Giddy all throughout meddlesome summer shindiggery, I nabbed my Scott Pilgrim-loving friend with a car and we set off for the nearest Borders. The nearest one turned out to be several miles away, where sales tax is about 10% of the item, BUT I DIGRESS. We arrived and promptly prowled about for the graphic novel section, concluding after going in circles a few times that it was in fact on the second floor. Ascending the Carpetted Staircase, we reached the top to find a colorful display greeting us. And what should be on this display but the Scott Pilgrim series? We took the copies further back on the display (i.e. those less likely to have been manhandled), and did our preliminary flip-through, wherein we we flip through all the pages really fast and try to discern the story.
“Scott got impaled by an angel”
“I think I saw someone with a gun”
“I’m prrrreettttyyyy sure Stephen Stills is in this one.”
And then, like the cool kats we are, we descended the stairs with our copies, reading in unison. We headed back to the car with our trophies of consumer conquest and a toblerone bar (The official Snack of Scott Pilgrim) and had a fantastical ride back home filled with wonderful Swiss delicacies, Reel Big Fish, Dr. Horrible, and me trying to dissuade my companion from reading while she drove (We decided that finishing first would be a competition). I got home, promising to give her a 15-minute head start. After an irking quarter-hour, I plunged into it with my Blade of Literacy.
‘Kay now: thoughts. There gonna be some massive spoilers from here on out, so I must ask ye faint of heart and ye faint of story-spilling to turn away at this time.
I’ll start with Gideon. One of the things I was looking forward to most in Volume 6 was this guy. I was expecting him to be a more aloof character, as he appeared in Volume 3, for instance, and initially that’s what he seems like (Like when he’s having Envy try on outfits). I think this is because, as the Final Boss, the Big Bad, I was expecting him to be more detached, less a character and more a figure of power and antagonism. But I’m glad how, in a single volume, Gideon is developed basically from the ground up into a real character on par with Scott or Ramona. I rather like his surface act of being an ‘okay guy,’ when in actuality, he’s a twisted genius.
I, like a lot of people will, saw Gideon as what Scott might have become, especially when he reveals his stasis-sealed ex-girlfriends. He is clinging to his past, his imagined past, the same way Scott was revealed to be doing at the beginning of the book. When Gideon is forced to confront the fact that his paradigm of the past might be wrong, he refuses, just as Scott was when he was confronting his dark side.
He would have lost, too, if not for Ramona. Or rather, he would have lost if he had simply tried to forget what he had with Ramona. Near the end of Volume 5, Scott and Ramona are both forced to accept their faults. They both deal with it in their own ways: Ramona runs from it, Scott tries to forget it and start over by reverting to his old slacker life. In trying to forget Ramona, he tries to escape even further, going back to his ex-girlfriends with... awkward propositions.
When Scott fights his darker self, there are 2 possible outcomes: Either he forgets all his mistakes, glazing over the past, and invariably screwing up again, or he allows his faults to corrupt him as a person, turning him “evil.” With Ramona, however, he realizes that he can still move forward with all his baggage. She just needs to learn how to do the same thing. This ties into the theme of getting up, getting over, and moving on that is prevailent in this volume.
Scott reverts to and remains trapped in his default ‘slacker’ life, but he remains in the security of the past and forgetting the mistakes he made, while his friends have all moved on without him. Stephen Stills has come out, Julie moves away, Kim is gone, and Knives is, gasp, over him. It seems to me that he regressed this way after he broke up with Envy, as well, and it’s why he has a complete mental shutdown in Volume 2 when she calls him: the past is coming back to face him. Incidentally, previous to Volume 6’s release, I speculated that Scott had become temporarily evil after his breakup with Envy, Negascott being his ‘evil self.’ I guess in the end, I was half-right.
Going back to Gideon, he is Scott’s opposite number: he’s a successful entrepeneur, a genius, a millionare, and he took the path opposite Scott’s in terms of dealing with himself. I thought it interesting that the headglow was, in fact, Gideon’s doing, implying that Scott’s portrayal of himself as the ‘hero’ and forgetting all his misdeeds, was Gideon’s fault too. And since he apparently has the ability to do this to anyone, that makes him the devil; the darkness in everyone’s hearts.
This makes Gideon not only a compelling character, but also a force of nature. This is connected with Gideon himself being ‘trapped in his own head.’ He couldn’t deal with himself and is unreceptive to the needs of others, which is why his past paradigm is different from reality, while Scott’s are implied to be implanted. I guess it goes to show how keeping your problems locked up inside you only damages your ability to deal with change. In fact, it’s possible that one of the reasons Scott’s highschool flashback occurs at the beginning of Volume 2 is that, chronologically, that’s when Gideon put it there.
