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e_k_braveman) wrote2023-08-21 10:26 pm
e_k_braveman) wrote2023-08-21 10:26 pm
Sunshine Challenge 2023 #6 - Hyacinth
Hyacinths symbolize jealousy, a desire for forgiveness, joy, and sincerity, depending on the flower color. Yellow hyacinths are linked to jealousy, purple flowers mean you're seeking forgiveness, and blue hyacinths are tied to sincere care.
"Hey wait a minute, E.K.," you might be saying, "where's prompt #5?" Well, I wanted to do art for it and am like 45% done with the lineart, but I'm back in my native country for a week and, like a dummy, I forgot to bring my drawing tablet, so that's gonna have to wait. So! I've decided to go ahead with prompt #6 anyway because I already had an idea for what I wanted to do with it.
Anyway! Hyacinth! One of my current favorite webcomic characters is Hyacinth Lavande from Leif & Thorn byerinptah.
(You can reblog this one on tumblr btw.)
She is Thorn's teen goth niece with a strong interest in social justice. There are a lot of ways a character like this can go wrong, regardless of an author's own political leanings, but Erin pulls it off so well, it kind of blew my mind! I genuinely didn't expect to like Hyacinth as much as I did, yet here we are! Let's see what's so neat about her.
From the start, she leaves an impression: she's a tall goth who immediately confronts her uncle about working for the embassy of Sønheim, a country with cruel and unfair laws that privilege vampires in particular. So, we already have some kind of idea about what she might be like as a person, since at this point everyone knows the stereotype of the SJW teen who gets into confrontations with family members over political matters. Maybe you relate (I know I do! kinda!), maybe you find it cringe, maybe a bit of both (again, I do!), but in any case, you have a rough idea of what to expect from this character.
Let's be clear about one thing here: she's totally right about Sønheim and their laws! As in, a few chapters later and all throughout the series, it's shown that vampires do have a disproportionate amount of power and influence, even leaving aside the system of slavery/servitude (they don't like the former word very much lol). One could write a whole essay about the role of vampires in Leif & Thorn alone, but the point is that they're privileged old fucks who fuck shit up for everyone else. As such, it's understandable why Hyacinth would be upset about the politics of Sønheim, even if confronting her uncle about it as she does isn't particularly useful or strategically sound. Now, being sympathetic by being a Cassandra of sorts about an issue can only get a character so far, but luckily we get to spend some more time with her throughout the comic and explore some of her other aspects.
One of her positive traits is that she's willing to walk the walk; in her next appearance, in Chapter 5, she's outside the aforementioned embassy protesting because vampires in Sønheim are "a privileged economic overclass that [need to be regulated] more closely". She stays there late into the night, even when it begins to rain. So, even though she's not the best at conveying her message (we'll circle back to this later), she's clearly committed to the cause and cares very deeply about the issues she's protesting against.
Her next appearance is in Chapter 7, where she's on a school trip and happens to run into Thorn's teen magical girl teammate, Holly. Due to Holly exaggerating her contributions to the team in order to impress Hyacinth and her friends, Hyacinth distrusts her, but doesn't confront her about it until it seems like Holly is going to let another magical girl, Ivy, go into danger while she runs away. The misunderstanding is cleared up pretty quickly, but it does show that Hyacinth is a caring person in general, not just in terms of social issues but about individual people as well. She doesn't even like Ivy; she finds her annoying and even "problematic", but she puts her foot down the moment it seems like actual harm might come to her. She also saves Holly from the social embarrassment of having to admit she lied a bunch.
There's also the fact that in her side stories, she strikes up a friendship with a loner goth kid, who at the time wasn't part of her group, and defends said loner from one of her own friends' bullying later on. She's also a very caring sister to her fantasy-autistic sibling and is implied to have been so for years, such as by reading a book on safety tips for children and using them with her brother. Overall, she's a good kid and tries to help others, whether on an interpersonal or systemic level.
But her goodness isn't why she's so compelling. No, what makes her great in my eyes is the fact that her outspokenness can and does cause issues at times. A memorable one is in chapter 42, where she talks to Leif, who is a slave from Sønheim. She gets into an argument with him about the system of indentured servitude in his homeland because, as someone who's grown up in it and has its logic entrenched in his psyche, he doesn't agree with her that it's unjust. Thankfully, Thorn takes her aside and explains why Leif acts the way he does and why her way of handling it is wrong.
(Sidenote: the author's comment on the strip where the above panels are from is literally just "oh no" with no capitalization or punctuation. It amuses me greatly.)
