Girl Genius

(Amused) This one doesn't bother me at all, actually. The context is clear and the limits are in place.

Yes, I do think Gil sees himself as the Woodcutter-Prince, and further as a Clever Fellow: the hero who's always a step or two ahead. It remains to be seen how accurate he is.

Tarvek, oddly, I don't think sees himself as a Clever Fellow in the same way — it's not a game, or even a talent, but a dire necessity.

One of Gil's combined charms/annoying traits is that very Fairy Tale Clever Hero enjoyment of his own and his father's cleverness. For me Gil always has a faint trace of the smart-ass who danced on the barrel to draw the attention of Agatha's First Clank. Charming, maddening smarty-pants.

Gil and Klaus often seem to enjoy their own abilities, physical and mental. It's part of what can make them seem, maybe, a bit Jägerish. If they're doing something well they're having fun. Even when Tarvek's pleased with himself he always seems to be waiting for it to all go wrong.

Gil and Klaus live up to the advice that Dr. Payne gives Agatha in the second novel, when they part company, that she should try to be good, but if she can't be good, at least have *fun*.

Tarvek just barely knows how to have fun...and judging by Tarvek Sturmvoraus, Boy Detective, it's something that, to some extent, he learned from Gil. Tarvek reminds me of many a little kid who much too young starts feeling it's his job to make everything come out right. The kind of kid who blames himself bitterly if his parents divorce, or his friends are hurt, or anything else gets messed up.

Part of the fun of watching Tarvek with Agatha and her gang is that he's just beginning to act like he might be allowed to enjoy himself a bit.

likes Khilari's comment

So you think that if he was sent away from his family and cut off from the backstabbers (completely like making sure he really went non loyal to his backstabbers but happy to put Violetta to safety) he would have pulled an Othar against his family to save the ones he cared about there?

Wondering why the updates are coming at other times I guess it is a con hangover mode that is resisting to go up or the REM monitor is on the fritz.

Or they've just fallen behind schedule, which is easy enough to do.

With two experiments, sometimes things come home from school too.

Our own two Experiments have that effect on us. ick. Does not like the new captcha.

Going back to Corgi's post....

First, nice note on the name. *g* Euphrosynia seems like an unusually cheerful name for the Heterodynes, especially considering her brother Bludtharst, but perhaps if you translate "mirth" loosely as "maniacal laughter".... :)

On the lycanthropy issue: now I'm half wondering if Euphrosynia did turn somebody into a wolf. *g* Although presumably not Andronicus's father. Okay, that's probably silly. ...Though, hm, the novel does have Dr. Vapnoople's wolf-men, along with "at least one reported werewolf" in the Valois line, although Zola could have made that one up.

Castle Heterodyne's building in 1042 was reportedly done by Knife, son of Ht'rok-din. According to the Castle, the first Heterodyne (probably Ht'rok-din) was said to be the consort of the battle-goddess responsible for the Dyne... I rather wonder if Knife was the priestess's son.

It does seem most likely that the Heterodynes sent the Mongols packing and did most of the local ravaging themselves. Given the emphasis on Mechanicsburg never falling, presumably the Mongols likewise never took it, and the two as-yet-unaccounted-for destructions of Castle Heterodyne may likewise have been accidents or antics of the Heterodynes themselves. (Or else Mechanicsburg never fell since the current structure was built. I don't know if they've been specific enough to distinguish the two.)

The idea that they also sometimes defended a larger area than just Mechanicsburg and its surroundings from other people's depredations (if only because they regarded the area as their own to loot) has potential. *g*

Valois does mention the Heterodynes having an empire of their own, as well as (with reference to Ogglespoon) not a lot of allies to spare, which rather seems to fit this idea. They must have always given preference to Mechanicsburg, and I'm not sure any of them were ever good rulers of a wider region (and some were better at looking after Mechanicsburg itself than others, as Van remarked *g*), but I could see them being careful enough not to totally destroy what they regarded as their own, and certainly not inclined to let anybody else do it.

