Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

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brasca
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by brasca »

Gotoh wrote:
Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:57 pm
brasca wrote:
Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:22 am
At worse Teddy would've been caught breaking into a museum and while there'd be some legal trouble he's a minor so it's not like he'd be going to jail.
Wanna bet? Minors can (and have been) legally prosecuted as adults, depending on the crime and the circumstances, especially if they're a repeat offender.

Teddy was guilty of breaking and entering, trespassing, and attempting to tamper with a presumably priceless artifact. I doubt he would've been let off with only a slap on the wrist. In a realistic setting, he'd be looking at at least 1-2 years in juvenile detention, if not an actual adult prison sentence. Which would've left Abby as a legal ward of Thornhill, since she isn't old enough to care for herself and Teddy was unemployed at the time.

So he was well on jis way to ruining his own life, without Chloe. All she did was add fuel to the fire.
In the USA that's a far more plausible outcome, but this is Canada. Now I could see Abby and Teddy being wards of Thornhill because their legal guaridan, Lance DeCarlo, is off racing cars. A good defense attorney would claim the breaking-and-entering was a cry for attention from a father who's never around and a mother who's seemingly disappeared. Even if Abby and Teddy were placed with a foster family and had to deal with a foster sibling like Gabrielle it would still be preferable to what all has transpired.

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Cortez
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by Cortez »

And that's honestly is why i wonder why Lana didn't try getting full custody, i feel like it would have been a slam dunk since Lance is never around and he was the one that cheated on Lana, with her own sister no less.

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Error of Logic
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by Error of Logic »

The only theories I have regarding that is that Teddy and Abby have a strong resemblance to their father, and she had grown to hate him that much. Or she just wanted to wash her hands of her whole time with Lance and everyone involved.

Honestly, neither reflects well on her as a mother, a human being or even as a mammal, but that's all I've got right now.

dmra
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by dmra »

To have one parent enthralled by a succubus is unfortunate. To have two is likely to make a lot of the readership think "this is getting a bit squicky."

Before judging the poor woman too harshly we should perhaps remember that if she (or any other competent adult authority figure) had been around the story would have had to be very different. And it's one thing to show a largely absentee parent like Lance being seduced and used by Pandora but quite another to have the same thing done to a mother who is likely to be around the home a lot more.

Just because the creators couldn't be bothered to give a proper reason for why she's not around it doesn't mean she's a bad mother. She's just written that way.

Dragon Paladin
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by Dragon Paladin »

dmra wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 8:53 am
To have one parent enthralled by a succubus is unfortunate. To have two is likely to make a lot of the readership think "this is getting a bit squicky."

Before judging the poor woman too harshly we should perhaps remember that if she (or any other competent adult authority figure) had been around the story would have had to be very different. And it's one thing to show a largely absentee parent like Lance being seduced and used by Pandora but quite another to have the same thing done to a mother who is likely to be around the home a lot more.

Just because the creators couldn't be bothered to give a proper reason for why she's not around it doesn't mean she's a bad mother. She's just written that way.
She is written that way: as a bad mother. She's a comic strip character, so her only qualities are what the author bothers to give her. And so far, her only qualities are a woman who abandoned her children, never visits them, and left them with a father who's never home. Yes, she has every right to be angry that her husband cheated on her, but that doesn't excuse her abandonment.

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Cortez
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by Cortez »

dmra wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 8:53 am
To have one parent enthralled by a succubus is unfortunate. To have two is likely to make a lot of the readership think "this is getting a bit squicky."

Before judging the poor woman too harshly we should perhaps remember that if she (or any other competent adult authority figure) had been around the story would have had to be very different. And it's one thing to show a largely absentee parent like Lance being seduced and used by Pandora but quite another to have the same thing done to a mother who is likely to be around the home a lot more.

Just because the creators couldn't be bothered to give a proper reason for why she's not around it doesn't mean she's a bad mother. She's just written that way.

Intentionally or not, she does somewhat come off that way. You'd think she would have taken Teddy and Abby with her, but she didn't.

Abby even says she "abandoned" them. She didn't even call or visit during Abby's birthday.

I hope that isn't the case, especially since she was the one betrayed by Lance and her Sister Vera, but since we never get to see her side of the story, some will see her in a negative light.

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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by dmra »

@ Dragon Paladin and Cortez

It's more that the story of the mother doesn't seem to bother the people who produce the strip so I don't think it's worth too much time us people on the Forum speculating about it.

But here's a thought. Lots of people are having a go at Chloe for splitting up the DeCarlo parents. But Lance seems to be a pretty poor Dad while the mother has seemingly abandoned the children altogether for whatever reason. Doesn't sound to me like a recipe for a happy family life whatever Chloe did or didn't do.

