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Discussion thread for Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess. Beware, Here There be SPOILERS
Welcome.
This is a thread for discussing the Girl Genius novelization Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess, as well as all Girl Genius in general. The subject matter is the property of Phil and Kaja Foglio.
No spoilers are required in this thread. The assumption is you've read the material already. That is why this thread exists--to provide a place for people to talk without having to try to avoid giving away secrets.
I own this account. If you're rude or a jackass, I will delete your post. If you're debating in good faith and not annoying the natives, I won't. If people really can't behave, I'll delete the whole fershlugginer thread.
Have fun. Talk at will. If you don't want spoilers, run away now.
Hippogrif.
This is a thread for discussing the Girl Genius novelization Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess, as well as all Girl Genius in general. The subject matter is the property of Phil and Kaja Foglio.
No spoilers are required in this thread. The assumption is you've read the material already. That is why this thread exists--to provide a place for people to talk without having to try to avoid giving away secrets.
I own this account. If you're rude or a jackass, I will delete your post. If you're debating in good faith and not annoying the natives, I won't. If people really can't behave, I'll delete the whole fershlugginer thread.
Have fun. Talk at will. If you don't want spoilers, run away now.
Hippogrif.
Gil's Age
It increases my sense that at least some of the plot elements are tied to when the two boys come of age. Tarvek could not have safely made a move to oust his father until he was old enough to legally hold his title without a Regent--quite possibly a regent assigned by Klaus. Klaus could not safely announce Gil's position as heir until Gil came of age, so that the transfer of power would move smoothly.
It also means we can now start reckoning in things like how Gil's birth relates to such issues as Klaus being exiled to Skifander (frex, is he or Zeetha older? Or are they twins?), and the age of the two boys at the time of the flashback. Both are now established as clearly three and five years older than Agatha, with roughly four seeming about right.
Sigh. I don't know if that's one I should post on the Tropes site or not. It's the sort of fact folks over there revel in, but I don't know who's read the book yet. I may just remind them that we're here, if they want to join the chat.
Re: Gil's Age
Interesting point about Tarvek being unable to oust Aaronev (or should we be saying Wilhelm, since they're both Aaronev, another new detail) until his majority. I don't know when heirs became able to inheirit without a regent typically; but I suspect the Foglios could say as late as 25 without breaking real-world rules for at least some areas.
I still don't really understand Klaus's logic in keeping Gil hidden for so long. Heirless empires are by their very nature less stable than ones with a line of succession; and it deprived Gil of the ability to develop relationships with the people who would be his advisors some day. Plus, what would have happened if Klaus had died in an accident when Gil was off in Paris or even younger? It's one of the biggest problems in the GG world for me, I can't make it make reasonable sense. Even keeping Gil safe/testing him for fitness doesn't make sense. If he were worried about Gil's fitness he should have had some spares created somewhere that he was also raising, in case Gil didn't work out. And Gil would be arguably safer once known if Klaus became incapacitated for some reason.
I'd just remind people that this is here, people are forgetful after all. Um. I'm working my way through the whole tropes thread slowly, it's very interesting to see how people think.
Re: Gil's Age
Mainly we are one of the better *discussion* groups on the series. There are social groups as good or better, but I think we are among the very best for analysis and real attention to canon. And people tend to be reasonably polite.
I had placed both boys at 21 for the same reasons I gave above: I thought that was about where they'd land. 22 doesn't disturb me at all: it's within shouting distance. It confirms a lot of what I suspected about how the three kids all relate to each other, and to the history of Europa.
But now we have a firmer point established, I can sit down and do some number crunching. I also have to reorganize my sense of when certain things go on in Sturmhalten, as Phil and Kaja changed the time-frame for Aaronev. W. closing up the sewers. They moved it a full ten years later in the arc than it had been, which changes when certain things could have happened. But they also confirmed my suspicion, that Aaronev. W. closed them up to allow the Geisters in/the Storm King/Lucrezia plot to have a safe lair. Happy me, having that confirmed.
My sense is that the Fs have chosen to make their "when do you go to college, when do you come of age" points more or less match modern expectations. Since modern expectations on the whole aren't impossibly far off late Victorian norms through much of Europe as we know it, that works and allows them to play to their readers' cultural assumptions.
Gil's life-arc simply does not make much sense at the moment. We have no real idea what made Klaus leave Skifander, or why he thinks Gil was going to be killed by Zeetha, or why he's so particularly proud of keeping Gil alive, or what Gil was doing secretly, even from his father, while in Paris....and all of that has a meaning and a place. But unlike Tarvek's secrets, a lot of the hints don't seem to have been dropped yet.
Re: Gil's Age
(Quick, somebody say something about Lone Wolf and Cub!)
Re: Gil's Age
The Popular Theory makes sense, but so would quite a number of others.
Re: Gil's Age
Re: Gil's Age
Geisters and the Deepdown
And how did Higgs deal with them? We do see those monsters in the sepia (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070404).
Re: Gil's Age
I see Tarvek in those pictures as up to a couple of years older than Gil, but not by much.
Re: Gil's Age
It feels like it would have had to be a truly amazing friendship for that to have happened very easily. Little boys are so intensely involved in their ranking systems at that age...or they look like it from the outside, and from the developmental psyche material I've read.
I can see Tarvek a bit older, and a bit younger, but basically I see the two as being almost the same age, so much so that barring minor kid-teasing they would not themselves take the age gap seriously. Much beyond a year and the younger one becomes one of the "little kids."
Re: Gil's Age
Re: Gil's Age
I am the big sister in my family, with a younger brother and sister. I got to watch little-boy dynamics quite a bit more than I really wanted to, growing up. XD
Re: Gil's Age
Re: Gil's Age
Re: Gil's Age
Of course, she was the smartest, most agile dog I've ever met. Healthy too, made it to eightteen before we lost her.
Re: Gil's Age
To an eight year old, a seven-year-old is a "little kid." The year makes a difference. Two years are like centuries.
In regards to the two boys, well, Gil is clearly presented as brilliant, even in Tarvek's estimation, as well as having *fun* ideas...and Tarvek comes across as a rather sober little thing too busy trying to simply cope to have much idea of fun. But he's also presented as wary, socially sensitive, and with a fair amount of pride. It would take an enormous lot to ensure he'd let an outcast boy much younger than him lead him around.
I'm not sure Tarvek's actually a "leader" in the normal sense: or at least, the American charisma sense. He's working on being wise and informed, but he doesn't seem to draw people the way either Gill or Agatha do, nor work to do so, the way Othar does. I can see him as Type A, but in the quiet, rather irritating workaholic sense. It would take a Gil or an Agatha or a Violetta with a large spanner to conk him over the head until he agreed that maybe he should sit down and have a beer and leave the legal briefs to take care of themselves for a few hours.
Heee. He reminds me a bit of Boris that way....
Re: Gil's Age
Hee. I like the comparision between him and Boris, who is another favorite of mine (I'd love to see Boris with Mama Gkika, she's about the only one who could draw him out I think). They do both have that sense of hair-pulling responsibility. My feeling is however, that Tarvek is less of an accountant than Boris; more capable of pulling back and do strategy rather than just tactics.
Re: Gil's Age
Re: Gil's Age