Serious talk though – you’re right, Joe. She is improving. Unfortunately, that doesn’t obligate anyone hurt on that one in five to forgive. Jacob might, eventually, after he’s had time to cool off (and, well, he did plenty of dickish stuff himself that Joyce wouldn’t be obligated to forgive for), but on the next morning? Yeah, I think he’s still in the acceptable range for ‘still mad and not talking to her’.
Ehhhh. I do get Joe’s point, but I also feel like.. you shouldn’t date someone for their ‘potential’? Like, you date them because they’re good for you NOW. People shouldn’t be projects or ‘they’ll be good later’ or ‘they were good before’. Because then it’ll feel like an imbalance in who’s pulling the weight.
I’m certainly not a fan of people dating a “fixer-upper” with a plan of making them change — “aisle, altar, him” marriages. But I think this is different. Joe is suggesting that Joyce is innately good, that she can recognise her bad habits as bad and correct them. Maybe it’s more of a “date whom she is deep down” suggestion more than a “date who she is going to be” suggestion.
Dunno. I’m not a Joycob shipper, and I think in the end we’re going to see the arc begin and end with Joye, both characters having reformed.
Jon Rich
“Aisle, altar, him?” I’ve never heard that expression.
Sing it to the tune of the wedding chorus from Lohengrin.
Strangeshapes
Ooooh. Dude, that’s creepier than the girls I met in college who said they were going for their MRS degree. (They’d picked an awfully expensive place for that major.)
Needfuldoer
Joyce may or may not have gone to college with the intent on earning a MRS, but let’s not forget she chose to be an education major so she’d be qualified to homeschool her kids someday.
Phlebas
“aisle, altar, hymn”. It’s an old joke, it’s a summary of how the marriage service starts but he hears her muttering it and panics.
a/snow/mous/e
hah! that’s a good one
Agemegos
I meant to type “aisle, altar, hymn”, but you got the point.
there may also be a soupçon of “If I get her with someone else, I can be content because they’re off the table because I am NOT the kind of person who breaks up an extant relationship”.
Obligate? No, definitely not, but I don’t think Joe is framing any of this like this is something Jacob owes Joyce so much as he thinks Joyce is worth it and that Jacob’s going to regret it if he doesn’t stick around. Obviously, though, Joe’s also looking at this from his own personal feelings about her.
Side-note, I know DoA is supposed to answer the question between Walky and Joyce at the “end” of Walkyverse of “if we’d met under different circumstances, would we still have gotten together?”, but Willis is making it pretty hard to see Joyce together with anyone other than Joe.
Not, by any means, because it’s impossible for such a close relationship to not lead to romance, but because so far we haven’t seen any “realness” or long-term growth between Joyce and any other male character. Heck, her relationship with Joe is probably better developed than her relationships with Dorothy and Becky, by this point.
*Better developed as far as what we’ve seen expressed through the comics, I mean.
Not saying the relationship with Joe is inherently deeper than her relationships with others; I’m pointing out that Willis seems to be heavily highlighting the relationship [romantic or otherwise] between those two without offering any other developing relationships for Joyce (at least, not ones with any potential for eventually developing romantic elements).
Ergo, it ends up feeling very “romance narrative”.
Compare that to Dan, who has ties to Sal, Ethan, Amber, and more. It’s not that any of those are required to develop into romance, or even that the relationships themselves are romantic in nature, but that we see actual [non-romantic] relationship growth between Dan and multiple potential partners. In real life and, likewise, with most relationships in DoA, we see a lot more open connections in that manner.
Heck, even Walky has had multiple romantic relationships, and has even had “hooks” with other characters [such as the dinosaur doodle that Dina appreciated once his work was passed over to her].
Right now, all Joyce really has is Joe, and that’s going to make any “great romance” developments with other characters.. well, as slowly as the in-comic time progresses [outside of time skips], we’ll probably never actually see a second relationship develop to the end. :’P
So, in summary, feels like Willis is currently pushing the development between those two. Definitely curious to see if Willis’ll actually follow that through to the end, or if he’s planning some twists that’ll still connect Joyce over to Walky in the end.
In the vein of maintaining his shallow image, it’s worth noting that Joe is wearing a shirt with an arrow pointing to his dick that says “can lift 120 lbs”
He’s told Joyce that it’s a deliberate act to avoid intimacy multiple times, though. It’s perfectly fair for the characters to take him at face value but I don’t really understand it coming from the readers.
