Facing the Idiot Hydra

Like I said for those of you who enjoy all those scenes where an RTC patronizingly explains to a Jewish character how they've apparently been misinterpreting their own scriptures for centuries, you're in luck this week. And of course, said lectures also come with a dollop of "The GC are the real anti-Semites, because they want to kill Jews, whereas RTCs merely want them to abandon the faith that has sustained them through countless millennia, surrender their identities, and become good RTCs, which is totally different!"

So Judd and Gunther basically just walk in and what follows results in me headdesking a lot. Because I'm fairly certain you'd have a more difficult time shoplifting a pack of gum from the mini-mall than these characters have in busting out the prisoners.

Basically all they do is walk up to this one chick, wave around a paper that claims contains orders from Nicky (I won't use the word "Potentate." I have a few principles but I stand by them) demanding that the prisoners be let go. And while I know New Babylon is under the effects of this whole Blindness plague (except for our brave heroes), I'm still like "Seriously?" Because you'd think that given Nicky's top-notch communications network, someone would have radioed in something like, "Yeah, we've been struck blind," and from there, order all their employees to stay where they are and continue to do their jobs until things get worked out.

But that's one of the many things that bugs me about this series: not only are the heroes consistently caught off guard by the latest Act of God, but so are the villains. Even though Nicky is possessed by Satan and there have been countless works written by PMDs listing when all this horrible stuff will go down. I thought Nicky's shtick was that he knew exactly what was going to happen somehow believed that everything was going to work out, so long as he follows everything to the letter. Granted, it makes no sense because if he knows what's going to happen, then he knows that he gets punted to Hell in the end.

Initially, when I started this series, I just assumed that Nicky was basically a puppet for Zod to carry out his work, that he had no will of his own. Granted that's pretty sick--the idea that Zod created Nicky to be the anti-Christ, yet when all this is said and done, he gets punted for being the anti-Christ even though he lacked the free will needed to change his fate--but at least it was somewhat consistent.

Anyway, my long-winded point is, why is Nicky completely caught off guard by all this? Why isn't he like, "Okay this plague will last X number of hours. Until then, stay where you are and don't let anyone go until it lifts?"

But again, if this series had villains that actually posed a threat...yeah there'd be no way we'd have gotten to 40 kids books and 16 adult ones. Because I have an easier time listing villains who were less effective than Nicky than I do trying to think of more effective ones. There are toddlers playing with chemicals found under the sink that are more of a threat to the world than Nicky! Zygotes are more of a threat to the world than Nicky! Probably even Aquaman from the Superfriends is more intimidating than Nicky!

And yes, I know, Aquaman in the comics is a lot cooler, but y'know I love any excuse to indulge in my love of crappy Saturday Morning Cartoons put out by people whom...in the Superfriends' case, I think it's safe to assume that everyone involved, was on massive amounts of drugs. Probably even the kids who originally watched that series. I'm not sure how, but it's the only logical conclusion for the sheer amount of WTFery that is the Superfriends.

So anyway, Judd and Gunther find the seven, but three of them have Marks, so they're going to let them hang. Though I could ask why exactly they'd be in prison. They did what Nicky wanted, surrendered their identities and accepted the Mark that means they will burn for all eternity. I suppose they could be like Dr. Rose (who isn't dead, dammit!) in that they accepted the Mark, but have since fallen out of love of Nicky, but you know how Ellanjay feel about nuance. They believe in the Gospel According to George W. Bush: you're either with us or you're with the enemy. The idea that people could object to God and Nicky...something tells me if we were to try to explain that to them, what would result is an eruption that makes Pompeii look like a piker in comparison. That is, if they don't just start reciting their talking points over and over again until you say, "Screw it," and walk away. Because if your opponent realizes you can't be reasoned with, gives up, and walks away, you've won the argument.

So Gunther decides to RTCsplain to one of the Jewish prisoners. And if you guessed that we get an example of how RTCs simultaneously believe that all non-RTCs are mind-blowingly ignorant of Jesus yet at the same time, are well-versed in the bizarre lingo of the RTC culture but pretend otherwise...again, congratulations. Wish I could say you could redeem any of the points you get for acquiring this knowledge for anything useful, but I'm afraid not.

Here's the conversation:

“How do we know you’re not the GC with more of your tricks?” Longhair said.

“We come in the name of the Prince of Peace, the King of kings, the one who was called the Light of the World.”

“Who is this light?” a bearded man said. “And when can he come down here?”

Gunther chuckled. “I will tell you about this light. In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn’t make. Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

:headdesk:

Because apparently the Jewish people are so ignorant that they haven't heard of the first few verses of the Gospel of John or that apparently Christians worship some guy whom they also call The Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, and the Light of the World. They somehow have never heard of this. They never went to school or read a book or watched a movie or a television show. Because, like it or not, Christianity has had a major impact on the world and as a result, even if a form of entertainment doesn't explicitly say, "This is totally about Jesus," Christian motifs still show up. In order to understand what people are talking about when they say Superman is a Christ figure, you have to have a basic knowledge of who Jesus Christ is and what people believe about the guy, even if you don't agree one hundred percent. Of course, in Superman's case, the idea that so many call the character a Christ figure, is somewhat amusing, given that his creators were both Jewish. But I think I've made my point.

Though I suppose that passage could have been so much worse. Ellanjay could have decided that all Jewish people speak in backwards talk like Yoda or that they all began all their sentences with, "You want?" Like the guy could have been like, "You want that this guy can come down here?" or something like that.

Because like I keep saying, I freely admit that I like to exaggerate for comedic effect, but in Ellanjay's case, I don't think I'm really exaggerating much. Whenever one of their characters identifies another character as Jewish, I always assume it's because said Jewish character is wearing a kippah, eating a bagel, sporting sidelocks and a beard (even if they're female), and shouting, "Oy Vey!" at various intervals. That or in this not-so-distant future, the Jewish people wear special codpieces that accentuate their circumcised penises. Again, even if they're female.* Because that's what Ellanjay believe regarding the Jewish people: that they're basically a collective like the Borg, only with more beards and fewer electronic components.

Anyway, Unnamed Longhaired Guy is like, "Yeah, I'll take my chances" and is shuffled off-screen. But fear not: a younger guy is curious, thus giving Judd an opening so he can rack up another Christ-killer convert for God.

Of course, the dude has an incredibly Jewish name, Zvi Zeidman, but I'll be damned if I'm going to waste time learning it, especially since I don't know if we'll ever see him again, so I'll just call him ZZ Top. There's probably more dignity in being named ZZ Top. Plus the girls go crazy for a sharp-dressed man.

I know, I should stop indulging in my love of eighties cheese, especially since the eighties also gave us Ronald Reagan, aka the guy who responsible for a lot of the idiot rightwing ideas that we're still trying to get out from underneath of. :(

But before we get into the RTCsplainning, Judd shows off his awesome super-vision, by reading an email.

Regarding the latest Jewish camp on the Island, I wish to relate good news. The transport you sent arrived fine with only two dead prisoners. We have experienced great success in keeping the inmates alive and, at the same time, miserable. The camp doctor has come up with a concoction that we have to feed only once a day, and it sustains the prisoners for twenty-four hours.

Truly the GC's capacity for cruelty knows no bounds! Can anyone think of anything more evil than giving a prisoner one meal a day that satisfies their daily calorie requirement?! I mean, sure the GC could be giving them nothing, thus condemning the prisoners to a slow, horrible death from starvation, or they could feed them very little, while working them to death building weapons and other projects on behalf of the GC, again, condemning them to die slowly and horribly from starvation. But clearly the GC's method of giving them one meal that sustains them for a day, is so much worse!

Judd reads a little more about something called The Island, which apparently is located on the Tigris and is bad, somehow. I'll assume this is something that they talk about in the Adult books, but given that I have enough worthless knowledge clogging up valuable neuron space, I'm not going to bother to hold onto this, not even on the off-chance that it'll come into play later on.

Ellanjay continue to present their "The GC are the real anti-Semites, not us!" defense by having ZZ Top talk about how the GC are so much worse than the Nazis:

“It’s worse than the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. The GC torture their prisoners to the point of death but don’t allow them the decency of dying. I’ve even heard they take videos of the beatings and torture and send them to Carpathia.”

I can't be the only one fighting the urge to point out that the majority of the Nazis identified as Christian. If you talked to their friends and neighbors, they would be the kind of people that they would speak well of. They attended church every week, paid the bills on time, and were kind to their wives and kids. Yet at the same time they were doing horrible things to innocent people.

Because like Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, in The Gulag Archipelago, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

Because what Ellanjay stubbornly refuses to accept is that all the horrible people of history, your Hitlers and Stalins and whatnot, weren't supernatural beings that inexplicably bamfed onto Earth and decided to do horrible things for shits and giggles; they, along with all the many people who carried out their orders, were people, ordinary, horrible people.

Yeah, I'm going to put in another quote, this one by Hannah Arendt from her infamous Eichmann in Jerusalem book. I suppose it would help if Ellanjay read the entire book from cover to cover, but really just this one quote would probably help:

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied — as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels — that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.

Judd is all "You don't have to stay in the dark." and ZZ Top is like "So you're going to preach now?" And Judd lays it out for the poor befuddled Jew, who, well I'd say he was raised by wolves which is why he has never heard any of Judd's standard boilerplate theology before and acts like all this is new, but I'm fairly certain even if ZZ Top had been raised by wolves, he wouldn't be this clueless.

“Basically, God loves you and wants you to be his child. He wants to adopt you into his family, but he won’t do that unless you want to be a part of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“God’s perfect. He can’t allow anything near him that’s imperfect. And you and I are both sinful. We’ve done bad things.”

“I’ve been taught since I was young that the path to God was through obeying his commands.”

“True, but you know as well as I do that you haven’t lived up to every command. And if you break even one, you’re out of the program. That’s why God had to provide a sacrifice, so we could be forgiven.”

"But by that logic, if I say The Prayer with the precise amount of passion and sincerity demanded, I can do whatever I want and still wind up in Heaven, so long as I ask for forgiveness afterwards for the horrible things I do, right?"

Oh how I wish ZZ Top would say that. Just like I wish he'd point out "Okay so God's perfect, which is why we can't be around him, because we're imperfect. Even though God created us to be imperfect in the first place. How does that make sense? And why exactly can't he just say, 'Sorry about that screw-up,' and wave his hand and make us perfect?"

But like I said, the Rapture probably will come and go before we see an honest skeptic asks a question that isn't pure weaksauce. Just like I'll wait in vain for a character who isn't defined solely by his/her ethnic identity or for a villain that isn't made of incompetence.

