Last time on Matched.com, Cassia is spineless and finally destroys the poems.
Now she’s at work and finds out sorting is different today.
“We’re looking at different physical traits for a Matching pool,” she says. “Eye color. Hair color. Height and weight.”
…this is a factor? How the fuck is that a factor.
Cassia is told this is just a practice run to see if she notices the same things as the official officials did. Also, “the officials” said they’d be watching her next test. Which officials? The matching officials? The sorting officials? The officials of whatever job they’re considering her? The officials in charge of job placement?
Cassia explains this is great, because it means they want to see if she works under pressure (…presumably we’re talking about the pressure of being watched here, not of actually doing the work under normal pressure) and succeeding will mean getting an interesting sorting-subtype job,
Everything is going well again. I won’t think about Grandfather and the lost sample and the burned poems or my father and the Officials searching him. Or that Ky won’t ever get to be Matched to anyone or work anywhere besides the nutrition disposal center.
This is probably our least nonsensical inclusion of Ky so far. But it’s still pretty bad. We still have no reason to think Ky wouldn’t have chosen to be single – not even a statement about the relative percents of the population that chose either option to say that most people pick matching so Ky presumably would. And neither do we know Ky will never be promoted, because it’s still unclear how much being an aberration matters as well as how much Cassia knows. Certainly it isn’t just a matter of aberrations getting terrible jobs and never being promoted, because in that case everyone would assume people with terrible jobs and no promotions were aberrations, while that never occurred to Cassia or any of her friends.
So she starts looking at the traits.
Blue, brown, green, gray, hazel—these are all of the options for eye color, even with many ethnicities represented in the population.
…why would many ethnicities mean few options, book? Also, why do you guys even know about ethnicity by this point, an ethnic group is people sharing a common culture and you’ve eliminated all cultural markers but your own. You mean race. And you should be well on your way to not having any differences there left either.
Long ago there were genetic mutations, like albinos, but those don’t exist anymore.
This is a common throwaway line in scifi. While sometimes the author actually means that they abort/kill anyone who doesn’t have the right genes, most of the time it’s treated like genetic mutation is a disease that was cured.
She marvels at how much variation there is anyway among people.
plenty of boys in this database have blue eyes and dark hair like Ky, but I am positive that not one of them looks as he does.
…Wikipedia?
Thanks, Wikipedia.
So, bearing in mind that blue eyes with black hair is going to be only a subset of the total blue eyes, we have more evidence that this society is after a very selective disaster left only the American upper middle/upper class behind, and mostly the very blond ones at that.
She goes on for a bit about how even if there were people that were physically identical none of them would be just like him because Ky is so special and only she understands. Then she thinks even more about Ky and how it isn’t the society’s fault she’s thinking about him any more, it’s her fault.
The problem is, Cassia, you never quite explained why you started thinking about him all the time. Since we aren’t going to get an explanation by this point, I’m left to guess it’s him being an aberration, since her obsession with him starts when she’s told that and all her obsessing revolves around trying to see evidence of the secret past she now knows he has.
The tiny printer next to me beeps, and I jump. I made a mistake and I didn’t notice my error within an acceptable time frame. A little slip of paper curls out onto the table next to me and I pick it up. “ERROR AT LINE 3568.” I hardly ever make errors, so this will cause interest. I go back to the line where the mistake was made and correct it.
Huh. So, two things. One, wait, I thought she was actually doing a job here? I know this particular one is a test but apparently that’s an exception. So how can something automatically notice a mistake like this?
Two, this place really is the white collar dystopia, isn’t it? Right down to the promise of a paperless office somehow generating more paper, and more useless paper at that.
After work, her dad asks her if she came to the site because someone mentioned a girl and she says she didn’t say anything to him because he was busy. She really doesn’t have any problem with lying, it’s as if this sort of thing happens all the time.
He asks if there’s something important she wanted to tell him, and she admits to the paper.
Out in public. God, Cassia, it’s like you want to get caught. Her dad shushes her, but only because there’s a couple walking right toward them. They stop in front of their house and apparently the port does record everything because that’s why they don’t want to go inside. She tells him she destroyed the paper.
