#do u remember the thing i told u to remember from s1e2?

[madwickedawesome]

3/4 of me watching good omens season 2 is just me talking

[cihojuda]

TSS Project Part 6: Equipment

Warning: hella long

So.

While doing some screenshot-taking for Part Five- specifically s1e24/Where Lies the Engulfer- I started thinking about the Claw. Doc tells us in s1e1/The Kur Stone that the Claw has “spring-loaded cable, telescoping shaft, grappling hook, vaulting and retrieving functionality.” I’m not really concerned with any of that, because we see that it does what it’s supposed to do. My nitpicking has to do with the fact that, in this kids’ show about animals that don’t actually exist, I have a hard time suspending my disbelief about the function of the Claw. Take a look at its various functions:

You get even more than is listed on the package with the Claw. It does everything Doc says it can do, plus some things that Zak thought of himself- helping him throw things, letting him cut things with the talons on the Hand of Tsul Kalu (and probably the bird head thing on the other end too), etc. But mostly, what we see are the grappling and dragging functions.

Zak rescues Doyle from the demon lake. (s1e24.)

What am I saying? Well, basically: when in non-combat situations Zak just uses the Claw like one of those T-rex shaped grabby arms.

I mean, wouldn’t you? He is only twelve after all.

T-rex grabbers aside, I have serious questions about this thing. Namely the spring-loaded cable and the telescoping shaft. Let’s look at the first time the Claw is introduced.

Doc is very proud of himself. (s1e2) This is the Claw in its most basic form, ie without the Hand of Tsul Kalu in it. We never get a reference for how long it’s supposed to be exactly. It looks to be around the length of Zak’s arm, but that’s before the changes in the length of the shaft. Which raises these questions:

How does it do that?

Where does the extra length come from?

Where is the cable stored?

Where is the cable-retrieval mechanism?

Can it get even shorter than we see it in this picture?

How do the length of the shaft and the cable mechanisms interact?

It seems that it can get shorter, as we can see by the way Zak can hook it to his belt when not in use.

If it was the same length it usually is, it would swing all around and whack him in the knee and it would look decidedly less heroic. Or, alternatively, the shaft would go up his shirt; and given the amount of times this child falls over that would be a bad situation for everybody. How he never got a puncture would from that ridiculous bird on the other end is beyond me.

However, that doesn’t mean I have answers for the other questions. The shaft of the Claw is too skinny to possibly house a cable-retrieval mechanism strong enough to move a person, much less Zak and Doyle like in s1e24/Where Lies the Engulfer.

Whee! (s1e24)

There’s simply no room in the interior of the Claw for that fuckery to go on. There have been attempts to re-create classic grappling hook type things in the real world, and they all look similar to this:

which could be a real grappling hook gun or it could be a promo image for the newest spy movie coming out this year. I’m inclined to think it’s real because it has a humongous storage area for cable and fictional depictions of grappling hook guns apparently just have portals in them with unlimited amounts of cable, except when it runs out just short of where they need to be for comedic effect. The Claw has no place to house a reeling mechanism. Unless the cable inside the Claw is thinner than thread and stronger than steel, I just don’t see how there’s any room for it to be able to forcefully launch and retrieve.

Speaking of no room, let’s look at the telescoping shaft. How u do dis?

For the Claw to be able to expand and contract at will, I’m assuming that Zak has to press one of those buttons at the top. We don’t actually know which of the buttons does what on the Claw. Thing is, there are only two buttons as far as I can see- and as far as they showed us with the toy.

weird bird head and all.

Is that red bubble a button too? It could be, I don’t know. That still doesn’t answer the “what button does what thing” question. The functions that should be button-controlled are:

Opening/closing of the Hand of Tsul Kalu

Extension/contraction of the shaft

Launching/retrieving of the cable

I would think that you would want some functions and their opposites to be controlled by separate buttons, but I guess Doc is just a minimalist or something. Again, I don’t know what button controls what thing. It’s really too minor of a detail to be shown in the show at all, but I really wouldn’t mind having an overview of how it works. (I’m used to not knowing how things work. I watch Star Trek and everybody just mashes random buttons when they’re told to do something.)

But back to my point about the telescoping shaft.