That scene is, to me, one of those where you get second-hand embarrassment from a character and have to peek at the action from behind your fingers to stave off the cringe. And it's great! It's super realistic and relatable. Obviously, she has good intentions; neither the narrative nor the characters in-universe deny this, but approaching complex issues like a bull charging at a piece of cloth really doesn't work! But as a teen who's likely only seen how to handle them from her peers who take a similar approach to these issues (I'm inferring this based on my own experience), she wouldn't simply know it's wrong and she's going to fuck up! And I love that she does, because even the nicest people into social justice can fuck up, either due to ignorance, exhaustion, or who knows what else, let alone teens who are just learning to navigate social dynamics and the world in general.
Crucially, she's neither babied nor treated too harshly. It helps that the one talking to her is a family member who cares about her and tries to deescalate any situation first, sure, but the narrative is also even-handed towards her. It's shown that her actions can and do seriously affect others, specifically people she wants to be an ally to in this case; they aren't just brushed off. However, she doesn't face disproportionate — or, really, any — retribution, which would cause the original point to be lost in favor of debating whether or not such retribution is justifiable. So, rather than spending a lot of time debating what a proportionate response would look like, we can see that she's simply a flawed human and move on to discussing the idea presented by the narrative, through Thorn, about how to talk to marginalized people about said marginalization.
This also leads to identifying her role in the narrative as a whole. At the center of Leif & Thorn's universe and narrative are massive systemic issues, not unlike those of our world. Through its large cast of characters, we're able to see the issues from a variety of perspectives. Hyacinth is the perspective of someone who, despite wanting to enact change, has zero systemic power or ability to do so. She tries to affect the world around her to the best of her abilities, but more often than not, all she can really do is affect the people directly around her. This is neither presented as inherently good nor inherently bad, but as a unique position that shouldn't simply be discarded.
What's more, her lack of power also ties into the comic's realistic approach to societal issues and how one can work against them. As her uncle says, economic injustice doesn't have convenient soft bits you can stab. Thorn himself becomes equally, if not more, angry at Sønheim's laws as he comes into close contact with their effects. However, as an adult in a government position, he knows acting impulsively won't just result in a scolding but might lead to an international incident, and as such, he takes a more covert approach to his subversion of the Sønheim government. In this way, Thorn is a sort of "Yes, and..." Hyacinth; the discussion doesn't just end at her folly but rather uses it as a jumping-off point. Her ignorance is not an immutable state, but rather something to be overcome and grown away from.
Hyacinth is passionate about justice, both on a societal and interpersonal level. She is well-meaning but impulsive, which has landed her in at least one uncomfortable situation. Despite her flaws, she is shown to be willing to put her foot down when she needs to and to learn from her mistakes. Through her, we are presented both a realistic depiction of fighting an unjust society when one lacks any real power and a hopeful narrative of overcoming one's shortcomings in order to better help those around them.
And that's why I think she's so neat.
"Hey wait a minute, E.K.," you might be saying, "where's prompt #5?" Well, I wanted to do art for it and am like 45% done with the lineart, but I'm back in my native country for a week and, like a dummy, I forgot to bring my drawing tablet, so that's gonna have to wait. So! I've decided to go ahead with prompt #6 anyway because I already had an idea for what I wanted to do with it.
Anyway! Hyacinth! One of my current favorite webcomic characters is Hyacinth Lavande from Leif & Thorn by
erinptah.(You can reblog this one on tumblr btw.)
She is Thorn's teen goth niece with a strong interest in social justice. There are a lot of ways a character like this can go wrong, regardless of an author's own political leanings, but Erin pulls it off so well, it kind of blew my mind! I genuinely didn't expect to like Hyacinth as much as I did, yet here we are! Let's see what's so neat about her.
From the start, she leaves an impression: she's a tall goth who immediately confronts her uncle about working for the embassy of Sønheim, a country with cruel and unfair laws that privilege vampires in particular. So, we already have some kind of idea about what she might be like as a person, since at this point everyone knows the stereotype of the SJW teen who gets into confrontations with family members over political matters. Maybe you relate (I know I do! kinda!), maybe you find it cringe, maybe a bit of both (again, I do!), but in any case, you have a rough idea of what to expect from this character.
Let's be clear about one thing here: she's totally right about Sønheim and their laws! As in, a few chapters later and all throughout the series, it's shown that vampires do have a disproportionate amount of power and influence, even leaving aside the system of slavery/servitude (they don't like the former word very much lol). One could write a whole essay about the role of vampires in Leif & Thorn alone, but the point is that they're privileged old fucks who fuck shit up for everyone else. As such, it's understandable why Hyacinth would be upset about the politics of Sønheim, even if confronting her uncle about it as she does isn't particularly useful or strategically sound. Now, being sympathetic by being a Cassandra of sorts about an issue can only get a character so far, but luckily we get to spend some more time with her throughout the comic and explore some of her other aspects.
