Question, without going into the morality or nature of those instances (and once you have finished breakfast, naturally), how many were recent and how many were back in the days of cartoon logic applying more (e.g. vespa-avenger, random monks, Scorn being capable of physically hurling a body through space etc.)?
Without excusing abusive behaviour, it does seem that Faye as a character gets caught out by the tone of the comic having shifted over 3000 strips, and that behaviour that at one point, while not exactly acceptable, was not as consequential as it would be now. Pintsize is another example of this (who seems to get a free pass more often than not), as his earlier behaviour might often be seen to step over a line he's now more careful about. But Faye's violence, it is true, still gets bought up in-comic as part of her character, so it's reasonable to consider her in relation to it. How much of her violence is recent?
Again, that's a question I want to ask neutrally- I don't mean to defend her violence, I'm just curious about how it has developed alongside the changing tone of the comic.
The problem with answering that question is that there is no unambiguous delineation between the comic's cartoonish "wacky hijinks" and the comic's more serious, grounded tone. While the comic has certainly transitioned from using one tone to the other for many subjects, Jeph always has and continues to use both. We can make distinctions with specific events or subjects, but it is much less clear when looking at the whole text of QC. For example, the Vespavenger or Pintsize having advanced military technology were clearly cartoonish non-reality. Marten and Claire's first night together was clearly a case of Jeph taking trans issues very seriously. Depictions of Faye's violence are, if this conversation is any indication, much more fuzzy.
I think there are some very interesting broader implications present in this conversation. They have come to my mind from a variety of people's comments, so I don't want to direct these as a response to any particular person. But I think they are worth exploring.
1) Should we judge Faye's behavior in the context of the diegetic context of the comic or in the context of the real violence it resembles? Violence in QC is often depicted as being
relatively consequence free. If Faye's violence is free of meaningful consequences, should she be judged harshly for it? Or is her violence acceptable within the narrative universe? If we judge her behavior as acceptable in-universe but would be absolutely unacceptable in a realistic environment, is it fair to criticize Jeph for his choice to frame harmful behavior as funny?
I think Dan Olsen of the YouTube channel Folding Ideas has a very interesting take on diegesis and its justification for behavior within a narrative.
2) How does our use of the word "abuse" effect how we talk about Faye's use of violence? I have seen several people not question the facts of Faye's behavior, but rather question whether that behavior rises to the level of "abuse". Sure, she punches people, but she never really
hurts anyone. Sure she threatens and intimidates people, but she never cut them off from friends or tried to control their money/transportation/communication etc. The implication
seems to be that her behavior never meets the hallmarks of capital-a "Abuse", so we shouldn't judge it as such; like saying that she does bad things, but she's not a
monster.
But is that fair? Are we reluctant to call her behavior what it is because we fail to make distinctions of degree and instead see a distinction of kind? Are we possibly trivializing abuse because it failed to meet a specific threshold and is therefore some
other thing and therefore is less important?
Let me be clear that I do not think that
anybody at all, not even one of us, is treating Faye's behavior like it isn't important or worthy of critique. If we were, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. But it is worth reflecting on whether some of the reluctance to calling Faye's behavior abusive is because we think of abuse as a horrible, monstrous thing (and rightly so), but we don't see Faye as a monster.
We discussed a very similar thing in Discuss! a while back. The subject matter is very sensitive so I will bury the link behind a spoiler bar as well as content warnings.
For what it's worth, I tend to judge Faye's violence in terms of the diegetic framework of the text and assume that it is
less impactful than it would be in real life, but that it is not consequence free. I usually read it as a shorthand for Faye being gruff and unpleasant as a defense mechanism for her emotional fragility. I see it as not
OK, but I also understand her friends willingness to tolerate it in that context. I am usually more uncomfortable with Jeph's choice to use that violence as a shorthand. And I absolutely do see her violence, threats and intimidation as abuse even with all the horrible baggage that word brings with it.