Line #13 YMMV/Transmetropolitan


1	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
2	** Spider Jerusalem has this in spades. Is he an AntiHero, doing what has to be done? Is he a KnightTemplar who crosses the line just as much as those he's against, with his constant physical assaults, and violations of people's privacy? Perhaps the most disturbing possibility: he's a massive hypocrite, who dehumanizes the rich the same way he claims they dehumanize the poor while also using their methods to accomplish his goals. Ellis encourages examination of Spider's character and there's enough evidence for just about any interpretation.
3	** Fred Christ is also a good example. There's no question that he has self-serving motives, but it isn't clear if those are his ONLY motives. There are definitely moments, [[spoiler: immediately before his death especially,]] when he seems to actually be concerned about people other than himself. Also, given that he never resets his genetic template after he's done with the Transients, he may actually ''enjoy'' being an alien.
4	** The Whorehopper is TheGhost, only appearing via phone to kick Jerusalem's ass into gear, and then only by phone. After the election, he disappears entirely from the narrative, with nobody even commenting on the absence. It's possible that the Whorehopper isn't real, just another of Spider's mental problems.
5	** The Beast is an interesting example: is he truly a cynical and self-loathing man worn out by the system, or is he a corrupt asshole who wants to justify his corrupt and lazy behavior? Considering he lets Jerusalem get away with outright assaulting him, it is possible he's self aware about his own nasty behavior.
6	* {{Anvilicious}}:
7	** The future is a chaotic mess and always will be, but the past was always worse. So if you see something weird, suck it up and deal instead of turning on your NostalgiaFilter.
8	** Sex is like any other kind of drug; insane fun, but only between consenting adults. Inflict either on a kid and you deserve nothing less than a CruelAndUnusualDeath.
9	** Religion is often used to scam the poor and desperate by the powerful.
10	** One of the lunatics in "There is a Reason" spouts off every stereotypically right-wing ideology under the sun, ending with a Bible quote. About as subtle as a brick to the eyeballs.
11	** Without honesty and compassion, it doesn't matter how much technology changes human lives; society will always be composed of a majority of innocent ignorant victims being used, abused and ultimately consumed by a minority of savage brutes.
12	* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Senator Gary "The Smiler" Callahan]] is a [[CorruptPolitician sadistic politician]] who desires ultimate power for no reason other than [[MisanthropeSupreme to hurt others]]. On his campaign trail for President, Callahan first shows his cruelty when he has his political advisor shot dead to [[FalseFlagOperation gain sympathy for his cause]]. Once elected {{President\|Evil}}, Callahan begins running The City into the ground even more than it already was, orchestrating the release of vicious criminals so as to gun down the ensuing protesters, having all the prostitutes he ever slept with and those who associated with them hunted down and executed to cover up his illicit acts, and ordering several people sniped to lower the City's awareness of an incoming storm, hoping it would wipe out more evidence of his crimes. As [[AntiHero Spider Jerusalem]] begins taking apart his cabinet and ruining his reputation, Callahan slowly becomes more unhinged and desperate for ratings, having his wife and kids killed in an accident to gain sympathy and instituting MartialLaw across the City, setting an entire complex aflame and endangering dozens in the process. In perhaps his most despicable act, Callahan gives his troops the order to use lethal force on a group of young college protesters, leading to dozens of protesters being mowed down. Described by Spider as a man who believes in nothing but his own power, Gary Callahan was a [[CardCarryingVillain self-described]] "Franchise/JamesBond villain" who simply hated every last person on the planet that wasn't himself, and stood out even in this CrapsackWorld as an absolute evil.
13	%% * Crazy Awesome: The whole thing, but ''especially'' Spider.
14	* CrossesTheLineTwice: And then hops back and forth over the line some more before firing a bowel disruptor into the air indiscriminately.
15	* DracoInLeatherPants: While Spider definitely means well, some fans forget that he's also a dangerously unstable and occasionally hypocritical jerkass who uses unethical journalistic methods like violence and invasion of privacy to get the truth. See MisaimedFandom below.
16	* EnsembleDarkhorse: The Chair Leg of Truth.
17	--> '''''IT. DOES. NOT. LIE!'''''
18	* GeniusBonus: The reveal that Channon will be getting ''plenty'' of sex at the nunnery she's joining is foreshadowed a few panels earlier by the brochure, which reads, "Our Lady of the Little Death." The French phrase "''la petite mort''" or "the little death" is an old euphemism for an orgasm.
19	* HarsherInHindsight:
20	** In his acknowledgements, Ellis saves his appreciation for Creator/PatrickStewart for last and jokes that Stewart's wife Wendy Neuss is "smarter than both of us." Stewart and Neuss divorced a year later.
21	** On the penultimate pages of the series, Spider [[spoiler:puts a cigarette in his mouth for OneLastSmoke, draws a handgun, puts it under his chin, and it turns out to be a lighter.]] Three years later, Spider's inspiration, Creator/HunterSThompson, did the exact same thing... [[spoiler: except the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson#Death gun was real]].]]
