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Aug 20, 2017 20:57
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idonotlikepeas posted:The only "conflict" apart from the most obvious physical one is in whether he should continue to pretend not to have power that he actually does, which is something the actual Superman comics did to death decades ago. That is not the conflict in MoS. The conflict is, given that Clark has these powers, to who's benefit should he use them? In this, SFP isn't novel at all, in fact the conflict is quite similar to MoS. Here, given that Allison is really good at punching people, the question is how can she use her punching people skills to help people? How can her punching people skills help society?
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Aug 20, 2017 20:58
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Imagine if Robin had to go to school? He fights criminals by night and saves the city, but fails his maths exam.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:01
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Oh god I didn't even read that Watchmen part of the post that's the dumbest reading of that comic I've ever seen.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:02
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Paladinus posted:Uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Are you sure you haven't missed some pages? Nah, what I'm sure of is that threads on Something Awful often descend into hateboner territory, where people develop a way of finding the worst in everything. Since it's bad for the comic to be okay with Alison hurting this dude, that must be what it believes! How about we look at some evidence, though. Here are the last couple of pages addressing the morality of her actions:    There is one line later that ties back, of course: Gurwara says (paraphrasing) "if only I hadn't found that gun, I wouldn't have had to decide whether to kill a doctor". Alison's statement here is "I did something terrible, and now I want to make up for it, but making up for it still is terrible, and it feels hypocritical since everything is literally exactly the way I want" and his response is "I don't think you get to make up for things like that, there are no easy choices, and we all kind of stumble around trying to figure out what's best forever". At what point do you imagine he tells her that what she did was acceptable? At most, he tells her that her even existing makes everyone else less free, because freedom and power are the same thing and she has more power than any other individual, and that she's going to be loving up other peoples' freedom her entire life.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:03
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idonotlikepeas posted:You liking them does help me see where you're coming from, though. The only thing I can get out of this rambling nonsense parahraph is that you resort to cargo culting. You think on the level of "tropes" - i.e. elements of narrative are treated as ends to themselves instead of as simply tools of storytelling. Like how in the movie Man of Steel, Zod represents fascist evil, but you just process this into "Zods" in the sense of a generic supervillain. "What if superheroes had to stick around after there are no more supervillains" is of course the kind of "trope"-based idea without any substance to it. And seriously, Watchmen an example of great comics (that need to be protected from fiendish Zack Snyder)? It's not particularly good, nowhere near the level Moore's actual good superhero comic V for Vendetta. Of course you don't actually refer to anything in the movies that makes them bad. They are actually good because of their great visuals, because they're the only superhero movies with actually impressive action, because they're only leftist superhero movies since Blade, etc. idonotlikepeas posted:What he says is this: "He died, and then my idea of him died right afterward." Toxicity and politics don't enter into it. It's about the fact that you are friends with a construct you've created in your head of another person, but it is possible for that construct to be tragically, horrifically different than the actuality of the person; Miles as a rapist is someone he doesn't know at all, and the fact that he had that capacity invalidates the Miles he'd constructed in his own head. That moment is him sorrowfully realizing that he never really understood his dead friend. In reality, the chapter is explicitly political, including this personal element ("the personal is the political," as the feminist motto goes). Miles and the other dead rapists represent an Other of liberalism, the illiberal abuser/bigot - note how the rapist-supporters are all stock boogiemen of American liberals: small-town jocks, soldiers, rural folk (Furnace). The wifebeater in a wifebeater certainly takes the cake. idonotlikepeas posted:Nah, what I'm sure of is that threads on Something Awful often descend into hateboner territory, where people develop a way of finding the worst in everything. Since it's bad for the comic to be okay with Alison hurting this dude, that must be what it believes! Nice meltdown.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:07
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idonotlikepeas posted:Nah, what I'm sure of is that threads on Something Awful often descend into hateboner territory, where people develop a way of finding the worst in everything. Since it's bad for the comic to be okay with Alison hurting this dude, that must be what it believes! How about we look at some evidence, though. Here are the last couple of pages addressing the morality of her actions: Here's the thing though that you're desperately missing in your reading and it's something that comes up several times in that conversation: Allison Can't Unfind Her Gun. She is her gun. Gurwara's statement is 'Part of me wishes I didn't find the power to make that decision so I didn't have to.' The implication is that Allison is going to HAVE to make those decisions because she cannot separate herself from the thing that gives her power in those situations. Gurwara isn't upset with the choice he made, he's wishing for an ideal past where he didn't have to make the choice. Such an ideal world is the end goal for Allison, a far off dream that may never be, but until it is she will HAVE to make decisions. That statement isn't an incitement of his or her decision, but a lament that the world is what it is that forces those choices on them.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:08
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Joe Slowboat posted:Isn't the entire thrust of Watchmen that superheroes cannot solve the Cold War, and the megalomaniacal desire to be the one man who saves the world is what motivates the presumptive villain in the creation of monstrosity? This is generous to Patrick, although I'm well aware that Rorschach isn't exactly the good guy. Patrick is more like the Comedian, he's amoral and considers himself above the mere humans he surrounds himself with, the unconscious scientists whose brains he sifts, and uses them callously. There's some talk of his use of empathy to get other supers to cooperate with him but it's not shown, he's pretty strictly ruthless. His complete lack of a sense of humor is a good dark mirror of Comedian's sick one. Rorschach on the other hand is hyper-moral, literally a placard carrying moralizer in his off-hours. I do think it's fairly reasonable to cast Allison as Ozymandias but she's so out of touch with her peers (cf. the prisoner's dilemma white rock/black rock thing) that she has somewhat in common with Dr. Manhattan as well. Major caveat: I dug Watchmen a whole lot and comparing this loving train wreck to it is sickening to me.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:13
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Joe Slowboat posted:You're very welcome, I'm actually quite proud of it. In this respect I can agree that Clevin first appearance was actually very well done. It reminds me of that one commercial that was floating around a while back that has a bunch of scenes revolving around high school life but at the end of the commercial a student walks into the gymnasium and Cocks a rifle. With the message being we saw all the signs of this kid getting bullied and pushed to the point of shooting up the school, but we weren't paying attention to it because we are focused on the typical High School drama in the foreground. That being said I'm not disagreeing that this character has evolved into something significantly less interesting. Honestly now that people are pointing out how he originally looked, and I completely forgotten that myself, he really is just some background character.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:14
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Here's the thing though that you're desperately missing in your reading and it's something that comes up several times in that conversation: Allison Can't Unfind Her Gun. She is her gun. Gurwara's statement is 'Part of me wishes I didn't find the power to make that decision so I didn't have to.' The implication is that Allison is going to HAVE to make those decisions because she cannot separate herself from the thing that gives her power in those situations. Gurwara isn't upset with the choice he made, he's wishing for an ideal past where he didn't have to make the choice. Such an ideal world is the end goal for Allison, a far off dream that may never be, but until it is she will HAVE to make decisions. That statement isn't an incitement of his or her decision, but a lament that the world is what it is that forces those choices on them. This is a good username/post combo
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Aug 20, 2017 21:14
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:
My dear friend, I respect you immensely for your brilliant edits but here we must cross swords. I will regret it most intensely I assure you.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:16
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Clevin would not have become the transcendent entity he is now if he'd retained his initial and perfectly acceptable character design. He wouldn't be such a pathetic figure if not for the inexplicable loss of bulk between chapters.  
BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 21:17
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Wow, 80 new posts in a day?? I wonder what hap- 
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Aug 20, 2017 21:23
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What hope could we possibly have, when even Clevin himself, can be Clevin'd.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:23
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Allison Can't Unfind Her Gun. She is her gun. [...] That statement isn't an incitement of his or her decision, but a lament that the world is what it is that forces those choices on them. Just wanted to say, thanks for reminding me of this! I think it really gets at one of my complaints about the way the comic has gone; that Having Power went from the source of great moral responsibility to being a burden unduly thrust onto Allison. Early in the comic, you never got the sense that Allison regretted having her powers, and indeed, there was never any suggestion that she was a victim for being so powerful. This is, I think, a sea change in the narrative: Having Responsibility became a negative, a sorrow, that the authors seem to actually consider as such. Allison has power, and thus freedom, and this is something we should feel sorry for her for? This is something that deserves our applause? I know Allison feels that way - when she talks about how people should throw her a parade for not killing anyone - but that raw scene of emotion never struck me as something the comic in general agreed with, and indeed I think it's a fundamentally dangerous idea for the story. Not just morally but because it reframes the problem at hand away from what made the early chapters more interesting. It becomes a story about 'how does Allison live happily with herself?' rather than 'how does Allison try to improve the world? EDIT: This is totally irrelevant to the larger questions but, is it just me or did Clevin get shorter between his first appearance and now? I could be imagining things, but he looks meaningfully shorter than he was. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 21:26
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idonotlikepeas posted:Nah, what I'm sure of is that threads on Something Awful often descend into hateboner territory, where people develop a way of finding the worst in everything. Since it's bad for the comic to be okay with Alison hurting this dude, that must be what it believes! How about we look at some evidence, though. Here are the last couple of pages addressing the morality of her actions: He basically says that with great powers comes not great responsibility, but greater ability to gently caress up others' lives, something all people possess naturally anyway. He places 'the blame' on natural order of things, thus completely absolving Alison. Later she still tries to find Max, only to be met with scolding by his mother. This again reinforces what a bunch of assholes this family are, because they put personal first. Alison understands her own innocence at this point and she only wants to talk to Max, because she's a bigger person, able to apologise even when no apology is warranted. Then Alison gets her well-deserved happy day with Clevin, who is the best boyfriend you could imagine.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:28
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idonotlikepeas posted:But even in something like Watchmen, which thankfully Zach Snyder was unable to totally ruin despite his best efforts, or the absolutely atrocious Man of Steel, the primary problems presented by the narrative are ones that can be solved by superheroes. Oh my god
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Aug 20, 2017 21:28
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Joe Slowboat posted:Just wanted to say, thanks for reminding me of this! I think it really gets at one of my complaints about the way the comic has gone; that Having Power went from the source of great moral responsibility to being a burden unduly thrust onto Allison. This is the crux of why this story's politics just don't loving work at all. Allison has more power and connections and ways to leverage both than 99% of humanity has. She doesn't HAVE to suffer any circumstances that she doesn't want to, but she still wants to change the world to be a better place until she really doesn't the comic becomes about how hard it is to have power/fame/money. God people expect you to like...do things and make decisions after you make clear your goal is to change the world to be a better place. It's just so hard. Nuns with Guns posted:Oh my god Yeah no, OP the point of watchmen was the literal opposite of what you just said. I know I was a bit aggressive earlier when I called you completely uncritical but honestly I should have been way harsher. Read a loving book.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:31
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Allison is the most privileged person on Earth, and any character who points this out tends to exit stage left or gets shoved into a trashcan. This is very funny comic.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:32
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Joe Slowboat posted:I think it's worth noting here, most negative takes on Clevin-as-character (as opposed to our shared negative take on Clevin as a person) I think assume that his introduction and his later presentation are at odds because he was picked up by the story and used for something he didn't originally fit into. At least, that's my perception of events. I don't think it's arguable that there's a shift in the tone and direction of the comic between Clevin's introduction and later events, Allison dating Max, etc. You even point out that the core theme of the Max chapter is 'Allison finds something she can solve by physically coercing somebody, and decides to do it.' I would contend that this shift included a recasting of Clevin, since the comic's framing of his behavior doesn't really line up between these events. On the contrary, I'm pretty sure this was their plan for him all along. I know it's tough because the issue was so drat long, but keep in mind that he's only been in the comic since the Rape Arc; he was introduced about the time the team started to come to grips with Alison's relationship with Patrick and how it was going to end, and they slipped him in right before that happened. I think they ultimately wanted to hook Alison up with someone relatively normal; whether that will actually work for her is a whole different ball of wax which has yet to be addressed. I think introducing him as a side element and then bringing him up over and over again with gradually increasing importance was meant to let our perception of him parallel Alison's. In the party scene, she barely notices him, so we barely notice him. When he gets stabbed, she sees him as an innocent to rescue, so that's what we see. And so on. It's hard to say for sure, of course, since we can't read the author's mind and I doubt he'd admit it either way if we asked; it's possible you're right. Joe Slowboat posted:To be clear, I also think that the 'torture a libertarian' turn in the plot destroyed my faith that the comic would build on subtext or context clues like it once did; that whole scene was just unbearable and the author seems consistently unable to