It was my original intent to write but one thread, one thread which would satisfy my hunger to speak aloud what thoughts I had on Sluggy Freelance. This, it appears, is impossible.

There is simply too many angles, too many subcaterogies, for the entirety of my thoughts to be contained within a single essay. Wheras my first was but a general overview, this second one is perhaps more important for me to speak on, since death is but a part of a much larger facet of Sluggy Freelance. Death marks Sluggy's serious side.

The world of Torg and Riff is a deadly one - but not an insane one. This is a vital distinction to make. If the world was insane, then it wouldn't matter who died, or how, or why. Characters would dismiss violence unless it personally concerned their wellbeing, and otherwise good people would be oblivious to the pain of others. Sluggy Freelance and it's characters react in the face of death and aknowledge it's seriousness, meaning that by observing how they react to it we can understand their serious side.

The funny side is easy - merely read a handful of Sluggy comics that are not concerned with a major plot-arc, and you will be able to quickly identify what makes them funny and thus can identify their personalities at rest. In the serious comics, however - the ones where people die - we can gain insight into the deeper levels of our heroes.

First up, I would like to examine Torg. Torg at first would be an enigma - surely, is he not a contradiction? He fights hard to defend his friends and shows genuine emotions such as love, jealousy, and anger. But at the same time, he has often been unfazed by deaths too - apparently, at random.

Some deaths cause him grief, others he barely notices. When the Space Alien ate the crew on their ship in an early storyline, Torg barely cared - he cared roughly as much as he cared about the destruction of the sphere universe in it's entirety. Someone apparently died in their bathroom one halloween, and two guests were eaten by Aylee - we can assume that since they were guests, they must have been friends with Torg, or at least knew him.

Others, however, cause him pain. When Oasis 'died' (many, many times) he felt awful, because she was just a victim. Whenever misfortune befalls his friends, he feels for them. Why is this? What causes this division in reactions?

I would say it is because Torg is emotionally detatched from reality. That is why he appears so stupid, and that is why he is so awkward. He has a tight circle of friends, a few people whom he truly recognizes, and outside of that he simply cannot get attatched. Almost every 'innocent' he meets dies or goes insane. Angela - insane. Most of Zoe's friends from the camping trip - dead. Those guys who fought the kittens - dead. The girl Riff saved from the kittens - dead. Bert - dead. Amelia (Sam's 'drink') - dead. Val - dead, multiple times. The wizard-guy from the past - dead.

That's just off the top of my head, and I'm not even done the archive. I would bet money that once I get to 2004's halloween, there's at least one more slaughter in store.

So why would he detatch himself? Simply put, he has to. He has a lot of enemies he has to keep in check, and when he and Riff fail - people die. Lots more then those who have already died. He can't feel for everyone, because he can only protect so many people, and the rest die. He can't even show remorse or sadness at their passing - Angela did, that didn't work out too well. There are Vampires, Demons from the Dimension of Pain, the Devil and his Kittens, and some sort of leftover conspiracy of the Hereti-Corp villain-types after him, along with probably loads of others. What would happen if he wasn't there to stem the tide? Anyone familiar with Call of Cthuluu? Probably that, constantly.

This has had some unfortunate side-effects - namely, he cannot strike back. If he had enough brains to recognize a threat and enough guts to do something about it, he would have fought the dimension of pain demons instead of letting them come to him. That got at least one person killed, and arguably a tonne of people from the 'nice' dimension - since it was Torg's fault they got there in the first place. As for the devil kittens - I am not sure, perhaps they have already acted, but I am not finished yet - Torg could have saved a lot of lives if he'd just gotten Riff's exorcist/laser device to banish the demon kittens after the first attack. What's worse is that due to this detatchment he doesn't even realize the blood on his hands. But I digress. It is true that although these side effects are painful, without them things would be much worse since without Torg those things he has stopped would have succeeded.

Next, I would speak of Riff. Riff is an interesting and complicated characters since at all times he hides his vulnerable feelings behind intelligence, comedy, apathy - anything to distract people and protect himself emotionally. A classical example of an introverted person caused by family stress, this shield means that he - like Torg - protects himself by defending himself from emotional commitment. Unfortunately for Riff, he cannot detatch himself as completely as Torg, meaning he can never drop his defences.

