| 1 | * As someone who was only exposed to the movie adaptation, the last half was so full of plot holes that it brought down a seemingly good movie to mediocre teenage flick levels. OK here goes: Why choose Asher (the one drone pilot most probable to harbor sympathy for his buddy Jonas, not to mention the least experienced one) to carry out the critical mission to ensure the survival of the regime? And why trust him to keep this secret instead of another pilot who proved his unquestioning loyalty (as should be the norm) before? How does Jonas survive what amounts to be an endurance triathlon over God knows how many dozens / hundreds miles of harsh terrain with no supplies? Even if his implanted memories were somehow giving him Bear Grylls-levels of survival skills to cross deserts and mountains, how did he manage to keep Gabe from dying of exposure / starvation? How long did their epic journey take so they could make it across the border in time to prevent the "release" of Fiona? Talking about her release, why did they allow The Giver who was just moments ago detained as a dissenter to attend her ceremony ''and'' to freely speak his mind to everyone there, including the doctor performing the operation? I guess I want to know if these events are wildly different in the book, or are they justified somehow? |
| 2 | ** Book info: |
| 3 | *** Asher is never assigned to drone pilot in the book, he's instead assigned a recreational position. Likewise, Fiona was never up for release. The climactic scenes Asher and Fiona get with Jonas in the film are not in the book; instead Jonas just drifts apart from them because they ingratiate themselves into society too well for Jonas's self-awareness. |
| 4 | *** I don't think the book ever described Jonas's journey to Elsewhere as passing through desert (although they do end up in a snowy village as well, and it's possible they did cross through desert). It's mentioned Gabe nearly dies over the trip, with Jonas just keeping him alive with happy memories. |
| 5 | *** The book never shows us what happens in the Community after Jonas leaves (all we get is an offhand mention in one of the sequels that things better), so all the stuff that goes down at Fiona's execution (which, again, never happened in the book) is pretty much made-up for the film. That said, it's likely the Giver is for all intents and purposes ''still'' a dissenter, but gets a free pass on attending events because he's a very important elder. |
| 6 | ** It's probable that since they had Asher already awake and in front of them, they figured they might as well use him rather than going to fetch another one. And the Council, without real emotions of their own, wouldn't realize that Asher might disobey. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | * How can people in the Community become airplane pilots if they're all completely colorblind? |
| 9 | ** Maybe those assigned to be Pilots are given color vision. Remember how Jonas wondered if anyone else got the "You are allowed to lie" rule in their folders and then found out that his dad lied to him about what really happened when he released the twin? Maybe others are given special qualities but are told to lie in order to keep the peace. |
| 10 | ** Would colorblindess really be such an obstacle to piloting? |
| 11 | *** In Real Life, colorblindness would disqualify a pilot. Cockpit instruments, landing lights at airports, marker lights on other planes, all are color-coded. There might also be difficulty distinguishing between the horizon and a cloudbank, for instance. |
| 12 | ** The colorblind can't become pilots because instead of writing, color is used to convey signals them over a distance. Presumably there is a different system worked out. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | * The people have no memory of war, yet at the beginning when an unidentified plane flies overhead, everyone is told to take cover. Then it turns out the plane is from their own airforce. What do they think an airforce is for if they don't know about war? (Note - I may be misremembering details, it has been a while since I read it.) |
| 15 | ** It's just said to be a jet, not a war plane. Could be meant for scouting or something. |
| 16 | ** Probably. It seems it's the same kind of jet they use when searching for Jonas and Gabriel. |
| 17 | ** The airforce is to blow up plane going the wrong way by accident or losing controls (no one understand murder so they'll just think the pilot vanished)there seems to be however some memory lingering giving birthmothers has some stigma going on and people don't like hearing the word release used lightly despite not knowing what is so bad about being released. |
| 18 | ** If memory serves, it was used to deliver food or supplies. The person flying it was inexperienced and flew in an incorrect path, which was why the people freaked out. Everything was so conformed, that the slightest change caused massive panic. |
| 19 | *** Memory does not serve. The pilot was in training and wasn't using the usual sort of plane. That's part of why it was so scary. Of course, everybody older than 16 or so probably remembered having Rosemary's memories.... |
| 20 | *** Which makes perfect sense, actually. If a plane is behaving oddly, it might be out of control and about to crash, so taking cover is a good idea. |
