Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 4036 - 4040 (1 - 5 July 2019)
Gyrre:
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 03 Jul 2019, 20:53 ---They don't have poor social skills cos they are intelligent, they have poor social skills cos they are unimaginably rich and powerful.
--- End quote ---
Not to mention the whole 'alien intelligence' thing.
Emperor Norton:
--- Quote from: Annemoon on 04 Jul 2019, 03:00 ---I would be pissed - this is not how you treat friends - you don't invalidate hard work in front of them to show of your own privilege. So don't say that Roko needs to grow up here.
This 'person' has feelings - they don't have the obligation to be perfect and reasonable - considering every aspect of the ultimate good - in every situation even though they are not mentally ready for that. Stop putting unreasonable expectations on people.
--- End quote ---
Spookybot in no way invalidated the hard work that Roko did. Roko may think that, but that is pride, not reality. The thing about charity is that there are always people worse off than you are. Everything is kind of relative.
Compared to Spookybot, Roko is powerless. But compared to Roko, May is powerless. What if May felt that all her efforts to get a new chassis were invalidated by what Roko did today? Is that a reasonable anger? Should Roko have done nothing because May might feel that way? The reality is that May's efforts weren't invalidated (though we don't know what she tried), she just didn't have the power to affect change on the level she needed. This is even MORE of a situation where feelings of invalidation could have come up, because May and Roko were actually trying to do the same things. Roko and Spooky weren't, Roko was working on May getting a new chassis, Spooky was just donating to charity in general.
Pride is what screws a lot of people out of getting help. I know that when I went through some very hard times (when the economy turned to shit in the US I was working as a building contractor doing renovations and repairs, and renovations almost dried up completely at the time, and I also had a very serious injury that took me out of work for nearly half a year at the same time), my pride made it hard to take anything from anyone else because that was me admitting that I COULDN'T DO IT MYSELF. In the end the only thing that let me get over my pride was that I had a family and they needed those things. If it had just been me, I would have never taken anything from anyone. Not then. I was stupid.
We can't behave in the manner of "how dare you do anything in front of me that I can't do"! Especially in the realm of charity and giving to those in need. Cause those in need fucking need it, and we can't stand in the way of that because of pride.
Wingy:
--- Quote from: BenRG on 03 Jul 2019, 23:29 ---I think that this is the first time that Jeph has really emphasised how lonely SpookyBot is
--- End quote ---
Ding! Ding! Ding! I think we have a winner.
That said, intend -> intent. Ah English, you're so abstruse... Or was it obtuse? No matter, my inner-pedant is now appeased.
oddtail:
--- Quote from: JoeCovenant on 04 Jul 2019, 02:49 ---Why am I disappointed that Ol' Spookybot is coming across as desperate?
--- End quote ---
I think I get where you're coming from, but my reaction is the complete opposite.
This is the first time ever that I find Spookybot even remotely interesting. Smug or uber-powerful characters bore me, and ones that combine both of those characteristics piss me off. Now I'm hoping for some actual personality from Spookybot other than "LOL, I'm better than you". Which I don't enjoy. Q from Star Trek, Spookybot ain't.
Actual vulnerable reaction pointing to Spookybot being a person, even if they're still annoyingly overpowered and they're a very alien sort of person? That at least has some interesting story potential to me.
Gus_Smedstad:
--- Quote from: oddtail on 04 Jul 2019, 08:39 --- Smug or uber-powerful characters bore me, and ones that combine both of those characteristics piss me off.
--- End quote ---
I can see that. To take your example, I hated Q when he was introduced, not because we were supposed to dislike Q, but because it felt like returning to a fairly awful trope from the original series. The Q episode I liked was when he lost his powers and had to deal with being human. Or humanoid anyway.
That said, I still dislike this series of strips, because it's such an abrupt change of personality for Spookybot, and I don't feel it's sufficiently justified by the writing. It's not as abrupt and clumsy as the Hannelore personality retcon early in the strip, but it's not good.
Contrast the time he's taking to turn May into someone more interesting. He didn't just flip a switch with her in one or two strips.
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