|
|
Post by Mitth'raw'nuruodo on Mar 18, 2017 15:51:20 GMT
Is it just me, or do there seem to be a lot of homosexual/bisexual characters? I'm not trying to impinge upon anyone, it just seems less than ordinary to me. According to most of the data that I can find, many say 3%, but some do say up to 8%. These are American statistics, British run at about 1.5%.Of the recently focused and main characters, Shadow and Robot (both seem masculine to me, maybe forum consensus is different), Paz and Kat, and Red and Ayilu are. Smitty and Parley are not. Annie I do not know. That seems a bit statistically significant. 75% of the couples are. I'm just wondering if it is breaking anyone else's suspension of disbelief? Couple this with the increasingly uncomfortable endless beatdowns of Annie, and the comic is just becoming less interesting to me. EDIT: I do not want a flamewar. Does posting that you don't want a flamewar, necessitate a flamewar? EDIT II: This is not a troll, and if you are offended, I am sorry. I do not think that I should apologize for asking the question, but it would be rude not to apologize if you are offended. |
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Mar 18, 2017 16:53:57 GMT
You forgot William & Janet, Eggers & Jones, Zimmy & Gamma, Surma & Tony, Anja & Donny, Kamlen & Irial, Jeanne & her unnamed Anwyn, Margo & Sullivan's John, Jack & Jenny. Maybe I even forgot someone. Only one of these couples is homosexual. All the characters I can think of that were not shown in a relationship, but were shown attracted to someone were attracted to someone of the opposite sex (Annie to Kamlen, Diego to Jeanne, Matt to Chang'e, Dr. Disaster to Jones, Renard to Surma, Brinnie to Tony). Seems pretty "standard" to me.
Furthermore, the amount of regular characters in GKC is not high enough to make any reliable statistics from. Man, I just need to look at my surroundings. I work in aircraft maintenance. My colleagues are 300 men and 3 women. One of the women is openly homosexual, none of the men is. On the other side, most of my friends are actors and actresses, and...surprise...about the tenth of the guys is openly gay, and more of the guys and gals are bi. (Or, if you want another comparison, my sister works at the ticket counter for the same airline, and she estimates about 20% of her colleagues there openly living a non-heterosexual lifestyle.)
So, no, a slightly higher than average amount of non-heterosexual characters in this comic does not even scratch my suspension of disbelief.
|
|
|
|
Post by Mitth'raw'nuruodo on Mar 18, 2017 17:15:37 GMT
You forgot William & Janet, Eggers & Jones, Zimmy & Gamma, Surma & Tony, Anja & Donny, Kamlen & Irial, Jeanne & her unnamed Anwyn, Margo & Sullivan's John, Jack & Jenny. Maybe I even forgot someone. Only one of these couples is homosexual. All the characters I can think of that were not shown in a relationship, but were shown attracted to someone were attracted to someone of the opposite sex (Annie to Kamlen, Diego to Jeanne, Matt to Chang'e, Dr. Disaster to Jones, Renard to Surma, Brinnie to Tony). Seems pretty "standard" to me. Except that most of those characters haven't shown up or been focused on in a good hike. My point was recently focused. And it's fine to disagree with. However, even with these characters, the numbers are still pretty skewed. I was making a joke about statistical analysis, but we're still looking at something like a good 25% of the characters are homosexual, and many of those non-homosexual couples have less screen time when added together than one or two of the homosexual ones. It just seems like an over-presentation to me. |
|
|
|
Post by crater on Mar 18, 2017 17:18:14 GMT
Is it just me, or do there seem to be a lot of homosexual/bisexual characters? I'm not trying to impinge upon anyone, it just seems less than ordinary to me. According to most of the data that I can find, many say 3%, but some do say up to 8%. These are American statistics, British run at about 1.5%.Of the recently focused and main characters, Shadow and Robot (both seem masculine to me, maybe forum consensus is different), Paz and Kat, and Red and Ayilu are. Smitty and Parley are not. Annie I do not know. That seems a bit statistically significant. 75% of the couples are. I'm just wondering if it is breaking anyone else's suspension of disbelief? Couple this with the increasingly uncomfortable endless beatdowns of Annie, and the comic is just becoming less interesting to me. EDIT: I do not want a flamewar. Does posting that you don't want a flamewar, necessitate a flamewar? you're missing SOOOO MANY ships dude. and trying to define Shadow + Robot within the narrow view of human gender identity is completely missing the point of Gunnerkrigg Court |
|
|
|
Post by Lightice on Mar 18, 2017 17:23:16 GMT