I think I see a flash of disappointment cross my father’s face but then he nods. “Good. It’s best that way. Especially right now.”
I wonder if he’s disappointed in the loss or in her for doing it?
You know, while I was assuming her family would be at least halfway supportive of this, now that I think of it, if her dad is in favor of non-canonized poetry, why doesn’t he try to smuggle some out? Or is he actually doing something like that at his job?
She asks how he lost the sample, and he confesses he didn’t, his father told him to destroy it.
“He didn’t want them to be able to bring him back. He wanted to choose what
happened to him.”
You are the stupidest science cult atheists.
Cassia doesn’t even pause at this and just hisses at him that just because Grandfather asked doesn’t mean he had to actually do it! No, pay attention to the fact your grandfather was apparently so resentful of the government he would literally rather die for good than do something they wanted.
I was right to destroy the poem. What did Grandfather think I could or would do with it? My family doesn’t rebel. He didn’t, aside from the small act of keeping the poem.
Cassia, your dad just said that your grandfather wanted the sample destroyed and that he destroyed it. That’s two more rebellions right there. Plus, your great-grandmother counts as a family member, doesn’t she? And she’s the one who actually hid the thing in the first place. And it’s likely your grandmother knew about it too.
And there’s no reason to rebel.
She repeats the whole bit about their safe happy lives. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to be in denial here, just straight up not getting it. She’s already read a poem she can’t get out of her mind, the very existence of which is a rebellion. When is she going to start considering why people might rebel?
It’s hard to know which ways to be strong. Was it weak to let go of the paper, watch it drift to its death as silent and white and full of promise as a
cottonwood seed? Is it weak to feel the way I do when I think of Ky Markham?
Yes and, sadly, probably yes. Ky as a love interest does seem connected with you becoming a more pathetic character, and half the time, you’re saying the way you feel around him is stupid and shallow, so yeah, that sounds like weak to me.
Cassia then says following rules and being safe is being strong.
I will try to forget that Ky said “home” when he looked into my eyes.
Please do. You don’t need him in order to have a rebellion, I promise.
I want Xander back, please =( I’m really agreeing with your idea that the love triangle thing was forced in by publishers. They looked at Xander and went “teenage girls don’t want bullshit like decent boys, BRING US THE EMO”
Wow, the random non-sequitors about Ky are getting more and more bizarre. I think you’re right that they shoehorned it in at the last minute, it just doesn’t sound natural at all.
Unrelated: How do you not lose your mind when dealing with people who refuse to read what you write or respond to things you haven’t said? PEOPLE ARE INSANE.
Scream “PEOPLE ARE INSANE” and then ignore them.
Farla seems to enjoy poking them to see just how inane they can get far past the point where most people would do that…
IF ERIDAN ISN’T HITLER THAN ERIDAN IS A GOOD PERSON AND IT’S SPELLED ERIDAN NOT HITLER THEREFORE YOU’RE WRONG!!!
I’m starting to consider swiping her tactic of responding with emoticons.
I’m so tempted to do this.
Following the Eripologist saga?
Nah, arguing with a butthurt potterfen over on Rowlingblog. Their argument started with “CLEARLY YOU ARE A DRACO FANGIRL,” so you knew it was going to be fun.
I decide that the longer it goes on, the more likely it’s a matter of them starting to realize their position is untenable but not wanting to admit it. Eventually, they’ll look back more calmly and realize what’s going on.
This is not always true but it’s very soothing.
It’s just getting *boring.* The trick now is finding a way to escape the conversation without giving the other person satisfaction.
Just because you’re too stupid to distinguish between the author’s attitudes and the characters’ doesn’t mean the distinction doesn’t exist!
Try to switch the focus from you defending your reading them defending theirs. When they say something particularly egregious, respond just to that as if you’re too busy boggling at the nonsense to even notice the rest of their comment. Don’t elaborate if you don’t have to, the shorter and simpler the response the less they’ll have to reply to.
Also unrelated, I believe this is relevant to your interests, if you haven’t already seen it: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3447397&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1Try I read the entire first chapter, but I don’t think I’ll continue because it’s exactly the kind of thing that puts me in a really bad headspace.
