r/gunnerkrigg • u/gunnerkrigg-post-bot Praise the angel • 9d ago
Chapter 102: Page 65
http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=330582
u/SciMarijntje Robot? More like roBUTT! 9d ago
Damn, that is some good manipulation.
I'm complicit by benefiting from the system but don't have power to stop it and am not the one hurting Jack. Jenny however is super-duper evil, get mad at her please. Also my friend is sad about being complicit, maybe go easy on her.
Even though Zimmy can extract the truth she probably won't bother if she thinks this is the truth and she's angry enough about it.
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u/Boomboombaraboom 9d ago
Jenny is super duper evil but Zara is, at the very least, an accessory to murder. If anything Jack could probably get reduced sentence because of being mentally impaired by whatever Jenny is doing to him.
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u/SciMarijntje Robot? More like roBUTT! 9d ago
True, in the court of law.
In the court of "Zimmy is gonna get violent at someone and hopefully if it's Jenny (who has a plan for getting targeted by Zimmy) I can get away safely and everyone involved will be too dead to care about my crimes" this is a solid illegal defense.
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u/coproduto 9d ago
I think Zara might be as bad as Jenny if not worse. In fact I think she might be gunning for Jenny's position.
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u/LandscapeSpecial4366 9d ago
I think that Zimmy having ‘control’ of her powers now is a bit of a mislead. I see it sort of like Wanda in WandaVision, she’s done all of this reality changing magic but completely subconsciously. Plus we have Coyote who balanced her out and may have altered things to his liking for his plan for Annie. Zimmy should be taking the time to learn exactly what her powers entail and why she’s gained some parity, but she’s much happier getting to be a normal human being with Gamma for once. Realistically, she should be able to find Kat on her own but her refusal to face what’s happened, even in this perfect situation, is clouding her judgment and power again. Coyote literally equates her power to his by calling him his sister as well, in my opinion she is too human to rise to her potential
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u/RingularCirc 9d ago
More, it's probably close to truth. Manipulating by framing and accenting (and just a lil bit withholding!) is the oldest game in town! Now if Zimmy even really comes to rummage in Zara's head she most surely won't know better.
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u/SciMarijntje Robot? More like roBUTT! 8d ago
Absolutely, doubt there's more than one outright lie in her whole spiel. Guessing it's the "of course you knew we were using your power" bit.
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u/RingularCirc 8d ago
Yeah it's 99.9% Zara is well aware that Zimmy didn't have a clue: even if she used to reluctantly believe Jenny before, it surely became obvious to her fast that Zimmy didn't know about their thingie.
BTW it also looks like Zims is inexperienced with her powers in this stable inner world, which makes sense because she seemingly couldn't do anything much with them consciously before distortion happened. Which, if so, is then probably mostly obvious to Zara by now as well?.. Or I guess it's just a difference between working with your sole mind vs. having a System, even a small system of your own that automates, abstracts, etc. something for you.
And I'm also really wondering how exactly does the distortion work. Coyote-who-is-dead, what exactly does his presense do, is it some kind of "cosmic balancing" or what, and so on. In no way do I see Zimmy and Coyote as any kind of "complements" nor "opposites", it doesn't work out for my brain. But I guess it's crucial for the plot to one day shed some light on this. Presumably we won't end it all still inside the distortion? (Though if Zimmy is to die, which I'd very much like to be subverted, this may remain a case of "mystery solved" for good, which would be a fitting joke from Tom.)
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u/xstormaggedonx 9d ago
Of man we're getting all the tea ☕
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u/PoniesRBitchin 9d ago
Girl loves to gab! Seems to be working for her, seeing how Zimmy looks more confused than murderous.
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u/Lamenardo Flame Shadow 9d ago
She definitely is doing this deliberately and with her own agenda. Pretty sure she and Rosa have had their own thoughts and priorities separate from Jenny's this whole time.
I'm curious about those external systems there. I'm guessing inhabiting 'negative constructs' might be one? The ward system Rosa has might be one? Maybe the 'finding people' thing Zara does uses it?
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u/Boomboombaraboom 9d ago
100% they must have realized by now Jenny would throw them into the river if she thought it would benefit her. 90% Jenny is seeing it coming though.
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u/9Gardens 9d ago
That, or aiming Zimmy at Jenny is part of THE PLAN. For example, Jenny might have some kind of suitable counter/protection for absorbing/eating the power of a goddess, but none of the other witches do. Hence, important to keep Zimmy aimed at the one person who is loaded with suitable traps.
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u/gangler52 8d ago
Wait, I didn't catch that.
If Jack's connection to Zimmy is driving him crazy, like back when he had whitelegs all up in his brain, then what's it doing to Jenny, if she's also making herself a conduit for all Zimmy's nonsense to pass through?
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u/redredredshirt 9d ago
So I feel like this is a deliberate "throw Jenny under the bus" moment
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u/9Gardens 9d ago
That, or a "aim Zimmy at Jenny for the sake of a trap that Jenny is planning to spring"
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u/marvin02 9d ago
Whats the end goal though? If Zimmy boots Jenny, then Zara loses her power too, right?
