Generation Hope #8 - "The Ward, Part 3"

[laughing_tree]

Teon is a primal character who's all about aggression and instinct. I'm interested in the idea of instincts; what they actually mean and how we use instinct. How much of our conscious thought is actual instinct that we assign meaning to after the fact? There's an interesting paradox of consciousness in that the signal in the brain which raises my arm happens before the signal of the conscious thought. So there's one theory that the thought signal is a side effect of the action, in which case everything we do is instinct. That's an incredibly scary thing to think about. Teon is an exploration of that. How much can you get by on instinct? And how can you adapt to your current situation in a highly proficient manner? That's what Teon ends up doing. -- Kieron Gillen

Comments

[numeronone]

I mean, barring the "Primal Instinct" parts, those three panels (from "As much as I regret..." to "I am happy") is pretty much exactly how I feel about my estranged family.

[shadur]

And it also very nicely lobs the ball back in their court: Do they want their son happy, or do they want their son "back" ?

Well played, Gillen. Well played.

[numeronone]

Gillen is very good at writing stories where everyone's point-of-view can at least sound reasonable, even when it absolutely isn't. Which makes the rather good meta-point that "sounding reasonable" is not a consistent metric for judging whether an argument is moral or not.

This is why cultists, white supremacists and TERFs will insist that you just read their literature and then you'll get it (or, if you persist in having beliefs of your own, will say that you "just didn't read it properly").

(And, yes, I know, that's the same thing three times.)

[windleopard2]

Hope's response to Kenji about codenames echoes how I feel when people insist Donna Troy, Luke Cage or Cassandra Cain need a codename.

[angry_marmot]

And reminds me of this from Raising Arizona:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIDZ8qlx1_g

[zachbeacon]

I mean, "Luke Cage" isn't his birth name either but I totally get why Cassandra Cain wouldn't want to use her father's name even if she really doesn't have much of a civilian life anyway.

"Donna Troy" always worked for me better than her actual codenames, though.

[cainofdreaming]

It probably wouldn't be a good idea for Cass to have anyone hear her name. What with her "Orphan" codename someone could connect her to Bruce simply by putting both on google search.

[blues32]

Why is NO ONE trying to get Ide mental help? This is not a healthy outlook!

[thehood]

So what was the truth in the end?

[laughing_tree]

Yes :)