Nah, it is Sal seeing the circles of violence in her life. She sees that Leland attacked Marcie due to Sal defending Marcie before. Sal then panicked and hurt Ethan, Amber then attacked Sal due to her own warped sense of justice. Amber wants *herself* to be ended because she hasn’t seen that by taking responsibility she can end this.
But Sal has figured out it is her job and responsibility to end the cycle and step away.
Not quite – Amber stabbed Sal because her dad berated her until she snapped for the most part. I do think that, while she’s regretted both the Leland fight and the robbery before now, this is the first time she’s seeing the connection.
I think she just got why Amber would have felt hurt by her even though the knife was at Ethan’s throat. So suddenly, the girl who came out of nowhere and mutilated her hand has a reason she can relate to.
I think the takeaway is less one dimensional than violence begets violence and more that learning to see things from others’ perspectives lends context to actions that felt unreasonable.
Sal remembers how helpless and angry she felt when Leland hurt Marcie. It just clicked for her that THAT’S why Amber hurt her. Because she also felt hurt and angry and helpless.
I mean, a few people did point out that his ready excuse of ‘she tripped in that ditch’ sounds a lot like what a kid might say about their ‘clumsy’ mother.
Kind of. Amber was definitely feeling hurt, afraid and helpless, but I’d argue that had a lot of thanks to Blaine berating her until she snapped. That said, Sal couldn’t possibly know that, so you’re not wrong that’s probably what she’s thinking.
I’d also argue the stabbing itself is still unreasonable (as is the robbery) but in context it’s definitely a LOT more sympathetic. At least to me.
Yeah, that too. She’s finally seeing the cyclical nature of the thing and how that’s affected Amber’s motivations.
That said, cyclical nature or no, I really can’t bring myself to feel like she shouldn’t have choked that little bastard. Just maybe make sure he doesn’t know its you next time, Sal.
I think Sal has always known that she is constantly receiving the blame for the mistakes of others, but is also seeing how her own actions triggered these events, even if the others weren’t justified in taking these actions. I think up until now she has refused to give up on her sense of justice, but now, finally, she is considering just mitigating the damage instead by avoiding the triggers that bring other people to do bad things.
She is tired of the pain and suffering, and she needs a break from it all.
And to be frank, I’ve seen a lot of folks in here rooting for Amber. As much as I like her, I can’t root for her. Amber is unambiguously in the wrong here. Sal didn’t hurt Amber. Blaine hurt Amber, and Amber projected her frustration with Blaine into actions that hurt others, like Sal. Here she is blaming Sal for her own misdoings and the shame she felt for giving in to them. I understand her mind is warped from the years of emotional abuse she has endured, but the only way she’s going to break free from this is to realize that Blaine is the enemy. Amber needs to realize that Amber isn’t the enemy, and then she needs to realize that while she isn’t an enemy, she has been one of the worst friends.
I “root” for Amber because she has taken an absolutely crazy idea and with a lot of hard work and sacrifice made it work. She’s taken huge negatives in her own personality and constructed an identity where many of those negatives can be channeled for a positive good. Those who can’t respect and admire that are more lawful than good. I sympathize with Sal, but that’s just not as strong.
What’s it like not believing in like trials or due process or law enforcement having any kind of accountability? Apparently a masked vigilante stalking and harassing a young black woman because of her own vendetta is justice.
I think Emily would be the last person to say the current justice system is perfect and works. But the general principles of accountability, trials and due process are good ones.
All agreed, but let’s also not take it so far that rooting for Amber means “not believing in like trials or due process or law enforcement having any kind of accountability.”
I’ve seen a lot more rooting for Sal. Personally, I’m on Team “please stop”.
Which apparently both Sal and Amber are joining. 🙂
I’ve been defending Amber, so that might seem like rooting for her. She’s been taking a lot of criticism that seems over the top to me. Well beyond what you said here.
And very little on Sal that went nearly so far. There was that one poster calling her a thug, but by the time I saw that, they’d been sufficiently yelled at.
I think they both have problems, but I sympathize a bit more with Amber simply because I think Sal can do better. Yes, Sal has had more than her share of pain in the past, and she has a lot of anger because she thinks (maybe justifiably, maybe not) that life has treated her unfairly, but Amber is mentally unstable from years of trying to deal with emotional abuse while Sal simply thinks she should have gotten some slack for attempted robbery because her heart was in the right place and her mother closed off her other option for paying Marcie’s family back. I’m not sure what this says about me personally, but I’d also rather see someone like Amber try to do the right thing for the wrong reasons that someone like Sal do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
Sal’s also trying to deal with emotional abuse. And Sal’s never said she should have gotten some slack for the robbery. What she did say is while she faced both legal and parental sanctions, Amber faced neither (although her father made sure to take it out on Amber’s mom because Amber lashing out hurt his ego because Blaine’s an abusive tool).
Maybe Sal didn’t say she shouldn’t have been punished for the attempted robbery, but she does seem to think that her parents sending her to a boarding school was over the top. I don’t know. Sal might have been better off in the long run going to juvie (assuming that the facility she went to had trained staff who gave a damn.)
Still, upon rereading BBCC’s reply, I guess I have to concede that Sal is justified in thinking that she faced consequences for her actions while Amber did not. (That doesn’t mean Amber wasn’t punished. Amber’s punishment has been self inflicted.)
Considering juvie and children of colour, I think the odds on that are sadly low. Looks like her school wasn’t great either, and of course, her parents are shit. School was probably the best option, but that’s not saying much, unfortunately. 🙁
Her attack on what’s-his-name led to vengeance against Marcie, which led to her attack on Ethan, which led to Amber’s attack(s) on her, which led to her attack on Amber, which led to now.
Christ if that’s where this is headed my eyes are going to roll out of my fucking head because “violence begets violence” is the most clueless cishet white person thing ever.
“Comfortable In Skin” must be a backronym, though I’ve never seen it before.
Cis is just short for cisgender, which came by extension from transgender. Latin-derived chemistry terminology for “this side of” and “the other side of”.
That is absolutely not what it means and Emily’s usage was not derogatory just because it points out cishet white people are the ones with the privilege to often be spouting ‘violence begets violence/forgive forget’ kind of crap.
And Emily, I wouldn’t be worried. I don’t think this is going to go for a blanket ‘violence is bad’ message. I think this is more Sal realizing the specific cycle here and how that fed both her and Amber’s motivations rather than suggesting equivalent wrongdoing with Leland.
Plus, if nothing else, there’ve been absolutely no ethical objections to Sarah turning Ryan’s face to mush with a bat.
At the risk of pointing this out, given whole sections of the world have been devastated by tribal and nationalist feuds which didn’t have a “good guy” in them, I think that’s colossally ignorant characterization.
I say that while FULLY agreeing that Nazis should be punched and plenty of people act offended when victims fight back. But, seriously, the idea that violence solves problems unilaterally is THE white cis person’s go-to excuse.
Might be wrong, but I suspect Emily wasn’t thinking violence always solves problems, but objecting to the idea that it’s where violence usually comes from. Plenty of people suffer from violence, without starting any themselves.
It might be a “clueless cishet white person thing” to think that’s the only way violence comes about, but as you say, it certainly is a thing that happens once the violence starts.
Well that and the idea that violence is universally wrong and never effective which is just ridiculously naive and displays a complete lack of historical awareness. The Holocaust wasn’t ended by a picket line.
Sure until it’s coming back on them then it’s suddenly “violence begets violence” and “peaceful protest” and “cycle of revenge.” It generally comes from a position of well-intended privileged ignorance of the role violence pretty much always plays in throwing off oppression or intense hypocrisy in the face of the violence they’ve been subjecting minorities to coming back to bite them in the ass.
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.”
By “end it” she means her hunger by biting into a satisfying Snickers bar! Too bad they’ve gone too far with this fight and weren’t humble enough to realize they were not themselves when hungry! Could have prevented all of this.
If Amber and Sal are gonna be in one of those “You’re not yourself” Snickers commercials, then, I vote for them to be subbed out for Betty White and Danny Trejo, respectively!
Now, now. Let’s focus on what’s most important. No light was shone. A good family’s name was not tarnished. A bunch of adults did not have to ass them selves to do something even resembling responsibility, and a young bully was free to develop his particular style of cruelty.
Whoa whoa whoa there Bagge! I know you’re not throwing hate at Leland for apparently stabbing Marcie in the throat with a sharp rock!? He has a future!
Sometimes, you kick the wrong ass. You can’t unkick that ass, but you CAN go find and kick the right ass, presuming he hasn’t died in the time you’ve been kicking the wrong ass.
You sure you want that? The pattern of escalation in Sal’s life would dictate Leland then run Marcie over with a truck paralyzing her from the waist down as splashback.
Maybe the comic will end with him getting trampled by a cow. (Was going to say “eaten by a shark,” but I didn’t want to add to the anti-shark narrative.)
I hope this is her moment of clarity. I mean, I hope it’s one for BOTH of them, but Amber’s got a whole lot of things to sort out, whereas Sal’s probably closer to a breakthrough at the moment.
I want very much for her to step away from the cycle of violence, and firmly believe she has it in her to do so.
I choose to believe Leland was arrested after this and spent a decade in juvenile hall before emerging into life a career criminal who later spends the rest of his life behind bars.
I guess, fundamentally, while I appreciate that sometimes violence can escalate things, I’m just not sure what the alternative is in situations like this, where the police will likely do nothing.
Well, it was apparently Amazigirl who was doing the stalking and not Amber. And Amazigirl already had her own moment of clarity where she realized that the stalking was the absolute opposite of what Amazigirl was about. And apparently replaced the stalking goal shortly thereafter with a recruiting Sal as a sidekick goal. With mixed success, you’ll notice.
The stalking was before they stopped sharing memories. The split goes back further, though it’s somewhat gradual.
For example, we can see that Amber was still having panic reactions to Sal, while Amazi-Girl was able to interact with her rationally.
Regardless, the stalking had stopped sometime ago. Amazi-Girl had made peace with Sal and Amber hadn’t stalked her, so the idea that Sal needs to do something now to stop the stalking doesn’t really make sense.
Danny and Ethan’s presence will, hopefully, keep it from reigniting once she relinquishes the hold.
As for the rest, uhh, Amber can just boink Walky and everyone can go back to not being in each other’s business, hopefully. Probably not quite that simple.
Amber stopped when she thought she had ‘won’, but Sal had not given up.
Amber has clearly conceded here (apparently not just the fight, but also her life…) and according to her expression, Sal will probably be willing to end her fight.
… Oh hey. Sal’s finally grown up enough to see the cycle. It won’t last long, it never does, but let’s see if she uses her moment of clarity to break out of that cycle.
That is a crazy level of violence to enact on someone who has never hurt you. Our justice system is seriously janked that he didn’t go to juvie (assuming he didn’t but I think sal would have less issues if justice had been served on some level).
Unless his two accomplices had an epiphany at some point, there’d have been a testimony problem. No fair justice system is equipped to deal with stuff like that in a satisfying fashion.
Yeah, Sal’s hair and outfit in panel 2 match the date of Marcie’s injury, and we saw a zoomed-in version of that panel without Leland as a flashback-within-a-flashback during the robbery.
This is why Marcie losing her voice is sals “fault”! The guy she has beaten up on the playground (that “tripping” incident) hit marcie with a stone while she was restrained.
Also, sal, it’s nice that you are learning something but amber seems to be low on oxygen right now. It would probably be a good idea to let go of her before she drops unconscious.
If Sal lets go, Amber will probably go back to attacking her. Maybe letting Amber slip into unconsciousness and using the moment it will take for blood to rush to her brain to escape might be Sal’s best option. I mean I don’t see how Sal can talk Amber down at this point.
Ignoring the fact that Amber was already done fighting and Sal very EASILY gotten away then or talked her down by admitting defeat or even just grumbling and leaving, Amber is ALREADY dazed from being strangled, and Ethan and Danny are RIGHT THERE.
Even if Amber still has any fight left in her, she’s not going to get the chance.
Maybe now Sal can get away (or start talking, I’m all for talking), but I get why she didn’t give up when Amber stopped earlier. I mean, imagine there’s this girl with a history of unpredictable violence and stalking and whatnot standing over you and starting to laugh maniacally. Also, pretty sure Amber runs faster than Sal. So keeping fighting does seem like a reasonable choice here…
Thank God they’re coming to their senses… wait actually no maybe not both I can’t tell if that “end it” meant end the fight or life. Because if that was a possible suicidal plea then…
Depends on the situation. Sometimes violence is necessary to defend yourself or a third party, or where not fighting would lead to something as bad or worse as fighting to defend yourself.
I might be biased though. Ignoring my abusive best friend didn’t stop her, crying didn’t stop her, begging to just stop ‘fighting’ and being best friends didn’t stop her, but she sure stopped when I punched her in the stomach though.
Yeah, well, I’m tired of ‘all violence is always bad’. Like I said, one punch in my so called ‘friend’s’ stomach and she left me alone more or less for two years before she changed schools. This was after 3 or 4 years of pretty solid emotional abuse. I don’t regret anything.
If she hadn’t been a dick you wouldn’t have had to punch her. Your story is not an example of why violence is good. It is an example of why violence is bad. Because it causes more violence in response.
She was a dick, but she was never violent in a way it would matter. And while her being violent (if you accept her as violent which, again, most people don’t) lead to more violence, me punching her ended up getting her to back off and I haven’t seen her in ten years.
Right, but what you said was, “Violence doesn’t solve anything.” Then BBCC offer an example from her life where she felt violence solved something. You can argue that the issue that was solved was itself caused by violence, but that’s still something.
That just seems like a circular argument to me. Violence can be good sometimes because it might stop other violence? I can’t see that as something to celebrate, or believe in. Because “self defense” is a matter of perspective.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing it as something to “celebrate” or even believe as much as just a recognition of how they see the world. Violence can serve a purpose. Now, would it be better if we could magically eliminate all violence? Sure. But that’s not the world we live in.
I feel like I’m in an Internet edit of Matt Bors’ comic about the guy who keeps trying to gotcha folks for participating in the systems they have problems with.
“We should try to do less violence on people.” “And yet you’re in favor of fighting back someone trying to kill you! I am very intelligent.”
Holy hell, I am a pacifist and even I disagree with Irredentist here. Violence should not be the answer, but sometimes it is the only way to stop more immediate and intense harm.
Ghandi’s form of nonviolent resistance only worked because he had a platform. It’s not something that can be easily applied to a personal grudge between two college kids.
Again, that only works if you consider her violent, and many wouldn’t. Frankly, I don’t regret slugging her, even if it was an accident, and I don’t really care if she’s considered violent or I am for throwing the only real blow in that relationship. Last I heard, she was still a twit to her friends so fuck her.
Note that the key to non-violent resistance is the resistance, not just the non-violence. It’s not just a platform, but you need to have something your opposition wants and the means to deny it to them: Britain exploited India as a colonial possession, drawing wealth from it in the form of resources. Gandhi’s movement disrupted that wealth, through non-violent action. Strikes and the like. It was not simply a matter of shaming the British into going away as it’s often portrayed. He made it unprofitable to hold India.
MLK’s tactics during the Civil Rights Movement were similar: protests and marches to draw attention, but also strikes and boycotts to win specific integration goals.
As you say, how to apply that to a bully is not simple.
Also, both the Indian independence movement and the civil rights movement both involved plenty of violent incidents and groups. In some instances, that helped persuade the government to listen to the non-violent group as a sort of ‘Okay, these people are willing to talk to us, while these people are going to burn this place down if something doesn’t change. Let’s go with the peaceful ones’.
Of course, there are also times violent protests have led to reprisals or crackdowns. the point is, most protest movements and histories involve a mix of peaceful and violent protest.
The history of many successful “peaceful” uprisings are pretty heavily whitewashed by those in power to hide the role violent protest had in their success in order to try to minimize knowledge of the effectiveness of violent protest.
Maybe. But considering how much effort those in power tend to go to paint nonviolent protests as violent riots or to actually start violence with agents provocateurs and the like, I’m not so sure.
One thing I suspect they do is to emphasize the role of simple protest and demonstration over direct action, especially non-violent action.
Honestly, I slipped on some ice while I had my fists clenched (I was angry because she and her friends were tormenting me again). But she thought it was on purpose and I wasn’t about to set her straight.
BBCC, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’ve been in similar situations where I wasn’t able to fight back either because I was too scared both of my bully and of becoming her. I’m glad circumstances eventually worked out so that yours left you alone.
(In my case, I ended up moving to another country and never saw her again, so I turned out fine. Though she did try to add me on Facebook years later and I was like “AHAHAHAH NO.”)
