Arc OVER! Finally…
But the story picks up from here next week, so… not really over! Is anything ever really over, anyway?
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Fan art update! Got two pieces yesterday. First one is from Yorkiejokiegg:
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And the next is from Science Labrador:
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Thank you, both!
Mrs. Trunchbull is named after a literary character who hates lies.
Already greatly disliking the Trunchbulls even more than the original Agatha Trunchbull. (Insert picture of a donkey and numerous holes here.)
I was right, she is named after that Dolores. *shudder*
This page seems a little too calm to me–Selkie just tried to attack someone and got carried away kicking and yelling by Todd, and now they’re just talking quietly in the hall. I would have expected at least some tears and for her to need some time to cool down before they could have this conversation.
Also, how the heck does Prof. Asshole know about Selkie’s irritating saliva? The only people who we’ve seen discover it so far are Selkie’s family.
I suspect they’re calm because it came off exactly as they intended it to– they were nasty and condescending and provoked a response which allows them to feel justified in being nasty and condescending and placing all blame on her. It’s not an uncommon gambit, especially amongst the emotionally immature.
I agree with you about the Trunchbulls, but I was referring to Todd and Selkie–the previous page was pretty emotional and Selkie was freaking right out. It seems to me that she (and Todd, he was getting pretty frazzled too) should need some time to cool down before they can talk about it rationally.
Ah, I see. Yes, you’d expect them to be a bit more het up, especially Selkie. I suppose it depends a lot on exactly how badly she lost her temper? If she was just angry vs. blindly raging.
I think, when it comes down to it, that Todd is just being the bigger person here. He is probably mad as hell, but unlike the Trunchbulls (and Selkie, and everyone else ever) he is willing to put his anger aside to be a better parent.
So much irritation caused by Mr. *intentionally not using “professor”* Asshat. Not to mention his wife, Lady Dipshit.
And where do they get off insulting Selkie like that? For all they know, she’s simply suffering from an unidentified illness (like what Todd told Andi: https://www.selkiecomic.com/selkie148/ ) and is no more differently affected by it than someone with albinism is affected by their condition.
Unless of course, somehow Mr. Asshat is going to prove to be a significant (albeit it anger-inducing) character who may know about Selkie’s race and uses this information to his advantage in order to provoke her enough into showing she’s (in his eyes) more violent than his son is.
But really. Making fun of Selkie for looking different (as we just saw them doing) is no different than making fun of someone with glasses, someone who’s fat, someone who has freckles, etc., the list goes on. They’re just proving themselves to be petty, whiny adults who want their way. So no good role models for their son (as we can see where that’s gotten them).
Also Dave, the new layout surprised me a bit! ^^”’ I was not expecting it.
Thanks! 😀 Been wanting to give the site a bit of a spiff-up for awhile, finally got off my butt. XD
So he knows Selkie isn’t human. I see Selkie still has that cough, too. As much as I hate to think it, a medical scare – like Selkie ending up in the hospital because of Truck that ends with her being okay but obviously ending up there due to the Trunchbull’s kid… is that too much to hope for? Something to take them down several notches would be nice.
He isn’t a professor for nothing.
I don’t think he’d made it to be a professor if he couldn’t see the obvious.
I wouldn’t expect the people in this strip to be as dumb as the ones that Superman/Clark Kent works with, he only has glasses as a disguise for Pete’s sake!
So I don’t think Trunchbull *knows*, but he certainly *sees* that she’s not human.
i’m not familiar with the mrs. trunchbull this character is named after. given the selkie character by that name’s manifest case of denial and willingness to make unfounded accusations, is naming her after a character who ‘hates lies’ irony or is that claim about the original character not what it seems?
I believe he is speaking of everybody’s favorite Hogwarts professor, Dolores Umbridge.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080413202611/harrypotter/images/1/15/DoloresUmbridge.jpg
He’s named after Ms.Trunchbull from Matilda. A terrible peice of work in her own right.
Its a book by Ronald Dalh and it had a movie adaption back in the 90’s.
