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Sorry about not posting for last week. I was in the hospital and unable to get to a computer and by the time I got out, I decided to just wait until Sunday like usual to do my posting.
Anyway, I'll start with some bad news: Shelly decides to kneel before Zod. This is wrenching news, I know; we were all hoping she'd escape like Tom Fogarty, but so much for that hope.
Anyway, the Global Community monitors are in full force and are searching everybody at school. Got to hand it to ol' Nicky Karakoram: he works fast. Somehow he's able to have two people in a school with hundreds of kids, search everybody.
Bruce still doesn't want the YTF doing another paper and we finally get some mention of Rayford and Chloe as Bruce asks them to pray for them because Rayford might get the job piloting his plane. Again, I've theorized that LaHaye wasn't breathing down Jenkins's neck as much judging by how we've so far, followed Buck more and Rayford's barely been mentioned. That's my theory and so far, there's not a lot to disprove it.
Back to Shelly though. Bruce goes to visit her and her mother is there, stinking of alcohol, therefore acting like someone who has lost someone, which earns her the scorn of the other characters. She's also suspicious of Bruce and the bill of goods he's trying to sell which makes me like her even more. She's worried, justifiably I might say, that Shelly has made a foolish decision under duress.
Meanwhile, the YTF are out collecting bibles and Ryan finds a dog, names it Phoenix, and I nearly collapse of boredom. Let's go to the next chapter.
In the next chapter, thrill as the YTF goes to plant its paper and narrowly misses getting caught. But all is not well as Vicki is pulled out of class by the Global Community monitors.
So next chapter, Vicki is being given the Eeevil Athiest Inquisition as they question her about the paper and it turns out the person who snitched on her was Shelly who was strong-armed into it by her mother. :cue dramatic prairie dog:
And I'm afraid that's it for this week. Not much happens in these three chapters and there's nothing quotable. I almost wanted to do a fourth chapter for you, but a lot goes down in that chapter, so much so that it deserves its own post.
Sorry to disappoint for this week.
10 comments:
Disappoint? No... glad to hear you're out of the hospital! Would I be too impertinent to ask what happened?
What I find interesting is that even when nothing's going on at ALL, this manages to be totally dull and boring. Wait... that's every chapter. My bad.
Seriously though, we need to have a meta-fic soon. There is so much potential for "Hey, waitaminute! This is royally screwed up" moments by the "Unsaved" kids, and yet, they all must drink the kool-aid and become uninteresting.
And that's what I REALLY hate about the stepfordization of these kids. They actually could be interesting, until they start having their lines implanted by their newly installed turbojesus ministry chip...
Hope you're now less in need of a hospital than you were when you went in.
There's not really enough of a character for a meta-Shelley fic, I fear.
Bruce: "No, don't produce another paper. That might bring more people into RTC-dom, and there's only so much space in the hole we're digging."
No-one expects the Atheist Inquisition! (Sorry, had to say it.)
Glad you're out of the hospital!
Im sorry, though... I read this and I tried to imagine reading the original; I almost fell asleep in my chair. Once again nothing happens.
Good grief. And Jenkins and LeHaye hold a Christian writers' workshop?! I know I'm learning how NOT to write while reading about this book!
Because it's not said often enough: Mouse, thank you for reading this so we don't have to. I don't know how you keep your good humor and sanity while reading this dreck. :(
Cute comment, Firedrake, and thank you all for your kind words.
Regarding the Athiest Inquistion, I'm still trying to figure out what their chief weapons are. Copies of Richard Dawkins latest?
Hmm. "Our chief weapons are rationality, a willingness to examine every assumption no matter how cherished, and a nice hot cup of tea"?
Is it just me, or does every adult who's having a mental breakdown start drinking? It'd be common, I'm sure. If all the children spontaneously disintegrated I'd probably be hitting the bottle too, but not everyone would. Where are the stress cases, the people trying to act normal, or the people get zoned out on valium instead of booze?
"...the person who snitched on her was Shelly..."
I guess saved is saved, but some saved are more saved than other saved. Vicky should have borrowed a page from Judd and Lionel in their treatment of Ryan: Treat the new member like dirt until they're psychologically dependent upon the group. Or maybe just, you know, not pass on dangerous information until after you know a bit more about the person's situation...
Well, booze is OK because it's something a Real Man might fall into, but Drugs are Bad Forever because only bad people ever use them?
And yeah, as I've been saying in the commentary on Soon, these guys really don't know anything about how an underground movement works. Or a secret police.
All the more reason NOT to hide out with the RTCs if a dictatorship ever happens. Don't include them in your resistance movement either.
"Again, I've theorized that LaHaye wasn't breathing down Jenkins's neck as much judging by how we've so far, followed Buck more and Rayford's barely been mentioned. That's my theory and so far, there's not a lot to disprove it."
I'm betting that is true--and I wouldn't be surprised if Jenkins figured that the mulleted, jean-tuxedoed 30-year-old would be more hip with the kids than Rayford, a graying 45-year-old stuck in a lousy marriage.
The usual phrase "In the hands of better writers..." ... the plot of a teenager, Shelley, being coerced by her mother into betraying her friends could be powerful stuff. You could just do historic, real cases, from Nazi Germany and Hitler Youth, Stalinist Russia and Young Pioneers, Mao's China and Revolutionary Guards, betraying their friends or parents - and parents being torn between ideology and common sense, too.*
Heck, in the Harry Potter (really well written children's books) series, when in Book 5 an evil inquisitor with a ... certain smile takes over the school, and the kids found an army to fight (first learning proper defense), one of the girls betrays them. (Later it turns out that her mother works for the oppressive ministry and she was under pressure). Powerful scene.
In the movie, for whatever reasons, the role was changed from "friend of love interest Cho Chang" to "Cho Chang being given Truth serum by evil inquisitor and therefore spilling the secret against her will" which is a different story.
* There was a joke in the communist dictatorships that goes like this:
Two guys are in prison/ Gulag for traitors. One asks the other: "Why are you here?" - "Laziness." - "You mean sabotage?" (not fulfilling the required work per shift) - "No, see, I talked with a friend about politics, but it was late at night and raining, so I thought I had until morning to turn him in to the secret police, but he turned me in during the night."
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