Grrl Power #133 – Tibiassault
And so Sydney finally meets Anvil. Hopefully people aren’t too disappointed in how this turned out. After posting the previous page I saw a lot of speculation and some good ideas. Part of me wanted to incorporate a few but I had already drawn the page (yay one page buffer!) I decided it was best to stick with my initial idea – I’m sure a lot of people wanted to see Sydney wipe the floor with Math but if she can crush the best fighter on the team when he’s actually trying, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for her to grow. At least one suggestion from the comments made it on the page after next though. :)
Sydney didn’t get hit in the shin all that hard. It was more her overreaction that made her kick her leg over her head. Tomorrow she’ll be feeling those splits a lot more than the bruise on her leg.
This page does answer the question as to whether or not the orbs would ever hit Sydney. If’ they’re floating above her, trailing behind her of being called to her hand, the answer is no, but in this case she was making them fly wildly around her.
And for the ComicMix tournament… we came in 6 votes short of Order of the Stick which is seriously impressive, so seriously, thanks for all the votes. I’ll have to wait till they post the next bracket to see if we made it though. I know of at least two people that donated to the Hero Initiative and put their votes to Grrl Power, so it’s down to if anyone did the same for OotS.
We’re in! Down to the final 16, so please vote! We’re up against a comic called Ava’s Demon, which I had never heard of before this tournament, but they’ve done really well in the tourney so far, and the comic has gorgeous art. So check them out if you like and vote!
Oh, and the regular vote incentive is updated.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Dude! Congratulations on beating “Order of the Stick” (see here)! The final total votes purchased for you put you over the top!
You’re now up against “Ava’s Demon” for the next round.
Good luck!
That’s going to be a tough one to beat. They’ve been doing gangbusters for the whole tournament. I can’t get a feel for how big their fanbase is though. Their FB page looks like it’s just getting started, but the twitter account is roughly the same size as mine. Maybe the creator just has a zillion personal friends on facebook?
It was the booby factor lol. Nice. I’ve been an OOTS fan for a long time. You’re both on my must check list.
If you do manage to beat out Ava, you’re going up against QC or twogag, probably QC. Either of them are also going to be a fierce competition.
I know. Losing now would almost be a relief as I feel like I’m being a pest asking for votes, and I’m sure some of the readers are tired of hearing about it, but each bracket I advance to puts more new eyes on the comic, so I also feel I should be a little mercenary about it.
Well, it is a competition. Being competitive is allowed. I can’t speak for everyone, but I have not found the requests for votes to be onerous. In fact I have been passing the word to other folks I have recommended the comic to as well.
In my experience, you have plenty of nagging room before you reach “being a pest”.
Grrl Power or Questionable Content… *head asplodes*
Bad news, they have a gigantic following on tumblr. They got to me through the Dr Who AND Guardians fandoms!
Hmm, I don’t see how many followers they have over there. I’ve never had much use for Tumblr myself, though it does seem like a cool promotional too since all the sharing stuff is built in. I don’t know what I’d post there other than what I have on DeviantArt. Even then it would be super hard to find anything l posted after a while, like you can’t do a folder of wallpapers or anything, and Tumblr’s search is super lame since you can only search one tag at a time.
Okay, NOW, Sydney goes for the tentacle orb and has to be stopped by Max.
tentacle orb…imagine..side effect..it puts it’s target into a Sailor senshi girl’s uniform…yes, even if the target’s a guy…
a few years ago the mental image of Math in a sailor uniform being tentacle raped would have disturbed me. Thanks to the internet and a feline level of curiosity I am jaded to an incredible degree.
in short
I have seen things, horrible things.
I’ve seen things, you people wouldn’t believe. [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die.
Sorry DaveB, I had to put this here! :)
Curses! Foiled again!
I would have enjoyed this fight taking a bit longer. Two or three pages would have made it much easier to show what was happening and would have maybe even given an opportunity for Sydney to make it a fight. I agree Math kinda needed to win, but I’m disappointed she made it so easy for him.
Slowing down the pace for the sake of awesomeness (like in the Fusion restaurant scene) seems totally acceptable to me.
Way to almost Gwen Stacey your leg there buddy.
Again the birth of another beautiful friendship. I think Math might also be evaluating Sydney since he might have to be the one who trains her in martial arts (assuming that’s part of the hero training regimen). I still don’t see much of a problem with Math. As far as I know all he’s really done is make a few lewd comments and take a picture of himself with Anvil. I could think of much worse things that he could be doing with his skills.
Wait a minute….. I just realized; everyone wears collars! like… dog collars? Are they tracked and monitored by their collars?? Are the collars used to keep the supers in line? ….does Daphne’s clones wear actual collars or just illusionary collars? Could affect her ‘double-agent’ activity….
Chokers actually. And only Math among the guys so far (something DaveB addressed previously), but all the female characters wear them. They may have communications gear and whatnot also built in. The chokers are established as a standard equipment for ArcSWAT’s agents and supers.
Probably along the same line as modern throat mics (with training, can even be used when gagged)
Hence the significance of panel 1 here. Even if it does not have a tracker in it, any communicator can be triangulated, to fix the user’s location. Plus, worse, is the example that a mobile’s location can be tracked even when no call is being made. Depending on the technology the collars have, the same might apply.
I am guessing they probably also have IFF (identification friend or foe) transmitters in them too. So that ARC security can tell who is wandering around the building and/or to flag them as friendly to any electronic monitoring of a hostile situation.
I’m just happy to see Syd get taken down a peg. Honestly? She’s annoying the hell out of me. She’s practically the quintessential Mary Sue at this point, with her self-inflicted eyeball searing being the only thing bad that’s happened to her so far… and that was just for laughs anyway. She’s got more, or a wider variety of, power than anyone else, everyone’s bending over backwards to make nice to her, she’s…
… eh, let’s just say that I probably won’t be following the comic too much longer if she continues into Sueville, because it’s annoying the hell out of me. Which is why I’m glad to see Math take her down a peg. I just hope it sticks.
Um, I don’t mean to come of too rude with this, but you may want to read back through the archive as well as look up the actuall definition of the phrase “Mary Sue”. Sydney seems to be the source of multiple problems rather than the solution. She has shown little abilty to handle high-stress situations (such as being taken hostage, vomiting from adrenaline crash, being a transparent liar, etc). And rather than ingratiating herself with many cast members, she’s actually earned their chagrine to a fair degree. She is in no way portraide as being perfect and sports a long list of character flaws, the most notable being a tendency towards spastic, hyper-active, and impulsive action. She’s really more like one of the Three Stooges, and much like them, her antics at the very least make her disarming and amusing. Thus, she tends to have a simultaneously irritating and likeable personality.
Short version: She’s that one friend that, yes, does annoy the hell out of you, but at the end of the day you’ve had a shit-load of laughs that make it more than worth it. Understand that I feel that you are fully entitled to your opinion and that that opinion should be noted as different perspectives are important (such as insuring that your characters are being perceived as intended).
Anytime anyone starts something off with “I don’t mean to be rude, but…” you might as well stop there, because that’s code for “I think you’re a jerk but don’t want to say so.”
That’s fine, you can think what you want. But you’re not being polite by prefacing it that way. :)
I think Sydney does fit the qualifications for being a Mary Sue because, despite being the ‘source’ of ‘a lot of problems’, she has not yet been affected by them. Her vomiting, the eyepatch, and so on, are all minor issues at best. Everything in the plot so far with the possible exception of The Supposed Villain revolves around Sydney, and she’s quite obviously the protagonist, being the only character so far to get significant screen time. And yet none of the things that have affected her are in any way more than mildly irritating at worst, and she gets away with behavior that, put bluntly, would get any other person kicked to the curb.
If this were a pen-and-paper RPG, Sydney would be the munchkin.
I like the comic. I like the art. I’m growing to despise Sydney and starting to wonder why she hasn’t been clamped down on, hard. It seems like she has a free pass to be a complete and utter spazoid with no redeeming qualities, and y’know what? That’s boring, and irritating to boot. All of which is my opinion, sure — but that’s what comments are for, no?
Not suffering consequences? Did you miss the whole reason she’s wearing the eye-patch at the moment? What about what happened on this very page?
You say you wonder why she hasn’t been clamped down on hard, but how long has she actually been in contact with ARC for? As far as I can tell we’re still on the same day as the bank heist.
Note that Sydney IS the central character, and so far all this is basically one huge flashback being related by her. Very hard to justify suddenly going off and giving Max or Anvil the complete Life Story treatment at this stage. Maybe later.
