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[Mr. Black Licorice]

I joined this forum for one reason... to declare that I like Dora! As a character she has a lot of redeeming qualities, and I think it's time that someone pointed them out...

Like saying what we are all thinking:
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=511
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2823

Why do you like Dora?

[explicit]

Because even though she has insecurities (like many people) she's not afraid to get what she wants. Some people say she acts like a bitch, but I see a strong character who often times does what others aren't willing to do even though it's what's right.

[Loki]

Omg. Thank you.

[Is it cold in here?]

Welcome, new person!

I like her sense of humor and the grit it took to start her own business.

[Rghfrgl]

 I guess that she's matured. Not in the sense that she's gotten over her issues, because she hasn't, but more she's aged with the readers. Dora doesn't feel like a 'young adult' like the rest of the cast any more. Dora feels like a adult adult.

[Emperor Norton]

She is driven, hardworking, and generally has a good sense of humor and knows what she wants in life.

Really, the only flaws she has is knee jerk reactions and a bit of insecurities.

[Truec]

I'm torn on Dora.  I love her as a character, but I would never want to be friends with a real version of her.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Because she's aDORAble.

The only thing I have never liked about Dora is the same thing I've disliked about all of the women in the cast--their capacity for being fantastically wrong.

The only reason I didn't like it was that the guys tended to be fantastically chill. I just didn't seem kosher. I was glad when Marten finally devolved to unrestrained passive aggression, The trait had been part of his character from the beginning, But with Padma he failed to do the right thing in the face of it.

(I never made anything political out of the imbalance. The complexity of most of the girls is the result of author attention. Authors tend to layer on to characters they enjoy writing.)

[Mr. Black Licorice]

Omg. Thank you.

Needed that badly, eh?

[Mr. Black Licorice]

I like her because (like most of the characters in QC) she is a fully fleshed out character with strengths and flaws.  And... Maybe this is a little (a lot) shallow of me, but I also think she's hot. I mean - goth chick with flame tattoos? Yummy!

[Kugai]

She's Human.

[Endellion]

This is why I love Dora.

[Mr. Black Licorice]

@Endellion
Snuggling and non-sense speak are two of my favorite things...

[Oenone]

I like Dora because she works to get what she wants and doesn't need hand-holding to do so.

My favorite examples of this are:

1. Her owning and managing a business.

2. Her having a secret coffee roasting technique. I really like this because it reflects her passion for her business, and it also shows she's not one of those managers/owners who thinks they're too good to do the basic maintance of owning a food service business. For me this reflects Dora's humility, Jeph's awesome research, and Dora's good sense re: managing/earning money, because roasting and grinding your own beans can make having a gourmet roast cheaper and it becomes another thing you can sell at the store and online.

3. Her honesty in asking Marten for what she wanted and needed, even when it was painful to her and him. The break up arc sucked, but at least Dora recognized it was her. Plus, she is trying counseling and seems to be taking it seriously.

4. Her willingness to be a bitch. Marten and her could've kept on with the bullshit dance in their relationship for ages, and she eventually ripped the band aid off. Faye could've continued escalating her rule violations at work, but Dora cut it that short.

5. Her willingness to make big decisions without needing hand holding from other cast members -- there's not a "omg Faye was drunk what do I do??" comic or a "Gosh, I think I need to move to Amherst" -- she's pretty consistently been able to make a decision without making the decision making process be an angst-fest for everyone involved.

6. She's nice to Marigold without needing to be told to do so. Unlike Faye.

7. She introduced Marigold to Hannelore. Friendship match made in heaven!

[MrNumbers]

She has, typically, been the most adult of the cast.

The age difference between them is minimal, and yet Dora has achieved the most of this little circle of friends.

She's passionate, driven, determined, and she's more than willing to call you out on whatever crap interferes with her security.

The flip side of this coin is that she's also defensive, insecure and quite possibly too goal-oriented. When she sets her mind to something, she will follow through until reality bends to her will. Sometimes, however, what she sets her mind to is "my brother is an entirely toxic influence and entirely irredeemable" and "my boyfriend is just going to cheat on me or leave me soon, I just need to prove it so I can break up with him first, it's safer". That's where the hate comes from.

