DudeMyDadOwnsADealership wrote:Speaking of your fondness of DoA, what's your take on the newest addition to the Walkyverse, Raidah? Please go into detail.
Hahaha, is this a test?
(It's my understanding that the setting of Dumbing of Age is known as "the Dumbiverse," as distinguished from the shared universe of David Willis' other strips, the Walkyverse. But I'll answer the question in the spirit it was probably intended.)
Raidah has tried my patience for most of her existence, though her last scene was enjoyable enough that I'm willing to see her again. It's certainly true that she's better than the people she hangs out with, but that raises the question of why she does hang out with them. Her attempts to improve on their behavior are minor and halfhearted, and that biases me toward Sarah's version of the events that caused the rift between them.
David may well be pulling the old "not so bad once you get to know them" trick, which certainly seems to be what he's done with Sarah and Ruth. Both of them began their run in DoA seeming like almost aggressively unsympathetic figures, Sarah angry at the world and antisocial, Ruth downright cruel, but David's revealed more complex dimensions to them in due time.
So while I currently find Raidah an annoying blame-shifter whose low standards for companionship, and denial of her own irresponsibility, have turned her against the best person she knew, it's possible that David's got a story up his sleeve which will present the character, and her past and future, in a new light. No way to be sure, though. The title of the strip makes it clear that not everyone in it is really going to grow up.
