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

My Higg's Hypothesis

[lightningnettle.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: My Higg's Hypothesis

[sffcorgi]

My only problem with a rather nice construction there is that werewolves in Europa seem (my inference) to be simply a variety of construct. They've lots of created chimeræ.

I know, I know, you're going by that conversation of Gil and Zola's. Not quite sure how to coordinate the two concepts.

Anyway, I like it, but I think it drifts too far away from plausibility in the current context.

Re: My Higg's Hypothesis

[lightningnettle.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm happy with anything short of that's completely ridiculous because *insert obvious thing I missed here*.

It can be my very own way out there guess. :D

Re: My Higg's Hypothesis

[lightningnettle.livejournal.com]

Heh, just got to the point in the tropes thread where Greybeard fan is translating Axel as short for Absalom, which is he says means "father is peace"; perhaps that too might point to Higgs as a (grand)son of the Storm King, peacemaker.

Re: My Higg's Hypothesis

[bunnyjadwiga]

I found the emphasis on van Rijn's refusal to let any portraits of himself be made somewhat... hm... suspicious. I continue to wonder whether Higgs is in fact van Rijn. Or is he Mongfish related (or both), since both Theo and Tarvek appear to follow his lead...

Re: My Higg's Hypothesis

[claudeng]

Agreed, that seemed like an awfully important detail but we don't have nuch to hang on it. It could fit in with the Tarvek-time-travel theory, too, but I'm hoping that's not the case.

Higgs could certainly pass for Dutch, and he really knew his way around Otilia. The Netherlands and Belgium are outside Klaus' empire, right?

I still don't think Tarvek has any special knowledge about Higgs, I think he's just reacting to the signals Higgs been sending him until he knows what's going on. As long as Higgs is no immediate threat to Agatha or his plans, I think quietly going along with things until he has the situation understood and back under control is exactly how Tarvek would react. He knows Higgs is more than he seems, but he doesn't know any more than we do. Theo much the same.

Re: My Higg's Hypothesis

[bunnyjadwiga]

I'd buy that except that Moloch (trained minion), Zeetha, Violetta, Sleipnir, Gil, and the other prisoners don't seem to have the "oh, better not ask" response to Higgs, so why Theo and Tarvek?

Re: My Higg's Hypothesis

[claudeng]

Higgs hasn't pulled out the active looming at anyone but Tarvek, so far as I remember. In fact, how much of his scary awesomeness has anyone in your list witnessed?

Gil's the only one who knows the story of him saving Klaus. Tarvek was the only one who saw him dismantle Otilia one-handed. Theo can tell Higgs is lying about the map, but that doesn't tell him much. Zeetha sees him fight with Jagers, he's as fast as she is chasing Zola, and he can jump down the same holes. She treats him as an equal. We only see Violetta interact with him briefly after he really goes to town on Zola in the plant room - she's working with him and doesn't seem ridiculously impressed, but she's awfully fast herself. Gil, Tarvek, and Agatha see him get up and salute when he should be mostly exsanguinated.

Most of them are interacting with him perfectly reasonably, given what they've seen of him. Tarvek is the only one who's seen him go really superhuman more than once, been loomed at by him twice, and obviously has a theory, but I think it's based just on what he's observed, not any background information.

Also, I suspect Higgs is really good at fading into the background when he wants to. It'd be a survival skill for him.

Re: My Higg's Hypothesis

[claudeng]

I realized I forgot Zeetha's "How indeed?" reaction - she does realize there's something up with Higgs, but it doesn't seem to affect how she treats him. Maybe that just makes him more interesting, I guess.