Gunnerkrigg Court 6: Fire Away

[eschmenk]

The example most people were referencing was Luna Lovegood's dad, but bringing up Lucius serves even better to illustrate that YA lit can handle complexity in the parent-threatened-with-child-hostage dynamic, right?

I don't remember Harry Potter well enough to remember which would serves as a better example, but Lucius was the example I thought of. Why would that matter which one is the better example? Everyone who has mentioned Harry Potter seems to agree that at least something in Harry Potter is a good example.

As I said, the difference is no sex. That's all the difference. There would have been a time, as in movies, when violence was excluded too, but now that's not X-rated any more.

That is still generally wrong. By your logic, everything that is currently being categorized as being for adults would have sex in it. That's not the case. But sex can be used as a reason to classify something as adult, and sometimes "adult" is a shorthand way of saying that something contains sex. It depends on the context. The way we are talking here, that's not the case.

[Lethologica]

I don't remember Harry Potter well enough to remember which would serves as a better example, but Lucius was the example I thought of. Why would that matter which one is the better example? Everyone who has mentioned Harry Potter seems to agree that at least something in Harry Potter is a good example.

For all the nebulousness of your position, one thing that you seemed to be arguing against was the likelihood of complexity in "children's lit" particularly w.r.t. the wrinkles introduced by a potential holding-Annie-hostage-to-the-Court's-demands situation. Hence, the wrinkles introduced by holding-Draco/Luna-hostage-to-the-Death-Eaters'-demands situations in HP seemed like a counterargument to your position, in that it showed that "children's lit" is able to handle complexity of that nature, ergo that GC being "children's lit" was not materially relevant to the likelihood of the prediction that Annie might be used as leverage against Tony (which, let us not forget, actually happened).

If this is based on a misreading of your position, perhaps further elucidation of your position is in order.

[BannedInSchool]

So let's see, from Anthony's perspective this is all reasons for Antimony to rightfully hate him, and from Annie's perspective it's all more things that are all her fault, eh?

[eschmenk]

If this is based on a misreading of your position, perhaps further elucidation of your position is in order.

I admit that I was unfortunately being imprecise, though. The issue wasn't really that it was children's literature; it was that, as with much children's literature (admittedly, not all children's literature), the emphasis was on the kids, not the adults.

I even had already clarified that the issue wasn't that it was YA literature, per se. The Harry Potter books, particularly the last few, handled the adults with more complexity than GC is doing...

Hopefully, that helps. If not, well, I don't think it's terribly important. I don't think we are viewing children's literature very differently. I need to do other things and I'm not sure that I can explain things any better than I already have without a huge investment in time. Even then, I'm not sure it would work.

FWIW, I still don't know if the Court intended to use the threat to banish Annie as leverage over Tony or not. I think Tom is keeping the ways of the Court mysterious. I don't even think we know exactly what the agreement was. It includes Tony working at the Court and Antimony retaking 9th grade, but does it include the Court promising to keep her after graduation, promising to reevaluate Annie at the end of the year, something else?

Nope, STILL no sympathy for the Tony. Guilt, grief, and stupidity do not excuse acting like a **** and damaging your daughter psychologically. He's STILL doing the same thing as with the bone lasers: Inflicting harm without realizing he's doing so.

He doesn't learn. Or understand the consequences of his actions.?

Well, he does understand after the fact, but that hasn't done any good so far. FWIW, one thing I missed at first was Annie reminded him of Surma, which was like rubbing salt in his wounds, so he became angry at Annie, and that's why he humiliated her. He now understand that that was a crazy and horrible thing to do, I think. That at least provides some reason for him behaving the way he did, even though, as he realizes, it doesn't justify it at all.

A thought that I had that I don't think we were supposed to think is this: If he had been a decent parent who had shown any interest in Annie, he probably wouldn't have been so shocked at what she looked like!

[Lissou]

He hasn't seen her in a while (which may be your point?) and almost everyone is shocked because she looks exactly like Surma (probably a result of the elemental). Makes sense for him to have a strong reaction, so shortly after his previous trauma.

I think Annie and Tony are very, very similar. People mention how much she looks like Surma (and obviously she does), but emotionally, there is so much Tony in there.