Which is also what makes her a fantastic character, and something Jeph is very good at writing, even if he's not thinking about it: Her flaws are so tangled with her virtues, it's hard to see sometimes where the virtue ends and the flaw starts. I've given a lengthy diatribe about how he accomplishes this with Marten in the WCDT, but it's not limited to Marten and Dora.

Faye's virtue is her bravado, good humour and spunk. She's a spunky chicken, that one. Her flaw is a pattern of self destruction... hidden and masked behind bravado, good humour and spunk. Oh dear.

Hannelore's virtue is being able to overcome almost anything, and just being the best person. Her flaw is everything about herself that she has to overcome and, well, probably snapping and killing everyone some day and becoming the only person.

Food for thought: The very reasons there is so much hate piled onto Dora fuel the very reasons there's so much to love and respect about her, and vice versa.

[Is it cold in here?]

That was insightful.

[explicit]

I think it's ridiculous when people associate her with a bitch, if a guy did the things she did most people would be all for it, no questions asked (and I realize not many people actually call her a bitch, but a lot of the hate delves around "insensitivity" and "hardassery", which are often used to describe what a "bitch" is).

She's tough, but she's fair and she doesn't take shit from anyone. Frankly, those are all characteristics I try to be.

[Rghfrgl]

That might be true in the case of firing Faye.

I don't think the controlling jealousy would go over any better if the roles were reversed with Marten. And I think she's come off a lot worse with Sven, she'd pretty much be like Clinton.

[Oenone]

That might be true in the case of firing Faye.

I don't think the controlling jealousy would go over any better if the roles were reversed with Marten. And I think she's come off a lot worse with Sven, she'd pretty much be like Clinton.

Is this really the thread for criticizing Dora?

[ReindeerFlotilla]

I don't think it's ever appropriate to classify anyone as a bitch. Except, possibly, Ann Coulter.

If I need a gender specific term to classify my distaste for someone, I've failed.

That's my story.

[Rghfrgl]

Is this really the thread for criticizing Dora?

Only theoretical Man Dora.

That dudes a jerk.

[Mr. Black Licorice]

That might be true in the case of firing Faye.

I don't think the controlling jealousy would go over any better if the roles were reversed with Marten. And I think she's come off a lot worse with Sven, she'd pretty much be like Clinton.

Is this really the thread for criticizing Dora?

Not supposed to be...

[Mr. Black Licorice]

I don't think it's ever appropriate to classify anyone as a bitch. Except, possibly, Ann Coulter.

If I need a gender specific term to classify my distaste for someone, I've failed.

That's my story.

It's admirable that you hold yourself to that standard... except in the case of Ann Coulter, which is completely understandable. However, sometimes you want something a little stronger than "bad person"... 

[ankhtahr]

Well, there are plenty of non-gender specific swearwords one could bestow upon unpleasant people 

[MrNumbers]

I'm rather fond of the utility and evocative nature of  "chucklefuck" myself.

[phyllis]

I like Dora! She is quite a flawed human, but then, you could also just say "she's a human" and the "quite flawed" thing would be implicit anyway. I think part of the reason that I like her is that her habit of making snap decisions to protect herself from being hurt, whilst maybe not always the best path, is completely relatable and realistic (and understandable, especially if she's previously been in lots of abusive relationships in the past). I also like that her history of having been through abusive relationships hasn't led her to avoid relationships completely and live in a cynical shell, which would have been a totally understandable decision.

[explicit]

To be fair, every character in QC is flawed. I like how there aren't any Gary Stu's in this comic. They all have issues and significant problems to address. They're real, in a sense. An unflawed character seems almost 1-dimensional to me. No one is perfect and using the anime, "his parents/sister or some shit is dead!" cliche (or anything along those lines) is overdone and boring to me. These characters in QC - and having thought of it significantly - Dora in particular - are flawed, yet show a lot of character development and structure (not all of them, but you can only get so much done in a comic strip that includes so many characters). I'd actually argue that Dora is the most developed character at this point considering Marten lacks conviction any which way and Faye has a lot of issues that we can't understand.

[Zebediah]

Well, there are plenty of non-gender specific swearwords one could bestow upon unpleasant people 

I'm rather fond of "A complete waste of space."

Which Dora isn't. She's flawed, yes, but not completely or fatally flawed. A real person.

