Strips to Scratch Your Head By
This weeks’ strips of For Better or For Worse have got me scratching my head. If am to believe today's strip, Elizabeth Patterson didn’t choose Anthony Caine for a mate, because she wasn’t grown up. After living in Mtigwaki to find out who she is, she’s now grown up. We have no more mention of that “if it’s meant to be, then it will happen” business she pulled on Constable Paul Wright. She seems to be turning Mtigwaki into The Wizard of Oz, where the point of the whole story ends up that Liz learns “There’s no place like home.”
Lynn Johnston is headed off into a dangerous direction by having Elizabeth Patterson say she went to Mtigwaki to find out who she was, and ultimately ended up finding that not being in Mtigwaki was part of her growing up. She went through quite a bit of effort in researching First Nations people and making Mtigwaki into a pretty realistic place. I remember during the pow-wow strips finding the research to be so well-done, I was hard-pressed to find anything to snark about them. She seemed to be treating the people, their lifestyle and their customs with respect, even if she glossed over the worst parts of modern Ojibway life.
I was disappointed then, with the “Paul Wright cheating on Liz” storyline, because it implied that two persons whose professions would indicate a certain degree of moral integrity, teacher and police officer, were persons who were marked as Liz’s betrayers. Then she went further to justify it by saying people from Northwest Ontario can’t make it in the South, and she should not have expected Paul to, insulting the capabilities of the Ojibway people. And then went further by making the entire town of Mtigwaki culpable in not telling her about the cheating, implicating the culture of being too closed off to do the right thing by Elizabeth.
Now we are about to head in a direction that Lynn Johnston has hinted about before, when Liz left Mtigwaki for the summer teaching job in Mississauga and referred to it as a “real job” and being so happy about it she cried. I fear Lynn is going to make some comparison between immature life in Mtigwaki with Paul Wright and grown-up life in Milborough with Anthony Caine, and inadvertently insult the First Nations people again.
As for the main issue of the strips, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The last 3 days running have been justifications for the Liz / Anthony relationship. The thought that keeps running through my mind is that Lynn would not have to do this, if Liz had chosen Paul (pre-cheater version) or Warren. However, if Liz had chosen Eric Chamberlain, she would.
Lynn Johnston is headed off into a dangerous direction by having Elizabeth Patterson say she went to Mtigwaki to find out who she was, and ultimately ended up finding that not being in Mtigwaki was part of her growing up. She went through quite a bit of effort in researching First Nations people and making Mtigwaki into a pretty realistic place. I remember during the pow-wow strips finding the research to be so well-done, I was hard-pressed to find anything to snark about them. She seemed to be treating the people, their lifestyle and their customs with respect, even if she glossed over the worst parts of modern Ojibway life.
I was disappointed then, with the “Paul Wright cheating on Liz” storyline, because it implied that two persons whose professions would indicate a certain degree of moral integrity, teacher and police officer, were persons who were marked as Liz’s betrayers. Then she went further to justify it by saying people from Northwest Ontario can’t make it in the South, and she should not have expected Paul to, insulting the capabilities of the Ojibway people. And then went further by making the entire town of Mtigwaki culpable in not telling her about the cheating, implicating the culture of being too closed off to do the right thing by Elizabeth.
Now we are about to head in a direction that Lynn Johnston has hinted about before, when Liz left Mtigwaki for the summer teaching job in Mississauga and referred to it as a “real job” and being so happy about it she cried. I fear Lynn is going to make some comparison between immature life in Mtigwaki with Paul Wright and grown-up life in Milborough with Anthony Caine, and inadvertently insult the First Nations people again.
As for the main issue of the strips, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The last 3 days running have been justifications for the Liz / Anthony relationship. The thought that keeps running through my mind is that Lynn would not have to do this, if Liz had chosen Paul (pre-cheater version) or Warren. However, if Liz had chosen Eric Chamberlain, she would.
posted by howard at 12:31 AM
14 Comments:
And I don't buy for a second that Liz has "grown up." Her coming "home" marked a huge regression, not growing up. Liz now knows who she IS. I think we already had that figured out--Liz, you're an oblivious, passive-aggressive girl-child.
The way the strip was played, with Liz saying this and still eating like her usual slobbish self, may be Lynn's way of saying the same thing. We will have to see the rest of the week to know for sure.
The other possibility is that growing up is from the huge regression to where she is now, having her own place in Milborough. But that is still less than where she was in Mtigwaki.
Already said by April, but that is another way that Lynn is showing one thing in the strip (i.e. Liz has had to be taken care of and forced into making decisions since coming back to Milbo) and TELLING us something different.
As a reader, I feel tremendously insulted every time Lynn pulls this business.
DebJyn
Gotta love Candace - no one pulls the wool over this girl’s eyes!
It’s so easy to become a critic. But c’mon guys, people are just human. Liz spent two years in a God forsaken village and she acclimated remarkably well. For a brief time she even considered making this community her home. But the truth is that two years is a very long time to be away from one’s own culture. That’s a hell-of-a-lot more than I’ve ever endured. Liz had to (and did) mature quickly to survive in Mtigwaki. It’s also true that when she returned to her parents’ home she exhibited many of her old ways - something that I have also done. But that behavior is temporary.
