4.32
November 29, 2015
Compassion is the name of the game
The next page will be up fairly soon since this one was late (was away for Thanksgiving) and the next page is already half-done…
Thanks to everyone who stopped by the marathon Patron stream! That was a lot of stream. It’s very nice to hear from you guys and get to share my process with interested parties~
OK see you soon~
44 Comments
Oh wow … this hints at an interesting backstory of both Pinter and Angora.
This looks like Angora .. but without green hair and wearing normal clothes. Will we get an explanation what has changed her mind to running around naked as her natural state of being?
So is her hair not green here or is it washed out by the sunlight
Not green, it was mentioned at some point in the first chapter that her hair was green due to mold and plant life.
Haha, not mold (that was Pinter being an asshole)… it is moss. Also it is not make-believe; it happens in real life too.
So she could wash out the green if she wanted to, or has it stained her hair?
Well, it’s sort of woven in I suppose. If you’ve seen moss clinging to other plants or objects you can get an idea of their grip. But yes it would be possible to remove I guess, though it would require some heavy scraping.
I bet it’d grow back fairly fast.
I thought that was algae?
I’m fairly certain that this flashback was from before she went to live in nature and let her hair get moldy.
Ooh, backstory *rubs hands together*. I was excited when I saw the not-green hair on the tumblr thumbnail.
Well, looks like she was quite used to wearing clothes, then? There goes the theory that she’s a ‘child of nature’ who has ‘never dwelt in human compounds and so isn’t used to the concept of clothes or social behaviour’.
Not that she and her companion exhibit social behaviour… There is a loud cry of (supposedly) pain, and she and her friend are giggling and wondering wether whatever happened to the one in (supposed) pain is ‘gross’ or not.
So many questions…. (what happened to the compound? what happened to *her*? Who is ‘grandfather’?)
This is going to be interesting *gleeful smirk*
Hm… okay, giggling about other people’s pain *is* social behaviour, but it’s not, as the author said, very *empathic*…
Sorry to butt in but if you look back to chapter 1 you might find out who “grandfather” is ;)
Duh, yes, I know that ‘grandfather’ is the big newt-like being, possibly the yin to the Emperor’s mad-tiger yang, but that doesn’t tell me anything, now, does it?
We still don’t know what these creatures are – are they aliens? Nature spirits? Is the planet on the brink of destruction and these creatures are the ‘angels’ and ‘demons’ of this world trying to either hasten the destruction or aid it’s healing? – or why Angora calls him ‘grandfather’ – does everybody at her ‘monastery’ call him that? Did he manifest only to her? – and wether he and the rest of his ‘monastery’ are still alive – did they all get killed by the same force (mad-tiger-creature?) and is Angora the sole survival? Did he give Angora her plant-powers? ‘Grandfather’ told her to go to wherever it was she needs to go (sorry, forgot the name of the place for the moment and too lazy to look it up) but what is it she is supposed to do there? Are there more of his kind there and is she his messenger or is she supposed to go all ‘Fern Gully’ and save the planet with her plant powers by doing something plant-power-y at That Place?
In short, we know *nothing* about ‘grandfather’. We know nothing about the panels above, although I strongly suspect that the person who is screaming is Pinter (she called him ‘the howler’ whose hollering ‘kept them awake at night’) and they can hear his mental anguish because of some psychic doohicky which they have at that ‘monastery’. But of course I could be wrong. That’s just it. We know *nothing*.
I’d bet a cookie (actually I ate them all) that Angora will sneak in and find out in a very unpleasant way what drove Pinter mad, and turned him into a drunkard. And the monastery … I wonder if it’s still standing.
Ok I was just trying to be helpful.
I know you just want to be helpful, and I’m a mean ol’ Grumpy Old Woman for grumping at your helpfulness, so here’s a digital cookie and a huggles.
(knowing that most people just want to be helpful won’t stop me from being grumpy, tho, so be forwarned; not every barking dog wants to bite. It’s just how I deal with being middle aged, dear. Grump grump!)
“she and her friend are giggling and wondering wether whatever happened to the one in (supposed) pain is ‘gross’ or not.”
