Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Why does Dora need therapy?
DSL:
I'm not one to say one party's exclusively a saint and the other exclusively a sinner in the M/D shipwreck, and Jeph's drawn a pretty good picture of a 'ship with hull breaches port and starboard -- but I don't think that first quote in Tender's quartet is exactly, um, exact. However, hearkening back to the conversation on which it appears to be based (immediately post Faye's initial hookup with Sven) ... Is it possible there was a bit of unconscious motivation on Faye's part to dig at M and D? IIRC, Marten acknowledged it would be a good dig on Faye's part, but his disinclination to believe she'd do that, plus the heat of Dora's initial reaction, led to the " irrational" comment from Marten.
And, you know, there have been a couple scenes where Faye's been, well, manipulative. I'm thinking in particular of immediately post Faye telling Angus about her dad, Marten (a little selfishly, I thought) being upset about that ... but Faye sorta tuned up the violin strings on Marten.
And I won't go digging for the citation, but I'm pretty sure Jeph's said in actual words he doesn't set out to have any of his characters be 100 percent at fault or blameless in a situation.
Gosh, it's like they're realistically portrayed characters or something.
TRVA123:
--- Quote from: tender on 13 Jun 2011, 12:09 ---Dora's simply recognizing problems from the past relationship, and there's been a lot of drama generated from Marten's side. From a third-person omniscient point of view, especially one that strongly sympathizes with Marten, it's easy to look past those problems; however, when looking at the story from Dora's point of view, while you can still call some of her behavior irrational, it's also easy to see where problems with Marten developed, problems that were left unresolved. That's why she broke up with him.
I don't think the "pussyfooting" comment needs to be explained, considering how Marten's performed in the strip. From the start, she took the initiative in that relationship. Also, Marten's not the sharpest bulb in the box when it comes to recognizing the obvious, as demonstrated on numerous occasions. Regarding the "drama" from Marten's side of the relationship, just scroll through the archives to find some of the baggage he's carried: the complicated relationship with Faye, through all the (mis)interpretations; Veronica Vance, Marten's mother and Dora's childhood crush; Marten's job troubles, with the occasional existential moment; the band, together and apart; the Vespa Avenger... even living with Pintsize the Anthro PC can escalate into incidents involving the Robotics Defense Agency of the US Government. I'm not going to summarize the entire comic here, but Marten is tied to a lot of drama over the last 1946 strips.
Here are four more quotes that sum up Marten and Dora's relationship pretty well:
"Oh Dora, you're SO IRRATIONAL! Sit down and let me explain how you're being CRAZY and I'm ALWAYS RIGHT, 'cause I'm such a NICE GUY. Bluh blee bloo blah bloo."
"Marten, you could be trying to patch things up with Dora, but instead you're sitting here complaining to us. I mean, isn't sitting here blaming all your problems on women kind of... sexist?"
"It's hard to tell sometimes with him, because Marten tries to put a happy face on everything."
"Has he always been this inept with the ladies?"
--- End quote ---
Dora knew about Martens baggage before the realtionship started, she especially was aware of the Marten-Faye deal, and she is the one who pursued the relationship anyway. Even from a strictly pro-Dora perspective a lot of her positions are irrational or purely insecurity fed.
For example, that first quote is from a fight Dora picked with Marten when he took Faye hooking up with Sven calmly, as opposed to seeing a huge subtextual "Fuck you Marten and Dora" http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1097 and http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1098
It takes some pretty specific permutations of logic to come to the conclusion that Dora reaches. and the time that Dora picked a fight because Marten got a haircut? http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=857
Or the time Dora got mad at Marten for having residual feeling for his ex girlfriends? http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1066
or the time when Dora set Marten up for a fight over Cosette asking him out? http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1324
Marten did have some jerky moments ( http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=741, and http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=957 ) , but he spent the majority of that relationship bending over backwards for Dora. (of course, he bends over backwards for everyone else)
TheEvilDog:
--- Quote from: stoutfiles on 13 Jun 2011, 12:18 ---That would be every comic where she and Marten fought and/or disagreed. Im not going through the strip history to find them. The relationship wasn't perfect to begin with, Dora didn't sink it all by herself.
--- End quote ---
So you refuse to back up your argument while others have gone to the effort to back their own reasons for believing that Dora should see a therapist.
--- Quote from: stoutfiles on 13 Jun 2011, 12:18 ---Even though this is what you consider a opinion, some people would not want to date someone who had feelings for their friend first. I don't declare that therapy worthy, and Svens friends were likely douchebags. I'd like to see one relationship with a good, somewhat successful guy on a clean slate. If that fails then maybe somethings wrong, but I currently think she's just made bad relationship choices.
--- End quote ---
Except that your opinions have ignored other, valid points. You've ignored people who have spoken from personal experience. You admit that Dora has made bad relationship choices, but refuse to believe that there is something wrong when she keeps making the same mistakes. Einstein once said that “Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Dora isn’t insane, but she still repeating the past mistakes. She hasn’t learned from any of those mistakes and she is doomed to repeat them.
--- Quote from: stoutfiles on 13 Jun 2011, 12:18 ---As for Dora wanting Faye to mind her own business, today's comic is plenty evidence. It was ok at first for Faye to care, but now it's just rude telling her she can't live her life.
--- End quote ---
So Faye can’t be concerned for her best friend? Or that she could see that Dora was beginning to twist events so that Marten was the villain in their break up? As someone mentioned earlier, Dora is acting like an alcoholic who has been dry for two months and thinks that’s it, so its time to celebrate with a tumbler of whiskey. Faye has experience, Dora has arrogance, which would you be more concerned about?
--- Quote from: stoutfiles on 13 Jun 2011, 12:18 ---If you choose to believe she's so troubled that therapy is the only answer, then ok. We can agree to disagree. I guess Jeph will prove one of us wrong soon enough.
--- End quote ---
I do believe that she does need therapy, and that she does help to realise that she is on a self-destructive path. Her friends are too close for Dora to take them seriously or to believe them. A therapist just offers an outside perspective, and a trusted means of pointing things out.
Is it cold in here?:
I have no support for this from the comic, unless you count Dora's passing mention of maybe getting help getting over her brother issues.
But does anyone else suspect that Dora realized she needed therapy and used Faye's threats to overcome her own fear of starting the process? In other words, the Pugnacious Peach Peer Pressure gave Dora the opportunity to start the therapy she wanted without first overcoming the hurdle of having to admit to herself that she needed it.
guayec:
wow TRVA123, that was a really helpful batch of comics. thanks (and to every other archive master that links to relevant strips in these discussions).
hindsight is a bitch.
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