Girl Genius
Register
Advertisement
Girl Genius

This article is about the circus animal trainer and minor Spark. For other professors, see Professor (disambiguation).



Professor Moonsock is the animal trainer for Master Payne's Circus of Adventure. Since there don't seem to be any resident animal acts (other than miscellaneous stuff with mimmoths) until Krosp comes along, we don't know what all she really does in this job. We probably first see her here , surveying the damage done by Zeetha when she has a berserk moment in response to Agatha's throwaway reference to Skifander. If her debut isn't there (it's hard to be sure given the relative lack of detail), it's shortly afterward , surveying the damage done by Krosp to what appears to be a small stage prop, probably to be used by the mimmoths. In the next scene she's about to give Krosp what-for, although he's intact at the end of it. This ... relationship ... continues through the time when Krosp is with the Circus, generally with unsatisfactory outcome as far as Moonsock is concerned -- ever heard the expression "herding cats"?

Most likely her relationship with the animals extends beyond just training them. She attempts an inspection of the horse that Abner rides back into camp following his successful diversion of Gil and Bang, so she presumably does some veterinary work for the Circus as well. The horse doesn't cooperate on this occasion, which ought to be viewed as suspicious. Unfortunately, it isn't.

She's also a Spark, like so many of the Circus folk. When the Monster Horse Beastie (what Abner's horse metamorphoses into when it gets dark) attacks, she joins the defense, using her poisonous Sky Wyrms (to the horror of the other defenders). These don't accomplish much -- the MHB breathes fire, which is kinda hard on small, flammable flying things -- but the episode does give us some idea of the good Professor's typically madgirl approach to the world. The Sky Wyrms do at least buy time for Zeetha to jump on board and behead the beast, so maybe her efforts weren't completely in vain.

Plus there's the fact that her wagon advertises a "Unique Flea Circus" and is shown being pulled by what appear to be, yes, giant fleas.

In addition to her animal-trainer role, she gets a brief appearance on stage as a hoofer (with her mysterious colleague Professor Therm), doing exotic music brought over from the Americas [1].

She decamps to England along with rest of the Circus, but when Agatha eventually reunites with the troupe there, she is told that Moonsock has retired from showbiz and is now a professor at the University of Cambridge teaching "Warping Life 301" or somesuch.

Print Novels[]

The print novel Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess establishes more clearly that she is also the troupe veterinarian, and that she has quite a menagerie of trained critters living in her wagon; the story makes something of a running gag depicting said animals performing chores around camp, like bats hanging laundry and an albatross running a line to rescue the troop's aerialist when his balloon-wagon starts to float away. She also forces Krosp to work for her after he eats her trained mimmoths.

References

Advertisement