MINE TRIED TO ADD ME ON FACEBOOK TOO. Twice, actually. I stared at it for a bit and then finally said ‘You gotta be fucking kidding me.’ and deleted the request with extreme prejudice.
I was afraid of getting in trouble if I hit her or swore at her or yelled at her (I actually did get detention once because I screamed at her in class. My mother was LIVID. My teacher knew about what a piece of work my ‘friend’ was – apparently I was not her only target in my class. She was just too close to retiring to give a shit, and our principal was absolutely gutless. Her solution to everything was to separate the students fighting. The good news is that for the next two years, we weren’t allowed to be in the same class. Which is probably for the best. I got a lot more confident over those two years and had no problem telling her to shut her damn mouth on the two occasions she tried shit after that).
BBCC, I am genuinely sorry all these things happened to you. Unlike most folks on here apparently, I do not consider myself as having the luxury to be a pacifist. I wish I could. I will punch a Nazi. I will defend the helpless. I will use my white, cishet, (etc) privilege to defend people and stand in front of those that aren’t part of those categories and if someone tries to hurt my friends, I hit back. I’ve lost a lot, I’ll be damned if I lose more without a fight. I got bullied a lot as a kid, by teachers and students. I am surprisingly unafraid of bullies.
Bullies sort of feed me. They get started and my brain remembers that I don’t have a flight reflex because of my bullies only a fight reflex. It’s why I don’t like crowds because crowd anxiety can cause me to go into fight response – which I don’t want to happen ever. I am lucky, I have people who help me with it. So, I don’t like violence, but I can’t claim that I am a pacifist. My brain isn’t wired that way. My brain thinks the only safe way out is through and only a few trusted people can keep me calm enough that I trust myself in large crowd.
No worries, I’m over her now. Last I heard she lived several hours away and she can fucking stay there. I don’t like bullies either. I’m just not good at doing IRL confrontations for the most part. I’m much better when I can write what I want to say. Or telling people to fuck off, that happens too.
You wanted no need for anyone to “claim” self-defense. Not that no one would need to defend themselves. You’re literally saying self-defense is not a valid “excuse”, that it isn’t “real”. This amounts to saying they shouldn’t defend themselves because that’s not a good excuse for violence. So maybe you didn’t mean that but it *is* what you said. Words matter. Especially when those word are victim blaming.
I’m tired of justifications. If no one started shit, there’d be no need for anyone to claim “self defense”.
Explain to me how your scare quotes around self-defense can be interpreted as anything other than deep scorn for the concept. Especially in the context of the previous sentence.
When I was a kid my dad was an abusive shitbag who only stopped terrorizing me (read: beating me up and regularly threatening murder) because I got big enough to shove him off me and threatened to ruin his life if he touched me again without killing me. Please explain how 16YO me (outweighed by 75lbs and outmatched in height by 6″) could have resolved his abuse without shoving. Asking him to stop didn’t work. Crying just made him angrier. Complying with his every whim was impossible. And I couldn’t leave because i had no transport because we lived 100km away from the nearest shelter and it was October. Do tell.
My father was a bully. The only language bullies respect is force. The only way they will stop preying on someone is if that person no longer seems weak enough to be an easy target. That can happen socially or physically, but it will only ever stop for real when the victim is able to show the bully they cannot be abused without consequence.
I do have deep scorn for the concept of self defense, as well as for the politics of strength. I feel that too often “self defense” is used as justification for violence when it is unnecessary. Especially in this country, and especially against people of color. So ultimately I think it is better to view all violence as bad. Even self defense, even when necessary. That doesn’t mean don’t do it. But I don’t accept that ultimately, it really solves anything.
Self defense certainly is abused, as you say, but the concept isn’t inherently flawed. To some extent, it’s necessary.
And even without self-defense, some potential for legitimate violence must exist. Some really bad things can’t reasonably be stopped without it. But then the potential for abuse exists with state violence as well as with self-defense.
So at the very least, we’re going to need to distinguish between levels of badness in violence: Joyce’s violence against Ross wasn’t as bad as Ross’s violence.
But then by painting even that as bad, we’re in the position of shaming and criticizing those who are already using violence only in defense, making them less willing to do so when necessary. To quote Joyce’s brother John: “That’s a pretty extreme reaction.”
No one ever said that. Violence is never good. But there are people who do like hurting people. And the only language they understand is that. And when you have a situation like Leland’s (take, for instance, Brock Turner), violence becomes the only answer.
Irredentist: Sure, sometimes violence is “necessary”. That doesn’t make it good.
Renadt: No one ever said that. Violence is never good.
I said that. Violence is a tool. As with any tool, whether it’s good or bad depends on the use you make of it. Violence is frequently an inappropriate tool. It can lead to all kinds of unintended consequences. It is occasionally the only effective tool you have. Saying violence is never good is simply silly.
The Richard Spencer face punch is actually a really good example of this thorny-as-hell problem. I’ve always been conflicted about it.
On the one hand, it was an unexpected attack on guy who was giving an interview. On the other, a Nazi got punched in the face for spreading Nazi hate.
TBH, anyone advocating for fucking genocide shouldn’t be surprised when they are punched in the face. Due to my own tendency towards pacifism, I personally do not know if I could punch him in the face. But I’m not going to tell other people if they should or shouldn’t. I don’t think that’s up to me to say.
Also, the fact that I can find the ethical ambiguity of the situation fascinating is due to my own privilege at not being his target. If I were, maybe I personally would want to punch him, too.
Richard Spencer getting punched was like, good on all sides. Being repeatedly punched when he showed his face has led to Spencer expressing an inability to attend rallies. He and other Nazis have specifically said, among their own, that their agenda has been dramatically slowed by antifa protests and violence. And we all benefit when nazi agendas are slowed down.
I do think it’s best when those protests can dominate non-violently. Street fighting isn’t the best approach, even if it’s sometimes necessary.
Opportunistic punching of Nazi representatives is useful to keep the leaders heads down. Groups like antifa work best in a defensive stance, I think. Keeping Nazi groups from doing their own violence and intimidation. And just organizing and protecting larger counter protests. Making them look few and weak rather than persecuted.
Actually, people defending themselves from violence is extremely good. What’s bad is people being forced to do so.
And take the “necessary” out of scare quotes unless you’re prepared to let some angry bigot beat you or a loved one to a pulp for the sake of smug moral superiority
Yes. I know. That’s why I objected to it. Nobody gave a hypothetical scenario where context or perspective even would exist. They just referred to the concept of “self defense” and your response was to question the necessity.
Even Marschall Rosenberg said that in some situations, you have to stop the ongoing violence first. And unfortunately that may mean to resort to enough violence to get to the stop.
Hey you are familiar with MBR’s work? Me too. Do you remember where you read that about him saying violence can be necessary? Are you talking about his concept of “protective use of force”?
Yes, the criteria to distinguish between protective use of force and unilateral force (coercion) are not objective, IMO. I have been involved in the NVC community for years, and I have seen people use the idea of protective force to justify what to me seemed like coercion at the time – eg stopping teenagers from using drugs, which to me seemed like a normal part of most people’s adolescence and personal exploration. Now that I am older I feel somewhat differently about it – but I do not necessarily think it is because I am wiser. It might have more to do with having lost empathy for the deep need for autonomy that tends to increases with force around puberty.
But for me the difference between an intention to protectively use force and violence is not wanting to hurt the person (punish them). In physical fights this could look like an aikido style of fighting, with an emphasis on restraining the person with minimal effort and damage. Ideally I try to find ways to do that in non-physical situations too.
Too often there is a portrayal of a false dichotomy between fighting and hurting someone in self defense or just taking abuse. There is a third path of nonviolent self defense. Eg aikido, techniques of setting boundaries wth NVC, etc
I can see where you are coming from. It’s rather easy to find a reason why the own acts are justified uses of force while the other people’s are acts of violence. I actually rather prefer to define all instances of physical force as violence, because then it is clear that you need a really good reason for it. It avoids a “me good, you bad” mindset in situations where an absolute “good” just isn’t in the books. But I see that this way to look at things might hinder others to keep themselves safe, so anyone should find their own way to express their ethics.
While people like gashface and toedad are on the extreme part of the human spectrum, stopping them must come before any NVC can be tried. It doesn’t work with people who have no empathy, and people in extreme situations tend to shut away that ability so you need a cool down period for them anyway. Real psychopaths never have empathy and cannot be reached by it, but luckily, those are few and far between.
If you think of groups or nations at war, this is slightly different as it may be necessary to talk to parts of those groups while others are still involved with violence, because usually, you do not have the resources to put a stop to their violence or at least don’t want to involve even more people to stop them.
I would say “there are crimes that even the rich and powerful can’t get away with once they become public”, but I know better than that. thinking about it is crushing
As far as I can tell, the adults involved chose not to shine a light at the alleged attack. After all, they don’t know if the girl is homeschooled or if she’s an… an… an illegal, but most adult probably worked managed to convince themselves it was just not their liability. After all, Leland is a good student. A very good student from a good family with a promising future. This wouldn’t seem like him at all. Just because Sal claimed he did… something there was no reason to… to shine a spotlight, considering all that’s at risk. I’m pretty sure they felt the best solution would be to dissuade the girl who got stabbed in her throat with a rock from doing anything that might put her near Leland in the future. She’s kind of the source of all this.
One thing it seems like everyone glosses over, if Marcie’s family are illegal immigrants, then could getting the cops involved make things worse for her than for Leland? I mean, they did just list out all the reasons why the cops might overlook Leland’s behavior, but could getting Marcie’s family on the cops radar lead to them getting deported? Part of me wonders if that was part of the conversation the adults were having back then that Sal was just too young to pick up on
Potentially, it could. Sal knows that’s risky though and it doesn’t prevent the school from punishing Leland for shoving another kid in a ditch full of concrete and rebar.
Side note, but iirc Sal mentioned to Marcie that if elected, Robin DeSanto wouldn’t hesitate to deport her parents, so I think that’s pretty direct confirmation that they are here illegally?
Yeeeeup. Countries can rescind citizenship. We don’t like to think itbecause we like to feel safe but the reality is government has scary levels of power.
Or just deport people without letting them prove their claim to citizenship. Which has happened.
Or the current “We think some midwives near the border were faking birth certificates for kids actually born on the wrong side, so we’re assuming all such birth certificates are fake unless you can prove otherwise. While locked up. Before we can deport you.”
How did Billie manage to grow up friends with Sal and be naive about homeless people no longer being in the city (you remember her calling home when Becky showed up)?
Walky and Billie have been friends since they were five, but I don’t think she and Sal have ever been very close. Billie sees Walky as something akin to a brother, while she very much doesn’t seem to see Sal as a sister.
How would being friends with Sal even correlate with knowing about the status of homeless people in their city? Marcie’s not homeless, and Sal’s not shown to be friends with any homeless people or to talk about any homelessness issues.
They might be misremembering and thought Marcie was homeless, or at least lived in a place with lots of homeless people. The only thing related to homelessness with Sal was the shocked expressions on her face while Billie was being…well meaningly ignorant.
I’m not very well versed in US law, do people actually need to press charges when there’s strong physical evidence? if I got assaulted the police wouldn’t arrest my assailant until I specifically said I want to press charges?
I might be interpreting that wrong, it seems massively flawed
When the perpetrator is white, and especially if he/his family is ‘connected’/’respected’/etc., strong physical evidence oftentimes isn’t nearly enough. Especially if it’s possible to pin the blame on the victim.
American justice is where two people get together in court to see who could afford to hire the better lawyer. Justice very rarely has much of anything to do with it.
No, the prosecutor could still charge the assailant without your cooperation. You the victim could even be thrown in jail for contempt of court by refusing to testify.
So for instance say someone did beat you with in an inch of your life and it was caught on camera and by three witnesses. If the DA can positively identify the perp without you he/she will.
I mean I guess we don’t technically know he’s not in jail do we? I’m gonna believe he’s in jail until told otherwise. I’m also gonna believe he has such bad diabetes he had to have one of his feet cut off and he’s so fat now he’ll probably die in his forties and has to be weighed by a scale used for horses. BBC has a documentary on him. “I’m literally a giant sack of human waste” :Shining a light on Leland. Airing next fall.
When you wind up rushed to the hospital with a major throat injury, it’s not a matter of you calling the police. They come and ask questions. Marcie might not have been able to communicate at first (not just unable to speak, but put out for surgery or whatever), but Sal was a witness.
Despite her distrust for authority, would she really have lied to police, making up a story about it being an accident?
You’d be surprised how many pre-teen psychopaths get a free pass because ‘they’re just a kid’. Having wealthy, well-connected parents who can afford expensive lawyers who can dish out a sob-story about ‘a child with a bright future who went too far in a moment of enthusiasm’ helps to that end too.
Then they’re adults and do something bad and, as they’re carted off to the big house for life, the parents and everyone from their past shake their heads and mutter that they don’t know where they went wrong.
And of course, I suspect this turning point will be delicious.
I was curious whether we’d see more red panels from Sal before the arc was over. Interesting how a couple weren’t red initially and now she’s put the pieces together they are.
I love these anxiety flashbacks even as they make me sad. Well done, Willis <3
We can see more blood in the stabbing flashback now that it's Sal's pov too. Nice touch. The visual callback with how Sal was choking Leland vs how she's choking Amber is nice too.
On that note, this is a weird time to bring it up, but I hate how Sal's dressed in a lot of her flashbacks. You can practically SEE the way her parents had their influence in it and I hate it. She still dresses to please them when she sees them. FUCK the Walkertons.
As for that evil little toad, Leland…yeah, I'm not sure what would be the best way to handle him. Reporting him was useless, doing nothing's not an option when you have a sense of justice like Sal's. It frigging BURNS doing nothing and it haunts you and makes you feel almost as bad as the actual injustice does because you SAW the injustice and you KNOW its unjust but you didn't do anything for it. And with guilt issues like Sal's (thanks to a cocktail of emotional abuse, survivor's guilt, systemic injustices, and that aforementioned keen sense of justice), it would absolutely torture her over it and every other little thing that could relate to it. So yeah, doing nothing? Definitely not an option. The one time she even suggested it, it went out the window five seconds later when AG nearly got her teeth knocked down her throat. And obviously choking him came with splash back (which also resulted in the robbery because ahhhh violence is cyclical). My best advice would be wait for a way to nail him that can't be tied too strongly back to you (and by extension your loved ones) I guess.
This is why we pick our battles. Normally its so we don't write a check with our mouths that our asses can't cash, but with Sal, aiming for de-escalating and looking to nail folks while doing the least possible collateral damage would be a good start.
…Alternatively, choking him a little longer or a little harder would've solved that problem too, but it also would've created a new problem (going to juvie if not jail for a fucking long time), so I guess it's for the best.
…Now if you all don't mind, I'll be over here imagining an anvil dropping and smacking that kid in the head. Real fucking tragedy.
My current story is he ended up going somewhere schmancy like Yale (‘such a good family’) and then got busted in like the first week for being a drug dealer when he sold a mountain of dangerous shit to an undercover cop.
No, Mr. Willis has confirmed that they are different people. But as a whole Leland, Ryan, Toedad, Blaine, Mary, Peter, Ruth’s grandpa, they are the antagonists where no matter how much violence you may wish upon them, it doesn’t seem to be enough.
So you got into it with that one psycho kid in the 1st panel, which then led to you getting yourself and Marcy into this other mess with the same psycho rich bongo in the 2nd panel, then you tried to fix it to with very questionable means which got you into the mess with Ethan in the 3rd panel, which led to the life ruining tragedy in the 4th panel, which has carried onto the escalation of this present day’s tragedy.
No no tardy is referring to Amber possibly saying “Kill me” even though it could just be her saying “End this fight” it’s either or but I hope it the last one.
we know that Amber is dealing with depression on top of her other mental illness, but was she ever suicidal?
I feel like in the last panel she is saying “kill me, because I have fulfilled my life’s purpose of defeating you once”
Yes, it’s important context. Yes, Amazi-Girl not revealing that context earlier was shitty. As of course was the actual stalking, though that had stopped and they seemed to have dealt with that until now.
But to echo your question back at you, “What would you suggest she do?” She could kill Amber. That would end the stalking (or more accurately remove any chance of it starting again, since it had already stopped.) Short of that, or of crippling her to the point where she can’t be a threat, any more violence she does will likely just make matters worse.
My contribution to the lyrics people are quoting is from (as most of my song quotations are wont to be):
When the last days come We shall see visions More vivid than sunsets Brighter than stars We will recognize each other And see ourselves for the first time The way we really are
(It’s from the song “Against Pollution.” If it sounds inappropriately optimistic, listen to the actual song and you’ll get a better sense of the tone.)