As for her being at all Mary Sue-ish, that is your personal opinion with which I very respectfully disagree.
If you choose to re-inrterpret the preceding sentence as a personal swipe, then I very respectfully disagree with that as well.
Note that he’s probably going to take your “I very respectfully disagree” the same way he did Parapsychotic’s “I don’t mean to come of too rude with this”.
Which is probably the point of why used those words to begin with. ;-)
Note that he’s probably going to take your “I very respectfully disagree” the same way he did Parapsychotic’s “I don’t mean to come of too rude with this”.
Which is probably the point of why used those words to begin with. ;-)
Some people just can’t even fathom- much less appreciate- other people trying to be polite when they have to be frank.
Ayup. ;)
Actually, no; there is a difference between polite disagreement (which 7thsealord engaged in) and the sort of passive “I’m not REALLY calling you out” avoidance that Parapsychotic was engaging in. I was merely pointing out that that sort of verbal tap-dancing is neither respectful nor particularly clever.
As for Sydney being a Mary Sue… allow me to quote TV Tropes, since the Wikipedia definition is sorely lacking in actual definable points:
Sydney pretty much fits this to a T, if you ask me. Granted, we haven’t seen much story yet, but all I can look at is what we’ve been presented with. The “flaws are obviously meant to be endearing” portion is especially relevant to Sydney, I think.
This is why I see her as a potential Mary Sue, or as I noted in my first comment, heading down the road to Sueville.
I’m also going to paraphrase Yorp here, in that it remains to be seen whether Sydney is or is not a truly interesting character. Right now she’s a collection of spastic tendencies wrapped up in a lot of cussing, with an ego that is in seriously need of deflating. I am more interested in Math, in Harem, in the-girl-whose-name-I’m-forgetting-who-ate-with-Sydney, and hell, even in Supergirl — I mean, Maxima — than I am in Sydney, because Sydney right now is nothing but a collection of annoying traits acting as a focal point for Magic Plot Devices (that haven’t been used yet).
Put simply: please, please, tell me why I’m supposed to like Sydney? Quite obviously I am, and how quickly I was dogpiled for dissenting from that opinion should be sufficient evidence :D, but if you think about it for half a second can you honestly say you’d tolerate her kind of behavior from anyone not related to you? Would anybody?
I don’t think so.
I’m a bit confused here. You claim that all of her flaws are endearing when trying to claim that she’s a Mary Sue, but then you end by talking about how annoying her flaws are. It seems like you’re contradicting yourself there. Honestly, it sounds like you’re annoyed by her, and are arguing that you’d like her more if she had some unendearing traits. I don’t see how that could possibly work. An example of what you’d like might be helpful here.
In any case, entertainment is littered with people who would be annoying in real life but are entertaining when watching them inflicting themselves upon others. Sheldon Cooper, from The Big Bang Theory immediately jumps to mind. By your description, he could almost be a Mary Sue.
To address some of your other points:
1) “her self-inflicted eyeball searing being the only thing bad that’s happened to her so far”
I guess you forgot about all of the trouble she had with her orb/tube in the beginning, throwing up after being involved in a bank robbery, and everything that has caused her to add a new name to “The List”. Whether these are “minor” is irrelevant. Please keep in mind that 24 hours haven’t even passed yet in the story, so I’m not sure how much more you need to go wrong in such a short period.
2) “It seems like she has a free pass to be a complete and utter spazoid with no redeeming qualities”
Just curious, but when you first meet someone who appears to be a “complete and utter spazoid”, but they appear to have some rather powerful abilities, would you start giving them crap right off the bat, or would you start out polite, try to figure out what their deal is, and then start dealing with it? As for “no redeeming qualities”, from the characters’ perspectives, her power is a redeeming quality, and from the audience’s perspective, she’s a funny geek girl given super powers, so that’s a redeeming quality for entertainment value. But “funny” is in the eye of the beholder, so what may be funny to some is annoying to others.
3) “tell me why I’m supposed to like Sydney?”
Well, I can’t address you specifically, but in general because it’s interesting to see an “ordinary” person thrust into a world of super heroes and see what happens. Sydney is generally amusing in her reactions, “spastic” though they may be. Based on how the series opened, she probably has a serious brain on her as well, we just haven’t had much chance to see it yet. Furthermore there is the intrigue involving her orbs, such as where they come from and what the other two orbs do. Also, for comic book lovers, this is kind of a different take on the super hero genre so far, so that’s interesting as well.
What I think you’re looking for is more character development, but we’re still in the “establishing the characters” phase of the story. Like I said earlier, 24 hours haven’t even passed yet, so we won’t likely get that until after the press conference is done, possibly not until after their first super hero action. We’ve barely touched on a plot so far, so there simply hasn’t been enough time yet.
Ultimately, I think your complaints probably boil down to the humor being of a kind you don’t particularly like and the story not being far enough along to get to the parts which would “redeem” the character in your eyes. You might want to give the comic a few months off and then come back to see if more time passing in the story has resolved your complaints.
In any case, hopefully this will help you understand a bit better why most of us here like the story so far.
Sorry, had to weigh in a little bit here. I agree that tossing a regular person into extraordinary situations and seeing how they react/deal is a reason to read a comic, watch movie, play game, etc., it is not a reason to like said character. Maybe a reason to understand their possibly random reactions to whatever stimuli, but you like or dislike a character for their character traits, flaws, and motivations, psychologically speaking. To explain what I mean, in the movie Speed, the characters talk about relationships not working out when they start because of a tense situation like a being hostages. People feel a connection for being through that together, but that doesn’t mean they will get along. You still need to like the person for who they are.
Personally, I liked Sydney for a little while, but her behavior of late really annoys me. Not that I feel it’s out of character or anything, just it’s gotten to the point that I don’t really like how she acts either. I’m not saying she has no redeeming qualities. I mean she joked about hunting idiots on an island because natural selection was slacking off(which I’m sure many , but she was willing to risk her life to foil the bank robbery so she is a good person at heart.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I think your cristicism of Sofaspuds opinion was a little off, but just my opinion. I think sofaspud is a little harsh but I can understand where he is coming from.
Oh… and one more thing on the “free pass”, don’t forget that Maxima just had a talk with Sydney about her behavior and referenced Gwen Stacy to help put it in terms she’d understand. So we’re already hitting a bit of people trying to reign in her behavior a little bit. I expect we’ll see more of that in the future, though hopefully not enough to kill what makes Sydney funny for most people.
Well, as far as you think it’s ‘code for “I think you’re a jerk but don’t want to say so.”,’ then that’s where we disagree, because he still didn’t call you a jerk directly and openly to begin with. Maybe that would have been more honest for you, but the attempt to steer clear of it is still also there.
Besides, 7thsealord expected it as well. I’m guessing the reason you didn’t say the same of him was because both he and I anticipated it.
Regarding: “… can you honestly say you’d tolerate her kind of behavior …”
I’m curious what you consider appropriate intolerant behavior to be.
1) In real life
2) with respect to this web comic, how will you cease tolerating Sydney’s behavior?
TVTropes is mainly a humor site, and I’m not sure I’d go there for a formal definition.
You are right in that wikipedia is a little vague, in the body, but starts with a clear one-sentence definition: “In fan fiction, a Mary Sue is an idealized fictional character representing the author.”
There is a long-standing Mary-Sue Litmus Test at https://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm
Interestingly, due to this discussion, I ran Syd through it, and got a 23 (on the low side of
“This character could go either way, depending on the quality of the writing”) but more interesting, is a lot of the questions really could not be reasonably answered without being the author (the tool was designed for authors as a self-test to see if they needed to scale back a character)
Many other questions depend on future plot events.
So I guess, we’ll see.
Mary Sue definitions are really giving me a laugh this weekend! Following that link, and then clicking on the “First, if you’re unsure of what a Mary Sue is, please read this page.” Led to the following explanation, at the top:
A Mary Sue is generally a character who is created to be admired, envied, or even pitied rather than empathized with.
This type of character is nothing new – Puritan literature frequently featured too-good-for-this-sinful-Earth heroines who were created as role models to Puritan children. You’ve probably heard the expression “Little Goody Two-Shoes,” which is frequently used to refer to someone who acts in a sanctimonious manner – this was originally the name of one of these heroines.
