gergle
Junior Member
Posts: 51 
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Post by gergle on Mar 20, 2017 7:20:38 GMT
Have you read the Kinsey report? Almost no one is "Straight", almost no one is "Gay". We are almost all of us Bi, and it applies on differrent levels. Romantic, sexual, how we view ourselves... All very complicated and completely not worth worrying about.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 20, 2017 7:31:47 GMT
OH GOD NO, NOT THIS AGAIN You are on the internet. |
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Post by foxurus on Mar 20, 2017 8:47:57 GMT
Red and Ayilu broke my suspension of disbelief a bit. It doesn't really make sense to me that fairies would have romantic inclinations. But then, every time fairy society comes up it takes me out of the story, so maybe I just don't like fairies.
I did have a knee-jerk "is he trying to make a point?/this feels like overcompensation" reaction at one point, but I think that's just my bias.
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Post by philman on Mar 20, 2017 9:01:27 GMT
I do see where you are coming from, I had some similar thoughts about the high proportion of same-sex relationships amongst the main cast of the comic, especially when I realised about Zimmy and Gamma ages after everyone else figured them out. And I do think some of the responses to you are more about explaining why all this is ok (which of course it is) rather than understanding why someone would find it unusual. We don't see the majority of the Court students so perhaps the rest of the Court has a more "normal" distribution.
But on the other hand, of these relationships: One is between two fairies, one is between a robot and a shadow creature, one is between a demon child and her psychic friend, and finally only one is between two normal girls (albeit one is a technological genius and the other is a young Dr Dolittle). So I decided to just forget about it and enjoy the comic.
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Post by Mitth'raw'nuruodo on Mar 20, 2017 14:02:06 GMT
I do see where you are coming from, I had some similar thoughts about the high proportion of same-sex relationships amongst the main cast of the comic, especially when I realised about Zimmy and Gamma ages after everyone else figured them out. And I do think some of the responses to you are more about explaining why all this is ok (which of course it is) rather than understanding why someone would find it unusual. This has been the most confusing part of this discussion. I have to keep coming back and defending the fact that I can find certain things unusual rather than having a discussion about the subject. But on the other hand, of these relationships: One is between two fairies, one is between a robot and a shadow creature, one is between a demon child and her psychic friend, and finally only one is between two normal girls (albeit one is a technological genius and the other is a young Dr Dolittle). So I decided to just forget about it and enjoy the comic. Not bad advice. OH GOD NO, NOT THIS AGAIN You are on the internet. I also don't see how discussion should be banned. Especially since we aren't even discussing the merits of it, rather just that it exists. Have you read the Kinsey report? Almost no one is "Straight", almost no one is "Gay". We are almost all of us Bi, and it applies on differrent levels. Romantic, sexual, how we view ourselves... All very complicated and completely not worth worrying about. As a college biology professor (animal behavior, mammalogy), I have a knee-jerk reaction about psychology. |
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Post by fia on Mar 20, 2017 14:21:13 GMT
Can we get a mod to shut this down, by any chance? (I know it's hard for you to understand, Mitth'raw'nuruodo, but questioning the prevalence or believability of gay or nonbinary relationships is pretty homophobic, offensive, and hurtful to everyone involved. Moreover, the premise of your question makes no room for dissent. Your question basically boils down to, "Is it too gay in here, or is it just me?" To which many people are, naturally, emphatically answering, "NO". But you seem to be waiting around for someone to defend you, which is not going to happen, because you are not really assessing the merit of your own inquiry. So if no one deletes your thread please apologize, delete it yourself, and go home.) |
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Post by faiiry on Mar 20, 2017 16:00:20 GMT