So what I’m wondering now is was there multiple altercations between them and that asshole or did he just hold a grudge for several years until he found a couple of lamer assholes willing to help him get back at Sal and Marcie?
Clearly, she’s asking Sal to end the campaign to save Gotham, since it’s clear the creators have already made peace with it’s ending and have plotted out the last season to be exactly that.
What, you don’t say weird suicidal shit when someone has you in a chokehold? They let go real fast, and you can get in a cheap and dirty elbow to the gut.
Look, I was easy prey as a kid. My options were limited, don’t judge me.
I don’t think it’s what Amber’s doing, but for the record, it is absolutely what I would do as well. Try to get the other person to let me go by weirding them out and then elbow them as hard as I possibly can in their kidneys. Then I’d run like hell.
Like Ryan he’ll eventually be stopped. Here’s hoping his overconfidence leads him to picking a fight with someone he thought was an illegal alien, but is actually an off duty police officer who proceeds to beat him within an inch of his life and then leaves a confiscated gun on the ground so he can claim self defense.
Well, I should rephrase. Leland was a child, all fault lies on the adults in Leland’s life who made him that way. At that age you’re not really responsible for the person you are.
I’m sure he grew into an equally shitty adult though.
Idk, seems like telling young people that they’re not responsible for the people they are is a fine way to get those shitty adults.
Leland was also, like, at least twelve by the time he did that to Marcie.
At 12 years old you’re still very much the person the adults in your life have made you into.
You don’t tell children they’re not responsible for their own actions, but holding them responsible for their actions is part of how you make them into a responsible person.
Sal was just a confused kid back then. Amber was just an abused kid back then. Leland was just a privileged kid back then. They’re all adults now with the power to shake off the shackled of their upbringing, but I suspect Leland will choose not to. Privilege is pretty comfortable.
I just disagree that there’s this clear division between children and adults and responsibility of the individual and responsibility of the environment. Leland had the power then not to do what he did. Were relational and social influences a factor? Sure. And they still would be today.
I agree that he should now have a more formed sense of self, responsibility, all that, than he did back then. I just don’t think you’re separate from your actions/self at that or any age.
I think you’re over-estimating how much capacity for independent thought a 12 year old has.
Social influences weren’t just “A factor”. They were everything. At that age if you’d put him in a new home in a new city with a new family you could end this behavior within a year. As an adult he’s not gonna change unless he wants to.
Dude, you’re getting into a whole other topic now, and you’re not making the points you think you’re making.
As for what you said before, if Leland’s new environment had been one where he WANTED to change, then he may have changed. These are also factors that impact adults. What I’m saying is that it’s a mix of these factors and that twelve year olds are their own people.
@gangler I was “tried as an adult” when I was 12. For having my head down in class. It was considered a “criminal disruption”, and I was told to consider myself “lucky” not to get thrown in juvie.
“Tried as an adult” is a bullshit nonsense jumble of letters and syllables.
I… have an interesting perspective to offer. I volunteer with kids and was also brought up in an extremist household.
12YOs from healthy, nurturing households have great capacity for independent thought. I see it every day. They’re not little adults but they are starting to figure out who they are and what they value.
Neither Amber nor Sal are from nurturing households. They’re from abusive households. And from my first hand experience of growing up in an abusive household, they’re all about inhibiting independent thought and instilling rote compliance. Even if you rebel, it’s very binary. You are either in the system or out. Golden child or scapegoat. Because dealing with the abuse takes so much of you, you don’t have time to evaluate who you are or what you value. You’re just reacting.
What I am saying is many 12YOs do have capacity to break way from what they were taught. I don’t think Amber or Sal could have. I know I couldn’t at 12. I didn’t even start till 16 or so and it is a process still ongoing at 31.
Children choose. They choose to be good or evil at quite a young age, though not necessarily fully consciously. The influence of adults counts for plenty, but still, they choose.
Children choose small things, then, work their way up to big things. They test out their developing independence and freedom, spread their wings as far as their allowed.
Much like a mouse in a labyrinth. Their choices are not the choices of an adult.
If a child is still 12 and they’re making decisions like “I think I’ll go around maiming poor girls of colour” then the adults have steered them wrong. That shouldn’t have been a turn in the labyrinth. That’s not a place an ordinary 12 year old finds themselves after an ordinary upbringing with all the standard consequences for their actions.
Sidenote, people are usually so eager to say Amber and Sal shouldn’t be judged by their childhood actions, but rather the adults they became, so I’m surprised I’m getting this much pushback on the notion that Leland, at this point in his life, was also likely a product of his circumstances.
It’s way more interesting that sal is learning things about violence usually only leading to more violence and half of the comment section wants to resort to violence.
But, you know, excuses are way more easy to accept if they are excusing someone you like.
Yeah, I have absolutely no issues wishing violence on fictional characters. On real people, I’m more reluctant. I still call bullshit on the ‘usually violence only leads to more violence’ though. Like I said, that’s just not my experience.
That’s a very different case though – Sal at 13 can be judged for the actions of Sal at 13. Judging Sal at 18 for them is a different matter; she’s not the same person and we’ve seen those changes. Same thing for Amber, and potentially the same thing for Leland (though we haven’t seen him change).
It’s also not a matter of being either a product of circumstances or a responsible actor. People are both, including children.
I was bullied horribly in school. Some of my bullies have matured into fairly average adults. One matured into someone who surprised the hell out of me by offering a genuine, no strings attached, no forgiveness expected or coerced by guilt trip apology. That perso is the only one to own up to the shit they pulled. The rest of them who are average humans just kind of awkwardly avert their eyes and avoid the topic when they see me.
About a quarter of the kids who bullied me grew into garbage adults. But my worst bully as a kid? The one who hissed at me ro jump off a suspension bridge on a field trip because everyone hates me and wants me to die? The one who gathered a gang of friends to strip me in the bathroom? The one who slammed a 50lb lid of a steel ball crate on my head trying to kill me in gym class? And who got away with it by pretending it was an accident and later told me I should’ve just died and next time they won’t miss and get part of my shoulder too? That one.
That one was the one who apologized. And made amends. And now volunteers with an antibullying program talking about what they did and why it was bad. And by all accounts has matured into a decent human being.
That person for the record is the only one to have earned my forgiveness. Not that i am gonna spend time around them because their ace still makes my hindbrain go eeeeeeeeee but like I’d help them and have something to do with them now. The rest I wouldn’t even piss on if they were on fire. Not that I want them to burn. More… they have nothing to do with me anymore and that is how I want it to stay. The less involvement I have with them the better.
I was tiny, ugly, had an easy to make fun of facial deformity, had two different speech impediments, was chronically ill, from away in a rural area, and twice exceptional (gifted and autistic).
I basically walked around with a giant target on my back. And the adults found it easier to tell me to be normal than help me at all.
I am saying I really relate to Sal’s anti-authority chip on her shoulder. Also I hate bullies.
(…cont., because I acciadentally hit post)
And I have a lot of respect for you, to be honest. To go through so much and still believing in this is admirable.
I had a really angry phase where I was a bad person who almost did an unforgivable thing. But I chose to walk away from the cycle of vengeance I was taught. I can’t believe a kid is beyond hope because I would be saying it about myself.
I think maybe it’s something on the “survivor’s guilt” side of the spectrum. She attacked Leland before for just being a racist jerk… and in retaliation, he then attacked Marcie while his cronies held her off, which led her to blame herself because a) she couldn’t save Marcie, and b) the thought that if she never attacked him in the first place he wouldn’t have done that, and c) that it should have been her instead of her best friend (which is where I think the “surivivor’s guilt” part is coming in).
And it looks like Leyland knows that he can get away with hurting Marcie, so his friends are just restraining Sal.
He became a tactical astute asshole early.
Human emotions, especially guilt, don’t work on fact. Sal is the sort of personality that will find some way to blame herself for others actions when they somehow involve her and those she loves.
We still don’t know exactly what happened. It could turn out that he was using it to threaten Marcie when Sal got loose and jumped him, causing him to accidently hurt Marcie.
Its not what I think happened, and I am not justifying anything. Just saying, part of why I like this comic is all the curve balls it throws.
Because Sal has a massive amount of survivor’s guilt, a keen sense of justice, guilt issues, and is a victim of emotional abuse to boot which often leaves people with problems not feeling guilty.
I feel like there’s a lesson lost on a lot of commentators, and as was shown, on the characters themselves. That the whole “fault” thing is a big pile of feces.
It’s up to the people involved to stop the cycle of violence. And at some point you have to just say no to it. Sure, your vengeance may even be righteous but that doesn’t make it the _right_ choice. Doing the right thing is awful and hard.
At least Sal is seeing the problem with propagating the circle. It’ll be interesting to see if she turns a corner.
M for whatever Willis’s middle name is, as he goes by the name David M Willis on this site. If it has been revealed what that middle name is, I am not aware of it.
I’m not sure why, but I was really hoping Leland wouldn’t have anything to do with Marcie’s injury.
Not because I have any sympathy for the little shit. But somehow, having Leland beat Marcie up when they were younger, and then — it’s him! Again! seems… well, lazy. As if there’s only one asshole in the world.
Yes, it explains Sal’s guilt — her beating up Leland for beating up Marcie leads to him later injuring Marcie (a fair bit later, based on Sal’s straightened hair and the fact Marcie seems older), and thus it’s “all her fault” in her mind. But Sal’s rage against the entire system feels like it would be better justified if she’s seen this happen time and again with people other than just this one shit.
I mean, sure, it makes a nice contrast with Amber that, as far as we can see, Sal hasn’t built Leland up as her nemesis to be stalked and destroyed. But…
Well, at least Leland isn’t also Ryan, as some people seem to think. That would be really>/i> shoddy storytelling on Willis’s part.
Pretty sure of Leland showed up attending the College, Sal’s behavior towards him would not be kind and forgiving. She’d probably be spending every moment willing herself NOT to kick his ass.
Yea I get the impression Sal didn’t become Amber’s nemesis until they happened to be going to the same college.
Those three incidents don’t reflect well on Amazigirl.
RR absolutely said that Willis was lazy (see their third paragraph). They also said that he isn’t as lazy as he would be if Leland was Ryan, and some people seem to be confused about it. Saying that he could be lazier doesn’t make up for calling him lazy in the first place.
Sal’s parents always gave her brother and Billie preferential treatment.
All the adults around Sal sided with bullies.
Sal’s best friend/family has potentially faced deportation many times for the crime of being born. (Or are legal and assumed to be criminals just for the color of their skin)
It makes perfect sense for there to be ONE big bully on campus. Its common in life and fiction.
It makes sense Sal is smart enough to see the whole system and see it as unfair.
That’s a really stupid argument. Of course the bully she picked a fight with would be the one who was cruellest to Marcie. And in fact, it’s the heinous level of violence that Leland was inflicting on Marcie that incited her to attack him. Leland hitting Marcie in the head with a rock. She could have died. If any act of violence is justifiable due to the behavior that triggered it, it’s one trying to protect a person’s life, future, or mental stability.
Not sure exactly if the first two panels occur at the same time, but no matter of the timeline, you can be sure Sal knew damn well how boundless and merciless Leland’s violence toward Marcie was. It’s not just because Leland was such an asshole that anyone would attack him; it’s also because she knew Marcie would be lucky to make it to adulthood unscathed. And now Marcie is blind due to that m’f’er.
It’s not lazy writing to have Leland involved in both Marcie’s muteness and Sal’s punishment; it’s a reflection of how unbelievably horrible Leland was.
Incident 1: Leland kicks Marcie into a ditch full of concrete and rebar. He goes unpunished and Marcie is banned from the playground when Sal tries to report it. The next day, Sal strangles Leland.
Incident 2: Leland and his buddies attack Sal and Marcie while they’re skating and he crushes Marcie’s windpipe with a rock. Sal and Marcie are 12 at the time and have turned 13 by the time the robbery happened so Sal’d been trying to fundraise for a while between then and the robbery.
Since it’s not quite clear, there’s a significant time gap between those two incidents. I don’t think we know how old they are in panel 1, but they’re noticeably younger than 12. Several years, I’d guess.
Even here in the closeup, you can see Sal’s different hair style.
Do you not see the two guys holding Sal back and grinning? Putting aside that the whole idea of ‘Sal choosing to solve her problems with violence comes back to bite her’ cycle would get lost if it wasn’t Leland, it is very clearly not JUST Leland.
It had to be Leland. If it wasn’t Leland, Sal would’ve gotten the last hit in when she choked Leland, then either we need to go back and setup a backstory with the hypothetical new person to escalate into the attack on Marcie, mirroring the backstory with Leland that is already set up as a mirror to present day, or it’s just a rando we don’t know or care about. Either of these options weakens the narrative. For what? To prove life has more than one villain? That’s already emphasized in the entire rest of the comic. We have lots of different types, forms, and degrees of villain for each of the cast, including, as we see here, each other and themselves.
She is certainly self-destructive, even if I’m not sure if I would call that suicidal. She does throw herself in potentially life-threatening situations a lot.
Sometimes you let yourself become a monster. Sal realises that now. Additionally, as I speculated yesterday, Amber rather wants to die rather than face her own monster inside.
Maybe, just maybe, this is the turning point for them.
The issue is not violence begetting violence. It’s fighting smarter not harder. I imagine this escalated from Sal’s first encounter. She probably would’ve retaliated if she wasn’t so busy trying to raise money help Marcie. Mike Warner on the other hand would’ve destroyed Leland without ever laying a hand on him because he would find his center of gravity and destroy it.
Break the circle and all, that’s good.
But kind of concerned that Sal does not remember on the panels that the start of the circle, started with Leland shoving Marcie on broken rocks and steel rods.
She is not the villain. Leland is…
He tried to murder someone for ffs – twice!
I hope he appears again in the comic as a serial killer getting his deserved justice – preferably from Sal, Marcie, Amber/Amazi-girl etc.
And then the grownups, when it’s learned he is a serial killer, are all like … “Wow, he was such a good boy, a very good white boy”
“It was affluenza! The money and ease we lavished on him made him unable to make moral choices! So, it isn’t his fault and he should be let off with a wrist-slap!” Frankly, there is nothing better at self-delusion than authority figures trying to excuse themselves for failure.
Accurate because we live in a society that builds up this kind of behavior, and tends to look the other way as opposed to ctively forgive, and fun because I imagine a dwarf with a massive hammer going hard on a lump of metal that looks vaguely humans.
As I say to my students, “Good fight, good night.”
Choke ’em till they’re out, put ’em down, and resist the temptation to stomp on their heads. The choke is the best, most definitive way to end a fight, and if done properly, it is less risky than beating someone unconscious with the associated brain trauma. It’s not risk-free, but nothing in a fight ever is.
And that is why you avoid violence whenever possible. The right thing to do in this situation is to walk away. I wish Sal had when Amber was obviously spoiling for a throwdown. Were I her teacher, we’d be having a long talk, and doing a LOT of pushups together – her for not walking away, and me for having failed to teach her sufficient restraint.
Speaking as a lawyer, yeah, something unpleasant could come of this if anyone were seriously hurt and/or the school was hot to press the issue, which for insurance reasons, they often are. Not to mention possible civil liability. And I’m not at all surprised that Leland got away with his murderous assault. Rich white boy, ethnic victim? I see it all the time.
She’s black. The news would be plastered with the scariest photo of her they could find and they would have dehumanized her with racially charged euphemisms (e.g. thug), and she would’ve been tried as an adult.
I have seen the news refer to black teens as adults on numerous occasions. In one case, covering a fight between a white adult man, aged 20, and a black teenager, who I think was 17 or so, the news called the white guy a boy and the black kid a young man.
It’s really screwed up. The whole “tried as adults” thing is such a horrific idea. Maybe some gray area to avoid huge differences in treatment between cases just barely under the line, but currently it seems to mostly be based on “Is it a serious crime” and “Is the perpetrator unsympathetic”, which mostly means not-white.
I think instead of getting out of juvie on your 18th birthday they should make the maximum punishment for a child a certain percentage of there age. Without the whole getting tried as an adult thing the maximum sanction for a 17 year old would be less than a year, but the maximum punishment for a 7 year old would be 10 years.
@TemperaryObsessor That sounds even worse than the actual system and unfairly targets younger offenders with longer sentences. Like, using the ages you used as an example, a 7 year old is so much more different than a 17 year old with a much more underdeveloped brain and understanding of emotions and empathy. An older teenaged offender should be held to higher responsibility than a younger one simply because their capacity for their actions is much more than a child.
