Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

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SilentYay
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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#16 Post by SilentYay »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 3:13 am As I have mentioned before I do not think we can qualify Zen as a "good" brother. After all last week, in comic time of course, he rendered Nat unconscious because he was not really paying attention when Raine and co put the magic suppressor on his ankle. And if the incident had been a couple years prior, or if Nat was not such a beloved character. His soul might have not been healed enought to exists without Zen support....
Quick note: Zen did not "render Natani unconscious." Getting cut off from Zen due to the magic suppressor did. It wasn't Zen's idea, nor did he really have a choice, it was "do this or we kill you." And finally, he didn't know it was a magic suppressor. It was never explained to him what it would do. As far as he knew it was just a shackle.

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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#17 Post by Yastreb »

SilentYay wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 6:17 am
Technic[Bot] wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 3:13 am As I have mentioned before I do not think we can qualify Zen as a "good" brother. After all last week, in comic time of course, he rendered Nat unconscious because he was not really paying attention when Raine and co put the magic suppressor on his ankle. And if the incident had been a couple years prior, or if Nat was not such a beloved character. His soul might have not been healed enought to exists without Zen support....
Quick note: Zen did not "render Natani unconscious." Getting cut off from Zen due to the magic suppressor did. It wasn't Zen's idea, nor did he really have a choice, it was "do this or we kill you." And finally, he didn't know it was a magic suppressor. It was never explained to him what it would do. As far as he knew it was just a shackle.
I think Technic[Bot] means that if Zen had been more attentive he might have noticed the runes in the shackle in time. Not that it would have made much difference since as you note, anything Zen was told to do by his captors came with an implied death threat.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 3:13 am Of course he also strikes as a whiny self-pitying teeneager but he is still cronologically just ten years old so i think it is on character.
Actually Zen is 14, not 10, but your point still stands.

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amenon
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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#18 Post by amenon »

Zen had the opportunity to run, and didn't take it. I think that's what Natani refers to as being an idiot.

Really, it's kind of the inverse of what happened with the link imprinting; making that mistake is one of the best things Zen's ever done for Natani, again completely unintentionally. And I don't think Natani is/was angry about what happened with the link, but just about Zen putting himself in danger (and indeed ultimately getting his leg hurt.)

But yeah, it did result from Zen making a bad call, so I can see why people would call it out as a failure on his part. I think Zen certainly considers it one, and I don't think he even knows that it knocked Natani out.
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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#19 Post by aitaituo »

amenon wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:00 pm Zen had the opportunity to run, and didn't take it. I think that's what Natani refers to as being an idiot.
He explicitly didn't take the opportunity to run because he took the other opportunity to take a direct route to Natani with friends of Natani's companions. Natani was also linked with him and plotting with him at the time. Natani's objection was that breaking out as a gesture that he was going along willingly with them was stupid. She didn't think going along with them was stupid. Neither of them knew about Raine's shackle until it was too late.

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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#20 Post by amenon »

aitaituo wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:57 am
amenon wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:00 pm Zen had the opportunity to run, and didn't take it. I think that's what Natani refers to as being an idiot.
He explicitly didn't take the opportunity to run because he took the other opportunity to take a direct route to Natani with friends of Natani's companions. Natani was also linked with him and plotting with him at the time. Natani's objection was that breaking out as a gesture that he was going along willingly with them was stupid. She didn't think going along with them was stupid. Neither of them knew about Raine's shackle until it was too late.
So what do you think Natani was referring to on 1034? Just Zen antagonizing his captors?

Thinking the overall plan is good at the time (or at least accepting it implicitly, since we never see them discuss it) and thinking it was good in retrospect are two different things.
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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#21 Post by aitaituo »

amenon wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:19 am
aitaituo wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:57 am
amenon wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:00 pm Zen had the opportunity to run, and didn't take it. I think that's what Natani refers to as being an idiot.
He explicitly didn't take the opportunity to run because he took the other opportunity to take a direct route to Natani with friends of Natani's companions. Natani was also linked with him and plotting with him at the time. Natani's objection was that breaking out as a gesture that he was going along willingly with them was stupid. She didn't think going along with them was stupid. Neither of them knew about Raine's shackle until it was too late.
So what do you think Natani was referring to on 1034? Just Zen antagonizing his captors?

Thinking the overall plan is good at the time (or at least accepting it implicitly, since we never see them discuss it) and thinking it was good in retrospect are two different things.
With the benefit of hindsight, it's Natani criticizing Zen for getting a magical shackle that might have killed her and then nearly killing himself with the same shackle. Playing the same game, how many seconds before the shackle is put on does Natani realize it's a magic shackle that does who knows what? If you go looking for malice, you'll find it. If you go looking for saints, you'll find them. There is no open and shut case that Zen is an awful brother who actively works to make his younger siblings life worse for his utterly opaque motivations that go against the majority of his actions and all of his feelings and words. I don't want to get further into this, because I don't think the complaint is about Zen's conduct or motives so much as it is about what we may want Natani to represent and how we may want people to respond to that representation. And that's a topic which is consciously avoided on the forum.

