Gunnerkrigg Court 8: Thrown for a Loup

[Ibrinar]

One comment pointed something out that made me wonder

What’s weird here is that Annie is just flat-out wrong. We’ve only seen a few characters “hate” her father. Some like him (Kat), and some, just like Annie, know about his limitations while disapproving of his conduct (Donnie). Why is the narrative treating this monologue like it’s somehow wise? “Screw what the haters say about how my father neglects me” isn’t personal growth. It’s maladaptive and sad.

The first part I mean not the second, I will wait judging what the narrative is saying until after the relevant parts are over.
Not counting the flashback i can't remember all that many characters hating him.

Eglamore hates him

Jones doesn't have strong emotions to most people.

Kat was quickly converted to a Tony fan.

Kat's parents are friendly with him iirc.

Many characters just have little to do with him

I can't quite remember what wolf guy thinks of him.

So is he actually hated? (I mean he might still be by of screen people but is he by the cast?)

[Kornaki]

For example, he's hated by the entire audience. She's just breaking the fourth wall a little bit here.

[Ibrinar]

I hope we get something more about tha two Annies just getting merged beside endless Tony talk.

[Waxpapers]

This whole chapter just feels like Tom's gotten so annoyed at the fact that he can't convince the readers that the child abuser is actually a decent guy that he's put the whole story on pause so characters can directly address the audience to tell us that we're wrong. Complete with Eglamore standing in as the voice of the readers to (badly) argue that Tony continues to be a terrible father, with Idra stepping in as the author mouthpiece to tell us that we're stupid for thinking that it's possible for abandoning your child and returning to your child's life without warning and proceeding to be abusive to them to both be bad things. And he wants to have Tony be redeemed without having the character go through any sort of redemption process involving acknowledging that he's done (and continues to do!) bad things and trying to right his wrongs. All the characters (including Annie) just spontaneously agree that Tony has brain problems and therefore deserves love despite all the ways he's hurt Annie (even though the purported brain problems don't actually explain the abuse). The story is looking directly at the reader and saying "the proper response to a parent abusing their child is for the child to unconditionally love their parent and forgive the abuse without any effort on the parent's part, and if you think that said parent doesn't deserve to control their child's life or that the child should be removed from the parent to protect them you are wrong".

It's easily the worst chapter of the comic, ever, and it's made worse by the fact that the dumb message is being conveyed so artlessly and boringly, spread out over (at this point) two and a half months of comics, most of which are just text dumps clearly addressed directly at the audience. It's bad storytelling trying to force the reader to agree with characterization that doesn't match what we've been shown, with the narrative of the comic trying to reframe abuse that we saw as "oh Tony is just bad in social situations with more than one person", and telling us that the reason both we and the characters see Tony as a bad person is irrational dislike due to him being antisocial, rather than because he's repeatedly been shown to be a genuinely bad parent.

[Squire Doodad]

I suspect within the next few pages we're supposed to see Tony actually struggle and try to make change on his end and try to begin his redemption arc.
As in, it may well be all kindling for his redemption arc, but it looks a lot like a half-baked "arc by itself."

I hope we get something more about tha two Annies just getting merged beside endless Tony talk.

I agree, this should have been 3 chapters from now.

[Max_Killjoy]

This whole chapter just feels like Tom's gotten so annoyed at the fact that he can't convince the readers that the child abuser is actually a decent guy that he's put the whole story on pause so characters can directly address the audience to tell us that we're wrong. Complete with Eglamore standing in as the voice of the readers to (badly) argue that Tony continues to be a terrible father, with Idra stepping in as the author mouthpiece to tell us that we're stupid for thinking that it's possible for abandoning your child and returning to your child's life without warning and proceeding to be abusive to them to both be bad things. And he wants to have Tony be redeemed without having the character go through any sort of redemption process involving acknowledging that he's done (and continues to do!) bad things and trying to right his wrongs. All the characters (including Annie) just spontaneously agree that Tony has brain problems and therefore deserves love despite all the ways he's hurt Annie (even though the purported brain problems don't actually explain the abuse). The story is looking directly at the reader and saying "the proper response to a parent abusing their child is for the child to unconditionally love their parent and forgive the abuse without any effort on the parent's part, and if you think that said parent doesn't deserve to control their child's life or that the child should be removed from the parent to protect them you are wrong".

It's easily the worst chapter of the comic, ever, and it's made worse by the fact that the dumb message is being conveyed so artlessly and boringly, spread out over (at this point) two and a half months of comics, most of which are just text dumps clearly addressed directly at the audience. It's bad storytelling trying to force the reader to agree with characterization that doesn't match what we've been shown, with the narrative of the comic trying to reframe abuse that we saw as "oh Tony is just bad in social situations with more than one person", and telling us that the reason both we and the characters see Tony as a bad person is irrational dislike due to him being antisocial, rather than because he's repeatedly been shown to be a genuinely bad parent.

