(no subject)

[queenursula]

Update: Gail commented on this scene over at CBR.

Yeah, people are misreading that.

First, it had nothing to do with this story at all. But Cheshire has a reptile brain, in my opinion. Yes, she loves Lian. But her enemy has Lian. And Cheshire is always playing Chess.

If the enemy has Lian, Lian has to be removed as a bargaining chip.

Comments

[aulayan]

So this was all Gail Simone's fault? DAMN YOU GAIL! YOUR INTERLINKED PLOTS ARE DOOMING US ALL!

[sherkahn]

Hello? "Villain". *Cheshire points to herself*

[majingojira]

Why does she have Sanpaku Eyes?

[bluejaybirdie]

I'm more concerned about the Glasgow Smile...

[kirke_novak]

So it's all mummy's fault. That's delighful. Makes it all better, right?

[icon_uk]

Mummy started out as a contract assassin, and has since succeeded at committing national genocide just for laughs. I think that any pretence she might have to genuine emotion or real affection for Lian is long since departed (unless you're Devin Grayson, in which case she appears to be merely misunderstood, and her constant attempts to kill people are more of a whimsical passtime than anything else.)

[kirke_novak]

Oh, I'm not defending her. I know she's not right in the head. I think this is just a start of another sotry in which the "guilty" will be changed 10 times over 5 issues and every next issue with have a SHOCKING PLOT TWIST.

[flint_marko]

Before Villains United, when was it ever implied she didn't care about Lian?

[icon_uk]

I'm thinking more in terms of the notion that someone who has committed the actions she has done, without AFAIK, one single, solitary shred of remorse, is actually capable of feeling emotional attachment is what strikes me as so unlikley as to be impossible.

Cheshire is a genocidal monster, her ability to relate emotionally and genuinely to any human beingis about as likely as Dexter Morgan joining the Samaritans because of a deep rooted need to reach out to his fellow man.

[espanolbot]

I think that it might be more her being possessive than actually loving Lian.

Like she'd want Lian so Roy couldn't have her, but if she did she'd have no idea what to do with her.

[icon_uk]

Oh I agree, and there is a big difference between love and possessiveness.

I might be misremembering, but in the Action Comics Weekly story with Dick and Roy where they actual seek out Cheshire, they might have ended up with Roy having custody of Lian because Cheshire knew, at some level, that she could not love Lian properly.

[thebigapricot]

Yes, that's right. She gave up custody to Roy. Cheshire veered between affection and love for Lian and possessiveness. In the early TT years Lian was seen as Cheshires' "weak point". Gail did a good job at refuting the idea that Lian was her weak point and how it was more an issue of control and possession. The panels here were the apex of that. I had been working on part 2 of Cheshire series but I think I'll stop for now in light of CFJ 7

I do think that despite everything Cheshire does have affection for Lian and it will be very interesting to see what she's like when she finds out Lian is dead.

[ladymirth]

What? What d'you mean Lian is DEAD? D: D:

IT ISN'T TRUE! TELL ME IT ISN'T TRUE!

BABY-KILLING IS NOT COOL, DC! YOU SUCK!

[sherkahn]

Cheshire is a genocidal monster, her ability to relate emotionally and genuinely to any human beingis about as likely as Dexter Morgan joining the Samaritans because of a deep rooted need to reach out to his fellow man.

Only if Dexter is planning to take out a member of the local Samaritans be reaching out and touching someone with a bone cutter.

[flint_marko]

[icon_uk]

Which can easily be read, and is a lot more probable given her usual manner, as the sort of fake emotional display sociopaths are very good at, and in this case to guarantee an emotional chink in Roy's armour by being able to play Lian against him should the need arise.

[flint_marko]

I'm sure that was Brad Meltzer's intent.

[cuntfucius]

Sociopath is a description, not an etiology. Cheshire evinces traits such as lack of guilt, remorse, easily fueled resentment and anger, callousness, and the ability to manipulate so she may fit the bill. However, diagnosing in the field and in armchair psychology of fictional characters on the internet says nothing about the cause of sociopathy, whether it is a variance of human personalty or an actual disease one is born with. A condition. Is it a heightened form of narcissism?

