Gunnerkrigg Court 8: Thrown for a Loup

[137beth]

I meant that Annie has a weapon, and she's very young, so it's best if she gets some psychological exam and/or support.

Ah, I see I misunderstood your comment. I thought you meant Jones wanted to use Annie as a weapon. I was wrong.

[wingnutx]

Idra takes no BS.

[137beth]

Talking to him directly. Why if everyone did that the comic would end much faster!

[Ellen]

And, bam, we get hit both by

1) The fact that Tony is a human being who loves his daughter, however bad he is at showing it, and--

2) Oh, missed that. Yeah, that is a pretty reasonable way of reacting to one Antimony.

[Spacewolf]

He's also literally lost a daughter since neither of the two are his original.

[Max_Killjoy]

The idea that neither of the Annies was the "real" Annie is based on, what, a single claim by one individual, that could be taken as highly "metaphorical"?

[sihnfahl]

The idea that neither of the Annies was the "real" Annie is based on, what, a single claim by one individual, that could be taken as highly "metaphorical"?

Not just one individual.

Brinnie, for example, knows they're 'shifted'.

And the Norns. If it wasn't for Kat's time manipulations, Annie would have died.

[lord_khaine]

Brinnie, for example, knows they're 'shifted'.

Yes. But its not specified what shifted actually means.
So it does not really tell us anything.

And the Norns. If it wasn't for Kat's time manipulations, Annie would have died.

This does not say anything about Annie not being the "real" Annie either.
So because someone, at some point saved her life, she is suddenly not "real?"
That does not make any sense.

[sihnfahl]

Yes. But its not specified what shifted actually means.

Back here.

She was in a different timeline and pulled into the current one. And that happened to both Annies.

[Clertar]

So Annie is Peter Bishop from Fringe.

[eee]

I tend to forget how easy Tony is to hate. You can say "Broken Man", and really bad at being a father, and misplaced emotional responses; but I wish the creatures that broke his face had kept beating until he'd stopped being such a square peg.

[137beth]

The author's comment today made me giggle.

[sihnfahl]

So Annie is Peter Bishop from Fringe.

Pre-Forest Annie is like Peter. Kat saved her from the fall off the bridge.

Post-Forest Annie is something else; Loup created a different timeline where Annie left the forest ... or stayed in the forest, depending on your perspective.

Either way, they were forked off the Pre-Forest Annie, who, herself, was shifted from another timeline.

[wingnutx]

I tend to forget how easy Tony is to hate. You can say "Broken Man", and really bad at being a father, and misplaced emotional responses; but I wish the creatures that broke his face had kept beating until he'd stopped being such a square peg.

Zimmy broke his face.

[Willie the Duck]

I tend to forget how easy Tony is to hate. You can say "Broken Man", and really bad at being a father, and misplaced emotional responses; but I wish the creatures that broke his face had kept beating until he'd stopped being such a square peg.

The past several months (...more?) have solidified around father-daughter(s) trying to connect and failing (as reasonable-but-hurt people do). It'd be easy to see Tony in that framing and forget for a moment all the other incomprehensible stuff he's done and said. I certainly did, to the point where all the kids, and then his adult so-called-friends walking along badmouthing him kinda felt like ganging up. And then we got this last strip and I remembered :"oh, right! That's the <epically punchable so-and-so> we're talking about!"

[Murk]

Zimmy broke his face.

Not just Zimmy.

[wingnutx]

Not just Zimmy.

Oh yeah. I just remembered the hand.

[Ellen]

How to feel towards Tony is complicated. On the one hand, why is the way he is easy to understand. The why part is easy to forgive. But, the harm he's done is very real and the injuries go deep.

Generally, I've accepted the root fact that he is doing the best he can. Maybe, if he could get some kind of help, he could do better. But, it's not clear what kind of help he needs or what kind exists in this world. Do counselors even exist in this world? If a school counselor ever showed up, what species and how terrifying would he/she/they/it be? (This is Gunnerkrigg. An entity that can only be correctly referred to as "It" is a very real possibility. Like Antimony said, everyone's afraid of clowns. . . .)

As a metaphor, the cage raises his problems to a new level.

But, is it a metaphor? I've been accepting Tony as damaged or lacking basic skills or related, normal problems. What if there's more to it than that? What if some part of him is literally in a cage inside his own mind?