| 21 | ** The people didn't need to have any memories at all. The Giver mentions this as an example of a time the Elders didn't know what to do about a new experience, and came to him for advice. He recommended that they not shoot it down, and likely also advised them on what tell the Community. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | * Why do the memories supposedly stay in the community when Jonas leaves, yet he still remembers food and sleds and all that? |
| 24 | ** This troper always thought of it as him remembering remembering. He knows that the sun is warm because he has felt its remembered warmth before, but he doesn't recall how it feels exactly. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | * How has this never happened before? Jonas' actions seem so natural given his circumstances that it seems odd that no Receiver of Memory has ever tried it before. Even his predecessor is unsatisfied with the status quo and regrets not doing something sooner. In fact, counting Rosemary, every single Receiver of Memory we know of has strained against his station and caused some memory leaks. Were previous Receivers of Memory somehow able to know the whole truth but be perfectly satisfied with the way things were? |
| 27 | ** The Giver does suggest at one point that the system might not have stood like that for as long as they want to think it does. |
| 28 | ** Alternatively, you could say that this is further illustrating the whole problem with Jonas' society-- it's forced everyone to live so unnaturally that someone acting in a way we would consider "normal" is a rare occurrence. |
| 29 | ** Their plan hinges on the memories leaving Jonas and returning to the community. Until Rosemary inadvertently released memories to the population they probably didn't know it could be done. |
| 30 | *** This. The book makes this a bit more clear. Presumably, from the Giver and the previous Giver, and back and back and back, the Givers would always succeed in passing all the memories to the next Receiver, so when they were Released, no memories were spread to the Community. Rosemary was the first Receiver who asked to be Released (i.e. commit suicide). Until then, nobody knew what would happen if the Receiver had died or went beyond the boundaries. |
| 31 | ** Everybody is conditioned, even the Receiver. In the movie (it's been too long for this troper to remember intricate details of the book), the Chief Elder asks the Giver if he was properly "preparing" Jonas for the memories. Presumably all the other Givers conditioned their respective Receivers into taking the information as proof that the community must be held. They saw the horrifying aspects and decided to bear the burden. It wasn't until this Giver came along and decided to condition his receiver into rejecting the system. |
| 32 | ** Rosemary's release when Jonas was a Two might have fundamentally changed his worldview. He arrived at the conclusion that sameness was wrong very early. The Giver says it took him years before he believed that. It may have been Rosemary's death that changed his mind. He had taken on the burden of being alone and apart from the community his whole life, but imagine being overwhelmed by the loss of your child and living in a community where no one understands what that means, and just expects you to do your job. |
| 33 | |
| 34 | * Where do the Birthmothers get their sperm if none of the men have a sex drive? |
| 35 | ** It's probably artificial insemination. Of course, that raises more questions... |
| 36 | *** You can extract semen surgically. |
| 37 | *** Ouch. |
| 38 | *** I think it's the doctors. |
| 39 | *** Sex drive aside, direct stimulation (particularly of the prostate) would still induce ejaculation, unless they've had some major internal rewiring. |
| 40 | *** It's probably surgical. I doubt they'd want to give anyone even a taste of sexual stimulation and risk them throwing out their pills. |
| 41 | *** Or it's done while the man in question is under anesthesia. The relevant reflexes are all autonomic and couldn't care less if he's actually awake or not. |
| 42 | *** We're told that after birthing her three children, a Birthmother then works as a Laborer the rest of her years; I'm guessing she exists solely to provide children, and would never be allowed to have own Family Unit. Presumably there may also exist men with the same role, that is, to give good genetics to the proscribed children and to toil the rest of their days providing food/cloth/building materials for the more recognized members of the Community. |
| 43 | *** It's suggested that former Birthmothers are allowed to have families once their birthing days are over (a character has to specify that a former Birthmother never had a spouse or children). It could be as simple as taking "samples" during routine medical exams of men. |
| 44 | ** Maybe it's a duty to the Community that at least once in his life, a man has to relay a sample of his... genetic material. He might be given special instructions on how to behave during this point, no contact with his wife, perhaps. So that might mean that the Giver has samples of his genetic material in the Community... |
| 45 | *** More than the one daughter, you mean? |
| 46 | *** No, I mean, the Giver is biologically the father of all the children with light eyes. |
| 47 | *** "No contact with his wife?" Are you suggesting that recreational sex still exists in The Community? Why? If people are drugged to suppress all sexual thinking upon reaching puberty, what purpose would it serve? They wouldn't want to have sex. |
| 48 | *** Perhaps they meant that "no contact with his wife" means not necessarily that they ''do'' have recreational sex in the Community, but that they'd ''want'' to start having it? |