I’ve been reading the comic for six or seven years, and I’ve been content with just browsing the forums so far (even through the ridiculous PazKat debacle), but this thread is remarkable enough that I had to comment. Personally I think the idea that gay characters ruin your perception of the comic is kinda silly. You can’t enjoy the comic because it doesn’t “mirror reality” anymore? Huh??? It’s a story about fire-people, magic-people, animal whisperers, gods, and fairies, and through every magical twist you’re still enraptured, but two girls being romantically interested in one another is what ruins it all for you in terms of realism? Even typing it out made me roll my eyes. There is an overrepresentation of fire elementals, robot gods and Spanish characters in the story, and yet people still manage to read and enjoy it. Actually, now that I think about it, there are three characters in the main cast who are explicitly foreign. That’s 20-30% of the main cast, for crying out loud! Obviously the author is trying to shove his immigration politics down our throats. If you look hard enough, there are probably dozens of ways Gunnerkrigg Court doesn’t mirror reality, even besides the obvious magical ones. Make a thread and complain about the amount of foreign-born characters as a statistical anomaly as well, and then I’ll take you seriously. Until then, I think everyone who agrees with the OP should just come out (pun intended) and plainly say that the idea of homosexuality is what makes you uncomfortable, because the assertion that you don’t like the inclusion of queer characters because “it’s not realistic”—in a fantasy comic where none of the rules of the world apply—is pretty unbelievable. Postscript: It wasn’t just this thread that prompted me to make an account and comment; it was the comments below the comic pages, as well. For years people have expressed discomfort with the idea of Kat, Paz, Robot, Shadow, the fairies or who-the-heck-ever possibly being gay, and yet for some reason they’ve sugarcoated their discomfort with nonsensical excuses like “Oh, it ruins Kat’s character for me,” or “Oh, I just can’t imagine it, it’s unrealistic.” Just come out and say it! You don’t like gay people! It didn’t ‘ruin so-and-so’s character’ when any of the heterosexual couples came into existence—at least, not to any noticeable level compared to the outright uproar that occurred when Kat and Paz became a couple. People aren’t comfortable with being outright homophobic—at least, not publicly, not most of the time—but they’re comfortable enough to make waves about gay couples existing in the comic, even if their distaste is disguised with excuses. It makes me a little sad, and a little angry, and a lot annoyed and exasperated. We should be beyond this. C’mon, guys. Post-postscript: Gosh, I couldn't help myself from writing an essay. If you really want me to break it down, we’ve been given reasons as to why there are more gay people in the court than in the regular world. Traditional rules don’t apply in the court, and people are more comfortable with ‘untraditional’ relationships. That's a decent reason for why things might statistically be a little different. Although I don’t see why four gay couples, compared to dozens of straight ones, bothers you so much if it’s just statistics you’re worried about. Let’s also remember that Parley/Smitty, Janet/William, Jones/Eggers, Eggers/Surma, Surma/Tony, Anja/Donald, Jeanne/her man, Bud/Lindsey, Margo/John, Kamlen/Irial, Jack/Jenny and Bob/Marcia also exist in the comic. And I’m just counting the confirmed ones! Not to mention Jack/Antimony, Tony/Brinnie, Paz/Matt, Mort/Antimony, Matt/Chang'e, Jack/Zimmy, Renard/Surma, Kat/every robot ever, Antimony/Kamlen, Antimony/fishboy, and Jones/Randy, all of which are briefly implied romantic connections and all of which are heterosexual. The romantic connections number 20 (I'm not counting some of the sillier ones like Annie/fishboy—as if). Add the four gay couples (one of whom, Zimmy/Gamma, is only dubiously a couple), and that makes 24. 4/24 is a mere sixteen percent. Sixteen percent of the couples in the comic are gay, which I think is a reasonable number, especially for a place where traditional values are specifically discouraged (again, refer to this). I personally think that in a non-traditional place like Gunnerkrigg Court, where people are raised in a destigmatized environment where all relationships are acceptable, there would be an enormously increased number of bisexuals compared to the ‘traditional’ regular world. In fact I’d wager that a huge percentage of the characters in the comic are bisexual, if only because of the destigmatized worldview they’re raised with. (Like someone said above, almost no one is entirely gay or entirely straight. There's a scale, and if you're raised in a world where your position on that scale doesn't matter, you're less likely to be picky about who you're hot for.) And both Kat and Paz are clearly bisexual. Kat’s interest in Aly was romantic, she becomes aflutter at the sight of shirtless Muut, and things are less clear but still evident here. Not to mention all the two billion times she’s been hot for Eggers. Paz is less obvious, but remember that one time she showed a clear interest in Matt, which indicates to me that she, too, is bi. I don’t know whether bisexual characters are more realistic to you than gay ones, but I’ve made my argument. (Dunno about Red/Ayilu, since neither of them has ever expressed interest in anyone else but each other.) Personally, given