Except that most of those characters haven't shown up or been focused on in a good hike. My point was recently focused. And it's fine to disagree with. However, even with these characters, the numbers are still pretty skewed. I was making a joke about statistical analysis, but we're still looking at something like a good 25% of the characters are homosexual, and many of those non-homosexual couples have less screen time when added together than one or two of the homosexual ones. It just seems like an over-presentation to me. There is no rule that only 3% of your friends are allowed to be gay. People do not distribute equally across statistics, either in real life or in fiction. It's possible for every person close you to be gay. It's possible that none of them are. It all depends on your social circles, living environment and sheer chance. There is also no quota by which a webcomic, or any other work of fiction, has to represent minorities. It's purely a matter of story and author's discretion. I fail to comprehend why this should be an issue, or why there would be any kind of need for a statistical analysis of character representation inside a single story -- you can find all sorts of interesting implications by studying representation in the scope of yearly publication or a single genre, but trying to perform one based on one, single work of fiction is an exercise in futility. |
|
QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
Posts: 142
|
Post by QuotePilgrim on Mar 18, 2017 17:23:33 GMT
You should consider the fact that, while the overall percentage of homosexual/bisexual people in the world is pretty low, it varies from place to place, and you should expect to find environments where almost everyone is homosexual just by chance.
|
|
|
|
Post by Mitth'raw'nuruodo on Mar 18, 2017 17:24:19 GMT
you're missing SOOOO MANY ships dude. and trying to define Shadow + Robot within the narrow view of human gender identity is completely missing the point of Gunnerkrigg Court That makes little to no sense. Robot is trying to become human, defining him in light of humanity and humanocentric worldviews is what Robot wants. He wants to learn to be like his creator, who is homosexual. So maybe, some continuity here. And I rather don't think I am "completely missing the point of Gunnerkrigg Court", I just don't agree with the direction that the writing has been going recently. The last few chapters have been an Annie-bash-fest, and this latest chapter was just a concise continuation of that trend. The writing, coupled with the topic's point, and a few other things are really breaking my suspension of disbelief. I've been reading this comic since the 5th chapter, and I am steadily losing interest. You should consider the fact that, while the overall percentage of homosexual/bisexual people in the world is pretty low, it varies from place to place, and you should expect to find environments where almost everyone is homosexual just by chance. The best argument by far. I agree. To me though, it is suspension breaking. There is no rule that only 3% of your friends are allowed to be gay. People do not distribute equally across statistics, either in real life or in fiction. It's possible for every person close you to be gay. It's possible that none of them are. It all depends on your social circles, living environment and sheer chance. There is also no quota by which a webcomic, or any other work of fiction, has to represent minorities. It's purely a matter of story and author's discretion. I fail to comprehend why this should be an issue, or why there would be any kind of need for a statistical analysis of character representation inside a single story -- you can find all sorts of interesting implications by studying representation in the scope of yearly publication or a single genre, but trying to perform one based on one, single work of fiction is an exercise in futility. I think you missed the point where I said it was suspension breaking for me. I also am not saying that Gunnerkrigg Court is obligated to follow the averages, nor should we analyse a single work, that was a joke. You can't run analysis on 4 samples. I'm just pointing out that this, along with a few other things, are leading me to lose interest. The comic seems to be becoming slower and slower, and less and less interesting. |
|
QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
Posts: 142
|
Post by QuotePilgrim on Mar 18, 2017 17:37:28 GMT
You should consider the fact that, while the overall percentage of homosexual/bisexual people in the world is pretty low, it varies from place to place, and you should expect to find environments where almost everyone is homosexual just by chance. The best argument by far. I agree. To me though, it is suspension breaking. Sorry, but I don't understand why. If you found yourself in a place, in real life, where most couples you see are same-sex couples, would you then stop believing in reality? Anyway, although I don't see how it could possibly break suspension of disbelief, it did catch my attention that Tom does seem to put more importance into same-sex relationships than into, uh, "regular" ones, so he clearly has a reason for that. Oh, and regarding Red and Ayilu, you should keep in mind that all fairies are female, so Tom didn't really have a choice here, so it doesn't really count IMO. |
|
|
|
Post by warrl on Mar 18, 2017 19:18:03 GMT
The consensus is that Shadow and Robot may perhaps be homoromantic, but there's no evidence that either is anything-sexual. (But, hmm... we know that shadow-people can be killed, so there probably is way of making more of them. We have no details on that...) As for them trying to be human, either or both could be gender-neutral, bi-gender, or agender; my guess would be that Robot is agender, and I offer not even a guess regarding Shadow.