[hedgie]

I tend to prefer "waste of oxygen"  or "asshat", or "spunk-stain", personally.

[DSL]

That might be true in the case of firing Faye.

I don't think the controlling jealousy would go over any better if the roles were reversed with Marten. And I think she's come off a lot worse with Sven, she'd pretty much be like Clinton.

Is this really the thread for criticizing Dora?

Paradoxically, it's the perfect thread for doing so ... if you take into account two things:
-- MrNumbers' excellent post above, noting the (here's that word again) paradoxical nature of the fascination certain of the QC characters have, particularly Dora and Faye.
-- the definition of "criticism," not as negativity and snarky and wet-hen fury disguised as wit (the innertubez definition) but as analysis and examination.

After all, that title of the thread is "WHY we like Dora." (change in emphasis mine.)

[Aziraphale]

I tend to prefer "waste of oxygen"  or "asshat", or "spunk-stain", personally.

The expression "God ruined a perfect asshole when he put teeth in your mouth"* is also quite useful, I've found.

*That wasn't directed at you, Hedgie.

[Neko_Ali]

In addition to what a lot of other people have said.. I like Dora because she is a bisexual character. But she has avoided the characterization traps/stereotypes that fall so many of them fall into. Not sex crazy, or chasing around/dating multiple people at once. She doesn't bounce back and forth between partners as if she can't choose. She doesn't act like she's all gay or all straight depending on who she's dating. She's just a person who happens to find both men and women attractive, and isn't afraid to be honest about that fact.

[mustang6172]

I like Dora because she is a bisexual character.

That's heterophobic! 

[hedgie]

Neko, agreed entirely.  most bi characters are either put into the "anything that moves (and maybe some that don't)" pigeon hole, and many others (especially women) are portrayed mostly for fanservice.  Despite Dora's issues (tm), she's realistic as a person, and is a good character.  She's a flawed human who is realistic, and that matches most bi people I know, rather than the common tropes used in fiction.

[Cyril]

Along the lines of her being a real person, she isn't predictable. She doesn't seem to be written with a particular couple of traits that define how she's going to react to every situation, which means that she's rarely a caricature and hasn't really ever been one.

[plusorminus]

I have to admit that my reasons for liking Dora are pretty selfish. She reminds me of me. Or, to be more clear, she reminds me of the "me" I was when I was making foolish romantic choices.

I think it's clear, given the recent strips, that we can now say that Dora was right - Marten was never truly in love with her. He is in love with Claire. He was in love with Faye. He was on his way to falling in love with Padma. You can see the difference in how Marten is acting with Claire now, his preoccupation with Padma and his Faye-phase. He thought Dora was hot and he was gratified that she was into him, but he had no affinity for her otherwise. Dora, on some level, knew that but she hoped for the best. She got her ass handed to her on this board when she ended things, but she was absolutely right to do so. Marten was never going to feel for her what he feels now for Claire, what he had felt for Faye, and what he was starting to feel for Padma.

I've made similar errors in judgment and like Dora, stayed way too long in relationships with men who weren't that into me. Jeph writes a realistic portrayal of a woman disappointed in love, but not jaded. She still puts herself out there, she knows that she's hot and that she will find someone that will be "all in" with her, which she has in Tai. She's tough, smart, and a good representation of a Millenial business owner in wanting her workplace to be one of acceptance, tolerance (with some limits), provides comprehensive healthcare for her employees and cares about their well being. She's got major self esteem issues, which has probably led her to choose people like Marten who are lukewarm on her, all her life, but she's trying to work through them. She's aware of her flaws, and while she may handwave some of them (ie the upcoming Svenectomy), she does desire to be a better person, employer and friend.

[Oenone]

Ah, me. Dora is still guilt tripping herself. No Dora! Be strong!

[Mlle Germain]

I'm not going to say much, because a lot of really good things that I agree with have already been said. Just this:

If I had to pick a single favourite character in QC, it would be Dora.
(Closely followed by Hanners.)
Yes, she's often insecure and that occasionaly lead her to make some rash decisions (I would put cutting off Sven completely into this category; firing Faye for being drunk not). But she's also taken lots of responsibility and been sensible in other difficult situations, and she's a good friend.