face what was written as what it is. As such, I can only assume that the Whiny Clevin Speech is, in fact, intended to be a real emotional coming-together of the couple, rather than him being a whiny jerk to her. This position was further compounded by the author saying that 'Strong Female Protagonist' is meant to refer also to her being strong in a moral sense, i.e. she is in fact meant to be a dedicated seeker after morality. Either the comic has taken a turn for a cynical claim that Allison has never realized her own slide into moral equivocation, complacency, and blindness to her own and others' faults... or she's still supposed to be more or less a seeker after truth and justice. I just have a hard time keeping the faith about these things, though I'd like to be surprised. I'm still mystified by this thread's interpretation of that scene. I have no idea how anyone could read those pages and think that the comic is endorsing her abuse of him. I'm not sure how much more clearly they could have signaled that what was going on in that scene was terrible. I do find it curious that they didn't spot the rape analogy in the art, but that's not an indictment of their intentions; even in her response to that, I believe the artist did say it was meant to look abusive, just not specifically like a rape. As I said before, if it turns out that Clevin really is always right about everything in their relationship and his whining is wholly justified, I will happily say that's dumb as gently caress, but there just isn't enough evidence of it yet. Joe Slowboat posted:Isn't the entire thrust of Watchmen that superheroes cannot solve the Cold War, and the megalomaniacal desire to be the one man who saves the world is what motivates the presumptive villain in the creation of monstrosity? I was more referring to Man of Steel there. Watchmen is definitely closer, because it also is set shortly after the period of overt heroism is largely over (although we spend at least a third of the comic in that period due to flashbacks). I see it as more of a conflict between different attempts at heroism, though, some of which are horrifically flawed; Ozymandias is what Alison would be like if she made torturing libertarians her overall policy and decided it was absolutely the right thing to do, and our protagonists are mostly people in opposition to him, although they don't know it for most of the story. Really, it's about superheroes loving up history; some of the things they've done in the name of heroism have made their world demonstrably worse than ours, and so the modern-day characters are left trying to clean up a mess that their forebears created. This is kind of a different thing going on, although I suppose it might end up being something like that at the end depending on what happens with Alison. ZenMasterBullshit posted:Here's the thing though that you're desperately missing in your reading and it's something that comes up several times in that conversation: Allison Can't Unfind Her Gun. She is her gun. Gurwara's statement is 'Part of me wishes I didn't find the power to make that decision so I didn't have to.' The implication is that Allison is going to HAVE to make those decisions because she cannot separate herself from the thing that gives her power in those situations. Gurwara isn't upset with the choice he made, he's wishing for an ideal past where he didn't have to make the choice. Such an ideal world is the end goal for Allison, a far off dream that may never be, but until it is she will HAVE to make decisions. That statement isn't an incitement of his or her decision, but a lament that the world is what it is that forces those choices on them. On the contrary, that point is central to my reading of it. Gurwara neither condones her actions, nor condemns them. His entire ending scene could be summarized as "the world sucks, all our choices are terrible, and there are no easy answers about whether what you do is good or bad, but you've got the gun so you're stuck with having to do something and live with it". it's not insignificant that this message comes along with him making a choice that close to 100% of the audience is guaranteed to disagree with. BravestOfTheLamps posted:The only thing I can get out of this rambling nonsense parahraph is that you resort to cargo culting. You think on the level of "tropes" - i.e. elements of narrative are treated as ends to themselves instead of as simply tools of storytelling. Like how in the movie Man of Steel, Zod represents fascist evil, but you just process this into "Zods" in the sense of a generic supervillain. "What if superheroes had to stick around after there are no more supervillains" is of course the kind of "trope"-based idea without any substance to it. Zod symbolizing fascist evil is only significant so long as the story makes that meaningful, and in this case, it isn't. The solution is: punch Zod. Whatever he might have symbolized in a better story, in Man of Steel he was simply there for Superman to punch and feel slightly bad about punching. Where's the scene where some good people agree with Zod and Superman has to deal with them somehow? Where's the one where we see how Zod's fascism would actually affect the world? His symbolism in that movie is paper-thin; he's made a fascist not as symbolism, but because fascists are simple people to hate and it's important to focus the audience's hate on the villain. He's a device to obligate Superman to kill, and exists solely to fill that purpose in the cheapest and simplest possible way. If you choose not to respond to any of my other points there, that's fine, I do have other things to do at some point this afternoon. BravestOfTheLamps posted:And seriously, Watchmen an example of great comics (that need to be protected from fiendish Zack Snyder)? It's not particularly good, nowhere near the level Moore's actual good superhero comic V for Vendetta. Of course you don't actually refer to anything in the movies that makes them bad. They are actually good because of their great visuals, because they're the only superhero movies with actually impressive action, because they're only leftist superhero movies since Blade, etc. I appreciate this strawman you've constructed, but what I actually did was ask you to explain why something that most people like is actually bad, a challenge you seem to have refused. That's your prerogative, of course. V for Vendetta is a good sketch, which I enjoyed, while Watchmen is the Mona Lisa, which I respect and which I try to re-read at least once every couple of years. To this day, it is widely considered to be among the best superhero comics ever written, and justifiably so. I have no idea what you hope to gain by attacking it. BravestOfTheLamps posted:In reality, the chapter is explicitly political, including this personal element ("the personal is the political," as the feminist motto goes). Miles and the other dead rapists represent an Other of liberalism, the illiberal abuser/bigot - note how the rapist-supporters are all stock boogiemen of American liberals: small-town jocks, soldiers, rural folk (Furnace). The wifebeater in a wifebeater certainly takes the cake. I notice you've forgotten the college student in your list there, but that would be very inconvenient for your thesis, wouldn't it? The list is as it is because the last several major news stories about rapists were actually those people; the creative team was intentionally playing on those stories. The jocks are the Steubenville rapists and the soldiers are based on a contemporaneous survey indicating that 62% of service members who'd reported sexual assault had been retaliated against. Furnace was not definitively stated to be a rapist; the comic deliberately left that ambiguous. That said, the comic makes no bones about its liberal bona fides. Given that liberalism is the objectively correct political side, of course, I have no problem with this. BravestOfTheLamps posted:Allison is the most privileged person on Earth, and any character who points this out tends to exit stage left or gets shoved into a trashcan. This is very funny comic. I mean, the authors say it all the time? Keep on trucking there, though.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:35
