Stephan Sokolow's Blog

Before I get into the post, there are a couple of things I feel I should clarify:

First, As a consumer of fiction, I am an observer rather than a participant. That means that the ability to “connect” with one or more of the characters is something I consider secondary to the entertainment I get from watching known stimuli (events) poke and prod unknown characters, resulting in interesting reactions.

Second, for those who are unfamiliar with it, El Goonish Shive is a webcomic that is somewhat difficult to describe. It’s author, Dan Shive, has described it as “one big awkward moment”, but that’s not very descriptive, so I will attempt a more useful description. El Goonish Shive is a webcomic about a group of teenagers, both ordinary and decidedly not so, living their lives as some rather unusual events come their way. It starts out very ordinary and un-interesting as webcomics go, but improves quite quickly, both in storytelling and art style.

In My Opinion, what differentiates El Goonish Shive from so many other comics with a similar summary is the quality of the characters and the type of unusual events. It’s not every day that you find an internally-consistent world where magic, super-science, resident aliens, and alternate dimensions all co-exist under a blanket of government cover-ups. (of the humorous type that shouldn’t work but somehow do) As for Characters, do a “pervert and proud of it” with an alien transformation-gun, his intelligent but “bubbly” shape-shifting girlfriend, his formerly-ordinary best buddy, his new twin sister who is really his magically-created clone, and her magic-using girlfriend (who happens our pervert’s “ugly cousin”) pique your interest? What about a highly-amusing and interesting cast of supporting characters? (including Jeremy, the cat with spines instead of fur) Whether you’re convinced or not, read on…

As seen above, I’m a big fan of EGS for it’s unique mixture of characters, events, and writing skill. As of this writing, the newest page is for Wednesday, October 10th 2007 and what a page it is. Introduced on December 6th, 2004 and revealed as a shallow and rather unpleasant character over the following two strips, Diane has not remained static. A good thing, or I’d have nothing to write about. 🙂

At her reintroduction on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007, she demonstrated an apparent knack for observation and deductive reasoning, a product of three years of background reworking while the comic covered a weekend at home. When combined with the newest comic, this points to some very interesting possibilities. For this and several other reasons, she is fast becoming my favorite-of-the-moment as far as characters go.

I will elaborate on this, but first, I think I should quickly explain why I liked this page enough to dedicate an entire post to it.

To start, it continues to flesh out Diane as a character. Where she was originally just an unpleasant stereotype, she’s now much deeper and her character traits are on that knife edge between boringly simple and obviously contradictory. When that happens, you know you’re not getting the whole picture, but you have no idea what the whole picture really looks like. When that balance is maintained, any answers simply generate more questions… but they do it in a pleasing way rather than an irritating way, making speculation a pleasurable activity for passing the time.

Second, it manages to do this subtly, yet in a way that allows you to see the character development in action. Far too many stories either don’t show their character development, or do it through heavy-handed Star Wars-esque methods.

Finally, it confirms that Diane will be a recurring character of some import. Dan is too good at this to build up Diane past the point of no return and then let her fade away.

Those points alone would be more than enough to gain this page my admiration, but like any good El Goonish Shive fan, I love to speculate… and after reading the speculation of a fellow bunny, I realized how much potential she truly has. If you don’t like speculation, please stop reading now.

In order to keep things easy to follow, I’ll list my observations in point form before I start predicting:

1. In the most recent page, Diane is either trying to manipulate the crew or the emotions she shows are real. I’m leaning towards the latter case since her expression in panel 5 seems more depressed or disappointed than dismissive or irritated even though her back is now turned to the main characters.
2. She is apparently a master of observation and deductive reasoning. I doubt Ellen and Nanase will keep their relationship secret for long.
3. The transition from stereotype to full character has resulted in her becoming less an antagonist and more a human being in the eyes of the readers. This makes it more probable that she will eventually be on friendly terms with Nanase and friends.
4. Her resemblance to Susan has caught Ellen’s curiosity from the moment they meet and Ellen will probably include Grace in any plans she makes to investigate it.
5. Nanase’s friendship with Ellen and Grace has caught her attention (Note the “They” in “They know Nanase!?“) and will no doubt retain a hold on her curiosity. Given our knowledge Rhoda’s reaction to her “Diane Holmes” deductions, Rhoda may be included in any plans she makes.
6. Nanase has only recently discovered that she’s a lesbian and hasn’t shared that fact with Diane. In addition, she wants to keep her relationship with Ellen a secret but it seems that she may be trying too hard… especially if she holds further whispered conversations with her over their interactions in public.
7. Nanase’s “How many people are watching?” spell has to be explicitly triggered.
8. There’s always the chance that Grace or Ellen will slip up and, through speech or action, reveal one or more of their secrets.

Now for my speculation:

There are three or four possible courses events can take based on combinations of two questions. First, are the emotions we see in the current page sincere? Second, can both she and the main characters give each other a chance?

• If Diane is being manipulative and they never give each other a chance, she will remain an antagonist or fade into the background. This just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t fit very well with Dan’s history of complex and deep characters since it wastes almost any depth added to her character.
• If Diane is being manipulative and they do give each other a chance, they might end up with a truce or a friendship in the long-term, depending on how they mature and change. This is possible, but still doesn’t feel as EGS-ish as the final option. The resultant conflict would be too petty and adversarial.
• If her expressions were genuine, then her status as more than an antagonist is almost guaranteed, but what she will become depends on what happens next.

It is this last possibility that I’m hoping for. It would be perfectly plausible for Diane to discover Nanase and Ellen’s relationship and then either work her way into their good graces through tactful handling of the situation, or dig deeper, discover one or more of the less mundane secrets, and eventually become privy to all of them.

I hold a great deal of hope for the latter case. Not only would it provide some very interesting reactions (remember, I’m an observer) to worldview-shattering information, but it would also provide a wealth of character interactions between Diane and the rest of the cast which can only happen if she knows about the big secrets.