I think you've missed the point with regards to Scott's dickishness and the world revolving around him. Scott's entire plot arc is about him getting over himself and not being such a colossal ass. Ramona's is about getting over her baggage and moving forwards in life, the baggage here represented by the Evil Exes—whom, I'll grant you, are pretty shallow character-wise with the possible exceptions of Todd and Gideon.
Also, keep in mind the comic is strongly tied to video games. Scott, like Mario, is obscenely strong and whatnot not because he's a Sue but because he's the main character. (And can he really be a Sue if everyone thinks he's a jerk and the story expects us to think he is as well?)
You keep saying characters are derailed, but you never explain how or give examples. Honestly any example I could think of you might be referencing came off more as Character Development to me than anything.
I honestly can't remember any jokes at the expense of gay people. Wallace, promiscuity aside, doesn't exhibit much in the way of stereotypical traits and has his own well-rounded personality.
I think it's odd you liked the movie, given the characters therein are less deep (at least in my opinion) and movie!Wallace is mostly a walking gay stereotype.
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
It's not just that he's the protagonist; what makes him a sue is the way in which women seem to gravitate towards him. I noticed this whilst watching the movie - I can accept the videogame plot about how it falls on this guy to fight all these exs, but I cant figure out for the life of me why all these women seem so much into such a bumbling, unconfident, uninteresting and introverted guy in the first place. It comes across as very self-insertish of the author.
Book me today! I also review weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs.
Because the character is more than just negative traits, and even in real life relationships there is a reason the feelings started in the first place. Not to mention that it also constitutes the flaws of the other characters. Mary Sue is being used too loosely these days.
@marcellX: Scott wasn't really much more than his negative traits though. He was a slacker and videogame enthusiast, which makes him sort of sympathetic, sure. But the main motivators of his actions is avoiding responsibility, girls and then he just seems to be thoughtless and kind of unpleasant. The whole plot is supposed to be watching Scott become a decent human being and getting self respect... but he doesn't seem to really: He fights to get a girl he wanted and gets her. Maybe is a little less dickish and grows a mild spine but even then it's mild growth consider that there wasn't much to get attached to in the first place.
@Wacko: It's not homophobic at anypoint but it's kind of immature/insecure humour. Wallace was portrayed sympathetically and the author isn't homophobic but there are "haha gay" moments. I remember Wallace being introduced telling Scott that Scott will always be his bitch, or something along those lines. Not insulting and sort of realistic but it feels like an injoke between friends and an old one, this is nice in some ways but it's not funny for me. A lot of humour feels like that. Even [maybe especially] the references.
All said; My experience of Scott Pilgrim is that none of the characters, while having the sort of slacker dialogue that felt realistic, failed to be either really funny or appealling. I don't mind Vitrolic banter but I found the characters delivering it to be flat and the humour as trying to hard to be clever with how to put in references and not clever enough with actually making the references funny. Now, I'll confess that this lead me to drop off the series relatively early and for the conclusion, I'm working off the movie but I found niether too great really.
Mé féin ag daṁsa faoin ngealaċ seanrince gan ċeol leis ach ceol cuisle. DS FC: 4141-3472-4041, feel free to add me.
You and I quote "The whole plot is supposed to be watching Scott become a decent human being and getting self respect... but he doesn't seem to really" and "Maybe is a little less dickish and grows a mild spine but even then it's mild growth consider that there wasn't much to get attached to in the first place." yet you dropped the series early on, don't you think there's a problem with that.
Leave a Comment:
Depending on how much you look into it
I read the 6 books in 5 days thanks to my boyfriend. An in general, after the ride, it was pretty meh. The first four books were basically a sinusoidal wave: first book, cool; second book, bleh; third book, somewhat better-bleh; four book, cool. Five and six are a swan dive into badly written Dramedy and an Idiot Plot like no other.
First, let me start off by saying that this must be the only comic I've seen whose style has become more generic as the years passed. The first book? Awesome, I loved the style. It had creepy teeth, but it was generally cool. As we advance to the sixth, the style becomes more refined (albeit inconsistent every so often) at the same time it turned more and more Animesque, with not only expressions, which was a constant from the first, but panels and shots inherent of manga (amen of even more anime-like expressions). Way to kill a personal style.
The characters, just, get derailed as they want. They don't seem to have a train of thought, or a linear personality which makes sense. Nope. They all orbit around Scott's dick, a main character Mary Stu -ish enough that he seems to have come out of a badly written fanfiction. And the author's ideas are constantly rubbed against our faces. There's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion, but subtlety is a virtue. What is this, Narnia?
The humor is... something. It has quite a range. It goes from intelligent and ellaborated references to 'haha gay' 'haha YourMother'. Because being gay is gay and gays are gay and it's a gay way to be gay.
My last complain would be about how the author has no clue about writing women, for they all orbit around Scott's dick(ness) again and he seems to be flooding with girls despite being widely recognized as a jerk (more like a big idiot to me), but, alas. Everyone is derailed. And Ramona has seven ex boyfriends all of whom are evil orbitting around her. The second ex boyfriend is much nicer than Scott though :I
Conclusion? I'll stick to the film. I absolutely loved it when I watched it months ago with my boyfriend. If you like 'epicness' or 'hot blood', as I nicely call stupid gratuituous action with few base and main characters with a subnormal IQ (for instead, TTGL), this IS your comic.