I am debating with myself a little on how literally to take Valois's "unchecked for centuries" — Franz describes their getting beaten back to Mechanicsburg moderately often, and I wonder how much of that is within his lifetime. That is, whether Franz is pretty much describing their whole career or if they did spread pretty steadily (if mostly eastward) up until they ran into Valois and have since had their fortunes fall off somewhat and been thwarted more often. I'm actually inclined to suspect they tended toward short-lived empires (and contentious ones!) because it was Mechanicsburg they viewed as really theirs, whereas everything else was... seen as theirs for the taking, but how capable and how interested any given Heterodyne might be in hanging on to it varied with the generation.

One thing that crosses my mind — if Agatha's being literal about Franz in particular being the dragon on the Mechanicsburg town arms, and if Franz is right about having served the Heterodynes for a couple hundred years (inexactly), then that suggests the Heterodynes designed Mechanicsburg a new coat of arms right around the time they were fighting Valois, or getting ready to. Given his mention of empire, I rather wonder if the brag was not just "None of you can stand against us" but specifically "Hey Hungary, we just took Transylvania." (Actually, given the line in the prologue about their armies starting to pour across the Carpathians, maybe it was "Hungary, we're coming for you now"?)

It definitely seems to make sense for the Wulfenbachs among others to have moved in partly as a defense against the Heterodynes. Which would certainly fit with Gkika's comment that they were historically enemies, and perhaps add a layer to Klaus making friends with Bill and Barry.

Interestingly, Klaus's parents are among very few Sparks (very few characters in general, actually) who get an unalloyedly approving description from the narrators.

Admittedly this may be in part because it is brief — a two-line summary of Agatha might well be just as positive, whereas being the main character of the entire comic gives her more than enough time to demonstrate human flaws, however affectionate the overall depiction. The Heterodyne Boys also demonstrate imperfections, in rather less page-time. (Despite the lines about how there's a legitimate school of thought saying their vigilanteism didn't accomplish much, however, Klaus himself — in the course of leading up to "I did it my way this time, and it worked" — acknowledges that their way worked too.)

Anyway, setting that aside, it does sound like — aside from the tragedy of losing two brothers somewhere along the way (and most likely being reassembled with parts of them) — Klaus may have been the central-ish character with the most positive childhood home life. :P

It also seems that the most unusual thing about his foray into conquest — aside from its success — is that it really does appear to stem from a sense of responsibility.

The question of the location of Sturmhalten, and some other geography, is puzzling me no end right now. Given all the descriptions of the war between Bludtharst Heterodyne ("boiling up out of Eastern Europa") and Andronicus Valois (and the "Western Coalition", and Valois being French himself) and the latter looking down from Sturmhalten to the former's armies on "the eastern plain" — it seems to me that Sturmhalten should logically be somewhere to the north and west of Mechanicsburg.

But the novelization, whose elaborations I tentatively assume to mostly reflect the Foglios' latest intentions (so, for example, I usually take their timeline indications over the ones in the Blueprints), contain the puzzling statement that after Agatha escaped Castle Wulfenbach, she crossed a mountain range heading east — and the footnotes identify these mountains as probably the Balkans or Transylvanian Alps — both of which, so far as I can tell, run east to west themselves and are south of Transylvania and probably of Mechanicsburg.

Yet to get to Mechanicsburg (and later Beetleburg, which probably has to be northwest of Mechanicsburg if Mechanicsburg is actually in the SE corner of Transylvania as I think Corgi indicated is shown on the map of the Empire the Foglios sell...) the circus is going to cross the mountains at Sturmhalten. It wasn't their first choice, but still, it seems like they'd have to be going rather a long way around unless Sturmhalten is in fact in the south or east. But why would it be?

Tarvek, in the novel, refers to himself as inheriting the title "Defender of the East" among others. This isn't really helping my confusion. (Could Valois have surrounded Transylvania and built Sturmhalten to cut off Bludtharst and his army from returning home? I'm not sure that even makes any sense.)

