Discussion for comic for 2012-12-17 (Monday) ✣ . (Chronology Entry)
One conclusion and one question:
- Gil's not wasped: he's clearly not following Agatha's orders. He's a free agent and thinks he's working in everyone's best interests, which are clearly not Agatha's best interests (as I've suspected).
- Assuming Agatha zapped the lightning collector, and not something random in the air, what will happen next?
76.173.76.213 07:02, December 17, 2012 (UTC)
- Why? He did stop moving, he just didn't stop arguing, something that Agatha did not ask for.
- As for zapping things, she seems to use it the same way Gil used it to direct the discharge of generators toward stompers, except she used more powerful discharge to direct a lightning strike toward the collectors -- what is actually a valid way of increasing the efficiency of lightning rods in the real world (except with the lack of zappy sticks they use ionizing radiation). 76.252.216.172 10:31, December 17, 2012 (UTC)
- It is too soon to assume that Gil is not wasped just yet.
- He might be wasped with a variety that will not respond to Agatha's voice as she is using it at the moment.
- Or, alternatively, those who suspect that this is not Gil at all might be correct. He has been bucking his father up until now, why would he suddenly change his behavior? This boat looks very much like a piece of Dupree's hardware. I smell a rat.
- If Agatha has gotten the lightning to strike as she intended, then Castle Heterodyne should come back to life. The results of that will prove to be spectacular one way or the other.
- So now we know why the Castle told Agatha that it could never have enough weather vanes.-- Billy Catringer (talk) 09:07, December 17, 2012 (UTC)
You people just won't give up on this wasped business. The most likely scenario is that Klaus used an altered or fake weasel to "prove" Gil was wasped. This was for the crew and Gil to believe was the case. Or maybe, Gil picked up a normal wasp (or was given one) which has no effect other than to set off a wasp weasel. AndyAB99 (talk) 11:53, December 17, 2012 (UTC)
I think the zappy stick is supposed to go "Krakkoom." This shot goes "Krakk" and runs off the page. It would be cool if this is the start of a double-page spread! NathanTheRammer (talk) 14:29, December 17, 2012 (UTC)
Jumping in on the "wasping business" - I do agree that it is too soon to tell. It seems a bit unlikely, but we don't know that Lucrezia hasn't engineered another Spark Wasp, and tweaked the command settings so that it will not respond to Agatha. How do we know she didn't engineer it to respond to Klaus, so that she can utilize it without the chance of Agatha's command voice interfering, since she controls Klaus? Of course, there is also the possibility that Gil is just extremely stressed out because he knows he must save Agatha but is only working on a half-baked plan. Joseline.hargrave (talk)
Agreed with Andy:
- "Get yourself to the town square. Find Tarvek and Van." -- Sounds like a direct order to me. So it's very unlikely Gil is wasped. The only consistent reason Gil wouldn't obey, if wasped, would be if spark wasps are better at discerning who's talking than regular wasps. Barring this -- possible, but IMO not very interesting -- explaining the scenario when Gil doesn't follow orders requires speculating about custom-made spark wasps -- possible in theory, of course, everything is possible in fiction, but IMO too contrived to fit the plot.
- Now that said, Gil is certainly under his father's impression -- great job Foglios on the father-son relationship -- and with the information he has, that the town is lost, is at least provisionally going along with Klaus' plan. The real question IMO is whether he's doing this because he thinks it's momentarily best for Agatha but has other plans once they get out of town/ onto the castle, or whether he's now convinced Agatha is compromised and is ready to follow through with his father's wishes until convinced otherwise.
- Now, it would really be interesting if they get in front of Klaus & Agatha finds out she can order him around. This, in turn, depends on what Lunevka & Zola are doing, and they're total wild cards now. But I'd love to see that.
