No, “eclectic” is sort of the defining quality of a Mad scientist. The ability – tendency, even – to take elements from several different sources, put them together in an entirely unnatural, or at least unexpected, fashion, and create something bigger that should not logically exist. This example springs readily to mind.
Tigerlily has to overcome her affinity for spring-power, and embrace the limitless power supply available to her. There are more things in heaven and earth, Tigerlily, than are dreamt of in your spring-powered philosophy.
That’s something that bugs me a lot in these comics: some people are way too eager to conflate Mad Geniuses from Narbonic/Skin Horse with Sparks from Girl Genius. Just because they both have tendencies towards insanity and inventing doesn’t mean that they’re equivalent; they have their defining traits that are specific to their setting and don’t necessarily share them with people from other settings.
TL;DR: Your example is invalid because it’s from a different setting.
Tigerlily has indeed been narrow and dogmatic (both antonyms to eclectic, by the way) by rigidly insisting on using only spring power, and indeed, even requiring others to stick to her narrow doctrine. That’s the very opposite from being eclectic.
Oh, I’m so sorry to have tweaked your pet peeve. Would you be satisfied with an example from this universe? Like Helen herself? Sure, she has an affinity for gerbils, but she is by no means above using anything – or everything – at her disposal. The story of the day she broke through is a prime example.
Tigerlily is the exception, not the rule. And she needs to overcome her own limitations.
But that’s just it, Tigerlily being an exception makes it not a rule. Helen being eclectic doesn’t prove that they all are, and Tigerlily not being eclectic actually proves that wrong; see, there’s a middle ground between “all Mad Geniuses are eclectic” and “there are no eclectic Mad Geniuses”. Eclecticism is a defining feature of Sparks in Girl Genius, but is not necessarily one here for Hypercognitive Dementia a.k.a Walton’s Disorder a.k.a Mad Genius.
I should add that I used Agatha as an example not because I think that the Mad scientists in the Narboniverse are the exact same thing as the Sparks in the GG-verse, but because I just love the way she describes the madness that drives them.
Thank you, Rex Vivat — it needed to be said.
Nothing wrong with comparing to a different work, but I too have been bothered by how many posters seem to be *conflating* the two worlds (Narboniverse and Girl Genius). That seems disrespectful to the authors.
(Based on Awgiedawgie’s clarification, this case did skirt just inside the line, but I am glad you spoke up.)
St. Charlie was powered by a fusion device. The whole damn bigger-on-the-inside thing.
St. Charlie traded that fusion device for a Brains!Unity-designed perpetual motion machine. It had to have worked because otherwise, the power would have stayed off after they made the trade.
So a perpetual motion machine provides at least the same power output as a fusion device.
Therefore, they could get by with three(or fewer?) perpetual motion machines.
QED.
(It would be ironic if the perpetual motion machine worked by springs.)
Don’t you just hate misremembering someone’s name and they don’t say anything and you keep calling them by the wrong name until you remember their name and correct yourself and still no one says anything, but in your mind your thinking, “God, I am such an idiot!”
You can see today’s strip as it looked originally, here. Same principle applies to yesterday’s strip (take the image name, and remove “-1” from just before “.png”
I have noticed that normals seem to respond quite well even when my apologies are quite late and often delivered by unexpected means. This is to say obviously that I am surrounded by caring people. And that I goof up a lot.
I’m just going to say all giant robots have to be nuclear at the very least. Fusion is preferred. It’s not so much tweaking her theme, but exceeding her original mandate…
Heh, fusion source, gears and springs moving the limbs. It’s not really violating her overlying theme as it is expanding it. She just needs to remind herself that there are atomic clocks out there.
Good thing they’ve got fusion pie, then.
About time Gavotte’s prediction came true.
Eclectic mad scientists are always the most dangerous.
Umm… isn’t that kind of redundant? Aren’t they all sort of eclectic?
Are you confusing “eccentric” and “eclectic?” You can’t be eclectic if you have a single, limiting theme to all your work.
No, “eclectic” is sort of the defining quality of a Mad scientist. The ability – tendency, even – to take elements from several different sources, put them together in an entirely unnatural, or at least unexpected, fashion, and create something bigger that should not logically exist. This example springs readily to mind.
Tigerlily has to overcome her affinity for spring-power, and embrace the limitless power supply available to her. There are more things in heaven and earth, Tigerlily, than are dreamt of in your spring-powered philosophy.
