I don’t think that’s a memory, personally, but it makes for interesting spec.
And yeah, that’s why I didn’t really want to go digging for it myself. :p I’ve reread the beginning parts of the strip recently, but not to that point.
I never thought about that before, but is there a connection between people thinking privacy overrated and fundamentalist Christians (who will not have any anyways after the return of Christ?)
I’m up to the start of Book 7 (the confrontation with “Ryan” at the Desanto rally”) on my re-read and let me tell you, you pick up a lot on your second, third, fourth, and twelfth times through. Especially if you read the comments.
I actually think it’s pretty good, both even on it’s own, and then it has the added layer of being an in-comic reference. Overall a solid comment, A- out of five stars.
Seriously though, Joyce is the best person. She has plenty of reason not to forgive Sarah for manipulating her, but does so anyway. She’s too good. ;-;
I was thinking the sun was still out, but then I noticed that the room’s window shows that the light outside is…purple? Which I’m guessing is an artistic representation of just post-twilight, so, given the location and in-universe date, is maybe 7:30-ish?
But apart from Billie’s Forest Hall posse (and maybe not even them), no one knows where their Faz is. Where will he nest for the night? He appears to be functionally if not actually homeless.
Joyce knows Jacob was telling the truth, Sarah knows it, too, and she’s trying to give Sarah the chance to tell her, in her own words, what the deal is.
Whether she takes it or not, I dunno, though she did open up to Joyce some before, when they had the tearful embrace over how things would never be the same post-Toedad on Campus. She obviously has it within her capacity to be open, she just needs to demonstrate she can put herself out on a limb.
You know, I’m a little curious about that. Joe’s expressed some interest in Sarah in the past, but Sarah’s harder to figure out. She’s definitely been hostile to him, but she’s also seemed to revel in talking to someone who keeps all of their cards on the table.
Well this subject could turn contentious but for me its the idea that unchecked immigration is good.
In my country, NZ, we’ve had a lot of immigration over the last few years and the infrastructure is struggling to keep up as most of the immigrants end up in one city (Auckland) causing house prices to raise, schools to become over crowded etc etc
I’m pro-immigration but I agree with the political left in NZ that want to put a check on immigrant numbers, at least until the infrastructure catches up
That is pretty much opposite of the forgiveness rate of Sarah’s previous friendships, where she was completely written off, no forgiveness, labeled as irredeemably terrible, without any leeway allowed her at all. So, I think that this has the potential to really be good.
I’m impressed that shes managing to keep her general positivity and wanting to see the good in everyone while also becoming less naive, its good to see
Maybe it’s her steely resolve when looking out for those she cares about? “Badass” is perhaps the highest praise I know how to give a woman, and Joyce has a good bit of the badass in her.
Immigrants often move to be with their families, or otherwise into communities of their fellow expatriates, which buffers the language problem. If you leave China for a Chinatown where your uncle has a job for you, learning the local language may not the highest need for you — and may be hard to do, if you’re working 12 hours a day and surrounded by Chinese speakers.
I get trusting this comment section more than other parts of the internet, but if you’re just looking to discuss topics that are by nature controversial and also unrelated to the comic, keep in mind that you’re asking for more work from Willis than he may be onboard for.
iirc, Dorothy did find out – I think I remember a bit where she put the pieces together, after Ethan and Joyce broke up? I don’t know if Joyce knows that she knows, though.
She knows Ethan is gay. I’m not sure if she knows anything else. OTOH, I’m not sure there is anything else. Was Joyce really trying anything to actually change him?
Mostly she was just attracted, but safe.
I had just finished typing up a reply about how bringing up purposely controversial topics that are unrelated to the comic just to discuss them is asking Willis to take on work that he hadn’t signed up for. I feel stupid asking this, but the relevant thread was there and now it’s gone, right?
And I’m sorry for bringing up something that likely has just been deleted, but I’ve been having some stressful moments re: reality recently and could use the reassurance.
You must have been on at the exact right minute to see my reply– I hit “post comment,” and by the time the page reloaded (which did take a minute), the whole thread was gone.
Sarah, that’s what we Brits call an ‘open goal’. She’s giving you the chance to tell her the truth and promising that she will get over it. Will you take this chance to be honest with her?
Only because Sarah still has guilt of her own. If you really are properly evil, people being kind and honest and forgiving makes the evil schemes much easier.
Wow! Way to go Joyce. But you’ve got to realize that before you can seek forgiveness you first have to do something you regret. Sarah has a worthwhile goal and no reason to regret.
Speaking of forgiveness, do you guys think you can hate someone for someone else? I say this because I realized the falseness of forgiving somebodies crimes against someone else for them, and hatred is simply the opposite of forgiveness. I.E if one cannot forgive for another, one can also not hate for another.
Forgiveness is an act of thought. Hatred is an emotion.
Hatred is not the opposite of forgiveness. They’re not even the same kind of thing.
It seems like hatred can be inspired by all sorts of things, depending on who’s doing the hating. Some of those things are really random and don’t even make sense.
So yes, I’d say that if Adam did something to Beth that you found hateful, you might very well hate Adam for that.
But no, there’s no reason Beth would feel the same emotion you would, so you wouldn’t really be hating Adam _for_ Beth. You’d be hating Adam for your reaction to something you believe about Adam.