This might seem paranoid or unreasonable, but just like Torg, it is necessary. He cannot bring himself to care too much since - at any moment - things might go wrong. They have before, and they could easily go wrong again. He doesn't open up to anyone, but those few who reach him anyways are the ones who trigger his extreme commitments - when Gwynn was possessed again, Riff laboured constantly to build a giant robot to save her, that's a perfect example. If he cared for everone, he would have long ago broken down and ceased functioning at the weight of the horrors he has seen. As I said earlier, it is a Cthuluu effect - if you retain your humanity, you will not survive.

What is interesting, is that - very rarely - we see Torg's vulnerable feelings override his defences, with mixed results. When the house was trapped in hell, he probably could have easily justified just dumping the ghosts, but he took the greater risk and made sure they were saved - that's an example of it working, and it is good for him since it gives him confidence and allows him to open up more. What hurts him is things like the second attack of the kittens - for more reasons than one.

I will state a simple example which, I believe, explains Riff's entire character in a nutshell, plucked from what may be one of his greatest failures - the second attack of the kittens. On his way there, dedicated to saving his friends, he came across a bloody scene. Only one girl was left at a general store where a Kitten had attacked - a hopeless situation. Riff could have justified driving by easily, for he had a limited supply of milk and couldn't afford to waste any or else even more would die then her. Or, perhaps the fact that time was of the essence. But his emotions - his weak, vulnerable, and all-too-human emotions - compell him to act, to save this girl. And he does. It will be perhaps one of the only successes of the entire night for Riff.

After the kittens are first deactivated, Riff was put in charge of planning how to survive. Riff poured all of his intelligence into the plan, trying desperately to set up a situation where he would save their lives. But little things seemed to suggest he wanted to get the girl - an innocent in this whole affair - out alive. He paired her with Torg, the safest place to be in a way, since if they were attacked the kittens would focus on Torg, and personally it seems Riff was trying to get him out of harm's way anyways.

But what happened? Riff, for all his cunning, was outwitted like never before. Although he has witnessed much death before and after this event, and although his plans have failed before, this time it was directly his fault. His realization of the situation was just too late to warn his friends, and Dart, Bert, and the girl, Lucy, died.

Now, Dart was a soldier of an order who knew - more or less - what they were getting into. Bert was a marked man for survivng the first encounter. Both of their deaths were bad enough. But Lucy was a complete innocent to the whole fiasco, an innocent whom Riff had saved - had tried to save from the descending insanity. He failed, and she died horrifically and painfully - probably slowly, two, since it appears they did not cut straight through her body.

Can you think of anything more shaking to your sanity? Riff would be fine if he had kept his defences up, but he had lowered them, and her death was not just another statistic in his plan or a shape in the horizon, it was given real weight. He made a quick recovery, however - he still had to save those who remained, and as always Torg was there to detatch himself and speak of lightsaber hacksaws, making the situation feel unreal and allowing Riff to forget just how real death is.

That is just one example, and I think it not only frames Riff's personality - a human with emotions trapped behind the rough coating he needs to survive and protect those he cares about - but also his relation with Torg, which is a symbiotic one where each allows the other to survive their torments by playing off each other and keeping their sanity alive. Torg fared much worse the first time facing the kittens, but with Riff along he managed to stay so sane as to pass comfortably around the bodies of the dead and stay focused. The relation works for both of them.

As a side note, if he hasn't already, I fully expect Riff to make an attempt to destroy these kittens eventually - they have touched his frail sanity, and although he has proven skilled at repressing and neutralizing bothersome memories, even he knows they will strike again eventually - and if he is not ready, more will die. More like Lucy. More deaths that might be his fault. It just could drive him insane to fail.

Of course, that brings us to Zoe and Gwynn. They can be explained together, namely because they share similar outlooks during scenes of death - with the notable exception that Gwynn is a measure more concerned with her own survival than Zoe, who is a tad more heroic in that regard.

These two share a fundamental difference from Torg and Riff, in that they are not built to handle death. Sure, K'z'K possessed Gwynn for a while, and that was fairly awful suffering, but the difference between any amount of pain and actual death is amazing, since pain can pass but death is always permanent. They both react like any of us would when confronted with death - horror, terror, panic. They have both toughened up a bit, since they have learned - as Riff and Torg learned long ago - that they cannot afford to fall to pieces if they are to survive and force back whatever evil scheme threatens. This toughening has failed, though, to change their personalities in any significant way - Zoe still makes friends, and Gwynn still socializes, despite how time and time again they have been shown how disastrous that is. In a way, they are proof of Torg and Riff's wisdom, since every time they are with familiy or friends they put those people in danger any number of ways.