Oh, yes, and about that link at the end of your post, Corgi — the photos are lovely — but what tickled me utterly was the line about "Suddenly, during the ride I noticed some strange humming."

edited 12th Apr '13 11:33:28 AM by PK

Here, have some mountains everybody: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Balkan_topo_en.jpg

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mapcarpat2.png

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Gates

Ooh, maps. Okay, looking at those and rereading your post, Corgi, am I right in interpreting that you're suggesting the Heterodynes at the time were less coming from the plateau in the little triangle of the Carpathians, and more from the region between that and the Danube/Balkans, so that Sturmhalten is roughly in the area of the Iron Gates?

Only... erm. I think I'm still misunderstanding something, because that north-south stretch of mountains makes sense separately as what Agatha could have crossed and what Sturmhalten might be in, but... then I still don't understand why Sturmhalten was on the way to Mechanicsburg.

Corgi et al, Could some of these musings about Hungarian history, Slavic Fairy Tales, and heraldry re: Girl genius somehow get posted on the Girl Genius Wiki (mad pages?) or something so that we can all send our friends to look at them?

Re: heraldry: if heraldry in Europa developed in the same time frame as heraldry in Yarth, you can't push the development of Heterodyne heraldry much past the date given, because There Is No Heraldry much farther back than that. Tamgas, yes, but heraldry, no. Heraldry appears to have developed around the 1100s, in the French/English territories. Perhaps the Heterodynes saw the Storm King's Army's devices and developed one just to amuse themselves. (Based on the novels, it's possible that the Storm King invented heraldry in Europa in order to give his vassals another thing to fuss with.)

Random thought: those arms... could be... "We can see your house from here — we're coming!"

edited 12th Apr '13 1:30:00 PM by Euodiachloris

@Corgi:

Do you have a graphics program you use fluently enough to do a labeled, slightly simplified map with your own guesses as to location on them? I'm never sure I'm making the right guesses, and have trouble with verbal attempts to coordinate.

If you want I can probably find a comparatively simple map to use as the core starter image.

____________________________________________________________________

For example, this◊ seems like a nice compromise between geographical detail and socio-political detail. Not too heavy on either, but heavy enough to allow for some correlation between existing cities and existing geography.

edited 12th Apr '13 1:41:10 PM by Hippogrif

Hmmm. The facts and clues still don't mesh.

In the first novel Bang mentions to the Baron that she is around if he wants to do something fun like bomb Sevastopol. From that I choose to believe that Castle Wulfenbach was in that vicinity at the time Agatha Krosp and Othar escaped. The damaged airship got them to some mountains and crashed in the wild lands. Then Agatha joined w/ the circus on their annual rounds which would take them through Mechanicsburg. Passholdt seems to me a reference to Borgo Pass Our world (the scenery is similar). I figured Beetleburg for Barsov and Mechanicsburg for Castle Bran. Sturmhalten is somewhere along the way but doesn't seem to mesh with any guess of mine. There are about 5 days between the battle at the circus and Agatha's entry into her city on Monday. That is my calculation not the Foglios. They are vague about things.

Ah my internet time is at an end. More thought on this later.

edited 13th Apr '13 3:05:03 PM by Rejfan

I have to sort of suspect you all are giving this more thought than the Foglios did.

Having taken a look a Bran Castle on Googlemaps, I have to say it's certainly an impressive edifice. I can imagine that if it had a psychotic IA dwelling inside it, it surely could keep invaders well away. As it is, I can imagine a visit some time . . . though preferably outside the normal hordes-of-tourists season. Possibly October or April . . .

I have doubts that the Foglios made all their fictional locations correspond to specific real-world ones. But where they make a point of referring to real-world locations, especially in rewrites/elaborations, I tend to assume they did it on purpose and had a reasonable idea where they were.