That is the actual system. One of the side effects of our approach is that for those treated as juveniles, any punishment ends at maturity: when you turn 18. Currently, you could keep a 7 year old in juvie until they turned 18, but a 17 year old would also be released at 18, only a year later.
His approach would change that: making the maximum punishment for a child a certain percentage of their age. As you want, older kids would be punished longer for the same crimes.
Mind you, I think the actual point of any juvenile justice system should be reform, not punishment. Any justice system, for that matter, but especially for kids – they need to be helped, not just punished.
That might be why they thought she was a troublemaker (though, of course, the idea that superheroes or police or whoever must always be right and the other must be doing something wrong has been proven…naive at best, especially when they’re confronting people of colour and double especially when they’re confronting a black person) but the word ‘thug’ was almost certainly deliberate by Willis.
It all makes sense, and Sal just realized it. That bastard wanted revenge and harmed Marcie, so Sal was desperate to help her friend because she felt she was responsible for the crime of him.
She almost harmed Ethan years ago, but she unknowingly traumatized an already disturbed kid.
We become monsters when we let our abusers influence us to become like them, and those like Amber that are afraid of become abusers can feel the need to end their own lives.
Now I want to punch a nazi and get a beer, even if I don’t drink alcohol and beer tastes like shit. Maybe Joyce has grape juice.
I get it, I think. Personal responsibility. For yourself and by extention also fow how what you do affects others.
Amber really needs to learn that, because she *isn’t* her father, she’s Amber, and she needs to try and get better.
Sal, I think, just got what Marcie said to her a while ago. About not wanting to be the ‘collateral damage’.
In short, therapy was invented for a reason.
Oh, this is good. The red panels make it so that while Amber means one thing, what we the reader hear (and what Sal, I think, hears) is to end the cycle of violence, these consequential events of people making bad choices leading to people making bad choices. Yes, Sal, end it. Let Amber go and either talk it out or walk away. Let it be over.
“Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say
What is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in a cage!
And I still believe that I can not be saved”
I find this lyric pretty apt for this strip.
(Its Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet with butterfly wings)
This strip is how Sally “Give Peace a Chance” Walkerton was born. Ten years from now, she will be a respected social activist. Thirty years from now, she will receive a Nobel Peace Prize. One thousand years from now, people will still follow the wisdom from the Book of Sallandra.
… alternatively, she gets Born Again and becomes Joyce 2.0. That’s possible, too.
“I have to because…” is a motivation that speaks to a lot of these.
Unreasonably so, (Most in the second) but still.
I have to fight because my friend is in danger.
I have to attack because then they won’t respect me.
I have to rob because I won’t be able to help.
I have to strike because she threatened my friend.
That’s not quite what happened. Sal attacked Leland after he’d already hurt Marcie the first time and reporting him didn’t work. That was mostly a desire for SOME sort of consequence for that little brat. Which, obviously, ended up biting Marcie in the ass because bullies like Leland don’t generally like consequences.
ditto for Amber – not QUITE an act born from a desire to protect Ethan. Sal had already been stopped and restrained. Some of it was anger at Sal, some bit of protection for Ethan certainly, but for Amber, it was primarily because her father pushed her until she snapped and showed him she could do what he said (violence).
for Amber, not quite, but partly. It was Blaine’s goading, but he was goading her specifically about not protecting Ethan: “Only one other kid who tolerates you and you couldn’t even stand up for him.”
i’ve run enough RP games that i understand sometimes you have to bend the characters for the sake of the plot, but sal having more fresh rage than ancient regret over that episode is so far out of her character as i understand it that this whole sequence just feels like shark-jumping. the absurdity in the violence really reinforces this.
Sal does have regret over both the robbery and the fight with Leland (mostly because he ended up hurting Marcie). She’s also angry Amber stabbed her and received no sanction whatsoever, parentally or legally, and then as an adult proceeded to stalk and harass her over petty things, and then when they were making peace fighting Ryan, she still didn’t feel it necessary to tell her she was the one who stabbed her.
There’s plenty of room for both regret and anger at Amber and AG with Sal. And more than enough room for a violent fight between them.
And frankly, since Leland kicked Marcie into a ditch full of concrete and rebar, I’m not shocked he’s also willing to crush a girl’s throat with a rock.
I don’t think she has MORE rage than regret, but this general fight is a moment where it triumphed over regret because of racism being one of things we know truly grinds her gears. Amber was allowed to stab her in the hand and get away with it without consequence – from Sal’s perspective, that was racism, and that likely is part of why Amber was allowed to get away with that completely. From ours, we can see that was Amber having a violent mental breakdown because of her father’s verbal abuse after an event she found traumatic to begin with.
Sal’s feelings of anger are valid and even possible to expect – she didn’t PHYSICALLY hurt anyone and someone else got away with physically hurting her when she was restrained. That wouldn’t have seemed fair to her. And she didn’t have the context of how fragile Amber was at the time or how her father lambasted her for not fighting back. Of course you would still feel really damn angry at someone who has partially messed up your hand to the point you can’t say, play guitar any more if you met them again and thought they completely got away with it. Your hand is still messed up and they didn’t get any consequences for doing it (to your knowledge), while you got punished for threatening another kid but not actually hurting them. A sense of a lack of fairness is aggravating when someone else did something bad and you’re the only one punished.
I mean, race was definitely a factor in why Amber wasn’t arrested for it. I guarantee you this story would be very very different if Amber was black or latina.
Or for that matter if Sal was white. (and assuming somehow she got pushed into the same robbery situation anyway.)
Apparently, at least in capital cases, the biggest factor is the race of the victim, not the defendant, though that obviously matters. I’d be surprised if the same didn’t apply in lesser cases, though I haven’t seen any actual data on it.
It’s important to note as well that Sal’s anger isn’t only due to the incident from five years ago. It’s more along the lines of “you stabbed me years ago AND you’ve been stalking me and harassing me for weeks now!”, which is definitely something to feel “fresh rage” over.
I’d really prefer it was if for no other reason than it’s been going for like 6 days now and I just don’t care anymore. 1 4-6 panel page a day is a terrible medium for tense fight scenes.
I’m more concerned whether Amber would agree with that assessment. She based her sense of victory on what she thought was a physical victory. i just hope she doesn’t feel worse.
À-propos of nothing, I just got my kickstarter package for the last DoA run today and am distraught to note that, due to moving to a place with an integrated kitchen, I don’t have a fridge anymore to put my new sweet ass magnets on. Devastation!
I think I’d already assumed from how it was being discussed that leland had f’ed up marcie and was responsible for her lack of speech ability, though others’ comments here lead me to believe it wasn’t clearly indicated in the comics so I guess I had assumed with no clear evidence.
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oh dang introspection
the buller has now become the bully
I think it’s more she realized that every time she rages, there are consequences…
Nah, it is Sal seeing the circles of violence in her life. She sees that Leland attacked Marcie due to Sal defending Marcie before. Sal then panicked and hurt Ethan, Amber then attacked Sal due to her own warped sense of justice. Amber wants *herself* to be ended because she hasn’t seen that by taking responsibility she can end this.
But Sal has figured out it is her job and responsibility to end the cycle and step away.
At least I hope.
I really want Sal to be okay.
Not quite – Amber stabbed Sal because her dad berated her until she snapped for the most part. I do think that, while she’s regretted both the Leland fight and the robbery before now, this is the first time she’s seeing the connection.
I think she just got why Amber would have felt hurt by her even though the knife was at Ethan’s throat. So suddenly, the girl who came out of nowhere and mutilated her hand has a reason she can relate to.
Yeah this.
I think the takeaway is less one dimensional than violence begets violence and more that learning to see things from others’ perspectives lends context to actions that felt unreasonable.
Sal remembers how helpless and angry she felt when Leland hurt Marcie. It just clicked for her that THAT’S why Amber hurt her. Because she also felt hurt and angry and helpless.
Does that mean Leland only hurt Marcie because he needed money to help his crippled friend? Y’know, REALLY bring this whole story full circle.
Knowing DoA, it’s probably because he had an abusive father.
I mean, a few people did point out that his ready excuse of ‘she tripped in that ditch’ sounds a lot like what a kid might say about their ‘clumsy’ mother.
I think that’s the main thing, but she might be thinking about the vicious cycle of violence as well.
Kind of. Amber was definitely feeling hurt, afraid and helpless, but I’d argue that had a lot of thanks to Blaine berating her until she snapped. That said, Sal couldn’t possibly know that, so you’re not wrong that’s probably what she’s thinking.
I’d also argue the stabbing itself is still unreasonable (as is the robbery) but in context it’s definitely a LOT more sympathetic. At least to me.
Yeah, that too. She’s finally seeing the cyclical nature of the thing and how that’s affected Amber’s motivations.
That said, cyclical nature or no, I really can’t bring myself to feel like she shouldn’t have choked that little bastard. Just maybe make sure he doesn’t know its you next time, Sal.
I think Sal has always known that she is constantly receiving the blame for the mistakes of others, but is also seeing how her own actions triggered these events, even if the others weren’t justified in taking these actions. I think up until now she has refused to give up on her sense of justice, but now, finally, she is considering just mitigating the damage instead by avoiding the triggers that bring other people to do bad things.
She is tired of the pain and suffering, and she needs a break from it all.
And to be frank, I’ve seen a lot of folks in here rooting for Amber. As much as I like her, I can’t root for her. Amber is unambiguously in the wrong here. Sal didn’t hurt Amber. Blaine hurt Amber, and Amber projected her frustration with Blaine into actions that hurt others, like Sal. Here she is blaming Sal for her own misdoings and the shame she felt for giving in to them. I understand her mind is warped from the years of emotional abuse she has endured, but the only way she’s going to break free from this is to realize that Blaine is the enemy. Amber needs to realize that Amber isn’t the enemy, and then she needs to realize that while she isn’t an enemy, she has been one of the worst friends.
I “root” for Amber because she has taken an absolutely crazy idea and with a lot of hard work and sacrifice made it work. She’s taken huge negatives in her own personality and constructed an identity where many of those negatives can be channeled for a positive good. Those who can’t respect and admire that are more lawful than good. I sympathize with Sal, but that’s just not as strong.
What’s it like not believing in like trials or due process or law enforcement having any kind of accountability? Apparently a masked vigilante stalking and harassing a young black woman because of her own vendetta is justice.
You absolutely have a point, but let’s not pretend that our justice system works
I think Emily would be the last person to say the current justice system is perfect and works. But the general principles of accountability, trials and due process are good ones.
Our system is not perfect, but its generally better than allowing lynchings and such.
All agreed, but let’s also not take it so far that rooting for Amber means “not believing in like trials or due process or law enforcement having any kind of accountability.”
@Blazing Ace: Yeah and the reason it doesn’t work is because it fails to properly enforce those ideals.
I’ve seen a lot more rooting for Sal. Personally, I’m on Team “please stop”.
Which apparently both Sal and Amber are joining. 🙂
I’ve been defending Amber, so that might seem like rooting for her. She’s been taking a lot of criticism that seems over the top to me. Well beyond what you said here.
And very little on Sal that went nearly so far. There was that one poster calling her a thug, but by the time I saw that, they’d been sufficiently yelled at.
I think they both have problems, but I sympathize a bit more with Amber simply because I think Sal can do better. Yes, Sal has had more than her share of pain in the past, and she has a lot of anger because she thinks (maybe justifiably, maybe not) that life has treated her unfairly, but Amber is mentally unstable from years of trying to deal with emotional abuse while Sal simply thinks she should have gotten some slack for attempted robbery because her heart was in the right place and her mother closed off her other option for paying Marcie’s family back. I’m not sure what this says about me personally, but I’d also rather see someone like Amber try to do the right thing for the wrong reasons that someone like Sal do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
Sal’s also trying to deal with emotional abuse. And Sal’s never said she should have gotten some slack for the robbery. What she did say is while she faced both legal and parental sanctions, Amber faced neither (although her father made sure to take it out on Amber’s mom because Amber lashing out hurt his ego because Blaine’s an abusive tool).
Maybe Sal didn’t say she shouldn’t have been punished for the attempted robbery, but she does seem to think that her parents sending her to a boarding school was over the top. I don’t know. Sal might have been better off in the long run going to juvie (assuming that the facility she went to had trained staff who gave a damn.)
Still, upon rereading BBCC’s reply, I guess I have to concede that Sal is justified in thinking that she faced consequences for her actions while Amber did not. (That doesn’t mean Amber wasn’t punished. Amber’s punishment has been self inflicted.)
Considering juvie and children of colour, I think the odds on that are sadly low. Looks like her school wasn’t great either, and of course, her parents are shit. School was probably the best option, but that’s not saying much, unfortunately. 🙁
Yeeeep. We’re nearing the Sal x Amber making out. Make love not war.
“Bullee”, I think.
I seek refuge in pedantry to avoid the feels.
“Bullied” is what you’re all going for.
Yes, it’s a noun.
Violence begets violence.
Her attack on what’s-his-name led to vengeance against Marcie, which led to her attack on Ethan, which led to Amber’s attack(s) on her, which led to her attack on Amber, which led to now.
A vicious cycle in most literal sense.
SO. IT HAS COME TO THIS.
*they all then gang up to hunt leland. his body is never found. the dumbing of age characters all pass on into legend.
nah his body was found
nobody recognized it tho, them pigs’ll eat anythin’
Given that that kid was fucking with Marcie dangerously before, I’m not convinced he might not have eventually done this ANYWAYS.
Christ if that’s where this is headed my eyes are going to roll out of my fucking head because “violence begets violence” is the most clueless cishet white person thing ever.
Sure, any problem can be solved with enough violence. But what I actually want to ask is, what’s a cishet?
Confortable In Skin HETerosexual. Being used as a derogatory term, here.
“Comfortable In Skin” must be a backronym, though I’ve never seen it before.
Cis is just short for cisgender, which came by extension from transgender. Latin-derived chemistry terminology for “this side of” and “the other side of”.
No more derogatory than white, even here.
That is absolutely not what it means and Emily’s usage was not derogatory just because it points out cishet white people are the ones with the privilege to often be spouting ‘violence begets violence/forgive forget’ kind of crap.
And Emily, I wouldn’t be worried. I don’t think this is going to go for a blanket ‘violence is bad’ message. I think this is more Sal realizing the specific cycle here and how that fed both her and Amber’s motivations rather than suggesting equivalent wrongdoing with Leland.
Plus, if nothing else, there’ve been absolutely no ethical objections to Sarah turning Ryan’s face to mush with a bat.
Cisgender heterosexual.
At the risk of pointing this out, given whole sections of the world have been devastated by tribal and nationalist feuds which didn’t have a “good guy” in them, I think that’s colossally ignorant characterization.
I say that while FULLY agreeing that Nazis should be punched and plenty of people act offended when victims fight back. But, seriously, the idea that violence solves problems unilaterally is THE white cis person’s go-to excuse.
Might be wrong, but I suspect Emily wasn’t thinking violence always solves problems, but objecting to the idea that it’s where violence usually comes from. Plenty of people suffer from violence, without starting any themselves.
It might be a “clueless cishet white person thing” to think that’s the only way violence comes about, but as you say, it certainly is a thing that happens once the violence starts.
Well that and the idea that violence is universally wrong and never effective which is just ridiculously naive and displays a complete lack of historical awareness. The Holocaust wasn’t ended by a picket line.
Sure until it’s coming back on them then it’s suddenly “violence begets violence” and “peaceful protest” and “cycle of revenge.” It generally comes from a position of well-intended privileged ignorance of the role violence pretty much always plays in throwing off oppression or intense hypocrisy in the face of the violence they’ve been subjecting minorities to coming back to bite them in the ass.
Ta-Nehisi Coates in the wake of the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore.
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.”
Thank you.
Buller? Ferris Bueller?
Sal realizes that the real choke hold is the friends we’ve made along the way.
Once again I wish we had up votes
I keep going to use one of the reasons from Facebook and find myself holding down on the reply button
Reactions* I want my edit button Willis
Followed by a reactions button.
Bravo.
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything
Sal: “I’m beginning to think we both have some sort of problem”
You mean personality disassociation and hallucinations?
Only Amber has that. The problem they both have is anger.
Oooh, someone’s having an epiphany! Finally 🙂
Dumbing of Age Book 9: …end…it…
This Is The End…beautiful friend…
There’s the Marcie flashback we all been waiting for
By “end it” she means her hunger by biting into a satisfying Snickers bar! Too bad they’ve gone too far with this fight and weren’t humble enough to realize they were not themselves when hungry! Could have prevented all of this.
