History Literature / Perelandra

* DistractedByMyOwnSexy: The Un-Man twice fails to make the Green Lady put her own beauty before her love for Maleldil: he dresses her up in a feather-cloak and lets her see herself in a small convex mirror, but the experience just doesn't interest her. Protagonist Elwin Ransom remarks to himself, "Thank God, he's only trying to teach her Vanity," invoking this trope as a might-have-been. He later realizes that for the Un-Man, vanity is only a steppingstone to preoccupation with her own [[ItsAllAboutMe Great Soul]]. That is also the purpose of his endless narration of cheap romance fiction

* FishPeople: The open oceans of Venus are inhabited by a species of unintelligent, bio-luminescent humanoids with gills and fins.

* LavaPit: Inside a volcanic mountain. Ransom disposes of a dead body by dropping it into the lava, and at one point he's in a kind of a natural water slide, and is a little worried the slide will empty into a lava pit while he's rushing down it (it doesn't).
* LoveGoddess: The Oyarsa of Perelandra is an incorporeal being made of intelligence that causes all those in her "presence" to feel true love for those around them, whether its sexual, fraternal, or paternal. She is the truth behind the myth of Venus and guards the planet named after her and the couple that will be mother and father to every child of the planet of love.
* MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil: Played with: Weston didn't actually die [[spoiler: until Ransom killed him--seemingly twice]], but during a brief reprieve from his [[spoiler: DemonicPossession]], he spoke as if he'd been dead the whole time, and while that didn't make him hostile to Ransom, it made him unnervingly insane, unreasonable, and pitiable. It's implied that the kinds of things that happened to the damned really did happen to him during that time.

* ThePowerOfHate: An interesting example, in that it's justifiably used by the ''hero''. There's a moment when Ransom is physically battling the evil Dr. Weston [[spoiler:who just happens to be possessed by the Devil]] discovers not just a moment of Perfect Hate, but also just what to do with that hate, which allows him to actually overcome a far stronger enemy. Or to put it another way: knowingly, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Yes He Did Just Punch Out Cthulhu]]. This is given a [[{{Justified}} theological justification]] as to why Ransom can do this and morally remain a good guy: Weston is [[spoiler:possessed by The Devil, and thus is pure evil, and pure evil is the only thing that righteously deserves to be hated]].

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: As Ransom agonizes over how to deal with the Un-Man on Perelandra, this is what he eventually realizes he must do; he can never completely defeat the Un-Man in argument, since the Un-Man will never give up but will always simply switch to yet another tactic (even returning to previously failed strategies and all the while planting subtle seeds of self-absorption in the mind of the Queen with his endless narration of sleazy romance fiction) but he can kill him physically. Unfortunately, even this is trickier that it seems as there are no weapons or even sharp objects in the area where the first half of the story take place and Ransom has already thrown into the sea the gun that Weston (of course) brought with him precisely in order to ''prevent'' what is about to take place. Ransom is left with his fists and the Un-Man with his very long very ''very'' sharp fingernails. Ransom's efforts to dispatch the physical body of the Un-Man (originally Weston's body) make up a large part of the drama of the latter half of the novel

* BizarreAlienPsychology: Perelandra's Queen is intelligent and totally innocent in a strange way. She sleeps like its an active power of hers while remaining totally unable to recognize that the corpse-like Un-man is evil, because evil is so foreign to her that she has no vocabulary for it. Part of the oddness of her thinking is due to the psychic link she has with [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Maleldil the Young]], who answers her every question as soon as she starts wondering about it.

* {{Retcon}}: ''Perelandra'' turns one of the Martian languages from the first book into the language of every (non-terrestrial) planet, Old Solar. The problem with that is that the first book established that Mars has plenty of languages besides "Old Solar," so unless the CurseOfBabel selectively hit Mars, there's no reason for those languages to exist. The AuthorAvatar makes notices this discrepancy and finds it best to ignore it.

