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[flamingo]

In the weekly thread, I saw some great finds of foreshadowing that this would happen... Any more?



http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1739

[Is it cold in here?]

I've been too lazy to look up links lately, but there's a strip where Dora says she was sure the relationship would have already gone down in flames.

[Superkid11]

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1640

I just know it.

[kostya]

Hopefully the breakup storyline will be over soon enough and we can get back to our normally scheduled strips on the subjects of sexual frustration and robotic dick jokes.

I predict that Martin goes into a downward spiral of emo and boring. Eventually Angus and Faye split (because Angus has always had that creepy stalker thing going) and then, after a year or two of emo strips and arguments about who better represents their shattered souls: Jimmy Eat World or Deathcab for Cutie, we return to the old style of Martin saying something, Faye twisting it against him, Faye punching him, and Pintsize coming back with a disturbing joke.

[Taigan]

The earliest definite one I remember was here.

[jwhouk]

You know what? I think I can go earlier than that.

I think Dora thought any relationship with Marten was doomed to fail like, way back in strip 229.

[Carl-E]

Now THAT's some serious mining! 

Good find, JW. 

[jwhouk]

What's sad is, that was about when Dora stopped being "just another cast member" and moved up to "primary cast member" status.

The whole "Hurr Dora Hurr" storyline was when she graduated to "main character" status.

[ElvisRevenge]

You know what? I think I can go earlier than that.

I think Dora thought any relationship with Marten was doomed to fail like, way back in strip 229.

If nothing else, it shows that the relationship was going to need some work if it was to become permanent, and that work was just never put in.

Man, Dora's self-confidence was almost as bad as Marten's at times, if not worse.

...I'm going to read all goddamn 1800 strips again, aren't I?

[Boomslang]

...I'm going to read all goddamn 1800 strips again, aren't I?

Just did that.

Should we start a club?

[Carl-E]

Depends - who you gonna club?

[JackFaerie]

I'm really surprised by how many people were surprised by the breakup.

As far as I remember, the timeline goes thusly: Dora and Marten hook up amid angst and doubt, but that angst and doubt is soon somewhat dispelled by NRE and first-stage infatuation.

1. They have their small ridiculous fight that shows Dora's incipient controlling tendencies when she freaks out that Marten got a haircut without her express permission, and also her double-standard for her own behavior:
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=857
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=858

Note that she also refuses to critically consider either the rationality of her position or the existence of said double standard until strongly prompted by an outsider observer (Faye).  Note that she then has a brief moment of realization where she worries about sabotaging her relationship with Marten, but this moment soon slips away and things go back to the status quo. But it's only the first offense and not a super major one at that, thus so far, so good, until...

2. They have another fight when Dora flips out on him for not seeing Faye's and Sven's hookup as some kind of plot to hurt the two of them, once again demonstrating irrationality and her extreme insecurities regarding Faye and how she places Marten's relationship to Faye at the center of her own relationship with him.
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1097
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1098
She then flips out on him some more for "taking Faye's side." In the aftermath, she is shown as unwilling to actually discuss the root issues of the fight or, once again, critically assess her motivations:
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1106
Overall, it's a fairly short and momentary blow-up, and quickly enough resolved, but it's beginning to be a pattern of absolutely unprovoked over-reactions from Dora...

3. Annnnnddd, it begins. They have yet another fight due to Dora's inability to control her irrational insecurity, where she sets up a ridiculous test that Marten is bound to fail:
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1325
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1326
They make up, but Marten's left feeling uneasy and possibly reevaluating Dora's suitabilty for him:
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1328

4. Dora gets her own hair cut and colored without informing Marten: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1671 Doesn't have much to do with other things, but he is obviously not a huge fan of it, and it certainly calls back to their first fight, and again, the double standards.

5. Comparing his relationship to Faye's blossoming new one with Angus, Marten doesn't seem very happy. http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1739

(The fact that he felt the need to ask Dora in the first place shows he was looking for some kind of reassurance and did not get it.)

6. The underpants fight happens.
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1742
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1743
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1744
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1745

And then the current one does. I'm also pretty sure there was at least one more instance of Marten-lying-awake-in-bed-at-night that I missed.

[jwhouk]

Good job, Jack.

[Carl-E]

Yes, thank you!  I was having trouble remembering the haircut incident, despite its being bandied about so much.  Thanks for all the links - it really does put things into an interesiting perspective! 

