Sunday, October 3, 2010

Kneal Before Zod

:beats head against desk: Seriously why did I commit to this series. Nothing happens; they just talk a lot.

I've been reading up on this kiwi drama called The Tribe. I didn't like it because Bray's a massive Gary Stu but it was leaps and bounds ahead of this. Heck, Ebony would have made mincemeat out of Nicky Alps and she's only fourteen.

Anyway, I've decided to cover two chapters because nothing happens.

Judd found himself shy and embarrassed about having a girl in his house when he was alone. He had dated before, of course, but his parents had put such restrictions on him that he had pretty much given up on asking girls out. He saw them at school and after school, but he didn't have on special girl.


So even the big man on campus is nice and virginal. This of course parallels the adult books in which we were expected to believe that Buck Williams, aka GIRAT, acted like a virginal RTC even before he became an RTC.

A few days ago, he wouldn't have cared if he never went to school again. Now he wondered, if Bruce Barnes was right about the Rapture signaling the end of the world in about seven years, whether school was worth anything.


And you've got to wonder if school would even be open at all in circumstances like this, with every child on earth missing. Governments should have collapsed, making public education a non-issue.

Maybe it would be all right for school to start up again, once this traffic and fire and death mess had been cleaned up.


Once again, this is the expression on my face after reading this line: O_o Ellanjay make the rapture sound like a particularly wild Mardi Gras parade, that all the kids have to do is wait for the street sweepers to clean everything up.

Remember this was the scene just a couple days ago:



Does this look like the aftermath of a wild Mardi Gras parade to you?

Of course, he could have chosen to ignore God, to thumb his nose at the Creator and continue living for himself. But he had been a rebel, not an ignoramus.


He also could have chosen option three: mount a war against God. But Ellanjay are the gods of this universe so that option doesn't even enter into the calculation.

Anyway what happens in the rest of the chapter is that Judd watches CNN, Ryan gets Lionel's bike but is injured in the process and his home is broken into, Ryan decides to go to the Steeles and I'm bored to death. Next Chapter, please.

Basically all four kids wind up at the church with Bruce Barnes again. And Lionel has this conversation with Bruce about Ryan.

"I've been working on him," Lionel said. "And I know how important you say it is for him not to put this off."
"It is."
"But it's not like he's putting it off. It's more like he really doesn't understand or doesn't want to. Sometimes I think he understands fine but just doesn't believe in God."


I don't think it's a matter of believing or not believing in God that's the problem here. Ryan, unlike most people, has received proof of God's existence. The problem here is the nature of that God who sends people to Hell because he can't be arsed to apply the brakes.

"Ryan's going to be the toughest," Bruce said. "This is newer to him, and his parents are dead."


So are your wife and children, yet you don't seem to display an ounce of sorrow over them. John List demonstrates more remorse than you.

Not to mention, not only are Ryan's parents dead but they're roasting on a spit in Hell for the minor offense of having not said The Prayer when they never had a chance because God can't apply the brakes! :deep breath:

But don't fret, readers. I'm sure Ryan will be made to kneal before Zod, I mean, God, eventually.

3 comments:

Firedrake said...

[claps Mouse on shoulder in a reassuring manner] I'd love to say it will get better, but you're reading these so that I don't have to...

I suspect that individuals would try to keep the appearance of normality going even with governments collapsing. Mr Pryzbylewski is still going to be teaching his math class even if half the school is missing. (Yeah, guess what I'm watching at the moment.) So yes, I can believe school is still happening in some form.

Apart from the crashed planes, yeah, I've been at parties that ended up that way. :-) Problem is that in this case it's everywhere at once.

Judd could have chosen to use his brain and decide that it's not worth even trying to follow the rules of an arbitrary God like this - He'll only change them anyway, when He feels like it.

(I can't quote here but assume this paragraph is wrapped in blockquote tags) "Ryan's going to be the toughest," Bruce said. "This is newer to him, and his parents are dead."

"There's no emotion. None. Just the pretense of it. The words, the gesture, the tone of voice, everything else is the same, but not the feeling."

("And there'll be no more tears." -- also from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/ )

Ruby said...

"Ryan's going to be tough to convert," said Bruce Barnes. "After all, he knows his parents are being slow-roasted in Hell for all eternity."

Mink said...

(Hee! I've been saying 'OMZod!' for years now! Ever since seeing the Form 1040Zod online....)

For starters, thank you for reviewing these books, so that we dont have to read them. It's sincerely appreciated, even though they are really kind of hell to slog through. :(

There've been a few interesting fics on waging war on God after the horror of the Rapture, but I keep coming back to one problem: The number of RTCs who actually meet the requirements for getting into Club Heav. It strikes me that the requirements are rather narrow, and that the disappearance/death of everyone in the world who is under the age of twelve* would vastly overshadow the disappearance of a relatively very small number of Americans.

Basically, who'll notice it's the Rapture when every 12 year old and younger are dead? Worse, if they're disappeared?

The ideas of waging war on God are intriguing in such a case. Such a war has to be more than just a refusal to worship such a being; that's passive, and it hasn't really stopped TurboJesus's dad** so far, if the Rapture is still going to happen. So there would need to be some sort of active way to attack and weaken the Rapture God and... express our displeasure with his policies of prepubescent kidnapping/murder of a minor, felony manslaughter, and felony negligence knowingly resulting in death.

Still thinking! ^_^ Hopefully it will soothe the pain a little.


* - This also harkens to the "God doesn't apply the brakes" idiocy. What about people who are twelve years and one second old at the instant of rapture? What about those who are emotionally under twelve? What about those whose physical development is arrested or restrained to about 12 years old? What about relativistic effects? What if someone is 11 years old but killed a man in Georgia just to watch him die? What if the Menendez brothers were 11? What if an 11 year old is in the habit of speaking blasphemy?

** - I can't call the Rapture God 'Zod.' Zod was just too cool to do that to. 'Rapture God' does sound interesting;, though, in a sort of Aztec-deity way. Hmm, must think on this....