OOTS #959 - The Discussion Thread

[nonamearisto]

I think you need to have a word with Haley's Latent Bisexuality.

I forgot about that one. And she's a rogue, albeit a sympathetic one. I guess the rogue and pirate have something to relate to, sorta. Maybe.

[Caractacus]

Nice update. Now I am wondering how long Bandana has to live, given that we now know something more about her...

[Morgan Wick]

I suppose when I said "gay" I meant "LGBTQ" or "actively non-straight".

As long as the characters don't start quoting Marx

"Help, help, I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"

[pikeamus]

Just as an aside - the Bechdel test is an intentionally low bar. The point of it is to show that it's a really low standard, and most movies still can't pass it. Heck, the example used to pass it was Alien. It's a useful test to make a point, but anyone who thinks it's the be-all end-all of gender representation tests is misusing it.

Actually, according to the best resource we have available on the test, most movies do pass. 56.78% pass all three tests.

http://bechdeltest.com/statistics/

Anycrap, I've got to say I loved this strip. Excellent self-aware humour.

[Lvl45DM!]

Ah, rather sad to see modern-day politics invading a D&D comic. Oh well, I guess it had to happen eventually. As long as the characters don't start quoting Marx and engaging in contrived, inflammatory storylines carefully calculated to score points in contemporary political debates (topics that will be outdated in six months), we'll just have to live with it.

Im with you, I hated it when they were all "free the slaves!". Modern day morality just doesn't fit at all in this hardcore fantasy world, with its magic and swords and coffee machines.

[DaggerPen]

Actually, according to the best resource we have available on the test, most movies do pass. 56.78% pass all three tests.

http://bechdeltest.com/statistics/

Anycrap, I've got to say I loved this strip. Excellent self-aware humour.

Huh, didn't know that. I'm curious if that number was much different when the original strip was written? Good to know we can meander over that low bar half the time, at any rate.

Im with you, I hated it when they were all "free the slaves!". Modern day morality just doesn't fit at all in this hardcore fantasy world, with its magic and swords and coffee machines.

And an internet for you.

[Yendor]

Im with you, I hated it when they were all "free the slaves!". Modern day morality just doesn't fit at all in this hardcore fantasy world, with its magic and swords and coffee machines.

This comic will be dragged kicking and screaming into the nineteenth century whether you like it or not.

[Amarsir]

A-heh. If you think this was even slightly SJW, I think you need to read more Tumblr.

Yeah, exaggeration for comedic license. You get the point, and I'm not really trying to push it.

Really? What felt forced? I didn't see anything particualrly Very Special Episodeish here at all. If you're referring to the last panel of the comic, Rich has self-deprecating gags/comments like this. ALL. THE. TIME.

More specifically I think it was the mention of the ex that felt forced. It just didn't feel necessary to give a backstory on the armor. Bandana loaned extra cold weather gear to Haley. Relevant. Fine. But the only reason to specify it came from an ex-girlfriend is to inform us that A) Bandana is single, or B) Bandana is gay. I'm guessing it's not the former, and the latter would be fine if it was plot-relevant or in service of a joke. But at this moment it feels more like something the author wanted to check off.

(For example, remember when Lien said she had sex after prom? It was to help a joke about sacrificing virgins, and it worked. Instead, had the same information come out in a side conversation - say Therkla being frustrated and Lien going "not me, I have lots of sex" - that'd be weird, right? That's all.)

Then you follow that with specific text about being the female lead, and end with fourth-wall joke about female relationships, and the entire strip feels like The Giant was self-conscious about elements of the story thus far and wanted to correct it. Which again is fine if it happens organically, but in this case it felt more like a checklist item to be dealt with.

And I just want to reiterate so no one misunderstands: nothing wrong with anything in Bandanna's backstory nor the fact that she has one. It just to me felt a tad clunky.

[Lvl45DM!]

This comic will be dragged kicking and screaming into the nineteenth century whether you like it or not.

PAYING children to perform life threatening tasks? Harrumph!

[Amarsir]

Regarding the Bechdel test, I actually feel like this violates the spirit of it. They didn't talk about a man, but they did talk about an ex!

[snafu]

Please, please, please don't turn into Sinfest.

[Lathund]

On a completely different topic: I'm guessing Bandana is LG or LN? I'm more inclined towards LG.

[DaggerPen]

On a completely different topic: I'm guessing Bandana is LG or LN? I'm more inclined towards LG.

