Gunnerkrigg Critique and Commentary

For (loving) criticism of a beautiful work of art that has sadly gone off the rails. I use they/them pronouns. I follow back. I also welcome asks, comments, opinions, and critiques of all sorts - whether positive or negative towards the comic, I’d be glad to hear your perspective. Anon is always on. My Discord handle is @gunnerkriggcourt - not super active, though.

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Just a reminder that I have a Discord server for fans of the comic! Discussion doesn't necessarily need to be critical - all talk about Gunnerkrigg is welcome. Feel free to join!

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Maybe Annie is warping the dream world with her own desires in some way. Like, this is what she wishes would've happened with Tony, so she's manifesting it. I do think Ysengrin is acting more like a stereotypical nice dad vs his actual blunt personality here. Maybe this has actually been established in the comic, lol, I don't know.

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I'm not following the story currently so I have little idea what's actually going on beyond "they're all in a dream world," but the concept of Annie going through a version of The Tree where her dad is Ysengrin instead of Tony and he pulls her aside after class to ask if she's okay and offer her support if she needs it... Man! Not sure what Tom is getting at here, but there's definitely a lot going on. I like that Ysengrin is being pretty explicitly established as a father figure here (it does make previous events feel kinda Freudian though), but it's more than a little sad that all of Annie's dads or pseudo-dads have been abusive or violent to her in some way at some point. That's not a criticism of the comic, it just makes me sad for Annie.

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check out gunnerkrigg 3270 and the following pages

OUCH. I don't even know how to feel about this. So much going on here. This being a direct callback to The Tree except Annie's dad is actually nice to her here? Ysengrin erupting into a flaming monster with gigantic teeth and Annie's not afraid of him and hugs him? Ysengrin as a literal monster vs Tony as a metaphorical one? The bitter catharsis of this being a version of The Tree where Annie is treated kindly except this is just a dream world and The Tree was real?

Something about the contrast between these pages...

God!!! This one hurt. Not even sure what else to say here. Actually, I will say that it's interesting how both versions of this story draw attention to her father figure's false right hand. Not sure what to make of all this except, once again, OW!

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Genuinely kill yourself

???

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hey. you don't need to reply to this if you don't want to or anything, but i wanted to apologize, specifically, for wielding a recent death as a cudgel to attempt to get you to see my perspective. it wasn't kind. also, i'm not trying to cancel Tom, not trying to get you or anyone else to cancel Tom. i'm frankly kind of uncertain where this talk of cancelling comes from, because i wasn't rallying anyone to do anything --except for 1. asking *you personally* to reconsider whether people who were hurt or not are silly for feeling the way that they feel, and 2. question whether having expectations that a specific queer-friendly creator should know better than to reference harry potter is a reasonable notion or not. we don't agree on this, obviously, but i genuinely believe that as long as JKR is materially benefiting from the existence of Harry Potter, engaging with the franchise normalizes the harm she does to people like you and me. i feel compelled, in a very uncool and unfun way, to point this out to friends, family, and strangers when the opportunity arises. yes, even though it's very popular, and is never going to go away. i understand you don't share this perspective, so this probably comes across as stupid to you, but this is the context of why reacted so strongly. i wasn't accusing you of endorsing anti-trans violence, but i *was* accusing you of not caring about some trans people's feelings, and the way i expressed myself was pretty shitty. it wasn't productive or smart to have attempted to hurt you in order to try to get you to empathize with my own/other people's hurt, even if i didn't realize that's what i was doing at the time. i was lashing out because i personally was hurt and disappointed in Tom, and when i went hunting to see if anyone felt the same way that i did, i was met with your post telling me that my perspective was ridiculous. i hope i've explained myself a bit better, and sorry again for the misaimed vitriol

Thanks, I really appreciate it. I get where you’re coming from and I’m sorry that I made you feel belittled. The whole situation sucks and we’ll all be better off when the black mold in JKR’s house finishes the job.

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I used to find the commentary on here interesting, but I needed to take a huge step back from both this blog and your discord community because of, as others have mentioned, some of the wild and parasocial speculations about Tom and Magnolia’s personal lives and politics. Fwiw, I still have my own critiques of GC. But if it’s gotten to the point where you have no desire to keep up with GC, but still keep speculating about the author with 0 evidence, I don’t see what this is for anymore.

Sorry I didn’t publish this earlier, I genuinely somehow missed it. And I’m sorry you feel that way. You’re not wrong, and I do need to rethink some of the stuff I’ve been posting here. It’s easy to get sucked into gossip, but at the end of the day that’s not what I set up the blog for at all, and it shouldn’t ever be the focus.

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“Acknowledging the fact that Harry Potter franchise *exists* and that fiction containing magical schools is often compared to it” = “endorsing transphobia and murder” is one hell of a take.

