Board 8 > Does anyone here still read Gunnerkrigg Court?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It has been shit for longer than it was good at this point so I'm kind of hoping the answer is no, but this last page was another level of shittiness and I need to rant about it somewhere.

Gunnerkrigg Court has sucked since Tony came back. He showed calculated malice in destroying every facet of his daughter's life. It would've been one thing if he met with her alone and said "Hey, I'm back, you got caught cheating and need to repeat a few classes". The fact that he chose to do it in class instead, in front of all her peers, that was the note we began this character on. And that was just one of the things he did to her. Tony is a shitbag emotional abuser, that's how he was established.

But, oh no! He's actually just damaged and misunderstood. If you spend five minutes alone with him (offscreen, of course) he can charm even Kat, once his biggest detractor, into being his best friend. A few weeks of him not being a robot convinced a woman to cheat on her longterm boyfriend, and this is a good thing because Tony is the greatest, apparently. The entire comic for years now has felt like the author trying (badly) to convince us of that.

But there was still one nagging thing. You know, the whole emotional abuse and neglect thing. There was a string of bad chapters where a comic-long mystery with the mechanical birds was wrapped up in a way that meant nothing, followed by the two Annies being merged by deus ex machina. She had no reaction whatsoever, just staring blankly for a few pages, seemingly having zero trouble accepting she just just became one person again. At least the next chapter looked like it was going to address that.

Nope! It's another Tony apologist chapter. All the people who hate him either don't have the full story or have selfish reasons (like Tony banging their longterm girlfriend). In truth, it's actually good that he's abusive and neglectful because Annie is spoiled otherwise. Also, he has a mental illness so it isn't his fault. Also, it's okay because Annie doesn't care. Today's page is essentially Annie staring straight at the reader and saying "I don't care that my father is an abusive shitheel, he's actually the greatest".

I've long suspected that the author simply didn't view Tony as abusive, even though he clearly is. Having another whole chapter dedicated to why it's wrong to hate Tony sucked, but I could at least hope this was just typical clumsy GC writing and it was building to something. This latest page was just so blatant about it that there's no longer any doubt. Tony will never face consequences or need to change, he's already the greatest. It doesn't matter that he outright admitted that he feels nothing but seething hatred when he sees his daughter. She doesn't care. It's okay.

So, nope, that's it. I'm out. Fuck this webcomic.

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I also read it. I don't really like Tony that much, but I can say about the double Annies thing is that I think the author just didn't realize how interesting an idea that was, and wrapped it up in a really underwhelming way when it would have been cooler to keep it going.

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I honestly didn't understand what even happened at the end of that chapter until I read that she was merged elsewhere. This big problem that time travel gods and interdimensional contract lawyers can't solve? The leverage Loup has to get you to cooperate with his demands because only he could possibly fix it? Just go to Zimmy. She can do... something. And then it's all fixed.

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Hot take time:

Gunnerkrigg Court almost always had a lot of terrible tendencies.

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I remember really not liking Loup and I fell off right after the two Annies thing happened. But I didn't really hate it, I was still on the dude's patreon and meant to catch up one day. But it sounds.....rough.

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I still read it yeah. Tony's bad yeah. It has been in this weird spot for awhile now. I'm still not sure where it's all even going.

MysteriousStan posted...

I still read it yeah. Tony's bad yeah. It has been in this weird spot for awhile now. I'm still not sure where it's all even going.

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