Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

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Warrl
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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#31 Post by Warrl »

NuclearBird wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 7:49 amI'm pretty sure it's just #1, Zen doesn't seem to give off the impression of being a coward. Nor does he act like an idiot. He's exactly as he is presented: A protective older sibling.
And as is common among people responsible for the care and protection of children, they don't always promptly realize just how much the children have grown up and not only don't need protecting, but need to be freed from the protecting.

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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#32 Post by SirJahar »

Or that their protection is actualy harmful?

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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#33 Post by Ddraig »

SirJahar wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 5:51 pm Or that their protection is actualy harmful?
it's inadvertently harmful, which is a WHOLE different thing from intentionally harmful. I find those who are inadvertently harmful annoying at worst, but I think we can agree that those intentionally harmful (without good countervailing reason) are detestable.
it's not even obviously harmful, like some enabling behaviors are.
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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#34 Post by Warrl »

Ddraig wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:12 am
SirJahar wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 5:51 pm Or that their protection is actualy harmful?
it's inadvertently harmful, which is a WHOLE different thing from intentionally harmful. I find those who are inadvertently harmful annoying at worst, but I think we can agree that those intentionally harmful (without good countervailing reason) are detestable.
it's not even obviously harmful, like some enabling behaviors are.
I dunno... if you find a bunch of safety equipment removed from storage, and put it away, without inquiring about why it was out, that could be a lot worse than annoying.

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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#35 Post by Ddraig »

Warrl wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:15 am
Ddraig wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:12 am
SirJahar wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 5:51 pm Or that their protection is actualy harmful?
it's inadvertently harmful, which is a WHOLE different thing from intentionally harmful. I find those who are inadvertently harmful annoying at worst, but I think we can agree that those intentionally harmful (without good countervailing reason) are detestable.
it's not even obviously harmful, like some enabling behaviors are.
I dunno... if you find a bunch of safety equipment removed from storage, and put it away, without inquiring about why it was out, that could be a lot worse than annoying.
Don't get me wrong; if they're inadvertently dangerously harmful, I may hate working with them, I may have them watched until/unless they can be moved somewhere they aren't a danger, but I won't consider them a detestable person. I'll consider them annoying to the degree which they are dangerous, but that's more because they're a complication I have to take into account. I've worked with an electrician so dumb that he could not understand that touching live 120v would shock him, but that only made me find him annoying because we had to either only assign him safe tasks or have someone watch/double check his work.
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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#36 Post by MuonNeutrino »

Regarding Zen, I feel he gets a bit of a bad rap. He's made mistakes, for sure, but the circumstances are such that I find it very hard to actually *blame* him for them. Nothing he's done has been out of malice, in fact the exact opposite, and the circumstances of his life haven't exactly made any of this easy for him. Has he always done the best thing? No. But he's tried to do what he *thought* was best, as best as he could tell under very confused and unclear conditions. He's not a superman, he's not omniscient, he's just a regular guy doing as best he can.

First off, I think it's easy to forget that Zen has almost as good of an excuse as Natani to be emotionally damaged. He may not have had the outright magical trauma that Nat did, and he might not outwardly show it as much (partly because he's simply had less screen time, I think, and less of what he's had has focused on his emotional state the way that it has for Nat, and partly due to personality), but he's still had plenty of more mundane trauma to deal with. He still had his entire family (bar Nat) and everyone he knew slaughtered in front of him, and at the equivalent age of a human of perhaps 12 found himself not only orphaned and homeless in the woods but also with the responsibility of taking care of his younger sister, the very last person left in the entire world he cared for. And then after that, not only does his sister follow him into the very dangerous profession he took up to try to provide for them, but then she gets herself nearly killed on their very first mission. That event was of course not as traumatic for him as it was for Nat, but 'less traumatic' than *that* still leaves a lot of room for impact. And after that he was again faced with a situation where he had to bury his own troubles because his sibling was dependent on his help. After all of that he's lived through, it's a wonder that he's as close to rational as he is. I think his 'lighthearted and over-optimistic to a fault' persona is at least in part his coping mechanism. Natani copes by walling things off and acting tough and pushing everyone away (except Zen) so as to not be hurt again, and Zen copes by acting carefree and not taking anything or anyone (except Nat) seriously so as to not be hurt again. It's not necessarily always a *healthy* coping mechanism (for example, I don't think that his current waving things off as 'it all worked out' is particularly fair), but it's a very understandable one. Point being, I think Zen has a pretty decent excuse for not always acting completely rationally when it comes to Natani.