| 49 | *** That's this troper's interpretation as well. Men donating sperm are almost certainly taken off their pills for the duration of the process (to allow them to produce viable sperm), just as Birthmothers are for pregnancy. Thus they would almost DEFINITELY be separated from their wives (and in all likelihood all other females in the Community as well) during the donation process. Wouldn't do for them to start having Stirrings, after all! |
| 50 | ** I recall thinking that perhaps the Elders are the birthfathers. |
| 51 | ** ''Son'' confirms they are artificially inseminated. Where the sperm comes from, of course, is still up in the air. |
| 52 | ** It's really simple: You ask 40 guys to stop taking the pill when they come to work, ask them to jerk and with that you have generation of samples right there. Then you ask them to not tell anyone about it and take back the pill. They have camera everywhere they'll know if the guy decide to jerk again and give him a release warning. |
| 53 | ** The doctors of the Community should likely use sperm retrieval and extraction in some men, it should be a simple operation (in real life, it isn't complicated). In that way, they avoid any sexual stimuli. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | * How did they render all the citizens color blind? |
| 56 | ** [[AWizardDidIt A Giver did it.]] |
| 57 | ** Artificial selection -- they chose colorblind birth mothers and sperm donors (however that's done) for a few generations. |
| 58 | *** Bingo. Colorblindness is caused by a recessive gene. Two recessive genes, and you're colorblind and can only pass on the gene for colorblindness. Apparently, though, the genes for blue eyes, for seeing color, and for psychic abilities are linked, and the Giver has advised the doctors that they cannot get rid of those genes entirely; so every now and again, they create a blue-eyed, potentially psychic child with the ability to see color. Since normal color vision is a dominant gene, it only takes one parent with the relevant "light eyes" and "seeing beyond" to successfully produce a baby who can become a Receiver. If the child grows up with a suitable temperament, they're Selected as Receiver. |
| 59 | ** Side effect of the drug they all take. |
| 60 | ** Can't be the drug, they start taking it at puberty, and they're color-blind from birth. Can't be genetic, training reverses it. Maybe neural conditioning? If kittens only see left-to-right movements, they will grow up not to perceive right-to-left movements, but it's reversible. They could do that with babies and colors. |
| 61 | *** No, Gabe's toys are colored, I think. Personally I think it's a genetic thing, and Receivers can overcome that...somehow. |
| 62 | *** Maybe there are some other drugs. |
| 63 | *** it's been shown that language can affect a person's perceptions of the world around them, if nobody ever learns the name of colors then they are effectively colorblind. it was also shown that the Receiver learns colors, or at least their names, through the Giver. |
| 64 | ** When I first read the book as a sixth-grader, I thought that it was the ''world'' (and all the objects in it) that was without color, (a product of the omnipresent artificial lights designed for that purpose), and that the ability to "see beyond" was the ability to flash to bits of memory as to what color things ''should'' be. In retrospect it doesn't make a lot of sense, but if you want things to make a lot of sense, why on Earth are you reading ''The Giver''? |
| 65 | *** How would they make the sky not be blue? That weather control system forcing it to be constantly overcast, maybe? *can't remember if the sun was ever mentioned* |
| 66 | *** Perhaps the sun is blocked out by [[GaiasLament constant smog]]. |
| 67 | *** One of the memories that the Giver gives Jonas is of sunshine, something Jonas has never experienced before. Given that there is still a day and a night of some sort within the Sameness, it can be assumed that the sun is being partially blocked somehow. |
| 68 | *** With they way the gifts are described in the sequels, though, the above guess does make a bit more sense. Jonas being able to tell how things "should" look fits in well with how his "seeing beyond" was expanded in later books, in my opinion. |
| 69 | ** This troper thought it was just [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic symbolic]]. |
| 70 | ** Remember we're talking about a book about an old guy giving a young boy memories by touching him. AWizardDidIt is all you really need. |
| 71 | ** Some kind of psychic block, maybe? That'd explain why the Receivers, and ''only'' the Receivers, can do it when they have enough stockpiled memories. It's a bit outside their field for one of them to have actually set it up, but mind control's plausible enough as one of the other "gifts" from the sequels. Alternately, a side effect of the Receivers' psychic memory-transferring ability is that they see things as they really are rather than what their eyes are telling them. |
| 72 | ** Or, in a reverse manner, people have been specifically genetically engineered to have many 'desirable' traits for a Utopian society that focuses on non-conflict, one of which would be colorblindness - a possible extrapolation of today's experiments with the human genome and turning on/off genetic 'switches' to hopefully eradicate inherited diseases and disorders. This theory is also hinted at in that The Giver says Fiona's red hair (technically, a genetic mutation and difference that would put her in the minority!) drove scientists mad trying to get rid of it. It would follow that it is The Giver's/Jonas memories that let them superimpose color mentally on what they see, even though their eyes cannot actually perceive it. |
