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Thus, the book begins. Throughout, Horselover Fat is confronted by the Soviet Union, Satan (in the form of [[UsefulNotes/RichardNixon Ferris F Fremont]]), Jesus, alien space lasers, and his own possible madness.

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Thus, the book begins. Throughout, Horselover Fat is confronted by the Soviet Union, Satan (in the form of [[UsefulNotes/RichardNixon Ferris F F. Fremont]]), Jesus, alien space lasers, and his own possible madness.



* BrainyBaby: [[spoiler: Sophia, who's also the messiah.]]

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* BrainyBaby: [[spoiler: Sophia, [[spoiler:Sophia, who's also the messiah.]]



* {{Catchphrase}}: Maurice keeps rhetorically claiming "I'm being serious!". Fat and Phil laugh about that (behind his back).

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* {{Catchphrase}}: CharacterCatchphrase: Maurice keeps rhetorically claiming "I'm being serious!". Fat and Phil laugh about that (behind his back).



* KillSat: Well, sorta. VALIS can be dangerous to pets [[spoiler: and people]] due to the radiation it emits.

to:

* KillSat: Well, sorta. VALIS can be dangerous to pets [[spoiler: and [[spoiler:and people]] due to the radiation it emits.



* MindScrew
* MindScrew
* [[RuleOfThree Mind Screw]]:
** For example, Phil drops his friend Fat off at the airport. Fat is going overseas for a year or so to do some soul-searching. He sends Fat postcards of where he's been, and tells him about a woman he's been seeing. Eventually, he comes home and Phil along with his friends welcome him back from his journey, of which he has many photos. During this entire time, Phil was staying at home and spent most of his time watching TV all day, and meeting periodically with his friends. Okay, have you got all that? Good. All right. [[spoiler: Phil and Fat are split personalities.]] Have a nice day now.
** [[spoiler: Makes a great deal more sense if you consider that Fat probably isn't supposed to be another personality, but a hallucination. Another personality would take over Philip's body periodically, and leave Philip with holes in his memory. It's pretty clear in the novel that Philip believes in Fat's existence, but everyone else thinks he's a hallucination. If Fat were another personality, Philip would be in the dark. It's possible his friends went to the airport because they were tired of arguing with him. He's schizophrenic, not dissociative.]] But... still a MindScrew.
*** [[spoiler: Debatable. The novel is written in the 3rd person, where both Fat and Philip are treated as separate entities, however the novel is ''written by'' Horselover Fat[[note]]See Chapter 1[[/note]]. Hence Philip's consciousness is tied into the persona of Fat, he adopts the personality in an attempt to diverge and distance himself from the identity of Philip. This is the only way he can cope with the weight of existence within reality - the Black Iron Prison. That's why when Sophia finally is introduced, he sees a solution and his cognitive processes coalesce back into the central identity of Philip, but when she dies, he reverts. If Fat was a hallucination there would be no point-of-view to work from and he would act as an external intrusion, but instead the point of view is introspective where ''Philip'' is extruded from the central subjective view of reality. Schizophrenic yes, but you can't really argue for him being ''not'' dissociative when the entire point of Fat's existence is as a refuge so Philip can dissociate himself from reality. It doesn't need to manifest as classical disocciative identity disorder with a psychotic fugue or black-outs - you could easily stamp him with the label "atypical" and the DSM-IV wouldn't argue with you.]][[note]]Fat debates this himself at the end of chapter 7, for anyone who's interested.[[/note]] However, considering the amount of YMMV, MindScrew and [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory symbolic interpretations]] ([[ParanoiaFuel paranoia to follow]]), there are undoubtedly other ways to view this scenario.

to:

* MindScrew
* MindScrew
* [[RuleOfThree Mind Screw]]:
MindScrew:
** For example, Phil drops his friend Fat off at the airport. Fat is going overseas for a year or so to do some soul-searching. He sends Fat postcards of where he's been, and tells him about a woman he's been seeing. Eventually, he comes home and Phil along with his friends welcome him back from his journey, of which he has many photos. During this entire time, Phil was staying at home and spent most of his time watching TV all day, and meeting periodically with his friends. Okay, have you got all that? Good. All right. [[spoiler: Phil [[spoiler:Phil and Fat are split personalities.]] Have a nice day now.
** [[spoiler: Makes [[spoiler:Makes a great deal more sense if you consider that Fat probably isn't supposed to be another personality, but a hallucination. Another personality would take over Philip's body periodically, and leave Philip with holes in his memory. It's pretty clear in the novel that Philip believes in Fat's existence, but everyone else thinks he's a hallucination. If Fat were another personality, Philip would be in the dark. It's possible his friends went to the airport because they were tired of arguing with him. He's schizophrenic, not dissociative.]] But... still a MindScrew.
*** [[spoiler: Debatable.[[spoiler:Debatable. The novel is written in the 3rd person, where both Fat and Philip are treated as separate entities, however the novel is ''written by'' Horselover Fat[[note]]See Chapter 1[[/note]]. Hence Philip's consciousness is tied into the persona of Fat, he adopts the personality in an attempt to diverge and distance himself from the identity of Philip. This is the only way he can cope with the weight of existence within reality - the Black Iron Prison. That's why when Sophia finally is introduced, he sees a solution and his cognitive processes coalesce back into the central identity of Philip, but when she dies, he reverts. If Fat was a hallucination there would be no point-of-view to work from and he would act as an external intrusion, but instead the point of view is introspective where ''Philip'' is extruded from the central subjective view of reality. Schizophrenic yes, but you can't really argue for him being ''not'' dissociative when the entire point of Fat's existence is as a refuge so Philip can dissociate himself from reality. It doesn't need to manifest as classical disocciative identity disorder with a psychotic fugue or black-outs - you could easily stamp him with the label "atypical" and the DSM-IV wouldn't argue with you.]][[note]]Fat debates this himself at the end of chapter 7, for anyone who's interested.[[/note]] However, considering the amount of YMMV, MindScrew and [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory symbolic interpretations]] ([[ParanoiaFuel paranoia to follow]]), there are undoubtedly other ways to view this scenario.