[Is it cold in here?]

Let the word go forth from this place and this time that JackFaerie is a Mistress of the Archives, and entitled to wear the special Imaginary Hat.

[JackFaerie]

Thankee, thankee. I'd be a true Mistress of the Archives if I could find the other instance of Marten lying awake in bed at night and sighing. I could swear there were three in total.

[tomart]

Yes, good job, JackFaerie.  When you put it that way...

Much respect for Jeph, to have either laid the guidelines out early on (a la JKRowling) or masterfully composed it as he went along, or some combination thereof.  

The current apparently misguided Marten-Faye shipping is left over from the first 500 or so strips, where that sexual tension almost defined the main characters & thus the comic.  That's not so easily disposed of, for those of us who've loved QC from the beginning.  I suspect (ok, hope) that QC's closing arc, hopefully far down the road, might include the original "couple" getting together.  

I don't expect any shark-jumping;  I see QC as getting stronger as it goes, with Jeph's storytelling skillz, character depths, dramatic repertoire all improving as we've seen the art improve.  

Someday we'll look back on these drama-threads and laugh.  

[jwhouk]

Problem is, most of these drama threads will die when the next OMG!!!! moment wanders around.

[Irenfrea]

You could also throw in these:

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1066
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1067

[Skewbrow]

JackFaerie's list is quite complete as fas as I can remember. I confess to having hoped that Dora and Marten would not break up all the way till Thursday's strip. Let's list a few factors that may have contributed to the expectation that Dora and Marten were for keeps. Mostly my personal reasons. You're more than welcome to comment/add or shoot them down. Perhaps not the most interesting exercise, but here comes anyway:

• Wishful thinking - a very powerful driver. I just hoped so hard that they could make it work
• The frequency of their arguments/quarrels/fights did not seem that high. Overall it looked like they were doing just fine. However, to an extent the comic time dilation trapped me here. In RL it is close to 5 years since strip 564, but in QCtime the concensus seems to be that it's something like one year. Don't know if 6 incidents per year is too much, because...
• It is natural to expect a higher than usual 'drama to steady going ratio' in a work of fiction. So a bumpy ride is even more likely than in RL.

Also a lot of the Faye/Marten shipping that took place really got on my nerves. I tried to dismiss it, because it sounded like a bunch of NiceGuys^TM yelling: Marten was so nice to Faye for a longest time. He has 'earned' a relationship (or failing that at least some passionate sex) with her. I should have known better and just stayed away from the forum until the smoke cleared, but flesh was weak and consequently I defaulted to denial mode. Not to mention that when I started reading QC from the beginning I was myself hoping that Faye and Marten would end up together  So this is more like a cauldron calling kettle black.

[Carl-E]

I guess my problem with the breakup was that I always bought Marten's rationalizations in all the above referenced strips.  He was always a voice of reason in their relationship, but you can't really reason with fear and insecurity.  You can reassure, and he did a lo- great deal of that as well, but since the issue of Faye never went away there was really no amount of reassurance that would work.  It never seemed that way to me, but the apartment was clearly laced with tension.  Even with the recent development of Fangus, Faye's still there in the middle of their lives, and it had to be tough on Dora's lizard-brain (link added in case you thought it was an insult). 

I'm really curious as to where this will be taking us.  The Talk  was a major change in the comic in that it opened up a window into the lives of the characters, but it was between two people, and things could then progress from there. 

This is not such a shift.  It shakes things up much more, more people are invilved, tectonic plates are realigning.  It'll be interesting to see where Jeph takes us. 

[JackFaerie]

You could also throw in these:

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1066
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1067

Yeah, I thought about that but didn't include it because it felt like pretty understandable insecurity (they hadn't been dating very long then, and Faye really WAS a factor) with just a smidge of the irrational thrown in. And it was resolved very sanely on Dora's part--no ugly scenes. I was thinking of including, in my first post, a disclaimer along the lines of "and this is not even counting all the times Dora had expressed insecurity over the relationship and concern over Faye in a calmer, more reasonable manner."

