Giz wrote:His subconscious did. I think we may need to rephrase a sentence on the update of October 4th.
"Subconscious" means mental activity that a person isn't aware they are undertaking. Blair is quite conscious of what he's doing, given that he's talking about it. Again, with respect, tweaking a sentence here and there isn't going to change that very much. You'd have to re-write the entire thing in order to make Blair not entirely responsible for this and even then, it doesn't change really that this is kind of still really distrubing, you know?
I would like to continue discussing this with Albert, since this is good conversation.
albert.aribaud wrote:IIUC (I'm not a hentai specialist, not even a japanese comic culture one, so don't hesitate to correct me), in the hentai videos, characters are depicted as apparently young though actually adult, whereas in the comic they are depicted as apparently adult though actually younger. Thus, while they share a common trait of showing people whose apparent and actual maturity are at odds, they differ in both their first (apparent) and second (actual) degree. Which does not mean that your point is wrong, but that the comparison must be carried further than simply pointing out the similarities, and we should also look at their dissimilarities.
In hentai, the idea (again, IIUC) is to give an excuse of legality to what would otherwise be construed objectionable (and certainly still is under the law of many countries, I imagine). Under this excuse, whatever the characters do, it must be assumed that they are both willing and legally allowed to. Their younger looks would actually be the only possible cause of disconfort for the reader; would they look older then no objection would be raised.
Here, the problem is inverse rather than similar: characters that are underage are turned into adults who then behave as adults. This raises issues also, but not the same; one is the character's original age; another one is the indirect coercion.
I'm not an expert either, but someone who thumbs through bins of brightly colored DVDs at conventions and ran an anime club, so I've had discussions about this subject before.
I agree that the situation is somewhat the inverse, but the point is the same. These are still 14 year olds. In the case of the aforementioned hentai characters, they obviously are by design. In this case, they are by design 14 year olds that have been endowed with adult bodies. In this case, and very often in the former case (I've gathered), both are being coerced, despite being children into behavior against their will by a coercive force. My point then becomes that declaring them to be "adults", when they are children by sensible measure, becomes an exercise in legality in the same way it is an exercise in legality for those hentais. Conceptually, though, it changes nothing.
Besides, I wouldn't describe them as behaving like adults. Their language, what there is of, is pure teenager in the case of Nina (commenting that Brooke got short and "Like, y'know, whatev'r") and Brooke screaming as she's being brainwashed by the power of the Magic Orb. This doesn't say "adult", this says "drugged teenager".
Shows that different people read different things I guess: at first I did think of Vapid Nina as Nina gone older; but this completely went away after her 100%-valspeak utterance, which I took as a sign that there was no Nina anyway in there. This was further confirmed by Twiggitt losing all intellectual faculty, and so on ; at the end, I could only see unrelated characters, as neither their bodies nor their minds were those of the originals (btw this helped me not to think too much of Carrion Comfort).
No to belabour the point, but have you ever seen what some one acts like when they've got a little bit of a hypnotic-sedative in their system? They aren't themselves either, that's kind of the point. They have little faculty to them and are highly suggestible, which is why those are used as date-rape drugs in larger doses. One can't say "Well, that's not really them, their minds aren't there", because that isn't true. That IS
them, but "them" in an extremely impaired state.
Completely agree on this, and the similarity you point out real cases is quite valid -- to the point that we may wonder whether it is intentional or not. Anyway, regardless of just how deep as a reader we admit or not G&D's story choices, obviously Blair has to answer for his behavior. This may take the form of a punishment by one of the remaining cast; or, as Giz reminds us that it is his unconscious playing here, this may be a sudden revelation by Blair himself, which could lead to playing his character back down to comical later on. Time will tell.
Time will tell, but the story doesn't bear out that this is Blair's subconscious acting, as he's very conscious of what is happening. However, this seems alot like a "Magic Reset Button" sort of situation where the status quo is simply restored without any memory of things happening, as it somewhat stretches credibility that any character could knowingly forgive Blair here.
It certainly is a change of tone -- whether it is permanent or temporary, we'll see in less than a week I think.
I agree with that 100%. Best to wait and see before any torches and pitchforks are hoisted. The arc isn't over yet, after all.
