"Rhyme loved so many people."
Rhyme and Reason is a multimedia webcomic that was created by Juicedoesthings
, and co-written by Passioninblue. (They are also known respectively as Mallow and Lark.) The webcomic is set in a fictional place called Rose City, a place populated with many different species of humanoids. You would see, most commonly, object heads, anthropomorphic animals, plantfolk, and more recently, robots. The story follows Team Reason, a group of roommates who have one thing in common: they have been hurt by Rhyme, the "killer robot".
The webcomic can be found on the tumblr blog rar-archive.
This webcomic contains the following tropes:
- Accidental Time Travel: Through no fault of his own, Static was transported forward several decades at once to the current year.
- A.I. Getting High: Certain USB s have a drug-like effect on robots in the story. Functionally, they override negative "if-then statements" to be more positive and relieve stress.
- Alternate Reality Game: Several parts of the comic's story are revealed like this and then later posted to the main blog after fans discover them. Notable examples include:
- Some Information about the Therapy House story-line was obtained through an event where fans could battle characters via Pokémon showdown.
- Mang, Lightman, and Kassir have all had Tumblr blogs that fans can send asks to, revealing information on and progressing the story during events.
- Alternative Turing Test: Robots take a test provided by scientists at age 19 to determine their sentience/if they are far enough along in development to be given an ID and considered an adult.
- Androids and Detectives: Private detective Kassir and therapy robot Lemie, who insists on assisting her.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Object heads are created by placing a chosen object into a tar pit that is in a spot naturally in tune with the weave that makes up the world's magic. A group of people then cast a spell to infuse the object with tar, creating the rest of its body and animating it.
- Bilingual Bonus: Birthday uses Spanish words and phrases several times in the comic.
- Computer Voice: Most robots are given a synthetic voice. Some robots, such as the therapy bots, even get to choose theirs. Rhyme is a unique example as he has the ability to store and use a secondary voice in addition to his own.
- Cute Machines: The therapy robots, including Mac, were designed by Mr. Lightman to be appealing to patients. They were fruit-themed, color coded, and their designs feature several heart-shapes. There is irony though, as the conditions of the therapy house and the lives of the therapy robots were often anything but cute.
- Do Androids Dream?: Debated by non-robots in-universe, we know the answer is yes, even before it is proved in more obvious ways in the comic.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: It takes the comic a few pages and concept drawings to get into its distinctive rhythm and style.
- Eating Machine: Most robots in the story, namely sentient ones who have been enchanted with magic, have the ability to eat and digest food. Not having enough food has a negative effect on them and seems to be tied to their vital magical functions. If a robot consistently has less than enough food, they can become "magically malnourished", which shows differently in different robots depending on the nature of their enchantments.
- Elemental Powers: Object heads have elemental powers relating to their object as an Inherent Gift. Shiny specks are visible in their tar of a color associated with the element.
- Eye Motifs: The entity that only Wesley and Static can see, who we later come to know as Outface, stares at them as floating eyes.
- Number of eyes and pupil visibility vary among object heads and have societal significance.
- The character Marco has one large glowing eye, which is often depicted as resembling the moon.
- Fantastic Science: Magic is used alongside technology, and scientists such as Professor Talon and Mr. Lightman use it in order to make their robots behave more realistically like people or have more functions. (Which ends up backfiring, as all robots made with any type of magic actually become sentient.)
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: A key theme in the series. All robot characters in the series gained sentience over their development due to the magical enchantments used in their construction.
- Subverted when sentient robot Mang, trapped in a dangerous, metaphorically underground factory run by Lightman, is horrified at robots being constructed that are only their programming and lack magical sentience.
- Interface with a Familiar Face: When Rhyme's secondary stored voice is revealed to be Static's.
- Killer Robot: Played with. Rhyme is referred to by other characters, mainly people who do not know him personally, such as news anchors, as "The Killer Robot". He has killed people, but it is not an inherent function in him. He sees organic beings as less valuable than robotic ones for personal reasons, and usually sees killing, along with other crimes, as a casual, consequence-free solution to everyday troubles if the opportunity arises. A means to an end rather than a goal unto itself. He also fantasizes about killing members of Team Reason, but also seems to have conflicting, back-and-forth feelings on the topic, especially with Static. Due to the black-and-white functions of his code, preventing him from killing strangers was as easy as someone he saw as someone he loved telling him to stop. He does still seem fine with threatening others, so far.
- Meaningful Rename: After regaining important memories that were recently lost to him, Mang chooses the name Wick for himself to symbolize his chosen purpose. Wick wants Lightman to fear his name, but feels that it should be one that he chose.
- Metal Muncher: Subverted when Mang, a robot, is surprised to see Marco, an organic, eating metal. (Note that Marco is the only character we see with this strange taste, and is actually an entity.)
- Personality Chip: Played with. A robot's personality seems to be controlled by 3 main parts: their code, their magically developed sentience and individuality, and their memory chip. If a sentient robot's memory chip is removed, they can eventually gain back their memories on account of their magic, even if they remain without access to their physical memory chip. This has happened before with Mang, who wanted their memories back, and Lime, who didn't.
- Power Crystal: The lightning gem is sought after by both Rhyme and Team Reason, and is a source of conflict for them. The lightning gem was the original source of Static's lightning powers that run in the family. He wants to find the gem to return the magic due to being threatened by the entity who originally posessed it. Rhyme wants to find the lightning gem because his factory is running out of power, and he thinks that the gem could power it to boost his life count and/or create identical clones of him that he believe will finally understand him.note
- Robot Antennae: The therapy robots are a prime example of this.
- Robots Are Just Better: Rhyme claims that robots deserve to live more than organics due to being built for a purpose. Mang explains to him why this isn't really true, and he seems to begin to reconsider.
- Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: From clearly sentient organic-like robots such as the therapy bots, to a technically sentient vending machine yelling at you for stealing.Vending Machine: You are trying to trick vending machine. vending machine does not like that. Please return SLIM JIM or authorities may be called.
- Sliding Scaleof Antagonist Vileness: While Rhyme and other antagonists are viewed through a lense of grey morality and can be sympathized with, Mr. Lightman and Bloodwood are on a different level of evil.
- Smart House: The abandoned factory Rhyme lives in is possibly this.
- The Multiverse: Kassir and Vigil are fated to travel through the multiverse together, leaving their time in each world short and bittersweet.
- Tinman Typist: One example being Rhyme using the computer in his factory.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
- Lightman treats the therapy robots not as employees, but as objects. He is even fine with “disposing” of them if they cause too much trouble He justifies this mistreatment as being fine due to their lack of sentience, the only thing keeping him from guilt. Therefore, he has incentive in denouncing claims made by robot rights activists and keeping evidence provided by his robots from reaching the public.
- Professor Talon and Talon co. as a whole created Rhyme with the express purpose of being a non-sentient testing dummy who intelligently could experience car crashes and other accidents repeatedly, coming back to life after each time. It was horrifying in retrospect due to the fact that Rhyme, like other robots created that way, sentient, and experienced pain each time. Rhyme also faced numerous other mistreatments, such as being kept in under-stimulating rooms when not in active use while being monitored by Talon co. workers.