I still think there was one more solid moment of doubt from Marten, but also, yeah... this is something you really can't fight with reason. You also can't just "make" a person change, and even if they want to change on their own, it doesn't happen quickly or easily.  Both Marten and Dora realized that this is a recurring issue in the relationship and really is just part of who Dora is, and also part of the situation right now. Again, even with therapy we can't be sure Dora would give up her misgivings because... well... they're not entirely misgivings. Plenty of people on the forum also think he just went for Dora cause Faye wasn't available and it was the path of least resistance, and that he would not have picked her had she not come onto him at an emotionally vulnerable time. Or that although he likes Dora fine, he just fell into a relationship with her rather than make any sort of active choice about wanting her specifically. But either way, Marten can't make Dora have therapy. And I'm not sure it would be good for Dora to do it for Marten and the relationship--she'd have to do it for herself in order for it to actually help.

And although I feel Dora acted rightly in recognizing a recurring problem and seeing the untenability of the situation for what it was, we also see in these older strips that she's always had problems in self-evaluating or applying any sort of critical thinking to her own issues, and goes on the defensive whenever she's asked to. She also isn't comfortable talking about the roots of her issues, even when she may realize she has a problem. So that's definitely something she needs to work on, regardless of Marten and the Faye situation.

[TheEvilDog]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned this one,
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=543

More than a little bit of a coincidence that Dora mentions a fire breathing hellbitch, considering thats how many readers view her now, her fans included.

[Arky]

As I mentioned in the WCDT, http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=756 is in retrospect an obvious foreshadowing comic.  Marten describes the breakup exactly (except for the bit with the Harley, which may still happen).  He just doesn't realise he's talking about Dora...

[MissAnneThrope]

I don't think it's just the issue with Faye that's been contributing to the downfall of Marten and Dora, though that certainly was a huge issue. She's a jealous person dating a guy where his core group of friends are all female (with the exception of a few male friends on the edge of his inner circle), and in different ways, that's contributed to this too. Pinning it specifically to the Faye issue has covered most of their breakup, but not really all the issues that were going on there. I feel, in essence, Dora is using Faye as a blanket excuse. The comic (can't remember the specific one, sorry) where Marten and Hannelore are talking about music, she was jealous of that too, because his "musicianship" was a part of him she could never reach, she could never have that kind of conversation with him, she had "girlfriend conversations" with him. Though that would arguably be a more intimate type of discussion, and a very intimate part of him to claim as her own (the "girlfriend conversations") she still doesn't think it's good enough because she doesn't have all of him. That's why I think the biggest foreshadowing was the musician conversation, it showed her real... lack of contentment in what she had with Marten. No matter how much of him she had, unless she had all of him, she'd be wanting more and feeling unsatisfied.

[Is it cold in here?]

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1395

[MissAnneThrope]

Yes! That one! I just thought it was kind of crappy the way Dora felt like she had a right to monopolize him. Seems kind of like a recipe for disaster. Thanks for finding the link! 

[JD]

What Sven said to Marten pretty much spelled things out.

[JackFaerie]

As I mentioned in the WCDT, http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=756 is in retrospect an obvious foreshadowing comic.  Marten describes the breakup exactly (except for the bit with the Harley, which may still happen).  He just doesn't realise he's talking about Dora...

Oh come, let's not get carried away now. Dora's not emotionally unavailable--that would be Faye for you. It's not like she had issues with commitment or felt uncomfortable allowing herself to love Marten or anything else that "emotionally unavailable" means. She was quite emotionally available to Marten--her issue was that she feared he wasn't quite as exclusively emotionally available to her as she'd have liked. And she certainly wasn't passive aggressive--again, that would be more Marten. All her aggression was quite on the surface--she flipped out in irrational anger binges, remember? So no, I don't think this is foreshadowing at all.

I don't think it's just the issue with Faye that's been contributing to the downfall of Marten and Dora, though that certainly was a huge issue. She's a jealous person dating a guy where his core group of friends are all female (with the exception of a few male friends on the edge of his inner circle), and in different ways, that's contributed to this too. Pinning it specifically to the Faye issue has covered most of their breakup, but not really all the issues that were going on there. I feel, in essence, Dora is using Faye as a blanket excuse. The comic (can't remember the specific one, sorry) where Marten and Hannelore are talking about music, she was jealous of that too, because his "musicianship" was a part of him she could never reach, she could never have that kind of conversation with him, she had "girlfriend conversations" with him. Though that would arguably be a more intimate type of discussion, and a very intimate part of him to claim as her own (the "girlfriend conversations") she still doesn't think it's good enough because she doesn't have all of him. That's why I think the biggest foreshadowing was the musician conversation, it showed her real... lack of contentment in what she had with Marten. No matter how much of him she had, unless she had all of him, she'd be wanting more and feeling unsatisfied.