When Tony first returned, I posted some stuff about him being a horrible abusive father in the comments under the comic... and those posts were deleted.

[BRC]

This whole chapter just feels like Tom's gotten so annoyed at the fact that he can't convince the readers that the child abuser is actually a decent guy that he's put the whole story on pause so characters can directly address the audience to tell us that we're wrong. Complete with Eglamore standing in as the voice of the readers to (badly) argue that Tony continues to be a terrible father, with Idra stepping in as the author mouthpiece to tell us that we're stupid for thinking that it's possible for abandoning your child and returning to your child's life without warning and proceeding to be abusive to them to both be bad things. And he wants to have Tony be redeemed without having the character go through any sort of redemption process involving acknowledging that he's done (and continues to do!) bad things and trying to right his wrongs. All the characters (including Annie) just spontaneously agree that Tony has brain problems and therefore deserves love despite all the ways he's hurt Annie (even though the purported brain problems don't actually explain the abuse). The story is looking directly at the reader and saying "the proper response to a parent abusing their child is for the child to unconditionally love their parent and forgive the abuse without any effort on the parent's part, and if you think that said parent doesn't deserve to control their child's life or that the child should be removed from the parent to protect them you are wrong".

It's easily the worst chapter of the comic, ever, and it's made worse by the fact that the dumb message is being conveyed so artlessly and boringly, spread out over (at this point) two and a half months of comics, most of which are just text dumps clearly addressed directly at the audience. It's bad storytelling trying to force the reader to agree with characterization that doesn't match what we've been shown, with the narrative of the comic trying to reframe abuse that we saw as "oh Tony is just bad in social situations with more than one person", and telling us that the reason both we and the characters see Tony as a bad person is irrational dislike due to him being antisocial, rather than because he's repeatedly been shown to be a genuinely bad parent.

I feel like Tom ALMOST had Tony's character work, but he went a bit too far in a few places.


Like, at the core, and I think the way Tom WANTS us to see Tony is this: A man whose psychological issues prevent him from showing emotion or affection when speaking to more than one person, and those same issues make it difficult for him to act normal around his daughter.

And I think this could work if Tony was JUST Cold and Distant with Annie. We could get this bit where Annie says "I realize now that it's not because he hates me, that's just as close as he can possibly get to actually being affectionate with me", and get us to this state where they genuinely care for each other, but can't really express it.

EXCEPT that there are a few on-screen moments where Tony's "Issues" Go beyond "Unable to express himself emotionally" into "Coldhearted and deliberate emotional abuse". The Comic/Tony wants us to believe that such incidents are just, like, an extension of his Social Awkwardness, which just seems like the Cold Emotion equivalent of "He's not a bad person, he just occasionally flies into uncontrolled violent rages! He can't help it!".


I think you could even hit a lot of the same story beats, just by having Tony be cold, and having Annie react to that coldness, without having Tony ever take deliberate action to hurt or humiliate his daughter.

He can just show up without little warning, with a blunt letter that says "Hello, I am returning The Court, I will be your new teacher and you will be living with me".
Their first meeting in years can be him saying in private that "I understand you've been cheating off Katarina, you're going to need to do make-up work. Please transfer control of Reynardine to me".

And Annie can be, rightfully, emotionally DEVASTATED by these actions, but she could come to forgive him once she came to understand him, and all that could be explained away by an inability to express himself around his daughter. Unable to properly speak, he just makes cold, blunt statements that carry across the core things he wants to communicate, with any sense of tenderness or affection stripped out. That's the behavior of a man locked down by his own mind.

But there have been too many moments where Tony's actions only really make sense in the context of him being deliberately malicious, trying to hurt Annie, which doesn't make sense if he's truely just Unable To Express Himself.

[Waxpapers]

But there have been too many moments where Tony's actions only really make sense in the context of him being deliberately malicious, trying to hurt Annie, which doesn't make sense if he's truely just Unable To Express Himself.

This is a big part of what people are objecting to, yeah. Tom wants us to read Tony as a character trying to atone but all that's conveyed to the reader is that he's gone from being a slightly vicious and malevolent ass to just being an utterly neglectful ass. And it backfires, because when other characters who were previously characterized as being caring and intelligent all turn to the camera and agree that Tony is in the right and Annie is fine for deciding to love him no matter what, we're not convinced to agree with those characters. We instead see them as uncaring or (in the case of Annie) mentally unhealthy, because they fully acknowledge that Tony is cold, callous, not infrequently cruel, and apparently suffering from some kind of mental illness that by his own words prevents him from doing the things a parent needs to do, but don't see that as something worth doing anything about or even really objecting to.

