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 Post Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 6:35 pm 
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This is a topic that has been running through my head on and off for some time and I thought I'd post that here. This is part timeline and part interpretation.

Torg has had a number of emotional responses to Oasis. His initial reaction is one of infatuation as well as curiosity. A certain degree of sympathy also is added when Oasis appears to be helping him escape from Dr Steve and tells him her life story while doing so. This rapidly becomes annoyance when it turns out that Oasis is actually bringing him back to Dr Steve. The confusion about Oasis's true nature is added shortly thereafter. He then waxes philosophical after Oasis dies for the first time.

The second time Torg meets Oasis, he is surprised by Oasis not being dead. His reaction is to protect Zoe as he somehow knew that Oasis would be jealous to the point of absurdity. The emotion that Torg experiences is now fear due to Oasis's jealousy and possessiveness. In spite of all this, it is nonetheless clear that Torg did not want to hurt Oasis by telling her that she is a robot and thinks "the truth mighr crush her and for some reason I don't want to do that". He reconsiders, of course, on learning that Oasis is intent on making him marry her. As an aside, I think the exasperation expressed by Torg in this strip is directed at Riff rather than Oasis as it is he, not Riff, that is being forced into marriage.

This second encounter ends, of course, with Oasis's death as she falls off a cliff. Torg is, if anything, surprised when he finds that Oasis is indeed flesh and blood rather than a robot of some kind. It seems clear that Torg still does not want to see Oasis hurt or die in spite of all the emotions he had previously. The sympathy returns for Oasis when it does appear that she was taken as a child and made into a mind-controlled killing machine.

Encounter number three is when Torg goes to Le Snootier along with Sasha. It is clear that he is not really surprised that Oasis was still alive and was staring, and pointing, daggers at the two of them. The fear, due to Oasis's jealousy, is of course present througout that encounter, especially when he finds out about Oasis's intended "sewing project". What strikes me as odd is that Torg actually, for a moment, actually cares if Oasis is in love with him. Even though that moment is brief, it does make it clear that Torg's emotions about Oasis are not as clear-cut as they initially seemed. Again, he is concerned about Oasis's fate. He is, again, then surprised by Oasis showing up at the hospital. The emotion he feels when Oasis dies is definitely sadness.

Encounter number four (unless I've missed one) is during Fire and Rain. Concern for Zoe seems to be the overriding emotion here, but it is again related to Torg's fear of Oasis's jealousy. The same thought drives his decision to propose to Oasis. This chapter is when, in the heat of a quarrel with Zoe, Torg expresses overtly that he does not love Oasis.

Encounter number five is the last encounter prior to today and takes place during Dangerous Days Ahead. I'm not sure that Torg actually knows that Oasis is listening when he metioned that Riff works (or worked) for Hereti-corp so the emotion here is probably annoyance at himself rather than anything else. Given everything that had just happened, the emotion in this strip is most likely simply relief that the immediate danger seemed to have passed. Those two segments, therefore, give no further insight. Torg running back to try and retrieve Oasis body, on the other hand, shows that Torg still does not want Oasis to die and stay dead. The anger in this sequence with Dr Schlock seems to be twofold: anger at Dr Chen and Hereti-corp putting Zoe in danger and anger at being seen as a tool to deliver Oasis to Hereti-corp. The first is obvious as Torg loves Zoe and the second shows that Torg, in spite of everything, still does not want Oasis hurt. The next three strips all suggest that Torg is resigned to marrying Oasis and wants to get it over and done with. Oasis, of course, has other ideas, and the two will not meet again for fourteen and a half years. Odd thing is, despite the fact that Torg declared that he did not love Oasis, some degree of infatuation remains.

That does not mean that Torg had paid no attention to Oasis throughout that time. Oasis is plainly in Torg's subconscious as illustrated in the Wayang Kulit chapter. This is when we learn that Torg considers Oasis to be innocent. The fear that Oasis would hurt or kill Zoe remains evident but so does Torg's desire to avoid hurting or permanently killing Oasis. This is, however, the first time that Torg accepts that killing Oasis for good might be a necessity.

By Phoenix Rising, Torg has gotten help from Bun-bun in locating the orphanage Oasis was at and, perhaps more importantly, Riff coming up with ways to fight Oasis. This shows that Torg is now planning for the worst when it comes to Oasis. The trip to the orphanage shows that the fear still remains when he sees the photograph of Oasis as a child and that the curiosity still remains regardless. By this time though, the curiosity has the definite purpose of stopping Oasis from being a threat to Zoe but going to the first Orsintos research centre lends few immediate clues aside from the fact that Oasis was there but they do get a stack of papers.

