Girl Genius

Oh, that is interesting! Any chance of the full quote?

It seems as if it might also refer to a refuge for Sparks, or a way of dealing with them, depending on context? Since Sparks will be Sparks, we must try to give them a way to be useful ones.

I don't think it's necessarily a reference to a specific longer quote. The phrase appears in a variety of contexts and, unless I am missing an idiom, is correctly translated "because he/she/it/one cannot."

It is also, for some reason, the Google Translate result for "because we can" (which I am pretty sure ought to be quia possimus).

Aww, I was thinking she might be Rosie the Riveter What's the translation for "We can do it"?

"...nature cannot be changed..."

Interesting. I wonder how the spark works, then?

I am not expert enough to produce anything that really captures the feel. *grin* "Possimus" alone is "we can" and probably conveys a lot of it all by itself. Maybe "Possimus agere"? I'm not sure how or if Latin would incorporate the "it" to indicate an unspecified action.

I... sort of suspect it was meant to be "Because we can" and they were in a hurry, to be honest. Fits well with "Go boldly" on the hats.

edited 28th Dec '14 3:39:28 PM by Schefflera

Hmm. The phrase I've found — I don't know if it was Corgi's — on investigating is "Quia natura mutari non potest idcirco verae amicitiae sempiternae sunt" "Since nature cannot change, true friendships are eternal" (Horace) Which sounds more like it means a person's nature, not nature nature. That if you're friends now then no matter how much you seem to change in future you will always be friends because you won't have changed that much. (A phrase Tarvek and Gil should think about?)

Ah, thank you, and it could be. Much as I like the longer phrase I found, I'm more likely to suspect the Foglios of making Rosie the Riveter jokes in the background than deep thematic (or historically illuminating) statements

edited 28th Dec '14 3:42:09 PM by khil

Well, on searching for "quia non potest" I also found a bunch of philosophical and legal documents with sentences containing that phrase, like "aliquis non debet esse judex in propria causa quia non potest esse judex et pars" meaning "A person ought not to be judge in his own cause, because he cannot act as judge and party."

Oh, good point, I was misreading how much of the phrase Corgi had seen vs filled in.

We can go from discussing loyalty on Sparky weredogs to Latin phrasing at the drop of a hat. That's one of the reasons I love it here.

I suspect a few Sparky females would knock the paternal male/female dynamic on its head in a few ways, particularly the stronger ones.

I keep thinking of the Countess. She isn't rated by anyone on screen as a particularly strong Spark, but her potions enthralled a city long enough for everyone to make an escape.

If a Spark survives breakthrough and witch-hunting, and can find a safe place for refuge (such as the Circus or with someone like Klaus), they can be pretty scary even if they aren't that strong, relatively speaking.

And I now wonder how Aaronev's and the Geisters grabbing female Sparks for brain transplants farked up Europa's social dynamic... because I'm screwy that way.

I think "weak" Sparks have to limit themselves to a single discipline to be as effective as a stronger one can be over a whole range, but they can still be very effective (and some of the circus Sparks were only uneducated).

Hmmmmm. When it comes to social standings... the Fifty Families are definitely patriarchal and patrilineal. The Heterodynes are implied to not be (Agatha seems to inherit before Barry in the Castle's eyes, by the order it asks about them in). Goodness only knows with England, which is ruled by a single woman and will be for the foreseeable future. Or with the non-Fifty nobles, either. The Great Houses probably have whatever rules they set out for themselves, rather than a collective set. As long as they have some form of inheritance stable enough to last they can count, but I don't think anyone sets the rules for them.

I think Europa is still pretty sexist and in a pretty engrained way sometimes, but less so than our Europa at the same time period.

It hasn't been discussed in-strip, but there's also the fact that some anonymous female Spark came up with a plant that acts as a contraceptive and disease-blocker when drunk as tea. I imagine the Foglios included it mostly to make it easier to tell a light-hearted romance story, but it would have massive repercussions on any society into which it was introduced.

As a tangent: I wonder what Klaus would have done with a daughter instead of a son in a similar situation. She would have grown into a sparky woman, and he had bad experiences with them. On the other hand, Klaus flouts every rule he doesn't like, including succession rules and nobility precedence, and he spent some time in a possibly matrilineal society.

Do you think she would have become the young baroness analogous to Gil? Would a hypothetical Gillian Holzfäller have been sent to study in Paris, and would she have been allowed to develop a similar reputation?

edited 29th Dec '14 2:24:37 AM by blauregen

IRL, the introduction of the Pill sparked the sexual revolution that drove certain aspects of the Feminist movement and is currently driving the LGBT agenda. Of course, it's believed that this happened partly because the Pill was introduced to a generation who didn't have to restrain themselves in any other aspect of life (what with the cars their parents go them, the cheap gas, the recent discovery of psychadelic drugs, etc.). In any culture, it would be likely to change the dynamic and make people act a bit bit more casually about sex. That having been said, I suspect that this tea couldn't possibly have single-handedly change inheritance laws, property laws, or certain social conventions, especially in a world with a very unstable economic and political future.

Say- do you think the Tea might ever have been banned in some regions in an effort to avoid/stem depopulation?