Deathjavu
Unfortunately, if you act a certain way often enough, that acting is much more who you are than anything you can say about who you are.
HeySo
Still doesn’t excuse people making nasty comments [be that towards real or fictional entities] over things that are well understood to be logically false. After all, the topic here is “Is Joe shallow”, not “Is Joe possessed of severe character flaws”. And Joe has decidedly never been presented by Willis as being a shallow character. Despite how he acts, he has always done his best to think things through carefully and act concientiously. In that vein, you’ll notice he has never ever manipulated females to anything against their will [unlike a “real bro”].
While we shouldn’t excuse things such his objectification of women, it has always been clear that he only ever did that at a purely surface level. Be it his best friend’s gender identity or his handling of the women close to him, Joe has always been careful and considerate.
So, again: Fine to criticize the way he lives his life or dislike his character or surface presentation, but arguing that he’s shallow when he’s not [be that for Joe or Mike] just indicates willful trolling or poor reading comprehension on the part of the individuals engaging in such (or, at best, disagreement over the application of the word “shallow”).
So yeah, your comment is entirely on point, as it generally applies to Joe. But it also doesn’t really in any way oppose Mordecai’s assertion that Joe isn’t shallow and that it isn’t appropriate to deem him as such.
In fact, from a literary perspective, Leorale’s comment of “and moreover, he tries super duper hard to convince himself and everyone else that he’s shallow” pretty much ensures that he ISN’T shallow. Complex layers of that sort, contradictory or foolish as they may seem, are pretty much what defines complex literary characters.
The trick here is just to substitute “shallow” with [anything else]. ie, “and moreover, he tries super duper hard to convince himself and everyone else that he’s [a golden retriever from the planet Parsivus V]”. In short, his behavior may be BIZZARE, but it isn’t SHALLOW. Though some people may confuse it as being such, because they’re misassociating his character depth with his character form, rather than interpreting the two elements seperately. Which, for the above example, would be “his perspective seems nonsensical, but at least he has some interesting complexities which make him stand out from other characters”. Regardless of whether he wants to portray himself as shallow or as a dog, what matters (in regards to deterimining a character’s shallowness) is the underlying reasons for the chosen portrayal.
He’s told Joyce that it’s a deliberate act to avoid intimacy multiple times, though. It’s perfectly fair for the characters to take him at face value but I don’t really understand it coming from the readers.
Jamie
You have far too much faith in the readers and their restraint from projecting random facets of their own lives and worldviews onto these characters.
Mordecai
In that case, I can kind of see why Joe gets some of the worst of it. But wow, I feel like I’m going crazy because it seems like his arc is being slept through/on.
brumagem
To be fair, Joe’s arc started in book 1 and has been extremely slow burn
HeySo
“from projecting random facets of their own lives and worldviews onto [others]”
@Jamie :
Wait- You mean that not EVERYONE reads DoA pantless while sipping scotch?!
Er, not that I’m projecting or.. or anything. ?
Agemegos
I’ve just about knocked over a bottle of Lagavulin 16, and it’s damned hot here.
Goes along with all the people who think Joe’s behavior has always been perfectly fine, despite those same admissions about his motivations and his acceptance of Joyce’s revelation that he was still hurting people.
Partly it’s that a lot of people are fairly casual readers and the main revelation of his motives was roughly 2 and half years ago, though it’s been referenced a few times since.
Joe might be oblivious to his own feelings for Joyce but Jacob sure isn’t. Still Joe thinks not having a serious relationship is best for him so maybe once Jacob cools off he’ll give Joyce a second chance.
So who is for the Joyce/Jacob ship and who is for the Joyce/Joe ship?
You’d need actual crack to make it work; Joe’s even less “checklist” than Joyce (and meanwhile Joe’s fear of commitment would just lead him to hold Jacob at arm’s length and occasionally sleep with other people he knew just to prove how little he liked him)
Who doesn’t have important things about themselves to work on though, fiction or real life? If that’s the bar for shipping you’ve effectively sunk them all.
Sirksome
I get that. Romance and companionship don’t have any presets for when you’re ready. It’s just my opinion. Especially for these three. Joyce in particular still probably has a lot of trauma about nearly getting date raped by one of the first guys she ever even considered romantically. She hasn’t really talked to anyone about that and that trauma could flare up at anytime. Joe’s doing better but he’s still the guy who rated women, had a do list, and talked about “breaking in” Joyce. (I only remember this because someone linked it yesterday) Jacob’s okay though, I got nothing. Maybe try not to impress your bro so much. I just don’t think dating really helps any of them right now. It might even add some stress on their lives and the lives of their partners. But hey! I could be entirely wrong here. I’m not ashamed to admit that.
thejeff
On the other hand, Joyce’s horny and still “boy-crazy”. She’s still traumatized, but she’s moved past the initial reaction – dating Ethan because he was safe. Her wanting to date people is going keep coming up.
