Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3231 - 3235 (30th May to 3rd June 2016)
alanari:
--- Quote from: themacnut on 31 May 2016, 10:09 ---A woman with a history of being too trusting for her own good would not pull a shotgun/harpoon on a stranger at a bar whose only "crime" was staring morosely at his drink. If anything, this suggests the opposite; the main reason Brun is giving Clinton the benefit of the doubt is that he's shown himself to be pretty harmless, something Renee has yet to see.
--- End quote ---
I can only speak for myself, but in my case this is not the contradiction you think it is.
I've had my bad experiences, of course. Can't be prevented with a personality like mine. Some of them were traumatic. I'm careful around anyone I don't know. Not that found of weapons though, I'm just keeping my distance.
Problem is, I lower my defence too fast. As soon as someone is nice to me, I tend to assume that he is a nice person. Which is not necessarily true. That makes me vulnerable to anyone who knows to play nice to get what he wants.
If I were in Bruns place, I would be careful around customer Clinton, but I wouldn't distrust Clinton, the guy who helped after the fire. This situation, not strangers but also not really friends, is where I'm the most vulnerable.
Larm Hargraven:
Hello! Long time lurker, even longer time reader. Thought I'd finally make an account because I feel like this specific strip has sparked a discussion that I might have a small bit of knowledge in. The short and skinny: My B.S. is in Electronic Media Production, which is a fancy way of saying I'm a jack-of-all-trades video maker for Film or TV. Specifically I focused in script writing and lighting in production (I like me some well lit sets.)
Personally I find myself on the site of feeling a bit uncomfortable about this Renee character's disposition. And it's not because she offends me on a personal level or anything, though I would be pretty offended if someone did talk to me like that in the real world, but I digress. The thing that makes me feel off about Renee isn't how her personality is, but how she's been introduced. So far we've watched Clinton, a character who first was introduced as odd and even down right rude, but in the reality of it, just a very excited nerd with a pretty soft heart and tiny bit of arrogance sprinkled in. Remember how we were introduced to him? We weren't thrust into him with all his flaws right out the door. His first few strips were a little ambiguous as to what his personality and motivations are. It made us -want- to know more about Clinton, and obviously, his sibling relationship with Claire.
Now let's shift into the future! We've been currently reading a story-arc mostly centralized on Clinton himself. We've also been introduced to Brun, who's first actions were also slightly ambiguous (though also full of hijinks with a harpoon,) but we're soon settled in with her personality as she's shown she's not actually aggressive nor violent. We also get to watch Clinton and her create what seems to be the beginnings of a friendship, and so right now we're cheering for them in a sense.
But then, finally to bring everything to what I've meaning to say, we're brought with Renee's incredibly off-key and, unfortunately, poorly written introduction. Right off the bat it's violent threats in the strips as well as being supposedly abrasive and grossly over-protective in a story-situation where it's unwarranted. We have no grey area with Renee, she's coming in at 100% steam. Hell, we didn't even get Hannelore's 100% until far later into her introduction. So right now, what we're sitting with is a VERY 1-Dimensional character. She's serving no real purpose other than "harass Clinton and make him feel bad for being 'guy at a bar.'"
Hey, it's understandable if, say, Brun's bar didn't burn down and instead by some other means Clinton is with her over the night into the morning. Then, sure, "Guy at a Bar" can sound PREEEETTY scary and might warrant over-protective attitude. But that's what not happened. Brun's bar burned down, as well as almost her entire life it seems with it. She even begins her first dialogue with Renee stating the bar burned down and a guy was watching over her. Story-writing wise, if you wanted to make a comedic situation out of this, it'd possibly be better if Renee was accusing Clinton for burning the bar down. That'd be a case of mistaken identity, an easy and normal trope that gets a quality laugh. But instead, Renee's actions are out of sync with the entire feel of this story-arc.
Now I can't say where Jeph is taking this character, or why her motivations are so. But I can't very well see a good excuse for it all, even if we're going all the way to say Brun's had some terrible history with people taking advantage of her. What I -can- say is Renee seeming to be at 100% means we already see what she's like. Abrasive, threatening, and over-protective to the point of being slightly disturbing. And we're STILL sitting with no grey area for this character. I see her as the equivalent to Yelling Bird. No, really. The character traits are very similar. That's the problem, they shouldn't be. We should have at least some tertiary traits about Renee to help offset her fiery introduction.
I hope what I've typed makes sense! I know I'm terrible at being long winded and sometimes go on too many tangents, but again, I hope this made sense. And I do want it to be known that I love Jeph's writing. He can really pull some big hitters on both the comedy and drama sides of writing. Just, y'know, this time it looks like this character is a little bit of a miss rather than a hit.