Oddly enough, Torg and Riff have had quite an effect on the two - for the worse, it appears. Although they have taken on Riff and Torg's ability to rebound after catastrophe and stay sane through disaster, they have also inherited the pair's notorious short-sightedness, meaning that they keep putting themselves in danger because they do nothing to elminate threats at their source. At times it appears they want to, but Torg and Riff are such a distracting influence that they are quickly dissuaded. Indirectly, there appear to be cases where I could say even those two are to blame for unnecessary deaths - even if only for not pestering Torg and Riff to do something permanent about their enemies - but they too cannot percieve that they are to blame.

Despite these influences, they are still far more vulnerable emotionally than Riff or Torg. If it had been Zoe who saw Aylee murder and eat alive the massive crew of the starship where she was born, well, things would be different.

So, who does that leave? I could analyze Bun-Bun, but that is too easy - he is a guiltless, souless killer. As a bunny, he has no humanity and is thus free of conscience, meaning he cares only for his own whims and enacting them.

No, the one I will end with is none other than Sam.

'Why Sam?' you might ask 'He's merely a secondary character.'

That is so, he is in fact a secondary character, but he is also one of the only 'good characters' beyond the four still alive. In fact, beyond Sam the only other none-evil secondary characters I can think of who are still alive are the Christmas elves and Crystal the barkeep (for convenience, I plan to compile a list of all characters in the series, divide them into alliegance categories, and then subdivide them into dead, alive, and undead).

So on the topic of Sam, his approach to death, and what that reveals about his character, I can comfortably say that Sam is insane. Perhaps it was the vampirism, perhaps he was mad before it, but Sam's personality is unusually inconsistent in a believable way - an impressive feat. Despite being granted immeasurable power, he is only barely aware of his own potential and is completely oblivious to what he could do with his powers. He no longer feels regular human remorse over death - when he found Amelia's body (Back when he and Torg were drinking at a bar) his first reaction was being slightly miffed by the realization that he had spoilt his record of not-killing-people (perhaps forgetting those he killed when helping the 'Vampire Baker'?)

He doesn't just throw around a lot of talk, or boast - he seems to actually believe his own boasts about his exploits, as if he was rewritting history to suit his desires. He lives in a dream-world just barely held together by old memories and beliefs, like his affection for Zoe and his vaguely goo heart - a world where the death and pain of others is really more of an inconvenience then a real awful act. He actually trumps Torg, in that wheras Torg is a good person who has to see reality differently to survive, Sam comes off as a man who long ago lost all grip on everything and has been left a shell of a man - one who can recall vaguely what it is he desires (female companionship) and some elements of morality (try not to kill people, if you can), but whose existance is no longer really run by them.

So that is the spectrum of morality as I see it for Sluggy Freelance. Each character reveals a bit about their inner self when thrust into situations of stress - little samples from which we can put together an image of who they are. They may be funny and have little personality traits and such, but these do not define them so much as disguise them. Torg keeps himself grounded in reality through his lightheartedness, and Riff survives by trying to keep out everything and everyone but those few friends who keep him sane. That is who they really are, and it is those traits and their natural cunning that have kept them alive.

I would like to thank you if you have read this far. My thoughts have weighed me down when it comes to sluggy freelance, since it is balanced on the knife's edge between comedy and drama - if it is a drama, then surely are not many of it's jokes in poor taste? And if it is a comedy, then why does death bring about such emotional responses, such sympathy? By looking at their reactions to death, I think I have found a way to reconcile these two different approaches, and it has done me much good - lifting a weight off my mind, for it helps me understand. That's all I can think about to say for now, and once again, thank you for allowing me to write this out, and clarify my own mind.

That was a well thought out essay with some good arguments made. However, I think that Torg is less detached then you make him out to be. The whole sci-fi adventure was surreal, almost as if being in a movie or tv show, so while they are trying to find a way home you can't really expect them to get too attached to the crew. The Punyverse wasn't a kind mistress to Torg, Riff or the bunny, but Torg stood up for Princess-Princess to take a spot on the pod. Yes, the did ultimately leave Grater and Princess behind but only because the Sam-like Grater was an idiot and tricked them. Twice we've seen Torg literally jump into a risky situation, once to save a little girl, and another time to save Beth's eternal soul, he even made Aylee let go of him to save both her and Beth.