It's hard to picture a pirate crew member as Lawful - she aspires to leadership, certainly, but she also actively aids and abets a Chaotic Neutral pirate who thinks nothing of bombing catapults on his way back into a city after seducing several heiresses and stealing their stuff. I'm thinking probably Neutral or Chaotic, and Neutral or Good.

[Amarsir]

There's a quote from Rich about how comics should be relevant in the real world; "otherwise, it's just pure escapism." In other words, every strip has a job to do.

Absolutely. But that job is servicing the larger story. When the Star Wars rebels blow up an AT-AT, I don't need the next scene to show them cleaning up the debris because it's important not to litter.

Put whatever messages you want in a story. But do so naturally, not in a way that feels taped on. (As this did, IMHO.)

[Lvl45DM!]

On a completely different topic: I'm guessing Bandana is LG or LN? I'm more inclined towards LG.

Listen to what she said, WHY she wants to be leader.
"Better to be givin' orders than gettin' em"
Doesn't sound Lawful to me. Plus y'know...Pirate. Yar...

[Porthos]

Yeah, exaggeration for comedic license. You get the point, and I'm not really trying to push it.

More specifically I think it was the mention of the ex that felt forced.

Eh, seems perfectly, 100%, natural to me. Just the sort of dropped in comment one would drop in when talking about clothes or other items. I compare it to Elan and Julio chatting about the rapier that Julio was giving Elan.

Which didn't raise a single comment about being forced, BTW. Not one.

Please, please, please don't turn into Sinfest.

Yes, because this strip had SO much in common with that comic. (I mean, for one thing, OOTS is in fact still funny )

I get exaggeration for effect. But, to mix metaphors slightly, that's a leap even Miko couldn't make successfully.

[GnomeGninjas]

Still, first obviously lesbian/bi named character is a pirate? A sympathetic pirate, but still...

Is Sympathetic Pirate a common negative misconception about homosexuals? I really don't see the problem.

[Jaycemonde]

Ah, first time I've been in any part of this forum besides the LGBTA+ stuff, the art forum or a couple other ones dealing with aliens and robots. I forgot how lovely some of the people here are.

Ah, rather sad to see modern-day politics invading a D&D comic. Oh well, I guess it had to happen eventually. As long as the characters don't start quoting Marx and engaging in contrived, inflammatory storylines carefully calculated to score points in contemporary political debates (topics that will be outdated in six months), we'll just have to live with it.

I'm a trans girl, in a relationship with another trans girl (which is gay no matter which way you look at the trans bit) and I think Marx was a ****ing idiot and a tryhard who had no grasp on economics. Checkmate.

She could be bi- or pansexual.

Thank.

This episode brought to you by Tumblr.

lul. That's at least partially true. Trust me, I live there.

Spoiler: Porthos's response

Show

A-heh. If you think this was even slightly SJW, I think you need to read more Tumblr.

...

Or not, as the case may be.*

* NOTE: There is a LOT of great stuff on Tumblr. And a lot of very needed commentary. There is also, frankly, a lot of things that prove Sturgeon knew what he was talking about way back when.** But I think that's about all I can really say without getting too close to board rules, so I'll leave my commentary at that.

** Which, come to think about it, makes it just about like every other communication platform known to humankind.


Really? What felt forced? I didn't see anything particualrly Very Special Episodeish here at all. If you're referring to the last panel of the comic, Rich has self-deprecating gags/comments like this. ALL. THE. TIME.

Don't make me go trawling through the comic to point them out, coz I'd have to go to sleep eventually.

Yes. Thank. You get it spot on, you nail it onna head, you whip it, whip it good. Thank thank thank. Many goatblessings to you, fair stranger.

Heaven forbid a few important social issues should intrude upon the petty escapism, right?

I know, right? It's not like fictional literature has, y'know, influenced the world in a lot of important ways. Wouldn't want that.

On a completely different topic: I'm guessing Bandana is LG or LN? I'm more inclined towards LG.

She's a pirate.

[snafu]

Yes, because this strip had SO much in common with that comic. (I mean, for one thing, OOTS is in fact still funny )

I get exaggeration for effect. But, to mix metaphors slightly, that's a leap even Miko couldn't make successfully.

Sinfest wasn't always that way. It used to be good. It used to be fun. It used to be entertaining and worth reading. Then the author converted to Feminism, and published a comic repudiating the patriarchal oppression present in his past works.

http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2012-07-22

Since then it has been the way it is today. And since then I've always had a terrible sense of foreboding whenever any author starts expressing regret or guilt over perceived past sexism: I don't want to lose another great comic!

