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Well, now we know why Ravener Behr was trying to beat Typh to death earlier in the storyline. It wasn’t the beating he gave his own mother, it was the fact that he was “un-natural.” This is a very, very dark point in Typh’s history, small wonder Tiff did not take Peonie’s statements well.
@PShark: “… sort of make the whole transformation less…less. Ya know?” The word you are looking for is “sense”. Sadly, this arc tries to justify a total mismatch of character traits by thinking a flimsy label “loves men” will be all it takes. Peonie suggested that Tiffany maybe changed less than everybody thought, but what we see here rather means that she changed more.
This just does not make sense within the story and the characters and does no justice to the detail with which the character psychologies, playful as they were, were done up to now.
Now, had Typh’s Dad somehow not killed the farm boy, and we add 2 + 2…. Am I the only who is suspicious that Typh and Niels had met much earlier in this story…? Just my WMG, but still….
@Fairportfan: ahh, yes the Cerebus Syndrome trope. It Does apply very well to Exiern (So well I think someone should add it as an example) but don’t forget that there has been a writer change and Chemiclord’s style does appear to be much more serious with spaced gags as opposed to Drowemos’ gag-a-day style that was used pretty much up to the point that Tiff Killed the female spellsinger.
Even though we’ve been seeing elements of this going serious since then with Tiff and Denver’s kiss and Neil’s backstory, etc, I would still say this is very much a “Gut Punch” trope. Certainly there is going to be some heavy backlash and turbulence for the readership but I’d dare to say that this is the hump in the road and once we’re past it and two dozen pages down the track, it’ll be much smoother sailing.
C’mon. Ravvie was fighting barbaric opposition to his plan for establishing a northern monarchy, and here his own sons were undermining his hopes to continue the royal bloodline, first Melan-Knee with the farm animals, and now this.
Wow, I don’t know what to say. Wasn’t expecting this. Rape is odious irrespective of the gender of the perpetrator or the victim. I agree that this is a case of Cerebus Syndrome, but you may want to keep in mind that something dark about Tiff’s past was always hinted at throughout the comic.
@PShark No it makes sense and is a Strange Justice.
Typh become what He hated most. And Like I said before he was never attracted to women. Yet everyone was shocked that he had issues. Including he thought it was Normal to Rape Women. @David Drowemos always shied away from explaining it but this was always there its ot a NEW Thing I know bc I got Flamed when ever I brought it up years ago.
Typh Was never a Fan of the Ladies Ever.
There many reasons some one can be Gay (i am not making light of it, there are many reasons and nothing wrong with those that are gay)
But one Known and Proven Reason Is a Overpowering Misogynist father that Instill a Fanatic Hate of women so Deep it affects the orientation of the male child. I think Ravener Behr Qualifies as a Overpowering Misogynist.
I have been reading this comic for years… I may end up dropping it. I really hate this storyline. I feel it is EXTREMELY distasteful and destroys a webcomic that I have grown to love
@Fenix: All I can say is that I’m sorry it isn’t to your liking. I’m not a gag-a-day type writer (and would frankly be terrible at trying). You’re free to continue not liking it, and I’m free to continue telling stories the way I want to tell them.
Nobody said anything about it needing to be a “gag-a-day” comic. I like the serious tone of Exiern and the style of writing doesn’t bother me.
However, rape is not a joke, nor is it anything to be handled lightly. Has it been addressed in this comic before? Yes, however I felt it was used as a quick explanation to let the readers know what had happened, and then moved on. This seems very different and is frankly offensive.
I do not think I’ve handled it lightly at all. It’s a severe, messy crime. Tiffany only now is starting to face what she has done. Her past is something that is only starting to be resolved within herself, much less how the world around her will accept it (or not).
This is page 2 of an internal struggle two years in the making, and won’t resolve itself entirely until the last page I script.
I don’t really see the big deal, yes rape sucks and is quite dark.
but
SHE WAS IN A FREAKING BARBARIAN RAIDING PARTY!
how do they describe the typical barbarian raid? I believe it’s something like “RAPE, pillage and murder.”
I also think they truly made an effort to de-emphasize the rape and focus more on the gay part of the whole equation.
One thing that is interesting to think about is if the gender-swap spell changed Tiffany’s DNA so that she is biologically straight, or if her sexual orientation carried over. Would Tiffany be a lesbian had she been a heterosexual male?
Well, rape and sexual assault crimes are VERY sensitive topics. It’s a harsh brutality that is just as devastating as straight up murder, but can leave the victim alive and scar them permanently.
On top of that, there is a not the least bit subtle element of human society and culture that tends to take this crime FAR too lightly. So when a creator proceeds into this minefield, everyone cringes, because it is VERY easy to misstep and blow everything to hell.