Second, it's not like Zen is just being a smothering needlessly overprotective older brother for no reason. At both of the times of greatest trauma in their lives, Natani was *quite legitimately* dependent on Zen and in need of help and protection. When their tribe was destroyed Natani was the equivalent of several years younger than him in human terms, at a young enough age for that to be a quite significant difference, and in a male-dominated society where a female child would indeed need protection. It's not that Natani was completely helpless or something, but she legitimately did need him to survive. And, of course, after the soul merge Natani again quite literally needed Zen's strength and support to live, totally apart from the more mundane matters of physical care and working together to survive in their harsh lives. Zen had ample completely legitimate reason to act protectively towards Natani and try to shield him from things. Did he take that a bit far sometimes? Sure. Has he continued it beyond what might have been strictly necessary? Also yes. But it's not like he did all this for no reason because he's just a jerk or something, and in my opinion it's completely understandable given what he's been through.

And finally, it's not like Zen has some kind of magic crystal ball to always tell him what the right thing to do is. He's not omniscient. I think it's clear from context that this sort of mind link is not exactly a common thing, and I'd bet it's also the sort of thing where every case is unique. It can't be straightforward to understand, and Zen is no mage or healer either. And keep in mind who crafted the link in the first place - Clovis. I very highly doubt he was falling all over himself to explain to either of them how it worked. How is Zen supposed to be expected to know the right way to deal with it? If *Natani* didn't even realize how much Zen's memories and perceptions were distorting his perceptions of himself, how is Zen supposed to? He knows his sibling is different, he's been told it's because parts of his soul were destroyed, he can feel the trauma in the link, but he wasn't linked to her before the incident so it's not like he's got an intact Natani-soul to compare to. Heck, neither of them ever even realized there were still loose pieces of Natani's soul buried in there - how is he supposed to figure all this out? And he's not stupid, I'm pretty sure he's perfectly aware that he doesn't really know what he's doing here. (He practically outright admits as much to Kat earlier.) But there's no one else. Nobody else in the world cares about them. There's nobody he can go to for help figuring this out. It's just him and the equally-uninformed Natani. All he can do is the best he can - ignorant, flailing around, not knowing *what* the right thing to do is but determined to try anyway because that's all he can do.

And he *has* tried. Over the years, he's tried to be the best brother he could, help Natani as best as he can manage, even though he doesn't really know how. He knows he hasn't done a perfect job, that he's often fallen short, and it's not like he doesn't care about that - we can see that it eats at him. But he hasn't *failed*. Natani is still alive and about as secure and sane as one can expect given the conditions, and he wouldn't be without Zen. (And the other way around, too, of course!) I don't think it's fair to expect things to have somehow turned out even better and blame him when they don't. It honestly wouldn't feel realistic. Zen isn't that superhuman - nobody is. He's not perfect, but he's not a terrible person either. He's just a regular old screwed up guy trying to be the best brother he can for his screwed up sibling in a screwed up world, and while he screws up sometimes he never stops trying. I can't ask for any more.
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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#37 Post by Ddraig »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 5:15 pm Regarding Zen, I feel he gets a bit of a bad rap. He's made mistakes, for sure, but the circumstances are such that I find it very hard to actually *blame* him for them. Nothing he's done has been out of malice, in fact the exact opposite, and the circumstances of his life haven't exactly made any of this easy for him. Has he always done the best thing? No. But he's tried to do what he *thought* was best, as best as he could tell under very confused and unclear conditions. He's not a superman, he's not omniscient, he's just a regular guy doing as best he can.

