Discussion for comic for 2013-05-06 (Monday) ✣ . (Chronology Entry)
Chuck Yager's cat maneuver.
And, Krosp is through the gateway. Argadi (talk) 08:51, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
And how happy would you be switching to Geico? Happier than Violet getting to mince a Sturmvarous that needs to get ground into itty bitty pieces. On a different note... a portal to elsewhere? Didn't Agatha's troubles all start because of such a thing? - Br'fin (talk) 10:51, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- Are we sure that it is a portal? I know it makes sense in the conext, but that green thing doesn't look like any portal I've ever seen. I mean, there isn't any window or anything.... Maybe it's more like a radioactive wall or something? HeterodyneGirl (talk) 12:22, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- Either Violetta is slipping, or Tweedle is more on-the-ball than most would give him credit for. He should never have noticed her coming up behind him before she had a chance to stab him. Jagerdraught Braumeister (talk) 09:07, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, they're not taking Agatha anywhere. HeterodyneGirl (talk) 12:22, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
The Abbess should be glad that Krosp doesn't want to make an enemy of her entire order. Couple of cm higher... 86.142.60.45 14:35, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- Does the Abbess have an order? Aside from a troop of wonky clanks? Akitsumikami (talk) 10:30, May 9, 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's a portal, but the green thing is definitely something unusual. It looks like it's a rectangular block; but if so, then in order for us to be able to see its top (which we can) it must be very long and floating nearly horizontal - in which case the alcove is much too shallow to contain it. If it fits in the alcove without space being bent, then it must be a very weird-shaped object, with weird lighting too. Mskala (talk) 15:10, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
Okay--the jury may still be out on Tweedle's intelligence, but this page settles it on the Abbess--she's an idiot! When a cat has all its claws sunk into you like that, the last thing you do is rip it off! She did four times the damage to herself that having his claws in her face was doing! Given Krosp's size, she'll be lucky to have a face after this! And as for the green glowing thing, it doesn't look like a portal to me. It does rather look like it's folding down out of the wall, though. Lady Blanc (talk) 16:59, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
I'm thinking thats not a portal, more like a draw bridge coming down. and tweedle is truly an idiot, but i think he was trained by the smoke thingys like Tarveck was, by Violetta. Agathahetrodyne (talk) 17:35, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
Why does everyone think Phil Foglio, of all people, would create a portal that looks like we would expect it to? I thinks the Glowing Green Monolith (as it has been called elsewhere) is a portal, but I won't be surprised if I am wrong, again.
The whole look of this wall, with the giant stone blocks, the carvings, the glowing, inset lights/stones/jewels, and the seemingly impossible angles (not to mention the glowing green monolith) makes me recall that Kaja Foglio has said on more that one occasion that H. Rider Haggard is a major influence on Girl Genius. I think we are going to see that influence come into play more directly in the story from this point on than it has so far.
Also, how long has this room been in the Cathedral and who knew it was there? -- William Ansley (talk) 17:57, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- "Why does everyone think Phil Foglio, of all people, would create a portal that looks like we would expect it to?" One word--continuity. We have seen portals elsewhere, and they are similar to each other, and don't look like this. If a story is to be believable, there has to be internal consistency, especially in a fantasy, where real world knowledge does us little good. Which is not to say it can't be a portal, but if it is, an explanation will be needed to tell us why it doesn't look like any other one. Lady Blanc (talk) 18:34, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- The problem here seems to be that you and I don't mean the same thing by "portal." Girl Genius readers have seen phenomena that seem to have been windows through time, near the beginning of the story ✣ and during Bang's report ✣ . We have little evidence that these windows can serve as portals through time as well, and certainly no evidence that they can serve as portals across space.
- We have also been told of a "gateway" ✣ that seems to link our world with the world of the Geisterdamen. There is no evidence that this is the same thing as a time window. My assumption is that "time windows" and "geister gateways" are not the same thing and my guess is that this is a "geister gateway." I am basing this on precious little hard evidence, but precious little hard evidence is all we have so far. Hopefully, however, some additional "hard" information is coming up soon. --William Ansley (talk) 19:12, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- Okay--I have been including the time windows among portals--there is some evidence that things can go through them, making them portals of a sort. But we also have Theo's visualization of a "regular" portal in the Dragon of Mars story. While I acknowledge that this is fiction, given that Theo is a spark, I would take his visualization as pretty accurate. And the Dragon portal does have some resemblance to the time windows. Specifically, all of them look two dimensional rather than three. So, no the green glowing thing does not look to me like a portal. We shall see. Lady Blanc (talk) 19:56, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- I don't really think that a story which contains one clear (deliberate) mistake (even if you could remove a slaver wasp, it won't cure a revenant to do so) ✣ and at least one piece of blatant nonsense (the "ocean in a bottle") ✣ is safe to use as evidence for anything, but it can't be entirely discounted either.
