Who Is Ellen
Added 2022-07-21 03:00:03 +0000 UTCHistory.
Commentary
This way of looking at things is debatable, and Ellen herself is inconsistent about it.
Which I consider realistic. I don't think a person would be in Ellen's shoes and not be inconsistent about how much ownership they feel over some of their memories. I think their feelings about the same memories could change based on mood, why it's been brought up, etc.
Which is how people tend to be, but I wanted to point out that Ellen is intentionally inconsistent about this, and that I'm not forgetting some official "Ellen feels this way about Elliot's memories at all times about" rule I'd written at some point.
Comments
Are we going to get a "the cast plays an RPG" storyline?! :o
Daryl Sawyer
2022-07-24 01:18:31 +0000 UTC@Robert Tucker: Except that they're virtually always caves or tombs or sewers rather than actual dungeons, and there's rarely dragons. Oh, sorry, forgot about the underground fortresses. Edit: to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just taking a moment to be annoyed at the misleading name that Gary presumably chose. (I mean, somebody chose it, I just don't know for sure if it was Gary or some marketting person.)
Some Ed
2022-07-22 23:52:29 +0000 UTCI feel pretty certain Ellen is referring to versions of a ttrpg wherein you crawl through dungeons and sometimes fight dragons
Robert Tucker
2022-07-22 12:41:49 +0000 UTC@Stephen Gilberg: and even though pretty much everyone in her personal circle is aware of magic and her situation, it's still something that is different enough out there it feels like they'd not be able to relate at all. At my age, I understand open communication and receptivity can make up for even very large differences of backgrounds. But when I was 18, if I were in her situation, there's literally nobody I'd feel comfortable talking about this stuff with. I could imagine myself working up the courage to ask Ed Verres for assistance finding an appropriate counselor to talk about it with, maybe. But I think they'd need to be pretty amazing at their jobs for them to really be able to help me.
Some Ed
2022-07-21 23:19:09 +0000 UTCIt's also understandable that she doesn't talk about them with most people. The existence of magic may be common knowledge, but...
Stephen Gilberg
2022-07-21 13:57:02 +0000 UTCIt makes perfect sense that Ellen is inconsistent about this. This is about feelings and memories and a whole life that is and isn't hers at the same time, it's not something that has any simple way of looking at it. I've never understood people who act like characters should be perfectly consistent anyway. And if this story leads to an EGS: NP storyline with Ellen DMing, I'm all for it. :)
M.
2022-07-21 11:47:00 +0000 UTCI'm wondering which game it is that Ellen's getting. And also wondering if the "earlier version" was from before EGS or after... Possibly both! (most likely after, but the real-world game that inspired whatever game she's getting...)
Foradain
2022-07-21 10:53:43 +0000 UTCThe whole 'Ship of Theseus' aspect of memory actually applies to almost everybody to some extent. We've known for a while that commonly-accessed memories can end up being colored by and associated with new things later on. And that's assuming they were stored correctly in the first place; there's an old joke that "Anybody who says there are two sides to every story has never tried to interview three witnesses to the same accident."
Jenora Feuer
2022-07-21 08:30:32 +0000 UTCProps to Prof Sai, who called this in the discussion in the previous comic. Ellen has CLAIMED that her memories of Elliot aren't really her own (see the conversation starting at https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2011-09-16), but I like that she's not always consistent about that. She raises similar philosophical issues about the concept of "identity" as the swampman thought experiment, Alec Holland vs Swamp Thing (esp under Alan Moore), and the Ship of Theseus.
Dan Merget
2022-07-21 03:53:04 +0000 UTCI'm curious if she played it in her AU dreams too that would feel like it'd count more for some reason.
IvyReed
2022-07-21 03:21:31 +0000 UTCSeveral characters have argued convincingly that Ellen is just as legitimately entitled to those memories as Elliot is. I would say that the memories are technically hers. She just has understandably complex feelings about them, which is fair
Michael Brewer
2022-07-21 03:18:07 +0000 UTCMakes sense, Ellen technically has two sets of memories which don’t really belong to her. I feel she takes what she can from them, and focuses on being her own person from her point of creation. This is a case where she finds a memory of Elliot’s which she really likes, and is caught blindsided because it isn’t technically hers. So she takes action to make the good feelings of that memory hers by actually taking steps to involve herself in that.
Thisguy
2022-07-21 03:12:31 +0000 UTC