I actually believe that hatred is something beyond ordinary emotion—like love, it’s a very powerful shift in your mindset and emotional state. But I agree with the rest of what you said!
But forgiveness isn’t really an act of thought either – I mean, you can decide you should forgive someone, just like you can decide you shouldn’t hate someone. But neither actually means your feelings change. If you say “I forgive you”, but keep resenting what they did, you haven’t really forgiven.
I think they’re more closely tied together than you might think.
You can’t forgive someone for another, but you can forgive them for yourself.
When someone does something you dislike (to another, to yourself, or just in general) you can feel hurt, both for yourself and for those outside yourself whom you care about in the situation, and you can forgive them but neither your forgiveness nor hurt has anything to do with anyone else’s outside of being caused by the same actions.
I think one of the most beautiful things about Joyce is her capacity to love. Despite the environment she grew up in and the shit that’s been happening to her in her first year of college, Joyce still manages to remain someone who has a vast amount of love to give. And I feel like today’s strip just really demonstrates how pure her love for Sarah is.
Quite. She is one of the rare people who got the Right message from Christianity instead of all the trash most believe in order to feel better than other people…
This is very sweet, but I have trouble believing that even Joyce would be willing to forgive anyone absolutely anything. For instance, it doesn’t seem like she’s forgiven her would-be rapist. He got what he deserved, yes, but it seems more like she’s taking a smug satisfaction in it (“God saw justice done!”) than true forgiveness. Moreover, would she be able to forgive people like Martin Skrelli who are clearly profiting off the misery and misfortune of others just because they can, and who show absolutely no regret or guilt over what they did?
I think Joyce’s brand of forgiveness is, “Forgiveness is something you have to actually seek out.” Someone like Shkreli (I won’t get into the Ryan thing at all) would only stand a chance if he actually showed and felt remorse. We’ll make a Catholic out of her yet!
Other people forgive based on a personal, inward decision, and don’t require remorse to do so. It varies.
I believe I would be willing to forgive anyone who did show real remorse, but I’ve never been brutally hurt enough to have cause to question that position.
I have and have discovered I need all of: acceptance of responsibility for the wrong, remorse, proactive effort to learn from the situation and a change in beliefs, attitudes and/or behavior patterns that let to the wrong. Only then have you earned forgiveness.
Feeling bad is not enough because feeling bad is easy. Any abusive jackoff can feel bad when they are out of a rage. Change is hard and shows they actually understand what they did and intend to not do it again.
On topic of forgiveness (which the redirect script in one of the ads here nuked and so the rewrite might not be as coherent): I have a gigantic problem with how USian and Canadian cultures think of forgiveness. As if it’s something the onus is on the victim to hand out like candy “for their own good,” to be coupled with “forgetting” (i.e. pretending the bad thing never happened), and that they should do regardless of whether the perpetrator has done anything to make amends.
That’s bullshit.
Forgiveness should be something that you have to earn. The way forgiveness is culturally handled in our societies makes all the onus on the victim to make the situation comfortable for everyone, including the perpetrator. None of the onus is on the perpetrator to stop doing harmful shit. That is a recipe to lock people in to the cycle of abuse, because all the perpetrator ever has to do is say sorry and at least act like they feel bad.
For me, forgiveness is something that needs to be earned. The perpetrator has to not only say sorry and feel bad, but change whatever thoughts, beliefs, and behavior patterns led to the bad thing in the first place. What constitutes appropriate change to earn forgiveness will depend on the level of the transgression – but in general it’s some sort of action on the part of the perpetrator that shows they intend to not do it again and are taking action to prevent themself from doing it again.
And I refuse to forget. I’ve had people pretend to feel bad and change to get back into my life after serious transgressions. So now, if I see you’re sliding back to the same old pattern, I’ll take action earlier.
I don’t demand perfection in others. People make mistakes. They fuck up. They say stupid shit without thinking. I am no exception.
But what I do demand, both of myself and others, is work to be better. Without self-improvement, forgiveness means jack-all.
It’s hard to pinpoint a universal definition for it. Forgiveness can also be a tool for emotional blackmail and manipulation. Thats also USian to me since I see it a lot. Sometimes I jokingly give a bluntly loud no when someone jokingly tell me to say sorry just to assure myself.
It can. That wasn’t part of the abusive pattern in my household growing up (although it is a part of the dysfunctional relationship I have with one of my siblings as an adult – she has a fixation on an admittedly shitty thing I did when I was 8, and brings it up any time she feels I’m a bit too happy for her liking) so I tend to be way less wary of it, but it totally can.
This may be my bias from my own life experience, but I do think weaponized pressure to forgive is way more common than weaponized forgiveness in abusive patterns, just because social pressure to forgive makes it a lot harder to seem like the good guy even when you’re justified.
OTOH, people also hold grudges over minor wrongs, long past any reason and despite other decent behavior. Not all forgiveness is about cycles of abuse and perpetrators getting away with things. Sometimes it’s just part of the give and take of human relationships.
In this context, Joyce will forgive Sarah (And she knows up front what she’s offering forgiveness for), because this is less important than other things Sarah has done – like appear from nowhere to take out Scarface with a baseball bat.
I do agree some people hold grudges unreasonably – but far, far more common, IME, is someone who refuses to learn from previous fights which leads to a blowup, which the person will frame as being over a “minor thing” when it wasn’t about the minor wrong, it was about the pattern of disgregard or the alledgedly minor wrong is being misrepresented and was not in fact minor.