Stacy was right!
If Amber and Sal are gonna be in one of those “You’re not yourself” Snickers commercials, then, I vote for them to be subbed out for Betty White and Danny Trejo, respectively!
Sal discovered: Consequences
It’s super effective.
Now, now. Let’s focus on what’s most important. No light was shone. A good family’s name was not tarnished. A bunch of adults did not have to ass them selves to do something even resembling responsibility, and a young bully was free to develop his particular style of cruelty.
FUDGING PIECE OF SHIT!!!!
Whoa whoa whoa there Bagge! I know you’re not throwing hate at Leland for apparently stabbing Marcie in the throat with a sharp rock!? He has a future!
A very bright future I might add. Marcie is clearly the source of all of this!
I should know better than to shine a light
Through the eyes of the ones left behind?
Well that’s a goddamn rock, cripes
I remember a line something like that from the Kevin Costner movie, “American Flyers” — “…and that’s a big-assed rock,” IIRC.
I didn’t even notice the rock the first time I read this strip.
Yeah, go track down Leland and kick his ass.
That’s the takeaway here, right?
I’m with Yumi. I thought Marci was injured by some sort of skating accident. That’s a damned rock!
I think the Sal’s takeaway was more in the line of “No more trouble. No more fights.”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/fights/
Sometimes, you kick the wrong ass. You can’t unkick that ass, but you CAN go find and kick the right ass, presuming he hasn’t died in the time you’ve been kicking the wrong ass.
No?
“Sometimes, you kick the wrong ass.” That’s definitely Important Quotes material.
You sure you want that? The pattern of escalation in Sal’s life would dictate Leland then run Marcie over with a truck paralyzing her from the waist down as splashback.
Can’t run her over if he’s a fucking smear on the sidewalk. Hoo boy, I got that keypad courage over this fictional sack of crap.
Maybe the comic will end with him getting trampled by a cow. (Was going to say “eaten by a shark,” but I didn’t want to add to the anti-shark narrative.)
Now, now. That cow is a good cow. Very good cow. Promising future. Let’s not shine a light.
How about stabbed through the butt by a Ninja hiding in his toilet? It’s embarrassing, and we can finally see DOA ninja Rick!
Eaten by the cow. I know this cow can devour a whole human in like five seconds flat.
I hope this is her moment of clarity. I mean, I hope it’s one for BOTH of them, but Amber’s got a whole lot of things to sort out, whereas Sal’s probably closer to a breakthrough at the moment.
I want very much for her to step away from the cycle of violence, and firmly believe she has it in her to do so.
I think Amber got hers yesterday, though there’s more work to do. Not just (what she thought was) beating Sal, but mostly for stopping.
oh, man.
Leland can go skinnydip in a woodchipper. Hopefully Sal pushes him in.
Yeah, that’s what Sal’s psyche needs. A murder on her conscience.
She didn’t kill him. The woodchipper did.
It’s not her fault he tripped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVKc6PBYvD0
Ha-ha!
(Hey it was either that or Fargo.)
I choose to believe Leland was arrested after this and spent a decade in juvenile hall before emerging into life a career criminal who later spends the rest of his life behind bars.
Okay, good revelation, but making your exit at this point might be easier said than done.
Amber was willing to call it quits a moment ago when she thought she’d “Won”, but what happens if Sal let’s go right now?
Plus, how do you exit this in such a way that you don’t have to deal with her stalking you for the rest of your school year?
I guess, fundamentally, while I appreciate that sometimes violence can escalate things, I’m just not sure what the alternative is in situations like this, where the police will likely do nothing.
Well, it was apparently Amazigirl who was doing the stalking and not Amber. And Amazigirl already had her own moment of clarity where she realized that the stalking was the absolute opposite of what Amazigirl was about. And apparently replaced the stalking goal shortly thereafter with a recruiting Sal as a sidekick goal. With mixed success, you’ll notice.
The stalking was before the split though
The stalking was before they stopped sharing memories. The split goes back further, though it’s somewhat gradual.
For example, we can see that Amber was still having panic reactions to Sal, while Amazi-Girl was able to interact with her rationally.
Regardless, the stalking had stopped sometime ago. Amazi-Girl had made peace with Sal and Amber hadn’t stalked her, so the idea that Sal needs to do something now to stop the stalking doesn’t really make sense.
Danny and Ethan’s presence will, hopefully, keep it from reigniting once she relinquishes the hold.
As for the rest, uhh, Amber can just boink Walky and everyone can go back to not being in each other’s business, hopefully. Probably not quite that simple.
I’m pretty sure that if Sal let go now, Amber’s first question will be: “Why didn’t you finish me off? Why?!?“
Amber stopped when she thought she had ‘won’, but Sal had not given up.
Amber has clearly conceded here (apparently not just the fight, but also her life…) and according to her expression, Sal will probably be willing to end her fight.
So, completely different situations.
Umm, did you read the strip? “End it” isn’t exactly a threat.
… Oh hey. Sal’s finally grown up enough to see the cycle. It won’t last long, it never does, but let’s see if she uses her moment of clarity to break out of that cycle.
I hope so. The look on Sal’s face last panel gives me a little hope.
Oh god, Leland is the one that made Marcie mute.
What the hell kind of injury did he give her to make her lose her voice? Did he crush her trachea with that rock?!
That’s what I’m thinking.
I think he severed her vocal chords or something
That is a crazy level of violence to enact on someone who has never hurt you. Our justice system is seriously janked that he didn’t go to juvie (assuming he didn’t but I think sal would have less issues if justice had been served on some level).
Unless his two accomplices had an epiphany at some point, there’d have been a testimony problem. No fair justice system is equipped to deal with stuff like that in a satisfying fashion.
Ana Chronistic
September 2, 2018 at 12:01 am
…it was Leland, wasn’t it
Yeah, Sal’s hair and outfit in panel 2 match the date of Marcie’s injury, and we saw a zoomed-in version of that panel without Leland as a flashback-within-a-flashback during the robbery.
🙁
My Longest Yeah Boy Ever. Also can’t really tell turned Amber’s mouth process into end it but i’m glad she got knocked out and not like, Strangled
What I find distressing is the “End it” plea. Amber has a death wish..???
Yup. It even has a name. And a costume.
oh shit…OH SHIT
This is not exactly news.
We been knew
Well said.
Nice one.
Amber has always had a death wish. Remember what she said when Danny told her Sal had saved her life?
I’m pretty sure she at least has some of martyr complex of the “she should have targeted ME with the knife” flavor.
And now there’s the whole “If you kill me now, you’ll only prove my point” trope.
This is why Marcie losing her voice is sals “fault”! The guy she has beaten up on the playground (that “tripping” incident) hit marcie with a stone while she was restrained.
Also, sal, it’s nice that you are learning something but amber seems to be low on oxygen right now. It would probably be a good idea to let go of her before she drops unconscious.
If Sal lets go, Amber will probably go back to attacking her. Maybe letting Amber slip into unconsciousness and using the moment it will take for blood to rush to her brain to escape might be Sal’s best option. I mean I don’t see how Sal can talk Amber down at this point.
Ignoring the fact that Amber was already done fighting and Sal very EASILY gotten away then or talked her down by admitting defeat or even just grumbling and leaving, Amber is ALREADY dazed from being strangled, and Ethan and Danny are RIGHT THERE.
Even if Amber still has any fight left in her, she’s not going to get the chance.
Maybe now Sal can get away (or start talking, I’m all for talking), but I get why she didn’t give up when Amber stopped earlier. I mean, imagine there’s this girl with a history of unpredictable violence and stalking and whatnot standing over you and starting to laugh maniacally. Also, pretty sure Amber runs faster than Sal. So keeping fighting does seem like a reasonable choice here…
Sal’s motorcycle isn’t too far off, though. If she gets a head start, she can get away.
Okay, word of advice: Never mount a motorcycle in the middle of a fight.
Well if she can speak she can breathe so it can’t be that bad
Thank God they’re coming to their senses… wait actually no maybe not both I can’t tell if that “end it” meant end the fight or life. Because if that was a possible suicidal plea then…
Man, did Leland get any sort of severe punishment for this?
Glad Sal is getting a break thru at least.
Dunno, let’s hear what the adults in charge of such things have to say in a similar case.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/liability/
Yup. I think it is very likely that he got a severe punishment and that it was not swept under the rug. Very likely indeed…
Bagge, I’m pretty sure that was the first incident. The tripping. The reason that Sal attacked him…. This one….
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/landed/
It was, but I think the point was that the result was likely to be similar.
For what? Just another ” Tripping accident.”
You think killing people will make them like you but it doesn’t, it just makes people dead – Voldemort
I got that reference!!!
I didn’t…
Then allow me the great pleasure to introduce you to the hilarity that is “A very Potter Musical”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmwM_AKeMCk
Violence doesn’t solve anything. Just begets more violence.
Depends on the situation. Sometimes violence is necessary to defend yourself or a third party, or where not fighting would lead to something as bad or worse as fighting to defend yourself.
I might be biased though. Ignoring my abusive best friend didn’t stop her, crying didn’t stop her, begging to just stop ‘fighting’ and being best friends didn’t stop her, but she sure stopped when I punched her in the stomach though.
I’m tired of justifications. If no one started shit, there’d be no need for anyone to claim “self defense”.
Yeah, well, I’m tired of ‘all violence is always bad’. Like I said, one punch in my so called ‘friend’s’ stomach and she left me alone more or less for two years before she changed schools. This was after 3 or 4 years of pretty solid emotional abuse. I don’t regret anything.
If she hadn’t been a dick you wouldn’t have had to punch her. Your story is not an example of why violence is good. It is an example of why violence is bad. Because it causes more violence in response.
She was a dick, but she was never violent in a way it would matter. And while her being violent (if you accept her as violent which, again, most people don’t) lead to more violence, me punching her ended up getting her to back off and I haven’t seen her in ten years.
But that only matters because she was violent and abusive in the first place. So ultimately, violence is still the problem.
Right, but what you said was, “Violence doesn’t solve anything.” Then BBCC offer an example from her life where she felt violence solved something. You can argue that the issue that was solved was itself caused by violence, but that’s still something.
That just seems like a circular argument to me. Violence can be good sometimes because it might stop other violence? I can’t see that as something to celebrate, or believe in. Because “self defense” is a matter of perspective.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing it as something to “celebrate” or even believe as much as just a recognition of how they see the world. Violence can serve a purpose. Now, would it be better if we could magically eliminate all violence? Sure. But that’s not the world we live in.
I feel like I’m in an Internet edit of Matt Bors’ comic about the guy who keeps trying to gotcha folks for participating in the systems they have problems with.
“We should try to do less violence on people.” “And yet you’re in favor of fighting back someone trying to kill you! I am very intelligent.”
It’s not the world we live in, because people use violence to serve their purposes.
This is inane semantics not a cogent argument.
I am in 100% agreement with Emily. Yet another sign of the end times.
Holy hell, I am a pacifist and even I disagree with Irredentist here. Violence should not be the answer, but sometimes it is the only way to stop more immediate and intense harm.
Also a pacifist. Hard same.
Ghandi’s form of nonviolent resistance only worked because he had a platform. It’s not something that can be easily applied to a personal grudge between two college kids.
Again, that only works if you consider her violent, and many wouldn’t. Frankly, I don’t regret slugging her, even if it was an accident, and I don’t really care if she’s considered violent or I am for throwing the only real blow in that relationship. Last I heard, she was still a twit to her friends so fuck her.
Note that the key to non-violent resistance is the resistance, not just the non-violence. It’s not just a platform, but you need to have something your opposition wants and the means to deny it to them: Britain exploited India as a colonial possession, drawing wealth from it in the form of resources. Gandhi’s movement disrupted that wealth, through non-violent action. Strikes and the like. It was not simply a matter of shaming the British into going away as it’s often portrayed. He made it unprofitable to hold India.
MLK’s tactics during the Civil Rights Movement were similar: protests and marches to draw attention, but also strikes and boycotts to win specific integration goals.
As you say, how to apply that to a bully is not simple.
Also, both the Indian independence movement and the civil rights movement both involved plenty of violent incidents and groups. In some instances, that helped persuade the government to listen to the non-violent group as a sort of ‘Okay, these people are willing to talk to us, while these people are going to burn this place down if something doesn’t change. Let’s go with the peaceful ones’.
Of course, there are also times violent protests have led to reprisals or crackdowns. the point is, most protest movements and histories involve a mix of peaceful and violent protest.
And the non-violent resistance was also met by reprisals and crackdowns.
Being met with violence is generally a sign you’re being effective. 🙂
The history of many successful “peaceful” uprisings are pretty heavily whitewashed by those in power to hide the role violent protest had in their success in order to try to minimize knowledge of the effectiveness of violent protest.
Maybe. But considering how much effort those in power tend to go to paint nonviolent protests as violent riots or to actually start violence with agents provocateurs and the like, I’m not so sure.
One thing I suspect they do is to emphasize the role of simple protest and demonstration over direct action, especially non-violent action.
I’m glad she left you alone. You had to do that for self preservation.
Honestly, I slipped on some ice while I had my fists clenched (I was angry because she and her friends were tormenting me again). But she thought it was on purpose and I wasn’t about to set her straight.
BBCC, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’ve been in similar situations where I wasn’t able to fight back either because I was too scared both of my bully and of becoming her. I’m glad circumstances eventually worked out so that yours left you alone.
(In my case, I ended up moving to another country and never saw her again, so I turned out fine. Though she did try to add me on Facebook years later and I was like “AHAHAHAH NO.”)
MINE TRIED TO ADD ME ON FACEBOOK TOO. Twice, actually. I stared at it for a bit and then finally said ‘You gotta be fucking kidding me.’ and deleted the request with extreme prejudice.
I was afraid of getting in trouble if I hit her or swore at her or yelled at her (I actually did get detention once because I screamed at her in class. My mother was LIVID. My teacher knew about what a piece of work my ‘friend’ was – apparently I was not her only target in my class. She was just too close to retiring to give a shit, and our principal was absolutely gutless. Her solution to everything was to separate the students fighting. The good news is that for the next two years, we weren’t allowed to be in the same class. Which is probably for the best. I got a lot more confident over those two years and had no problem telling her to shut her damn mouth on the two occasions she tried shit after that).
BBCC, I am genuinely sorry all these things happened to you. Unlike most folks on here apparently, I do not consider myself as having the luxury to be a pacifist. I wish I could. I will punch a Nazi. I will defend the helpless. I will use my white, cishet, (etc) privilege to defend people and stand in front of those that aren’t part of those categories and if someone tries to hurt my friends, I hit back. I’ve lost a lot, I’ll be damned if I lose more without a fight. I got bullied a lot as a kid, by teachers and students. I am surprisingly unafraid of bullies.
Bullies sort of feed me. They get started and my brain remembers that I don’t have a flight reflex because of my bullies only a fight reflex. It’s why I don’t like crowds because crowd anxiety can cause me to go into fight response – which I don’t want to happen ever. I am lucky, I have people who help me with it. So, I don’t like violence, but I can’t claim that I am a pacifist. My brain isn’t wired that way. My brain thinks the only safe way out is through and only a few trusted people can keep me calm enough that I trust myself in large crowd.
No worries, I’m over her now. Last I heard she lived several hours away and she can fucking stay there. I don’t like bullies either. I’m just not good at doing IRL confrontations for the most part. I’m much better when I can write what I want to say. Or telling people to fuck off, that happens too.
But there is a need, so I’m tired of the fact that you just said victims need to stop.
Victims need to stop what?
Protecting themselves.
Did you forget what you said? It’s still there.
I don’t think victims need to stop defending themselves. My apologies if it came across that way.
You wanted no need for anyone to “claim” self-defense. Not that no one would need to defend themselves. You’re literally saying self-defense is not a valid “excuse”, that it isn’t “real”. This amounts to saying they shouldn’t defend themselves because that’s not a good excuse for violence. So maybe you didn’t mean that but it *is* what you said. Words matter. Especially when those word are victim blaming.
Your exact words:
Explain to me how your scare quotes around self-defense can be interpreted as anything other than deep scorn for the concept. Especially in the context of the previous sentence.
When I was a kid my dad was an abusive shitbag who only stopped terrorizing me (read: beating me up and regularly threatening murder) because I got big enough to shove him off me and threatened to ruin his life if he touched me again without killing me. Please explain how 16YO me (outweighed by 75lbs and outmatched in height by 6″) could have resolved his abuse without shoving. Asking him to stop didn’t work. Crying just made him angrier. Complying with his every whim was impossible. And I couldn’t leave because i had no transport because we lived 100km away from the nearest shelter and it was October. Do tell.