the world and the values we've been presented, I think the idea that every character in Gunnerkrigg Court is bisexual is actually more realistic than the idea that even 50% of them are straight. I have another argument up my sleeve: if you think gay characters are unrealistic, just remove 3/4 of them with The Power of Logic. Zimmy and Gamma are not explicitly together-together, although they have a very strong bond, and you could write them off as Just Gals Being Pals if you wanted. (The author has waffled around the issue, but from the way I’ve interpreted his answers on the subject, I don’t think Zimmy and Gamma are intended to be a romantic couple in the traditional sense. Interpret it for yourself.) As for Shadow and Robot, they both use male pronouns, but technically they’re both genderless fantasy people from another universe, and if you think their being gay is a statistical anomaly then I don’t see why you couldn’t just think of them as genderless or something. Boom! Yay problem sort of solved. And as for the fairies, if the existence of more than one gay couple takes you out of the comic, then I don’t see why you can’t just imagine Red and Ayilu as reeeeeeeeally good Gal Pals who love each other and look at each other with hearts floating around their faces, because technically they haven’t kissed or outright said “we’re dating” yet. Boom! Problem solved! So the only absolutely explicitly gay couple is Kat and Paz, and that’s one out of many confirmed romantic connections in the comic, and I don’t see why that should be any kind of problem. (This entire paragraph is half-sarcastic if you couldn't tell, but I sorta had fun writing it, at least.) And on top of all I’ve said, it’s a flippin’ fantasy comic and it’s allowed to be as unrealistic as the author darn well wants it to be and if Anja being a robot master with psychic powers doesn’t bother you then I don’t see why a few gay couples should either. And to add another postcript, to echo what the poster above me said, it is NOT too gay in here, and let's crank up the gay by another 16% because it's a fantasy comic and why the hell not. It doesn't bother me, and judging by the enormous popularity of the comic it doesn't bother a ton of other people either. And it's kind of nice to see someone like me represented in a popular fantasy comic (that isn't porn) for once in a blue moon. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 20, 2017 16:59:13 GMT
I also don't see how discussion should be banned. Especially since we aren't even discussing the merits of it, rather just that it exists. It is not banned and I am not suggesting that it should be banned. It is rarely engaged in because of the propensity for others to assign motives or attitudes that would derail any productive discussion. My point, perhaps ill-made, was that a certain amount of rancor is to be expected when some topics are breached. Actually I am in favor of this discussion. The internet is for discussion and the forum is for discussing the comic. I do see where you are coming from, I had some similar thoughts about the high proportion of same-sex relationships amongst the main cast of the comic, especially when I realised about Zimmy and Gamma ages after everyone else figured them out. And I do think some of the responses to you are more about explaining why all this is ok (which of course it is) rather than understanding why someone would find it unusual. This has been the most confusing part of this discussion. I have to keep coming back and defending the fact that I can find certain things unusual rather than having a discussion about the subject. While the sample size and genre would seem to make statistical analysis useless here, literary or meta analysis can be applied. I think it is fair to observe patterns in the characters that an author focuses on and to comment if the pattern becomes significant enough that it changes perceptions of other aspects of the story. |
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Post by Daedalus on Mar 20, 2017 17:08:01 GMT
I also don't see how discussion should be banned. Especially since we aren't even discussing the merits of it, rather just that it exists. To clarify: I did not say this topic should be banned. It has just been discussed before, and the last time it came up, it spawned a notorious 25-page flame war that led to Tom dropping the banhammer on multiple users. So I was understandably skittish about seeing it raise its head again. Nothing personal against you, sorry. |
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Post by Runningflame on Mar 20, 2017 18:51:51 GMT
Zimmy and Gamma are not explicitly together-together, although they have a very strong bond, and you could write them off as Just Gals Being Pals if you wanted. (The author has waffled around the issue, but from the way I’ve interpreted his answers on the subject, I don’t think Zimmy and Gamma are intended to be a romantic couple in the traditional sense. Interpret it for yourself.) I wasn't going to post anything on this thread, but I want to register my agreement on this point. Zimmy and Gamma's relationship has always seemed more mother-child to me than anything, or maybe big-sister-little-sister. ( Annie and Jack's impressions come from two outside observers and are not infallible.) Tom's comments only serve to confirm my preconceived notion, so thanks for linking that.  |
