>That's a lot of personality in a small magical construct. I sort of
>wonder if the two special dolls aren't Alice's equivalent of the more
>typical witch's familiar.

They are! Sort of. Alice's deal is kinda complicated by 1940s witch standards. Canonically she's a yōkai mage from another plane of existence (sorta the Touhou universe's equivalent of Hell, I think--or actually one of the two, since the traditional "flaming underground world" version also exists there), which is not the case here, but she's not your average girl-who-manifested-magic-powers type.

>This immediately makes me think of old school Jedi BS. Do they still
>pull that in their UF incarnation?

They do not, as of 2410. At least, the "formal" Jedi Order doesn't. Unaffiliated Jedi Masters who haven't come in from the cold might still prefer to do business that way, although if they do, they do not have the Order's protection from the consequences of the fact that that kind of thing is usually illegal.

>>"I was looking for a more diplomatic word, but that'll do. So if her
>>predecessor died when she was five, who raised her?"
>>Marisa shrugged again. "Who knows? Nobody. Wolves."
>>
>I mean, she does sometimes have the abrasiveness for that to be
>believable. And she responds to learning who is actually top dog.
>Which all may be, consciously or not, why Marisa went for that cliche.

It could be argued that the Imperial Fusō Army in the 1930s was worse than wolves, although they mostly left her to her own devices rather than "raising" her as such, apart from the occasional lecture in passing from a senior officer (and we saw in the story how effective those were). The general idea is that the Hakurei is special and will be fine figuring it out for herself for the most part. I'm not saying that's necessarily right, but that's how they view it.

Of course, they didn't know about Marisa. :)

>>"You go ahead and short-circuit that, and hoooly crap, that's gonna
>>piss some people off."
>>
>
>I hadn't considered this angle until now. In part because everyone you
>see in the canon Witches materials, at least the animated ones
>I've found, seems to nearly revere the witches.

That's true, but--especially toward the end of the first series--there's always an undercurrent there. It shows in the way non-witch officers act when it looks like there won't be any need for their services any longer. As soon as it even looks like the WARLOCK is going to work, there's an instant turn against the witches by the brass. All at once, they go from being treated as valued and privileged military assets to irrelevant annoyances. That, to me, says a lot about how sincere that valuation really was in a lot of cases.

Mind you, the fact that it all went horribly wrong and the 501st saved the day in spite of their superiors may have counted for something, but it speaks of a societal attitude that isn't going to change overnight. (Viz. the fact that the same Allied high command turned around and pulled almost the same stunt at the climax of the Venezia campaign.) Of course, the writers of the actual show may have had none of this subtext actually in mind! It's hard to say, given how all-over-the-radar the tone of the show is. Maybe it's all in my head! But then, so is OWaW. :)

Anyway, it's also entirely possible that Marisa is overestimating how many people will take that attitude. She's almost certainly right that some wil--probably quite a few--but I think she's being pessimistic if she envisions it being a general reaction across the board.

>This is not a character trait I'd expected to see Shizuka develop. In
>the Strike Witches movie at least she seems to have almost the
>opposite of a poker face. I guess repeated, massive shocks to her
>understanding of the world have had some side effects.

Indeed, as recently as the early episodes of OWaW Season 1, she was still the FNG, with all that that entails. But, you know. You grow. :)

>This does also lead me to quickly realizing the witch I'd least like
>to face at a card table, or any place bluffing was involved, would
>probably be Gundula Rall (who I don't believe has turned up on
>OWaW in any meaningful way.)

She hasn't, though I'm familiar with her in passing from artbooks and the Strike Witches wiki.

>We know it didn't go down this way, but this just makes me picture
>Marisa walking up and slapping Reimu in the face with the broadside of
>as large fish.

https://youtu.be/T8XeDvKqI4E

>I do like that characters are picking up that G's 'great listener'
>aura is atypical, rather than acting like it is just the natural order
>of the world. Particularly Reimu, since Marisa doesn't seem the sort
>to really be that bothered about keeping her general past secret, but
>Reimu very much does seem the type to open up slowly and rarely most
>of the time.

True, although she's not so much secretive as usually taciturn. One peculiar thing about Reimu is that, either despite or because of her childhood's bizarre mixture of privilege and neglect, she doesn't think she's interesting. Why would anyone want to hear about her? She's just a girl who runs a poky little shrine in the arsehole of nowhere that no one ever visits, and she hardly ever leaves. OK, when she does leave it's generally to engage terrifying supernatural monsters in single combat, which she prosecutes with complete ruthlessness and somewhat terrifying supernatural powers of her own, but that's not as exciting as it looks in the newsreels.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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