Never seen the movie, but the book is among my all-time favourites. It should be mandatory reading for any kid that gets picked on for being smarter than most of their peers.
Wait a second, how do they know that Selkie’s not human, not to mention the thing about spitting poison? Was Trunchbull a civilian consultant on whatever project that involved sequestering Selkie’s people in the lake?
Cool suggestion. Has it said what he’s professor of? What’s his chair?
I just realized that neither one of them had the usual “O.O” reaction to meeting Selkie that we see from everyone else – either they know or have some idea of what she is, they’ve got great poker faces (unlikely), or their concern/outrage over their son getting into trouble has them not caring about much else at the moment (this might be part of the whole picture).
I doubt Todd will go down without a fight, but I’m pretty sure that he and Selkie have just made some potentially dangerous enemies today.
Wait- Selkie can spit poison? Have we been shown that?
‘Cause, y’know… cool!
Her rash-causing saliva could be construed as a KIND of poison. Not all poisons kill, after all.
They’re called “poison ivy” and “poison oak” for a reason, after all.
Oh, Selkie’s poisonous, of course. But can she spit? Not like a kiddy spits, but really project? Is there a physiological mechanism dedicated to this? How would Selkie’s saliva work on the eyes or inhaled into the mucous membranes? Could she have her enemies gasing on the floor while she intones “I find your lack of faith disturbing”?
“Gasping” not “gasing”, sorreeee.
“I’s finds yours lacks of faiths disturbings” doesn’t quite have the same punch to it as it had in the deep voice of James Earl Jones.
Well that went exactly as I had expected it to. Todd did the right thing, but unfortunately it seems like the damage has been done. The other parents already saw her in a bad light and now it’s only a matter of time before things get worse for her.
To be fair, you can’t not come off as anything but in a bad light with them. They’re the kind of idiots that go to a store, try to buy something with a check, refuse to provide ID and then put up a ruckus when the clerk says no. The only way to combat these two is mentally. Fortunately, they have a weakness there you can drive a mac truck through.
Aside from the father’s somewhat rude remark about weak little girls, I fail to see what exactly this couple has done wrong so far. Everyone here casts them in a bad light because they’ve got it in their brains that they HAVE to be terrible. Sure, they’re not the best, but they’re parents who want to side with their child and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Anyone would want to side with their child, if Selkie hurt someone, Todd would want to automatically believe she had a good reason for it without knowing the whole story.
The people on here are INCREDIBLY biased and refuse to see anyone they’ve identified as the bad guy as someone who may not be that bad.
So far all we’ve seen of these parents is;
The dad is a bit condescending/thinks highly of himself. Doesn’t make you a bad person, makes you a little bit of a jerk, but not that bad of a person. I know plenty of really cool people who come off very condescending. Besides, I still feel as though the weak little girls remark was aimed more at his own son than at Selkie.
The mom thinks her son is an angel. What mom doesn’t? Or at the very least, most mother’s want to think that their children are good and would never be bad. There is no fault in something like that. Many good parents are blind to the bad things their children do, simply because they want to believe it isn’t true. It’s not the best thing a parent can do, but if Todd did it, I doubt any of you would complain.
They called Selkie a monster WHEN SHE ATTEMPTED TO ATTACK THEN FANGS BEARED AND CLAWS OUT! Clearly the dad knows a little about Selkie’s race/general species if he knows she spits poison. They weren’t necessarily calling her a monster from her LOOKS but from her ACTIONS which seemed pretty monster like. They were COMPLETELY justified in calling her a monster given the situation.
They called Selkie a fish. They’re angry after nearly being attacked. A lot of people would say rude things like that in anger. It’s no big deal.
They think Selkie flew off the handle over nothing and therefor their son clearly must not have been in the wrong. Judging from what Selkie just did? Uhhh yeah, you know, they’re not wrong in thinking that. She certainly seemed like she was capable of handling herself from that little spat. If someone came at me with fangs and claws and tried to spew poison at me, I think I’d be a little inclined to think that maybe that person is more dangerous than they’re made out to be.