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Also, a fundamental quality of Watchmen is a deep skepticism about power and the exercise of power, but it's not because 'well-intentioned people cause misery with power, by accident!' In Watchmen it's because power, as the old saw goes, corrupts. In the sense that people begin to see 'good' as 'what I can do with my power.' Power is self-reinforcing and self-serving, and violence is an appealing answer to those who are capable of great amounts of it. Power and powerlessness, of various and relative kinds, run through Watchmen, and the idea of an unaccountable power is treated as fundamentally terrifying (Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias, even the Comedian is fundamentally unaccountable American military power until he gets killed, especially given his scene in Vietnam). Also yeah if Allison wanted to do good she should go into politics. She's literally Superman, in her Mega-Girl persona. Maybe not run for office herself, but endorse (presumably progressive) political organizations, put forward a set of ideals, make use of her immense cultural power as well as her punching power to change the future. And she never will because the comic barely wraps its head around solidarity and mass action, and the closest it's gotten is an Uber-alike. Instead, Allison should clearly be getting Bob Avakian elected.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:39
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Also, the fact that the whole struggle is just a direct explicit discussion of the problem, is insanely lazy. Alison doesn't come across some scenario that would remind her of her own actions, she is not confronted in any serious way by Max or his family, there are no side-effects to Max's power, nothing. Just a secondary character (who doesn't exist?) analysing previous 40 pages of the comic for other 40 pages.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:39
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sweeperbravo posted:Wow, 80 new posts in a day?? I wonder what hap- POWER WORD: CLEVIN
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Aug 20, 2017 21:42
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idonotlikepeas posted:On the contrary, that point is central to my reading of it. Gurwara neither condones her actions, nor condemns them. His entire ending scene could be summarized as "the world sucks, all our choices are terrible, and there are no easy answers about whether what you do is good or bad, but you've got the gun so you're stuck with having to do something and live with it". it's not insignificant that this message comes along with him making a choice that close to 100% of the audience is guaranteed to disagree with. So you completely agree with my point so I don't know why you use the word 'contrary.' This is in and of itself a justification of Allison's act of aggression in that saying "Actually there's not good or bad, just decision you have to make and live with." and her saving lives means she found a justification for it and that she can and will live with it. It's why she's smiling and joking with him by the end of the conversation, it did in fact alliterative at least part of the guilt she was feeling over her actions. That's what justification is. It even gives her a newfound clarity that we see her try to put into practice in the scenes immediately after and in this next chapter where she's happily focused on her tech start up. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 21:43
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idonotlikepeas posted:Zod symbolizing fascist evil is only significant so long as the story makes that meaningful, and in this case, it isn't. The solution is: punch Zod. Whatever he might have symbolized in a better story, in Man of Steel he was simply there for Superman to punch and feel slightly bad about punching. Where's the scene where some good people agree with Zod and Superman has to deal with them somehow? Where's the one where we see how Zod's fascism would actually affect the world? His symbolism in that movie is paper-thin; he's made a fascist not as symbolism, but because fascists are simple people to hate and it's important to focus the audience's hate on the villain. He's a device to obligate Superman to kill, and exists solely to fill that purpose in the cheapest and simplest possible way. If you choose not to respond to any of my other points there, that's fine, I do have other things to do at some point this afternoon. This is all simply not true. The "good people who agree with Zod" are the audience. Despite being so monstrous, Zod is actually quite understandable and even sympathetic as Connor Kirkpatrick points out. The struggle is within you. Ultimately, punching the fascist is the right answer. This especially fits MoS's pop-myth. Also, idonotlikepeas posted:Watchmen is the Mona Lisa  Seriously, Mona Lisa? Read a book.idonotlikepeas posted:the soldiers are based on a contemporaneous survey indicating that 62% of service members who'd reported sexual assault had been retaliated against. Thank you Dr. Rapestatistics.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:48
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Paladinus posted:Also, the fact that the whole struggle is just a direct explicit discussion of the problem, is insanely lazy. Alison doesn't come across some scenario that would remind her of her own actions, she is not confronted in any serious way by Max or his family, there are no side-effects to Max's power, nothing. Just a secondary character (who doesn't exist?) analysing previous 40 pages of the comic for other 40 pages. You mean, like, no consequences apart from his mom, a senator, now being Alison's sworn enemy? It's important for the moral point that Alison's scheme actually work. If forcing Max to power Feral up resulted in her getting multiple skin failure, it'd be a different kind of story; part of what makes it so hard for her to take at the end is that it actually worked. She did something morally repugnant and it actually made things better. That's a much harder thing to confront than "I did something bad, and something bad happened as a result, I have now Learned a Lesson", which is how that kind of story usually goes. Joe Slowboat posted:Also, a fundamental quality of Watchmen is a deep skepticism about power and the exercise of power, but it's not because 'well-intentioned people cause misery with power, by accident!' I'd say that the central point of Watchmen is the failure of consequentialism as a moral system, although that's a related