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Annie & Kat | Annie's Inner Circle | Parents & Court Staff | Other Students | Gillitie Forest | The Founders of the Court | Other Characters
The roots of the Court date back to an ancient union—older even than Coyote's presence in Gillitie—between a group of humans and the creatures of the Wood. Over the ages, much information about this first generation has been lost... and some has been deliberately hidden.
Formerly a swordswoman torn between the Court and the Wood; later, a ghost trapped between the Court and the Wood.
In life, she was quite beautiful, with blonde hair and green eyes. Her exact role in the Court is not yet clear.
Jeanne died under unusual circumstances, leaving her outside the jurisdiction of any of the Guides. Her spirit remained trapped by the Annan — attacking anyone, from the Court or the Forest, who entered the Court's side of the gorge.
And that's the situation when Annie fell into the gorge. Annie landed on the Forest side, and Jeanne crossed the Annan (an act that was believed impossible for her) to attack, giving Annie's face a nasty cut before being driven away by Kat's sudden arrival. (Incidentally, this event was Annie's and the readers' introduction to Jeanne — details about her past, including her name, were not forthcoming for many more chapters.)
Subsequently, Annie and Kat have taken it upon themselves to uncover Jeanne's past and help the ghost find eternal rest. Even the Guides believe that Annie is the best hope of helping Jeanne.
Associated tropes:
- Arc Villain: A lingering threat whose abilities far exceeded the gang's for quite a while.
- Book Ends: Gives Annie her aetheric scar and ~50 chapters later casually wipes it off.
- Death by Despair: Well, she died due to a combination of this, starvation, and being exposed to the elements, probably.
- Dissonant Serenity: On the one hand she has no problems hacking innocent school children to bits; on the other hand she takes time to compliment one on her combat skills.
- Emotionless Girl: Only her face is emotionless.
- Ethereal White Dress: Her dress on the night of her death, and thus her appearance as the ghost by the Annan Waters, is white. If she turns red watch out.
- Fling a Light into the Future: A (very) mild example. Though the Court founders tried to Unperson her, Diego kept the memories of her existence in several ways, such as a hidden room, and recordings in a Court's robot.
- Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: A subtle but very powerful use at the painfully emotional climax of chapter 30:Jeanne: You come here to mock me with this gleaming heart of yours. Coddled child of that damned place. This luxury afforded by my death... it should be mine to take.
- Hero Killer: Has killed Grim Reapers and supernatural fighters who wanted a challenge; she also stabs Smitty the luck master in the heart and/or lung. Smitty is fine with it since Parley wasn't hurt (he either doesn't know Jeanne was trying to kill the luck manipulator first or was lying to make Parley feel better).
- Jeanne d'Archétype: A French Lady of War, and human sacrifice in the early days of the court.
- Lady of War: Renard notes in her portrait that she is more comfortable with her sword than her fine clothes.
- Murder Into Malevolence: Invoked by the Court founders, who murdered her lover in front of her, left her to die, and used Magitek to bind her furious ghost to the Annan River, killing anyone who tries to cross from the Forest.
- Nightmare Face: She drops her expressionless look when she's had enough of Parley's secret love for Smitty, made possible by her unwilling sacrifice to protect the Court, mocking her doomed love for "that elf".
- Posthumous Character: Still around as a ghost, though.
- Resist the Beast: Possibly. With her speed
and power, she almost certainly could have killed Annie and Parley without any trouble, as Parley points out. - Sins of Our Fathers: The Court founders are directly responsible for Jeanne's etheric presence on the Annan Waters. After such acts, no creatures were able to pass the waters without facing her.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: With a Gillitie Woods elf.
- The Power of Hate: Her spirit, formed from rage and hatred, is powerful enough to inflict a Wound That Will Not Heal on Antimony's etheric body and kill several psychopomps.
- Unperson: After her death, the Court Founders tried to erase all evidence of her existence. They even went so far as to damage the records of The Realm of the Dead so that they can't access any files on her directly.
- Unstoppable Rage: Even the psychopomps and the Realm of the Dead have no idea how to stop her.
- Victory-Guided Amnesia: After being reunited with her lover she, like Mort, starts losing her memory as they Go into the Light.
- White Mask of Doom: Her face is mask-like and she spells doom to anyone or anything that enters the Annan waters.
One of the founders', a.k.a Jeanne's lover from Gillitie Wood. Another founder referred to him as a "traitor".
Following the separation of the Court and the Wood, he and his Love Interest kept in touch secretly (or so they thought) by letters. Upon learning that the Court wished her to go down to the Annan Waters for an unknown reason, they made plans to use this event to rendezvous and escape elsewhere together.
That night, while he swam across the Annan, an arrow was fired from the Court, killing him. It isn't until Chapter 59 that it's shown that his ghost has been trapped inside that arrow.
Associated tropes:
- And I Must Scream: Chapter 59 reveals that while his body is rotting at the bottom of the Annan, his soul has been bound to the arrow that struck him.
