I want to start this entry talking about timelines, which I believed is a topic I haven’t talked about in detail, and it is not only very important but it is also something that consistently fails in the comic. Establishing a coherent, natural timeline can be one of the hardest things to do, and it is very easy to screw it up, specially if the feelings your readers are getting is different to the idea you have in your head. We’ve seen, throughout Home, many instances where we were told that only a few hours had gone by but the feeling you got was days. The first part of the comic is riddled with this issue due mainly to the author stuffing too many things in the same day instead of spacing things out throughout several days. Kargo going to look for Roamer right after he was released is the first example that comes to mind. It all happened in the span of a few hours, but it felt like it had been several days, and it would have made a lot more sense had it been such. So, in just a few hours, Roamer reunited with his family only to leave again just like that. Had this been done spacing it out between several days, not only it would have looked more natural, but it would have also given the author time to develop the situation. Kargo could have been shown thoughtful, and Roamer could have looked restless and wanting to go out again, to explore the vast land before him as this was supposed to be one of his character traits until it got conveniently forgotten.
Jim Butcher in Dresden Files, specially in the very first books, also suffered from this problem of trying to stuff too many things in the same day. He managed to solve the issue, albeit clumsily, by showing Harry sleep deprived and on the verge of collapsing due to spending several days barely getting any sleep at all. The thing is, just as with Dresden Files, there is no reason to stuff a lot of information in a short span of time in Home. Things can be spaced out easily, and not only would no information be lost, it would also be better because it already feels like a longer time has passed in between scenes. Another similar example of screwed up timeline would be the one in Twilight, where Bella and Edward fall in love in the very first week after they meet, yet it feels like the time that has passed in between is longer.
The reason why this happens is because books are usually written throughout several months and even years, with the norm being somewhere between a year and two, and that much is true for Home. Each page takes several days to be drawn and posted, and by the time a new scene starts several weeks could have gone by, so for the author, that Roamer and Kargo fall in love in just two days, or Bella and Edward in a week, feels ok because it hasn’t been a week, it’s been months. In my experience I’ve learned that, unless it is plot relevant for things to happen through a certain span of time, it is better to go with what feels natural. In Lord of the Rings, for example, we aren’t told all the time how many days Frodo and Sam spent traveling to Mount Doom, but we don’t need it to know it is a long journey.
Keeping track of how many days have gone by can be used as a resource, such as the 2001 serie 24 in which each episode happens within the span of one hour and the season has 24 episodes. The idea behind the serie is to create tension through the use of time, by adding a sense of urgency to the events going on inside the story. I can’t recall if there was such urgency in Dresden Files, but I can say for sure that it is not the case in either Home, nor in Twilight. There is no reason why Kargo couldn’t have gone searching for Roamer in later days, and in the case of Twilight, making the relationship grow slowly would have made it far more realistic. Actually, while tagging the time in 24 was an artistic resource, in Home, with the exceptions where it is necessary, it makes it look sloppy and it seems to be there only so the readers know that the author is moving forward. An example of this would be the nine days jump forward we got a few pages ago, after Kargo and Rogio’s fight.
In this case it is made worse by the fact important things were happening during those nine days, things that it would have been interesting to read about. Do not forget this jump happened right after Kargo’s vicious attack on Rogio. The events right after this would have been interesting, it would have added conflict to the story since everyone saw what happened, and I’m guessing many of the tribe’s members had something to say about it. So, what happened? Was there a meeting? A council? A trial of some sort? What did Vigr say about it? What about Ferah? Roamer? Vandi? Was Kargo allowed to stay with conditions? What was Ronja’s position here? All of those things are interesting, yet they were completely ignored in order to move the story forward because the author is in a rush. What I have observed in my time writing is that, when you rush to get from point A to point B it is because you don’t have a clue of how to continue the story, because you’re bored of writing that story or because you’re following a very strict and constraining guideline and not letting the story develop by itself. We know for sure that the last one is not it, so I’m going with the first two options.
