Lock The Doors 2013-10-21

[Yamara]

Comic for the 22nd is up onFacebook.

Monica is one tough cookie.

And since she never told her friends, it's why she shut Tina down here. (props to Sidhekin for the link earlier in the thread)

Not sure her history is such a secret from Blackwing or other paranormals... but, yeah. Looks like she mostly pulled through on her own.

Watching JLo in Enough, which happens to be on now.

[Dave]

I thought this arc was all about "Monica heals Georgette". It looks as if it's even more than that... this mystical sharing-of-experience could be the opportunity for both of them to reveal and heal their own traumas of being violated.

Monica has healed herself, probably with help. It is very hard to make such an admission without coming to terms with it. Some people bury and never talk about it, even to other victims. Where and how she got the help we do not know, but she did. The way Monica discusses it is clinical and it is to show Jet she does understand and that what she is saying is not just words. That is almost impossible for someone who has not come to terms with it and dealt with it.

Based on the next day's strip... no, I don't think so. She'd had therapy, but was a very long way indeed from being healed... she had buried it all away.

It's only now, in order to help Georgette, that she's disclosing what occurred... and perhaps, now, her healing can be completed.

[Fairportfan]

I wondered how Monica could have spent that long locked away and still gotten to where she is by age 25/27 or so.

(She was 29 when they did the calendar machine thing...)

[bmonk]

-- It seems that many people in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Sunnydale have managed to trip and accidentally stab themselves in the throat with a barbecue fork. Or they officially suffer "neck rupture".
-- A joke (similar to the Chicago example below) from a The Benny Hill Show monologue went something like, "I didn't stab him, he accidentally ran into my knife. Seventeen times. Backwards."

Two examples from TV Tropes -- "The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much". A few more:

"Slipped on an icy patch." [He lost his jaw.] "It was a very icy patch."

"Cell Block Tango" (from Chicago) has several of these, being claimed by the actual murderesses. "I fired two warning shots. Into his head." "He ran into my knife. He ran into my knife ten times."

A [real life] Chinese judge who was arrested and apparently beaten to death in custody was described in the state-run media as having suffered "adult sudden death syndrome." <--This one might work here for M's attacker.

[Dave]

-- It seems that many people in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Sunnydale have managed to trip and accidentally stab themselves in the throat with a barbecue fork. Or they officially suffer "neck rupture".

"As you may have noticed, the police in Sunnydale are profoundly stupid." (Principal Snyder)

In the Harvard Lampoon's parody "Bored Of The Rings", many of the royalty of Twodor passed away as the result of unfortunate accidents or unexplained violence. The reigning King "fell backward by accident on a dozen salad forks", and at least three of his relatives died in the same fashion ("perhaps in a noble gesture of grief over the King's untimely end"). Several were strangled with dishrags, a couple drowned accidentally in soup vats, some succumbed of food poisoning, and one was beaten to death with a pot roast.

It was perhaps not entirely coincidental that the only person willing to become Steward of Twodor (after the few remaining members of the royal family fled) was a former kitchen slave.

[MerchManDan]

...and one was beaten to death with a pot roast.

I recall Hitchcock using a similar plot device: A wife beat her husband to death with a frozen pork leg (I think), then cooked & served it to the police who were investigating. They couldn't pin the crime on her because they couldn't find the murder weapon - since they had eaten it.

[Fairportfan]

...and one was beaten to death with a pot roast.

I recall Hitchcock using a similar plot device: A wife beat her husband to death with a frozen pork leg (I think), then cooked & served it to the police who were investigating. They couldn't pin the crime on her because they couldn't find the murder weapon - since they had eaten it.

I think it was a leg of lamb, but yeah.

Or the end of Eating Raoul...

[MerchManDan]

Ah, thanks. I was going to say "leg of lamb" but some part of my mind thought a lamb leg would be too small to be an effective club.

[Bathorys Daughter]

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/12312004/

What surprised me is if this was a hint of what was to come it was placed in the strip 10 years ago. That is a long time to carry a plot indicator and makes me wonder how far in the future Paul plotted out the strip. It implies an incredible amount of detail work and thinking of a very complex nature. It also indicates it goes a lot further than any of us ever imagined about the story line, the background, the character structures, personal histories. So how far into the future does the story line already exist and the little clues that have been dropped with similar hints for future reveals.