My father was a bully. The only language bullies respect is force. The only way they will stop preying on someone is if that person no longer seems weak enough to be an easy target. That can happen socially or physically, but it will only ever stop for real when the victim is able to show the bully they cannot be abused without consequence.
what ischemgeek said … in spades.
I do have deep scorn for the concept of self defense, as well as for the politics of strength. I feel that too often “self defense” is used as justification for violence when it is unnecessary. Especially in this country, and especially against people of color. So ultimately I think it is better to view all violence as bad. Even self defense, even when necessary. That doesn’t mean don’t do it. But I don’t accept that ultimately, it really solves anything.
Self defense certainly is abused, as you say, but the concept isn’t inherently flawed. To some extent, it’s necessary.
And even without self-defense, some potential for legitimate violence must exist. Some really bad things can’t reasonably be stopped without it. But then the potential for abuse exists with state violence as well as with self-defense.
So at the very least, we’re going to need to distinguish between levels of badness in violence: Joyce’s violence against Ross wasn’t as bad as Ross’s violence.
But then by painting even that as bad, we’re in the position of shaming and criticizing those who are already using violence only in defense, making them less willing to do so when necessary. To quote Joyce’s brother John: “That’s a pretty extreme reaction.”
Yeah, if no one started shit. People DO start shit though, and violence can be the only way back out.
Sure, sometimes violence is “necessary”. That doesn’t make it good.
No one ever said that. Violence is never good. But there are people who do like hurting people. And the only language they understand is that. And when you have a situation like Leland’s (take, for instance, Brock Turner), violence becomes the only answer.
Irredentist: Sure, sometimes violence is “necessary”. That doesn’t make it good.
Renadt: No one ever said that. Violence is never good.
I said that. Violence is a tool. As with any tool, whether it’s good or bad depends on the use you make of it. Violence is frequently an inappropriate tool. It can lead to all kinds of unintended consequences. It is occasionally the only effective tool you have. Saying violence is never good is simply silly.
Like, that guy punching Richard Spencer in the face? Extremely good.
I don’t think it is good, even when it is necessary.
The Richard Spencer face punch is actually a really good example of this thorny-as-hell problem. I’ve always been conflicted about it.
On the one hand, it was an unexpected attack on guy who was giving an interview. On the other, a Nazi got punched in the face for spreading Nazi hate.
TBH, anyone advocating for fucking genocide shouldn’t be surprised when they are punched in the face. Due to my own tendency towards pacifism, I personally do not know if I could punch him in the face. But I’m not going to tell other people if they should or shouldn’t. I don’t think that’s up to me to say.
Also, the fact that I can find the ethical ambiguity of the situation fascinating is due to my own privilege at not being his target. If I were, maybe I personally would want to punch him, too.
Yeah it’s hard to find the ethical complexity in punching someone who wants to subject you to genocide.
Richard Spencer getting punched was like, good on all sides. Being repeatedly punched when he showed his face has led to Spencer expressing an inability to attend rallies. He and other Nazis have specifically said, among their own, that their agenda has been dramatically slowed by antifa protests and violence. And we all benefit when nazi agendas are slowed down.
I do think it’s best when those protests can dominate non-violently. Street fighting isn’t the best approach, even if it’s sometimes necessary.
Opportunistic punching of Nazi representatives is useful to keep the leaders heads down. Groups like antifa work best in a defensive stance, I think. Keeping Nazi groups from doing their own violence and intimidation. And just organizing and protecting larger counter protests. Making them look few and weak rather than persecuted.
Actually, people defending themselves from violence is extremely good. What’s bad is people being forced to do so.
And take the “necessary” out of scare quotes unless you’re prepared to let some angry bigot beat you or a loved one to a pulp for the sake of smug moral superiority
I only put it in quotes because what is “necessary” is largely dependent on context and perspective.
Yes. I know. That’s why I objected to it. Nobody gave a hypothetical scenario where context or perspective even would exist. They just referred to the concept of “self defense” and your response was to question the necessity.
Context and perspective always exist.
Not when you’re referring to a concept outside of any specific context.
+1!
(To irredentist, that is)
Sometimes the people who start shit are bullies who won’t stop until you respond with violence.
Sometimes the only way to stop a constant source of violence is to use violence against it.
Even Marschall Rosenberg said that in some situations, you have to stop the ongoing violence first. And unfortunately that may mean to resort to enough violence to get to the stop.
Hey you are familiar with MBR’s work? Me too. Do you remember where you read that about him saying violence can be necessary? Are you talking about his concept of “protective use of force”?
Yes, “protective use of force sounds about right”. I think it was during an Q and A in a seminary he did for professionals that I saw on DVD.
The distinction between force and violence can be difficult to determine.
Yes, the criteria to distinguish between protective use of force and unilateral force (coercion) are not objective, IMO. I have been involved in the NVC community for years, and I have seen people use the idea of protective force to justify what to me seemed like coercion at the time – eg stopping teenagers from using drugs, which to me seemed like a normal part of most people’s adolescence and personal exploration. Now that I am older I feel somewhat differently about it – but I do not necessarily think it is because I am wiser. It might have more to do with having lost empathy for the deep need for autonomy that tends to increases with force around puberty.
But for me the difference between an intention to protectively use force and violence is not wanting to hurt the person (punish them). In physical fights this could look like an aikido style of fighting, with an emphasis on restraining the person with minimal effort and damage. Ideally I try to find ways to do that in non-physical situations too.
Too often there is a portrayal of a false dichotomy between fighting and hurting someone in self defense or just taking abuse. There is a third path of nonviolent self defense. Eg aikido, techniques of setting boundaries wth NVC, etc
I can see where you are coming from. It’s rather easy to find a reason why the own acts are justified uses of force while the other people’s are acts of violence. I actually rather prefer to define all instances of physical force as violence, because then it is clear that you need a really good reason for it. It avoids a “me good, you bad” mindset in situations where an absolute “good” just isn’t in the books. But I see that this way to look at things might hinder others to keep themselves safe, so anyone should find their own way to express their ethics.
While people like gashface and toedad are on the extreme part of the human spectrum, stopping them must come before any NVC can be tried. It doesn’t work with people who have no empathy, and people in extreme situations tend to shut away that ability so you need a cool down period for them anyway. Real psychopaths never have empathy and cannot be reached by it, but luckily, those are few and far between.
If you think of groups or nations at war, this is slightly different as it may be necessary to talk to parts of those groups while others are still involved with violence, because usually, you do not have the resources to put a stop to their violence or at least don’t want to involve even more people to stop them.
#6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it. – Seventy Maxims of Effective Mercenaries.
how the fuck did Leland shove a sharp rock into a girl’s throat, PERMANENTLY DISABLING HER, and not go to jail for attempted murder??
Probably crushed her throat with it.
As for how he’s not in jail – easy. Rich, white kid with well connected parents.
I would say “there are crimes that even the rich and powerful can’t get away with once they become public”, but I know better than that. thinking about it is crushing
As far as I can tell, the adults involved chose not to shine a light at the alleged attack. After all, they don’t know if the girl is homeschooled or if she’s an… an… an illegal, but most adult probably worked managed to convince themselves it was just not their liability. After all, Leland is a good student. A very good student from a good family with a promising future. This wouldn’t seem like him at all. Just because Sal claimed he did… something there was no reason to… to shine a spotlight, considering all that’s at risk. I’m pretty sure they felt the best solution would be to dissuade the girl who got stabbed in her throat with a rock from doing anything that might put her near Leland in the future. She’s kind of the source of all this.
The adults involved are horrible at adulting.
One thing it seems like everyone glosses over, if Marcie’s family are illegal immigrants, then could getting the cops involved make things worse for her than for Leland? I mean, they did just list out all the reasons why the cops might overlook Leland’s behavior, but could getting Marcie’s family on the cops radar lead to them getting deported? Part of me wonders if that was part of the conversation the adults were having back then that Sal was just too young to pick up on
Potentially, it could. Sal knows that’s risky though and it doesn’t prevent the school from punishing Leland for shoving another kid in a ditch full of concrete and rebar.
Side note, but iirc Sal mentioned to Marcie that if elected, Robin DeSanto wouldn’t hesitate to deport her parents, so I think that’s pretty direct confirmation that they are here illegally?
Well, considering how many in the red ball cap club would deport anyone who doesn’t look like them, regardless of birthplace…
Yeeeeup. Countries can rescind citizenship. We don’t like to think itbecause we like to feel safe but the reality is government has scary levels of power.
This!!!
Or just deport people without letting them prove their claim to citizenship. Which has happened.
Or the current “We think some midwives near the border were faking birth certificates for kids actually born on the wrong side, so we’re assuming all such birth certificates are fake unless you can prove otherwise. While locked up. Before we can deport you.”
How did Billie manage to grow up friends with Sal and be naive about homeless people no longer being in the city (you remember her calling home when Becky showed up)?
Homeless ‘illegal’ immigrants
Hmpf, there was supposed to be arrows indicating ‘not the same as’
She was more friends with Walky than sal. I don’t think they ever really hung out
Oh, you are right, I misremembered. Starts to look like Billie became the substitute daughter after Sal was sent to catholic school.
Walky and Billie have been friends since they were five, but I don’t think she and Sal have ever been very close. Billie sees Walky as something akin to a brother, while she very much doesn’t seem to see Sal as a sister.
How would being friends with Sal even correlate with knowing about the status of homeless people in their city? Marcie’s not homeless, and Sal’s not shown to be friends with any homeless people or to talk about any homelessness issues.
They might be misremembering and thought Marcie was homeless, or at least lived in a place with lots of homeless people. The only thing related to homelessness with Sal was the shocked expressions on her face while Billie was being…well meaningly ignorant.
Sharpened the rock with another rock?
Marcie’s family may not have been in a position to press charges.
For violent crimes, a lot of states don’t require the victim to place charges.
That said, I don’t know if that’s the case in this state.
I’m not very well versed in US law, do people actually need to press charges when there’s strong physical evidence? if I got assaulted the police wouldn’t arrest my assailant until I specifically said I want to press charges?
I might be interpreting that wrong, it seems massively flawed
When the perpetrator is white, and especially if he/his family is ‘connected’/’respected’/etc., strong physical evidence oftentimes isn’t nearly enough. Especially if it’s possible to pin the blame on the victim.
“Justice for all”
American justice is where two people get together in court to see who could afford to hire the better lawyer. Justice very rarely has much of anything to do with it.
^^this guy gets it
No, the prosecutor could still charge the assailant without your cooperation. You the victim could even be thrown in jail for contempt of court by refusing to testify.
So for instance say someone did beat you with in an inch of your life and it was caught on camera and by three witnesses. If the DA can positively identify the perp without you he/she will.
I mean I guess we don’t technically know he’s not in jail do we? I’m gonna believe he’s in jail until told otherwise. I’m also gonna believe he has such bad diabetes he had to have one of his feet cut off and he’s so fat now he’ll probably die in his forties and has to be weighed by a scale used for horses. BBC has a documentary on him. “I’m literally a giant sack of human waste” :Shining a light on Leland. Airing next fall.
I get your sentiment but maybe let’s not use fatness as a punishment for bad people
Do we know nothing happened?
Also, it’s possible that marcie never called police to protect her parents from being deported.
When you wind up rushed to the hospital with a major throat injury, it’s not a matter of you calling the police. They come and ask questions. Marcie might not have been able to communicate at first (not just unable to speak, but put out for surgery or whatever), but Sal was a witness.
Despite her distrust for authority, would she really have lied to police, making up a story about it being an accident?
For Leland? I doubt it.
You’d be surprised how many pre-teen psychopaths get a free pass because ‘they’re just a kid’. Having wealthy, well-connected parents who can afford expensive lawyers who can dish out a sob-story about ‘a child with a bright future who went too far in a moment of enthusiasm’ helps to that end too.
Then they’re adults and do something bad and, as they’re carted off to the big house for life, the parents and everyone from their past shake their heads and mutter that they don’t know where they went wrong.
Most likely he got away with it because he was a minor.
Oooooh, more anxiety panels from Sal! Fun!
…
Well, I’m having fun anyways.
And of course, I suspect this turning point will be delicious.
I was curious whether we’d see more red panels from Sal before the arc was over. Interesting how a couple weren’t red initially and now she’s put the pieces together they are.
I love these anxiety flashbacks even as they make me sad. Well done, Willis <3
We can see more blood in the stabbing flashback now that it's Sal's pov too. Nice touch. The visual callback with how Sal was choking Leland vs how she's choking Amber is nice too.
On that note, this is a weird time to bring it up, but I hate how Sal's dressed in a lot of her flashbacks. You can practically SEE the way her parents had their influence in it and I hate it. She still dresses to please them when she sees them. FUCK the Walkertons.
As for that evil little toad, Leland…yeah, I'm not sure what would be the best way to handle him. Reporting him was useless, doing nothing's not an option when you have a sense of justice like Sal's. It frigging BURNS doing nothing and it haunts you and makes you feel almost as bad as the actual injustice does because you SAW the injustice and you KNOW its unjust but you didn't do anything for it. And with guilt issues like Sal's (thanks to a cocktail of emotional abuse, survivor's guilt, systemic injustices, and that aforementioned keen sense of justice), it would absolutely torture her over it and every other little thing that could relate to it. So yeah, doing nothing? Definitely not an option. The one time she even suggested it, it went out the window five seconds later when AG nearly got her teeth knocked down her throat. And obviously choking him came with splash back (which also resulted in the robbery because ahhhh violence is cyclical). My best advice would be wait for a way to nail him that can't be tied too strongly back to you (and by extension your loved ones) I guess.
This is why we pick our battles. Normally its so we don't write a check with our mouths that our asses can't cash, but with Sal, aiming for de-escalating and looking to nail folks while doing the least possible collateral damage would be a good start.
…Alternatively, choking him a little longer or a little harder would've solved that problem too, but it also would've created a new problem (going to juvie if not jail for a fucking long time), so I guess it's for the best.
…Now if you all don't mind, I'll be over here imagining an anvil dropping and smacking that kid in the head. Real fucking tragedy.
Insert douchebag A into woodchipper B. Slowly.
That’s my theory.
> As for that evil little toad, Leland…yeah, I’m not sure what would be the best way to handle him.
Wolves
My current story is he ended up going somewhere schmancy like Yale (‘such a good family’) and then got busted in like the first week for being a drug dealer when he sold a mountain of dangerous shit to an undercover cop.
I will not part with this story easily.
Maybe you can compromise though. Busted in the first week, then eaten by wolves?
I can live with that.
Oh no. Poor wolves. They probably got the shits for weeks.
Robot wolves?
He got out of the charges by presenting a calendar indicating he was hanging out with PJ and Squi.
Nope, can’t hear you, he’s currently in jail forever for selling a mountain of illegal and dangerous drugs to an undercover cop.
Small addition – I like finally knowing why Sal blames herself (and why Marcie makes a >:( face when she does).
NOW she’s putting shit together?!
NOW She’s getting that she’s the…
wait. IS THAT RYAN
That’s Leland, then again Ryan is his middle name so maybe its Leland Ryan ____
But I doubt it
Nah, we’ve seen them in a picture together and their noses are different.
Pretty sure this theory was nipped in the bud on Twitter or Tumblr, too.
Nah possibly his cousin.
No, that is Leland. Different character.
No, Mr. Willis has confirmed that they are different people. But as a whole Leland, Ryan, Toedad, Blaine, Mary, Peter, Ruth’s grandpa, they are the antagonists where no matter how much violence you may wish upon them, it doesn’t seem to be enough.
So you got into it with that one psycho kid in the 1st panel, which then led to you getting yourself and Marcy into this other mess with the same psycho rich bongo in the 2nd panel, then you tried to fix it to with very questionable means which got you into the mess with Ethan in the 3rd panel, which led to the life ruining tragedy in the 4th panel, which has carried onto the escalation of this present day’s tragedy.
I read this in Captain America’s voice.
This never ends well, does it.
Stranglehold suddenly switches to hug !
Well, Sal, you heard the girl. /sarcasm
But hey, maybe she’ll finally realise that chokeholds in particular are the cause of every problem she’s ever had in her entire life.
Also, Jesus Christ, Amber. I guaran-fucking-tee you Sal isn’t holding her nearly as tight as all that. Fucking overdramatic, even for her.
When the mouth is stretch open and the blackout bubbles are forming, that’s tight.
Sure, but not “I can see the light! Is that you, Grandma?” levels of tight. Sal may be pissed, but she’s not stupid.
the bubbles above her head suggest otherwise.