There is nothing wrong with pushing a story forward, but we need to determine whether whatever is happening in between those days might be relevant to the story or not. Stuffing a lot of information in a short time for no reason is bad praxis, but it is equally bad to just skip entire sections of important, interesting or relevant events in order to rush ahead. Naturally, we don’t need to see every tiny thing these dogs do, however, this author shows them painting in a canvas and making out for four panels straight, something that is completely irrelevant, yet fails to deliver Kargo’s trial, which would have brought a lot of conflict and it would have created some interesting dynamics. The result of ignoring the effects Kargo’s attack should have had on the tribe is that we’re basically reading My Little Pony with dogs; they’re all friendy-friends, they all love each other and are a super merry-go-happy community. Considering Ronja was talking about how shitty Aedra is in the previous page we analyzed, it baffles me how epically this author fails at showing it.
Passage of time in a story doesn’t necessarily need to be told to the reader through tags or lame introductions in a new episode, or after a scene change. It can be done, but more often than not it feels cheap and lazy. One can use an endless array of elements to convey passage of time without having to use time tags. In Harry Potter, for example, Christmas is used to give us an idea of where in time they are without needing to tell us that it had been three months since Harry arrived at Hogwarts. In The Lion King you have the fantastic scene with the silhouettes to show Simba growing from a cub to an adult lion. Weather patterns are a very common and easy to use resource, and in my werewolf stories I often use moon phases for obvious reasons. Yes, I’m a traditionalist and I force my werewolves to change during full moons because playing with weaknesses is always fun, and yes, I’m looking at you Meyer and your vampires made out of adamantium which can come out during the day.
Another way to convey passage of time which is also a valid strategy is to have a character make some mention of it. However, you have to be very careful with this, since it’s very easy to fall into infodumping areas. The mention needs to be relevant to the conversation. For example, if a character is practicing to become a mage and they see no advancement, they might frustratingly say that they’ve been practicing for weeks and yet they haven’t managed to light a single flame. That is well done, specially since it might not be interesting to read about a character consistently failing at a test and getting frustrated for pages and pages and pages. What is not well done is Roamer mentioning that he arrived to Aedra three months ago only to continue talking about something completely unrelated to that event, as was his anger.
There are plenty of strategies to work with time, and I’ve only mentioned a few of them. As you can see, it is complex and special care needs to be put there if we want to keep the story as consistent as possible. Since it is usually not the main focus, it is very easy to overlook it, but just as easy it is to overdo it in order to keep your readers informed, which can collide with the feeling they were getting. In my opinion, unless it is plot relevant, it’s better to just go with what flows naturally and, at most, keep a personal guide so you yourself know how it is flowing and can work with it. Don’t try to add more info than necessary and use as many elements as you can in order to efficiently deliver the passage of time. The best way to master this is to read a lot to see how others do it, to accept criticism from your readers, and to practice, practice, practice. There really is no secret to handling the art of writing, it’s all about research and a lot of practice, which is basically how you master any skill. Just as with any skill, there are those who are better at it than others, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it with enough dedication. Do not forget the fable about the turtle and the hare racing. The hare was talented but lost because she was arrogant and lazy, and the turtle won the race because she was constant and determined. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hare or a turtle, only practice and work will determine if you reach the finishing line or not.
You might be wondering why I’m talking about timelines in storytelling precisely now, right? The reason is very simple; the new page opens with an image of the blue sky and several reddish leaves flying by, along with a time tag that informs us that two months have already gone by. The following panel shows a forest area where reddish leaves are falling from the trees’ branches onto a clear stream. It’s a beautiful panel, although the stream looks artificial due to the rocks at each side. There are many problems with this, and the first I’m going to be talking about is that this is the third page from the new chapter, which implies that only two pages after starting the chapter we’ve had a jump forward in time. It feels sloppy. Couldn’t the author have started the chapter in this page? It wouldn’t have felt as if the chapter was suddenly interrupted, because that’s exactly how it feels right now.
