Get on the rooftop
on September 14, 2015 at 12:01 amI think I just realized, like, maybe five minutes ago, as I was scanning this strip, what Sal’s ever-warring Rules V Heart: Dawn Of Justice argument in her head was probably about, even if it wasn’t super obvious to me at the time. I mean, let’s say you know this kid, and he was raised to follow a certain set of rules, maybe given to him by some third party who isn’t really around to explain itself, and it’s imparted on him constantly that if you don’t do the rules right, you go to the Bad Place. And there’s not really a lot of justification for these rules other than wanting to avoid the Bad Place. Otherwise, it seems pretty logical to just accept people. But you can’t accept people! That’s Bad! Even though it feels way righter and logically is way righter but those goddamned fucking Rules are all you’ve fucking known. And you have to be consistent. You have to. You can’t just ignore this one little tiny thing and accept people, because you have to honor the Whole. By accepting people, you’re being weak. You’re allowing this crack in your resolve. You have to be strong. You have to be strong and be an asshole. Or everything falls apart.
so what i think i’m saying is that in this strip dina represents gay marriage??????
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That makes so much sense.
Dina = gay marriage I mean
Seems legit.
i’ve never been privy to someone doing decades-delayed dream analysis on themselves. this is fascinating.
ok, what’d i do wrong on the gravatar front for it not to match up?
Ok, I see the comic.
I see the comment.
They have both value on their own, but I don’t really see the connection ? ^^;
He’s saying that Sal’s struggle between the greater good and empathy for others is actually him using writing to deal with his own struggle between the strict religious upbringing he’d grown up with and empathy for others.
Sal’s obsessive focus on the rules on what’s right (“priorities”) going against what she feels is the right thing (helping Dina) mirrors Willis’ upbringing’s dictums on morality (fundamentalism) going against what feels like the right thing (tolerance). Being told that doing what you feel is right is weakness, because you’re told that it’s wrong and you have to do what’s right.
See: Huck Finn’s decision to go to hell.
Maybe he’s looking into it too much? The tone of the paragraph made me think he is losing it…I hope he sees a therapist.
Writing these comics were his therapist.
See also: The killing off Ruth as a way of killing off all his frustration about life.
Wow, rude much? If writing a rambly paragraph unpacking your religious past and moral hangups constitutes “losing it,” then boy oh boy I’m in worse shape than I thought.
Man, between Becky mirroring Joyce and this commentary,
This midnight has been particularly poignant.
Ohhh, yeah, I can see that now. I always thought Sal’s whole ‘gotta do things this way, no matter what’ was weird.
Especially since it’s always, “this is the only way” when there was like a hundred different ways and every last on of them was the better solution.
And honestly we’re going to get a lot of this through out this arc.
Meanwhile, Walky’s crush is hugging him while rocketing them up into the sky via jetpack and I think his brain has just shut down or something.
Well, the blood can’t irrigate those 2 places at the same time.
I think I see where you’re going with that, but what Sal is doing is more akin to triage than religion. You can’t save everyone, but if you manage your time right, you can save most of them – but it’s still soul-crushing to abandon others to their fate to do so.
Thing is though, she could easily do both, save Dina and get into position. That’s where what Willis types up comes in. Sal is trying to force herself to act one way when she wants to do things different but thinks she can’t because of what’s been drilled into her.
So is there a REASON you didn’t have time to save your fellow sister in arms ?
Yes–makes sense. But the thing with Sal—the rules she follows aren’t rules anyone has ever expected her to follow. It’s not like she’s a model soldier or anything, she doesn’t obey -orders-. Whatever made her regiment her life like that it’s something other than just good ole socialization/sunk cost fallacy.
I’ve often mused that people’s criticisms of It’s Walky over the years were missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. And here it is, right here in the author’s commentary. Somehow I knew this had to be it; I’ve seen it before. I’ve been through it myself.
It means a lot to me to see these feelings over the years turned out to be accurate. I honestly can’t think of another comic that lets me get such a deep insight into a cartoonist’s mind that I have to step back for a second and make sure I’m not looking into a mirror. That is a special thing, and not easily explained.
Yeah. This cartoonist is special.
So, this is kind of random, but is it ever explained why Joyce is the only one with a jetpack? I mean, they all have “affinity for Martian technology,” right? And where did the jetpack come from? And is she always wearing it?
I feel like I’ve read these archives multiple times, and I can’t for the life of me remember a strip where it’s “This is Joyce, here she is finding a jetpack, and she’s super good at it so they let her keep it.”
The explanation I keep seeing is that Joyce’s math skills allow her to make the necessary calculations quickly enough.
I always figured that it needed, like, a mental fingerprint scan and SEMME restricted it solely to Joyce. Only now do I realize what little benefit this would grant.
Wait, what? Is Joyce a math genius? I definitely don’t remember anything saying that, either.
It’s like, I know the actual reason is “Cartoonist thought it would be cool to have one person be Jetpack Person,” but I can’t remember if it was ever explained in the strip.
Well she always did have a head for numbers, but it helps to have a good calculator.
Super math is like her unique power. Her affinity for math was first shown in Roomies, though easy to miss, and carries over to DoA.
Her son also inherits it to create mindwiping powers somehow, don’t remember the full details.
It’s something involving spoilers with Walky, too.
But yeah, I think that scene in J&W! is the first time it was confirmed that Joyce’s ability to handle the jetpack was because of math.
I get it…. French Class! Huh? Wait…what!
*continues eating giant turkey*
Man comparing what happens to Dina later on in the Walkyverse VS how she fares in Dumbing of Age, the gay marriage metaphor is eerily fitting.
Ooooooh, and finally after all these years I finally understand Sal.
I have not been in Willis’ position, but I’ve been around people who have, and who too often chose “the rules” over compassion my entire life. My parents chose compassion, but few others in my extended family did. I never even realized her conflict was something difficult to understand, possibly because of that.
A quick clue as to why Sal will inevitably break one day. She’s letting her duty club her humanity out of her one decision at a time!
I was in college when I first learned that the whole don’t accept gay people thing was an *actual line* and not just something bigots shouted to justify themselves. I felt so bad, i babbled about it to a gay guy at a really awkward moment.
Not because I believed it in the slightest – i Just felt horrid that my religion, a religion I accepted even if I didn’t follow every part of it, could *say something like that* …but. It just ended up a really awkward moment of “Did you know that’s an actual line!?” before moving on. (I also learned some rabbis are trying to find a way around it.
Because Judaism doesn’t like to ignore rules, so much as… interpret a way around them. Like. There’s this passage in the torah about how if a child is a drunkard and a glutton they should be dragged out into the town square by their parents and stoned to death.
No one wanted to ignore what was supposed to be the holy word – so instead, it was decided that in order to apply… 1. The child had to be male. It said he! 2. The child had to be between the age of their first and second pubic hairs for it to apply. 3. To be a drunkard, one must drink forty gallons of wine in one sitting. and 4. To be a glutton, one must eat an entire cow in one sitting.
Needless to say, no one was stoned to death as a result of *that* rule. (Similarly, so far, the rule in the old testament doesn’t say a thing about lesbians. Which is great for me, but… I still want that rule *gone*, not just painted over.)
Uhhhh so, judging by the counter on the Dumbing of Age website right now, he only has the strips drawn 3 months in advance. So when he uploaded this Dina and Becky weren’t dating in dumbing of age yet.
What I’m saying is it’s entirely possible this realization is the reason that Dina and Becky became a thing.
“Dina represents gay marriage”
Becky wholeheartedly approves of this!