I’m not saying they’re right in all their assumptions, but Selkie and Todd aren’t perfect either and being biased in someone’s favor just because you think they can do no wrong isn’t right at all.
I believe future updates are of course going to make it clear that these two are possibly abusive to their son and are indeed pretty bad parents or at the very least not the nicest people on the block, but as of right now? They’ve not done much wrong and the hate everyone has for them is very biased.
You know why it is? Todd and Selkie are the protagonists, and the Truchbulls are two obvious antagonists named after one of the most justifiably hated characters in children’s fiction. It doesn’t sound fair, but humans are programmed to certain responses. It’s usually used as a dramatic tool. The main protagonists are sympathetic, and those working against them are evil. It’s not fair, but this is how the human mind operates.
And the introduction they got didn’t help matters. We’ve all met people that are arrogant jerks that condenscend people. The anger and bile that dealing with such people leaks out into our reaction to fictional characters.
Let’s take Goonies for instance. The guy that wants to tear down the Goondocks. He’s a jerk that looks at anyone under 18 as toddlers. He shows the same egotistical attitude that Professor Trunchbull exhibited, but due to his wealth. And his son is a trouble maker. Now aside from the two scenes he’s in, he doesn’t really get much development. We know his goal, which run against the Goonies. In fact, his goals are directly the cause of the adventure, but aside from buying the buildings to tear down, he’s not “Evil” per se. His goal of developing the buildings into a golf course isn’t even evil, progress happens all the time. But we can’t help but despise the guy. Same here.
Back to the Trunchbulls. Are we being fair? At the moment, probably not. But as you said, I’m very sure our hatred of them will be justified. The mother will probably be the very definition of Helicopter Parent, and the Dad will probably be one of these always demanding more type fathers.
Wrong. It’s in western culture that there has to be a bad guy and a good guy, us and them, utter good and sheer evil, but in many other places in the world it is agreed that conflict arises from ignorance and conflicting ideologies.
You can keep saying that “oh we’re gonna be proven right, we’re gonna be told that these people are UNQUESTIONABLY BAD… SOMETIME SOON. Aaaaany time now.
Certain people here are trying to tell you guys that bias is a bad thing here. Yes, it’s a dramatic device to give a character little things so you automatically dislike them like that, but look at this another way.
Todd doesn’t know what Selkie is. One of them is a doctor, which IS pertinent considering the only other member of her species that we’ve come across worked at the hospital probably as a consultant in how to treat their kind, and the other is a professor, of what slips my mind. If it’s biology or something similar, then wouldn’t he know something?
They KNOW something. The other things, they’re jerks but the world is full of jerks and snobs and ignorance in places where it seems to be on purpose but sometimes legitimately isn’t. Mister Trunchbull strikes me as a person who could have come from a rich family, been set up with everything in life, and was taught, as CULTURE, that they were better. This would no more be inherently his fault than if he were, say, raised to be racist, OR ALTERNATELY, raised religious. IF he were doing metaphorical hate-marches or shoving his religion down people’s throats, THEN it becomes his fault but until he refuses to interact with the peasant filth on any level at all then it’s not his fault that he chose to believe what he’s been taught. After all, YOU were told that Christopher Columbus discovered America. How long did you believe THAT?
I’m not saying that’s the story that’s going to be told I’m no psychic but what I’m saying is that there are possible versions of this story in which there are not any clear set “antagonists,” and other versions in which the “antagonists” are not so very obvious as this. The human mind MAY be “tooled to see things this way” but then again the human brain is also tooled to do many other unpleasant things like murder people for dumb things and discriminate from biased points of view because of pattern recognition gone wrong. For the longest while slavery was considered inherent in human nature. It doesn’t mean we can’t get better whether or not it’s true.
