History Characters / GunnerkriggCourtParentsAndCourtStaff

* MaternalDeathBlameTheChild: He is implied to have felt anger towards [[spoiler:his daughter, since her birth resulted in her mother's life force gradually transferring to her. Then, [[AvertedTrope Averted:]] said anger is directed at himself.]]

* MaternalDeathBlameTheChild: He is implied to have felt anger towards [[spoiler:his daughter, since her birth resulted in her mother's life force gradually transferring to her.]]

* MyGreatestFailure: Being unable to save Surma. He even thinks Annie hates him for it (she has never expressed any such thing):
-->"How could she live with the man who killed her mother?"

* MagicVersusScience: He sought a scientific explanation for why Surma died after Antimony was born.

Kat's parents. Both of them are [[MagicVersusScience science teachers and magicians]].

* AbusiveParents: After three years absence, he reenters Antimony's life by [[spoiler: denigrating her in front of her class, holding her back a year without prior warning (he waited until after the first class of the new year to tell her), forcing her to live in a giant blank white room with barely any decoration or furniture and confiscating Renard.]]

* AbusiveParents: [[spoiler: After three years absence, he reenters her life by denigrating her in front of her class, holding her back a year without prior warning (he waited until after the first class of the new year to tell her), forcing her to live in a giant blank white room with barely any decoration or furniture and confiscating Renard.]]

* AbusiveParents: [[spoiler: After three years absence, he reenters her life by denigrating her in front of her class, holding her back a year without warning, forcing her to live in a giant blank white room with barely any decoration or furniture and confiscating Renard.]]

* AbusiveParents: [[spoiler: After three years absence, he reenters her life by denigrating her in front of her class, holding her back a year without warning, isolating her from her peers, and confiscating Renard.]]

%%* StephenUlyssesPerhero

* CompleteImmortality: [[spoiler:Her first memory is being buried in the churning magma of the Earth's creation for a few billion years. No one has come up with anything that can scratch her since]].

* SuperStrength: She breaks through a stone wall with no difficulty in ''Spring Heeled'' and has stated that the measuring equipment available to the Court, which is a place of superscience, can't determine her strength, and that the only material on this planet she can't quote "manipulate like wet clay" is... her own flesh.
* SuperToughness:
** Chapter 17: ''The Medium Beginning'' features her deflecting a sword ''with her face''.
** Chapter 28: ''Spring Heeled, Part 2'' shows that she can break concrete ''[[TheJuggernaut with her bare hands]]''.
** Chapter 40: ''The Stone'' has Jones being stabbed by a [[KnightsTemplar Knight Templar]] with a spear without any visible harm, other than a ripped dress. A few pages later/[[FlashBack earlier]] she [[spoiler:ignored her toga catching fire while Rome burned, walked barefoot across the Gobi desert, helped Cro-Magnon hunters by ''tackling a giant stampeding bison bare-handed'', crossed a glacier in the nude, and let herself be engulfed by magma. The last is notable because she wasn't visibly harmed in the least. Not even her hair was damaged]].
** Chapter 47: Her reaction to an impending Nazi air raid on London is to [[http://gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1327 stand outside because she's curious as to how powerful the bombs are.]]
** She qualifies as NighInvulnerable at this point. She [[spoiler: predates all organic life and the Earth's oxygen atmosphere, so it seems unlikely that she even needs to eat or breathe]].
** She compares herself to a stone, but the metaphor isn't perfect since [[spoiler: stones can break]].
** She's also either opaque to x-rays, or entirely homogenous inside. On x-ray film, her body is a solid white shape, right down to her hair.
--->'''Tom:''' Her x-rays are actually pretty boring, once you get past the initial surprise.

* TinMan: Possibly; she claims to have no desires or dreams (she certainly doesn't have any needs like [[spoiler: food, water, air, or sleep]]) but if that were true she wouldn't be working with the Court, gravitate towards men (that could be due to her preferring to blend in with humans and a single, independent woman stood out until very recently), or sound (to us) to be a little sad that [[spoiler: humans aren't the same creatures she is]].

* TookALevelInJerkass: While he was never exactly Mr Rogers, his previous characterization when he was a kid was merely aloof, rather than actively cold and unlikeable. It may be a result of Surma's death being a CynicismCatalyst.[[/folder]]
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Whatever he's been doing all this time, it's added twenty years to his face.

* AbusiveParents: Certainly gives this impression. [[spoiler: After three years absence, their first interaction is him chastising her for breaking a rule he didn't inform her of, and insulting her appearance]]. He did have a reason to chastise Annie for [[spoiler: cheating]], and perhaps even to make her [[spoiler: repeat the year]] (although the fact that this was the first thing he did upon his return to the Court is worrying). However, his next step -- [[spoiler: attempting to assume even greater control over her life, in particular the nature of her new lodgings]] is what seals the deal.

* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: About what he's been doing since he disappeared after Annie arrived at Gunnerkrigg. First he's incommunicado for two years, then his only message is a request for supplies after which Annie mysteriously falls unconscious, which Zimmy links to Anthony messing around with her fire-elemental half (although it's unclear if he's actually performing some sort of PsychicSurgery or hearing his voice just had that much of an effect on Annie's psyche). When he finally shows up a year after he makes the focus all about Annie's (admittedly severe) cheating instead of his absence and mysterious injuries. When Donald Donland (Kat's dad), his closest -- and by this point possibly only -- friend presses him for information he dodges the question by bringing up ''Donald's'' secret projects ("there are aspects of our work that we can't discuss openly") and when Kat snaps at him for not being there for Annie he "acknowledges [his] absence", clams up, and leaves. The cherry on top is that Donald knew the direct approach probably wouldn't work and tried it anyway.
* {{Jerkass}}:
** He comes off as cold and arrogant to most people, though his closest friend swears he has [[JerkassWithAHeartOfGold a Heart of Gold]] and just isn't good with people.
** Shortly before the start of the series, he abandoned his daughter soon after his wife's death [[spoiler:and only briefly spoke to her after two years]]. We don't yet know why, but he's not going to win any awards for great parenting from Kat for how much this has hurt Annie.
** His friends at the Court only learned about Surma's death when they found out Annie was to be enrolled there, which is also the first time they learned of Annie's existence, which means he didn't bother to contact them for something like 14 years.
** When he finally shows up in person, his first words to Annie are [[spoiler: to dismissively tell her to wipe her makeup off her face...the same kind of makeup that her mother wore. When Annie notices his prosthetic hand, his only reply to her concern is to ask, "Is it your business?"]]
** He [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking didn't even tell Donald, his best friend, he had returned to the Court]].
* JerkassHasAPoint: With all of his dickery, he rightfully and fairly politely [[spoiler: calls out Annie for stealing Kat's homework. Especially since Kat's reaction confirms that she never gave her permission. He also says that he's subtracted all the plagiarism from her overall marks, and decided to have her repeat year 9. Given that Annie's been cheating for a ''long'' time, she quite probably hasn't learned enough to justify her being in year 10, nor does she deserve to be there. Considering many institutions in real life have a zero tolerance approach to cheating and how it's indicated Annie has been doing so extensively, it wouldn't raise many eyebrows if she had been expelled, though as he's a teacher rather than an administrator his ability to fail her in classes not his own seems excessive. His reasoning for taking away Renard is also sound (in theory); Renard is dangerous and it would be irresponsible to accept Annie's word on the subject that he's totally harmless]].

* NonStandardCharacterDesign: A very subtle one, his face his drawn in a more detailed and realistic style than the other characters [[spoiler:upon his return in the Court as a teacher]]. It fittingly gives him an imposing and intimidating figure.
** Apparently his unusual facial features are from injuries (what appear to be a broken nose and a cut lip) and unhealthy weight loss (it's difficult for him to eat after the loss/injury of his right hand).
* NoSocialSkills: He had no idea how to react when Brinnie came on to him, and when Surma and the rest of the gang ask him to join them on a night out with Brinnie, he stared at them blankly before saying that he had work to do. It turns out he was so conflicted about answering them that he had clenched his fists tightly enough to leave nail marks in his palms.
** After his return his attempts at making small talk with the Donlans is painful, especially since the first thing he does is apologize for Annie cheating off of Kat and then compliment Kat on her school work, which only angers her because it's still casting Annie in a bad light.
* NotSoStoic: Apparently, he did have a sensitive side, but Surma and Donny may very well have been the only people who ever saw it.
** He shows some emotion when talking to Donny at dinner, but then he clams up again and leaves.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Whatever his motives from Chapter 51 onwards are the situation is made worse by his failure to explain exactly what the hell he's actually doing in the first place. Contrast him refusing to say anything about his activities when Donald questions him with it being previously shown that Donald is one of the few people that can get him to act like a real normal person.

* SadistTeacher: The first thing he does as the year 10 biology teacher is [[spoiler: go out of his way to humiliate Annie in front of the class, ordering her to remove her makeup, describing it as "ridiculous". When Annie returned to the classroom after washing her make-up off, Anthony says "You have delayed your classmates long enough." Also, he deliberately did not giving her a copy of the textbook (Not that she would need it, since she's got to retake the previous school year, but he could have explained why). He also waits until the first day of the new school year to inform Annie that she's going to repeat the previous year and have to move out of the dorms (While these aren't necessarily examples on their own, it seems unnecessary to wait so long to tell a student such vital information about their school life.)]]

