‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 626

No one's happy.

41 Comments

No one? I dunno, I’m always pretty happy when I see a new NAV strip. Even when the subject matter is sad.

Yeah, my baby boy is the most important one. 😀
Most moms care about all of their children equally, so that was an obvious care-bait. And on the thanksgiving-break page it looked like she has two boys of the same age, neither of which look like babies.

I was just wondering: On the previous page the sky became dark when Jane hit the floor with her sickle. Did that happen for real or was is just for the readers? Was that one of Morto’s standard Specials maybe? I know in typical MMORPGs there are safe areas where you can cast anything you want, but it doesn’t have any impact on other characters.

The “baby boy” is probably the one currently in poor health or in need of the most expensive care. Mom’s really do care more about one kid when that kid needs greater care. Doesn’t mean they don’t LOVE them all the same – but the siblings of cancer patients often have a hard time feeling loved.

My mother often jokes that her ‘favorite’ child is the one who is currently the sickest. She loves us all equally, but pays more attention to the one who needs her most at the time. Most likely, Jane emphasizes her baby because he was the one in the most danger – the one who, with Bloody Mary out of a job, would have been the first to die.
Or because she is trying to emphasize how heartless her old teammates were (in her view at least, we don’t know what they were thinking at the time), that they would abandon even a baby.

I think she has a boy and a girl, and they might either be twins, or close in age to each other…

I’m pretty sure the baby boy is the most important one in that context because he’s the one who’s dying…

ummmm… lots of people call their kids baby boy/girl even when they are grown up (creepiness is subjective in this case) so yeah… also what I’m getting from jane is not care bait but that one of her sons is in severe trouble-either illness or injury and is close to death, hence why she mentioned them specifically and not both of them. care bait would have been my baby boys, not just one.

No matter how old a child gets, to their mother they will ever be their ‘baby’… and while Jane appears to have three children, and while she probably cares for them all the same, the one she is referring to (I believe) is the one whose life is in danger more than the other two.

As for the sky darkening in the previous strip, I suspect that was simply ‘dramatic effect lighting’, as Jane and Kat are currently in Sandra’s private server. That said, I’m not sure what (if any) safety features/limits are set there, other than that Jane cannot ‘holster’ her weapon and must carry it at all times whilst she is there.

FWIW, Bandit explicitly said that she can’t kill The Dude in there, in the same conversation where “holstering” came up: http://navcomic.com/not-a-villain/page-230/

Ahh… Thanks for the reminder – wasn’t able to recall if that had been explicitly stated or not.

And then two strips later, Jane belts The Dude with her weapon after he makes a comment about how ‘important’ he believes the Game is.

I think she has three kids, I counted seven feet in the image on the previous page (I’m going to assume there was an eight hidden one, make more sense that the idea that one of them has three legs).

To be fair, I’m 31 years old and my mom still calls me her baby boy even though I’m neither a baby nor her only son. It is a term of affection. For being her youngest. Though I do agree this feels like care-bait, that isn’t as big of a give away.

It could just be that he’s the most vulnerable so she worries about him and his young age most often. Her older kids might be more dependable or something? We don’t know.

It could just be that he’s the most vulnerable so she worries about him and his young age most often. Her older kids might be more dependable or something? We don’t know. And she mentioned them too.

The “baby boy” doesn’t appear to be a separate child, but is included in “my kids”. It perhaps indicates she has special affection for the younger one… or perhaps he’s in more perilous condition than the other.

I think we’re seeing an aspect of Jane hidden before: a real person rather than just a video game character– and a person the other have been needlessly dreading all this time. She doesn’t kill without reason, and she’s not nearly as crazy as people believe. The real loon are the ones who would kick her out of the game because of bigotry and don’t care about her and her family’s welfare.

In addition, the drawing of Jane’s desperate family in real life shows an attractive family (ie we want to like them) making loving gestures toward each other. That counts a lot in interpreting Jane’s words now.

Wow, thanks for this avalanche of responses! ^_^
If one of her kids is about to die I can see why she’d put the most focus on him.

Her current situation also makes me understand why she decided to pretend to be an insanse character, because her life is literally maddenning, so it’s an easier role to play convincingly than most others. Not an easy role for befriending others, but certainly something that can attract popularity.

I am SO hyped to find out how Kat reacts to it, given who she really is. 😀

Come to think of it: When Jane attacked Aza’s group, did she manage to steal their Esones? I mean, if that’s possible. The happy dude who attacked Kat seemed to imply it, saying “You’re Esone’s m—“. If so, I call that she’ll share them with Kat and Danni.