Kat has been a major character in the comic from the beginning; it would be tough to not at least temporarily make someone she's romantic with a major character, without pretty much writing her out as well.
Ayilu was needed for dealing with Jeanne, as were both George and Andrew; Red came along for the ride.
And we have far too few couples for statistical significance.
Get a hundred coins, put them in a bag. Without looking, pick out four coins and slap them on the table. If you do this (putting the coins back after each time) a thousand times, on average you'll get two heads each time - and the odds of you never getting a head is extremely poor. But doing it just once, there's only a 37.5% chance that there will be exactly two heads in the four coins, and there's a 6.25% chance of no heads at all.
|
|
|
|
Post by Lightice on Mar 18, 2017 19:18:33 GMT
I think you missed the point where I said it was suspension breaking for me. I also am not saying that Gunnerkrigg Court is obligated to follow the averages, nor should we analyse a single work, that was a joke. You can't run analysis on 4 samples. I'm just pointing out that this, along with a few other things, are leading me to lose interest. The comic seems to be becoming slower and slower, and less and less interesting. Sorry, but I don't follow. You said that it breaks the suspension of disbelief that more than 3% of the cast is gay. Yet I can assure you that it's not hard to find groups of friends with much higher proportion than that. I also fail to understand how the sexual orientation of the characters is related to how interesting the story is, or how it is paced. None of those things have anything to do with one another. |
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Mar 18, 2017 20:32:06 GMT
You should consider the fact that, while the overall percentage of homosexual/bisexual people in the world is pretty low, it varies from place to place, and you should expect to find environments where almost everyone is homosexual just by chance. The best argument by far. I agree. To me though, it is suspension breaking. There is no rule that only 3% of your friends are allowed to be gay. People do not distribute equally across statistics, either in real life or in fiction. It's possible for every person close you to be gay. It's possible that none of them are. It all depends on your social circles, living environment and sheer chance. There is also no quota by which a webcomic, or any other work of fiction, has to represent minorities. It's purely a matter of story and author's discretion. I fail to comprehend why this should be an issue, or why there would be any kind of need for a statistical analysis of character representation inside a single story -- you can find all sorts of interesting implications by studying representation in the scope of yearly publication or a single genre, but trying to perform one based on one, single work of fiction is an exercise in futility. I think you missed the point where I said it was suspension breaking for me. I also am not saying that Gunnerkrigg Court is obligated to follow the averages, nor should we analyse a single work, that was a joke. You can't run analysis on 4 samples. I'm just pointing out that this, along with a few other things, are leading me to lose interest. The comic seems to be becoming slower and slower, and less and less interesting. Man, you are reading a comic about a girl with magical abilities, who is half human and half fire elemental, is friends with a north american god, a demon fox, a teleporting swordswoman, a wolf in a living tree armour, a girl who is creating flesh bodies for sentient robots, a living shadow, a girl who talks to animals, a sentient, devious robot wo is also a religious cultist and a guy who can control the dice of fate - and all that doesn't break your suspension of disbelief, but the fact that four of those ten are currently in a homosexual relationship does? Seriously? |