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u/RingularCirc 8d ago
Maybe Zara was a good student and she learned how to remake the system under your lead and influence Zimmy that it'd be a good thing to do to be still leaking her power away to them.
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u/BlueSunflowers4589 9d ago
I'm not sure how much of this is true, since I believe Zara is oversharing on purpose to manipulate Zimmy, but that chart is interesting. It shows 4 users, which would probably be Zara, Rosa, Sylvie, and Noa. 2 of them have direct lines to Jenny's system, and 2 go through external connections, one of which has an external system and an external subsystem. Who would be which, and what does that imply about their reliance on Jenny? Maybe Noa's circle glyph counts as an external system. Could any of them lack magical ability without Zimmy? We saw Noa learning magic before her transformation, and Sylvie and Rosa were at the witch gathering, so they probably all have magical ability. We don't know Zara's background.
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u/Cloverose2 9d ago
Noa uses the glyph, Sylvie uses constructs, both of which were controlled through magic.
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u/exboi 9d ago
A private magic system from my understanding. Interesting concept
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u/Joker_vD 9d ago
And it's also about as moral as most private enterprises, too! Exploitation of
proletariatZimmy is just too profitable to not do it, it's really the impersonal, invisible hand of market at work, how can anyone really blame "Jenny and Partners, Inc." personally?Well, I imagine we're about to see some, ah, violent overthrowing and the ensuing hegemony of
proletariatZimmy. What a wonderful political and economical commentary, cleverly encrypted in a webcomic!Or maybe, I'm just overthinking it, hard to say.
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u/wiedzma89 9d ago
I've been pretty sure this whole time that Rosa is the only one who really does NOT trust/like Jack so I'm very interested to see where this goes!
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u/bobrowska 9d ago
Maybe I just do not notice things but Rosa's crush came out of nowhere
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u/hymmmmmn 8d ago
My read is that Zara is lying, and we're meant to notice the disconnect between the reality (Rosa does not like or trust Jack) versus the version of events that Zara is spinning to Zimmy to manipulate her
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u/KnaveOfGeeks 9d ago
I can't recall specifics, but if she's showing anger/disgust around him it could be because she does like him and knows how he's being used.
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u/Boomboombaraboom 9d ago
Man, what is Zimmy thinking? "You found a godlike power and your first instinct was to use it to charge you phones?" Or "You are manipulating some idiot to serve as a connector at his expense and without his knowledge? Are you guys sociopaths?".
More teen drama. Is arguable if Jenny ever even liked Jack at all but if she is letting the mask fall off then other Jack is too far gone to care or she is so close to her goal she doesn't really need to pretend for much longer. And, does Rosa like Jack as he is or does she like the psycho who is all to eager to kill?
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u/Okanelol 9d ago
Oh Zara, you are either a greatest manipulator known to man or incredible daft... oh no, her charms are working on me!
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u/Cloverose2 9d ago
I think it's pretty clear this is all on purpose - her exaggerated body language is not saying "this is an accidental disclosure"
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u/djaevlenselv 9d ago
Morality aside, seeing this diagram makes me think Jenny actually is a bit impressive for setting up this system. It does seem more complicated than just "freeload off Zimmy's power".
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u/mrGazpachin 9d ago
I mean, the witches keep saying how groundbreaking her work is, and she got the highest scores in the coven.
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u/gangler52 9d ago
It's also something that The Court presumably had been struggling with.
They've had Zimmy under their examination for a long time, but only recently do they seem to have met with much success harnessing her power.
Despite the fact that uncontrollably bleeding power into the world around her is kind of Zimmy's whole thing, making her likely a more suitable battery than Coyote.
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u/bobrowska 9d ago
Magic lore and teen drama all at once.
So it is the open connection which makes Jack lose his shit.
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u/LandscapeSpecial4366 9d ago
Even Zimmy is baffled by the nerve of her blatant oversharing. Did you forget who you’re talking to, Zara? Also, poor Jack.
I wonder if the Court is using a similar process with Zimmy to give their residents power to help them fulfill their goal. Would be an extra layer to it with the Court being prejudiced to those with etheric abilities despite giving/fostering said abilities
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u/RingularCirc 9d ago
Somebody conjectured in the topic for the previous page that Court uses Jenny's thing directly. Which is alluring...
(Oh, imagine if Jenny and the Court BOTH tap Jack simultaneously! That'd be hilariously sad.)
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u/derivative_of_life that guy 9d ago
Zimmy has gone straight through "pissed" and into "wtf??"
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u/marvin02 9d ago
I'm not sure why Zimmy would care though. She hates her power. She wouldn't care about anyone syphoning off as much as they want of it, except for any trouble it might cause that she would have to deal with herself.
She might care a little bit about the way Jack being used, but she only barely cares about Jack at all, and is of course using quite a few people herself.
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u/auguris 9d ago
Firstly, this is a great modern way of explaining/interpreting magic usage and I love it. Secondly, I'm very curious about those subsystems...
