From: ellis@snowy.qal.berkeley.edu (Michael K. Ellis)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics
Subject: Re: A Coupla Thoughts...
Date: 10 Apr 1992 06:10:01 GMT
Organization: Cal Berzerkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: snowy.qal.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Apr7.052207.1755@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> teo33398@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Doctor Zero) writes:
>	Hasn't anyone noticed that Gambit is ALWAYS trying to touch Rouge???
>He knows what her powers can do, or at least has a good idea. And for your 
>typical "I'm too cryptic for this mag" type of guy, this would be like suicide.
>So why does he persisit on trying to touch her???  Because he knows that some-
>how his will is stronger.  And what happenes when Rogue touches someone whose
>will is stronger???  The stronger willed one takes over Rogue's body, and has
>the powers of both.  Given surprise, this is MORE than enough power to take out
>the X-Men!!!  Why he wants to do this (other than to fry Bishop's chicken) is 
>unknown.

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit sensitive about this, but is anyone bothered
that Gambit is continually trying to constitute Rogue?  Think about it:
Rogue has *always* been very sensitive about being touched.  She's been even
moreso since she 'absorbed' Carol Danvers. (Note: did Magneto totally purge
Rogue of Danver's memories and personality?)  The one time she's
'voluntarily' touched someone was Storm, and that involved a great deal of
trust on both parties, and was (IMHO) very well and delicately written.

Gambit persists on both flirting with Rogue and in continually touching or
attempting to touch her.  Rogue's been shown in the past to be both
emotionally immature.  She was only, what, 19 when she joined the team, and
hasn't apparently aged since then.  She's never had a 'real' relationship,
and now she's caught with Gambit manipulating her emotions and using her
body against her.  Sounds like harassment to me.

I'm not going to take a 'holier than thou' attitude and say that all
writers should rigidly conform to some 'Politically Correct' standard
throughout the industry and make their characters either models of
tolerance, sensitivity, and diversity or make them evil beyond redemption.
That doesn't make for good or particularly interesting writing.  What does
worry me is that Gambit is deliberately written as a 'cooler than anyone has
a right to be' character, someone that all those adolescent X-Men fanboys
will want to imitate, including not taking Rogue's 'No' as a final answer
because she 'obviously' likes it.  Possibly she does, but then Rogue has a
history of being very lonely and very naive in some ways.  To take advantage
of that is, in my eyes, immoral.  Even if Gambit turns out to be a villain
(doubtful), it still conveys a 'bad' message.

Now maybe I'm being overly sensitive about this.  Living in Berkeley I get
kicked in the teeth with 'Political Correctness' all the time, and I've
gotten pretty tired of some of it, but Gambit's behavior flat out *bothers*
me, and I doubt the creative team is trying to make it seem that way.  The
original reason Rogue joined the team was to get some help for her problems.
Claremont at the very least addressed her problems (somewhat).  The current
creative team doesn't seem to be trying, and it disappoints me.

--
Michael K. Ellis
ellis@QAL.berkeley.edu
.sig? What .sig?