Last time, they decided to sneak onto a truck!

My eyes are open wide, trying to adjust, to make out the outline of something, anything. But all I can see are the huddled limbs of Gathered girls. I keep waiting for the scream.

Rhine is lots more sympathetic when she’s actually in a bad situation and trying to be strong.

Since I recall many things said in mistaken praise of Hunger Game’s PTSD, I should add this is not PTSD. Not all realistic reactions to trauma are the specific diagnosis we’re all familiar from in pop culture. To quote the ever-helpful Wikipedia summarizing the DSM-IV:

A: Exposure to a traumatic event This must have involved both (a) loss of “physical integrity”, or risk of serious injury or death, to self or others, and (b) a response to the event that involved intense fear, horror, or helplessness (or in children, the response must involve disorganized or agitated behavior). (The DSM-IV-TR criterion differs substantially from the previous DSM-III-R stressor criterion, which specified the traumatic event should be of a type that would cause “significant symptoms of distress in almost anyone,” and that the event was “outside the range of usual human experience.”)
B: Persistent re-experiencing One or more of these must be present in the victim: flashback memories, recurring distressing dreams, subjective re-experiencing of the traumatic event(s), or intense negative psychological or physiological response to any objective or subjective reminder of the traumatic event(s).
C: Persistent avoidance and emotional numbing This involves a sufficient level of:
avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, such as certain thoughts or feelings, or talking about the event(s);
avoidance of behaviors, places, or people that might lead to distressing memories as well as the disturbing memories, dreams, flashbacks, and intense psychological or physiological distress;
inability to recall major parts of the trauma(s), or decreased involvement in significant life activities;
decreased capacity (down to complete inability) to feel certain feelings;
an expectation that one’s future will be somehow constrained in ways not normal to other people.
D: Persistent symptoms of increased arousal not present before These are all physiological response issues, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, or problems with anger, concentration, or hypervigilance. Additional symptoms include irritability, angry outbursts, increased startle response, and concentration or sleep problems.
E: Duration of symptoms for more than 1 month If all other criteria are present, but 30 days have not elapsed, the individual is diagnosed with Acute stress disorder.
F: Significant impairment The symptoms reported must lead to “clinically significant distress or impairment” of major domains of life activity, such as social relations, occupational activities, or other “important areas of functioning”.

Rhine was easily able to put the memory of it aside before now, generally hasn’t had nightmares and when she did they were about how poor Cecily’s baby, he’d grow up and one day kidnap and marry some girl of his own who’d be a hateful bitch, and made only a token effort to avoid getting into the van – she disagrees with the plan by saying they don’t know where it’s going, but when she’s asked if there’s a way to know, she volunteers the information they need instead of saying there isn’t, and doesn’t suggest any other problems.

This is probably for the best, overall – they’re struggling enough to travel without Rhine refusing an easy ride, and she’s the only one who really knows what’s going on, so Gabriel would be hard pressed to realize she’s being irrational or know how to handle it. If Rhine insisted trucks were a bad idea, they’d just be stuck.

Although…we’ll have to see if taking the truck is necessary plotwise. If not, then this would’ve been a good moment for Rhine’s issues to flare up. She’s been so horrible and selfish, it’d be great to have her act like that for an understandable reason and not because rapists are sweet babies who cry perfect tears of sadness.

And I am disappointed by the presentation, regardless. Rhine’s dealing with this by just powering through, and I’d rather she did something that isn’t plot-perfect instead, like needing light to avoid panicking. I believe they have a flashlight, so wasting the batteries on that would be good. Playing with a lighter or matches would be an even better way of showcasing this. It’s good to have characters be less than a hundred percent rational in their thoughts, but not nearly as good as having them take irrational actions.

“Rhine?” he says.
“Yeah?” My voice sounds more tight than I mean it to.
“I asked how long you think it will take to get to Pennsylvania.”
“What’s the difference? It’s not like we can tell time,” I say. Then, worried that I might have snapped at him, I try to sound gentle when I ask, “How are you feeling?”

And this? Really doesn’t cut it.

Gabriel goes on to note she’s shaking and she talks more about how traumatized she is, but we can see it’s not really affecting her behavior when the most she does is act slightly testy followed by immediately thinking about his feelings. Also, people are totally understanding, as shown by Gabriel realizing it’s the gatherer van, despite living in an isolated mansion where he’d have no idea of that outside of Rhine’s own very limited comments on the subject.

Then I surprise myself by saying, “I knew I wasn’t going to die the day I was Gathered.” I pause, looking for the right words. “I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. I doubted it would be anything good. But still, I didn’t feel like I was going to die.”