Joe needs to get past his “I can’t be emotionally involved with women because I’ll hurt them by cheating like my dad does” thing. I doubt he’s going to remain celibate and going back to just seeking casual sex won’t be good for him.
186 thoughts on “Situation”
Ana Chronistic
So, cowgirls up to 120 lbs?
Clif
The catagory is things that Joe will regret later?
TachyonCode
Skipping leg day, for example.
Khantalas
Methinks the bro protest too much.
Doctor_Who
Brotest (verb) /ˈbrōˌtest/ – to manspress a testosterobjection.
Tacos
Isn’t a Brotest the official test you gotta pass to be a Bro?
Clif
Nah, the brotest is whoever is brotmost.
mrnoidea
Brotest is just the game of life, yo
Ed Rhodes
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1862
Bagge
Who cares? Oooh, Oooh! I know that one. It’s Joe who cares, right?!
RacingTurtle
Of course not! Nobody who cares says “who cares” like that, that’s just math! Perfect, uh, math. Whatever.
Bagge
I mean, she’s clearly a zero anyway. Just check his liiiiiiiiiist
Bagge
…or whatever she is. We may never know.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/chubby/
Bagge
WE MAY NEVER KNOW!!!
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/lying/
RacingTurtle
NEVER KNOOOOOOOOW!
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/touch/
Bagge
I can’t believe I missed that one! Thanks
Schpoonman
Christ, I hate Malaya.
Bagge
Joe doesn’t 🙂
Clif
He found it an educational experience.
BBCC
Sure, Joe, it’s Jacob you want to get up in that.
Serious talk though – you’re right, Joe. She is improving. Unfortunately, that doesn’t obligate anyone hurt on that one in five to forgive. Jacob might, eventually, after he’s had time to cool off (and, well, he did plenty of dickish stuff himself that Joyce wouldn’t be obligated to forgive for), but on the next morning? Yeah, I think he’s still in the acceptable range for ‘still mad and not talking to her’.
Cyntalan
Stop reminding us that this all only happened yesterday!
Nono
Ehhhh. I do get Joe’s point, but I also feel like.. you shouldn’t date someone for their ‘potential’? Like, you date them because they’re good for you NOW. People shouldn’t be projects or ‘they’ll be good later’ or ‘they were good before’. Because then it’ll feel like an imbalance in who’s pulling the weight.
Agemegos
I’m certainly not a fan of people dating a “fixer-upper” with a plan of making them change — “aisle, altar, him” marriages. But I think this is different. Joe is suggesting that Joyce is innately good, that she can recognise her bad habits as bad and correct them. Maybe it’s more of a “date whom she is deep down” suggestion more than a “date who she is going to be” suggestion.
Dunno. I’m not a Joycob shipper, and I think in the end we’re going to see the arc begin and end with Joye, both characters having reformed.
Jon Rich
“Aisle, altar, him?” I’ve never heard that expression.
Fred
Make sure you say it out loud.
Agemegos
Sing it to the tune of the wedding chorus from Lohengrin.
Strangeshapes
Ooooh. Dude, that’s creepier than the girls I met in college who said they were going for their MRS degree. (They’d picked an awfully expensive place for that major.)
Needfuldoer
Joyce may or may not have gone to college with the intent on earning a MRS, but let’s not forget she chose to be an education major so she’d be qualified to homeschool her kids someday.
Phlebas
“aisle, altar, hymn”. It’s an old joke, it’s a summary of how the marriage service starts but he hears her muttering it and panics.
a/snow/mous/e
hah! that’s a good one
Agemegos
I meant to type “aisle, altar, hymn”, but you got the point.
Paradoxius
Joe projecting onto Jacob is a good mirror of Sarah projecting onto Joyce.
King Daniel
Where’s Robin and her relationship web chart when we need her?
Jamie
That, uh. That wasn’t Robin. Robin doesn’t do charts.
King Daniel
Unless I’m missing something, pretty sure this is Robin.
(see also: all the strips tagged under “chalkboard”, which specifically tracks Robin’s chart)
SillyGoose
Faz got started on it, but there’s no guarantee he’ll ever complete the chart.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/heck/
Strangeshapes
In that Robin’s world, it was Jacob trying to ditch the person he “loved” because he thought he wasn’t good enough for her.
