|
Okay but the text does redeem itself a bit here. It’s a double page with almost no backgrounds, but we get caught in the words, crowded by them. Most memorable, most spot-on for me is Hanna’s look of evil in panel 7, realizing she has the tools to truly get rid of someone. Does Hanna really want this friendship to end? Does Mar? It may be for the best, since the nature of the thing has changed. Can you salvage a relationship that used to be imbalanced in another direction? I’m not sure I’ve ever done it. You outgrow people, you tire of the things that stay the same – or this happens to you. The saddest thing is wondering what words could’ve kept it together. |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
"Fear is the path to the dark side! Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. :("
I love this page. I can totally hear the delivery of panel 11 in my head, due to Hannah's body language, manic expression, and the bolded lettering.
In the depths of depression, I pretty much scared off my best friend at the time. Years later, and I STILL feel guilty about it, even though all's probably been long since forgiven.
Sucks what you're capable of when you're down.
The most interesting thing about this one, to me, is the surprising turn it takes.
What I expected on first reading is that Hanna's rage would be centered in the comparison of the Hanna/Marek relationship to the Marigold/Will relationship.
That would have made Hanna so much more sympathetic, at least in my eyes–if in the anger stage of her grief she'd lashed out at Marigold by saying that what she had with Will had been pathetic, and that all the work Marigold had done on herself was basic stuff she needed to do to mature, and that her loss could never be compared to Hanna's, because what she and Marek had was The Real Thing and it was brutally unfair that she now had to do this work at all.
All basically true, but a vicious lashing out that could ruin the friendship. Near-impossible to take back.
And a tiny bit deserved for Marigold, since telling someone you understand their grief because you've experienced the "same exact thing" and it's better on the other side is some unhelpful bullshit–no two losses can be equated like that.
But Hanna instead says something much uglier, and utterly unsympathetic. It makes her so much murkier.
I still hope Jane got them to reconcile last year . . . like not for a good long while, but once Hanna's doing better again, Jane sugar-sarcastics Hanna into admitting she was being a shithead.