I Am Angry and I Wish To Be Left Alone
Today’s reprint in For Better or For Worse touches on the nature of the Elly and John relationship. Elly is mad about something. We don’t know what. It doesn’t really matter, because Elly will show us in the course of the next 8 panels, the kind of thing which gets her upset with John.
Elly gets up set with John in the final panel, because:
a. He reveals that he knows Elly enough to know that she will eventually get over being angry, so long as he does exactly what she says.
b. Elly planned to reward John with her affection until he pointed out that he had a part in gaining her affection, so it is no longer an act which Elly can consider to be solely the result of her efforts.
c. John revealed that he thought of “to be left alone” as a definition for “ignore”. Oh, John. You can leave Elly alone; but you can never ignore her.
Elly gets up set with John in the final panel, because:
a. He reveals that he knows Elly enough to know that she will eventually get over being angry, so long as he does exactly what she says.
b. Elly planned to reward John with her affection until he pointed out that he had a part in gaining her affection, so it is no longer an act which Elly can consider to be solely the result of her efforts.
c. John revealed that he thought of “to be left alone” as a definition for “ignore”. Oh, John. You can leave Elly alone; but you can never ignore her.
posted by howard at 10:55 PM
4 Comments:
d. John can never be seen to win an argument with Elly. This is not to say that he loses them; he just can't say that he did. The past is littered with examples of John getting his way because he had the brains to not point out that he'd won. Since Elly holds grudges for reasons she forgets, that's the best way of dealing with her touchy-but-dim personality.
Elly acts like a spoiled little child in so many ways here; she's angry, but she won't say why- she just wants to be "left alone." Then she's stunned when John seems perfectly willing to let her cool down and fall asleep on his side of the bed, so she cuddles up next to him. Then dumbass John states the obvious, and she gets offended again. The only part I don't get is why John is surprised at the end of the strip.
John_F_Jamele,
The only part I don't get is why John is surprised at the end of the strip.
That's probably because he foolishly expects Elly to act like an adult; most of the tension in the early years stemmed from his failing to realize how immature she was. Elly reminds me of the dimwit central character of Luann: an immature twit sitting around moping about how ooooooooooold she is.
I'm gonna go with B, mostly.
"Narcissists are not only selfish and ungiving -- they seem to have to make a point of not giving what they know someone else wants. Thus, for instance, in a "romantic" relationship, they will want you to do what they want because they want it and not because you want it -- and, in fact, if you actually want to do what they want, then that's too much like sharing and you wreck their fun and they don't want it anymore."
From http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/traits.html#stingy
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