On a completely different note, I’d like to talk about growth in the series, because that’s what I feel the series is about: Growth. Scott is stuck in a loop, always going back to the easy way of doing things. Ramona is also trapped this way: She runs from herself and tries to adopt a new self. After Scott meets Ramona, he begins turning into a more responsible person and is maturing, like gaining the Power of Love. Ramona sees Scott as something different, something she doesn’t need to run away from. As Scott defeats her evil exes (i.e. overcoming her own personal issues), their relationship grows. However, around Volume 5, they begin reverting back to their old patterns; Scott is complacent and Ramona wants to escape. From here, it’s regression. Ramona disappears and Scott becomes a complete slacker again. From there, they learn how to move on, while at the same time dealing with their issues, not avoiding them. Defeating Gideon is the point where the begin dealing with things together and directly (And with Dual Techs).
I think one of the reasons Scott finds his relationship with Ramona fulfilling is because it’s straightforward: Clear the level, beat the boss, save the princess, rinse, repeat. In Volume 5, he finds that it’s more that. The reason things fall apart is because Ramona isn’t ready for that; she isn’t holding on. She’s ready to change, to run away again. Things have been falling into routine for her, and she can’t handle it. This is why I like the ending: They’ve both learned to deal with themselves; to hold on instead of running. I think this growth cycle makes sense, considering a lot of SP is based of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s own twentysomething-hood.
I enjoyed Scott gaining the Power of Understanding. It takes guts to say “I love you,” but it takes real maturity and character to be able to understand why they say it, how they mean it, and how they express it. Gideon gets the Power of Love, but the Power of Understanding is harder to attain and more… I don’t want to say “important,” but that’s the only word that fits. It’s knowing what drives others, why they do what they do, and most importantly of all, recognizing what you have to do. Love doesn’t necessarily make you a better person. Understanding does.
I had a few predictions about the final volume, of course. I sort of thought that Gideon was going to turn out to be an okay-kinda-guy, which he does pretend to be. Rarely are his words anything but amiable, and surely no one who says “buddy,” “holmes,” and variants thereof can be that bad, right? (The answer is yes, you cheater. F- See me after class) I also thought that Gideon was going to have a super second form, as most final bosses tend to do (Unless you count that crazy-muscled dream form), but as I said before, Gideon’s more than just a “final boss.” When I got my hands on Volume 6, I saw that the back cover showed Scott and Co. fighting all the Evil Exes, so I thought Scott would have to do a “boss rush,” like in the Megaman games before you face Wily. When the ex-girlfriends’ stasis capsules descended, I thought they were ‘regeneration pods’ containing the 6 revived Evil Exes. In hindsight, I guess that would have been pretty tiresome.
I didn’t expect Envy to go with Gideon, though it makes sense. I don’t know what I think about her new design, considering it looks almost nothing like how she appeared earlier, but you know how celebrities get when they go solo.
I know a lot of people (Including my aforementioned friend/driving slave) wanted Scott to end up with Kim Pine, and he does indeed try, but that would just be falling back onto an imagined, idealized past. Scott says that Kim is a “constant” and with her, everything is “uncomplicated,” but it’s the desire for the stable, constant, and uncomplicated that led him to where he is now. I’m a little disappointed that Wallace didn’t appear in the epilogue; he’s one of my favorites. And what about Mobile? Sure, he’s less than a secondary character, and sure he appears, but he gets no intro card, no lines, and his psychic powers never actually… do anything. But whatevs.
You know what else is just weird? How there’s always a videogame-themed band during Scott’s slacker periods. I don’t think ”Shatterband” is a reference to anything, though, so yaaay progress!
I’m happy with what happened to Young Neil. I know BLO doesn’t really like him so much, and writes him as kind of dopey, but I’ve always liked him. I feel he got his own little Moment of Awesome right here.
Hooray for Neil! Also him and Stacey= Totally! They have so much in common! Like, um, the amount of times they’ve each smiled (I think it’s like 3 or 4). I guess it’s weird to be so interested in this minor character, but his whole purpose is to be minor. He’s had his own little arc throughout the series: He was Stephen Stills’ roommate, one of the guys. Then Knives comes and usurps his status as the “young one” and Sex Bob-omb’s biggest fan. He tries dating Knives, but she only wants Scott, and of course, he grows sullen as no one hangs out with him. His own precious little life is in shambles. By Volume 5, he’s kind of a dick. This panel here is his own finale, his own little coming-of-age. Good job, Neil!
Like Volume 5, this book isn’t as quirky and easygoing as the other 4 volumes, it’s a little more serious, but I liked it. I liked how Gideon himself had some great, funny moments, y’know, they ones that weren’t completely twisted and insane. (I mean dude… emotional warfare?)
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