That said, in the rare case where someone holds a grudge unreasonably, that too can be a part of an abusive pattern. Often used to try to flip the roles in a conflict. A lot of people in my immediate family are really fond of that one.
OTOH, what seems like a minor wrong to you might not be a minor wrong to the other person. Case in point: my father thinks it’s ridiculous I still hold a grudge over a fight we had when I was 16. In his view, it was a minor wrong. My experience? He threatened to kill me, while physically restraining me, after having punched the wall next to my head. He owns many guns and has always been big into macho ex-military culture, so he made sure I was brought up knowing he knew how to kill. To me, he made me genuinely fear for my life. It was not a minor wrong. To him, it was partly my fault for being “defiant” (read: not wanting to admit to something I was being falsely accused of) and anyway I ran away afterwards so weren’t we both to blame?
So… yeah. I guess I’m saying my experiences being ridiculed for “holding a grudge over a minor wrong” that was actually a literal and credible death threat from that relative makes me very leery of accepting that a third-hand report of a minor wrong was in fact minor. Because of my experiences with how power dynamics can be used to manipulate how third parties see the situation, I’m more inclined to err on the side of sympathy to the injured party in a situation where I don’t have direct knowledge of what happened.
And to be fair, part of my being so strict on my requirements for forgiveness is due to my background of being brought up in an abusive household where I was socialized hard into being a doormat. My forgiveness requirement is a mode of self-defense against falling into the same abusive patterns I was brought up with. I’m a lot warier about granting forgiveness than most people I know, because the concept of forgiveness was definitely weaponized into the abusive pattern in my life growing up, by more members than not of my immediate and extended family both.
So all of that ^^^ strongly informs my warier-and-stricter-than-average requirements for forgiveness.
Afterthought: my father has never even apologized for threatening to kill me in a credible and explicit manner when I was 16. Let alone made any effort to change the pattern of behavior. So yeah, I do still refuse to forgive him for it, because he’s never put in even a little bit of effort to earn my forgiveness.
Just to clarify my point: What you describe is in no way what I’d consider a minor wrong.
What Sarah and Joyce are talking about here is much less significant than yours and even that is above a lot of what I’d consider a minor wrong not worth holding a grudge over.
Oh yeah. I mentioned elsewhere that my experience has largely been one of weaponized pressure to forgive so you unintentionally triggered my wariness of it. No bad on your part. I had a shitty home life growing up and apparently perceived implication that my boundaries are unreasonable is one of my triggers. You had no way of knowing it and I didn’t even figure it our till thismorning so… yeah. My bad.
You are from all I have been able to see, good people. Please accept my apology for reacting to you as I would have one of my extended family trying to pressure me into getting re-enmeshed with my folks.
I feel like this is more a semantic disagreement than a functional one. In modern usage, the word “forgiveness” often includes the concept of condoning the action, or pardoning the perpetrator, or forgetting the offense. I don’t think that’s what’s intended, here.
In the sense that Joyce is using it, and in the way the some in the US and Canada use it, to “forgive” means to give up your right (and/or obligation) to feel resentment, aggrievement, grievance, or pain about the wrong that was committed. When you forgive someone, you give up those negative and corrosive thoughts and emotions. This is not candy that you give to the perpetrator; this is candy that you give to yourself.
Refusing to to forgive means insisting on maintaining a sense of resentment and grievance. These thoughts and emotions are corrosive to those that maintain them over the long term. In effect, then, withholding forgiveness is like the victim drinking poison and then waiting for the perpetrator to die.
It’s like saying “I’m going to keep on drinking this corrosive acid until you earn my forgiveness, at which point I’ll stop drinking it, probably. That’ll teach you!”
To forgive someone does not mean to condone what they did. It does not mean to pardon them. It does not mean to “pretend it never happened”. If someone does something horrible, even after you forgive them, the memory of what happened is still useful information that should guide your future interaction with them. If they genuinely make amends for the wrong they committed, that is also useful information that should guide your future interaction with them. Sometimes, the appropriate thing to do is forgive them, and then make sure your future interactions with them are limited to perhaps no interactions at all. There are people that I have forgiven that I have no inclination to interact with again. I have taken steps to protect myself from them, but these steps were not taken out of a sense of revenge or resentment or anger or vitriol; they are just rational choices that are consistent with what I’ve learned about these people. There are others that I’ve forgiven that I still interact with, but who have not yet earned back my trust. They might not ever earn back that trust, but because I have forgiven them, it is a real and genuine future possibility.
It is a wonderful thing that Joyce will forgive Sarah- and it is even more wonderful for Joyce than it is for Sarah. Of course, Joyce would do well to let this experience make her wiser and more aware, rather than bitter and more suspicious.
Which is interesting an interesting take, because that’s not how forgiveness is commonly used in religious groups like Joyce’s – even if maybe it should be theologically.
Instead it tends to be used to actually wipe the slate clean – the politician cheated on his wife, but he’s confessed (now that he’s been caught) and been forgiven, so we must now treat him as a righteous man again.
For me, forgiveness is about me giving you full access to my life again.
No, I don’t forgive my father – because the last time he had full access to my life, he threatened to kill me in a credible way. So, no, he doesn’t get to know what I’m up to, or drop in on me spontaneously, or interact with me without warning me ahead of time anymore. And he won’t until he proves to me that the next time I dare to contradict him, he won’t threaten my life again. He lost his privilege of me categorizing him as a safe person to be around the second he threatened my life and wellbeing. Full stop.
