304 replies to this topic

[Sci-2]

Callan S., on 27 February 2012 - 05:24 AM, said:

I think Disciple Manning would appreciate the cynicism here!

The way you pitch it, it's just a need for a damsel in distress, always.

Saajan, I also think that you do often get exploitative writers, looking for an old hot button to press.

But does it need to be justified, or have you just stopped trusting? Stopped having a little faith that someone isn't just trying to exploit those old hot buttons?

Where has something not been justified to you in the text, but you've taken a leap of faith the authors trying to get to something important? A bit of 'I don't get it, it doesn't make sense to me right now, but I think he's trying to get somewhere with this'?

If you want to say there are too many exploitative writers out there to trust any of them like that, I could actually more than understand such a position. But it's worth keeping in mind it's not the genuine authors fault that there are alot of exploiters out there.

We may need a separate Watchmen thread. I'm reacting to something very specific in the case of Watchmen. Comics with damsels in distress was pretty common in comics. I was specifically thinking of the cock-up that is Identity Crisis...which, again, would need spoiler tags:

Spoiler

Sue Dibny, prior to Identity Crisis, is not a push-over. She'd probably beat the shit out of Dr. Light.

[Callan S.]

I think it's my very point that it's the same thing in either apparently different case - whether a person, of the many, many varieties of person that are available, would do X? You can point to a long history of character exploitation, but that doesn't mean every time either A: it has to be justified or otherwise B: it's character exploitation. Only a loss of trust makes it seem like it's always either A or B.

PS: I haven't read identiy crisis. But I don't think the capacity to beat someone up is 'strength' or 'not being a push over'. Martial power <> strength. If anything one might further crucify comicdoms glorification of violence right along side it's many damsels in distress, for impressioning that the act of weakness that is violence is an act of strength. Not that I'm above that - punch 'em in the face, batman! Yah!

[kalbear]

You use a lot of words to make zero sense, Callan. Try again, maybe this time actually reading the sentences you wrote and seeing if they make sense at all when you say them out loud.

Female characters in comics have a grand, horrible history of being killed, raped, mutilated or otherwise mistreated for the sole purpose of making the protagonist angry. Yes, you can go through every single thing and say 'see, this makes sense' and 'see, that makes sense' and justify every single one as making sense in the context of the story, but that's pretty useless to do; of course it's internally consistent (for the most part; these are comic writers we're talking about here).

Basically you're arguing that Terry Goodkind is an  awesome writer and that everything that happens in his novels is perfectly great and not at all skeezy as hell because hey, it makes sense in the context of the story! When what a lot of folks are talking about is why the context of the story is so fucked up in the first place.

[Callan S.]

Kalbear, you alway treat your own inability to understand as if it could only ever be someone else who has to put in more effort. I'm wondering if you work as a manager in real life.

The rest of the post is a living example of how from a history of abuse, trust dies. Then you treat your own case as if everone elses trust must die as well. Because if they don't, they are arguing for Terry Goodkind.

It wont feel like a lack of trust, of course, just clarity. Trust always screws up clarity, so it's absence makes things seem particularly clear cut.

[kalbear]

Read this sentence aloud, callan.

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I think it's my very point that it's the same thing in either apparently different case - whether a person, of the many, many varieties of person that are available, would do X?

Especially the 'same thing in either apparently different case' part. If you squint at it, it vaguely sorta kinda makes sense. Maybe.

I'm not the only one who has commented on your inability to get your point across via typing or by horrible analogy. Sometimes the problem actually is just you.

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The rest of the post is a living example of how from a history of abuse, trust dies. Then you treat your own case as if everone elses trust must die as well. Because if they don't, they are arguing for Terry Goodkind.

Similarly, this post is a living example of how from a history of posting badly, English dies. From that, it's one small step to  writing sentences such as 'the chicken who was not a chicken'.

Okay, what you're really arguing is that if you're not aware of everything else that's been written then you can look at something and it might be okay. Which I guess is true - if you choose to be completely ignorant of the rest of the world a lot of things look very different. Someone who just starts out reading comic books and reads Watchmen first will assume that all comics are full of rape, will consider Batman to be derivative of Rorschach and will wonder when the heroes can finally win. And will find  it nicely refreshing when picking up a Superman book and sees that Lois doesn't get raped every comic and Superman saves the day. Of course, that perception would be pretty ignorant and decidedly wrong, but hey - it's a perfectly valid perspective, no?