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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#22 Post by Eclipse »

amenon wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:00 pm Zen had the opportunity to run, and didn't take it. I think that's what Natani refers to as being an idiot.
Natani literally specifies the shackle when he calls Zen an idiot, so no, that's not what Natani's referring to. Although he does say breaking out of his ropes was also stupid in 845.
aitaituo wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:57 am Neither of them knew about Raine's shackle until it was too late.
Arguable in Natani's case, as he saw it was enchanted just before Zen put it on. Unless he didn't see it quick enough to get Zen to stop, it wouldn't have been too late, otherwise Zen just didn't listen to Natani's warning. It's hard to say for sure because it was just a bang-bang sequence of events, but I could definitely believe that Zen simply didn't listen. He seemed so smug about being able to win over their trust with his "roguish charm" that it's easy to see how he could've gotten careless enough not to notice the enchantments.

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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#23 Post by Yastreb »

Eclipse wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:14 am
aitaituo wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:57 am Neither of them knew about Raine's shackle until it was too late.
Arguable in Natani's case, as he saw it was enchanted just before Zen put it on. Unless he didn't see it quick enough to get Zen to stop, it wouldn't have been too late, otherwise Zen just didn't listen to Natani's warning. It's hard to say for sure because it was just a bang-bang sequence of events, but I could definitely believe that Zen simply didn't listen. He seemed so smug about being able to win over their trust with his "roguish charm" that it's easy to see how he could've gotten careless enough not to notice the enchantments.
But could he have done anything even if he had seen it in time? They would have just put it on by force.

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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#24 Post by amenon »

aitaituo wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:57 am
amenon wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:19 am
aitaituo wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:57 am
amenon wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:00 pm Zen had the opportunity to run, and didn't take it. I think that's what Natani refers to as being an idiot.
[snip]
So what do you think Natani was referring to on 1034? Just Zen antagonizing his captors?
With the benefit of hindsight, it's Natani criticizing Zen for getting a magical shackle that might have killed her and then nearly killing himself with the same shackle.
So you... agree with the original statement? Or do you think I'm being too specific wrt. running away, and find the distinction interesting? Or am I just looking for a reason for you quoting me where none exists?

Eclipse wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:14 am
amenon wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:00 pm Zen had the opportunity to run, and didn't take it. I think that's what Natani refers to as being an idiot.
Natani literally specifies the shackle when he calls Zen an idiot, so no, that's not what Natani's referring to. Although he does say breaking out of his ropes was also stupid in 845.
What Yastreb says above is basically why I've been seeing it as a shorthand for 'not running away while you had the chance', because wasn't that the last opportunity for Zen to avoid it?

But looking at 846 again, yeah, I can see an argument for it just being about his Smarmy [censored] routine there. Raine does literally ask Zen for permission to put the shackle on him, and he doesn't question it at all, so...

I do wonder how that would have gone. If Zen had asked what the deal was and they'd said that it was a magic suppressor... would Zen and Natani even have known to be wary of it? Or would they have just thought that Group B were being hilariously off-base with the precaution? If they had known to nope out, would Zen still have been able to run? Hard to say, but maybe; he'd just need to slip past the tree on either side and book it. Sythe wouldn't have much fun running through a forest with his spear, and Red is probably slower. ('Course, Zen's been sitting in an uncomfortable position for a long time, but that sort of stuff never seems to matter. Nat was down for a week or something and went right into action.)

Really, the weirdest thing about the whole scenario is that evidently neither Zen or Natani knows what a slave shackle is, because that should have been the instant assumption if they did. So I guess it's not common knowledge among non-captive keidran? And it means Natani wasn't really paying attention to events on the ship, but... yeeeeeeeah, that checks out :P
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Re: Comic for November 6th, 2019: Growing Apart

#25 Post by aitaituo »

amenon wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 6:26 pm So you... agree with the original statement? Or do you think I'm being too specific wrt. running away, and find the distinction interesting? Or am I just looking for a reason for you quoting me where none exists?
No, as I understood your complaint, you think Zen should have known what was going to happen and his lack of foreknowledge is proof that he's a terrible brother who is malicious towards Natani. Which doesn't make sense, because even if we want to demand characters to have out-of-character knowledge when we assess their worth as human keidran beings, it would only make him, to at least some small degree, reckless, not malicious. We all have experiences in our lives of making decisions that we don't realize were bad until later. Not only do other people beat us up about it, but most people beat themselves up, too. It doesn't make you a malicious person trying to control anyone's life. It's a weird non-sequitur, really, to your larger argument. To make it have the appearance of being germane, you have to assume the fast paced panel sequence (it's 2-3 inches from his ankle before Natani says anything) was actually slow enough for a person to recognize the magical device, recognize it as a magical suppressor, realize the potential consequences, make a decision, and then act on it while simultaneously weighing the immediate consequences of resisting a group you and your sister just agreed you should surrender to. And you have to assume he willingly chose to risk Natani's life, when neither of them have the high-level magical knowledge to more than guess what would happen to them with the application of a magic suppressor. It's an unreasonable standard even before you begin to consider the larger moral judgement of Zen's character.

You make an interesting point about neither recognizing it as a potential slave shackle until Natani noticed the runes on it (did Zen see the runes at all?). Zen clearly lacks any recognition that it might have been a slave shackle, since he notes that it's odd they're shackling him with only one shackle (we've never seen magical slave shackles as a pair). It's also interesting that you automatically give Natani a pass on that, even though it would have given them at least the time it talks three separate people to have an eight sentence stretch of dialogue, including an interval where Zen himself is talking and could have taken the opportunity to say, "Hey I'm fine with being restrained but not mind controlled!" before Raine has opened the shackle or crouched down to put it on.

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