Stories tend to forget the people they leave behind
No time for me today? Here are the highlights:
Introducing Legendary Ronin Warui Hito
Why do people believe stupid things?
NSFW New York City Gallows pinup (well-tagged, plenty of warning)
Fiction can make it seem like life is a fairly linear process of self-discovery and growth.
This is by design, and for good reason. To be moving, a story will usually look at a "highlight" of a person's life (let's just assume for the sake of argument here that we consider even a fictional character a "person" in a meaningfully tangible sense). A season of real growth and real change.
These transformative tales inspire us. They have a sort of tonical effect we can universally apply at least a drop of to our lives to ameliorate our existential dread. To make us feel as though "everything will be okay."
Conversely, the middling, stagnant parts of life are a tougher sell with fiction. Those times where we're really, truly, lost. Where we're handed opportunities to change on a silver platter. Or where redemption is available at every corner under a neon sign you can see from the moon.
Despite this abundance of chances at meaningful growth, we're still just... stuck. No matter what we see, hear, or learn, and no matter who it comes from, we don't recognize it for what it is. We can't shake ourselves out of our blindness.
Like I said, a tough sell. But who isn't frustrated in a Pauline sense by making the same mistakes over and over again? To cite an example from contemporary fiction, who isn't frustrated watching Don Draper (of Mad Men) fall into the same, predictable cycles of self-destruction, as though he has no self-awareness, no agency, at all?
Why can't he just change?
I love this idea. I love how pride can blind you to the true significance of the events that happen in your life. I love the idea of misreading your life's tea leaves.
Something happens, and you think you understand it, and what needs to be done. But you lack some kind of wider view. You misunderstand the significance of the thing, and even though you see yourself as committed to a righteous path running parallel to the problem you've identified, your diagnosis is completely wrong. To the point where you are doing more harm, perpetuating the same problem.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret: This is the whole of the conflict inside the Green-Eyed Ronin.
After "Gaijin," Ronin Digital Express will take a bit of a pivot with a chapter titled "The Legendary Ronin Warui Hito."
Warui Hito is a bit of a meta-commentary on stories, and the people they leave behind. It's also meta-commentary on the Green-Eyed Ronin, and his moral arc.
So far, we've been following the Green-Eyed Ronin on episodic adventures with no real connecting thread. That changed with "Gaijin." In Warui Hito, the reader should really begin to ask themselves, "who is this guy?"
And the rest of the season will be about giving you an answer.
Warui Hito will be a full 20 pages, the longest episode planned so far. Since it's such a significant one-shot, I'm thinking of running a Kickstarter for a print version at some point. Let me know if you would be into that. You can reply directly, or on Twitter.
I try to limit my commentary on societal or political issues as much as possible (in accordance with my artistic principles), but in keeping with this issue's theme, I found the following article very interesting.
Professor Brooke Harrington of Dartmouth walks us through the mental scaffolding at play when people believe things that are not merely untrue, but increasingly untenable over time.
That nuance is fascinating -- to have doubts about something such as a new medical intervention like the Covid vaccine strikes me as reasonable.
However, in the presence of abundant evidence, especially over time, that should relieve those doubts, there are some who prefer to cling to their doubts. And to justify those doubts, search out increasingly specious justifications.
The narrative really does start to unravel by any measure, but the faith in the narrative seems to grow ever stronger, no matter how shaky or how quickly shrinking one's intellectual terrain is becoming.
And we don't just see this with the vaccine. We see it with a wide variety of issues. Yes, on "both sides" (if there are only two).
Anyway. This isn't a defense of stupidity. I'm using the same argumentative framework here as I have long used with my evangelical conservative friends and family as well. That is, "I'm not defending anybody. I want to know what they think and why."
If I lose subscribers over that, then fuck ya ;)
Anyway, here's Professor Harrington's excellent piece over at The Atlantic.
Lastly, here are your cookies.
I drew this pinup for a buddy's comic project. It's called New York City Gallows, by mate Ben Cook, artist Robert Ahmad and others.
I have no participation in the project. Ben is a pal and offered to put a print ad for Ronin Digital Express into one of his issues and I always appreciated that. Beyond that, she was fun to draw and the logo was fun to make.
You can get the first couple of issues of New York City Gallows here.
That's all for now.
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If it's not too much trouble, share Ronin Digital Express with a friend, or even an enemy with good taste.
Be good.
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