* TheDevilIsALoser: Or at least a disgusting child. As in his earlier novel ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', Lewis was pretty intent on deconstructing the idea of Satan as a suave MagnificentBastard and tried {{invoke}} this by portraying him in ''Perelandra'' the way he thought a truly pure evil being would be like. Ransom comes to the realization that for demons, intelligence is a trait that they can put on or remove at will -- it's like clothes they wear rather than an innate characteristic. And based on the Un-Man's petty behavior whenever he isn't "working", it's clear he would rather be intelligent as little as possible. At one point, Ransom even specifically thinks that he would much rather face a suave Mephistopheles-type of demon than the thing he has to put up with. Lewis also wanted to make the point that, having renounced the source of all good, Satan has to renounce all good things, intelligence being one of them. His philosophical/ontological position is inherently insane, like a man sawing off a tree limb he's sitting on, but his rhetoric is clever enough to muddy the issue.

* TheDevilIsALoser: Or at least a disgusting child. As in his earlier novel ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', Lewis was pretty intent on deconstructing the idea of Satan as a suave MagnificentBastard {{invoked}} and tried to portray him in ''Perelandra'' the way he thought a truly pure evil being would be like. Ransom comes to the realization that for demons, intelligence is a trait that they can put on or remove at will -- it's like clothes they wear rather than an innate characteristic. And based on the Un-Man's petty behavior whenever he isn't "working", it's clear he would rather be intelligent as little as possible. At one point, Ransom even specifically thinks that he would much rather face a suave Mephistopheles-type of demon than the thing he has to put up with. Lewis also wanted to make the point that, having renounced the source of all good, Satan has to renounce all good things, intelligence being one of them. His philosophical/ontological position is inherently insane, like a man sawing off a tree limb he's sitting on, but his rhetoric is clever enough to muddy the issue.

* DueToTheDead: After [[spoiler:killing Weston's body until it sticks, then incinerating the corpse so the dark eldil within it can't escape]], Ransom, despite never even liking the man, carves him a grand tombstone in the cliffs of Venus, in tribute to his genuine genius.

* EvilIsPetty: The Un-man in ''Perelandra'' is capable of making very eloquent-sounding arguments to tempt his subject towards evil; but when he's unable to do anything more profoundly evil, he amuses himself with torturing small animals and annoying Ransom. His most frequent past-time is standing by Ransom as he tries to sleep and repeating his name ad infinitum until Ransom responds. Then he replies "Nothing." and starts again.

* TheDevilIsALoser: Or at least a disgusting child. As in his earlier novel ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', Lewis was pretty intent on deconstructing the idea of Satan as a suave MagnificentBastard and tried to portray him in ''Perelandra'' the way he thought a truly pure evil being would be like. Ransom comes to the realization that for demons, intelligence is a trait that they can put on or remove at will -- it's like clothes they wear rather than an innate characteristic. And based on the Un-Man's petty behavior whenever he isn't "working", it's clear he would rather be intelligent as little as possible. At one point, Ransom even specifically thinks that he would much rather face a suave Mephistopheles-type of demon than the thing he has to put up with. Lewis also wanted to make the point that, having renounced the source of all good, Satan has to renounce all good things, intelligence being one of them. His philosophical/ontological position is inherently insane, like a man sawing off a tree limb he's sitting on, but his rhetoric is clever enough to muddy the issue.
* DidYouJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: The eldila are invisible, multi-dimensional aliens who have ruled the Solar System from the darkness of space and the edges of time, in keeping with the will of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} and their love for the universe.

* HumanAliens: Green skin aside, the King and Queen of Perelandra are identical to humans. There is a reason for this: since Maleldil the Young took on a human body, all sapient life younger than the human race is made in the image of the Earthly Maleldil.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: As Ransom agonizes over how to deal with the Un-Man on Perelandra, this is what he eventually realizes he must do; he can never completely defeat the Un-Man in argument, since the Un-Man will never give up but will always simply switch to yet another tactic (even returning to previously failed strategies and all the while planting subtle seeds of self-absorption in the mind of the Queen with his endless narration of sleazy romance fiction) but he can kill him physically. Unfortunately, even this is trickier that it seems as there are no weapons or even sharp objects in the area where the first half of the story take place and Ransom has already thrown into the sea the gun that Weston (of course) brought with him precisely in order to prevent what is about to take place. Ransom is left with his fists and the Un-Man with his very long very ''very'' sharp fingernails. Ransom's efforts to dispatch the physical body of the Un-Man (originally Weston's body) make up a large part of the drama of the latter half of the novel