Perhaps Teddy was telling the truth when he told Chloe they were happier apart. http://www.dangerouslychloe.com/strips- ... gle_aspect

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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by LegendaryKroc »

Of course the writer chickened out on actually showing Teddy and Chloe having a proper conversation and sorting things out by talking. Why should we expect anything more at this point?
dmra wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 8:53 am
To have one parent enthralled by a succubus is unfortunate. To have two is likely to make a lot of the readership think "this is getting a bit squicky."

Before judging the poor woman too harshly we should perhaps remember that if she (or any other competent adult authority figure) had been around the story would have had to be very different. And it's one thing to show a largely absentee parent like Lance being seduced and used by Pandora but quite another to have the same thing done to a mother who is likely to be around the home a lot more.

Just because the creators couldn't be bothered to give a proper reason for why she's not around it doesn't mean she's a bad mother. She's just written that way.
Here's the thing about that, though: If you're going to write stories that would be over in five minutes if a responsible, sensible person was on hand to defuse the conflict de jour, whatever story you're telling had better be damn good so people don't notice and complain about it. A farce that's funny can get away with stupidity and plotholes because it's funny for instance. But that's not what we're getting here, so people notice and complain.

More to the point, blaming bad writing for characters making terrible decisions doesn't work all the way unless those characters are just extensions or avatars of the person(s) writing them. See: Shortpacked! Characters who are actual characters, though, tend to be judged as characters and therefore people react this way to the mother's conspicuous absence. She's an actual character, and while you can definitely say the out-of-universe reason she isn't around is lazy writing/a necessary weasel of the particular set-up/genre, it's inevitable that people will wonder what the in-universe one is.

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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by Gotoh »

dmra wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:44 pm
But here's a thought. Lots of people are having a go at Chloe for splitting up the DeCarlo parents. But Lance seems to be a pretty poor Dad while the mother has seemingly abandoned the children altogether for whatever reason. Doesn't sound to me like a recipe for a happy family life whatever Chloe did or didn't do.
Not necessarily.

Lance has to provide for his kids and his career requires him to be on the road. The alternative would be to repeatedly take his kids out of school and constantly change addresses, which can (and has proven to) have deep psychological effect on teenagers, and moreso on young kids. They can't really make friends, 'cuz mom and dad's work requires them to move a lot. And there's no sense of normalcy, since they never know when they're gonna have to move again, or how soon.

That's why most manga and anime resolve the issue by having the kids live on their own, while their parents work abroad. In many cases the kids are left in the care of a neighbor, or an older relative (usually an aunt, uncle, or their grandparents). Or, if they're old enough to be responsible for themselves, their parents will send a monthly allotment to cover their food and living expenses. People have also done it in real life to provide their kids with a stable home environment, which could be the reason Lance leaves Teddy to look after himself and Abby.

As for their marriage, there's no evidence supporting Teddy's claim. If his parents' marriage was truly as bad off as he said, his mom wouldn't have bee n blindsided by finding out her husband had cheated on her. You'd think she would've expected it, or not really care. Instead, she was stunned and broke down in tears. People don't get that emotional over someone they don't care about so, clearly, there was some love lost.

That's part of the reason I'm convinced that Teddy only said they were happier apart so Chloe wouldn't try to help any more than she already had.

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Cortez
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by Cortez »

dmra wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:44 pm

It's more that the story of the mother doesn't seem to bother the people who produce the strip so I don't think it's worth too much time us people on the Forum speculating about it.

At which point Dave should have just killed her off then. Because it's unreasonable for us to speculate why she would leave the kids with Lance after everything he did to her.

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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by dmra »

@LegendaryKroc

I can understand why people might want to know the backstory to the mother's effective disappearance it's just that it seems obvious to me that in the absence of any kind of input from the creators that nothing is going to be canon. So people can speculate anything they like but there simply won't be any real evidence to support any conclusions.

It's not in the least realistic but it seems clear the DC has bought into the manga cliche/trope about absentee parents and taken it to the ultimate conclusion by eliminating virtually all adults altogether. Both in and out of the home. I don't think we've even seen Teddy or Abby's teachers which for a partially school set comic is a glaring omission. In this reality there simply aren't any responsible adult authority figures. Hence nobody in charge seeming to be the least bit interested in how a minor swanned into class declaring they were now a girl having apparently had major surgery and recovered virtually overnight.

The nearest we've got to an authority figure is Lance and look at what a great job he did (admittedly Pandora gets a lot of the blame/credit for that.)


@Gotoh

At least with Lance we're given some kind of explanation as to why he's away. The mother has simply disappeared into a void seemingly to have no interaction with her children ever again. And why blame/punish her children for the break up of the marriage by vanishing out of their lives? Which seems a bit implausible unless she was already a pretty bad and uncaring mother. And let's not forget that neither Teddy nor Abby seem to be particularly upset about their mother being around. In fact they've barely even mentioned her.