That does not mean I still feel resentment over it. It’s more a matter of me not believing that he’s a safe person to be around.
By contrast, one of my siblings also threatened to kill me when we were kids, also in a credible way. I have forgiven her and will spontaneously interact with her and treat her as a safe person because I understand that she has realized that what she did was fucked up and has since gotten training in effective conflict resolution and demonstrated that she is now able to get in an argument with someone without getting violent. So yeah, she gets full sibling access to me again – I trust she’s not going to try to hurt me again.
For me, whether or not I grant forgiveness to someone is less about letting go/moving past the wrong emotionally, and more about whether or not I trust them not to turn that behavior into a pattern. If I don’t trust them not to keep doing the thing, I treat them accordingly. For my own safety, not out of any bizarre desire to “poison myself”. It’s not about spiting the other person – it’s about not giving someone the opening to metaphorically or literally stab me again until they’ve proven they will not repeat the action.
For me, I… well, there are people I know who exhibit, as you say, patterns of behaviour I don’t tolerate in my life. I have forgiven them for what they have done – I hold no resentment, I am willing to interact with them in ways that I know will give them no power over me, I would in no way hesitate to save them from a burning building.
But I will never give them full access to my life again. It’s simple a protective measure – I don’t bear them any ill will, but I am not willing to put myself into a situation again that I know they will take advantage of to harm me.
I think the mantra here is “Forgive, but do not forget”. Bear no ill will, but do not disregard what has been done.
Its generally healthier to focus your energy on the good people in your life than the bad people in your life. Its generally unhealthy to let people who mistreat you into more of your life than you have to or let them into a position where they have power over you if it can help it. Unfortunately people can mix the two up to claim that you really should let that bad people back into your life.
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Sarah: “Well it’s a good thing you say that to me every night, otherwise that would sound ominous.”
“I’m glad she says that to me all the time, or that would have sounded like veiled commentary.”
I’m still convinced that he’s the one in Joyce’s flashback.
What flashback is that?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/dark-room/
To me, that ain’t a good fantasy. It’s a bad memory.
Also, there’s almost 1K strips with Joyce in them. And this is roughly in the middle.
I don’t think that’s a memory, personally, but it makes for interesting spec.
And yeah, that’s why I didn’t really want to go digging for it myself. :p I’ve reread the beginning parts of the strip recently, but not to that point.
I never thought about that before, but is there a connection between people thinking privacy overrated and fundamentalist Christians (who will not have any anyways after the return of Christ?)
Sorry, deleted cookies and made a typo in my email
Gods I really need to reread this comic someday.
I’m up to the start of Book 7 (the confrontation with “Ryan” at the Desanto rally”) on my re-read and let me tell you, you pick up a lot on your second, third, fourth, and twelfth times through. Especially if you read the comments.
It’s one comic after the one where Joyce talked about the time she fantasized about Harry Styles.
The color pink/purple is often associated with love/lust.
Joyce blushes, doesn’t seem upset, and then becomes upset. Seems like repressed sexuality+guilt to me, and a lot of other people agreed at the time.
“conceal, don’t feel” is extremely dark alt-text for that comic, if it means what you think it does.
I know Willis creates dark moments, but misrepresenting sexual abuse as lust to the audience seems beyond his usual bounds.
I acknowledge that you may be correct, but I think it is unlikely for a large number of presentational and meta-narrative reasons.
If it weren’t a couple of years early I’d say she was fantasizing about David Tennant.
Pretty sure that’s not a flashback, it’s Joyce expressing about her Perverse Sexual Lust.
for a second i thought it was possible but then i got a pablo
And what’s worse is it’s not even one of my better comments.
I actually think it’s pretty good, both even on it’s own, and then it has the added layer of being an in-comic reference. Overall a solid comment, A- out of five stars.
Oops, I misremembered the exact comment I thought you were referencing back too. But still.
I was, I just got the reference wrong.
Oh. Right on, then.
Joyce is precious
I was gonna say, for all of Joyce’s flaws her capacity for forgiveness still makes her one of the best people in the cast.
Agreed
…. no one tell Ryan about this policy.
Everyone has standards.
She wasn’t talking to HIM.
Agreed – Joyce is starting to embody the best parts of Christianity while realizing the worst parts.
ooooooooooooooooh
you’ve got her by the guilt now, joyce
Nope, not crying, that’s just dust in my eyes. ;-;
Seriously though, Joyce is the best person. She has plenty of reason not to forgive Sarah for manipulating her, but does so anyway. She’s too good. ;-;
“so i was thinking of adding blue sprinkles to this cupcake–”
“NO FORGIVENESS”
Sarah: “I’m Andy Dick”
Joyce: “Never mind”
It’s 10 o’clock do you know where your Faz is?
I was thinking the sun was still out, but then I noticed that the room’s window shows that the light outside is…purple? Which I’m guessing is an artistic representation of just post-twilight, so, given the location and in-universe date, is maybe 7:30-ish?
But apart from Billie’s Forest Hall posse (and maybe not even them), no one knows where their Faz is. Where will he nest for the night? He appears to be functionally if not actually homeless.
Not Joyce’s problem.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/work-2/
Joe said to watch the kid. Joyce didn’t say no. Nor did she immediately pawn him off.
