Gunnerkrigg Court 8: Thrown for a Loup

[eee]

It looks like they're fusing together. "Disaster" is not a big enough word to describe this.

[Ionathus]

I'm having trouble parsing what exactly is happening on this page. I assume that's intentional?

[tyckspoon]

I'm having trouble parsing what exactly is happening on this page. I assume that's intentional?

Yeah, I think this one is meant to be disorienting and unsettling. Coyote and Loup are fighting and that snarling mass of anger is falling on top of Zimmy, Zimmy is.. Reacting. And we know weird and disturbing things happen when Zimmy is experiencing fear, so probably the next few pages are a scene-shift into another Zimmy Nightmare World?

[Rodin]

Yeah, I think this one is meant to be disorienting and unsettling. Coyote and Loup are fighting and that snarling mass of anger is falling on top of Zimmy, Zimmy is.. Reacting. And we know weird and disturbing things happen when Zimmy is experiencing fear, so probably the next few pages are a scene-shift into another Zimmy Nightmare World?

That's what I'm expecting. Zimmy Nightmare World with added Coyote and a steadily de-Louping Ysengrin.

[halfeye]

What I think is happening on this page is that Coyote and Loup are fighting, and somehow Zimmy is collecting some of their teeth. I don't know exactly what that means, but presumably Zimmy gets stronger?

[WanderingMist]

I'm...I'm starting to suspect that Zimmy's prediction isn't Kat stabbing her, but rather Annie who is trying to stop the Loup/Coyote fight with Coyote's tooth.

[Pax1138]

So they have chosen the Akira ending.

[wingnutx]

So they have chosen the Akira ending.

Damn, beat me to it!

[eee]

The Court is becoming Zimmy's nightmare world. What did we call that, Zimmingham?

I wonder if she'll get all the Star Ocean folks, too.

[WanderingMist]

I don't remember Zimmy's nightmare world being this beautiful.

[eee]

It confused me, why Annie would be suspicious of Renard. Then I remembered the Nobodies. And the one who looked like Kat.

I don't remember Zimmy's nightmare world being this beautiful.

Evidently adding Coyote and Loup to the mix has changed things.

[WanderingMist]

Holy...Kat didn't just make bodies, she created souls.

[Spacewolf]

I get the feeling at some point the POV will pull back and show the two lights Coyote saw are both dwarfed by Kats and he just didn't notice it because he was completely engulfed in it. Probably followed by coyote actually panicking for the first time.

[137beth]

So Coyote couldn't sense Kat in the ether, but Zimmy can see Kat. So can a merged Coyote and Zimmy detect Kat?

[WanderingMist]

My first instinct when trying to figure out the riddle is "a loop". but maybe it's actually "a lockpick" or "a hairpin".

[Spacewolf]

My guess would be a lie, looking at Annie seems like it's going to be either coyoteish or stupid though.

[eee]

Meanie!!

I hope we get the answer eventually.

[Beelzebub1111]

Knowing Coyote, it didn't have an answer anyway.

[137beth]

Much like the goose story, the answer is "Kick an apparition of Coyote when he asks you a riddle and you are trapped in a Zimmy/Coyote hybrid world."

[Typewriter]

I feel like I have no idea what the hell is going on and, as a result, have no connection to the story right now. Coyote came back (permanently?) and fought with Loup (who still existed even though Coyote left him?), then the world went funky, and now Ysengrin is back (or is it just an effect of etheric chaos?).

I've said this before but I really feel like the plot has been completely incoherent ever since Loup first appeared. The story just seems to jump from beat to beat with such random abandon that I can never tell when something is happening in a significant manner or if it's just intended to be a blip in the overall story. Coyote appearing just sort of... happened at the end of chapter 89 and now we're on page 26 of chapter 91 and it all feels completely disjointed to me. Am I crazy or does anyone else feel equally lost?

[Ionathus]

I feel like I have no idea what the hell is going on and, as a result, have no connection to the story right now. Coyote came back (permanently?) and fought with Loup (who still existed even though Coyote left him?), then the world went funky, and now Ysengrin is back (or is it just an effect of etheric chaos?).

I've said this before but I really feel like the plot has been completely incoherent ever since Loup first appeared. The story just seems to jump from beat to beat with such random abandon that I can never tell when something is happening in a significant manner or if it's just intended to be a blip in the overall story. Coyote appearing just sort of... happened at the end of chapter 89 and now we're on page 26 of chapter 91 and it all feels completely disjointed to me. Am I crazy or does anyone else feel equally lost?

Yes, I feel pretty disconnected from GC right now too.

I suspect the major reason for this is that we seem to be approaching the endgame, and it's a lot harder to pay off mysteries than it is to set them up.

Coyote's death was a massive shock to the system for the world of this comic: it was a big, crazy shakeup that didn't just change the character dynamics, it changed the world's threat levels and the degree to which its most powerful being was willing to drive events. Coyote was content to sit and observe events for the most part, maybe manipulate a few things behind the scenes (Ysengrin's memories, the tooth and lake water and goose bone, killing the Tick Tock), but Loup's first act as a character was directly attacking The Court. And that single action has overshadowed everything since -- putting them all in evacuation mode, turning off the robots, accelerating the Court's plan to escape. If the comic feels disjointed and screwy right now to you that's natural, because the world is also disjointed and screwy.