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Post by jabbie on Mar 20, 2017 19:09:26 GMT
Of course we’ve all noticed it… but for THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of fictional media, the opposite is true. It DOES stretch credibility …. that there are NO queer or gender non-conforming main characters in so many other works of fiction that are regarded as everlasting classics (and lets not get into the ratio of men/women). Without being able to speak for Tom, I can guess that what you’re seeing in Gunnerkrigg is a very deliberate (and in my opinion pretty well executed) effort to represent a range of different kinds of relationships, and to toss a bone to those of us craving some equal representation at the same time. This is a comic about (mostly female) friendship, power dynamics, and prejudice. It makes perfect sense to me that the characters we focus on most in the story are those that live and love in defiance of rules: we’ve got robot/forest creature, human/forest dweller, human/eldritch horror, human/god, human/immortal stone creature?, human/bird-person, fairy/fairy (are there even male fairies in this universe?), fairy/rabbit…. and then of course older woman/younger man and woman/woman relationships at the forefront. Not to mention the universally appealing unrequited love story…. No one is going to argue that you, personally, should or shouldn’t enjoy a piece of fiction for ANY reason - your opinion is the only one that matters when it comes to what media you consume. But you’re getting push back because you’re implying its poor writing to have this many non-heterosexual romantic relationships at the forefront, when many of us absolutely love this story for exactly the thing you’re criticizing, and have ourselves waded through thousands of pages of straight sword-wielding men in cookie-cutter Medieval Fantasy worlds to get here. I did have a knee-jerk "is he trying to make a point?/this feels like overcompensation" reaction at one point, but I think that's just my bias. I would argue that he is trying to make a point, but I personally dont feel its overcompensating. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2017 20:26:53 GMT
As I see it, an author can choose to diverge from "reality" wherever it fits what he wants to express. Internal consistency matters most. A whimsical author towers over you with the wildest baroque array of impressions, but when you revisit them in memory, they stagger and fail to connect. Call it style, call it spinal: you know that current of a world making sense, of danger and division and precarious intimacy -- not like walking on water, but like emulating someone walking on water.
Lazy aphorism: Greek masons did not choose to hew the average human, even from average marble.
Sometimes, an apparent motif (in this case, homosexuality) can form part of a different, overarching motif, or they intertwine via some shared detail. For instance, Annie and Kat have been associated with fire and water, the sun and the moon, a pair of triangles pointing upwards and downwards. The former is an alchemical symbol for fire. The Greek prepositions "aná" and "katá" cover, in the general sense (foreign-language prepositions are some of the most stubborn words to refute one's premature judgment), meanings of "upward" and "downward" (though also "land-inward" and "coastward", for example). Kat's attraction to Paz may just be narrative necessity just as Annie's long hair or long sleeves used to be, and the dissolution of such oppositions between our two "main characters", but also between e.g. Shadow and Robot, or the robots internally (ironically as the Court-Forest political tension seems to increase) may indicate that the "second act" of Gunnerkrigg has begun (Tom even has had Kat remark on this: "You're supposed to have long hair! I'm the one with short hair!")
This exact trick was already known to and employed by Tolstoy (well, there we have Anna and a differently Anglicized Ekaterina). Not that this makes Tom any less inventive, because what matters is not so much which "tropes" are used, but how they are used together (Tom himself once commented on that, cf. Slapwankles Tetra-Inversion Principle) -- just as the pianist does not consider his individual digits, just as the chess grandmaster moves not pieces but rather game-states. The Annie-Kat "device" is easily tied into further play with opposites -- electricity, for instance. The ultimate purpose of such combinations is inexpressible and joyful.
I hope I made myself clear. I rarely do that these days. Usually I make strained anti-jokes based on books I like (here I forgot the joke).
