Tee Off
Feb10
on February 10, 2011
at 12:20 am
I don’t think Lordon should hang out with Odin anymore. In fact, let’s none of us hang out with Odin.
Again and again, I ask you to give me a vote on TopWebComics. You can vote again every 24 hours. That would be pretty awesome!
Well that’s Odin for you XD
Alright, I give up. This may be an unbelievably dumb question, but how exactly is Odin being racist here? I mean, is it supposed to be a parallel to some actual racial issue on Earth, or is this operating under the assumption that the giants in the world of Hereafter are just a race that Odin happens to hate? On my ninth re-read here (I often read this comic as a break from essay-writing when I get stuck) and still confused about it.
Admittedly, this one’s far from my favourite… But the whole idea was, Odin lumping an entire race together into perceived negative traits, excluding them from joining a social club and living/being in a specific neighbourhood (an almost assuredly gated one!) would register as pretty typical over-the-top racist/bigoted behaviour.
Basically, the thought is that society in Hereafter has evolved a lot since the times of myth, and that many of their “villains” and “monsters” were in reality misunderstood or actively discriminated against. And just like many people, not all of the gods have evolved with the times and changed their ways of thinking.
(Granted, that’s something that could use more exploring. Perhaps soon, even!?)
I think “icers” and “go back to Jotunheim” were intended to mimic anti-black racism from and around the time of the civil rights movement (i.e. “ni***rs).
But even if that wasn’t the original intent, we can still all agree that Odin is just a generally terrible person.
Kind of… And there’s the part that makes me cringe a bit re-reading this one, because I didn’t mean or want to suggest a specific comparison.
But yeah, that’s the basic idea – while society in Hereafter has grown and changed since the days of myth, not everyone has grown and changed with it. Odin’s basically that old man who might describe himself as “stuck in his ways,” but is in fact just… racist.
(And it’s worth noting that Lordon never hung out with him again after this.)