Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: Independence Day Week (4 - 8 July, 1961-1965)
steveb:
--- Quote from: cabbagehut on 07 Jul 2011, 10:26 ---
--- Quote from: Blyss on 07 Jul 2011, 10:03 ---...and I still stand by my feelings on this, Marten didn't deserve the breakup, and now what? She feels better, so it's okay to approach him, after she's been out on a date of course.
--- End quote ---
I feel bad for Marten here. I know Dora probably means well, and she wants to talk to him in a kind way, but there was no warning for him to prepare himself, and face-to-face is pretty intense. Marten took the breakup hard, whereas Dora was sad, but appeared to be dealing with it better. She was far more ready to move on than he was I feel like her showing up (what appears to be) immediately after the unsuccessful date is an awkward way to handle things - I'm not really sure WHY I feel that way, though.
--- End quote ---
I can see where you are coming from here but on balance I think sooner rather than later is better. Marten already tried to return to COD so he has prepared himself for the meeting at least once. He also knew Dora was on a date and is sitting outside at a party, probably brooding about the whole thing. Better to have things unexpectedly move forward for real than spend all evening getting drunker wondering how the date is going.
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Tiogyr on 07 Jul 2011, 11:08 ---A volatile breakup should automatically take post-breakup friendship off the table, I'm sorry.
--- End quote ---
No. You don't get to define how the world works; and plenty of people can show that much of the time it doesn't work the way you appear to believe.
--- Quote from: Tiogyr on 07 Jul 2011, 11:28 ---If Dora were to say she wanted to get back together, Marten would jump at the chance and that is why they need to not be friends until Marten makes some progress of his own with regard to moving on (or at least stops moping and sighing about it).
--- End quote ---
Your words are confusing the issue again - "getting back together" and "being friends" have very different implications. Also, being friends starts with not being enemies - not an unreasonable thing to try, as I have found.
Blood-Tree:
--- Quote from: dragontart on 07 Jul 2011, 11:24 ---I'm not sure if "staying friends" works well or is a good idea if only one partner dumped the other one. Since said other one most probably still has completely different feelings for them. I mean, Marten wouldn't have ended that relationship, would he? But then again, he might be more happy about at least being friends with Dora than nothing. But actually, I have no idea what Marten thinks about the relationship and the break up by now.
--- End quote ---
I think that, as Marten is Mr Passive, he would simply prefer to ignore the whole thing and pretend like he doesn't care.
I'm willing to make a prediction that although tomorrow's strip could be a moment of high drama (my initial reaction to today's final panel was: "whoah, it just got real") it will probably just be a total anti-climax; Marten will say 'Hi', Dora will ask how the party is going (or some other innocuous question), Marten will give a vague non-committal reply and then Dora will walk up the steps and into the house. Maybe next week, there will be a strip where Marten discusses this with Steve, or maybe Faye, and Dora complains about something to someone.
Nothing happens quickly in QC, case in point, the breakup was months ago and Marten and Dora are only now having their first meeting as exes.
Tiogyr:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 07 Jul 2011, 11:32 ---
--- Quote from: Tiogyr on 07 Jul 2011, 11:08 ---A volatile breakup should automatically take post-breakup friendship off the table, I'm sorry.
--- End quote ---
No. You don't get to define how the world works;
--- End quote ---
I'm not defining how the world works, I was responding to a bunch of people essentially arguing that there was no reason whatsoever for Dora and Marten not to be friends after their shitty relationship came to a shitty breakup.
--- Quote ---and plenty of people can show that much of the time it doesn't work the way you appear to believe.
--- End quote ---
And I'll just let leahneedsanap's agreement post speak for me here, because they're saying essentially the same thing I am.
--- Quote from: leahneedsanap on 07 Jul 2011, 08:28 ---
--- Quote from: Tiogyr on 07 Jul 2011, 07:49 ---
Why do people keep acting like exes have to reconcile and become friends after breaking up?
Why can't they have an "Our relationship was doomed to start with, we weren't compatible, but it was fun while it lasted until shit hit the fan" moment and move on with their lives?
--- End quote ---
I am with you on this one... I have found that I NEED that sharp cutoff in order to really move on, and once I have, there's not a gap in my social circle that needs to be filled by someone who (at least with my exes) isn't a particularly good or interesting person. Every time I've tried to "be friends" I've used that relationship as an emotional crutch to keep myself from moving on or dealing with my pain. Then again, I have mostly dated people who weren't core members of my friend group, so I'm sure that would be different.
Still, I can see why grudges or walls of silence are pretty unworkable in a comic when the relationship is between two major characters, unless you are going to write one of them out. And given that Marten is arguably the main character and Dora is Jeph's favorite character, that seems pretty unlikely. If they are just totally not interacting it means you have to have these major demarcations in your storylines where certain characters can't be, or can't be in the same place, or someone has to reiterate what the other one said. When you share friends you generally have to get at least to a place where you're not putting your friends through this "I'm having a party but if I invite him I can't invite HER, and I can't invite HIM cause now she's dating him and that would be uncomfortable" thing.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Your words are confusing the issue again - "getting back together" and "being friends" have very different implications. Also, being friends starts with not being enemies - not an unreasonable thing to try, as I have found.
--- End quote ---
The point I'm trying to make (and that leah got) is that they can't be friends until after Marten gets over the breakup himself.
Which isn't going to happen as long as he's moping around about it.
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Tiogyr on 07 Jul 2011, 11:53 ---I'll just let leahneedsanap's agreement post speak for me here, because they're saying essentially the same thing I am.
--- End quote ---
Leah's experience is as valid as mine, and different. You can't just choose one of us and say "they're right (because they agree with me), and they're wrong". You have to allow for uncertainty and variability.
--- Quote from: Tiogyr on 07 Jul 2011, 11:53 ---The point I'm trying to make (and that leah got) is that they can't be friends until after Marten gets over the breakup himself.
--- End quote ---
Up to a point. There are respects in which I have never got over the breakup of my marriage twenty years ago. But I am friends of a sort with my ex. My present wife and I sometimes have her to dinner, and sometimes go there, and we meet at concerts and so on - but we don't hang out more than that. You may simply be calling that state "not friends", whereas I am calling it "friends - up to a point". And the point is that we got together enough to learn to be civil to each other again, and to express our care for how the other is doing - because that is still there, even though we couldn't live together any more. When I had a heart attack, she visited me; when she had a hip replacement I visited her.
--- Quote ---Which isn't going to happen as long as he's moping around about it.
--- End quote ---
And now he has a chance to move out of that state.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version