We’ve all got our thing–that thing that, should we give into it, that will take us down a dark path. For some, that dark path is the thing itself (I pity those who simply must keep up with the Kardashians), for others it can start out as something much more innocuous and then turn into something far worse if desire takes over. Indulgence can ruin you. Cupcakes come to mind.
For Tangerine, it’s very simple: the man likes to kill. The instrument of his death dealing was taken from him some time back (it happened off panel, but the last time we saw the cyberhand on his person, this is what happened), but now it sits in front of him. There’s no barrier between him and it, save what one would assume is some fragile glass. No one is watching. Does he take it? Does he not?
What if it was your thing under the glass (mmm… cupcakes…)? You know you shouldn’t, no one would know, and there it sits. What would you do?
Big thanks to those of you on Twitter and the SF Facebook Fan Page who wished Marc a Happy Birthday last week! We’ve both been really enjoying the increased the participation lately, especially on Facebook. That’s what makes all of this so much fun. See you Wednesday!
In its way, Tangerine’s situation is even more complicated, since all the people who’d previously shunned him for his murderous ways are now telling him to give in (to violence, if not actual killing). I wonder if he’ll manage to find a middle way between the wanton murder of old and his more recent stance of pacifism taken to its self-defeating conclusion?
Ah, he’ll probably be fine if he can stay away from the booze.
That’s a great point that I didn’t make in my more general comments on temptation. Tangerine has everybody telling him he’s worrying about nothing (interestingly, this echoes the vast majority of the comments on Tangerine’s current storyline), so if he does give in he has no one but himself to say he’s not doing the right thing.
It’s not a man’s hands that do evil….. It’s the man himself. A man puts his hands to work, the hands don’t work the man. Idle hands are the devil’s plaything….. He just has to put it to work doing some good.
I think it’s more complicated than that for him… he enjoys killing so much, he doesn’t trust himself to stop when the fighting ends. If he takes that hand back, it’ll be with the constant threat of losing control again and turning on friend and foe alike.
It really, truly is George. I’ve been aware of this for a while and I do identify. I know what he’s ging through and I laid out my perception of it here. Please read it at your leisure.
http://superfogeys.com/2012/10/29/453-buried-weapons/#comment-25799
I don’t see it that way… I view it as someone who now knows the truth and is going to do something about it. As long as he ask The Lord upstairs for forgivness first.
You can use the glove without crushing heads.
You can, I can…but Tangerine can’t. We’re all wired differently, we all have our splotches on our souls. This is Tangerine’s.
I think he’s come to the acceptance that all it takes for Evil to succeed is for good people to sit by and let it happen. For all his worries of what will happen if he “takes up the sword” again, so to speak, he has decided that this Evil is too great to allow to go unchallenged.
Judging by his look in that last panel, I don’t think Tangerine has accepted anything.
To add on that…Tangerine and Spygal gave each other the revelation of Jerry’s true nature. We saw last week how Spygal reacted to that reality…an ice cold anger that she kept restrained, leading to a calculated confrontation.
Tangerine, as I mentioned, is wired differently. He’s experiencing the same shock and anger, and now, left alone, he’s dealing with his next choice. Cold and calculated isn’t what Tangerine knows, and in reaching for the glove, you see him resisting–looking away from it, gritting his teeth, sweating in stress and psychological effort. He knows his nature, and knows the violent cost of it better now than ever before.
Two different heroes. The same choice. Two different roads.
Yes, Tangerine, smash the glass. Take the cybernetic skull-crushing appendage. Try and squash Trice Evil’s skull and free him at last! Mwahahaha! I hope Tangerine doesn’t try to avenge the Healer since head trauma makes Star Maiden switch personalities. He’d either end up killing sweet addled Star Maiden or getting vaporized by Dark Maiden. In truth, he’s as much of a monster as most of the villains. “How many people did you kill?” “Well a lot, but they were bad people.” It’s not an argument that ever held much water for me and why I’ve always had a personal distaste for a lot of the “anti-heroes” in comics. I could never see much difference between them and the villains. Villain: I kill people because I want to/they’re in my way/I’m just crazy like that. Anti-Hero: I kill people because I want to/I’m just crazy like that, but it’ okay because I kill bad people.
Seeing as how I’m reading webcomics instead of working or sleeping, I think I know how I would handle temptation.
It is a tough choice he has to make. He knows what he’s capable of, and he doesn’t want to return to that past. To him, the gauntlet represents his past, one he’s tried to bury and move beyond. However, we don’t always have the option to properly bury our past and when forced to dig it back up … there’s often a great amount of discomfort and pain.
I think the key thing here is control. He’s afraid he won’t be able to control himself. It’s far easier to remain in control when temptation is locked away and out of reach. But when that temptation is knocking on your door slash parading in front of your windows(and you can’t close the blinds), its a lot harder to stay in control.
Sometimes however, in digging up our past, we can learn things about ourselves. In his case, he needs to find a better way to use the arm that doesn’t involve head popping. He needs to find out that Strength is not necessarily Power. But, will his faith and everything else he’s learned be enough to keep him from falling back on old ways and out of control?
That’s the dilemma.
I just wanted to pop in here to say that this is another one of those times when I feel the conversation is best served without my participation. You guys are having a good debate here and I don’t want to muddy the waters with my slightly more definitive views on Tangerine’s state of mind.
All that said, I did actually post quite a few comments yesterday and left them up for about an hour before thinking better of it and deleting them. If you saw ’em, then you got lucky.
I think he should take it. And then put it on his right hand. The perfect compromise.
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………HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, MARC!!!