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

Ok, I think we've just been given fairly good grounds for assuming that Tarvek's been a "true revolutionary" for some time...or that, possibly, be becomes one as a result of this story. But I'm betting on the prior possibility.

Those of you who know me already know I thought this possible, based on his behavior and comments here: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091012, and because of his more reliable areas of concern and dedication. He's definitely upset about Klaus' status as an illegitimate ruler, he seems to honestly see the Storm King as an important predecessor for more than pure politics, and I long felt that his reaction to Agatha might well be based on her willingness to sacrifice her own life for the good of Europa... even if he did sabotage her effort. On top of that we never did find out what he saw as his "work" to do in Paris...one of the few places in Europa not utterly under Klaus' command. Tarvek, to me, seemed plausible as a serious, philosophy driven revolutionary, blending "resistance" elements with "aristo duty" elements in odd and fun ways.

I also always suspected they were playing a few "Percy Blakeny/Scarlet Pimpernel" games with his foppishness, dress sense, and cover role as the utter incompetent. The idea of him working not just to save his own life, but to further the revolution and "save Europa" always seemed in keeping with the Fs' sense of humor, and with Tarvek's personality.

The current novel seems, to me, to actually stress that more clearly. The Foglios write him as clearly making his final shift to loving Agatha as a response to her recording of her plea to Klaus and her willingness to die to save the nation. Again, yes, he overturns that, but for reasons he never gets to explain to her in full.

He's also shown a bit more fully moving into his title and position, and definitely reading to Agatha as taking his responsibilities very seriously indeed. "Defender of Balan's Gap and Protector of the East," as I recall. (My Kindle is recharging in the other room and I'm too lazy to be sure I got that word for word.)

Finally, there's the heading quote for the final chapter...an impassioned call for Europa to rise up in the memory of the Heterodyne Boys and turn back the "monsters" who have arisen. Very revolutionary prose, of its type. It even made me think a few "Give me liberty or give me death" thoughts. It's attributed to... one "T. Stormboy", and is published in "The Paris Review of Sorrowful Reflections Without Merit"...at least, that's what Babelfish and my remnant of high school French make of "La Revue Parisienne des Reflexions Chagrines et Sans Merite" (accents missing, due to utter failure to know how to insert them in this program).

The sentiments, the tie to Paris (and we already know Tarvek keeps up with Parisian journals that interest him because he mentions one here: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091016), and the rather obvious nom de resistance, combined with everything else we've already seen, and that the current novel reveals about his personality as seen by Agatha, seems to add up to Tarvek having been functioning as a real and committed revolutionary for some time...and very possibly with real personal dedication, not just political ambition.

Anyone else see that as a real option at this point?

Did I read the passage wrong, or did Anevka pretty much admit to having killed their mother?

Anevka folded her arms. "Is maudlin sentimentality supposed to make me feel guilty about killing you? Because if it didn't work for Mummy --"

And Tarvek didn't skip a beat in replying. Man, are they ever one messed-up family.

One of the things that I really liked in the book is that it cleared up something that's been a bit of a fan arguing point: that Agatha's really, honestly attracted to both Lars and Tarvek, and is definitely quite infatuated with Lars.

There's been a tendency to treat Agatha as though she were romantically wasped, and totally fixated on Gil from the first interactions on: his, body, soul, mind, and spirit, with no possible other options.

The novel made it far more clear that she's going through a very normal sexual maturation, finding more than one young man honestly and seriously attractive, and being willing to explore the options with men other than Gil. It doesn't invalidate her real attraction to and affection for Gil, but it makes her much less of a romance-zombie, and much more of a real, autonomous, living breathing girl growing into her own adulthood.

Another interesting point is that Klaus indicates that Gil was trying to keep his Paris activities from Klaus. Or at least, Klaus thought so. Given the already confirmed issues of correspondence between Gil and his old friends on Castle Wulfenbach, one does wonder if some third party was also interfering with Klaus' information stream.

One of the footnotes suggests that Gil was very active in a range of Hero-style activities: busting up bank robberies among other things. (chuckle) And the closest he got to dating was the scantily clad maidens associate with those events.

That suggests that, contra my prior speculations, Gil may not have been doing undercover work for Klaus. But, on the other had, it opens up the possibility of Gil trying to test himself as a Heterodyne Boy style hero and general Gentleman Adventurer. Which might explain a bit more of the hostility between him and Othar, if both were bucking for the same treasured status, and Othar kept not only intruding, but casting Gil as the villain instead.