[eschmenk]

He hasn't seen her in a while (which may be your point?) and almost everyone is shocked because she looks exactly like Surma (probably a result of the elemental). Makes sense for him to have a strong reaction, so shortly after his previous trauma.

Well, yes, that was the point, or at least close. It's also that, even if he was too ashamed to be able to talk to her, one would think that he would at least try to get information about her and make sure that she was OK. He might have asked Donnie how she was doing. Donnie might have sent pictures. If he had asked for information from the Court, he at least would have known that they were becoming unhappy with her.

Apparently, he was at the Court for some time before the first class of the year. One would have thought that during that time, if not before, he would have at least tried to look for her from a distance or as she passed by a security camera or something like that. He could easily have visited Donnie and asked if he knew anything about her before classes started. Any talk with anyone who knew both Annie and Surma would have probably included some mention of how much Annie looked like Surma.

The fact that Tony didn't even know what his own daughter looked like is pretty bad.

Yet one more thought that we probably aren't supposed to think about is that Annie would have been humiliated by letting her show up for the class and only then telling her that she didn't belong there. If she was going to be held back, the right thing to do was to tell her privately in advance. It was incredibly insensitive to not handle it that way. If it had been done that way, then at least the class wouldn't have watched him treating Annie so badly.

[Lizard Lord]

That's not quite it. It would have been "They are threatening my daughter. What should I do? Should I undermine them? Should I report them to the authorities? Should I do any of a number of other things to protect them from her?" I don't remember the Harry Potter books all that well, but I think I remember Mr. Malfoy reacting in a fairly complex way and eventually turning against Voldemort, didn't he? In addition to that, the original comment by Eee listed a variety of ways in which the Court could try to turn the screws on Tony via threatening harm to Annie. So that would mean that the Court had a bunch of options and Tony had a bunch of options, so it could be complex. Also, don't forget that the issue wasn't how complex the story gets, it's how much of the complexity involves which characters. I think I explained all of this before. Granted, there are a lot of comments to wade through.
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(Bold mine)
But the complexity still involves the same characters the same amount in both the theory and what is actually happening. And Tony does still have lots of options as far as I can tell.

[Rodin]

I'm a bit confused about the timeline here. Is this conversation between Donald and Tony happening prior to the dinner, or afterwards? If it happened afterwards, it leaves Annie's reaction of "That went quite well" to be rather mysterious, since by her perspective at the time it went pretty horribly. If it happened prior, it certainly explains a lot about her later reaction - she's much happier with her father, and her subterfuge at the dinner was pulled off well. That then opens up the question...why is she pulling the wool over Kat (and possibly Anja's) eyes? Or was the whole thing staged for the Court's benefit?

[Lissou]

I'm a bit confused about the timeline here. Is this conversation between Donald and Tony happening prior to the dinner, or afterwards? If it happened afterwards, it leaves Annie's reaction of "That went quite well" to be rather mysterious, since by her perspective at the time it went pretty horribly. If it happened prior, it certainly explains a lot about her later reaction - she's much happier with her father, and her subterfuge at the dinner was pulled off well. That then opens up the question...why is she pulling the wool over Kat (and possibly Anja's) eyes? Or was the whole thing staged for the Court's benefit?

I'm pretty sure it all happens after the diner. The dinner happened, Donald noticed how Tony was behaving, worried for Annie and knew something was up, and decided to show Annie the Tony he knows, to help her understand he doesn't hate her, isn't disappointed in her, and so on.

"That went quite well" sounded to me like the kind of dry humour Tony also displays.

[Qwertystop]

Yeah, I think it's either Annie displaying dry humor or Annie (sans fire) being really out of it.

[eschmenk]

I think this is where Donnie starts planning to do what he did.

Yeah, I think it's either Annie displaying dry humor or Annie (sans fire) being really out of it.

I think a third possibility is that Annie didn't feel comfortable complaining to Donnie about Tony, but she wanted Donnie to see what Tony was like, which is what happened during the dinner. Maybe all three to some extent.

[BannedInSchool]

Or she really meant it went well because nobody had to go to the Emergency Room.

[Fawkes]

Bluhhh I hate this arc. I hate this device. 'Oh, look, Professor Snape isn't really evil, it's an elaborate scheme to make him a secret hero.' No, he's still a petty abusive jerk, no matter how much you contrive post-facto to make him look like the good guy.

