The hidden menace of Phil's marriage.

[dreadedcandiru2]

As we know, there's a certain element of sadism not especially well hidden in Elly's constant attempts to get Phil married. Everyone who isn't her can quite plainly see that she's still angry that Phil seems to have had a far easier childhood than she did and wants very much to punish him and make him regret ever having been happy when she was a SLAVE while he got to run around living the life of Riley while she was miserable and oppressed. Since she doesn't listen to herself and also doesn't admit to being an angry jerk who loves to feel miserable and lost and confused because she's a depressive narcissist, she thinks that he needs her help to function and isn't trying to ruin him so she can delight in his long overdue misery and despair.

This is why it's probably for the best that his low sperm count kept him from being a father. This is because his having a son or daughter is clearly a hidden danger to Elly's self-concept. After all, Phil might take to parenthood better than she did. It's bad enough that Phil is going to be grateful that despite the occasional flare-up of his acting like Red Green, marriage was the best decision ever made for him. Taking to being married and having bills to pay exceedingly well would be bad enough without his finding being a parent almost a breeze. Why, if Phillip were to be a good parent with a well-behaved child who respects him, the damage to Elly's self-concept would be almost impossible to repair. Once again, Phil would win and win and win and she'd be left with nothing.

The only thing that would be more damaging would be actually admitting that her parents don't actually love everything he does and use her as a bludgeon to beat him over the head with when they deliver the inevitable to everything who ain't her speech about his being a disgrace because he's a rootless drifter who lives out of his car while Elly has a family like she's supposed to have. Then again, we're probably dealing with a person who thinks that it's his fault that she feels miserable and angry all the time because she doesn't want to admit that she needs to feel miserable and angry all the time to make the world make sense. It would be like admitting that she's the reason Phil delayed proposing to Georgia in the first place. More on that tomorrow.

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[josephusrex.livejournal.com]

Also, Lynn/Elly gets the last laugh of Phil at the very end of the strip, when she snickers at the "embarrassing" hoops he has to jump through in his and Georgia's futile efforts to have a baby. (She means beating off and handing over the spooge, folks.) Because of course he has seen the light, and realizes that life is not worth the living unless you have a baby. But he can't have one, so tough titty for him: his is a life lived in vain.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

Of course, there's a hierarchy of people who fail in their duty to multiply so no one will forget. People like Phil who want kids but can't have them are better than selfish monsters like the Kelpfroths and EVIL CAREER WOMEN who don't want them and don't miss them.

The sad thing about Elly/Lynn's belief is that she doesn't realize that this whole maternal instinct thing is so much crap despite Time-not-toys Elly herself being living proof. We thus have in Elly and Georgia a person who shouldn't have kids who has them and someone who can't have kids who should. This means that life is unfair and Elly digs it because she gets a pat on the head and a big cookie.