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Should Adrian Raven from El Goonish Shive join the tumblr found family?

Adopt

Ditch

Voting ended onOct 31, 2023

#Adrian Raven #El Goonish Shive #no image submitted #no tags submitted #adoption poll

Once again, it's time for....

Who's That Secondary Character?

with me, Jack, your one-stop-shop for catching up on ancient backstory for EGS, Girl Genius, Questionable Content, and more! Today on the show:

Noah

Noah has appeared again in recent El Goonish Shive comics, but who is he? Where does he come from? And why is he following Diane? (And yes, he's always had that androgynous Link-from-Legend of Zelda style, it's one of his defining features.)

Early Appearances

Noah is a trickier character than most, because the storylines he's connected to have been retconned multiple times. (Although it might be more accurate to say that he was simply planned long ago, and changes to the story happened over time.) Noah first appears in the comic as a mysterious shadowed and hooded figure who had sworn revenge on Damien.

From there, Noah largely disappeared from the main comic for an extended period of time. I seem to remember him occasionally appearing out of nowhere to help the good guys and then disappearing again, but I can't actually find any main-story comics where he does that. I could be conflating him with Magus, another shadowy figure who was hinted at for a long time. Noah was also popular in the non-canon sketches and comics, as well as fan theories, during this period. It is eventually confirmed in canon that Noah is the shadowed, hooded figure, but my impression is that readers were meant to have already figured it out at that point.

Tragic Backstory

Noah's parent(s) were murdered by Damien, because his father was part of the cult that created Damien. Noah didn't get a chance to enact his revenge before the events of Painted Black happened, but he did get a hint about what kind of person killed Damien, and planned to seek her out.

After his parents' death, Noah appears to have spent his time focused on becoming powerful enough to face Damien. Noah is almost matched with (non-transformed) Elliot for being extremely strong, fast, and athletic. He is also obviously in-the-know about magic, immortals, uryuoms, and possibly more. However, beyond his near-superhuman athletic abilities (and the flying), it's not known whether he actually has magic of his own or not.

Noah feels immense respect and kinship towards his guardian, Raven, whom he lives with and views as an adoptive father. However, due to Noah's personal history and a lack of social experience, he doesn't know how to bring this up. Noah also typically speaks with an overabundance of caution as a method of controlling his emotions. Therefore, he had defaulted to addressing Raven as 'sir', and sneaking around the house. However, Noah and Raven finally had a heart-to-heart after Pandora's death, and now refer to each other as father and son.

Love/Hate Quadrangle

Noah's girlfriend Melissa is also Justin's childhood best friend/ ex-girlfriend. Justin blames Melissa for outing him as gay and exposing him to extensive bullying. (Reminder: because of the time-bending nature of long-running webcomics, Justin was outed his freshman year in essentially the cultural equivalent of 2003 or thereabouts, when blatant homophobia was more socially accepted. Dan has generally opted to use the currently-preferred (at time of publishing) LGBTQ+ terminology and concepts as the comic has gone on, ((side note: I want to do a separate blog post on the different approaches different webcomics bring to this issue)), resulting in characters using 2022-esque LGBTQ+ vocab& sensibility in the end of Justin's senior year, regardless of the fact that only 2-3 years have passed in-universe.) Melissa herself had a... very rough time accepting Justin's sexuality. Depending on the point in continuity, she gets jealous of any girl who talks to him, stalks him to harangue him for dates, deludes herself into believing the two of them are in love, or (most recently) has urges to act like they're still best friends/ dating but recognizes the urges as harmful compulsions.

Elliot accidentally becomes involved when he meets Noah by chance at an IKEA and strikes up a friendship with him. When they eventually put the pieces together, Elliot, Noah, and Justin all end up angry with each other to varying degrees. The tension is exacerbated because Noah has something he urgently needs to ask Justin, directly. The questions are aimed to figure out who summoned the fire monster that attached the comic book shop (when Cheerleadra first appeared), but because Noah keeps on being interrupted, we don't actually find this out until the moment before the second magical attack on the comic book shop, when Noah assists Cheerleadra in fending off the dragon-summon. He also assists Grace and Greg at the martial arts dojo as part of the same fight. Justin never actually answers Noah's questions about the first Cheerleadra fight (thus preserving Elliot's secret identity) because the summoner's identity becomes clear at the end of the fight.

Following Diane?

Noah goes to Moperville South, the same school as Ellen, Grace, Nanase, Justin, and Diane. Diane (who has known since she was a child that she was adopted) recently found out that Raven is her biological father. Raven (who until recently believed it was impossible for him to have children) found out at the same time. They both have complicated feelings about this, and haven't talked to each other yet. Noah likely knows all of this. Raven is Noah's guardian and adoptive father. For that reason alone, Noah might reach out. In addition, Noah likely knows about a lot of the big, magic-related things that have happened to Diane recently. They potentially have a lot in common to talk about.

Incidentally, they also both have a habit of sneaking, and are both adept at getting places quickly.

I'm sure the title of the current arc is just a coincidence...

Note: originally posted before complete because Tumblr kept eating my edits