* DistractedByMyOwnSexy: The Un-Man twice fails to make the Green Lady put her own beauty before her love for Maleldil: he dresses her up in a feather-cloak and lets her see herself in a small convex mirror, but the experience just doesn't interest her. Protagonist Elwin Ransom remarks to himself, "Thank God, he's only trying to teach her Vanity," invoking this trope as a might-have-been. He later realizes that for the Un-Man, vanity is only a steppingstone to preoccupation with her own Great Soul. That is also the purpose of his endless narration of cheap romance fiction

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: As Ransom agonizes over how to deal with the Un-Man on Perelandra, this is what he eventually realizes he must do; he can never completely defeat the Un-Man in argument, since the Un-Man will never give up but will always simply switch to yet another tactic (even returning to previously failed strategies and all the while planting subtle seeds of self-absorption in the mind of the Queen with his endless narration of sleazy romance fiction) but he can kill him physically. Unfortunately, even this is trickier that it seems as there are no weapons or even sharp objects in the area where the first half of the story take place and Ransom has already thrown into the sea the gun that Weston (of course) brought with him precisely in order to prevent what is about to take place. Ransom is left with his fists and the Un-Man with his very long very ''very'' sharp fingernails. Ransom's efforts to dispatch the physical body of the Un-Man (originally Weston's body) are a large part of the drama of the latter half of the novel

* TheDevilIsALoser: Or at least a disgusting child. As in his earlier novel ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', Lewis was pretty intent on dissecting the idea of Satan as a suave MagnificentBastard and tried to portray him in ''Perelandra'' the way he thought a truly pure evil being would be like. Ransom comes to the realization that for demons, intelligence is a trait that they can put on or remove at will -- it's like clothes they wear rather than an innate characteristic. And based on the Un-Man's petty behavior whenever he isn't "working", it's clear he would rather be intelligent as little as possible. At one point, Ransom even specifically thinks that he would much rather face a suave Mephistopheles-type of demon than the thing he has to put up with. Lewis also wanted to make the point that, having renounced the source of all good, Satan has to renounce all good things, intelligence being one of them. His philosophical/ontological position is inherently insane, like a man sawing off a tree limb he's sitting on, but his rhetoric is clever enough to muddy the issue.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: As Ransom agonizes over how to deal with the Un-Man on Perelandra, this is what he eventually realizes he must do; he can never completely defeat the Un-Man in argument, since the Un-Man will never give up but will always simply switch to yet another tactic (even returning to previously failed strategies and all the while planting subtle seeds of self-absorption in the mind of the Queen with his endless narration of sleazy romance fiction) but he can kill him physically.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The hero has to prevent Satan from tempting alien Adam and Eve. He first tries to do this through debate, but the devil relentlessly keeps "winning" the arguments through cunning lies, half truths, obfuscation and diversion. The hero decides to settle matters with good ol' fisticuffs.

* EvilIsNotAToy: Weston learns this lesson in the hardest way possible. Inbetween books, he consorts with demons while convincing himself that there is no difference between God and Satan, and they are merely two sides of the same all-encompassing spiritual Force. In his usual pompous fashion, he deliberately calls the Force into himself, at which point [[DemonicPossession his will is immediately subsumed by the devils]]. His last words as himself are utterly terrified.

* AdamAndEvePlot: ''Perelandra'' tells of the first Woman of Venus who has yet to meet either Man or evil. The whole conflict comes when Ransom is sent from Earth to make sure she doesn't follow Eve and Fall before she can meet her husband for the first time and spread life across Venus as Maleldil intended.
* AlienLandmass: Most of ''Perelandra'' is set on the shifting, moving islands of the titular planet. Ransom initially assumes they're part of the ocean he crashes into since the land rises and falls with the waves, at least until he meets the Queen.

* AmbiguouslyHuman: The Un-man may be an ancient creature from the depths of space, but when it appears in ''Perelandra'', it has the appearance of a human body. The problem is, its body is always a little un-lifelike, as if its a corpse operated by a puppeteer. [[spoiler:After all, the Un-man is the very human Weston possessed by a being of pure mind.]]