But there's more...

“Zvi, have you ever considered the possibility that you’ve been living in darkness your whole life? Do you know God’s peace, feel his forgiveness, his love?”

“You can’t know those things in this life.”

“Yes, you can. Again, I’m not trying to preach, and this is your decision, but God is real and he wants to come into your life right now and make a difference. He wants to show you mercy, but you have to accept it. I’ve met a lot of people in the past few years who’ve been raised exactly like you, and when they see the truth, they can’t believe they were blind to it for so long.”

:whimpers: For those of you, like me, cringing at all the illogic, I really hate to break it to you, but next week, it'll only get worse. That's the beauty of this series: every time you cringe and think, "Now there's no way they can come up with something worse than this scene," Ellanjay dig deep and find a way.

Or in other words, for all of you who enjoy my profanity-laced, all-caps ragedumps, you have much to look forward to next week.

Because I don't think you could sway a brain-damaged toddler with this logic yet in the next chapter...the only way I can describe it is, the way I describe a lot of things: through pop culture references. Basically the next chapter...you know that scene in The Princess Bride where Wesley gets a year sucked off his life and all he can do is whimper afterwards? Yeah, I have whole new insight into how he must have felt?

Ellanjay, in yet another futile attempt at suspense, end the chapter by having the female guard come in and threaten them with a gun. I suppose it would be threatening if she could actually see to aim it and if you didn't know, even without having read the books or my posts, that it will all come to nothing, but they tried.

I could also point out that there's no logical reason why she suddenly is like "Hey, you're those bad guys I'm supposed to be executing by the hundreds!" when earlier, she barely bat an eye when they claimed to be GC. Because since the GC operate on the honor system, all Judd and Gunther have to do is say they're with the GC and it totally works. Because an evil Satanic worldwide government has never ever heard of lying.

But now that the plot needs some suspense, suddenly she's threatening them. :sighs: I'd say this entire series is an Idiot Plot, but that feels piddling and inadequate. This series is a Idiot Hydra: no matter how many idiot plots/characters you cut away, they just sprout more.

*I suppose I should apologize for that visual, but hey, Misery Loves Company. Brace yourselves for next week, though.

I Get Pedantic (Or Am Still Totally on Satan's Side)

So for those of you who didn't read last week's post, the GC are stumbling around in the dark as a result of God's latest plague which is a plague of darkness that solely hits New Babylon for reasons! Our heroes are able to see somewhat, enough that they can get around and laugh at all those hapless unbelievers, which is what takes up most of the chapter.

But seriously the amount of Deus Ex Machina in this series...it's like trying to play freeze tag or something with that one irritating kid. No matter how many times you get him, he's like "Nuh-uh I have [Superpower X] which makes me immune" until you want to just smack the hell out of him and go play with someone else. Another bit of advice for writers: Invincible Characters are boring as hell!

So Gunther, Westin, and Judd are driving around talking about what's happened and what will happen. Gunther, based on his reading of the Bible, believes that God's going to nuke New Babylon. Because the verse says that the city will be destroyed by fire and the only thing that causes fire, are nukes apparently. Ellanjay probably look down on people who are obsessed with Nostradamus yet they fall into a lot of the same traps as Nostradamus groupies.

But in a rare display of, I don't know what to call this, Gunther suggests that they take advantage of the light plague and use it to free GC prisoners while the GC are stumbling around like idiots. :Dramatic Prairie Dog: Okay, who are you and what have you done with the actual Tribbles? Show me on the doll where the aliens probed you, Gunther! Because as an RTC, you should have internalized the sacred Tribbles ethos of doing nothing! After all, Ellanjay have shown that nothing but bad comes of violating this ethos! The few Tribbles who have actually done stuff, inevitably wind up dead! So WTF?!

Gunther held up a hand. “If Judd’s right—and I think he is—we still have time to do some good here.”

“What do you have in mind?” Judd said.

“Radios and computers are working,” Gunther said. “We might be able to communicate with other locations and get the GC to release prisoners, maybe foul up their system. Plus, there’s a holding facility not far from here. Captured Jews are sent to concentration camps from there. Since the heat wave ended, they’ve probably brought new people there.”

Okay, so since Judd suggested it and since Judd is a Main Character, thus higher up on the Great Chain of Being than Gunther, that's why he suddenly wants to do stuff. Still haven't ruled out a possible pod person invasion, though.

I did read the next chapter after this one and for those who you who felt there weren't enough scenes where the Author's Mouthpiece patronizingly explains to a Jewish character that they've apparently misinterpreted their own scriptures for countless millennia, don't worry: we've got one coming down the pipe for you. :sighs: It's times like this, I think of that quote from King of the Hill where John Redcorn (an Indian) goes, "Five Hundred Years of Oppression, and somehow I find this the most irritating." Except, of course, the Jewish people kind of have the Indians beat on that account.

[Slight Tangent] Since one of the perks of having an eBook is the "Search Inside" feature, I decided to use it and if they ever mention Joel or Aron again. For those of you who have forgotten, Joel and Aron are a pair of Jewish brothers, but Joel took the Mark in order to keep his brother from starving to death. Because feeding the hungry is for dirty hippies. Since when has Jesus fed anyone? Though he has regretted taking the Mark ever since, by the characters' own admission, Joel is going to burn for all eternity. :pauses to scream a little: Last we left Aron, the RTCs were dropping him off in Petra to be with his parents, which gave me some hope. Because they didn't do the obligatory "Character Kneels Before Zod" scene, I thought maybe Aron would get out of this somehow. But I also remembered that Ellanjay love to do that cute trick where they shuffle a character off-stage for so long and with so little mention that you can't pick on the reader for forgetting that they existed, so I checked. And neither Joel or Aron's names turn up in this book. I'm not sure what to make of that. Just know that Joel is one of the few characters in the League of Awesome, along with Taylor, Hasina, and Dr. Rose. If you know of anyone else who deserves promotion to the league, let me know. [/Slight Tangent that probably bored people to tears]

But Judd has to call his one shot at getting laid before God comes back and takes away sex for everyone. Vicki is all "Tell me you've gotten out of here" and Judd has to tell her that with all the GC planes destroyed by the heat wave and Westin's plane destroyed as well, they're not going to get out any time soon.

Uh, yeah, guys you know there are other ways of getting to Petra that don't involve the use of planes. Okay, I went to the wikia for this series (the things I do in order to make my snarks accurate). According to the wikia for this series, New Babylon is located on the ruins of old Babylon in Iraq. I'm not going to dig too deep and ask which old Babylon they're dealing with (I'm pathetic but not that pathetic, not yet anyway), but most place that ancient civilization as roughly in the southern part of Iraq. Since we can't pin it down too much, I'll just assume that New Babylon is located somewhere between the Tigris and the Euphrates and all that. In fact to make this a little easier for my poor suffering readers, we're going to pin down Babylon's location as the modern city of Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, just so we can have a few parameters to work with.

That leaves Petra. Petra's location can be more easily pinned down, in the southern Jordan governorate of Ma'an. The nearest town to Petra is Wadi Musa, so we'll use that in order to pin down the distance between the two points. After doing all this digging, I'd estimate that there are 551 miles between Our Heroes and the Holy City of Refuge. That is a good distance to be sure, but what I'm getting at with all this nitpicking and obsessing over geography, is THE READERS CAN PROBABLY THINK OF MANY WAYS FOR THE HEROES TO GET TO PETRA THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE USING A PLANE!

I know Ellanjay wouldn't dream of letting their characters do something as gauche as use the two limbs located on either side of their sin spear, and I admit, I'd certainly try to avoid traveling that far using either a bicycle or my own two feet (don't even get me started on the kind of terrain Our Lazy-Ass Heroes would face), but really, the only means of travel that come to mind is a large metal gas-guzzling phallic symbol?!

Okay, given what we know about Ellanjay and how desperate they are to assert the manliness of their heroes, their preference for the large gas-guzzling phallic symbol way of travel isn't too surprising. But even with my amateur knowledge of geography, I know New Babylon probably isn't the only city in Iraq. Ever hear of a little place called Baghdad? They could, travel by foot or bike or vehicle until they're out of New Babylon, then use their contacts to get someone to fly them out to Petra. Spoiler alert: no one suggests this. [/Insanely long rant about Geography]

Sorry about the previous rant. I swear I'm not normally this pedantic. But like I keep telling aunursa and many others, if this series had given me something, anything to think about, like a character or a plot point worth following, I wouldn't so obsessed with pinning down minor details like this. But Ellanjay failed as writers, so I have no choice but to be all irritating and nitpicky.

Judd tells Vicki about Gunther's plan. Vicki continues to wring her hands and express concern for Judd's safety, before realizing that though she may be a Main Character, which boosts her above other characters, that still doesn't overcome her primary defect: that she's a girl with girl parts. So she tells Judd to be careful but to go and set free as many captives as he can. And that's the extent of Vicki's participation in this chapter.

Gunther did do something smart by destroying one of the Mark applicators. Though given that Nicky can probably easily have one shipped in via rail (another form of transportation our heroes could take advantage of) or by air once this plague is over, it probably just slowed him down a little. To be fair, that's more than what they have been doing and it's nice to see them behaving somewhat like the resistance group they claim to be, but really, you wished that Ellanjay had done some research on guerilla warfare or resistance groups. Because when a lazy English major can poke holes in your heroes' Great Heroic Action Against Tyranny...yeah.

To be fair, said destruction probably has value from a symbolic standpoint, but destroying one machine out of the many many others Nicky has...Good luck. Especially since Nicky has proven over and over again that he runs a top-notch government with infrastructure most people can only dream of, so like I said, he'll replace the broken machine pretty soon.

Anyway, I'd thought that Judd and Westin and Gunther were going to go liberate a GC Holding Facility and liberate it, which actually would be an impressive Act Against Tyranny, but instead, they dick around by going to a restaurant. And as said before, while I know we're supposed to be on the side of Our Compassionate Heroes as they smirk at the horrific sufferings of others, but...you can see where I'm going with all this, can't you?

Here's a hint: the heroes don't come across as particularly compassionate when they whine about the wailing of all those suffering heathens.

I'll just provide a few quotes for you, without commentary, because there are times in which commentary is insufficient/redundant.

“Oh, Nicolae, you have all power,” an older woman cried from across the street. “You bring light and peace and hope. Please, Nicolae, save us!”

“Shut up, woman!” a young man said. He was sitting with his back against the wall of a building next to the restaurant. “Neither Nicolae nor Fortunato can save you from this.”

“Blasphemer!” an older man yelled. “You let Nicolae or any of his Peacekeepers hear you say that and you’re a dead man.”

