Gunnerkrigg Court/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• Much as I loved Gunnerkrigg Court, I could not understand why Antimony wouldn't accept help from the adult staff at the Court, and why she went about trying to solve mysteries all by her lonesome. I didn't like it, but I accepted that it was necessary to keep the entire story from being resolved in two chapters. Then, about the time that Ch 14 was going up, I realized that Annie's independent nature was a result of her unusual childhood--her years at Good Hope Hospital had taught her to solve her own (and other people's) problems all by herself. But what really made me admire the comic was the realization that because she doesn't seek help from the adults who actually know what's going on, Annie's solo snooping and problem-solving actually make things worse: she nearly gets killed a few times, and then she almost triggers a diplomatic incident between the Court and the Woods. In other words, the "kids are smart and Adults Are Useless" setup that I disliked was actually being deconstructed by the comic. (It also helps that in later chapters, Annie seems to be maturing and learning to accept help and advice from other.) — User:Meta Four
  • Very early on it is a established that adults are not useless, even before Annie makes any major mistakes. It just isn't very apparent until the adults become more important. — Gallows
• It seems rather uncanny how spot-on Reynardine's snap judgements of Jeanne and Diego turn out to be, considering he only had their portraits to go by. And it had to be only by their portraits, since as we know Rey cannot lie to Annie. But look closely- At no point during that scene does Rey claim to have no prior knowledge of Jeanne and Diego! Dun Dun DUNNN!.
  • Renard is actually quite wrong. He sees Jeanne uneasy in her finery and calls her a soldier, when she's actually a forest sympathiser. He says Diego loved her from afar and built it to hide his grief, when actually he killed her and built it out of (maybe) remorse. All in all, a beautiful Aversion of the Sherlock Scan.
    • Well, "The Coward Heart" seems to confirm she was a soldier, despite being a forest sympathizer, if her training sequences are any idicator. (Also, remember how she obeyed the Court's instructions to go to the Annan Waters).
• I never really got the inclusion of Brinnie and the Valkyries in Gunnerkrigg Court. It seemed out of place to just randomly add those elements of Norse Mythology where there had so far only been Native American mythology, European folklore and Psychopomps. Then one day it hit me: the Valkyries take the souls of warriors to Valhalla; they are Psychopomps!
  • This assumption has been Jossed by word of Tom. To paraphrase (since I can't remember the exact wording), "The Valkyries are not psychopomps; their jobs are different." The Valkyries' importance will surely be revealed later in the comic though.
• Something I only caught due to a conversation on the official forum: From scenes in the ether, it's apparent that a person's appearance in the ether is in some way connected to their nature or character. In particular, their hair: Annie's hair seems to be infinitely long, while Anja's and Parley's hair in the ether is longer than their physical hair, but not infinitely so. Also, the separation between the physical world and the ether is weaker in Gillitie Wood, particularly for creatures of the etherium, like Suicide Fairies. In light of that, the freakout over Red's hair in Ch 15 ("Your hair! It goes up again!") takes on a completely different meaning: Blue wasn't pushing Red away (solely) because she's shallow. Blue was pushing Red away because she came from a world where personal appearance is inextricably linked to character and personality, and she failed to realize that this was not true in the human world. — User:Meta Four
  • Also relating to the Suicide Fairies: after Red gets her hair cut, she calls her friend "wassername". This isn't actually (possibly) an insult : she really doesn't have a name at that time. — @/Maniette
  • Ch 36 confirmed that they didn't have names. Also, Red and Blue seem to take turns taunting each other; apparently they fight just because they like to. User:T Beholder
• Something that I have only noticed recently is how vital Shadow 2 was for creating the story of Gunnerkrigg Court itself. See, if Annie was not inclined to confront him that night in the hallway, we would have never figured out that he needed to get across the bridge. And if we never figured that out, Annie would have never built a robot for him to ride across. If Robot had never gone across the bridge in the first place, he wouldn't have come back across in chapter seven. Annie would have never fallen off the bridge, making it so Coyote and Ysengrin never organized a meeting, and Coyote would have not invited her to the forest to expand her knowledge of her etheric powers. Along with that, Annie would have not discovered Jeanne, or have a reason to create a new body for Robot, and Kat and Annie would have never located Jeanne's shrine or learned about the story of Diego. And now my brain is yelling at itself. — User:Pax Repaki
• I just realized that when Parley teleported everyone to her bed, Jones was sinking much further into the mattress.
• This is probably really obvious, but anyway. When Robot and the others see Kat taking care of Jeanne's shrine, they interpret her as an angel. Because she's beautiful, sure, but in religious texts, there are three ranks of angels that serve to guard and protect God. To them, Diego is a father, but Jeanne is a friggin deity. And if Diego built them to love her just as he does...well...
• The reasons why Antimony dislikes alarms are because of what happens on this page and this page.
• I just noticed that Robot's speech bubble has the usual outer shape and color but has a different shape and color on the inside because Robot's not the one talking.

Fridge Horror

• In this Gunnerkrigg Court bonus strip (of unconfirmed canonicity), Antimony asks Kat to "show [her] some of these 'video games'". One round of Grand Theft Auto later, Antimony finds herself unable to sleep thanks to all the causeless violence. One midnight fridge raid for the viewer later, it sinks in that Antimony wasn't unable to sleep because of the game, but rather because of how cheerfully Kat caused the aforementioned violence.
• Reynardine stated that everyone knew that having Antimony would kill Surma. Including, in his words, "[Annie's] damned father! Especially him!" Especially? Does this mean he always knew having a kid with Surma would kill her, and simply didn't care?
  • Even married people have unplanned pregnancies. He would have wanted to put pregnancy off a lot longer, and may have recommended abortion (if possible), but if Surma has a race/species, then she may have never seriously considered termination.
  • There's also the implication that as of a man of science, he thought he could defeat the process, allowing Surma to live with Annie normally. He failed, which would be part of the reason he abandoned his daughter (she's a very strong reminder of that failure, not to mention his dead wife).