idea. It's riddled all throughout the work in the Black Freighter story and in the main story; Ozymandias backs himself into a corner by continually doing terrible things "for the greater good", and the end there is a coin flip that might undo everything he's done in a single stroke, rendering all those awful acts meaningless. It's a different slice than what I described above; Alison has to actually bear the burden of doing something she herself recognizes as wrong but having it improve the world. Ozymandias has convinced himself that what he's doing is right, no matter how awful it is, and we're left with an implication that all he's done is drat himself to no purpose. That theme runs throughout the work; we even have counterexamples in Rorschach, who is practically the personification of deontology, and the Comedian, who is amoral. They're two halves of the same coin, in that they both had the realization that there is no inherent morality to the universe, but have chosen to react to it in different ways; the Comedian chooses to simply do as he pleases, whereas Rorschach elects to build an absolute moral system based on his own beliefs and adhere strictly to that, instead. ZenMasterBullshit posted:So you completely agree with my point so I don't know why you use the word 'contrary.' This is in and of itself a justification of Allison's act of aggression in that saying "Actually there's not good or bad, just decision you have to make and live with." and her saving lives means she found a justification for it and that she can and will live with it. It's why she's smiling and joking with him by the end of the conversation, it did in fact alliterative at least part of the guilt she was feeling over her actions. That's what justification is. It even gives her a newfound clarity that we see her try to put into practice in the scenes immediately after and in this next chapter where she's happily focused on her tech start up. Gurwara is very careful not to say "there's no good or bad"; he explicitly denies that. He says that it's hard to tell the difference sometimes, and that you are going to do wrong things, and you have to live with them forever. It does help her feel better, but not by justifying her prior actions, just by understanding that it's something she'll have to deal with without expecting the world to come tell her it was okay (or that it was wrong, for that matter).
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Aug 20, 2017 21:48
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idonotlikepeas posted:
Yeah no this is peak liberal right here. The author can say it all he wants but he's writing the comic as a way to excuse and justify her privilege by having her do things that are nominally progressive but ultimately going to not solve any bigger problem, which is hilariously the thing her initial character arc was trying to break away from. The only difference between that bullshit and the current bullshit is the current stuff is a lot more polite and more nominally about helping the disenfranchised (but not really because it's loving smart phone app jesus christ). It's someone with power who could put it to good work refusing to engage things with her power in any terms other than gentle decorum and arguing with someone all day about whether or not she should do something instead of do something. Its progressive nature rings hollow and gross, especially given recent events and just feels like someone who thinks they're pretty nice and liberal who hasn't actually studied any theory or even talked to anyone that's faced serious oppression about how they face it, but it's painted by the comic as the cool and good way to do things (See, that gala we spent way too much time at.)
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Aug 20, 2017 21:51
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Joe Slowboat posted:) This is something that has bugged me for a long time in the comic. Allison is world famous and popular. She could save vast numbers of lives, and/or improve lives just by doing PSAs.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:51
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Flesh Forge posted:This is something that has bugged me for a long time in the comic. Allison is world famous and popular. She could save vast numbers of lives, and/or improve lives just by doing PSAs. Or she could go back to punching murderous robots, she probably saved a few lives there. Piell fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 22:00
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:This is all simply not true. The "good people who agree with Zod" are the audience. Despite being so monstrous, Zod is actually quite understandable and even sympathetic as Connor Kirkpatrick points out. The struggle is within you. Ultimately, punching the fascist is the right answer. This especially fits MoS's pop-myth. You honestly expect the audience in a Superman movie, and specifically that movie, to agree with Zod? I admit I am speechless. Giving your villain a sympathetic angle does not make them someone you agree with, it just makes them "an actual character in the story". The audience is incredibly unlikely to sign on to Zod's "replace Earth with Krypton's culture" plan, especially as implemented through armed conflict. I asked that question because that's part of what fascism is, as a philosophy, and what it's risk is; it's something that is attractive to people who ought to know better. A movie seriously addressing fascism ought to touch on that point, or on at least some other point apart from the obvious "fascism means things get done" canard. The movie refuses to engage with any of the meaningful aspects of fascism or its risks, restricting itself to a purely superficial interpretation to make it more cathartic when Kal finally beats the living poo poo out of Zod. BravestOfTheLamps posted:Thank you Dr. Rapestatistics. Oh, pardon me, would you like a citation? Here you are: https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/18/us-military-whistleblowers-risk Let's not pretend that this comic having an unsuccessful chapter about rape means that it isn't actually a problem. Piell posted:Or she could go back to punching murderous robots, she probably saved a few lives there. The problem she has here is that there are no more murderous robots left to punch. She would love to punch robots instead of what she's doing. She's said before that this is something that feels natural and good to her, and she regrets that it won't mean anything or help anyone anymore.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:00
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It's a good thing that all the villains agreed to stop doing things as soon as Mega Girl decided being a hero was dumb.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:02