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The hero has to prevent Satan from tempting alien Adam and Eve. He first tries to do this through debate, but the devil keeps winning the arguments. The hero decides to settle matters with good ol' fisticuffs.
* AuthorAvatar: C.S. Lewis appears as the close friend and ghost-writer of the trilogy's hero, Ransom. In the second book, he resists a lunar demon and helps Ransom prepare for his journey to Venus.
* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: The King and Queen of Perelandra are given authority over the world in a multi-dimensional ceremony involving the assembly of all animals, the physical manifestation of two gods, and a glimpse into the Great Dance of pure joy that awaits all with faith in Maleldil. It takes a year and is so ecstatic that those present don't notice the time pass.

* BoldlyComing: So, a man gets sent in the nude spend weeks alone with a naked GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe with no one else on their side of the planet. Weston (or the thing possesing him?) immediately assumes their relationship is sexual and Ransom vainly tries to explain that the alien's Edenic innocence makes it difficult to even look at her perversely.

* TheCorrupter: The Un-man again, whose explicit mission is to recreate the Fall of Man with the Perelandrans.

* DetonationMoon: The King of Perelandra prophesies that he, Mars, his planet, and Christ will all begin the War of Earth by destroying the Moon, the shield and first victim of the Black Oyarsa. All its TranshumanAliens will be justly slain and the remains will rain down upon the Earth, beginning [[Literature/BookOfRevelation the biblical Apocalypse]].

* DistractedByMyOwnSexy: The Un-Man twice fails to make the Green Lady put her own beauty before her love for Jesus: he dresses her up in a feather-cloak and lets her see herself in a small convex mirror, but the experience just doesn't interest her. Protagonist Elwin Ransom remarks to himself, "Thank God, he's only trying to teach her Vanity," invoking this trope as a might-have-been.

* EvilIsPetty: The Un-man in ''Perelandra'' is capable of making very eloquent arguments to tempt his subject towards evil; but when he's unable to do anything more profoundly evil, he spends his time torturing small animals and annoying Ransom. His most frequent past-time is standing by Ransom as he tries to sleep and repeating his name ad infinitum until Ransom responds. Then he starts again.
* EvilIsNotAToy: Weston learns this lesson in the hardest way possible. Inbetween books, he consorts with demons while convincing himself that there is no difference between God and Satan, and they are merely two sides of the same all-encompassing spiritual Force. In his usual pompous fashion, he deliberately calls the Force into himself, at which point [[DemonicPossession his will is immediately subsumed by the devils]]. His last words as himself are utterly terrified.

%%* GoodAngelBadAngel: Ransom and the demon in ''Perelandra''.

* ImAManICantHelpIt: Invoked by Weston. He sees Ransom with the (naked, as it's an Eden-ish paradise) queen of Perelandra and assumes Ransom was making a move on her. Ransom tries to explain that he was not, and that the whole planet is full of such innocence that he didn't even feel any lust and interacted as normally as he would have with anyone clothed on earth, but Weston just assumes that Ransom is lying since as a man standing with a naked woman, he naturally ''must'' have been trying to make love to her. Also qualifies as EvilCannotComprehendGood.

* TormentByAnnoyance: ''Perelandra'' features this, overlapping with EvilIsPetty. When Ransom finds himself stuck on a small island with a demon, the demon resorts to annoying Ransom. He calls Ransom's name, then when Ransom asks what he wants, he answers, "Nothing." He repeats this for hours.

* ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption: Ransom is forced to physically fight with the Un-Man after weeks of debating and arguing have failed. Ransom is initially appalled by the idea and uses it only as a last resort. He also knows he has a very good chance of dying in the attempt.
* TheWatson: Lewis gets little to say outside of questions about what happened in the first book and what the eldila want the protagonist to do for the rest of the current novel.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: When Ransom is agonizing over how to deal with the Un-Man on Perelandra, this is essentially the answer he receives: he can't beat the Un-Man in argument, but he can kill him physically.

