Last time on Matched.com, Cassia continues to refuse to break things off with Xander.

I sit in Language and Literacy, staring at the instructor as she talks about the importance of composing succinct messages when communicating via port. Then, as if to illustrate her point, one such message comes through the main port in the classroom.

You know what one of the problems with this book is? It’s all summaries. Is this a ridiculous fluff class that’s about as meaningful as which fork you use for salad, or is this one of those valuable practical knowledge checks, the equivalent of a 101 class on sending intelligible emails because left to their own devices it’s bedlam? We’re in a different society and our narrator is unreliable, we need concrete detail.

The succinct message?

“Cassia Reyes. Procedural. Infraction. An Official will arrive to escort you shortly.”

Welp. Time to find out if we’ll be going 1984 and finding out the Party Society knew all along but thought it was fun to give her enough rope for the hanging to manage some fancy knots.

It’s been a long time since someone here committed an Infraction. Especially one announced publicly.

Hm. At first glance, that sounds like we’ve just found out something about the overall functioning of their society. Since infractions seem to cover incompetence as well as intentional disobedience, this suggests their society is quite restrained in handing them out, since even if you assume everyone’s too terrified to step out of line on purpose, you can’t terrorize people into not making mistakes.

However. How does she know about non-public infractions? Given that someone’s aberration status is a secret, and that seems to be what you are if you’re infracted, it doesn’t seem like there’d be any way to know. Maybe they release general announcements but avoid naming anyone?

Anyway, Cassia finds herself quite chill.

No one can break as many rules as I have and not get caught somehow, sometime.

Particularly with how brazen you’ve been about it. Anyway, this probably condemns her to a terrible job, but I don’t know, it’s hard to really get up in arms over that. Those jobs have to be done by someone, after all, and if not her then it’d be someone else. And this resolves her Xander problem. Her match will be voided and she can be with Ky. In fact, it’s good it happened so early, since it means Xander can get rematched. From what we’ve seen, that only happens when you’re seventeen, so even if they were willing to give him another match when he’s older, there wouldn’t be any other people in the pool to match him with.

For some reason, Cassia is certain it’s the same official that explained Ky wasn’t her match.

the one who told me everything would be all right and nothing would change with my Match.
Did she lie to me? Or did she tell the truth, and my choices made a lie of her words?

Neither! Everything was fine with your matching and nothing was changed. Your decision to chase after Ky, mess around with poems, learn to write and emo over your match had nothing to do with the glitch on your card. You’re acting as if there’s any connection between the matching and your later behavior and there isn’t.

It’s the official, for some reason, because apparently matching tech support does double duty. She asks if Cassia knows why she’s there. Cassia has no idea which of the many reasons it is, and like every other time, fails to act like someone raised in this society and is instead cagey, claiming she doesn’t know.

She laughs. “Oh, Cassia. You were so honest with me the last time we talked. I should have known it might not last.”

That sure sounds sinister, but it also doesn’t make any sense. Cassia being confused about why her card was confusing has no connection to if she’d lie when in trouble.

Cassia starts saying she doesn’t look that impressive, despite this not making sense for he to be thinking at the moment.

“There’s no need to be modest,” she says. “Surely you have some idea of how well you performed on your sorting test.”

That doesn’t follow! Nothing follows in this book. Anyway, she says that Cassia got the highest score for the year and everyone wants her in their department, and that there’s an opening in the matching department but “I had to tell the testing Officials that, unless we see a change in some of your personal relationships, we would be averse to hiring you. And I had to mention to them that you might also be unfit for other sorting-related work if these things keep up.” which honestly sounds pretty reasonable for the circumstances, and anyway, Cassia doesn’t even want the matching job.

The official says that they understand teenagers can get a little rebellious. In fact, we’re returning to statistics at last, as she says Cassia was predicted to do something like this, that there’s a 95% chance it’s a fleeting crush, etc. Which, yes. Their relationship is founded on the fact Cassia thinks he’s so mysterious and different. There are few worse foundations for a lasting relationship.

“Almost seventy-eight percent of teenagers who are Matched have some kind of youthful fling. And most of those occur within the year or so after the Matching.

Huh. It seems weird to me that this wouldn’t happen before the matching, but then, consider Cassia’s ridiculous expectations about her perfect match. It makes a sort of sense that they’d all behave themselves in expectation of getting matched, and only then become interested in seeing what other options there are.

Cassia then has a sudden burst of rage over how dare the official act like she knows Cassia’s life as if her standard issue teenage wangst isn’t utterly unique!

What’s so annoying here is Cassia could have a real point here. They don’t know about the poems, and if they know about her upset over her grandfather’s death, they likely don’t understand it – few grandchildren are close to their grandparents, and few would have a grandparent reach eighty while they’re still a teen. If her relationship with Ky hadn’t been botched from start to finish, she would even have a point that the relationship isn’t the shallow, predictable thing they think it is.

I admit, I can’t exactly fault Cassia for feeling her feelings are so unique and special – well, no, I still sort of can, she’s been raised in a society where the idea your feelings are unique and special has been killed with a thoroughness that’d put traditional vampire methods to shame – but my point is, the book never seems to have any inkling that Cassia’s feelings might not be totally right. It won’t embrace her as an unreliable narrator, but neither will it back off enough for the narration to contradict her.