22	** The Ruin-Storm arc is a lot harder to read for some after Hurricane Sandy, considering that The City is heavily implied to be New York throughout the series.
23	** Fred Christ's sexual manipulation and abuse, plus the rampant grooming in the Smiler's cabinet and the entire ''Business'' arc, take on a dark light after nearly a hundred women came out to accuse Warren Ellis of sexual manipulation and abuse. [[spoiler: Yelena and Spider sleeping together, and eventually living together and having a kid]] comes off less like dramatic storytelling and more like creepy AuthorAppeal now for the same reason.
24	* JerkassWoobie:
25	** Spider. His reaction to [[spoiler:Vita Severn's murder]] is heartbreaking, and whenever he's not being completely insane, you can't help but feel bad for him.
26	-->''"Sometimes I want to be someone else so badly it hurts."''
27	** The Beast. His argument to Spider is that, due to the limits of his power, he cannot be expected to do more than the bare minimum. He's not corrupt so much as beaten down and jaded, skating through the time remaining in his term. He's what happens when cynicism wins, as a contrast to Spider's angry, frustrated idealism.
28	* MisaimedFandom: Ellis has repeatedly said that Spider is not a role model to be emulated, but he remains extremely popular because his opponents are considerably worse than he is.
29	* MoralEventHorizon: Calahan did a lot of shitty things, but the first one we learn about is ordering [[spoiler:Vita Severn's murder.]]
30	* {{Narm}}: The conclusion of "Monstering" is so desperate to demonize the pornographer that it literally depicts him as repeatedly raping a mentally-handicapped woman. What this says about Ellis's view on porn actresses aside, it's trying ''so'' hard to make us hate him that it falls flat.
31	* NightmareFuel: Quite bit, though a common example pointed to is [[spoiler:Vita Severn's assassination]], where the victim's head effectively ''explodes''. The issue is set up so that you don't see anything coming until you turn the page, and then ''that'' happens.
32	* {{Squick}}: Yelena drinking the bottle of tequila on election night. Rather than a worm it has a ''cockroach'' in it and we're treated to an extreme close-up of her slowly ''[[NauseaFuel biting it in half!]]''
33	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The work has many hallmarks of being a parody of late-1990s society and politics.
34	** The technology presented has plenty of {{zeerust}}, being written just on the cusp of the Internet and cellphones coming to dominate the exchange of information.
35	** The political satire is basely almost exclusively on domestic events and issues. It was predominantly written during a period in American history of unusual peace that gave the nation a chance to focus inward. Toward the end of the series' run, the attacks of 9/11 happened, causing the political landscape of the nation to swing sharply toward international war and foreign policy.
36	** Spider's character-defining political cynicism and shockingly frank discourse in the face of stuffy, corrupt politicians has lost a lot of its impact in the wake of the 2016 election. Spider gives politicians mocking nicknames, but Trump did this himself to his political opponents while on the campaign trail. Spider's scatological jokes become less shocking when major party primary candidates started making insinuations about their relative penis sizes during debates. Spider declaring victory when he pushes Callahan into making a public promise to work for change comes across as naive when politicians are now making daily and disposable declarations via Twitter.
37	** This series was written relatively early in the gay rights movement entering the political mainstream, and while all sorts of depravity of various kinds is commonplace in the City, it's almost entirely cishet depravity. There are a grand total of five gay characters in the story - one is an overseer of the History Reservations whose sexuality comes up in one line (out of four she has total), two are escapees from the Maoist China reservation who have no lines (or names, for that matter) and do nothing but make out on the street, and another two are a rabbi and a priest holding hands who are background characters.
38	* ValuesDissonance:
39	** Toward the very beginning of the series. Spider's first story is covering the "Transients," who are people transitioning between being human and alien which began as a kind of temporary body mod. Spider finds the whole thing distasteful, says Transients should be treated like the kids they are (in so many words), and there's an overwhelming implication that Fred Christ, the spokesman for the "Transient Movement" protesting in the City, is faking it for the exclusive purpose of getting access to sex. Ellis meant the movement to be a satire on drug addiction and cults, but with transexuality now in the forefront of public discourse, it's very easy to see Transients as a transphobic satire of transexuals, pushing them into the realm of UnfortunateImplications.
40	** Spider's entire approach to journalism is very much a reaction to [[TheNineties the decade the story was written]], which was a time of apathy and drab political correctness. At that time, his colourful vulgarity and unabashedly biased approach were very much a breath of fresh air. For someone reading in more modern times, where public discourse is considerably cruder with the rise of the and journalism has grown so biased that many people claim that there are now two mutually exclusive versions of the truth, each of which dismisses the other as "fake news" and nothing less than a personal affront, Spider comes across less as a heroic rebel and more like just another {{Troll}} looking to stir up outrage for the sake of outrage.

Context YMMV / Transmetropolitan