Of the traits listed in the title, I empathise with Sydney, more than any of the others *. And that is the “not a Mary Sue” standard! :-D
And if the puritan Founding Fathers had to spend five minutes in earshot of her, they would be spinning in their graves!
* Being honest about the others, there are elements that I do “admire, envy or pity”, but in isolation, not as an overall summing up of the character:
I admire her braveness in expressing her inner child without fear of social ostracism (as in she does not care if they do, or not). I do not admire her arrogance (a less fun aspect of the inner child).
I guess that I envy her having super powers. And some nice ones at that. But that just goes with the genre. Folks who do not have that sort of wish, in all likelihood, would not be reading a super hero story in the first place! I don’t envy her lack of a love interest or shyness about doing something about the same (empathy kicks in again here). Nor do I envy her being partners in a failing business.
Would I feel that the character was less believable if the plot development did not lead to increased customers, in due course? To the contrary, if a publicised super hero did not lead to masses of free publicity and extra customers, it would feel distinctly off. However, I do empathise with Sydney’s expression when all the fame was mentioned. She realises that fame is a two-edged sword! She will not be getting something for nothing.
I can think of two instances where I pitied her. One when she was cutely hungry. But that was simply DaveB’s awesome art, rather than the situation seriously deserving it. And getting a 3rd degree noodle burn to the eye! But, that was more through empathy than pity.
Which is a neat trick, given that one of the quirks of Puritan beliefs is a rejection of all fiction; if it isn’t true, they don’t partake in it… with the arguable exception (depending upon an individual’s faith) of the bible.
The reason I started off my comment that way was actually because I was trying to convey that polite disagreement. Text doesn’t convey meaning that voice inflection would, and so what seemed like polite disagreement to me has sometimes been interpreted as nerd raging. I was trying to avoid that misunderstanding but it seems to have backfired. At first I resented your assumption that I was verbaly tap-dancing, but after reading what you said about my comment and re-reading my comment, I can see how it comes off that way (and also how it might come off as more than a bit pretentious). It’s like when somone apologizes and then says “However, *insert monologue that basicly retracts their apology*.” That’s not how I meant for my comment to come out, I was just trying to avoid sounding too blunt. While being blunt is a more starightforward and honest approuch, it can come off as aggresive and argumentative. This time I’ll try being blunt: Having a discussion break down into an argument annoys the hell out of me and it happens a bit too often, so I try to be overtly polite to avoid this. This time it seems I over did it and gave the impression that I’m pussy-footing around, I’ll try to avoid that in the future. As for yourself, thanks for keeping things a discussion and not nerd raging, much appreciated.
To be a Mary Sue, she would need to be a self-insertion character. Now, we have a lot of clues about Dave B’s personality from his comments here, and Sydney is not very similar to Dave. Nor does it sound at all like Sydney is the character Dave would like to be.
I’ll grant that Sydney has some annoying characteristics. However, I’m not annoyed, because Dave delivers so many laughs.
Sydney is hardly a Mary Sue. Mary Sue characters are characters where everything they do turns out perfectly and they always have exactly the right skill set and they bail out major characters who get themselves into trouble for no well-supported reason. Nothing Sydney has done has turned out well, and despite her powers she has a very limited skill set which has at no point helped her much. And she hasn’t saved anyone at all yet, let alone a major character who is suddenly helpless for no reason.
I’d like to see a whole series of “learning moments” for Syd. That’s how it works for apprentices in any line of work, in my experience. The talented ones, anyway. The hacks just get along. The really good ones are always a royal pain in the ass, though. Always getting into things, always saying “Yeah, I got this” right before the crash/explosion/ripping sound/whatever. Sometimes, it really is funny. Sydney is almost always funny. I count that as a redeeming quality.
Dave is setting the bar pretty high with Syd, so I have high hopes for her future.
As has been said: you seriously need to read up on what a ‘Mary-Sue’ is. This whole ‘Mary-Sue’ thing is fairly new to me, but from what have read, a ‘Mary-Sue’ is perfect and flawless in every way, which is hardly appropriate when describing Sydney
I take your meaning even if you’re using Mary Sue even as a bit of a misnomer. That term started off as one thing (the indomitable fan fic author insert) and has morphed to “any character who annoys me by being unreasonably good at what they do” by which definition someone like Batman or James Bond could be the ultimate Mary Sue.
With Sydney I am mindful of not making her effortlessly excel at everything, which is exactly why she, as has been pointed out, has a good fear vomit, falls on her ass, smacks herself in the eye with a noodle, etc. On the other hand, she is the main character and unofficially an agent of chaos, so she’ll occasionally get away with the exceptional act now and again. It’s a balance.
I definitely agree – sydne has been toeing the mary sue line for a while.
“Youngest member on the team” and “one of the most powerful additions to the team” together are just about enough as it is.
A mary sue isn’t necessarily perfect in every way – theyre just “more powerful than they have a right to be” using a very broad definition of “powerful”, including how well liked you are, how lucky you are (and sidney’s been prety lucky), your encyclopedic knowledge of superhero tropes that supposedly allows you to know how other people can use their abilities better than they themselves do, and your tolerance dor spicy food. How powerful you’re allowed to be depends on the setting of course.
In this comic, though, half the team seems to be a little mary sueish. Harem can be sper smart (sorta) AND super strong AND has a wide variety of skills AND can teleport AND has an extremely good dodge mechanic AND can do several things at once.
Maxima is the Superman of this universe. If the hitherto un-revealed villains can match her, though, it could work okay.
Dabbler… if she was the protagonist it would be textbook sue, case closed.
(I know definitions vary and mine may not be the original definition, but the semantics aren’t the point – we can replace Sue with “overpowered character”
Well if they’re all overpowered then doesn’t that just make them equals? I mean, they’re superheroes. They all have their quirks and failings too. (Many of which I haven’t gotten to yet, admittedly.) But look, this is a generally lighthearted and humorous comic, there will be more wins than losses. I am conscious of the problem with making flawless characters that can do no wrong which is exactly why Sydney took one in the shin here. And why she vomited at the back, and got the tube strap caught up in the door. Well, that one was mostly for humor’s sake.
Given that this is a story is about superheroes, by definition they need to be overpowered versus an average member of society. However, if the characters peers, opponents and challenges are suitably balanced then a story will work fine.
As a games master I have run campaigns ranging the gamut of power. In one, the characters played familiars and other small animals. Another favourite campaign, as a player, had characters who were intrinsically weaker than the average member of society, being weakened by harsh slavery.
In both, the characters had to co-operate in order to overcome just a normal person or relatively minor difficulty. At first. As with all such games, they gradually gained power. Getting a significant sense of achievement when they could consistently beat a normal opponent one on one.
But one game, I gave the characters what would appear to be unlimited power. They could use spells as often as they liked (no limited uses per day or “spell points”) and anyone who had no magical ability had a range of powerful magic resistant or anti-magical options to choose from. Not to exclude those who, under normal rules, had weak casting powers, their abilities were expanded to match those of a major caster in a normal game.
That said though, to balance it, so did everyone and everything else in their world! Even small animals either had strong magic, or defence against it. Of course, that means that their mounts and pets were rather fun too.
I did not stop there though, I also gave the characters very strong, unique, inherent abilities, that even other heroic adventurers lacked. Each of them effectively replicating the powers one of the strongest magic items available in a “normal” fantasy setting. Plus gave them bucket-fulls of borrowed godlike power.
That is literally how I described it. “You each have a bucket of divine power. How much of it do you want to spend changing reality in this situation? A thimble’s worth should let you flatten that hill, or drain the lake. But you cannot replenish it.”
Was it overpowered? No. Their situation was often terrifyingly dangerous, the foes were formidable, plus the challenges drained that finite power fast. Good fun was had by all.
Youngest member of the team? Sydney is actually older than Harem (21 vs 19). Newest member? Definitely. One of the most powerful? Sure, when she figures out how everything she has works. Hopefully Sydney matures during her training, but still pulls out the Rule of Funny card every now and then.
A Mary Sue character is a (generally) protagonist character that wins all confrontations (and never gets more than minor injuries), never misreads a situation and gets the guy/girl in the end, or accomplishes the objectives of the narrative, whatever that might be. The Mary Sue has abilities that no one has and they often show up without warning, e.g. The main gun on the ship is disabled and needs to be fixed, but the entire engineering crew has been taken out (or trapped in another part of the ship), so the Mary Sue, who has shown no ability or training in repairing stuff, steps up and MacGuyvers the gun back into shape in no time flat, better than new and then proceeds to use it to take out all the bad guys swarming the ship, despite having no apparent training in naval weaponry.
