On The Path 2015-1-5

[jayessell]

It's not the destination, it's the journey something something...

Sorry...
Meds.

[lake_wrangler]

In the interests of not having this blow up into forum drama, I'm going to agree to disagree with you on most points,

I can live with that.

but I will take issue with a few minor matters.

And I thank you for a much more tempered, rational (as opposed to emotional) response.

I, on the other hand, tend to be somewhat verbose, at times...

Given that, so far, Paul has never (that I recall) written any throw-away character, I think it is much too early to celebrate anything...

We haven't heard anything from Yummy Tea since the short arc involving him. Same with Monica's Mexican family. And there have been quite a few placeholder characters, like the vampires' former boss who appeared for about 3 strips, or Pickle's kindergarten teacher, or the guy Katherine ran into on the beach, or Lakhshmi's protective sister. Nothing saying that Jacob can't fade back into the ether after he provides whatever lesson Atsali needs to learn.

Good thing I specified "that I recall"...

Although I do see some differences between the characters you mentioned, in the context they appeared, and Jacob...

For instance, Yummy Tea was there for an exposition at the museum, and filled his role well, with the added bonus that he actually knew Monica. She has been quite busy since then, so it's not impossible for her to not have tried to reconnect since then. Not much time was spent developing him, so it's not as surprising to not have seen him since.

The vampire's boss was indeed only there for two or three strips, and his only job was to send the vampires to the MIB. But then, we had no need to know more about him. He was just part of the hierarchy that made it possible for Pratt and McBride to be integrated into the framework of M & Co's main story.

Pickle's teacher may appear again, but the story is about Atsali and Pickle, Calista, the ursamorphs, not about the teacher, so I don't expect too much time spent on developing her character. Same thing with a random encounter at the beach. In fact, there are other random encounters with people we never see again, such as the two guys or the girls at the park (girls interested in Dietzel, guys interested in each other, which the girls did not notice), the guy playing football and catching Monica, the ambulance chaser, etc.

Monica's family lives in Mexico. The action takes place in Minnesota. While Monica is wealthy, we don't know that her family is, so it's not unrealistic to think that they can't afford to come travel to see her at the drop of a hat. Even Monica, who we now know is wealthy, had not seen her family in quite some time, when Tepoz gave her the plane tickets. I therefore don't expect to see them too often in the comic.

Same thing with Lakshmi's sister: she fulfilled her role, without much development, so it's not unexpected to not see her again. Besides, she no longer needs to protect little sis, as little sis is now married to the guy she wanted to protect her from, if needed. And since we haven't even seen Owen and Lakshmi since they eloped, I expect even less for Lakshmi's sister to appear again.

On the other hand, Jacob has been declared to be the object of Atsali's crush for some time, now, and she finally worked up the nerve to go and meet him. That, in and of itself, should be enough to indicate that he will be more than a throwaway character. There will be time spent with him, even if only enough to finally realize (according to you) that Atsali is better off without him. To reach that point, if they ever do, they will have to spend much time together (comic time), which means even more time for us readers... She has been crushing on him for long enough (and, presumably, hard enough) that it would take something majorly wrong with him for her to want to drop him anytime soon. So I, for one, expect to see him around for quite some time yet.

I guess my original statement could be rephrased as such:

“Given that, so far, Paul has never (that I recall) spent any significant time developing throw-away character, and that he's obviously not done developing Jacob, I think it is much too early to celebrate anything...”

if you look strictly at Atsali and Jacob, there is no reason to think that the relationship won't last.

It's kind of premature to call the scant time that Atsali and Jacob have spent together a "relationship". They've spent about 5 minutes together, and half of that was Atsali reading him the riot act.

You're right. I guess I should have phrased my sentence better. How about: "there's no reason to think that a relationship between Atsali and Jacob wouldn't last."