- Human Sacrifice: Well, elf, but the trope still applies.
- Magic Pants: When his aetheric form "revives" (similar to the Headless Horseman in 1999 film Sleepy Hollow) after the arrow's removed his pants are there too.
- Mobile Maze / Psychological Torment Zone: Where his "soul" is inside the arrow.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With / Your Mind Makes It Real: Played with: Similar to the ROTD, Annie sees a giant incomprehensible maze and Kat's terrifying god-form while Kat sees a small room, the "maze" apparently being the simple lock on the shackles binding his hands (and nothing else).
- Nice Guy: Somehow, despite being an immobile skeleton in the real world, found Annie's hair clip from her first visit to the Annan Waters and was able to give it back to her several years later.
- No Name Given: As of him and Jeanne going into the light his name hasn't been revealed.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: With Jeanne, thanks to the meddling of the other founders and Diego's jealousy.
An odd-looking inventor and Magitek genius, who clearly understood machines better than people. All the Court's robots (except possibly the Tic Tocs) are derived from his designs.
He was obsessed with Jean and showered her with gifts of robots, which had little effect on her. In retrospect, giving robots to a girl who was pining for the forest was probably a bad idea.
Associated tropes:
- Arc Words: "She died and I did nothing", part of his last words, which the robots repeat as 'She died and we did nothing'.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears thick round spectacles and is an unreservedly awful person.
- Gadgeteer Genius: This guy created self-aware robots out of Magitek and a magical glowing green arrow that A) bound the soul of the person shot by it to this world, B) apparently bound his (unshot) lover's body and soul to this world, C) damaged the records in the Realm of the Dead so they couldn't ID the (unshot) person.
- Heel Realization: Of a sort. While he never acknowledged that he was in any way responsible for Jeanne's death, some of his last words were "She was all alone, waiting, when she died and I did nothing", which shows that he regretted not doing something to save her.
- If I Can't Have You…: Strongly hinted to be his motivation for having Jeanne sacrificed.
- Jerkass: This was the guy who stalked an uninterested woman, then had her and her lover murdered and trapped her spirit as a ghost when he finally realized that she didn't like him. Also, kind of racist against elves.
- Never My Fault: Even on his deathbed, he was unwilling to accept that his choices led directly to Jeanne's death, choosing instead to insist that he had been forced into it by Young.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears in an old video clip and a telepathy-induced flashback, courtesy of Jeanne. Despite this, the vast majority of the main plot is either directly or indirectly a result of his choices and creations.
- The Spark of Genius: His work was partially etheric; no one in all the years since has been able to equal his creations. Even Kat, who has come closer to understanding his work than anyone else, still finds much of it mysterious.
- Stalker with a Crush: Towards Jeanne.
The Court's first Dragon Slayer. He is interred in a park at the Court which bears his name — Annie's class took a camping trip there.
Associated tropes:
- Animals Hate Him: The Court's animal robots, being descendants of Diego's works, will not go near his tombstone.
- Dragon Rider: Honestly, he fits this better than dragon slayer. Most dragons in the Gunnerkrigg verse are quite nice.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: His "final record":Sir Young: The place we built, the sacrifices we made, it was for the greater good of our people.
The Archer of the Founders, and apparently a close friend of the Artilleryman (who has not appeared on screen). He had an important part in the plan to fortify the Annan Waters.
Associated tropes:
- Cold Sniper: Apparently had no qualms about or remorse over acts of murder.
- Death by Falling Over: His "final record" was "I really wish I hadn't tripped over that damn dog."Annie/Kat: Huh.
- False Friend: He helps Jeanne arrange an escape with That Elf, knowing that it will be an ambush.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: The shot he fired into the ravine is so improbable that the archery nerds in the fandom have assumed that his skills must be etheric.
- In the Back: Shoots That Elf in the back as he's swimming across the Annan.
- Punny Name: Possible. While it may not be a Meaningful Name since "Steadman" means a farmhouse occupant, which doesn't fit the character, it may be a pun on the fact that he's a man who's a very steady shot.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Went out with Jeanne "when they were younger."
Associated tropes:
- Call-Back: The fake Seed looks a lot like how Kat appears to Zimmy.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Mentioned early on and frequently thereafter.
- Living MacGuffin: Turns out it was alive. Who knew? Though whether still is alive is up in the air, as well as whether it was even sentient to begin with, given the truth of its "appearance" in Chapter 44.
- Walking Spoiler: Appears in Chapter 44, and everything related to it is a spoiler.
- Unreliable Narrator: When it appears in Chapter 44, it's nothing but a creature of the forest using illusions and lies to try and trick Annie into carrying it across the bridge. However, not everything it says is a lie, making it ambiguous what parts of its claims were real and which were lies. Of course, this is the claim of Coyote, an Unreliable Narrator himself, so it's possible none of it was true.