I am fascinated.
I *was* really fascinated, but then the longer it went on the more the interesting things about it started getting pushed out of the way in favor of sheer sadism. Like, the thing that makes it ethically as well as mechanically different from Battle Royale and Hunger Games is the offered possibility of living your life out in captivity instead of killing anyone, but the way Monokuma keeps pushing when his victims try to take him up on that, it’s obvious that isn’t really an option long-term. And at first it seems like there’s a possibility of more than one person surviving, but the trial rules bring it back to the And Then There Were None dynamic we’re used to seeing in these kill-or-be-killed scenarios.
Personally, I think it would be better if the penalty for failing to identify the killer was the wrongly accused person dying and the opportunity for graduation being closed to everyone else. That would make murder a lot easier to rationalize. You only have to kill two people, and they can be people you think might kill someone else if you didn’t, and everyone else gets left behind but you can *try* to go for help for them once you’re on the outside, and anyway they won’t be trying to kill each other anymore so even if they’re trapped, they’re safer (unless, of course, Monokuma is lying…). And then as a jurist, if you start to suspect that someone you’re close to is the killer, do you try to sacrifice an innocent person to save them, especially taking into account the possibility of them coming back to rescue you and the fact it would put an end to the killings whereas executing the guilty likely would not?
Well, it’s inevitable when the game part is supposed to be about the murder trials. The drama of your decisions would be the better storyline but harder to do in the visual novel format. (…write semi-fanfic for the super-obscure game?) While the penalty makes it seem really stupid to keep playing, I did like that it seemed necessary to motivate the group – no one wanted to punish the murderer, even when pushed into it they were uncomfortable about it, and they’re really broken up about being forced into condemning the murderer by the end. For all they seem like a bunch of unstable weirdos, they’re actually doing surprisingly well at getting along.
What I’d really, really like to see is something where the group actually stays together and doesn’t give in to killing at all.
Like in this one, the crazy bear is incredibly untrustworthy, but no one’s arguing against playing on the basis that he’ll probably just kill the winner. He’s looking pretty Chaotic Evil, and it’s not much of a temptation if you he’ll screw you over no matter. And he’s terrible at putting pressure on people, after the initial threat doesn’t work he produces tapes that are either completely faked or mean their loved ones are already dead? Then secrets which you could just claim are outright lies? Even if he has proof he’s already shown he can fake things with the first videos, so anyone can deny it safely.
(Also STOP EXPLORING ALONE YOU MORONS! Everyone should walk around in groups of three, minimum. If I were there I’d be trying to convince everyone to move their beds into the same room just on principle – and even if people didn’t like the idea initially, once we found out the rooms were soundproofed deathtraps and that murders seem to happen at night, I’m sure they’d see the point..)
Well, I was thinking it would still be about that due to But Thou Must and the protagonist having a strong enough personality to make those decisions without player input, but the ethical drama from just the possibility of it and from other characters considering and acting on all those things would be more interesting.
I *do* really like how hesitant they are, and how empathetic even to the murderers among them. The people in the thread were speculating that Junko may have been the first murderer for meta reasons plus because they thought her outburst was odd, which *I* found odd because to me it seemed like a perfectly understandable way for a decent person to react to what Monokuma was telling them they had to do.
Also, the DVDs confused me too, but I think the idea was the ambiguity was supposed to be the motivating factor. The idols could have been dead or faked OR unconscious. The PC’s DVD showed signs of a struggle but no bodies. They all could have been captured and imprisoned themselves, for all anyone knows. So the idea is to get out just in order to find out whether they’re all right, and if they aren’t whether they can still be helped. That’s what Monokuma is offering: the answer to, “What happened?”
It’s just such a weak incentive, though. They’re already wondering about the outside world just on the basis that people should notice they’re gone, and while I’d be really worried about what might have happened, it’s so much easier to rationalize killing people because if you don’t other people die than because you want to find out if they’re alive or dead. (Plus, the second video we see shows her friends apparently dead, so it doesn’t even have the suggestion that maybe they’re in danger and need help like the main character’s one. Either it’s faked and they’re fine or it’s too late to do anything for them.)