And she thinks about the tarot cards just to hammer in the specialness. So now Rhine’s got the gift of extremely low key and not useful prophesy in service of the fact she’s the solution to everything. Admittedly, more functional skill can be infuriating. I read this book When She Woke that’s a modern retelling of the Scarlet Letter which is way, way worse than you’re picturing right now, no, worse than that too, and among its many many shitty decisions, the main character has the power of always being right about people’s intentions. So you’d be in this high tension setup of can she trust this person or not???????? and then halfway through she’d declare she just trusted/just didn’t trust them. And then it turned out to be right.

But then, making it useless may avoid that, but then there’s the question of what’s it actually adding? And I think the only answer is specialness.

For the record, you can do specialness right. The problem, like most sueish things, is piling it on someone who’s already the protagonist for other reasons. In Rhine’s case, she’s picked to be a wife because she’s pretty. That’s what the first book has been about, and so far that’s what the second book has been about. That means an additional trait is now handing her specialness just because she’s already the main character, and that’s where we get sueishness.

The story of the one girl who’ll be able to fix everything would be good! I mean, Children of Men had a plot based around the one girl who’d be able to fix everything, though naturally she didn’t get to be the protagonist. The story of the one girl who was so super beautiful she was kidnapped to be married and had first gen parents who gave her a good education and a twin who protected her and who never had to prostitute herself because that’s super wrong and on top of all this is going to fix everything…that’s not the same thing.

The only way traits should be added on to her is ones that make sense coming out of each other, and this would end up with her being the cure because she’s so super beautiful, which had a fuckton of issues. No, if Rhine’s involved in saving everyone, it should be a chance she gets because of being picked as a wife, so she gets involved in the whole mess and can investigate it.

Here’s a good way of laying it out – Rhine is special because she had first gen parents (who weren’t super scientists or anything) who were therefore able to provide decent food and medical care for her, so that unlike most kids she’s healthy – no tuberculosis, no smallpox scars, has a height and weight in line with those charts by age for normal child development. Although they died, they managed to care for her long enough that she had time to get an education rather than starting to work as soon as she could toddle, allowing her to then get the comparatively good jobs and continue feeding herself that way rather than resorting to prostitution. This makes her attractive by the standards of the time, which have been lowered the way you’d expect kids dying in the streets to do. Not being an insane suicide cultist, she is naturally in favor of fixing the whole doomed at twenty thing, and therefore very interested in her rapist of a husband’s father’s research. Then she finds out something important (how about, the virus was released by the .01% in an attempt to cripple the country and consolidate wealth, as you do, only for it to mutate so their own vaccinations didn’t save them. Evil Mad Scientist will discover the cure and intend to distribute it only to the richest. Rhine runs away with a sample and saves the day, maybe killing Linden-chan on the way out.) (We could also get rid of the kidnapping angle entirely and have her initially want to be a bride to get out of the grinding poverty and violence that makes up daily life outside the mansions.)

But back to the story we have, not the one that might make me feel something other than hatred.

“I have never thought I was going to die,” I say. “My brother said that I just haven’t accepted it.”
“Your brother doesn’t sound anything like you,” Gabriel says.
“He’s not, really,” I say. “He’s smarter than me. He can fix things, solve things.”
“You can fix and solve things too,” Gabriel says. “Don’t talk yourself down. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

It’s like the author noticed this is a problem and just can’t figure out how to actually write Rhine as competent, so she’s going with the next best thing. And I will admit even current Rhine is a huge improvement over last book’s.

Anyway, she feels better and falls asleep. When she wakes up, Gabriel is in withdrawal and begs for angel’s blood.

“It’s like someone wrapped twine around all of my organs, and pulled.”

Why would it? It’s a magic sedative that causes nightmares and maybe works as a painkiller but it seemed like it was painkilling by way of unconsciousness.

Anyway, she explains she can’t in the dark, though again I’m pretty sure they’ve got a flashlight.

“It won’t be much longer,” I say gently. “Try to rest. I’ll keep watch. It’s what my brother and I used to do, to protect each other.”
Gabriel makes a sound that could be a groan or a laugh. “Jenna was telling the truth,” he says. “You think it’s your job to take care of everyone.”

What.

No.

Nonononononononononononononononononooooooooooooooo.

“She said you were so busy trying to be brave that you just didn’t realize. But Housemaster
Vaughn did, and that put you in danger.”
…
“What didn’t I realize?”
He answers me, just before I lose him to sleep. “How important you are.”

Well. That’s terrible but the terrible meter broke on Jenna saying Rhine was so great because she took care of everyone. In comparison ending on how Rhine is so important is small potatoes.