Gunnerkrigg Court 8: Thrown for a Loup

[slayerx]

So it looks like this Kat is responsible for every sighting of the bird that the main characters have ever seen. But the only robot for it to make any appearance in front of was Seraph-13, who would have been too distracted to notice. Why would the court robots be aware of them for a long time and consider them a "mythical orthnithonic"? Is she going to make a second bird?

Ya that's one thing that's seriously missing from this. I actually was expecting her to send the bird back in time to see the seed bismuth; That would have dated the bird's first sighting to before the court. Add in some more cases of Kat spying on the past and you will get multiple sightings of the birds through history that would lead to the robots creating a mythology around them. Heck if Kat was using the birds to spy on important events then that would only make them seem even MORE mythical since they end up being sighted anytime something important happens.

What was the point of this chapter, or anything about the bird? I don't see why "Kat created the bird, and therefore we have to justify how it was there in the past" progressed the story at all. It's one of those things that doesn't at all feel like it was planned for and built up, it was added in as a plot point later and this is "fixing" a plot hole that that development causes, but I don't see what value the development added in the first place. I was expecting the Norns to be able to shed some light on the timelines that these two Annies came from and where the original Annie went, but somehow that's not time-related and so they can't.

Ya i kind of feel the same way... I mean the story makes for a somewhat interesting anecdote, but i was kind of expecting something more significant out of the birds than "Kat really cares about Annie". I also stand by my earlier annoyance with how these time travel shenanigans have played out as i feel like the time loop and alternate timelines lack an internal logic ajust don't make a whole lot of sense...

One thing that bugs me is just how simple it all was because the Norns just GIVE Kat the chance to change the past. Kat didn't even have to give them a compelling reason since they just associate her with the previous Kats... there are TONS of people who would love the chance to change the past to save a loved one, so i think that alone ends up feeling like a weak reason for the Norns to help Kat in particular. Anja even points out how many people spent their whole lives trying to find a way to change the past; turns out they just didn't have the norn's phone number. I just feel like it would have been WAY more compelling if future Kat actually figured out how to alter time herself. THAT i think would have added a lot more weight to the birds


Frankly i feel like what would have been a more satisfying development and made more sense is if future Kat had figured out how to mess with time herself. The first Kat did it to save annie, but other kats figured it out after they figure out what the first Kat did and end up using that power for other reasons(maybe our kat would try to figure it out to help fix the two annie problem). The birds seen in the court end up being different instances of a Kat looking into the past. The Kats would spy on the history of the court and inadvertently create a mythology around the bird. This even could even play into the already existing subplot of Kat possibly becoming divine. A very big and possibly scary future for Kat