A good drama needs protagonists and antagonists (good guys vs. bad guys to the rest of us) that are balanced; the cop has a decent chance of taking down the crime lord and the villain has to be shown to be more than capable of winning the fight and succeeding in his/her dastardly scheme. It seemed acceptable that a highly trained and capable police officer, like John MacLean (of Die Hard) could sneak around an office building, picking off bad guys one at a time while the bad guys plan continues. The bad guys could win and the good guys could win: Balance.
A Mary Sue totally upsets this balance in an extreme way. The introduction of a Mary Sue means that every problem gets solved and every opponent is defeated with little or no struggle. This generally yields a very unsatisfying story. A Mary Sue introduced late in the story can also be seen as a Deus ex Machina.
Sydney is far from a Mary Sue. She has been introduced as having huge amounts of power, (mind you so has Maxima) but she has also been shown to have considerable weaknesses. A Mary Sue has supreme confidence in her abilities; Sydney is very aware of her limitations and tends to use bluster to cover for her lack of confidence and limited proficiency with her abilities. A Mary Sue always makes the best decision in any given situation or knows that one piece of esoteric trivia or has that one obscure skill that can save the day. Sydney has shown none of this, often making insulting statements or even down-right crazy choices.
Doctor Who (Yeah, new episodes!) pulls weird knowledge and skills out of seemingly nowhere, but he is supposed to be really smart, nearly 1000 years old, well traveled throughout time and space, and lived through many adventures (well most of them). He is not invulnerable (he has actually died several times now); he makes mistakes; he misunderstands some situations (he is an alien after all) and has been known to be ruled by his emotions at times; he has often acted harshly and then been so, so sorry. There are many times that the Doctor is not the one that solves the problem; often his companions pull his butt out of the fire. Even a character like the Doctor is not a Mary Sue.
I am clearly a fan of Sydney. But, I too dislike some of the stuff she does. Anyone who has a strong personality, like hers, will aggravate folks at least part of the time, a few more than others. However it is all a consistent part of her personality. Which will, hopefully, mature with time. Preferably in a natural organic way, mind, rather than by editorial decision as a result of reader pressure.
Strong literary characters require a few flaws in their personality, though. Look at James Bond’s womanising (plus, in the novels, his implied drink problems, heavy smoking and frequent disrespect for authority). Which, depending on the reader, might either alienate or appeal.
Or the much stronger traits of Sherlock Holmes. He positively disliked women (with few exceptions), was slovenly around his quarters, probably drove his neighbours mad with late night violin playing and was a drug addict, to boot. Let alone his strongly condescending attitude and other personality aspects.
Yet, on the balance, they have stood the test of time as being much loved characters. Sadly, any time you have strong character traits, there will always be some folks who get turned off by them. So I empathise with your opinion Sofaspud.
Honestly, Sherlock Holmes is one of the biggest Mary Sues in history. The reason Arthur Conan Doyle was successful with that character was because crime drama and mysteries were brand new, unheard of genres, not because Sherlock wasn’t way, way too good at everything.
A character can be very, very flawed and still be a Mary Sue. What makes a character a Mary Sue is that any problem they’re faced with is resolved by either introducing some obscure new skill the reader never knew about before, or by being so ridiculously strong/smart/talented in general that the problem isn’t even really a problem, but an opportunity to show how awesome s/he is. If his flaws don’t directly contribute to making his or her challenges more difficult, then they do nothing to mitigate him or her being a Mary Sue.
“Mary Sue” as a term means means nothing more to me than what I have read above, it being a new “buzz phrase” to me.
However, to argue your points on their merits, if Sherlock Holmes’s popularity only lay in the newness of the genre, then interest would have fallen off with time. The fact that you continually get new TV series, books, films, radio dramas and plays based off him rather contradicts that. The acreage of pages printed and miles of film footage shown of him is vast. Continuing to the present day.
There is something more appealing to them than you imply. And, other than Dr Watson, the story is wholly about Sherlock Holmes and the crimes he solves. So if he no longer has any intrinsic appeal (the genre no longer being new), then why do people still pay to see his stories?
Yes, he is very smart, but that is kinda the point of the character. Yet the one woman he genuinely respected out witted him. His arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty had the better of him several times. And even his own brother was much smarter than he was!
So even his intelligence was not all powerful and unbeatable. Not to mention that more than once he has had to resort to fisticuffs, fleetness of foot or guns to solve a situation that intellect alone could not deal with.
Part of the answer lies in his flaws (there is a lot more to it than just that, but that is the topic under discussion). Some of them do impede him and the story. Notably his arrogance. Several times he has under-estimated the situation or his foes. Precisely because of his superior intellect. It is not just an overwhelming advantage. Conan Doyle was a clever writer, and turned an apparent advantage into a disadvantage.
Like the use of whirling balls of power as a shield appears to only be an advantage. Until we were enlightened otherwise.
His dislike of women, condescending and often acerbic attitude often alienated clients and other individuals, such as witnesses. Thereby not getting much needed information or aid.
Whereas the drug use made him incapable of doing anything at all, at times! Albeit serving more to highlight the importance of Dr Watson in his life, than actually impeding an ongoing story. But that all goes to character. Not everything in a story is plot driven. If a hero only has positive personality traits then he or she is two dimensional and will probably not stand the test of time, as an interesting character.
A “Mary Sue” this has become an annoying Buzzword that is now so far off the original base as to be meaningless other than (I don’t like this character, or feel they are too good at what they do)
Mary Sue was an actual character in Star Trek novels.
Mary Sue was a young new super nice cadette with odd colored hair and her own uniform
1: A Mary Sue is usually a young character with an apperance and personality of always being nice.
No matter what problems arose Mary Sue knew how to solve them, even more so than any other crew member.
2: A Mary Sue can solve any problem, even ones that by the story they shouldn’t be able to. So Lina Inverse blowing up a demon-god with a before hand never before seen spell? No, not a Mary Sue. If Lina Inverse in this fantasy setting suddenly knew how to fix a crashed spaceship…THAT would be in Mary Sue territory.
In this context: If Sydney could beat anyone she fought using their own techniques, and instantly knows everyone’s weaknesses and psychological profiles…Mary Sue territory (also Batman).
Mary Sue was liked by everyone, sometimes even by enemy characters…so always got her way
and THAT is the ultimate proof of a Mary Sue. When someone self inserts they want to be loved by the whole cast, everyone likes them, its a better place for them, they know everything, can solve everything, and all the characters praise and adore them.
In otherwords a Mary Sue lacks conflict and is a self insert Deus Ex Machina that everyone loves.
in short early years Superman was a Mary Sue before there was a Mary Sue, only one designed so that anyone could insert themselves in that role. (bland personality, overpowered, everyone loves him at the end of the day regardless of his dickery).
In order for something bad to happen to Sydney, wouldn’t something have had to have happened at all? I mean I assume you’re talking about something serious since Sydney has certainly experienced pratfalls at the hands of Dabbler, Math and a noodle.
I agree that Sydney had to lose this fight to be tolerable because there’s nothing so obnoxious as a person who claims to be unbeatable and actually is, but your reaction is one I keep seeing to characters, not because they always take win, never take losses and become the center of everyone’s universe…which is what a Mary Sue actually is…but just because they bounce back as fast from their losses and embarrassments as a typical member of the Three Stooges.
Now I don’t mean to be rude… is some times just some ones way of saying. I choose to disagree this way. Now I do mean to be rude. In my personal opionin after reading your responces to those that responded to you… You’re a Douché. That is all, thank you.
Ok you backdoor dirt munchers
I think a term that needs to be remembered is this one called Trolling.
When one sees a statement such as … eh, let’s just say that I probably won’t be following the comic too much longer if she continues into Sueville, because it’s annoying the hell out of me. Which is why I’m glad to see Math take her down a peg. I just hope it sticks. One has been trolled
And sofaspud does have a point. Saying things such as “I mean no disrespect” Or such does bring that subject into question. But it is a socialy polite device for all partys to save face.
Although if we are comparing personalty flaws of Sydney to other superhero’s. Well she has far more then sups, But just in degree of flaws I would put her between spiderman and wolverine if we are judging based on personalty. Socially she is inept and annoying although kinda likable. She is part owner of a failing comic shop, She has half a dozen orbs tethered to her and all other things considered I would doubt in her ability to hold down a 9-5
The thought had occurred to me, especially given the ongoing competition and the rivalry it will provoke. But I choose to ignore such possibilities, and treat the comments on face value.
