Gunnerkrigg Court

Or, Jones wants to off Antimony, and sending her to the Wood does that.

I don't think Jones' motivation is that dark, but just throwing it out there.

Meta4 wrote:

Or possibly

3. Jones isn't much of a people person, and only cares about Annie as an interesting new development in the whole Forest vs Court situation. Letting Annie visit the woods could lead to unusual (and exploitable) new events.

Not that I really think Jones is gonna turn out to be an evil bitch or anything. Every time a new character who's even remotely sinister has been introduced I've been all "Sweet! Finally a bona fide villain!". And I've been wrong each and every time, because so far there are no baddies in Gunnerkrigg Court.

el rallan wrote:

Well, Ysengrin and Coyote seem to be shaping up as the Big Bad and The Man Behind The Man, respectively. I guess we'll get a better idea of how villainous they are when Annie goes to the Forest.

I didn't write any of that.

Meta4 wrote:

I dunno. Ysengrin's got that whole primal force of nature thing happening, so he's no so much bad as just fulfilling his role in the natural order. Plus he generally seems to be pissed off more because of some fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of what's going on than any genuinely malevolent goal.

As for Coyote? He's probably our last best hope for a genuine baddy, but I'm not holding my breath. When even the likes of Reynardine or Zimmy turn out not to be so bad after all, I'm less than optimistic about anyone turning out to be a traditional card-carrying villain.

Ysengrin's also got that With Great Power Comes Great Insanity thing going on. Y's current body and its Green Thumb powers were given to him by Coyote; he used to just be a wolf.

And Reynardine's a complete enigma. He was willing to kill Annie (who he knew to be the daughter of someone he cared about) for his own ends, so I don't trust him until I can conclusively rule out his being a Heel Face Mole. Sure, he jumped in front of Ysengrin's arm-spear to save Annie, but how do we know this was altruistic? Maybe Annie's death would have left him trapped in that body forever, and he was trying to prevent that. Maybe the ownership contract compelled him to do it (does "Don't harm Annie" imply "Don't allow Annie to come to harm"?).

EDIT: [369] More information about the upcoming book.

Trickster Mentor?

I didn't write any of that.

Maybe a whiff of Omniscient Morality License.

Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?

Tangent128 wrote:

Nah. None of the morally dubious supernatural critters in Gunnerkrigg have really made any claim of working towards the greater good, and there aren't really moments where they go off and act like a jerkface (with the face of a jerk!) but its all okay because hey, big plan that ends with big win for greater good. Coyote's an unpredictable troublemaker with unknown goals. Reynardine's a thoroughly Spikeified badass whose only known objectives are "irritate everyone" and "well Annie's kind of alright I guess", and lord only knows what sort of convoluted plots involving the Court and the Forest he might be part of. And then there's Ysengrin, who certainly thinks he has an Omniscient Morality License, but is clearly Doing It Wrong.

Reynardine's personality seems to change a bit from form to form.

Sivo: ruthless and old Doll: kind of funny and nasty Full size wolf: noble and mysterious

I'm looking forward to Annie visiting the Wood again. I'll be curious to see if it happens this chapter or the next one.

el rallan wrote:

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Ahem. That's debatable. Rey has a Restraining Bolt, and there's no telling how he would act if it were removed at this point. After all, he still has yet to apologize to Annie for trying to kill her.

I didn't write any of that.

Meta4 wrote:

Well he's saved her bacon, made inappropriate remarks that come off as dorky rather than malicious, coughed up additional help without being asked now and then, and generally seems a lot less cranky than you'd expect a malevolent trickster who's spending all day around the nice girl who captured him to be. There's only three possibilities here. 1) He's waiting for her to let her guard down and relax enough of the constraints on his behavior that he can escape. 2) He's Spikeified. Or 3) He's waiting for her to let her guard down but is Spikeified without realising it, and will end up having a Pet the Dog or Heel–Face Turn incident just at his moment of triumph.

I mean sure, sometimes the Restraining Bolt schtick is the only thing keeping an otherwise nasty character from doing bad things, and their forced behavior isn't necessarily a sign that they're being Spikeified...

And sometimes The Initiative puts a chip in Spike's head and makes him spend the whole season hanging around Buffy and not doing bad things

Exactly. It's too ambiguous and too early to tell. Personally, I don't trust Rey, and I won't trust him until he spills the beans about how he knew Surma and he apologizes for trying to kill Annie.

I didn't write any of that.

Meta4 wrote:

Nobody will be spilling the beans about the whole story of Surma any time soon for plot reasons. And Reynardine's about as likely to admit that he likes playing with dolls as he is to apologise for anything he does

◊

I abused Tom Siddell's art.

Neat.

I oughta see if I can order it from the local Borders...

Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?

"He's paying me thirty bucks." Good stuff.

They'll get a kick out of that on the GC forum. You want to post it? If not, I've got an account there.

I just went by my local comic shop and asked them to order a copy.

I didn't write any of that.

I made an account to post it about 15 minutes ago. I also used the acct to accuse you of getting me hooked on the comic.

Aaaaaaaww.

I go by Mezzaphor over there. I haven't spilled the beans about my entry pimping, and I don't really plan to do so.

EDIT: [370] Fencing!

I didn't write any of that.

Anne looks nervious...

Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?

Is Parley getting pulled out of fencing class, like Antimony was pulled out of quantum physics? Or is Annie getting added to the fencing class? The teenage boy medium hasn't shown up yet, so I'd go with the first guess.

[371] I don't suppose knowing your way around a blade could be useful in itself, eh Jones?

I didn't write any of that.

[372] Well, it's nice to get an explanation for one of the many Esoteric Motifs. And I wonder if Etheric Design has anything to do with the Aether.

I didn't write any of that.

Meta4 wrote:

Are you referring to Luminiferous Aether, the fifth element, the stuff Hunter S. Thompson only huffed when he was desperate, or the ethereal plane?

I think that Jones is using it as a sort of broad all-encompassing term for the unknown, the mystical, the metaphysical, and that which cannot currently be figured out by science. That's pretty much what it represented in the classical greek and medieval alchemical elements (earth, fire, wind, and water between them represented the entire material world, and Aether was the element of the immaterial), and its origins are why for a long time, whenever scientists came up with an idea about a medium or substance that they couldn't yet detect (or even experimentally prove or disprove) they'd be as likely as not to call it an Ether.

el rallan wrote:

I'm referring to the term that, according to Moddey-Dhoo, has something to do with the afterlife in the Gunnerverse. Though I'm sure it's related to at least one of those.

I didn't write any of that.

[373] Holy crap backstory.

Well, my theory that the Court predates the presence of humans is now thoroughly Jossed.

I didn't write any of that.

Oh look, I made something.

[374] Hmmm, so maybe there isn't really a connection between the position of Medium and the ability to see the Guides.

I didn't write any of that.