[Lizard Lord]

Bluhhh I hate this arc. I hate this device. 'Oh, look, Professor Snape isn't really evil, it's an elaborate scheme to make him a secret hero.' No, he's still a petty abusive jerk, no matter how much you contrive post-facto to make him look like the good guy.

I always saw that device as "now you know the rest of the story" and allowing the reader to make their own judgments based on that.

Either way both Snape and Tony are incredibly flawed individuals, but also not pure evil like Voldemort or....Diego? Not really sure that there is a pure evil character in GC.

[ThirdEmperor]

But that's kinda the point of it? Not 'oh look this guy's the good guy' but the fact that he's destroying his relationship with her, what little he even had, by putting up this ridiculous face. That's why we're seeing it the way we are. Not to pull some cheap reversal of how we think of the Worst Dad, but to see how Tony tries to present himself and then his real, kinda sad, human face. It's about him manufacturing this disconnect.

[BannedInSchool]

I never thought the story was going to be that Annie's father was an evil robot who hates her sent back from the future to make her suffer, so I've been expecting to see what's up with him. *shrug*

[Kornaki]

I never thought the story was going to be that Annie's father was an evil robot who hates her sent back from the future to make her suffer, so I've been expecting to see what's up with him. *shrug*

I mean, the chapter was called Return of the Time Traveling Robot Dad. I guess this means there's still a lot of plot left to do.

[Morty]

I'm not sure how people can look at this arc and manage to boil it down to something as simplistic as "making Tony a good guy".

[Cyber Punk]

It's not about making Tony a 'good guy', whatever that means, it's about making Tony human. Humans are flawed, we do things thinking we're doing the right thing and end up making matters worse. Some of us will boycott the other for seemingly good reasons while adamantly refusing to see the other's point of view. That kind of thing.

This does not excuse what he's done, but now we get to see his reasoning and his thought process. It's devices like this that make me like Gunnerkrigg.

[Rodin]

It's not about making Tony a 'good guy', whatever that means, it's about making Tony human. Humans are flawed, we do things thinking we're doing the right thing and end up making matters worse. Some of us will boycott the other for seemingly good reasons while adamantly refusing to see the other's point of view. That kind of thing.

This does not excuse what he's done, but now we get to see his reasoning and his thought process. It's devices like this that make me like Gunnerkrigg.

This. I rather disliked the previous chapter introducing Tony, because he was being nasty and villainous on a scale that really only Diego has managed to aspire to, and that sort of character just didn't fit in with the Gunnerkrigg universe. This one showing his motivations has made up for all that.

Tony still needs counseling and some help repairing his relationship with Annie (which Donnie is definitely helping with by letting her see what her father is like under the mask), but he's no longer the needlessly evil dude that he was portrayed as when he returned. That's been true of pretty much all the antagonists and seems to be a recurring theme within the comic as a whole.

[eee]

He absolutely realises it, actually. And he probably understands the consequences, but finds them still preferable to Annie being expelled.

If Tony understands what his actions are doing to Annie and is still doing them, then he should be doused in gasoline and tossed to the Fire Elemental. The way he's going about this - humiliating her, destroying her sense of self worth, depriving her of support - is NOT necessary to keep her from being expelled. Unless the Court is forcing him to do it like this, although so far we've seen no evidence of that.

Consider this as an alternative. He contacts Annie before the school year starts, informs her he's coming back into her life, and he'll be a teacher at the Court. No emotional punch to the throat as he walks in the classroom door without warning. Still convinced she hates him* he keeps their relationship strictly formal and indicates she is not to ask about his face or missing arm; he does not want to discuss those. He also informs her the Court is aware of her cheating, and that to prevent her from being expelled she must take the previous year over, she must cease being Forest Medium, and for her own safety he will insist she turn Rey over to him. Same situation, handled differently, Annie is distressed but not crushed. This isn't good parenting, this is treating another human being LIKE a human being. Tony isn't doing that. I don't care how distressed he is, he's being a ****.