The official goes on to explain they usually don’t mess with the crushes and flings, because the author doesn’t understand that you have to actually portray the dystopia as dystopian. Maybe we’re supposed to think they’ve evil for not caring or something. Anyway, the issue is because of Ky’s Aberration status. Having a fling with a member of Society in good standing is one thing. For the two of you, it’s different. Considering it seems he’s been marked as an aberration specifically to try to keep him from propagating his views, that sort of makes sense, but doesn’t make sense from any other angle – if she wasn’t crushing on him and this was some completely platonic exchange of subversive beliefs, what, then it’d be okay? And why is it phrased like it’s just some class thing? It seems deliberate, though hell if I can tell for sure. It’s like they only care if he’s subversive if he threatens her vagina’s purity.

The official also threatens to send Ky back to the outer provinces if he keeps causing trouble. Okay, they don’t specifically know he’s passing around stories about how Sisyphus is a cool dude who doesn’t afraid of murdering officials, but on the other hand, whatever reason they have to suspect he acts like this is apparently a pretty accurate one. He really is causing trouble and unrest.

The problem is that we don’t see any reason why it’s bad to remove Ky if Ky causes trouble. So far, there are only two valid points of contention, the murder of the elderly and the loss of media. Ky likes hearing a new poem, but he seems to hate officials in an unrelated way, and most of Cassia’s angst has been about her feelings for Ky, not the two actual valid reasons. The trouble Ky causes/wants to cause seems to stem from who he is rather than being just a reaction to the problems in the society.

“Of course you may talk with him. There are other lines you should not cross. Kissing, for example.”

So it really is about not polluting her virgin self with the wrong kind of boy. The book’s occasional forays into sexual policing continue to be bizarre.

Then the official “threatens” her with losing Xander, by the evil method of pointing out she wouldn’t want him to find out. How dare the official point out Cassia is cheating on her boyfriend and use that fact to try to convince her to stop cheating on her boyfriend. Cassia rages.

Then the official asks if the problem is she’s not happy being matched and would rather be single. Cassia denies it because she wants to be matched, she just wants to choose who she’s matched.

I guess this whole thing could be seen as a metaphor for the whole gay marriage debate, where Cassia says that it isn’t okay to be allowed to date who she wants, she should get to marry who she wants. Except for the fact gay people don’t exist – we’re two thirds in and Cassia has yet to make any reference to same-sex dating or same-sex stuff being banned.

Also – and again, two-thirds into the book – we don’t even know much about the difference between matches and singles.

We know matches are matched by the government while singles can date whoever, and it seems only matches are allowed to have kids. That’s it. It could be that singles aren’t allowed to do anything racier than kiss, or that they can do anything up to living together, just no babies.

“Where would it end, Cassia?” she says, her voice patient. “Would you say next that people should be able to choose how many children they have, and where they want to live? Or when they want to die?”

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is just not the same.

See, this is why I have trouble seeing the matching system itself as an unfair infringement on their rights. Children aren’t a right. Children have rights. Children have a better life if they’re raised by people who aren’t at each other’s throats. They have a better life if they’re raised by people who have time to raise them instead of being distracted by the rest of the dozen. They have a better life if carriers of horrible genetic disorders aren’t allowed to have them.

In addition, other people have the right to not live in an overpopulated world or one with extra messed up adults and dying kids requiring a chunk of the limited resources. Do you know that there are people who have a kid with Tay-Sachs, then keep having them?

(Also, controlling where people live can be necessary to protect the environment and manage infrastructure. It isn’t as if people today exactly have free choice about where they live. Money and employment are still big factors in what people’s options are. Given the choice between a government that’s apparently trying to maximize happiness vs the invisible hand of the market, I’d pick the government.)

Cassia holds her tongue rather than disagree, but she thinks about her grandfather and not going gently, then asks what the infraction is.

“Ah, that was a mistake. Another one, it seems. They seem to keep happening where you are concerned.”

That doesn’t make any sense.

I mean, obviously this is supposed to be some sort of threat. But it just makes them look weak, like they’re too scared to actually go through with it. Telling her she’s risking an infraction works fine. Telling her she was infracted, then never mind she wasn’t, but she still could be if she doesn’t change her behavior…

This is the sort of behavior I’d expect out of some modern dictatorship, where there’s only the bare pretense of following the laws. But this place is supposedly on the far edge of Lawful, not some flavor of Chaotic.

Cassia says she gets it, and tells us she does to a degree, knowing the official is just trying to keep society running, but she hates knowing that even more.

When I finally meet her gaze, her expression is satisfied. She knows she’s won.

Why do you keep acting like this is some private battle between the two? She’s just doing her job.

Anyway, she goes home to hear there’s a package, and her brother badgers her to open it. It turns out to be the silk square from her matching dress. Bram is disappointed, and she yells at him for thinking it’d be the artifacts being returned. Bram runs to his room and Cassia feels horrible, because she’s still a pretty good character outside Ky’s influence.

She imagines going back out and waiting for the official.

I’ll tell her and everyone else that I know: they are giving us pieces of a real life instead of the whole thing.

Yay, real revolutionary tendencies! And look, it involves soapboxing and not punching, the best kind.

She explains that’s how the society works, every time people are pushed to the edge they’re offered a scrap of something more to placate them. It’s a good concept, but seems kind of abrupt for her to realize. She adds that she’s weak enough that she’ll take it.

But she’s still looking at Ky’s newest picture. This one is about how he made a new life and left his parents behind, but neither he nor the officials ever forgot. He draws his current self handcuffed with officials on either side, with red hands.

The hands of the Officials are red, too. And I recognize one of them; he’s caught her face in a few lines, a few sharp strokes.
My Official. She came for him, too.

So we’re just supposed to go with the idea she’s evil, then. Dammit, Cassia, and you did so well last time when the officials took your compact at realizing it wasn’t their decision and they were subject to the same ruling.

Also I completely refuse to believe he’s that good at portraiture without being taught or even able to practice in public.