- We shall, indeed, as you say, see. And hopefully we will see some things more clearly very soon. If the glowing green monolith is a portal, then I expect that someone important to Agatha will go through it, then it will break or be broken. Agatha can't be the one who goes through it because she still has to go on a trip, according to Word of God, (the relevant statement is near the end of the interview) to Paris, England, Africa, Skifander, and the City of Silver Light. (I suppose she could take this trip by portal, but where's the fun in that?) If Agatha has to track down her friend (and her enemies, if the Abbess and Tweedle make their escape by portal as well), then this provides the motivation for her trip.
- Of course, I am prepared to be wrong, wrong, wrong about this, but it would sure be fun (for me) if I turn out to be right. --William Ansley (talk) 20:36, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- it could also be that she travels/gets sent somewhere by portal and then has to get back using more mundane means ("mundane" by GG standards, that is). Finn MacCool (talk) 21:10, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- That could be the case. But, in the interview I quoted, Phil lists the places visited in order of increasing distance away from Mechanicsburg, not toward it (at least for the ones we know the location of). And Phil would never deliberately mislead his readers, would he? --William Ansley (talk) 21:20, May 6, 2013 (UTC)
- I agree of AgathaHeterodyne's theory; It doesn't look so much like a portal that you can walk through- it's much too solid for that. But I think it may very well be some kind of special portal-generating drawbridge, or ramp, that is now lowering; hence the odd angle. That seems like it might be a bit more the KoJ's style. HeterodyneGirl (talk) 00:17, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
- The "strange geometry" sounds very Lovecraftian. Speculation on my part, but IF Tweedle is attempting to claim the Lightning Throne of the Storm King, the portal just might go to Paris.IF Tweedle and the Abbess take Agatha throught it, then someone in Mechanicsburg must know where it goes, so the others know where to go to resuce Agatha. AndyAB99 (talk) 00:25, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
- I am not sure why a seemingly solid wall (or other object) that is actually a portal to elsewhere is proving such a conceptual stumbling block. In the Harry Potter series, the solid wall between platforms 9 and 10 in King's Cross Station was a portal to platform 9¾, and no one seemed to have much of a problem with that. --William Ansley (talk) 03:11, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
Wait wait wait wait wait. I call misdirection. Don't look at the portal (yes, I think it's a portal, or an energy source for one). Look at the MURAL. Wasn't there a shot of Lucrezia wearing some kind of shiny hat like that back when the Geisterdamen were discussing her? --107.10.137.115 04:55, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
- I have looked at the mural. As I said above, I think it shows that the influence of H. Rider Haggard on Girl Genius that Kaja has mentioned is about to become more prominent. Lucrezia as "the Goddess" has a similar but not identical headdress. ✣ The Warrior Queen of Skifander has an elaborate but more dissimilar headdress ✣ as well. In a in a Heterodyne play ✣ and in an hallucination, ✣ a representation of the "High Priestess" wears an elaborate headdress and/or hat, but these are even less similar to the one in the mural. I'm not sure we have seen the original of the woman in the mural yet. --William Ansley (talk) 17:28, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
Pardon me for showing my age. In the words of the now immortal Doctor David Bowman, "My, God! It's full of stars!" -- Billy Catringer (talk) 05:40, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
Same green glow as in the lights in the Heterodyne Crypt. Co-incidence?--Bosda Di'Chi (talk) 21:05, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
- Interesting. I thought it was the same green glow as in the sewers ✣ and tunnels ✣ under Sturmhalten. --William Ansley (talk) 21:21, May 7, 2013 (UTC)
- "Sheena, step into the glowing green square." (Shinesman) As for the oddness of the angles, is no one here a photographer? The distortion results from trying to get all of an extremely tall image into one shot. -- SpareParts (talk) 01:24, May 8, 2013 (UTC)
- OK, but if it's a photograph, who's holding the camera?
- I've decided that the glowing green monolith, or the slab, as I will call it for short, looks the way it does because it is spinning. It is levitating and spinning end-over-end. The top is rotating toward us and the bottom away. If it was upright, the bottom of the slab would nearly touch the floor. The part of the slab rotating away doesn't slam into the stone wall because it doesn't occupy normal space. You step up to it, let it sweep over you and you are transported elsewhere. --William Ansley (talk) 04:07, May 8, 2013 (UTC)