| 73 | ** I used to wonder if things really were actually colored, but like the psychic block description above, the people didn't actually ''notice'' the color, that the observation of color was incapable for them. The real thing that makes the Receiver capable is the capacity to notice things like color and music. |
| 74 | ** Putting all of that aside, how ''do'' they describe things? I imagine the word "gray" doesn't exist in their vocabulary either. It seems to be that objects are referred to as being darker or lighter in "hue" than others. Seriously, you need words to describe what shade things are. I suppose all clothes could be white by default, but then how would you denote position or rank? |
| 75 | *** They DON'T describe things other than in size or ownership distinctions, if you look carefully at the opening chapters - why bother in a world where everything is the same anyway? There was only going to be one kind of bicycle made in a conflict-free society, see. Also, age/position/rank would be shown by clothing style much more clearly in a color-free world, which we are not immune from now either: In our world, graduates wear funny hats that used to symbolize scholars on a daily basis. In Lowry's world, young children don't get to have pockets on their clothing, both of which immediately identify a person's place in life without the help of color. |
| 76 | *** With hard to forge documents? Also, since nobody in the community seems to lie unless given permission to (and the only exceptions seem to be work related), they can probably just ask and get a straight answer. Plus, the community is quite small; I think most people know each other and their roles/positions already. |
| 77 | *** While they never outright use words like black, white, or gray, Jonas's eyes are repeatedly referred to as "light." So, yes, they do describe things in shades, just not with colors attached to them. I'd guess that instead of, say, "dark gray" and "almost black" they'd just say "dark" and "very dark," and so on, and things like position and rank could be denoted by different shades. Even without knowing what actual colors are, since "blue" apparently translates as "light" to them, and different colors do have distinct values when converted into a black and white photo, they could still recognize shades easily enough (yellow would also be light, orange, red, and green would be "medium," purple would be dark, and so on). |
| 78 | ** For that matter, how does the lack of music work? The Giver describes "the hearing beyond" as being analogous to Jonas's "the seeing beyond," but that would imply there is always some kind of music in the community (maybe just random sounds that happen to synchronize together?) which nobody "recognizes" as such unless they have the ability. |
| 79 | *** It's possible that nearby communities actually play music, and that sound leaches over into the Community? |
| 80 | *** I think all the communities lack music. The Giver probably noticed the different melodic qualities in people's voices, then maybe he started humming to himself. |
| 81 | ** Maybe they selectively bred humans to lack receptors/cone cells in their eyes, thus rendering them physically incapable of perceiving colour. The exceptions might have a rare genetic combination that gives them more receptors, and additionally, the magic/superpower/whatever that enables memory transmission helps those receptors in perceiving more colors as they learn more about them via memory. As for the music the Giver hears, like posted on the main page, he probably was able to combine random noises into rhythm. |
| 82 | ** This was a real thinker, as the Community clearly uses noises for public announcements. It has to lead back into emotional response to music: we enjoy it because of the emotions music brings. If there is no emotional connection, it just sounds like noise. |
| 83 | ** I always figured it was something in the food and water that didn't effect the pale eyed people. There are some drugs that people with certain conditions take that won't work because of their conditions. |
| 84 | ** Actually a form of Truth in Television, surprisingly -- Similar to the mental block suggestion above, it turns out that if people never hear of colors when they're young, they can never see any color for the rest of their life (Example: A real life girl never heard of the word "blue" until she was about 5, and ended up always saying that the sky was white, for instance). I always figured that the reason Jonas wasn't really able to see color before but was later was because he was getting the memories of young kids who did know about colors to make up for his lack of formative memories and gradually incorporating them into his psyche. This would also be why the Giver was slowly losing his ability to see color, because he was giving all the formative memories of toddlers seeing colors to Jonas. About Jonas's "Seeing Beyond," I wasn't quite sure why that would have been happening when he was younger, but I do know that red (like the apple) is actually one of the first colors that cultures as a whole recognize. |