Except Eglamore, who remains the lone voice of reason. But he's deliberately written as wrong, with the narrative all but telling us that we're supposed to see him as an idiot blinded by jealousy.

[Typewriter]

I find it very odd that people acknowledge Tony's mental problems and character flaws but then try to debate the 'proper' ways the character could have handled his mental issues and character flaws so that he would have been more likable. Isn't the entire premise of those issues that they can't be handled by the character in a proper way? Isn't Annie acknowledging that her fathers actions aren't OK but she gets them?

I started to write out a personal story/experience because I identify a lot with Tony but with the amount of hatred he gets as a fictional character makes me think that my actual 'real world' mistakes would be seen much harsher. I'll summarize as this - everyone knows Tony has made horrible mistakes, including Tony. You don't have to forgive him to understand him and you don't have to love him just because you understand him.

I have done things that people have thought were cruel and malicious when they were really acts borne out of fear, confusion, and/or a lack of understanding. The text is telling you that this is the situation with Tony. Everyone is free to decide how to respond to that text however they feel is right (you don't have to forgive/love/hate people who cause emotional distress just because they're mentally ill) but I think people who are ignoring that text and deciding that it means something else are trying too hard to rationalize things that are, by definition, irrational.

[Ibrinar]

I am still wondering whether Tom tried that and failed (what BRC described) or not. I mean it kinda reads like he did. But on the not side is that he also choose to make Tony harbor resentment about the fire elemental side of Annie and brought the anger up this chapter so I assume it is deliberately not everything explainable with mind cage. So he shouldn't be thinking the mind cage will recontextualize everything people dislike him for. And if he doesn't he shouldn't be thinking bringing up his inability to communicate again would change everyone's mind about Tony.

I kinda want to see whether a reread would make me think differently of Tony, much is half forgotten by now. But I also don't have the motivation to reread it currently.

[Willie the Duck]

I wonder if the perception would have changed if, instead of just showing him trying more and more to connect with Annie, he actually apologized for (for example) the makeup-humiliation event.

[Thufir]

But there have been too many moments where Tony's actions only really make sense in the context of him being deliberately malicious, trying to hurt Annie, which doesn't make sense if he's truely just Unable To Express Himself.

Have there? I can't think of any. Most of the things he did which devastated Annie were exactly the kind of cold and matter of fact that you suggest he should have been.
The one big exception I can think of is the makeup thing, but while awful, that also had a specific explanation which was not deliberate malice or intent to hurt.

(Of course lack of malicious intent does not excuse what he does. I'm not trying to defend Tony, but I don't see an inconsistency with the portrayal of his character here)

[Typewriter]

I wonder if the perception would have changed if, instead of just showing him trying more and more to connect with Annie, he actually apologized for (for example) the makeup-humiliation event.

I know this isn't an answer that people like, and maybe it's not even a correct answer, but there may be a rather simple one. What if he can't apologize? He is a man who hates himself for killing his wife and for nearly killing his daughter. He knows, and regrets, his actions but he can't control his ability to communicate with people. He can barely verbalize his awareness and regret of his actions when he is with a close friend and intoxicated to the point of passing out.

Tony is a victim of his own mental illness. Him just being able to 'fix' that about himself and work on improving the situation by communicating in a healthy manner completely undermines the premise of the character.

Spoiler: EDIT - Minor Personal Example

Show

For some reason I lose my mind when I get lost. Angry, weepy, psychotic. But here's some interesting bits about that.

1. The level of panic does not change based on the situation. I was once lost in Japan on my way to work, got a flat tire, and couldn't speak the language and the level of panic I was experiencing was identical to the level of panic of me being five minutes away from home with nowhere to be and my GPS stopped working.
2. I don't panic if someone else is with me. Even if they're even more lost than I am. On that same trip to Japan my wife came to visit me and I got lost deep in some mountains I'd never intended to go down and was running out of gas and I was fine the entire time. Slightly nervous, but mostly fine. To be clear - being on the phone with someone does not help (even if they are in a position to give me directions). An ignorant person, even a child, in the car with me makes the stress of the situation non-existent and a person on the phone trying to assist doesn't help me in the slightest.
3. I have talked to therapists about this and it's generally considered to just be some sort of autistic trait of mine - it doesn't seem to have stemmed from anything, and it doesn't translate over to any other situations.

I would assume that you read that and think "that doesn't make any sense" - you would be correct. It doesn't. I have never once been in a situation where being late or slightly lost is worth the amount of emotional turmoil I've experienced with even minor GPS issues. Why is getting lost in a foreign country the same as being lost in my own backyard? Why is isolation is a key factor in my response? I don't know and I can't fix it.

