Character Clues

Character Analysis

Physical Appearances

It wouldn't be a good graphic novel if physical appearances didn't do something for the characters. In ABC all the characters define themselves by how they appear, especially to others.

The Monkey King issues the decree to monkey nation that "All monkeys must wear shoes" (4.1) entirely because he got bounced from the supreme beings' party for being a monkey without shoes. (We're guessing even if he had shoes, he wouldn't have gotten in.) What does that show? That Monkey is way insecure about his monkey-ness, so much so that he tries to look like he belongs to the world that just rejected him instead.

Then there's Chin-Kee. Where to start? There's the traditional queue (that long ponytail), the traditional garb, the buckteeth, the slanted eyes… What else could he be but Chinese, and to the nth power? His look is supposed to mark him as extra-Chinese so he can work as an extreme foil to Danny's fake whiteness.

The point is that looks are everything for our main guys in the story because they're (except for Monkey) insecure teenagers. To them, looking Chinese (or monkey) is like having a perpetual case of acne, so learning how to deal with their looks is part of the journey these characters have to go on.

Personification

You know who this one applies to: the Monkey King. The Monkey King just isn't satisfied with his level of personification. Even though he's already a talking monkey who can do some serious kung-fu and is pretty much immortal, Monkey still wants more.

He thinks that wearing shoes will make him (and the other monkeys) more like the gods and goddesses even though—clearly—monkeys don't wear shoes. In other words, everything Monkey does—beat up a supreme being, get rid of his funky smell, wear shoes, learn more kung-fu—is an attempt to personify himself more, to appear more (super)human.

That's why the first thing Wong Lao-Tsai tells Monkey to do when they set off on their mission is to take off his shoes: "'On this journey… we have no need… for shoes'" (7.105). It's the first step (literally) in stripping Monkey of his wannabe ego.

Actions

Part of the problem for the characters in this book is too much action. The Monkey King uses action—in the form of violent kung-fu—to resolve his problems. And in order to deal with his anger and frustration over Chin-Kee, Danny beats Chin-Kee up to the point of knocking off his head.

And then there's Jin. Even though, as himself, he doesn't use violent action to solve his problems, his anger toward Greg makes him imagine beating Greg up (8.82). So part of Jin's growth is to learn how to abandon the need for action, which is why it's totally appropriate that at the end it's Jin who ends up waiting for a month at the restaurant for Wei-Chen to show up. No crazy action. Just waiting. Brilliant, right?