This one may not end up colored gang, just a heads up. I’m out of town at the moment. Brought my laptop so I could comic on the go, but it’s being a lot choppier with photoshop than it was last time I used it. Which is also why the lineart is hand-inked. 😡
If I could make plushies, a PAAAANTS plushie would not be off the table.
Boots and pants and boots and pants
Majestic Pants! 😀
MAJESTIC PAAAAAAAAANTS!
Boy, I’m not getting good feeling from Gien. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but he really seems to be working up to making a case for keeping Selkie.
Doesn’t help that a lot of it sounds like religious crap to me – and I see Selkie not getting indoctrinated since from when they are born with this as a boon.
It’s equally wrong to call someone’s culture and religion crap as it is for someone to push off their culture or religion onto others when it’s not wanted.
Religion isn’t bad, extremists are. Same with any extremist of any particular culture or lifestyle.
If someone wants to believe that faeries/odin/an eel spirit watches over them they are free to, I’m not going to pretend it’s not ridiculous and silly though..
And wha if you are wrong and an Eel God DOES watch over them. Just because you don’t believe/understand something doesn’t make it ridiculous or silly.
Given this is a comic, I suppose it could be, ha. Still, I’ll remain skeptic until the story proves otherwise.
More likely he’s working up a case for all the other orphans be turned over, possibly as well as Selkie, to avoid the death of his culture.
((nevermind that there’s still a whole city-state under the waves of a different lake. ))
Given humans history of how we treat even our own kind, the Residential and Indian Schools where Native children were taken from their families and had white christian culture forcibly instilled in them, he is not wholly wrong in being concerned here. But I also hope that Selkie pipes up that she *does* know that particular legend and that her human father has been trying to make sure she has culturally appropriate role models.
THIS
Taking children away and severing them from their culture is something the US and Canadian governments have used to try and commit cultural genocide. (and are, in fact, still doing if you look at the number of indigenous children taken from their families and placed with white families in foster care)
I can’t help but see Selkie’s situation in that light. I mean, the poor girl didn’t even know how her species reproduced!
While I do like Todd, I want Selkie to be connected to her culture. I would be 100% sensitive to Gien suggesting that Selkie stay. It makes a lot of sense from a Sarnothi perspective.
I would not be surprised if Selkie ends up going to ‘summer camp’ here, where she can be with her own kind and (heh) immersed in her own culture and language.
I almost hope it is a father/daughter camp then so that Todd can learn what is important culturally to her as well. Todd hasn’t been neglectful in the slightest of trying to help her learn her people, and it isn’t his fault that Selkie didn’t grow up knowing what she is or about her people. The two of them learning together seems appropriate.
Um.
Not to throw a wet blanket on your first paragraph, but that’s not always how it turns out. I have first hand knowledge of this.
There ARE people who make decisions completely opposite to what you discuss; there is much latitude in these decisions and you can’t judge what are in fact individual decisions as a group statement.
You also have to remember that Selkie’s situation is intended to bring the cultures together. There are reasons why Todd was selected by Avery and Co. to foster Selkie.
The isolation of cultures before now may be somewhat intentional; it will be hard on Selkie in some cases but may benefit the population of Sarnothi more.
Think of what would happen if they didn’t make an attempt at integration; if they just announced “Yo, we got fish people!”
Dear eel farmer, how about starting with a “don’t get too close to the cage” before the very dangerous object lesson approach, hmmm?
Wouldn’t hurt to put up a warning sign or two, guys. Something like “Stay a full body length away from the cage bars at all times. Or you will lose a limb.”
They’re predators. There may be some cultural expectation that those who survive ought to be those who are smart enough to have some sense of self-preservation / perception of their surroundings.
Of course, being that they’re in the kind of trouble and possibly low population count that they have right now… might be good to update those expectations.