So...you're just getting into 2004? You're in for one hell of a ride.

That I am, my good Spudman, and you bring up several good points in turn.

It may be worth stressing that one of the main purposes of this essay is to reconcile comedic aspects of Sluggy Freelance with dramatic ones. When Torg was hitting on the woman in the Sci-Fi adventure while she was being eaten alive, such a sight would generally evoke horror, anger, or at least some sort of strong emotion linked with the murder - but it didn't, because early Sluggy Freelance comics focussed more on comedy.

Thus, to understand a character who can fit into both genres, we must draw the conclusion that he is a little... off. My point was not that he was heartless, but that his emotions are detatched considerably from reality to shield himself from the mental dangers that it presented - admittedly, the death of a child or the loss of someone within his 'inner circle' of friends would affect him, since those are strong emotional stimuli - and also, neither of them were destroyed, and I am specifically looking on how they react to the death/destruction of people after the fact - handling survivor's guilt and such.

In other words, you're right, I was trying to convey that Torg has to detatch his emotions and grip on reality somewhat to deal with death, but that doesn't mean he is always like that.

Looking forward to your thoughts with regards to That Which Redeems.

With regards to Torg - yeah, I agree. He's a little off. When a character is first introduced as trying to help Riff, who was summoning a demon via computer... heh, you tend to expect it. As for what spudman said, I agree in a way - certain times seem surreal, and thus deaths are not quite as "real" as they could be. The sci-fi adventure is a good example of this.

Well - if you those were your thoughts before reading TWR, definitely want to hear what you think of Torg after you read through that part.

Well, I have officially finished the archives in it's entirety - no mean feat, in just a few days - and I can more or less say that my earlier statements are still just as valid, even after the comics of the year 2004 and 2005. Perhaps even reinforced.

I was right about Riff, it appears - even in alternate dimensions, his character is only different on the outside, but on the inside he is still emotionally fragile and desperate to hold on to the few people who he lets past his apathetic defences. Desperate searches for Torg coupled with Torg-kidnappings are clear indicators of his personality.

Zoe is still as I suspected - Zoe simply can't understand what's happened and Torg won't tell her, so she has reacted much as her personality dictates. Gwynn was a tad more suprising - the 'alternate' her suggests that Gwynn has been massively and fundamentally altered by the book of E-ville, namely because their very core character traits were different. Still, nothing too suprising, and nothing that would change what we could expect the regular Gwynn to do.

That leaves, of course, Torg.

The fairly recent guest-comic was a tad confusing - to be honest, I could not divine it's intent. I suspect it might have been at least somewhat of an internal tale, one where you might need more familiarity with the goings on of Sluggy Freelance to grasp. It had elements of renewal and release, combined with strong emotions of attatchment and the pain of loss. Perhaps it is using the loss of Torg to parallel someone's painful break-up? Both storys would share many smiliar traits in that regard.

That aside, from what I could glean from the tale of Redemption - a truly moving tale that literally had me in tears by it's end - in regards to the character of Torg does not seem to suggest a new state of mind. Under the stress of the situation, the fear of being lost forever, and the only thing to mentally anchor him to this world being what was sort-of the woman he loved, it is understandable that Torg would emotionally 'reattach' himself to reality - in other words, with things going as bad as they were, Torg had to stay sane, and to stay sane he fell in love with Zoe, which in turn opened up his emotions.

At first, what does it suggest? A changed Torg? Or perhaps a Torg who was misjudged all along? If that were so, he would have outstriped Angela for insanity the moment he got home - a woman he loved died, a quest to return 'good' to the land had pretty much no obvious positive results, he spent half a year away from his true friends and family, and to top it off, just as he left he was told that he was an emotional replacement. He should be mad, he should be insane, but he's not.

The reason he isn't is because once more he became detatched. Filled with suspicion and confused emotions, the only way he could survive mentally and still face his friends - his friends whom he hadn't seen for half a year, and in a way saw one die just recently - was by balling it all up inside, breaking off, and becoming his old self. Even that he couldn't quite manage fully, and his continued rejection of Zoe suggests the sight of her dying and his broken promise is just too much to bear. He can't tell them because he can barely keep it together himself.

