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Nice to know Ravi’s kin are a bit more self-reflective. Minus a point for Ravi for rolling a critical failure for introspection.

Cut him some slack ok? When a immortal is forced to review all his actions of the last thousand years in the mortal plane to reflect it will take a lot of “mortal time”.

Also people here seens to like to dislike Ravi

“Also people here seens to like to dislike Ravi” — Well, I mean, he’s really self-absorbed, egotistical, blames other people for “failing” without taking his own actions into account, and seems to pretty much ride roughshod over the people around him, so…..yeah?

Except it really goes beyond that. I feel like Ravi is really intriguing and open for interpretation and examination, especially because he is the first truly *in*human character we’ve encountered, existing on a completely different plane than the rest of the cast– even the *literal demons*, *literal angel* and *possibly ancient dragon* exist on a human scale of awareness (even if the angel in particular is unnerving). But Ravi is something else entirely, yet more human than his kind are supposed to be, as evidenced here were he clearly broke Yaksha code by helping mortals and was punished by his kind for it. He is not a perfect individual, he is a source of frustration to the character in-universe, and at no point is this facet of him treated as a ‘good thing’ (which would tip him from aggravating but fascinating into truly maddening).

And that’s really cool to talk about, this dichotomy of his very human (and flawed) attitude versus his divine nature and how much that divine nature actually justifies his apparently pompous attitude. It should be super cool to discuss things and try to see from an angle of a being on such a different level than humans.

But a lot of comments focus entirely on how much they hate this guy. How much they don’t want to see him. How much they want him to *suffer*. If you go back to the Illuminations Chapter 2 discussions, there are some really nasty threads where people just run back and forth about all the ways the characters could violently assault Ravi and how satisfying it would be to see him physically hurt in context of the comic. Comments treated Ravi as an object of disdain, hatred, and *actual violence*.

No other character that I have seen in this comic has *ever* been subjected to this level of expressed abuse in the comments. It’s been toned down since, but the vitriol is still palpable on a lot of comments, and basically comes down to people rolling their eyes at ol’ Ravi by dint of the fact that he’s Ravi, interpreting everything in the most negative way possible even if it was not (somebody a few pages ago got all huffy that Ravi suddenly stopped the backstory to make it all about him even though *Colin asked him for clarification*), instead of actually discussing and examining the character.

I know people get wrapped up emotionally in some of this stuff, but the *venom* Ravi receives is beyond the pale.

It’s comments like this that make me happy to make this comic. :)

You should be happy. As a pitch, this character should be amusing and endearing. The only reason I do not like him is because I care way more about your main character, Michelle, and to a lesser extent Greg, so when Ravi’s antics stretch across weekly-pages of getting a handle on what endangered them first issue he’s an outlet for frustration. I think you’ll find people will appreciate him a lot more when it’s collected in a trade. As we become more familiar with your worlds history we will inherently be able to more identify with Ravi. Even now earlier pages are more bearable to me, and I appreciate that even if his plan to pass down knowledge failed Ravi did trust Phineas enough to implement it in the first place.

I couldn’t have put it any better, Chaos. This is exactly what has been on my mind ever since Chapter 2, when the “hate-dom” really got rolling.

Thank you very much for this statement. I wish I have your skill with words!

Kory, I’ve been a fan of your comic since 2008. I very much love how realistic your characters are — both the “fun” and the “annoying.” I hope you don’t ever back off from making characters like Ravi!

Very well put. I didn’t understand the hatred either. I find Ravi a very likable person, one who seems to be fascinated by and love the mortal world and tries to express it with the clumsiness of a magical elephant in a mortal china shop. He makes me laugh, fondly, every time.

Could it be that because he is such a powerful being, readers expect him to be perfect?

The hate for Ravi got a little out of hand but calling him *likable* (for other characters in the comic) is going too far in the other direction. I mean there are reasons he is the way he is but come on

I think that the reason behind the hatedom is that most people know someone who’s like Ravi: in a position of strength, pompous, and completely incapable of admitting major mistakes. He seems to prefer to lay the blame at other’s feet, and gets angry when people don’t treat his every word as Gospel.