I can see a lot of reasons for Gil to do that: Klaus is expecting a lot of him and he wants to know if he can live up to at least what Klaus was as a young man and associate of the HBs; Gil wants to enjoy some time putting himself at risk in ways Klaus would have violently disliked; Gil wanted to get his own view of the world; Gil actually hoped for a bit more girl action than he got, and didn't want Papa and Papa's spies looking in on him. There may be more.

I am still not completely sure Klaus didn't give him some tasks. But it seems less likely if Klaus felt left out of the loop regarding Paris.

At this point it looks like yes, though we still don't know what his "plan" was for her broadcast device.

I have to give up on Tarvek being the one to get the circus out of town with a payment and "Noblesse Oblige." That appears to be Aaronev. So I lose a minor Moxana proof point on that, and a larger proof of character, but make it up with the fact that Tarvek is the one who then had the circus stopped outside of town so that it could meet Agatha when he got her out.

Of even more interest is the fact that he kept them there after Lu was downloaded. Yes, he was very busy, but he continued to keep them there for what appears to be several days. That suggests that even once he realized Agatha was alive in there, he intended for her to have a place to flee to once they were out.

That, combined with his own internal dialog when shown, leaves me pretty certain he was indeed trying to save Agatha, and not just so he could have a cat's paw, either.

His interactions with her suggest that, yes, he does know the value of her position as Heterodyne Heir, but that he's honestly most interested in her as peer and person, and most interested in rescuing her because he cares and wants her to be free.

I liked a lot of the little bits they added in, but I think my single favorite is the line where Tarvek offers to build Agatha a death ray when he's trying to send her to safety. Spark-romantic and just what she was wishing someone would do.

We also get a lot more information about Geisters.

They have multiple, probably non-overlapping castes. You can tell how tight the castes are when the cell Geisters refuse to even try to use the lockpick, as they aren't artisens.

Then the half comment about not even their daughters being exactly like their mothers; makes me wonder if they're parthenogenic.

Their Goddess clearly has several aspects and they seem to be quite willingly subservient, even when she looks like she might kill them all. The segue from the End of the World to the start of a new world was rather disconcerting to me. It must be a well-established possibility in their mythos. Sort of a The King is Dead, Long Live the King! type of thing.

I was dismayed when Vrin stated that they failed to protect the Holy Child despite knowing when, who, how and with what abilities they would be attacked. It smacks of more time travel to me, and that's just not something I'm fond of. I also wish she'd given some detail on who exactly did the attacking since she knew who it was. Must be a deliberately hidden card. I would guess Bill and Barry, but GG is full of wonderful surprises.

And Geister cheese! Love Tarvek learning about it.

One thing I really appreciated as the resident myth-freak and the one who started out the analysis on the Sparks being "like Gods." I really, really loved that they actually made that comparison in the book.

(gloat-gloat) I felt so vindicated!!

There were all sorts of little clarifying details I liked with the two boys. I'll probably think of more over time, but tonight I'm thinking about:

Gil's reactions to Klaus sending him out after Agatha. Anger, reluctance, but not serious resistance. But he does have the very beginning of a revelation: his father not only absolutely can arrest anyone he likes under the pretext of keeping the peace, but he has. Not often--it's clear that Klaus usually uses that ploy for perfectly legit reasons. But it's also clear that it's sort of nudging at Gil that Klaus doesn't always use it for its presented purpose, and that there are no checks and balances to stop Klaus or him from misuse.

I think that's important...the start of a moral arc for him, that the current plot arc is likely to push further. Now Gil is simply and absolutely at the other end of the rope -- innocent but with no recourse, framed, but with no court of appeal.

Tarvek: An important detail added in the novel is in the rephrasing of Tarvek's Madboy rant to Agatha...who turns out to be Lu. He doesn't just say he wants to take over Europa, he says he wants to bring about "true stability." To me that's a critical clarification...his goal is to bring something he feels Klaus has not brought, a truly stable political structure. The story so far suggests Tarvek is right: that the stability in Europa is imposed by force, and only holds so long as one strong player holds the reins....and can fall even then, given a sharp shove.

Whether Tarvek is the right man for the job is another question, but it makes it that much more clear that his goals are not simply power-hunger. They may be vain and delusional: that has to be seen, yet. But they're valid goals in response to a real problem.