“most moms care about their children equally”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA……!!!
Sorry, excuse me a moment…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH……………………………………………………………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mothers play favorites. Often more than fathers. And no, I’m not speaking from limited personal experience. This truth is so g-d d***ed common you can see it on the news, in scientific literature and popular entertainment. All forms of popular entertainment.

Yes, the “my baby boy” bit was probably a ploy to gain Kat’s sympathy. Regardless of whether it’s honest or not. A sympathy ploy manipulation doesn’t need to be a lie to be effective and actually works best when it’s got truth to back it because it’s easier to prove.

Studies have shown that parents (both of them) do actually have a favorite child, but the children rarely find out. Apparently there is an instinct to keep that info from the kids.

Sorry, I don’t know the details of the study, but it’s not a new one either, I’m thinking close to a decade or so.

My mom is a Grandmother, and she still calls me her baby boy.

I’ll totally grant you that both parents play favorites, meerling, but I’ll have to see your study before I agree the children rarely find out. There’s subtle favoritism which would be hard for them to tell, and then there’s the glut of blatant favoritism.

It can be hard to find out when the favorite child is not the most well behaved child, which is the case in the majority of cases. The normal dynamic is for the parent to spoil one child, then stop favoring that child overtly once they become a serious problem.

Of course, there are exceptions. My Grandmother’s blatant favoritism towards her one daughter lasted right up until her favorite daughter straight up murdered her (because she was tired of hearing her breathe).

I guess there are also exceptions to the favorite child becoming spoiled, but they don’t make for such a punchy story.

I think these last two pages do convey a good deal of strong emotion, visually as well as narratively. Well done!

I agree! They really do convey a lot of anger and desperation along with pain, which is super cool to see out of a character like Jane. And it’s also interesting seeing here speak normally.

Wow, such a good moment captured, there. Usually, the “hair in the fair” thing looks so ominous, but in panel two, her eye shows for just a moment, and it changes the whole thing. In panel 3, the “ominous” is replaced with “defeated” or perhaps “despairing”, even though it’s almost exactly the same look.

Very well done – finding a real person inside the psychopath.

Now now Jane: you are not in character! 😉

This offers some interesting paths of action.

“Everything goes boom” as far as the game servers are concerned, and yet be the good person.

But this rises the question, what do you really want?

Do you want to be the hero who does the right thing that helps everyone to live a better life – and be HATED for it?

Or do you want to be popular and do what everyone wants to see you do, and doom everyone?

Do you want to be loved by a million shallow pricks, or do you want to be able to look into your own reflections eyes and nod with a smile?

And while we are at it … why did you kill mom in the first place?

Unless Jane is simply wrong about The Game being bad for everyone.

We have no proof that she killed her mom. On the contrary from what we do know is that her mother sacrificed her life to buy Kleya time to escape so it’s likely Kleya was blamed for her death (as in other people said she killed her mother while the insiders just felt it was her fault).
There’s actually one where this is shown. In one of the reality flashbacks we’ve seen Kleya’s mom is telling Jake and Kleya to escape/runaway. IIRC Kim was there to. I don’t seem to have that exact page marked else I’d share the link with you.

*Edit after following a link in someone else’s comment and browsing on from their I think I Found the page I was describing. I had apparently misremembered what exactly was on it so, my bad.

Yep, totally a save the kids while we hold off the bad guys scenario.

I’m still thinking Kleya didn’t intentionally harm anyone, and very probably she didn’t do whatever it was that screwed everything up, though she may have done something that made it possible.
Either something like a “who knew turning on smell simulation would cause the mainframe to take over the missile silos and launch them all”, or maybe a, “cool backdoor I opened to go look at the secret game stats”, followed by a “Glorious leader, some kid left a backdoor open into the mainframe, we can access everything!” type situation.

Of course I could be wrong, after all she also seemed to be an egocentric sore loser win by any means type that might have been somewhat spoiled as well. (The whole genius superstar thing.)

Kat didn’t kill her mom. She rescued her from the hospital and escaped. It seems to be true that Kat did kill someone at the hospital, likely guards and possibly innocent bystanders or other patients. It’s definitely the case that TENka has subsequently claimed that this was an unprovoked act of terrorism on her part and that she killed her mom, which at least some people who were close to her still believe.

I don’t believe Jake believes it. In the one case where he references it, he says “I could never like someone who killed her own mother.” I think he’s being serious, but I also think Brandon is right, Jake does still like Kat. There is only one logical reconciliation.

I am also reasonably certain that Kat’s mother wasn’t being treated effectively at the hospital, and it seems easily possible that her (eventually fatal) condition might have been intentionally caused as a means of luring Kat into a trap.