Yeah lol that’s basically it. It’s a pretty wild train of thought to me. I’ve been skimming the Something Awful thread and this seems to be the prevailing opinion, though? Like, everyone seems to agree Tom is tacitly giving a thumbs-up to JKR by mentioning HP. I really don’t think I could ever be convinced this is true, but it’s not a hill worth dying on either. If people are upset, they have a right to feel that way.

I do think accusing Tom of anything more than tone-deafness would be excessive and unfair, though. To me, Tom has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to LGBT issues. He’s been nothing but LGBT-friendly in the past, even 20 years ago when it wasn’t necessarily as easy to be.

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Man. Still thinking about that reply. Even putting aside how I personally feel at being accused of endorsing anti-trans violence because I said mentioning Harry Potter one time isn’t a huge deal, I’m turning over in my head the concept that people expect me to dogpile and cancel Tom Siddell because he made a very brief and straightforward “Gunnerkrigg used to get compared to Harry Potter all the time” joke. I mean. I have problems with the comic and Tom, but I’m not even gonna pretend I care about this issue. Because it’s literally not an issue. Come on.

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I think it’s cruel to assume I broadly don’t care about trans rights just from this post! I’ll qualify this by saying it doesn’t necessarily follow that I therefore must be right about everything, but I do think it’s worth noting that I am trans myself and invoking a brutally murdered trans girl to “gotcha” me is more than a little insensitive. All I said is it’s unrealistic to expect everyone ever to never again mention the franchise even in passing in a neutral light, and I don’t think I’m going to back down from that very reasonable and measured statement, lol.

I’ll be open and honest: when it comes to the concept that we must accuse everyone who even acknowledges the existence of Harry Potter of implicitly endorsing everything JKR has ever said—and even of endorsing the murder of trans people, as you’ve done here—I think it’s super sanctimonious and, yes, silly! And I especially don’t think this approach is at all helpful to trans people or to the fight against terfs in any way whatsoever, to be honest. All I can say is you’re welcome to unfollow or block me if you feel this way. Sorry.

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There's a mention of Harry Potter in the latest page (Monday 20th, May) and it's really making me side-eye the author. Is Tom really not up-to-date with JKR's terf reputation?? I know some people aren't, and he left Britain before she went so full mask off plausible deniability no longer covered her, but I thought either he or Magnolia would know by now???

He and Magnolia seem very online. No way he doesn't know.

That being said, I feel like people have been saying Gunnerkrigg is just Harry Potter as a comic for like the past 20 years, so I don't really have a problem with this page?? It's poking fun at the comic being compared to another work, not endorsing anything about it. JKR sucks, but "let's never mention this insanely popular franchise ever again and cancel anyone who makes reference to its existence" is, to me, a super unrealistic and silly way to approach this situation.

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God I wish I was interested in Gunnerkrigg still. But I check back in on the main page every now and then and I'm just... not. I don't care about anything that's happening, I don't find it interesting or fun or weird or charming, it's just all so nothing. Why is Parley skinny now. Have they been giving Parley Ozempic. Do I care to find out. Not really

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lol did you see magnolias hourlies today where she shows tom "despairing about his work"

I have now. OOF.

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Yeah, it’s on Bluesky:

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I think the biggest problem with Tony is that the comic is obsessed with the "twist" that's he's not an unfeeling monster. In "the Tree" he comes off as unreasonably mean for the sake of cheap drama. He ends up backpedaling most of the demands made in that chapter so it feels pointless. It feels manufactured to make the reader dislike him. I think he could have just been introverted and struggling with his wife's death;I don't need 5 chapters about discovering he's capable of human emotion.

Exactly.

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lol did you see magnolias hourlies today where she shows tom "despairing about his work"

I have now. OOF.

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About to do some reading through Tom's AMA from today to see if there's any interesting nuggets in there. Will report back

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Really not that much of note. He talks a lot about his creative process, but not very in-depth. All pretty vague. He's adamant that he still enjoys working on the comic and has never fallen out of love with drawing and writing it, which I honestly am never going to believe no matter how many times he says it. He also says Annie is his favourite character and he finds her the most interesting, which sticks in my damn craw given the comic's treatment of her for the past *checks notes* over ten years. Other than that, not much stuck out to me.

Annie spent years as a punching bag, and now is a strange combo of punching bag and one-note side character who never does anything of note and who is never the subject of character study or examination. The idea that she's still Tom's favourite to this day is kind of laughable, but if that's how he sees it, that's how he sees it, I guess. She'll always be my favourite, anyway.

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About to do some reading through Tom's AMA from today to see if there's any interesting nuggets in there. Will report back