First off, I think it's easy to forget that Zen has almost as good of an excuse as Natani to be emotionally damaged. He may not have had the outright magical trauma that Nat did, and he might not outwardly show it as much (partly because he's simply had less screen time, I think, and less of what he's had has focused on his emotional state the way that it has for Nat, and partly due to personality), but he's still had plenty of more mundane trauma to deal with. He still had his entire family (bar Nat) and everyone he knew slaughtered in front of him, and at the equivalent age of a human of perhaps 12 found himself not only orphaned and homeless in the woods but also with the responsibility of taking care of his younger sister, the very last person left in the entire world he cared for. And then after that, not only does his sister follow him into the very dangerous profession he took up to try to provide for them, but then she gets herself nearly killed on their very first mission. That event was of course not as traumatic for him as it was for Nat, but 'less traumatic' than *that* still leaves a lot of room for impact. And after that he was again faced with a situation where he had to bury his own troubles because his sibling was dependent on his help. After all of that he's lived through, it's a wonder that he's as close to rational as he is. I think his 'lighthearted and over-optimistic to a fault' persona is at least in part his coping mechanism. Natani copes by walling things off and acting tough and pushing everyone away (except Zen) so as to not be hurt again, and Zen copes by acting carefree and not taking anything or anyone (except Nat) seriously so as to not be hurt again. It's not necessarily always a *healthy* coping mechanism (for example, I don't think that his current waving things off as 'it all worked out' is particularly fair), but it's a very understandable one. Point being, I think Zen has a pretty decent excuse for not always acting completely rationally when it comes to Natani.
Exactly! When Nat was initially hurt, Zen would've had to be the strong providing figure. They'd lost their parents, and since Zen is the older of the two it fell to him to take care of Nat in a world where it's considerably harder for kids to raise themselves than in most of the countries reading this comic. He had to be the strong one, because if he broke down then little Nat would have been terrified (from a kid's point of view, "if big brother is legitimately scared/out of his depth/etc. then I'm definitely so, and we're screwed") so I imagine he got used to hiding any worries he had, any time he was scared, and passing it off with humor because at least for the first few years he had to and now it's become a part of him.
"Fake it until you make it" doesn't actually mean pretending to be something will eventually make you become that, you just become good at and used to appearing to be that. It still hurts, even if you put on a tough face and toss all that pain in a bottle and bury it. Zen probably had more than one instance where he had to find a quiet moment alone to let out everything that he couldn't in front of Nat. Hell, look at Robin Williams - one of the best and most jovial people you've ever heard of, and he'd been burying a terrible inner hurt the entire time.
Spoiler!
Second, it's not like Zen is just being a smothering needlessly overprotective older brother for no reason. At both of the times of greatest trauma in their lives, Natani was *quite legitimately* dependent on Zen and in need of help and protection. When their tribe was destroyed Natani was the equivalent of several years younger than him in human terms, at a young enough age for that to be a quite significant difference, and in a male-dominated society where a female child would indeed need protection. It's not that Natani was completely helpless or something, but she legitimately did need him to survive. And, of course, after the soul merge Natani again quite literally needed Zen's strength and support to live, totally apart from the more mundane matters of physical care and working together to survive in their harsh lives. Zen had ample completely legitimate reason to act protectively towards Natani and try to shield him from things. Did he take that a bit far sometimes? Sure. Has he continued it beyond what might have been strictly necessary? Also yes. But it's not like he did all this for no reason because he's just a jerk or something, and in my opinion it's completely understandable given what he's been through.