I hope Dora and Faye can still be friends after everyone has cooled down a little. That might actually be easier now that they don't have to be boss and employee at the same time anymore. I think this change can do their relationship good if they actually manage to sort out Dora's guilt and Faye's potential hard feelings (I don't think she's really expressed any yet) about the firing.

[toffee-skye]

I love Dora because she is a human being.

I'm in the same boat as Mlle Germain - all the things I like about Dora have been said, but it's very simple to me that all of these things make her real. Sure, she's flawed, and I don't always agree with her actions, but more often than not I find myself rooting for her, hoping things turn out for her. I think it is relatability? (that's not a word, says Google Chrome; I don't care, says toff, it's what I'm trying to convey) I can relate to her, and God knows I'm not a small business owner in a recession; I'm a 20 year old student living in another country! But she's relatable.

She's a well-rounded person; passionate about her business (she loves her coffee.), empathetic with her friends, loving, motherly (look at how often she attaches pet names! Affectionate pet names, not like 'Mar-Bear' or 'Spookypants', but 'hon'), but also insecure about her perceived foibles, capable of very human overreaction, and dealing with living in what she perceives to be her brother's shadow.

I think a simpler way of saying this is, I like Dora because it feels like she has her own perception on things.

Marten and Faye, Hanners and Marigold, they have their way of viewing situations, but it's very easy to pigeonhole them; Marten - passive. Faye - grumpy. Hanners - adorable, and neurotic. Dora keeps us guessing and for some that's a reason to dislike her, but I like that she's a solid human with her own perception, her own beliefs.

[Nomad90]

I cannot add any sort of meaningful contribution to this thread. Everything that makes Dora my Favorite character has already been discussed above. I can merely state my  support for said discussions.

Also, I am still irked about how Marten and Dora's relationship ended, however that is neither here nor there.

[Jab]

I like Dora as a CHARACTER. Sometimes not so much as a person. But out of the entire QC cast, I feel that she's the most "real"- the others often delve into exaggerated anime character-type things, which is well in line with the strip's humor so is fine, but it's nice to have Dora be the "Realistic One". Which is odd, because Marten almost felt that way for a long time.

She's realistically-fascinating as a character type- she wore this confident, sassy personality as basically a suit of armor for years (our time), disguising her horrible self-esteem and confidence issues. She owns a business and actually seems to know what she's doing (this has come over time- initially she seemed a bit too immature for a business-owner- befitting her age group in that era I suppose). The way she'd argue with Marten over the STUPIDEST SHIT is absolutely stuff I've seen and heard people do in real life (I know girls who've broken up with guys just to see if they'd fight to have them back- one FREAKED when the guy just shrugged and moved on), and all from her own insecurity. Actually, I find her relationship with Tai rather boring because they seem to have very little drama (just a minor fight in the past week)- they just kind of hug and sit up in the same bed together all the time. I don't feel a connection with them.

I like how Dora handles Faye. She's absolutely the only character I see in the strip routinely call Faye out on her bullshit. Faye is a great character in her own right, but I think Dora is the only one to act like a "real person" around Faye. In real life, most people wouldn't treat her bullying, obnoxious, "Can Dish It Out But Can't Take It" personality like a goofy quirk. Again, this is part of QC's humor, and I get it- it's not supposed to be entirely realistic (look at how bizarre some of the other characters act- Emily chiefly. Raven too). But it's fun to have someone react to this like a real person would. I know many Fayes- they can be a lot to deal with, and Dora handles it well.

Also, I think a lot of Dora's personality comes from her family life. Her dad is this weird, outgoing guy who says and does completely inappropriate things (grabbing girl's waists by surprise, which is REALLY awful to do in real life; also the time he told Marten he's whacked off to a woman he knew was Marten's mother). Sven is/was/sometimes is completely superficial and is the "chosen one" who had everything handed to him, while she had to work her ass off- even now her female friends fawn over him. Her mom was so hot it basically made Dora feel like nothing. A lot of her insecurity probably comes from growing up with her entire family overshadowing her, and her parents probably didn't give her much support (they seem like very immature people, just going by their one major appearance in the strip).

It doesn't EXCUSE her litany of character flaws, but it helps EXPLAIN them.

Ultimately, the nicest thing I can say about Dora is that the strip would be a lot less interesting without her in it.