TL;DR: Renee was introduced poorly because she has no other qualities that make sense as to why she's being incredibly over-protective and rude. Doesn't fit the theme of the story-arc right now, nor the mood. She's more or less Kool-Aid Man'ing into the story-arc.
EDIT: And I'd like to also note that as someone who sits on the autism-scale, if Brun really is such, Jeph might want to look into writing it a bit better. What we'd be looking for is Aspergers, which is a form of it in which someone has autistic traits but is able to socially function, and even then wouldn't be at this severity for someone who would be the owner of an entire bar (which includes the franchise and business operation side of it all, something that requires a good amount of social lubrication and understanding.)
APersonAmI:
--- Quote from: alanari on 31 May 2016, 13:01 ---
--- Quote from: themacnut on 31 May 2016, 10:09 ---A woman with a history of being too trusting for her own good would not pull a shotgun/harpoon on a stranger at a bar whose only "crime" was staring morosely at his drink. If anything, this suggests the opposite; the main reason Brun is giving Clinton the benefit of the doubt is that he's shown himself to be pretty harmless, something Renee has yet to see.
--- End quote ---
I can only speak for myself, but in my case this is not the contradiction you think it is.
I've had my bad experiences, of course. Can't be prevented with a personality like mine. Some of them were traumatic. I'm careful around anyone I don't know. Not that found of weapons though, I'm just keeping my distance.
Problem is, I lower my defence too fast. As soon as someone is nice to me, I tend to assume that he is a nice person. Which is not necessarily true. That makes me vulnerable to anyone who knows to play nice to get what he wants.
If I were in Bruns place, I would be careful around customer Clinton, but I wouldn't distrust Clinton, the guy who helped after the fire. This situation, not strangers but also not really friends, is where I'm the most vulnerable.
--- End quote ---
Oh... *hugs sympathetically, after checking for consent*
I am an aspie, and what you are talking about is quite familiar to me. When someone commits an action that seems intended to hurt me for the first time since I have met them, my reaction has sometimes been mainly to observe. I do not comprehend hostility, so my first reaction at the strange behaviour is to attempt to understand it. It is on the second attempt at my person that I strike back.
Against school bullies, this was tremendously efficient. Leave or ignore them the first time they try to drag down my dignity, choose a moment and then hit them as hard as I can the second time they do anything hostile. For example, at one time, three guys mocked and jeered at me without provocation, and I ignored them the first time they did it. The second time they mocked me, I pretended to leave, going for my coat, but turned the motion into a backhand strike to the face of the most aggressive one, and then screamed "IS THIS ENOUGH!?" at his surprised, prone, body. He nodded silently, the other two looked shaken and didn't make a move as I took my coat and left. They were never hostile to me again.
Against people faking friendship for years, and then suddenly taking advantage of me, the strategy was... less efficient. That was a long time ago, and I have gained some experience at finding the signs, but I still default to trusting people who do not show hostility.
All this is to say, I understand and sympathize with your situation.
JimC:
Don't forget folks, you have yet to read a single word of what Renee actually said.
And, for example, compare http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=459 .
Larm Hargraven:
--- Quote from: emsilly on 31 May 2016, 13:49 ---
--- Quote from: Larm Hargraven on 31 May 2016, 13:17 ---EDIT: And I'd like to also note that as someone who sits on the autism-scale, if Brun really is such, Jeph might want to look into writing it a bit better. What we'd be looking for is Aspergers, which is a form of it in which someone has autistic traits but is able to socially function, and even then wouldn't be at this severity for someone who would be the owner of an entire bar (which includes the franchise and business operation side of it all, something that requires a good amount of social lubrication and understanding.)
--- End quote ---
Asperger's syndrome is a highly artificial categorisation of autism which lacks a nuanced view and supports an erroneous "low functioning"/"high functioning" divide. It has been removed from the current version of the DSM (though still persists in the ICD), and replaced with a view of autism which recognises that autistic people have varying levels of difficulty which can differ significantly between individuals. In my personal opinion Asperger's as a diagnosis was useful particularly during the '90s/2000s due to the extreme stigma attached to autism, but now simply functions as an arbitrary division between autistic people.
(This post brought to you by someone who has an Asperger's diagnosis but can also become non-verbal for extended periods of time in response to stress and has quite severe social issues.)
--- End quote ---
I can understand that. But there's a line between from being over-stimulated and going NV for a while and then there's sitting in a stereotype. I know Jeph takes pride in making his character's fleshed out, and so I just wanted to make some awareness on her personality and people's speculation about her supposed social behaviors.
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