I have no fear of trolls. Nor ghoulies or ghosties or long leggity beasties nor things that go bump in the night!
But it does give me the chance to tell another anecdote. Which does eventually come back to a relevant point. I promise.
I recall seeing a TV taste test. With a couple of celebrity chefs, professional food critics and others taking part in blind tastings. On trial were a variety of supermarket own brand colas, plus the brand leaders (Coke a Cola itself and Pepsi) and a mystery coke.
The long and the short of it was that the brand leaders did not win as being the most tasty. In fact they were described as being “bland” and “dull”. The mystery coke was the winner. It was actually made by another celebrity chef, and included cinnamon, to give it more character. Most liked by the professionals, and others, but disliked by one or two, without trained palettes.
But, the analysis that they gave was fascinating. It turns out that the formulas of the most popular brands have been gradually getting blander and blander with time. It appears, that if you use survey firms to taste test your product, you will always end up with a similar result.
If some product has character, is distinctive or interesting in some way, there will always be somebody who takes issue with it. We all have individual tastes, and anything that is distinctive enough to draw our attention might risk offending it in one way or another. Whereas, if you want to sell to as many people as possible, keep your product bland and uninteresting, whilst otherwise fulfilling the minimum expectations of the product in question.
So, the take home message to DaveB is to take heart. Keep producing an interesting fun comic with characters who have flair, style, individuality and personality. The more of it they have, the more some people will criticise. But the better your product actually becomes!
Nice observation!
I think people being able to Love to Hate someone has gone out of vogue. Personaly I get worried when people do nothing but agree with each other. Group think can be quite detrimental. It is how we get school systems that have a zero tolerance policy for drugs that charge kids who bring in cough drops and insulin. To cite one example I am fond of. But the trend to blandness so it makes everyone notupset is something that our culture is swinging to at the moment.
You guys know I read all the comments and I am probably a little more susceptible than I should be to them and suggestions, but one thing I do really want to stay away from is “running to the middle.” Sydney a loon, that’s baked in, and she’ll have her wins and losses. She has to have a starting point if she’s going to grow, but there’s only so much she’ll normalize.
Can anyone think of a WORSE thing to say (in terms of narrative causality) then “I am invinvible” and its equivalents? From what I have seen it ranks below evil laughter and even below “what’s the worst that could happen”.
Yep, definitely asking for trouble there. Right below ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ and just above ‘What Does This Button Do?’ and ‘They Couldn’t Hit An Elephant At This Dist-‘.
Given Sydney’s knowledge of all things geeky, I’m kind of surprised she would put that out there. Then again, she’s been on something of a roller-coaster, in every sense, for the last several hours. Forethought seems to be one of her weaker points at the best of times.
I’m forcefully reminded of the last words of Boris in Goldeneye, just before he got doused with liquid nitrogen.
“Let’s split up; we’ll cover more ground that way.”
“Huh. That wasn’t so bad.”
“Don’t worry; we’re safe now.”
“Well aren’t you just the cutest thing!”
hayo Great comic and stuff, now i got several things to say
1. wow sydney and i are very similar though perhaps im slightly more passive (and obviously i dont have spell orbs, though that would be cool)
2. ive thought of something similar to the orbs
and
3. You have my vote Yaaaay
Thanks! And really, who wouldn’t want power orbs?
“i bite my thumb on the off chance you’re a Montague!” might be my new favorite curse
lol
I like that insult so much that I’ve even considered expanding it a little:
“I bite my thumb in your general direction, on the off-chance you’re a Montague.”
Monty python and the Holy Grail “I fart in your general direction”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWBUl7oT9sA
Yeah, that USED to be my favorite, but I sort of combined the two because it lacks the “class” of the new insult. ‘Ol Bill’s scribbling are Classics, ya’ know. A lot of Monty Python is too, but it doesn’t have the longevity that Shakpeare has.
It was good to see her lose, and having it done in such a casual manner displays her lack of real ability. High Power, Zero Skill.
Math recovered his pride, and she got knocked down a peg. All of it done in a casual, yet amusing manner. Once she recovers, she’ll probably grumble and shrug it off. Or put him on “The List”. In fact, knowing Sydney, she’ll do both. As to how she’ll treat Math … as much as she spazzes out, she doesn’t seem the sort to hold a grudge.
Not the type to hold a grudge?
You cite “the list”, but I don’t think you realize the implications…
Point taken. But somehow she doesn’t seem the sort to ACTIVELY do anything, besides put them on The List. And maybe glare at them or mock them. Pretty mild if you ask me.
I’m glad to see Syd get beat by Math, the more I think about it. It shows how much Syd needs the training Archon will provide, whether to be an effective superhero or simply to keep her abilities in check, like what General Faulk said in 684.
For that matter, remember her Gwen Stacy taunt last update and Max’s reference in 716? She may really need the training in the future. O_O I hope DaveB wasn’t doing some heavy foreshadowing with those…
I, on the other hand, do hope it was a bit of foreshadowing. Even a comedy comic can be improved by a bit of drama adding weight to their characters.
DaveB, can we please have some “Like” buttons for the comments section? ‘Coz I think what Gruhl said has merit. Thank you. :-)
I’d love to give the comments more functionality, but I have to be careful about plugins and the like. Installing the wrong thing could wipe out the existing comments and that would be a real kick in the teeth.
To be honest, Gruhl, I’m just worried about what Syd’s going to be like having to deal with the experience of that kind of pain and guilt. It’s a sign of successful writing when the readers relate with the characters to that level and worry about them really getting hurt.
… Pants.
Out of pages.
No fair. This was kinda better than the last one I checked through… Not very long yet though. =/
Like the story hasn’t really gone much of anywhere yet…. v_v; … Give it time, I guess… but I’m impatient. How’d a comic this short get so high on the web comic list? Go figure…
At least the only complaint I have is… Sydney’s glasses. Two thin circles and a few extra lines superimposed low on her face. Does the thought of having to draw lenses (or put the glasses in front of the eyes) fill you with terror or something? =p
Anyway… I ought to go find more new webcomics to read… and figure out why El Goonish Shive isn’t in the top 10 (it should be)…
I refuse (refuse!) to feel guilty for buying votes to show both my support for this comic and my annoyance with their facebook requirement. Their rules encourage buying votes. It’s not my fault.
This was the first webcomic I ever read. (Yes, Dave. I was a virgin.) Now that I’ve read a few others, I can see your point about the pacing. It’s taking forever for Sydney to enroll at American River College. We’re still meeting the regular cast of characters. There’s hardly any plot. All true, yet I still enjoy the comic immensely. Do you remember the scene with the Cheetos? Page 81? There was absolutely no need for that. Cutting stuff like that out would have sped things up considerably, but here’s my point. I’m glad it didn’t get cut. If the pace picks up too much, I’m afraid we’ll miss out. :(
How did you find it if I can ask? I pretty much only advertise on other webcomics, which is a large-ish but incestuous universe but I’m not sure where else makes sense. Part of the reason I’m interested in this tournament is that ComicMix is mostly about comic books, not webcomics, so there are a few new eyes of people with tangential interests finding the comic through the tournament.
I was looking for an illustration of a gun, actually. I don’t remember the search terms I used, but your drawing of Max’s pistol came up. Coupla clicks later, I’m reading the comic.
It just occurred to me that you could totally catch the interest of military buffs by including military nomenclature in the titles of some of your drawings. They’d show up in searches for military gear, wouldn’t they? Something like “Max and her Barrett Light 50”, or “Harem IS the Ultimate Rifle Team”, or maybe “Anvil says 105mm tank ammo tickles”. Hmm. Those sound kinda contrived, but I’m sure you could come up with something that sounds better, with your talents.
That’s interesting. I under utilize DeviantArt. Some webcomic folk swear by mirroring their comic there or on Tumblr. I just don’t use those services enough that they’re part of my daily routine. I’ll probably do some more military stuff over there once Peggy goes on a tear about her favorite guns though.
this comic was one of my first. I decided I wanted to read some good webcomics and found yours through reddit.
Wow I’m surprised I picked anyone up from Reddit. I like Reddit for what it is, which for me is humor that’s digestible in 5 seconds or less, meaning long form webcomics never get 5000 upvotes. They want pithy and self contained. Still, I post there in the hopes I’ll get a big upvote surge or two. I think the highest I’ve gotten is 2. Except for the one that had Sydney quizzing Leon in it, because it had a Reddit reference in it, and it got just shy of 200 votes, but someone else posted the link – not that I really care about karma, but I’ll take what I can get.