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idonotlikepeas posted:I'd say that the central point of Watchmen is the failure of consequentialism as a moral system, although that's a related idea. It's riddled all throughout the work in the Black Freighter story and in the main story; Ozymandias backs himself into a corner by continually doing terrible things "for the greater good", and the end there is a coin flip that might undo everything he's done in a single stroke, rendering all those awful acts meaningless. It's a different slice than what I described above; Alison has to actually bear the burden of doing something she herself recognizes as wrong but having it improve the world. Ozymandias has convinced himself that what he's doing is right, no matter how awful it is, and we're left with an implication that all he's done is drat himself to no purpose. That theme runs throughout the work; we even have counterexamples in Rorschach, who is practically the personification of deontology, and the Comedian, who is amoral. They're two halves of the same coin, in that they both had the realization that there is no inherent morality to the universe, but have chosen to react to it in different ways; the Comedian chooses to simply do as he pleases, whereas Rorschach elects to build an absolute moral system based on his own beliefs and adhere strictly to that, instead. I think that reading Rorschach as more justifiable within the narrative than Ozymandias is a misstep; both Ozymandias and Rorschach commit brutal violence basically constantly (Ozymandias hides it better). Rorschach tried to cause World War III because he can't abide the thought of compromising with the Soviets, while Ozymandias kills more people than any of us have ever met in the pursuit of peace. I'm not even going to touch on the Comedian, because if anyone thought he was presented as anything but monstrous I don't think we speak the same language. It's telling that the viewpoint characters, the most sympathetic characters, are both basically powerless in the actual plot. Night Owl II and Silk Specter II both witness Ozymandias' plan and actions, the passing of a well-nigh literal god from the Earth, and Rorschach dying in the name of absolutism (and nuclear war). Nixon is still president; if you need a symbol of the most paranoid and underhanded exercise of power in American pop culture, perma-president Richard Nixon works well. Watchmen has as its central point the collapse of any system of morality, not because those systems are necessarily flawed, but because the people carrying them out are imperfect and the power over life and death given to them (as superheroes, as American military and political figures, as literally god) has broken them. Not in a way we pity, particularly, but in a way we fear. Moore's superheroes are the embodiment of the culture they come from, its excesses and cruelties, as well as the society they uphold. They fail the ways we fail, the ways superheroes must fail, in their particular milieu. Compare this to Promethea, Moore's most extensive and least ambiguous superhero comic. Promethea is about the power that is fundamentally imaginative, creative, and benevolent. It is about a superhero bringing about the psychic apocalypse, but in this case, that's the New Age, the occult transformation of the world into a better state. It's a weird ride, a weird read, and ultimately I certainly don't think it's perfect, but it's a great counterpoint to both V for Vendetta and Watchmen. It's also, like, so far from Strong Female Protagonist that you'd have to travel through From Hell to reach it, IMO.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:03
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Piell posted:It's a good thing that all the villains agreed to stop doing things as soon as Mega Girl decided being a hero was dumb. Mega Girl decided being a hero was dumb after she had stopped all the villains from doing things. They're all dead, in jail, or in hiding now, and this world seems to be able to at least sometimes keep villains imprisoned for more than a week. Alison has already shown she'll be happy to foil any villains that show up, like she did with Cleaver, it just isn't likely to happen enough to be a full-time gig. Joe Slowboat posted:I think that reading Rorschach as more justifiable within the narrative than Ozymandias is a misstep; both Ozymandias and Rorschach commit brutal violence basically constantly (Ozymandias hides it better). Rorschach tried to cause World War III because he can't abide the thought of compromising with the Soviets, while Ozymandias kills more people than any of us have ever met in the pursuit of peace. I'm not even going to touch on the Comedian, because if anyone thought he was presented as anything but monstrous I don't think we speak the same language. Oh, sure. Sorry, that implication was accidental. Rorschach is also a monster, because his absolutist moral system allows for no possibility of consideration for circumstance. That last bit is right out of Kant. He even knows it at the end, but he can't bear to abandon his system even though it means his death. It's the only thing he's got, after he's abandoned the idea that there is anything inherently moral in the universe; he'd rather be dead than give it up. The story spends a lot less time condemning him than it does the people who are willing to trade evil for good, though, possibly because it establishes him as a terrible rear end in a top hat right from the beginning. Joe Slowboat posted:It's telling that the viewpoint characters, the most sympathetic characters, are both basically powerless in the actual plot. Night Owl II and Silk Specter II both witness Ozymandias' plan and actions, the passing of a well-nigh literal god from the Earth, and Rorschach dying in the name of absolutism (and nuclear war). Nixon is still president; if you need a symbol of the most paranoid and underhanded exercise of power in American pop culture, perma-president Richard Nixon works well. Watchmen has as its central point the collapse of any system of morality, not because those systems are necessarily flawed, but because the people carrying them out are imperfect and the power over life and death given to them (as superheroes, as American military and political figures, as literally god) has broken them. Not in a way we pity, particularly, but in a way we fear. Moore's superheroes are the embodiment of the culture they come from, its excesses and cruelties, as well as the society they uphold. They fail the ways we fail, the ways superheroes must fail, in their particular milieu. Yeah, I can get behind all of that. Like I said, superheroes broke that world; Nixon is still in power because the Comedian assassinated the people that would have exposed them. It's these larger-than-life figures that have disrupted that might otherwise have gone well; if I want to say that SFP is about what life is like when superheroics are unnecessary, Watchmen is what life is like when superheroics are actively harmful. Everything that's done in the comic is an attempt to fix what was previously broken by those same people, up to and including Ozymandias trying to compensate for Jon's existence heightening tensions with the Russians. Joe Slowboat posted:Compare this to Promethea, Moore's most extensive and least ambiguous superhero comic. Promethea is about the power that is fundamentally imaginative, creative, and benevolent. It is about a superhero bringing about the psychic apocalypse, but in this case, that's the New Age, the occult transformation of the world into a better state. It's a weird ride, a weird read, and ultimately I certainly don't think it's perfect, but it's a great counterpoint to both V for Vendetta and Watchmen. It's also, like, so far from Strong Female Protagonist that you'd have to travel through From Hell to reach it, IMO. Promethea spends a bit of time making GBS threads on conventional superheroics too, though. Promethea is barely a superhero; she's a magical figure in the actual occult sense, informed by Moore's extensive studies in that area; the superheroes are actively harmful in that one, too. Hell, that comic is basically a primer on modern-day occultism if you're actually curious about the topic. I would certainly never say SFP is on the level of anything Moore did. Well, I mean, maybe Skizz? It's probably better than Skizz. Of the ABC stuff, I actually prefer Top Ten and Tom Strong, just because they both feel less like polemics; Top Ten is a police procedural with superpowers and Tom Strong a kind of love letter to traditional superheroes. It's kind of the opposite of Watchmen, in that way.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:17
