Alright, let’s hear from the kid who failed to blow himself up.
The cell is padded. There is a steel blast door three inches thick. The room is kept at a constant fortyfive degrees Fahrenheit to keep Lev’s body temperature from rising too high. Lev is not cold, though—in fact he’s hot. He’s hot because he’s wrapped in layer after layer of fire-resistant insulation. He looks like a mummy, suspended in midair—but unlike a mummy, his hands aren’t crossed over his chest, they’re held out to each side and lashed to a crossbeam so he cannot bring his hands together. The way Lev sees it, they didn’t know whether to crucify him or mummify him, so they did both. This way, he can’t clap, he can’t fall, he can’t inadvertently detonate himself—and if for some reason he does, the cell is designed to withstand the blast.
This really seems like a lot of effort when they could’ve just medical comaed him. As a bonus, that’d also let them drop his body temperature much lower than is normally safe, since as a general rule, higher temperatures make stuff more reactive.
They’ve given him four transfusions. They won’t tell him how many more he’ll need until the explosive is out of his system.
Uh. That…should do it, I think? I mean we have things that will suck your blood out, filter it, and put it back in, so even assuming you somehow can’t filter explosive you could easily suck all his blood out and put fresh stuff in. I mean there might be a tiny bit of mixing but our bodies are actually set up pretty well to prevent blood from mixing, because you want to keep the fresh oxygeny blood separate from the used up stuff.
Anyway, in addition to being trussed up, he hasn’t been told anything, except also he has a lawyer and the lawyer is talking about an insanity defense.
Lev keeps telling him that he isn’t insane, although he’s not even sure himself anymore.
This book used up any shred of goodwill I might have had, so I’m going to assume this is the author’s swipe at insanity defenses in general as being something only bad people do.
Anyway, so pastor guy shows up.
“I understand they’ll only keep you wrapped up like this for a few weeks, until you’re out of the woods.”
Okay, so four transfusions and two weeks later, it’ll still take weeks to get the explosive out? This is a sort of fundamental refusal to understand the existence of molecules usually only seen in homeopathic medicine.
Anyway, Lev just rambles internally about why the guy’s there, and quickly recaps that he’s the pastor, he raised Lev up for slaughtering, told him to run away at the last second, thanks book it wasn’t that long ago. He then gets sick of speculating about why and just tells the guy to get on with whatever it is.
“How much have they told you about what’s going on out there?”
Pastor guy does not understand what getting on with it is. Then he mentions annoying possessed kid.
Lev knew his background would be checked and rechecked. That’s what happens to clappers—their whole life becomes pages pasted on a wall to be examined, and the people in their lives become suspects. Of course, that usually happens after the clapper has applauded his way into the next world.
This doesn’t fit at all with the claims no one understands what’s going on with clappers. I’m just going to assume it’s some weird failed attempt to parallel school shootings, which people do wonder a lot over.
Anyway, poor Lev panics and says the possessed kid wasn’t involved in the blowingupness, and pastor guy belatedly explains that no, he didn’t mean that at all. Apparently, annoying kid and his family have been going after the unwinding laws in Congress, which apparently totally is an option despite no one mentioning anything about it.
“What happened at Happy Jack Harvest Camp—it got a whole lot of people talking, people who had just been burying their heads in the sand. There have been protests in Washington against unwinding—Cyrus even testified before Congress.”
So blowing themselves up was indeed a good thing which led to change, but I’m sure we’re going to hear it was just Lev’s perfectness that made everyone care.
Lev tries to imagine CyFi in front of a congressional committee, trashtalking them in prewar sitcom Umber.
“There’s talk that they might even lower the legal age of adulthood from eighteen to seventeen. That’ll save a full fifth of all the kids marked for unwinding.”
I just…why? Why would objecting to murdering kids motivate people to save the oldest ones only?