| 85 | *** Adding on here, it seems our real world in some ways downplay the power of the human mind. It can be tricked and altered to do a lot of things, and in earlier years a lot of potential good or harm can easily be done. If as in this society this was done by a group of people who WANTED to do this to people, they could probably produce some pretty scary results with just some mental legwork. While this world does have some less factual elements, however i wouldn't limit the scope to just that though, but it is something to be aware of when it comes to just what can be done with a human mind. |
| 86 | *** After re-reading Son it dawned on me, we were on it here. As witnessed by Claire, it can be reversed which means it has to be that they can see it but they can't perceive it. But at the same time as shown in Son the babies are specifically kept in this closed nurturing center for their early years, if that building has no colors in it they wouldn't be able to recognize color as they got older without those formative memories. And under this theory the seeing beyond thing would mean Jonas' gift of remote viewing slowly rewrote his vision to what it should be. The Giver on the other hand his gift worked through his ears, so it again flows that as he gave up his memories to Jonas he'd lose the ability to see color. Jonas however probably has never been able to understand music without the memories. Gabe having been brought into the community by Jonas' father early, probably never got that conditioning in the first place. |
| 87 | ** This is a society built on brainwashing. From the moment you are born, you are allowed no contact, are treated coldly, not even given a name, among other things. You are killed if you don't meet their expectations or are unlucky enough to be a twin. Tricking people into not seeing color seems rather trivial. |
| 88 | ** In real life, color perception is quite interesting. Children can learn to count and understand simple math before they can learn to recognize colors with accuracy. In many tribal cultures, color is not important, and they will only make distinctions between 2 or 3 colors, though they perform basically the same as everyone else when it comes to distinguishing between colors (most of these studies were done with the Himba people of Namibia). That said, in the book, perception of color seems to be part of the collective unconscious where memories are stored (ArtisticLicense - Psychology?). Even after Jonas learns what the colors are, it takes a long time before he's stored up enough memories to see them all the time, so it's not enough just to know what they are. Also, I don't think there was a specific intervention to get rid of color (maybe there would have been eventually), it was just a side-effect of taking away the shared memories. |
| 89 | |
| 90 | * They never explain if there's anything different about going to the bathroom; It mentions that there are no locked doors in the community, and it also mentions that no one is allowed to view anyone else's nakedness, so what happens if someone walks in on someone going to the bathroom? |
| 91 | ** They knock. |
| 92 | ** The bathrooms have "Occupied" signs that you can hang on the doors? |
| 93 | ** Or everybody has their own individual bathroom. This helps eliminate conflict because nobody ever has to cross their legs and wait. |
| 94 | *** What about public buildings? |
| 95 | *** They could always use the "occupied signs" idea above for public bathrooms. |
| 96 | ** They probably just go by the rule that if the door is open it is unoccupied, if the door is closed it is occupied |
| 97 | ** In a society this teeth-grindingly polite, it is a safe bet that knocking before opening the door is ingrained early in life. |
| 98 | ** Jonas sees the lock and feels vaguely afraid. It's probably something of Rosemary's memories that tells him locked doors are for crime, secrets, and nefarious purposes (not that he knows exactly). That contrasts with his view of the community as mostly transparent in its workings. It's not the same as a lock on a bathroom, which could still exist (he knows what a lock is after all). |
| 99 | |
| 100 | * Why is it they can't get rid of all those memories? I mean, we seem to be doing a good job of it over here. |
| 101 | ** The way it seemed described to me, if the Giver did not hand down their memories before they died, all the memories would be released to the general population (for a brief period of time), creating chaos and disorder. At least, that what it seems like because that was what was described as happening when the previous receiver died. It was likely only brief because the previous receiver didn't have a lot of memories, and the Giver was still alive. |
| 102 | ** It's not a good idea. They need the wisdom of the past to refrain themselves from repeating past mistakes; that's the receiver's job, not "person who holds the memories because they have nowhere to go." The giver gives an example of when they asked him about increasing population, he got memories of starvation (presumably from overpopulation at some point in the world's past), and he promptly advised them against it. That's why they need the memories. |
| 103 | ** How the memory part gift works is a mystery, other than somehow the community had someone with the ability to take people's memories, and they had him breed the ability down to others for the sake of always having a receiver? Why such an abiiliy would hinge on proximity to the community and not just life of the person seems a very odd thing based on the way super powers are usually written, but the book roles with "this is just how it works", so we are kind of stuck just accepting in this world it just happens that way. |