Or we could just assume that it would be too much hard work explaining why she isn't around in their lives to interfere with the plot so the creators simply didn't bother.

There isn't much evidence either that the marriage was happy or successful. We never see the two of them together other than after she walks in on him. As for the mother getting "blindsided" that could just be down to this time the adultery is with her sister and the two of them are doing it in her home. Which would have to hurt a lot more than him having an affair with somebody not part of her own family so it would hardly be surprising that she would be incredibly angry under any circumstances.

And even if there wasn't a history of adultery that doesn't mean the marriage has to have been a good one. Plenty of bad marriages don't involve adultery.

Like I say there simply isn't enough evidence either way because the creators, for whatever reason, decided not to bother showing any.

We readers can speculate to our heart's content about what and why but since the creators don't seem to be in the least willing to put any kind of proper evidence there for us to use I'd suggest that any speculation is pretty meaningless.

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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by dmra »

Cortez wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:10 pm
dmra wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:44 pm

It's more that the story of the mother doesn't seem to bother the people who produce the strip so I don't think it's worth too much time us people on the Forum speculating about it.

At which point Dave should have just killed her off then. Because it's unreasonable for us to speculate why she would leave the kids with Lance after everything he did to her.
Sorry I missed this while I was typing my previous answer. It isn't that wondering what happened with the mother isn't a reasonable thing. It actually is a very reasonable thing to think about. But it's seems clear to me that there are so many obvious holes in the writing that we aren't meant to see this as any kind of realistic story. As I said above if it was then there was no way that Teddy waltzing into school as Teddi wouldn't have caused all manner of problems with teachers and possible referrals to parents or calling in of social services.

So we really just have to accept that Chloe has forgotten she has a mother and Teddy and Abby's has been written out with a minimum of effort. Possibly because a detailed explanation for her absence wouldn't be exactly a fun read. But primarily I think because if either of them were in their children's lives then the story would have to be completely different and the creators didn't want to tell that other story.

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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by Gotoh »

There's no evidence of Lance having a history of infidelity. If he did, his wife wouldn't have been surprised. She would've said it wasn't the first time, or that cheating on her with her sister was a new low for him and their marriage. Kinda like Zoé did because Dom slept around on her. She not only said it was typical of him, she also said Cammi wasn't the first lesbian he ever seduced.
dmra wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:28 pm
So we really just have to accept that Chloe has forgotten she has a mother and Teddy and Abby's has been written out with a minimum of effort. Possibly because a detailed explanation for her absence wouldn't be exactly a fun read. But primarily I think because if either of them were in their children's lives then the story would have to be completely different and the creators didn't want to tell that other story.
No it wouldn't. EC had several responsible adult characters (Layla's parents, their maid, Jeffrey, and Professor Twigget) and several reasonably responsible teenagers (Layla, Ace, and Brooke), and their presence in the comic didn't prevent any of the supernatural shenanigans that went on. But they each contributed to resolving each incident in some way.

The same can be said of MC, which leaves DC as the "oddman out" of the *C-verse comics.

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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by dmra »

I didn't say it was a certainty that Lance had had affairs just that it was a possibility. I also said that even if he hadn't that wouldn't necessarily mean it was a happy marriage.

But putting that to one side you seem to be overlooking that the woman the mother found in their house with Lance was her sister. Now, while it's true that her sister is still a woman I think most people would say that sleeping with a close blood relative of your partner is a lot worse and more shocking than sleeping with somebody they aren't related to. And doing it at home rather than in a hotel or back seat of a car would just be the icing on the cake.

Or perhaps if somebody did that to you it wouldn't bother you more than an affair with somebody you don't know and weren't expecting would treat you better and not betray you in that way.

And on our argument that the mother being around would not change the story.

Somehow I doubt that any responsible parent would allow their son to invite a succubus who was sent to have sex with him and then kill him into their house. I also doubt that they would just sit back and let said son and succubus make their own plans to sort out the problems including letting the son - now seemingly a daughter - have serial liaisons with half of the schools jocks with the intention of feeding one of them to the succubus. So son and succubus would either have to hope that their live in parents were too stupid or self obsessed to notice that anything odd was going on or they would have to be charmed in some way so that they wouldn't interfere. Which would a) make Teddy and Chloe look pretty horrible and b) would rather undermine the point of having them their in the first place.

Like I said it would be a very different story because unlike the adults in EC Teddy's parents didn't grow up in a cryptid world. They would have been perfectly normal human beings who would have had to have acted in a very abnormal way for the story to progress in anyway like it has.

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Cortez
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 28-02-19 Final Chapter Whatever Happened to Teddy Decarlo

Post by Cortez »

But what ended up happening was neither of them coming off as good parents.

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