Chekhov's Armory

[murgatroyd666]

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If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go

Comments

[tarmaque]

Not to mention what happened to Barry (he didn't "die" but he went away. Why? Where?) and what's going to become of Adam and Lilith.

I surmise many of the things you list are nothing more than window dressing, but some of them are important. The Queen dingbot I think was window dressing (the whole scene could have been done without dingbots at all, but it was funnier with them.) and the Heterodyne device has already served its second purpose. To use it again would be solving every problem with the same solution. Same with the Dingbots. Once you start solving every little problem with a Chekhov's device it just becomes part of the scenery.

The Mecha Mole and Grantz herself seem out of place though. She even rates an entry on the character page, but she doesn't end up doing much. I suspect she/they will be back in some semi-important way.

Zulenna is an interesting case. She's official royalty, which may be very important. Especially since we know she'll be back. The Heterodynes are not "officially" royalty. Does this imply Zulenna may be destine for a pairing with a true royal? Like, say, the Storm King? But who is the Storm King?

I suspect Moloch's poison pill was mostly a joke, and shouldn't be taken as a Chekhov's gun.

"The Assistant" though is a minor mystery. Like Higgs, she's more effective than you would normally think a minor character should be. Even Vanamonde wonders who she is. She keeps popping up, but her role is always secondary. Is she due for a coming out as an important plot device?

[tarmaque]

You make a salient point, and it brings up another unsolved mystery: What exactly did Agatha's locket do to Moloch's brother and why didn't it effect him?

[leoparda]

Rarg. Went off on the wrong tangent. Do-0ver.

As to why it didn't affect him, first, he wasn't actually wearing it, and second, it was probably set to Agatha's particular brainwave pattern.

[tarmaque]

I suppose I should't have said "Why" in a thread about Chekhov's guns. I should probably have said "When and how will the property of Agatha's locket to poison people come back into the story?"

[murgatroyd666]

If, in fact, that's what it does. I subscribe to the theory that Omar was a stealth revenant, and that Agatha's command to die affected him the way Lucrezia-in-Agatha's command to Vrin affected her. (Hey! Another potential returnee! Was Vrin revived by the Baron?) Evidence for this: Agatha's locket seemingly has to be worn on her neck to affect her, and Omar kept the locket in his pocket.

[tarmaque]

Your theory has merit, but doesn't detract from the fact that episode may come back for future complications.

I figure this will happen about the time Phil and Kaja have been installed in their third of fourth cybernetic bodies.

[murgatroyd666]

Or it might be that both Omar and Moloch had been munching on a bag of Doctor Phlegmington's Plutonium Nuggets, and Moloch was the one who wasn't affected ...

[kyosokun]

I always thought this was fairly obvious: The device was made to keep Agatha's Spark from manifesting. Now, Agatha, being able to Heterodyne, is easily one of the strongest sparks in the story, if not THE strongest. and this locket kept that supressed. Just imagine what it'd do to a normal person. Or rather, we don't need it. It killed a man, just starting suppressing his 'spark', shutting down his brain, till he just died.

As to why it didn't effect Moloch, he wasn't the one holding it. I suspect it's as simple as that.

[tarmaque]

Every time you see something fairly obvious in GG, expect to be wrong.

Just sayin'.

[murgatroyd666]

Oh my. I really like your second point!

[doc_w_31415]

Actually, Moloch never actually held the locket for any significant length of time until after he broke it.

Your theory that Omar was a stealth revenant has some merit and is worth considering. However, my assumption was that the spark suppression properties of the locket were strong enough to cause Omar's body to shut down. Supposing that the locket worked by generation of a supersonic/hypersonic signal which was antiharmonic to heterodyning, is is not obvious that it should affect a non-Heterodyne (or non-Spark) the way that it supposedly affected Omar.

The question becomes, why did Klaus repair it? Hoping for some insight into what Barry was thinking? What did Klaus think it's function was?

[murgatroyd666]

Yeah, both scenarios for Omar's death are plausible, and the Professors have been very cagey about telling people which one's the correct answer.

The question becomes, why did Klaus repair it? Hoping for some insight into what Barry was thinking? What did Klaus think it's function was?

Interesting implications here ... If Klaus didn't know what its function was, then how did he repair it? For that matter, did Klaus repair it? We haven't been shown that, or told that by anyone is a position to know for sure (as far as I can tell). Everyone (including the characters) seems to assume that Klaus did it, but do we know for sure? Do either of the novels shed any light on this?

[attilathepbnun]

*ahem* I suspect Van's 'Who are you?" to the assistant was not meant literally --- she plainly knew him well ---- but was simply a measure of how exhausted he was

Perhaps Barry's location is the answer to speculations about a certain master clank-maker ....

[tarmaque]

Oh, I don't know. I have a fondness for a theory that combines The Assistant and Higgs as some kind of early Heterodyne servants who've been waiting around until a new Heterodyne needs them. Brother and sister perhaps? Constructs?

Just thinking outside the box here. So far out in fact, that it would take the box thousands of years at the speed of light to reach the thought.

[murgatroyd666]

*ahem* I suspect Van's 'Who are you?" to the assistant was not meant literally --- she plainly knew him well ---- but was simply a measure of how exhausted he was.

This. I've been that exhausted and spaced out on occasion.

She knew him well enough to be able to put him to bed. I'm betting that she's either Vanamonde's sister or his wife.