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@Cortez: Tropes are flexible and many of them are YMMV.

'She's a 'French Jerk' and a 'Comedic Sociopath' at worst, both of which have been noted in her character section for ages. I'm inclined to agree, since both are apt descriptions of her character behavior. But being a bit of a jerk makes her no less of a heroine. Hence, good is not always nice (i.e. Stephanie Kane, Sui-Feng, etc.).

I would peg her as a Heroic Comedic Sociopath, myself.

Gotoh wrote:@Cortez: Tropes are flexible and many of them are YMMV.

'

Not all of them and the YMMV tropes are a different category anyway. I mean the YMMV are for tropes like "The Scrappy" or " Base Breaker".

@Cortez: I'm aware, which is why I said "many," not "all".

I was mainly referring to 'Comedic Sociopath' being descriptive of Gabrielle's behavior (comedy is subjective. Hence, YMMV).

Cortez wrote:No really, no. She's more in line with the Sociopathic Hero trope at best.

Or even Designated Hero if we're being generous.

Perhaps the Marquis de Sade is a hometown hero.

Well, good and evil are somewhat arbitrarily defined in this verse.

We know heaven is stupid bureaucracy, with angels who have sex drive but not allowed to have sex. Otoh there are daemons who need to eat people to live but are capable of empathy wit humans.
We know that forces of 'good' (Melissa's "dad") will do things like try to suddenly murder people (Melissa's "mom") who haven't done anything remotely evil in decades, half orphaning her daughter in process. At the same time, Melissa killing her former friend in open battle to stop her from trying to murder more people would somehow turn her to darkside?
We know that heroes of AA will burn witches just for being witches, even with no evidence or suspicion of them even committing any evil act.
Not that evil is anything better, in fact its pretty dumb (like Melissa evil mom who kept attacking the very same city where she knows superhero lives).
We know that evil contracts are made and enforced in nonsensical fashion. Teddy "asked" for girlfriend, at no point offering his soul in exchange. Hell sends him succubus to have unemotional sex with, and then he'd die (he asked for gf, but gets hooker). But to break the contract, he needs to have actual girlfriend who thinks of herself as such. If hellish contract were at least lawful evil, then when he told stature "tone it down", it would shut up, whispering "your wish is granted".

Its been lampshaded, whether intentionally or not, but in this verse good and evil are not moral or philosophical systems, but teams with somewhat superficial appearances of good and evil. Good do "good" because its its job, evil does "evil" because it looks cool?

Well said.

Mackus wrote:Well, good and evil are somewhat arbitrarily defined in this verse.

While I can mostly agree with your other points...

Mackus wrote:Melissa killing her former friend in open battle to stop her from trying to murder more people would somehow turn her to darkside?

We know that heroes of AA will burn witches just for being witches, even with no evidence or suspicion of them even committing any evil act.

...these two points I have to disagree with.

For the one about Melissa, it's implied that she's expeced to abide by the unspoken 'no killing rule' most heroes adhere to. Plus, she's personally opposed to the idea of killing anyone; including Layla, whom she hates. Therefore, forcing her to compromise that standard would effectively corrupt her, as many heroes consider that 'crossing the line', regardless of the justification (i.e. "My God, What have I Done?").

And in AA's case, the students aren't zealots who kill cryptids for the sake of killing them. They've been taught that cryptids prey on humanity and that they're are irredeemably evil. Even when Cerise outted Melissa and Jacqui as witches, Faith said they would be tried first to confirm whether Cerise was telling the truth and, once the school was saved, she was willing to grant Mel and Jacqui clemency for their actions and said she'd only banish Cerise to the nearest hell dimension.

That was judicious on her part, all things considered. Point being, the AA students aren't cold-blooded killers.

sometimes heroes to the public are badaxxes MFs at the home and personal life.

and some villains are real nice people and very soft spoken and proper at home.

Gotoh wrote:And in AA's case, the students aren't zealots who kill cryptids for the sake of killing them. They've been taught that cryptids prey on humanity and that they're are irredeemably evil. Even when Cerise outted Melissa and Jacqui as witches, Faith said they would be tried first to confirm whether Cerise was telling the truth and, once the school was saved, she was willing to grant Mel and Jacqui clemency for their actions and said she'd only banish Cerise to the nearest hell dimension.

That was judicious on her part, all things considered. Point being, the AA students aren't cold-blooded killers.

And now I'm reminded that there's been a shortage of Callie in this 'verse as of late.

Thanks a lot, Gotoh /s

Gotoh wrote:For the one about Melissa, it's implied that she's expeced to abide by the unspoken 'no killing rule' most heroes adhere to. Plus, she's personally opposed to the idea of killing anyone; including Layla, whom she hates. Therefore, forcing her to compromise that standard would effectively corrupt her, as many heroes consider that 'crossing the line', regardless of the justification (i.e. "My God, What have I Done?").

Which is why "dark Melissa" of the add-on comic was so disappointing. She was thrilled at the idea that her light twin would consider murdering her - an unfortunate destruction of the heroic Mel we were starting to see.

Hmm, could Gabrielle actually be less than 100% evil? Wow! Also, the last panel reminds me that just because a person speaks English with a thick accent, that doesn't mean they don't know the language very well.

I thought it was established she "pretends the accent", she can speak "regular English" when she wants to, or does it when it is a sudden response to an unexpected situation and forgets to add the accent

@wiseguy: Gabby isn't faking the accent, because she still had it while under the effects of Tandy's truth massage.

Osaru Sensei wrote:And now I'm reminded that there's been a shortage of Callie in this 'verse as of late.

Thanks a lot, Gotoh /s

I miss Callie to. Here's hoping she'll make an appearance whenever EC/MC resumes.

why do people assume that 'Hero = Good'?