Annotated 14-11
Frigg is SO PROUD in panel 1.
So hey, let’s talk a bit about weapons dev.
It was jarring for a few of you to see Dean Reynolds shaking Jarvis’ hand a couple of pages back. The next time we’ll see Reynolds, he’ll appear very much not okay with gnomes using their technological gifts “destructively.” Even later, Reynolds himself adapts the designs for the hammertank. How to resolve this apparent contradiction?
The answer’s both simple and simplistic, in that it’s evidence of simplistic thinking: Reynolds was perfectly happy to help others develop weapons, seeing that as no violation of the gnomes’ non-destructive ethic. Or rather, he was happy to do so after the Heads of Houses had flattered him sufficiently and offered him a seat in their hall. Reynolds at this stage of his life is an easily persuadable sort, but even he is not naive enough to think that his people would necessarily all share his attitude. To my mind, that makes him a slightly more morally ambiguous figure than he usually appears, and that’s an interesting wrinkle in his history.
What’s more, there’s an analogy to be made there to the longstanding alliance between pure science and the military. Many real-world scientists dislike or loathe the idea of bending pure research toward military purpose. But like it or not, military spending is responsible for a lot of peacetime advancements; even this internet you’re reading on grew out of DARPA. Shit gets tangled.
I’ve never been quite sure what Bandit’s accent is supposed to sound like, but when I read Micholuszek’s line here (“I’m certain we c’n deduce th’ nature of th’ construction”) I suddenly can’t help hearing it in a strong Scottish brogue. Though that still doesn’t quite work for Bandit (correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think “I’ma” is a very Scottish thing to say). Am I close, though?
We did not set out to duplicate any Earth accents with gnomish talk, but if you think about the fast-talking peoples of the world (Boston as opposed to Mississippi, say) then you’re getting warmer. Gnomes love efficiency and they often seem to be in a hurry, so they talk quickly and elide almost anything they can as long as the meaning is clear– though some do this more than others, to be sure. To be honest, on my end I was probably “hearing” the kind of sped-up, chattery recordings used in the early versions of Alvin and the Chipmunks, but I doubt that was an influence of Phil’s.
There’s no way anyone is small enough for those booby traps! If anything those are footy traps!
I thought gnomes were smarter than this…
Why would anyone want to trap boobies? They should remain unfettered and free to move as they will.
Re: Weapons Dev
That’s a fair explanation for Reynold’s part in all this, although I think there may be enough here to darken his character well past ambiguity. A lot of it depends on what the professors are actually doing, though, and the specific’s of Reynold’s response. I’ll have to ask when we get there.
For the gnomes overall, I get the sense that when a character (Reynolds?) said they were non-destructive I should have realized that it was a foolish overgeneralization. Like a lot of things in the story-line, their development is much less one dimensional than that!
Wouldn’t be surprised if part of the logic for Reynolds was also that he was happy to help the humans fix some rookie mistakes with their work, especially if it let some of the more explosion-loving sorts of gnomes scratch that itch a little. He might perceive a small but significant difference when it comes to gnomes actually inventing weapons as opposed to gnomes showing how to take an existing concept and make it run more efficiently, reducing the fuel costs and wear & tear without directly increasing the damage the machines could cause.
Especially if he was buttered up and told things like “we just can’t get less than one-fifth of them to suffer some sort of breakdown and cause someone to get hurt”.