(Also not how numbers work! Almost no kids should be sent off at seventeen. Plus, all the camps will have just switched to killing their seventeen year old stock as soon as they hear that, so it won’t save anyone, and this should kick the few parents that are still debating the issue into sending their kid off now while they still can.)
Also, apparently Lev is on all the magazines. All of them.
It’s his seventh-grade baseball picture—mitt in hand, smiling at the camera. The headline reads, WHY, LEV, WHY?
I really don’t get what’s so confusing about “they were going to kill me, so it seemed a good idea to blow them up first” except clearly that is very wrong for some reason.
In all the time he’s had here alone to think and rethink his actions, it never occurred to him that the outside world had been doing the same thing.
Lev attempts to downplay that:
“So what,” Lev says, trying to act as if it doesn’t matter. “Clappers always make the news.”
“Their actions make the news—the destruction they’ve caused—but nobody ever cares who a clapper is.
Book, this isn’t forgetting what you said chapters ago. You just said a couple paragraphs back that after someone claps there’s scrutiny about their whole life. How do they even know who did it, anyway? The size of the explosions seem to mean that more than one person would end up as fine mist.
To the public all clappers are the same. But you’re different from those others, Lev. You’re a clapper who didn’t clap.”
Technically, neither did Blaine. And Mai very nearly didn’t clap.
Also, I absolutely refuse to believe that no one else did this before now. I’ve accepted this is a world where parents murder their kids regularly, where women can just walk away from babies with no issues, where there’s secondary brains imbedded in all your limbs, but I draw the line at saying no one ever couldn’t go through with suicide.
Lev apparently also rescued three people from the wreckage and only stopped because he realized he’d probably blow up. Since Connor and the kids on the roof were the only kids in there, and apparently a bunch of other kids also rescued people, this implies a bunch of the childmurdering adults were rescued.
The other tithes, they all stayed back. They protected their own precious parts. But you basically led that rescue effort, because there were ‘terribles’ who followed you in to bring out survivors.”
Lev remembers that. Even as the mob was crashing down the gate, there were dozens of Unwinds going back into the wreckage with him.
…who are probably dead now, for not taking their chance to escape.
But hey, let’s hear more about how Lev not killing himself makes him the specialest ever.
he went back out to the red carpet and sat with Risa and Connor until ambulances took them away. Then he stood in the midst of the chaos and confessed to being a clapper. He confessed over and over again to anyone willing to listen, until finally a police officer kindly offered to arrest him.
Also, this is really not how police handle stuff. It’s like the author thinks he’s the first criminal ever to get cold feet and confess.
“What you did, Lev—it confused people. No one knows whether you’re a monster or a hero.”
So apparently just having explosives in your blood makes you a monster, because they’re just that evil, and it’s only Lev risking death to save people’s lives that even make this a question.
Lev thinks about that. “Is there a third choice
Christ.
Look, this isn’t that hard. a) Did you rescue people b) that were not childmurderers? Then hero. We’re done here.
Pastor guy is more confused on the subject, but we already know he’s an idiot who doesn’t have opinions.
“I have to believe that things happen for a reason. Your kidnapping, your becoming a clapper, your refusing to clap”—he glances at the magazine cover in his hand—”it’s all led to this. For years, Unwinds were just faceless kids that no one wanted—but now you’ve put a face on unwinding.”
This should totally be Risa.
Lev isn’t a kid no one wanted, he’s a sacrificial lamb everyone loved. He skips merrily to his death.
Risa, on the other hand, actually has a damn case. She’s being killed because she’s one of those faceless kids no one cares about, not even enough to actively want her unwound. She’s musically talented, so you’ve got the aspect of them killing kids not because they’re lazy and useless but because they’re worth more in pieces, and she’s good at medical care which is helpful to society at large, and she even sacrificed herself to save the admiral.
But she’s just the girlfriend, so we needed another kid to be the important one.
Pastor guy explains that also, Lev is safe from unwinding.
“They won’t unwind a clapper—that stuff never entirely gets out of your system.
