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The Foglios have created a Twitter account for Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer. Othar’s Twitter describes Othar’s adventures from his perspective. There is also an archive of the first part of Othar's Twitter posts on the Girl Genius web site and a File:Twitario-Othar.pdf.

At the beginning, the content was sillier and more far-fetched than the main story (Agatha's), and related little to those storylines. It has taken a more tragic and dramatic turn after Othar's Parisian adventures, and has started to provide more connections to some of the developed plots elsewhere.

In one interview Phil Foglio was asked the question of the Twitter's canonicity directly, to which he answered decisively, "Sure. Why not?"[1]. Regardless of how it fits within the overall story, it does provide useful information on Othar’s character and personality.

Since trying to read through the whole twitter timeline backwards ia rather tedious, here is the link to the whole thing, compiled in chronological order and currently up to date.

Timeframe[]

One update suggests the timeframe for this string of adventures starts some years after the current events of Agatha Heterodyne's story. There is a specific reference to the events in Sturmhalten, Castle Heterodyne being restored and also a passing mention to Othar's retirement (it has been suggested this is Othar's personal term for when he decided to stay on the island with Oslaka). After "I Love Paris", there is a 36-year gap in the narrative, putting currently-journaled events even farther away from familiar chronological territory.

Summary[]

Adventure the First: Believe Green Eyes[]

After surviving yet another fall, Othar is called to the Barony of Micklesburgh to rescue the Baron's daughter. He notes that there have been no trains passing through recently, mentions lycanthropy, and finds a tattoo on his stomach reading 'Believe Green Eyes' after losing four days.

He defeats Zorbit Huffnagle and his giant flying stoat easily to find several copies of the Baron's daughter Rheeba... then too many copies of himself. Whether this is due to "Huffnagle dabbl[ing] in transdimensional harmonics AND time travel" or not is still unrevealed. One way or another, after learning some unsettling facts about himself from himself, and musing over the Great Wall of Norway, Othar dies from a tragic waffle iron accident, attends his funeral and meets Annisette, a waitress specializing in transdimensional harmonics, while attempting to get drunk.

She has green eyes.

Adventure the Second: I Take the Train[]

Othar smashes Huffnagle's machines and catches a train leaving a nearby Corbettite terminal for Paris. His fellow passengers are, among a bevy of Sparks, a brass merchant from Istanbul, a professora from TPU and a Jägermonster on a Wulfenbach courier run. The train is attacked by monsters resembling green cloaks, which starts Othar thinking. He finds the green cloak creatures transforming into train crew and passengers. "Confound it! An entire train full of helpless Sparks AND dangerous monsters AND a handy chasm nearby. Someone is tempting me. So not fair!"

He determines it's a trap to kill Baron Wulfenbach - which he's quite satisfied to let play through - but is reminded he is a Hero and saving the innocents from the monsters takes priority. His methods are disputed by a Wulfenbach Quester, but the train and monsters (and Othar) go into the chasm.

Adventure the Third: I Love Paris[]

On the next train by, the Gentleman Adventurer gets to continue his trip to Paris. He meets Arlene Zyn again, a former child of his earlier acquaintance as he idles in her parents' cafe. Soon after, he is (apparently) recruited by a Serpent, one of the Master of Paris's police force, to investigate thefts at the Louvre - and of the Louvre. In the middle of being framed, the Zyns' shop burns, killing his old friends. Othar makes a deal with the Master to resolve his problem (and keep himself alive).

Othar solves the mystery of the Louvre, but finds another in the ruins of the fire at the Zyns' - a dead Geisterdame. She is revived by the Master of Paris for questioning, but only for 48 hours. Othar decides to show her the town after official business is done; then on second thought, decides to show her out of town as well, pursued by the Master's devices. They escape to... well, to a small North Sea island where they reside together happily until Oslaka dies in her sleep 36 years later.

