Snarlpathy
I am not sure how to take today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse. Possibilities are:
a. This is a continuation of the “Everyone’s sick except John” storyline from the end of January. Michael and Elly may be better, but little Lizzie is still suffering from it and her illness wakes her up in the middle of the night.
b. Lizzie is just sick again for reasons unrelated to the story from the end of January. Possibly the rapidly-changing storyline from day-to-day during this week has upset her delicate system.
c. Since Michael has reduced in age to being a preschooler, Lizzie has reduced in age to being an infant and now is no longer old enough to sleep through the night. Join us in future strips as Lizzie unlearns how to crawl.
d. Judging from the “Hic” and “Hick” noises and Lynn Johnston’s tendency to jump to plot points in these new-runs much earlier than she did originally, we are seeing the first stages of Lizzie’s future drinking problem.
As for the punch line, I am a little confused. “Sympathy” has “s” and “a” in common with “Snarl”. Usually when Lynn does these kinds of jokes, like “prayer” and “prairie”, for example, the words are a little closer together in spelling or sound. As for character empathy, Elly gets more snarl than sympathy from me, or from probably any parent who has had to stay up all night with a sick kid. On the other hand, I am sure that Susan Smith thinks it is a real knee-slapper.
a. This is a continuation of the “Everyone’s sick except John” storyline from the end of January. Michael and Elly may be better, but little Lizzie is still suffering from it and her illness wakes her up in the middle of the night.
b. Lizzie is just sick again for reasons unrelated to the story from the end of January. Possibly the rapidly-changing storyline from day-to-day during this week has upset her delicate system.
c. Since Michael has reduced in age to being a preschooler, Lizzie has reduced in age to being an infant and now is no longer old enough to sleep through the night. Join us in future strips as Lizzie unlearns how to crawl.
d. Judging from the “Hic” and “Hick” noises and Lynn Johnston’s tendency to jump to plot points in these new-runs much earlier than she did originally, we are seeing the first stages of Lizzie’s future drinking problem.
As for the punch line, I am a little confused. “Sympathy” has “s” and “a” in common with “Snarl”. Usually when Lynn does these kinds of jokes, like “prayer” and “prairie”, for example, the words are a little closer together in spelling or sound. As for character empathy, Elly gets more snarl than sympathy from me, or from probably any parent who has had to stay up all night with a sick kid. On the other hand, I am sure that Susan Smith thinks it is a real knee-slapper.
posted by howard at 9:50 PM
12 Comments:
howard,
As for character empathy, Elly gets more snarl than sympathy from me, or from probably any parent who has had to stay up all night with a sick kid.
It isn't just parents who wish that Elly would die in a cancer fire; I should think that confirmed bachelors and maiden aunts hate Elly's guts too. As they said on the Foobiverse, Lizzie is "supposed" to suffer this torment in perfect silence so as to not disturb Elly's repose with her "unfair" needs and "evil" demands. This has a sinister effect that one day came back to haunt them. When Elizabeth was five or so, she was very sick and had to be hospitalized. As the Pattersons wore a groove in the waiting room floor pacing and asking anyone within earshot if Lizzie was going to pull through this, Elly's mind was racing because she didn't see this illness coming. It never occurred to the rock colossus of narcissism that Liz knew not to try to get sympathy from a heart of granite.
I was trying to think of a situation where modern Lynn would have a cause to complain about the overnight illness of toddlers. Then it came back to me the sequence with Robin and his mysterious ear illness. At least there, Deanna felt guilty for resenting Robin and his sickness.
Of course, there was Lynn Johnston’s long story in Caring Today how she praised all those old people in her life who suffered through illness without complaining. Maybe that’s affected how modern Lynn views children with illnesses too. The better children are the ones who suffer and don’t complain. It seems a strange attitude to take, but Lynn Johnston is about as far-removed from children and caring for others as she can be these days.
howard,
Of course, there was Lynn Johnston’s long story in Caring Today how she praised all those old people in her life who suffered through illness without complaining. Maybe that’s affected how modern Lynn views children with illnesses too. The better children are the ones who suffer and don’t complain. It seems a strange attitude to take, but Lynn Johnston is about as far-removed from children and caring for others as she can be these days.
