other readers.) Yes. Yes-yes. (gleeful jig) Precisely, Rikalous!

(Small happy jigs continue. And, glory, it's a light work afternoon for me, so I can gloat at leisure....)

edited 29th Mar '13 12:18:28 PM by Hippogrif

Aww, Tarvek really does care.

Though I'm not sure whether or not they know Gil's mind has been tinkered with here - it all depends on what Tarvek means by "got to him."

Even Tarvek may not know what he means by "got to him," exactly. He's already fretting that Gil had the formula, so it shouldn't have been wasps.

But mainly he knows that somehow Gil's been subverted: someone's swung his actions and reasoning back into line with Klaus'...Klaus and whoever else is now tangled with the fortunes of House Wulfenbach.

I do like how quickly Tarvek figured that out. Tarvek doesn't know if the anti-wasp potion will work or if Gil got to make it for sure; so he can't be certain that it's not a wasp.

I also like how he expects that Gil knows his code.

In a story in which underestimation is an ongoing issue, Tarvek and Agatha if anything tend to overestimate Gil. But basically Tarvek seems to feel that Gil *ought* to be able to do pretty much anything Tarvek can, and he's most offended when he thinks Gil fell short of that.

Besides Gil has got the dangerous sports inventor since he invented Jager Hat Fishing.

Gil took the formula, and is just pretending to be wasped. The fight with Agatha was an effort to stall Klaus while she got the Castle recharged, and he's now employing obfuscating waspedness/clumsiness to stay undercover. Agatha and Tarvek will go on a long "Rescue Gil" arc, during which they will fall deeper in love. It will all be very heroic and tragic on all sides.

The way Klaus is talking I'm pretty sure Gil's not wasped. Unless Lu-rev-whatever has been mucking with his knowledge of his own actions further than ever. I'm leaning toward a range of other possible mind-control devices/downloads, etc. I'm praying that Gil proved to have been injected by either Zoing or Bang before Klaus got to him.

I'm afraid I don't think Gil is faking being treated/altered by Klaus. That war of wills between the two was too real and to raw for me to believe Klaus did not then proceed with the, er, procedure. This entire sequence hurts, and it's going to turn out to be valid pain: the Fs are not going to turn around and tell us we wept for Gil for no good reason.

I'm really not sure where the relationship between Agatha and Tarvek will go, but it will at some point include rescuing Gil. It make take a long time, though, getting us to "Yes, Mistress," near the end, I suspect. By then he appears to at least have self-will back. One hopes. One hopes very much. But one thing about Agatha and Tarvek is that, unlike Gil and Agatha, they've always been comparatively good at talking and working together. It may not turn into full-blown romantic love. It could even turn into "I will love you forever and always as one of my two best friends, but this just isn't turning into the romance either of us thought possible."

I just keep praying and hoping that even though it's a comedy that happens to include some tragedy and dying, that comedy will prevail enough to keep our kids alive and mostly content, with no really cruel turns that aren't recovered from.....

Okay, am I the ONLY ONE who is still shipping Agatha and Gilgamesh- without Tarvek in the mix? Seriously, in my book "Dating Multiple Guys At The Same Time" is equivalent to "Cheating"

That scenario seems improbable- if he was really faking, I think he would have thrown in a whispered "Just play along, alright?" There's no way he would have acted as he did if he was in full control of his actions.

Agreed. But really, has he ever demonstrated himself to be less than Crazy-Tough and Competent? (... aside from certain social interactions and the bit where Du Med got him drunk, I mean...)

edited 29th Mar '13 3:30:10 PM by ElfKid

I'm old enough that "dating multiple guys at the same time" is what was once considered the preferred early courtship mode of the modest and sensible young woman. People passionately discouraged young women from settling on one particular perma-sweetie too young or too early, even to the extent of somewhat disapproving of "getting pinned" or "going steady" too early.

