A webcomic created in 2009 by James Ashby, Chris Jones and Zach Weiner. Snowflakes
takes place in an orphanage located in the Andes mountains, where children wait to be picked by families every Christmas. However, it gets boring waiting around for that, so the children spend their days engaging in political power battles against each other.
Notable for having extremely strong characterization right out of the gate. Check out the character sheet for more info.
Snowflakes contains examples of:
- Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Played with. While the election has taken up much of the second arc, no winner has been decided yet and it's unclear as to how much they would actually be able to influence if they won. It just gets really boring waiting around an orphanage all day.
- Downplayed after the winner is chosen, however. Although their role treated as important by the other kids and they're given the chance to make important decisions, not much is shown due to Priti attempting to overthrow them.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Greg's father, though he might have just been a standard treasure hunter considering that he left Greg at the orphanage just so he could carry more gold.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Greg does it here.
- Character Development: While the characterization is strong to begin with, it's fascinating to watch how the goals of each character change as the comic goes on.
- Dark Horse Victory: The winner of the election? Glory
- Description Cut: Here.
- Fashion Magazine: Modern Tots.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Played with. Enzo has two devils because, according to one of them, "You're a five year old."
- Hair-Trigger Avalanche: One happens after Wray and Greg are chased out of a cave by a bear. This also ends up being what brings them back to the orphanage, as the snow carried the plane they were in until it crashed into the side of the building.
- Literal Cliffhanger: While Acting Out a Daydream, Wray ends up tumbling down a snowbank, falling down a cliff with only a stray branch keeping her from plummeting down.
- Living MacGuffin: Greg's father is one to him, with finding him serving as one of his main motivations
- MacGuffin: The ring from the first arc.
- Malicious Slander: When it looks like Lu and Sloan are about to win the election, Priti comes up with one last plan to sabotage them: hiding Greg’s ring on Sloan and telling the nuns she stole it. This backfires horribly when, during the election, Enzo says she stole it instead. This indirectly disqualifies her team, allowing Glory to win the election.
- This is also done earlier, where Priti tries to convince the public that voting for Lu will get them eaten by yetis.
- Manipulative Bastard: Priti's main strength, though it's been coming back to haunt her recently.
- Moment of Weakness: Wray has one after being scared during a Literal Cliffhanger. She’s not pleased.Glory: Great job Wray! You were so brave!Wray: Silence! Warriors don’t cry! And I cried!Greg: Achilles wept for Patroclus.Wray: If you believe the media!
- Napoleon Delusion: Wray has one.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "There. Are. Vikings. And. I. Will. Find. Them. With. Swords."
- "Rashomon"-Style: Both Wray and Greg have different accounts on how an airplane crashed into the side of the orphanage. Wray’s take, in typical Wray fashion, is a fantastical take on the matter complete with fighting were-yetis, shooting lightning out of her face, and ripping off video games she played. Greg’s take, however, is an entirely truthful retelling.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Each of the seven main characters is modeled after one of the sins: Greg is Greed, Enzo is Envy, Glory is Gluttony, Lu is Lust, Priti is Pride, Sloan is Sloth, and Wray is Wrath. Their names are too similar to each of the sins for this to be a coincidence.
- Snowball Lie: To try and get votes away from Priti, Sloan ends up lying to the public to earn their trust, slowly relying on bigger lies to keep Lu’s popularity from waning. This gets to the point where, despite Lu’s protests, Sloan still tries to carry on lying due to the lies “carrying them this far”. This backfires on her during the election, where the kids realize they were deceived and begin to ask questions neither her or Lu can answer.
- Snowball Fight: Weaponized by Priti, who uses it to try and usurp power from the winner of the election and prevent them from fighting back.
- Theme Naming: See Seven Deadly Sins.
- Turncoat: Johnny becomes one to Priti when it looks like Lu and Sloan will win the election. However, this backfires when Enzo reveals the information he’s giving the two is fake.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Or, in Greg’s case, why did it have to be frost spiders?