But this could well have been because she didn't feel she really had him, because of the Faye thing. Ie, with a guy she felt more sure of, she could have been more relaxed in all aspects. Plus yeah, there's her history of cheating exes.

[jwhouk]

What Sven said to Marten pretty much spelled things out.

Okay, let's look at that:

The "chill and understanding" thing is an act. She's a mess underneath it all. You know you're the first dude she's ever dated who wasn't a complete douchebag?

(Marten: "She's said...")

Oh, they were all HUGE a$$holes. Real alpha-goth types. Treated her like $#!+, cheated on her, the works. She's never been in a healthy relationship. Not that I know of, anyway.

(How come she never told me...?)

Doesn't like talking about it. Gotta keep up the act, remember?

Tie this in with Dora's "Too nice for my own good" comment way way WAY back in 229, and her comment in 562: "I'm just as angsty as I used to be. I just try to hide it more now."

Duh. Shoulda guessed she'd shoot this relationship in the foot.

[Graphite]

One of the really early foreshadowings that she might never be able to get rid of the fear http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=592

[jwhouk]

My last comment before we go on to our abbreviated week:

Notice how a lot of the arguments between M&D got heated after Raven got "put on a bus" to college?

EDIT: Looked it up - the Cosette thing happened before Raven left, but Raven was pretty much out of the picture by that time (1511 is her "departure" strip).

[Varian7]

Excellent forshadowing in spotting 592.  Very well done!

[flamingo]

not exactly foreshadowing of the break up, but just to counter

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1466

[someone1074]

It's not so much that the breakup was unexpected, but that Marten would roll over again. Recently, he's demonstrated that he's willing to confront her directly. And then when things came to a head, he just (presumably, since we didn't see anything) silently accepted it and walked out.

I would have said Marten would have rolled over a few months ago when faced with a breakup from Dora without a problem...but after these recent developments? That's what's surprising.

Guess Marten hasn't grown at all throughout these years. Ah well.

[jwhouk]

not exactly foreshadowing of the break up, but just to counter

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1466

So is Marten still going out with the clockwork simulcra?

[TheEvilDog]

not exactly foreshadowing of the break up, but just to counter

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1466

So is Marten still going out with the clockwork simulcra?

No, that one is running CoD while the real Dora undergoes an emotional meltdown. Unsurpisingly, no one can tell the difference until the simulcra Dora stops... turns out that someone forgot to give the little hamster inside his bottle of water. I'm not saying who, just someone.

[Carl-E]

It's not so much that the breakup was unexpected, but that Marten would roll over again. Recently, he's demonstrated that he's willing to confront her directly. And then when things came to a head, he just (presumably, since we didn't see anything) silently accepted it and walked out.

I would have said Marten would have rolled over a few months ago when faced with a breakup from Dora without a problem...but after these recent developments? That's what's surprising.

Guess Marten hasn't grown at all throughout these years. Ah well.

I'm not so sure he did just walk out after 1799.  We don't see any more of that scene, but there's a lot in their lives we don't see.  They may well have spoken some more, but really, after what Dora had just said to him, there wasn't any reassurance he'd be able to give, no rational arguments, no words of love that would have dissuaded her. 

Don't know if he'd  realize it so easily, though.  It may have taken a repeat or two of her explanation, along with some very insistent "it's over, dammit"s to get her point across. 

But this has nothing to do with foreshadowing!  My daughter, who's followed the strip since I introduced her to it, said it was pretty obvious for a long time that they weren't going to be able to make it work.  I guess I'm just a stereotypically oblivious male.  Until you guys drug up these old scenes, I really thought they'd be able to work this out.  Seeing them now, Dora's problems clearly run too deep. 

Oh yeah, and I'm a hopeless romantic, too.  That doesn't really help anything. 

[jwhouk]

Second Law of Sexual Dynamics at work, hey?

[Skewbrow]

Possibly.

I first felt that GOM is my kind of group. But when Jeph blessed the rains (probably even before that) I realized that my grumpiness is only skin deep. If GOM has a subdivision for romantic old fools, then may be.

