Doctor Robo wrote:@fools_page: You may be the first person to tell me that MONA is one of your favorite characters. Interesting. Any particular reason why?
- Doc
Robofetishism notwithstanding, it's a combination of two things.
The first, as has been mentioned above, is her abysmal bad luck, which has engendered sympathy. This is certainly not singular among the residents of Metrobay, who are kidnapped, brainwashed, and otherwise abused on a regular basis, but what is noteworthy is how MONA's problems have largely been ignored. Her circuits get fried by TORI? she's left on a slab. She receives expert training in how to please Petto? she's is immediately replaced by a more advanced model. In this story, she is left to look out for the store while Petto and TORI enjoy themselves, and she gets seduced, then mindfried. Essentially, every instance in which she is presented, she gets the short end of the stick.
Again, this is not particularly unique in Metrobay, but it is a factor, and it becomes important in combination with the subtle hints you as the author have presented that there's actually a personality forming beneath her emotionless exterior. In Panel 204 of "Lonely Man," it is shown that without instructions she nonetheless dressed Petto while he was sleeping. It suggests she feels something for her creator. LISA thinks, "Curious . . . MONA must have dressed him in his sleepwear before she left him. Perhaps she is capable of independent thought after all . . ." Later, in the same story, after she reboots following TORI's sexplay, her first thoughts are to rejoin Petto, and when she sees him with TORI in Panel 225 the question mark and ellipses in her thought bubble suggest hurt that she has been replaced. The narrator's comments in that same panel likewise suggest an independence of thought that no one, with the possible exception of LISA, has noticed.
In the current story, in Panel 57, she says to Noctrissa, "Please elaborate. Have I not served you well?" Again, this suggests hurt, hurt that in this case she hasn't been completely pleasing; and if she can be hurt, then she has a personality, which, again, no one seems to have noticed (though Noctrissa does express a smidgen of sympathy, again hinting that people sense something about MONA but cannot consciously express what it is). Her development parallels LISA's in the stories she is featured in: LISA likewise started off as almost entirely machine minded, but over time she has developed a definite personality (she is certainly the one in charge of her relationship with Ted, despite she being his sex slave). MONA has been going through the same process of personality building, albeit behind the scenes.
Short answer, put it down to good characterization on your part.
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