Monday, June 26, 2006

Susan / Paul / Liz, Gee Whiz

As far as developing the Susan / Paul / Liz triangle, the big clues dropped today are Susan mentioning to Paul that she will be living in the apartment in September, so he knows where to find her. The Paul acknowledges that by saying he will see her around. But after dropping that line, he goes into the clinch with Liz to throw her and the readership off. The setup for the strip is so painfully obvious, if Paul ended up marrying Liz, it would be a majour shock. Working in Paul’s favour is his last name and the sign pointing it out, and the fact that Lynn sometimes drops hints about characters fooling around that don’t ever see the light of day. Years ago, April hinted that she couldn’t trust Becky around her boyfriend, and I seriously doubt we will ever see Gerald / Becky play out in the short time that is remaining on this strip.

In the meantime for me, when I came back over the weekend, I had hoped that someone in some commentary would explain the powwow trail, and found no one that did. So, a little research and I found a nice article talking about it. It sound somewhat akin to the people that work in the Renaissance Festival that travels around the States during the summer, or in Arizona, the people that dress up in Old West style and go down to Tombstone every single weekend to get stinking drunk, or the people who go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show every weekend. The big difference is that a lot of the kids that do this to participate in the dance competitions which occur at the powwows. Almost assuredly, Paul Wright and Susan Dokis were dance competitors. I know that we have established in the strip that Constable Paul Wright is ½ Irish and ½ Ojibway, but simple mentioning the powwow trail as an activity clearly puts him in the very traditional Ojibway crowd. I am happy to read that, since I have often thought the only reason he was pegged as Ojibway and Irish was so that Lynn could do that Ojibirish pun. Also, I have been playing Paul as deeply into his Ojibway heritage as a means of developing his character.

It looks like the end of the week is going to be devoted to the Liz praise feast and we get to learn about giveaways. Contrary to Paul Wright’s opinion, I am not sure this being interpreted correctly by Lynn. The definition I found was:

Giveaway is a ceremony that is done on a number of different occasions. There will often be a giveaway during a Pow Wow. Giveaways are normally done when someone has something special happen to them and it is to express their gratitude for this gift.

In a number of websites, I found giveaways associated with the winners of dance competitions at the powwow. In the For Better or For Worse website, they show the giveaway blanket, which I am sure we will see copied for the strip. On some other websites, giveaways are as common as flies with regular giveaways occurring every week. It will be a great honour for Liz, of course. However, the question arises, “Why doesn’t Liz already know about giveaways? She’s been there for 2 years.”

3 Comments:

Blogger April Patterson said...

Howard, as always, your research rocks! :)

4:43 AM  
Blogger howard said...

qnjones,

I will definitely snark as Constable Paul Wright. I will have to think about the Susan Dokis perspective, to see if she has something to add that Paul wouldn't.

7:03 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje,

Thanks for the compliments. When Paul first came available, the prospect of researching him was one of the main motivators for taking him as a character.

7:04 AM  

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