The young man scratched at a bloody scab on his neck. “Death would be welcomed right now.”

Gunther and the others went inside the restaurant, stepping over two bodies of people who had killed themselves. Judd stayed behind and inspected the young man’s forehead. No mark. But when Judd leaned down and caught a glimpse of the man’s right hand, he saw the clear mark of Carpathia.

The young man took a swipe at the air, missing Judd’s head by inches. “Who are you? What do you want?” He had pulled his shirt up and was rubbing up against the coarse brick, trying to get some relief. His back was bleeding.

“I’m a friend,” Judd said softly. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“No.”

“Can you get one?”

“What for?”

The young man laughed wildly. “How long has it been since this darkness came? A week? Two?”

“It’s only been a few hours,” Judd said.

The man put a finger in his mouth and bit down hard. Blood poured from the wound and gushed down his lips. “I can’t see to take a step, and I don’t have the energy if I could. I just want to die. I know this is the end.”

Judd stood and took a step toward the restaurant door.

“Please, I beg you. Hit me with something, knock me out. I can’t stand this itching, and my head feels like it’s about to burst!”

“I can’t help you,” Judd said. “I wish you’d have responded to God before it was too—”

“God?” the man screamed. “Jesus? I hate them! I hate everyone who talks about God!”

If you guessed, regarding the second passage, that Judd just steps around the corpses and keeps walking, congratulations. You could have donated valuable neuron space so much worthier information.

But yeah, am kind of regretting starting that "Our Sociopathic Heroes" tag, because there really is no way I can avoid overusing it until it loses all meaning. That and the "Strawman Always Has A Point" tag as well. Because as I keep pointing out, GOD IS THE ONE WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THIS HORRIBLE SHIT IN THIS WORLD! Just remember: Nicky uses his supernatural powers to rescue people, which is bad. God uses his supernatural powers to kill people after which HE SPENDS ETERNITY BURNINATING THE SHIT OUT OF YOU, which is good.

Because seriously, when Silver-Age Superman is looking at you and saying, "Christ, what a dick," you need to reexamine your life. Figure out at what point did you sell your heart for some magical beans or something.

The scene at the restaurant, as you probably guessed, Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing. Judd and some other characters cook some meat and leave. After which, they drive around some more with Judd sitting in the backseat thinking about how it's very sad that those horrible people left God with no choice but to Exterminate all the Brutes! As you probably guessed, even before you read the part I'm about to quote, while I love exaggerating for comedic effect, I'm not exaggerating by much. I very rarely am when it comes to these books.

Everywhere they drove, Judd heard howls from people in pain. It seemed to be getting worse by the hour. When people heard the car’s engine, they ran into the street, reaching out like blind zombies, trying anything to relieve their pain. Judd hated ignoring them, but what could they do? These people had chosen against God and were now paying the price.

Judd wondered what it was about the darkness that made things so much worse. Simply turning out the lights on the world was one thing, but there was something supernatural about this that caused people enough pain to want to kill themselves.

Yeah, I know I shouldn't repeat myself and I know I should stop invoking Godwin's Law, but like I said in previous posts, if the RTCs were dropped in a village down the road from Auschwitz in the years between 1940-1945, the extent of their rebellious actions against a genocidal tyrannical government, would be praying that all those gassed people became RTCs before they died and complaining about all the dead person ash from the crematoriums ruining their whites. I mean, show some consideration, people!

I could also point out that said genocidal tyrannical government during that time was also predominately Christian, but they'd probably just invoke the No True Scotsman fallacy and we'd wind up going in circles.

It's like I said, in another Left Behind discussion thread, but sometimes I wonder if this Weird Al song doesn't perfectly encapsulate RTCs: Why Does This Always Happen to Me? Because you know Rayford or any Ellanjay character would complain about how the bones in their boss's face bent the tip of the blade after they stabbed him with it, thus making it so it would never be quite as sharp again.

Anyway, they do finally get to a holding camp, complete with razor wire and guard towers. The guard is all bluster, but the RTCs just seriously walk up and start opening the gates. :headdesk: I think even the guys who gave us Red Dawn could have created a more plausible, busting out the prisoners scene. Granted that movie is pretty much an NRA masturbation fest, but still.

And that's it. Get ready for patronizing lectures next week! I keep wondering if I should call this kind of lecturing, Christsplainning or RTCsplainning. You guys can tell me which works better in this case.

Totally Rooting for Satan (because I have no other options)

Happy Saturday everybody! Thought I'd try posting my update today for some reason. Got nothing better to do.

Anyway, for a brief instance, the GC does demonstrate a basic level of competence. I know, I'm shocked too. Granted it dissipates pretty quickly as yet another Deus Ex Machina intervenes before the characters suffer so much as a bruise, but still. Like I said, I keep thinking I should have named that tag "Villain Always Has a Point" instead of "Strawman Always Has a Point." I've said it before and I'll say it again: this series forces me to side with Satan simply because the heroes are such reprehensible people.

Because you know I love pop culture references, think of the beginning (with the GC demonstrating basic competence) as being like the beginning of Star Wars: Episode IV, where the stormtroopers swoop in and kill everyone aboard Princess Leia's spaceship. They get that one scene of competence than spend the rest of the movie being the idiots who smack their heads on door frames and couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. Thing is, Star Wars had a sense of fun about the whole deal and had characters you could actually care about, especially Han Solo. :pauses to drool: If you were to ask me who my childhood crushes were, I'd say my first crush was either Han Solo or Tommy Oliver. Yes, that Tommy Oliver from Power Rangers. C'mon, he's awesome!

But I should probably stop talking about Star Wars and childhood crushes and get back to the business at hand.

Judd is all bent out of shape that the GC is swarming the hideout and arresting everyone inside, even though the RTCs are a terrorist group that has repeatedly tried to undermine Nicky's regime and made numerous threats on the lives of Nicky's supporters, siccing God on anyone who dares to oppose them.

Okay to be fair, Nicky is hardly a shining beacon of democracy, but at the same time...it's an old rule I have, regarding stories with heroes and villains: you should be able to tell the difference between the two. If the city of Petra is supposed to be a micro-version of the Kingdom of God, given that previous snarks have demonstrated that Petra is about democratic as North Korea, you know that if Token Jew and his merry band of RTCs were in power, they'd be imprisoning and torturing and executing their enemies as well. But they'd be doing it in the name of TurboJesus, which makes it okay.

As though having heard all my complaints about how for all their bluster, the RTCs are surprisingly afraid of martyrdom, Ellanjay do have Judd narrate about how he's totes not afraid of dying, though he will regret not getting to third base with Vicki not being able to see Vicki again. Though given that TurboJesus shows up about a year from now, like I said, that's really not too horrible a fate.

Anyway, before the Deus Ex Machina steps in and makes all this completely pointless, I thought I'd quote some of the stuff with the GC demonstrating basic competence. Because I feel like celebrating whenever any character does that in this series.

A man with several military medals pinned to his uniform stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back. “I suppose you’re wondering why your little operation didn’t explode when we entered, hmm?”

When no one answered, the man gave a fake smile and continued. “Well, I’ll tell you. After your two friends gave us trouble, we found your guns.” He motioned overhead. “When we uncovered your entrance, instead of barging in, we called in the bomb squad.” He pointed to the side of the house, and Judd saw a gaping hole. “We made a new entrance—hope you don’t mind—found your little bomb, defused it, and waited. What a shock when we heard you enter through the sewers.”

And here's the second example:

The officer squinted. “You have no guns, you have no contact with other rebels, and you have no chance of escape.” He held up a small computer device. “And in this tiny drive I have all the information from your computers. Your contacts, your plans. Everything.”

Helga gave the man a worried look. “Our files are encrypted. You’ll never be able to—”

“With the resources of the Global Community? I’m sure our tech crew will have this figured out by my morning coffee.” He turned to Westin. “You’re crazy to think you can defeat us.”

Okay, I admit in both of those passages, the GC are doing stuff that a Elementary School Hall Monitor would know to do and the second one, given how heavy it is with the "Bwaah-Bwaah!" the guy was basically asking for a Deus Ex Machina to smack him upside the head, but really, I treasure any moment where either side demonstrates basic competence. Though given my love of eighties cheese, yes, I did spend the entire segment picturing the Unnamed GC guy as Cobra Commander.

That's one of the things that really bothers me about the series, not so much that it's bad, but y'know, that it's not entertaining in its badness. Say what you will about how pretty much all those cheesy eighties cartoons existed as twenty-two minute toy commercials, but at least, the people involved, well, they probably knew this was a step above dinner theatre, but hey, a paycheck is a paycheck. Plus, the thing that distinguishes Ellanjay's bad art from all other bad art is, they actually believe this shit will happen at some point in the future, even the part where the Leader of the World rides a giant pig. Say what you will about G.I. Joe and its merits or lack thereof, but I don't think anyone who produced or watched the show, feels like it's an accurate portrayal of the U.S. military. Though given the Right's kneejerk response to anything is either invasion or more guns, maybe I'm wrong there.

Westin is all "Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." To which Unnamed is like, "Yeah, I actually saw someone rise from the dead, so you're little shtick ain't impressing me much," which I have to say, is a very reasoned response. Yeah, the RTCs can chest-thump about how Jesus came back from the dead, but all they've got, are testimonials, many of which were written years after the events depicted, actually happened. Whereas for those of you who've forgotten, Nicky did actually come back to life, sat up in his coffin in front of a massive crowd and a whole lot of cameras. Can't blame people for siding with Nicky given that his side has more solid proof backing up its claims right now.

Anyway, here comes the Deus Ex Machina to save our heroes once again and keep them from experiencing any actual consequences to their actions.

The group had all been cuffed except for Judd and Gunther when the lights went out. Literally. Peacekeepers dropped their weapons and reached to rub their eyes as headlights on the GC cars went dark. Flashlights were useless to the officers. Streetlights disappeared. Judd had seen power outages before. Once his parents had been away and the power went out while he was watching a scary movie in the basement. It had taken him several minutes to find his way upstairs, and it had terrified him.

But this was different. Lights on phones, radios, the dashboards of the squad cars—everything was dark. The incredible thing was, Judd could still see. Everything was a hazy brown, and he could only see about twenty feet, but he could see.

So okay, basically Zod's latest disaster is making everything go dark: no sun or moon or any form of light whatsoever. I suppose I could try to tackle the science of it all, but given that Ellanjay's response to everything (including why everything and everyone isn't dead, despite multiple bombardments from space rocks and poisonings of the world's water supply) is "Goddidit!"

But anyway, what follows is an action scene where Our Heroes take advantage to escape. It's boring as hell, so forgive me for fast-forwarding through it.