I feel i should point out that just because Typhan-knee didn’t get it up while trying to rape women doens’t mean there is not any potential for NORMAL sexual interest in women…and just because he did try to rape a male doens’t mean his normal sexual interest is exclusively in males. Does anything about the raiding party mentality strike you as “normal” social behavior after all? and that’s exluding the bag-of-snakes that is his family situation. Plenty of abberant behavior and mental glitching to go around i think. (and no, that’s not the same thing as saying normal homosexual attraction is abberant, so don’t go there) Typhan-knee/tiffany is just now starting to realize just how screwed up his/her life and mindset was..there’s a lot of untangling left to do even before dealing with the spell. Also…has she/he shown any sexual/romantic interest in males OTHER than Denver at this point? there’s a whole spectrum of sexuality out there…pretty much all we can confirm at this point is that the barbarian isn’t all the way at the hetero pole.
@David @Jonathan Wint – It’s not that this doesn’t make sense, because it does with the way everything has played out up to now. It’s just..I think part of the fun of the transformation was that it wasn’t just physical. That it came with emotional and psychological adjustments. We saw it with several “lords that was girly” moments earlier in the strip. I thought it was a fun idea to explore the struggle and potential comedic foibles of a previously heterosexual male now struggling with new feelings towards men as a result of the change. While the revelation of Typh’s past here makes a sort of sense, it kind of shoots down that angle that I think I and a lot of people were looking forward to seeing tackled.
@ David
Agreed completely. This changes the entire story line up to this point and not in a good way. It isn’t just that Tiff went from being Good to being a villain on a par with the wizard who cast the spell, Faden was it? It’s a complete cop-out, taking the easy way to resolve the situation.
I’ll give it to the end of this storyline, to see if there is something going on here that will redeem the series. Baring that, I’m outta here.
@DocSavage way back when Tiff admitted to the Princess that as a man she had been a Villain. Princess even said “oh well maybe you did deserve the curse”
@Jonathan. Maybe not a villain, but certainly obliviously evil at best. Given his upbringing and his tribe’s “culture,” it’s a miracle he wasn’t actually WORSE! (like those three thugs who ordered and carried out the “great foreigner purge.”)
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Well,thank the Dream for a!!!!!!s
hmmmm
Rape a woman, and he’d praise you.
Rape a man and he hates you.
Double standards for an equally horrible crime…
Somebody better pick up that phone….
Because I f!!!!!g called it.
……..
I’m not proud.
I can’t put my finger on it, but this angle sort of make the whole transformation less…less. Ya know?
Gotta say that this is one of the more severe and depressign cases of Cerebus Syndrome i’ve ever seen.
I’ll be hanging on for at least a while longer, but this is NOT the way i really want to see Exiern go.
Well, now we know why Ravener Behr was trying to beat Typh to death earlier in the storyline. It wasn’t the beating he gave his own mother, it was the fact that he was “un-natural.” This is a very, very dark point in Typh’s history, small wonder Tiff did not take Peonie’s statements well.
Now things are getting interesting.
@PShark: “… sort of make the whole transformation less…less. Ya know?” The word you are looking for is “sense”. Sadly, this arc tries to justify a total mismatch of character traits by thinking a flimsy label “loves men” will be all it takes. Peonie suggested that Tiffany maybe changed less than everybody thought, but what we see here rather means that she changed more.
This just does not make sense within the story and the characters and does no justice to the detail with which the character psychologies, playful as they were, were done up to now.
Guys, compare the farm boy in this comic:
http://www.exiern.com/2013/11/28/flashback-1/
http://www.exiern.com/2013/12/03/flashback-2/
with Niels here:
http://www.exiern.com/2012/08/09/wilsoning/
Now, take a very good look at Neils’ hairdo and the farm boy’s. Also remember that Niels once told Peonie about his ‘scar’ that he prefers nobody see it:
http://www.exiern.com/2013/10/31/not-always-about-your-nudity/
Now, had Typh’s Dad somehow not killed the farm boy, and we add 2 + 2…. Am I the only who is suspicious that Typh and Niels had met much earlier in this story…? Just my WMG, but still….
“Son, I am full of disappoint” *lol*
@Fairportfan: ahh, yes the Cerebus Syndrome trope. It Does apply very well to Exiern (So well I think someone should add it as an example) but don’t forget that there has been a writer change and Chemiclord’s style does appear to be much more serious with spaced gags as opposed to Drowemos’ gag-a-day style that was used pretty much up to the point that Tiff Killed the female spellsinger.
Even though we’ve been seeing elements of this going serious since then with Tiff and Denver’s kiss and Neil’s backstory, etc, I would still say this is very much a “Gut Punch” trope. Certainly there is going to be some heavy backlash and turbulence for the readership but I’d dare to say that this is the hump in the road and once we’re past it and two dozen pages down the track, it’ll be much smoother sailing.
Good luck Exiern.
C’mon. Ravvie was fighting barbaric opposition to his plan for establishing a northern monarchy, and here his own sons were undermining his hopes to continue the royal bloodline, first Melan-Knee with the farm animals, and now this.
Wow, I don’t know what to say. Wasn’t expecting this. Rape is odious irrespective of the gender of the perpetrator or the victim. I agree that this is a case of Cerebus Syndrome, but you may want to keep in mind that something dark about Tiff’s past was always hinted at throughout the comic.
@PShark No it makes sense and is a Strange Justice.