So yeah, glad you have you!
I had never drawn a character wearing glasses before I drew Sydney, and I was worried they’d always be intersecting her eyes and make it hard to tell where she was looking or what her expression was if it wasn’t a closeup shot. Turns out that’s not as much of an issue as I thought though, but her glasses are the way they are now. It’s not like they couldn’t get broken I suppose but I like ’em.
For the record, EGS is one of my long time favorites, but it’s a bit of a niche. Anything with gender swapping is unfortunately. He has enough of an audience that he could rally his readers if he wanted but I’m not sure if he even got nominated for the seeding round. He seems to keep his head down and stay away from the social/promotional aspect of doing the comic most of the time.
I was curious on the matter of what was the de facto standard, so I did a quick Google search for examples of “glasses in cartoons”. And well … they’re all pretty basic, unless they ARE the focus on the character(even then, they’re still pretty basic).
Daria, Dexter, a couple of cartoon examples, both of them have simple glasses designs. Many professional cartoons in newspapers use the same basic ‘circle and line’ style for glasses. Glasses in anime are only a bit more detailed, and mostly thats in slightly altered shapes, with a few closeups showing more detail.
Maybe you Could have slightly more detailed glasses, but neither are they Just ‘lines and circles’ as stated.
What’s EGS?
El Goonish Shive
No problemo.
I’m a bit of a glasses enthusiast (and a wearer thereof, obviously), so I tend to pay more attention to them. A lot of fiction (especially of the sequential art variety) tends to treat glasses merely as accessories… rather than the necessary component of fully functioning vision they are for many of us. That is to say that anywhere the lenses aren’t superimposed over the eyes tends to be a blind-spot (or at least a blurry spot), which is why it tends to be better to keep them close.
I appreciate they’re not easy to draw accurately though…Trying to depict curved glass (or indeed anything meant to distort light) realistically would be a challenge for any artist.
Meh, the glasses work fine. I have never thought “those do not look realistic”. To the contrary, now that it has been brought to my attention, I think the minimalist technique is to be applauded!
Just because other comics choose a different route does not mean that DaveB has to copy their style.
I still want to see Math taken down a peg.
Does the cue whack by Harem on page 97 count? https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/583
Does he seem any less arrogant?
It’s still early. Plenty of room for character growth.
Although personally I like him. He’s a sleazy toerag, certainly, but unabashedly so. He is what he is and makes no excuses. I have a special fondness for someone so brave.
Then you should absolutely loveSydney. On her first day in a new job, in front of all her new workmates, she, a complete rookie just challenged the world’s top martial artist in such a way as to make him as angry as possible!
at some point you expect him to become less arrogant?? O.O lol :P
In most comics arrogance is usually a precursor to a good butt-kicking. And while he’s not exactly a bully everyone likes to see a braggart taken down a peg.
i just reread all reviews and look at the chapter:
very interesting
i applaude to Math for seeing the pattern of the orbs he is really a world class martial artist
it also show that Sydney is probably vulnerable to ALL of her power orbs
(although maybe one of the two unknown orbs could set an “immune to own power” effect
however point to Sydney for creating this “atomic orbit” pattern for her orbs, it takes training to do it without too much focusing on it
Another point: her word “Denied!” remind me of the webcomic “Keychain of Creation” when the alchemical exalt Nova use a force shield with the same word. An inspiration?
curiously i don’t think that Math is sarcastic when he give her 7 rank dan in cursing. Maybe like Ranma or Spiderman Math use taunting skills in real battle.
Still i wonder about Sydney speed reflexes focused through her orbs: It show a very good eyespeed to block Math initial thrust although i think he wasn’t using his whole speed. Maybe they will test the max speed reachable for her orbs in the future?
Math WANTED Sydney to try blocking his finger…He DELIBERATELY moved slow enough to make sure Sydney even had a chance to block it. It’s part of the tactic of distraction & misdirection. Stage magicians use it all the time to intentionally focus the audience’s attention AWAY from something specific; In this case, Math WANTED Sydney to be distracted away from the movement of his leg.
DAMMIT! Math just cost me 10,000 Quatloos. For those of you who took my bet, the checks are in the mail.
I was wrong in predicting there wouldn’t be a fight.
In commenting on the previous page, MelacholyZen seemed to be pointing to this item from Math’s bio:
“Archon approached and persuaded him to join with minimal effort, citing that supervillians would provide challenging battles for him. So far he’s not impressed.”
Sydney’s defeat was sealed when she issued her challenge without activating her force bubble first.
Actually that wasn’t what I was pointing at. In all of the character Bios, Math is the only who has a “Quotes” section and one of his quotes is “People who have power they didn’t earn rarely know how to use it effectively.” I was suggesting that Math was going to win and then use that line in the discussion afterwards. Considering how inexperienced with the powers Sydney has from the orbs that she found, it just seemed quite appropriate.
I will only point out to those that play the Mary Sue card that Sydney has only won fights when the other person isn’t trying too hard…
… Or wasn’t expecting it.
No one expects the Sydney imposition!!
Ni!
I must admit the whole Mary Sue thing confuses me a little bit because I thought one of the primary characteristics of that was “self insertion” and Dave is most certainly not a 5 foot nothing spaztastic female with the attention span of gnat. I suppose after dealing with a dungeon master who reliably Mary Sue’d one of his characters in most every session of every campaign, I think I accepted that as the primary definition.
While her power capability might be considered staggering, I don’t think she really qualifies as a Mary Sue though.
Well maybe “attention span of a gnat” explains why the comic is only weekly?
Sorry Dave, it was too good a straight line, I had to go in for the kill
after investigating the tvtropes pages of Mary Sue, I have concludded no character qualifies as a Mary Sue. The term is a buzzword for people who don’t like a character or think protagonists should have bleak existences, never be able to overcome their odds, and no friends.
I’ve often found myself at odds with the whole “super hero rating” systems. It seems like inevitably the systems stray from the most simple, higher numbers = stronger. You need situational or tactical advantage to make up the difference (say allies covering for you while you power up your 1 minute charge megacannon ability, or surprise.). While I agree under these conditions Math would win, it seems incredibly stupid of Sydney in her “combat” with math. It’s like saying “you are the strongest guy here I’ll fight you on one leg with a hand tied behind my back. You grab the shield sphere orb and the molestorb and pick him up. Trying to hit him with the orbs seems kinda silly, especially for a character that is supposed to be better than the powers’ owners at figuring out power stunts.
Point 2) no way is math a 7. People overestimate how amazing martial arts are regularly… being someone that practices them quite a bit, he’s at best a 5 in that lineup, probably a 4 because by the definition of the powers he should only be able to prevent anvil from beating him to a pulp and is likely incapable of actually stopping or hurting her…
Of course, Math has the intelligence & skills to lead Anvil into situations where she’d be most likely to injure herself…Just keep her riled up & reacting reflexively instead of tactically. A sizable part of martial arts training involves practicing the moves so much that they become second nature, leaving your mind more free to consider the strategies & tactics you’ll need to win.
As an example that we’ve already seen, even when Anvil had a grip on Math, he escaped; not by strength or by “breaking her grip,” but by making HER react reflexively & let him go.
Sydney lost her unpredictability advantage by thinking like a cliche superhero trope (that the same attack will work twice and thus equals stronger), when he now sees it coming and has the skills to avoid it when he knows to expect it.
Had she gone for powers instead would have likely been a different outcome (knowing what they are by name is not the same as seeing them and how fast they work, their range, activation times ect…)
on the tactical thing, I was inspired by a book (Not Exactly the Three Musketeers) when they mentioned that a wizard isn’t able to kill you anymore deader than a swordsman, but a wizard on the battlefield is like a guy with a flamethrower, the enemy is more likely to target them. A wizard has the added weakness of needing time to do a spell.
Think of it this way, you may be able to summon a space dragon that can rip apart a city, but can you do it faster than the time it takes someone to shoot you? Big spells that can take a minute or more to do are not tactically wise on the front line, those people need to be way back and defended. Which kind of sucks that videogames are using the incantation time thing realistically to limit spellcasters’ effectivness in close range combat.
for examples from media, as odd as it is Slayers regularly uses this as a way to limit that spunky little sociopath Lina Inverse’s power. While she knows a wide range of spells, and some pretty high up there spells, but those spells take time to cast and faster enemies (like Mazaku which can use powers instantly) prevent her from having the time to cast them. The fastest spells for her to cast while strong when she uses them are still lower attack spells that other Sorcerers would also be well versed in using quickly in battle.