The main issue here, however, is where the story left off 2 months ago, and that is precisely the reason why I wanted to start this entry by talking a bit about timelines in stories. Two months ago the tribe had been rebuilding the wall, which had collapsed after Ranach set it on fire. As I mentioned, having the wall down for many days would imply ghouls would start pouring in, putting the dogs in danger and possibly rendering the crater useless, thus forcing them to consider relocating into safer areas or take some additional measures to survive. It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to see the potential in tension and conflict this idea has. How did the author decide to solve it? Why, by completely ignoring it, of course!
There is more to the Meteor line, a lot more, that has gotten completely ignored for absolutely no reason other than the author didn’t know what to say, or couldn’t be bothered, and I know he’ll just stuff some half assed explanation to cover up plotholes because that’s what he always does. I’m talking specifically about Rogio and the reasons why Ávanti decided to go after him, because there has to be a reason. I don’t think she broke Ranach’s control over her simply because she didn’t like Rogio’s face, although maybe she’s reading this comic and just wanted to tear him to shreds, in which case it’s a damn good explanation. Jokes aside, something really weird happened and, again, the author ignored it completely. I don’t care if he’s going to explain it later in the story, that’s still sloppy writing. Even if he didn’t want to give us a full explanation, it was a good moment to foreshadow, and he missed it completely. Again, for a change.
Something else that was a problem two months ago was the fact that, due to the siege, they were running out of food and had been forced to rationing. We never saw them rationing, because apparently showing is not how you do storytelling in the XXI century, but we were consistently told of how serious the situation was. The reason to this was that they couldn’t move the herd to the summer pastures, which meant that they would eat everything and, by winter, they would starve to death, and the dogs with them. By logic, with Fuss gone leaving only Vigr as their other shepherd, the situation should have been more dire, but no mention of the novas was given after his death. So, what happened with the novas after the wall fell? They only have one shepherd, and they needed everyone to be able to raise the wall as soon as possible, in order to keep the ghouls out so, what happened to the herd? What about their food needs? With Ranach gone surely they could have gone out to hunt, and yes, we don’t need a detailed explanation about this, but starving was something that was affecting them so it should have gotten some sort of resolution. Just as it happened with the Asmundr Pack, and just as it happens with pretty much everything, the author used it to add some tension, and failed at it, and when it stopped suiting his needs he simply forgot about it. Someone will mention it in a comment somewhere, and then he’ll patch up the plothole by adding some half assed explanation, which is exactly what he does every single time.
Some of you might be willing to point out that there is also Javo, who is tagged as a shepherd in the Home wiki at the Meteor Tribe page. However that is another of the changes the author does which are not reflected in the story at all. Javo was not a shepherd, he was a herbalist. Not only that but there is actually mention of him needing to go out to gather herbs in the comic, and to make matters even worse his face painting is still that of a herbalist. That Javo has suddenly been turned into a shepherd is a recent change that is not explained in the story. I do not have any problem with characters changing roles, but this has to appear in the story or it will make your readers very confused and with good reason. To make matters worse, it doesn’t make much of a sense that Javo would suddenly become a shepherd for two reasons. The first one is that he’s the only experienced herbalist, since Vandi is far too inexperienced to be effective until she gathers more knowledge, and that’s kind of important because the wrong herb, the wrong part of one or the wrong dose could kill a person. The second reason is that his job as herbalist has nothing to do with tending cattle, which would mean that the tribe just removed a skilled, experienced herbalist to turn him into an inexperienced shepherd. That’s like removing your expert database architect to place them into the graphic designing team, you weaken the database development team and also the graphic designing team. Not the smartest choice, is it? Of course, the author will have some very elaborate explanation to justify this idiotic change.