I've made plans on how to fix it but they don't work. My brain stops functioning and I go so far into a fight of flight response that I prioritize finding a place to pull over so that I can just let my panic attack play out because I know I'm in no state to be driving. At no point in these situations do I ever think something bad is going to happen. I don't think I'm going to die, or never find my way home. I'm not even worried about being late most of the time. I can tell you right now that the appropriate response to a situation like this is to not panic, call someone for directions or stop and ask someone. Follow road signs to get to a place where I can figure stuff out. Give my GPS a few minutes to reconnect. I'm calm while thinking about this right now and I understand how easy and simple of a situation it is. My wife has called me for directions when she's been lost and it's no big deal - she doesn't panic and I get her directions. I'm not scared of getting lost because I know that it's not anything worth being scared about.

But I also know that if I were to get lost I'd have to pull over ASAP. I have to avoid touching my GPS/Phone because there's a chance I will break it in my rage. I know that I'll need 5-10 minutes once I've stopped to unwind to a safe and calm place. I know that I'll feel ashamed and stupid once it's over but that I'll still be so tense that I likely won't be able to sleep that night.

There are several ways that my brain doesn't function properly and this is one of them. I cannot control my emotional response to this situation. I have tried. I have sought help. Knowing what I should do does not help me actually do it.

This is how I see Tony. He knows what is right and wrong. He has wants and desires. He is smart and rational. And none of that matters in the face of his mental illness.

[Squire Doodad]

Legitimately underwhelmed and disappointed by not giving this any sort of conclusion and ending the chapter here instead of having a few pages of Tony going "Annie. I need to discuss something with you" with it clearly being him trying to explain his "cage", and then jumping to this guy.

Tom's not giving this arc closure, and not showing the start of it within this chapter seems...meh.

[Willie the Duck]

I know this isn't an answer that people like, and maybe it's not even a correct answer, but there may be a rather simple one. What if he can't apologize? He is a man who hates himself for killing his wife and for nearly killing his daughter. He knows, and regrets, his actions but he can't control his ability to communicate with people. He can barely verbalize his awareness and regret of his actions when he is with a close friend and intoxicated to the point of passing out.

Tony is a victim of his own mental illness. Him just being able to 'fix' that about himself and work on improving the situation by communicating in a healthy manner completely undermines the premise of the character.

I believe that's entirely possible, and if that's the setup Tom decided he needed to explore, then he set himself an incredibly hard row to hoe. I'm more talking about audience reaction. If he could do so, and did, would people be more apt to accept the 'he's damaged, but his daughter understands' arc we are having?

[Typewriter]

I believe that's entirely possible, and if that's the setup Tom decided he needed to explore, then he set himself an incredibly hard row to hoe. I'm more talking about audience reaction. If he could do so, and did, would people be more apt to accept the 'he's damaged, but his daughter understands' arc we are having?

I think it would depend on a lot. Some people would be disappointed, others would be angry because they don't like Tony, but I think most would fall into a category of not caring or accepting it a little bit easier. It's definitely a tricky thing to write about - Tom can't write a page addressing every possible 'what if' that people come up with to try and explain why Tony can't/won't do things that make sense to them but that means that, at a certain point, he has to stop trying to explain Tony and more than he already has and just let people hate him if that's what they're going to do.

I will say that I do agree with people who have said this chapter feels weirdly timed. The 'two Annie's' thing came up suddenly, stuck around for a very long time, and is now just sort of resolved without being addressed. Instead we're getting Tony exposition and setting up the next nefarious chapter of the school. It's... weird. What strikes me as especially odd is how erratic the motions in Annie's story have felt at times but Kat, who has had an equally wild and bumpy story, feels more natural because of her nature as the secondary character. She's not in the spotlight as much as Annie so when she pops up and says, "I had character development and my situation has changed" it's easier to accept. You just sort of assume it makes sense in the background. With Annie we see everything that happens to her and it really highlights when something is off.

[Waxpapers]

I find it very odd that people acknowledge Tony's mental problems and character flaws but then try to debate the 'proper' ways the character could have handled his mental issues and character flaws so that he would have been more likable. Isn't the entire premise of those issues that they can't be handled by the character in a proper way? Isn't Annie acknowledging that her fathers actions aren't OK but she gets them?

I'm not talking about things Tony should have done differently, I'm talking about things the narrative should have done differently. Tom clearly wants to get the readers to see Tony as sympathetic and Annie's decision as correct, and he's failing to do so. The problem is that the framing narrative puts the onus of dealing with Tony's issues on Annie, making it the job of an abused child to not just tolerate their parents, but to continue loving and supporting them. And while Annie says that Tony's issues explain but don't excuse his conduct, the actions and expressed attitude of Annie and all the adults in the comic show that they areexcusing Tony- they acknowledge he's done bad things, and that he continues to be a bad parent, but they're not going to do anything about it and Annie is going to continue loving Tony unconditionally even when he doesn't reciprocate.