They know this despite never capturing a clapper before.
Also, this is the worst exception yet!
So first, we learn that pregnant girls can get up to nine months of safety from unwinding. Okay, but that’s limited, if you aren’t already over seventeen you’re not going to be able to actually escape unwinding. Then we learn that “permanent” injuries also render you unfit for unwinding, including injuries that can easily be fixed by surgery you could just wait until you’re eighteen to have, but the only one to even consider it is one musician kid talking about his plans for the distant future and planning to just generally injure himself. And now we learn that slight explosives in your blood will mean you can never be unwound without any real side affects at all, yet no one tries to get their hands on the stuff for that reason.
I’ve been talking to your lawyer. He has a feeling they’re going to offer you a deal—after all, you did help them catch that group who gave you the transfusion to begin with. Those people who used you, they’ll get what they deserve.
Remember, kids, opposing the government is inherently wrong! The most you’re morally allowed to do is avoid the government’s attempts to kill you. Any attempt at fighting back is evil and you deserve to be killed. Good people betray the revolutionaries trying to stop childmurder.
“You may be responsible for your actions,” Pastor Dan says, “but it’s not your fault you weren’t emotionally prepared for life out there in the real world. That was my fault—and the fault of everyone who raised you to be a tithe. We’re as guilty as the people who pumped that poison into your blood.”
No, I think the people trying to kill him so the church can get new stained glass windows are a bit more guilty.
So anyway, Lev will go to juvenile detention then house arrest for a bunch of years.
“You have to understand, Lev, your parents are the kind of people who can’t bend without breaking.”
“Whose house?”
Pastor Dan sighs. “When your parents signed the unwind order, you became a ward of the state. After what happened at the harvest camp, the state offered to return custody to your parents, but they refused it. I’m sorry.”
It sure would have been nice to have actually seen enough of his parents to know this.
But anyway, remember the brother who got all upset? He’ll just adopt Lev and it’ll be fine. Can’t have any actual negative consequences for the male characters.
We also find out pastor guy resigned, because resigning is a thing good people do. That’s why admiral guy resigned instead of trying to actually fight the evil laws.
I still very much believe in God—just not a god who condones human tithing.”
Your god never condoned human tithing. I don’t even like your god and I know that much.
“I never knew that was a choice.”
Deuteronomy 18:10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer.
Jeremiah 7:31 And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.
This should not be hard.
For the first time in his life, Lev feels those bonds around his soul begin to loosen. “You think maybe I can believe in that God, too?”
So the real point of this is just because we can’t have an ending that doesn’t reaffirm that it’s important to be religious. I mean, sure, apparently all American religions believe in tithing, but that doesn’t mean atheism is anything but a pack of satanic lies. Sure, religions can sometimes make you do bad things, but atheism always does because how can you have any sort of moral code without god?
“But she’s just the girlfriend, so we needed another kid to be the important one.” …another guy noticeably. Everybody around him goes on and on about how great Connor is, Lev is now apparently responsible for a big change or at least re-evaluation for how unwinding works, and Risa’s big shining moment of the book is…… refusing to get surgery? Accepting Connor’s new arm?
Accepting his new arm, definitely. The surgery isn’t even a moral thing, since she has a perfectly good practical reason to refuse.
‘”I still very much believe in God—just not a god who condones human tithing.”
For the first time in his life, Lev feels those bonds around his soul begin to loosen.’
I think this is the part where Fred Clark would start going on about how great Huck Finn is again.
What’s particularly amazing is this is a god without any real hold on Lev, since it’s unclear if tithes actually have personal immortal souls or if theirs get subsumed into all the other people. None of the tithes talk about going to heaven, they’re sort of like enlightened saints returning to the cycle of reincarnation to aid others on their path to heaven.
So it’s not even Huck being willing to go to hell. It’s not wanting to disobey an evil god even when it’s unclear if there’s even a tangible punishment anyone can hand down. Which I guess does fit the fact that there’s no mention of authority being important because it’s got the biggest stick, it’s just…there, being the thing you’re supposed to obey or feel bad about how criminal you are.