(* - Note that Tony doesn't ASK Annie how she feels about him (or anything else, as far as I can tell), he just assumes. He seems to see the world through the distorting prism of his own ego; since he failed to save Surma and hates himself for it, naturally Annie must hate him, too. It might be that same mental myopia that was behind his freaking out over Brinnie: He didn't love her, so how could she love him? I don't think he's got a Narcissistic Personality disorder, but there's certainly SOMETHING wrong with the way his brain operates.)

[Ellen]

It's unclear why Tony feels being cut off from the Court at graduation would be such a terrible thing. So far as we know, the Forest remains an alternative that would welcome her. So, is something at stake that we don't realize? Obviously, he feels he's protecting Annie. But, at this point, it seems like, with supportive relatives like this, who needs enemies?

I don't know how I feel about Tony. He's got good, understandable reasons for the things he's done. But, so far, he got tricked into sucking Annie's soul out of her (or something more or less like that) by one supernatural group who played on his guilt and lost to convince him he'd be doing something for his dead wife.

Now, the court is getting him to destroy Annie's spirit by playing on his guilt and bad parenting to convince him he's doing something good for her.

I'm noticing a trend.

Actually . . . could the court have arranged for the psychopomp impersonators? It seems more like something entities from the Forest/like ones from the Forest would do, but maybe that's what we're supposed to think.

Annie wants to free Jean, who guards the division between the court and the forest, and she might be able to do it. Surma, on the other hand, was loyal to the court--she flirted with Rey at least partly on their orders. She might have had the ability but not the desire. Annie's a threat (in this way and maybe in others) that Surma wasn't.

[Rodin]

Do we know that the psychopomps were impersonators? Okay, they weren't ones we recognized, but there are tons out there - some from every religion/region, unless I'm missing my guess. Tony sought them out, asked to see Surma again, and they gave him exactly what he asked for in a Literal Genie sense. Annie has a special connection with them, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they felt any need to play nice with Tony. The one discrepancy is that it doesn't pay for the psychopomps to hurt Annie when they're relying on her to deal with Jeanne, but it's easily possible to have divisions within the psychopomps.

[Lissou]

Bluhhh I hate this arc. I hate this device. 'Oh, look, Professor Snape isn't really evil, it's an elaborate scheme to make him a secret hero.' No, he's still a petty abusive jerk, no matter how much you contrive post-facto to make him look like the good guy.

I understand hating the device, but you shouldn't call it "contriving post-facto". In both cases, the story was planned in advance, meaning the "device" is "I'll make this guy seem as horrible as possible when I introduce him so that people can hate him, and only later, when people hate him, will I reveal important information about why and how he did what he did". So it's not a post-facto "making him look like the good guy", it's a "giving a horrible first impression on purpose to cloud people's judgement". And then, I guess, sucker punch them with more information to make them feel ****ty about assuming stuff. But at any rate, I don't think either of those characters is a "good guy". They're both complex characters with very real flaws that aren't made up by the things we learn later. And in the case of Snape, I found the hints pretty obvious so it was neither a big reveal nor a reversal for me, just a confirmation.

The thing is, abusers are often portrayed as completely evil people with no redeemable qualities. This is a problem. It leads, for instance, to people refusing to believe that someone is abusing someone else because they know them to be "a good guy". But you can be a good person in some aspects or with some people, and a horrible one in other aspects or with other people. You can also be an abuser and, with the appropriate help (and with everyone you may hurt appropriately protected and supported), learn not to be one. At any rate, abusers are people, and they act because they have reasons. Their reasons do not justify their abuse. Not to other people. But they may use those reasons to feel justified. They may use them as an excuse. I think it's good that people are being shown in a more complete manner, without simply showing only one aspect of them.

Tony has issues with emotions. He could, should have talked to people. He's talking to Donald now, but only because Donald showed up. Why didn't he go to him? Because he's Tony. That's not an excuse, of course. If he had, he could have avoided acting this way towards his daughter. Here, Donald is the one showing care (for Tony, for Antimony), and Tony is giving us the backstory, but it does not make him "the good guy" and I doubt Tom was trying to make him "the good guy" either.

[eschmenk]

And in the case of Snape, I found the hints pretty obvious so it was neither a big reveal nor a reversal for me, just a confirmation.

Right, well, at least there were major hints that there was more that we hadn't been told yet.