That is called “being a teenager” and is perfectly natural too, empathy doesn’t quite gel until later
Hmmm, actually, even “normal” adults will find themselves giggling at these sorts of things. It is a weird sort of defense mechanism.
Nah… Don’t buy that. Kids under the age of two don’t have empathy, but (if raised by fairly normal people) learn empathy by the age they are three, or four. That’s why parents tell their toddlers, “don’t poke the puppy in the eye, it hurts them” and “don’t pull the cat’s tail, you wouldn’t like it if someone pulle YOU on your tail (if you had one”. If your kid tortures puppies or set kittens on fire, or even when s/he hears a tortured animal agonized screams and only wonders wether it’s inflicted wounds are ‘gross’ or not, you would be wise to wonder if your kid is a sociopath or not.
Call me old-fashioned, but callousness to other people’s distress is not something you learn as an adult. I mean, how do you think this works? On your 18th birthday a magic switch gets flipped and suddenly you start to feel empathy?
Angora has, so far, demonstrated some truly disturbing traits, starting with not respecting other people’s bounderies and properties (waking Pinter by hitting him with a stick, poking Pinter’s map even when Pinter- repeatedly- tells her not to, assuming that he will bring her to whereever she wants just because she wants him to, stealing Pinter’s stuff after he threw her out of his tent ‘because he had stuff and she didn’t’, not listening to Pinter’s advice, insulting people but blowing up in righteous anger whenever someone critizes her, and finally, even when she knows Pinter as a person for at least a few days, if not weeks, now, she still has no empathy with him when she discovers that he is the one who ‘howled’ in agony, and only complains that his pain kept her from her sleep!)
That is not a ‘normal teenager’. If she were on my couch I would diagnose her with narcissistic personality disorder/sociopathy.
I thought that this was rather the *point* of ‘The Meek’: all three main characters from the three story-lines we’ve seen so far are psychologically… challenged. Angora displays disturbing sociopathic tendencies, as does Soli, and poor Luca is definitely going off the deep end.
All three of them have something truly traumatic in their past: Angora’s safe home apparantly has been destroyed and her ‘grandfather’ has been deeply wounded and left her in the middle of nowhere to fend for herself. Soli apparantly spend years in prison because the man she loved betrayed her (??!!) and Luca has lived through a holocaust agains this people, fought back, came on top, happily married and then his wife is murdered before his eyes.
The point is: none of them are a ‘normal’ ANYTHING.
You can’t diagnose narcissistic personality disorder or sociopathy (which isn’t a diagnosis, btw, that’s Anti-social personality disorder, which Angora really doesn’t seem to fit) from just ‘acting callous when someone is in pain’. Like, I agree this isn’t a good way for Angora to act, but I’m wondering how long Pinter had been there at that point. People can get used to anything rather quickly, including some weird dude screaming his head off all the time, and concern can pretty quickly turn to annoyance. Note also that Angora has never seen Pinter at this point. It’s easier to depersonalize someone you’ve never seen who is (unintentionally) being annoying (because he’s in pain), whereas I imagine her reaction would be different if she actually had to deal with Pinter face-to-face.
I do agree that the Angora we know does have some unusual psychology, probably as a result of trauma and definitely as a result of isolation. It just rubs me the wrong way when people start diagnosing her with actual, quite severe, conditions.
She has little respect for people’s boundaries because it’s been a while since she’s dealt with people, and we don’t know if her compound operated with the construct of ‘personal property’ or was communual. She insults people but doesn’t like being insulted – most people don’t like being insulted! Just because she argues with Pinter, it doesn’t mean she lacks empathy! And while I agree she should have had more empathy towards Pinter, something quite bad happened to her that lead to the loss of her grandfather, she’s literally got the weight of the world on her shoulders, and nobody is taking her seriously when she says she needs to get to certain places.
I imagine we’ll see more coming up that explains her behavior, but honestly, she’s acting like a self-absorbed teenager, not a pathological narcissist.