Westin pointed to the lead officer, and Judd angled toward the man who sat mumbling on a smoldering piece of wood. He had put his pistol back in its holster and was staring into the darkness.

Westin grabbed the gun and Judd expected the man to lunge or shout, but he just kept mumbling. “My wife. She doesn’t know where I am. We should get word to the others not to come out, not to go into the dark.”

Judd took out his pocketknife and carefully cut a hole in the man’s right front pocket. The computer drive fell out. The Peacekeeper reached for his holster, but the gun was gone.

“You looking for this?” Westin whispered, cocking the gun close to the man’s face. “Not dancing in any blood now, are you?”

“Please,” the man cried, “don’t take my gun.”

Judd picked up the computer drive and took a few steps back. Westin joined him, emptying the gun and tossing it back at the feet of the Peacekeeper. The man picked it up, pointed it at his own head, and pulled the trigger. He pulled again and again, until the clicking of the gun mocked him. The man broke down, falling to the ground and jerking with sobs.

...

Wow...

Before anyone says anything, I'm not stupid, I know Ellanjay totally intend for us to be on the side of Judd and laugh at the pathetic GC officer he has completely at his mercy, but I just can't. I'm having uncomfortable flashbacks to another piece of shitty literature. For those too lazy to click on the link, it goes to a snark from Christopher Paolini's Eragon series, specifically a chapter from the third book, Brisingr. Paolini suffers from a similar problem as Ellanjay in that he's written what he thinks is a dashing hero, but is in actuality, a heartless sociopath. It's heavily debated among the anti-fans of Paolini's series (a group that's almost a big as the actual fandom) as to which is Eragon's worst Kick the Dog moment. For me, it's totally the part in the link, because wow...

Though like I said before, in Paolini's defense, I will say that while his books are crap (and they only get more incoherent further in when he tries to turn them into something more than Star Wars in Lord of the Rings clothing) at least, he doesn't honestly believe the stuff in his books will actually happen at some point in the future.

Word of advice to aspiring writers: if you want us to sympathize with your heroes, DON'T HAVE THEM BEHAVE LIKE ABSOLUTE SOCIOPATHS TO SOMEONE WHO IS COMPLETELY AT THEIR MERCY! IT DOESN'T MAKE THEM LOOK BRAVE OR COOL ANYMORE THAN MAKING WATSON A COMPLETE PUNCH-DRUNK IDIOT MAKES HOLMES LOOK BRILLIANT!

Anyway, Judd and the others make it back to the hideout and destroy it, taking with them a laptop. But fear not, Judd does get to talk to Vicki, while continuing to demonstrate what an absolute fucking sociopath he is.

Judd looked at the Peacekeepers, many of whom were on the ground, screaming and cursing God. They scratched at unseen sores and rubbed their aching bodies. The pain that began as an itch soon turned so intense that the Peacekeepers crawled beside rocks or cars and tried to rub up against them for relief. Men chewed their tongues until blood ran down their chins. Some found rifles on the ground and turned them on themselves, hoping to end their agony.

For those of you wondering what Bible verse they use to justify this, don't worry: Vicki has the answer. I suppose I could point out that really six years in and you still haven't memorized all this shit that's going to happen to you?! You're still going "Durrr...I wonder what this Act of God is all about?!"

But I know that's the least of this series' problems. That kind of complaint is basically the equivalent of going to a porno and your biggest quibble being the characters' taste in wallpaper. Given that one of Fred Clark's earliest Left Behind posts was on the pornographic aspects of the Left Behind series, that metaphor seems a lot more accurate than I originally intended. I'd honestly thought I was just making a one-off funny line.

Though Left Behind serves much the same purpose as porn, allowing its readers a nice fantasy world where they're always right and always get whatever they want and everybody exists to serve them. [/Digression]

Judd heard a click of computer keys. “Here it is. It’s in Revelation, chapter 16.” Vicki read the verses, her voice trembling. “ ‘Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. And his subjects ground their teeth in anguish, and they cursed the God of heaven for their pains and sores. But they refused to repent of all their evil deeds.’ ”

For those of you wondering, the verses Vicki cites (because context is for wimps!) are 10-11. For those of you, who like me, believe in context, here's the rest of Revelation, chapter 16. Once again, I regret that I don't have Fred's theological training so I can't properly tear into this, but then again, I'm just waiting for the part with the hundred pound hailstones mentioned later. Because like I said, my knowledge of physics is limited to "Gravity makes stuff fall down" level, but even I know that if the Earth was to be bombarded by massive hundred pound hailstones...yeah, I think life on this planet would become even more moot than it already should have!

But I'm one of those weirdos who believes that the Book of Revelation was written by John as a blistering critic of the cruelties of Rome and how they'll totally get what's coming to them, so what do I know? I mean, it's not like Nero, aka the Emperor of Rome, was massively persecuting the Christian Church at the time of John's writing. Oh wait...

Vicki's all "Get out of there" and the chapter ends. And I think that's as good a place as any to leave y'all for the week.

Consent, Mothereffers! Learn what it means!

Before I begin, I feel a need to apologize to my good readers. Because from what I've seen of this week's selection, looks like I'm going to have to repeat myself yet again, by doing more rants about how RTCs have issues with sex and can't grasp the idea of mothereffing consent. It's just one of those issues that keeps cropping up again and again in the RTC culture, because as many will tell you, refusing to acknowledge the existence of a problem doesn't make it go away. Fred Clark has already written a damn good post on this, talking about while the RTCs see the Josh Duggar mess as a "young man strayed and committed the act of premarital sex, before marriage." They see it as a "youthful mistake" and justify it as "We've all strayed and fallen short of the glory of God." Whereas those outside the RTC bubble know there is a big difference between a pair of teenagers deciding to get it on, even though they're not :gasp: married, and preying on your sisters. Again, I apologize for the repetitiveness of this post and right now, I am silently preying that neither this post nor any I've made in the past, accidentally stumble into Funny Aneurysm Moment territory.

But before we get to talking about RTC hangups regarding sex, we start off with Judd and Westin, who are basically hiding in a hole-in-the-ground, just like they've done for 90% of this series. Because we could follow Klaus and Rainer, aka those guys who are taking on the GC in order to keep them from finding their hideout, but that level of excitement might actually raise the readers' pulses a little and we can't have that.

But horrors of horrors! The only TV they have done in the hole-in-the-ground is broken, so Judd and Westin can't watch the GC broadcast and make sarcastic quips about it. Quelle horror...

Ellanjay, as though anticipating my complaints about Judd and Westin are the least interesting characters right now (because they could be doing something, anything besides squatting underground), do have Westin make a token protest about how he didn't feel right having others fight for him. Surprisingly enough, Judd doesn't chastise him for forgetting the sacred RTC duty of Doing Nothing, but as you probably guessed, the complaint is dropped pretty quickly and nothing comes of it. Spoiler alert: Judd and Westin accomplish Jack in this chapter. I know, you're shocked too.

Westin quotes a passage from Psalm 147 and talks about how he used to believe he was hot stuff, but now has decided that if God wants to use him, he'll let him use him however he wants. In his words: "If it means I’m flying supplies, that’s great. If it means I’m holed up in this dark, stinky septic tank, that’s okay.”

Yeah...I suppose I could point them towards this poem by St. Teresa of Avila but given that Teresa of Avila was :gasp: a Catholic and RTCs have traditionally held a dim view of Catholics (though Roe vs. Wade has forced the two sides into an uneasy alliance), I don't think they'd get the message. Because even though I know the PMDs believe that this cockamamie scheme must go forth, that God cannot change his mind (though chapter four of Jonah proves that he can), but even still, the Tribbles could be doing stuff, besides making disdainful comments while hiding away from Nicky. But everyone knows that all that BS about feeding the hungry, taking care of the sick, clothing the naked, and visiting the imprisoned, would only cut into valuable gloating time.

Eventually the rest of the German believers show up and we hear about the fate of Klaus and Rainer. Of course, it's told secondhand, robbing it of any emotional impact and you can't help but think that it would have been more exciting to ACTUALLY WITNESS IT FIRSTHAND RATHER THAN SPEND A FEW PAGES WITH JUDD AND WESTIN CONTEMPLATING THEIR NAVELS! But as one of those heathen Methodists, my judgment might be faulty.

I'm going to quote the conversation about Klaus and Rainer's fate. I weighed out whether or not to promote them to the League of Awesome Characters Who Are Totally Off on in their Own Books Doing Awesome Stuff While the Tribbles Dick Around Doing Nothing (League of Awesome, for short), but while they're much more interesting than the Tribbles, didn't see enough in their short appearance onscreen to warrant adding them to the League of Awesome. As of right now, the League consists of Taylor, Hasina, Joel, and Dr. Rose. If anyone knows of any other characters to add to the list, let me know.

“We need to stay here for a while,” Gunther said. “The Peacekeepers are back, but we’re hoping they won’t find our hideout.”

“What about Rainer and Klaus?” Westin said.

“They’re dead.”

“But not before they took a half dozen GC with them,” a younger man said.

“What happened?” Judd said.

“Rainer and Klaus tried to get the GC to chase them away from the safe house,” Gunther said. “It worked for a while, but then the GC surrounded them. After a firefight, the GC won.”

“We’re kicking ourselves for not going to their rescue,” Helga said. “We should have at least used the remote guns.”

“You know that wouldn’t have done any good,” Gunther said.

Judd thought of Rainer’s wife. They were together now, reunited in heaven.

“Why didn’t you set off the booby traps?” Westin said.

Helga sat forward and took some beef jerky from a tin. “We left the entrance on automatic. If the GC find it and crawl inside, the whole place will go up. All the evidence will be destroyed.”

Uh, Helga, I know I keep harping on this point and I keep wanting to hit up aunursa and find out if the series ever bothers to address my reoccurring complaint, but why exactly do the RTCs shy away from martyrdom? They have what none of their readers ever get: actual proof that all this shit is real. They know that when they die, they can spend the rest of the Tribulation living it up in Heaven as opposed to squatting in a hole and eating canned food on Earth, in addition to numerous other perks given to those who die before TurboJesus comes. So like I keep saying WHY AREN'T THEY ACTIVELY SEEKING MARTYRDOM EVERY TIME THE OPPORTUNITY PRESENTS ITSELF?!

After that conversation, we cut to Vicki and here's where we get into all that stuff about sex and consent that I was mentioning earlier. Once again, I apologize for the repetitiveness of it all, but then again, Ellanjay are much more repetitive than I am. Plus, I like to think my rants are more enjoyable to read.