Maybe Tony is so far gone that he literally can't apologize, can't treat his daughter like a human being, can't be caring or loving to Annie. But in that case, Tony is incapable of being a good parent, and the narrative should acknowledge that! Instead, all the characters around Tony continue to act like he's a bit abrasive but basically hasn't done anything wrong, and nobody except Eglamore (who the narrative clearly portrays as wrong) suggests that Annie would be better off if she was removed from Tony's care. Which, to be clear, if Tony genuinely was as messed up as you're saying, she should be. The fact that Tony is the victim of a mental illness does not mean his daughter should be obligated to deal with the fallout. But that's what the narrative is telling us, and that's what readers are objecting to.

[Typewriter]

Maybe Tony is so far gone that he literally can't apologize, can't treat his daughter like a human being, can't be caring or loving to Annie. But in that case, Tony is incapable of being a good parent, and the narrative should acknowledge that! Instead, all the characters around Tony continue to act like he's a bit abrasive but basically hasn't done anything wrong, and nobody except Eglamore (who the narrative clearly portrays as wrong) suggests that Annie would be better off if she was removed from Tony's care. Which, to be clear, if Tony genuinely was as messed up as you're saying, she should be. The fact that Tony is the victim of a mental illness does not mean his daughter should be obligated to deal with the fallout. But that's what the narrative is telling us, and that's what readers are objecting to.

Plenty of families have one or more members that are unable to express emotions in healthy ways due to mental illness but that doesn't mean that their family is required to cut them out. It's a choice some make and I'm not passing judgement on that, I'm just saying that you're not complaining about Annie being obligated to do anything - you're complaining that she's making choices you don't agree with.

[Waxpapers]

Plenty of families have one or more members that are unable to express emotions in healthy ways due to mental illness but that doesn't mean that their family is required to cut them out. It's a choice some make and I'm not passing judgement on that, I'm just saying that you're not complaining about Annie being obligated to do anything - you're complaining that she's making choices you don't agree with.

First of all, no, actually, you don't get to tell me why I think things about a media work, unless you put in the work of actually examining the things I wrote to show how somehow I'm arguing for something I don't believe. Again, the problem isn't the choices Annie makes- characters are allowed to make questionable choices!- the problem is the way the narrative frames those choices. When the narrative says that Annie is correct to continue loving someone incapable of returning her feelings, and says that other adults are correct to not care about how Tony abused Annie, and that the one adult who is concerned about obviously bad behavior is only upset because he's jealous, and in fact the things that happened to Annie are her own fault for behaving like the protagonist of a fantasy series, and also the clear abuse we were shown was actually just Tony being a good father and making Annie do work, it is making a statement about how relationships between parents and children should work- "He's a weirdo, right? [...] but a young lass like annie, it's good to have her old man around". And in fact, people who continue to point out the bad things parents do should be ignored. And furthermore, having the attitude that you need to love your parents unconditionally even if they're abusive to you is mentally healthy. The story around the choices characters make makes an argument of its own, and readers are rightly pointing out that that argument is bull, along with the way the story keeps trying to reframe past events and actions.

And second, you realize there's a difference between choosing not to completely cut someone off and treating an abuser who is (in your words) unable to be a good parent as if they've done nothing wrong, right? Like, there are options other than everyone pretending Tony is a fully capable father despite every indication that he will continue to be uncaring and emotionally unavailable while capriciously making decisions about Annie's life. Annie does not exactly lack for alternative parental figures.

[Max_Killjoy]

Legitimately underwhelmed and disappointed by not giving this any sort of conclusion and ending the chapter here instead of having a few pages of Tony going "Annie. I need to discuss something with you" with it clearly being him trying to explain his "cage", and then jumping to this guy.

Tom's not giving this arc closure, and not showing the start of it within this chapter seems...meh.

He didn't really give the two-Annies arc closure, he just ended it out of nowhere.

[Typewriter]

First of all, no, actually, you don't get to tell me why I think things about a media work, unless you put in the work of actually examining the things I wrote to show how somehow I'm arguing for something I don't believe.

My intention is not to put words into your mouth - I'm simply stating how you're coming across. You seem to be upset that characters in this work of fiction don't share the same opinion as you and are blaming the narrative for failing to convince that your interpretation is wrong. You're defining who the characters are, then complaining that the characters aren't acting the way you want them to. When something gets shown or explained that adds nuance or complexity you ignore it because it doesn't fit in with what you've already decided is unjustifiable abuse.

