Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE

Alice Grove MCDLT - August 2016

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Neko_Ali:
Much of her anger at Ardent expressed here is not over blaming him. But the fact that he just skates through everything without suffering very much and with very little effort on his part. Yes, it's unfair right now because he's trying to take responsibility for what happened to Gavia and fix it. But right now Gavia's not having any of it. What seemed to her was going to be a simple task of going to retrieve her brother started with her being beaten  half to death by Alice, abandoned by the Prases and trapped on Earth. Her world view has been seriously compromised by what she's learned from Alice, she's being dragged from place to place, endangered in so many ways. She's had her body and mind invaded and violated by the Nightwalker and her nanotech abilities stolen from her. Through all this, Ardent has been acting like it's a vacation. He's happy go lucky. She's bitter. And he's the only target for her anger that she has.

retrosteve:
Both of them are ridiculously arrogant, in their own ways.

The only way the magic upgrade to the ancient rocket has the slightest chance of sending the kids home, is if the Praeses planned it to in advance. Yet they're all just assuming that's what it will do.

Ardent thinks his 'magic powers' will allow him to make a rocket that just happens to be able to navigate its way back to the right orbital habitat. (not just to any of the hundreds of them.) If he's wrong, they're probably both stranded on Earth or on the wrong habitat, or dead, but if he's right (and he likely is), then they're both just acting a predetermined role set out by the Praeses. In that case, he should be wondering if that's a good thing or, as Alice suggests, the precursor to a horrific war.

Gavia thinks his 'magic powers' will likely work too, and again, she really should be thinking way beyond what that means to her relationship with Ardent and her personal convenience. But she's stuck in bitter/angry mode and can't see past the end of her nose to the obvious conclusion that she's a pawn in a scary interplanetary conflict.  None of this is hidden from her or beyond her understanding -- she is just too self-centered to care.

Now Alice -- she too may be missing 'what comes next'. She's totally aware of the Praeses and that Ardent and Gavia are there to manipulate Earth and probably even herself. Yet she risks her life and her town's welfare (leaving them alone for weeks) on a quest to do, it now seems, exactly what the Praeses expects her to. Shouldn't this be intensely worrying to her? Apparently she was originally motivated by a combination of kindness ("help the strangers home") and paranoia ("keep the sinister nanotech upgrades away"). Now that her paranoia is precisely what she's counting on to solve the quest, she fails to see the irony. If her paranoia is wrong, she's dooming the kids to wander in space until they run out of oxygen (so much for the kindness motivation). If it's right, she's just doing what the Praeses expects (and she's doing exactly what the enemy wants). She's just as much a pawn as Ardent here, and she's too smart for that.

brasca:

--- Quote from: Neko_Ali on 01 Aug 2016, 10:14 ---Much of her anger at Ardent expressed here is not over blaming him. But the fact that he just skates through everything without suffering very much and with very little effort on his part. Yes, it's unfair right now because he's trying to take responsibility for what happened to Gavia and fix it. But right now Gavia's not having any of it. What seemed to her was going to be a simple task of going to retrieve her brother started with her being beaten  half to death by Alice, abandoned by the Prases and trapped on Earth. Her world view has been seriously compromised by what she's learned from Alice, she's being dragged from place to place, endangered in so many ways. She's had her body and mind invaded and violated by the Nightwalker and her nanotech abilities stolen from her. Through all this, Ardent has been acting like it's a vacation. He's happy go lucky. She's bitter. And he's the only target for her anger that she has.

--- End quote ---

Exactly.  I think deep down Gavia is questioning the beings she's perceived as parents and possibly gods, but it's all so unthinkable that she lashes out at the person whose actions started the current chain of events.  And while Ardent does take responsibility and is trying to make things right he really hasn't suffered for any of his actions.  Gavia seems like someone who has played by the rules her whole life and it's beginning to seem like it was all for nothing.  So on top of everything else she's suffered she now may be going through an existential crisis. 

Gavia seems like a workaholic so perhaps helping dig into the bunker will give her something to keep her mind occupied as well as make her popular among the archaeophiles.  Ardent mentioned that she doesn't have any friends back at the habitat so maybe she'll fit in better with them.   

jwhouk:
The way she ended that conversation ("Then I can be rid of you") seems to insinuate that her plan is to send Ardent back to the habitat - without her.

Is it possible that she thinks/knows that she can no longer be or exist on the space habitat, without her nanotech?

BenRG:
I think that it's more likely that she means that Ardent and his 'special abilities' will then be the Praeses' problem, not hers. She'll be able to try to get back to her life and forget that she has a brother.

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