Except Selkie has been raised in a culture where the things you make clothes out of are cows and sheep, so its not odd that she wouldn’t expect the eels to be less dangerous.
to be fair, it seems common knowledge *not* to get to close to those things – you don´t see a sign saying ‘don´t pet the aligators’ in florida now do you? besides, humans (and selkie) wouldn´t be able to read sarnothi glyphs anyway.
what freaks me out though is the stament that ALL will repay this gift one day – does that mean the traditional sarnothi funeral is to feed the corpse to the eels?!
Quite possible, and I don’t find it freaky actually – funeral customs always differ from culture to culture
Counterpoint: my first visit to Florida was as an 18-year-old. I was aware that alligators are dangerous.
What I wasn’t aware of, and one of the first things I was told, was the drainage ditch between the gatehouse of my apartment complex and my building is frequented BY alligators, so don’t touch it, and stay on the sidewalks.
You can know something is dangerous, but not be aware the danger is there.
I’d imagine corpses would be more problematic for an aquatic civilisation than for a land-based one. Gotta get rid of them somehow, and burial ain’t really an option.
Kinda hard to build an underwater crematorium, too.
You’d think it was common sense not to get close to such animals, yet time and again we get stories of people doing just that at zoos and in the wild. Zoos and wild animal park often have signage about staying away from certain animals or not engaging in certain behaviors (feeding, taunting, etc.)
No but there are signs that say not to get close to certain ponds and rivers where they are known to habitate
You literally don’t need to try and hurt a kid. Do these people not believe in common sense or signs? Like you could warn them without nearly getting them killed. There’s no need for theatrics.
Are all sarnothi adults this overly dramatic?
That got a giggle out of me!
“…the majesty these creatures bear.”
“I AM PANTS!”
You’re not the only one. 🙂
?
Same. Oh Pants, the majestic one 😀
Whenever you hear someone talk about how majestic something is, always expect it to do something stupid.
I really like the line art.
And we see the opening salvo of “She should stay here” incoming. Like I said earlier, Papa Wolf Todd will be making an appearance.
Hmm. Clue drop; she WASN’T told these stories by her mother. So then… we should wonder why? Because if Selkie didn’t know about these Murder Eels(TM) then clearly her mum was neglecting indoctrining her daughter into the fold. I wonder why…
This is a good observation. She wasn’t that young when mom gave her up. Maybe they were already away from sarnoth for reasons.
I’m pretty clueless when it comes to children development so no idea if it’snormal she doesn’t remember much though.
Littles that are younger than 6 can know the story of Cinderella, and other fairy tales, and can (and do!) repeat their favorites to you, both in order and in backwards. (“They lived happily ever after. Before that the princess kissed the beast. Before that the princess went back to the castle”) etc. So yes, she should have known some of these before her mother dropped her off. But she also couldn’t remember other parts of growing up, so my guess is something like a Child’s PTSD, which coming from a war zone and a war hero as a mother, doesn’t seem so unlikely
Eh, while it’s possible there’s some hints at wanting Selkie to stay, I’m still unsure of it. I mean Brown has a son like Selkie, we already know they’ve visited and his son is still at home.
Perhaps instead they’ll offer classes or litature or something.
But he is with his Sarnothi mother still, whereas Selkie is being raised by only a human…
Just a heads-up – there’s a tag missing: Te Vahn.
Also, I was initially quite confused by what Todd says in the first panel, to the point where I cycled back and forth several times wondering if I’d missed a page. It’s a very abrupt transition. I eventually figured out that Te Vahn must have yanked Selkie out of the way of Murder Pants’ snapping jaws… after dropping in a fish that caused the lunge and snap to happen.
So, yeah, despite the fact that Todd couldn’t understand a word of what was being said on the previous page, he’s absolutely right: Te Vahn did put Selkie in danger. And then she waved it away, saying Selkie was showing poor judgement by getting too close. In context, that doesn’t seem like her just being a jerk, so much as a small glimpse of a huge cultural difference that we need to pay attention to.