I’m going to disagree with you here. Tone of voice is very hard to convey in writing, but between word choice and facial expression, I don’t think it’s a very far leap to the conclusion that their tone was probably condescending in the extreme. Further, we have other proof of their general gall and unpleasantness– remember they wanted mandatory GPS-chipping for the kids (and were not convinced when Todd tried to explain that it doesn’t work that way), and according to the principal they have a habit of of going on ‘holy crusades’. These suggest that the Trunchbulls are willing to go to extreme lengths to get their way and have no compunction at all about stepping all over everyone else until they do.
I was going to mention the mandatory chipping proposal. And regardless of the parents, we know Truck himself is a major bully in the making. Even though he didn’t know Selkie was non-human, he still shook her and mocked her from having a lot of extra heating pads. It’s dangerous, at least.
I’m still wondering if Tommy’s got a sensory processing disorder or something- it would explain why he had an even more extreme response to the screech than anyone else we’ve seen, including people who have probably never heard it before. And speaking as someone on the autism spectrum, a couple of his lines during that scene (“Stop it stop it stop it!” and “It’s not that cold!” in particular) kind of make me think of myself as a kid. Only, you know, not a bully.
Entirely possible, and if his parents are in denial about him even having a disorder (I can completely see that), you can bet he’s never had any kind of treatment, and has no clue that other kids don’t experience things the same way he does.
Oh, yeah. I could also see them acknowledging it, but thinking that excused everything and they don’t need to help him with it whatsoever, but complete denial seems even more likely, sadly. They seem like the kind of parents who want their child to be absolutely perfect, and god forbid little Thomas Junior has something “wrong” with him.*
* Quotation marks since, obviously, I don’t think it’s a problem, but I’ve heard so many horror stories of the parents who refuse to accept that their child is different from what they’ve expected. So at best they’re unsupportive when their child wants to do something else and don’t let them do a certain extracurricular or something, and at worst they’re not letting their child get treatment they need.
What mom doesn’t think her son’s an angel? The hundreds of thousands of mothers who actually confront and discipline their misbehaving children. It’s basically why the world has decent citizens and hasn’t devolved into complete and utter anarchy. I’m sorry to be blunt, but that comment about mothers you made is insulting.
As for Mr. Trunchbull? He provoked an exhausted little girl who he’d just been informed had been ATTACKED. Why? Because Todd provoked him, and so he verbally attacked a little girl. Puh-LEASE. That is childish behavior, pure and simple. And what was TODD doing confronting the Trunchbulls with an exhausted Selkie in tow? I wouldn’t care if Selkie HAD hurt Mr. Trunchbull, HE is the adult, SHE the child. HE is a “professor” and ought to know better than to make comments that children would be PUNISHED for making. Being an adult and a “professor” is not an excuse, though he sure likes to think it is the way he’s throwing those comments around. Violence does not excuse the other, non-violent party’s verbal insults. Two wrongs do NOT make a right, even if one wrong is bigger. Almost ALL domestic abuse circumstances BEGIN WITH VERBAL ABUSE. Abusers don’t normally start physical because they have to “test” the waters first. Obviously the Trunchbull’s son has already taken his parents’ “little comments” to the next stage if they haven’t already themselves. The Trunchbulls are absolutely NOT justified in calling Selkie a “monster” or a “weak little girl.” It’s disgusting, and the way they’ve done it is childish and abusive.
And finally, if he KNOWS Selkie has poison spit and that she and his son were in a fight . . . why are he and his wife not more worried about their son who supposedly “attacked” a fanged, clawed little girl with poison spit? The whole conversation sounds like a set up. Which means that Mr. Trunchbull has a twisted personality, and there’s a distinct possibility he provoked Selkie on purpose because he was fascinated to see her reaction. AND because he knew he could twist it into looking like Selkie is bad and thereby excuse his beloved son, or else he wants to get her expelled, or even removed from Todd’s custody, and ultimately into some lab where he can poke and prod her to his heart’s content. I have not seen anything here that marks Mr. Trunchbull as any kind of good or “reasonable” parent as you seem to think he could be.