Edit: Perhaps it's as simple as this -- some prefer realism, some prefer verisimilitude -- but I don't think it's as close-cut, since a "realist" might see something as clutter where a "verisimilitudinist" (abominable word; "realist" also only exists on the mercy of its attractive brevity) might hit a keystone, or vice versa (such as following Bloom, the merchant of Dublin, to the outhouse; incidentally, I recently looked up the etymology of "cuckstool"; it's another example of motif integration) even when life is ripe at the frills with dead-ends of inconsequential carelessness.
Edit II: Just in case, because I imagine that someone will think that Anna/Kitty are a stretch: Tolstoy began writing that novel in 1873, and had begun his studies of Ancient Greek in ~1870.
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Post by lisanela on Mar 20, 2017 21:34:09 GMT
To write a more serious reply: we notice these relationships and sexual orientations because they do not fit the "default character", not because we're all magically tuned to a statistics database. One can justify their surprise at the "abundance" of gay themes in Gunnerkrigg with numbers (which are incredibly debatable for various reasons) or their own life experience ("that's not the reality I live!"), one can explain these characters by saying that Gunnerkrigg is a wonderful place with dragons and gods and sentient robots so "why does it matter" etc....but the topic exists because we noticed characters who do not fit the "default character" (white, thin, heterosexual..), and we don't ever question that "default".
How many people made topics about how practically no one in Gunnerkrigg Court is overweight or chubby? How many cited statistics about it? No one seems to care about that. We don't ever question that -even though many people around us are not thin- because it's not a fictional standard. We don't question the lack of black characters, or asian characters, or any minority whatsoever. Or at least not as much as we question the number of gay characters. If suddenly Tom decided to put three asian characters in his story, there would be topics saying "Woh wait what's with all the asian characters?" and people replying "well Tom has always been quite fascinated with anime so we can explain these characters by blablabla", but really? We would only notice them because they're not white. Not because we don't have three asian friends in real life, or because we know by heart minority statistics in the UK. Everything that is not the default is argued about. But the default is not the average. It's not a representation of reality. It's a construction that should be questioned in literature - and Tom is doing exactly that.
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Post by warrl on Mar 20, 2017 22:12:01 GMT
I don't question that for two reasons:
1) I see a small number of visible-minority characters, including at least one teacher;
2) the story is set in England and in general I don't know what mix of visible ethnicities to expect - other than that blacks are MUCH less common than in the US.
(I do know that England has historically had - and still has - slums much like those in the US, aside from being ethnically indistinguishable from upper-class neighborhoods.)
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Post by red4bestgirl on Mar 20, 2017 23:33:30 GMT
On Zimmy and Gamma:
Absolutely no one would consider this a purely platonic relationship if they weren't the same gender. It goes far beyond anything resembling mere friendship, far beyond what Kat and Annie have for instance.
Like, let aside the question of sex, because maybe the relationship is asexual; Can anyone really envision a scenario where either of them is in a serious, long-term, committed romantic relationship with someone else? It's pretty impossible, which is what Jack implied.
Like, you don't have to understand the precise nuances of it but it's clearly a lesbian relationship of some kind.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 20, 2017 23:58:57 GMT
It has been Formsprung that Zeta and Gamma are a couple and that they are in love. There is one reply that says they are not a couple in "the way that you are thinking." Since that reply is out of context it is tough to say what it means, but it may be that they are not sexually active (as such, or to date). |
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Post by foxurus on Mar 21, 2017 0:31:05 GMT
On Zimmy and Gamma: Absolutely no one would consider this a purely platonic relationship if they weren't the same gender. It goes far beyond anything resembling mere friendship, far beyond what Kat and Annie have for instance. Like, let aside the question of sex, because maybe the relationship is asexual; Can anyone really envision a scenario where either of them is in a serious, long-term, committed romantic relationship with someone else? It's pretty impossible, which is what Jack implied. Like, you don't have to understand the precise nuances of it but it's clearly a lesbian relationship of some kind. Saying "absolutely no one" is unfair to the diversity of opinions people can have. No, they couldn't have outside romantic relationships, but I posit that neither of them could have close outside friendships, either. Monogamy is not necessitated for romance, so it stands to reason that it can't be what defines romance. Their relationship is obviously incredibly close, and obviously not "just" friendship, but I hesitate to say that means it's necessarily romantic. There are people who identify as asexual and aromantic who have life partners. People can be complex and difficult to pin down with nice explanations and labels. I don't think my argument would change if one of them were male. |
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clover
Junior Member
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Post by clover on Mar 21, 2017 0:45:53 GMT
Red and Ayilu broke my suspension of disbelief a bit. It doesn't really make sense to me that fairies would have romantic inclinations. Exactly! Nobody has ever encountered a fairy in real life who has romantic inclinations, so this story about fairies having romantic inclinations is clearly unrealistic. It vexes me that a comic would get such pertinent objective real life fairy science wrong. |
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Post by faiiry on Mar 21, 2017 1:48:59 GMT
I just want to make it clear that my comments were (mostly) meant to be sarcastic. Thus the whole "just gals being pals" thing. I fully support Zimmy and Gamma being a couple in whatever way, romantic or otherwise. I didn't mean to start a debate about that fact, either.
