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Eric: The Evolutionary Shuffle.

(From PvP! Click on the thumbnail for full sized ZING!)

Before I launch into the latest essay on the evolution of Player v. Player, I ought to make mention of something.

Way way way back in the day, going all the way back to the first week of Websnark (yeah, a whole nine months), I posted the PvP Update Pool, a cheerful joke about how you could never be sure when in the day Scott Kurtz would update PvP. It failed to actually be funny, however, and what's more it represented an unrealistic expectation -- Kurtz essentially never missed an update. Who was I to bitch about the fact that it might not be when I wanted it to update?

This is only significant because... well, since Kurtz went to five days a week plus two sketch days, there hasn't been a day where PvP doesn't beat me up in the morning. It's now updating like clockwork. Which makes me suspect M. Kurtz either has a buffer or at the very least treats each day like a deadline, even though the strip itself posts the following morning.

Like I said, the update thing was unrealistic and silly on my part, but I still owe Kurtz an acknowledgment of his new schedule.

But that's not why I asked you here today.

Change is a frightening thing. Especially when change isn't dramatic. And if there's been a theme for PvP this year, it's "change."

Kurtz has played with theme and meta-arc before. The best example, of course, was the year that Jade and Brent were broken up. There was a plotline there, of course, but there was also a general theme at play. Who do we become when the person we love stops being the person who loves us, especially when we still love them... and see them every day. Some of the storylines in the theme were gut bustingly funny. Some were bittersweet. But all of them related back. It's like brushstrokes in a painting -- each one might be masterful or pedestrian, but it's when you step back and look at the whole painting that you value the work itself.

We're watching a different painting being constructed now. A painting of evolution. Of alteration. Of change. Brent was pushed into giving up coffee, and then thought he'd lost himself. When the bad times came, Brent tried to leap back into coffee and ended up hospitalized, and then tricked into drinking decaf. He learned who he was without the coffee. And now he's drinking smaller amounts of it again. It's not whole hog or none -- it's evolution.

Cole was confronted with the loss of his own sense of self. For years, Cole has wanted to be one of the guys while also being the cool boss. He's wanted to improve his friends (thus the Brent/coffee thing) without them actually changing. He's wanted to be the core success without becoming corporate. And then he was confronted with the stark reality of finance. He considered moving the whole operation into a building that was falling apart rather than give up his sense of who he was... but in the end, prudence won out. He merged with Powerplay. He went to work for Max, essentially. Yes, he's still in charge of PvP, but he's not the boss any more. In one sense, he really is one of the guys now. He had to grow up a little. He had to let go a little. And he did it, and PvP was saved.

But he had to take a long shower. The expression on his face was the same as Brent's expression after he gave up coffee. He had grown up a little, and that change made him sad.

Reggie came in as the office receptionist. Marcy has been made an actual writer -- putting Francis yet again in a position of competition with her. Miranda has reentered the picture, but now is more of an equal with her sister (and is once again working her wiles).

It's change. It's evolution. I fully expect Jade will have her time in the chair. And then Skull. And somehow, I'm nervous about Skull.

Today was a signpost in that storyline. Max came into the room, and Brent just said hi.

And Max couldn't handle it.

See, I've said before that Max essentially isn't a bad guy. I stick by that thesis. He doesn't know he's been the antagonist of the story. He honestly thinks these are the guys he went to college with and they're essentially cool. In a lot of ways, Max was the catalyst for change. In a precursor to all this, he took in Robbie and Jase when the pair had finally walked out/were fired by Cole. Max took them in... and forced them to clean up their act, turning them into productive workers. And reinforcing Cole's own fears for himself. (And perhaps inexorably leading to the day Max took Cole's place as the guy who keeps the ship on course.) When Reggie and Miranda appeared on the scene, Max hired them.

So, if he doesn't realize he's the antagonist, naturally he gets disturbed when... well, people react differently to him now that he's a part of the team. That's what we saw, in brief, in today's strip. Max walked in, and Brent just said hi.

And Max couldn't handle it. Perhaps it would mean realizing his 'friends' didn't actually like him before (and probably don't like him now). Perhaps it would mean evolving the same way that Max himself is catalyzing change among the PvP crew. Perhaps it's because Max himself isn't ready to evolve either in role or attitude the way the PvP gang are. But whatever it is, Max blew a whistle on it. He essentially demanded that Brent treat him the way he did before. "Insult me!" he begged, metaphorically.

And Brent did. And Max slipped back into the role he was comfortable with.

I've said before, Max isn't a bad guy. But he's also not one of the protagonists. Brent, Cole, Jade, Francis, Marcy and Skull are, and they're changing before our eyes in a way Max can't. Not yet.

And that's why this series is called "PvP" and not "Powerplay Magazine."

(And yes, I noticed Max used the word "snark." But then I notice things like that. It's what I do.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at May 3, 2005 10:07 AM

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