Discussion thread for Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess. Beware, Here There be SPOILERS

[hippogrif]

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.

Comments

Re: Gil's Age

[hippogrif]

Heh. Yeah, over time you get to know who's likely to post what, how. Me, I'm too long, focused in large part on Tarvek (not just because I like him, but because I really do think he's a major key to the stories, too), and I run to myths, legends, fairy tales, and heavy lit-crit, with some history thrown in. Greybeard is history, political theory, and tech, with a fondness for a few real tin hat theories. And so on.

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

[sffcorgi]

I think the Popular Theory is going to be pretty close - there was an internal Skifandran threat to the male child of the Queen, whether accepted-cultural, or rival-factional, or just-plain-misunderstanding ( <<< theory most likely, given Zeetha) -- and Chump, against Skifandran cultural habits and anybody's expectations, not only kept him alive but walked him back to Transylvania by himself.

(Quick, somebody say something about Lone Wolf and Cub!)

Re: Gil's Age

[hippogrif]

I don't know if it's likely or not: we simply know too little about Skifander, Zantabraxus, and Zeetha, or any of the major backstory associated with them.

The Popular Theory makes sense, but so would quite a number of others.

Re: Gil's Age

[sffcorgi]

Given the tendency towards shoutouts (and then occasionally subverting them), the chance to re-enact Lone Wolf and Cub would be nigh-unto irresistable, I'd think. ;)

Re: Gil's Age

[claudeng]

Something else that pops out of the age and the new sewer-closing timeline, if one makes a few assumptions: Assume that Tarvek and Gil are the same age so they're 22 "now". Assume that Zoing is Gil's breakthrough construct and occurred soon after Tarvek was sent home - means Tarvek was approximately 8 when sent home to Sturmhalten. Vrin states that they've been under Sturmhalten for 14 years. 8+14=22. So the Geisters arrived at close to the same time that Tarvek came home. Things around Sturmhalten must have been verrrry interesting that year.

Geisters and the Deepdown

[greybeardfan]

We now have the connection called out: the Deepdown was closed down to open the spaces to the Geisters. Now, to whom did those glowy monsters belong? Were they old Sturmvoraus creations or something from Lu or the Geisters?

And how did Higgs deal with them? We do see those monsters in the sepia (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070404).