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idonotlikepeas posted:You honestly expect the audience in a Superman movie, and specifically that movie, to agree with Zod? I admit I am speechless. The movie features characters who represent different principles and ideas, and how these principles and ideas end up clashing or uniting. Audiences are indeed unlikely to agree with the idea of their home planet being destroyed, but they do find Zod's motivation and plans understandable in spite of how monstrous it all is. There were indeed a few complaints about how Superman basically committed genocide on the Kryptonians by fighting Zod. Being a good-vs-evil pop myth doesn't a mean a story can't be nuanced, as is the case with movies like MoS or Excalibur. Conversely, a story can all have the complexity and ethical debates in the world and still be poo poo, like Strong Female Protagonist. You seem to be imagining whole sequences for the movie. Superman doesn't cathartically "beat the living poo poo out of Zod". The neck-snap is incredibly cathartic yes, but it's cathartic without any wish-fulfilment or power fantasy, which is why it's so hated.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:17
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See, I think we have a fundamental disagreement on Watchmen. Remember that it was written before the end of the Cold War. If I recall correctly, Moore mentioned that it loses a lot of its themes when the reader isn't currently aware of the possibility of nuclear armageddon. The threat in Watchmen, the fundamental and central threat, isn't something superheroes created. It's just the Cold War. The universe of Watchmen may be different from our own, but from the perspective of the late 80s, I'm not sure it's really worse so much as it's the same but more. So I fundamentally read it not as a comment on what such powerful figures could have done, but what they couldn't have done. Also, while Promethea is certainly a primer on modern occultism of a certain flavor, I will never forgive Moore for getting basic Shivashakti symbolism wrong during his discussion of sexual symbolism in occult practice. He wants a syncretic universal system, but has to invert the actual tradition to make it fit with European cup/wand imagery. (Tongue firmly in cheek for this paragraph, for the record). Uuuuuh to get back to the actual webcomic at hand, I think it's worth noting that I don't think we've seen any representation of mass political movements since the first few pages that weren't either Best Character BatBrad's convention or basically that one church from X-Men who hate mutants. For all that Allison's revelation was 'there are other people, we can work together!' there's still no sense of collective effort, so much as atomized and individual efforts by superhumans. Even Valkyrie isn't a mass movement, it's a matchmaking service for individual efforts.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:35
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:The movie features characters who represent different principles and ideas, and how these principles and ideas end up clashing or uniting. Audiences are indeed unlikely to agree with the idea of their home planet being destroyed, but they do find Zod's motivation and plans understandable in spite of how monstrous it all is. There were indeed a few complaints about how Superman basically committed genocide on the Kryptonians by fighting Zod. Being a good-vs-evil pop myth doesn't a mean a story can't be nuanced, as is the case with movies like MoS or Excalibur. It absolutely can be. But that nuance is not in any way on display in that particular movie. Making your villain have a plan that people can understand and even, to a degree, sympathize with is just basic characterization unless you're writing children's literature. It does not make him an interesting or deep symbol of fascism. If you want to do that, you have to have some parallel between how he affects the world and how fascism affects it, and that parallel has to be deeper than "has got an army he wants to take over with". That's what I was saying about making fascism attractive. Have a movie where he broadcasts propaganda to the Earth and some people think "hey, this General Zod might actually be a good thing for us", and I might be on board with him being a symbol; that isn't the only way they could do it, of course, but I'd like to have something. BravestOfTheLamps posted:You seem to be imagining whole sequences for the movie. Superman doesn't cathartically "beat the living poo poo out of Zod". The neck-snap is incredibly cathartic yes, but it's cathartic without any wish-fulfilment or power fantasy, which is why it's so hated. No, it's hated because it betrays the ur-myth that gave rise to Superman, which the movie trades on for its premise. Superman is the best of us, so good, in fact, that he has to come from elsewhere, because we can't imagine a human being who is that morally sound. He's an obvious Christ figure. And one of the central things that contributes to this mythology is the fact that Superman always finds the non-lethal solution. It's why when we want "Superman, but with killing", as people have wanted from time to time, we invent other characters to explore that concept. Superman is not just someone who is strong physically, but someone who is strong morally, he's someone who fights for, yes, truth, justice, and the American Way. And that's a thing that could once be said without a trace of irony, because the people writing it and the people reading it believed the American Way to be the most moral thing going. He's a larger-than-life figure. Is that unrealistic? I mean, he's a man who can fly and shoot laser beams from his eyes and punch down buildings. Of course it's loving unrealistic. Making him into just another spandex-clad edgy whiner isn't an interesting take on the character, because it's really just transforming him into a new character, but keeping the name Superman on there for cynical marketing reasons. Superman is our imaginary version of the best possible person, so people hate that scene and that movie because it makes him into something else. Superman has endured for eighty years because we want that character; we want to read about someone fundamentally better than ourselves, sometimes, just as we sometimes want to read about someone fundamentally worse than us, or the same. Although that isn't the only reason, I look forward to the day when there is yet another reboot, and the Zach Snyder version is consigned to dust, and the seventh row of Netflix that nobody bothers to browse to.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:36