The problem with the shaft works on a similar principle as the problem with the cable: Where does the extra length on the shaft come from? Usually, for something to be expandable, either there’s another layer hidden inside it or it stretches. I don’t think metal staffs can stretch, so in this case we’re using the dictionary.com definition of telescoping: “adjective: consisting of parts that fit and slide one within another.” Going off of that (and a single cursory Google search), I’m assuming that the Claw works on this principle:

which leaves even less room inside the shaft for the cable to move around. Also, it probably should make the Claw more unstable the closer it gets to its maximum length, because telescoping poles are notoriously collapse-prone. Unless the Claw can extend and stay there permanently like a police baton,

which it may, because this is Doc Saturday’s handiwork we’re talking about. I still don’t understand how circuits/mechanics can be so small and fine as to control the telescoping function without being destroyed and replaced pretty often. Is it tiny hydraulics? Computer? Air power? I don’t know! Plus, it still leaves a big question open as to how it auto-retracts. How in the fuck does that work?

I have no idea. My last big question about the Claw is about the interconnectedness of the telescoping shaft and cable/reeling functions. Since by the dictionary definition of telescoping the Claw has to be made up of smaller, sliding parts somewhere in the interior, how does the cable fit in there at all, much less a pulling mechanism? Does the Claw require a power source? I want to know these things!

Moving on to my next topic: the Firesword.

This, apparently, is what the Firesword would look like in real life.

As opposed to this- which, I know, is a hokey plastic kids’ toy; but that look could easily be achieved with the right color of materials. I guess I’m just going to have to accept that not everything in my life can be shades of orange. (No i’m kidding i accepted that in the 4th grade when my mother refused to buy me anything else orange after the horrible orange turtleneck and corduroy pants I made her get for me.)

All pedantry aside, the people from the website where I got the picture did a really good job. I think their Firesword looks really cool; but it’s not the one I’m going to be talking about.

History lesson, for those who never read the Cartoon Network website and may not remember the throwaway line about how Drew got the Firesword: it was given to her by the monks in Tibet who took her in after the Yeti killed her parents. We learn about the monks in s1e7/Van Rook’s Apprentice, but we don’t see them until s2e9/And Your Enemies Closer. That’s also the episode that tells us that V. V. Argost was actually the Yeti in disguise the whole time, which was all very convenient plot-wise. How do we learn this? Drew, Doyle and van Rook- and, for some reason, Zon- go to visit the temple where Drew grew up.

pew pew (s2e9)

The monks fire on van Rook, Zon and Doyle because they’re strangers whose intentions are unclear. We can infer from the fire that either the monks have laser weapons or they also have Fireswords like Drew’s. Most of us had probably assumed that the Firesword was a completely unique weapon, but this shows us that there’s a possibility of there being more. I mean, what’s more likely: that Drew’s Firesword is the only magical fire-shooting sword in existence and the monks just happened to give it to a magical orphan child they adopted (Jesus Drew you’re so anime) or that a remote religious sect that has little contact with the outside world has a security system that they probably commissioned from Tony Stark?

So the monks have their own Fireswords.

Now, I don’t really have any issues with the way the Firesword works. I can accept the fact that it’s a magical sword much easier than I can accept the lack of space in the Claw for a reeling mechanism. Why? I’m like Zak. I know how to toe the line between magic and science. In science you have to look for rational solutions to things, and with magic there’s sometimes an explanation and sometimes you just have to accept that it’s just “because magic” and move on. (see also: the entirety of the Harry Potter series.) We’re never going to know how and why the Firesword can do what it does. But don’t think that that doesn’t mean I don’t have questions!

How does Drew tell it to shoot fire?

Was it blessed by a god or cursed by somebody?Was it consecrated by the monks?

How old is it?

Where do the retractable blades at the end come from? How does Drew tell the sword to retract the blades?

Are there other, similar weapons?

Is there any real difference between using light from the sun vs. light from the moon or is that just aesthetics?

Does Drew know the answer to any of these questions besides the ones about making the sword do what she wants?

I also wonder about the circumstances surrounding Drew being given the sword.

How old was she when she first started learning to sword fight?

Did they start her off with a wooden dummy sword first?

Was the Firesword a going away present? We know that she left the temple to go to college, and obviously then got married to Doc and had Zak and whatever whatever.

Unfortunately we aren’t ever going to get to know anything about Doc, Drew or Doyle’s backstories. *sad trombone* I need to know these things, dammit. For science.

This post is going to be long, so I’m going to cut it here. Coming up next: Doyle’s jetpack and the Power Glove.