Typh become what He hated most. And Like I said before he was never attracted to women. Yet everyone was shocked that he had issues. Including he thought it was Normal to Rape Women. @David Drowemos always shied away from explaining it but this was always there its ot a NEW Thing I know bc I got Flamed when ever I brought it up years ago.
Typh Was never a Fan of the Ladies Ever.
There many reasons some one can be Gay (i am not making light of it, there are many reasons and nothing wrong with those that are gay)
But one Known and Proven Reason Is a Overpowering Misogynist father that Instill a Fanatic Hate of women so Deep it affects the orientation of the male child. I think Ravener Behr Qualifies as a Overpowering Misogynist.
I like how Denver has this look on his face that says “try to be supportive” even while I think he’s a bit disgusted at the whole attempted rape part.
I have been reading this comic for years… I may end up dropping it. I really hate this storyline. I feel it is EXTREMELY distasteful and destroys a webcomic that I have grown to love
@Fenix: All I can say is that I’m sorry it isn’t to your liking. I’m not a gag-a-day type writer (and would frankly be terrible at trying). You’re free to continue not liking it, and I’m free to continue telling stories the way I want to tell them.
Nobody said anything about it needing to be a “gag-a-day” comic. I like the serious tone of Exiern and the style of writing doesn’t bother me.
However, rape is not a joke, nor is it anything to be handled lightly. Has it been addressed in this comic before? Yes, however I felt it was used as a quick explanation to let the readers know what had happened, and then moved on. This seems very different and is frankly offensive.
I do not think I’ve handled it lightly at all. It’s a severe, messy crime. Tiffany only now is starting to face what she has done. Her past is something that is only starting to be resolved within herself, much less how the world around her will accept it (or not).
This is page 2 of an internal struggle two years in the making, and won’t resolve itself entirely until the last page I script.
I don’t really see the big deal, yes rape sucks and is quite dark.
but
SHE WAS IN A FREAKING BARBARIAN RAIDING PARTY!
how do they describe the typical barbarian raid? I believe it’s something like “RAPE, pillage and murder.”
I also think they truly made an effort to de-emphasize the rape and focus more on the gay part of the whole equation.
One thing that is interesting to think about is if the gender-swap spell changed Tiffany’s DNA so that she is biologically straight, or if her sexual orientation carried over. Would Tiffany be a lesbian had she been a heterosexual male?
Well, rape and sexual assault crimes are VERY sensitive topics. It’s a harsh brutality that is just as devastating as straight up murder, but can leave the victim alive and scar them permanently.
On top of that, there is a not the least bit subtle element of human society and culture that tends to take this crime FAR too lightly. So when a creator proceeds into this minefield, everyone cringes, because it is VERY easy to misstep and blow everything to hell.
I feel i should point out that just because Typhan-knee didn’t get it up while trying to rape women doens’t mean there is not any potential for NORMAL sexual interest in women…and just because he did try to rape a male doens’t mean his normal sexual interest is exclusively in males. Does anything about the raiding party mentality strike you as “normal” social behavior after all? and that’s exluding the bag-of-snakes that is his family situation. Plenty of abberant behavior and mental glitching to go around i think. (and no, that’s not the same thing as saying normal homosexual attraction is abberant, so don’t go there) Typhan-knee/tiffany is just now starting to realize just how screwed up his/her life and mindset was..there’s a lot of untangling left to do even before dealing with the spell. Also…has she/he shown any sexual/romantic interest in males OTHER than Denver at this point? there’s a whole spectrum of sexuality out there…pretty much all we can confirm at this point is that the barbarian isn’t all the way at the hetero pole.
One of the things that I liked about Exiern was the subversion of the genderswap orientation swap trope.
@David @Jonathan Wint – It’s not that this doesn’t make sense, because it does with the way everything has played out up to now. It’s just..I think part of the fun of the transformation was that it wasn’t just physical. That it came with emotional and psychological adjustments. We saw it with several “lords that was girly” moments earlier in the strip. I thought it was a fun idea to explore the struggle and potential comedic foibles of a previously heterosexual male now struggling with new feelings towards men as a result of the change. While the revelation of Typh’s past here makes a sort of sense, it kind of shoots down that angle that I think I and a lot of people were looking forward to seeing tackled.
@ David
Agreed completely. This changes the entire story line up to this point and not in a good way. It isn’t just that Tiff went from being Good to being a villain on a par with the wizard who cast the spell, Faden was it? It’s a complete cop-out, taking the easy way to resolve the situation.
I’ll give it to the end of this storyline, to see if there is something going on here that will redeem the series. Baring that, I’m outta here.
@DocSavage way back when Tiff admitted to the Princess that as a man she had been a Villain. Princess even said “oh well maybe you did deserve the curse”
@Jonathan. Maybe not a villain, but certainly obliviously evil at best. Given his upbringing and his tribe’s “culture,” it’s a miracle he wasn’t actually WORSE! (like those three thugs who ordered and carried out the “great foreigner purge.”)
Panel 2 needs a theme song, like this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YBDrqxPd-s
And how does Tiffany get to ride the unicorn, again?
… he butt raped a man!
@Rachel actually he was stopped before he could do that
He was about to go Greek on his a!s!
Literally!