So we have the same character, only under different circumstances. For the first time truly, Torg's limits are being tested. He underwent unimaginable suffering, fought both demons and a bewilderingly ignorant population, lost his chance for revenge or redemption, and saw a woman he loved die just before learning she only loved him for what he reminded her of. (Tip: Re read the whole thing, keeping in mind alternate Zoe's desire for Torg to 'return' to her. It gives a terrible new meaning to the scenes where Zoe hides in fear from what appears to be her love, back and insanely violent).

Also, if I may? This story corroborates my earlier statement that Torg and Riff's big flaw is their inability to strike back. They are painfully, irresponsibly reactive - even in situations where others' lives are on the line. Torg fell in love, saw his love die, and basically managed to only slightly delay the mighty forces of evil - evil forces who have in the past and will in the future if not stopped kill people and cause massive, massive suffering. What does it take to get Torg to fight back? Not just short-term, escape-with-our-lives stuff, but the going-the-distance, once-and-for-all stuff? Will his Zoe have to die first? Actually, that sort of pressure would be likely to ruin his entire defensive system of retreating from reality in the face of emotional stress, considering how much damage someone else's Zoe did (If that made you feel sad, console yourself with the thought that if there is a hell there is a Heaven, and thus that Zoe is now finally back with her true Torg).

Perhaps the most interesting development of the whole plotline is the sort of thing I have already said I admire Pete for - no fear when it comes to killing off secondary characters making changes to the nature of the story, and even being gut-wrenchingly painful to read (good! just emotionally crippling). Many writers would have balked, saved Zoe, turned Riff back into a person, and had some magic staff thingy that would turn all the souls dragged to be tortured in the Dimension of pain forever back into happy people. The Goddess would have slew the evil demon king guy, and all in all there would be closure. But no, there wouldn't be closure. Because that isn't how the story goes. We might be happy, at first, glad to see our hero triumph. But it would be there, the thought in the back of everyone's mind - the fact that Torg would not have won that victory, Pete would have handed it to him. It is a subtle difference, but a vital one for writing.

So to sum up, this may present a new situation, but otherwise it appears to reinforce more or less my previous stances. Amazing writing, though, I mean really top-quality stuff. It took hours to read the whole of the 'that which Redeems' series and those comics after it (which makes me dwell on how long it must have taken to write and draw!), and it was some of the best-spent time I've had on the net. I am especially glad I read the whole series before venturing out to compile a number of my other thoughts into similar essays, considering how vital it appears this particular time-period is to Sluggy Freelance History.

Well consider the consequences of being proactive against such threats. The Order tried to find ways to deal with the kittens and look where it got them. And to deal with the demons requires dimensional travel, and you know what happens when the DFA is brought out, no matter how hard Riff tries with that thing... To take the initiative against such threats means putting it all on the line, opening a hole to another dimension and such. It is a rough decision, waiting for enemies to come for you comes with the risk of them having the initiative, or attacking first could be an unnecessary risk. While Torg and Riff are always willing to try out the latest gadget, maybe they won't go charging into hell when Zoe and Gywnn might hav'ta deal with the demons should they lose.

In TWR (That Which Redeems) Torg did try to take steps to fight the demons beyond escaping. He attempted organizing a resistance but ultimately failed due to the nature of the people of the DOL, leading him to just planning on surviving for as long as possible. Now that he is back, he may "move out" as he has mentioned for good as soon as the house is retaken. Along with him saying "I've got a lot to do this year...maybe he is taking the initiative, but in order to do so, he feels he needs to remove those that would be put at risk from his life. So we might just end up with a changed Torg. We probably won't see the result until Oceans Unmoving concludes though (as well as the rabbit's inevitable return), maybe he can set Torg straight, the way only he can .

We can expect nothing from Bun-Bun but violence. It's more likely that he would cause Torg to remain his regular self than convince him to actually fight his enemies.

Anyways, my point still stands. Is it difficult to fight back? It sure as hell is, it would involve fighting demons, vampires, psychotic-corporate-super-agents, more demons, and so forth - on their home turf, no less, but is it any more difficult to drive them back each time? When these things happen, it is often others who die - and they will continue to until someone stops them. After what we saw of 'The Order' I'm pretty sure we can agree there isn't much hope of anyone else doing anything.

Torg's experience in the Dimension of Lame (I don't favour that name, but it's stuck) should, if anything, teach him that he has to strike now or his loved ones and friends will suffer the same fate as those there - He must know Horribus was after him, and must be able to suspect that they will attack his world eventually to get him - an invasion all the more terrible and bloody then the one he already saw.