Yes, she is if she's going to think things like that. After all, someobdy like Iris would gladly downplay her troubles and tell Elly not to interefere because her sense of dignity would prevent her from making a spectacle of herself and her pride would stop her from being revealed to be weak. A child of whatever indeterminate age Lizzie is simply cannot hide her discomfort in the name of looking good; when she's hurting, she wants it to go away and she doesn't care what she looks like.
For Elly to move from sympathy to "snarl," she'd have to harbor some amount of sympathy to begin with, and I don't think we've ever seen evidence of her doing so. Instead, it seems she merely goes from snarl to snarl X a zillion.
First- April is right, when did we ever see the "sympathy" part?
Second, I can't believe Elly never physically abused these kids. She's ALWAYS either simmering with bitterness and resentfulness or boiling over with rage over NOTHING. Are we really supposed to believe she never slapped these kids around?
John_F_Jamele,
I can't believe Elly never physically abused these kids. She's ALWAYS either simmering with bitterness and resentfulness or boiling over with rage over NOTHING. Are we really supposed to believe she never slapped these kids around?
I believe we are, as implausible as that sounds. Lynn would have us believe that a shallow, idiotic, foul-tempered narcissist with delusions of grandeur and a whopping deficit of basic human empathy would not avenge herself on her tormentor offspring. In fact, I'm surprised that she didn't kill a child along the way. It would explain the age gap between Mike and Liz, at any rate.
There is an important ingredient to the Elly parenting method. In this strip, Elly explains her motivation for parenting is photographic opportunities. Only from behind the lens of a camera can Elly appreciate or understand why she has undertaken the parenting task.
I can understand being weary and frustrated when you're short of sleep. What I don't get is why Elly makes everything harder. When my baby sister was sick, Mom would just bring her to bed with her. That way, Mom could sleep as much as possible. She used the guest room so as not to disturb my dad, who had to work.
Mom said she figured out within a week of bringing me home from the hospital (I was her first) that if a kid just wants to be held, you don't have to be awake to do it. Why hasn't Elly learned that yet?
Conclusion: yet again, Elly brings suffering on herself so she can feel like a virtuous martyr.
[I]f a kid just wants to be held, you don't have to be awake to do it
Exactly. The same thoughts went through my head.
Probably the saintly Marian gave Elly dire warnings that if she ever did that, even once, the child in question would always want to share the bed with her. Right up until the night before s/he leaves for university. ::rolleyes::
...Probably the saintly Marian gave Elly dire warnings that if she ever did that, even once, the child in question would always want to share the bed with her. Right up until the night before s/he leaves for university. ::rolleyes::
Elly shared the bed with "flu" ridden Liz & Michael last January 28th. It jarred me because I didn't remember that kind of closeness in the original strip.
Although "closeness" was not the message; kicking John out of his comfortable bed & onto the Couch of Horror was. And I wondered why Elly was sleeping in the middle. That way, she couldn't get up without disturbing a kid. Of course, Liz wouldn't be in the way for long--used to a crib, she probably rolled off the bed early in the night.
(And hit her head? That would explain a lot....)
Elly shared the bed with "flu" ridden Liz & Michael last January 28th.
Oh, right. I think my brain must have rejected that image because it just didn't fit with everything else we've seen in the strip. ;)
Yes, that new-old strip was interesting in that Elly had the kids in bed with her. But JOHN did unnecessary suffering in that one. Surely 5-6 year old Michael has a bed that John could have slept in, if there is in fact no other adult bed in the house besides John and Elly's--?
This family just likes to create situations for self-pity.
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