So, even if at this very moment Liz seems to think that the purpose for her leaving home was predominantly to find out who she is, the reality is that the Mtigwaki experience has given her many skills that will help her survive hardships that she will certainly encounter in the future. It always seems that when I’m looking to buy shoes I notice everyone’s shoes and I don’t pay much attention to the other things people are wearing. But just because I’m obsessing with shoes doesn’t mean that everything else no longer means much to me.
Anon
Candace may not be fooled, but the story sequence is confusing to me. How did Lynn Johnston end up in a situation where she feels the need to have Liz explain herself? Given the way Lynn normally writes, where every plot detail is announced 1-2 years before it actually happens, it is a little surprising this would be necessary.
After all, Lynn Johnston is the woman who had Mira Sobinski point out a fire escape on an apartment 1 ½ years before there was an apartment fire. She had Elly talk about retiring 3 years before it happened. She had John looking at the Stibbs place 1 ½ years before they moved into it. She had April say there was something about Becky she didn’t like, months before they actually started fighting. In none of those cases, did she have to have those characters explain themselves after the event happened, because we saw it coming a long way off.
In contrast, she wrote stories where Liz went to Mtigwaki and gave the readership every impression this was her new home. Liz and Mtigwaki embraced each other whole-heartedly, Elly went to visit Liz in Mtigwaki and called it Liz’s home, and Liz told Elly she felt Milborough was no longer her home. And to cap it all off, she has a boyfriend, with no visible flaws, whose name is literally Mr. Right with a little sign to make sure we didn’t miss it. There was not one moment of homesickness shown after Shiimsa arrived shortly into her teaching career. There is not a hint that Liz thinks of Mtigwaki as a “God forsaken village” (to quote Anon), or she was having difficulty being away from her own culture. We never saw Liz run off to a mall, or dash off to her favourite place to eat as soon as she got to Milborough. We never saw her complain while she was in Mtigwaki that she missed seeing movies or theatres or art galleries or professional ice hockey. In her Panels and Pixels interview, Lynn Johnston said she intended Liz to leave Mtigwaki, because “There are just too many huge differences in the way of life. There are too many things you miss as a city person.” Given Lynn’s style of writing, it is hard to believe if that was her intent, she wouldn’t have included moments of that throughout Liz’s final school year.
I have a theory. The theory is that, aside from the pow-wow strips which were done in an unusual flashback sequence with very good art, Lynn Johnston had very little to do with the stories of Liz in Mtigwaki. This move to homesickness was so abrupt, it feels to me just like when someone has taken over the writing from someone, where they did not agree with the direction the previous writer was taking. If my theory is correct, then Lynn is using Liz conversation with Candace to put across story ideas she would have done differently, if she had written all the material.
"How did Lynn Johnston end up in a situation where she feels the need to have Liz explain herself?"
This might be in response to the snarkers who have been posting on CT!! Seems that most readers (greater than 50%) are comfortable with the way Anthony has been portrayed.
"someone has taken over the writing from someone, where they did not agree with the direction the previous writer was taking. "
I don't think Lynn would have changed her story because of external pressures. There were several references made to the difficulty a city person would probably experience living in such a rural place.
I was disappointed when Liz suddenly got homesick - after all, she was doing so well. However, I can easily see that a letter from home could trigger that response. I remember the summer my daughter got a panic attack in sleep-away camp. She wanted to call home but the camp policy did not permit it. She totally freaked out, and they finally relented at 3:00am. I’m comparing a child with an adult, but these types of emotions do occur at any age.
If (and that’s a very big if) LJ changed her original story, it would only have been for the benefit of the hybrid, not because of recommendations from her assistants. After all, Liz marrying Paul would have been magnificent. (Well, the wedding would have been magnificent but I’m not so sure about the marriage.)
Anon
Anon,
This might be in response to the snarkers who have been posting on CT!! Seems that most readers (greater than 50%) are comfortable with the way Anthony has been portrayed.
I’m not sure where you are getting your statistic; however it’s possible. The casual reader of For Better or For Worse is probably not going to remember Anthony Caine’s “I have no hooome” speech, which is the moment which turned people against Anthony. The Panels and Pixels interview seemed to reference Coffee Talk, and Lynn certainly has easy access to not only those which show up on Coffee Talk, but those which do not. The other possibility is that Lynn may have been influenced by a few articles in the press who, when they were describing the impending end of the strip, felt the need to also criticize the Anthony / Liz storyline.
There were several references made to the difficulty a city person would probably experience living in such a rural place.
I remember a number of those being made before and just as Liz arrived in Mtigwaki; but I don’t remember ever seeing Liz experience any frustration with those things.
I was disappointed when Liz suddenly got homesick - after all, she was doing so well. However, I can easily see that a letter from home could trigger that response.