[Carl-E]

...and thus, GOM-ROF was formed from the void. 

Backwards, it's formog, which when said wit ha soft g sounds a bit cheesey. 

[Near Lurker]

I wouldn't say any of it, except maybe the Toto bit, was foreshadowing.  Marten and Dora had a turbulent relationship all along; if they hadn't, Dora walking out wouldn't have been the shock it was.

[Skewbrow]

GOM-ROF. Grumpy skin and eber heart long before you were born, sonny?

[Visible_One]

I wouldn't say any of it, except maybe the Toto bit, was foreshadowing.  Marten and Dora had a turbulent relationship all along; if they hadn't, Dora walking out wouldn't have been the shock it was.

I'm like Carl-E, I was oblivious for the longest time to what in hindsight was a fairly obvious inevitable, but I do remember reading that Toto comic for the first time and thinking "Oh, that does not bode well." Not so much that they don't share a love of Toto - differing music tastes happen all the time - but that she flat-out says "Toto sucks." Foreshadowing future pain, certainly.

[Soluzar]

Does this count?

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1778

[jwhouk]

Unfortunately, yes.

[Odin]

I wouldn't say any of it, except maybe the Toto bit, was foreshadowing.  Marten and Dora had a turbulent relationship all along; if they hadn't, Dora walking out wouldn't have been the shock it was.

Anyone that was actually shocked by the breakup is/was a complete moron.

[Visible_One]

I wouldn't say any of it, except maybe the Toto bit, was foreshadowing.  Marten and Dora had a turbulent relationship all along; if they hadn't, Dora walking out wouldn't have been the shock it was.

Anyone that was actually shocked by the breakup is/was a complete moron.

Despite all of this foreshadowing we're now identifying, I think we should remember that hindsight is 20/20.
Not seeing this breakup coming isn't moronic; it just involves not seeing subtle signs. Or being wilfully blind to them. At least, I know that's what I was doing.

[JackFaerie]

It's not so much that the breakup was unexpected, but that Marten would roll over again. Recently, he's demonstrated that he's willing to confront her directly. And then when things came to a head, he just (presumably, since we didn't see anything) silently accepted it and walked out.

I would have said Marten would have rolled over a few months ago when faced with a breakup from Dora without a problem...but after these recent developments? That's what's surprising.

Guess Marten hasn't grown at all throughout these years. Ah well.

How does that even make sense? Why would him trying to "stand up for himself" by refusing to break up be a good thing? Their relationship was far worse for him than it was for her. He should have broken up with her earlier in fact--but it seems he was totally unable to do it even when faced with absolute deal-breakers for any other person. It's not "rolling over" to accept that it's over when it wasn't good for you anyway. Complaining that Marten's "weak-willed" in that he just silently accepted the breakup is a bit like complaining that an abuse victim "just accepted it" when her abuser said "oh crap I realized I've been abusing you all this time and I don't want to be that person but I can't help myself, so I'm leaving you now." How would it have shown strength of character (or in fact, anything other than spinelessness and stupidity) for Marten to have been all "No Dora, I love youuu let's stay in this totally unworkable relationship that hasn't been satisfying me for months on the off chance that with enough therapy and over lots and lots of time, your problems will disappear and we'll be able to ignore our other incompatibilities"?

One of the really early foreshadowings that she might never be able to get rid of the fear http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=592

I don't think that was really foreshadowing. It was directly stated in a number of the early-relationship strips that Dora was insecure about this. The difference was, "at the start of the relationship," this is something you just hope to work on, and hope will eventually go away. If it persists even as the relationship continues, however...

[kaitco]

On the hindsight is 20/20 thing... 118

I have started going through the archives again and, now that we have a strong sense of just how bad Dora's reservations about Marten/Faye, the beginning comics take on a whole new light. Dora is introduced in Comic 75 and less than 50 strips later, I am already sick of Faye telling Dora that she and Marten are not a thing. Granted, this was (in my mind) two years earlier and an entirely different QC atmosphere, but Dora has been pining for Marten since the day she met him and the possibility that he and Faye would hookup has been at the back of her mind...since the day she met Marten.

With Comic 1800 in mind as I peruse the earlier strips, I wonder why I was even remotely surprised by The Breakup or why I amwas still hoping that the pair may come to their senses.