Don't know but I guess if we had a "Gillian" we would have had Klaus still in Skyfander or maybe I forgot some tidbit about the succession details for female twins in Skyfander.

On the other hand I don't know how Sturmvoraus senior would have handled if Tarvek had been a Tarvekina...

If it was a full flip for the entire cast of the main generation, Klaus would still leave Skiffander- but with his green-haired son, Z. Life in Europa would no doubt be very difficult for Z.

What would be the political plot-significance if the Real Heterodyne Heir was male after all?

A lot less attempts to marry the heterodyne princess to the stormking, and a lot more direct competition.

Independent of who might love whom, people tend to be picky regarding the gender issue when it comes to dynastic marriage.

edited 29th Dec '14 6:21:46 AM by blauregen

I thought it was Skiffanderians didn't like twins full stop, not just twins involving boys. (Shrug.)

The thing is, reproduction with minimal restraints led to the massive population and overpopulation that pushed much of history, not just in Europe, but elsewhere as well. It was the loss of so many in the Black Death, and the resulting lack of labor force, that led to a lot of the social and economic structural changes that have repercussions down to today. The Maiden's Weed could have a similar effect, in a gentler way. Plus there would be a lot fewer crossbow/shotgun marriages.

There were plant-based contraceptives in real life -carrot seeds and a parasitic golden-thread-like plant among them- but none were nearly as effective as the Sparky weed is supposed to be, and could be hard to find depending on time of year and climate.

What would be really nasty is it would provide a scarily ready way for dynastic matches and squabbles where the woman was determined not to produce an heir. That could get really messy.

There was a plant/fungus thing that grew around the Mediterranean that seems to have been very effective—so much so that the demand for it by the Roman aristocracy was such that it was driven into extinction. Our only references to it are a few oblique mentions in the Latin of the time and a couple of difficult to interpret pictures on mosaic floors. However, modern scholarship has assembled enough evidence to pretty clearly establish its existence back in the day.

Candi, the exact question and response (plus a little more) are:

I added the angle-brackets to simulate the Reddit indents. Sorry it's kind of messy-looking.

edited 29th Dec '14 10:14:27 AM by Corgi

So, finished Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle.

It's good, but as with the previous books, I don't feel like there's enough use of bold and allcaps during Spark rants. I know comics use Bold Inflation more than text, but that can be used to just make it stand out even more. Other than that...

I feel like they missed an opportunity to cut the sickness arc down quite a bit, but it's understandable that they didn't.

Loved the part during Agatha's apotheosis, when even Tarvek is getting Spark-fear of her.

There were also more hints at Higgs early on—the bar fight placed a lot of emphasis on the fact that the Jaegers were very careful not to involve him. The hat scene was less awesome in text, which I suppose was unavoidable.

There was also a subtle hint that Gil and Zeetha are related (in addition to the more overt ones, like Gil noting he knows nothing about his mother and Zeetha admitting her father disappeared when she was a baby). When Zola asks if he has a thing with Zeetha, he is shocked and disgusted. Very little emphasis is placed on it, but it's clear that he's not disgusted because he's in love with Agatha, or that she's Agatha's friend—he just has zero interest in her sexually. I thought that was a nice touch.

The footnotes, of course, were the best part. Confirmed that the Boys' mother raised them away from the Castle, and that she killed their father when he tried to kill them and start over (and was subsequently killed by the Castle). Apparently she got canonized as a saint.

The part about Agatha worrying that she likes the Castle too much, and that she might not be as heroic as her father and uncle, was also nice.

I think a full flip AU would have weird effects the further back you go. In the present generation, a male Agatha and female Tarvek would suggest Lucrezia seriously screwed something up, since they were planned. But then, a male Lu would want to download into a son, wouldn't he? But then the whole Heterodyne Princess and Storm King story wouldn't be relevant... unless Andronicus was female (in which case he might never have inherited) and Euphrosynia was male (in which case he'd be a lot more likely to be rampaging than marrying for the good of the Heterodynes.) On the other hand all the Heterodynes except Euphrosynia become badass female warlords.

I think if Gil was the only flip she would have been raised much the same way — Klaus, despite a few comments of his own, seems to be trying to encourage gender equality. She would also still be first in succession as his apparent only child. She'd probably still hang out rescuing vulnerable (and scantily clad) women from Sparks, but might develop a reputation as a lesbian rather than a cad.

Agree with you on the footnotes, especially the one about Bill and Barry's mother. I actually thought they did cut the SVV arc down quite a bit, I was surprised by how late in the novel it started considering how long it had gone on in the comic.

And the footnote about how long it took to fight Teufel combined with Klaus having left with Gil when he was only a few months old screws the timeline for Gil's early life up all over again. Taking the times we've been given in canon, Teufel shouldn't even have been defeated yet when Gil was eight.

Page!

The Beast appears! ...Hoo boy.

Page is up. haha, the beast is like one of those toy snakes... :D

It flies! It burrows! It is fantastic and shiny and, okay, it's terrible, but if it cooperates with Agatha I am going to be so happy.

Mr. Hissyfit?

edited 29th Dec '14 6:53:14 PM by blauregen