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clover
Junior Member
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Post by clover on Mar 21, 2017 2:12:26 GMT
I also want to see a scene occur when, in the structured future of fandom, scientists are trying to metatypically 'order' Gunnerkrigg's relationships.
"What about this? It's a shadow from a race of beings made by the trickster god Coyote that got peeled from the floor and became three dimensional, having feelings for a robot imbued with guilty memories of a ghost."
"Have you checked the fandom style guide?"
"Oh, hang on, hang on, .." *clicking through a document on a tablet* "Oh, right here, 150 (C)(a) §232 .. that's categorized as definitely homosexual."
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Post by puntosmx on Mar 21, 2017 3:29:01 GMT
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. Hi there! First off, it doesn't tick my disbelief switch.... although I have to admit its sensibility might be uncalibrated, as it doesn't trigger on situations that obviously would be anormal. but yeah, I can totally understand if it throws you off. Now, I wouldn't consider Robo/Shadow a human couple, so I wouldn't be able to meassure them in the straight/gay axis. There is, indeed, a mention to Shadow identifying as male on the spanish translation thread (you see, that's an important thing in spanish, linguistically speaking), but its latest romantic behavior with robo hints me at female. So, if I had to make a call and put a gender on that couple, I'd say Robo is male and Shadow is female. I'm glad I don't need to make that call, though. 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. Indeed all faeries are reincarnated in female bodies after transition.... but, are they all female while they are faeries? Both Red and Blue looked female in the earlier chapters, indeed. But I seem to recall some male-looking faeries on the forest. Or maybe I'm misremembering. 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. My suggestion would be applying that 3% figure to all the background characters and see if the final figures match your expectations more closely. "As a creature in this world, you will face many hardships in your life. Who you love should not be one of them." gosh golly! I love this chapter! Thank you. |
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Post by puntosmx on Mar 21, 2017 3:38:20 GMT
Have you read the Kinsey report? Almost no one is "Straight", almost no one is "Gay". We are almost all of us Bi, and it applies on differrent levels. Romantic, sexual, how we view ourselves... All very complicated and completely not worth worrying about. Well, certainly very few of us are 100% anything. That's how humans work. We borrow from a multitude of archetypes and impulses that make any meassurement tricky at best. I won't delve deeper on my opinions of that (or any other gender-related) report. On Zimmy and Gamma: Absolutely no one would consider this a purely platonic relationship if they weren't the same gender. It goes far beyond anything resembling mere friendship, far beyond what Kat and Annie have for instance. Like, let aside the question of sex, because maybe the relationship is asexual; Can anyone really envision a scenario where either of them is in a serious, long-term, committed romantic relationship with someone else? It's pretty impossible, which is what Jack implied. Like, you don't have to understand the precise nuances of it but it's clearly a lesbian relationship of some kind. Gama and Zimmy have a relation that orbits around dependency, rather than love. Yes, there's appreciation in there, jealousy even, but there's no clear romanticism like it happens with Kat/Paz and Robo/Shadow. |
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Post by centurion13 on Mar 21, 2017 3:48:39 GMT
Don't be surprised. I feel exactly the same way you do about this. You are not crazy, you are simply politically incorrect. But that world is slipping away. In the meantime, take a break from the comic and consider who is the target audience. People with no children have a good deal more disposable income. Part of that income goes to things like Patreon, no doubt. Tom Siddell likes to eat, like many of us. He gets a fair sum from this effort, and to be fair, most of it is quite good reading. But don't bring reason to the table. It is quite unwelcome. Simply withdraw and wait a few months. Cruising the archives will relieve your issues with the plot speed. It will also somewhat dilute the issue of so many non-hetero couples in the limelight. Good luck. |
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Post by centurion13 on Mar 21, 2017 3:50:14 GMT
