KittyHat wrote:I'm not saying Ruby never gets anything right, but I do think she gets too much credit for getting things right when she does.
It's true that one or two of us may be prone to confirmation bias regarding Ruby's intelligence -- but the thing we're seeing is supposed to be there to be confirmed. Ruby
is the one with a university degree -- and despite all the jibes about people just being "book-smart", taking your education to BBA level does require
some kind of brain -- and
Amber has hinted that Ruby makes her feel stupid. Not seeing any sign of that brain seems weird; seeing her being a little bit sharp or flexible feels appropriate.
KittyHat wrote:I'm pretty sure I could even hunt down an instance where Sonya or DiDi (okay, different comic, yes, but related) got it right if I really tried, but that doesn't make either of them particularly brilliant.
Well, with DiDi, it just feels like a stopped clock being right twice a day. My personal headcanon says that Sonya actually has a half-decent brain which she just hardly ever uses. But that's a discussion for a different thread on a different board.
KittyHat wrote:To be honest, when she was first introduced, I hated Ruby. I found her extremely rude and ill-behaved, and I never found her particularly bright -- aggressive, yes, but not all that bright.
Whereas I liked her from more or less the first, but found some things about the way she was written a bit frustrating.
Because I completely agree that she didn't actually seem very bright back then -- and yet it seemed that she was
supposed to be. She apparently had a decent academic record, and some details of her behaviour pattern were distinctly nerdy -- that is, typical of someone who privileges intelligence. So when she did occasionally manage some kind of clever line or perceptiveness, it felt like the pieces were finally slotting into place.
KittyHat wrote:She has grown on me some since then, to the point I have accepted her at least, but I just don't agree with some of the praise she gets, nor am I nearly as surprised as others seem to be when she misbehaves. What others interpret as twisting her character instead looks to me like "business as usual for Ruby."
But she hasn't seemed to be selfish or manipulative. Angry, yes, definitely, especially at Amber, and sometimes unthinking -- and yet, despite the anger, she kept Amber's secret for years, and
tried to stay within limits in her carping at her sister. And her instinct with Dillon was always to be helpful and go along with what he wanted. It's trivially easy for
him to manipulate
her with tears and tantrums.* And she normally seems to want to do "the right thing" as she understands it, even if it's not the same as what other people think is right.
Her problem at the start was that her mother was pushing her to go stay with Amber, and she couldn't see any way to get out of that. So she showed up determined to get through the experience somehow -- despite her permanent anger at Amber. Yes, she was imposing -- but she didn't like the situation, and couldn't see any way round it, so she just got on with it. Hence the apparent rudeness.
And since then, one thing we have seen from Ruby is character development. She's gone from a scared, defensive girl to someone who can handle
having a guy jump in on her in the shower with no more than natural annoyance, she helped a gay man sort his love life out, and she's slowly admitting that she can enjoy erotica. So this current phase ... isn't twisting her character, it's actually quite consistent, and isn't regression either because it's a new side to her, but it's unfortunate, because she was doing so well.
*
A detail about Ruby and Dillon; they swap the traditional "male" and "female" clichés in their relationship. Aside from the tantrums, Dillon talks about his problems to other people in the hope of getting sympathy and moral support. Ruby, on the other hand, is goal-oriented; she assumes that the point of talking about problems is to find practical solutions. That's the wrong way around -- and it explains why Ruby is a puzzle to Dillon, but also a good thing.