Lol If Math saw the videos from the bank he’d realize she’s actually more like a 20th Dan in terms of cursing ability. XP
i am pretty sure everyone in ARC saw that video by now ^_^.
Matt could jump between the blades of a giant fan running at full speed, and state it wasn’t a challenge because the blades are predictable — just like Sydney is once he knows about the orbs.
…However Matt can be beaten by surprise (as proven by Harem hitting him on the back of the head, and Sydney hitting him once with an orb). I do sense one of Sydney’s greatest assets is unpredictability provided she doesn’t spill all her secrets at the press conference.
yeah her mistake was thinking that he could be beaten with a trick she got him with before, even if last time it was a fluke. But now he’s been hit by it, and sees it coming. Basically if she had tried using the special powers of the orbs instead of relying on how she bonked him before she would have faired better. Plus just standing there with them in consistent orbits that apparently don’t adjust quickly enough to a slight movement of her leg at the last possible moment before that orb goes that way.
Also just realized that was a Dr. Who reference…and I actually got it.
Why do people keep beliving the shield orb and the molestorb is some sort of invincible combination?
from all we have seen the shield is solid, and since the tentacle comes from the orb she is holding, then when her shield is up, all it can be used for would be picking her nose or making rude gestures.
It is solid from one side, correct, but how do we know things (like the tentagrabbie) can’t pass through from her side?
City of Heroes gave very powerful personal shields to bubblers. But, when using them, you could do nothing that affected the external world. It was useful for getting time to heal yourself, catch your breath or run through a mob of rampaging monsters. But having that limitation meant that the game developers were free to allow it to be incredibly strong, because you could not attack the beasties or help your allies. Until you turned it off.
Whereas, if you are able to influence the outside world, whilst being totally invulnerable to harm, you become dangerous. The more you can affect it, the greater the threat you pose. We do not know, yet, which category Halo falls into. Both tor‘s and Guesticus‘s are perfectly valid. If the latter turns out to be the case, then she will be pretty powerful (the actual degree depending on just how strong the tentacle turns out to be, if it can flip tanks or elephants then she would be very powerful).
The president of that combination is meaningful though. If the tentacle can pass through it, then it is likely that the Pew Pew Orb can shoot through it too. Given the listed strength of the Forb, that could make her more dangerous than a regiment of main battle tanks!
They probably have more firepower than her (the PPO is only listed as being of average strength, in super hero terms). But she would be able to attack without fear of any retaliation (by conventional weapons anyhow), so would be able to gradually wear them down.
*sigh* I too vote for a preview button. The word above should be “precedent”, in case you were confused about why national leaders were involved in my point.
love how things are going, looking forward to more, may i add, I think anyone who pulls “mary sue” into an argument immediately revokes all rights to making a good argument. Mary Sue is just a new way of saying “cause i said so”. I notice that the definition of Mary Sue changes every time it gets listed lol. that alone should exclude it from any good debates and arguments.
very true, I’ve never seen it used to describe the original character of Mary Sue.
and given the way I see it most commonly used can be used to describe any superhero that doesn’t get killed and/or hated by the community at large. and most cartoon protagonists like Bugs Bunny.
You make a good point. I had already decided not to bother committing the term to memory, as it seemed less than useful. However, I was curious enough to just have a look at the Wikipedia entry on it. And a couple of lines made me laugh:
“… the “Mary Sue” is judged a poorly developed character, too perfect and lacking in realism to be interesting”
From her critics comments, perfection seems to be something she is lacking. She has had a couple of years of character development, before we even end the first day of her story! Plus she has ADHD, a condition which affects about 1 in 10 people (going by the Wikipedia figures on the U.S. population), yet gets very little entertainment media coverage. Which gives her credibility as a realistic character.
Being a socially inept geek does not itself make her unrealistic either, for that matter. We do exist!
I quote the other paragraph that made me laugh, verbatim. It needs no further comment from me.
“However, several other writers quoted by Smith have pointed out that in Star Trek as originally created, James T. Kirk is himself a “Mary Sue,” and that the label seems to be used more indiscriminately on female characters who do not behave in accordance with the dominant culture’s images and expectations for females as opposed to males. Professional author Ann C. Crispin is quoted as saying: “The term ‘Mary Sue’ constitutes a put-down, implying that the character so summarily dismissed is not a true character, no matter how well drawn, what sex, species, or degree of individuality.”
I think this about fits what alot of people’s definition of a Mary Sue is
https://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_553_28-inspirational-image-memes-revised-honesty_p28/#25
As a person with ADHD, I can affirm that Sydney’s ADHD is appropriate and, while often played for laughs, is not shown in an insulting way. Keep up the good work DaveB.
@tor: I take offense at that, where did I call it an “invincible” combo. I was going for, “she’s in headquarters and can’t just blow the whole place up”, hence she would pick a usage of her powers that would prove superiority but not risk killing math or blowing the place up. A clearly more powerful combo (assuming of course the shield orb doesn’t preclude the use of other orbs) would be shield and PPO… obviously right out in that situation.
Another unknown is what happens if you’re on the threshold of the shield orb. Does it just cut anything that’s on that border or does it just force it outward (as in is it more like a cut or a push). Therefore could sydney actually safely use the shield “offensively” thereby eliminating the need to use more than just that orb
Very well sydney might have had very few good options for not killing math, but the fight is starting well beyond striking range, so even if sydney is half as fast both in terms of reaction speed and movement speed, she should have been easily capable of bringing up the shield. Which by logical extension meant the hentorb would be a good choice to “reach out and touch” math. It’s like there are almost nothing but obviously non-functioning options (teleorb, randoorb1 randoorb2), and that any combination of the others should have just wiped the floor with math. Hence my difficulty with maintaining suspension of disbelief I find it to be inconsistent with the characters, or the setting and to instead reek of something like needing to teach sydney a lesson, or she needs to show growth or something.
I think the various shield discussions might yield insight into why Sydney did not use it. The most obvious one being if she knows that she cannot act offensively with it up.
As she is trying to prove herself the best fighter, she would not be able to do that, whilst hiding behind it.
Plus, if you check out the discussion below this one, if Dabbler has already demonstrated the effectiveness of her shield against Maxima, then Sydney is not going to gain any extra kudos by using it, even if she can attack from behind it.
Dabbler’s shield (if my take is accurate) is a flat shield that she can interpose in front of an attack, but would not interfere with any of her offensive abilities (assuming similar use of tactics as with normal shield use). From Sydney’s own statement, she knows that Math is the top fighter. By elementary deduction, she would know that Math must know how to overcome such tactics.
If the audience are already jaded with watching sparring matches, with one opponent defending behind a shield and launching ranged attacks against a hand to hand fighter, then she would be demonstrating nothing new. Instead she tried something spectacular, to win them over with her dazzling skill. Which flopped.
Or, she may be even more insecure than any of us realise. Or possibly more wise. Perhaps she realises that the best way to bond with everyone is to be beaten by the most obnoxious bloke around. And there would be no shame attached to being beaten by the most skilled martial artist in the world!
None of this may help unsuspend your disbelief. After all, it is yours, and yours alone. But a few takes on alternative ways Sydney may be thinking (and I do not know any more than anyone else), might allow you a bit more leeway in your interpretation of her actions. It can be very hard to know someone else’s motivations, if you are not privy to their innermost thoughts.
on mary sue, if anyone is curious and hasn’t read it, it hasn’t been linked in this particular conversation: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue.
enter at your own risk, can be worse than wiki for some.
tl;dr of it: originally it had some basis in star trek fan fiction author wish fulfillment characters. It’s branched out since then to mean a lot of different things to different people.
one option that hasn’t been brought up for why Sidney didn’t use the orbs for their powers is that it would have escalated the fight and brought it to an early end (courtesy of Maxima). this way she didn’t hurt anyone and Math had a way to beat her without getting sirius. its important to give your opponent a way NOT to kill you when your in a friendly match.
Just remembered something about the shield: isn’t it a shield rather than a forcefield? ie it doesn’t completely encase her
If so, she could have the shield up preventing frontal attacks and use the graborb like a whip and smack the attacker from around the edge
I’m not sure we know for sure, but it sure looked like a sphere when Maxima was pounding on it.
