Girl Genius

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I feel so differently about those guys now I know they're Tweedle's dogs.

Whoever first predicted that Agatha & Co. will be riding the Chew-Chew to Paris look to be loading up on Moxana points.

Can anyone see the insignia on the airships? And might a reason they're doing well be because of Wulfenbach aide?

We still don't now for a fact that they're all sparkhounds.

It's really the obvious solution, unless she's able to borrow or abscond with one of Tweedle's airships.

edited 26th Dec '14 4:02:33 PM by Geoduck

Yes! She wants to talk to it! Although I kind of wonder if Dimo's going to have to vouch for her when he and the bears show up.

I sort of doubt it. Tweedle showed up with airships, and I sort of lean toward Gil's arrival being... if not spectacular, at least not offscreen.

You're probably right. I look forward to seeing it.

Any thoughts on who will win the Banter Battles that are sure to ensue from this situation?

edited 26th Dec '14 4:17:28 PM by ElfKid2.0

PK replied elsewhere, but nobody else liked the picture/Christmas card? I thought it was rather nifty....

I assume the lower left has a portrayal of Saint Szpak, who seams to wear a waist cincher and has mammaries, and was therefore probably a wrench wench.

I liked it, I just couldn't think of anything else to say then that. No point in cluttering up the thread with short posts when I can mention it a bit later in a longer one.

I love Agatha. "I won't command it, I just want to talk to it." Maybe it's because she's a nice Heterodyne, but that tactic does seem to work for her in general. ("I am not your master! You were not created to serve me!"

Anyone else wondering how the heck Tweedle's even moving so soon?

Zeetha trained her well...?

Corgi — "Zanta Klaus" makes me laugh. I have to say, Klaus is looking about how I feel there. Almost lifelike. Urrrrgggggghhh...

I like Agatha's expression in the second panel. The girl is up to some mischief.

The fourth panel exposes - or at least suggests - a little more of Agatha's rather generous physical endowments than we generally get to see. Not that I am complaining, you understand.

More accurately, which we used to see quite frequently, but havnt ever since she changed costumes. Although the towel scene on the train was... artistic.

Well it is a lovely thing when you consider it is a T Rex getting longer hands. Then you realize what it is going to do with them.... order chinese food.

@khil: Puts the "Ready to die for your majesty's glory!" in a new light, no?

Canine loyalty is proverbial. And Tweedle probably enhanced this trait.

Blauregen- Another depiction of St Szpak (first panel, top right corner http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20141027#.VJ7HVeCgA) shows her in what looks like a monk's robes- not a nun's habit. Perhaps St. Szpak was one of those female saints who disguised herself as a eunuch to become a monk?

The hounds are- frankly a little disturbing. You hear about dogs who are loyal to their masters- even if the Master abuses them. And knowing that Tweedle's Knights are actually transmorgrified dogs and not extremely loyal, possibly brains-washed Arthurian monarchists does make quite a difference in how I perceive both parties.

edited 27th Dec '14 7:08:01 AM by ElfKid2.0

Dogs have also been used in a wide variety of cultures in dangerous and sometimes lethal jobs. Including literal dogs of war. I don't think Tweedle's abusing them — no more than anyone who used a dog to hunt boar in the middle ages — but they're essentially amoral and don't want much from him aside from a chance to be useful and to please him.

In a way they're an interesting reflection of the Jägers except... from the other direction. The Jägers started as loyal humans and had a bunch of that reinforced by new instincts (which they consented to having added). The Sparkhounds are instinctively loyal dogs who seem to be having their intelligence upgraded to more human thought patterns by the armour (armour that they can press a release catch to get out of at any time).

I don't think Jägers got any new instincts, did they? Just strictly physical traits. Hence Vole being perfectly capable of betraying the Heterodyne Boys.

Maybe not? It's hard to tell, because they might just have been like that anyway, but they're very very packish. That seems like an instinct, they seem far more distressed than humans on average at being away from one another.

And then there's the smell, which isn't an imperative, they're perfectly capable of feeling it and then attacking anyway if they choose to. But even when they didn't know what Agatha was we saw Jägers wanting to be nice to her because she smelled nice.

If I remember correctly, Maxim (the handsome purple one) is one of the youngest Jaegers, and he's about 250 years old. Oggie is Phil's great-great-grandfather, indicating a good couple of centuries at least there as well.

The Jaeger 'packishness' may be as much from their extended ages and shared experiences as much as anything having to do with the Jaegerdraught.

Dogs will continue to love owners who abuse and mistreat them. That makes the Sparkhunds very worrisome, since that unfailing loyalty combined with human-level intelligence and reasoning and so-far very impressive physical abilities makes them very dangerous in the wrong hands -although Tweedle is behind Lu and Zola when it comes to the worst hands for them to be in.

edited 27th Dec '14 9:09:09 PM by Candi

@Elfkid: I didn't even know that happened. Were there advantages to being in an order of monks, as opposed to one of nuns, like better libraries?

We have seen one defecting jäger. Now I wonder whether defecting sparkhounds are possible.

edited 27th Dec '14 10:05:27 PM by blauregen

Continuing to love someone who abuses them and being worrisome in the wrong hands aren't necessarily connected — the Jägers are likewise worrisome in the wrong hands, and Tweedle can hardly compete with the Old Heterodynes no matter how bad he is. It was an artform with them

I suspect Sparkhounds can rebel or Lu would have had them. Her father bred them, but they seem to have been uninteresting to her. Perhaps because beings that require even a minimum of good treatment to remain loyal weren't to her taste.

Some of it was men vs women's rights, in and out of the church. Authority, promotion, who you had to listen to vs who could only make polite suggestions, and what happened if relatives ahead in an inheritance died.

I read once that a daughter who somehow became an only heir had fewer options for being released from a convent then a son in a similar position in a monastery -but that author, while very good in some parts of the book, was lousy in others. (To the point you wondered how much the folks in the acknowledgements did or didn't 'help'.) So take it with a trilobite-sized grain of salt.

Part of it was probably to do with there being more orders of monks than of nuns. (The orders of nuns may have been more difficult to find as well; even today, nuns sometimes discourage visitors taking pictures and posting them on the internet. It wouldn't do to let the wrong sort know about a large group of women living alone in an isolated area.)

Also, in many cases women who disguised themselves and eunuchs and became monks were running from a family and/or fiance who disapproved of the Christian faith. People looking for a young christian woman would almost certainly check the convent, but would be unlikely to examine every young monk who's taken a vow of silence.

edited 28th Dec '14 11:56:28 AM by ElfKid2.0

See also: The legend/myth of Pope Joan.

wonders how relevant the strictures are for Yarth

(Sorry, eventually I WILL get the markup correct.)

One more thing - I don't recall seeing anybody tackling the saint's motto on her(?!) shield in the most recent page. A little Applied Google found 'Quia natura mutari non potest...', part of a longer quote about friendship. The segment translates to 'Since nature cannot be changed...' it seems to infer Sparky, or at least engineered, editing of reality to me.

edited 28th Dec '14 2:46:50 PM by Corgi