[...] However, I will say that the character he has added is not pleasing in mine eyes. So far, Jacob is a whole lot of meh. The few times he has opened his mouth he has succeeded in admitting his own inadequacy; whining about his circumstances and further expounding on his inadequacies; actually saying something innocuous; and interrupting, jumping to conclusions, and allowing himself to be cowed into a meeting. Not exactly the behavior of a character I want to spend a lot of time with, which is what he would become if he and Atsali actually become a "thing".

While I agree that his introduction is not exactly stellar, I find it amusing that what you are reproaching him are behaviors that have been done on multiple occasions by both Monica and Shelly... granted, we have seen them in better circumstances, as well, but they have done all that, and much worse, more than once. Even starting with the very first strip, with Monica asking plaintively, almost, whether she is naive and a pushover... Do I really need to fish out more examples? Besides, your point would still be valid, that he's done all that in very little time, while not giving us much else to go on, but it would not be unheard of for other characters to do so as well.

Compare his introduction to the first time we meet Katherine. [...] Ursamorphs [...]

Point taken. His introduction is not the best it might have been. I still contend it's not that bad, and it could have been even worse, but it probably could have been better, too. Then again, it may be that Paul is planning to spend quite some time developing him, and wanted to show him as having to work up from way down to begin with. I don't know. I'll just watch it as it happens.

Being civil with forumites is important because they are real people. Jacob is not going to get his feelings hurt no matter what I call him.

True.

But I still talk about them as if they were real, as in, "if this were real life, she would get in trouble for this", or "if this were real life, I could see that her motivation is..." and so on. Much of the speculation and analysis that has been done in the past was done in light of how real people would react to similar situations (paranormal elements notwithstanding). The reason we like to hear/read stories, is because of how the stories can relate to life, whether in lessons learned, in how a character makes us feel, or whatever. So I sill treat even fictitious characters with some respect, and just as I would not call a real person any vulgar name, nor would I call a fictitious character a vulgar name. Their behavior is open game (while still being respectful - that's just who I am), but not they as a "person".

And if I rejoice,

We (or at least, I) don't mind if you rejoice, but can you do it somewhat less boisterously? Maybe be a little more reserved in your enthusiasm?

it's because I like Atsali and I don't want to see her saddled with the likes of Jacob. See, Atsali is an awesome character. She has both strong points and obvious flaws. Even when she's acting like a muffinhead, you still root for her because you know that she is greater than the sum of her current behavior. Our experience with Jacob so far *is* the sum of his current behavior, and that sum is not a positive number.

I guess that's another one of those “agree to disagree” deals, here... I just don't see it as gloomy as you make it sound.

there is no reason to denigrate any character in the comic that has not been obviously written to be an antagonist

Yeah, I really have to disagree with you there. If a "good guy" acts like a jerk-ass, then not mentioning it because they are a "good guy" is silly.

That's just it: I don't see anyone being a jerk-ass, here. Lame, perhaps, but not more than that.

Especially in this comic which, despite the supernatural elements, is very slice-of-life--no real heroes or villains, just a bunch of normal people going about their daily business, rubbing elbows and occasionally butting heads. The last out-and-out antagonist was the supernatural thing that was possessing Brandi, and that was over a year ago. And before that was the Calendar Machine. And before that, nothing really.

And butt head they sure do...

If we don't discuss the flaws of our protagonists and supporting cast, there is very little for us to actually talk about here.

Ah, but it is possible to discuss flaws, without denigrating. That's my whole point. Well, part of my point, anyway...

[Warrl]

Pickle's teacher may appear again, but the story is about Atsali and Pickle, Calista, the ursamorphs, not about the teacher, so I don't expect too much time spent on developing her character.

I read a number of webcomics with school-age to college-age kids as major characters, and in all of them there is very little on-screen time spent *in class*. Which is where one would usually expect to see the teachers. (In fact, they generally don't spend much time at school at all - unless they live there, of course, which in the US is more typical of college than of earlier education.)

[lake_wrangler]

Pickle's teacher may appear again, but the story is about Atsali and Pickle, Calista, the ursamorphs, not about the teacher, so I don't expect too much time spent on developing her character.

