I don't get it. 11Jul06 Comic

Andrick · Post by **Andrick** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:34 am

Was I the only one that went "What?" at today's comic? Was there something that happened between this comic and that one that can shed a little context on why there seems to be a lack of a cause for such an emotional outburst? Clinical detachment was expressed by ASCII in just the prior installment so this sudden welling over is a little unexpected... unless Rick was lying.

Anybody else suffer a bout of WTF from today's turnabout?

Kesh · Post by **Kesh** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:22 pm

Ascii's still a machine. And, as he said, he turned down his emotional responses.

It took me a second reading, but I think I got it. My understanding is that, after listening to his father's description of his own mistakes, Ascii decided to see what the results would be if he really were feeling emotions at full strength again. If it turned out he still felt nothing wrong, he could always turn them down again. So, he turned his emotions back to normal.

... and realized just how over the line he had gone, and how close he had come to doing serious harm to others. The sudden shock of that realization drove him to tears.

Note how in panel two of today's comic, he still seems detached. Three would be him re-engaging his emotions. And four is when it all hits home at once.

I'd say Friday's comic will get a (slightly blubbery) answer from him.

Either that, or he's faking it to get away.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:25 pm

Yes, well.

I'm practically Taking a Dive with this one, because I couldn't come up with a way to do this comic that wasn't either technically wrong or potentially baffling.

My hope is that, with Friday's comic, what is going on will be a little easier to get, and in time it won't matter so much that I fell on my face here.

Kesh is right.

ASCII looked at all the available information, and, operating part on logic and part on what little emotion he had left, SWITCHED HIS EMOTIONS BACK ON.

And they all came out at once.

The reason I didn't show him opening a catch on his head, or pushing a button, or sticking a screwdriver into some hole in the back of his neck is that, well, he doesn't have such a thing. He just flipped the switch internally. Writing bits to a register.

He doesn't even beep. I just couldn't come up with a good way to do this one. So today's comic is kinda potentially confusing.

Interestingly enough, I listened to Pink Floyd's The Wall for the first time not long -after- writing this comic, and just today realized how closely ASCII's path mimics the narrator of The Wall's path through madness-- and out the other side.

In the space between panels three and four, I dare say Judge Worm has just shouted "TEAR DOWN THE WALL!!!!"

Andrick · Post by **Andrick** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:12 pm

A good old fashioned EKG line running at the top of the two panels in question may have been a good clue-in device for the audience. I guess I just didn't consider Rick's argument significant enough for ASCII to willingly make a change, especially the "social contract" argument delivered to a free thinker like ASCII.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:44 pm

(Yeah I'm trying not to let myself spend long periods talking about individual strips but meh.)

Well. Yeah. (You've given me an idea as to how I may, ah, CORRECT this comic, although I'll use an Oscilloscope trace instead..) Rick *did* try to point out that this wasn't some sort of Restraining Bolt but rather a source of valid and usable information. ASCII's not really at his sanest when he's near-emotionless, y'understand.

I'd originally interpreted The Wall as a very general series of metaphors but if I'm to believe some of the reviews I've read, it is in fact a very specific metaphor pertaning to an individual who has walled himself away from the world so thoroughly that he's pretty much off the deep end, and, ironically enough, his madness grows so great that, in a moment of delerious self-loathing, he meets out the worst punishment he can think of: exposure to the world. To me at least, ASCII's decision is similar to this: he has hit rock bottom, and bounced.

But, you know, as always I may have just bloody designed this wrong. Art is such a tricky engineering discipline...

Cinni · Post by **Cinni** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 8:29 am

It is highly likely that my brain is not wired up as most are, but I understood this one. Made sense to me.

Cinni

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:02 pm

(Yeah I'm just going with it as far as commenting on this particular strip is concerned, so sue me.)

Well, notice I said "potentially". Really, I expect something like half of my readers (mmaybe less) will just clue in on this, with as little as a second to look back over it and go "huh, what.. oh" while others will genuinely not see what it was I was trying to say.

Now, I'm not trying to make my comic completely accessable to every person who might walk in at this particular strip. Webcomics are different from the newspaper funnies in that you can just flip back to find out what is going on. But all the same I try to make them self-contained enough that, if you're looking at it casually, sorta remember the last comic, and are reasonably willing to suspend disbelief, make moderate leaps of logic, and generally "play ball" with me, you'll get it.

I won't always hit that target, but that's what I'm aiming for, at least.

E_voyager · Post by **E_voyager** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:13 pm

all the wondering talk about ASCII aside i think that the last panel was significant in this comic. is shows that with ASCII back to normal he reminds me of his father and at the same time his father is being very reserved but is internally worrying that he's still a monster like he was before he decided to try being good. i think that the relive he's feeling has little to do with enjoy another pain as it does with the realization that his son is on his way to recovering himself.

(opps i left this window of for hours not relizing i had not sent it yet)

Nyamaza · Post by **Nyamaza** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:57 am

For what it's worth, I actually figured this out my first time through reading the strip. No, it's not completely laid out and explained... but then again, neither is the end of 2001: A Space Odessey.

Cassol203 · Post by **Cassol203** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:20 pm

You're talking about the movie, right? Please be talking about the movie. Please please please...

Sorry. Residual angst over the book version of 2010, and how parts of it, like, weren't edited. From when they first showed up. In the book version. Of 2001. Which laid out the ending pretty explicitly, and somewhat differently from the movie.

Andrick · Post by **Andrick** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:32 pm

allan_ecker wrote:... Art is such a tricky engineering discipline...

Because it's an art, Allan, not a science. Art is lumped into that group where hard figures do not produce hard outcomes like sociology, psychology, economics, and performance art.

Now, shoo! Off with you! *the ringwolf makes a hand-wavey, gesture, thingy at teh Ecker* Hold true to your plan with the forum and let us hash things out; 's what forums are for, doncha' know.

For what Rick's thinking in that final frame, it might just be his acknowledgement that he should be feeling some other emotion in accordance with the "social contract" he was lecturing ASCII about earlier. What should a father feel when his son breaks down crying on his shoulder? Pity? Sympathy? Heart-ache? Despair? Remember, ASCII still has to answer for what he's already done.

ASCII was not insane for buffering its emotion applications since it chose to be less affected by them. Right and wrong isn't a feeling, it's a knowledge that is extrapolated by equivalencies to unalike situations and weighed by critical thought. Relatively unfettered by emotions, I'd argue that ASCII was at his most sane. Sympathy skews right and wrong. Animosity tilts the scales of justice. Pride diminishes what is fair. Bias is the amalgam of emotions connected to preconceived notions that prejudice judgement. Ergo, ASCII was at its most sane when it felt the least effect from its emotions.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 9:21 pm

Awright, awright, I'm goin'..

But I didn't say Art was a science. I said it was an Engineering Discipline, and engineering is not the same thing as science.

Sure, maybe it's a "soft" engineering discipline, in much the same way that psychology is a "soft" science, but an engineering discipline nonetheless.

So nyeah.

E_voyager · Post by **E_voyager** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:17 am

i surrender. no more enginnering talk. *waves indigon flag* hey it's all i have one me at the moment.