Representations of Savagery and Civilisation in Girl Genius

 Girl Genius is an ongoing webcomic by Studio Foglio (Phil and Kaja Foglio) which was first published in the early 2000s. One of the main themes of the story is the tension between civilisation and savagery. It makes extensive use of its steampunk-like setting and absurdist humour to explore these concepts. The story follows Agatha Heterodyne, the heiress of one of the most infamous families of mad scientists (called ‘sparks’ in the comic) on her quest to reclaim her family name and deal with the issues that arise because of this.

The best representations of savagery found in the comic are almost certainly the Jägers. The Jägers are constructs (artificial, or heavily modified beings), and initially, they are depicted as violent, somewhat dumb, and monstrous, even cannibalistic beings. This is very much emphasised by their visual appearance (see picture below). In many ways, they embody the traditional tropes and representations of ‘savages’ found throughout literature and the media, which damage and distort the image of those ethnicities that the depicted ‘savages’ are supposed to reflect. Michael Green discusses the effects of this kind of representation in his article “Images of Native Americans in Advertising: Some Moral Issues” when he argues, “The image of the Bloodthirsty Savage and of the Civilizable Savage needing to be civilised by a supposedly superior culture denies humanity to the Native American by playing upon this image of their supposed animal-like existence.” By displaying these traits, the Jägers are set up as extreme caricatures of the ‘savage’, which is, in part, why the later subversions of the tropes are so effective.

At the beginning of the story, the Jägers’ relation to Agatha is somewhat ambiguous, being either uneasy allies or potential enemies. However, as the story progresses, they become her most reliable supporters. This shifts the readers perspective of them from an ‘other’ with no cultural depth, as savages traditionally are in literature, to a people with a complex (though admittedly rather absurd, as with much within the comic) culture, with their own motives and capabilities which far exceed the scope of what is usually allowed by the tropes of the savage. In this way, the comic undermines the concept of the savage, and suggests the idea that any culture seen from another, external one, is perceived as uncivilised, or savage.

The concept of civilisation is equally put into question throughout the comic. Girl Genius leans heavily into the trope of the mad scientist. This trope in itself connects science and logic, qualities that in western thought especially indicate a ‘civilised’ society, to the irrationality and savagery of the human mind. Some of the most famous examples of stories with mad scientists are Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and H. G Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau. In both cases, the respective scientist is directly responsible for the creation of a monstrous ‘other’, which also brings into question who the real monster is. Following in this tradition, the Sparks in Girl Genius pioneer the greatest advancements in the science of their world, while also creating and/or performing some of the most monstrous and savage beings or acts. The implication of this is that the level of technology is not necessarily a good indicator of how ‘civilised’ a society or culture is.

By highlighting the ‘civilised’ aspects of savage tropes, and the ‘savage’ aspects of civilisations, Girl Genius blurs the line between them and questions the standards used to measure how ‘civilised’ a society is. This is further emphasised by the cartoonish art style of the comic which caricatures the more absurd aspects of both concepts.

See https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/