God Neal Schusterman is so fucking weird. He’s not a “God-fearing” fundamentalist for the reasons you’ve just outlined. He’s not a Javertbot because if he were then trying to escape from the law would be the worst possible crime rather than the only forgivable one, and also neither adults nor policemen would be Evil. In large part I think he’s just a privileged asshat basking in the luxury of having opinions on issues that affect him not the slightest, but like you’ve said, there are still some things that doesn’t fully account for. I feel like the key to figuring him out is probably the “can’t change the law without changing human nature/ can’t change human nature without changing the law” bit that he thinks is so clever, but that’s so nonsensical that I’m not having much luck with it.
I think his law bit is probably tying into some idea about innate morality and possibly a dash of fundamental evil – you know, since we’re living in a fallen world you have to take that into account and can’t just make laws telling people to do the right thing.
As to him in general, well, the fact his self-insert is near the top makes me think now that maybe he’s just so pro-authority because mostly he is the authority.
“Can’t change the law…”–because human laws are human products, therefore only as good as the best of us? (Which doesn’t fit with his story, since the enactment of the unwinding law would necessitate a change in human nature, when it was actually a joke suggested by Admiral Dentures & his cronies.)
“Can’t change human nature…”–because humans are basically mindless sheep who obey authority even when it doesn’t make sense? (Which doesn’t fit with his story, since the protagonists are all pre-victims of the law and ultimately challenge that authority in their various ways.)
It’s another–maybe among the best–example of Neal’s incompetence as a writer/thinker.
Not mindless sheep, sinful sheep.
You make a law saying sluts can’t have get rid of their baby with abortion, but the sluts will still get pregnant and abandon the baby some other way! But if you don’t make the law, then the sluts keep having abortions!
The men keep passing laws to make the women less terrible and it just doesn’t work :((((((((((((
A cogent exploration of human nature v. human law would be an admirable topic for YA. Has anyone worthwhile taken that on?
Not to my knowledge. The most I see it is occasional academic discussions about the fallout from laws people don’t/won’t/can’t follow, if it’s made its way into any kind of fiction I’d sure like to see it.
“Your god never condoned human tithing. I don’t even like your god and I know that much.”
I don’t have a problem with this, they *could* place emphasis on different parts of the Bible. The ones who are A-ok with killing kids.Psalm 137:9
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
The bible’s always been happy with bloody, disproportionate vengeance being visited against their opponents and opponents’ children, yeah. And it’s sometimes unclear on if it’s okay with human sacrifices of their enemies. But it’s very consistent about not killing your own kids in God’s name because that’s what pagans do. It’s like the difference between justifying slavery and justifying slave sacrifices. They can easily use the bible to prop up unwinding, just not tithing.
“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son” is one of the half-dozen or so verses that modern Christians know. It’s not unreasonable to expect that religious people in this horrific pseudo-future wouldn’t be any better educated on the topic. They could see raising their own children to be tithes as following God’s example, which is inherently righteous. If they push the idea that kids that get unwound aren’t really dead, they can silence even more dissent. Naturally, people that have been taught *how* to think instead of *what* to think won’t buy that piece of bullshit either, luckily all of those people were rounded up and executed in what the propaganda machine called a war after the fact.
It could happen like that, sure, but that would require there being a powerful sect with the motivation to *make* it happen. Like Farla says, there are all kinds of reasons that various flavors of religious nutjob would want to make Unwinding-as-punishment a thing, but it’s a lot harder to imagine why any of the big ones would be gung-ho enough about tithing to put that much effort into pushing it through.