In bROKEN, Torg and Riff, with Gwynn, access the Zombie-fun lab. Torg's initial frustration here is that he still does not have a way to stop Oasis from being a threat. By this point, it is clear that Torg is prepared to destroy Oasis if necessary, but he still has sympathy for her. He visits Dr Driscoll who, surprisingly, has no knowledge of Oasis's resurrective immortality. This is not a wasted trip as Torg learns of Oasis's pyrokinesis whereupon his fear of Oasis briefly becomes terror. This terror is brief and dissipates but Torg's fear remains as does his frustration about being unable to stop Oasis. Terror returns when he finds out that Oasis is attacking. Torg is, of course, too late to intervene. His emotions here are hard to read but seem more directed at Gwynn saying that Riff and Zoe were dead rather than at Oasis. He might have been angry at Oasis at that point regardless, but that is not fully clear. After bROKEN, Torg's anger would later be directed at Hereti-corp so, even if he was angry at Oasis, he wasn't for very long.

Another interesting point is that while Torg might have been planning to defeat Oasis, he did not want her to fall in the hands of Hereti-corp. He had been searching for more information about Oasis, and possibly her location, during Operation Ferret Butt but he did not know at that point that Sasha was a spy and that Hereti-corp wanted him to find Oasis for their own ends. He would find out Sasha's role later. His anger here at Sasha seems to be directed at Hereti-corp for the danger they subjected Zoe and Riff to rather than at Oasis.

Torg is surprised, and looks delighted, when he finds out that the Zalias have become Oasis's surrogate family. After that though, he becomes pensive, and apprehensive, when he deems it necessary to bring Oasis into the fold for his planned strike against Hereti-corp.

This final sequence is just prior to Torg meeting Oasis again. Though it features other characters, the expressed thought about Oasis in the end is one of ambivalence.

After putting all that together, ambivalence is only part of what Torg feels about Oasis. He states that he does not love here and, though the possibility of self-deception exists, that statement is probably true. He still does care about Oasis, and might still have some degree of infatuation, but "love" is too strong a word to describe what he feels. He most certainly has sympathy for her, given everything that has already happened to her; others have used the word "pity" to describe more or less the same thing. He does not want to deliver her to Hereti-corp because they are a mutual enemy and that would further that enemy's ends. His curiosity about Oasis has persisted despite the passage of so many years but it has become somwhat tempered. His goal has changed from being curiosity for its own sake to needing to find out how to stop Oasis to protect his friends. Fear is another unmistakable part of what Torg feels, especially given that Oasis was ordered to love him and that she has been jealous to an almost unimaginable degree. This fear is for his friends, and especially for Zoe. And yet, Torg still does not want to eliminate Oasis completely if another solution is possible. Part of this is undoubtedly from the fact that he does care about Oasis, part of it is from the sympathy for her situation and part of it is from the heroic side of his own nature. This, therefore, explains the ambivalence.

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 Post Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 4:33 pm 
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Wow, you did a lot of work to put all of that together! I really enjoyed reading your analysis. I think it makes a lot of sense.

I've been trying to differentiate between what we (the readers) might feel because of what we know about Oasis, what I feel like Torg might feel, and what Torg might actually feel, and you researched and explored that very thoroughly!

Ultimately, I feel like Torg has a general "wants to save everybody"/ "wants to hurt nobody" tendency. This tendency is problematic with Oasis, both as the person, who has killed many people and badly hurt his friends, yet is "innocent" in terms of the instigation of those actions, and Oasis the plan, because he must, knowingly, rely on the killer to save the world (and ends-justify-means is Riff's territory, not Torg's).

"Ambivalent" is a good word, but I'd add "torn" as a descriptor as well.

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 Post Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:24 am 
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I could see Torg being bluntly honest at this point...

Oasis, I do want something from you. I would like your help to take down Hereti-Corp for good. Blah, blah, morals, blah, blah, can't do it without you, etc. One big difference between me asking you and someone else is that I'm giving you a choice. You can walk away, no hard feelings.

There's also a chance that by helping me, we might find a way to help with your whole pyro thing. I can't promise that we will, but there's a chance.

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 Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2017 10:33 am 
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Punzil wrote:
I could see Torg being bluntly honest at this point...

Oasis, I do want something from you. I would like your help to take down Hereti-Corp for good. Blah, blah, morals, blah, blah, can't do it without you, etc. One big difference between me asking you and someone else is that I'm giving you a choice. You can walk away, no hard feelings.

There's also a chance that by helping me, we might find a way to help with your whole pyro thing. I can't promise that we will, but there's a chance.


I can see that too actually, I rather hope you are right!

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 Post Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:44 am 
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I guess I might have been sort of right...

Rule of Funny must have gotten to Torg today, because he's usually a boxers dude.

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