One of the most annoying parts of him, funnily enough, has little to do with the character itself. People like Ravi in the real world tend to never get their comeuppance. They continue along their path of self-importance unimpeded, and rarely if ever get challenged enough to rethink their approach to other people. With Ravi being a Yaksha, it feels like the only way he’s going to be forced to accept his mistakes would be if Michelle and co refuse his help, which isn’t really something they can do.

I don’t hate Ravi, actually. Everyone has faults. I, myself, aren’t a stellar example of communication, if this chain of comments doesn’t have something to comment on it.
I don’t wish for harm to come to Ravi, or anything like that.

It’s just how Ravi himself hasn’t quite learned to invest himself to the degree to assimilate with others around him. The sense of time between long-lived and shorter ones is measured by activity and reaction, kind of like how elves are commonly seen as rarely changing in regards to the worlds around them.
There are many webcomics that deal with aging: Doctor Bowman created his AI’s neural network with a limited lifespan because he “didn’t know how to make a stable immortal”, Immortals in another webcomic reset themselves to prevent them from going unstable. I am aware that the creeping passage of time has profound effects upon the ego. It’s just that you cannot try to provide a solution without taking how quickly the environment shifts around said problem.

Let’s look at the Internet for an example of a fast-moving environment; some technology becomes obsolete sometimes in a matter of minutes from it’s production. Due to the high-competition, the Net is one of the most accelerated fields in technology. Creators need to anticipate changes to even stay relevant while developing, or they can be tossed from the loop. Yes, Konrad Zuse, the creator of the first programmable modern computer might be cool to meet, but no one is going to want to talk about creating programs in Plankalkül.

Eh; everybody’s got one of *those* relatives somewhere in the mix, the ones who you just KNOW had stepped out for a smoke when they were handing out the Common Sense.

I think he is right though. He did help save the egg that helps make medallions and the final members of a species that can make them, he did the right thing.

The fact that his species wants to stay out of things isn’t necessarily a good thing, it means they are willing to let horrible things happen cause they don’t think it involves them. Like Ravi’s nature makes more sense with this knowledge, he wants to help, but his species isn’t really the type to teach themselves how to care about others.

It occurs to me that the yaksha non-interference rule may not be based on lack of caring. It’s possible that at least some of his kin realize just how ham-handed they can be, such that attempts to help can easily make things worse.

-Kory

HAPPY NEW YEAR KORY!

This has been the first year I known of Skin Deep! This is the biggest explosion for the love of imagination since 2013 :) Thanks for getting me back into fantasy and introducing me to a brave, new world!

– Cameron a.k.a Agent Joseph on Discord

So, what I wonder is since Ravi’s relatives policed him, did they make Phineas and his family have amnesia about Ravi and the power he gave to them to “undo” some of Ravi’s interference?

My theory on why Ravi didn’t contact the family when he returned was out of sadness and guilt. Now that they contacted him for help, he couldn’t contain himself. It strikes me he is a person who hides his actual feelings (and powerful nature) behind a smile. We’ve already seen his anger be a little explosive.

Kory. I must give you this much of a compliment. You comics are always good and full of andventure. Sometimes they’re just silly and flexible. And then, suddenly, they are serious and direct-to-the-point. You can perfectly combine childish idea’s about this kind of creatures and live with history and information, even when it’s not real. I wish I got only a little bit of your brijant creativity. Please stay the way you are, because you are awesome.

Ravi’s relatives: “Young man, go to your room and think about what you’ve done!!”

Ravi: “Man that was such a good plan, I’m gonna think about all the awards I’m gonna get for Best Plan Ever while I’m in here. Decide on my acceptance speeches, too.”

