"Heart of Hearts," Concluding Thoughts

Here's the story. And here's the commentary.

Since the Sluggy forums have some rules about speculation, these observations are going here rather than there. If you're not interested in Sluggy, proceed to the next post, because this level of fannish overanalysis can be lethal to the underexposed.

The First Couple of Sluggy Freelance have been doing the will-they-or-won't-they dance for almost a decade (in real time, at least). For me the question has become "Will they? WHY DON'T THEY?"

Sluggites know the official line: Torg refuses to get together with Zoë because as long as Oasis, the Torg-lovin' death machine, is out there somewhere, then dating Zoë is as good as killing her.

With all due respect to Torg and Pete Abrams, though, I don't buy that.

We don't know exactly what happened between this scene and this one, but it certainly seems that Torg lost little time forging a relationship with an alternate-reality Zoë, despite being Public Enemy Number One to an entire dimension of demons, which would put anyone who got close to him in even more danger than everyone else.

This would be after the curse of Torg's love interests was already well-established (one dead, one insane, and one dead, then insane, then dead again, insane some more, whoops dead, currently MIA to Torg).

Okay, there are qualifiers: different Zoë was sort of a "substitute," Torg was fairly convinced that he and she were going to die pretty soon no matter what, and her safety was clearly important to him. But if her safety were the only factor at play, Torg would've drugged her, packed her off to Quebec, and moved without a forwarding address. He does the right thing when the choice is clear, but he likes to avoid serious decisions when he can-- and he's not made of stone.

Torg's scared of a relationship with Zoë for many reasons, and Oasis is just the one that sounds the most noble. But even so, he's sent Zoë some pretty clear signals.

Bottom line: If Zoë started really pushing this relationship, or even sent some signals of her own that Torg didn't have to capture or destroy an immortal assassin just to earn dinner and a movie, I'm pretty sure Torg would cave.

That makes Zoë, not Torg, the primary obstacle.

Zoë is unaware of the depths of Torg's feelings-- but not that unaware. She doesn't think she's particularly beautiful-- but she doesn't think she's chopped liver, either. She would acknowledge she worries deeply about Torg, but would never say those feelings run deeper than friendship-- except when she almost did. Living with him had to set off a few alarm bells, at least on the subconscious level, where she rarely goes but where her shoulder sprites dwell, and where they influence her...

But nothing happened.

Not that this is unusual. Sexually and romantically compatible people stay in friendships all the time, and never make that jump. But with all the baggage these two have accumulated, the only reason for Zoë not to at least consciously contemplate this... is if something prevents her.

It's not a question of good versus evil. There are both selfless and selfish reasons to embark on such a relationship. It might be a question of Freudian eros versus thanatos, the life-impulse versus the death-impulse. Whatever it is, I think it's deep in her, and it might be related to her more recent behavior pattern of throwing away relationships for a broadcasting company whose loyalty to her is fragile at best. If so, it's a much bigger danger to her than Oasis is, and she'll need to address the source, not just the symptoms.

Here's hoping she figures it out. The clock is ticking.

P.S.: I said earlier that I didn't know if I had a third Sluggy idea I liked as much as the two for the stories I've done. Thanks to Clay Yount, I now do: "Where's Sasha now?" Let's see what my schedule looks like in 2009.