Unfortunately, Jane is asking Kat to kill her “baby”.

Count me with thinking that Jane is overselling this a bit. I mean, I already felt that way last page, but now she’s really pushing hard. I think that this particular shift is what Sandra was talking about when she said “I do not appreciate these constant changes, Jane.”

I don’t doubt that Jane’s situation could be improved by qualifying to be Imported, nor that her family does face Survival issues. But it seems mostly like Jane has taken a bit of time to study Kleya’s L.i.F.e. friendships a little more closely and is picking up on an important theme there, and is exploiting it.

I suspect she also might have watched the replays of her group’s encounter with poor Aza. Particularly the negotiations. “Or I’ll kill Danni” is no longer a viable tactic, in light of that. It just looks like cold-blooded villainy (even without knowing that Danni needs her spot even more than Jane does, which Sandra should have found out by now).

So this is an act. Not necessarily a lie, though I certainly wouldn’t put that past Jane. It would make more sense for all of it to be true, since she doesn’t have any real way of knowing what Kat might be able to find out.

Then again, I doubt she knows that Kat could hack a medi-bot and have it conveniently wander into Jane’s scavenging range. Not that Kat wants to reveal that.

I think the “constant changes” might be something as simple as Jane’s approach regarding Danni. Or maybe being open with Kat vs. trying to trick her. Not necessarily indicative of the current situation being an act.

However, there’s an interesting point there: does Jane *really* want The Game destroyed? If so, somehow I don’t think Sandra would be in on that…

So I guess the question might actually be: *who* is Jane more dishonest with right now — Sandra or Kat?

Well, we know that Paddy has the ability to monitor this server from outside (I’m guessing Sandra can as well). Kat would notice that, but Jane would have no way of knowing, so she could have no confidence in being unobserved.

I think that Jane’s whole “kill the Game” ploy doesn’t add up. She’s just trying to come up with a sympathetic reason for playing Morto, which will be interesting if Kat calls her on it, but I think she doesn’t want to reveal how much she knows. I’m guessing that Sandra understands that Jane can’t kill Danni now, not after Danni stood up for her being an Outsider (after Jane tried to kill her before she could set her Esone). That would destroy the entire group’s popularity.

And it would irrevocably alienate Kat, which is kinda the whole point of this.

Sandra would have to be a big dope not to accept that much.

I’m not so sure about the ability to listen in. We do know that Sandra was talking to Paddy while logged in — but that might actually have happened offline: we know from other interactions (among the Lillys specifically), that talking online implies talking offline too.

The reason I’m not sure about the possibility to listen in on online communication, is mostly because of Jake’s various conversations with Brandon etc., which seem to be private enough. (Though I guess that might simply be because everyone knows that he’d notice if someone snooped?…)

That’s true of L.i.F.e., but this server runs on the Game software, which requires the Kido interface rather than a headset. You can’t really just talk to people outside the Kido conversationally like is possible with a headset (it seems like the Kido would have a movement inhibitor to keep your head stationary in the neural interface sensor/feedback array).

Besides, we know that both the Game and L.i.F.e. support spectators as long as the area owner allows them, that’s a major plot element (it’s also why Jake feels safe enough in his own area).

I don’t think the software running on Sandra’s server is closer to the real Game than, say, the one used for the Deathmatch…

Also, my understanding of the Kido requirement is more along the lines of “you couldn’t deal with all the interactions otherwise”, rather than the software being unable to take input from other interfaces. Since Sandra is just talking, not actually playing, there is no reason why she would need to occupy a valuable Kido for that.

You are right that watchers can listen in without being “present” with their actual avatar — but their presence is still known. It would be kinda pointless IMHO for Sandra to log out, just to stay present as a watcher…

“If Mama ain’t happy; ain’t no one happy!”

alt.txt. – I don’t think it matters. …or did you have some sneaky point that would have emphasized?

I really do not get why so many of you are leaping to “Jane is not to be trusted” in the wake of this revelation. What am I missing here?

Um…not trusting Jane isn’t exactly a new thing, here. And if you go back to what Sandra was saying at the beginning of all this, it seriously looks like this is all more or less staged.

Of course, Jane herself is good at staying in character. But her other interactions with Sandra (and Paddy) indicate that she is way less damaged than she generally pretends.

That didn’t make her less trustworthy than she was when she was just a crazy killer. But it does mean that this latest revelation is not to be trusted without question. Maybe everything Jane is saying is factually true, that doesn’t mean she’s being completely honest about her own feelings. I rather like Jane, but she’s playing on Kat’s emotions here as a deliberate strategy.

Not A Villain Webcomic

Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 626