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Flipside Discussion / Seraph - remember him?
« on: October 18, 2011, 11:33:12 pm »
Hi guys! 
First off, a little background: I was a longtime Flipside reader and posted a bit in the old forum, before getting really busy and taking a several year-long hiatus. I decided to resume reading Flipside a couple of days ago and sped through the archives (including book 0) as a refresher to get me back up to speed. I've found Flipside to be a great read then and now, and though there are some characters I wouldn't like if I met in real life, they're all compelling and act in totally believable ways given their personalities. The one exception to this statement in my case would be Seraph: I just can't seem to understand the guy. Since apparently I have nothing better to do than worry about the foibles of fictional characters, I'm going to explain myself a little bit and then ask for opinions from you guys
On this most recent reading, I didn't have a problem with Seraph with most of Book 0, until I hit book 15. My problem can be summed up in these three scenes:
http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs15pg11.html
http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs18pg09.html
http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs20pg04.html
These three pages paint a picture of a guy who neglected and cheated on his wife, didn't regret it, and thought her crazy for having the audacity to take it badly, a guy who later takes this grudge against his wife and directs it at all women, forbids his apprentice from having a girlfriend under the standard "I don't want you to go through what I did" and "all women are the same" pretext, despite actually admitting a few chapters later that he did find fulfillment with women (the women he cheated on Noventia with), and who now scorns all women for being crazy and irrational (despite the fact that every single thing he has done in the preceding paragraph smacks of irrationality). So not only is he an asshole, but a hypocritical asshole whose words and actions make no sense whatsoever.
Weird thing is, his final monologue (http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs21pg09.html) reveals a completely different Seraph - if that page existed on its own, it represents a compelling, well-rounded character and is in keeping with most of the scenes we see of him (a cold, calculating, rational sorcerer). It's also consistent with the regret he shows here: http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs15pg09.html. Why, then, does he come across the way he does in the 3 pages above?
The taunting of Noventia is probably the easiest to explain away - calling her a crazy bitch served pretty much the same purpose as Bern's goading of Bloody Mary in their second battle. He already knew he had less spirit energy than her and his only chance to beat her would be to make her so incredibly pissed off that she lost focus... and it worked.
His remarks to Bern are a little harder to explain. The only thing I can think of is that it was a plot device - he had to be taken to the torture room, which meant he needed to be knocked out, which meant he had to say something incredibly dickish to Bern. As for his forbidding Lucient to have a girlfriend, I have completely no ideas.
I'd love to hear what you guys thought of Seraph, and if you had any way of reconciling his very illogical actions with each other
First off, a little background: I was a longtime Flipside reader and posted a bit in the old forum, before getting really busy and taking a several year-long hiatus. I decided to resume reading Flipside a couple of days ago and sped through the archives (including book 0) as a refresher to get me back up to speed. I've found Flipside to be a great read then and now, and though there are some characters I wouldn't like if I met in real life, they're all compelling and act in totally believable ways given their personalities. The one exception to this statement in my case would be Seraph: I just can't seem to understand the guy. Since apparently I have nothing better to do than worry about the foibles of fictional characters, I'm going to explain myself a little bit and then ask for opinions from you guys
On this most recent reading, I didn't have a problem with Seraph with most of Book 0, until I hit book 15. My problem can be summed up in these three scenes:
http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs15pg11.html
http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs18pg09.html
http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs20pg04.html
These three pages paint a picture of a guy who neglected and cheated on his wife, didn't regret it, and thought her crazy for having the audacity to take it badly, a guy who later takes this grudge against his wife and directs it at all women, forbids his apprentice from having a girlfriend under the standard "I don't want you to go through what I did" and "all women are the same" pretext, despite actually admitting a few chapters later that he did find fulfillment with women (the women he cheated on Noventia with), and who now scorns all women for being crazy and irrational (despite the fact that every single thing he has done in the preceding paragraph smacks of irrationality). So not only is he an asshole, but a hypocritical asshole whose words and actions make no sense whatsoever.
Weird thing is, his final monologue (http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs21pg09.html) reveals a completely different Seraph - if that page existed on its own, it represents a compelling, well-rounded character and is in keeping with most of the scenes we see of him (a cold, calculating, rational sorcerer). It's also consistent with the regret he shows here: http://flipside.keenspot.com/comic/book0/fs15pg09.html. Why, then, does he come across the way he does in the 3 pages above?
The taunting of Noventia is probably the easiest to explain away - calling her a crazy bitch served pretty much the same purpose as Bern's goading of Bloody Mary in their second battle. He already knew he had less spirit energy than her and his only chance to beat her would be to make her so incredibly pissed off that she lost focus... and it worked.
His remarks to Bern are a little harder to explain. The only thing I can think of is that it was a plot device - he had to be taken to the torture room, which meant he needed to be knocked out, which meant he had to say something incredibly dickish to Bern. As for his forbidding Lucient to have a girlfriend, I have completely no ideas.
I'd love to hear what you guys thought of Seraph, and if you had any way of reconciling his very illogical actions with each other