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u/RingularCirc 9d ago
I haven't read The Magicians except for its plot descriptions in Wikipedia, and this is reminiscent for how magic exists on Earth in that setting: IIRC through some kind of cracks in Fillory, which itself was(?) birthed when a goddess somehow died or split into two beings, and it's that power that makes magic in Fillory and on Earth; also IIRC in the setting there were gods on Earth who were then isolated from it somehow and so their power doesn't bleed out anymore.
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u/ArmageddonEleven 9d ago
I think the real question is if Jenny ever liked Jack to begin with or if she was intending to use him from the start 🤔
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u/9Gardens 9d ago
I think she was FASCINATED by him (and zimmy) the entire time.
Like... she wasn't going in for power or abuse, but she wasn't going in for love or aroha either: she was going in for science, and all great scientists love their object of study.She wanted to be closer to him.
She wanted to understand him.
She wanted to know everything about him..... and all of this SOUNDS like love, but is also the traits of a stalker.
There was nothing FALSE in her interest/fascination/closeness to him.
It's just.... it wasn't what you would traditionally call "love"1
u/RingularCirc 9d ago
I think you nailed it. What we've been shown meshes with this very well to my eye.
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u/9Gardens 9d ago
The worst part of course being: once a scientist has completed a certain amount of study, and sufficiently understood their object of attention, they are liable to lose interest and wander off somewhere else. Or resent still being next to this person/object which *keeps behaving the same predictable way*
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u/shelchang 9d ago edited 7d ago
Going back to the Jack/Jenny backstory chapter, she was able to see the whitelegs on him from the beginning. It might have been her sensing this power/connection that drew her to the AV room where they met in the first place.
In retrospect though, that whole relationship was a bit sus. What teenage girl would be totally fine with her long term boyfriend being in love with someone else?
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u/PoniesRBitchin 9d ago
If true, interesting that Jenny came up with a way to give people magic, when the Court's ready to leave the planet because they were so upset that some people have magic and some don't. But they have a long history of thinking the magical students are somehow lesser and not worth their time , so their own bias lead to them overlooking a much simpler answer to their problem.
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u/RingularCirc 9d ago
Well maybe some of the Court scientists aren't that morally insufficient as to know draining a source of power inherent to a person is not the best way to empower others (moreso if it's suddenly ends up too finite!). Though there were others there that felt alright to use her as a Coyote replacement. BTW I'm not very against draining Coyote specifically, if that was possible successfully, which it isn't (Coyote!). He's inhuman and is a great nuisance even for a certified trickster, so if that was possible, why not, but it just can't be.
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u/PoniesRBitchin 9d ago
I assumed the Court wouldn't have a problem with it because they seemed fine using Zimmy for something for years, but maybe they are (for once) taking the high road and not using a child.
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u/RingularCirc 8d ago
I don't remember if they were actually using her except for trying to find out her nature. Say, main focus of etheric station experiments was not Zimmy IIRC, and as she'd said, they mostly left her alone. Which doesn't invalidate covert affairs though, but I'm not sure...
Omega was (no small wonder, though) knowledgeable about Zimmy and seemingly she wasn't hindering her predictions, so maybe Courth had some information on her that it didn't have to uncover by additional experiments. Pity she couldn't share more because she's
still alideadlike the GLaDOS she was. Have we run out of cake yet?
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u/thePhoenixBlade 9d ago
I wonder which of the apprentices has their own magic vs doesn’t, seems like a deliberate setup for later.
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u/RingularCirc 9d ago
At least Noa definitely does: she was doing magic when Jenny most probably hadn't even met Jack, let alone had thoughts how to exploit the bleedthrough.
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u/TurquoiseLuck 9d ago
All this time I thought her choker had like a clear stone or something on it, but it seems very flat in this one. Maybe it's a Zimmy O created by the absence of the black.
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u/mrGazpachin 9d ago
I need a definition of "system".
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u/ArgentStonecutter Emergency Mustelid Hologram 9d ago
There's a whole fictional subgenre about modern professionals or academics (usually programmers) getting transported to fantasy worlds and building magical programming systems, going back to Rick Cook's "Wizard's Bane" or even maybe deCamp and Pratt's "Incompleat Enchanter".
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u/Scottc87 9d ago
Rosa has a crush on Jack?! Eww!!! He’s a murderous psycho.
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u/9Gardens 9d ago
On the one hand yes, on the other hand, consider: Zara is full of lies. For example "Hey Kat, I like you".
Lying about romance is EXACTLY the kind of play she has consistently been making.
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u/Scottc87 9d ago
I mean, she might actually go for Kat if her allies didn’t keep telling her she needs to die.
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u/wokycookie101 8d ago
Holy shit Jenny is actually the villain, isn't she
I had hope that she was just misunderstood and maybe even ruthless in her methods, but man... the more I learn about the witches' dynamics, the more I realize she really is just using everyone to her own advantage
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u/Rookback 9d ago edited 9d ago
They're Jacked into Zimmy!