Kind of also Joyce’s problem.
Joyce didn’t say yes though?
I know Joyce didn’t mean to be, but that was pretty savage
Passive-aggressive holier-than-thou guilt trips are standard fare for her background.
If Joyce is right and Joe was wrong, it’s just Joyce being a Good Christian™. If Joe’s telling the truth, it’s a guilt-seeking missile.
Joyce is a good kid.
*plays Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter” on the hacked Muzak*
Even if
Even if
Right in the feels. Just punch us all right in the guts Joyce.
Well played, Joyce, well played. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s strip
I wouldn’t be surprised if next strip cuts to a couple other characters, lforcing us to wait another day at least.
…Joyce probably thinks it’s the Jacob thing, which means it almost certainly isn’t.
Joyce knows Jacob was telling the truth, Sarah knows it, too, and she’s trying to give Sarah the chance to tell her, in her own words, what the deal is.
Whether she takes it or not, I dunno, though she did open up to Joyce some before, when they had the tearful embrace over how things would never be the same post-Toedad on Campus. She obviously has it within her capacity to be open, she just needs to demonstrate she can put herself out on a limb.
Joe. Jacob is the guy they wanna bang.
They both kinda want to bang Joe, as well.
You know, I’m a little curious about that. Joe’s expressed some interest in Sarah in the past, but Sarah’s harder to figure out. She’s definitely been hostile to him, but she’s also seemed to revel in talking to someone who keeps all of their cards on the table.
When has she reveled in talking to Joe?
Wasn’t long ago she yelled at him for talking to her.
Joe, right. Sorry, long day.
Alt-text: Except for that. Not texting me to warn me about missing pizza day? That is the one thing I cannot forgive.
THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION FOR SHITTY BEHAVIOR PLEASE.
Q: What day is Pizza Day?
A: Trick question, it is all of the days.
Friday, according to The Aquabats.
Well this subject could turn contentious but for me its the idea that unchecked immigration is good.
In my country, NZ, we’ve had a lot of immigration over the last few years and the infrastructure is struggling to keep up as most of the immigrants end up in one city (Auckland) causing house prices to raise, schools to become over crowded etc etc
I’m pro-immigration but I agree with the political left in NZ that want to put a check on immigrant numbers, at least until the infrastructure catches up
Whoa, whoa, whoa, in New Zealand, the LEFT is against immigration? HOw does that work?
That is pretty much opposite of the forgiveness rate of Sarah’s previous friendships, where she was completely written off, no forgiveness, labeled as irredeemably terrible, without any leeway allowed her at all. So, I think that this has the potential to really be good.
Or the potential to not be believed at all.
Joyce is such a sweet kid. I love her so much and I usually dont care for the super nice innocent ones. I hope things go well for her from here on out
I’m impressed that shes managing to keep her general positivity and wanting to see the good in everyone while also becoming less naive, its good to see
Maybe it’s her steely resolve when looking out for those she cares about? “Badass” is perhaps the highest praise I know how to give a woman, and Joyce has a good bit of the badass in her.
Immigrants often move to be with their families, or otherwise into communities of their fellow expatriates, which buffers the language problem. If you leave China for a Chinatown where your uncle has a job for you, learning the local language may not the highest need for you — and may be hard to do, if you’re working 12 hours a day and surrounded by Chinese speakers.
“LEARN THE LENGUAGE FIRST. ”
I believe the word you’re looking for here is, “LANGUAGE”.
D’oh!
I Have Thoughts on this subject, and your example, but…
How does this topic relate to this particular strip? How does it relate to DoA in general?
If you feel the need to express your opinions on this topic, aren’t there forums and/or subreddits that would be more appropriate?
Well, I respect the opinion of the people in this comment section, and I know that if shit gets outta hand Willis will shut down the whole thing.
I get trusting this comment section more than other parts of the internet, but if you’re just looking to discuss topics that are by nature controversial and also unrelated to the comic, keep in mind that you’re asking for more work from Willis than he may be onboard for.
Well Joyce opened herself up to believing what Joe said about Sarah.
And Dorothy still never found out about her trying to change Ethan? Huh makes sense.
iirc, Dorothy did find out – I think I remember a bit where she put the pieces together, after Ethan and Joyce broke up? I don’t know if Joyce knows that she knows, though.
She knows Ethan is gay. I’m not sure if she knows anything else. OTOH, I’m not sure there is anything else. Was Joyce really trying anything to actually change him?
Mostly she was just attracted, but safe.
I’m thinking Joyce wasn’t trying to “convert” Ethan or pass him off as “my straight boyfriend”. The “attracted, but safe” thing sounds on the ball.
And of course, Willis turns the screw with Becky thinking Ethan was the beard.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/beard/
Dorothy may have put some pieces together!
So she did know. Thanks for the link, Amazi-Stool.
Yup, Joyce is a paladin.
But is she lawful-stupid, or stupid-good?
Yes.
stupid-good, but she’s learning.
I’ll take stupid-good over lawful-stupid any day.
…though I guess I’m chaotic-gifted, so there are days I’d rather have stupid-good than lawful-genius.
is anyone else crying?
is that just me?
I had just finished typing up a reply about how bringing up purposely controversial topics that are unrelated to the comic just to discuss them is asking Willis to take on work that he hadn’t signed up for. I feel stupid asking this, but the relevant thread was there and now it’s gone, right?