Again, the problem isn't the choices Annie makes- characters are allowed to make questionable choices!- the problem is the way the narrative frames those choices. When the narrative says that Annie is correct to continue loving someone incapable of returning her feelings, and says that other adults are correct to not care about how Tony abused Annie, and that the one adult who is concerned about obviously bad behavior is only upset because he's jealous, and in fact the things that happened to Annie are her own fault for behaving like the protagonist of a fantasy series

The situation is complex and characters are disagreeing with each other over it. That's my takeaway from this. I mean, hell, Anja looks uncomfortable agreeing to the blame being placed on Annie and in the following comic she essentially states that the blame being placed on Annie is stronger than it should be. You have four people five people having a conversation but because 2 of them disagree with your stance your take away is that the comic is trying to force a stance.

, and also the clear abuse we were shown was actually just Tony being a good father and making Annie do work,]

Which part is the 'clear abuse'? The comic you linked to is talking about homework and everyone acting like Annie should be doing homework. What other abuse is being justified here?

it is making a statement about how relationships between parents and children should work- "He's a weirdo, right? [...] but a young lass like annie, it's good to have her old man around".

What point are you trying to make? One character is sitting there arguing that point and they're being portrayed as an outsider who comes from a community that lives differently than the court.

And in fact, people who continue to point out the bad things parents do should be ignored.

What? Again - I honestly don't understand what you're taking away from this. Annie understands that not everybody understands her father but she's done letting that bother her. Why is this a bad thing?

And furthermore, having the attitude that you need to love your parents unconditionally even if they're abusive to you is mentally healthy.

Again - I feel like that's a strange takeaway. Annie has come to peace with the situation with her father. She's not ignoring the problems, she's not forgiving him. She's simply at a place where she accepts and understands. She loves him despite his flaws, despite his mistakes. She wont judge him for the things he can't control.

The story around the choices characters make makes an argument of its own, and readers are rightly pointing out that that argument is bull, along with the way the story keeps trying to reframe past events and actions.

But you're not arguing against the content of the comic - you're making up wild claims about what it means then ignoring the story the comic is telling you because you've already decided what it all means. The comic shows you something bad and then comes back later and says, "Here's more information that explains why it's not black and white," but you don't seem to care and you are actively arguing against the characters caring about that additional nuance/complexity.

And second, you realize there's a difference between choosing not to completely cut someone off and treating an abuser who is (in your words) unable to be a good parent as if they've done nothing wrong, right? Like, there are options other than everyone pretending Tony is a fully capable father despite every indication that he will continue to be uncaring and emotionally unavailable while capriciously making decisions about Annie's life.

Nobody is giving Tony a pass. Not even Annie. She knows that he's made mistakes and done things wrong but she has also come to understand that it's not entirely within his control. "It doesn't excuse it. Just explains it." The situation is complex. It's not good, it's not bad, it's not full of abuse, it's not about forgiveness - it's just complex and nuanced.

Also, when did I say Tony was unable to be a good parent? Maybe I did and I'm not remembering/seeing it? I know I said that he can't completely control his response to situations and that he may be unable to bring himself to apologize for his mistakes but I don't personally think that means he can't be a good parent. Hell, that being said I think Tony thinks he can't be a good parent. As I recall he thinks Annie would be better off without him but he basically had to return to keep her from getting kicked out of the school.

Annie does not exactly lack for alternative parental figures.

Doesn't she? She has older people she looks up to but nobody that she's ever respected enough to listen to. She's done what she's wanted, ignored the rules, and constantly made decisions that were questionable at best. I'm not arguing that the amount of deference she shows towards her father is a good/healthy thing - I'm just saying that she has been lacking the presence of an authority figure that she actually treats as one.

[Squire Doodad]

Doesn't she? She has older people she looks up to but nobody that she's ever respected enough to listen to. She's done what she's wanted, ignored the rules, and constantly made decisions that were questionable at best. I'm not arguing that the amount of deference she shows towards her father is a good/healthy thing - I'm just saying that she has been lacking the presence of an authority figure that she actually treats as one.

She does have/had Reynardine, Coyote, Ysegrin and Jones, but I would argue only Reynard made for a good role model, and in general what you're saying here is pretty accurate.

There's a few others, like the old elf mamma and Muut, but we don't get much screentime of them interacting with Annie. Most of the other adults, good role models or bad, she doesn't pay too much heed to. Elgamore, Anja, etc are all people who she clearly cares about, but their relationship with Annie is different than the one she has with, say, Reynard.

[Murk]

My perspective on the whole Tony-issue is that a lot of readers are - mistakenly - seeing Tony as the topic of interest, rather than Annie.

Like, they are expecting Tony to go through a redemption arc or being judged. They think the narrative is validating Tony, or feel that the narrative (and author) should be criticising Tony.