But that’s just it! Raising kids up as mini-Jesueses would totally be a Christian thing. There’s even historical precedent about Christians offering themselves up as sacrifices, and you could twist it easily into the sacrifice being to offer your kid. It’s the point it’s about tithing it suddenly goes off the rail. God sacrificed his son to humanity to fix us. Humanity sacrificing their sons to God is saying God sucks so much he needs us to kill pure kids to make up for how impure he is. Also, making it tithing and 1/10 means it’s also mocking God’s sacrifice because only son, the point there was it was the only kid he had because he loved us so much and thought we were worth it, not getting rid of one of the spares you probably don’t even want.
If it was just a thing religious people did as sacrifices to help purify the ungodly world (by spreading their Christian grace over the unsaved) it would totally work. But no throwing kids in the fire as a sacrifice to the church itself! It’s like the difference between sacrificing your ability to eat delicious bacon because God said it’s unclean and sacrificing your pig to God. It involves a lot of the same elements, but it’s being completely misapplied.
God I love bacon.
“I still very much believe in God—just not a god who condones human tithing.”
That pretty much sums up my frustration with many Christians. They pick and choose, accept the Bible as the word of God except the parts they don’t like, and get squirrelly with the rest. “The God I want to believe in doesn’t condone such-and-such, so I’ll decide that he doesn’t.”
Eh, I don’t argue. Ultimately, if they’re believing gays don’t need to get stoned and women get to have abortions and maybe we should do some long-term planning instead of assuming the world will end next week, I’m happy with whatever route they took to get there.
I don’t really see what the issue is. Accepting that the Bible is a historic document influenced by the time in which it was written and taking the important lessons (ie, treat people kindly) while discarding the outdated ones (ie, stone women) seems like a pretty mature approach to it IMO.
I think the person you’re replying to is more referring to the guys who insist homosexuality is an abomination but shrimp and mixed fibers aren’t.
Ah, that makes sense. Mea culpa.
(ie, treat people kindly)
By people, you mean Jews. The lesson was Jews are people, gentile aren’t.
…again, that really, REALLY depends on just which part you’re reading.
Eh, it’s a pretty good summary of Old Testament attitudes. They were really big on the ingroup/outgroup thing – rabid xenophobia, but very considerate of those within their group, with a number of laws based around the wellbeing of the tribe. I was reading someone else’s readthrough once and he was noticing the recurring theme of inside and outside – things inside the camp are good, things that come from outside are evil.
Jesus’ message is pretty much the polar opposite, where he seems to be arguing total equality where you not only should be nice to the stranger but to be nice to the stranger currently stabbing you and taking all your stuff.
Ember, Farla, only not.
“I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword” (Gospel of Matthew 10:34)
Let us look at Galatians 4:28-31 “Now you, brothers,
like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born in the ordinary way
persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what
does the Scripture say? ‘Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son
will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s
son.’ Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of
the free woman.” This verse from the
New Testament despises children who are born from slave mothers. This verse doesn’t
recognize children born from slave mothers as normal sons because they are not allowed to
inherit. This verse doesn’t recognize slaves as equal to normal human beings.
This verse agrees fully 100% with slavery and enslaving people.
Matthew 10:24 “A student is not
greater than the teacher. A slave is not greater than the master.”
Peter 2:18 “Slaves,
submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and
considerate, but also to those who are harsh.”
Colossians 3:22 “Slaves,
obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and
to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.”
Also, gentiles are not people:
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered
a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not
escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit
immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him
to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the
children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food
and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs
under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go — the demon has left your daughter.” –Mark 7:24-29
Jesus, a Jewish male, even he refers to the gentiles as a dog — the common Jewish reference to gentiles.
As a product of his cultural upbringing, even says once he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24).
Yeah, but there’s also that thing where the Roman comes because his guy slave is sick and Jesus is all yeah sure gay guys, I’ll help out. He’s got the story of the good Samaritan, who contemporary Jews despised.
The JEWS >>> everybody is as likely an addition as anything else, particularly considering that wasn’t exactly a revolutionary idea at the time. Whatever Jesus was saying was something that got people at the time really riled up.