Cheshire had a depraved and deprived childhood. She was traumatized and that trauma could have stunted her (fictional character neurology lol!) development emotionally. Would she, as a sociopath, notice others in their contentment and relaxation in love and while loving, and try to achieve it or convince herself she feels it? I don't really know. No one, absolutely no one, knows if the "ability" or condition that allows you to love is something that is inborn, is something that can be trained into or grown into, or just happen in someone who grew up not feeling it. We can condition someone into triggered symptoms of sociopathy by brainwashing and torture, but can the reverse happen?


Cheshire nuking a nation can easily be explained. There are many people that would be able to push that button, many people that genuinely love their families and friends. Her reasoning for it, aside to get her demands met, was that it was a nation "full of terrorists." Racism and dehumanizing people could easily remove guilt or remorse from those who commit actions like this. Soldiers do it all of the time. Raping women with no remorse, but would freak out if anyone raped their sister or daughter or wife. Is it as easily boiled down to those women being their possession? I don't know and don't personally think so. I am thinking of interviews with soldiers who have no issue with raping women and children en masse, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a la The Greatest Silence. When asked, they were shown to be upset at the idea of it happening to one of their own. Some weren't upset, some were. There's variance in that.

To be honest, I believe Cheshire loves Lian, or feels genuine affection and attachment to her daughter. I believe she wavers in between not understanding it, wondering if it's real or not, and maybe it's just undefined for her. Maybe it's similar to her feelings for Roy. I think that acknowledging that she has room for this, or perhaps, might be so damaged that she can express it and experience it minimally and very differently than everyone else, doesn't mean she's redeemable or mean that she should ever be seen as just misunderstood and that her actions are purely a result of tragedy.

But I don't think someone thinking she loves her daughter is ignoring her psychopathy, or trying to make her Draco In Leather Pants.

[ladymirth]

THIS.

[galateus]

People who commit or endorse genocide *can* genuinely care about people they know personally, even while they turn around and be total monsters to others. People are hypocrites! It are a fact.

[icon_uk]

It's the "genuinely" I'd debate there perhaps, there's a difference between an emotion and an affectation.

[flint_marko]

This is from way before Lian was killed.

[sarno001]

I still think Jade will freak over Lian, even if it's only for editorially-mandated "drama", which we all know doesn't exist unless someone gets fridged.

From a character standpoint, it seems likely that she'll go through a Mama Bear's Revenge type deal, if only because it's as good a reason as any to go on a massive killing spree. Or, you know, rage that her revenge was "unfairly taken from her" a la Ollie.

[darkblade]

Damn there is going to be a freaking line for crazy revenge over this one.

[xammax]

*SPOILERS*


Ollie skipped that line.

[darkblade]

Yeah I know.

[kingrockwell]

I see this as Chesh trying to emotionally prepare herself for the possibility. As we'll prolly see in Rise of Arsenal and Villans For Hire (and perhaps her upcoming appearance in Secret Six? re-checking the solicits, damn, girl has one kid die only to have the other kidnapped?), it prolly didn't work out so well.

[sherkahn]

She's a genocidal villianess. She has to be prepared to have something like this happen to her.

[kingrockwell]

She may think she's prepared, but would never really quite know until it happens.

[icon_uk]

Except that you're assuming she has an even remotely standard set of emotions or would react in a "human" fashion. She's a cold blooded, unrepentant mass killer, who launched a nuclear first strike and doesn't regret it for a moment.

She deliberately had as second child so that she could distance herself from the first. That's so far beyond "normal" as tp be approaching the inhuman.

[nevermore999]

Gail sez about this panel and CFJ:

"Yeah, people are misreading that.

First, it had nothing to do with this story at all. But Cheshire has a reptile brain, in my opinion. Yes, she loves Lian. But her enemy has Lian. And Cheshire is always playing Chess.

If the enemy has Lian, Lian has to be removed as a bargaining chip. "

[proteus_lives]

Cheshire loves Lian like a possession.

I don't think a sociopath like her is capable of loving another human being.