But the "narrative" doesn't care about Tony all that much. Tony is just a tool for the impact he has on the actual topic of interest: main character Antimony.
It doesn't try to excuse or criticise Tony, because Tony only matters for his impact on Annie. None of the other characters' opinion on Tony matters much either. As you can see, they only ever talk about Tony in the context of how he makes Annie feel.
When Idra "defends" Tony, she's not defending Tony at all - she's defending the fact Annie's life has become better. And when Donald or the classmates "criticise" Tony, they're not criticising Tony at all - they're criticising how Annie's life has become worse.

So, when Annie looks straight into the camera and says that she loves him, this is not a validation of Tony at all.
It's about her. It's all about Antimony. Antimony has found a way to deal with her absent/abusive father that works for her, and that's a victory. Not because it makes Tony OK or whatever, but because Annie has found a way to deal with it.

It's like we have a chapter about Annie buying an umbrella against the rain. Such a chapter would not be "the narrative defending the rain". The narrative doesn't give an opinion about the rain. It just gives us a story about how the actually relevant character deals with the rain.

So the story is not about Tony. Never has been.
It's not validating, defending or redeeming Tony - and it won't be criticising him either. It will only be validating, defending or criticising how Annie deals with him.

When Annie stubbornly kept defending him during his absence, the narrative criticised this.
When Annie literally cut off her emotional spirit part thingy so she didn't have to deal with her feelings about him, the narrative criticised this.
And when Annie found a method to deal with her father in a way that works for her, the narrative defended this.

So when people say this chapter excuses Tony's behaviour, I think they are missing the point - it justifies Annie's behaviour, and the only justification it gives is "it works for her".

And honestly, that's the only justification it needs to give. It works for her.
It might not work for other people (for plenty of children with parents like Tony, staying the heck away from him would be the best solution), but it does work for her.



(Aside from all that, I do think the chapter was long-winded, and the story about a girl dealing with an imperfect father is less interesting to me than monsters, robots and magic - but that's a whole other issue)

[DaFlipp]

I know this isn't an answer that people like, and maybe it's not even a correct answer, but there may be a rather simple one. What if he can't apologize? He is a man who hates himself for killing his wife and for nearly killing his daughter. He knows, and regrets, his actions but he can't control his ability to communicate with people. He can barely verbalize his awareness and regret of his actions when he is with a close friend and intoxicated to the point of passing out.

Tony is a victim of his own mental illness. Him just being able to 'fix' that about himself and work on improving the situation by communicating in a healthy manner completely undermines the premise of the character.

Today's comic seems to validate this theory, that his mind cage (executive dysfunction?) even prevents him from voicing an apology for his behavior.

[wingnutx]

My perspective on the whole Tony-issue is that a lot of readers are - mistakenly - seeing Tony as the topic of interest, rather than Annie.


(Aside from all that, I do think the chapter was long-winded, and the story about a girl dealing with an imperfect father is less interesting to me than monsters, robots and magic - but that's a whole other issue)

I think you are correct.

[Ibrinar]

Not directly related to current part (the long monologue just got me thinking about it) but does anyone else think Gunnerkrigg is kinda average story wise? Thinking back I think I enjoyed it mostly for its ambience and some cool characters. Like coyote is entertaining and has cool art, I think Zimmy is an interesting concept. The art can look really nice and interesting. But story wise I don't think it was particularly impressive. Or maybe I have just forgotten its strong points.

[DaFlipp]

Not directly related to current part (the long monologue just got me thinking about it) but does anyone else think Gunnerkrigg is kinda average story wise? Thinking back I think I enjoyed it mostly for its ambience and some cool characters. Like coyote is entertaining and has cool art, I think Zimmy is an interesting concept. The art can look really nice and interesting. But story wise I don't think it was particularly impressive. Or maybe I have just forgotten its strong points.

I think one of its greatest strengths is portraying seemingly simple concepts in novel ways, whether through art or narrative (generally both).

For an example off the top of my head: The non-reveal of Jones. Most authors would either have a concrete explanation for her in mind, in which case they'd explain it.... or they wouldn't, in which case they'd avoid even getting close to explaining it. But in Jones' big chapter, he somehow manages to combine these options into a fascinating, reverse-chronological narrative that just *keeps going* so much further than you'd expect, to really hammer home her timeless, utterly inexplicable existence.

See also: Coyote. Most trickster gods are portrayed with an emphasis on the "trickster" part of the explanation. I don't think I've ever seen one portrayed with as much, if not more, emphasis on the "god" instead. Because that's what makes Coyote stand out, at least for me - he has all the irreverent prankishness of most portrayals, but back it up with Coyote's raw reality-bending power, and suddenly those "funny" impulses become fraught with danger. And, of course, the visuals associated with that power are some of Tom Siddell's best work.