Vicki's wringing her hands about how she can't contact Judd when one of the YTF, Shelly, emerges from the background. Increasingly I start to wonder if the Minor Characters don't just clump together into a big cloud, breaking off from the Collective only when the script says it's their turn to be onstage and say a few lines.

If you're wondering, Shelly's turn onstage involves her relationship with Conrad. Aka that relationship that is never seen and the only reason I know the existence of it, is periodically Vicki narrates about it. First time it was mentioned, was several books back where she said that Shelly and Conrad were getting close. Since we never actually saw them interact with each other, I keep debating whether this relationship qualifies as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment or is more a case of Strangled by the Red String. Yeah, I don't know what I did in the dark days before TV Tropes either.

Anyway, that was the extent of their mentioning of Conrad and Shelly's relationship until the last book where it was mentioned that they were fighting. Like I said, it was quickly brought up and no one bothered to explore it any further. I had no idea why they were fighting. Their sudden anger towards one another was as inexplicable as their love for each other.

But Vicki finally asks "What's going on between you and Conrad?" And I'm fighting the urge to have Shelly say, "The writers decided that they didn't want to share a solid-gold Humvee so they brought this up again to pad out the book." I know, you're getting tired of all the jokes about padding, but dammit! They make it so easy! Lesser writers follow the rules of fiction where there's a clear narrative arc with a rising action and a climax, followed by falling action and a denouement. Lesser writers actually understand the principle of Chekhov's Gun in that if you mention a plot element, it has to pay off at some point down the road. Or in other words, HAVING ALL THIS PERTINENT CHARACTER/PLOT DEVELOPMENT COME WAY THE HELL OUT OF NOWHERE AND HAVE NO BEARING ON ANYTHING THAT IS TO FOLLOW, IS REALLY SHITTY WRITING!

Well anyway, here's Shelly's tale of woe:

She paused a moment more, then looked at Vicki. “We were fixing up one of the cabins with Charlie—this was before the heat wave and before Judd came back.

Charlie ran for some supplies, and Conrad asked if he could kiss me. I got kind of uncomfortable. We had both said we wouldn’t put ourselves in a situation where we were alone together, you know, so we wouldn’t be tempted. When I hesitated, he thought I didn’t like him anymore. Then I tried to explain and things really got bad. I know it was only a kiss, but I just didn’t feel right.”

“You guys talked after that, right?”

“Shouted is more like it. He said if I didn’t trust him that we should break things off and just be friends. But we haven’t been, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

I suppose I could make the obvious point of how of course, they just kissed. Because one of the rules of Christian Fiction is, "You can't have any of the characters, even the bad guys, commit any sins, especially not the heinous act of intercourse."

But if Ellanjay had allowed it to get any further, like have Conrad cop a feel or something, then once again, they'd find themselves in uncomfortable territory. On one hand, Conrad is a teenage boy and we can't expect a teenage boy to do something as gauche as control themselves and respect their partner's wishes, but on the other hand, Shelly was probably tempting him, what with her being all female and whatnot. It was her fault for being by herself and advertising how blatantly female she is, what with her ankle-length skirt and those bumps in her shirt.

:headdesk: And people say feminists are the ones with regressive views of men. Funny thing, RTCs, we feminists actually believe that men are something more than a mangy alley cat driven to screw everything in sight. We actually believe that they are capable of controlling themselves like humans do. But then again, we're just weird that way what with our insistence that it's consent that matters when it comes to sex, not the participants' gender/marital status, so what do we know.

“I think you did the right thing saying no,” Vicki said. “Something in your gut told you it didn’t feel right.”

“But Conrad’s nice. He would never do anything—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Vicki said. “If you feel something’s not good and you push that down, you stop listening to the voice God gave you.”

“What do you mean, ‘voice’?”

“I think God gives us something inside that tells us when things don’t feel right. The times when I got into the most trouble, before I became a believer, were times when I didn’t listen to that feeling, that voice that was telling me to watch out. And I know a lot of other girls who’ve had those same feelings but didn’t listen to them because they were afraid they’d hurt somebody’s feelings.”

In the interest of trying to be a little less relentlessly negative, I will say that at least they didn't have Vicki say something about how she shouldn't have been alone with this guy or tempted him by being all female. But what they do have her say...it's not much of an improvement. Because what if Shelly hadn't been able to get away? What if Conrad had tried to take it further and didn't back down as soon as she started objecting? Do I need to go any further with this line of thinking?

Vicki advises Shelly to talk to Conrad, saying that maybe he feels as bad about all this as she does. Then Shelly, recognizing that Vicki is a Main Character aka someone who matters above all else, turns the conversation back to her. And I have a feeling this is the extent of the Shelly-Conrad subplot. Next time they bring it up, I bet it'll be a one line deal where Vicki makes some off-hand statement about how they were fighting but they've totally made up now.

Vicki talks about Token Jew's latest missive about all the children in the millennial kingdom and all that. Vicki seems quite excited about taking care of the kids and that's about it.

We cut back to Judd. Judd and the Germans have been doing nothing but hiding for two days. Since the story has given me nothing else to talk about, I'm forced to start thinking about logistics. Like what are they doing, bathroom-wise? If they're going with a traditional septic-style system (because you know Ellanjay would look at you blankly if you brought up composting toilets), well, those will still have to be periodically cleaned out, so they're still connected to the grid. I suppose I could try to guess how many people are hiding down there, so I can make some guess at how long before the system fills up and the ration situation, but this is probably one of those things that only a Doomsday Prepper Buff* like myself would care about.

Anyway, the alarms aren't working at the hideout and the chapter ends with this futile attempt at suspense.

A group rushed down the hall, and Judd thought someone was coming with food. Then he heard the click of rifles and shouts from the kitchen. Helga jumped up and darted for the hall but stopped dead in her tracks.

A GC Peacekeeper stuck a gun through the door. “On the floor! Now!”

Yeah, I'm not even going to bother to read ahead for next week, because we all know this will come to absolutely nothing, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER TIME A TRIBBLE WAS CAPTURED BY THE GC! BECAUSE ELLANJAY APPARENTLY BELIEVE THAT THEIR AUDIENCE CONSISTS OF ELDERLY HEART PATIENTS WHO CAN'T HANDLE ANY EXCITEMENT!

Though to be fair, that might be an insult to elderly heart patients.

Anyway that's it for this week. Take care of yourselves until next week.

*Please don't judge me: we all have our guilty pleasures. If you're wondering, most of those people on the show, I just think, "Boys and their toys," some are deluded psychos (Tyler Smith, season three), but there are a few where you're like, "If something goes down, I totally want this guy on my side."

As Preachy As I Want to Be

Hey everybody! Again, sorry about last week, but I'm here right now, so let's get to this.

Like I said last week, Judd is in New Babylon with some German guys, having been delayed in his efforts to get to Petra, because of vital, plot-related purposes that certainly have nothing to do with money. This is vital stuff that cannot be safely excised from the story because otherwise the readers would lose much needed plot/character development. Important stuff is happening!

Okay, I think I've run this joke thoroughly into the ground. I scoured TV Tropes trying to find the one perfect trope that describes this whole thing with the Germans in New Babylon. The closest term I can think of is Plot Tumor, but I'm not sure if that's the best term. It is somewhat accurate in that like a tumor, it saps away strength and the plot skids to a halt, but then again, given how little anything that happens in this series has to do with what happens next or what happened previously, I'm forced to conclude that this entire series is nothing but plot tumors stringed together.

I suppose you could point out, as many have, in Raiders of the Lost Ark that Indiana Jones's actions have very little bearing on the plot, that if Indy had stayed home and played canasta with his buddies, the Nazis still would have gotten their faces melted, but at least, Indiana Jones had awesome stunts to go with its illogic. There are no cool moments in the LB-verse: no awesome one-liners or Crowning Moments of Awesome. Yeah, I know, I need to deal with my addiction to TV Tropes, but there is a reason they have a page called "TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life."

Plus in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the bad guys get their faces melted off, at least, you know they've done something to deserve it, by virtue of being Nazis. Like I said, no matter how much the characters talk about how eeeevil Nicky is, I have to take his side. He's doing his best to try to keep the infrastructure intact, try to keep the world together, actions which would save more lives than anything the RTCs have done, which is mostly wring their hands and pray that the heathens became RTCs before they died. So yeah, I'm on Team Satan, because everyone else sucks.

Anyway, so Judd is watching while the German believers run around trying to secure the hideout. Given what I read last week, how the text seemed to imply that even though the Germans had the Zod-Mark and believed in all the PMD stuff, that they were totally interpreting this all wrong somehow, I thought there'd be some part where Judd patronizingly explains how they're totally wrong for wanting to do stuff or something. Guess what? Judd and Westin's actions amount to fuck-all in this chapter! They could have been safely cut out of the story and it wouldn't affect anything. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if the Tribbles aren't basically cardboard cut-outs painted lime green, because as I keep saying, nothing happens. They go from plot point to plot point, just gawking at all the suffering and misery like a bunch of slack-jawed yokels. Even when Lionel lost his arm, it didn't seem to impact him much!

Anyway, Judd's delicate sensibilities are shaken as the Germans talk about bombs and booby traps. Because even though he's a member of a resistance group, apparently the idea that they might be forced to kill GC soldiers in order to protect themselves and others, never occurred to him. Even though we're six years into the Apocalypse...

Judd had felt unnerved by Rainer and the others talking about war and killing. There was quite a difference in being against the Global Community—escaping from them and fighting for the souls of people who had not yet taken the mark—and actually killing Carpathia followers. On the other hand, God was going to judge evil. Judd wanted to hear what Tribulation Force leaders would say. Would they actually shoot to kill and be a part of the final battle?

:headdesks:

Someone really needs to tell me why exactly, no matter how much stupidity you get exposed to (and there's a lot of it on the Internet), it never stops burning?

Because every time the Tribbles are all "Oh noes!" about all the killing, I'm like, you guys have read ahead, right? Here's a hint: when TurboJesus returns, he comes packing heat. There really is no difference between you killing them and TurboJesus killing them, because THEY'LL STILL WIND UP IN HELL HAVING THEIR INTESTINES PULLED OUT BY DEMONS NO MATTER WHO DOES THE JOB!

Do they think it hurts less to be eviscerated by TurboJesus as opposed to an anti-aircraft missile or whatever the Tribbles use?!

Besides, we've seen time and time again, how Ellanjay feel about pacifism. Even though there's a long tradition of Christian Pacifism, they spend so much time worrying about wolves in sheep's clothing that they fail to see that it's the wolves in wolves' clothing responsible for most of the misery in the world. Here's a hint: Adolf Hitler didn't rally Germany by being all hippie-dippie peaceful.

