Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2878-2882 (19-23 January 2015)
NilsO:
Next question: How will Dora react? Is she going to blame herself for causing this? Or will she be the hard-nosed Dora Boss, saying "Meh. Not my responsibility, she is no longer my employee, I did what I had to do." Of course, Dora could not have foreseen this, but knowing Faye, she should have been at least a little concerned for what could happen after Faye walked out from CoD.
The appropriate thing to do would be to make sure Faye got some support from her friends. Alerting Marten and Hanners would be a natural thing to do, but we have no indication Dora actually did this.
Lubricus:
Yeah, it would have made sense for Dora to alert Marten to the situation. Then again, she might not have had the chance yet. She's at work, after all, minus one employee.
Rubick:
Storyline implications and theories aside, I'm glad that Jeph is tackling this subject with all the seriousness that it should be.
ReindeerFlotilla:
--- Quote from: aphanisis81 on 23 Jan 2015, 04:15 ---
--- Quote from: ReindeerFlotilla on 23 Jan 2015, 00:26 ---I'm not trying to challenge anyone's right to detest fictional characters, but I gotta ask: If you hate [insert appropriate girl's name here] so much, why do you read the comic?
I am honestly unable to guess why, and I really would like to know.
--- End quote ---
I think it's less about truly hating them as though they're individuals and more about deciding which character(s), for you as a reader, fill the role of antagonist. Every story needs conflict and most conflict is caused by people, right? Hating Faye (or Dora, or whomever) seems to me no different from saying "I hate Iago, look what he's doing to poor Othello!" That doesn't mean you don't think he's a well-constructed character in a compelling story.
It's a strong, thoughtful author who can inspire this kind of diversity of reaction in his readers, to the point that people are taking sides about who the antagonist even really is. Instead of one mustache-twirler, we get deeply human, sometimes ambiguous or contradictory, behaviors that we interpret differently. And we can all point to different strips to support different readings.
To me, asking "Why read the comic if you hate the characters?" misses the subtleties of what "hate" entails when used in this context. We do it for the same reason we watched seasons 1 & 2 of The Office even as Michael Scott's social ineptitude made us almost physically uncomfortable. Anything that can inspire a visceral reaction, even if it's a negative one, makes for enjoyable narrative art.
--- End quote ---
I'm not unaware of that kind of, I guess, adversarial, response to a villainous character. But the Dora/Faye hate in this thread seems to be different. I can't relate to your feelings about the Office. I don't find that kind of comedy funny. I'm bad at schadenfreude, I guess.
I'm guessing this involves some kind of thrill of watching a train wreck, or something. I'm not big on villains I don't love to hate. Greg House for example. I don't want to be him. I don't condone his methods. But I enjoy watching him being bad. I can't relate to watching a bad guy and actually despising the character.
I'm not sure if you're talking about something different from my experience or not. It sounds like those who have expressed vitriol towards Dora and Faye are not enjoying the villainy they see. The best example I can relate is a slasher film. I don't enjoy the villainy. I don't watch them. If that makes any sense.
BenRG:
--- Quote from: NilsO on 23 Jan 2015, 04:32 ---Next question: How will Dora react? Is she going to blame herself for causing this?
--- End quote ---
Yes. Also, given her own issues, I would strongly advise Tai not to let her out of sight for a while. My concern is that she'll have such a strong guilt reaction that she might self-harm. I'm also expecting her to lash out randomly at everyone for reasons of guilt transference.
Please note that I'm still not blaming her; I'm just saying that she'll blame herself. As I've already said, Dora was probably too angry to think straight and tell anyone else about her confrontation with Faye. It's strange how the human mind works sometimes. Dora probably told herself that she wanted to calm down so she could explain to Marten (and maybe Hanners) what is up with Faye without letting her anger control her words. It is even possible that she intended to visit Faye that evening and talk to her as a friend rather than as a boss, with Marten as mediator.
It is possible that her desire not to use counter-productive insulting or angry language when talking about Faye's situation with her friends may have overridden whatever concerns she may have had about whether Faye was in immediate peril. "She's a big girl and she's not stupid - We can hash this out tonight after we've both calmed down."
I also suspect that Faye's dismissal will be quietly forgotten, assuming that Faye herself is able to remember it, something of which I'm not sure.
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