Annotated 19-16
We might’ve taken this part a little too fast: the thrust of the first couple of panels is that Syr’Nj was more or less holding it together until Kon’Kr sailed in and started cheerfully discussing kill counts and then, well, TRIGGERED.
My heart goes out to everyone involved here (wait to see tomorrow’s before you judge Faer too harshly), but these days I identify most strongly with Fr’Nj. I’ve spent a lot of time standing nearby while someone else goes through an emotional crisis, and I’m never quite sure whether it’s the sort where they’ll recover from on their own if they can just talk it out to someone who’ll quietly listen, or if this is actually a crossroads for them and my failure to contradict them means that the silence of hopelessness will win by default.
I mean, it’s usually the first one, but still.
There’s kind of a pattern in this strip where Syr’Nj gets handed yet another huge responsibility almost by accident and takes it on dutifully. I hate to imagine her work hours per week.
Nice details on the background of the first panel. Rachel and E-Merl are not together but they are looking at each other, Faereksch’Nj is noticing Syr’Nj leaving, Scipio is noticing Fr’Nj leaving and Frigg is noticing Scipio noticing.
Honestly, the idea that Faereksch’nj would have taken this to a cruel place would never have occurred to me. Starting off like this and following up with ‘my daughter would never give up like that, so I know you won’t’ is probably as common as it being an actual disowning, IME, and given what we’d been shown of her to this point, that seemed by far the most likely take.
Of course Faer doesn’t want to disown her daughter. She wants her to rise to the occasion.
But I’m reminded of a bit in the Vorkosigan saga where a kid is freaking out, and the MC talks him down. He has to remind himself not to increase the pressure, but to lower the wall. Because more pressure at this point would crush him.
Here it sounds like Faer is upping the pressure. Reminding Syr’nj of another way she can be an unworthy failure when she already feels like shit. And hitting very close to home, too. The other titles were just jobs. Now her familial connections are at stake?
I sometimes reflect on a scene from Our Cancer Year by married couple Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner, a memoir about… well, you guessed it. At one point, Pekar’s resisting doctors’ advice and Brabner realizes his neuroses can be her ally in getting him back to health, so she pulls someone aside and basically says, “Look, Harvey’s set in his ways, and now is not the time to try to fix everything that’s screwy about him. We’ve got to use who he is to get him where he needs to be.”
Syr’Nj’s desire to take on every mental challenge ever and change the world on every front is a real double-edged sword sometimes, but that’s who she is for better and for worse. Like I said, I waffle about approaches, and I’m not totally certain that means Faer’s approach is optimal here, but I can at least see it.