|
|
|
Post by Mitth'raw'nuruodo on Mar 18, 2017 22:29:08 GMT
Sorry, but I don't follow. You said that it breaks the suspension of disbelief that more than 3% of the cast is gay. Yet I can assure you that it's not hard to find groups of friends with much higher proportion than that. I also fail to understand how the sexual orientation of the characters is related to how interesting the story is, or how it is paced. None of those things have anything to do with one another. I didn't say 3% and no more. I said that there are more than the usual amount. I showed some statistics that say that about 3% is the average amount, and so this comic has a larger than normal amount. And as far as the interest in the story, this doesn't have anything to do with it, but there are straws that break camels backs. If it doesn't bother you, excellent. It bothers me, because it doesn't seem to mirror reality. Willing suspension of disbelief, or secondary belief, means that you should attempt to mirror reality as well as possible, excepting your caveats that make the story fictional. Personally, the writing of Antimony's constant beatdowns, the slowdown of advancement (save for Jeanne, and even that seemed slow to me), and the odd emphasis on couples, especially prevalently homosexual ones, is immersion breaking. I'm not offended by the comic, I'm not suggesting that anyone stop reading. It just doesn't seem to be as good as it used to be. Man, you are reading a comic about a girl with magical abilities, who is half human and half fire elemental, is friends with a north american god, a demon fox, a teleporting swordswoman, a wolf in a living tree armour, a girl who is creating flesh bodies for sentient robots, a living shadow, a girl who talks to animals, a sentient, devious robot wo is also a religious cultist and a guy who can control the dice of fate - and all that doesn't break your suspension of disbelief, but the fact that four of those ten are currently in a homosexual relationship does? Seriously? Yes. Sorry, but I don't understand why. If you found yourself in a place, in real life, where most couples you see are same-sex couples, would you then stop believing in reality? No, but I would probably seek an explanation. Maybe its chance; maybe there is a convention down the street. Anyway, although I don't see how it could possibly break suspension of disbelief, it did catch my attention that Tom does seem to put more importance into same-sex relationships than into, uh, "regular" ones, so he clearly has a reason for that. This is all I'm pointing out too. This was the crux of my initial question, does anyone else notice the higher than average prevalence of homosexual couples. Again, it is slightly immersion breaking for me. Oh, and regarding Red and Ayilu, you should keep in mind that all fairies are female, so Tom didn't really have a choice here, so it doesn't really count IMO. This most likely wouldn't bother me if there were less homosexual couples. I don't need more heterosexual couples, in fact, I'd rather there be fewer couples. Adolescent relationships are very seldom this stable. |
|
|
|
Post by somebunny on Mar 19, 2017 2:46:22 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by wombat on Mar 19, 2017 3:43:28 GMT
As for the question, no, it is not suspension breaking to me at all.
As for what I'd like to see, how about some more gay? If anything, it's not queer enough for me. What about Muut? Is he gay? Do we have definite proof Anja isn't bisexual? This is Important Information™.