And finally, it's not like Zen has some kind of magic crystal ball to always tell him what the right thing to do is. He's not omniscient. I think it's clear from context that this sort of mind link is not exactly a common thing, and I'd bet it's also the sort of thing where every case is unique. It can't be straightforward to understand, and Zen is no mage or healer either. And keep in mind who crafted the link in the first place - Clovis. I very highly doubt he was falling all over himself to explain to either of them how it worked. How is Zen supposed to be expected to know the right way to deal with it? If *Natani* didn't even realize how much Zen's memories and perceptions were distorting his perceptions of himself, how is Zen supposed to? He knows his sibling is different, he's been told it's because parts of his soul were destroyed, he can feel the trauma in the link, but he wasn't linked to her before the incident so it's not like he's got an intact Natani-soul to compare to. Heck, neither of them ever even realized there were still loose pieces of Natani's soul buried in there - how is he supposed to figure all this out? And he's not stupid, I'm pretty sure he's perfectly aware that he doesn't really know what he's doing here. (He practically outright admits as much to Kat earlier.) But there's no one else. Nobody else in the world cares about them. There's nobody he can go to for help figuring this out. It's just him and the equally-uninformed Natani. All he can do is the best he can - ignorant, flailing around, not knowing *what* the right thing to do is but determined to try anyway because that's all he can do.
And he *has* tried. Over the years, he's tried to be the best brother he could, help Natani as best as he can manage, even though he doesn't really know how. He knows he hasn't done a perfect job, that he's often fallen short, and it's not like he doesn't care about that - we can see that it eats at him. But he hasn't *failed*. Natani is still alive and about as secure and sane as one can expect given the conditions, and he wouldn't be without Zen. (And the other way around, too, of course!) I don't think it's fair to expect things to have somehow turned out even better and blame him when they don't. It honestly wouldn't feel realistic. Zen isn't that superhuman - nobody is. He's not perfect, but he's not a terrible person either. He's just a regular old screwed up guy trying to be the best brother he can for his screwed up sibling in a screwed up world, and while he screws up sometimes he never stops trying. I can't ask for any more.
He did damn well for a kid forced to become essentially a parent to a sibling that had a unique life-threatening condition, one he probably feels responsible for (and it can be argued that he was, if not directly, by choosing to become assassins even if he had little choice). He's been propping her up because if he didn't she'd die and he has had no way of knowing exactly when Nat was well enough to be on her own again. Zen isn't some omniscient soul-doctor, and even if he was, can you blame him for not cutting off contact if THIS was the result? He's trying to hold together what he feels he broke, and I can't blame him for taking the 'better safe than sorry' path.
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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#38 Post by SirJahar »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 5:15 pm *snip*
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
As I said, he's had SEVEN YEARS to realize that what he was doing was harmful, has seemed to be aware of the harm he was doing on some level, at least in Nat's VERY heightened discomfort, and kept doing it anyway. At some point we assume ignorance any more, and it has to become willful.

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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#39 Post by Lightice »

SirJahar wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 8:50 pm The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Do not make a post that's 80% quote. That makes following threads an incredibly annoying chore. You don't need to repeat every single word the other person has said to be understood.

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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#40 Post by MuonNeutrino »

SirJahar wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 8:50 pmThe road to hell is paved with good intentions.
As I said, he's had SEVEN YEARS to realize that what he was doing was harmful, has seemed to be aware of the harm he was doing on some level, at least in Nat's VERY heightened discomfort, and kept doing it anyway. At some point we assume ignorance any more, and it has to become willful.
How? What yardstick was he supposed to use to figure out that his unconscious attitudes were leaking through the link and warping Nat's perceptions? How is he supposed to parse out the influence of that on Nat's fractured mind from all of the other effects of the soul damage and splice that he doesn't really understand? I think it's fairly obvious at this point that, for all their practical experience with it, neither of them *really* understood how the link worked, as evidenced by the discovery that half of what they thought they did know about the link was actually dead wrong. Like I said, not even *Natani* realized what was going on, how is Zen supposed to? Mere time, all by itself, doesn't automatically mean anything when there's just no basis for understanding.
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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#41 Post by Dadrobit »

Man, the folks with the hate boner for Zen really need to take a step back and maybe actually read the comic, because this is literally self delusion here. At this point y'all have actually just straight up made stuff up in your head about what happened between Zen and Natani behind the scenes and are somehow getting angry about it.
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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#42 Post by Ddraig »