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Joe Slowboat posted:See, I think we have a fundamental disagreement on Watchmen. Remember that it was written before the end of the Cold War. If I recall correctly, Moore mentioned that it loses a lot of its themes when the reader isn't currently aware of the possibility of nuclear armageddon. The threat in Watchmen, the fundamental and central threat, isn't something superheroes created. It's just the Cold War. The universe of Watchmen may be different from our own, but from the perspective of the late 80s, I'm not sure it's really worse so much as it's the same but more. So I fundamentally read it not as a comment on what such powerful figures could have done, but what they couldn't have done. He wanted the Cold War, but worse. I mean, I remember the eighties, and what it felt like. Watchmen is an exaggerated version of it; the four-color version, if you will. He used the superheroes as tools to make the world that much crappier, as a way of commenting on the ills of the actual world. I mean, he as much as told us this with the repeated symbol of the Doomsday Clock. He certainly wanted to comment on the terror of living in that time and with that threat, but I don't agree that his central point was "even superheroes couldn't save us". The superheroes are, yes, symbols of moral forces that act on that world. Joe Slowboat posted:Also, while Promethea is certainly a primer on modern occultism of a certain flavor, I will never forgive Moore for getting basic Shivashakti symbolism wrong during his discussion of sexual symbolism in occult practice. He wants a syncretic universal system, but has to invert the actual tradition to make it fit with European cup/wand imagery. (Tongue firmly in cheek for this paragraph, for the record). Ha, fair enough. Joe Slowboat posted:Uuuuuh to get back to the actual webcomic at hand, I think it's worth noting that I don't think we've seen any representation of mass political movements since the first few pages that weren't either Best Character BatBrad's convention or basically that one church from X-Men who hate mutants. For all that Allison's revelation was 'there are other people, we can work together!' there's still no sense of collective effort, so much as atomized and individual efforts by superhumans. Even Valkyrie isn't a mass movement, it's a matchmaking service for individual efforts. Alison has had the revelation that she has to work with other superheroes, but she hasn't yet worked so-called ordinary people into her plans in any meaningful way. I think that's one of her blind spots; the comic has brought this up a few times, too. Remember the soccer game? She didn't think of letting a less talented person help until someone pointed it out to her, and then when they failed, she just sighed theatrically and took over because she cared more about winning than her teammate in that moment.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:43
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idonotlikepeas posted:It absolutely can be. But that nuance is not in any way on display in that particular movie. Making your villain have a plan that people can understand and even, to a degree, sympathize with is just basic characterization unless you're writing children's literature. It does not make him an interesting or deep symbol of fascism. If you want to do that, you have to have some parallel between how he affects the world and how fascism affects it, and that parallel has to be deeper than "has got an army he wants to take over with". That's what I was saying about making fascism attractive. Have a movie where he broadcasts propaganda to the Earth and some people think "hey, this General Zod might actually be a good thing for us", and I might be on board with him being a symbol; that isn't the only way they could do it, of course, but I'd like to have something. Your nonsense criticism is that the movie is This Thing instead of This Other Thing. In fact, you're pretty much describing the movie's sequel where the other title character is the famous sympathetic fascist, Batman. idonotlikepeas posted:No, it's hated because it betrays the ur-myth that gave rise to Superman. Superman is the best of us, so good, in fact, that he has to come from elsewhere, because we can't imagine a human being who is that morally sound. He's an obvious Christ figure. "Ur-myth that gave rise to Superman?" I'm not sure you actually understand Superman, and are instead quoting a single part of All-Star Superman (probably the silliest beat in an otherwise good comic). Grant Morrison himself said that the actual appeal of Superman is that he's an Everyman character squared to absurdity. The interpretation of Superman in MoS is rather close to this in how he's brought back to his proletarian roots. Notice that you aren't even trying to say what makes SFP good anymore. Focus less on your breathless run-on paragraphs. e: The whole psychopathology here is interesting, like how you earnestly wish a reboot to erase the memory of Wrong Superman, as if you were deifying market forces as a righteous judge. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 22:51
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idonotlikepeas posted:That said, the comic makes no bones about its liberal bona fides. Given that liberalism is the objectively correct political side, of course, I have no problem with this. huh.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:54
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idonotlikepeas posted:
This is an incredibly facile, thoughtless disavowal that as directly as possible denies even the existence of systemic problems in order to deny one's own complicity in them. The simple, obvious rejoinder is that he knew Miles the rapist perfectly well, hung out and joked with him and watched him prey on women all cheerfully oblivious, because Miles the rapist and Miles the good buddy we're one and the same and there was no conflict between them. And all the kindly supportive Strong Female Protagonist just quietly nods along and accepts this as Clevin cleansing himself off his sins, rather than being a cowardly worm who on hearing of a rape is firstly and solely concerned that he doesn't have to look or feel bad. This ostensibly ballsy comic has arrived at the radical conclusion that the Nice Guy doesnt need to learn or change anything because his aiding and abetting of rape is a matter of his being hoodwinked by a devious monster in human guise who was fortuitously stabbed to death by a superheroine, and rather than being a rot with deep roots in our society rape culture (and as it it later transpires, our inability to tackle evil generally) is a matter of so many devious outsider Jews poisoning our wells for their own selfish ends, who need to be brought to heel by morally pure ubermenschen, and any talk of reforming our own society is so much conveniently unachievable pie-in-the-sky fancy. It's the premise of the more exceptionally stupid and fascistic Batman or Punisher comics given a soft pastel latte-liberal veneer, without the usual implicit subtext that Frank Castle is a hosed-up sadist who isn't fixing anything and doesn't care to, and that it's fans percieve no disconnect here is a brutal indictment of their 'objectively correct' ideology. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 22:57
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