|
|
QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
Posts: 142
|
Post by QuotePilgrim on Mar 19, 2017 4:49:08 GMT
Again, it is slightly immersion breaking for me. And I am simply incapable of understading why that is. I mean, why the hell would a story where most couples are same-sex couples be any less believable than a story where all the main characters have superpowers, or a story where there are zombies/ghosts/whatever? It genuinely makes less than zero sense to me. That said, I do think the question of why Tom gives such proeminence to same-sex couples is a valid one, but can only be answered by Tom himself. The most likely, I think, is that he's unsatisfied with the lack of same-sex couples in the stories he's read, and so decided to put a bunch of them in his own. But I could be wrong; maybe he just so happens to know a lot more LGBT people than the average person, simpy by chance; maybe he's just doing it for the heck of it, without any real reason, which is IMO as valid a reason as any. Whatever the answer is, I don't think it really matters. I don't want to sound like a dick, so I apologize if I do, but I think if the predominance of same-sex couples in a story bothers a reader so much (or at all), the issue is absolutely not with the story, but with the reader. |
|
|
|
Post by Lightice on Mar 19, 2017 8:30:24 GMT
I said that there are more than the usual amount. I showed some statistics that say that about 3% is the average amount, and so this comic has a larger than normal amount. There is no such thing as "usual amount" or "normal amount" among any specific group of people. We've been trough this already; there is no such thing as maximum quota of gay friends, either in real life or in fiction. All the people in your circle of acquaintances could be gay or none of them could. People don't distribute evenly, and frankly it would be vastly more immersion-breaking to see a group of people in fiction that fits perfectly into the social demographics on the societal level. Sorry, but as explained to you several times by no, these character demographics don't mirror reality any less than any other. Which you already agreed to, only to make a 180 degree turn all over again. It's starting to look to me that you're not really interested in a constructive conversation here, just winding up this single issue up and down for your own amusement. |
|
|
|
Post by snowflake on Mar 19, 2017 8:58:02 GMT
You forgot William & Janet, Eggers & Jones, Zimmy & Gamma, Surma & Tony, Anja & Donny, Kamlen & Irial, Jeanne & her unnamed Anwyn, Margo & Sullivan's John, Jack & Jenny. Maybe I even forgot someone. You forgot Bud and Lindsey. As for realism, how do you expect realism in a story full of fantastical creatures and magical people? Who even knows how their sexualities are set up, what if the in-universe laws of nature are that sapient magical crab people are 100% hetero, while fairies and girls who can understand animals are always queer, etc. |
|
QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
Posts: 142
|
Post by QuotePilgrim on Mar 19, 2017 14:06:47 GMT
Willing suspension of disbelief, or secondary belief, means that you should attempt to mirror reality as well as possible, excepting your caveats that make the story fictional. I missed that part before because I skimmed your comment rather than reading it, but I have to say, that is not at all correct. From TVTropes (emphasis added): "An author's work, in other words, does not have to be realistic, only believable and internally consistent." Meaning the only thing a story has to maintain is its internal consistency, and only when that is broken should the willing suspension of disbelief of the audience be broken as well. A story doesn't need to mimic reality as closely as possible. It doesn't need to mimic reality at all, in fact. If you think it does, you need to read more. Now, I'll give you some credit, and cite another passage from TVTropes: "Of course, different people will have different thresholds for what they're willing to accept in a work, and what may break one person's willing suspension of disbelief may not necessarily have the same effect on another." The issue I have with your arguments is that, as I said before, I simply can't comprehend why the thing that is breaking your suspension of disbelief would break anyone's suspension of disbelief at all. Your justifications for that are simply not convincing to me. That's like having your suspension of disbelief being broken by the fact Annie's natural hair color doesn't exist in reality or, similarly, by the fact that blue, green, pink, etc seem to be natural hair colors in many anime without any justification. |
|
|
|
Post by Deepbluediver on Mar 19, 2017 14:26:17 GMT
