Forum:2019-01-25 (Friday)

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Discussion for comic for 2019-01-25 (Friday) ✣ .

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Veni, vidi, wiki (I came, I saw, I edited).

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Well, Quantheory, you were right about the common cause, but he takes it a step further!  This bodes ill for Wooster.  I thought Rakethorn was just pulling his chain ✣ about it, but it seems he was telling the truth.  ➤

Speaking of Rakethorn, he also vanished after the notes appeared. Evil or not, place your bets. PhoenixTalion (talk) 11:50, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

Oh, well, we knew even before we met him that he's slimy! I suppose that doesn't necessarily rise to the level of "evil." But he's not a nice person, whether or not he's part of the plot to overthrow Albia and/or attract 7th dimensional meanies and/or help Lucrezia. So I kind of hope he is evil, so I don't have to root for someone I dislike. Bkharvey (talk) 02:39, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

Still, given Klaus's history of paling around with Bill and Barry H. during their feats of derring-do, his "astonishing levels of outright evil" is harsher than I would have expected.  I really would have expected him to see a Lucrezia-free Agatha as an asset to the Baron's peace.  Hmm, maybe Violetta was right ✣ after all!  (I know it's a long shot, but I'm still rooting for Tarvek -- not that Klaus would be happy about that, either.)  Bkharvey (talk) 06:12, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

1. Bill and Barry were his best friends, but also had a mother who not only raised them seperate from the Castle and usual Hetrodyne methods, but was also elevated to sainthood by many churches after killing her husband. Glad Trelawney points out that heredity is not everything (which I admit is still surprising for a man usually so brilliant), but yeah he may likely also be alluding to the issues Violetta brought up. Agatha is too powerful to be a 'safe' wife for his son. Trelawney's Spark is not nearly as powerful, while still being someone who could help watch his back out of both duty to her Queen, and genuinely caring for Gil (starting at "like" to maybe "love"). 'Black' Victor Cachat (talk) 14:47, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

It's never actually come up, but if I liked (let alone loved) someone, I couldn't be less than fully honest and forthcoming about any secondary motivations I might have. (But then, I'm not a spy. I can't even play poker.) Bkharvey (talk) 02:39, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

I think that's actually a pretty interesting question in the context of the story. It's been implied that Euphrosynia Heterodyne and Andronicus Valois truly did "love" each other, at least at some point, but that Andronicus's love was too naïve to really see the real Euphrosynia, while her love was too conditional and fleeting to match his. Similarly, I have interpreted the scene where Lucrezia and Klaus are talking, just before she drugs and banishes him, as being at least somewhat genuine. It's possible that it was 100% manipulation on her part, but I think that she honestly believed that she loved Bill Heterodyne and was ready to be on the straight-and-narrow. But, ultimately, she was just too narcissistic to understand what it would really mean to be in love with him.

Now, presumably Trelawney Thorpe is not an insufferable narcissist. But it's still possible that "love", whatever that means to her, is not incompatible with keeping secrets. Or that she is willing to marry someone she merely "likes", and is willing to spy on that person. After all, she was willing to conceal the fact that Albia messed with Gil's mind.

I think this is kind of a theme of the story so far. After all, there was a lot of confusion and mistrust between Agatha and Gil when they met, and arguably even more between Agatha and Tarvek. Arguably the most important romantic B-plot is Zeetha and Higgs, which also involves some amount of deception. Straightforward, bare-your-soul romance is uncommon in the GG universe. Quantheory (talk) 08:34, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't mean I couldn't lie about anything to someone I loved. Just, specifically, I can't imagine proposing marriage to someone while having a secret second motivation. That would be so hurtful when it eventually came out.   And, for example, Seffie openly talks with Gil about how the marriage she wants is sensible politically too.  Bkharvey (talk) 03:45, January 27, 2019 (UTC)