Something else that we missed with this jump ahead is information about Ferah’s whereabouts and what she’s been doing ever since she left. Where is Ferah? We don’t know, but we can safely assume we will get some recap in the future to tell us, instead of show us, what happened in the past two months with her. The same can be said about Jahla. Last we saw she had managed to make contact with a tribe, and we’re going to get a jump ahead to show her being a successful ambassador although, considering how boring her plotline has become, I really can’t complain about it. Ranach, well, I guess he might be plotting somewhere because he’s going to become more annoying than Artemis Entreri. Keirr and Rhovanion were not doing anything interesting at all, so moving ahead is not a big loss. To be fair, out of all the plotlines going on at the moment, the one most affected is the Meteor Tribe’s one since, as I mentioned, they were in a very serious situation by the end of the previous chapter, and it completely got ignored because the author couldn’t be bothered to work on it. Why is he running so much anyways? This story is not going anywhere, so you might just sit back and enjoy the ride while you’re at it. Use it to practice on things to improve, not to go back to your amateurish practices from Asmundr because you insist on writing on the fly and don’t have a clue of what to do with this mess anymore.
Lets continue because this monstrosity of a page is far from over. Inna approaches a group of dogs that consists mainly of Roamer, Fremja and Vigr and asks them if today is the big day. Roamer answers that it is and Fremja wonders where the little cuties are. What in Oblivion is this? Have these dogs become lions all of a sudden, or what? Because we didn’t see anything like this with Akleja. Why is everyone waiting outside to see the pups? Haven’t they seen them already? Akleja was part of the pack ever since the beginning, and while we didn’t really see her interacting with other pack members because this comic is a mess, we did see her painting under the supervision of Ronja, Vandi and the two boring lovebirds, so being outside was nothing so special or interesting that the rest of the group needed to make an event out of it. I don’t even know what’s going on here, but it seems as if they were about to be introduced to the pack for the first time, which is stupid considering pups at one month of age start exploring outside their den. They should already be familiar with their surroundings.
“The vermin, you mean?”
That is Vigr, and I don’t even know what to say. It might be a cultural thing, but calling people vermin is not a very nice thing in my country, even if it’s done jesting. Also, it would be nice if we actually had some context about why Vigr is calling the pups vermin, considering we never saw him talk about Akleja in such ways. Actually, he never said anything about Akleja, like, at all. These are the kind of things we’re missing due to the jump ahead. There might be a really good explanation about it, but since it is never shown in the comic it simply makes Vigr look like an asshole.
What I do like is the fact that he’s interacting in a friendly way with the females. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of problems with this. Vigr was one of the dissenting voices against Ronja, and the character development has been very poor to justify this change, being limited to him favoring Ronja only because she said his plan was good, not because he had learned she was a competent leader and had gained his respect. As I mentioned long ago, in those earlier pages, the conflict that should have arisen due to Ronja being a leader was limited to Ulfr saying that he would kill her and regain control of the tribe, and you guys know how quickly that was dealt with. I don’t mind Vigr being nice to the females, but I would have liked to see more character development to justify this change in attitude, because that, my friends, is the goal to achieve when a character grows. There were plenty of opportunities to do this, if only this author didn’t focus on a couple or three characters at a time. Hey, maybe during Ranach’s pursuit, Fremja saved him from a tight spot and she gained his respect, to cite one example of what could have been done to show this change.
Lets continue. The following panels show Ronja with her two months old daughters. We see her placing a collar around one of the pups, which is basically reduced to showing the pup with the collar on, and Ronja’s mouth conveniently hidden from sight while she tells her that it is on. I dare the author to try this with his dog, to get a collar and try to attach it with only his mouth, and I want a video of the full process which should cover up everything, from picking it up to placing it around the neck to, finally, attaching it. I’m not even asking him to create a collar only with his mouth, only to place it around the dog’s neck. I would also want to know why these dogs are wearing collars because, so far, the only one we’ve seen doing so is Ronja. We know Ronja got hers from her adoptive father, Johan. Why Johan made a collar for her, considering the Asmundr pack don’t wear them either, is beyond me. Why she’s making her daughters wear them, considering none of the Meteor do, is also beyond me.