That’s something that bugs me a lot in these comics: some people are way too eager to conflate Mad Geniuses from Narbonic/Skin Horse with Sparks from Girl Genius. Just because they both have tendencies towards insanity and inventing doesn’t mean that they’re equivalent; they have their defining traits that are specific to their setting and don’t necessarily share them with people from other settings.
TL;DR: Your example is invalid because it’s from a different setting.
Tigerlily has indeed been narrow and dogmatic (both antonyms to eclectic, by the way) by rigidly insisting on using only spring power, and indeed, even requiring others to stick to her narrow doctrine. That’s the very opposite from being eclectic.
* in these comments, not comics.
Oh, I’m so sorry to have tweaked your pet peeve. Would you be satisfied with an example from this universe? Like Helen herself? Sure, she has an affinity for gerbils, but she is by no means above using anything – or everything – at her disposal. The story of the day she broke through is a prime example.
Tigerlily is the exception, not the rule. And she needs to overcome her own limitations.
But that’s just it, Tigerlily being an exception makes it not a rule. Helen being eclectic doesn’t prove that they all are, and Tigerlily not being eclectic actually proves that wrong; see, there’s a middle ground between “all Mad Geniuses are eclectic” and “there are no eclectic Mad Geniuses”. Eclecticism is a defining feature of Sparks in Girl Genius, but is not necessarily one here for Hypercognitive Dementia a.k.a Walton’s Disorder a.k.a Mad Genius.
I should add that I used Agatha as an example not because I think that the Mad scientists in the Narboniverse are the exact same thing as the Sparks in the GG-verse, but because I just love the way she describes the madness that drives them.
Thank you, Rex Vivat — it needed to be said.
Nothing wrong with comparing to a different work, but I too have been bothered by how many posters seem to be *conflating* the two worlds (Narboniverse and Girl Genius). That seems disrespectful to the authors.
(Based on Awgiedawgie’s clarification, this case did skirt just inside the line, but I am glad you spoke up.)
And thank you awgiedawgie, for clarifying that you used Agatha only as a well-worded example, not as an in-universe “proof text”.
Actually . . .
St. Charlie was powered by a fusion device. The whole damn bigger-on-the-inside thing.
St. Charlie traded that fusion device for a Brains!Unity-designed perpetual motion machine. It had to have worked because otherwise, the power would have stayed off after they made the trade.
So a perpetual motion machine provides at least the same power output as a fusion device.
Therefore, they could get by with three(or fewer?) perpetual motion machines.
QED.
(It would be ironic if the perpetual motion machine worked by springs.)
Well, minion.
Can’t always grasp the important things about the mad scientist creation.
Don’t you just hate misremembering someone’s name and they don’t say anything and you keep calling them by the wrong name until you remember their name and correct yourself and still no one says anything, but in your mind your thinking, “God, I am such an idiot!”
…and then you say “your” when you should have said “you’re”.
You’d probably feel better if you could correct it retroactively, like she just did. Mad geniuses, man.
Mad genius means never having to say you’re sorry.
Isn’t “mama foxfire” the name she entered Tigerlily’s contest with?
Dave never smoked.
That’s just it, it was “Mama Jupiter” before it got changed.
No, it was “Mamma Foxfire”, as Owlmirror said yesterday. I suppose they sound pretty similar when you say them.
Go back and read Jeff’s comment yesterday. His original notes had Jupiter and it got changed to Foxfire.
You can see today’s strip as it looked originally, here. Same principle applies to yesterday’s strip (take the image name, and remove “-1” from just before “.png”
PS: Dave never smoked.
I have noticed that normals seem to respond quite well even when my apologies are quite late and often delivered by unexpected means. This is to say obviously that I am surrounded by caring people. And that I goof up a lot.
We all do our own fair share of goofing up.
I’m beginning to wonder if getting it right is the exception and not the rule.
Hmmmmm. Us there any reason the fuel rods can’t be springshaped?
Seems like it would even make a nice receptacle for the control rods.
I’d be surprised if there aren’t springs holding fuel rods in place in at least some reactor designs.
I’m just going to say all giant robots have to be nuclear at the very least. Fusion is preferred. It’s not so much tweaking her theme, but exceeding her original mandate…
Heh, fusion source, gears and springs moving the limbs. It’s not really violating her overlying theme as it is expanding it. She just needs to remind herself that there are atomic clocks out there.