Is it just me, or do there seem to be a lot of homosexual/bisexual characters? I'm not trying to impinge upon anyone, it just seems less than ordinary to me. According to most of the data that I can find, many say 3%, but some do say up to 8%. These are American statistics, British run at about 1.5%.Of the recently focused and main characters, Shadow and Robot (both seem masculine to me, maybe forum consensus is different), Paz and Kat, and Red and Ayilu are. Smitty and Parley are not. Annie I do not know. That seems a bit statistically significant. 75% of the couples are. I'm just wondering if it is breaking anyone else's suspension of disbelief? Couple this with the increasingly uncomfortable endless beatdowns of Annie, and the comic is just becoming less interesting to me. EDIT: I do not want a flamewar. Does posting that you don't want a flamewar, necessitate a flamewar? IMO there's a wide range of romantic and sexual variations on attraction for humans alone, assuming you could even seperate out the genetic component from th cultural one. It seems to me like a goodly portion of these characters are just trying out different sorts of relationships in a judgement free environment. And given how most of them are minors, the idea that these are sexual relationships can get a little squicky. A bunch of hormonal teenagers experimenting with love and romance in different combinations for the first time seems seems perfectly reasonable to me. For my part, the REALLY unbelievable part would be to assume that every one of these characters will still be partnered up with the same people 10 or 20 years down the line. And that doesn't even get into whatever non-human entities might think or feel. I think the Greek versions of love would be better to describe some of these relationships than modern, western concepts: www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/the-ancient-greeks-6-words-for-love-and-why-knowing-them-can-change-your-life |
|
|
|
Post by warrl on Mar 19, 2017 16:55:24 GMT
For my part, the REALLY unbelievable part would be to assume that every one of these characters will still be partnered up with the same people 10 or 20 years down the line. With the emphasis on "every one". George and Andrew are old enough that their relationship surviving that long, while probably not the majority case, would not be really surprising. Kat and Paz are young enough that it would be surprising - but it DOES happen in real life. Just rarely. And here, too, we have far too few cases for statistics to matter. Bud and Lindsey, with their species' extreme sexual dimorphism, homosexuality would be... um... probably seriously inconvenient. Homoromanticism, on the other hand, would not pose any more obvious difficulties than it does with humans. On a meta level... when an author is writing a story with teens as major characters but NOT writing a teen-romance comedy or tragedy, teen romances - and the breaks between them for any given character - probably are significantly more durable on average than they are in real life. And the breakups more amicable in the short term. Simply so that the breakups and linkups don't take over the story. |
|
|
|
Post by lisanela on Mar 19, 2017 17:15:31 GMT
Everyone around me is gay and asian, including me - yet where are all the gay asian characters? I wish this comic reflected reality because now it's starting to look like over-representation of *looks at smudged writing on hand* narutosexuals instead of what is truly out there, Gay Asians™.
|
|
|
|
Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 19, 2017 19:37:47 GMT
Welcome back to the forum, Admiral! Is it just me, or do there seem to be a lot of homosexual/bisexual characters? I'm not trying to impinge upon anyone, it just seems less than ordinary to me. According to most of the data that I can find, many say 3%, but some do say up to 8%. These are American statistics, British run at about 1.5%.I cannot find the source here or on Chrysoprax's search engine for the Formspring but I believe the author once said something to the effect that the comic was about the secret life(s) of strange girl(s). That focus may account for the apparent statistical discrepancy. Also, I agree with the sentiment that the majority of the central characters are still young and their preferences may not be fully established/fixed. Does posting that you don't want a flamewar, necessitate a flamewar? I recall that a diplomat once said, "It is a war only if you make it so." It should be noted that while he was saying this, fighters and bombers belonging to the power he represented were just finishing an assault on a strategic port after having destroyed many ships and killed a significant number of personnel. And an invasion force was en route to occupy another strategic place. That said, if the other power had capitulated there would have been no war following those actions. I suppose any action or inaction may necessitate war depending on the circumstances and the perceived interests. |
|
|
|
Post by Mitth'raw'nuruodo on Mar 19, 2017 20:01:40 GMT