One of my current guesses growing from reading the book is that the time after Gil and Tarvek bicker during the repairs, when Tarvek goes to be unhappy and brood alone, is that his big revelation is that his plan had been to use the wasps if he had to to create a stable Europa...

But that Gil's enough better than he thought to be an attractive Heir after all, and that he could avoid the wasp problem entirely by promoting Gil as Klaus' successor, and pushing Klaus out. Gil's just been spouting off the sort of concerns for the people that I'm more and more suspicious matter to Tarvek, he's trained, he's got his own sort of legitimacy, and he could rule a stable Europa, especially if he could be brought to take advice.

Now THAT would make Tarvek unhappy and broody. He'd have to give up his own ambitions, and the hero role, he'd probably have to give away a lot of the secrets he's fought so hard to gain, and he'd have to give them to Gil, who's his rival in EVERYTHING.

It would fit far better than a sudden revelation that wasping people is bad: there's really no sign he was ever actually indifferent to that. It would match the dialog while leaving Gil room for his own doubts. And it would explain even more why Tarvek's been so willing to go the last mile to save Gil. For all the old friendship, Tarvek's started protecting Gil in the same way he protects Agatha, with a dedication and fierce commitment...and unlike with Agatha, it has to override a very real and ongoing conflict between the boys.

Another point is that he does NOT want Gil wasped. Now part of that will be to keep him out of Lu's hands. But it also keeps Gil out of Tarvek's own control. It's always important to remember that Tarvek has the technology to capitalize on slaver wasp tech. If he were mean and greedy and nasty enough, he'd let Gil be wasped in the knowledge that he could command his rival from there on in. But he wants Gil free.

There are practical reasons as well as honorable ones, but it's still interesting to watch.

Gil comes across more fatalistic and more clearly gritty in this: he's more decidedly tougher and a bit less squeaky clean. Tarvek, conversely, comes across a bit shinier. Both clearly love Agatha. Both just as clearly could be experiencing first love, but not necessarily permanent love: that's left open, which I think is good.

Tarvek does clearly lie in this: that's easier to check than previously. But his lies are for more obvious and sensible reasons, and are far less easily mistaken for "he'd do anything at any moment to gain power." Lu mistakes him for that at first, and is just beginning to revise her opinion as she begins to realize there's steel under the superficial fluff.

I'd always thought of Sturmhalten as the center of a small principality. I was rather astonished when it was described as the place that stopped the Heterodyne in the prologue. It must be a much stronger castle than my initial impression; bringing Tarvek's base more in line with Agatha's Castle and Gil's Castle. Riddled with secret doors and passageways. I'd love to get a tour of it during peacetime.

And Andronicus, Tarvek all grown up and dangerous, full of twisty backroom deals. Those two would get along just fine.

I have some inchoate ideas floating around on this. It seemed like it was getting off the topic it came up in, about Agatha's sexuality, so I'm giving it it's own.

Voices command things, sometimes irresistibly. This can be because people are wasped, or because the voice comes from a Spark.

I have seen a suggestion on a forum that revenants could resist by deafening themselves either organically or with various kinds of Sparky earplugs. That has never been presented as a possibility in the comics or novels so far. Does that imply that the command wave can bypass actual hearing? Go straight to the brain somehow? It may come up in the future of the series of course.

Is this command wave Tarvek isolates something all or most Sparks have? Different in each Spark clearly, because the different incarnations of Lu have different effects on revenants; but is it what allows Sparks to be so charasmatic? And the wasps refine a particular Sparks command waves to an irresistable compulsion? Are those command waves in the infrasonic, as mentioned with Gil and Wooster? If so, do they go through your bones rather than your ears?

If so, what are the moral implications of Sparky Charisma? Clearly making revenants is bad. Are minions merely half-free revenants? How responsible can you be for something you are born with?

My cultural background includes Christianity; where God is the Word. I haven't studied it deeply; but I expect that this is something they've drawn on, the Word as creation and power, beyond mere hearing. It's simply too interwoven into the US culture to ignore.

Words themselves have always struck me as similar to atoms, with primary meanings like the protons and neutrons, and connotations like the electrons surrounding them as shells of probability subject to their surroundings, joining them to each other to create new and different substances. What this might possibly have to do with GG I don't know; but it's floating in my brain with all these other ideas.

