Gunnerkrigg Court/Recap/Volume 03/Chapter 025: Sky Watcher and the Angel

This is the author's favourite chapter, and, like all the chapters, deserves to be read in full before one might read a synopsis such as the following.

Chapter 25 opens with Robot S13, wearing a jumper and trousers, climbing the spire of a very tall building that looks like a Gothic cathedral, atop which perches a mantis-like robot whom he addresses as "Sky Watcher". S13 asks Sky Watcher whether he has "seen any angels in the sky"; Sky Watcher, whose job is to monitor the weather and radiation levels, thinks the question is ridiculous until S13 says "Jeanne", triggering from Sky Watcher the programmed response "She died and we did nothing."

S13 leads the presumably intrigued Sky Watcher to Katerina Donlan's workshop, along the way rejecting Shadow's qualms with his calling Kat an "angel". Kat inspects the robots briefly, then S13 leads Sky Watcher to the shrine to Jeanne, and stands outside while Sky Watcher enters the shrine. Sky Watcher stares at the portrait of Jeanne, then flies away, while Antimony Carver arrives at Kat's workshop, apparently from mediumship class. Antimony, clearly upset, tells Kat that "Andrew and Parley have become unbearable [...] ever since she teleported us to her bedroom by accident" and that they "act like enemies" and "can't even look at each other now" even though "It's so painfully obvious they like each other". Kat supposes that "love can make you act in strange ways".

Sky Watcher returns with the king of the robots and his entourage, and the robot king visits the shrine. When the king emerges, he has drawn tears onto his metal face with a marker; Kat finds this amusing, while the robots of the king's entourage hold their heads in grief and exclaim, "Oh no! A sad face! The saddest face!"

The robot king begs "sweet angel" Kat to help the robot society with a source of confusion that has kept them long in turmoil. Kat agrees, and everyone proceeds through the Court to the robots' facilities, where the king leads Kat and Antimony to a door, marked with a bismuth symbol and what looks like Diego's "D" symbol and incongruously made of wood and framed in stone amid the futuristic metal-and-circuitry design of the robots' facilities. Through the door is what the king describes as a "collection of Diego's original work", including a small, elegant, matador-themed robot that the king says "is the last remaining original model with a memory intact". The king asks the old robot to show its story, and it begins playing back its memories, projecting them onto a wall.

In the old matador-robot's memory, Diego grins and laughs and declares that "she" will love the robot. Diego takes the robot to Jeanne, who is sitting in a window and staring sadly out of it; Jeanne politely but listlessly accepts the gift, which is shown to be the latest of many toy robots Diego has given her. Diego asks about Jeanne's sorrow, and she laments for the trees of the forest, which she says the Court has been purging from their side of the Annan Waters since Coyote divided the forest. Diego insists that their life will be better without nature, and dismisses the trees and animals of the forest as unnecessary, while Jeanne posits that the Court will be a "prison of stone and glass". Diego offers to replace the trees and animals with "as many mechanical companions" as Jeanne wishes; she sadly says "That's enough", but he insists that he has "instructed them all to love" her as he does, and thus Jeanne "need never think about him"— at this, Jeanne becomes enraged, demands that Diego not speak of "him", and tells him to leave. When Diego continues to profess his love for Jeanne, she smashes all the robots he had given her over his plea that she spare them, finishing by throwing the matador-toy hard against a far wall while shouting that she hates Diego. Diego collects the pieces of the still-conscious matador-toy, sniffling over Jeanne's destruction of his creations and wondering to himself, "So she still loves that traitor, does she? Instead of me?" The matador-toy's memory goes dark.

In the next scene the matador-toy shows, it's looking out from a pocket of Diego's suit jacket while Diego carries a long box made of varnished wood into a hall in which Sir Young and other members of the Court are assembled. Sir Young welcomes him as "the architect of our scheme"; Diego says that "the device is ready" and opens the box to reveal a strange metal arrow with a mysterious object mounted next to its forked head and a sinister green glow, which arrow Steadman lifts and inspects: "Steadman: Hmm. It has an odd weight to it. Fitting, I think, for the weighty task at hand. I will make it fly true."