Ravi’s relatives: *collective facepalm*

Ya know what if Ravi is skipping over details because he regrets some of the stuff he did in his past like breaking the code and killing off the “Phineas curse” thing a lot. To be honest Ravi kinda seems like he tries to tell different bits and pieces of info to different people just to make sure they don’t realize even more of his mistakes. Ravi also seems to hide a lot of emotion behind a smile he seems quilty and blames himself for a lot of things and since he’s immortal he might think he needs to be perfect but he can’t so he has to hide it. That just my theory’s have a good day

I totally agree with this. His expression in panel 4 is very telling. The times we saw him lose his temper (which went from 0-100 in a second) was totally the behavior of a person who buries his emotions. I don’t think he’s foolish or selfish as much continually attempting to disconnect with his negative emotions. However, that leads to foolish and selfish choices.

I think we should all cut Ravi some slack.
He is _not_ human; he’s a demi-god, he is ancient, perhaps as old as the planet. And we still measure him up as if he was human. He is as different from us as we are from… well, an ant heap – as he managed to compare himself (and found out instantly that he’d put yet another foot in his mouth). He don’t have to give a single s**t about us…yet, he does. His mind operates on a completely different plane than ours, and yet, he tries to explain in a way that we can comprehend. I think we should be quite grateful for him, even though our tiny minds and life experiences cannot quite manage to follow him..

Kory, thanks for creating such an intriguing character ! (And happy New Year, BTW !)

Change of subject: There has been a big fire in Liverpool today, just where the Avalon used to be: apparently the Avalon has been torn down and replaced with the “Echo Arena”. Development, my…
1) I wonder if the demolishment of the Avalon somehow it will enter the storyline one day ?
2) I also wonder if the fire is due to some.. not-human being pissed about losing home…? :)
Link to the fire, on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-42529615

Happy new year to y’all !

I honestly don’t get the Ravi hate either. I can see why they don’t like him… but I can’t bring myself to the vitriol other people do… I assume he just has something of a different point of view from everyone else, like a more “blue and orange” morality.

Jim…the actions he is talking about are 1) Helping protect the egg 2) Helping the sphinxes with their plan to survive 3) Blessing your ancestor with the power to protect the egg, which, given the casualties your family has suffered without it, was obviously a very good idea (Ravi had no idea his gift would go dormant in his absence, which makes even more sense now that it’s clear he’s not supposed to do things like that at all) 4) Helping to create the Avalons, including helping to set up the protections around them.

You want he should think those were bad things?

I’ve been reading my way through here for weeks (a link from the Whiteboard sent me over) with lots of comments in my head I ended up never posting (partly because the comments all seem so long ago, it felt a bit like necroing). But, between the rather mind boggling (and quite unfair) hatred at Ravi and the impression that this has been rough on Kori, I’ve finally decided to start talking.

Truth is, like Ravi, by nature I talk a lot, and type as well. I know how that incredibly enthusiastic, energetic state of mind works. Trying to respond to people’s social cues in real time is like trying to identify trees as you zip past on the highway. It’s not about not caring, or not being capable of understanding – it all gets whited out by the sheer exuberance. Your mind is just running so fast, the words practically tripping over themselves trying to get out of your mouth fast enough to keep up, and those darn social cues just don’t register.

Ravi is socially inept and the type who can’t stop talking. He’s very passionate. He defaults to seeing everything as good somehow (Good news everyone!) but when he starts seeing things negatively he’s just as passionate. And it just takes a direct approach to get through to him. Again, I know what it’s like to be blamed for not caring because I miss all the cues. But Ravi has shown clearly he does care – but it takes a direct approach. He’s too caught up, too energized, to respond properly to other people without a bit of smack to snap him out of it.

But he *does* admit fault – he has. He has apologized with great sincerity. He cares. He’s also inept as hell with a motormouth and damn near irrepressible energy, enthusiasm and passion. The combination can be difficult to deal with, especially if you just keep expecting him to suddenly pick up on the social cues he’s missing and blame him for not caring when he doesn’t.

As for things like ‘gets angry when people don’t treat his every word as gospel’, I have no idea where that even starts. I can’t recall him actually getting angry about anything except the perception the Finns had treated his gift lightly.

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