Um. I just realized this isn't precisely about Clockwork Princess, hope that's okay.

There are two changes in the novel that I've noticed so far which I can't tell if are deliberate or errors. Both relate to Tarvek.

The first is that he's described as having blue eyes, when the close-up on the page where he shuts Aneveka down in the comic version clearly shows brown eyes. I tend to think this is an error, as I don't see why blue vs. brown does anything for the plot.

The second is his last name is written "Sturmvarous" in the book and "Sturmvorous" in the comic. This could be significant because "vorous", according to dictionary.com means "eating" or getting sustenence from. I had always liked that bit, thinking that maybe the Storm King would eat the storm to create peace rather than be someone who brings the storm. "Varous", as far as I can tell, means nothing. It could be an important change, or a "spell-check editing" error, where his name got into the spell-checker incorrectly and was changed incorrectly. There are other "spell-check editing errors" or I wouldn't be suggesting this. (Discrete is used for discreet more than once--arrgh1)

Has a thread up about the book, would you like me to link to here or not?

Another line jumped out at me, when Vrin is explaining their history to Agatha, explaining that they were to protect the Holy Child from those who would come for her. "We knew when they would come. We knew what they would do. We knew their powers and abilities-"

Does that sound like time windows looking forward, something Lucrezia would know, or just undefined prophecy in line with the rest of their pre-"end of world" prophecies? Either way it's interestingly specific. Any time you have prophecies that run up to a specific time and stop, in a story with time travel elements, that's interesting. Given that it lines up with a change in the aspect of their goddess from joyful (who looks like Lucrezia) to sharp (who looks Enigma-like), that's also interesting.

I just realized another fan confusion they cleared up. By moving Tarvek's sensitivity to the Heterodyning sounds to another scene, we now know that the swirly note when he's standing in front of the fireplace is not from his device/watch.

I was just looking at the sequence where Agatha's signal is activated; and looking at Bang's crew, they are not all women; or at least if they are it's a lot more subtle than Phil's usual drawings of women. In the book, a big deal is made of her crew being all women. It has to be significant; but I'm not sure where they're going with it.

Reread the intro to Clockwork Princess and I wondered if Thinkomancer something new, or just a new word for Spark? It's also interesting that the fighters have madboys. Sparks are subordinate to the politicians in this time.

It's also interesting to see that, in the book, it's very clear that Andronicus and Klaus have figured out the same method for keeping Sparks/Thinkomancers busy and safe for the rest of the world. Give them a place to putter and acknowledgement of their work and they're happy.

My feeling from the intro is also that Andronicus cannot be Tarvek somehow moved to the past; he just seems too unfamiliar with Balan's Gap and Sturmhalten, there's not Tarvek's possesiveness about *my* castle.

I realized last night, while flipping through the book again, that we now have a stated age for Gil at the time Agatha's entering Sturmhalten: he's twenty-two. Given how close he and Tarvek appear in age during the "Tarvek Sturmvoraus, Boy Detective" sequence, I'd put the two at very close to the same age, so depending on when birthdays fall Tarvek is somewhere between an old 21 or a youngish 23.

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.

It seems like we have a large number of characters to whom Tarvek was first introduced as a villain and who have had no time or reason to change that impression. I wonder if this is going to bite someone in the butt. Wooster would be one, especially with Gil in the book warning him specifically not to trust what he sees around Tarvek. The Jagers in general would be another group - Anevka laid it on pretty thick for the rescue team. Although Krosp and Zeetha seem to be managing - I do wonder what they think of Agatha's keeping him around, though. Even with all that time in the castle arc, there are a lot of characters who barely interacted with each other.

I've had an idea percolating for a while now about Higgs that I've brought up a couple of places and not gotten much comment on. I'm liking it better as time goes by; but that could just be falling in love with my own ideas--I do that.

Higgs is an heir to the Storm King, specifically he's the reputed werewolf heir. Werewolves are usually presented as extremely hard to kill and fast healing. Often presented as quasi-immortal, which would account for his age. Tarvek would certainly recognize such a person, and may have more background information on him than most, given his own heirdom (though there's no saying they're from the same branch). Being a werewolf might have disqualified him from heirdom; but maybe it's just difficult to make one do something he doesn't want to do, and ambition does not seem one of his character traits.