Of course, that isn't an excuse for pacing. But I'm just not surprised that a comic that started out as, essentially, a low-stakes magic-school plot with slow-burn mysteries sprinkled in isn't currently at its best while trying to tackle large-scale powerful threats and end-of-the-world style crises.

I'm along for the long haul here, but yeah this arc is definitely going to benefit from being available in archive form, where you can blow through all of these half-action pages really quickly and maintain a bit better sense of pacing and urgency.

[Rodin]

I'm along for the long haul here, but yeah this arc is definitely going to benefit from being available in archive form, where you can blow through all of these half-action pages really quickly and maintain a bit better sense of pacing and urgency.

This is where I'm viewing it from. The only trouble right now is the pacing, and that's because slowly investigating a mystery world is hard to show in a three-times-a-week comic. These chapters are going to pay off well once we're through them.

Storywise I found a lot of the Loup stuff disjointed, but I always knew that Coyote was coming back. That made his surprise reappearance a payoff rather than a random "wait what?", and I was pumped to see that I was right. Coyote being completely thrown by an outside force he didn't expect has been a delight as well. Recent developments since Loup fell in love has been the best GC has been for a long while.

[Typewriter]

Storywise I found a lot of the Loup stuff disjointed, but I always knew that Coyote was coming back. That made his surprise reappearance a payoff rather than a random "wait what?", and I was pumped to see that I was right. Coyote being completely thrown by an outside force he didn't expect has been a delight as well. Recent developments since Loup fell in love has been the best GC has been for a long while.

I think part of what has made it hard for me to enjoy his return is a lack of clarity regarding whether that's what this is. My thought when he showed back up was that it was a memory of him showing up or something - that it was simply Loups 'conscience' (for lack of a better word) appearing to cause anarchy. This was reinforced by the fact that Loup was still around. Two chapters later that's not really been addressed and now Ys has appeared and it's still not being addressed. Is that really Ys or is that a shadow/memory/whatever?

[Rodin]

I think part of what has made it hard for me to enjoy his return is a lack of clarity regarding whether that's what this is. My thought when he showed back up was that it was a memory of him showing up or something - that it was simply Loups 'conscience' (for lack of a better word) appearing to cause anarchy. This was reinforced by the fact that Loup was still around. Two chapters later that's not really been addressed and now Ys has appeared and it's still not being addressed. Is that really Ys or is that a shadow/memory/whatever?

Is Loup still around though? When he attacks Coyote, he's looking awfully like Ysengrin. He still has some of the Loup markings around his eyes, but the rest of how he looks is basically Ysengrin pre-Loup. My guess is that Ysengrin/Loup became a new creature that will be forever different even with Coyote removed from him.

Right now we're deep in the ether. I don't think the Ysengrin we see here is "real" any more than the pigeon on Kat's head in the chapter Divine. Everything is going to be topsy-turvy upside down with tons of hidden meaning.

As to Coyote being a memory...the only person's word we have for that is Coyote. The trickster god. Even if he was telling the truth, the definition of "dead" for an immortal embodiment of chaos may be very different. Especially since he needs Annie to stab Loup with the tooth for him to truly die.

I dunno, I'm just guessing on all this stuff. But it feels like the mysteries that made me fall in love with Gunnerkrigg Court in the first place.

[Gez]

And now here's Ysengrin with a replacement Annie.

The whole thing with the moss ogre is obviously choreographed by Loup/Coyote/Ysengrin/whatever they're now; though it's not clear yet what the purpose is. Besides playing hero to the elves.

[Rodin]

Ysengrins memories maybe? Checking back, the moss ogre is what Annie defeated when she fought the nastier denizens of the Forest alongside Ysengrin. Probably his best memory of her, so we might be seeing his idealized view of himself and Annie.

[WanderingMist]

Hmm, Coyote never lies, so I believe he really is dead, and that this is nothing more than a memory of him, even if it can somehow still have an effect on the physical world.Especially because he treats Loup as a separate person and not just an extension of himself.

[137beth]

I think part of what has made it hard for me to enjoy his return is a lack of clarity regarding whether that's what this is. My thought when he showed back up was that it was a memory of him showing up or something - that it was simply Loups 'conscience' (for lack of a better word) appearing to cause anarchy. This was reinforced by the fact that Loup was still around. Two chapters later that's not really been addressed and now Ys has appeared and it's still not being addressed. Is that really Ys or is that a shadow/memory/whatever?

Coyote can be inside of Loup, and also appear outside of Loup, because Coyote can be in more than one place at once.

[Typewriter]

Coyote can be inside of Loup, and also appear outside of Loup, because Coyote can be in more than one place at once.

I don't have any real problems with Coyote having any degree of chaos power - I'm more just talking about the fact that I've lost the ability to tell when things happening in the narrative are going to have significance. Like, whatever is happening now - I don't really understand the stakes because things are just sort of 'happening' one after the other while I wait for it to provide meaningful context.

I've been feeling this way for a while - when there were two Annie's I thought for sure that it was an unimportant blip in the story because it didn't feel significant. It felt like a throw away plot device. By the time I realized it was being treated as a significant event it ended. Then when I expected that ending to matter the story moved on because it wasn't important.

[137beth]

The last time we saw this room was way back here.