And I’m sorry for bringing up something that likely has just been deleted, but I’ve been having some stressful moments re: reality recently and could use the reassurance.
Yup. Was there. Isn’t now. Wasn’t gonna touch it. Problem solved.
It’s not just you, don’t worry!
Yup, I even saw that reply, and I suppose the deletion of the thread means you were correct about it being too off-topic.
Thanks (to all who replied).
You must have been on at the exact right minute to see my reply– I hit “post comment,” and by the time the page reloaded (which did take a minute), the whole thread was gone.
Now I’m wondering what I missed.
Lucky me. I’m in bed when the comic posts, so the worst comments are cleared out for me when I read it in the morning.
Wow I just learned I’m Sarah.
Joyce has grown up a lot. Now she has to make evolution compatible with her worldview and she will be sane.
also her food neuroses.
She ate buttered noodles and meatballs from the same bowl already! What more can you want!?
Sarah, that’s what we Brits call an ‘open goal’. She’s giving you the chance to tell her the truth and promising that she will get over it. Will you take this chance to be honest with her?
People being kind and honest and forgiving makes it REALLY hard to do evil schemes. It would be SO MUCH EASIER if people would just be mean to Sarah.
Stupid Joyce.
Only because Sarah still has guilt of her own. If you really are properly evil, people being kind and honest and forgiving makes the evil schemes much easier.
SARAH DOES NOT FEEL GUILTY YOU FEEL GUILTY ALSO SHUT UP
Wow! Way to go Joyce. But you’ve got to realize that before you can seek forgiveness you first have to do something you regret. Sarah has a worthwhile goal and no reason to regret.
I assume you talk from Sarah’s perspective here, and not voicing your agreement with herM
That ‘M’ was meant to be a question mark. My bad.
I love Joyce. Should I be worried?
Not unless you start talking about punishing the unbelievers.
I might be tempted.
Speaking of forgiveness, do you guys think you can hate someone for someone else? I say this because I realized the falseness of forgiving somebodies crimes against someone else for them, and hatred is simply the opposite of forgiveness. I.E if one cannot forgive for another, one can also not hate for another.
Forgiveness is an act of thought. Hatred is an emotion.
Hatred is not the opposite of forgiveness. They’re not even the same kind of thing.
It seems like hatred can be inspired by all sorts of things, depending on who’s doing the hating. Some of those things are really random and don’t even make sense.
So yes, I’d say that if Adam did something to Beth that you found hateful, you might very well hate Adam for that.
But no, there’s no reason Beth would feel the same emotion you would, so you wouldn’t really be hating Adam _for_ Beth. You’d be hating Adam for your reaction to something you believe about Adam.
I actually believe that hatred is something beyond ordinary emotion—like love, it’s a very powerful shift in your mindset and emotional state. But I agree with the rest of what you said!
But forgiveness isn’t really an act of thought either – I mean, you can decide you should forgive someone, just like you can decide you shouldn’t hate someone. But neither actually means your feelings change. If you say “I forgive you”, but keep resenting what they did, you haven’t really forgiven.
I think they’re more closely tied together than you might think.
Yeah, stupid monkey brain, not letting us change our feelings on various things.
You can’t forgive someone for another, but you can forgive them for yourself.
When someone does something you dislike (to another, to yourself, or just in general) you can feel hurt, both for yourself and for those outside yourself whom you care about in the situation, and you can forgive them but neither your forgiveness nor hurt has anything to do with anyone else’s outside of being caused by the same actions.
I think one of the most beautiful things about Joyce is her capacity to love. Despite the environment she grew up in and the shit that’s been happening to her in her first year of college, Joyce still manages to remain someone who has a vast amount of love to give. And I feel like today’s strip just really demonstrates how pure her love for Sarah is.
Quite. She is one of the rare people who got the Right message from Christianity instead of all the trash most believe in order to feel better than other people…
She gets it from Hank.
we don’t deserve joyces
Joyce too pure for this world
This is very sweet, but I have trouble believing that even Joyce would be willing to forgive anyone absolutely anything. For instance, it doesn’t seem like she’s forgiven her would-be rapist. He got what he deserved, yes, but it seems more like she’s taking a smug satisfaction in it (“God saw justice done!”) than true forgiveness. Moreover, would she be able to forgive people like Martin Skrelli who are clearly profiting off the misery and misfortune of others just because they can, and who show absolutely no regret or guilt over what they did?
Everybody has their limits.
Well…she may forgive Sarah in particular every time. She holds her in pretty high regard.
I think Joyce’s brand of forgiveness is, “Forgiveness is something you have to actually seek out.” Someone like Shkreli (I won’t get into the Ryan thing at all) would only stand a chance if he actually showed and felt remorse. We’ll make a Catholic out of her yet!
Other people forgive based on a personal, inward decision, and don’t require remorse to do so. It varies.
I believe I would be willing to forgive anyone who did show real remorse, but I’ve never been brutally hurt enough to have cause to question that position.
I have and have discovered I need all of: acceptance of responsibility for the wrong, remorse, proactive effort to learn from the situation and a change in beliefs, attitudes and/or behavior patterns that let to the wrong. Only then have you earned forgiveness.
Feeling bad is not enough because feeling bad is easy. Any abusive jackoff can feel bad when they are out of a rage. Change is hard and shows they actually understand what they did and intend to not do it again.
