8.2 KiB
Unsong Chapter 30: Over the dark deserts
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Author: u/Lord_Drol NERV*
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URL: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-30-over-the-dark-deserts/
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Score: 50
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Created: 2016-07-24T17:52:48
Post:
Comments:
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+22] (an hour later)
Man, I thought lying to cause a detour to Las Vegas was stupid when I thought it was just pretty much a normal city like in real life, but Aaron actually pretty much lied to cause a detour into the Death Star. Out of spite. What an idiot.
u/alexanderwales [+12] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
And while traveling with a sworn enemy of Darth Vader!
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
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u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (2 days later)
From Ch 22:
Saying bad things about the Other King or even hanging out with the sort of people who said them was a good way to end up charged with sedition and crucified.
It's possible that Aaron is not aware of this, or it's possible that things were different somehow in 2002, but he's going to be walking into the Other King's capital with one of the sworn enemies of the Other King. He's in a much worse position than a regular person.
u/aintso [+1] (20 hours later)
Wait, when did he lie to go there? I must have missed something.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
He hid the seventh dragon.
u/696e6372656469626c65 [+10] I think, therefore I am pretentious. (7 hours later)
Typo:
but a black hole in the center of the United States
I think this should be "Untied".
Also, metaphors aside, the description of Wall Drug here?
But if ever you see a Wall Drug billboard and continue to travel, the land will start looking less and less like where you came from, more and more like the grassy semi-arid plains of South Dakota. Once that happens, you can still turn back. But if you turn back too late, you may find that Wall Drug is in that direction too, that every point of the compass brings you closer to Wall Drug, with no choice but to remain in place forever or go boldly towards that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.
This actually does sound awfully like the way spacetime behaves around the event horizon of a black hole (with Wall Drug itself being the singularity).
(Though if someone ventures far enough that all directions start leading to Wall Drug, it does raise the question of how Aaron--or anyone else--would ever know that.)
u/None [+5] (11 hours later)
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u/SoundLogic2236 [+3] (20 hours later)
It also only says that there is no contact with South Dakota, not people who are trapped on the way to Wall Drug. It is possible that there is a period where messages can go in and out but you can't escape. But extrapolation also seems sufficient.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+9] Finally, everyone was working together. (8 minutes later)
This was what had happened to the Midwest. That close to the omphalos, even a few feet down a side street would be enough to lose yourself forever. Automobile travel became impossible between the Mississippi and the Rockies. Thousands of small farming communities lost their lifelines to the outside world. Large cities dependent on food shipments starved, right in the middle of amber fields of grain. Then came the Broadcast to finish them off. A few small farms survived here and there, but otherwise the Plains were as empty as they had been when the buffalo roamed.
I bring a lot of suspension of disbelief to this story, but going full City Of Angles is pushing even me.
u/None [+0] (8 hours later)
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u/traverseda [+4] With dread but cautious optimism (8 hours later)
Not a typo.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/CityOfAngles
u/ImperfectBayesian [+2] (9 hours later)
I was afraid of that after I googled city of angels plot and the synopsis had nothing to do with a buffalo commons, but nothing interesting came up on the front page for city of angles plot
oh well
u/alexanderwales [+8] Time flies like an arrow (24 minutes later)
Well, that would appear to put to rest the Comet King = Other King theory, at least for the time being, assuming that Aaron is reliable. And it still leaves the question of who the Other King is, unless he's just the antimessiah ... but in that case, I have to wonder why his identity is so obscured.
u/XerxesPraelor [+7] (an hour later)
The sparrow connection really seems to imply that the Other King is Acher.
u/alexanderwales [+9] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)
From a narrative standpoint, I am not sure it fits. The reason to have a hooded figure whose identity is concealed from the reader is so that they can pull the hood back at some dramatically appropriate moment to reveal that they were really X all along. That doesn't work too well for Acher because no one knows what he looks like. I agree that the Other King is probably someone who has already been introduced, but Acher seems like a reveal that would be somewhat lacking in drama, for a number of reasons.
u/thecommexokid [+17] (an hour later)
So there's a character whose name is "The Other One," who went neither to hell nor to heaven and Uriel isn't sure what happened to him, who rebelled against God for a tiny injustice involving a bird in a chapter titled "For not one sparrow can suffer and not the whole Universe suffer also."
And another character called "The Other King," who "came from nowhere" and "didn't provide an origin story," and when asked who the King was and where he’d come from, the monks prophesied, "How is Rhode Island like a falling bird? There is Providence in both."
And you reject the idea that these two characters are the same?
u/alexanderwales [+10] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
No, my question is why it would matter at all. Why would an author want to include this plot point? What purpose would it serve to have them be the same person? My argument is about drama, not logic.
Edit: Thinking about it more, I suppose the dramatic purpose might be that Aaron gets captured, makes the connection, and uses that knowledge to escape? Acher is motivated by attempting to break god's laws, which seems like it might be exploitable.
u/thecommexokid [+3] (3 hours later)
What purpose would it serve to have them be the same person?
I counter: What purpose does the passage about Acher serve in the larger narrative, if Acher is not The Other King?
u/callmebrotherg [+4] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (8 hours later)
It does tie into the overall theme of theodicy.
u/XerxesPraelor [+3] (an hour later)
Maybe it wouldn't be as dramatic, but I think it's less likely for all the evidence that Acher=The Other King to be a red herring that it is for Scott to be satisfied with a less than maximally dramatic reveal.
(and for all the irrationality the story has, there are a lot of patterns to be found)
u/None [+7] (an hour later)
You don’t truly understand necromancy if you can’t explain it to your great-great-great-grandmother.
I'm having some trouble finding her grave :/
u/ulyssessword [+6] (6 hours later)
Come on, there are 16 of them. Can't you find at least one great-great-great-grandmother of yours to explain it to?
u/ImperfectBayesian [+3] (6 hours later)
there are 16 of them
16 . . . at most.
u/Evan_Th [+1] Sunshine Regiment (a day later)
Or even more, if you (or a parent, or a grandparent) was adopted, or remarried...
u/absolute-black [+1] (13 hours later)
I was at walldrug the other day and this spooked me.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+1] (a day later)
Maybe you'd want to go to Wall Drug, given what drugs did for San Francisco and how time slowed down for Neil Armstrong.