Huh, that’s hard to tell. She doesn’t live in a modern world where teenagers are locked away in educational facilities, called schools, in a pretty empty and meaningless life. Angora’s life seems to have purpose, and teens with such a background tend to be less annoying and pestering than the inhabitants of the creepy dimensions of schools. Not that iIexpect her to act like an adult, but she’s definitely pretty offensive in many ways.
At the same time she’s just talking with a friend here, and I don’t remember any teen to show compassion in a way that did not involve “uugh I bet it’s gross gory!” or the like. :)
Yeah, I wasn’t saying she wasn’t offensive in many ways. She is! I’m just saying that I’m pretty opposed with armchair diagnosing her with real psychological conditions that are very resistant to treatment even in the modern day. I’d also guess that we’re probably, you know, seeing Angora at her WORST, due to the reasons I talked about above. That doesn’t mean she can’t ever improve, or that she doesn’t have empathy.
You’ve got a point, though! I do think there are problems with the modern education system (obsession with standardized testing, anyone?) although I do support education, and I think it’s pretty likely that Angora was contributing to the monastery at a younger age, so should have a better sense of responsibility and purpose.
I highly doubt the issue with Angora’s personality is the narcissistic disorder. She’s showing more signs of a child with ADHD, I would say. That wasn’t raised by educated parents, who knew how to deal with her, but instead was left to her own devices.
Oh exciting! I wonder how long ago that was.
This looks like a really nice place to live !
(as long as you’re deaf)
Oooh backstory *giddy jumping!*
why are people still surprised angora once lived in civilization? Even without the flashbacks, the fact that she KNOWS A LANGUAGE is a pretty big hint
possible explanation for Angoras Hair: I don’t remember where I’ve read it, but from somewhere I picked up that the fur of polar bears is partially hollow. I also picked up a story where polar bears were held in a zoo in japan and developed green fur due to the climatic conditions which supported mold growth inside the hairstrains.
^I hope the text above does make some semblance of sense. I’m still learning the english language.
Way back before the “Survivor” reality-TV show there was a British series that followed an experiment on living without most modern tech on one of the Shetland Islands. A number of the women and men were blond, but after not having modern soap on hand for their hair, it ended up turning a bit green from a moss-like algae.
She says it blooms in the spring, which is not something your standard hair moss will do, even on a sloth (and she moves around a lot faster than a sloth).
I figured it was just related to her plant-related superpowers; she can make things grow at an absurd rate and apparently direct that growth, at least somewhat. She makes things grow around her even when she sleeps. I think pretty much any spore or seed that sticks around her for more than a few minutes will probably grow like mad, so unless she scraped, fine-combed and washed her hair daily it will just turn green again.
It’s not mold, it’s veriditas!
I’m gonna hazard a guess that Pinter’s screaming was him having a real bad time with alcohol withdrawl.
The monastery looks like a good place to spend time in. Simple living, working the earth, extension of practical assistance to those in need.
I wonder if Pinter’s time here coincided with the supposed loss of his former best friend.
I guess Angora never heard of PTSD.
Begging the question: what was his trauma? I guess we’ll find out… eventually…
I thought he was screaming because he was in pain from detoxing. For a serious enough alcoholic, that can be really painful, even fatal.
Mind, I’m not denying Pinter’s sure traumatized over SOMETHING. Possibly multiple factors to this screaming here. Didn’t he get lost from his entire expedition? Did they die? How long did he spend in the jungle alone?
A flashback!! I’m excited.
I’m also curious how long ago this was. Angora looks slightly younger, but I’m not sure if that’s because of the clothes and the different hair colour…
Her and her friend’s behaviour certainly seems pretty adolescent, but then you couldn’t describe some of the ‘modern’ Angora’s behaviour as exactly grown-up either.
Whoa, we’ve been in the same darkened, wet forest for so long the color palette change is a shock! Excited to see where this goes.
I don’t know why, but it’s surreal seeing Angora with blonde hair. My brain keeps trying to wave it away with “it’s the lighting. It’s so bright it just washes out the green.”
I’m guessing this is Pinter experiencing withdrawal? Poor guy. :(
I think this is the first time we’ve seen Agora with clothes on.
Second time. There was another flash back (presumably less far back than this one) in Chapter 1, Pages 28-31.