Riff is a fascinating character, well written and far more complex then his outward appearance would indicate. Although he started off as your usual mad inventor, as time went on a number of incidents have shaped and defined him further as an individual.
To borrow from KOTOR 2, it is conflict that shapes us, defines us - we find ourselves, or find ourselves lacking. Sluggy Freelance's stories are an excellent crucible in that they test their characters, and often these characters can end up in either column - anyone from Angela to Shlock to the 'Arny' persons to any of the many casualties could be said to have been found wanting, and even our heroes have not always passed those tests presented to them.
I wish to focus specifically on Riff, and on how Pete's multi-layered and well-timed portrayls of him have created a firm image of a person and at the same time have made him a mystery.
To study this character, it is vital that we begin by facing his apathy - as indeed everyone who encounters him must first overcome. It appears Riff had a troubled childhood. His mother is overbearing and probably caused the young Riff to introvert. This is evidenced by the fact that he has very few true friends. This sort of isolation most likely lead him to his inventing career, which allowed him to rely only on himself.
But why would his apathy and indifference remain even in later life? When visiting in hospitals or trying to have relationship discussions, he immeadietly flounders, falling back on "I don't know" and desperately hoping the topic will change. This seems odd, considering he's spent years now in the company of the outgoing Torg.
However, there are a few moments that clearly show why he's maintained this apathy, and it is linked to another part of his identity that lies just beyond it - here's an example of what I mean:
http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=011104
You see, Riff isn't purely apathetic, he cares enough that when prompted he can't help but risk himself for others. He could have most likely escaped - his survival skills have been tested in the past - but instead tried to save the party-goers. However, as this comic shows, these moments where his principals make him act when his defensive apathy wants him to flee are often when he fails. Perhaps another example to help clarify my picture?
http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=021207
The connection here is that in both cases, Riff acts - tries to reach out, tries to change things - and he fails. These failures are devastating, as they should be, and would be to anyone. The only way anyone could be expected to retain their sanity would be if they could somehow protect themselves - don't become connected, don't feel, shut out the outside world and let it all go away. Riff does this through his apathy. It's why he can't have a real relation. It's why he breaks down when things threaten his friends. He cannot handle it, and so he retreats.
So we have some small understanding of Riff now, a man disillusioned who chooses to hide himself emotionally to avoid dealing with the pain. He is not a bad man for being like this, and indeed, trying to change him could be fatal. It is one thing to avoid the pain of a bad childhood, that can be confronted. Failure on a massive level that causes deaths - especially the deaths of friends - can destroy a person if they face up to the reality of it. If someone (I'm guessing Gwynn) ever tried to change the core of his person, to do so would be like tampering with a timebomb. His apathy is a shield, like his inventions and his isolationist lifestyle. So long as he only cares about himself and nothing else, he is safe.
But then, it is not a perfect shield.
Riff has the tragic flaw of principles, in my opinion. His flaw is that he
cannot cut himself off completely. No matter how many times he may fail, no matter how many he might lose or who might leave him (Sasha), he still can't hide in ignorance and live a normal life. When Riff moved to Alaska, losing contact with his friends and thus the main link he had to the paranormal, he could have easily isolated himself from society. Maybe become a new person, found new friends, forgotten tragedies of the past and fears for the future, started afresh. He ignores relations and all sorts of things, so why would it be so hard to ignore a few vampires that probably wouldn't bother him anyways? It is because it is not a perfect shield of apathy. His principles leaked through, and he could not help but once again plunge into the battle against supernatural evil.
What are these principles, though? He is apathetic because he fears he is a failure and shouldn't even bother to risk himself for principles that he thinks will fail anyways, and yet every time when he really has to he has not hesitated to act. These principles of his seem to primarily revolve around friends.
As I said, he seems to have suffered from a bad childhood, his mother most likely drove away many of his friends and his father seemed distant. In the real world, he has encountered a lot of problems and more then his fair share of enemies, but has still managed to keep a small group of friends - a couple people who are the only ones he has ever really connected to in his whole life. These few people are so important to him, that when anything threatens them he goes to extreme lengths to get them back. He built a giant robot of all things to save Gwynn. He traveled the planes of existance and the dimensions of the multiverse to try and save Torg (And, I might note, met failure once again). He is desperate to protect the few people who have meant something to him, in a strange way afraid to be alone again, even though his apathy tends to drive them away.
So what do we have here, to recap? A man who has failed many times to live up to his own principles, and so has buried his emotions to avoid the pain. A man who is suppressed, isolationist, and reserved, driven to distraction, and yet still unable to stop himself from acting. A conflicted man - on one hand, his loyalty to his friends and his beliefs, while on the other, the weight of his failures and his fear of loss. Riff is someone who is held together only by never addressing his own issues.
If you feel unsure, peruse the archives at different points of history, and you will see the only evolution he has undergone is a slow build-up of tension. As more and more incidents piled on, more and more insecurities, enemies, and failures, he has become more erratic, and even his own apathetic shield is no longer capable of defending him. Note that when I say he has a build up of failures, I mean he has failed many times in the past without really recieveing closure on those failures - they linger within him still. His plans have degraded, and he is driven to even more innane distractions then usual in a supreme effort to stave off a growing pile-up of the past. Look at him now! He has said himself his plans are becoming worse. He has always loved video games, but now even when Torg has vanished he leaps at a game to make him forget his troubles. He's been giving less opinions and acting less overtly. Torg's troubles haven't helped, either. We haven't heard much from Riff as a person because we haven't heard as much from Torg, and Riff has lost the only person he could really talk to at all.
Where is he heading then? You cannot keep breaking a man's will forever, eventually he will break himself. If Riff cannot sort out his own past, then he is destined to become more and more eccentric and more and more alone, until finally he loses all contact with reality - shutting himself out completely to avoid facing the past. To face the past, he must find closure, and that is hard - for it is not always there to recieve. The 'Arny' is dead, as is Lucy, so he cannot apologize for being outwitted - this is surely something Riff would blame himself over. Perhaps he could recieve closure by killing the Kittens. Although Cloney was slain, it was slain by Torg as Riff's assault floundered, so I do not see how he could feel complete again for that. As for Torg's current problems, it doesn't seem as though Riff has any plan to help his friend.
There is of course a third possibility. If Riff can recieve just enough support, just enough closure, just enough contact and emotion to take some of the weight off of him for the pain of the past, then maybe he can remain where he is - close to the edge, but not yet broken. The most likely way this could happen is to give him purpose - feed him once again the same old troubles, and once again he will rise to the challenge. Torg is currently in a problematic period of his life, with numerous enemies hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles, and the undealt-with guilt left over from his time in the DoL. If Riff makes his purpose into finding and saving his friend, that might serve as distraction enough to keep him sane for the time being.
Should Riff fall, it would be such a quiet thing. The only noticeable symptom would be him doing and saying less, which might very well just be because the plot is not focussing on him. The effects would be there, though, bubbling beneath the surface, and I believe Pete is so strong a writer that we might see some more hints of this in the future.[/b]