One of her positive traits is that she's willing to walk the walk; in her next appearance, in Chapter 5, she's outside the aforementioned embassy protesting because vampires in Sønheim are "a privileged economic overclass that [need to be regulated] more closely". She stays there late into the night, even when it begins to rain. So, even though she's not the best at conveying her message (we'll circle back to this later), she's clearly committed to the cause and cares very deeply about the issues she's protesting against.
Her next appearance is in Chapter 7, where she's on a school trip and happens to run into Thorn's teen magical girl teammate, Holly. Due to Holly exaggerating her contributions to the team in order to impress Hyacinth and her friends, Hyacinth distrusts her, but doesn't confront her about it until it seems like Holly is going to let another magical girl, Ivy, go into danger while she runs away. The misunderstanding is cleared up pretty quickly, but it does show that Hyacinth is a caring person in general, not just in terms of social issues but about individual people as well. She doesn't even like Ivy; she finds her annoying and even "problematic", but she puts her foot down the moment it seems like actual harm might come to her. She also saves Holly from the social embarrassment of having to admit she lied a bunch.
There's also the fact that in her side stories, she strikes up a friendship with a loner goth kid, who at the time wasn't part of her group, and defends said loner from one of her own friends' bullying later on. She's also a very caring sister to her fantasy-autistic sibling and is implied to have been so for years, such as by reading a book on safety tips for children and using them with her brother. Overall, she's a good kid and tries to help others, whether on an interpersonal or systemic level.
But her goodness isn't why she's so compelling. No, what makes her great in my eyes is the fact that her outspokenness can and does cause issues at times. A memorable one is in chapter 42, where she talks to Leif, who is a slave from Sønheim. She gets into an argument with him about the system of indentured servitude in his homeland because, as someone who's grown up in it and has its logic entrenched in his psyche, he doesn't agree with her that it's unjust. Thankfully, Thorn takes her aside and explains why Leif acts the way he does and why her way of handling it is wrong.
(Sidenote: the author's comment on the strip where the above panels are from is literally just "oh no" with no capitalization or punctuation. It amuses me greatly.)
That scene is, to me, one of those where you get second-hand embarrassment from a character and have to peek at the action from behind your fingers to stave off the cringe. And it's great! It's super realistic and relatable. Obviously, she has good intentions; neither the narrative nor the characters in-universe deny this, but approaching complex issues like a bull charging at a piece of cloth really doesn't work! But as a teen who's likely only seen how to handle them from her peers who take a similar approach to these issues (I'm inferring this based on my own experience), she wouldn't simply know it's wrong and she's going to fuck up! And I love that she does, because even the nicest people into social justice can fuck up, either due to ignorance, exhaustion, or who knows what else, let alone teens who are just learning to navigate social dynamics and the world in general.
Crucially, she's neither babied nor treated too harshly. It helps that the one talking to her is a family member who cares about her and tries to deescalate any situation first, sure, but the narrative is also even-handed towards her. It's shown that her actions can and do seriously affect others, specifically people she wants to be an ally to in this case; they aren't just brushed off. However, she doesn't face disproportionate — or, really, any — retribution, which would cause the original point to be lost in favor of debating whether or not such retribution is justifiable. So, rather than spending a lot of time debating what a proportionate response would look like, we can see that she's simply a flawed human and move on to discussing the idea presented by the narrative, through Thorn, about how to talk to marginalized people about said marginalization.
This also leads to identifying her role in the narrative as a whole. At the center of Leif & Thorn's universe and narrative are massive systemic issues, not unlike those of our world. Through its large cast of characters, we're able to see the issues from a variety of perspectives. Hyacinth is the perspective of someone who, despite wanting to enact change, has zero systemic power or ability to do so. She tries to affect the world around her to the best of her abilities, but more often than not, all she can really do is affect the people directly around her. This is neither presented as inherently good nor inherently bad, but as a unique position that shouldn't simply be discarded.
What's more, her lack of power also ties into the comic's realistic approach to societal issues and how one can work against them. As her uncle says, economic injustice doesn't have convenient soft bits you can stab. Thorn himself becomes equally, if not more, angry at Sønheim's laws as he comes into close contact with their effects. However, as an adult in a government position, he knows acting impulsively won't just result in a scolding but might lead to an international incident, and as such, he takes a more covert approach to his subversion of the Sønheim government. In this way, Thorn is a sort of "Yes, and..." Hyacinth; the discussion doesn't just end at her folly but rather uses it as a jumping-off point. Her ignorance is not an immutable state, but rather something to be overcome and grown away from.
Hyacinth is passionate about justice, both on a societal and interpersonal level. She is well-meaning but impulsive, which has landed her in at least one uncomfortable situation. Despite her flaws, she is shown to be willing to put her foot down when she needs to and to learn from her mistakes. Through her, we are presented both a realistic depiction of fighting an unjust society when one lacks any real power and a hopeful narrative of overcoming one's shortcomings in order to better help those around them.
And that's why I think she's so neat.