Except he is – he’s the one who approach Zhu, keeps bringing it up, won’t even call it the correct word in front of her. He may say he doesn’t care, but for someone who doesn’t he’s spending a lot of time on it when he could be farming those flasks.
Her transgender identification doesn’t affect him in any way, and he really doesn’t care about it, probably any more than he cares that verdrana is cis-female. HER behaviour towards HIM has changed. He is, in fact, not treating her any different from how he treated her before he knew, or really, any differently from the way he treats everyone else.
How has Theron been vilified? I think its a pretty accurate representation of how a miscommunication/ misunderstanding, with no intent to hurt, can still result in hurt feelings. Theron is no villain here; he just made a mistake in how he treated a friend/acquaintance without realizing and its being presented that way. We’ve seen villains in this comic and how they behave with intention to be hurtful. This is not vilification.
The strip isn’t really vilifying Theron (though i feel Zhusen will soapbox soon), but many of the commenters seem to.
Further, he didn’t make this into an issue. Theron said that he didn’t want to talk about it; with Zhu then saying basically saying that Theron wasn’t a friend anymore after not giving flasks.
Then Lys off-handedly threatened him. No matter how people try to explain it away, it was a threat against anyone who wasn’t throwing Zhu a veritable party; just like how she acted in the strip before Murd gave the thumbs up.
Why wouldnt Theron put those two things together?
Neither person here is the badguy though.. but it will come out as Theron being the one in the “wrong”
Theron did make it an issue; that’s the entire point in this strip. Like Cuthbert says below “he labeled it as an issue to be avoided masquerading it as disinterest”. Theron can be wrong without being a “bad guy”. Also, an important fact people don’t seem to be getting, is that Lys didn’t actually threaten Theron. Theron, feeling guilty or attacked or whatever you read into it, thought it was directed at him but it wasn’t. He brought that on himself.
Of course she was. Even if the ‘character’ was not, Robin’s hamfisted way of writing the scene made it obvious it was intended to be be heard only by Theron; the one person who didn’t congratulate her. (sorry, but it was)
And it was never an issue with, people like to say it was; but saying “can we not talk about it” is not making it an issue; . Everything that happened since then has made it into an issue that had to be dealt with by Theron.
Theron regards Zhusen as just another guildie, while Zhusen had regarded Theron as a friend. Zhusen realizing that Theron did not reciprocate the friendship, that’s the real issue here.
It could have been any important RL thing (divorce, getting fired, dog dying) and Theron would probably have had the same reaction, wanting to keep it out of the game. Regardless of what it is, finding out that someone doesn’t want to know about what’s going on in your life, when you thought you were friends, is a blow to anyone.
Love Theron’s nose-pinch (eyebrow-pinch?) pose in any case!
It’s not even necessarily that Theron doesn’t regard Zhusen as a friend. People have different definitions of friendship and expectations from friendships, and then there are different levels of friendship from intimate Best Friend to casual friendly. One of the very common mistakes people make in communication is that we tend to expect other people to approach the world the same way we do, and expect them to react the same way we do, when that isn’t the case at all.
I think some people have a harder time relating. Let’s say this is less life changing. Cause to me, yeah, she deserves a coming out party. She found herself. But others may not get that.
So let’s say her dog died. Maybe it’s one she’s had for years and years and had taken guild pics and she’s all tore up about it. She told a few people. May not be able to raid, cause keeps crying.
She vents to Theron.
“Sorry, not myself because-”
“Yeah, I know, your dog died. Let’s not make it an issue.”
Like.. an issue? Like her dog dying is now somehow an issue he wants to avoid? Her tragedy is bothersome to him because he would have to hear about it?
It’s an mmo. It’s not super mario brothers. It’s not league of legends. It’s social by nature. I don’t know anyone who plays this game without making friends or at least being social.
Like Jesus, just let the girl talk about her dog for 2min.
But even this metaphor is poor. Sure, one might think losing a dog to be universal, and it could very well be, but it doesn’t hold that underlining threat that perhaps that person ‘hates dogs’ and believes every dead dog is a good dog.
We just took a turn, huh? But a little less than half the population believes transgenders to be a mental disorder. They puff out their feathers and crow, “There are only two genders!” Because clearly something that has no affect on their lives whatsoever warrants their ugly opinion.
And so living in a world where many feel that way, waaaay too many, isn’t it reasonable for her to expect some resistance?
She was building up confidence, telling everyone, it was working out. Then he labeled it as an issue to be avoided masquerading it as disinterest.