But yeah, it's stuff like this...given the dim view RTCs have of pacifism, you wonder why Amish fiction is so popular among them. Because that's a major part of their tradition, aside from the buggies and funny clothes.

Plus as many will point out, pacifism is not synonymous with being a wuss. There are many examples of this throughout history, but the story of Dirk Willems from the Anabaptist tradition, is a good example of the difference between RTCs and, y'know, actual Christianity. Because in that story, Willems could have interpreted his pursuer falling through the ice as proof that he had God's favor and just let the poor man drown; instead, Willems went back and rescued his pursuer, an action that led to him being martyred.

So yeah, shut up, Ellanjay. Because you suck at everything!

Sorry to get so long-winded. Buttons were pushed, is all I can say.

Anyway, while Judd and Westin are just watching stuff, Rainer and Klaus leave the hideout with guns, in hopes of drawing the GC away. I'll spoil it for you: we find out in the next chapter they die. And of course it's all told secondhand, robbing the reader of any opportunity to feel anything for the characters. Granted they wouldn't have felt much, given that we'd just been introduced to the Germans, but still.

They cut to Vicki's section and as you guessed, nothing really happens. The Brave Tribbles Bravely Watch the news and Bravely Say Disdainful Things about Nicky (though they're safely hidden away so they're in no real danger), but Vicki does receive an email from Token Jew.

There really isn't much to snark regarding his missive. Just that Token Jew is all "Trust God" regarding her marriage to Judd. But we do get a nice example of Ellanjay's talent for completely missing the point regarding scripture.

Y'see Token Jew cites Luke 16:19-31. This is one of the most famous stories from the gospels. You may know it as "The Rich Man and Lazarus" story and while I could just provide a link, I'm going to quote the entire passage, because it needs quoting.

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Now throughout history, most people interpreted the moral of this story as "Seriously don't be an Asshole and ignore the appalling misery lurking beyond your doorstep." Whoever wrote this passage would probably agree with the sentiment in this photo on Facebook. Yeah, much of the stuff that gets circulated on Facebook is pretty much worthless (see previous mentions about Internet and stupidity), but occasionally you find a gem. James certainly would.

But according to Token Jew, me, along with James and many others throughout history, have been interpreting "The Rich Man and Lazarus" all wrong. Here's how we should read it, according to Ellanjay's mouthpiece:

The story of the rich man in hell and Lazarus who was a believer—see Luke 16:19-31—is quite clear. In the next life we will still recognize not only those we knew on earth, but as Lazarus, he recognized Abraham who had lived hundreds of years before him. Even those in torment recognized those in paradise. That would indicate we all will recognize one another in the next life. Remember, Paul said, “For me to depart and be with Christ is far better.” So we will have an even better relationship then than we do now.

...

It's times like this all I can really say is, "Wow..." Because somehow the message that Token Jew managed to take from this passage, which has tugged at the hearts of so many Christians throughout history, is not, like I said, "Don't be an Asshole who Ignores the Appalling Misery of your fellow man," but, "When we get to Heaven, all those horrible sinful sinners will be able to watch us living it up in the golden light of Heaven, while they get their insides pulled out by demons." There really are no swears, no curses that adequately describe what I'm feeling right now.

I will admit that I will not make any definitive statements regarding the afterlife. I am not God, so I am in no position to dictate who will burn in Hell and who will go to Heaven. I'm one of those weirdoes who tends to believe, like that friend Anne Lamott quoted, that “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

I will make a few statements regarding the afterlife, though. My views are mostly in line with Slacktivist's in that while there is much we do not know about God or Jesus, how much actually happened and how much was filled in (because the Gospels weren't meant to be history books, no matter what RTCs believe about them), but I do believe that reading the stories of Jesus gives you some insight into the character of God. And frankly I can't picture Jesus, aka the guy who said "Forgive them, father" as his enemies were torturing and killing him, being the kind of guy who roasts people for all eternity for the horrific crime of not saying The Prayer.

Because while most people would, on occasion, envision all the bad people of the world being punished, preferably in a similar fashion proposed by the Mikado in Gilbert and Sullivan's musical, most would blanche at the idea of it lasting for all eternity without any possibility of parole or release or whatever. Plus, in that song, the Mikado was singing about punishing people who had actually done something to deserve it and by deserving it, I don't mean "They believed slightly different things about our Invisible Sky Daddy!"

I could also point out that the Luke passage in question never says that Lazarus ever said The Prayer and became a good RTC. It said he was a beggar who lived in squalor yet went to Heaven, whereas the Rich Man, who ignored his suffering, went to Hell. That believer line is just Token Jew leaping to conclusions: that of course, Lazarus was an RTC, who believed in every dot and tittle of PMD teachings, even though most people were illiterate and he probably didn't own a Bible, and Darby/Scofield, who compiled this convoluted time line, didn't exist yet.

So for all we know, regarding Lazarus, is that he may have lived and died a Jew or maybe he believed in something else entirely. You can't automatically jump to the conclusion that he was an RTC, especially since during the time Luke was written, the people of that time had entirely different issues/concerns from modern-day Christians.

...

I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to be so damn preachy this week. Like I said, buttons were pushed.

We cut back to Judd, who is continuing to play the part of Brave Sir Robin, as he watches Rainer and Klaus (aka those guys who are actually doing stuff that would be exciting to see onscreen) fire at the GC in an attempt to lead them away from the hideout. We must never forget how Ellanjay know nothing about what makes for good, dramatic storytelling as we just watch Judd wring his hands and PEOPLE TALK ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING, AS OPPOSED TO SHOWING ANY OF IT! But I suppose that might lead to the readers being like, "Okay, so why exactly aren't the Tribbles, y'know, joining them? Given that they know if they die, they get a one-way pass into Heaven and are spared horrific misery, you'd think they'd actively seek martyrdom at the hands of the GC. Why aren't they?" And we can't have the readers asking those kinds of questions, we just can't.

Anyway, the chapter ends with another guy, Gunther (because all foreigners have Obvious Foreign Names, remember?), leading Judd and Westin away to a super-secret, even more underground part of the hideout, where they'll be safe. Why are they only leading Judd and Westin to this super hideout? Because the rest of the German believers know that as Minor Characters, they are at best ancillary satellites to the Main Characters. They know that the Main Characters matter above all else and that the best a Minor Character can hope for, is a few lines/moments onstage, and for a Main Character to cast his shining countenance upon them.

Okay, they do make a half-assed attempt to justify taking Judd and Westin to the hideout. They say it's because Westin is the only pilot here and Judd has a fiancée waiting for him, but a reasonably bright Kindergartener could poke holes in that wet tissue paper-thin logic.

And I'm done for this week. I apologize again for getting so damn preachy, but like I said, buttons were pushed. Also, it's my blog and I'll be as damn preachy as I want to be! In the mean time, take care of yourselves and remember that apparently there's no such thing as "justifiable homicide in defense of art" so no matter how tempting it may be, to beat out lengthy messages in Morse Code on Ellanjay's skull using a tire iron, it just isn't worth it.

Do You Hear the People Sing

Sorry for the lateness of the post. Combination of "There was stuff going on" as well as general laziness. But I'm here now.

So like I said last week, Judd and Westin are stranded in New Babylon, because their plane exploded. It has absolutely nothing to do with padding, none whatsoever. Yeah...I really probably shouldn't have created that "So Much Padding" tag, because of course, it'd be overused.

So Judd and Westin, along with Rainer, who I'm basically picturing him looking and sounding like Rainier Wolfcastle, because I am desperate for some form of entertainment here. Thought I should probably warn you: the bulk of this chapter is taken up with Rainer explaining how he came to love Big Brother. So forgive me if my snark isn't that great, because yeah, it is damn near impossible to snark something that's been done so many damn times. :whimpers:

Anyway, Rainer believes that they were meant to be in New Babylon based on a prophecy written in Revelation 18. Because a key thing to remember, regarding Ellanjay's beliefs: all the prophets of the Bible, they weren't actually writing about their specific time or their people, many of whom were undergoing horrific suffering at the hands of mighty empires. Ellanjay believes it was all written for RTCs at some indeterminate point in the future.

Ellanjay don't quote the entire chapter of Revelation 18, though they do quote the bulk of it, but as I read it, I don't claim to have Slacktivist's education in scripture, but beneath all the florid imagery, it sure sounds an awful lot like John (or whoever wrote it) was talking about Rome. Y'know, that empire that was persecuting the Christians at the time John wrote his letter, the same empire with a long history of brutal subjugation, the same empire where the majority toiled, gave their lives and their bodies, while an elite lived quite comfortably. I mean, it's not like most of the stuff listed in the 11-13 verses were luxury goods, thus implying that the wealthy elite partied and lived comfortably, while its citizens lived in absolute squalor. Oh wait.

Anyway, Westin is all, "So why do you guys want to hang around a city that's going to be destroyed by God?" Rainer gives this response.

Rainer smiled. “When it says, ‘Come away from her, my people,’ we believe that means there will be true followers of God right in New Babylon. We couldn’t imagine who they would be, and then God placed a desire on our hearts to come here and either join this band of brave fighters or become a part of the biblical history.”

"And of course, when it says, 'Come away from her, my people,' Revelation certainly isn't saying, 'Walk away from a system built on a brutal hierarchy that takes the resources, the sweat and the labor, and even the lives of the people at the bottom, and sends it to a wealthy elite.' That's communism! Next you'll be saying that we should actually feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit those in prison as opposed to just reading verses about it. We're followers of Christ, not of some hippie-dippie Islamo-commie-fascism that dictates that everyone be treated with basic decency whether they have one dollar or one billion dollars."

Anyway, Westin raises some eyebrows at all this, though I don't really know why. From what I can tell, either Rainer's group actually believes in doing stuff (violating the sacred Tribbles ethos of doing nothing) or they have an interpretation that is slightly different from Token Jew's, which means it's wrong, regardless of whether they believe every word of the PMD timeline and even if they don't do anything. Because a cursory study of history shows that the cause of so many wars can be summed up as, "They believe slightly different things about our Invisible Sky Daddy! Let's kill them!" or "Let's kill these innocents to show that we will not tolerate the slaughter of innocents!"

:sighs: Increasingly I think that George Santayana's quote-"Those who do not learn from the past, are condemned to repeat it"--needs a corollary: Yet those who do learn from the past, are condemned to watch helplessly while everyone else repeats it.

Anyway, here's what Westin says:

“Those verses beg some questions,” Westin said. “If God’s people are supposed to come out, how are they supposed to do it, and where do they go?”