SirJahar wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 8:50 pm
MuonNeutrino wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 5:15 pm *snip*
As I said, he's had SEVEN YEARS to realize that what he was doing was harmful, has seemed to be aware of the harm he was doing on some level, at least in Nat's VERY heightened discomfort, and kept doing it anyway. At some point we assume ignorance any more, and it has to become willful.
7 years of harm? Zen was harming Nat 3 seconds after the soul link was formed and Nat was practically scotch taped into the general pattern of Zen because the alternative is a dozen pieces of a 1000piece Natani jigsaw puzzle lying scattered on the proverbial floor? Or am I miscounting the years since the link was formed?
"Nat's VERY heightened discomfort"? When was Nat uncomfortable except when dealing with Nat's feminine aspects? Zen didn't lend her those.
Considering that there is literally zero precedent, they have zero outside knowledge of how it works, and they have nothing more than 'everything feels okay-ish' to go off of, I don't see how he can be held responsible. The best anyone can do is muddle their way through by feel.
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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#43 Post by aitaituo »

SirJahar wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 8:50 pm
MuonNeutrino wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 5:15 pm *snip*
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
As I said, he's had SEVEN YEARS to realize that what he was doing was harmful, has seemed to be aware of the harm he was doing on some level, at least in Nat's VERY heightened discomfort, and kept doing it anyway. At some point we assume ignorance any more, and it has to become willful.
The problem with your assumptions is that you assume Zen knows everything you know and are capable of knowing. Is Zen even literate? He's had no real education. How many people has he met in his life? Did they school him on his prejudices and suboptimal parenting techniques or were they just, I dunno, ordinary people who don't talk much of anything outside their own experiences? Transgender people in the real world were not considered to be a thing at all until pretty recently, despite them being a thing since forever. Think about them before condemning Zen's ignorance of the knowledge that constitutes a master's degree in psychology willful.

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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#44 Post by whiskeyfur »

I think the bigger problem here.. is that it's a very, very slim percentage of the people reading the comic having read something into it that quite frankly, may not even be there or is justified.

If Zen had any idea before that he was causing such harm, I'm pretty sure he would have been a very, very different wolf, a darker one and far more malicious, and abusing.

What I'm seeing from this page is not that harm, but the realization that his sister is actually /healing/ from that incident, maybe to the point that he can hope that link will no longer be needed.

Yes, it's had a lot of side effects, useful ones at that, but the bottom line is it was forged to save his sister's life, it was not for anyone's profit. (except maybe Clovis but we know how that went... and considering how manipulative that [censored] was, I wonder if the link was ever really needed...)

Zen did a damned good job being the parent by necessity for his own sister for all of these years, and normally when kids are grown you can relax.. which is not something he was allowed because of that link. That link became a curse in it's own right.

I'm seeing with this page is him opening his eyes and realizing his sister quite possibly no longer needs him and is strong enough to stand on her own, and for a big brother who had to act as her support and guardian for all of those years? That's a relief and vindication that he did ok despite all of his screw-ups.

SirJahar, you stated you absolutely hated Zen. I feel you let that color your assessment of what's going on.

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Re: Comic for July 14th, 2018: Assassin Siblings, Catching Up, Pt 1

#45 Post by SirJahar »

My dislike of the character didn't color my interpretation of what was going on so much as it grew out of it.

As I read the book and discussed it here before I took my long absence, I had come to see Zen's influence on Natani to be more and more detrimental. While the link has been sold to us and the characters as having been needed to save Natani's life, I see it as having had MANY unforeseen effects. Initially. I'd expect Zen to notice his sibling acting differently post incident. I'd expect him to eventually realize how deep his words cut. I've seen the strongest defenders of his actions on multiple occasions refer to interactions with their own siblings to justify it. I've seen those who joined me in saying he was a danger to Natani point out their own actions in protection of their siblings and tell stories of how they were in the wrong for getting involved at all.

Yes, I expect Zen to realize that he was cutting deeper than simply "sibling hazing", which I think I've made abundantly clear how I feel about that, as well. I'd like to think that Zen's simply been too absorbed with trying to not DIE over the years that he's simply not had the faculties to realize he was being an [censored]. But I don't think that covers it entirely. I think he screwed up in ways he is only now realizing, and should have seen sooner. I think being away from his toxic influence is what allowed Natani to see some of her (bite me) own problems, and address them, only slowed down when he decided to telepathically poke his head in.

I also frankly feel that trying to talk things like this over lets us, the community, try to see deeper into the story, and maybe uncover some flaws that the creator, who's trying to balance more factors than I care to count, may have lost in the chaos.

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