I don’t defend less likable characters because they’re less likable any more than I defend more likeable characters because they are more likeable. It has nothing to do with storytelling or bias. Mr. Trunchbull is the least adult one here, and his wife is a close second. Todd is third, and Selkie is the most grown up simply because she is the only one in the room acting her age.
And I don’t care what happens in the future as far as the Trunchbulls are concerned. Their current behavior is wrong, period. Past and future information given notwithstanding.
How do these disgusting little fools FUNCTION?
By steamrolling, throwing their influence around, and generally being bullies. Depressingly true to life.
Selkie-On!
That made me think of Jeremy Wade’s fishing catch-phrase: “Fish on!” XD
Lol, he and Selkie would get along great.
Until Selkie would start to eat the river monsters he catches. XD
Apply directly to the forehead.
I looked back at the previous page and see no obvious look that Selkie was getting ready to spit. Bringing this up may wonderfully get the Trunchbulls in trouble as a blinding spit attack from one of her species would make sense. However how would he know unless he had been involved with government think tank or analysis group. I would think the feds would be quite upset that information was being let out in an uncontrolled way. Dose that make me a bad person to hope Mr. Trunchbull gets in trouble for this?
All I can say is KRAKATHOOM
*dramatic lightning*
I think to be perfectly fair, although Mrs. Trunchbull from Matilda is the answer that Dave was going for, it would be fair to make the connection to Delores Umbridge as well considering that Umbridge’s character is in part based off Mrs. Trunchbull. The difference all speaks to a generational separation where older readers might more easily identify with the former and younger readers might more easily identify with the latter.
“smarmy punk” ???
smarmy – “Unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech”
I suppose, to a couple of people who have no social graces themselves, a nice well spoken person like Todd would have to be faking it.
Also the dad gave the biology 101 comment so I’m inclined to think he’s probably a professor of biology, maybe even marine/aquatic life in general. Maybe he could see down her throat and saw she has poisonous glands/sacs and just made the connection with some other sort of creature with similar glands/sacs.
Perhaps he knows what her species is altogether though. I doubt he’s making a blind assumption here and he actually does know she’s capable of spitting poison.
Sadly, if he knows of her species, this is going to be twisted in his favor. He very well may know more about Selkie than even Todd does and if he does… then if he decides to make a lawsuit out of this, it could be very, very bad. Who’s going to look more innocent? A big kid who may or may not be a little slow (People seemed to have thought that Truck’s size meant he’d possibly been held back.) or a poisonous little viper with claws and fangs who can emit earsplitting shrieks?
I’m honestly a tad worried for Selkie, even though I like to defend the less likeable characters, Selkie is still my favorite character and I wouldn’t want to see her be an outcast in society over this.
Perhaps, mister “thinks he’s too smart for ‘mister'” actually DOES know something more about Selkie’s species than Todd or anyone else does. It’d fit, making him feel more important than he is. And what if later Selkie’s race actually DOES spit poison as a defense mechanism? Squids spit ink. Skunks… well y’know. It could follow, but she’s just too young atm. Perhaps he knows this? I see some taunting along the lines of “i know what she is and you dont” when this PTA meeting comes up.
Hmmmm… More weak thinking, blatant assumption, name-calling… They’re downright childish! This kind of thinking would be verbally suplexed at a proper debate (they think they’re the judges of everyone else and are clearly unused to being judged)! This kind of thinking would earn him an F in logic! “Professor” may well be educated, but he doesn’t know how to think at all!
Todd is clearly the most emotionally mature one in that hallway, and if he realizes that he has at least that one advantage, he could figure out how to leverage it properly. But he needs more info on his enemies’ weaknesses. Like: the fact that they are outright enemies, for example.
One weakness is a lack of adaption in thought: they’re dumber than they think they are. You can completely throw them off fairly easily because our Professor of Nothing is so used to being catered to he thinks everyone simply must cater to him. This is a weakness, expect him to get upset, throw a fit, and then take his ball and go home in a huff.
