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Hannelore Elicott-Chatham - The First Relationship

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hakko504:

--- Quote from: ReindeerFlotilla on 22 Oct 2014, 23:40 ---
--- Quote from: hakko504 on 22 Oct 2014, 23:14 ---
--- Quote from: NemoX on 22 Oct 2014, 15:44 ---Either way, probably a long ways to go before it happens, again, barring any Jeph curve balls

--- End quote ---
I think a Hannelore relationship would be about the last thing we'll ever see in QC. Literally. As in the final panel of the final strip once Jeph decided to end the comic. Hannelore's dreams and striving to become a 'normal' person is one of the cornerstones of the comic (together with Marten's life) and to all of a sudden put her in a normal relationship would, once the initial drama/comedy settles, quite frankly not be very interesting. She'd just be another girl and we've got quite enough of those already. To the point where Penelope and Cosette are almost out of the comic, and they are arguable the most 'normal' girls in the cast.
Anyway, I don't think we'll see Hannelore in a relationship until maybe another couple of years have passed in comic. Which means at least 8-10 years in real life.

--- End quote ---

A relationship doesn't have to make Hanners "normal." Whatever normal is.

There's a certain logic to holding out Cosette and Pen2 as "normal" but the fact is they are merely one dimensional. We don't see much out of them because they aren't particularly deep characters. Cosette started out as someone whose entire character was in being accident prone. Now, she's just kinda there. Pen2's entire schtick was "Dammit I am NOT PIZZA GIRL!" Pretty much her entire personality is summed up right there.

This doesn't make either useless. The only character we can be sure we'll never see again is Sara. Jeph likes having a large cast because it gives him plenty to work with if he gets tired of using a character. Out of the current cast, however, Pen2 and Cosette are the least interesting. Mostly, IMO because they are the least neurotic (Barring Momo, but she's the straightman to several characters). I doubt an actual relationship would make Hannelore less neurotic. At least not so much that she stops being useful.

We've yet to see a relationship cure neurosis in this comic. Hanners won't be the first.

--- End quote ---
My point was that I think Hannelore has to reach some form of 'normality' by overcoming a lot of her neuroses before she'll even try to go into a relationship. Or at least most of them. But as I said, that will take a long time, even in comic we're probably talking years, before she'll allow a boy into her life.
And I totally agree with you that Penelope & Cosette are the least interesting, partly because they are the least developed characters and partly because they haven't really had any neuroses to speak of even when they are onscreen. Which becomes a circle: No onscreen time because they aren't very interesting because they haven't had enough time on screen to develop any neuroses etc. As for Cosette's accident-proneness, it hasn't been a factor in any strip since she had her basic training in 1758 (unless you count the wardrobe malfunction in 2629). I take it that she has stabilized a bit after finding a good boyfriend who has made her slow down a bit and made her not worry so much about life.

Aziraphale:

--- Quote from: ReindeerFlotilla on 22 Oct 2014, 23:40 ---A relationship doesn't have to make Hanners "normal." Whatever normal is.
(snip)
We've yet to see a relationship cure neurosis in this comic. Hanners won't be the first.

--- End quote ---

No, of course it doesn't. But when you stop to consider that she's repeatedly mentioned wanting to be "normal," it's typically in the context of some small, everyday thing that most of us take for granted (like hugging), and the ease with which we take them for granted (one does not, typically, freak out over whether someone sitting on their couch may or may not have had a boner, for instance).

And while relationships (romantic or platonic) don't cure neuroses (in or out of the QC-verse), they have invariably done one thing, at least in QC: they lead to growth. Hanners has already grown a lot thanks to her relationships since coming to Northampton, and has said as much. I know she doesn't need a romantic relationship, as such. But if she wants one -- and we've seen signs that she does -- it'd be nice to see her get to a point where she feels it's possible.

ReindeerFlotilla:

--- Quote from: hakko504 on 23 Oct 2014, 04:38 ---My point was that I think Hannelore has to reach some form of 'normality' by overcoming a lot of her neuroses before she'll even try to go into a relationship. Or at least most of them. But as I said, that will take a long time, even in comic we're probably talking years, before she'll allow a boy into her life.
And I totally agree with you that Penelope & Cosette are the least interesting, partly because they are the least developed characters and partly because they haven't really had any neuroses to speak of even when they are onscreen. Which becomes a circle: No onscreen time because they aren't very interesting because they haven't had enough time on screen to develop any neuroses etc. As for Cosette's accident-proneness, it hasn't been a factor in any strip since she had her basic training in 1758 (unless you count the wardrobe malfunction in 2629). I take it that she has stabilized a bit after finding a good boyfriend who has made her slow down a bit and made her not worry so much about life.

--- End quote ---

I approach everything from the pov of a writer, first. As a writer, having Hanners pursue a relationship when she is ready is dull. It limits options for conflict and thus limits options to show character growth in action, rather than just tell the audience how the character grew.

This is a gag-a-day comic. Showing an unready Hanners trying to date has more potential gags than the everyday adventures of a perfectly "normal" couple. We're all bags of neurosis deep down in the secret places we don't like to talk about at parties. We want him on that wall. We need him on that wall...