Khyrin
there may also be a soupçon of “If I get her with someone else, I can be content because they’re off the table because I am NOT the kind of person who breaks up an extant relationship”.
Yes, that goes for Sarah AND Joe.
DailyBrad
Obligate? No, definitely not, but I don’t think Joe is framing any of this like this is something Jacob owes Joyce so much as he thinks Joyce is worth it and that Jacob’s going to regret it if he doesn’t stick around. Obviously, though, Joe’s also looking at this from his own personal feelings about her.
Agemegos
Yeah. Joe be projecting.
Strangeshapes
Jojecting?
King Daniel
Projoecting.
Zee
Brojecting
FaerwenOfValenwood
Sometimes I forget Joe is one of my favorites.
poofdepoof
I don’t 🙂
HeySo
I don’t either. ^.^
Side-note, I know DoA is supposed to answer the question between Walky and Joyce at the “end” of Walkyverse of “if we’d met under different circumstances, would we still have gotten together?”, but Willis is making it pretty hard to see Joyce together with anyone other than Joe.
Not, by any means, because it’s impossible for such a close relationship to not lead to romance, but because so far we haven’t seen any “realness” or long-term growth between Joyce and any other male character. Heck, her relationship with Joe is probably better developed than her relationships with Dorothy and Becky, by this point.
HeySo
*Better developed as far as what we’ve seen expressed through the comics, I mean.
Not saying the relationship with Joe is inherently deeper than her relationships with others; I’m pointing out that Willis seems to be heavily highlighting the relationship [romantic or otherwise] between those two without offering any other developing relationships for Joyce (at least, not ones with any potential for eventually developing romantic elements).
Ergo, it ends up feeling very “romance narrative”.
Compare that to Dan, who has ties to Sal, Ethan, Amber, and more. It’s not that any of those are required to develop into romance, or even that the relationships themselves are romantic in nature, but that we see actual [non-romantic] relationship growth between Dan and multiple potential partners. In real life and, likewise, with most relationships in DoA, we see a lot more open connections in that manner.
Heck, even Walky has had multiple romantic relationships, and has even had “hooks” with other characters [such as the dinosaur doodle that Dina appreciated once his work was passed over to her].
Right now, all Joyce really has is Joe, and that’s going to make any “great romance” developments with other characters.. well, as slowly as the in-comic time progresses [outside of time skips], we’ll probably never actually see a second relationship develop to the end. :’P
So, in summary, feels like Willis is currently pushing the development between those two. Definitely curious to see if Willis’ll actually follow that through to the end, or if he’s planning some twists that’ll still connect Joyce over to Walky in the end.
Mordecai
Am I crazy or do people still think Joe is shallow? Why?
JetstreamGW
Because he goes out of his way to maintain that image?
Deathjavu
In the vein of maintaining his shallow image, it’s worth noting that Joe is wearing a shirt with an arrow pointing to his dick that says “can lift 120 lbs”
Mordecai
He’s told Joyce that it’s a deliberate act to avoid intimacy multiple times, though. It’s perfectly fair for the characters to take him at face value but I don’t really understand it coming from the readers.
Deathjavu
Unfortunately, if you act a certain way often enough, that acting is much more who you are than anything you can say about who you are.
HeySo
Still doesn’t excuse people making nasty comments [be that towards real or fictional entities] over things that are well understood to be logically false. After all, the topic here is “Is Joe shallow”, not “Is Joe possessed of severe character flaws”. And Joe has decidedly never been presented by Willis as being a shallow character. Despite how he acts, he has always done his best to think things through carefully and act concientiously. In that vein, you’ll notice he has never ever manipulated females to anything against their will [unlike a “real bro”].
While we shouldn’t excuse things such his objectification of women, it has always been clear that he only ever did that at a purely surface level. Be it his best friend’s gender identity or his handling of the women close to him, Joe has always been careful and considerate.
So, again: Fine to criticize the way he lives his life or dislike his character or surface presentation, but arguing that he’s shallow when he’s not [be that for Joe or Mike] just indicates willful trolling or poor reading comprehension on the part of the individuals engaging in such (or, at best, disagreement over the application of the word “shallow”).
So yeah, your comment is entirely on point, as it generally applies to Joe. But it also doesn’t really in any way oppose Mordecai’s assertion that Joe isn’t shallow and that it isn’t appropriate to deem him as such.