For people the principle is so afraid of, they really aren’t all that intimidating.
love the first fan art, reminds me of k-on
Quoting Selkie in the near future “I cans spit poisons? He he he…!”
This may have been answered already (forgive me for not checking) but did you get the name Trunchbull from the movie ‘Matilda’? Principal Trunchbull, the super nasty fitness-fanatic that killed her brother to get all his stuff?
It was never proven that Agatha Trunchbull killed Magnus. There was just a lot of circumstancial evidence, including the will reappearing after she vanished. (Also, because it was set in Britain, she was ‘Headmistress’, not ‘Principal’.)
If professor butt-face is a teacher, especially biology, is it possible he is well aware of Selkie’s species and what it entails? That might be why he knew she was poison.
I mean in past comics, we already know Selkie’s people work with other humans, so it’s not like they are a super duper secret.
Nobody likes a parent who believes their child can do no wrong. However, if Todd explains to them later that Selkie was provoked by their comments after already being on edge, the Trunchbulls will think the exact same thing. I’m afraid it’ll be hard for Todd to clear up the situation without the Trunchbulls getting the wrong idea.
I’m not saying the Trunchbulls are exactly the nicest of people but from their perspective it looks like Selkie at least takes part of the blame. Kicking their son in the nuts, getting suspended alongside their son and reacting aggressively to in their point of view ‘absolutely nothing’ doesn’t really do much to prove her innocence. Let’s just hope they don’t pull the “you’re just saying the girl is the victim because she’s a girl and our son is a boy” card, cause that would make me really angry.
This could all actually work out in the Smiths’ favor. Assuming by the Trunchbulls’ reaction to Selkie, I think they could know about her species. When Professor Trunchbull brings up the poison spit, it will make it clear that he might know something about her species no one else in the main cast roster knows so far. Also, the Trunchbulls jumped the gun a bit IMO in making Todd their enemy. There is a possibility that if the Trunchbulls try to sue for Selkie’s ‘spitting’ and/or try to blame Selkie for Truck’s actions, then Todd could sue (either the school or Trunchbulls depending on how the laws work) for the attempted murder of Selkie on school grounds. The kid may not have known he was about to kill her, but the courts may see it differently. It would bring some kind of attention to the issues in the school if nothing else. Now I feel like I need a legal adviser in order to know Todd’s best course of action with this. With how unjust what happened to Selkie was, I wouldn’t feel bad for suing in this scenario. I don’t know how rich Todd is, but he seems to have had no financial burdens with the costs of Selkie’s special needs and being an architect. I could see him having a fairly good chance in court.
For the record, I don’t like the Trunchbulls any more than anyone else on this forum. But I will say this.
FROM THEIR PERSPECTIVE, this is what happened:
They were called to the school in the middle of the day facing accusations their son had assaulted another student. (Whether they believe it possible or not is not the point at this moment.) On arriving at the school, they encountered another student and parent who suggested this student was the victim of the purported attack. The Trunchbulls suggested not jumping to conclusions in the face of circumstantial evidence. They attempted to downplay whatever it was that happened until further detail came to light, but voiced confidence their son was not the aggressor. At this point, Selkie began screaming at them and bragging about hurting their son, as well as threatening to hurt them, and had to be dragged bodily away by her father, who then deliberately insulted Professor Trunchbull.
Their subsequent reaction is completely believeable based on what we know of the characters.
Shouldn’t her name be spelled “Dolores”?
Spits poison?
any any other context I would dismiss that out of hand.
Given Selkies unknown species, I would not put it out of hand, which leads to the question how does he know what is (lightly) being kept a secret?
Looks like Selkie is developing freshwater ick.
Prof. Trunchbull: “In the meantime, our son is still grounded until he learns how not to get CAUGHT beating someone up.”
I’m starting to think I might not be able to read this comic anymore. 🙁 I’m starting to really hate most of the characters. Tony, both Trunchbulls, the Principle, Amanda, even Todd. Grrrr.
Still reading. I was just upset by the situation. Sorry. :`(
No worries. This whole arc was a bit heavy.