Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3626 to 3630 (4th to 8th December 2017)
Gyrre:
"Ma'am-elore"? Great, now I want to call her 'Elora' for some reason.
EDIT: For anyone curious; Elora Galanedel, a circle of the moon druid elven princess from Highrollers
brasca:
--- Quote from: Smallest on 04 Dec 2017, 21:01 ---The kind of sudden cut to evening makes me kind of feel like either there's going to be something that happens and gives Tilly some ground for keeping their job, or that Beatrice* is going to pull something so that Hannelore will see why she needs a personal assistant.
*Someone or someones will probably say this is something Tilly would/will do, but I preemptively disagree.
--- End quote ---
Maybe Juicy will be too loud and Hannelore will put Tilly’s negotiating skills to the test. If she can takeover her lease then the job is hers.
BenRG:
There's not really much to say about today's strip. It's a bridge with a silly joke at the end. I'm just glad that Jeph hasn't decided to keep pushing Tilly into our face for the rest of the first day.
We are reminded of something important though, something that I think everyone can profitably apply to real life: If someone is annoyed about someone or something, making a cute joke about it might not have the outcome that you hoped it would! What Hannelore needs right now is a cup of her calming tea, not Winslow attempting to be smart or cute; she has Faye and Claire for that!
Cornelius:
--- Quote from: Shjade on 04 Dec 2017, 19:35 --- (click to show/hide)
--- Quote from: Case on 04 Dec 2017, 07:24 --- (click to show/hide)
Uhm - 'concerned' is not the word I'd use in that context (cf. below), but as they say: YMMV (and the subject may be a lacking a few sammiches ...)
--- Quote from: Shjade on 03 Dec 2017, 20:08 --- He values the ends over the means, but he's not indifferent to the means. If he were, he wouldn't have had the moral event horizon breakdown at the end when he realized he was on the wrong side, because oh well, I guess I was wrong, but whatever, who cares how wrong it was.
Basically the Operative just...er...operates on a utilitarian sense of ethics.
--- End quote ---
Hmmmh - Way it looked to me is that basically he likes killing just as much as he likes showing off that he's really good at it and the whole "utilitarian ethics mumbojumbo" is merely his way of not acknowledging to himself that his enjoyment of brutality is what it's all about for him. He's not merely 'not indifferent to the means' - he is actually rather enthusiastic about them, and his whole pseudo-philosophical blurb is designed to obfuscate - primarily to himself - that for him, the means is the end, really.
We're talking about a dude who engineers an gravity-assisted 'suicide' and then (apparently sincerely) congratulates the victim on their honourable death (conveniently forgetting the 'involuntary' element) - instead of simply killing the mark in the fastest, least painful way, which is what a 'concerned utilitarian killer' would have done. He even 'offers' the latter option to the victim ("would you rather be killed in your sleep, like an ailing pet?"), just before making him a stage-prop in the enactment of his own 'honourable suicide'.
Methinks that his epiphany at the end is not so much about him realizing he was on the wrong side all along as it is about him running out of flimsy excuses for not acknowledging that he really, really likes what he does, and that this is his reason for doing it. Recall that Shepherd Book all-but-admitted to Mal that he'd been sort of an 'Operative' once ("The man they like to send is a man who believes hard") before mending his ways after he realized the callousness of the whole outfit - methinks that 'concerned' is a word more appropriate for the likes of him. Also recall that Mal immediately distrusts the Operative's 'epiphany', whereas he trusted Book implicitly.
Also: (click to show/hide):laugh:
--- End quote ---
I suppose that comes down to whether you think he's sincere in trying to confer honor and nobility on the act of suicide for the good of the many, or if he was being sarcastic about it to rub salt in the proverbial wound because he just really wanted to kill the guy.
I got the impression it was option #1, myself.
There's also the heavily implied notion that Shepherd Book is an ex-Operative, and that the Operative is likely going to go down a similar route himself post-conclusion, which would require a pretty drastic perspective shift from amorality compared to the much smaller one of misguided utilitarianism. Not impossible, but seems less likely.
But hey, it's all fiction, so whatevs. :D
--- End quote ---
The comics, that fill in some of the story give Shepherd Books back story. (click to show/hide) Basically, he was a brown coat operative,who used a stolen identity to infiltrate the Alliance, climb the ranks, and spectacularly lose a battle. His ident as a former Alliance commander is whit the Alliance ship rendered aid, with no further questions asked. Now, how far the comics are canon, is another question.
Back on topic, negotiating Juicy's departure would be a great service to Hanners. Let's see how it plays out.
gopher:
--- Quote from: zzyzx on 04 Dec 2017, 17:40 ---
--- Quote from: Tova on 04 Dec 2017, 16:01 ---I wonder if Jeph has glanced at the forums recently, because a lot of the feedback I'm seeing on Patreon is very positive. Their opinion is not unanimous of course, but many people there love Tilly.
--- End quote ---
Do they explain why they love Tilly?
--- End quote ---
Patrons, almost by definition, have swallowed the JJ koolaid.
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