There was a Ninja, some woman with green hair named Gertrude, probably my sister Vengeance, and Lord Skywalker. You know. The one that likes to snorkle.) colabed on a story! The Prickliness of Depression as Told Through (Literal) Fantasy. Patreon reward for Nova Quill/Firimil · 1:07am Sep 25th, 2018
Heya readers! Welp, I once again find myself cramming a buncha rewards into months end, you’d think I’d have learned from now but… Yeah, I got nothin’.
This (last!) month’s instalment from Nova Quill/Firimil is a webcomic/online graphic novel called Daughter of the Lilies. It’s about as long as a six-issue mini-series and the pages are not especially dense with words, so it wouldn’t be a huge read if you wanted to check it out before I possibly spoil a buncha stuff. There is depth though… I mean, there’s some surface level stuff about depression that’s rather obvious and some more subtle stuff that I’ll likely be processing in the days/weeks/months to come, but I’m going to tackling this post with one read and hope I can do the story... obvious pun that I don’t feel like making this second.
Sticking with the tradition of tackling the art first, it feels almost unfair to make a blanket statement about the art when the quality starts with the first example below and ends with the second example (which is a flashback of the same event).
See what I mean?
In addition to the shading improving one might notice the level of detail is quite a bit different. For instance, check out the plain white sleeves on Thistle in the top page compared to the wraps on the bottom. The characters also feel a bit more dynamic later on and the ability of the color choices and other aspects of the art to convey mood improve a bit.
Not to say that the beginning art was ‘bad’ or fails on those other aspects, just that the quality of the art and the art-direction all steadily improve as the story moves along over the freakin’ four years it was told over, which certainly would explain the notable increase in quality.
There’s a page here that goes over each character so I’ll skip which each character is on about and move to what I thought of them.
I loved Orrig, to put it simply. While I’ve seen other works that go beyond making Orcs simple fodder (My last blog for Nova comes to mind), I don’t think I’ve seen a work where the makers had the guts to put the Orc in charge. Orrig also manages to make the jump from dumb-brute to a character of reasonable intelligence while still feeling sufficiently “Orcy” in terms of looks and behavior but in a completely positive way. So yeah, it feels great to have him as the level-headed center that keeps his trio of effective misfits in check. Also, he’s also possibly something of the ‘superego’ of this Freudian Trio + One or Phlegmatic of the four.
Brent we get to learn quite a bit about in the story especially in regards to his upbringing what sets him off, etc… This is likely because he’s character is designed to parallel Thistle In regards to the issues she’s dealing with and her trying to overcome. Essentially, he serves as a somewhat alternative viewpoint to what Thistle is going through that allows everyone to explore her issues without spoiling the mysteries about her. He’s our ego/Choleric… though a bit on the emotional side still.
Now contrast to Lyra who we learn pretty much nothing about! She seems to operate completely on instinct being the first to lash out at anyone who annoys her. This often takes the form of her getting upset with her teammates or rushing to their defense if she feels they’re being unjustly picked on. Out of the four, I felt she was the weakest character, though maybe the creators simply felt their attention was better spent elsewhere. If anyone is the ‘Id’ of this group, it’s her. Also true for the sanguine.
Thistle is our main character who is trying to put herself up from nothing, is a bit mysterious, and is clearly working through some self-image issues. She definitely works well as a relatable avenue to explore various aspects of depression. However, I will critique that she almost works too well in that regard sometimes in that she somewhat feels like an empty archetype that one could project themselves into. Now, this could be intentional with the hiding of her face and, of course, she’s naturally rather sheepish. It’s also more of a problem in the middle of the story and not so much the intro, which takes place after the main story, where she can express herself a bit easier.
Look at all that expressing herself!
It’s also worth mentioning that she likes flowers. I mean, that might seem like a small thing but it’s sometimes amazing how main characters, especially those designed to be sort of a reader’s/viewer stand-in, don’t seem to have any hobbies.
She rounds out the four as the Melancholic. She also possibly represents the unconscious mind of the group since we’re out of Freudian buzzwords to throw around. I mean… I could be grasping at straws a bit here, though I do think the Four-Temperament aspect was employed on some level given the colors our characters wear/are when fully geared up. Orrig=phlegmatic=Green
· Brent=Choleric=Dark Yellow
· Lyra=Sanguine=Red, though red is ‘technically’ part of the choleric spectrum for some reason, I’m guessing some sensible artistic license was taken. Her skin is bright yellow/gold though, which is in the spectrum)
· Thistle=Melancholic=Black
Their personalities also seem to line up very well.
Story-wise… Well, it’s clear to me at this point I’m not going to be able to cover all that in this post as I’m already nearing the 1k mark… So, to really do this story… Justice (yes, there. You can stop holding your breath), I’m going to spend some posts going into greater depth on this one.
On a general note, I will say while I enjoyed myself, the pacing and time skipping feels a bit off at times. I don’t necessarily mean the time-skip back two months that happens between chapter 1 and 2 either… Chapter 4 in particular skips between our characters during two separate events that very well can’t be happening concurrently and I while I think I get the gist of why this was done, I think the pages could be reordered and edited to greater effect… something I’ll cover in a later post.
Chapter 6 also stands out as a bit peculiar. While it totally fits with the theme of the story it also focuses on two characters who aren’t any of the mains. While what’s going on certainly parallels struggles Thistle, in particular, is working through, it feels like a side story that was haphazardly thrown in. It’s not a bad side-story and is actually quite touching and poignant, but still is rather separated from our developing characters.
Also, some of the symbolism and story tellings isn’t all that subtle, which might be a bit more of a personal critique than anything technically wrong with what’s going on. For instance, the first chapter maybe didn’t obfuscate it’s hints all that well and the analogs to depression were often heavy-handed.
Still, I do enjoy the general story and am greatly interested in the world setup here even if it mostly seems to conform to Tolkienesque/D&D visions… That being said, there are clear differences such as Grand Master Wu and other subtle differences…
I am jealous of both characters in the foreground.
In addition to the psychological tropes I mentioned, there’s also some clear religious aspects that I was surprised by. I’m looking forward to taking a closer look at those.
Well, that’s it for this installment, I look forward to going over this in much greater detail in the blogs to come! Cheers!
Great!
Oh I love this comic. I have been following it for a year now and I never took the time to analyze it like that. What you said made a lot of sense.
Roll credits! DING!
Yeah, you got about the same out of the characters as I have. Thistle is precious, and I wish I could wrap her in a blanket and feed her soup, Orrig is best Team Dad, Brent needs to drink a glass of water because he is thirsty, and Lyra... I'm sure they'll get to her development some time.
The religious parts came out of left field for me too, and are half of the reason I pointed you at the series. (The other being the obvious depression metaphors, and I wanted to see your take on them both.)