Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2323-2327 (19-23 November 2012) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread
maxh:
--- Quote from: Renewman on 19 Nov 2012, 05:26 ---No, you misunderstand. I'm not harping on the comic because "What!? Jeph just threw in transgender character!? He should have told us last week in a hint!" I'm saying that for those of us who have been following the comic for years are starting to realize that things are just getting thrown into the story with no basis for a while now and it only makes me imagine what else Jeph is going to end up doing in the future. Also, I'm noticing a large influx of new people over this comic. Did this get posted on twitter or something?
--- End quote ---
Your other example was Tai and Dora hooking up. There's plenty of basis for that. Both are established as being interested in women, both have specifically mentioned finding the other attractive, and they got along as friends. Is it possible that the change of their relationship (and seeing each other more often) is a bad idea? Sure. But people have ill-advised hookups. It's realistic.
In this case, Claire's a new character, so there's not as much history to go through for hints, but if you read through there are subtle hints. And given the number of characters, it's not really a huge surprise that someone's trans.
StevenC:
--- Quote from: Karilyn on 19 Nov 2012, 05:35 ---<quoting reduced by moderator>
Seriously, look at the first panel of this comic. Jeph copy+pasted their heads, then drew different hairstyles on them.
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2321
--- End quote ---
Well, just the head-shape. Claire's eyes seem bigger, different ears, skin tone and Claire has freckles.
Karilyn:
--- Quote from: Catayana on 19 Nov 2012, 05:37 ---I just assumed they were the rare male and female identical twins.. Can't say that was really a lead up for me. I definitely didn't see it coming!
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Just because you (or most people) didn't see it coming, doesn't mean the lead-ups and foreshadowing weren't there. In fact, if you don't see it coming, then reread it a second time and see it coming, that means it was incredibly skilled writing.
DSL:
The strip's history doesn't support the claim of Jeph just throwing stuff in for no reason. The Claire character had quite a long public genesis, from postings of random sketches (the female character Jeph wasn't quite sure what to do with) to Clinton's early genesis as a female character (with 20-20 hindsight, I speculate that MIGHT have been a hint), to Jeph's statements he wanted to introduce a trans character but wanted to do it respectfully and right.
As for what we've seen so far in the comic, I read it as: Claire had been struggling to figure out "who" she is and recently made/is about to make her peace with it, took a calculated flyer on trusting Marten, and was rewarded with probably the best response, which translated roughly as "I'm glad you felt you could trust me. Let's continue on as fellow humans."
EDIT: Rereading Marten's dialogue, I'm impressed by how right it seems to me (I'm long since convinced Jeph does nothing by accident): "Yeah, sure." ("OK, you're trans. That's part of you and I'm cool with that.") "Thanks for telling me." (my interpretation, above) "Claire." ("Most importantly, you are an individual human").
Great contrast to Marten's earlier inarticulate terror at delivering a simple compliment to the bikini'd Marigold.
Any other thoughts I have will have to depend on what happens next in the comic.
I was going to say "except for the turkeys," but the OMG Turkeys actually lend a great deal of insight to explosive topcis. Maybe it's the tryptophan.
Karilyn:
Sorry if someone's mentioned this already... But there was another visual foreshadowing that Claire was trans which exists.
Male characters do not have lips in QC, only female characters. Claire has no lips. That's an indication that she's genetically male, as it's a universal sex trait in the QC universe.
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