I read a number of webcomics with school-age to college-age kids as major characters, and in all of them there is very little on-screen time spent *in class*. Which is where one would usually expect to see the teachers. (In fact, they generally don't spend much time at school at all - unless they live there, of course, which in the US is more typical of college than of earlier education.)

True.

CRFH!!! and EGS are particularly good examples of what you just said.

[Warrl]

Pickle's teacher may appear again, but the story is about Atsali and Pickle, Calista, the ursamorphs, not about the teacher, so I don't expect too much time spent on developing her character.

I read a number of webcomics with school-age to college-age kids as major characters, and in all of them there is very little on-screen time spent *in class*. Which is where one would usually expect to see the teachers. (In fact, they generally don't spend much time at school at all - unless they live there, of course, which in the US is more typical of college than of earlier education.)

True.

CRFH!!! and EGS are particularly good examples of what you just said.

Also Rain, where one of the major characters is actually a teacher... only once (that I can remember) have we seen her in class, and that just long enough to return papers. Also, only once (that I can remember) has she interacted with the other school faculty in regard to her work as a teacher - as opposed to her role as the title character's legal guardian.

Pretty clearly, as far as webcomics are concerned, not much happens at school, and what happens there isn't schooling.

(Come to think of it, actual classroom instruction isn't prominently featured in the Harry Potter books either.)

[Thor]

(Come to think of it, actual classroom instruction isn't prominently featured in the Harry Potter books either.)

It depended on whether the class was important for the plot or not.

Most regularly shown class was Defense Against Dork Arts, followed by Potions. Hagrid's Monster Handling class was shown in a couple of books, as was Herbology. The Divination class was needed for the whole prophesy plotline. There was the Broomstick Handling class at the very beginning. Apportation class was important toward the end. I believe that History of Magic was needed in Chamber of Secrets. And who can forget Transmutation class?

"It's levi-O-sa, not levio-SA."

There was actually quite a bit of classes shown in Harry Potter, but because the books were frikken huge, there wasn't a lot of it as a percentage of the whole narrative.

[Catawampus]

I read a number of webcomics with school-age to college-age kids as major characters, and in all of them there is very little on-screen time spent *in class*. Which is where one would usually expect to see the teachers. (In fact, they generally don't spend much time at school at all - unless they live there, of course, which in the US is more typical of college than of earlier education.)

And I imagine that there's a very good reason why classroom time isn't shown much in most media. You've probably noticed how comics tend to stretch out one relatively short event into weeks or even months of time in the telling. Now imagine the average organic chemistry lecture spread out into comic-strip time. We could be subjected to an entire week just spent on the teacher lecturing Atsali and class on the difference between alkanes and alkenes. Wheeeee!

[lake_wrangler]

I read a number of webcomics with school-age to college-age kids as major characters, and in all of them there is very little on-screen time spent *in class*. Which is where one would usually expect to see the teachers. (In fact, they generally don't spend much time at school at all - unless they live there, of course, which in the US is more typical of college than of earlier education.)

And I imagine that there's a very good reason why classroom time isn't shown much in most media. You've probably noticed how comics tend to stretch out one relatively short event into weeks or even months of time in the telling. Now imagine the average organic chemistry lecture spread out into comic-strip time. We could be subjected to an entire week just spent on the teacher lecturing Atsali and class on the difference between alkanes and alkenes. Wheeeee!

Unless, of course, it is done for comedic value... Some teachers simply don't seem to capture their students' attention as well as others...

(The first link was a happy find, as my mind immediately went to The Wonder Years first... I just ran across the first one during my search for the second one...)

[Dave]

We could be subjected to an entire week just spent on the teacher lecturing Atsali and class on the difference between alkanes and alkenes. Wheeeee!

Actually, that might be a hopeful thing to see happen, for the sake of our young lovers-to-be. The shared classwork could be good for their relationship. Playing hooky from that particular class could be the thing which leads to them eventually drifting apart, when they realize that they can't make the chemistry work out.