There is no such thing as "usual amount" or "normal amount" among any specific group of people. We've been trough this already; there is no such thing as maximum quota of gay friends, either in real life or in fiction. All the people in your circle of acquaintances could be gay or none of them could. People don't distribute evenly, and frankly it would be vastly more immersion-breaking to see a group of people in fiction that fits perfectly into the social demographics on the societal level. That is where you are wrong. Statistical averages are the norm. Of course there isn't a maximum quota, but you seem to be consistently misrepresenting what I am saying. Of course you could have a group of friends that is entirely white, straight males, but that wouldn't be a normal distribution of things. And since homosexuality is even more rare than non-white males, or non-males, it just seems a little unusual to me. Sorry, but as explained to you several times by no, these character demographics don't mirror reality any less than any other. Which you already agreed to, only to make a 180 degree turn all over again. It's starting to look to me that you're not really interested in a constructive conversation here, just winding up this single issue up and down for your own amusement. It seems to me that you are unwilling to see that I am not making any turns. If you have 100% a gay-friend circle, excellent, however, that would not be the usual amount of people as per normal distribution of people in the world. I am trying to offend, and I don't think I have anymore to say on this issue. The issue I have with your arguments is that, as I said before, I simply can't comprehend why the thing that is breaking your suspension of disbelief would break anyone's suspension of disbelief at all. Your justifications for that are simply not convincing to me. That's like having your suspension of disbelief being broken by the fact Annie's natural hair color doesn't exist in reality or, similarly, by the fact that blue, green, pink, etc seem to be natural hair colors in many anime without any justification. The strange hair colors in anime is immersion breaking for me. I understand it isn't comprehensible to you, but that it alright. To an earlier point, using humans in a story is a short-hand for "these humans are just like normal humans in the real world", to whit; they should be like humans in reality. Without establishing that these particular humans are substantially different, which Tom may have done, they should seek to be similar to reality. Welcome back to the forum, Admiral! Thank you. I cannot find the source here or on Chrysoprax's search engine for the Formspring but I believe the author once said something to the effect that the comic was about the secret life(s) of strange girl(s). That focus may account for the apparent statistical discrepancy. I can understand. My understanding of the basic layout of this world may just be skewed then. I suppose any action or inaction may necessitate war depending on the circumstances and the perceived interests. I am a little surprised at the fact that many of the posters here seem to not understand that someone could have an opinion, or even immersion breaking event, different from theirs. At this point, I think that simply offering dissent may have caused a parva bellum. |
|
|
|
Post by Lightice on Mar 19, 2017 20:28:12 GMT
That is where you are wrong. Statistical averages are the norm. Of course there isn't a maximum quota, but you seem to be consistently misrepresenting what I am saying. Of course you could have a group of friends that is entirely white, straight males, but that wouldn't be a normal distribution of things. And since homosexuality is even more rare than non-white males, or non-males, it just seems a little unusual to me. Statistical averages are, by definition, not the norm. They are the average that applies to extremely few people as is. For example, 50% of the people are smarter than average, the other 50% are dumber. Barely anyone fits in the middle. Averages are meaningful when measuring large populations, but utterly useless at any other function. Everybody is "little unusual" from a statistical perspective. And the people who make up Gunnerkrigg Court's population are so far off the scale of average that they don't even measure on the radar. The idea that you expect the characters in a story set in a location that collects highly unusual individuals from across the world, many of whom are not even completely human, to fit into any kind of statistical averages is downright absurd. You said for yourself, "I also am not saying that Gunnerkrigg Court is obligated to follow the averages, nor should we analyse a single work, that was a joke. You can't run analysis on 4 samples". Yet immediately afterwards you are trying to impose the very same statistical analysis that you just said does not make sense. As has been told to you several times, people do not distribute evenly. At all. You will be hard-pressed to find a single circle of acquaintances from this planet who fit in the demographical average of their region. |
|
|
|
Post by exterminatecake on Mar 19, 2017 21:01:07 GMT
I'm guessing you would find my real life friend circle unrealistic. Of everyone I know and interact with, 10 are transgender, and of those, 9 are bi/pan/gay. We also have 2 cisgendered bisexual friends. I think I am friends with exactly 1 cisgendered heterosexual person.