No no tardy is referring to Amber possibly saying “Kill me” even though it could just be her saying “End this fight” it’s either or but I hope it the last one.
Tardy? This is dangerously close to calling me late for dinner. You’re on thin ice, buddy.
Hahhahahahhahahahahhaa
Fully thought Sal was blushing in the last panel, like she just got the most uncomfortable boner from her flashbacks.
(I didn’t think she did have one, just that she looked it. I am now aware that it’s blood)
Pretty sure it’s a bruise. She had one there in earlier strips. Could also be a scratch from Amber knocking her to the ground.
I was thinking a scrape, they get that bloodyish look but stay in place like that.
That’s true! That could be it.
we know that Amber is dealing with depression on top of her other mental illness, but was she ever suicidal?
I feel like in the last panel she is saying “kill me, because I have fulfilled my life’s purpose of defeating you once”
That’s how I read it.
In units of fucked-up-ness per square inch, this strip beats every comic ever. :O
This damn cycle man, when does it end?
After the e! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
OH I laugh because my heart hurts
Cycles.
They make a story.
Both in the positive ways…and the sad ones.
YES! YES!
YOU CAN DO IT, SAL! YOU CAN END THE CYCLE; I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!
Damn… I thought I was hateful….
Could just be saying to end the cycle by stopping the fight…. at least I hope that’s what’s being implied.
What would you suggest she do, to deal with her stalker, without perpetuating a cycle of violence?
She didn’t care about her stalker until she learned it was the same girl who stabbed her in the hand years ago. Stop bringing up irreverent points.
She cares today, and she’s allowed to.
Knowing that this woman has stabbed her before is important context.
Yes, it’s important context. Yes, Amazi-Girl not revealing that context earlier was shitty. As of course was the actual stalking, though that had stopped and they seemed to have dealt with that until now.
But to echo your question back at you, “What would you suggest she do?” She could kill Amber. That would end the stalking (or more accurately remove any chance of it starting again, since it had already stopped.) Short of that, or of crippling her to the point where she can’t be a threat, any more violence she does will likely just make matters worse.
What do you suggest she do?
A stalker is bad. A stalker who stabbed you 5 years ago and then insinuated themselves into your life while concealing that is worse.
I was imagining it. Either Leland directly damaged Marcie’s throat or him beating her around would result in her falling in a way that it did.
He must have done something to her eyes, too. Thus the red goggles.
All the weeks of shipping and this week’s big throwdown made me forget Amber has a death wish
My contribution to the lyrics people are quoting is from (as most of my song quotations are wont to be):
When the last days come
We shall see visions
More vivid than sunsets
Brighter than stars
We will recognize each other
And see ourselves for the first time
The way we really are
(It’s from the song “Against Pollution.” If it sounds inappropriately optimistic, listen to the actual song and you’ll get a better sense of the tone.)
So what I’m wondering now is was there multiple altercations between them and that asshole or did he just hold a grudge for several years until he found a couple of lamer assholes willing to help him get back at Sal and Marcie?
Clearly, she’s asking Sal to end the campaign to save Gotham, since it’s clear the creators have already made peace with it’s ending and have plotted out the last season to be exactly that.
. . .Is. . .is Amber asking Sal to kill her? Really?
. . .She needs to be put on medication and therapy asap for her own safety.
What, you don’t say weird suicidal shit when someone has you in a chokehold? They let go real fast, and you can get in a cheap and dirty elbow to the gut.
Look, I was easy prey as a kid. My options were limited, don’t judge me.
I say weird suicidal shit all the time, and it’s only cause for concern a fraction of that.
Is it weird that I do that, too? Mostly over easily-resolved minor issues, because otherwise I’d lose my mind on a daily basis?
So such thing as “cheap and dirty” if you’re getting wrecked, son
Go for the eyes
Is that what people are really thinking here?
Well, I suppose the only choice then is to tighten the hold and keep it up for a couple minutes after she stops trying to trick you then.
I don’t think it’s what Amber’s doing, but for the record, it is absolutely what I would do as well. Try to get the other person to let me go by weirding them out and then elbow them as hard as I possibly can in their kidneys. Then I’d run like hell.
Note to self: If ever in a situation where you’re strangling BBCC, don’t let go when the weirdness starts. It’s a trick.
I know what I would do in that situation: Struggle for breath, grab uselessly at their arm and try to beg for mercy. I’ve got no illusions. 🙂
Hey, if you’re strangling me, all bets are off. 😉
A lot of characters in DoA could use some therapy at this point.
The text on the last panel could sooooooo easily changed to something that would be Slipshine worthy. Any takers for what could be the worst? XD
“Finish me.”
“harder”
“Oh yeah, Walky~”
“*oooh- harder Sally*”
“I’m getting close~”
Yes Sal. Leland is probably living a very good life. Go off and end that.
Probably got engaged to a fiance he beats. Sounds dark but it’s plausible.
Like Ryan he’ll eventually be stopped. Here’s hoping his overconfidence leads him to picking a fight with someone he thought was an illegal alien, but is actually an off duty police officer who proceeds to beat him within an inch of his life and then leaves a confiscated gun on the ground so he can claim self defense.
Yeah, sorry, no — if that’s how Marcie lost her voice, I’m not seeing how it could possibly be anything but All Leland’s Fault.
All fault lies on Leland, but Sal can still appreciate that when she starts choking people things can get out of hand quickly.
From a purely pragmatic standpoint, that’s a real concern.
Well, I should rephrase. Leland was a child, all fault lies on the adults in Leland’s life who made him that way. At that age you’re not really responsible for the person you are.
I’m sure he grew into an equally shitty adult though.
Idk, seems like telling young people that they’re not responsible for the people they are is a fine way to get those shitty adults.
Leland was also, like, at least twelve by the time he did that to Marcie.
At 12 years old you’re still very much the person the adults in your life have made you into.
You don’t tell children they’re not responsible for their own actions, but holding them responsible for their actions is part of how you make them into a responsible person.
Sal was just a confused kid back then. Amber was just an abused kid back then. Leland was just a privileged kid back then. They’re all adults now with the power to shake off the shackled of their upbringing, but I suspect Leland will choose not to. Privilege is pretty comfortable.
I just disagree that there’s this clear division between children and adults and responsibility of the individual and responsibility of the environment. Leland had the power then not to do what he did. Were relational and social influences a factor? Sure. And they still would be today.
I agree that he should now have a more formed sense of self, responsibility, all that, than he did back then. I just don’t think you’re separate from your actions/self at that or any age.
I think you’re over-estimating how much capacity for independent thought a 12 year old has.
Social influences weren’t just “A factor”. They were everything. At that age if you’d put him in a new home in a new city with a new family you could end this behavior within a year. As an adult he’s not gonna change unless he wants to.
I work with 12 year olds. I think you’re underestimating it.
Has one of those twelve year olds you work with ever committed a serious crime?
Were they tried as an adult?
Dude, you’re getting into a whole other topic now, and you’re not making the points you think you’re making.
As for what you said before, if Leland’s new environment had been one where he WANTED to change, then he may have changed. These are also factors that impact adults. What I’m saying is that it’s a mix of these factors and that twelve year olds are their own people.
@gangler I was “tried as an adult” when I was 12. For having my head down in class. It was considered a “criminal disruption”, and I was told to consider myself “lucky” not to get thrown in juvie.
“Tried as an adult” is a bullshit nonsense jumble of letters and syllables.
@Taffy: I’m honestly not sure what I just read because it seems so ludicrous, but I’m sorry that happened.
@Yumi Thanks for that. Yeah, I’d like to tell you that was the only time it happened, but I’m trying to cut down on sugarcoating this stuff.
I… have an interesting perspective to offer. I volunteer with kids and was also brought up in an extremist household.
12YOs from healthy, nurturing households have great capacity for independent thought. I see it every day. They’re not little adults but they are starting to figure out who they are and what they value.
Neither Amber nor Sal are from nurturing households. They’re from abusive households. And from my first hand experience of growing up in an abusive household, they’re all about inhibiting independent thought and instilling rote compliance. Even if you rebel, it’s very binary. You are either in the system or out. Golden child or scapegoat. Because dealing with the abuse takes so much of you, you don’t have time to evaluate who you are or what you value. You’re just reacting.
What I am saying is many 12YOs do have capacity to break way from what they were taught. I don’t think Amber or Sal could have. I know I couldn’t at 12. I didn’t even start till 16 or so and it is a process still ongoing at 31.
Well said, @ischemgeek
Children choose. They choose to be good or evil at quite a young age, though not necessarily fully consciously. The influence of adults counts for plenty, but still, they choose.
Children choose small things, then, work their way up to big things. They test out their developing independence and freedom, spread their wings as far as their allowed.
Much like a mouse in a labyrinth. Their choices are not the choices of an adult.
If a child is still 12 and they’re making decisions like “I think I’ll go around maiming poor girls of colour” then the adults have steered them wrong. That shouldn’t have been a turn in the labyrinth. That’s not a place an ordinary 12 year old finds themselves after an ordinary upbringing with all the standard consequences for their actions.
You have your assertions, I have mine.
Sidenote, people are usually so eager to say Amber and Sal shouldn’t be judged by their childhood actions, but rather the adults they became, so I’m surprised I’m getting this much pushback on the notion that Leland, at this point in his life, was also likely a product of his circumstances.
It’s way more interesting that sal is learning things about violence usually only leading to more violence and half of the comment section wants to resort to violence.
But, you know, excuses are way more easy to accept if they are excusing someone you like.
Yes to this.
Yeah, I have absolutely no issues wishing violence on fictional characters. On real people, I’m more reluctant. I still call bullshit on the ‘usually violence only leads to more violence’ though. Like I said, that’s just not my experience.
That’s a very different case though – Sal at 13 can be judged for the actions of Sal at 13. Judging Sal at 18 for them is a different matter; she’s not the same person and we’ve seen those changes. Same thing for Amber, and potentially the same thing for Leland (though we haven’t seen him change).
It’s also not a matter of being either a product of circumstances or a responsible actor. People are both, including children.
You have a point there.
I was bullied horribly in school. Some of my bullies have matured into fairly average adults. One matured into someone who surprised the hell out of me by offering a genuine, no strings attached, no forgiveness expected or coerced by guilt trip apology. That perso is the only one to own up to the shit they pulled. The rest of them who are average humans just kind of awkwardly avert their eyes and avoid the topic when they see me.
About a quarter of the kids who bullied me grew into garbage adults. But my worst bully as a kid? The one who hissed at me ro jump off a suspension bridge on a field trip because everyone hates me and wants me to die? The one who gathered a gang of friends to strip me in the bathroom? The one who slammed a 50lb lid of a steel ball crate on my head trying to kill me in gym class? And who got away with it by pretending it was an accident and later told me I should’ve just died and next time they won’t miss and get part of my shoulder too? That one.
That one was the one who apologized. And made amends. And now volunteers with an antibullying program talking about what they did and why it was bad. And by all accounts has matured into a decent human being.
No kid is beyond hope.
That person for the record is the only one to have earned my forgiveness. Not that i am gonna spend time around them because their ace still makes my hindbrain go eeeeeeeeee but like I’d help them and have something to do with them now. The rest I wouldn’t even piss on if they were on fire. Not that I want them to burn. More… they have nothing to do with me anymore and that is how I want it to stay. The less involvement I have with them the better.
Goddamn, that’s a hell of a lot of shit you went through there.
I was tiny, ugly, had an easy to make fun of facial deformity, had two different speech impediments, was chronically ill, from away in a rural area, and twice exceptional (gifted and autistic).
I basically walked around with a giant target on my back. And the adults found it easier to tell me to be normal than help me at all.
I am saying I really relate to Sal’s anti-authority chip on her shoulder. Also I hate bullies.
(…cont., because I acciadentally hit post)
And I have a lot of respect for you, to be honest. To go through so much and still believing in this is admirable.
I had a really angry phase where I was a bad person who almost did an unforgivable thing. But I chose to walk away from the cycle of vengeance I was taught. I can’t believe a kid is beyond hope because I would be saying it about myself.
I think maybe it’s something on the “survivor’s guilt” side of the spectrum. She attacked Leland before for just being a racist jerk… and in retaliation, he then attacked Marcie while his cronies held her off, which led her to blame herself because a) she couldn’t save Marcie, and b) the thought that if she never attacked him in the first place he wouldn’t have done that, and c) that it should have been her instead of her best friend (which is where I think the “surivivor’s guilt” part is coming in).
When Sal beat up Leland he retaliated by hurting Marcie. So Sal blamed herself.
@In answer to Dafydd originally post.
And it looks like Leyland knows that he can get away with hurting Marcie, so his friends are just restraining Sal.
He became a tactical astute asshole early.
Human emotions, especially guilt, don’t work on fact. Sal is the sort of personality that will find some way to blame herself for others actions when they somehow involve her and those she loves.
She feels responsible for not being able to defend Marcie, thus “her fault”
We still don’t know exactly what happened. It could turn out that he was using it to threaten Marcie when Sal got loose and jumped him, causing him to accidently hurt Marcie.
Its not what I think happened, and I am not justifying anything. Just saying, part of why I like this comic is all the curve balls it throws.
Because Sal has a massive amount of survivor’s guilt, a keen sense of justice, guilt issues, and is a victim of emotional abuse to boot which often leaves people with problems not feeling guilty.
I feel like there’s a lesson lost on a lot of commentators, and as was shown, on the characters themselves. That the whole “fault” thing is a big pile of feces.
It’s up to the people involved to stop the cycle of violence. And at some point you have to just say no to it. Sure, your vengeance may even be righteous but that doesn’t make it the _right_ choice. Doing the right thing is awful and hard.
At least Sal is seeing the problem with propagating the circle. It’ll be interesting to see if she turns a corner.
Holy shit, David.
David?
I think you’re mixed up. David is Walky, Leland is the asshole trying to kill Marcie
I think this means M Willis, who is all of them.
M for Monsieur?
M for whatever Willis’s middle name is, as he goes by the name David M Willis on this site. If it has been revealed what that middle name is, I am not aware of it.
Goddammit.
I’m not sure why, but I was really hoping Leland wouldn’t have anything to do with Marcie’s injury.
Not because I have any sympathy for the little shit. But somehow, having Leland beat Marcie up when they were younger, and then — it’s him! Again! seems… well, lazy. As if there’s only one asshole in the world.
Yes, it explains Sal’s guilt — her beating up Leland for beating up Marcie leads to him later injuring Marcie (a fair bit later, based on Sal’s straightened hair and the fact Marcie seems older), and thus it’s “all her fault” in her mind. But Sal’s rage against the entire system feels like it would be better justified if she’s seen this happen time and again with people other than just this one shit.
I mean, sure, it makes a nice contrast with Amber that, as far as we can see, Sal hasn’t built Leland up as her nemesis to be stalked and destroyed. But…
Well, at least Leland isn’t also Ryan, as some people seem to think. That would be really>/i> shoddy storytelling on Willis’s part.
Pretty sure of Leland showed up attending the College, Sal’s behavior towards him would not be kind and forgiving. She’d probably be spending every moment willing herself NOT to kick his ass.
Yea I get the impression Sal didn’t become Amber’s nemesis until they happened to be going to the same college.
Those three incidents don’t reflect well on Amazigirl.
well i was hoping someone wouldn’t call me fucking lazy today, so i guess we’re both fucking disappointed
RR was saying you are NOT lazy, although some other people seem to think you are.
RR absolutely said that Willis was lazy (see their third paragraph). They also said that he isn’t as lazy as he would be if Leland was Ryan, and some people seem to be confused about it. Saying that he could be lazier doesn’t make up for calling him lazy in the first place.
. . . Because they are confused about which character is which.
“As if there’s only one asshole in the world.”
How many assailants is the average child expected to have in their life? She doesn’t live in like a Mad Max style wasteland or anything.
It’s not like this is Case Closed where there is a new minor villain (minor compared to the BO) in every episode.
Dude you are missing SO much context.
Sal’s parents always gave her brother and Billie preferential treatment.
All the adults around Sal sided with bullies.
Sal’s best friend/family has potentially faced deportation many times for the crime of being born. (Or are legal and assumed to be criminals just for the color of their skin)
It makes perfect sense for there to be ONE big bully on campus. Its common in life and fiction.
It makes sense Sal is smart enough to see the whole system and see it as unfair.
You get that the incidents with Leland were all connected, right? They didn’t randomly stumble across him every time something bad happened.
