I’ve been reading GirlGenius at it’s website, and now consider myself a fan.
But there’s some things I haven’t figured out, or don’t yet understand, about how things work in that world.
About Jagermonsters. Why do they speak with that atrocious “German” accent? And were they created by humans, or did they just evolve naturally into what they are?
What is a “construct”, and how do they differ from ordinary humans? What I see seems to indicate they are revived, or reconstructed after injury, is that close?
If two sparks have a child, will it too be a spark? Agatha’s parents were both sparks.
Why do sparks tend to go all madboy/girl when their talent develops? It gets them killed, and that’s no way to make more sparks.
Because it’s funny? (And, given the nature of the GGverse - or pretty much anything else written by the Foglios - and the Jagers, specifically, I’d not be surprised if that was the in-universe explanation, too.)
Also, keep in mind, the setting is a Pseudo-Germany, and the Jagers are both odd, and very old, so the accent could be the regular accent of the time they were created, just filtered through their odd mindset, and looking weirder due to drift of other people’s accents.
Constructs are created beings, as implied by the name. The Jagers were created by the Heterodynes, Krosp by Baron Wulfenbach (IIRC), etc.
As to how they’re created, I’ve missed large chunks so there might be more explanation given, but I’ve always assumed that Constructs can be created in multiple ways - building from scratch (presumed to be the case with the Jagers), rebuilding a dead/injured person/Construct, or alteration of a living being (which I’ve always assumed to be the case with Krosp, though that may have been contradicted in the sections I’ve missed).
I do remember about Krosp, but I went back to double check. Krosp is a construct, a cat with human intelligence.
I’m ashamed to admit I think that Klaus Wulfenbach is sort of hot. He’s a raving maniac at times but still… Gil is way too young to be appealing to me, his dad is more my age.
In this comic,, one of the Mechanicsburg peasant women also speaks with the same accent. I’m guessing that it is a local accent that was normal for the bodies from which the Jagers were constructed.
In the glossary, they state that constructs are usually organic creations, like Frankenstein’s Monster.
They can apparently live a long time (the cast pages says that the Jagers may be immortal), but may require some repairs by a Spark.
Why do folks tend to blow millions of dollars frivolously when they win the lottery? A person has just discovered that they have an incredible amount of power, so they go a little overboard with it. Add in the fact that most Sparks hit it young, and they have to deal with immaturity and inexperience with the world on top of the sudden power. What if a kid who hated school suddenly understood how to build a clank army? He wouldn’t have the wisdom to understands what’ll happen beyond destroying the school building (ie, people dying, authorities going after him, he retaliates with his army, the authorities bring in lethal force, he ends his life before he’s 13).
Heck, look at Master Payne’s Traveling Circus. Those folks were, essentially, ‘wild’ Sparks, and despite having gotten through their formative years they were still a little…unsafe. (Imagine if the pie guy had tried to make Calming Explosives instead.)
Agatha avoided all that with the dampening locket given her by Barry. It let her go through puberty normally and get a little more life experience under her belt before she started with the madgirl stuff.
As for heredity, that hasn’t been fully explored yet. I imagine it’s akin to Jedi or wizards in the Harry Potter universe; a child born to two Sparks is almost certainly going to be a Spark themselves, and quite probably a strong one; one Spark parent and one normal parent makes a Spark likely, but probably of ‘average’ strength; and two normal parents still have a chance to produce a Spark, but it’s as rare as two Sparks producing a normal.