In fact, from a literary perspective, Leorale’s comment of “and moreover, he tries super duper hard to convince himself and everyone else that he’s shallow” pretty much ensures that he ISN’T shallow. Complex layers of that sort, contradictory or foolish as they may seem, are pretty much what defines complex literary characters.
The trick here is just to substitute “shallow” with [anything else]. ie, “and moreover, he tries super duper hard to convince himself and everyone else that he’s [a golden retriever from the planet Parsivus V]”. In short, his behavior may be BIZZARE, but it isn’t SHALLOW. Though some people may confuse it as being such, because they’re misassociating his character depth with his character form, rather than interpreting the two elements seperately. Which, for the above example, would be “his perspective seems nonsensical, but at least he has some interesting complexities which make him stand out from other characters”. Regardless of whether he wants to portray himself as shallow or as a dog, what matters (in regards to deterimining a character’s shallowness) is the underlying reasons for the chosen portrayal.
JetstreamGW
Oh, that. Because the readers are kinda uptight.
Leorale
Because he’s still shallower than most, and moreover, he tries super duper hard to convince himself and everyone else that he’s shallow.
Mordecai
He’s told Joyce that it’s a deliberate act to avoid intimacy multiple times, though. It’s perfectly fair for the characters to take him at face value but I don’t really understand it coming from the readers.
Jamie
You have far too much faith in the readers and their restraint from projecting random facets of their own lives and worldviews onto these characters.
Mordecai
In that case, I can kind of see why Joe gets some of the worst of it. But wow, I feel like I’m going crazy because it seems like his arc is being slept through/on.
brumagem
To be fair, Joe’s arc started in book 1 and has been extremely slow burn
HeySo
“from projecting random facets of their own lives and worldviews onto [others]”
@Jamie :
Wait- You mean that not EVERYONE reads DoA pantless while sipping scotch?!
Er, not that I’m projecting or.. or anything. ?
Agemegos
I’ve just about knocked over a bottle of Lagavulin 16, and it’s damned hot here.
thejeff
Goes along with all the people who think Joe’s behavior has always been perfectly fine, despite those same admissions about his motivations and his acceptance of Joyce’s revelation that he was still hurting people.
Partly it’s that a lot of people are fairly casual readers and the main revelation of his motives was roughly 2 and half years ago, though it’s been referenced a few times since.
Johan
Damn, Joe.
Kravis
Holy shit, hell froze over.
Leorale
In which Joe continues refusing to pass the reverse-Bechdel test
Kyrik Michalowski
Joe might be oblivious to his own feelings for Joyce but Jacob sure isn’t. Still Joe thinks not having a serious relationship is best for him so maybe once Jacob cools off he’ll give Joyce a second chance.
So who is for the Joyce/Jacob ship and who is for the Joyce/Joe ship?
Nono
Where’s the crack Joe/Jacob option?
Diner Kinetic
You’d need actual crack to make it work; Joe’s even less “checklist” than Joyce (and meanwhile Joe’s fear of commitment would just lead him to hold Jacob at arm’s length and occasionally sleep with other people he knew just to prove how little he liked him)
Sirksome
Eh. I don’t think they need to be shipped. All three of them kinda have more important things to work on for themselves than dating.
Deathjavu
Who doesn’t have important things about themselves to work on though, fiction or real life? If that’s the bar for shipping you’ve effectively sunk them all.
Sirksome
I get that. Romance and companionship don’t have any presets for when you’re ready. It’s just my opinion. Especially for these three. Joyce in particular still probably has a lot of trauma about nearly getting date raped by one of the first guys she ever even considered romantically. She hasn’t really talked to anyone about that and that trauma could flare up at anytime. Joe’s doing better but he’s still the guy who rated women, had a do list, and talked about “breaking in” Joyce. (I only remember this because someone linked it yesterday) Jacob’s okay though, I got nothing. Maybe try not to impress your bro so much. I just don’t think dating really helps any of them right now. It might even add some stress on their lives and the lives of their partners. But hey! I could be entirely wrong here. I’m not ashamed to admit that.
thejeff
On the other hand, Joyce’s horny and still “boy-crazy”. She’s still traumatized, but she’s moved past the initial reaction – dating Ethan because he was safe. Her wanting to date people is going keep coming up.
Joe needs to get past his “I can’t be emotionally involved with women because I’ll hurt them by cheating like my dad does” thing. I doubt he’s going to remain celibate and going back to just seeking casual sex won’t be good for him.