Now that they’re all set, Ronja asks them if they’re ready to explore the rest of the territory, to which one of the pups says yes, the other wants to know if they can go now, and Naeva looks like a timid, frightened thing. So they’re making all this fuss because the pups are going for a walk? Is Ronja going to give them the Lion King’s walk and tell them about the circle of life? What about the rest of the dogs, are they going to join them and act as their bodyguards? Don’t these people have something more important to do, like, keep a look out for hostile dogs and fill up their reserves to face the upcoming winter? Why is it such an event that the pups are going out for a walk? Simba, who was going to be the future king of the pride, was taken for a walk by his father and the rest of the lionesses didn’t even wake up. They couldn’t care less, and why should they? This is not important. Also, Mufasa took Simba out to teach his son, the future king, about his responsibilities, which is not the case here.
This is such a typical Mary Sue thing. The little pups are treated like little princesses who are going out to bless their loving subjects with their presence, and since they’re so special and unique snowflakes, nobody has anything else to do, they can just waste time accompanying the little princesses in their walk. If the tribe starves, chores remain undone or Ranach attacks again, who gives a guar’s arse? That’s not important. What is important is seeing the three princesses of Snowflakedom. This is exactly like Bella in Twilight, everyone wanted to meet her, everyone made a fuss about her, everyone wanted to be her friend and all the guys wanted to date her. It got to such ridiculous extent that we had to endure that horrible love triangle between the abusive vampire and the abusive werewolf. Because a single Mary Sue wasn’t enough, by the fourth book we got a Mary Sue and a Specie Sue, because why do one when you can combo two bad tropes at once? Renesmee, or however you write that monstrosity, was such a Sue that even her name was unique, which is no different to naming your pups Summer Story, Evening Wind and Reaching For Hope in a world where people are named Vigr, Inna, Fremja or Bacheo. By the Nine, at least Lifa named the pups nord sounding names.
“In a moment, just let me have a look at you all.”
The author uses this sentence to give us a panel where the thee pups are present, just so we can appreciate in detail what they look like. So, we’ve gotten a german shorthaired pointer, an american staffordshire terrier and a brittany, cool. I quiet like the brittany design, it is balanced with a good color pattern. The german shorthaired is fine too, with the exception of those dalmatian spots on the ear, but ok, I can do with that. What I don’t like is the staffordshire’s design, since it’s one of those cluttered, too many things are going on, designs. At first it is a balanced design, reddish with white markings, and then the author has added those white lines on the shoulders, Ronja’s pink nose line, and the worst part of all, white spots inside the ear. Why? I don’t even know.
Another reason why I don’t like how it is done is because it is such a cheap way to do it. It reminds me of the typical, amateurish trick of using a mirror to describe a character’s appearance, which doesn’t even make sense in first person pov books. Everything, this whole page, is a huge amateur trick to show us the already grown up pups. The problem is there is no reason why this couldn’t have been done in a more natural way, showing the pups frolicking about with Ava desperately going after them, trying to keep them together, while the rest of the tribe go about doing their chores. It would have looked far less sueish, and it would have served to show us what the tribe was up to while, at the same time, introducing the pups. As it is right now, all the attention is focused on the pups, and truth is they’re far from the most important thing in the tribe.
The reddish pup asks Ronja if they can go already, and she says, chuckling, that yep, they can go. The following panel is another of those annoying close ups where we get to see incredibly static pups running outside. To give you an idea, we see the brittany ahead, then the staffordshire, and finally the shorthaired, of which we only see the head and a tiny part of the chest. In none of the dogs do we see the paws stepping on the ground for no other reason than this author abusing tiny, tiny, tiny panels. I confess this has been pissing me off more and more as of late, mainly because it shows that the author is refusing to experiment with different ways of doing things and is, instead, doing the same boring thing over and over again. There is no reason to show a closeup of the pups and, to be fair, it hinders the effect of them going out. The movement lines, which are usually scarce, fail completely if the character looks as static as a statue. Actually, we see a pair of movement lines on the staffordshire, which seems to be already stepping on the ground, and a few faint ones on the brittany’s hind paws which make them seem as if they were vibrating instead of moving forward.
