ReWriting the Underground Scene (thumbs at bottom)
What's actually going on:
Gender/Identity policing of a queer person (queer in
sexuality or gender) forces them out of “normal” society. Unless they have a
support structure in the community/at home, they have nowhere to go but within
themselves. This is necessary for them to retain any sense of their true
identity – whatever it may be. This is a place of safety, but also a place of
internal destruction. It is full of depression and defeat. Living in their own
heads is needed because it is the only place where they can retain a scrap of
their selves, soiled to a lesser extent by societal judgments and expectations.
It is a very lonely place, though. Especially deprived of the comfort that
others in a similar position can provide, the level of isolation is extreme.
Often in this state, there is the desire to be “normal,” to
“pass” thoroughly as one or another of the identities with society's stamp of
approval. Alternatively, there is also the desire to be able to express oneself
un-self-consciously and be seen for what one really is, even though this
identity is not the norm. These two wants conflict and intertwine. Meanwhile,
in the external world, the person is living in either constant denial
(acquiescence with the system) or constant struggle (against the system). This
is a situation with no positive outcome if society does not change to
accommodate. Sadly, though, positive societal change is often done in a way
which still disporportionately benefits the non-oppressed majority over the
oppressed minority. For example, gay pride parades, where homosexual young men
and straight people benefit the most – their expression of sexual identity,
self, sexual desires are freed up...while all the other LGBTQ identities are
still invisible. Society is happier with changes that are the most palatable,
not with those that are the most beneficial. Further, advocating for one's
fundamental rights to exist as a person is extremely tiring...often a Sisyphean
task.
So it's important not to forget the struggles of individuals
denied their identities.
What's Going on in the Comic:
First note: I think I may have Eik speak in small sentences
in here. With real words. Because if this is representative of Eik's internal
reality, it is a different universe anyhow. Also if the frog and eik are going
to have a meaningful dialog it just seems necessary.
Thirty Two:
Eik escapes the enforcers through the sewer, and ends up in
a vast underground city structure, a “dark place”. Eik is the only one down there.
The pace of the comic slows and the panels more are in landscape format rather
than portrait, so Eik's smallness and isolation is emphasized. It is structured
to look like a city, but the buildings are all run down, empty, perhaps also a
little droopy/distorted. Rendered less realistically than the real city above
ground.
Thirty Three: Eik
walks and walks, increasingly nervous and upset (traveling through the pipes
was fun, in a way, this is not). Eik eventually breaks out of the main part of
the city...by looking around a fence/corner into a vast empty space with a high
cave ceiling, a clearing perhaps the size of a football field. In the very
center, there is a dripping door.
Thirty Four:
Panel 1: Far view of clearing and city on side
Panel 2: A tiny Eik runs to the door
Panels 3-5: Eik pounds on the door for a while, screaming
(no response). In each successive panel eik is in a more defeated/bent over
position at the door.
Panel 6: Eik has slid down the door and lays immobile, as if
dead (not crying at this point)... a tiny figure in a large dark emptiness.
Panels 7 – 8: A beat. The door falls open a crack and a hand
(the frog) reaches out
Panel 9: drags Eik inside. We see their legs disappearing
into the door.
Thirty Five:
The room we are in has no spatial consistency with the
earlier environment (where it was just a door in space), it is the same dark
room that was already in the comic. Similar shots as before, except this time
eik is lying on the ground in the dark instead of crawling in. As before, eik
gets up, calls out, sees the frog. But this time, instead of Eik asking
explicitly for a drug/way out, the frog does most of the talking and speaks
first. In haiku, he basically states the situation, that eik is a broken thing,
destroyed completely. Eik says something like “I am lost. I am done. I am
none.” The frog says this is true. He says eik has two paths left.
Thirty-Six:
The frog tells Eik that there is no easy way out. Eik can
live and die alone down in this strange place, or return to society greatly
changed and at a fearsome expense. The frog asks whether there is really
anything worth sacrificing for in Fangren, after all that has happened. Eik,
despite themself, still wants to return home. There is a basic human desire to
be part of a community that has not been eradicated in Eik, even though society
has forced Eik to this lowest low. Eik communicates the desire to leave, to
return and change, although they are not sure why.
Thirty-Seven:
The frog makes it clear that this is a way of great pain and
success is not guaranteed. That it is a sacrifice. Eik agrees again, nodding
solemnly.
Thirty-Eight, Nine:
The frog pulls out the pill and gives it to eik. Eik leaves
through the door but emerges back in the empty city, confused... This following
sequence is almost the same as before, but the buildings will be slightly
different. Eik walks into the small outhouse structure and takes the pill..and
we go on...