He could have come to the attention of the Heterodynes in several ways, perhaps he is also a son of Euphrosynia, perhaps a friend of the family, perhaps a werewolf who figured running with the Jaegers was a good option for a while, perhaps when you have young sparks breaking through and going through puberty an armsmaster or male nanny that was nearly unkillable and very strong was useful and they hired him to watch/teach young Heterodynes. His unflappability would also be useful in dealing with wild young sparkly children, or jaegers for that matter. I could see him doing Mama Gkika a favor in any of these circumstances, and earning the right to be part of her jaeger bar.

It would also be interesting if he founded the Wulfenbachs, (stream of wolves) and perhaps he passed down some healing abilities to our Gil. It might account for his willingness to save Herr Baron and to keep an eye on Gil. He'd have to be a distant ancestor to be dating Zeetha though; and even then I'm not sure it works. That's the biggest problem I see with this part of the hypothesis.

Werewolves are traditionally controlled by the Moon, which is usually feminine in our culture. And I notice that he always seems to take the worst damage from women (or female geese). It might account for why Zeetha made him so nervous in the bar, other than just being her gorgeous self.

Regarding his initial introduction; perhaps there is a vitality associated with werewolf healing that got depleted when fighting those nasty monsters (remember they *melted* Dimo's arm under Sturmhalten) and so the broken limbs and bites didn't heal as quickly as the wounds in DK seem to. Or, he does most of his healing while knocked out, he doesn't seem to heal the wound Pinky gives him until after he wakes up on the floor; and he had no opportunity to sleep between rescuing Klaus and Bang and being taken to see Sun. Or rum could make the healing slower...

This hypothesis is still percolating, I'm rather a slow thinker, so I may come up with reasons it's silly.

I'd like to claim some Moxana points from the Hippogrif - she read something I'd written quite a while back now where the Baron would get a daily workout by fighting with Jaegermonsters, and the scene with the Jaegergenerals looking at the corpse pretty well backs that up. :)

The book complicates the question of whether there can be more Spark wasps. From the information in the comic, we assumed they'd need to reverse engineer Slarlantz' wasp (which was not used under controlled conditions as planned) to get more, which would be slow and difficult. However, in the book, Selnikov reveals that the fact that they don't affect Sparks is due to an agreement between Lucrezia and the Order, not an innate limitation. What I take from this is that Klaus' wasp is forever unique, but Lu could make Spark wasps whenever she chose. I wonder 1) if the uniqueness of this wasp is going to be significant and 2) what else was in Tarvek's spies' report about it.

Another detail changed - when Wooster picks up the sniper rifle, before Dupree stops him, in the comic he looks to be targeting the Baron's head and states "Gil is not going to like this." In the book, they softened it to stating that he couldn't kill him, but wounding him should be okay. I wonder if the detail was more important than it looked, or if it was just something that made more sense to them this way in retrospect.

Heh, Wooster and Bang were two more characters in Paris at the same time. Man, Gil really needs to talk about what was going on there!

The first novel was Agatha H. and the Airship City, she visited it and was there through most of the action in the book, then left it behind. So the title doesn't seem to be about something that Agatha is directly involved in later, but about a significant learning experience.

Clockwork Princess, on the other hand, I'm not sure why they picked Anevka/Lunevka out of all the places and things Agatha interacted with to put in the title. She is important, she is an ongoing character/antagonist even later in the comic; but she is not really what stands out for me in this part of the story, which means they're pointing her out for a reason. If I was to title the novel, it would have been Summoning Engine or Beacon Engine. Or perhaps something referring to the circus, which runs through the whole novel, unlike Anevka who doesn't show up until halfway through.

She's an important character, and I think putting her in the title of the second novel is a bonk on the head that she is even more important than I thought. I was all set for Zola to take over as lead bad guy, now I don't think so.

I do want you to all know how glad I am you're using this as a place to talk. Sorry I've been out: This week was taxes, a writing assignment with a deadline, and similar chaos.

I'll try to catch up in the next day or so. But--thanks for coming! Thanks for chatting!

T. Stormboy

Mom Sturmvarous

Agatha and Sexuality

Gil and Paris

Was Tarvek Really Trying To Save Agatha?

favorite added scene

Geisters

Minor gloat.

no subject

Sturmhalten & Andronicus

More about Voices/Words

Change or Mistake?

Girl Genius Lab

Geister prophecy?

Tarvek's heterodyning note

Bang's Crew Change

Thinkomancer