P.S.  Is Klaus envisioning Trelawney ("Spark of the Realm") moving to Castle Wulfenberg, or Gil running the empire from Londinium?  I know royalty can have winter homes and summer homes, and so on, but given that Trelawney isn't actually royal, I bet Klaus thinks Albia will give up her services for the sake of her marrying Gil.  Bkharvey (talk) 06:22, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

That lines up with my take on it. I really doubt Klaus wants Gil moving under Albia's thumb, but he's alright with ties to Albion if it means that his son won't be marrying into the (frequently) villainous Heterodynes. Weird place for eugenics to crop up, but hey. It gives Albia some degree of influence in their court, but I think both Albia and Klaus ultimately want stability for the Continent. 108.18.101.231 06:36, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

The more I think about this, the less I understand Klaus.  If he's afraid of Agatha, better to have her under his/Gil's purview than running loose.  Or teaming up with one of those nasty Sturmvoraus people.  Unless he's worked out that Albia wants to keep Agatha planted in her garden, and thinks that has a prayer of working, I should think he'd think that Gil marrying her is the least bad option.  Bkharvey (talk) 07:56, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

I think Klaus has figured out Albia wants to keep her, between Trelawny asking Gil and Tarvek what they'd do if Agatha didn't want to leave England, and his existing knowledge of how Albia operates. (He uses the same gilded cage technique with Sparks himself, after all.) Given that Albia is a goddess, and Gil is besotted, the choice makes sense. PhoenixTalion (talk) 11:50, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

I wonder how much that's his actual reason, versus the one he was willing to share. Klaus knows Agatha will eventually gain access to the time windows (which he now can safely assume she'll get from Lucrezia), while Albia does not. (But Bang does. Hmm.) PhoenixTalion (talk) 11:50, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

Oh, does that mean you think they won't get Lucrezia out of Agatha's head until The Future? Bkharvey (talk) 02:39, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

I think Klaus might think that since he's seen Agatha using her mother's technology in The Future, there's a chance Gil and Tarvek's plan to remove Lucrezia will not or did not work. (I've also started to wonder if Gil in that scene is actually Klaus-in-Gil -- that "Maniac" doesn't seem particularly in character for his and Bang's relationship as we've come to know it, though it could just be a case of Characterization Marches On.) PhoenixTalion (talk) 11:29, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

"Mainiac" line there would also be post Bang trying to kill Zeetha, and well Bang is a mainiac. --76.70.49.44 05:36, January 28, 2019 (UTC)

Britain and Pax Translyvania got along well enough before, so I see Trelawny living on Castle Wulfenbach, with a series of treaties in place, and Trelawny acting as the de facto ambassador for Albia. Basically dividing up the world between them. Helps that right now Albia is as concerned about Lucrezia and the Other as the Baron is. And yeah, both sides want peace and stability, and this would reduce the chances of the two most powerful nations going to war. But yeah, as for Agatha he is probably hoping that Albia will handle her, one way or another, while also having his own plans in place.'Black' Victor Cachat (talk) 14:52, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

The comic has never said anything about how well the two empires got along pre-Agatha. According to the print novels, they started out working together, but as Klaus's power and territory grew, the relationship became strained, and both sides' diplomatic corps were constantly scrambling to keep things from getting worse. --Geoduck42 (talk) 21:37, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

P.P.S.  She shouldn't let him get in her face the way he does in panel 6.  And, Agatha is going to have to come up with a way to get Klaus out of Gil that doesn't require his cooperation ✣ .  Bkharvey (talk) 06:29, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

By the way, last time we got to see Klaus's thin frown on Gil's face.  This time, in panels 5 and 8, we see his ✣ asymmetric ✣ smile ✣ .  Bkharvey (talk) 08:26, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

What I'm noticing that makes the expression more Klauslike is the eyes. Gil holds them open wider. PhoenixTalion (talk) 11:50, January 25, 2019 (UTC)

My general thoughts:

1. We should not assume that Klaus-in-Gil and the real Klaus share opinions. Likely, but not guaranteed.
2. Klaus could not possibly want Xersephenia to marry Gil, nor for Agatha to marry either Tarvek or Martellus as plausible Storm King candidates. I think that he would take either or both over Gil marrying Agatha, but it's not clear. Does he fear the Sturmvorauses and Von Blitzengards more than a Heterodyne-Wulfenbach alliance?
3. I see this as a very human form of confirmation bias. Klaus-in-Gil has been exposed to a ton of information suggesting that Agatha is bad, similar to her mother, and/or out of his control. When Thorpe points out that Klaus is exactly the kind of mad genius who could be most dangerous to Europa, he doesn't actually think much about it, or refute her argument, but simply takes her defiance as proof of her worth.
4. Klaus has basically stated outright that he's biased against female Sparks. (They're dangerous! ✣ ) This suggests that he sees Trelawney Thorpe as a lesser kind of Spark, either through direct experience, or because Albia controls her, or because she's such a celebrity (though he should know better than to think that celebrity Sparks are all talk).
5. Klaus clearly doesn't like the Othar brand of Hero, but apparently he was fine with the Heterodyne Boys and now Thorpe? So maybe he doesn't have the same anti-hero bias as the Heterodyne creations, for instance, do.

Quantheory (talk) 08:02, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

Too bad you can't (or at least I can't) intersperse reactions between list items...

1. I see this as being like the different instantiations of Lucrezia, in that her strategy is to make sure they agree by sharing information. Similarly, once they thaw out the real Klaus, Klaus-in-Gil should immediately have a conference with him and get him up to speed.
2. If K∈G is more worried about a Gil-Agatha match than about those others, his emotions haven't yet caught up with his cognition. Yes, even Agatha without Lucrezia is dangerous (although, has there been another case since the Battle of Sturmhalten?), but surely less so under Gil's tutelage than with Martellus. (He would say Tarvek, too, but that's just because he's not up to speed on Tarvek's epiphany.) But certainly I can see that keeping Agatha under Albia's thumb would be his preference. He just clearly doesn't know who the title character of this tale is! :-) If he did, he wouldn't consider Albia capable of holding Agatha down for long. As for Seffie, I think he may not even know about her campaign, which didn't get serious until post-timestop.
3. Oh, I think K∈G totally understands and mostly even accepts her argument! At least he sees that there's no obvious reason for anyone other than himself to trust himself more than Agatha.
4. Here we disagree. Klaus thinks female sparks all want to kill him, and are therefore dangerous, at least to him. (I wonder if that's part of the problem re Agatha.) But that's very different, opposite if anything, from considering them weak or second-class. Is there any evidence that he thinks Trelawney is "all talk"?
5. Klaus is a hero himself! In his youth he was a youthful kind of hero, with the twins, but in his mature years his heroism takes the form of putting the world's needs ahead of his own. (And he's not above pacifying Beetleburg by himself, to prove he can.) Bkharvey (talk) 08:28, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

"Too bad you can't (or at least I can't) intersperse reactions between list items..."

I know this is possible in HTML, and it should be possible in Wiki markup, but I'll admit that I don't get how to do it in either.

Oh, yes, it's easy if the original list is in HTML rather than Wikispeak. If there's a next time, I'll try that. Bkharvey (talk) 03:26, January 27, 2019 (UTC)

I do want to shortcut to where we maybe disagree (or have just crossed wires) though? Just to get to the core of it.