* SplitPersonality: Phil and Fat, probably. [[spoiler: Add [[ManySpiritsInsideOfOne Thomas]] to the bunch, even if he doesn't get a proper speaking role, and all the reincarnatad-in-Phil-people-from-the-past...]]

to:

* SplitPersonality: Phil and Fat, probably. [[spoiler: Add [[spoiler:Add [[ManySpiritsInsideOfOne Thomas]] to the bunch, even if he doesn't get a proper speaking role, and all the reincarnatad-in-Phil-people-from-the-past...]]



* WildMassGuessing: The hypotheses that Fat, his alternate personality, and their group of friends start churning out to try to explain the possible grinding humdrum of psychosis, insanity, the tedious events of everyday life, and the coming of a new messiah to earth to release man from the sins of a destructive creator god who imprisoned all human form within a fortress that may or may not exist overlaid in multiple dimensions on top of our own reality. Generally. Depending on what part of his exegesis Fat is detailing, you may get an addition of ancient Greek languages, the dichotomy of early Christian symbols, the possibility of 3-eyed aliens from outside of "time" (or the future) whom humans either originally came from, have the potential to become, or are who the aliens wish to help (by coming to free humanity from the Iron Fortress), and philosophical debates on the nature of life and death. You may need a neck brace to deal with the Ideological Whiplash.

to:

* WildMassGuessing: The hypotheses that Fat, his alternate personality, and their group of friends start churning out to try to explain the possible grinding humdrum of psychosis, insanity, the tedious events of everyday life, and the coming of a new messiah to earth to release man from the sins of a destructive creator god who imprisoned all human form within a fortress that may or may not exist overlaid in multiple dimensions on top of our own reality. Generally. Depending on what part of his exegesis Fat is detailing, you may get an addition of ancient Greek languages, the dichotomy of early Christian symbols, the possibility of 3-eyed aliens from outside of "time" (or the future) whom humans either originally came from, have the potential to become, or are who the aliens wish to help (by coming to free humanity from the Iron Fortress), and philosophical debates on the nature of life and death. You may need a neck brace to deal with the Ideological Whiplash.Whiplash.
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* WildMassGuessing: the hypotheses that Fat, his alternate personality, and their group of friends start churning out to try to explain the possible grinding humdrum of psychosis, insanity, the tedious events of everyday life, and the coming of a new messiah to earth to release man from the sins of a destructive creator god who imprisoned all human form within a fortress that may or may not exist overlaid in multiple dimensions on top of our own reality. Generally. Depending on what part of his exegesis Fat is detailing, you may get an addition of ancient Greek languages, the dichotomy of early Christian symbols, the possibility of 3-eyed aliens from outside of "time" (or the future) whom humans either originally came from, have the potential to become, or are who the aliens wish to help (by coming to free humanity from the Iron Fortress), and philosophical debates on the nature of life and death. You may need a neck brace to deal with the Ideological Whiplash.

to:

* WildMassGuessing: the The hypotheses that Fat, his alternate personality, and their group of friends start churning out to try to explain the possible grinding humdrum of psychosis, insanity, the tedious events of everyday life, and the coming of a new messiah to earth to release man from the sins of a destructive creator god who imprisoned all human form within a fortress that may or may not exist overlaid in multiple dimensions on top of our own reality. Generally. Depending on what part of his exegesis Fat is detailing, you may get an addition of ancient Greek languages, the dichotomy of early Christian symbols, the possibility of 3-eyed aliens from outside of "time" (or the future) whom humans either originally came from, have the potential to become, or are who the aliens wish to help (by coming to free humanity from the Iron Fortress), and philosophical debates on the nature of life and death. You may need a neck brace to deal with the Ideological Whiplash.

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