The next thing we see if Akleja howling at them, and the staffordshire moving towards her. Then we get to see the younger pups playing with her, who I’m guessing is three or four months already, and honestly, this is all very boring. It’s just the pups playing outside, which is as exciting as watching children playing in your local park. Where is everyone who was waiting there like a sort of royal guard to meet the precious jewels? I don’t know. It seems like they were there only as an introductory filler before showing the puppies, creating in the reader that expectation. I would like to say that all this did for readers is make them groan, which is what it did for me, but unfortunately, the usual fanbase of this thing does get excited about pups as they would about seeing a toddler grow in a Sims 2 game, so the author clearly knew here what his fans wanted to read. Still, for any normal reader this is pointless and boring, and it doesn’t make any sense to show the whole tribe waiting for the pups to walk out only to forget about them the very next page.
This whole part has me very confused. Showing the dogs standing in front of the royal tent, waiting to see the puppies go out and talking about it being the big day, it seems to imply that the pups were hidden inside the den, not being allowed to be seen by anyone, for the past two months. I had a feeling they were going to be introduced to the tribe as if these dogs were lions. The thing is, in dog packs the puppies are not cared for by the rest of the group, which is something that happens in wolf packs, but these dogs function as neither, they’re furry humans. Alva was a caretaker, although I think her role recently got changed in the wiki, something that is irrelevant because we haven’t seen her taking care of any pup, nor being present in the comic other than to be a background figure. Still, this means they understand and use the concept of having a person taking care of the kids while the parents are busy doing something else. Keeping the pups hidden in the den for two months does not make sense from that perspective. Also, we’ve seen Akleja interacting with the pack while being very young, and that makes sense as dog pups start exploring as old as one month old, so that’s another reason why it doesn’t make sense.
In the end, I think this was just a convoluted way to show the puppies with their final design, something that could and should have been done without turning them into special snowflakes and the event of the Oblivion be damned century. For example, do you remember how Nala was introduced in The Lion King? She was being licked clean by her mother when Simba approached her and asked her if she wanted to go out to play. There was no parade with ostriches to show her royal highness princess Nala, we met her in a very normal situation, which is no different to a kid having breakfast and a friend coming to ask their mom if they could come out. We could have seen Akleja approaching the tent and asking Ronja if the girls could come out to play, and it would not only have taken less unnecessary panels, but it also would have felt more natural instead of all this pomp as if the dogs were expecting the arrival of their empress or something. Why all the fuss when, in the end, it’s just them playing with a friend? This is the very same thing children all over the world do all the time. It is not special, it’s not exciting, it’s not a big day, why pretend it is?
Another thing that bothers me, and which is a clear evidence of the author tossing in whatever comes into his head without bothering to think about it other than how the syllables go together, is Ronja telling the pups that they’re going to explore the rest of the territory. Just like the dog parade, this is another element that was mentioned in the previous page and was immediately forgotten. Lets be honest, it wasn’t going anywhere and that’s the reason why the author didn’t go through with it, and it is perfectly fine. However, if that was the case, why mention it at all? Why create such a plothole in two consequent pages because of lazy, unthinking and sloppy writing? I know starting a chapter can be a hard thing if you’re not too sure of what you want to talk about, which is what happens when you’re making the story up as you write, but if that’s the case, take your time to sit down for a moment to think about it. Don’t just toss whatever comes to your head and then decide; “yeah, nope, I don’t feel like doing this so I’ll just ignore it”.
Lets move on because I don’t feel like spending more time with the pups. They’re boring and they’re going to add nothing to the story, and I’ve still got another page to write about. The last two panels show Roamer approaching the tent he shares with Rogio. Once inside he asks him where was he that morning, as he wasn’t in bed when he woke up. Rogio looks expressionless. No, really, he has such a vapid, empty expression I don’t even know what he’s supposed to be feeling or thinking right now. What is of note is that his face paint is different, meaning he’s not a baron any more. The paint is artisan, something you can only know if you check the wiki because, while the different markings depending on rank is interesting, the comic does not expand on it enough to let you guess at first glance. This is equivalent to showing the badges from the different houses in Harry Potter and needing a guide to understand what they mean. This is not good writing.