** [[AuthorAvatar C.S. Lewis]] is psychically assaulted by a multi-dimensional EnergyBeing (known as an "eldil" in Old Solar) on the way to the hero's house. He keeps total control of his body, yet Lewis' mind is flooded with unfamiliar doubts about his old friend and superstitions that make every tree into a monster on the prowl. Just thinking is like fighting against the wind so long as the eldil has some foothold in his mind.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The hero has to prevent Satan from tempting alien Adam and Eve. He first tries to do this through debate, but the devil keeps winning the arguments. The hero decides to settle matters with good ol' fisticuffs. [[BrokenAesop Because the proper response to losing a debate is to beat up your opponent to prove that you're right despite logic.]]

* PurpleProse: The final chapters get downright rhapsodical. TropesAreNotBad, however, and some critics say that these passages of prose qualify as C. S. Lewis's best poetry.

* TrippyFinaleSyndrome: The Great Dance vision at the end of ''Perelandra''. It's quite well done.

* AlienLandmass: Most of ''Perelandra'' is set on the shifting, moving islands of the titular planet. Ransom initially assumes they're part of the ocean he crashes into since the land rises and falls with the waves, only to realize these ever-transforming masses hold the Queen of this world.
* AlienSky: The skies over Perelandra are opaque, leading to pitch black nights.

* AuthorAvatar: C.S. Lewis appears as the close friend and ghost-writer of the trilogy's hero, Ransom. In the second book, he gets fights a lunar demon and helps Ransom get abducted to Venus.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: Ransom briefly encounters giant flies and beetles in the caverns under Perelandra. Subverted, however. Once the Un-man's presence is removed, and the fear it generated is gone, Ransom also ceases to fear the creepy crawlies, and speculates that they may, in fact, be sentient beings.
* BoldlyComing: So, a man gets sent in the nude spend weeks alone with a naked GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe with no one else on their side of the planet. The first person Ransom talks to about the situation assumes their relationship is purely sexual and Ransom vainly tries to explain that the alien's Edenic innocence makes it difficult to look at her perversely.

* DarkIsNotEvil: In ''Perelandra'', the inhabitants of the underground of Perelandra (Venus) appear briefly. They are potentially human and not evil, but not necessarily friendly to humans.

* TheDevilIsALoser: Or at least a disgusting child. As in his earlier novel ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', Lewis was pretty intent on dissecting the idea of Satan as a suave MagnificentBastard and tried to portray him in ''Perelandra'' the way he thought a truly pure evil being would be like. Ransom comes to the realization that for demons, intelligence is a trait that they can put on or remove at will -- it's like clothes they wear rather than an innate characteristic. And based on the Un-Man's petty behavior whenever he isn't "working", it's clear he would rather be intelligent as little as possible. At one point, Ransom even specifically thinks that he would much rather face a Mephistopheles-type of demon than the thing he has to put up with. Lewis also wanted to make the point that, having renounced the source of all good, Satan has to renounce all good things, intelligence being one of them. His philosophical/ontological position is inherently insane, like a man sawing off a tree limb he's sitting on, but his rhetoric is clever enough to muddy the issue.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: In ''Perelandra'', Ransom has to take out evil incarnate with no other weapons than his fists. And he's a middle-aged professor without much fighting experience. [[spoiler: However, it happens that evil is currently incarnate in the body of another middle-aged professor, so it's a fairer fight than Ransom feared. And Ransom is a former boxer who's been taking care of himself, while the other professor hasn't been sleeping, eating, or otherwise engaging in any of the sorts of activities human bodies need to stay healthy.]]
* DistractedByMyOwnSexy: In ''Perelandra', the Un-Man twice fails to make the Green Lady put her own beauty before her love for Jesus:
** Subverted when the Un-Man, in Weston's body, tries to teach vanity to the Green Lady by dressing her up in a feather-cloak and letting her see herself in a small convex mirror, but the experience fails to captivate her. Protagonist Elwin Ransom remarks to himself, "Thank God, he's only trying to teach her Vanity," invoking this trope as a might-have-been. The Lady eventually grows bored with looking at a small image of herself and returns to her normal activities.

* EvilIsPetty: The Un-man in ''Perelandra'' is capable of making very eloquent arguments to tempt his subject towards evil; but when he's unable to do anything more profoundly evil, he spends his time torturing small animals and playing childish pranks on Ransom. His most frequent past-time is standing by Ransom as he tries to sleep and repeating his name ad infinitum until Ransom responds. Then he starts again.
* EvilIsNotAToy: Weston learns this lesson in the hardest way possible. In the time between the first and second book, he consorts with demons while convincing himself that there is no difference between God and Satan, and they are merely two sides of the same all-encompassing spiritual Force. In his usual pompous fashion, he deliberately calls the Force into himself, at which point [[DemonicPossession his will is immediately subsumed by the devils]]. His last words as himself are utterly terrified.