Adventure the Fourth []

Othar abandons the island (there's nothing there for him anymore), and returns to the French mainland, but finds Paris has been scoured by slaver wasps. The Autonomous Library, safely underground, cannot tell him much, so he builds an airship and leaves. As with Paris, all Europa he can observe is devastated. He find deserted crystalline hives in the wild, larger the further east he travels. Finally, in the ghost town of Heidelberg, he finds another news archive — news from around Europa, and even as far away as Omsk.

After being disturbed by the Wulfenbach-Heterodyne alliance news and the sweep of Europa (but not disturbed by the death of Gilgamesh), Othar heads off for the rumored secret city of the Geisterdamen, where he finds a glowing hole, poison dust, and an old "friend" of ours, Tarvek Sturmvoraus. He displays the function of a sort of time machine, and asks for Othar's help. Othar objects on scientific grounds, but after a long pause[2], we see Tarvek seized the moment and Othar's consciousness has indeed been cast back in time!

Adventure the Fifth []

Othar awakens to find himself back in the/his past, in his young body and in a populated Europe. He considers returning to Paris and finding Oslaka again, but instead, following half-remembered instructions from Tarvek, he heads east to Mechanicsburg to battle the Other. En route he is captured by the Wulfenbach monster-hunter Grantz and dragged before the Baron in the Great Hospital, bringing him into (evidently) the era and timeline that the main comic has been following. The narrative follows him as far as the point where he is reunited with his sister Sanaa; his worrying about her safety sends him into a account of how he got banished from his childhood fishing village thanks to his rather too successful resurrection of his recently-deceased uncle. Or actually aunt, it turns out.

Adventure the Sixth[]

There follows a three year gap resulting from Othar's recording device deleting all his messages for that period.[3] Othar is now in "the southern wastelands", where he falls into a mystery in the town of Sbonkj involving waffles and monster-ranching. The ultimate pettiness of the whole affair sours him on further adventuring and he decides he's going settle down somewhere and live more quietly, with just a little Spark-killing on the side. He assumes a false identity and arrives in the city of East Walachia, whereupon his account falls silent. Has Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer truly retired?..

Adventure the Seventh[]

Not quite yet! After a second multiyear hiatus, Othar returns. He's been contained in a Corbettite Vault, but the announcement of the creation of a certain new electro-magnetic game prompts him to escape. Determining that he is in some altered timeline, he sets out to (re)unite with Oslaka, which leads him to the locked-down Paris under the rule of Collette Voltaire. He attempts to sneak into the city, and is promptly caught. Dragged before Collette, he convinces her to let him search the city's underbelly, accompanied by a minder in the form of Collette's fairly useless half-brother Claude. They do indeed find a Geister.. but she is not Oslaka, and she is ill and malnourished to the point of delirium. Othar uses Claude to lay a false trail and escapes the city with the Geister in tow. He gets them on board a Corbettite train heading out of town. The train-monks get the Geister patched up, and we learn that she's Eotain, half of the duo who previously kept bumping into Agatha. She claims to be done following the Other's orders, and agrees to tag along with Othar as his "sister" as he investigates nefarious events in Holfung-Borzoi. The duo get as far as a covert meeting with the mysterious local rebel-leader "The Shrike" when the account again goes silent for an extended period.

Back in the main comic, it is revealed The Shrike will/did go on to lead an overthrow of the current Other-supporting Holfung-Borzoi regime, with the help of a band of rebellious Geisters. Othar's exact involvement in this is not yet revealed, but he ends up returning to Paris with Eotain and a few other Geisters, and meets with a party led by Gil and Tarvek...

Discussion[]

For specific tweet discussions, please go to Forum:Othar's Twitter.

References

  1. "...The Girl Genius world is so full of amazing things that I don’t see any reason why someone else can’t have a few absurd adventures."
  2. July 2009 note: One can imagine that Othar's literary agent has been extremely busy this month.
  3. The real-life Twitter account was inactive from 2010 to 2014.
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