El Goonish Shive/Fridge

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Fridge Brilliance

• Odd-ish example: I never really appreciated the drama in El Goonish Shive until the second read-through, even though I was hooked after the first time. However, this may have been because the first one was in the dead of night, and not everything clicked. But it still counts. -- Loustar Jogger
  • Uryuoms do not judge the physical attractiveness of potential mates. At first, this just seemed like a hat to me - physical attractiveness is often a (very, very loose) measure of health, after all. Then it hit me: Uryuoms can all shapeshift. Well, duh, of course they don't judge by appearances then! --Heroic Jay
  • Another EGS one. On my first read-through, years ago, This strip seemed like just a silly throwaway joke. In the intervening time, the comic has changed a lot, and several characters have gained explicit magical powers, the nature of which is determined by their actions and personalities, abilities usually awakened or enhanced by random strange events (such as getting turned into a girl, or slaying an almost-vampire, or saving a lover from a deranged mage). The training at the Anime-Style Martial Arts Dojo actually helped two of them unlock that power. All by "participating in difficult, overly complex, and fairly ridiculous activities that shouldn't yield such fantastic results yet somehow do." What looked like Lampshade Hanging on Rule of Funny now turns out to be epic foreshadowing of how the EGS magic system works, before the comic was even revealed to HAVE a magic system! --phantomreader42
  • While doing my second Archive Binge, I got to the part where we learn that when Susan was a little girl, she saw her father cheating with another woman. The reason she got up was because she wanted her dad to read her a book because she couldn't fall asleep. The book? Sleeping Beauty. The quintessential Damsel in Distress who needs to be rescued by her man, and the type of story older Susan would despise. This just illustrates how traumatic this event was to poor Susan, since she actually liked those kinds of stories before, and now her hatred of tales like that is one of her main character traits.-Gneiss Is Nice
• Sciuridae is not pronounced "Skwur-uh-dey". But Grace, like everyone else in the strip, is a Midwesterner. Of course the pronunciation of her surname has been flattened and twisted over the generations.- Nlpnt
• I have been wondering about Magus, such as why he suggests that Ellen is his daughter. I realized that the answer lies in how Ellen was created and Magus's only current ability. Magus can boost the emotions of people, and the reason Tedd used Female Variant #5 on Elliot was a supposed surge of testosterone as he transformed back into a guy. That effect has never been observed since, and its absence has even been commented on in story. The answer is that Magus used his abilities to boost Tedd's rage. All of this was part of the plan to restore Magus to human form. He and Pandora knew how the gem worked, that Tedd would use it, that Ellen would be created, and somehow Ellen using he powers on Elliot will help Magus return. He considers himself Ellen's father because he put the events into motion that led to her "birth." Magus following Nanase around after the fight with Ellen may even tie in. He needs Ellen already upset so he can boost her anger more, so he boosted Ellen and Nanase's emotions during their fight. Had the day continued without Abe attacking the school, she would have gone home angry and he could have used those emotions to trick her into zapping Elliot. - Black Zero Flame
• In this strip, the reason the sprinklers aren't working isn't because they're broken--it's because sprinklers don't work that way! (That is to say, sprinklers react to smoke not to having fire thrust up their noses (or else they'd be pretty useless by the time they came on, eh?).)
• By "Sister 3" part 22, "Apocalypse", Susan's fighting style is essentially the same as Adrian Raven's: send in flying Action Bombs, then follow up with a sword. He can summon many more exploding crows at once than she can exploding fairy dolls, and she has much less practice with swords, but the similarities are notable.
• In "Sister 3", Arthur is depicted with markedly softer facial features along with being made more sympathetic than when he was introduced in "New and Old Flames", where he was specifically not intended to be likable. It's entirely plausible that it's just Art Evolution, but it's also possible that it's a deliberate discarding of a gaunt appearance that was intended to make him look foreboding.

Fridge Horror

• Female Variant #5 lasts about a month if allowed to run its' course. What do you think of when you think "female" and "a month"...does Aunt Flo bring Uncle Richard and the boys back with her...?
• During this episode, Sarah was a bit bummed out about missing out on getting magic, but according to what was established in this strip, she also missed out on a chance to never need birth control ever!
• Giving people magic marks and initiating their Dreaming without their knowledge. Ok, not that Fridgey, since the horror is mentioned in-comic, but I think it still deserves a mention. Dex, Justin, and Rhoda all get their marks without their knowledge and without their consent. That leads to things like, say, Rhoda accidentally enchanting a boar and making it massive If it's happened to these three, think of how many other people it could happen to. It's actually pretty terrifying if you think about it, giving people strong, unbelievable powers without their permission and without them even knowing about it.

Fridge Logic

• Just who the heck is Ebort and what's so special about him giving a movie two thumbs up? Oh, right...