Rainer nodded. “I have been thinking about that. It’s clear God has had enough of the lies and killing of New Babylon, so he’s going to destroy this evil city. But there must be something coming that will signal that it’s time for us to leave. That’s what we’ve been waiting for.”

And of course, the part of Revelation 18 that they'd get hung up on, is travel logistics. But then again, if they focused on the rest of it, which talks about the destruction of an empire built on human misery, an empire that lived quite opulently, enjoying their luxury goods, while the majority of the populace suffered...yeah, readers might start thinking bad things about Our Buck and St. Rayford, both of whom live quite lavishly and never lift a finger to alleviate the sufferings of others. Though they do occasionally cast disdainful looks at Nicky and isn't that what really matters? Thinking nice thoughts in the general direction of the suffering masses, as opposed to doing anything that would actually help them.

Plus as to the "how are they supposed to come out of the city?" I know Westin is probably hung up on the destruction of the plane, but he is well aware that there are other means of leaving a city that don't involve using big, noisy, gas-guzzling vehicles that have many ways they could break down, especially since the roads are probably ripped to shreds by now, and here's a hint: cars, planes...those kind of vehicles don't tend to do that well when it comes to off-road transportation. They require a special infrastructure in order to get necessary fuel and parts to keep going.

But I guess it'll be a cold day in hell, before Ellanjay lets their beloved characters do something as gauche as use a bicycle or any means of fleeing the city that involves them using their own two feet, rather than just shifting into gear or something.

Rainer mentions their leader, Otto Weser. Yeah, he doesn't appear onscreen in this chapter, but I'll let you pick which of the Nazis from Hogan's Heroes that you think Otto will look and sound like, when he inevitably appears onscreen. Because Ellanjay could put forth effort to create memorable characters, but like I said in a comment last week, the secret to being an incredibly productive writer, is to not give a shit.

Anyway, Rainer says they haven't had contact with Otto for a while, Judd thinks that something's up, and we cut to Vicki.

I hadn't planned on snarking Vicki's section, because so little happens, but there are a few choice bits. Plus, there's a hint, however faint, that maybe something will happen on her end, even as I know she'll just do something girly like wring her hands and pray for Judd.

Basically, all Vicki does, is watch a squirrel and think about how sad it is that God's destroying the world, while talking about how ugly the scenario is after numerous back-to-back Acts of God. There's this head-slapper of a quote:

Vicki recalled the verse about God knowing even when a sparrow fell from the sky. But did God know every squirrel, raccoon, and deer that died in the heat plague? Did he see the death and devastation and hear the cries of believers who had been killed? Already the Global Community News Network reported arrests and beheadings.

Uh, Vicki, the question isn't so much, "Does God know?" as it is, "Does God care?" And the answer clearly is, No, flat-out, fucking NO! :goes outside to scream:

Like I said, H.P. Lovecraft may have been so racist that probably the only reason he didn't join the Klan, was that it would require more interaction with people than an awkward weirdo such as himself would enjoy, but even he knew that the Elder Gods DIDN'T DO ANY OF THIS SHIT BECAUSE THEY LOVED PITIFUL WEAK HUMANS!

Anyway, Vicki hears someone coming up the hill. Now back to Judd.

Judd goes to sit with Rainer, who is staring at some painting. Judd starts talking to him and now we're finally going to get into Rainer's conversion speech. :whimpers: Stay tuned kids, because we've got some really good toy commercials coming up, I swear.

Rainer had been an actor/aspiring playwright before the shit hit the fan. He quotes a line from one of his plays and apologizes for it being terrible, but given that Ellanjay fail in every aspect of the craft...yeah...To satisfy your amusement/morbid curiosity, I'll post the line.

With his eyes still closed, Rainer spoke. “When light and dark collide and ignorance takes up the sword against understanding, what is left for weary men to do?” He paused, opened his eyes. “We, the weary, pick up pieces from the battlefield and live.”

I suppose Ellanjay are going for film student-style pretension with this line, and this may be the only time they've succeeded at anything in this chapter. Then again, that isn't much to brag about.

Anyway, Rainer starts self-flagellating about how before the Rapture, he thought he was all that, and that he should have listened to his RTC aunt, but didn't until it was too late. His parents died unsaved during the Wrath of God quake, while crusing down the Rhine (because we mustn't forget that he's German), and yes, he doesn't give a single thought to the fact that they're currently being roasted on a spit. Just like a true RTC.

I did, out of morbid curiosity, google the Rhine and apparently you can take cruises down it, so for once, Ellanjay were right. Though I am a little disappointed, because I was hoping that this would be another astounding error in geography that came about because they don't care, like how apparently the Jordan River, far from being a muddy trickle like many Israeli citizens like Gershom Gorenberg mistakenly believe, it is actually full of boats to ferry tourists up and down its length.

Anyway, Rainer eventually went to Token Jew's website and converted. But in one of the raids with Otto, Rainer lost his wife. Judging by this quote, plus the fact I peeked ahead at the next chapter, I think the group's divergence from sacred Tribbles' teachings is that not only do they want to do stuff, but Rainer has no problem with dying and being reunited with his wife in the undying bliss of Heaven. What a weirdo...

Rainer looked at Judd with tears in his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m here in New Babylon because it’s God’s will for me, or if I’m on a mission of death. One mistake and I’d be reunited with my wife forever.”

Anyway, there is a brief interruption of the Judd and Rainer conversation. For those of you wondering if the Vicki thing was going to go anywhere, like, at all, wonder no more. Turns out nothing happens. The person coming up the hill, was Lionel, and that's really only the notable thing about that part. Me, I wonder if Lionel is basically like the ads in that one episode of The Simpsons or something where he ceases to exist, unless someone is looking at him.

Lionel tries to comfort Vicki, who is all broken up about Judd. Me, being the drooling pervert who looks for any excuse for Ho Yay (because RTCs are the best unintentional creators of Ho Yay around), I'm going to read pervy intentions, regarding the conversation between Lionel and Vicki.

Vicki asked Lionel to sit. “I was up here thinking. I like this place. I’m going to miss it when I go to Petra.”

Lionel bit his lower lip. “Vicki, I’ve always appreciated what a friend you’ve been, and I couldn’t be happier for you and Judd …”

“But what?”

Lionel shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe God’s trying to tell you something. Maybe you shouldn’t go to Petra. Maybe Judd shouldn’t have gone to New Babylon.” Vicki slipped an arm around Lionel, and the young man hung his head. “He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. I just wish he would be more careful.”

Try and tell me in this conversation that Lionel isn't basically playing Iago. Inwardly, he seethes with jealousy, because Vicki is able to have Judd, whereas Lionel cannot, because RTCs support the verses that allow Christians to eat bacon, but apparently the one against the Gays must stand for all time. Since Lionel can never have Judd, he does his part to taint Vicki's happiness. Because if Lionel can't have him; she shouldn't be allowed to either.

Yeah, I suppose I'm a drooling pervert, who reads entirely too much into these verses, but let me have this! Anything I come up with, however insane, is considerably more interesting than what's on the page!

Vicki decides to ask Token Jew about how this whole marriage thing will work out in Heaven. Gotta give you advance warning, regarding this weekend's snark: we get the fun and thrill of reading long passages of Token Jew's sermons. Yeah, sarcastic clapping is definitely in order.

And in the interest of providing a service to my poor, suffering readers, I'm going to post a song, one that's probably closer to how John intended for his Revelation to be read: Do You Hear the People Sing

Have fun until Saturday or Sunday!

I Have Nothing But Sympathy for the Devil

In all honesty, I had planned on posting a new snark yesterday. But the Internet was out for the entire town until six! Because while America could follow the examples of other countries, who get faster, more reliable, and cheaper Internet than us, instead we don't. Because massive, creaky, inefficient corporate monopolies are the American Way, dammit! But seriously, no Internet make Mouse something something.

So we are now beginning Book 12. Like I said, the end is in sight. So grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and put on your montage music of choice, so we can get to this. Those of you who have read this blog, have probably picked up on my love of eighties cheese, so you're not too surprised I went with this. How such an awesome song became the theme song for such a bad movie, I don't know.

Anyway, apparently Judd is trapped in New Babylon and I apologize to my good readers for having not realized what the hell was going on with his plotline. My naiveté/optimism tripped me up. I thought that since now Judd and Vicki, after so many delays, had finally gotten engaged that Ellanjay would finally get things moving along. Already I can hear you guys laughing bitterly and shaking your heads at me. Because how could I have been so foolish as to underestimate their love of padding/money? I know, I'm ashamed of myself, too.

And I know I'm supposed to be all "Oh noes! What about poor Judd?!" but given that all the stuff he's been through basically amounts to a stubbed toe, compared with the suffering of the nameless, damned...just stop attempting all these Author's Savings Throws, Ellanjay. You're just embarrassing yourself.

Plus at the same time you're trying to convince us that Judd's suffering because God is no longer burninating all the brutes, yeah, you provide examples within the text of real people, who have suffered, who deserve our sympathy much more than Judd.

Judd watched as a temperature gauge on the right side showed things were back to normal. The woman moved a remote camera slightly to the left, and several people crawled out of an underground bunker. Their skin was pale, and they looked like they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

The woman zoomed in on a smiling group. A young man ran to a burned-out area and lay down, scissor-kicking as if making a snow angel. The others with him laughed.

...

There's really nothing I can add to this quote. No commentary is sufficient to describe just how horrified Judd is by the prospect of people escaping the plague and finally being able to get out of their houses and get food, rather than, y'know, STARVE AND BURN LIKE THE GOOD LORD INTENDED!

It gets worse in the next paragraph, so bad that I wonder if the previous quoted passage, if it was something the ghostwriter snuck in without Ellanjay realizing it. Because we all know how very rarely Ellanjay consider the actual consequences of all these Wrath of God events, so I'm a little suspicious. My guess, regarding the paragraph that I'm about to quote, is that they did realize the ghostwriter slipped one by, realized that their audience may actually experience some sympathy for the nameless damned, and put this paragraph in, in order to correct that egregious error. After all, rewriting? Only amateurs like EVERY WRITER WORTH READING waste time rewriting their works.

The mood inside the safe house wasn’t cheerful. They would no longer be able to move around during the day. Westin grumbled about his plane, wondering if the GC would find it.

“We have to prepare for possible inspections by Peacekeepers,” Rainer said. “They’ll be going from building to building soon.”

...

Yeah, if you heard a loud profanity emanating somewhere from the middle of the continental United States, now you know why. Sad part is, while I want to scream the F-bomb until my throat blisters, for once, my rage is such that the f-bomb seems entirely too inadequate. Anyone know any good foreign profanities, preferably ones that don't have too many vowels or consonants? I like a good ragedump to just roll off of the tongue.

