I feel super awkward making this strip the weekender.
Also, the arrow key navigation bug with the comment box should be fixed now. Let me know if you still see issues.
The Clan of Laborers and Peacemakers (Sarnoth's law enforcement body) are also the Clan with the most control over industry, finances, and other resources.
Was so tempted to type “a math question” but I doubt Sam Protection has a sense of humor. Hope Spam and all the little Protections at home had a good holiday!
T-Day food comas are acceptable excuse and an envied one!
Aw! Knowing that they are exiled for seeking protection is even more heartbreaking, I think… Unless things seriously change, Selkie won’t get to see Sarnoth…
Sure is good that Selkie isn’t your daughter so you don’t have to make that decision then, huh Pohl? I dislike how he insinuates it’s somehow his and his wife’s choice to tell something potentially devistating to someone else’ young child. He’s coming off a little racist (speciest? lol idk) in the last two strips. As if Todd is somehow less involved in this. Maybe he doesn’t experience the discrimination and persecution first hand, but that doesn’t make Selkie any less of a daughter to him. Her problems are his problems as well. Wanna talk about trivializing a situation? Todd has rights as a parent, adopted or not and same species or not or that matter. Pohl would be pissed if Todd went and promptly told Suko about the war without his consent. Show Todd some courtesy and respect here.
I am still in the camp of, “Pohl is just bad at explaining himself with words in English!” Because (in my mind) I am reading this as a whole “We don’t know how or if to tell her, because in the end it is your call as her adopted parent!” which is a part of why Sai Fen is taking Selkie away to show off Sarnothi sculpture so Pohl can fill Todd in and let Todd make the decision…
I could be very wrong. I have been before. But. Still trying to be an optimist here…
Yeah, I’m with KittenJedi on this one.
In other news … THE FEELS. OH GOD THE FEELS.
And it’s also interesting to see how you sketch your comics.
Ak! Internal Grammar Police: Dave is the “you” mentioned here; this was originally ambiguous.
“And it’s also interesting to see how
you
sketch your comics.”?
I think you’re reading into it a bit. He never said it was HIS decision. HE just said not to shout it, because he didn’t know if he SHOULD tell Selkie. That has nothing to do with him being the right person to tell her or racism or whatever; just plain, old indecision.
It kind of IS his decision, considering he’s divulging some highly classified information here. By telling Todd, Phol is even essentially giving Todd the choice whether to tell Selkie or not. He even waited until Selkie was out of the room instead of taking it upon himself to out and say it.
Whooo settle down. Have a sandwich and breathe a bit. There’s a reason Pohl is telling Todd first, and that’s so that Todd can make the decision as the parent. If he’d decided unilaterally to tell her, he’d have done so already, and THAT would have been overstepping. I’m pretty sure as a parent himself, Pohl understands the difficulties inherent in making this kind of decision.
Selkie’s family came to Pohl and his wife for information. About Selkie, her homeland, her heritage, all that.
By “we” I don’t think he means [Todd + Pohl and his wife as some sort of “secondary guardians”, as if they have a right to her upbringing], I think he just means himself and his wife. As teachers. As the people Selkie will ask everything of.
He and his wife probably discussed this at length before Todd and Selkie arrived.
What if she asks “so do you go back and visit Sarnoth?” or some other innocent question? He will either have to break it to her, dance around the question, or (and much less feasibly, since he has such a hard time lying) be untruthful to her.
He’s simply saying he’s unsure of how to present such information to a young girl whose only recently begun to learn about her ancestry and heritage.
Um, Pohl and Sai Fen aren’t dumb. This was contrived to give Pohl and Todd time alone for him to “fill in” the blanks. I am SURE that Pohl wouldn’t presume to make the decision to tell Selkie over the wishes of Todd, once Todd is filled in as to the ENTIRE situation– including what appears to have been GENOCIDE against Selkie’s clan. (which hasn’t even come up yet, note.)
…oops, missed a spot. Also, note that Pohl’s comment that “We don’t know how or even IF to break it to Selkie” appears to be intentionally including Todd in the “We”. Pohl is really trying to work with Todd, here.
Already new about the civil war itself, but the details suddenly make things very heavy. Great plot though. Did you have the civil war idea since you started the webcomic or did it become a plot midway through?
Not since the literal beginning no, but since very very early on.
Your comic even in black and… err, blue? with no colours at all is my best morning pick me up.
I think Pohl is blurting out what’s troubling him and Todd just happened to say the right words to get it flowing.
The background behind Pohl in the last panel seems to indicate that the Sar’Teri, at least, use the green-and-black magic for weaponry. Scary.