Roamer notices the face painting and wants to know why Rogio is using artisan markings, and artisan is capitalized which is like capitalizing Baker or Taxi Driver. You do not capitalize jobs. Rogio, who now looks pissed off, tells Roamer that he has stepped down, and Roamer, also looking pissed off, wants to know why. Rogio then tells him that why be a Baron if he can’t do anything, and yes, Baron is capitalized because it is a title, not a job. To be honest, I don’t even know what Rogio is talking about. This seems like drama for the sake of drama, I have no clue of what’s going on or why Rogio is acting this way. This is part of the reason why you do not rush over important things, why you do not do time skips when important things are going on. This feels completely out of the blue instead of it being a carefully developed process, and author, these are the things your readers told you to develop back in Asmundr when Finn died and you skipped straight to pissed off Niita. I see you’re still doing the same mistakes, only this story is like ten time more boring and with ten times more mistakes and problems.
“Can’t do anything? You saved Vandi and Akleja, you broke Ávanti’s curse. And that was after you had looked her in the eye and accepted your death!”
This conversation, naturally, happened off screen when it shouldn’t have. I want to read this conversation, I want to see the characters speculating about Ávanti, trying to guess what she was and wondering what had happened to her. This is interesting information that was brushed aside, and I’m guessing it was because the author threw in another underdeveloped element he thought it was cool, but it ultimately bit him in the ass when he realized he himself knew nothing about it. So why try to construct an interesting lore and build the world around those creatures? Lets just ignore them and treat these dogs as the dumbest, least curious creatures in the whole universe. I’ve seen single celled organisms that had more curiosity than these morons, who seem to have just enough brain capacity to get through the day.
“But it wasn’t enough.”
What are you talking about? What is going on? Is it because of Kargo’s death? Is it because Ranach managed to escape? Is he finally thinking about Fuss and Jonna and how his cowardice caused their death? I’m getting a feeling this guy is either reading the comments in my blog, because my faithful reader Professor Coyote mentioned as much, or maybe he’s reading this blog, or maybe he’s watched Vallany’s video criticsm which, if you haven’t seen it, you should because it’s very good. The thing is, this is coming completely out of the blue and it’s so underdeveloped it feels like he’s trying to do another of his slaps on the mouth to his critics. Dude, if you’re actually reading this, you’re getting it completely wrong. Tossing Emo-Rogio out of the blue, without previously developing it, is still a plothole. Doing it in order to cover up plotholes does not work.
This is exactly the same thing we had with Kargo. The fact that Kargo showed that he was afraid of himself and how he lost his temper and became a murderous, bloodthirsty machine, albeit in his very selfish me-me-me-me way, is ok. It shows character growth, and I’m honestly being very generous because of the issues we already talked about. Still, lets play with the idea that Kargo did show true regret and true character growth, for simplicity’s sake. These are the kind of things that should be shown in a story, characters developing, learning and growing. That is fine. The problem is when it comes at an uncalled moment with zero development behind, and that is exactly what is happening here. The only time Kargo ever showed something resembling regret was when Roamer followed him into the forest. There was zero buildup to that point, it was abruptly tossed into the story and pushed aside just as easily. Up until that point, Kargo had been praised for his battle prowess, he never showed any evidence of thinking he had a problem, and even after he murdered the merchants, he was all excuses about how he was justified in doing what he did, instead of doing what any normal person would under such a pressure, which is fall apart and accept that they have a problem.
Rogio is an awful character with the emotional depth of a turnip, and showing him regretful out of a sudden raises more eyebrows than it answers questions, because we have not seen him regret anything ever before, not even when he saw Kargo laying dead on a pyre. We saw him walking around the destruction site as if he didn’t give a crap about what had happened, and he sat next to Roamer and became a passive, background figure. Rogio is not hermetic, he’s just a bland, one dimensional dildo whose few proactive actions throughout the story are nothing but horrifying. He’s not a good character, he’s a monster and you can only change that if you go back and edit the whole Oblivion be damned thing! You chose to write this on the fly, putting no thought at all behind what you were writing. You chose to ignore us when we told you to slow down, to think, to plan ahead, to write a full script before you continued posting pages. We didn’t tell you all that out of any spite you fucking victim, we were trying to help you, because, believe it or not, we’re writers too, we’ve been there. You chose to treat us like we were your enemies, like we wanted to do you wrong when that was never the intention. I told you, remember? I told you that your praisers were not helping you, that they would hinder you, that you needed to listen and to accept constructive criticism, and you refused to listen. You got yourself into this mess. Deal with it.
