One of Ellen's defining character traits is that she can be assertive and aggressive. It's part of the essential dynamic that makes the strip work - she never would have accepted Jamie as a roommate otherwise. Of course, because she's a mature individual and Leftover Soup is a strip in which honest self-evaluation can take place, Ellen is aware of this trait in herself, and can acknowledge when it's appropriate and when it isn't. I strive to be feminist in my writing, and one of the ways in which I do so is to take female aggression seriously. Women can get mad (justifiably or not), that anger is real and can have consequences. I also strive to be anti-violence in my writing, which is why Ellen talked with Eric after beating him up and why she didn't beat Jamie up here. Deliberate forgiveness - for slights both large and small - seems to be a recurring theme in Leftover Soup, for whatever reason. If you did one of those word-cloud things for the dialogue in all the archives, I think "forgive" would probably be a medium-sized word somewhere in the middle. I'm okay with this. | ||||
0655------------------------------------- |