Sorry. That one got away from me. Where was I?

Right. Conflict. Interesting vs. Normal, Ninth Circuit, 2014. Jeph has gobs of characters he can tell stories about the trials and tribulations of the slightly disturbed as they navigate love, loss, coffee, and the last blush of youth. He only has one profoundly disturbed character.

To circle bake Cosy and Pen2. Hanners was a 1D as those two. She was a caricature of OCD, dialed all the way to 11. She had a few visual cues that were at odd with her hypochondria, but several of those were quickly eliminated. There's a lot of gags to be found if you take anything and dial it up beyond reason.  Hanners rides the ragged edge of too much to take. If her attitudes towards it, or the way she was drawn and dressed, were slightly less open and vulnerable, I don't think she'd be very likable. As someone said in another thread, she's the Woobie. The designated sympathetic victim. And she's very effective at it.

Jeph uses HANNELORE. It's very effective.

So, Hanners ended up in pretty much the opposite of the recursive not interesting loop. Because of that, she gained in complexity. Hanners is the woobie, but only because she wants to be. Her intimate skill is greater than Faye's. She's simply isn't comfortable using it. That happened because it made a good punchline. But it's developed into a character trait. Hanners is not someone you want to make angry.

Jeph did a doodle of Hannelore appearing to fan girl/lust after Lt. Cmdr Data. One dimensionally, that's a good sight gag. But like Leo DiCaprio, we have to deeper. Hanners IS Data. In a number of ways she's superior to those around her, but she'd give all of that up to be "human." In her own, weird way, she's the most human member of the cast. My belief is, should Hanners ever get her equivalent of an emotion chip, it won't change her on a fundamental level, just as Data grew without becoming something different. The lesson of Data, and hopefully Hanners, being that--like the lion, scarecrow, tin man and Dorothy had everything they needed from the start--both were "human" all along.

Aziraphale:

--- Quote from: ReindeerFlotilla on 23 Oct 2014, 09:52 ---I approach everything from the pov of a writer, first. As a writer, having Hanners pursue a relationship when she is ready is dull. It limits options for conflict and thus limits options to show character growth in action, rather than just tell the audience how the character grew.

This is a gag-a-day comic. Showing an unready Hanners trying to date has more potential gags than the everyday adventures of a perfectly "normal" couple. We're all bags of neurosis deep down in the secret places we don't like to talk about at parties. We want him on that wall. We need him on that wall...

--- End quote ---

To that I'd add: One: if you wait 'til you're ready, nothing happens. Ever. Because you're not really ready, and you don't have everything you'd like to have, or sometimes even need to have. Ever. The stuff that changes us and makes us grow typically ends up in leap of faith territory. The growth specifically comes in typically when you're going outside your comfort zone. So if a Hannelore relationship's in the offing, she won't be ready. At best, she'll be ready-ish, knowing she's not 100% prepared, but prepared enough that it's a calculated risk.


--- Quote from: ReindeerFlotilla on 23 Oct 2014, 09:52 ---To circle bake Cosy and Pen2. Hanners was a 1D as those two.

--- End quote ---

Now I'm picturing Cosette and P2 in a springform pan.  :clairedoge:


--- Quote from: ReindeerFlotilla on 23 Oct 2014, 09:52 ---Jeph did a doodle of Hannelore appearing to fan girl/lust after Lt. Cmdr Data. One dimensionally, that's a good sight gag. But like Leo DiCaprio, we have to deeper. Hanners IS Data. In a number of ways she's superior to those around her, but she'd give all of that up to be "human." In her own, weird way, she's the most human member of the cast. My belief is, should Hanners ever get her equivalent of an emotion chip, it won't change her on a fundamental level, just as Data grew without becoming something different. The lesson of Data, and hopefully Hanners, being that--like the lion, scarecrow, tin man and Dorothy had everything they needed from the start--both were "human" all along.

--- End quote ---

Very well put.

BenRG:
So? Is Svennalore a thing now? I'm wondering because Jeph really does seem to be vaguely looking in that direction.

I would say that it would be at least a long-term project as Clairten for many of the same reasons. Most notably, the female protagonist's anxiety issues and the male protagonist's romantic history (including a recent and painful major break-up) leaving him feel unwilling to pursue a possible new relationship. Naturally, it would be initially more like a pair of cute high-schoolers, given Hannelore's lack of experience and the shallowness of all of Sven's previous 'relationships'. In both cases, this might be their first real relationship.

I am aware that I could be wandering close to the 'no shipping' rule here but I would opine that Jeph has given enough explicit indicators for this to be a legitimate area for discussion.

[edit]
I wonder what particular combination of meds allowed Hannelore to do 'sexy' so effectively when she was first introduced?

Mostly, it was Jeph getting a more solid grip on the character and the way he wanted to portray her. That said, I can't gainsay that there was something fascinating about the way she was initially drawn and characterised when first introduced. I'm wondering if, one day, there will be a call-back to that look when Sven sees a picture of her as she was then and is shocked: "That's you? I used to see you in the bar all the time and thought that you were hot!" A beat and then: "I just called you hot, didn't I?"

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