[turkishproverb]

Actually, according to the best resource we have available on the test, most movies do pass. 56.78% pass all three tests.

http://bechdeltest.com/statistics/

Anycrap, I've got to say I loved this strip. Excellent self-aware humour.

That's just the most voluminous resource. Don't recommend that site, or it's statistics. They're woefully inaccurate. The Ghostbusters analysis alone, and the fact they never updated it (or, to the best of my knowledge, any of their ratings), illustrates that.

[Lissou]

Regarding the Bechdel test, I actually feel like this violates the spirit of it. They didn't talk about a man, but they did talk about an ex!

So? That's not what the spirit of the test is about. If the two women talk about a son, a father, a male teacher or a male politician or whatever, it fails the test. If it's a daughter, mother, female teacher or female politician, it passes. It's not about whether women are only portrayed as talking about romance. It's about whether females are featured prominently enough that there are enough two, they interact, and they do so for a reason other than to advance the males' plot points. A female ex is just as fine as any other female.

More specifically I think it was the mention of the ex that felt forced. It just didn't feel necessary to give a backstory on the armor.

Would you have felt the same if she had said, say "sister"? It's possible that the Giant just started writing about how the armour came from Bandana. Oh, but they're different body types and readers are nitpicky. Maybe it was someone else's armour that Bandana had. Whose armour could you have with you? Who are you close enough that you'd have some of their clothes in your closet? A partner fits fine.

Not saying this is the reasoning, or anything, but there wasn't necessarily a whole agenda where the giant went "must mention that this character is non-straight right now! Quick, how will I figure out how to wedge it into the story?"

It seemed fine and natural to me and I didn't think it was weird or noteworthy, really, until everyone started commenting on it like it was crazy that a female character may have a female ex.

[Socksy]

I forgot about that one. And she's a rogue, albeit a sympathetic one. I guess the rogue and pirate have something to relate to, sorta. Maybe.

I ship it.

Im with you, I hated it when they were all "free the slaves!". Modern day morality just doesn't fit at all in this hardcore fantasy world, with its magic and swords and coffee machines.

Coffee machine was for the sake of funny. Freeing slaves is hardly a modern issue (at least, not any more than it was an issue centuries ago). Plus there's a difference between anachronistic items and anachronistic views.
Also, the coffee machine thing and slaves thing weren't forced to try to prove a point about how the author is so pro-gay and feminist (although the bit about the ex seemed perfectly fine to me).

EDIT:

I've always had a terrible sense of foreboding whenever any author starts expressing regret or guilt over perceived past sexism: I don't want to lose another great comic!

This, so much this.

-

Also, Haley is curvy? What? Why didn't he show that when he changed the art style instead of just telling us?

[DaggerPen]

Also, Haley is curvy? What? Why didn't he show that when he changed the art style instead of just telling us?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0531.html

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0790.html

I think there are other references, but I can't remember them.

And Haley is curvier than Bandana, compare the waists side by side.

And again, this is a comic that takes great pleasure in poking fun at tropes. This is the perfect place to poke fun at tropes regarding female character interactions. I don't consider this any more forced than Elan's "start-of-book recap" gag last strip.

Also, don't I know you from around Tumblr?

[Yendor]

It's not about whether women are only portrayed as talking about romance. It's about whether females are featured prominently enough that there are enough two, they interact, and they do so for a reason other than to advance the males' plot points. A female ex is just as fine as any other female.

And besides, one small part of the conversation shouldn't invalidate everything else they talked about.

It seemed fine and natural to me and I didn't think it was weird or noteworthy, really, until everyone started commenting on it like it was crazy that a female character may have a female ex.

I didn't even notice it the first time I read through it.

I'm reminded of a quote I read somewhere, where a writer was asked, "Why do you keep writing strong female characters?" To which the answer was, "Because you keeping asking that question." It shouldn't be controversial that female characters are portrayed as complex people, or that someone just happens to have had a same-sex relationship, yet here we are.

[Socksy]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0531.html

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0790.html

I think there are other references, but I can't remember them.

And Haley is curvier than Bandana, compare the waists side by side.

And again, this is a comic that takes great pleasure in poking fun at tropes. This is the perfect place to poke fun at tropes regarding female character interactions. I don't consider this any more forced than Elan's "start-of-book recap" gag last strip.

Also, don't I know you from around Tumblr?