“Ronja titled you Baron because the tribe trusts you.”
I don’t know why the tribe trusted Rogio, to be honest. I mentioned this already, but if you remember what I said, his actions to save Kargo and Ferah, both hated criminals to the eyes of the Meteor dogs, caused the death of many and the fall of their leader. Rogio betrayed the tribe, yet, when he returned, the dogs acted as if he was a friend they thought lost in a shipwreck. To be honest, I don’t know whether this author is so averse to conflict he needs to brush over it and solve it as quickly as possible, or if he doesn’t even realize the implications of the things he writes. I think it’s a bit of both, but mainly the second. The characters do not act in rational, believable ways. They seem to function by what the plot needs at any given time, which is the reason Kargo was never kicked out of the tribe even when Vigr was very much against him being there. That’s why interesting consequences never happen, because the characters react based on what the author considers the plot needs at any given time. Jahla is supposed to be family oriented, but if it’s convenient for her to forget about her family in order to become an ambassador, that’s what she will do. Roamer is supposed to be adventurous, but if the plot needs him to settle down in the Meteor Tribe and forget that he likes exploring, that’s what he will do. To be fair, Roamer hasn’t been adventurous in the whole comic, he’s just been stupid.
Rogio responds that maybe they shouldn’t trust him, and yes, they shouldn’t, considering his past and present behavior. Roamer, very pissed off, wants to know what’s that supposed to mean, and Rogio lowers his head and, walking past him, tells him that it’s nothing, and that he has to go. Roamer demands that he talk to him, but Rogio just walks out refusing to say another word, leaving Roamer angry inside their hut. Again, the buildup to this point was zero, brushed over by a time skip of two months and leaving the reader wondering where in Oblivion that came from.
This is also something that’s pissing me off a lot about this comic, and it’s a very common, amateurish mistake. Characters often react in childish ways when facing conflict, refusing to talk about it. While this can be done, as there is nothing inherently wrong with a character being childish and immature, the problem is that it is normally used as a tactic to extend the conflict into more pages and to keep a mystery going. Roamer doesn’t know what’s wrong with Rogio, and neither do we, and the problem is that there is no reason to keep this information from your readers as greater impact can be achieved if we know what the conflict is about. I want to believe that this is going to be about the deaths he indirectly caused by him being a coward, that he’s going to say how he could have stopped Ranach but didn’t because he was too scared to face him. However, it likely is going to be something else, another of the author’s ass pullings he’s so proficient with because he seems to struggle very seriously with tying things together. Still, why couldn’t Rogio have delivered it already, instead of talking around the topic using vague words?
I’d be willing to accept that Rogio is just that hermetic if other characters didn’t do this all the Oblivion be damned time, but the problem is this is not an issue with Rogio, it’s an issue with the comic. Every single character in this comic has an enormous communication problem. Keirr is hurting about Zilas, but refuses to talk to Aira and treats her like trash, because the only emotion these characters ever show is anger. Axi doesn’t talk to Rhovanion, nor Viscountess Laminah, and all she does in response is get pissed off and treat Rhov like trash. Kargo refuses to talk about his problems and treats everyone like trash, taking his pain off on Rogio by beating the crap out of him and murdering two innocent merchants who had to endure his awful manners. Ferah is hurt about leaving the tribe, she takes it off on Kargo, although in that case she was more than justified to be angry. Do you see the pattern? I am sad, I get angry. I am confused, I get angry. I am worried, I get angry, I am scared, I get angry. These characters never talk about their problems with those closest to them, and the only way they know how to respond is by being angry. This is not a normal, healthy behavior, this requires treatment.
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