And it very well could be. But a friend would listen, and why would she spend all her time and effort on someone who gives such a little shit about her that he can’t take two minutes to listen to her situation and let her vent?
I like the arguments you make here. I like how you said “Then he labeled it as an issue to be avoided masquerading it as disinterest.”
It really got me thinking how if theron REALLY didn’t care at all he should have just let her talk, say what she needed to say, and then got on with his life.
But a part of me still believes he shouldn’t have to participate in something he doesn’t want to.
It makes me think of choclate ice cream. I HATE choclate ice cream and if someone offered it to me i would say no thank you.
But then what if someone had made it themselves, it was a project they were working on hard to get right, maybe as something to get into culinary school to live their dream. And they want me to taste it.
First of all i dont like chocolate so my opinion on it shouldn’t really matter. I’m not going to villify the person for liking chocolate. I just don’t want any. Should i experience something I really don’t want to experience because it’s important to someone else?
I won’t win any prizes for not eating the ice cream but i’m not sure i’m making it an issue.
It usually takes more than one person to make an issue.
Just a note – I think your chocolate ice cream metaphor would be a bit more apt if your friend only wanted to tell you about their experience making ice cream for culinary school and not necessarily taste it. Zhu just wanted Theron to listen, not participate.
Hmmm point taken!
Though in a sense it is apt because of course there is participation. Part of what she wanted to talk about was proper forms of address.
If my metaphore falls apart its where not participating in the ice cream makes me a bit of a jerk but not participating in the proper pronouns makes a person a bit bigoted.
And theron never said it wouldn’t use the proper pronouns. He had stated he had heard what was going on, just didn’t want to talk about.
I liked this comic strip. I know it’s fucking 5 years old and all the discussion is dead, but seeing all the people say, “Theron dealt with it just fine,” rubbed me so wrong. Just, “Yeah, that’s fine.” It isn’t fine. She’s transgender. That’s not an issue, that’s not politics. You don’t get to say, “Leave it out of the game.” That’s who she is. And you’re friends with people for who they are.
oh and that’s the first time it was said in the strip too.
I mean, there wasn’t exactly all that much ambiguity before. Still though, there is significance in making representation explicit.
It should never be called an issue, despite whetever you believe it is one or not. Just felt like saying it x)
This is why hindsight is called hindsight.
He does kind of have a point. All he said was “I don’t care”. Literally. He’s not the one making it an issue.
Except he is – he’s the one who approach Zhu, keeps bringing it up, won’t even call it the correct word in front of her. He may say he doesn’t care, but for someone who doesn’t he’s spending a lot of time on it when he could be farming those flasks.
He approached her because he believes she was making an issue of it – siccing Lys on him.
Her transgender identification doesn’t affect him in any way, and he really doesn’t care about it, probably any more than he cares that verdrana is cis-female. HER behaviour towards HIM has changed. He is, in fact, not treating her any different from how he treated her before he knew, or really, any differently from the way he treats everyone else.
I agree. This villainification of Theron is way too forced.
How has Theron been vilified? I think its a pretty accurate representation of how a miscommunication/ misunderstanding, with no intent to hurt, can still result in hurt feelings. Theron is no villain here; he just made a mistake in how he treated a friend/acquaintance without realizing and its being presented that way. We’ve seen villains in this comic and how they behave with intention to be hurtful. This is not vilification.
The strip isn’t really vilifying Theron (though i feel Zhusen will soapbox soon), but many of the commenters seem to.
Further, he didn’t make this into an issue. Theron said that he didn’t want to talk about it; with Zhu then saying basically saying that Theron wasn’t a friend anymore after not giving flasks.
Then Lys off-handedly threatened him. No matter how people try to explain it away, it was a threat against anyone who wasn’t throwing Zhu a veritable party; just like how she acted in the strip before Murd gave the thumbs up.
Why wouldnt Theron put those two things together?
Neither person here is the badguy though.. but it will come out as Theron being the one in the “wrong”
Theron did make it an issue; that’s the entire point in this strip. Like Cuthbert says below “he labeled it as an issue to be avoided masquerading it as disinterest”. Theron can be wrong without being a “bad guy”. Also, an important fact people don’t seem to be getting, is that Lys didn’t actually threaten Theron. Theron, feeling guilty or attacked or whatever you read into it, thought it was directed at him but it wasn’t. He brought that on himself.
Of course she was. Even if the ‘character’ was not, Robin’s hamfisted way of writing the scene made it obvious it was intended to be be heard only by Theron; the one person who didn’t congratulate her. (sorry, but it was)
And it was never an issue with, people like to say it was; but saying “can we not talk about it” is not making it an issue; . Everything that happened since then has made it into an issue that had to be dealt with by Theron.
