Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

Foreshadowing of The Breakup

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Carl-E:
I guess my problem with the breakup was that I always bought Marten's rationalizations in all the above referenced strips.  He was always a voice of reason in their relationship, but you can't really reason with fear and insecurity.  You can reassure, and he did a lo- great deal of that as well, but since the issue of Faye never went away there was really no amount of reassurance that would work.  It never seemed that way to me, but the apartment was clearly laced with tension.  Even with the recent development of Fangus, Faye's still there in the middle of their lives, and it had to be tough on Dora's lizard-brain (link added in case you thought it was an insult). 

I'm really curious as to where this will be taking us.  The Talk  was a major change in the comic in that it opened up a window into the lives of the characters, but it was between two people, and things could then progress from there. 

This is not such a shift.  It shakes things up much more, more people are invilved, tectonic plates are realigning.  It'll be interesting to see where Jeph takes us. 

JackFaerie:

--- Quote from: Irenfrea on 20 Nov 2010, 08:42 ---You could also throw in these:

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1066
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1067

--- End quote ---

Yeah, I thought about that but didn't include it because it felt like pretty understandable insecurity (they hadn't been dating very long then, and Faye really WAS a factor) with just a smidge of the irrational thrown in. And it was resolved very sanely on Dora's part--no ugly scenes. I was thinking of including, in my first post, a disclaimer along the lines of "and this is not even counting all the times Dora had expressed insecurity over the relationship and concern over Faye in a calmer, more reasonable manner."

I still think there was one more solid moment of doubt from Marten, but also, yeah... this is something you really can't fight with reason. You also can't just "make" a person change, and even if they want to change on their own, it doesn't happen quickly or easily.  Both Marten and Dora realized that this is a recurring issue in the relationship and really is just part of who Dora is, and also part of the situation right now. Again, even with therapy we can't be sure Dora would give up her misgivings because... well... they're not entirely misgivings. Plenty of people on the forum also think he just went for Dora cause Faye wasn't available and it was the path of least resistance, and that he would not have picked her had she not come onto him at an emotionally vulnerable time. Or that although he likes Dora fine, he just fell into a relationship with her rather than make any sort of active choice about wanting her specifically. But either way, Marten can't make Dora have therapy. And I'm not sure it would be good for Dora to do it for Marten and the relationship--she'd have to do it for herself in order for it to actually help.

And although I feel Dora acted rightly in recognizing a recurring problem and seeing the untenability of the situation for what it was, we also see in these older strips that she's always had problems in self-evaluating or applying any sort of critical thinking to her own issues, and goes on the defensive whenever she's asked to. She also isn't comfortable talking about the roots of her issues, even when she may realize she has a problem. So that's definitely something she needs to work on, regardless of Marten and the Faye situation.

TheEvilDog:
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned this one,
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=543

More than a little bit of a coincidence that Dora mentions a fire breathing hellbitch, considering thats how many readers view her now, her fans included.

Arky:
As I mentioned in the WCDT, http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=756 is in retrospect an obvious foreshadowing comic.  Marten describes the breakup exactly (except for the bit with the Harley, which may still happen).  He just doesn't realise he's talking about Dora...

MissAnneThrope:
I don't think it's just the issue with Faye that's been contributing to the downfall of Marten and Dora, though that certainly was a huge issue. She's a jealous person dating a guy where his core group of friends are all female (with the exception of a few male friends on the edge of his inner circle), and in different ways, that's contributed to this too. Pinning it specifically to the Faye issue has covered most of their breakup, but not really all the issues that were going on there. I feel, in essence, Dora is using Faye as a blanket excuse. The comic (can't remember the specific one, sorry) where Marten and Hannelore are talking about music, she was jealous of that too, because his "musicianship" was a part of him she could never reach, she could never have that kind of conversation with him, she had "girlfriend conversations" with him. Though that would arguably be a more intimate type of discussion, and a very intimate part of him to claim as her own (the "girlfriend conversations") she still doesn't think it's good enough because she doesn't have all of him. That's why I think the biggest foreshadowing was the musician conversation, it showed her real... lack of contentment in what she had with Marten. No matter how much of him she had, unless she had all of him, she'd be wanting more and feeling unsatisfied.

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