This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Meta Four: For posterity's sake, here is the complete text that was moved from WMG.Gunnerkrigg Court here, before I trimmed it down, natter and all.
The Court and Gillitie Wood are balanced opposites, representing opposing concepts.
Gunnerkrigg Court embodies technology, winter, humanity, and order. Gillitie Wood embodies nature, summer, nonhumans, and chaos. This is basically summarized here
. Reynardine/Coyote, Moon/Sun, TicToc/Alastair, Fire/Earth, Kat/Annie — and in the middle the Ghost With The Sword and the alchemical symbol representing the bridging of opposites. Symbolism overload.
The biggest oddity here is that there is no obvious light/dark pairing; both appear to be dark. Perhaps one has been corrupted from light to darkness in the past. Or, alternately, the Court is light and the tree-hand was kept in a sunny internal environment to neutralize it.
- It should be noted that the Technology vs. Nature divide is somewhat blurry, when you take into consideration the Court's Cherry Tree, Ysengrin's using Robot 13 for his own ends, and the TicTocs (who seem to be both machine and animal, and are not allied with the Court or the Wood).
- This is now at least partially supported by Word of God. See page 373.
- This is now at least partially supported by Word of God. See page 373
- Regarding Light/Dark: The Sun/Moon pairing of the First Treatise and Second Treatise suggests, counter-intuitively, that Gillitie is the Light and Gunnerkrigg is the Dark.
- Although that image suggests Annie and Kat are opposites, it's more true that Kat and Reynardine are opposites, just like Shadow2 and Robot are opposites. Antimony appears to be in balance between science and magic, suiting her abilities as a medium.
- Why does a technology/nature duality necessarily need a light/dark duality as well? If we absolutely must have one, then given the strong mythological aspects of the story, I'd expect Gillitie to be the "dark" - nature is always the more sinister side in mythology, since nobody likes to be eaten by wolves in the dark.
INUH: Somebody needs to add analysis related to the eye motifs. I, unfortunately, lack the time at the moment, so I'm limited to mentioning it here. Maybe I'll work on it if nobody has posted anything next time I check.
Meta Four: I agree. However, while I could do a good job compiling examples, I don't have any idea what any of them mean yet.