* FishPeople: The open oceans of Venus are inhabited with a species of unintelligent, bio-luminescent humans. Well, humanoids, since they have gills and fins and have no relationship to the creatures of Earth besides a common creator.

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: In ''Perelandra'', two major eldila appear in human form, but it takes them some practice; an earlier attempt winds up in EldritchAbomination territory. (When they're not making an effort to change their form, they're perceived more as EnergyBeings.) See OurAngelsAreDifferent below.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: In ''Perelandra'', Ransom knows upon seeing the Un-man's smile that there can be a face so hideous that merely seeing it would prevent one from every feeling joy again.

* TheGodsMustBeLazy: In ''Perelandra'', Ransom wonders why he wasn't receiving divine help in light of the direct demonic intervention from the other side. The answer: Ransom himself ''is'' the divine help -- Adam and Eve didn't have the benefit of advice from an older race that had failed the ForbiddenFruit test; [[spoiler:Plus, Satan is'in the physical body of a human being, which can be killed...]]

* HeavensDevils: Ransom mistakes the horrible insects below the Underworld for demons, only to realize that the creatures below the ground are just as much a part of God's creation as those on the surface. He appreciates the pagans for honoring these cthonic beasts and not falling into the pantheism of the real demons.

* HumanAliens: Outside of their green shade, the King and Queen of Perelandra are identical to humans. There is a reason for this: since Maleldil the Young took on a human body, all sapient life younger than the human race is made in the image of the Earthly Maleldil.
* InsignificantLittleBluePlanet: In ''Perelandra'', the Un-man calls life the "rind" of the universe, a thin cover that hides the truth of emptiness and death that defines space, the underground, and the oceans. Ransom argues that size does not define the value of the thing and comes to realize even the darkness of these places has a certain beauty to it. He even comes to realize a hundred-eyed spider monster he finds underground is an expression of God's love, beautiful in a way familiar to the All-Knowing and alien to man.

* KungFuJesus: Tor announces that at the end of the age, the armies of Mars, Venus, and the righteous dead will be led into war against Earth by Jesus himself. With his glorified body, he will destroy the Moon, wipe out all memory of evil, and allow the universe to begin as part of the Great Dance.
* LavaPit: There is a segment in ''Perelandra'' where Ransom is inside a volcanic mountain. He disposes of a dead body by dropping it into the lava, and at one point he's in a kind of a natural water slide, and is a little worried the slide will empty into a lava pit while he's rushing down it (it doesn't).

* NotQuiteDead: In ''Perelandra'', Ransom [[spoiler:delivers a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown to the Un-man and finally seems to kill him in a cave, sitting on him for at least twelve hours just to make sure that he's dead. He then climbs for some time up to a series of caves to find a way out, only to find that the Un-man has somehow followed him, despite dragging a broken leg the whole way.]]

* PurpleProse: The final chapters of ''Perelandra'' get downright rhapsodical. TropesAreNotBad, however, and some critics say that these passages of prose qualify as C. S. Lewis's best poetry.

* RubberyWorld: In ''Perelandra'', the eponymous planet has grasslands and forests that float on the surface of the ocean. A hill one moment is a valley another. Amusingly, the weeds and float-bladders beneath them ''are'' apparently quite rubbery.

* CannotTellALie: When Ransom tries on Perelandra, it is physically painful for him because the planet's purity abhors it. [[DemonicPossession Weston, or rather, the thing that used to be Weston]] seems to have no problem with it.

* HollywoodNihilist: In ''Perelandra'', The Un-man makes it plain that the bent eldila kill, torture, and tempt because they are too disfigured to see any value in anything. Why not destroy life if below the surface all things are just "darkness, worms, heat, pressure, salt, suffocation?"
-->''"The only point in anything is that there isn't any point. Why do ghosts want to frighten? Because they ''are'' ghosts. What else is there to do?"''

[[redirect:Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy]]