The circumstances of the letter challenge the homesickness response. The e-mail in question was the one which mentioned Anthony got divorced, and Liz got it near the end of the school year, when she would have been going home soon anyway. When I read over the strips today, it still seems to me the story is written as if to say Liz is crying “homesickness”, when the real reason is to get back to Anthony, which she wants to do, but may find embarrassing to admit. It is even clearer in the monthly letter:
Liz's Letter, May 2006
Now I hear that my friend Anthony and his wife Thérèse have split up, but I don't even know why or when it happened! There was no one home this morning when I called, and now I have to wait until the end of the school day ( the kids are writing a test while I'm writing this!) to call home again to find out what happened. To say I'm counting the days until the end of the term so I can get home and get involved in my family's lives is an understatement.
I love the desperation that comes across in the letter. It was very nice. I don’t mind that Liz is using homesickness as an excuse for chasing after Anthony. I find it to be an interesting plot point for showing Liz’s character. What I did find surprising was that Lynn Johnston said the reason was homesickness in The Panels and Pixels interview.
And I have never been able to figure out why Lynn also showed that Paul had not only agreed to move South, but that was verified by Gary That seemed to again showed him as a decent person, ready to sacrifice for her, which was something Liz wouldn't do.
That abrupt decision to leave him and Mtig (and the method she did so); the innate decency of Paul's character and Liz's recent behavior does nothing at all to make us like the character. If she is trying to show Liz as "flawed" she has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams; Liz is selfish, doesn't consider others, seems to be incapable of making clear-cut decisions, manipulates people and then makes excuses for her behavior by blaming others.
Flawed is one thing; but deceitful goes into a whole new territory.
“I’m not sure where you are getting your statistic;”
Just from a quick glance at the posted letters on CT. They claim that the postings are a fair representation of the mail they receive; I accept their word.
“Now I hear that my friend Anthony and his wife Thérèse have split up, but I don't even know why or when it happened!”
I remember reading this letter and thinking: How could she not know why it happened? P-lease.
“What I did find surprising was that Lynn Johnston said the reason was homesickness”
Your are right that if homesickness was a significant factor for going home then it should have been more developed, but I do think that it’s basically true.
“but I don’t remember ever seeing Liz experience any frustration with those things.”
I agree that we don’t see it but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t just under the surface. Teaching is extremely demanding for beginning teachers, so work would have kept Liz very busy and also highly creative. Having a boy friend certainly helped ease the frustration during the second year, but that is also a temporary state. Vivian adapted to Mtigwaki because she became a first nation “convert.” Liz was always an observer. She was an outsider learning about another culture but not living it. I honestly cannot imagine a young woman living in such isolation and not getting restless and homesick.
Anon
Anonymous
“Paul had not only agreed to move South”
Take a closer look at that strip. Looks like Paul is only giving lip-service. And his behavior with Susan when he first sees her also raises some doubts about his character.
Anon
Let’s not forget how Paul mislead Liz about his transfer and also the “gentle” way that he planned to inform her about Susan.
Anon
All these anonymouses are confusing. I will try to address all of you at one time.
“Paul had not only agreed to move South”
Take a closer look at that strip. Looks like Paul is only giving lip-service.
When I originally saw that strip with Paul’s thought balloon, I thought it was only lip-service too, but Gary Crane did confirm that Paul did actually submit the paperwork for the Toronto transfer. What Paul did not do was cancel his Spruce Narrows transfer. Whether that was on purpose to get closer to Susan Dokis or an accident, we will never know.
“What I did find surprising was that Lynn Johnston said the reason was homesickness”
Your are right that if homesickness was a significant factor for going home then it should have been more developed, but I do think that it’s basically true.
If Lynn Johnston says it, it must be so. After all, who should know the work better than the author?
“but I don’t remember ever seeing Liz experience any frustration with those things.”
I agree that we don’t see it but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t just under the surface. Teaching is extremely demanding for beginning teachers, so work would have kept Liz very busy and also highly creative. Having a boy friend certainly helped ease the frustration during the second year, but that is also a temporary state. Vivian adapted to Mtigwaki because she became a first nation “convert.” Liz was always an observer. She was an outsider learning about another culture but not living it. I honestly cannot imagine a young woman living in such isolation and not getting restless and homesick.
I wish I had gotten to see what you imagined, instead of what was actually there. It would have made for a much better story.
Let’s not forget how Paul mislead Liz about his transfer and also the “gentle” way that he planned to inform her about Susan.
There were some mixed feelings about that one. Paul’s proposed method was probably gentler than having Warren fly her in early, having Gary Crane hint about it, so Liz would go storming up to Susan Dokis’ apartment for a confrontation. On the other hand, is it better to break up with someone in person or on the phone? There was a sense about the trip that Liz was going to go to Mtigwaki to fulfill her promise to Jesse Mukwa, no matter what, so he might not have been saving her a trip if he told her in advance.
“On the other hand, is it better to break up with someone in person or on the phone?”
Face to face would have been appropriate if Paul had visited Liz on her home turf. But Liz was on vacation - she had been looking forward to this for so long. What did he think? He would tell her in the car and then an hour later she would be ready to visit with friends?
At best, Paul is clueless.
Anon
Anon,
Agreed. Paul would have come off a lot better if he had just broken it to Liz on the phone. Then Warren and Gary Crane would have just been letting Liz know something she already knew.
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