[eee]

The past several months (...more?) have solidified around father-daughter(s) trying to connect and failing (as reasonable-but-hurt people do). It'd be easy to see Tony in that framing and forget for a moment all the other incomprehensible stuff he's done and said. I certainly did, to the point where all the kids, and then his adult so-called-friends walking along badmouthing him kinda felt like ganging up. And then we got this last strip and I remembered :"oh, right! That's the <epically punchable so-and-so> we're talking about!"

Those non-stop emotional kidney and throat punches Tony gave her when he returned did immeasurable damage to her. Annie may forgive him, someday; there's no reason anyone else should.

Especially Kat.

[Max_Killjoy]

I stopped reading the comic for a while when Tony came back, he was unbearable.

To the point where I don't understand why Annie wanted anything to do with him after that.

[Squire Doodad]

How to feel towards Tony is complicated. On the one hand, why is the way he is easy to understand. The why part is easy to forgive. But, the harm he's done is very real and the injuries go deep.

Generally, I've accepted the root fact that he is doing the best he can. Maybe, if he could get some kind of help, he could do better. But, it's not clear what kind of help he needs or what kind exists in this world. Do counselors even exist in this world? If a school counselor ever showed up, what species and how terrifying would he/she/they/it be? (This is Gunnerkrigg. An entity that can only be correctly referred to as "It" is a very real possibility. Like Antimony said, everyone's afraid of clowns. . . .)

As a metaphor, the cage raises his problems to a new level.

But, is it a metaphor? I've been accepting Tony as damaged or lacking basic skills or related, normal problems. What if there's more to it than that? What if some part of him is literally in a cage inside his own mind?

It's probably a metaphor insofar as we are aware, but it may well be literal. But it's a moot point.
Think of the ether; is there any real distinction between a ghost that's the amalgamation of ether with the mind, knowledge, appearance and personality of someone versus their actual spirit?

Regardless, we probably won't get a story arc with Tony's mind literally being freed. He has his problems; he's trying his best, still failing, but he can't escape them with a magical adventure. I imagine he will reconcile with Annie, but he isn't a character who exists to have his problems fixed.

[DaFlipp]

I just finished a re-read of those chapters, and man... I really have to hand it to Tom Siddell for making us empathize with Antimony during those chapters and feel her disorientation and pain.

Because the crazy thing is, on the surface? His behavior doesn't seem *that* out of line! (Stop angry-typing, this isn't a he's-not-so-bad post, keep reading.) After all, what exactly are those "non-stop emotional kidney- and throat-punches" that he delivers upon his return?

1.) He shows up without advance notice. (Rude, perhaps, but understandable given that, as we find out, he was actually shanghaied into his return by the Court.)
2.) He coldly and insultingly tells Antimony to wash off her makeup. (Unnecessarily cruel, and in my opinion the most "abusive" thing on this list due to the fact he does it in front of her classmates, but on its face not exactly life-altering.)
3.) He tells her to stop going to the forest. (Given the severe dangers of the forest, this is not an unreasonable command from a parent, and furthermore is implied to have been an order from the Court.)
4.) He demands she transfer Reynard to him. (Reynard murdered a man in an attempt to woo his wife; it is easy to see why he wouldn't want him near his daughter, too.)
5.) He held her back a year to make up for cheating off Kat. (This... is kinda on Annie, honestly, and as was later revealed, the Court was planning to use her cheating as an excuse to kick her out if Tony didn't come back; this was clearly his way to try to remove that particular bit of leverage the Court had over his daughter.)
6.) He arranged for Antimony to live with him again. (Given the dangers she'd been trucking with and her own academic misdemeanors, this is pretty reasonable too.)

Now. Like I said, all of these *could* be seen as reasonable (though #2 is hard to spin as anything but needlessly cruel). But typing that list was actually super damn hard for me, because the comic does just a brilliant job of showing how these "little" things actually land on Antimony's psyche, and how - taken together (and coupled with his neglect from beforehand) it adds up to the portrait of a father so cold, so imperious, that he's one of the most viscerally hate-able fictional dads this side of you-know-who-I'm-thinking-of,-worst-dad-ever from Fullmetal Alchemist.

So yeah, with that in mind, I'm curious where this goes. I think this is going to go a long way toward explaining Tony's terrible fatherhood, but not toward excusing it.

[BRC]

I mean, it sounds like Tony is a man incapable of being a good father.

Like, he certainly has many moral failings in how he treats Antimony. There are certainly a lot of things he could have done BETTER, considering he is fully aware that he is unable to emotionally connect with her. Like, all things considered, sending her to live at the Court is probably the best thing he could have done for her.

