strongfemaleprotagonist.com I really like this comic because of both the superhero deconstructions and the part where it reminds me that you can meander through ethical discussions for weeks and readers will still love you. Spoiler: one of my fave scenes I am rereading - again - the scene where Alison and Patrick end up falling out, and I really love a lot of it. They're just so young, and bad at communicating, and it's great. Like, he's so obviously throwing himself into this mission because he's racing the clock hoping his way works before hers does, because he's ridiculously in love with her, but he's apparently unable to talk about his feelings and he's such a complete fucking dick. And Alison has kind of an idealized view of him, but she has kind of an idealized view of everyone when she can. I think that's how she tries to preserve her humanity and her ability to treat other people's agency as worth respecting. And Patrick for all his mindreading doesn't quite get that, I think - he admires her for her heroism and her strong moral compass and doesn't recognize how much she struggles with it and builds her moral compass deliberately. Especially because their moral compasses are so different, and a result of both their anomalies and their later careers. When you can punch through concrete and are very aware that you could theoretically murder basically everyone you meet and no one could stop you, you need to give yourself firm rules and take strong stances. And then there's the weight of expectation as a hero and as the forefront of unmasked heroes: hard rules are important. But Patrick exists inescapably in the nuance of what people think and want, and pursued his goal - the same goal of Alison, of a better world - with complete ruthlessness and disregard for individuals. Like, they're a great example of deontology vs. consequentialism when both come from a place of, ultimately, wanting people to be happy and safe and get along. . . . and he loves her so much.
FUCK YEAH. I first heard about it from kickstarter, got the book, read through it. Absolutely awesome.
I think I first heard about it here, and then read it obsessively, and then forgot it because I can't get the RSS feed to work with RSS Feed Reader and I have a shitty memory. But now I have it bookmarked and am filled with love.
I wanna say @Petra was the one who got me to read it? But yeah, I started off with vague interest in the premise that has morphed into genuine investment because I like seeing characters that are essentially gods having to think about the moral issues with that. The scene where Allison is sitting in the cell with Cleaver and talking about how no one understands how hard it is for her and him to not murder people is super fucking compelling. It definitely stuck with me.
Yes! That really stuck with me, too. And the whole undercurrent there that physical appearance was a lot of what decided their path and the inherent injustice in that was fascinating.
Yessss, all the ways the presentation of things affects how they're approached by others. Because it's easy for a lot of people, especially people who don't have anomalies, to see her taking these very firm moral stances and just... roll their eyes? We see it happen a lot, because she's a pretty conventionally attractive Good Girl, so she gets boxed off into this 'excessively moralistic' box. But it makes perfect sense for her morals to be so very rigid-- she doesn't get to make mistakes like that. I think that's part of what had her so fucked up about this latest arc, and I'm very glad that the rambling ethics discussion was on screen, because Allison's got the equivalent of a permanent nuclear warhead under her skin that she can't disarm and she's just gotta... figure out how to construct her behavior and attitudes around that. And her framework's gonna fail her sometimes, but that doesn't mean teh framework is bad. (I really, really like Guwara. What a good character, holy shit. I think he's kind of exactly the asshole that she needed to be able to bounce this off of, because a lot of the other people in her life have been in the 'those morals are nice, now what about the effects?' whereas he's coming from a 'effects are happening, but why do you care the way you do?' position that's gotta be helpful for her to debug some of the things she gets caught on. She can be soapboxy sometimes, but I... can't really blame her for it given the whole literally a god thing.) MAN I SHOULD REREAD FROM THE BEGINNING AGAIN
YES. As should I probably. Again. Like, I like that there's different moral and ethical approaches and none of them are presented as definitely superior? It's kind of like A Girl And Her Fed with politics.
SFP is really great! Watching these passionate, powerful kids fuck up and have to figure things out is just. *crying*
Rereading, and the alt-text on page 26 of issue 2 is "Alison had a daydream at the beginning of the semester that Professor Cohen would invite her out for coffee so they could talk about philosophy. Probably not gonna happen now." MORE REASONS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT GUWARA STICKING AROUND.
Eeee, I am so happy about Guwara sticking around? And about Alison figuring things out for herself. (I'm also slightly lineface about her having torn up the cheque from Templar, cos - you're scrounging for ways to fund that project, girl, this coulda helped a lot. I understand why she did it, just. I'm disagreeing with her on it.)
Speaking of ethics professors, we got onto the subject of time travel and killing Hitler and it reminded me of that exchange between Alison and Patrick. LONG STORY SHORT I may have gotten my international relations professor into the comic?
The real lesson is: superheroes are bad at understanding the psychology of large groups of ordinary people, but they are very good at understanding the psychology of the single monologueing asshole right in front of them. PS: I love Guwara
I really enjoy digging through the comments on this comic, in part because other people break things down further than the comic can always get into, even if it does end up running "Alison is FULLY SELFISH ALWAYS and DESERVES TO BE HURT" or "anyone Alison doesn't like is ACTUALLY EVIL FOREVER" sometimes. Spoiler: issue 6 p133 So, there's a couple things of interest here for me. The biodynamic generation doesn't run much older than Alison, right? And she's... roughly 22 or 23 here. Which means if the oldest known child of a biodynamic is eleven, the first known parent of a biodynamic... probably had that kid very young. Highschool pregnancies aren't uncommon, but given how many biodynamic kids we see with pretty awful abuse histories, there's something about the casual delivery of that line that wigs me out. More to the point, while I understand why Max's mother is so tetchy, there's some stuff that I don't think she's really thought out here. I mean first of all: Alison used violence and force as her lever, and that was wrong, but using political power (and if some of the commentors are right, the implication that she's going to target Alison's project to help women escape abusive situations) as a lever isn't any more morally right, imo. Not that I feel like Max's mother is obsessed with morality to the degree that Alison is, but it's something I thought was worth touching on since some of the commentors in earlier pages were under the impression that blackmail was totes less devastating than physical violence. Second: Alison got that information about Max from someone. We know that someone is Patrick, but does she? Does she think that Alison just stumbled on that information, or does she have suspicions about any number of the other superheroes and government officials who could have given it to her? I'm thinking it's probably the former (and oh, I would love to know how Max actually framed that confrontation to his mother) given the way she jabs at Alison. And third: "What do you think you would do to protect them?" is a fair question to ask, but given that it's been pointed out that they can't do anything to stop Mega Girl if she really wanted to go the Full Evil, I think needling Alison about the possible end to the biodynamic generation is risky. It's a risk that a lot of people take, because she's The Good Girl, but my fucking god, imagine if she weren't. And if it turns out that the biodynamic gene doesn't carry, what happens with a lot of the legislature to protect them? The specific legislature, at least, given that there's already stuff in the works about protecting people based on gene testing in our world, so potentially that's in theirs as well.
Spoiler: new page Yeah, that would have to be hella and worryingly young. Plus I enjoy the continued discussion of different manifestations of power and how you use it - political clout is one more often seen in the real world, so I like that it's more getting unpacked now as opposed to a few chapters ago.