The assembly's attention is drawn now to the Artilleryman, who leaves the room, calling what the others are planning "abhorrent" and refusing to participate. His departure prompts disquieted murmurings from the assembly, but Sir Young quiets them: "Sir Young: Gentlemen. This is not a time for weakness. We must take these steps to fortify the Annan Waters and protect the Court."

One member of the assembly seems troubled over "the one you have chosen as the... sacrifice...", but Diego insists that "It must be Jeanne. The plan will work with no one else. It must be her."

The matador-toy's memory cuts to Jeanne begging Diego to intercede on her behalf before the Court sends her down to the Annan Waters, a prospect that clearly frightens her; Diego says it's out of his hands. Diego, facing away from Jeanne, smiles at her distress, then adds that "It didn't have to be this way...". Jeanne looks alarmed, and fearfully asks Diego "what part did you play in all this?" As far as we see, he doesn't answer.

The matador-toy's memory cuts to a pocket watch in the hand of an otherwise unseen person who says that "the appropriate amount of time", three hours, has passed since "Jeanne was lowered to the edge of the Annan Waters" and tells Steadman to "Ready the device". Under a full moon, Steadman, holding a bow and the weird, glowing arrow and clothed darkly with a cape billowing behind him, walks to the edge of the Court-side clifftop overlooking the Annan Waters, then shoots the arrow down into the ravine. Sir Young gets Steadman's confirmation that the arrow hit "the target". A troubled look passes briefly over Young's face as he proclaims— "Sir Young: Then it is done. Jeanne, the plan, everything, will be stricken from all records. We will bury what was done here this night."

The matador-toy's memory cuts to a much older Diego, with white hair and a long white beard, lying in his deathbed, with a screwdriver, a pocket watch, and some diagrams lying on a table at his side. He insists, seemingly to himself, that he "had no choice"; that "it wasn't [his] fault"; that "that monster", Sir Young, "forced [him] to devise the plan". Removing his spectacles and laying them on the bedside table, he laments— "Diego: Jeanne... She was.. all alone. Waiting... when she died. And I did nothing."

Diego says "My children... my children..."; a robot lays its hand over his and answers, "We are here, Father. Father?" Diego never responds. The matador-toy ceases playing back its memory.

Kat and Antimony stare horror-stricken, as the robot king asks Kat to help the robots understand why their "wonderful creator, Diego, loved Jeanne, but condemned her to death". Kat begins to cry, and the king draws tears onto his face as he and his entourage exclaim, "Oh no! A sad face! The saddest face!"

We see S13, with Sky Watcher on his shoulder, assembled with robots of many other kinds outside the door; S13 looking out from a rooftop; a robot holding Diego's portrait; and Sky Watcher back at his post atop the spire, with a foggy view of skyscrapers behind him, as Sky Watcher narrates— "Sky Watcher: Tears, real ones, spilled from her eyes. The angel turned to her friend for comfort, and it was a long time before she spoke. When she did speak, she told us our esteemed creator, Diego, was not a nice man. She also said, "Love makes you act in strange ways." We have our finest minds analysing her words. As mere machines we can but hope to understand. In the meantime, there has been a change in us. A new light, shed by the strange, clothed robot [i.e. S13]. We feel as if we are closer to understanding why we were put here. On this Earth. I continue to turn my face upwards, measuring the same temperature, the same humidity, radiation, and thousands of other variables. But now a new metric has been added. The number of angels I have seen is "one". And I will keep watch for more."

"Antimony: They can't even look at each other now. [...] It's so painfully obvious they like each other. But now they act like enemies!"
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension: Antimony tells Kat that "Andrew and Parley have become unbearable [...] ever since ":

"Sky Watcher: I continue to turn my face upwards, measuring the same temperature, the same humidity, radiation, and thousands of other variables. But now a new metric has been added. The number of angels I have seen is "one". And I will keep watch for more."
 * Berserk Button: In the old robot's memory, Jeanne quietly disagrees with Diego's support for the Court's push to purge nature from their side of the Annan Waters and quietly tells him "That's enough" when he offers to "make as many mechanical companions" as she wishes to replace the trees she mourns, but then becomes enraged when he says that she "need never think about" the unidentified man she loves, to whom Diego subsequently refers as a "traitor".
 * Book Ends: At the beginning of the chapter, Sky Watcher, on his perch, rejects as "ridiculous" the notion that he could have any angels in his records in addition to things like temperature, humidity, and radiation. At the end, Sky Watcher returns to his perch, narrating:

"Diego: [on his deathbed] I had no choice... it wasn't my fault. Young... that monster! He forced me to devise the plan... Jeanne... She was... all alone. Waiting... when she died. And I did nothing."
 * Call Forward: As he lays dying, Diego laments that Jeanne "was... all alone. Waiting... when she died", echoing Muut's describing Jeanne's ghost as "Alone. Waiting." in.
 * Confused Question Mark:
 * Kat gets one when Sky Watcher wordlessly flies out of the shrine to Jeanne and out of Kat's workshop to tell the robot king of the shrine and its angelic guardian, Kat.
 * The robot central administrator gets one when Antimony waves to him — presumably, he doesn't recognize her without the antennae-headband she was wearing in.
 * Continuity Nod:
 * The S1 robot body remains kneeling in the shrine to Jeanne, where Kat left it in after removing S13's CPU from it.
 * Antimony's first appearance, in which she talks to Kat outside Kat's workshop while wearing a tan coat on a cold day, parallels the flashback at the end of, in which Surma talks to Anja outside the same building while wearing a very similar coat on a similarly cold day.
 * When the robot king takes Kat and Antimony to watch the old robot play back its memories, they pass by the "friendly central administrator" robot from . Antimony waves to him, but he doesn't seem to recognize her without her robot disguise.
 * Everyone Can See It: Antimony tells Kat, of Andrew and Parley, that "It's so painfully obvious they like each other" although "now they act like enemies".
 * Face Doodling: The robot king draws on his own face with a marker to control his facial expression to show emotion. According to the author, it's because the robot king has found a way to express emotion that the other robots respect him.
 * Forced Into Evil: By the end of his life — and by the time he designed 's "morbid play" in which S1 tells the representation of Sir Young "You will pay for what you did to her. But you will never be forgiven." — Diego had deluded himself into thinking he was this:

"Antimony: I thought love was supposed to be a good thing. Kat: Oh it totally is! But uh... I dunno. Better to have loved and lost than to be... dead or something. Antimony: I don't think that's how the saying goes."
 * Foreshadowing:
 * The diagrams on the papers that Diego has at his bedside when he dies.
 * Get Out!: In the old robot's memory, Jeanne tells Diego to "Get out!" when he mentions her unidentified Love Interest of whom Diego says Jeanne now "need never think"; Jeanne then follows up with "Get out you horrible little man!" when Diego responds by insistently professing his love for her.
 * Human Sacrifice: Whatever Diego's plan "to fortify the Annan Waters and protect the Court" is, it requires a "sacrifice", for which he vengefully chooses Jeanne.
 * If I Can't Have You: In the old robot's memory, after Diego realises that, no matter how many robots he makes for her, Jeanne will continue to love "that traitor" rather than him, he devises a plan that, he claims, requires that Jeanne be used as a Targeted Human Sacrifice for the good of the Court.
 * Love Makes You Evil: In the old robot's memory, we see Diego's obsessive love for Jeanne, when she definitively spurns it, turn to grief and resentment, in which he makes a device and a plan by which Jeanne is sacrificed for (supposedly) the good of the Court and apparently (as said by Muut) left trapped in the gorge, unable even to die properly.
 * Meaningful Echo: When Antimony arrives at Kat's workshop upset and asking Kat to explain why Andrew and Parley would constantly fight rather than admit their feelings for each other, Kat says "Well, love can make you act in strange ways, I guess." Later, after learning that Diego arranged for Jeanne to be used as a Human Sacrifice after she rejected his love, Kat far more sadly tells the robots that "Love makes you act in strange ways."
 * Metaphorgotten: In a conversation about Andrew and Parley's Belligerent Sexual Tension, Kat fails at quoting Tennyson:

"Sir Young: Jeanne, the plan, everything, will be stricken from all records. We will bury what was done here this night."
 * Narm: In-Universe, when the robot king emerges from the shrine to Jeanne having drawn tears onto his face, his entourage exclaim that it's "A sad face! The saddest face!" and hold their heads in grief, whereas Kat clearly finds it hilarious.
 * Not Good with Rejection: In the old robot's memory, after Jeanne definitively spurns Diego, by smashing the many robots he had made for her, he devises a plan that, he claims, requires that Jeanne be used as a Targeted Human Sacrifice for the good of the Court.
 * Pet the Dog: "not a nice man" he may have been, but Diego, at least by the end of his life, seems to have been a genuinely-affectionate father-figure to his "children", the robots.
 * The Reveal:
 * Diego arranged for Jeanne to die for spurning him. What exactly his plan did to her is left a mystery for now.
 * Reynardine mostly was correct in his speculations about Diego in, except that (1) Diego didn't love Jeanne only "from afar" and (2) Diego wasn't so much "unable to save her" as vengefully damning her.
 * Jones was correct in her suspicion in that information about Jeanne was "deliberately hidden".
 * When Antimony inquires about the tic-toc depicted at the top of the robot king's standard, a standard-bearer robot says that the tic-toc was not made by Diego, "was created by a divine being and sent to watch over us all", and is "said to be older than the Court itself".
 * Robot Religion: The robots seemingly have made the shrine to Jeanne their own, adding extra decorations that presumably have some symbolic importance to them (most prominently, a symbol for an electrical ground), cleaning the surrounding area, and (as seen from ) essentially making pilgrimages to it. Robot S13 calls Kat (as the guardian of the shrine) an angel and the mechanical monster he fought in S1's body a demon. S13 convinces Sky Watcher to accept Kat as an angel, and Sky Watcher in turn converts the robot king.
 * Sickly Green Glow: The mysterious, sinister "device" of Diego's that the Court use in their plan "to fortify the Annan Waters" glows a pale green.
 * The Tag:
 * Gunnerkrigg Court Student's Handbook, Chapter 113: Robot Handling, Section H: Miscellaneous instructs students in how to respond to romantic advances by robots: spurn all advances, remind the robot that it's Just a Machine, and shame it in front of its robot peers.
 * Brick Joke: The smitten robot is shown presenting the student with a bouquet of flowers and a box (of chocolates?) bound with two crossed ribbons — the same gifts that Dr. Disaster gave Jones in.
 * Just a Machine
 * Marking the out-of-universe start of a new year (2010), Zimmy and Gamma are shown sitting together in their pre-Court clothes, surrounded by blackness, with a wispy spiral emanating from Gamma's head bearing the text "Another year".
 * Tantrum Throwing: When Diego pushes Jeanne's Berserk Button (q.v.), she dashes to the ground all the little robots he had made as gifts for her, shouting that she hates him over his plea that she spare the robots.
 * Targeted Human Sacrifice: Diego insists that Jeanne must be the "sacrifice" used in the plan "to fortify the Annan Waters and protect the Court", as "the plan will work with no one else". It's strongly implied that he's getting Jeanne sacrificed as Revenge for her spurning him, but whether the plan really does require her as the sacrifice is left ambiguous for now.
 * Thank the Maker: The robots seem to revere Diego as their "wonderful creator", although they don't seem to worship him actively as they worship Jeanne.
 * Token Good Teammate: Among the Court founders, the only one shown to object to the Human Sacrifice plan is the Artilleryman, who calls it "abhorrent" and refuses to participate. He's presumably influential (he's the "Gunner" after whom the place is named), but his opposition isn't enough to stop the plan.
 * Too Important to Walk: The robot king travels on a litter borne by robots that seem to be designed for the task.
 * Unperson: After the Court uses Jeanne as a "sacrifice" in their plan "to fortify the Annan Waters and protect the Court", Sir Young declares:


 * You Know the One: In the old robot's memory, the founders of the Court refer to "the device", "the plan", and "the target" without being shown discussing the specifics of these things, leaving it ambiguous for now what "the device" did, what "the plan" was, and whether "the target" shot with the device was Jeanne.