Elly's Moral Thoughts = John's Immoral Actions
Today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse is one of those rare instances where Lynn Johnston has chosen to continue or expand on a story we just saw in reprint. Because of this, we see an interesting series of contrasts with yesterday’s reprint:
1. The plant Elly is planting has suddenly grown more leaves, possibly because Elly has moved from planting it in dirt instead of grass.
2. Michael has changed his pants to shorts.
3. The sky has suddenly cleared up from all those black dots
4. Mike’s argument has moved from safety logic to “but the other kids do it”.
5. Yesterday, Elly admitted she was wrong via thought balloon; in this strip, that position is taken by John. For this reason alone, you could distinguish today’s new-run from a reprint.
One of the more interesting aspects of the strip is how Mike moves his argument from stating points about his safety to comparing his mother’s parenting to other mothers. First he starts with Connie Poirier, which Elly poo-poohs. She is essentially saying, “Connie is not as responsible as I am.” Then Michael moves on to Annie Nichols. Elly knows that Annie is not nearly as irresponsible as Connie, so instead of arguing, she tries to end the argument by saying she won’t change her mind. She is essentially saying, “I don’t care if the best mom in the neighbourhood does it with her one-or-four-year-old, I am not.” Mike has pulled out all the stops, and he still fails to convince his mother.
We know from yesterday that John’s opinion is equal to Elly’s hidden opinion. However, I fully expect that if Lynn Johnston continues this storyline past today, then Elly will tear John a new one for his actions. The only thing which would make it funny for me is while Elly is lambasting John, Connie walks over and says, “Elly. Why are you letting Mike play in the sprinkler? I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do that.”
1. The plant Elly is planting has suddenly grown more leaves, possibly because Elly has moved from planting it in dirt instead of grass.
2. Michael has changed his pants to shorts.
3. The sky has suddenly cleared up from all those black dots
4. Mike’s argument has moved from safety logic to “but the other kids do it”.
5. Yesterday, Elly admitted she was wrong via thought balloon; in this strip, that position is taken by John. For this reason alone, you could distinguish today’s new-run from a reprint.
One of the more interesting aspects of the strip is how Mike moves his argument from stating points about his safety to comparing his mother’s parenting to other mothers. First he starts with Connie Poirier, which Elly poo-poohs. She is essentially saying, “Connie is not as responsible as I am.” Then Michael moves on to Annie Nichols. Elly knows that Annie is not nearly as irresponsible as Connie, so instead of arguing, she tries to end the argument by saying she won’t change her mind. She is essentially saying, “I don’t care if the best mom in the neighbourhood does it with her one-or-four-year-old, I am not.” Mike has pulled out all the stops, and he still fails to convince his mother.
We know from yesterday that John’s opinion is equal to Elly’s hidden opinion. However, I fully expect that if Lynn Johnston continues this storyline past today, then Elly will tear John a new one for his actions. The only thing which would make it funny for me is while Elly is lambasting John, Connie walks over and says, “Elly. Why are you letting Mike play in the sprinkler? I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do that.”
posted by howard at 9:55 PM
6 Comments:
howard,
However, I fully expect that if Lynn Johnston continues this storyline past today, then Elly will tear John a new one for his actions. The only thing which would make it funny for me is while Elly is lambasting John, Connie walks over and says, “Elly. Why are you letting Mike play in the sprinkler? I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do that.”
Having that last thing happen is a safe bet; not only will it make John look like a dangerous, out-of-control rebel disrespecting Elly's authoritah, it'll also make Connie look stoooopid and useless. After all, only Elly can be right.
Elly forgot to say "Because I said so" and "Because I'm the mommy." Maybe tomorrow, when Christopher will be 18 and moving out.
DreadedCandiru2,
Having that last thing happen is a safe bet; not only will it make John look like a dangerous, out-of-control rebel disrespecting Elly's authoritah, it'll also make Connie look stoooopid and useless. -
I am going to put my money only on Elly’s reaction to John, because it would be a contrast to reprint Elly. New-run Elly has had no problems correcting John, but reprint Elly usually just went goggle-eyed when she disagreed with John’s parenting.
aprilp_katje,
Maybe tomorrow, when Christopher will be 18 and moving out.-
Without seeing Christopher, we don’t know if Lynn Johnston has reverted back to thinking of him as older again. We know that she does not have a very good long term memory about such things, judging from all those stories where April and Becky would fight and make up, and then the next time we saw them, they didn’t like each other again.
We know that she does not have a very good long term memory about such things, judging from all those stories where April and Becky would fight and make up, and then the next time we saw them, they didn’t like each other again.
Along with her repeatedly breaking up with Gerald and realizing that, no, she wasn't ever going to pursue music as a career. I don't need to tell you how tiresome that all was!
aprilp_katje,
Along with her repeatedly breaking up with Gerald and realizing that, no, she wasn't ever going to pursue music as a career.-
Of course, the advantage of such repetitive writing is that it is easy to predict how April's last 2 years of school would have been had Lynn decided not to end the strip. Every 2-3 months, she would repeat the same old April story. Then when April graduated, we would have had the same conversations she had with her friends about their future careers, instead of having them early in Grade 11. And by the way, the basement living space for April in the old Stibbs' place would never be done.
When you get right down to it, all those people who wish for the modern Pattersons weren't really missing anything.
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