Into Silence - Chapters 3 & 4

[NightMareMage]

194 - 203
To me, Tuuri looks younger than she is but only by two or three years. I think she looks about the same age as Lalli and Emil.

I had either forgotten or completely missed the photos on page 199. Or at least the familiar faces.

Was I the only one who questioned Sigrun’s competency early on? It becomes clear later once you see her in action, but before that I had to wonder.

I would have never thought of this myself, but people theorizing that Mikkel was here for some secret (Trond related) reason makes sense to me.

204 - 208
Dream world panels! (They are very pretty. That is all.)

209 - 213
A wild Reynir appears!

214 - 222
I try to avoid repeats, both my own and others', but page 214 is too cute. It's just such a soft and quiet little moment between Emil and Lalli.

[dreki]

Was I the only one who questioned Sigrun’s competency early on? It becomes clear later once you see her in action, but before that I had to wonder.

Oh gosh no.  She acted like an overeager, spoiled child when we first saw her.  Without knowing more about Norway, it seems incredibly naive and ignorant to think that a dangerous, poorly funded trip into the silent world is a "vacation".

It wouldn't have surprised me to find out she'd never led a mission herself.  And in comic - if you agree with Mikkel, it's established that she is inexperienced and wasn't prepared for this kind of mission by the way she gives up after Emil & Lalli go missing. 

I really want adv 3 to have been Norway because I'm super curious about what things are like in Norway.

Sweden's civilized areas are relatively extremely safe and haven't had an outbreak in 50 years. Their cleaners seem to be basically a well oiled machine and their routine does seem to limit direct troll interaction.

Denmark is limited to one highly defended island and they don't really try expanding much after what happened a decade ago.

Norway seems to be the most viking-like, it seems like their geography doesn't allow the larger more established safe areas that Sweden does so there's more salvage missions and more direct interaction with trolls.

I would have never thought of this myself, but people theorizing that Mikkel was here for some secret (Trond related) reason makes sense to me.

I hadn't heard of that but it's interesting.

Personally I think Trond will have asked him to keep an eye out for a cure and gave him information of what to look out for, or knew Mikkel's background meant he already would know. And that's why Mikkel sort of went against orders and went out looking by himself that day.

Although iirc Trond was against them going to search for the cure. So that ideas scrapped haha

[JoB]

Although iirc Trond was against them going to search for the cure. So that ideas scrapped haha

No, that was Taru, agreed to by Siv ...

[dreki]

No, that was Taru, agreed to by Siv ...

Ah thank you! Then headcanon accepted.

[LooNEY_DAC]

And yet again I come to the party after everyone else has gone home. Oh well.

...So Lalli views Sigrun’s smack on the back and Emil’s fist to shoulder bump as hitting. This is due in no small part to his lack of social interaction. But I do wonder if part of his response is due to Tuuri (and possibly others) hitting him at times...

So, I'd like to do a little analysis of the two hits, and what they tell us about Emil.

In the last panel of page 182, Sigrun hits Lalli extremely hard and from behind, so he can't see it coming.

In panel five of the next page, Emil gently taps Lalli on the shoulder, where Lalli can see what's going on.

So in the space of the conversation, Emil took note of Lalli's reaction and deliberately made his "friendly punch" as different from Sigrun's as he possibly could.

Emil is observant.

Emil is intelligent enough to analyze what went wrong and why and how to modify his own behavior so it won't go wrong when he does it.

Emil cares enough to modify his behavior.

...Kind of a lot to show in just two panels, isn't it?

[dmeck7755]

And yet again I come to the party after everyone else has gone home. Oh well.So, I'd like to do a little analysis of the two hits, and what they tell us about Emil.

In the last panel of page 182, Sigrun hits Lalli extremely hard and from behind, so he can't see it coming.

In panel five of the next page, Emil gently taps Lalli on the shoulder, where Lalli can see what's going on.

So in the space of the conversation, Emil took note of Lalli's reaction and deliberately made his "friendly punch" as different from Sigrun's as he possibly could.

Emil is observant.

Emil is intelligent enough to analyze what went wrong and why and how to modify his own behavior so it won't go wrong when he does it.

Emil cares enough to modify his behavior.

...Kind of a lot to show in just two panels, isn't it?

It does show a lot, but from the beginning, Emil made an effort to reach out to Lalli and protect him.  Weather  he saw a kindred spirit or something else,

[Róisín]

Minna did say they were ‘soulmates’, so I took his behaviour as a manifestation of that. Of course, given Emil’s background, he would not have the concept, perhaps he would just feel drawn to Lalli and not know why?

[Jitter]

Looney, this was a great observation and you describe it well! I haven’t read the TvTropes page much and have loads of Forum content from the time the comic was originally appearing equally unread. But I have read some of the Disqus comments.

It seems at least originally Emil was considered by many readers to be only the sum of his most obvious flaws, ignorance (very well put, ignorance is not the same thing as stupidity!) and vanity, and the way he was played for laughs as an accident prone oaf. I can’t really recall what I thought about him as I reading the entire Adventure 1 within a few days, but it seems to me this (stupid Emil)  was a misconception from the beginning. He gets shown many good characteristics from his introduction onwards. The refusal to leave unconscious Lalli behind later does not come out of the blue, far from it.

This here sequence you point out is a great example! But there are many earlier too. It also seems to me that a lot of his fussing over his appearance is more about his insecurities than actual vanity or feelings of superiority over others. He wants to be a good right hand Viking to Sigrun, he wants to be good to Lalli in particular (whether he recognizes him as someone special in whatever sense or originally just as someone of the same age and potential friend) and he also regrets gettig off with the wrong foot with Reynir. He doesn’t always succeed, but he wants to be a good person, because he is a good person.

Looney, it’s very good of you to comment now! The point of the schedule is to facilitate discussion, but comments are welcome at any time! The main point of making several threads is exactly that people reading at different times can join in!

[thorny]

It also seems to me that a lot of his fussing over his appearance is more about his insecurities than actual vanity or feelings of superiority over others.

I agree with that. It isn't 'see how much better looking I am than anybody else!', it's 'oh no! people will think I'm a slob if I don't look just right!'

Emil struck me, I think from the beginning, as an ignorant insecure teenager. Like many ignorant people, he thinks he knows more than he does. Like a sensible person, when he finds out otherwise he adjusts, instead of refusing to accept more and//or better information.

We're all ignorant of a very large number of things -- the universe doesn't fit inside any one head. Becoming aware of this and acknowledging it is a necessary step in becoming, not all-knowing, but less ignorant of the things we're interested in and also of the things we're doing that affect others.

-- Tuuri's also shown as ignorant and naive: she believes what she was told about what people from other countries look like. And Sigrun's shown as ignorant of anything having to do with book learning. Minna often plays this for laughs; and sometimes I think she's doing it only for laughs, which is unpleasant; but it also makes her characters a whole lot more real, and points out that flawed characters can nevertheless be overall positive people. And, as has been said by others here, it allows for character development.

[Keep Looking]

In some sense, you could say that all of the characters in SSSS are ignorant to some degree. Emil, Sigrun and Tuuri have already been mentioned, but then you have Reynir's whole jam being that he's a naive and accidental newcomer to the entire situation and Lalli's lack of shared language and weirdly glaring holes in his general knowledge. Mikkel is perhaps the least naive of them all, but he still dismisses the legitimacy of magic.

All of the characters have large gaps in their abilities and knowledge bases, and I think that's partly why the group comes together so well.