And until his return to the school, it seems like he wasn't abusive so much as distant and negligent. Which isn't great.

It sounds like holding Antimony back a year was the Court's idea, rather than Tony's/ https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1559.

Like, I want to examine his return from this new perspective, plus what he said to Donny in the link above.

He accepted the Court's deal to return and work for them to protect her <- Good move Tony.

He chose not to tell her he was back. He decided that the first she would hear about him would be when she saw him in the classroom. And his argument of "I can't be normal around multiple people/ my daughter" doesn't apply here, this was a decision that he made, not a social interaction. He could have gotten word to Annie through any number of means. <- Bad Move Tony.

Publicly Humilates Her. Once again, this isn't fully covered by his "Mind closes off" explanation for how his brain works. That covers him being awkward and unable to express himself around people, but there's a difference between your mind closing off, and publicly shaming your daughter for wearing makeup.
Like, had he just treated her like any other student, in his usual cold and indifferent manner, that wouldn't have been GREAT. But, as we know things now, it certainly seems like some part of him wanted to punish her. <- REAL Bad Move, Tony.


"You can't go back to the Forest" might have been the Court's idea. Might have been him being protective. Gonna call that one a Wash.

"Give me Renardyne" Once again, might have been the Court's idea, might have been him trying to be protective. I suppose he wouldn't have known about Annie and Reynard's relationship, but still, gonna ding him for that one, at least for not checking in with the Donlans.

[Squire Doodad]

"Give me Renardyne" Once again, might have been the Court's idea, might have been him trying to be protective. I suppose he wouldn't have known about Annie and Reynard's relationship, but still, gonna ding him for that one, at least for not checking in with the Donlans.

I mean, imagine you're 20 and you find out someone murdered your co-worker and used his mangled corpse to propose to your lover.
20 years later, you find out he's on parole and "reformed", and is your daughter's next-door neighbor.
He might be legitimately a better person, but until you can prove it to yourself that he's safe, it's still a terrifying prospect.

The Donlans know Rey is sincere and is being a defacto father figure for Annie, but it is more than reasonable for anyone who hadn't been able to spend time with Rey to make sure he was away from Annie as a gut instinct. It might not have been right in context and maybe Tony should have given him back once he found out how Rey had been acting, but the initial action is justified.

===
Not telling Annie he had returned makes a surprising amount of sense given how he must be feeling. Tony talks a lot about deeply regretting his actions while he was out in the Scam Spirit area, and I doubt he wanted to so much as look at Annie out of horror at what he'd done even if there wasn't a scratch on her face. He may well have resolved to send a message to her by way of telling Anja or something but couldn't bring himself to it. He had just been through a series of traumatizing experiences; that's enough to shatter the courage of any person.

I imagine if we saw his full return to the court from Tony's perspective, he'd have spent full days tearing himself apart over whether he should talk to Annie.

===

The makeup thing is a horrible thing to do, there's no realistic justification.

[Ialdabaoth]

I'm pretty sure the make-up thing is because Annie with her make-up on reminds him too much of his wife, and the emotions don't let him think reasonably about how he's affecting the actual person in front of him.

[lord_khaine]

I'm pretty sure the make-up thing is because Annie with her make-up on reminds him too much of his wife, and the emotions don't let him think reasonably about how he's affecting the actual person in front of him.

He straight up confess thats the cause.

[Typewriter]

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Glad to hear Annie say all this. She gets it but she knows that it doesn't make it all OK. It's a good mindset for someone to have I feel.

Also if we were closer to the end of this thread I'd suggest "Gunnerkrigg Court 9: Not Excused, Just Explained" as a thread title.

[137beth]

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Glad to hear Annie say all this. She gets it but she knows that it doesn't make it all OK. It's a good mindset for someone to have I feel.

Also if we were closer to the end of this thread I'd suggest "Gunnerkrigg Court 9: Not Excused, Just Explained" as a thread title.

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This is definitely more growth than Annie has shown in quite a long time, if ever.

[wingnutx]

Also if we were closer to the end of this thread I'd suggest

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Gunnerkrigg Court 9: Not Excused, Just Explained

as a thread title.

That's a good one.

[Squire Doodad]

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This is definitely more growth than Annie has shown in quite a long time, if ever.

I think there's some turn of phrase about how you can't grow as a person until you've seen who you are as a person, and now she's had to chance to do so quite literally.