Once again you have made a fantastic post with some good points.
BUT I don't think that having this discussion is going to prevent their character growth, since Faye and Steve have both expressed their distaste for how hung up on Dora Marten is. I don't think he can develop further as a character until he can get over her, and that's what I'm hoping he will be able to do as a result of the next few strips.
You're right… but my point is that the discussion needs to happen, and Marten doesn't have a history of discussing. He lets others talk, puts up a momentary resistance, if any, and then gives in. To return to your earlier response to my earlier post, the fight over Cosette asking him out is a perfect example: that fight lasted the course of a single strip, and Dora was wrong. She was completely overreacting to nothing (due to her own issues), but Marten didn't bother standing up for himself; he went with the path of least resistance, which was just letting her win (which obviously bothered him enough that he kept trying to turn every fight thereafter into that fight again).
If this meeting results in a discussion—and I have enough faith in both the characters and Jeph's writing to believe that it will—that's a step in the right direction; if, on the other hand, the discussion is Dora saying she’s sorry and asking if they can be friends, then, to a certain extent, Marten’s development as a character will be put off.
Not that that’s a terrible thing; if Marten suddenly becomes Mr. Motivated, that’s the end of the strip, at least as we know and love it. His quest is to grow up—that takes time, and the longer it takes, the more wacky hijinx we get to enjoy. Also, this isn’t a movie, where everything needs to wrap up nicely and Daredevil takes down the most powerful criminal in the world after an hour and a friggin’ half (seriously, I’m the only person on Earth who actually likes that movie, but even I have to admit that that was just a stupid move from the writers); it’s a comic strip that (hopefully) has a long, long time left in it for Marten to find his way.
I actually felt a little silly, after rereading my last post, for how life-and-death I made it sound; really, I was just looking for a way to frame some further exploration of the characters and, hopefully, demonstrate that insisting that one character is all right and the other is all wrong isn’t useful or interesting.
Thanks for bringing up Marten’s own attempt to see Dora—I left it out of my post because I probably would have done another three paragraphs on it and I was already way long (as you can tell, I tend to be verbose). Basically, I think that that was a very important point for Marten and the storyline; it wasn’t as powerful as it would have been had it been successful, though, and that’s why, even though I love the way today’s strip plays (because Jeph is awesome), I think this is still something of a repeat of the mistakes the characters have already made (which, really, is just more awesome writing from Jeph. Personal weaknesses are insidious that way—if there’s a way they can convince you that you’re moving ahead while you’re still actually doing exactly what you always do, they will).
Your point about Dora always moving too fast—both in asking Marten out and when they moved in together also applies here. As much as she wants to fix things now, it would have been helpful to both her and Marten if she’d also realized that she had to let him make the first move. She needs to learn to ease off a bit, and he needs to engage more.
I’m way long
again but I do want to say one thing more: I side with Dora on not wanting to move into a dorm-like situation partially because I’m out of that phase, and I can understand her wanting to start a life that is more about her and Marten as a couple than it is about them as two people who happen to be dating in a larger circle of friends. Also, I speak from experience when I say that, while it’s fun having your friends around all the time, when their jackassery gets to the point that they’re baked 24/7 and keeping a bucket of vomit fermenting in the basement for a month just to see what will happen, you start to really appreciate living alone.