With GC, we are usually experiencing things as Annie experienced them. For the most part, if Annie doesn't know about something, we don't know about it. Annie didn't know why her father was acting the way he did, so we didn't know. Personally, I think it would have been better to have had some foreshadowing, for example, we could have seen Tony crying or looking dismayed after the first classroom scene. Annie wouldn't have seen that, though, so I guess the author decided to not show it.

Do we know that the psychopomps were impersonators? Okay, they weren't ones we recognized, but there are tons out there - some from every religion/region, unless I'm missing my guess. Tony sought them out, asked to see Surma again, and they gave him exactly what he asked for in a Literal Genie sense. Annie has a special connection with them, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they felt any need to play nice with Tony. The one discrepancy is that it doesn't pay for the psychopomps to hurt Annie when they're relying on her to deal with Jeanne, but it's easily possible to have divisions within the psychopomps.

No, but because we don't even know if they were pretending to be psychopomps. Tony said that he went looking for psychopomps, but he said he found what he was looking for, rather than who. He might have meant that he found a different source for the knowledge that he had expected the psychopomps to have had. He never referred to the creatures who mislead him as psychopomps. He either called them creatures or he used vague pronouns.

[Lissou]

With GC, we are usually experiencing things as Annie experienced them. For the most part, if Annie doesn't know about something, we don't know about it. Annie didn't know why her father was acting the way he did, so we didn't know. Personally, I think it would have been better to have had some foreshadowing, for example, we could have seen Tony crying or looking dismayed after the first classroom scene. Annie wouldn't have seen that, though, so I guess the author decided to not show it.

Yeah, I think foreshadowing would have been good. I get annoyed when something seems completely out of the blue and it looks like the author came up with it at the last minute, even if they say they've been planning it for years. It should be reflected in the story. Some of it has (for instance the phone call, the surgery, etc, we knew something was up with that) but the hints weren't as obvious, even in retrospect, about Tony's thoughts, intentions, feelings, etc.

And I think you're right, it's because Annie is pretty much the narrator in the story. We very rarely see things that don't involve her at all. This being said, sometimes we do. So it could have happened. I think I would have preferred hints to show up earlier than that, though. We had a lot of foreshadowing of Annie's cheating for instance, so the reveal that she was in a lot of trouble over it isn't surprising. Tony, however, was just a big mystery so the most you can say counts as foreshadowing is the things Don said about him, and they're second-hand stories.

I don't know what kind of "hints" I would have dropped, mind you. I think him breaking down after the class may have been too much. I just would have wanted something to make me know something was up with him without knowing what. Something that made me think "there is more to this", before he even showed up.

But yeah, I guess the goal was to make us feel what Antimony was feeling, and there are many things she just couldn't have been aware of.

[eschmenk]

And I think you're right, it's because Annie is pretty much the narrator in the story. We very rarely see things that don't involve her at all. This being said, sometimes we do. So it could have happened.

Right, and we did get some nice foreshadowing that Donnie would become involved, but Kat was there. The rarest type is when no child would know about it. It occasionally happens, for example, IIRC we saw Jones give her recommendation to the headmaster regarding who should be the next medium, but I think that sort of thing is the rarest. Sometimes things happen with children other than Annie, particularly Kat, but mostly it's stuff that involves Annie.

And really, Annie could have looked back through the door and seen Tony react, for that matter.

[Cavelcade]

I think the issue is partly down to reading at the pace of updates instead of the pace of reading. This is a three chapter segment that I think would read a lot better once archived.

[Fawkes]

I understand hating the device, but you shouldn't call it "contriving post-facto". In both cases, the story was planned in advance, meaning the "device" is "I'll make this guy seem as horrible as possible when I introduce him so that people can hate him, and only later, when people hate him, will I reveal important information about why and how he did what he did". So it's not a post-facto "making him look like the good guy", it's a "giving a horrible first impression on purpose to cloud people's judgement". And then, I guess, sucker punch them with more information to make them feel ****ty about assuming stuff.

Yeah, this is a much better description of what's going on. I still find it annoying and manipulative.

[Kornaki]

The foreshadowing was when we saw that girl have a crush on Tony. And Tony freaked out over what he should do and treated her like crap. This is the exact same situation.