I see no evidence of a changed Torg, yet. If he indeed does move out and start plotting revenge, or a counterattack I would concede that the strain of his experiences had become too much to bear and he was now fully mentally engaged with reality. As it stands, he is exhibiting all the traits of someone blocking out their painful memories, as his recent behaviour would suggest nothing had ever happened (with the exception of not inviting Zoe to dinner that one time, that's a bit of a crack in his facade, there.)

While I find your analysis most intruiging, I have my suspicions of some alternate motivation for Torg after That which Redeems. Specifically, I would imagine (from some of Torg's comments, and the fact that he was packed up so early) that he, at least briefly, planned some form of counterattack. He was carrying Chaz at the time, and thus I would imagine a counterattack against some enemy not normally vulnerable but which he requires no help from his friends to reach - such as the kittens.

Unfortunately, after AltZoe's death, the very thought of Zoe has become painful to him (perhaps this was another motive force in his original plan to move out - now that he's not living in the same place as Zoe, it becomes less urgent to move and easier to delay it). He presumably cannot complete his plans for counterattack without Chaz, which was left in the house with the cloners. Of course, he could merely ask Zoe for it, but at the moment that'll be a lot harder than merely waiting until tomorrow and hoping for something to happen. And another tomorrow. And another...

He is still very oblivious to reality, but I think that TWR struck home to him for the first time that his closest friends are vulnerable, too. If Bun-bun returns and beats up Riff, Zoe or Gwynn, Torg is more likely to take exception to it now than before. If he beats up Torg, Torg is likely to try to persuade Bun-bun to come with him when he leaves - partially because that'll prevent him beating up the others, and (perhaps) partially in the hope that something will happen to persuade Bun-bun that violence is sometimes the opposite of helpful (although that is unlikely to say the least).

Oh, I agree with you on that - these are exceptional circumstances, even for Torg, and it is possible he won't handle it well. But so far, it looks like he's slipping back into his old routine, a reactive routine where he waits for problems to befall him before dealing with them. Maybe there were times where he was plotting to act, and maybe he will plot again in the future, but in the present he is beginning to forget the lessons he learned from his time in the alternate dimension - a lesson which, for him to learn again, could drive him too far.

Torg has too much on his to-do list, if you ask me.

I think that's the reason why he's delaying leaving the current situation, has gotten a steady job, etc. Between Demons, Kittens, and the fact that he's looking for Bun-Bun (I would question his sanity in regards to that, but sitll), the "house problem" with the Cloners is prompting him to stay due to its immediacy both in space (here) and time (now).

Torg's seen enough to know that the Cloners shouldn't be allowed to know of Aylee's existence. He's also seen enough to know that unplanned actions when a situation reaches a plateau (the cloners are close, but no closer than they were a few months back), and if he acted hastily here, he could potentially allow a repeat of the events in Dangerous Days Ahead. And no one wants that.

Until they know for sure how to proceed, the only logical choice of action is to sit and watch.

Also, keep in mind that while Torg's "victory" in the DoL was not a complete one and that the DoP demons are still quite a force to be dealt with, I can definitely understand why that would be low on his priorities. It may sound a bit heartless, but the fact is that the DoP guys can't get to his dimension except around Halloween. And what is he going to do to be proactive? Run in by himself with just Chaz to help? No, that would just be giving his head on a silver platter. That goddess of goodness has, theoretically, a greater chance than Torg of being able to stand against the DoP, and she's smart enough to wait and build power.

As for the Kittens, that's another "stable" situation. Assuming that they don't somehow lose access to milk again before he can tackle it, the problem will not get worse, and a good plan for definitively getting rid of them can be formulated in the mean time (not that they ARE planning anything that we know of, but I digress).

And between the fact that Torg might not really want to reunite with Bun Bun, and the fact that he probably doesn't have a clue as to how he should begin looking, really this House problem is the only thing that he can realistically take care of right now. Once that's solved definitively, running to something else could be done without much of a problem.

I had a point when I started writing, but I can't recall it now. Sorry.

Although I see the validity of your argument, it is perhaps slighty further off from what I was talking about, as I was focussing on the main character traits and tactics of each person with regards to death, wheras you more wish to discuss the morality of Torg's tendency not to fight back.

However, since that is a very interesting discussion, I am more then willing to debate it.

I would begin by saying that you appear to be making excuses for Torg, saying that the reason why he does not act in a more proactive manner is because his problems are currently dormant (vampires are gone, demons can't reach him, kittens are appeased). Since these problems are dormant, he should focus on stabalizing the rest of his life, like keeping a job and a home.