I'm sure some of the past strips were planned in that way, but that is not the only explanation. Writers can also simply work things said or done much earlier into the current plot line to make it all seem to come together. Even come up with a whole arc to make it so, and build from there in future arcs.

Also, I guess Monica has a doctorate, but I don't recall anyone ever referring to her a Dr. Villarreal, which seems odd.

[Fairportfan]

Ah, thanks. I was going to say "leg of lamb" but some part of my mind thought a lamb leg would be too small to be an effective club.

Have you ever seen/eaten a leg of lamb?

If you could maintain a good grip, it would do Just Fine.

[Fairportfan]

Also, I guess Monica has a doctorate, but I don't recall anyone ever referring to her a Dr. Villarreal, which seems odd.

Not to me - almost the only time you'd use the honorific is in more-or-less formal circumstances - mostly introductions (whether professionally-related personal introductions or at speaking engagements) - i think the first time we see anyone call Katherine "Dr Gilchrist" is when Lily comes rappelling in and introduces herself.

My mother got her PhD (at age seventy-five), and i don't think i ever heard anyone address her as "Dr Weber"

[Hansontoons]

-- It seems that many people in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Sunnydale have managed to trip and accidentally stab themselves in the throat with a barbecue fork. Or they officially suffer "neck rupture".

"As you may have noticed, the police in Sunnydale are profoundly stupid." (Principal Snyder)

In the Harvard Lampoon's parody "Bored Of The Rings", many of the royalty of Twodor passed away as the result of unfortunate accidents or unexplained violence. The reigning King "fell backward by accident on a dozen salad forks", and at least three of his relatives died in the same fashion ("perhaps in a noble gesture of grief over the King's untimely end"). Several were strangled with dishrags, a couple drowned accidentally in soup vats, some succumbed of food poisoning, and one was beaten to death with a pot roast.

It was perhaps not entirely coincidental that the only person willing to become Steward of Twodor (after the few remaining members of the royal family fled) was a former kitchen slave.

Egads! Someone else has actually read that rag!

I still laugh out loud when re-reading BoTR. Now if I could just remember where I stashed my copy...

[jwhouk]

Kath considers her an equal, so she may very well have a doctorate. But then again, Monica may just have a Master's in Meso-American history, and be taking her time on any post-grad studies.

[Mark N]

Kath considers her an equal, so she may very well have a doctorate. But then again, Monica may just have a Master's in Meso-American history, and be taking her time on any post-grad studies.

Paul has already said the Katherine has a doctorate, it is just that many professionals do not use the honorific of 'DR' unless it is a medical doctor or a formal meeting where it has importance.

[Dave]

Egads! Someone else has actually read that rag!

I still laugh out loud when re-reading BoTR. Now if I could just remember where I stashed my copy...

I read BoTR before I read LoTR (or The Hobbit). Yeah, I'm weird... tell me something I don't know.

BoTR is online these days - there's a PDF eBook of it. I noticed an occasional typo in it but otherwise it's quite good, especially if one is into watching displays of amazingly inept sheepsmanship (and, of course, reading puns so bad that you're compelled to nibble on your tieclip in a frenzy).

[Julie]

Kath considers her an equal, so she may very well have a doctorate. But then again, Monica may just have a Master's in Meso-American history, and be taking her time on any post-grad studies.

Paul has already said the Katherine has a doctorate, it is just that many professionals do not use the honorific of 'DR' unless it is a medical doctor or a formal meeting where it has importance.

But has Paul said that Monica has a doctorate?

[jwhouk]

Nope. In fact, this was the first time Paul ever mentioned anything about her background, or what was the deal with the antique shop, or anything. We knew she had gone to college, but not any particulars.

The assumption about being well-off was from two possible sources: Grandpa (who may have gotten some of his $ from Jin, indirectly), and from working in a museum.

[bmonk]

Egads! Someone else has actually read that rag!

I still laugh out loud when re-reading BoTR. Now if I could just remember where I stashed my copy...

It is a good romp. I believe it is available online...