For something on that level certainly.
For Sarah? On something like this? Sarah’s got a whole pile of good karma stored up to outweigh anything Joyce might need to forgive her for.
Hey Willis, one of your ads has a script that redirects you to a scam site. Plz fix it.
On topic of forgiveness (which the redirect script in one of the ads here nuked and so the rewrite might not be as coherent): I have a gigantic problem with how USian and Canadian cultures think of forgiveness. As if it’s something the onus is on the victim to hand out like candy “for their own good,” to be coupled with “forgetting” (i.e. pretending the bad thing never happened), and that they should do regardless of whether the perpetrator has done anything to make amends.
That’s bullshit.
Forgiveness should be something that you have to earn. The way forgiveness is culturally handled in our societies makes all the onus on the victim to make the situation comfortable for everyone, including the perpetrator. None of the onus is on the perpetrator to stop doing harmful shit. That is a recipe to lock people in to the cycle of abuse, because all the perpetrator ever has to do is say sorry and at least act like they feel bad.
For me, forgiveness is something that needs to be earned. The perpetrator has to not only say sorry and feel bad, but change whatever thoughts, beliefs, and behavior patterns led to the bad thing in the first place. What constitutes appropriate change to earn forgiveness will depend on the level of the transgression – but in general it’s some sort of action on the part of the perpetrator that shows they intend to not do it again and are taking action to prevent themself from doing it again.
And I refuse to forget. I’ve had people pretend to feel bad and change to get back into my life after serious transgressions. So now, if I see you’re sliding back to the same old pattern, I’ll take action earlier.
I don’t demand perfection in others. People make mistakes. They fuck up. They say stupid shit without thinking. I am no exception.
But what I do demand, both of myself and others, is work to be better. Without self-improvement, forgiveness means jack-all.
^All of that.
It’s hard to pinpoint a universal definition for it. Forgiveness can also be a tool for emotional blackmail and manipulation. Thats also USian to me since I see it a lot. Sometimes I jokingly give a bluntly loud no when someone jokingly tell me to say sorry just to assure myself.
It can. That wasn’t part of the abusive pattern in my household growing up (although it is a part of the dysfunctional relationship I have with one of my siblings as an adult – she has a fixation on an admittedly shitty thing I did when I was 8, and brings it up any time she feels I’m a bit too happy for her liking) so I tend to be way less wary of it, but it totally can.
This may be my bias from my own life experience, but I do think weaponized pressure to forgive is way more common than weaponized forgiveness in abusive patterns, just because social pressure to forgive makes it a lot harder to seem like the good guy even when you’re justified.
OTOH, people also hold grudges over minor wrongs, long past any reason and despite other decent behavior. Not all forgiveness is about cycles of abuse and perpetrators getting away with things. Sometimes it’s just part of the give and take of human relationships.
In this context, Joyce will forgive Sarah (And she knows up front what she’s offering forgiveness for), because this is less important than other things Sarah has done – like appear from nowhere to take out Scarface with a baseball bat.
I do agree some people hold grudges unreasonably – but far, far more common, IME, is someone who refuses to learn from previous fights which leads to a blowup, which the person will frame as being over a “minor thing” when it wasn’t about the minor wrong, it was about the pattern of disgregard or the alledgedly minor wrong is being misrepresented and was not in fact minor.
That said, in the rare case where someone holds a grudge unreasonably, that too can be a part of an abusive pattern. Often used to try to flip the roles in a conflict. A lot of people in my immediate family are really fond of that one.
OTOH, what seems like a minor wrong to you might not be a minor wrong to the other person. Case in point: my father thinks it’s ridiculous I still hold a grudge over a fight we had when I was 16. In his view, it was a minor wrong. My experience? He threatened to kill me, while physically restraining me, after having punched the wall next to my head. He owns many guns and has always been big into macho ex-military culture, so he made sure I was brought up knowing he knew how to kill. To me, he made me genuinely fear for my life. It was not a minor wrong. To him, it was partly my fault for being “defiant” (read: not wanting to admit to something I was being falsely accused of) and anyway I ran away afterwards so weren’t we both to blame?
So… yeah. I guess I’m saying my experiences being ridiculed for “holding a grudge over a minor wrong” that was actually a literal and credible death threat from that relative makes me very leery of accepting that a third-hand report of a minor wrong was in fact minor. Because of my experiences with how power dynamics can be used to manipulate how third parties see the situation, I’m more inclined to err on the side of sympathy to the injured party in a situation where I don’t have direct knowledge of what happened.
And to be fair, part of my being so strict on my requirements for forgiveness is due to my background of being brought up in an abusive household where I was socialized hard into being a doormat. My forgiveness requirement is a mode of self-defense against falling into the same abusive patterns I was brought up with. I’m a lot warier about granting forgiveness than most people I know, because the concept of forgiveness was definitely weaponized into the abusive pattern in my life growing up, by more members than not of my immediate and extended family both.
So all of that ^^^ strongly informs my warier-and-stricter-than-average requirements for forgiveness.
Afterthought: my father has never even apologized for threatening to kill me in a credible and explicit manner when I was 16. Let alone made any effort to change the pattern of behavior. So yeah, I do still refuse to forgive him for it, because he’s never put in even a little bit of effort to earn my forgiveness.