* StrawVulcan / TinMan: [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1011 Passionately talking about passions not making sense to him]].

[[/folder]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: Whatever his motives from Chapter 51 onwards are the situation is made worse by his failure to explain exactly what the hell he's actually doing in the first place.

** When he finally shows up in person, his first words to Annie are [[spoiler: to dismissively tell her to wipe her makeup off her face...the same kind of makeup that her mother wore. When Annie notices [[spoiler: his prosthetic hand, his only reply to her concern is to ask, "Is it your business?"]]

** His friends at the Court only learned about Surma's death when they found out Annie was to be enrolled there, which is also the first time they learned of Annie's existence, which means he didn't bother to contact then for something like 14 years..

** His friends at the Court only learned about Surma's death when they found out Annie was to be enrolled there, which is also the first time they learned of Annie's existence, which sure looks like he kept Surma hidden away for ''ten years''.

%%* HateSink

* NonStandardCharacterDesign: A very subtle one, his face his drawn in a more detailed and realistic style than the other characters [[spoiler:upon his return in the Court as a teacher]]. It fittingly gives him an imposing and intimidating figure.

* AbusiveParents: Certainly gives this impression. [[spoiler: After three years absence, their first interaction is him chastising her for breaking a rule he didn't inform her of, and insulting her appearance ]]. He did have a reason to chastise Annie for [[spoiler: cheating]], and perhaps even to make her [[spoiler: repeat the year]] (although the fact that this was the first thing he did upon his return to the Court is worrying). However, his next step -- [[spoiler: attempting to assume greater control over her life]] (after ''years'' of absence) is a massive red flag for an abuser.

* SadistTeacher: The first thing he does upon his return to the court is [[spoiler: go out of his way to humiliate Annie in front of the class, ordering her to remove her makeup, describing it as "ridiculous". When Annie returned to the classroom after washing her make-up off, Anthony says "You have delayed your classmates long enough." Also, he deliberately did not giving her a copy of the textbook (Not that she would need it, since she's got to retake the previous school year, but he could have explained why). He also waits until the first day of the new school year to inform Annie that she's going to repeat the previous year and have to move out of the dorms (While these aren't necessarily examples on their own, it seems unnecessary to wait so long to tell a student such vital information about their school life.)]]

* AbusiveParents: Certainly gives this impression. [[spoiler: After three years absence, their first interaction is him chastising her for breaking a rule he didn't inform her of, and insulting her appearance ]]. He did have a reason to chastise Annie for [[spoiler: cheating]], and perhaps even to make her [[spoiler: repeat the year]] (although the fact that this was the first thing he did upon his return to the Court is worrying). However, his next step -- [[spoiler: attempting to isolate her completely from her peers and assume total control over her life]] (after ''years'' of absence) is a massive red flag for an abuser.

* TinyGuyHugeGirl: A rather extreme example.

* JerkassHasAPoint: With all of his dickery, he rightfully and fairly politely [[spoiler: calls out Annie for stealing Kat's homework. Especially since Kat's reaction confirms that she never gave her permission. He also says that he's subtracted all the plagiarism from her overall marks, and decided to have her repeat year 9. Given that Annie's been cheating for a ''long'' time, she quite probably hasn't learned enough to justify her being in year 10, nor does she deserve to be there. Considering many institutions in real life have a zero tolerance approach to cheating and how it's indicated Annie has been doing so extensively, it wouldn't raise many eyebrows if she had been expelled, though as he's a teacher rather than an administrator his ability to fail her in classes not his own seems excessive. His reasoning for taking away Renard is also sound; Renard is dangerous and it would be irresponsible to accept Annie's word on the subject that he's totally harmless]].

* JerkassHasAPoint: With all of his dickery, he rightfully and fairly politely [[spoiler: calls out Annie for stealing Kat's homework. Especially since Kat's reaction confirms that she never gave her permission. He also says that he's subtracted all the plagiarism from her overall marks, and decided to have her repeat year 9. Given that Annie's been cheating for a ''long'' time, she quite probably hasn't learned enough to justify her being in year 10, nor does she deserve to be there. Considering many institutions in real life have a zero tolerance approach to cheating and how it's indicated Annie has been doing so extensively, it wouldn't raise many eyebrows if she had been expelled, though as he's a teacher rather than an administrator his ability to fail her in classes not his own seems excessive.]]

* TranquilFury: [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1525 Towards Anthony]]. He's angry because (among other things) Tony disappeared without telling anyone for several years, but from his posture you'd think he was just making small talk. Ironically, he interrupted Anthony's attempt to make small talk.