And if it wasn’t, Max is fast enough to find an open spot and make use of it. Thus… sphere, not shield.
Possibly a somewhat malleable globe (glob), thus allowing Syd to go through doors and such with it up.
Was thinking of the shield shown here, but can’t tell if it is Dabbles’ shield or Sydneys
Context wise, I have always taken it as being Dabbler’s, given that panel one looks like she has invoked it. Plus I do not think that a normal person would have the reflexes to raise a defensive shield for someone else, faster than an irate Maxima can hit!
Whereas Dabbler knew what buttons she was pushing, and almost certainly had her shield ready for instant defence.
Plus the two shields do appear to be different. As you respectively described, one appearing to be a fully enclosed bubble and the other a flat circular shield. Of course, we do not yet know if either are mutable or fixed in form.
That said, in panel 3, Sydney does have her hand on the Forb, so it is possible that it is Sydney’s shield.
Panel of the references page shows Dabbler’s shield spell. Panel 3 shows Sydney grabbing her force field orb to protect herself from any stray supersonic punches and Dabbler hiding behind the resulting sphere.
Panel one of the references page shows Dabbler’s shield spell. Panel 3 shows Sydney grabbing her force field orb to protect herself from any stray supersonic punches and Dabbler hiding behind the resulting sphere.
This is why I need a Preview button, so that I can tell when I have left off a closing anchor tag.
So I just noticed, but it seemed to me that when Maxima was pounding on her shield, LITTLE triangular marks appeared, almost as if it was absorbing the inertia and force of the impact, and feeding that strength into the shield. So if this is true, would that mean the harder you hit it the stronger it is?
Just like the personal shields used in Dune: to counter them, don’t use force and you can pass through them
Ah hahahaha that was funny, wonder if Anvil and Syd will get along? They both hate that guy so it might be possible.
they seemed to be getting along before the flashback started.
True enough.
If Sydney is a 7th Dan rank in cursing and swearing, I’m wondering what constitutes a higher Dan… Sydney has already shown she can make a sailor blush in an earlier update. Makes me wonder… could a 10 dan make Sydney blush?
10 dan can melt concrete.
Minimum effort, maximum … overreaction?
Mary Sue? Syd is still limited by only being able to use two balls at a time. The sketch of Sydney chasing Ava’s demon is a nice demonstration of Syd as an attack chopper. Firepower and mobility, but no armor. She could go with firepower and protection like a tank, but that cuts her mobility. It’s a trade-off. As a gamer, I’m sure she’s already worked out the useful combos.
One of the balls must have the job of tethering the orbs to Syd, or vice-versa. Maybe one of the mystery orbs, but maybe not. Maybe she can’t get the mystery twins to work because they’re already busy at something. If one is the tether ball, the other might be… I don’t know. Any ideas?
weird thought,
the one he touched with his finger is one of the two mystery orbs. What if he figured out just by watching their orbis which one was controlling the speed and distance of the others and by temporarily stopping that one was able to negate the safety measure preventing them from colliding with Sydney.
I’d say the other might be responsible for the impossible to scan thing.
Well, he was there when Syd described them, but I’m not so sure he could’ve figured out that one of them was the tether ball. Even if he did, he’d be taking a 50/50 chance on which was which. I know he’s good, but is he that smart? Maybe so. Something else to ponder, thanks so much. :)
I forgot about the scan blocking, or whatever it is. Sooo, if the brown one is the tether ball, then the green one might be the scan blocker. Hmm. It occurs to me that the comm ball has multiple functions. That means the scan blocking and tethering might be a sort of an admin-combo, still leaving one orb with no apparent function.
As you are inspiring speculation on mystery orbs, here is one more possibility:
LOANBALL If given to someone else, it can be accompanied by one of the other orbs. Halo loosing the use of the ball in question (plus, possibly, extra powers the Loanball itself might have). But the recipient gaining the appropriate power.
One possible ancillary power of the Loanball is that it, and its companion, can be recalled on demand by Halo. Possibly it creates a duplicate or inner orb version of it, and Sydney has to keep the original in hand, all the time it is on loan, or else they both return.
Its very nature explaining why Sydney has not been able to discover its power yet!
That’s a cool one. :)
Personally, I think of the tethering as being a universal property that they all have, rather than it being granted by just one. Rather like the fact that they can each levitate in their own orbit.
Of course, that itself might be granted by the ‘tetherball’, if your hypothesis is correct. If someone finds a way to negate the tether property, all the balls might fall down to the ground. Even if they otherwise retain their powers.
If you are right, though, it need not be granted by a mystery orb. It may be that the Flyball has tethering and ball orbits as ancillary powers. Using a similar line of thought, the undetectability might stem from the Comm Ball. Detection and cloaking being related abilities. Although, again, I think myself of that as being a property common to all.
It could be universal. I’m not sure about the orbits, though. Remember when she said she was nitrogen? The orbs may levitate and stay near Syd on their own, but I think she’s the one who spins them about. Does she need to have one in hand to impose her will on the motion of the others? I’m not sure about that either. She had one in hand when she bonked Dabbler, for instance.
I was thinking, maybe in a rut, that one of the orbs does the admin/housekeeping. Latching onto Sydney, for whatever reason (was she just the first to get close enough, or what?), keeping all the orbs (which may levitate on their own) and Syd in the same vicinity, doing the scan blocking thing, and stuff like that. You could be right though. Maybe all that stuff is duplicate programming on all the orbs.
so the third panel made my think, i bet Math has really scary hands. they’re big, they’re muscular, they’re probably covered with scars, and they keep doing impossible things at a speed only Maxima can see.
It’s okay Syd, you still have more balls than Math… Literally.
…… I think I managed to get three-quarters of the way through the comments on this page (Mary-Sue discussion, for reference) before my eyes started shrieking at me for mercy. Oy veyismeir, SO MUCH TEXT. All very interesting, and far more polite than your normal webcomic-related discourse, though! I don’t dare weigh in for a multitude of reasons.
What I DID want to say, however, was that Sydney’s “I bite my thumb on the off-chance you’re a Montague” at the end of her mud-slinging would have made me laugh out loud were it not 2 AM at the moment. (Brain no worky $__&’) Yay, literature humor! Although it belatedly occurs to me having her identify with Romeo might have been funnier. Or…. More true to her self-description of a tomboy. Or just more “For Godssakes can we acknowledge that the Capulets were also bitter, angry people and give the Montagues a break?”.
… (I mean seriously ‘Montague’ always comes up when referencing the play, doesn’t it? “Grr, evil Montague-esque rivalries!” But rivalries require more than one guilty party, ne c’est pas? Man, writing comments at 2 AM after blitzing one’s brain on intelligent discourse is…..uh, fun! Mm, fun.)
Newtonian physics works both ways.
I wonder what’s harder, the floor, or Anvil’s thigh?
The floor. Anvil’s thigh is the softest thing on the planet.
That, umm, ahh, is not a kinky thing. Just a statement of fact. If Anvil’s power was turned on (which seems likely having been in the immediate vicinity of a super fight with an unknown rookie), she absorbs incoming kinetic energy. If, at the point of impact, all Sydney’s kinetic energy were absorbed she would suffer no feeling of impact at all either*.
She could have fallen face first off the top of the Arc building, onto Anvil, and the feeling would have been less than that of impacting a velvet cushion from a drop of one inch.
* Anvil is protected from the effect as well as the subject, unless she affects just one half of the statement “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Which would make for a very different power to the one she appears to have.
Anvil’s ability works on both ends of the equation, as far as I can tell. It’s like she’s got an angular momentum converter that captures impact or recoil impulses somehow, but without all the hardware an engineer would use to get the job done.
Thinking on it, Math has actually been a lot cleverer than we realise. Friendly martial arts bouts are conducted on impact-softening mats, to reduce injuries. And, in any martial art that includes throws you are first taught how to land safely from a fall, before being allowed to learn or get involved with sparring that includes throws. Fall badly and you could seriously hurt or kill yourself.
The maneuver that Math pulled here had results like a controlled throw. Sending Sydney in a head-first dive, which could potentially be fatal. In directing Sydney’s fall towards Anvil, he chose to send her to the safest landing possible. One that presented absolutely no risk of injury to the un-coordinated rookie.
The guy was thinking about more steps than just winning the fight.
Good point, but Math is only as clever as his creator. Consciously or unconsciously. Either way, I’m impressed again by the result.
I love the Romeo and Juliet reference at the end.