I'm Confused

[Darth Fett]

Time is flexible in most comics- it comes partly from the wierd distortion of waiting a month or so between issues whic happen back to back 'inside' the story.

The components are all there, and relatively speakingthey fit well enough, it is just a matter that when Terry sat down to tel the story of the girls in HS, and he wanted to do it in a quick 3 issue arc, he couldn't make it fit every little bit dropped up until that point. It has much less to do with Terry's math skills and much more with his ability to move his story along(something that he does have trouble with from time to time, unless there is a rhyme to his reason for seeming to drag his feet sometimes...)


Darth

------------------
'There can be sex without love, love without sex, and situations so intermixed that nobody can sort out which is which.'
-Lazarus Long, 'Time Enough for Love'-Robert Heinlein

[Jaxom 27]

That's as good as any explanation...

Didn't we debate the timliness of the characters once and how Terry worked out his timeline? Who had that rough timeline worked out? It was a LONG time ago...

------------------
Before allowing drunken friend to cheat on his girl, you must attempt one
intervention. If he is able to get on his feet, look you in the eye, and deliver
a "F...OFF!" You are absolved of your of responsibility.

[EternalEponine]

Okay, I have a question for all of you. I still haven't finished the entire series, so it may be explained later, and I just don't know it. But here goes:

In the Characters section of this site, it says that Katchoo is 26, and Francine is 25. However, in the comic, it says that Katchoo's stepfather raped her on her fifteenth birthday. In Vol. 3, #15 we see Katchoo arguing with her mother about her stepfather raping her. We also see Francine's 17th birthday. If Katchoo's stepfather raped her on her fifteenth birthday, how does this work out?

------------------

[Jadian]

......perhaps he did more than once?
"Tell him to stop raping me."

------------------
"Be excellent to each other." -Bill & Ted
"Do we need to have the "fantasy/reality" discussion again?" - eris
Feminist Rants

"Heaven holds a sense of wonder and I wanted to believe that I'd be called up when the rage in me subsides." - Sarah McLachlan w/ Delerium

[EternalEponine]

This may be true, and I thought of that. However, it doesn't seem like Katchoo's mother has been married to him for that long, and if Francie just turned 17, that would make Katchoo 18. I can't imagine her letting him do it for *three* years, can you?

Hmmm... I think Terry, like so many other authors, has forgotten how to do math.

------------------

[Thrasymachos]

The problem with the Characters page is that it doesn't say When each character was that age. Several years have passed between Francine breaking up with Freddy and Francine giving the bad news to Brad. These characters age. After all, they're real people.
Francine and Katina were born in 1970; Francine on April 1 and Katina on November 19. Katina was 26 when she threatened Freddy with a gun and an electric knife. She turned 27 in 1997 while staying with Darcy in Los Angeles. Flight 495 was in March 1998. Francine and Brad got engaged in August 1999. We are now up to the summer of 2000.

------------------
Peregrinator in paradiso.

[Darth Fett]

But that's assuming there was 6 weeks between each set of events portrayed in each issue, which isn't the case, as many issues run right into the next one. In books like this, it's best to just assume(unless specifially told otherwise) it's always *right now*, even if counting from the *right now* refrences from a few years ago gives a time span obviously longer than has elapsed in a stoy. The serial nature makes it imposible to keep up with, unless Terry makes a conscious effort to age the characters between arcs enough to compensate for how long he's been telling the story-and that would get messy and cumbersome, and intrude far too much on his ability to tell the story....
Dates really only help to keep the story in order as to what happened first, because Terry has jumped around alot.

Darth

------------------
'There can be sex without love, love without sex, and situations so intermixed that nobody can sort out which is which.'
-Lazarus Long, 'Time Enough for Love'-Robert Heinlein

[Thrasymachos]

I assumed no such thing. In #31 it is stated explicitly that an entire year has passed in that issue.

------------------
Peregrinator in paradiso.

[Jaxom 27]

Where or where is that timeline when we need it? Why oh why don't I know anything about archiving...where oh where is darkangel...she'd remember who worte the durn thing AND she'd probably have archived it...

------------------
Before allowing drunken friend to cheat on his girl, you must attempt one
intervention. If he is able to get on his feet, look you in the eye, and deliver
a "F...OFF!" You are absolved of your of responsibility.

[Thrasymachos]

Francine turned 17 on April 1, 1987. Katina left school a couple of days later and went to Los Angeles. She was still 16 when she met Emma.

------------------
Peregrinator in paradiso.