Theron regards Zhusen as just another guildie, while Zhusen had regarded Theron as a friend. Zhusen realizing that Theron did not reciprocate the friendship, that’s the real issue here.
It could have been any important RL thing (divorce, getting fired, dog dying) and Theron would probably have had the same reaction, wanting to keep it out of the game. Regardless of what it is, finding out that someone doesn’t want to know about what’s going on in your life, when you thought you were friends, is a blow to anyone.
Love Theron’s nose-pinch (eyebrow-pinch?) pose in any case!
It’s not even necessarily that Theron doesn’t regard Zhusen as a friend. People have different definitions of friendship and expectations from friendships, and then there are different levels of friendship from intimate Best Friend to casual friendly. One of the very common mistakes people make in communication is that we tend to expect other people to approach the world the same way we do, and expect them to react the same way we do, when that isn’t the case at all.
Great strips. Hits hard, feels real.
I think some people have a harder time relating. Let’s say this is less life changing. Cause to me, yeah, she deserves a coming out party. She found herself. But others may not get that.
So let’s say her dog died. Maybe it’s one she’s had for years and years and had taken guild pics and she’s all tore up about it. She told a few people. May not be able to raid, cause keeps crying.
She vents to Theron.
“Sorry, not myself because-”
“Yeah, I know, your dog died. Let’s not make it an issue.”
Like.. an issue? Like her dog dying is now somehow an issue he wants to avoid? Her tragedy is bothersome to him because he would have to hear about it?
It’s an mmo. It’s not super mario brothers. It’s not league of legends. It’s social by nature. I don’t know anyone who plays this game without making friends or at least being social.
Like Jesus, just let the girl talk about her dog for 2min.
But even this metaphor is poor. Sure, one might think losing a dog to be universal, and it could very well be, but it doesn’t hold that underlining threat that perhaps that person ‘hates dogs’ and believes every dead dog is a good dog.
We just took a turn, huh? But a little less than half the population believes transgenders to be a mental disorder. They puff out their feathers and crow, “There are only two genders!” Because clearly something that has no affect on their lives whatsoever warrants their ugly opinion.
And so living in a world where many feel that way, waaaay too many, isn’t it reasonable for her to expect some resistance?
She was building up confidence, telling everyone, it was working out. Then he labeled it as an issue to be avoided masquerading it as disinterest.
And it very well could be. But a friend would listen, and why would she spend all her time and effort on someone who gives such a little shit about her that he can’t take two minutes to listen to her situation and let her vent?
I like the arguments you make here. I like how you said “Then he labeled it as an issue to be avoided masquerading it as disinterest.”
It really got me thinking how if theron REALLY didn’t care at all he should have just let her talk, say what she needed to say, and then got on with his life.
But a part of me still believes he shouldn’t have to participate in something he doesn’t want to.
It makes me think of choclate ice cream. I HATE choclate ice cream and if someone offered it to me i would say no thank you.
But then what if someone had made it themselves, it was a project they were working on hard to get right, maybe as something to get into culinary school to live their dream. And they want me to taste it.
First of all i dont like chocolate so my opinion on it shouldn’t really matter. I’m not going to villify the person for liking chocolate. I just don’t want any. Should i experience something I really don’t want to experience because it’s important to someone else?
I won’t win any prizes for not eating the ice cream but i’m not sure i’m making it an issue.
It usually takes more than one person to make an issue.
Just a note – I think your chocolate ice cream metaphor would be a bit more apt if your friend only wanted to tell you about their experience making ice cream for culinary school and not necessarily taste it. Zhu just wanted Theron to listen, not participate.
Hmmm point taken!
Though in a sense it is apt because of course there is participation. Part of what she wanted to talk about was proper forms of address.
If my metaphore falls apart its where not participating in the ice cream makes me a bit of a jerk but not participating in the proper pronouns makes a person a bit bigoted.
And theron never said it wouldn’t use the proper pronouns. He had stated he had heard what was going on, just didn’t want to talk about.
That was well put!
I liked this comic strip. I know it’s fucking 5 years old and all the discussion is dead, but seeing all the people say, “Theron dealt with it just fine,” rubbed me so wrong. Just, “Yeah, that’s fine.” It isn’t fine. She’s transgender. That’s not an issue, that’s not politics. You don’t get to say, “Leave it out of the game.” That’s who she is. And you’re friends with people for who they are.
Yeah.
Just. Yeah.
Hi, new reader but I agree. He’s handling it very poorly actually by trying to dismiss the fact that he made her feel bad