Those are, admittedly, admirable, but to do these things is to reject his responsibility. Do you think the vampires, the demons, and the remains of Hereti-Corp will spend their downtime taking care of minor personal problems and playing around with new gadgets? No, they are planning, they are preparing, they are getting stronger. The kittens don't even need to be stronger - they've already proven themselves more then capable of massacaring people, meaning that if Torg and friends want to have any chance then it is THEY who have to prepare the next time the kittens are ready.

He has a responsiblity, whether he wants it or not, to deal with these problems somehow. For all we know, he and his friends might be the only one on earth who knows about the demon king and it's minions. They've met very few who know about the vampires, and their only ally against another Hereti-Corp plot would be Oasis, and good luck with that. They are really the only ones who know all about the threats out there, and of all people, they know firsthand how dangerous these threats are. Gwynn lost her friend Mike to Hereti-Corp. Zoe lost most of her friends to the Kittens. Riff almost lost Gwynn and Torg to the demons and sank into despair. As for Torg? We all know who he lost. They are the only ones who could even possibly do something, and yet they do nothing. They bicker, and they feud, and they worry for their jobs and their home, and they play around with ipodlings, and then they are somehow shocked and tearful the next time a friend is murdered. And they honestly wonder why.

The next point you bring up is that there is nothing they could do. Of course there's stuff they could do! Riff is a brilliant inventor, for crying out loud, and he's gotten people to the dimension of pain before. Get a job as a government scientist, go public, use Riff's stuff to show people where the demons are. Hand in Torg's sword and let people look at it, see if they can recreate it, or perhaps rebuild that robot-arm thing Riff had to blast demons.

The downside to this, the real thing people are trying to make excuses for, is the fact that that isn't good writing. This comic's fanbase was attracted to and has fed off of a familiar style, one where the heroes push back their enemies for a time through their own cunning and effort. To suddenly turn this really serious, and see Torg and Riff acting responsible and trying to organize proper resistance would just be too much of a change to write well. Torg could at least tell Riff about the demon king, and together they of all people should be able to think of a way to destroy at least a few of their enemies. Kill the kittens with Chaz, maybe? Or use the arm-cannon thing to blast demons to death? Perhaps hunt down a few vampire circle leaders like that one who starts with P to make sure the Vampires don't try anything and to protect the locals? There, that's a few vague ideas right there.

As I said before, the chief difficulty of Sluggy Freelance is reconciling it's comedy roots with it's serious turn. Death is serious, but the comic can't go completely serious because most of it's fans also want funny. But what you also have to accept is that to strike a balance, that means the heroes eventually have to compromise their very own ideals - and not even admit it, because that would be serious. Torg has broken promises and mental anguish, and pain, but if he dealt with that all the time the strip would no longer be funny - why do you think the redemption series was soon followed by the Unmoving Ocean series? It was to offset the sadness with comedy.

The end result is the fact that there are things they could be doing, things that could save lives, things that - if someone asked them - they would have few excuses for denying it, but they don't do them. If Angela stopped being insane enough to scream at Riff for not using his inventing powers to come up with something to save them from the kittens, he wouldn't have an answer beyond grumbling that he doesn't have the money or the technology any more - or, perhaps just shrug and say 'I dunno'.

Anyways, I'm just saying. The difficulty is in reconciliation, and that results in a few wrinkles in their characters we might not like.

Yeah, sorry again for getting a bit off topic. Like I said, I forgot where I was originally going, but didn't feel like I should just delete everything I typed.

Anyway, while you're certainly right that they *can* do things, I just think that the old "pick your battles" adage is a wise way to look at it, and is one which Torg, whether he knows it or not, seems to be following.

Between the two various "dormant" threats out there, let's say that the DoP demons are the most evil/dangerous (probably either that or Kittens). I'm sure that Riff and Torg could, if they chose, run in and try to find some way to defeat the demons once and for all (going public doesn't seem like that much of an option to me. After all, K'Z'K's initial attack was just blamed on pop culture and ignored).

Let's say, hypothetically, that they have a chance and go with it. Let's also say that, in defeating the demons, they die. A heroic death, that probably saved millions of lives.