For what its worth you’re a better person than me, I’ve cut people out of my life for less
Just to clarify my point: What you describe is in no way what I’d consider a minor wrong.
What Sarah and Joyce are talking about here is much less significant than yours and even that is above a lot of what I’d consider a minor wrong not worth holding a grudge over.
Oh yeah. I mentioned elsewhere that my experience has largely been one of weaponized pressure to forgive so you unintentionally triggered my wariness of it. No bad on your part. I had a shitty home life growing up and apparently perceived implication that my boundaries are unreasonable is one of my triggers. You had no way of knowing it and I didn’t even figure it our till thismorning so… yeah. My bad.
You are from all I have been able to see, good people. Please accept my apology for reacting to you as I would have one of my extended family trying to pressure me into getting re-enmeshed with my folks.
Sarah: ‘Challenge accepted!’
Mature Joyce sustains me.
Growing up is learning that sometimes your worldview is wrong.
I feel like this is more a semantic disagreement than a functional one. In modern usage, the word “forgiveness” often includes the concept of condoning the action, or pardoning the perpetrator, or forgetting the offense. I don’t think that’s what’s intended, here.
In the sense that Joyce is using it, and in the way the some in the US and Canada use it, to “forgive” means to give up your right (and/or obligation) to feel resentment, aggrievement, grievance, or pain about the wrong that was committed. When you forgive someone, you give up those negative and corrosive thoughts and emotions. This is not candy that you give to the perpetrator; this is candy that you give to yourself.
Refusing to to forgive means insisting on maintaining a sense of resentment and grievance. These thoughts and emotions are corrosive to those that maintain them over the long term. In effect, then, withholding forgiveness is like the victim drinking poison and then waiting for the perpetrator to die.
It’s like saying “I’m going to keep on drinking this corrosive acid until you earn my forgiveness, at which point I’ll stop drinking it, probably. That’ll teach you!”
To forgive someone does not mean to condone what they did. It does not mean to pardon them. It does not mean to “pretend it never happened”. If someone does something horrible, even after you forgive them, the memory of what happened is still useful information that should guide your future interaction with them. If they genuinely make amends for the wrong they committed, that is also useful information that should guide your future interaction with them. Sometimes, the appropriate thing to do is forgive them, and then make sure your future interactions with them are limited to perhaps no interactions at all. There are people that I have forgiven that I have no inclination to interact with again. I have taken steps to protect myself from them, but these steps were not taken out of a sense of revenge or resentment or anger or vitriol; they are just rational choices that are consistent with what I’ve learned about these people. There are others that I’ve forgiven that I still interact with, but who have not yet earned back my trust. They might not ever earn back that trust, but because I have forgiven them, it is a real and genuine future possibility.
It is a wonderful thing that Joyce will forgive Sarah- and it is even more wonderful for Joyce than it is for Sarah. Of course, Joyce would do well to let this experience make her wiser and more aware, rather than bitter and more suspicious.
Which is interesting an interesting take, because that’s not how forgiveness is commonly used in religious groups like Joyce’s – even if maybe it should be theologically.
Instead it tends to be used to actually wipe the slate clean – the politician cheated on his wife, but he’s confessed (now that he’s been caught) and been forgiven, so we must now treat him as a righteous man again.
For me, forgiveness is about me giving you full access to my life again.
No, I don’t forgive my father – because the last time he had full access to my life, he threatened to kill me in a credible way. So, no, he doesn’t get to know what I’m up to, or drop in on me spontaneously, or interact with me without warning me ahead of time anymore. And he won’t until he proves to me that the next time I dare to contradict him, he won’t threaten my life again. He lost his privilege of me categorizing him as a safe person to be around the second he threatened my life and wellbeing. Full stop.
That does not mean I still feel resentment over it. It’s more a matter of me not believing that he’s a safe person to be around.
By contrast, one of my siblings also threatened to kill me when we were kids, also in a credible way. I have forgiven her and will spontaneously interact with her and treat her as a safe person because I understand that she has realized that what she did was fucked up and has since gotten training in effective conflict resolution and demonstrated that she is now able to get in an argument with someone without getting violent. So yeah, she gets full sibling access to me again – I trust she’s not going to try to hurt me again.
For me, whether or not I grant forgiveness to someone is less about letting go/moving past the wrong emotionally, and more about whether or not I trust them not to turn that behavior into a pattern. If I don’t trust them not to keep doing the thing, I treat them accordingly. For my own safety, not out of any bizarre desire to “poison myself”. It’s not about spiting the other person – it’s about not giving someone the opening to metaphorically or literally stab me again until they’ve proven they will not repeat the action.
For me, I… well, there are people I know who exhibit, as you say, patterns of behaviour I don’t tolerate in my life. I have forgiven them for what they have done – I hold no resentment, I am willing to interact with them in ways that I know will give them no power over me, I would in no way hesitate to save them from a burning building.
But I will never give them full access to my life again. It’s simple a protective measure – I don’t bear them any ill will, but I am not willing to put myself into a situation again that I know they will take advantage of to harm me.
I think the mantra here is “Forgive, but do not forget”. Bear no ill will, but do not disregard what has been done.
Its generally healthier to focus your energy on the good people in your life than the bad people in your life. Its generally unhealthy to let people who mistreat you into more of your life than you have to or let them into a position where they have power over you if it can help it. Unfortunately people can mix the two up to claim that you really should let that bad people back into your life.