A live shot of Carpathia’s palace showed open windows and people streaming out of the building. Judd wondered if the GC would ever estimate how many had died from the heat. Leon Fortunato appeared at a press conference, and Judd was shocked at the way the reporters looked. The normal crowd of men and women covering international news was down to only a few people in ragged clothes. Even makeup couldn’t hide their gaunt faces.

Fortunato was dressed in his usual gaudy clothing, but Judd could tell the past few weeks had taken their toll. There were dark circles under Leon’s eyes, and his clothes seemed to sag.

Y'all know that I have a tag called "Strawman Always Has A Point," right? It's a tag I've used quite a bit and will use for this post, but increasingly, I think I should have called it "Villain Has A Point." Because the heroes are so damn reprehensible that I have no choice but to root for Satan. That's how bad things have gotten! Sometimes I wonder if this series isn't basically the equivalent of this infamous fic that would make even Gandhi in favor of capital punishment, but only for this author. I should probably warn you against clicking on that link, but if you're anything like me or Milhouse Van Houten, all the disclaimers will only make you want to do it more. Just know that I consider said fic in the link far more reprehensible than the infamous Celebrian. Say what you will about Celebrian, but at least it doesn't ROMANTICIZE A FUCKING NAZI!

I've said in previous snarks that no matter how much the RTCs chest-thump and talk about how they're totally the heirs to Bonhoeffer's legacy, based on what I've just read in this snark, my comment about how if the RTCs were dropped down the road from Auschwitz in the years 1940-1945, their brave actions would consist of hoping the inmates became good RTCs before they were gassed, while complaining about the unpleasant odor produced by the crematoriums...I admit I love to exaggerate for comedic effect, but in this case, I don't think I'm exaggerating. THAT'S WHAT THEY WOULD FUCKING DO!

Gotta feel for Bonhoeffer for having his legacy hijacked by assholes. I admit to not being an expert on the guy, but I imagine his beliefs were a lot more nuanced than the RTCs think. From what I heard, he probably didn't subscribe to the belief that the Bible is totally inerrant despite having been around for thousands of years, and if you were to ask him, he'd probably say that being a Christian was probably about more than just hating gays and abortion. Plus the dude was willing to suffer and actually did die for his beliefs, so you kind of have to respect that a little, if nothing else.

Anyway, after this, we cut to Vicki's perspective. Back when Slacktivist* was still snarking the third book in the adult series, we all had a great laugh, when somehow Loretta knew Our Buck was in trouble and that everyone needed to pray for him. Because one of the perks of being an RTC is that apparently you share a hive mind or some kind of spider-sense that lets you know when a Main Character is in trouble. I was going to say, when an RTC is in trouble, but from what I can tell, the spider-sense only applies to Main Characters. No one seems to get that worked up when Bruce "Dead and Useless" Barnes dies or when Loretta dies.

Based on this passage, where Vicki wakes up with her "Judd is in trouble" sense tingling, I kind of wonder what this means regarding Judd's character status in the LB-verse. I've referred to him as a mini-Rayford, but stuff like this...it makes me wonder if in the great hierarchy that Ellanjay love and worship, if Judd hasn't been raised to a status where he is on equal footing with Our Buck and St. Rayford. Then I remember that in Ellanjay's hierarchy, Our Buck and St. Rayford are in a category all of their own, with only Zod and TurboJesus being greater than them.

They do try for some details of the scenery but like I said, it doesn't work, though you almost admire the effort. It's basically the Black Knight fight in Monty Python, only without the humor.

Basically Vicki talks about how thanks to the Heat Wave, all the frogs and insects were boiled or burned to a crisp. And sense they're all dead, so are all the mammals and birds and reptiles that feed on them. As you probably guessed, they don't mention anything about the mammals and the birds and the reptiles, because Ellanjay don't know jack about the food chain, HOW IF YOU REMOVE ONE BLOCK FROM IT, THE WHOLE THING IS SCREWED!

This is the kind of mistake that really makes me want to grab them both by the collars and scream. Because the food chain isn't some arcane secret guarded by a select order of Shaolin Monks beyond the River of Death. IT'S BASIC KNOWLEDGE THAT MOST OF US LEARN IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!

I'd make a crack about how "They just didn't care," and link to the TV Tropes page of the same name, but this stupidity...somehow I feel it goes beyond not caring. For once, there's no trope that adequately describes the situation I find myself in!

I also could point out that all animal and plant life would have died all those times when Zod turned the waters into poison, but I've pointed it out so many times...Yeah, I'd say arguing with Ellanjay is the equivalent of getting into a boxing match with a quadriplegic, where no matter how much you pound on them, they stubbornly refuse to admit defeat and claim victory as soon as you shuffle out of the ring because you can only pound on them so many times before it loses it's thrill, but even a quadriplegic would put up a better fight. The only metaphor that comes close to working is the one used in reference to debating Creationists: Pigeon Chess.

Anyway Vicki's prayer-sense is tingling and she decides to pray for her friends and by friends, I, of course, mean Judd, not Lionel or any of the other Tribbles she cares about. It's like Vicki realizes that even though she is not rated as highly in Ellanjay's Great Chain of Being, by virtue of being a girl with girl parts, and that Judd's status as a Main Character elevates him above all those filthy untermenschen, she still knows that she is above Lionel by virtue of being White.

There's a long passage where Vicki talks about how she's totally changed her view of prayer over the past six years. How apparently now rather than treating God like her personal concierge/strongman who gives her what she wants when she asks, now Vicki believes it is about communicating with God, staying silent most of the time awaiting his answer. Yeah, I'm going to stop laughing derisively someday; I just don't know when. Because for those of you who lack the insane devotion to this series, I'm going to post the last prayer Vicki was mentioned as making.

Vicki watched Cheryl stare at the fires raging on the hillside. She didn’t know what to say and silently prayed, “God, please show Cheryl where’s she’s been wrong. Help her to see the truth about what she’s done and admit her mistakes. And give us wisdom with what to do with her. Amen.”

You tell me that Vicki isn't basically calling on God to play the part of the Strongman, to either convert or exterminate that brute, Cheryl for her unplus doubleungood thinking. Because that's what RTCs do. To borrow from a book that's as good as this series is bad called Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, they go for people's emotional wounds and bring God in on air support.

She then reads Isaiah, Chapter 26, drawing comfort from the third verse. The section ends with Vicki getting a phone call from Judd, after which, we cut back to him.

The conversation is a circle-jerk with both Judd and Vicki going on and on about how they're terrified that they won't see each other again and how they are totally suffering, guys! But yeah, given that the chapter has already shown people who ACTUALLY ARE SUFFERING...I'm not buying it. The mere fact that Judd can make a phone-call from the enemy's capital to Vicki, who is a continent away from him in the States, proves that shit can't be too bad. I could also point out that in the whole thing with Howard, they weren't able to use cellphones BECAUSE THE INFRASTRUCTURE FINALLY STARTED TO DETERIORATE AFTER REPEATED ACTS OF ZOD! But no one should be naïve enough to believe that Ellanjay would recall stuff from chapter to chapter, never mind from book to book.

Nicky gives a speech. I suppose we're supposed to find it inspiring or chilling, what with his bland pleasantries about how we'll rebuild from all this, but like I said, Ellanjay couldn't be assed to actually create a charismatic villain, because to do so, would require them to actually know something about human behavior and admit that bad people can have positive traits and good people can have bad ones...since they hate nuance as much as they hate showing what actually happens as opposed to just telling us, we can't have that. It would force them to admit that Hitler, along with all the villains of history, weren't some supernatural being that just bamfed onto earth, but sad part is they were people, ordinary horrible people.

Yeah, I'm going to add Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the long list of writers Ellanjay really need to read. Though frankly it'd be enough if they read this quote from The Gulag Archipelago:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Anyway, following Nicky's speech, Judd receives a phone call from Chang, who plays this message he'd overheard Nicky deliver:

Judd heard Nicolae rub his hands together as he said, “For the first time in a long time, we play on an even field. The waterways are healing themselves, and we have rebuilding to do in the infrastructure. Let us work at getting all our loyal citizens back onto the same page with us. Director Akbar and I have some special surprises in store for dissidents on various levels. We are back in business, people. It is time to recoup our losses and start delivering a few.”

I suppose we're supposed to be shocked and appalled by all this: Nicky using the latest disaster as an excuse to go after a hated minority, a strategy that is so different from every other dictator in history. Though, I will admit that the last analogy isn't entirely accurate in that in this case, THE HATED MINORITY HAS REPEATEDLY DEMONSTRATED THAT NICKY IS RIGHT TO HATE THEM! NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY GO "OH NOES" ABOUT THE PEOPLE HE KILLS, IT DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT THE TRIBBLES HAVEN'T DONE A DAMN THING TO HELP SAID PEOPLE OR STOP NICKY! IN FACT IT OPENLY CRITICIZES PEOPLE WHO DO!

:deep breath:

I really wish Nicky had delivered this speech instead of his bland platitudes. Because it works so much better. This would be the perfect time to stir people up, get them ready to fight against the enemy that has repeatedly killed their families and shown no regard for life whatsoever. Because I'm fairly certain in the wake of the 9/11 disaster, Bush II didn't just mouth platitudes; he used the disaster as a means of ramming through policy, of getting shit done, and if anyone objected, he, and his supporters, could point to the disaster and say, "Why do you hate America?" When the Bush II administration manages to be smarter than a guy who is supposed to be worse than Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, you've failed.

Oh and Spirit Plumber, you should totally make that game you mentioned in the previous comments. Because I have to side with Nicky simply because he's so much less reprehensible than the Heroes, so a game where basically you have to play as Nicky and try to keep the world intact as God's trying to kill everybody...that would be pretty cool.

The chapter ends with Chang telling Judd that the GC has blown up Westin's plane which is bad for some reason. Because Judd can't get out of New Babylon for reasons. But this snark is long enough and I'm all raged out. Damn...for some reason, I thought they wouldn't hit me so hard in the opening chapter. I really am too naïve for my own good.

*Slacktivist, in the unlikely chance you're reading this, just know that I eagerly await your snarks on the adult books. I understand if you've got so much going on in your life that you really don't want to spend anymore time with Rayford and Buck along with the rest of the heroes who don't do anything remotely heroic. Because while Ellanjay would really have to struggle to come up with a passage worse than the one where Rayford mansplains about the wrongness of abortion to Hattie, we know they are up to the task. Now if you don't mind, I'm off to get royally drunk and cry for a while, and not necessarily in that order.