Can we get a mod to shut this down, by any chance? (I know it's hard for you to understand, Mitth'raw'nuruodo , but questioning the prevalence or believability of gay or nonbinary relationships is pretty homophobic, offensive, and hurtful to everyone involved. Moreover, the premise of your question makes no room for dissent. Your question basically boils down to, "Is it too gay in here, or is it just me?" To which many people are, naturally, emphatically answering, "NO". But you seem to be waiting around for someone to defend you, which is not going to happen, because you are not really assessing the merit of your own inquiry. So if no one deletes your thread please apologize, delete it yourself, and go home.) Ah, the old 'Shut Up' argument. Feels like old times. |
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Post by Zox Tomana on Mar 21, 2017 3:57:56 GMT
How many people made topics about how practically no one in Gunnerkrigg Court is overweight or chubby? How many cited statistics about it? No one seems to care about that. We don't ever question that -even though many people around us are not thin- because it's not a fictional standard. We don't question the lack of black characters, or asian characters, or any minority whatsoever. We do have a black character in Margo. Paz is from... Catalonia? I think? Or was it Galacia? Gamma is Polish and doesn't speak English. To the "overweight" or "chubby" I have no response because I can't recall any counter examples. So it would seem you're on point with that one. I will say that, given that the comic is presents a stylized representation the human form, I don't feel comfortable identifying the characters as being "thin" or "chubby" either way. None of them are exceptionally fit either, bar a few and definitely bar Eggers and Parley. There are a variety of ways to be a minority. I think Tom may just be going off his experience at school/around town. A lot of the physical setting has been based on Birmingham and/or his old school, why not the population and characters come a little bit from the kind of people he sees and people he knows/knew? |
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Post by crater on Mar 21, 2017 4:04:30 GMT
I have another argument up my sleeve: if you think gay characters are unrealistic, just remove 3/4 of them with The Power of Logic. Zimmy and Gamma are not explicitly together-together, although they have a very strong bond, and you could write them off as Just Gals Being Pals if you wanted. (The author has waffled around the issue, but from the way I’ve interpreted his answers on the subject, I don’t think Zimmy and Gamma are intended to be a romantic couple in the traditional sense. Interpret it for yourself.) As for Shadow and Robot, they both use male pronouns, but technically they’re both genderless fantasy people from another universe, and if you think their being gay is a statistical anomaly then I don’t see why you couldn’t just think of them as genderless or something. Boom! Yay problem sort of solved. And as for the fairies, if the existence of more than one gay couple takes you out of the comic, then I don’t see why you can’t just imagine Red and Ayilu as reeeeeeeeally good Gal Pals who love each other and look at each other with hearts floating around their faces, because technically they haven’t kissed or outright said “we’re dating” yet. Boom! Problem solved! So the only absolutely explicitly gay couple is Kat and Paz, and that’s one out of many confirmed romantic connections in the comic, and I don’t see why that should be any kind of problem. (This entire paragraph is half-sarcastic if you couldn't tell, but I sorta had fun writing it, at least.) laughed out loud at this little thought experiment. Its like when Tom made those characters he was making a thought experiment of his own. Something like "just try to apply your preconceived notions of social identity to my comic, I dare you. In a few chapters I'm going to show everyone just how much egg on your face you have." |
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Post by snowflake on Mar 21, 2017 8:23:53 GMT
On Zimmy and Gamma: Absolutely no one would consider this a purely platonic relationship if they weren't the same gender. It goes far beyond anything resembling mere friendship, far beyond what Kat and Annie have for instance. Like, let aside the question of sex, because maybe the relationship is asexual; Can anyone really envision a scenario where either of them is in a serious, long-term, committed romantic relationship with someone else? It's pretty impossible, which is what Jack implied. Like, you don't have to understand the precise nuances of it but it's clearly a lesbian relationship of some kind. Zimmy and Gamma aren't really interested in other people, and rarely take an interest in guiding other characters through their inner struggles and similar Nurturing Crap (TM). Exceptions were made when: 1) Zimmy was directly responsible for the mess ("Spring-heeled") 2) It was a matter of life and death (Annie in a coma in "Divine") The third time, which fits neither criterion, was to tell Kat to stop being in denial and remove the Bow Of Heterosexuality from her head (also "Divine"). Am I being unreasonable by seeing their being attuned to Kat's suppressed queerness as evidence that they're not Just Gals Being Pals? |