Anyways just my 5c 76.173.76.213 17:58, December 17, 2012 (UTC)
I think that this is probably an imposter. Gil KNOWS how Agatha reacts when he orders her around or demands that she obey without discussion. He's acting the way that somebody who knew Gil would expect him to act in an emergency situation, rather than as he has come to behave around Agatha. Of course, it may just be fear and frustration causing him to revert to earlier behavior patterns. If he's really there, I suspect that it's as a result of the best deal he could strike with his father, promising to turn her over to the Baron in return for assurances that she would not be harmed. johnwillo
Followers of the "Gil is wasped" theory need to remember that Gil was supposedly wasped in Paris, before the spark wasp was even invented. A simpler explanation would be that the Baron staged the whole thing to give himself an excuse to detain Gil. I think the fact that the "Gil" we're seeing nonchalantly drugged Franz is evidence that it isn't really Gil. Bang would have gleefully slaughtered Franz, so I don't think think this is Bang either. Super88 (talk) 00:59, December 18, 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm, interesting theory, personally I don't think it's an impostor. I think Gil genuinely got scared & mindf**ked by Klaus. And, he gave his father his word he'd do anything he wants, and that counts for a lot. Plus I'm not sure how sure Gil is that Klaus is wasped.
But if it is an impostor, my money is on Wooster. 76.173.76.213 03:31, December 18, 2012 (UTC)
I'll throw in another reason why I belive it is Gil (wasped or not). The authors have said the story will be leaving Mechanicsburg. They have also talked about Gil in England, where the story is going after Mechanicsburg (via Paris). This implies Gil needs to be part of Agatha's entourage. If she gets the castle going, it should be able to hold off the Wulfenbach assault which would trap Gil inside the town. It's the fastest, most direct way to get Gil back at Agatha's side. Granted, the Foglio's don't seem to do direct alot, but we are seemly closing up this volume. I just don't see this current plot thread running for a lot more pages, maybe a dozen roughly. Also, if Gil is with Agatha, he provides some protection from his father. AndyAB99 (talk) 15:10, December 18, 2012 (UTC)
I believe that when Klaus used a weasel to "prove" Gil was wasped, Gil was not wasped at that time. The weasel was either fake, reacting to Klaus's own wasp, or otherwise subverted. However, Lucrezia and Klaus have quite possibly had time and opportunity to wasp Gil (with a special spark wasp) subsequent to that. Klaus wouldn't do it willingly, but might not be able to resist a direct order. However, we already know that Klaus's wasp doesn't work quite as well on him as Lucrezia might hope, and it's reasonable that a spark wasp in Gil might similarly be less effective than an ordinary wasp in a non-spark. Even if wasped, Gil may not entirely belong to Lu - nor to Agatha. I also don't think it's guaranteed that Gil is wasped at all; and who we're seeing might well be something or someone other than Gil. Franz was suspicious, I think Agatha is suspicious too, and there are plenty of reasons to be. I wouldn't put too much weight on number of visible fingers or greyish skin tone (how good do you think the lighting is up there?) but I would put weight on that flying machine, which does NOT look like one Gil would build. Mskala (talk) 00:06, December 19, 2012 (UTC)
- My take on the airship is that it is insurance Gil won't try to run for it with Agatha. It looks slow, like any other ship in the fleet could catch it. No matter what he promised his father, Gil is on a leash, more figurative than literal. AndyAB99 (talk) 00:31, December 19, 2012 (UTC)
- This "gil" is acting like zola. stabbing franz like that is totally something she would do. whether it's gil or not, i dunno, but if he was wasped, or some similar process, it was matched to zola, which explains why he constantly keeps compulsively rescuing her.149.32.192.33 14:51, December 20, 2012 (UTC)
- That's an interesting and almost possible theory, numbers guy! Although I think that is more Gil's overall "hero personality" that rushes in to save people, more than anything to do directly with Zola. Zola had no idea that Gil was the Baron's son, remember. She only knew him from Paris, where he used a fake name, and it's possible that she also has no clue he is even a spark.
- I'm with other numbers guy on who the imposter might be, Wooster knows from experience ✣ how Gil acts when he's all agitated over Agatha, but not how Gil acts when he's all agitated around Agatha. Gil may have given Wooster the go-ahead to carry out his original orders to take Agatha to England. Whether he told Wooster to disguise himself like that or not, who knows? Perhaps Wooster thought he would have better luck dressed up as Gil? Joseline.hargrave (talk)