Girl Genius/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance
"Maxim: A Hat iz a badge of honor! A Trophy vat must be plucked from off de head of a vorthy enemy! Oggie: Yah. Vun who happen to gots hyu same head size."
 * In Girl Genius, I was rereading the wastelands part, with Agatha's first meeting with the Geisterdamen: it happened right after she and Lars were passionately citing a fiery exchange between Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish. I then realized that, thanks to the text and Agatha's voice, she was the one who had attracted them there. What then seems like random and incomprehensible bickering between the two white warriors is actually them debating whether or not it was actually their mistress, and concluding against it after one brings up the fact Agatha and Lars are probably "actors", which is the only word in our language they use in that conversation. Brilliant foreshadowing. --Cerberus
 * When I started reading Girl Genius, i wondered what a "clank" was exactly: the name seemed to be applied to all kind of intelligent (or semi-intelligent) machines. Why not just call them robots? It took me a while to realize: Girl Genius is set before Karel Čapek introduced the term "robot" in 1921. -- Lapuspuer
 * Klaus' story about The Witch and The Wolf King seemed like a strange diversion from the plot, but it's actually incredibly important. The characters in the story are fictional counterparts to real people; Lucrezia is the witch, Klaus is the king who was turned into her obedient wolf, and Gil is the king's son who outsmarted the witch. This on it's own is Fridge Brilliance - However! It gets better! After the story's done, Klaus tells the storyteller that not only is this story from a storybook thought Lost Forever, but that Gil might still have it! So now the storyteller has a motive to find Gil, and relay the story he just heard in order to find this book. Except when Gil hears the story, he'll realize it's actually a message from his father. Given the story's ending, that message is probably "Kill Me".
 * Even better, he's telling it as the Origin Story of the Storm King - and though the jury's still out as to whether or not that title is inherited or awarded, this is Klaus Wulfenbach we're talking about. He knows Gil can spin his lightning stunt into the title. And there is one character in the story who is not played by a major character: The "giantess nurse" who would not let the "king's son" leave the mountain until he proved his intelligence by pulling out the copper pin in her hair. The story's message is not "Kill Me", it's "Go get Von Pinn, present her to this bitch, let her kill both of us, then use that stupid myth that's causing all this trouble to get the nobles to shut up and accept you." Possibly the last communication he will ever have with his son, and he's still taking him to school.
 * First time around this scene just seems that Gil started to get Angry just because Wooster is just a servant before he calms himself, then we get to this strip.
 * "Grease trap duty until further notice" isn't a punishment for trying to sneak into the Baron's lab; it's a punishment for getting caught.
 * And partial Fridge Horror as well. Gil is supposedly wasped, and was wasped back in Paris (before the story began!) by Zola. Reading back through the story, this colors much of Gil's actions with regards to Zola. Much is said about the number of times he had to save her during her adventures in Paris. At one point, he's injured by Merlot and can't stand-- until Agatha mentions that Zola's head in stuck in a bucket, whereupon Gil gets up and starts moving-- and only leaps to stop the Happy Fun Ball of Death when Zola screams for his help. Zola also begs for Gil's life after Agatha first catches her, saying "He's my only friend-- the only one I can trust!" Later, Gil tackles Tarvek, stopping him from strangling her to death, and stymied all attempts by Tarvek to shoot her out of the sky-- and we never got an explanation for why he wanted her alive. Now, is this all because Gil is, at heart, someone who doesn't want to have to kill a woman he once had feelings for? Or is this because Gil has been wasped? --Jay2K
 * The novelisation makes it explicit that Gil was not actually wasped, and that that was a cover story by the Baron. In post-timeskip comics Gil has also been close to Agatha's wasp weasel several times with no reaction.
 * We hear about how obsolete, old-fashioned, etcetera etcetera the Fifty Families are, but in a world where every indication is that there have always been sparks, why does non-spark-based nobility even exist at all? And then I realized--after the Industrial Revolution, the power of sparks would have exploded! I mean, think about it--before industrialization came into vogue, a spark would have either had to make all their parts themselves, or be beholden to an expensive team of blacksmiths and hope all the parts end up being the right size. Not to mention non-interchangeable parts! That'll hurt your ability to project power via clank army. They're power would still have been significant, it just wouldn't have been the only thing that mattered.--the1smjb
 * Or, "professionals study logistics". And certainly Sanity Has Advantages. Also, from what we have seen, "more traditional" nobility only means they are not like Heterodynes, it does include the Houses that include Sparks just mixed with baseline humans in charge (The Storm Lords) or benefit from alliances with Sparks (Holfung-Borzoi) all the time.
 * In the sidestory "Elsewhere: Maxim Buys A Hat", he sets out to get the one worn by "Ol' Man Death! -- De Big Guy Himself!"


 * Despite initial appearances, Maxim did defeat Old Man Death to gain the hat - Old Man Death took pride in knowing how to make any kind of sandwich, and Maxie ordered a "sammich" that Ol' Man Death didn't know how to make.

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