Sparks may well have rearranged some mountain ranges and changed the course of the Danube, for all I know — but I'm pretty sure the logic of the situation the Foglios set up requires Sturmhalten to be situated somewhere that could plausibly form a barrier between Mechanicsburg and Western Europe. *g*

OK, what we hear about Agatha's route:

• starts in Beetleburg, which is somewhere in Transylvania
• unknown distance and direction from Beetleburg on board Castle Wulfenbach
• crosses mountains, identified in footnotes as probably the Balkans or Transylvanian Alps, from west to east
• told by Pix to go west (according to the novel) or west to the Danube and follow it east (according to the comics)
• circus tells Gil she was going east when the crab clank showed up, but may have been lying
• travels with circus
  • circus attempts to cross mountains at Passholdt, said to be the earliest open pass through the mountains
  • circus goes to pass at Sturmhalten
• After this they're going by airship, but presumably Beetleburg and Mechanicsburg were both on the other side of Sturmhalten from wherever Agatha originally crashed.

Now, given the description of Agatha's escape from Castle Wulfenbach, I could believe she got across some of the mountains and ended up in a warmer valley between two segments of mountain range, where the circus might have been overwintering? Although if the mountains she went over are identified correctly in the footnote, that still puts Mechanicsburg, if not Beetleburg, rather south of where I thought it was and where I understood it to be indicated on the Official Map.

edited 12th Apr '13 3:01:05 PM by PK

Geoduck i often suspect the same thing :p

I think to some extent geography in GG is going to be a bit of a mash-up in the same way that everything else in GG is a bit of a mash-up. But there's a lot of fun to be had in trying to work out some of what they're mashing up.

Bran Castle looks very much like source material for Castle Heterodyne, as its town looks like a source for Mechanicsburg. Iron Gate looks like a good element of the "Dyne" part of Mechanicsberg.

Geoduck and Ori, I do think you're wrong about the Fs. They planned this thing and built it like a brick sh*thouse: it's over-designed, if anything. I'm not saying they didn't take vast liberties, but with maps easily googled and Transylvania having some major literary and historical land marks, I would actually consider it wildly unlikely the Fs didn't take a week or two to figure out where they wanted things to fall in relation to a "real" map. If nothing else once you've got your physical referents based on Real World Locations, you can cross out one maddening element of world building and continuity problems. It becomes a lot easier to keep your plot and your placement untangled if you can just check the map, do a few figures in your head to decide how long it would take a circus on the road to get from here to there, and know that it's going to work logically.

Indeed, building from Real World precedents saves you some thought, rather than demanding extra. And the Fs had ten years pre-planning in which to reach that shattering realization.

(edit) On top of that, they've got a Map of Europa that they offer as one of the GG specific products in their store. I mean, you don't get to the point where you have a map as a product without also having an idea where on that map your locations are — even if you don't label them (allowing yourself a tiny bit of freedom from nit-picking fans). I just find it really, really unlikely that this pair planned out three specific generational events (Andronicus, Heterodyne Boys, Agatha's generation) in amazingly tight-locked detail — and in ten years didn't bother to sit down with maps they didn't even have to invent themselves, just put some push-pins down and draw a few travel-arrows.

Postern

edited 12th Apr '13 4:53:57 PM by Hippogrif

PK: ...am I right in interpreting that you're suggesting the Heterodynes at the time were less coming from the plateau in the little triangle of the Carpathians, and more from the region between that and the Danube/Balkans...

Bunnyjadwiga: Could some of these musings about Hungarian history, Slavic Fairy Tales, and heraldry re: Girl genius somehow get posted on the Girl Genius Wiki (mad pages?)

Hippogrif: Do you have a graphics program you use fluently enough to do a labeled, slightly simplified map...?

Geoduck: I have to sort of suspect you all are giving this more thought than the Foglios did.

Hippogrif: Iron Gate looks like a good element of the "Dyne" part of Mechanicsberg.

edited 12th Apr '13 4:49:47 PM by Corgi

Page is up!

That cathedral - it looks more like a Jäger aesthetic to me than anything else.

Modified Amiens◊?

I LOVE the facial expressions here! think that Tweedle is really starting to develop some recognizable character! As I said before, in GG there's no such thing as a 2-D character.

Based on the Cathedral's architect... I'd say the Heterodynes held on to the ancient King=Deity thing for as long as they possibly could. You're thoughts?

Heee! Grumpy Tweedle is grumpy. :-D