|
|
|
|
Post by warrl on Mar 19, 2017 21:03:58 GMT
You will be hard-pressed to find a single circle of acquaintances from this planet who fit in the demographical average of their region. In fact, nearly every identifiable group of people are selected (even if self-selected) for some degree of commonality that makes them different from the average. (And I only say "nearly" because that sort of sweeping statement almost always has a weird exception.) Your online friends? They are all computer-literate, whereas much of the population is not - even in first-world countries. They choose to frequent some of the same forums and social-media sites that you do, probably for similar reasons, and there is no single such place that has even a majority of active online users. For the more generalist sites, there are some specific reasons those people were drawn to your attention and merited your continuing attention (or you were drawn to theirs, as the case may be). For the more focused forums - take this one as an example: most of the public doesn't read webcomics, and most of those who do don't read Gunnerkrigg Court, and most of those who don't read Gunnerkrigg Court probably wouldn't find it interesting, but WE DO. A completely average identifiable group would be an extreme oddity. |
|
|
|
Post by Deepbluediver on Mar 19, 2017 21:21:32 GMT
I wonder what the sex-ed classes are like at GKC? Imagine Ms. Jones standing up in front of a class of forest creatures and trying to explain what a "condom" is. Anyway... In literature, the scholarly/scientific types tend not to go for large families (Annie and Kat are only children) which is possibly part of the reason the court recruits so much from outside it's borders (Paz, Zimmy & Gamma, etc). With the emphasis on "every one". George and Andrew are old enough that their relationship surviving that long, while probably not the majority case, would not be really surprising. Kat and Paz are young enough that it would be surprising - but it DOES happen in real life. Just rarely. And here, too, we have far too few cases for statistics to matter. Bud and Lindsey, with their species' extreme sexual dimorphism, homosexuality would be... um... probably seriously inconvenient. Homoromanticism, on the other hand, would not pose any more obvious difficulties than it does with humans. On a meta level... when an author is writing a story with teens as major characters but NOT writing a teen-romance comedy or tragedy, teen romances - and the breaks between them for any given character - probably are significantly more durable on average than they are in real life. And the breakups more amicable in the short term. Simply so that the breakups and linkups don't take over the story. I think one of the biggest reasons young(er) couples break up is the geographic distance, i.e. highschool sweethearts go off to separate colleges, meet other people, and so on and so forth. If everyone sticks around GKC then I think the odds of any given couple remaining together go up somewhat, but I'd still put most of the human-human relationships at less than 50% chance of sticking together long term, with exceptions to those already married like Anja and Donald. EXCEPT for as you said, Tom not wanting the romance aspects to overwhelm the rest of the story. |
|
|
|
Post by Zox Tomana on Mar 20, 2017 4:52:34 GMT
I have noticed it. It doesn't break my suspension of disbelief. I know that there are more people and, surely, more couples out there in the Court. We have a very small snapshot of the population, a small snapshot (even) of Annie's class.
Does it feel like an overrepresentation? Meh. When Kat and Paz came along I was fine with it. Robot and Shadow are... Robot and Shadow, and it was a bit odd. This new one came up and it wasn't unnaturally done at first. It's nowhere near like the 00's when, for a run there on American TV, I swear it felt like every show popped a gay character into existence (or said an existing character was such) in order to be able to say "Hey, we got a gay one!" and it was super awkwardly done and just... bad. Sometimes I feel like certain webcomics can over-present LGBT characters (only some can get away with "birds of a feather flock together" explanations), and it gets a little preachy on the "HEY GUYS IT'S NORMAL. SEE. LOOK. IT'S NORMAL." front, but GKC has not struck me thusly. (not very strongly, at least)
I also don't feel like the past few chapters have been an Annie-bash. It's this last chapter very specifically that has taken me out of the story and gotten me to think about that fact that it is a story, and think about the writing and the character presentation, and generally set off all the authorial/literary criticism buzzers programmed into my head. It's just been a big episode of whiplash because it was so very different compared to previous chapters, even chapters where Annie has gotten ragged on. Given Tom's previous showcase I trust there's something going on here, but it was more this chapter itself that has taken me out of the story, vs. the fact that we have one more gay couple on the list.
|
|
|
|
Post by red4bestgirl on Mar 20, 2017 5:36:49 GMT
It seems like the Court is pretty secular and liberal in general philosophy. You'd expect more gay couples just from that fact; there's no major drive, as far as I can tell, to repress it.
And honestly it's a silly thing to worry about. The casts of narrative fiction are never really perfectly realistic in their representation anyway, and generally the problem is under-representation of queer characters, not the reverse. If you're not as interested in a work because it bucks the trend slightly in the other direction maybe you do in fact have homophobic beliefs or prejudices you should deal with.
|
|
|
|
Post by Daedalus on Mar 20, 2017 6:56:50 GMT
OH GOD NO, NOT THIS AGAIN
|
|
