Remember who's Emily Azuma inspired by. I have it easy since she's my alter ego. I can't remember the exact episode now (been forever since I last watched Azumanga Daioh!), but she has a mean serial killer grimace and the capability to back it up. Also, there's a super funny montage of her trying to wake up Yukari with a lightsaber (original is with a butcher knife)
I am unfamiliar with that particular media. It'd be kinda left-field for Emily to start behaving that way, regardless of her point of inspiration I'm sure it could be arranged, but I would hope not. Between Faye's basic temper, Hanners's occasional inappropriate thoughts and behavior, Momo's self-defense system, and Dora's weapons cache, I think hyperviolence is covered.
I'm not sure about Emily. Even IF she meant more than what was apparent with that kiss, she doesn't give me the impression that she would be "devastated" or anything like that about Claire/Marten. As...quirky as she can be, she seems more like a kid persona to me, and as such, any crush she may have for anybody might be experienced, and just as quickly replaced with other interests. The flanderization of her character also makes it unlikely she'll get a lot of development anyway.
I would LOVE however to see a meeting between Emily and Raven. I miss Raven =(
Aside: I really need a new phone, key board on this one is wrecked and loves putting extra spaces and w's...took me 10 minutes to type all this just fixing typos =(
I neither want, nor expect Emily to be devastated, though it would be in character for her to react as if she were (see "I'm giving peas a chance"). I expect nothing, but I would want to see Emily do something that was both emotionally compelling and internally complex enough to inspire the question, "What is going on here?"
Plot elements, and the character's reactions to them, are not just tools. They are implied promises. That's why the worst thing a story can do is leave too many important threads hanging. (Not saying the Emily kiss was an important thread, this is just a backgrounder.) The tricky part is that the promises are rather specific, and the author has to be really clever, or generate a lot of good will to break one.
A good example is Super Dimension Fortress Macross. It starts with an alien invasion of Earth. The promise implied is that humanity will win and defeat the invaders. And that's what happens.
But the thing about promises, in this context, is that audience will get bored if you don't break the promise. So you have to break it. Except, if you do you upset the audience. What do you do?
Back to Macross: Humanity does win, but only after the aliens kill 98% of the Human population. Oh, and we have to share the devastated Earth with the survivors. So it's a win, for certain values of "win." But you might argue it's not much of a victory. Promise kept/broken.
Take Questionable Content. A story about a boy and girl that starts when girl meets boy. That story has a standard promised ending: Girl and boy end up together. Did Jeph keep the promise?
Yes. Boy and girl are best friends, and have learned a lot from each other both directly and indirectly. They live together, and they don't really want to change that.
Did Jeph break the promise?
Yes. Most people assume the "together" in the promise means romance and bangin'.
Let's say Emily's kiss wasn't just a setup for the launch of QC's newest flagship. (I think it was just a setup, but I want more, so go with it a sec.) What does it promise?
Well, we know that Emily worships Claire. We know that Marten is very uncomfortable with the idea that Emily might be interested in him. We know that Claire is a little confused over being Emily's idol, but she respects it--and Emily (Emily being the second person she's taken into her confidence in front of us). So, the situation promises tension with a big emotional confrontation.
But "big emotional confrontation" could mean anything. The more unexpected the form of that is, the more it has to be justified and--by extension--the more we learn about either Emily or Claire. Or Marten, but he's a pretty well known factor by now.
So that's why I'd like to see something made out of that thread. Even if Emily stays her same one dimensional self, it would mean more dimension for Claire. Unless nothing interesting was done with it, but if that was the direction there'd be no reason to do it at all.
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Topic: WCDT: 2821-2825 (27 - 31 October 2014) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread (Read 92658 times)