It's still an ongoing mystery so I can't say for sure he'll stick the landing, but I've also really enjoyed his unique spin on the tired old stereotype of the "super-smart friend who can break the laws of reality with her inventions". Kat's inventions aren't just an easy way to solve the Problem of the Week, they're incredible accomplishments in-universe that, based on the hints we've gotten so far, hold mythic importance in the grand sweep of the story.

[Willie the Duck]

but does anyone else think Gunnerkrigg is kinda average story wise?

Average in the actual meaning, not a subtle critique. It is neither particularly impressive nor particularly bad. I will say that there's a subtle mystery about what the court is, how nefarious it actually is, what its goals are, and how it relates to entities like Coyote, the teachers, and so forth that has been strung along this whole time that leaves me completely uninterested. That part of the story falls flat for me.

I'm trying to remember if any webcomic I've read has really wowed me on the story. That doesn't seem to be their forte.

[slayerx]

I find it very odd that people acknowledge Tony's mental problems and character flaws but then try to debate the 'proper' ways the character could have handled his mental issues and character flaws so that he would have been more likable. Isn't the entire premise of those issues that they can't be handled by the character in a proper way? Isn't Annie acknowledging that her fathers actions aren't OK but she gets them?

This is an issue of "idea vs execution". An author could come up with a good idea for a story, but whether or not that Idea works as intended is based on how well the execute it. The IDEA of Tony's mental problems is fine but the execution that was flawed

The idea was that Tony has mental issues that make it difficult for him to express his true feelings to others which leads to him inadvertently hurting people who do not understand his intentions and feelings; including Annie. The problem as BRC points out is that Tom went too far with some of Tony's actions which made him seem too abusive; sometimes Tony's mental issues did not explain what he was doing to Anne. He gave a perfect explanation how Tony could have behaved that would have made his actions make more sense in retrospect and be more forgivable while STILL being seemingly cold and emotionally impactful for Annie at the time those actions took place. His mental issues would not stop him from sending a very simple non-emotional message, it would not explain why his first meeting with Anne was in the classroom. Heck it also does not explain why he does not tell annie WHY he's talking certain actions against her(Tony: "The forest is dangeorus you will not be going back", Annie: "But-", Tony: "no."). Without giving an explanation for the things he does to Annie is just makes his actions seem MORE punishing like he's just trying to take away the things she enjoys... Hecking thinking about it, its kind of a missed opportunity to not highlight that there are somethings that Tony and Eglamore would agree on when it comes to Annie. Drawing a comparison between Tony and Eglamore could help show that Tony was actually of the same mind as him, he just expressed it colder way that seemed indifferent

Annie SAYS that Tony's mental issues don't excuse his behavior and only explains it but the story and Annie ARE excusing his behavior. I mean that line is meant to explain why certain problems exist so that we can fix those problems, not accept them. Like trying to find out why a criminals might commit a crime so that you can make changes that will prevent future crimes; the criminals are still punished for their actions and are not easily forgiven since the explanation did not excuse their behavior. If however Annie feels that she will accept her father the way he is, then she IS excusing him for his behavior, and forgiving the way he acts. If annie did not think his mental issues excuse his behavior then she would not accept his behavior even if it was a result of his mental issues. I feel like the narrative wanted to have its cake and eat it too

As BRC said, its a storyline that ALMOST works. It fell hard at the first hurdle and tried to make up for it the rest of the race, but readings can't ignore the broken leg its limping on.

[Rodin]

She does have/had Reynardine, Coyote, Ysegrin and Jones, but I would argue only Reynard made for a good role model, and in general what you're saying here is pretty accurate.

There's a few others, like the old elf mamma and Muut, but we don't get much screentime of them interacting with Annie. Most of the other adults, good role models or bad, she doesn't pay too much heed to. Elgamore, Anja, etc are all people who she clearly cares about, but their relationship with Annie is different than the one she has with, say, Reynard.

Reynardine would make a good father figure except he has no power to be one. We see him try to take Annie to task for cheating, but he's owned by her and she's able to order him to drop it. Part of the shock Annie had on her father's return came from a figure of authority suddenly appearing in her life after she'd been skirting or outright ignoring the rules the whole time she was at school.

On the Tony thing...all I can say is I disagree with everyone saying the story excuses his actions. It shows a broken man who very nearly destroyed his relationship with his daughter because he can't stop grieving for his dead wife and blames said daughter on a deep level even he doesn't truly understand. I likw him as a character who's done terrible things for complex reasons while not being a fundamentally bad person. He's a far more interesting character than someone like Loup or even Coyote.