Tai has been immediately friendly with everyone we've seen her meet in the strip
Being "immediately friendly" is a damn easy thing for just about anyone who isn't a complete monster to do (and sometimes, if the complete monster is adept enough, they're apt to do it anyway).
About the only ones we HAVEN'T seen be "immediately friendly" have been Vespavenger and... well, that's about the only examples I can think of. Maybe Yelling Bird.
But everyone else? Think about the first showing of Dora. Friendly. Faye? Platonically friendly. Hanners? Friendly. Being immediately friendly means nothing- anyone can be friendly and/or polite at a first meeting, unless an individual is completely antisocial.
But fundamentally nice?
There's a difference between being simply human and being "fundamentally nice". In fact, fundamentally nice people are about the rarest thing you will FIND in humanity, because to be fundamentally anything requires it to bypass the base part of human nature, which is the innate selfishness of human nature. Not wanting to hurt someone doesn't make a person nice on a fundamental level. Simply being friendly doesn't make someone nice on a fundamental level. Heck, one of the worst, most complete monsters present on television, Cartman, manages to act friendly (and get along) with the other characters in his work of fiction (with notable exceptions) the vast majority of the time. I'm NOT trying to say Tai is a Cartman, but what I am asserting is that merely being friendly, or even from time to time expressing concern, doesn't make a person "nice" on a fundamental level.
Another poster mentioned "Tai trying to get out of a bad situation without hurting other's feelings." Which is simply one interpretation of it. The full comic describes more than just "getting out of a bad situation"- she has clearly indicated that she is planning on maintaining a relationship with Ashley despite the fact that she, in her own words, doesn't see it lasting... and doing it because "the sex is good". Not because she has strong feelings, but "the sex is good".
To break up with someone to be with someone else sends a strong, strong message- that feelings exist enough for exclusivity. Tai was "keeping it on the down low", which is a clear indicator that she intends a relationship with Ashely, despite, and her own words have clearly stated it, that "she doesn't see it lasting". And why does she keep on with it? Because, again, in her own words, "the sex is good". A "fundamentally nice" character wouldn't string a person along in an emotionless relationship merely because "the sex is good", thus creating a much deeper level of heartache down the road than being honest in the first place- especially while smiling happily about it. Now I'm not using that example as "being a hater", or even using it to call her a BAD person at this point- my previous post is still what I stand by, in that I haven't seen enough of her innate character to determine whether she is GOOD or not. I'm not trying to "hate", I'm talking about fundamentals here.
Again, since this went on for pages last time, I'm not trying to say she's fundamentally "evil" or a predator here. There are many aspects of her character we don't know, given that she IS a hand-drawn cartoon character. But we cannot say she's "fundamentally nice", because that's just not what she is.
That's not being a "hater", that's simply speaking from the perspective of someone who's been reading the comic since originally-drawn Faye first walked by so long ago.
This is a topic about fundamental character- that is, the most basic level of character that exists, below the image we present to people, the most innate, deepest level that humans live within. Fundamentally typical humans are, by design, not "nice". We may show compassion, we may show selflessness on occasion even, but to be fundamentally nice requires a person to ignore at the most deep level the instinct, to go above and beyond. It requires conscious effort in many cases to be nice, and to be fundamentally nice means having it be a person's nature, which is very, very rare.
Which is why, in terms of this strip, I would make the assertion that there's only a single character who is "fundamentally nice", an individual who has shown more patience, more selflessness, more good humor, even in private situations, than I've seen in just about any other typical individual. The character I speak of IS "fundamentally nice", which I would assume is a result of conscious effort for Jeph to draw said person that way.
This is precisely why I wanted to wait and see where this story arc leads. As I have previously mentioned, Tai is at the moment, presented with a situation in which we can see what her "fundamental character" contains. That is, she is alone in the bedroom of a fragile, somewhat lonely, socially-awkward girl. A girl who very well may be attracted to her. How Tai allows things to proceed, at this point, will tell us a lot about her character- certainly more than just the snippets we've seen. We have the opportunity to see both how she deals with said character, but we also may get a chance to see an example of her writings- and as we all know, when we write, subconsciously we give away hints as to our true nature. Granted, slash fic about Harry Potter might not on the surface tell us quite a bit, but there is the chance we may see something beyond that, if Tai gives Marigold some more solid pieces to work with or study.
Granted, that method is not exactly the most solid way of determining her character, but it WILL give us an example of how she behaves mono-e-mono, so to speak, when presented with a situation that tests her character and her patience, along with the ability to examine on a more subliminal level the character that Tai possesses.
I think that may be the main issue I see here, and why I chose to hold off on really commenting deeply on what Tai's fundamental character is- that is, unlike many people in the Strip, Tai just really isn't IN it all that much, despite being someone who is around Martin (in a professional sense) quite a bit. It's difficult to assess what a fundamental aspect of a character is without knowing that person in a very, very deep way. Heck, sometimes even when you think you know what a person's fundamental character is, you might not- many people make a conscious effort to hide what their inner, base subconscious instincts might hold, leaving nothing but guesses to grasp onto unless you've really, really gotten to know a person. And we just don't know Tai well enough to make a strong determination about that.
At the moment.
Quite frankly, I think it's heartening that Jeph has created characters that CAN be thought of as even having fundamental characters, or at least ones that are depicted realistically. Works of fiction, in huge amounts- even ones that run for years- far too often never even approach giving their characters much more than anything beyond cliched stereotypes, the tired sitcom-level irritants that populate the vast landscape of "popular entertainment".
But QC, by and large, has given us a staple of characters that are WORTH looking deeper into- ones that aren't simply locked into one rut or another.
Which is why it's so difficult, after such a short period of screen time, to simply ascertain Tai's "fundamental", base character. A truly realistic character takes time to both develop and to get to know.
And would we want it any other way?
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Topic: What is Tai's fundamental character? (Read 14767 times)