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Post by snowflake on Mar 21, 2017 8:32:23 GMT
Don't be surprised. I feel exactly the same way you do about this. You are not crazy, you are simply politically incorrect. But that world is slipping away. In the meantime, take a break from the comic and consider who is the target audience. People with no children have a good deal more disposable income. Part of that income goes to things like Patreon, no doubt. Tom Siddell likes to eat, like many of us. He gets a fair sum from this effort, and to be fair, most of it is quite good reading. But don't bring reason to the table. It is quite unwelcome. Simply withdraw and wait a few months. Cruising the archives will relieve your issues with the plot speed. It will also somewhat dilute the issue of so many non-hetero couples in the limelight. Good luck. 1) Come up with nonsensical theory which concludes, against all Earth logic, that appealing to minorities is more easily profitable than appealing to the majority 2) Accuse the author of pandering to minorities for profit 3) Accuse those who point out the illogic of 1) and 2) of rejecting logic in favor of 'political correctness' 4) Continue not hearing objections to your position over the sound of your own smugness |
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Post by Lightice on Mar 21, 2017 8:33:57 GMT
Gama and Zimmy have a relation that orbits around dependency, rather than love. Yes, there's appreciation in there, jealousy even, but there's no clear romanticism like it happens with Kat/Paz and Robo/Shadow. There is most certainly more than codependency in Zimmy and Gamma's relationship. They definitely care for one another deeply, and one isn't under the other's thumb. While their relationship formed around Zimmy's dependency on Gamma, it's clearly moved past it during the comic's run. I would hesitate to call it conventionally romantic, but it's also definitely deeper than just friendship. If anything, I'm inclined to go with Jack and say that they are closer than any ordinary romantic couple. |
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Post by philman on Mar 21, 2017 8:48:47 GMT
Don't be surprised. I feel exactly the same way you do about this. You are not crazy, you are simply politically incorrect. But that world is slipping away. In the meantime, take a break from the comic and consider who is the target audience. People with no children have a good deal more disposable income. Part of that income goes to things like Patreon, no doubt. Tom Siddell likes to eat, like many of us. He gets a fair sum from this effort, and to be fair, most of it is quite good reading. But don't bring reason to the table. It is quite unwelcome. Simply withdraw and wait a few months. Cruising the archives will relieve your issues with the plot speed. It will also somewhat dilute the issue of so many non-hetero couples in the limelight. Good luck. 1) Come up with nonsensical theory which concludes, against all Earth logic, that appealing to minorities is more easily profitable than appealing to the majority 2) Accuse the author of pandering to minorities for profit 3) Accuse those who point out the illogic of 1) and 2) of rejecting logic in favor of 'political correctness' 4) Continue not hearing objections to your position over the sound of your own smugness As much as I disagree with Centurion's opinions, I do take issue with your point1. Appealing to minorities is often very profitable compared to the majority. trying to appeal to the majority often means that your content will get lost amongst the massive amount of content already designed for the majority. Making content which appeals to the minority means you have a niche audience who often have very little other content designed for them, can can be a very good way to make a name for yourself. Not that I think Tom is doing anything like this at all. Gunnerkrigg Court isn't a niche or minority targeted comic at all, it could appeal to anybody as long as they are not turned off by fantasy/sci-fi in general. It may have a slightly higher than average proportion of same-sex relationships (assuming you count robots, shadow people, etc as gendered), but none of this affects the story. I think a lot of the attacks on the OP are attacking something they haven't said, and centurion's defence of the OP is defending something they haven't said also. |
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