1. I do actually think that K⊂G is aware of Seffie's machinations, if for no other reason than that she's persistent and seems to have been calling on him for a while. Also, she's actually in love with him, so I suspect that she's not hiding as much as she would otherwise. (But since Gil isn't reciprocating, maybe Klaus doesn't care about her that much. Cruel, cruel love!)
2. I don't think that Klaus is a misogynist in the sense that he thinks that female sparks are weak or second-class. I do think that he is biased toward viewing them as manipulative and concerned with appearances in the same way as Lucrezia was. I think that since he seems to distrust female sparks in general, the fact that he's opening up to Trelawney Thorpe is weird. My first thought is that maybe he just isn't too afraid of her because he thinks a lot of her legend is British propaganda (for instance, maybe he doesn't view her as a weak spark, but he views her as a mid-level spark that Albia has inflated to make her seem like a top-tier spark).
3. I don't think that Klaus is, or has ever been, a "hero" in the strict sense. I think that he's an anti-hero or Snape-style hidden-hero. When he allied himself with the Heterodyne Boys, his hero side came out, but otherwise, he's a ruthless utilitarian who is willing to sacrifice any means (aside from maybe his son) to get his ends.

- Quantheory (talk) 08:55, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

Also, this isn't actually the whole Klaus, either, and this 'overlay' was written before the current political climate. KiG may have 'Stop Agatha' as some kind of prime directive. What I want to know is, how much, if anything, Lunevka knows about what Klaus did to Gil. Presumably, fake-wasping him and destroying the Wasp Eaters was all her. Is KiG unable to tell anyone Klaus-in-Mechanicsburg is wasped, or merely circumspect?;I'll bet he'd kick in if Gil tried to tell Agatha she can order Klaus around, either way.PhoenixTalion (talk) 12:03, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

Destroying the Vespery Squad was probably on her order, yes, as Klaus sent an highly inappropriate team of night-fighters to do, thus engaging in self-sabotage. The fake-wasping, however, could have been his idea, as part of his plan to trick/convince Gil to accept having the overlay installed. --Geoduck42 (talk) 06:08, January 27, 2019 (UTC)

Random other thought: Albia seems to be a Spark specializing in psychology. Or rather, a thousands-of-years-old double-spark. But at the same time, Klaus is convinced that he can detect Albia's mind-control, and play politics with her as with any other power in Europa. But he also hasn't understood the Other's devices at all. So that would seem to be another thought suggesting that Lucrezia/the Other is scary as hell! Quantheory (talk) 09:40, January 26, 2019 (UTC)

Halfway through reading that paragraph I thought you were working up to a theory that Klaus is secretly a double-spark! :-) Which reminds me: At first the title "Girl Genius" seemed to suggest, didn't it, that Agatha was a unique exception to the rule that sparks are male. Then, after a while, we learned that someone was killing off female sparks, so maybe it would otherwise be half and half. And now, just recently, we seem to be learning that women alone have access to second-level sparkhood, which makes the GG title ironic in intent. Maybe the resolution of the plot is that Agatha defeats the Other and re-establishes the benign rule of queens! (Thereby freeing Othar from the need to kill all the sparks.) ➤

About your list response: Yes, I'd forgotten that KiG knows what Gil knows as well as what Klaus knew pre-KiG. And, he's definitely a utilitarian, but that doesn't stop him being a hero. Nothing forces him to keep the peace across Europa, and, as I said, he often does his own dirty work. Even the Timestop is Klaus risking his life by taking personal action on Mechanicsburg, and sacrificing himself in the process. As for his attitude toward women, I think he's pretty un-sexist for his time. But really it doesn't matter to his plan how good a spark Trelawney is; she just has to be able to hold Gil's interest, which she clearly can. She wouldn't have to be a spark at all, if she held his interest for some other reason. (Just for a moment imagine Gil-and-Gkika!) Bkharvey (talk) 03:26, January 27, 2019 (UTC)

P.S.  As for Klaus's self-awareness, I was just thinking of the scene in the hospital where he's telling Gil all women sparks try to kill him, and Gil says "Father... maybe it's you!" and Klaus makes a thinking-about-it face for a while before saying "No, I don't think so."  I think that must have been plotted back when Klaus wasn't meant to be a major character.  It's funny, but it's sort of disrespectful, as if the Foglios are writing a Heterodyne story with Klaus as comic relief.  I can't imagine that scene happening now (supposing Klaus were around to have such a conversation). Bkharvey (talk) 03:36, January 27, 2019 (UTC)