Quoting a character from Mass Effect (please bear with me)
“Home” is recognized patterns, known spaces, familiar thought processes of fellow sapients – it is belonging… The “home” of the creators is where the creators are. Their place of origin is not relevant – only where they choose to go together.”
-Legion, on the topic of the Quarian Homeworld
Although the context may be a bit different, the meaning is almost identical; the loss of an ancestral homeland dosn’t rob someone of a meaningful future. Exil by itself isn’t such a terrible fate.
Trust me, it IS a terrible fate – I know this, not from my own experience, but from speaking to many, many de-facto exiles over the course of doing human rights work: people who had to flee their homelands to escape imprisonment, torture, possibly death, just like the De´Madiea family and Selkie and her mom. As far as I can tell, the best thing that makes exile bearable is the hope that it will one day end – which is why a lot of exiles (Iranians, Cubans, Chinese, Egyptians, North Koreans that I´ve worked with) throw themselves into trying to change their homeland from the outside.
If our bunch of sarnothi here were real, I would now be hugging the lot of them.
I’m truly sorry to hear that, and I apologize for saying anything offensive or naïve; I only considered the practical differences between one stretch of territory and another, while ignoring the spiritual and emotional issues involved.
Although I won’t dispute a person’s right to feel a connection to their homeland, why do you think it’s so strong? If the conditions there were bad enough to flee, wouldn’t an exile be glad to distance him/herself from such hardship? Is it the territory itself, or something more?
I would say it is, at least in part, a great deal because of the psychological conditions under which you left your homeland.
In one case, someone may have grown up and lived in an area all their life, felt attached to the place, and had every intention of continuing to live there for the remainder of their life. Then something (say, a war) changed, and forced them to abandon it unwillingly for their own safety or their children’s.
That makes their home something that was forcefully stolen from them, and something they very much want to get back. By anaolgy, you could think of it like the house you bought and worked hard to make into the place you like was violently occupied by squatters. You’re going to take up residence in a hotel or a friend’s house temporarily, but you’re going to do absolutely everything you can to get that place back. You’re not going to just say “Oh well, there goes my house. I’ll find a new one.”
By contrast, other people willingly or with some much lighter economic pressure emmigrate from their homeland. I have plenty personal experience with such people. These people have willingly given up their old home to seek out a new one. They often keep a strong connection to their old hom (and these days, even visit it regularly), but “home” is where they are now.
That’s the difference between a refugee community and an immigrant community.
I wonder what Selkie will think of the Maiden’s toplessness..
Adults separate art-nude from nude-nude, but I know when *I* was eight, I was still embarrassedly drawing underwears over the “naked” (barbie and ken style) art replicas in my coloring books. Considering Selkie didn’t want to take her shirt off for her doctor, I’m thinking she might be the same way.
Also, Selkie in particular might have something in her head about shirtlessness itself, considering what happened when Heather stole her shirt.
I had no problem with incidental nakedness, (change rooms, etc) but a supervised docter checkup as a kid was reeaaly awkward, because the adults were awkward. I’ve known others who are more comfortable than me in their skin.
But yeah, Selkie has shown a deffinate idea of what’s appropriate in differant situations. I wouldn’t think she’d be more than surprised, maybe a bit curious about artistic nudity.
I think a big part of not wanting to take her shirt off for the doctor hearkens back to her discomfort at people seeing she has gills. Sort of like when she had her hair pulled up and her “ears” were visible.
Discomfort with nudity could have also been a factor, but you have to remember that she’s very self-conscious of her body, seeing as she never had experience with anyone like herself as a child. She got teased a lot for her anatomical differences.
Which could be helped by seeing Sarnothi art. Seeing a body like her own presented as artistically beautiful could do wonders for her self-image.
Wow…..so were really screwd if we ever want her to see home….thats mess up.
on a half lighter note hears a summation for you to look at, shes not done yet and her description can enplane why.
http://edward89.deviantart.com/art/The-lady-and-the-Eel-real-416996763?ga_submit_new=10%253A1385858590
I’d be interested to know whether you remembered *by yourself* to include Canada as a factor in hosting Sarnothi refugees, or if it was the result of nags here in the comments.
Little bit of both. It was background info that didn’t really have an opening to mention until now. Up until a couple strips ago the location of Sarnoth as being in Lake Superior was reader speculation based on hints in narrative. None of the characters had a motivation to say “So, what’s the deal with Canadian mer-people?” When the question came up in commentary, I mined it as a good thing to answer through dialogue.