Oh, you're right. I thought Celia was just taking a subtle jab/had very thin hips, being a sylph. c:

And I do have a tumblr, and I do follow OotS fans on it (and have a canon URL *so proud*) so that's pretty likely. I don't go on it much any more though.

[Sadsharks]

Ah, rather sad to see modern-day politics invading a D&D comic. Oh well, I guess it had to happen eventually. As long as the characters don't start quoting Marx and engaging in contrived, inflammatory storylines carefully calculated to score points in contemporary political debates (topics that will be outdated in six months), we'll just have to live with it.

You realize gay people and women have always existed right? Even in medieval times. And considering that DnD is a modern game, why shouldn't its politics be modern? This isn't historical fiction.

[The Giant]

More specifically I think it was the mention of the ex that felt forced. It just didn't feel necessary to give a backstory on the armor. Bandana loaned extra cold weather gear to Haley. Relevant. Fine. But the only reason to specify it came from an ex-girlfriend is to inform us that A) Bandana is single, or B) Bandana is gay. I'm guessing it's not the former, and the latter would be fine if it was plot-relevant or in service of a joke. But at this moment it feels more like something the author wanted to check off.

Yes, of course the point of her mentioning that she had an ex-girlfriend is so that you know she is gay. That is part of how including gay people in your comic happens, short of me showing her having sex with another woman. I already waited 38 strips from her first appearance to mention it. How many more strips do I need to wait before including LGBT representation in the comic? 100? 200? How subtle do I have to be to make you, personally, comfortable? This is the first comic that explores Bandana as a character, so this is when it shows up. The alternative is deliberately keeping her "in the closet" to satisfy some arbitrary standard of "narrative smoothness." Not acceptable.

If it seems awkward to you…oh well. Sometimes, correcting a past mistake is awkward. Sometimes, in order to move forward, we have to stop waiting for the moment to be right, or the situation to arise organically, or whatever euphemism you want to put on the idea of maintaining the status quo because it's easier, and just do it. If it's "forced" now, that's only because I failed to include any obviously gay characters for 900+ strips and that is so completely uncool that I need to fix it NOW, not later. If that produces some rough edges, well, I guess we'll all just have to put on our adult pants and learn to live with that one solitary flaw in this otherwise pristine work of art* for the sake of inclusion.

Absolutely. But that job is servicing the larger story.

No. Stories exist primarily for the purpose of delivering messages to one another, whether about human nature, or the world around us, or what have you. They are how humans have communicated life lessons since the dawn of language, and probably before. Whether or not that is why you read them, that is definitely why people write them. If the story is incapable of delivering the message that the author is trying to send about how they see the world, then that is a failure of the story, and the story needs to change. The author should not leave out his or her message so as not to disrupt the delicate story. That's the cart leading the horse.

*This is sarcastic. No one quote me saying that I think OOTS is a pristine work of art. It is not.

[t209]

So Ex as in ex-spouse or ex-roommate.
First OOTS homosexual characters until we find out V's gender.
or a transexual or a cross dressing man.

[Themrys]

You realize gay people and women have always existed right? Even in medieval times. And considering that DnD is a modern game, why shouldn't its politics be modern? This isn't historical fiction.

This.

If you don't want modern politics in fantasy comics, then just imagine how horrible it is for women (and gay people, and so on) to have their REAL oppression portrayed in almost every piece of fantasy fiction EVER.
Sexism IS POLITICAL, and as such, it shouldn't be in fantasy comics, if fantasy comics are to not contain real-life political topics.

I'd prefer no sexism at all in comics, because, you know, I want to actually HAVE FUN when I read comics. Not be reminded of the bad things in my real life, you know?

But as things are, I'm grateful if a fantasy author at least realizes that he made mistakes in the past and that bikini armour is stupid.

[Jaycemonde]

I'm just gonna take these in order.

So Ex as in ex-spouse or ex-roommate.

Obviously. What else would ex mean? Ex-captain? Ex-patriate?

First OOTS homosexual characters until we find out V's gender.

Actually, no. There was a guard who was gay like four hundred strips ago, and that's only that we know about.

or a transexual or a cross dressing man.

You're supposed to put two s's in there, bub. Besides, if Bandanna were a trans woman, she'd still be gay. Not magically straight. She says she's a woman, she's a woman. Bing bang boom. Conversely, if Bandanna were a cross-dressing man, Bandanna wouldn't be using female pronouns.

gg, no re.