(Anyone else of an "older" generation might want to chime in here, but I recall only too well the tongue clucking over a girl getting into a steady relationship too soon. People did not think it was good or safe for people to foster the illusion of a sort of pseudo-marriage at an age when girls or boys should be getting a feel for what they really wanted, what their choices were, and how the game was played. Even something like going steady was considered something a wise boy or girl really pondered. The ideal was to date plenty of boys and girls, go to dances and events in groups, and even if you went to a dance or double date with a particular person you were supposed to break it up a bit socially — dance with other boys. Even on a double date there was an expectation that the "pairs" would swap around a bit on the dance floor. The whole idea was to develop social skills, get to know each other, and NOT commit...)

I also don't consider it cheating to openly be open to multiple suitors...Indeed, I have to say that I tend to see the "Cheating" thing as a modern attitude young men are likely to use as a lever to guilt women into committing to them before the woman might otherwise: a form of guilt coercion to cut out competition. It's one thing to say, "You leave with the boy who brought you to the dance." It's another to start arguing that you can't go to another dance with the next boy who invites you...or that you can't dance with anyone but your date at the dance you go to together. In my time that would have been considered a bit ick and anti-social and way too "ooh-coo-lovebirdy" for words. So, no, I don't consider ANYTHING Agatha's done so far as "cheating." She's not married, she's not engaged, and she's not even encouraging any of her suitors to think she's committed to them...or to any pairing.

All of that said, I continue to prefer Agatha not marrying anyone by the end of the story. I think she's too young. Failing that, I'm willing to go either Gil/Agatha OR OT3, so long as it remains something all participants understand and enter into freely. My biggest concern is that I want Tarvek to live, I want him to have been appreciated rather than been treated as worthless and unappealing, and I want him to be able to move into a rewarding life no matter how this issue resolves. I think Agatha/Gil remains the most likely outcome in terms of structure and tropes.

edited 29th Mar '13 3:52:43 PM by Hippogrif

Skipped through a bunch just want to latch onto the enkidu/Gilgamesh parallels and hell. We still have monsters coming from Sturmhalten. We have an Other-controlled Klaus. We have one or two Lus who may want to get to a place of safety if Agatha succeeds in holding her fortress. Place of safety? Sturmhalten's sewers. A decidedly hellish place indeed.

Possible. And (thinking back with amusement) as for hellish? Poor Krosp certainly thought so!

I concede to your point about being open to multiple suiters. It makes sense; I just think some of the fandom makes it sound as if she were "leading them on".

And I personally AM hoping she'll get married- or at least engaged- by the end of the series. It's to big a plot point for them to leave unresolved, and at this point a Climatic Kiss really isn't going to cut it.

edited 29th Mar '13 3:59:26 PM by ElfKid

I hear you, but I also think this being a comedy cuts the Fs some room for pulling the romance-rug out from under the reader and having Agatha OR her suitors walk away unwed without it breaking the whole "how will this resolve" issue. One of the oldest comedy tricks in the book is the shaggy dog that turns out to be a chihuahua.

Regarding fans who treat it as a done-deal: I think some of it is that so many people poo-pooed OT3 as simply impossible, that a page like this causes a ripple as reader start registering it as possible after all. They tend to overstate AND decide where they'd like to place their bets.

edited 29th Mar '13 4:01:12 PM by Hippogrif

While we are at it and chipping another potato chip and another lemon load on Tarvek I present you: The Ginger Weasel Beer It was bound to happen.

Yay! Ginger Weasel Beer! And Tarvek under weaslies! Thank you, Mauri!

Dating more than one person at a time is most definitely not cheating. Heck, if all the members of the arrangement are in accordance, sleeping with more than one person is not cheating. Cheating only occurs when one of the (polygon of your choice)'s members is being led to believe that he/she has sole access to another who is not abiding by that formula. Modern legal thinking is that whether you approve of another couple (or whatever's) arrangement from a moral standpoint does not matter if they know what they're doing. True cheating in today's world comes under the heading of fraud, a crime far more serious than 'cheating'.

Modern sensibilities be damned. Fornication and adultery are still sins, even if Society accepts it and all concerned parties agree to it!