Mayor: Reasonable Authority Figure?
Look, I pushed for this a while back, and I want to again: We have seen, twice now, the Mayor act in reasonable ways when not confronted by Sam. That doesn't make her nice. She was, until now, completely unwilling to see Florence as a person. She is a human-first bigot in many ways. But we have seen her, twice now, carefully listen to those arguing that a crash is coming and carefully weigh the evidence there. She found against Florence, because she saw her job as taking care of the humans of the planet. She's reached a compromise with Max, because she's had a slight change of heart and because now she sees taking care of humans as being better served by that compromise.
She's the definition of a reasonable authority figure. I know it's weird to think of her that way, but I think the evidence is clear that her frothing at the mouth moments are all due to Sam, and not indicative of her usual character.
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It looks like Replacement Squark agrees with me, and has edited it in in the meantime. :)
Seriously, throughout the comic, when not confronted with Sam, she's been reasonable. Horrible, yes. She has no view of non-humans as people, she is more than happy to do horrible things, and she is, above all else, a politician. But she's not unreasonable... provided she's not dealing with Sam, who always brings out the worst in most people.
Edited by 69.172.221.8
Trying to go through the archives to find pictures of everyone for the Cast Page. (Which has some lacunae — Niomi and Helix should probably be included, for example.)
Criteria are simple: whenever possible, the comic should include a reasonably representative portrait of the character alone in one or more panels.
Sam: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1800/fc01719.png (1)
Florence: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1500/fc01492.png (2)
Helix: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1500/fc01497.png (2)
Computer: Haven't found one in the color archives.
Polly: Haven't found one by ...herself? Himself?
Dvorak: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2100/fc02062.png (3)
Qwerty: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1500/fc01463.png (2)
Sawtooth: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1500/fc01470.png (any)
Blunt: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1900/fc01805.png (any)
Edge: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1900/fc01812.png (2 -- and the text is perfect!)
Benny: Not sure. Maybe http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2100/fc02049.png (3)?
"Clippy": http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2100/fc02070.png (2 or 3)
Kornada: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2200/fc02176.png (2)
Winston: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2000/fc01951.png (2)
Mayor: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2200/fc02126.png (3)
Bowman: None.
Post: Didn't find a good one.
Mayor's Assistant: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1800/fc01791.png (1)
Any comments?
Edited by RobinZimm
Pulled:
Sam Starfall
Helix
Adult Child has been renamed to One of the Kids. In order for this to be an example of the trope, the character's childishness has to be from or demonstrated by interacting with children. This example can be added back with context relevant to the trope if it fits.
"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous." Hide / Show Replies
Florence, to Raibert: "You seem to be a very honest and very scary man."
Raibert needs ... something of a trope, but I'm not sure which here. It's easy to see Raibert as one of the good guys, but he's certainly no more 'good' than the mayor is. (Indeed, I'd argue right now he's worse.) He's pleasant, cautious, and perfectly willing to murder Florence if required. He saw nothing morally wrong with the idea of wiping out half a billion robots (hence why he didn't mind the safeguards program existing), he just saw it as a poor decision economically and logistically at that time.
Is he ambiguously evil? Creepy Good? Good is not Nice? (I don't think he's the last one.) Part of it is tricky since Freefall loves its hard grey and grey morality world, but Raibert definitely deserves a trope or two attached to clarify his moral ambiguity.