Now then, that would leave us with cloners who may make an invincible army of Aylee clones, some possible schemes from hertiCorp coming down the aisle, KITTENs who might figure something out with no one around to stop them, an alien invasion that only Bun Bun knows about, Bun Bun not having a nerd boy to take his lethal frustrations out on, and probably a few things that I'm forgetting.

I agree that Torg's got a responsibility, as do Riff, Zoe, and Gwynn. But if they aren't careful, they'll lose their lives, and probably a good deal of humanity's chances at salvation against the vampires or something (Vampires! That's what I was forgetting).

As the cloner geeks have just as much potential danger to humanity, but not nearly as much danger to Riff and Torg, sticking with this problem for now still seems like the best course of action.

Ah, now there are some good points. It is true, Torg and Riff are valuable resources - their loss would mean the only people who have ever managed to stop demon invasions and vampires and such would be gone. This means it would be ok if they were planning, arming themselves, bracing themselves for the inevitable attack or otherwise mentally and physically conditioning themselves - but they're not.

Sure, Riff is suspiscious of the cloners, and he has a right to be. But that's just one of their problems, and really it's a pretty minor one compared to everything else - if they get to Aylee, THEN things could go haywire, but they haven't yet. But what about Torg? He's made no effort to prepare himself. As always, the instant he is out of the fire he seeks distraction and nothing else.

I can find one simple example to frame my argument: Picture if this was all real, and you were in your world. If it was your world at risk from demons, and your friends whom vampires stalked, and your beloved you saw die. Now imagine you saw all this but remained completely sane - you'd do something, wouldn't you? You'd be angry at your friends for their apathy. Torg especially - he knows just how dangerous the demons are, how much they're planning, how active they've become, and he still can't be bothered to get ready for the onslaught, we he could do even in little ways like learning swordplay or warning Riff and having him invent weapons to use against them.

But then again, it is the nature of a drama to frame real people, real reactions, and real emotions. This is mixed with comedy, which is about the surreal and the peculiar, and they don't always go together well. We have to see Torg doing Torg things so we know he's still the same guy, even when a decent person would have changed.

That, I think, is the heart of the issue.

Actually, I'd debate that this the lack of preparing was true. We never really see much of Riff's tinkering, yet we know he's always working on something. Once he develops the technologies, he keeps them for when he needs them. Meanwhile, consider Torg. We never really saw him practice with his sword. We only saw the end results of that practicing.

I mean, to use the vampire analogy, we know that Riff developed dozens of anti-vampire trinkets for vampire slayers to use. I doubt he'd just toss all that away and stop working on it. (Yeah, I know that the company's gone....but still, this is a guy who's had notes available for checking for almost eight years now! He can rebuild)

A similar character to Riff and Torg (situationally, mind you, not character-wise) is The Batman. As portrayed now, fewer heroes are more paranoid than he is, always planning for any eventuality. However, the reader never sees the endless hours in the Batcave inventing new gadgets, or lifting weights. Once in a while we'll get a panel of something like that, or a rare page or two of sparring matches against Robin and Nightwing, but Batman's training just isn't shown.

Now, while I highly doubt that Riff and Torg put as much effort into it as Batman, I can't imagine that a day doesn't pass where they don't do something. Torg could easily find some quick fencing practice after work. Riff's a night owl, and with Torg sleeping for work shifts now it's gotta get boring....time to tinker.

To go back to the Batman example, I could see some similar scenes occuring if Robin somehow swallowed Batman's iPod.

Okay, no I couldn't....but still, if someone swallows an iPod and can still hear it, I imagine they'll play around with it regardless of how many demons they've seen.

Hm... you know? I think you're right.

Perhaps they are in fact preparing, in their own little ways.

They can't go charging off, and getting themselves foolishly killed, but at the same time they shouldn't be doing nothing at all - we can agree on that. However, you're right, if we actually watched Torg practicing or Riff inventing all the time, it wouldn't be as interesting. Your batman example was particularly good, and quite true.

Ok then, so perhaps we can agree that although it is their responsibility to at least prepare themselves, we are left to assume they are doing so because to watch it all the time would not be in the style of Sluggy Freelance? Because that seems to fit everything quite well - it would allow for my earlier descriptions of the characters to still be right, as it appears they have forcasted their actions correctly in the past (for me, anyways). It would also allow for Torg and Riff to still be 'good people' by doing what any decent person would do - planning, and waiting, and getting stronger. Also, it would allow Sluggy Freelance to continue as it always does, in it's amusing fashion. A win-win situation all around.