That’s a really stupid argument. Of course the bully she picked a fight with would be the one who was cruellest to Marcie. And in fact, it’s the heinous level of violence that Leland was inflicting on Marcie that incited her to attack him. Leland hitting Marcie in the head with a rock. She could have died. If any act of violence is justifiable due to the behavior that triggered it, it’s one trying to protect a person’s life, future, or mental stability.
Not sure exactly if the first two panels occur at the same time, but no matter of the timeline, you can be sure Sal knew damn well how boundless and merciless Leland’s violence toward Marcie was. It’s not just because Leland was such an asshole that anyone would attack him; it’s also because she knew Marcie would be lucky to make it to adulthood unscathed. And now Marcie is blind due to that m’f’er.
It’s not lazy writing to have Leland involved in both Marcie’s muteness and Sal’s punishment; it’s a reflection of how unbelievably horrible Leland was.
Not quite.
Incident 1: Leland kicks Marcie into a ditch full of concrete and rebar. He goes unpunished and Marcie is banned from the playground when Sal tries to report it. The next day, Sal strangles Leland.
Incident 2: Leland and his buddies attack Sal and Marcie while they’re skating and he crushes Marcie’s windpipe with a rock. Sal and Marcie are 12 at the time and have turned 13 by the time the robbery happened so Sal’d been trying to fundraise for a while between then and the robbery.
Since it’s not quite clear, there’s a significant time gap between those two incidents. I don’t think we know how old they are in panel 1, but they’re noticeably younger than 12. Several years, I’d guess.
Even here in the closeup, you can see Sal’s different hair style.
Yeah, almost certainly younger than 12, especially based on the character models.
> “As if there’s only one asshole in the world”
Do you not see the two guys holding Sal back and grinning? Putting aside that the whole idea of ‘Sal choosing to solve her problems with violence comes back to bite her’ cycle would get lost if it wasn’t Leland, it is very clearly not JUST Leland.
It had to be Leland. If it wasn’t Leland, Sal would’ve gotten the last hit in when she choked Leland, then either we need to go back and setup a backstory with the hypothetical new person to escalate into the attack on Marcie, mirroring the backstory with Leland that is already set up as a mirror to present day, or it’s just a rando we don’t know or care about. Either of these options weakens the narrative. For what? To prove life has more than one villain? That’s already emphasized in the entire rest of the comic. We have lots of different types, forms, and degrees of villain for each of the cast, including, as we see here, each other and themselves.
I regret not having enough money and the currency exchange rate being so high. Then I could look into the future.
But around WHAT do we go? The world?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yca6UsllwYs
They both look weirdly cute in the last panel.
They’re goddamn adorable and it’s weird.
Oh god.
Leland made Marcie mute.
And am i reading it wrong or … or is Sal seeing herself in Amber in the last panel?
Also IS AMBER SUICIDAL?!?!
She is certainly self-destructive, even if I’m not sure if I would call that suicidal. She does throw herself in potentially life-threatening situations a lot.
Sometimes you let yourself become a monster. Sal realises that now. Additionally, as I speculated yesterday, Amber rather wants to die rather than face her own monster inside.
Maybe, just maybe, this is the turning point for them.
The issue is not violence begetting violence. It’s fighting smarter not harder. I imagine this escalated from Sal’s first encounter. She probably would’ve retaliated if she wasn’t so busy trying to raise money help Marcie. Mike Warner on the other hand would’ve destroyed Leland without ever laying a hand on him because he would find his center of gravity and destroy it.
Break the circle and all, that’s good.
But kind of concerned that Sal does not remember on the panels that the start of the circle, started with Leland shoving Marcie on broken rocks and steel rods.
She is not the villain. Leland is…
He tried to murder someone for ffs – twice!
I hope he appears again in the comic as a serial killer getting his deserved justice – preferably from Sal, Marcie, Amber/Amazi-girl etc.
And then the grownups, when it’s learned he is a serial killer, are all like … “Wow, he was such a good boy, a very good white boy”
“It was affluenza! The money and ease we lavished on him made him unable to make moral choices! So, it isn’t his fault and he should be let off with a wrist-slap!” Frankly, there is nothing better at self-delusion than authority figures trying to excuse themselves for failure.
Mike was right. We have the bad habit of forging white men easily.
forgiving*
No. Forging is both more fun and accurate.
Accurate because we live in a society that builds up this kind of behavior, and tends to look the other way as opposed to ctively forgive, and fun because I imagine a dwarf with a massive hammer going hard on a lump of metal that looks vaguely humans.
The more I think about it, the more I’m really worried about this subtly suicidal edge to Amber’s personality.
So is Sal
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/proud-2/
As I say to my students, “Good fight, good night.”
Choke ’em till they’re out, put ’em down, and resist the temptation to stomp on their heads. The choke is the best, most definitive way to end a fight, and if done properly, it is less risky than beating someone unconscious with the associated brain trauma. It’s not risk-free, but nothing in a fight ever is.
And that is why you avoid violence whenever possible. The right thing to do in this situation is to walk away. I wish Sal had when Amber was obviously spoiling for a throwdown. Were I her teacher, we’d be having a long talk, and doing a LOT of pushups together – her for not walking away, and me for having failed to teach her sufficient restraint.
Speaking as a lawyer, yeah, something unpleasant could come of this if anyone were seriously hurt and/or the school was hot to press the issue, which for insurance reasons, they often are. Not to mention possible civil liability. And I’m not at all surprised that Leland got away with his murderous assault. Rich white boy, ethnic victim? I see it all the time.
Anyone else sincerely hope Sal murdered Leland? Or at the very least broke every bone in his body in irreparable ways?
No, because she’s a good person and doing something like that would destroy her, assuming she was able to survive it on a physical level.
I’m pretty sure if she did that she would have gotten sent to prison
She was like 14, she would’ve gone to juvie.
She’s black. The news would be plastered with the scariest photo of her they could find and they would have dehumanized her with racially charged euphemisms (e.g. thug), and she would’ve been tried as an adult.
I have seen the news refer to black teens as adults on numerous occasions. In one case, covering a fight between a white adult man, aged 20, and a black teenager, who I think was 17 or so, the news called the white guy a boy and the black kid a young man.
Coulda happened. I don’t know the American justice system, and when and how teenagers can be tried as an adult.
It’s really screwed up. The whole “tried as adults” thing is such a horrific idea. Maybe some gray area to avoid huge differences in treatment between cases just barely under the line, but currently it seems to mostly be based on “Is it a serious crime” and “Is the perpetrator unsympathetic”, which mostly means not-white.
I think instead of getting out of juvie on your 18th birthday they should make the maximum punishment for a child a certain percentage of there age. Without the whole getting tried as an adult thing the maximum sanction for a 17 year old would be less than a year, but the maximum punishment for a 7 year old would be 10 years.
@TemperaryObsessor That sounds even worse than the actual system and unfairly targets younger offenders with longer sentences. Like, using the ages you used as an example, a 7 year old is so much more different than a 17 year old with a much more underdeveloped brain and understanding of emotions and empathy. An older teenaged offender should be held to higher responsibility than a younger one simply because their capacity for their actions is much more than a child.
That is the actual system. One of the side effects of our approach is that for those treated as juveniles, any punishment ends at maturity: when you turn 18. Currently, you could keep a 7 year old in juvie until they turned 18, but a 17 year old would also be released at 18, only a year later.
His approach would change that: making the maximum punishment for a child a certain percentage of their age. As you want, older kids would be punished longer for the same crimes.
Mind you, I think the actual point of any juvenile justice system should be reform, not punishment. Any justice system, for that matter, but especially for kids – they need to be helped, not just punished.
“Thug” is a racially-charged word? I’m asking out of curiosity, I’ve never thought about it that way.
At lwast where I live, yes. It disproportionately is applied to PoC.
The news and other media often disproportionately use it for black people too. Reminds me of those guys who called Sal a thug at the rally.
Interesting. I thought they called her a thug because AG started fighting her… a superheroes fight thugs.
That might be why they thought she was a troublemaker (though, of course, the idea that superheroes or police or whoever must always be right and the other must be doing something wrong has been proven…naive at best, especially when they’re confronting people of colour and double especially when they’re confronting a black person) but the word ‘thug’ was almost certainly deliberate by Willis.
For anyone interested, here’s a piece by NPR regarding the racially charged meaning of thug: https://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403362626/the-racially-charged-meaning-behind-the-word-thug
There’s several other pieces like it too if you search for it.
“End it”, but “it” is the cycle of abuse.
“End it” but every time letter is replaced with the entire Bee Movie script.
It all makes sense, and Sal just realized it. That bastard wanted revenge and harmed Marcie, so Sal was desperate to help her friend because she felt she was responsible for the crime of him.
She almost harmed Ethan years ago, but she unknowingly traumatized an already disturbed kid.
We become monsters when we let our abusers influence us to become like them, and those like Amber that are afraid of become abusers can feel the need to end their own lives.
Now I want to punch a nazi and get a beer, even if I don’t drink alcohol and beer tastes like shit. Maybe Joyce has grape juice.
Also, I would punch the parents of that kid for allowing his sociopathy to grow.
So can we all agree that Mike needs to be loosed on Leland?
Aye!
Except he can’t be directed to him, otherwise he may chose to play nice to annoy the person who does the directing. He has to think it’s his idea.
Someone get Leonardo.
What if Leland was directed to Mike? Or what if Amazigirl was directed at Leland? What if Leland was directed into traffic?
Mike might be persuaded to help Sal and Marcie if he gets to be a dick to Leland. He was helpful to Joyce in exchange for getting to be a dick to Joe.
I’m just imagining Sal saying let Mike do whatever he wanted to Leland and we all get to see how foul Mike’s mind can really get.
FINISH HER!
*Sal uses Friendship*
Ouch, yeah. Patterns. Shit.
“We have fought and bested me. Now we are friends.”
“Umm, I…”
“WE ARE FRIENDS!!!!”
I get it, I think. Personal responsibility. For yourself and by extention also fow how what you do affects others.
Amber really needs to learn that, because she *isn’t* her father, she’s Amber, and she needs to try and get better.
Sal, I think, just got what Marcie said to her a while ago. About not wanting to be the ‘collateral damage’.
In short, therapy was invented for a reason.
Holy introspection Sal
Oh, this is good. The red panels make it so that while Amber means one thing, what we the reader hear (and what Sal, I think, hears) is to end the cycle of violence, these consequential events of people making bad choices leading to people making bad choices. Yes, Sal, end it. Let Amber go and either talk it out or walk away. Let it be over.
Well said.
+1
“Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say
What is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in a cage!
And I still believe that I can not be saved”
I find this lyric pretty apt for this strip.
(Its Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet with butterfly wings)
Happy Thanksgiving to the ‘Muricans! o/
This is a great strip.
This strip is how Sally “Give Peace a Chance” Walkerton was born. Ten years from now, she will be a respected social activist. Thirty years from now, she will receive a Nobel Peace Prize. One thousand years from now, people will still follow the wisdom from the Book of Sallandra.
… alternatively, she gets Born Again and becomes Joyce 2.0. That’s possible, too.
… Something else I want to say.
“I have to because…” is a motivation that speaks to a lot of these.
Unreasonably so, (Most in the second) but still.
I have to fight because my friend is in danger.
I have to attack because then they won’t respect me.
I have to rob because I won’t be able to help.
I have to strike because she threatened my friend.
I have to…
But they didn’t.
That’s not quite what happened. Sal attacked Leland after he’d already hurt Marcie the first time and reporting him didn’t work. That was mostly a desire for SOME sort of consequence for that little brat. Which, obviously, ended up biting Marcie in the ass because bullies like Leland don’t generally like consequences.
ditto for Amber – not QUITE an act born from a desire to protect Ethan. Sal had already been stopped and restrained. Some of it was anger at Sal, some bit of protection for Ethan certainly, but for Amber, it was primarily because her father pushed her until she snapped and showed him she could do what he said (violence).
for Amber, not quite, but partly. It was Blaine’s goading, but he was goading her specifically about not protecting Ethan: “Only one other kid who tolerates you and you couldn’t even stand up for him.”
Goddammit, it looks like that went from ‘some of it protection for Ethan certainly’ into ‘some bit of protection for Ethan certainly’.
Damn typos.
i’ve run enough RP games that i understand sometimes you have to bend the characters for the sake of the plot, but sal having more fresh rage than ancient regret over that episode is so far out of her character as i understand it that this whole sequence just feels like shark-jumping. the absurdity in the violence really reinforces this.
Sal does have regret over both the robbery and the fight with Leland (mostly because he ended up hurting Marcie). She’s also angry Amber stabbed her and received no sanction whatsoever, parentally or legally, and then as an adult proceeded to stalk and harass her over petty things, and then when they were making peace fighting Ryan, she still didn’t feel it necessary to tell her she was the one who stabbed her.
There’s plenty of room for both regret and anger at Amber and AG with Sal. And more than enough room for a violent fight between them.
And frankly, since Leland kicked Marcie into a ditch full of concrete and rebar, I’m not shocked he’s also willing to crush a girl’s throat with a rock.
I don’t think she has MORE rage than regret, but this general fight is a moment where it triumphed over regret because of racism being one of things we know truly grinds her gears. Amber was allowed to stab her in the hand and get away with it without consequence – from Sal’s perspective, that was racism, and that likely is part of why Amber was allowed to get away with that completely. From ours, we can see that was Amber having a violent mental breakdown because of her father’s verbal abuse after an event she found traumatic to begin with.
Sal’s feelings of anger are valid and even possible to expect – she didn’t PHYSICALLY hurt anyone and someone else got away with physically hurting her when she was restrained. That wouldn’t have seemed fair to her. And she didn’t have the context of how fragile Amber was at the time or how her father lambasted her for not fighting back. Of course you would still feel really damn angry at someone who has partially messed up your hand to the point you can’t say, play guitar any more if you met them again and thought they completely got away with it. Your hand is still messed up and they didn’t get any consequences for doing it (to your knowledge), while you got punished for threatening another kid but not actually hurting them. A sense of a lack of fairness is aggravating when someone else did something bad and you’re the only one punished.
I mean, race was definitely a factor in why Amber wasn’t arrested for it. I guarantee you this story would be very very different if Amber was black or latina.
Or for that matter if Sal was white. (and assuming somehow she got pushed into the same robbery situation anyway.)
Apparently, at least in capital cases, the biggest factor is the race of the victim, not the defendant, though that obviously matters. I’d be surprised if the same didn’t apply in lesser cases, though I haven’t seen any actual data on it.
Yeeep.
It’s important to note as well that Sal’s anger isn’t only due to the incident from five years ago. It’s more along the lines of “you stabbed me years ago AND you’ve been stalking me and harassing me for weeks now!”, which is definitely something to feel “fresh rage” over.
This too.
Updated the Trivia section of Marcie’s page in Walkypedia.
God bless. I haven’t been there in a while and I’m supposed to be an admin.
Thank you!
Putting aside all the emotions, all the complicated who’s-right-who’s-wrong argument, all the trauma, all the horrible consequences this will have…
Let the record show, for those who have been bickering about it, that Sal definitely won this fight.
Her’s is a phyrric victory. She’ll take no comfort in it.
Fight might not be over yet.
Seriously, y’all, did you learn nothing from both Amber and Sal making that mistake? 😛
I’d really prefer it was if for no other reason than it’s been going for like 6 days now and I just don’t care anymore. 1 4-6 panel page a day is a terrible medium for tense fight scenes.
Party pooper. 😛
I think it’s over. I thought it was over yesterday and I still think I’m right.
I think they both won.
I’m more concerned whether Amber would agree with that assessment. She based her sense of victory on what she thought was a physical victory. i just hope she doesn’t feel worse.
I hope not. Judging by today’s strip, I think at least she’s not itching for another try.
I don’t think she will either. I’m hoping this will end now.
Amber: harder mommy
Sal: what
Amber: what
Luckily, there is no Paris to kill our Achilles.
À-propos of nothing, I just got my kickstarter package for the last DoA run today and am distraught to note that, due to moving to a place with an integrated kitchen, I don’t have a fridge anymore to put my new sweet ass magnets on. Devastation!
I think I’d already assumed from how it was being discussed that leland had f’ed up marcie and was responsible for her lack of speech ability, though others’ comments here lead me to believe it wasn’t clearly indicated in the comics so I guess I had assumed with no clear evidence.
It’s always been a reasonable guess, but this is our first confirmation. Before now, loathsome as Leland is, he had the verdict ‘guilt not proven’.
I thought it was obvious and agreed upn as such, but more and more people were like ‘nah’ after the one with the skateboards
God damn, I chose the right time to catch up
End it. End the cycle of violence.
Happy Thanksgiving!