| 104 | *** For the distance part it might be easy to rationalize the receiver can take a person's memories but if he's not around the person they would slip away and back out to them. So now that all of those people are dead wouldn't it make sense the memories would go out to whoever they find first if the receiver goes too far away? |
| 105 | *** Under this theory did Rosemary's memories go to everyone? |
| 106 | *** Perhaps the key here is that we are misinterpreting the original receiver's gift. What if it's not to take individual memories but the community as a whole? He can keep them all as long as he stays there. Should he die or leave they would revert, but now that the original owners are dead, they'd go to everyone. He himself can only pass memories on slowly to people of his genetic bloodline that also contain the same exact gift. |
| 107 | *** Maybe we can take this one step further. What if the original receiver received his gift from the Trademaster? The deal being in exchange for taking the memories, he must always stay in the community. Sounds like a deal he would make. |
| 108 | *** Honestly if we add the notion the community in the Giver was set up all from a deal by the Trademaster, we've given Lois Lowry a very good story for a prequel. |
| 109 | |
| 110 | * Why is it every "Anti-utopia" book (by which I mean, opposes engineering a perfect/better world.) filled with such poor utopias? I mean seriously, I could design a better utopia that's more feasible than this without much effort. |
| 111 | ** Are you sure it's Anti-utopia? My impression was the message was "ignorance is bliss." What with Jonas likely not caring so much about Gabriel's actual fate if he had the realization that "Release" equaled "Death." |
| 112 | ** Um... [[ShapedLikeItself why is every anti-utopia book filled with such poor utopias]]? If it wasn't a poor utopia, it wouldn't be ''anti''-utopian. |
| 113 | *** That's not necessarily the case -- ''Brave New World'', for example, was something that the author found horrifying and hoped would never exist, but outside of a few largely gimmick attributes like the decanting tubes, it's quite feasible. |
| 114 | *** It's often argued that ''The Giver'' belongs to a class of science fiction that takes a "What if..." future standpoint based on current trends and issues. In this case, it's basically, "What if we tried to make the world perfect by eliminating conflict, since we're always banging on about war and discrimination?" The 'perfect' part is what gives us the idea of Utopia, and the 'oh, wait, I guess humans just can't really be perfect - but they can certainly carry a single socio-scientific experiment way too far, way too long after people forget what the whole point of it was!!' part is what makes ''The Giver'' an example of anti-utopia now verging on dystopia. Interestingly, Sir Thomas More, who wrote ''Utopia'' in 1516, reportedly did not believe that a pure utopia could ever exist BECAUSE of our human flaws. (And it's all the human flaws that make us human, right? Emotions, screw-ups, hormones and all that jazz? Which is why Jonas totally... intentionally... tried to bring that all back once he'd tasted the proverbial fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil... thus making a point about human nature and how trying to screw with/squash it is more evil than letting the pain of life exist... yay for young adult literature! End middle school lit lesson.) |
| 115 | ** Because the ''entire point'' of a so-called "anti-utopia" book is to illustrate PRECISELY WHY you should never try to engineer a utopia. You end up with a crappy dystopia with a superficial veneer of utopia. This troper rather thought that was obvious. |
| 116 | *** This troper thinks that attitude is kinda defeatist. |
| 117 | *** The real problem with trying to create a utopia is that everyone has a different idea of what that would be (some people's idea of utopia would have no homosexuality, others would have no religion, etc). You can't please all of the people all of the time. |
| 118 | ** Because humans can't have a utopia. Any utopia you could think of would fail rather quickly. Humans thrive on conflict, and conflict causes struggle, and struggle is against a utopia. Even the smallest struggle puts somebody at the top and somebody on the bottom, which is not a utopia. There will always be fighting, always be war, something. In order to have a utopia on Earth, you need to change something major with humanity. That is, take away something that makes us human. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | * As far as the Birthmothers go, the math doesn't work. Only one child is assigned to each job every year, and a Birthmother only has three children during her lifetime, yet fifty children are born every year. Did I miss something? |
| 121 | ** Pretty much the thing that just bugged me with how many plotholes there were. (I dislike ''The Giver'') |
| 122 | ** I don't remember reading that only one child per generation is assigned each job. That aside, they could have fifty birthmothers at any one time who are not the same age/from the same generation. |
| 123 | ** They didn't say it directly, but there were several times when Jonas referred to a job as being "taken," which implies that there's only one child assigned to a job in any given year. |
| 124 | *** That might just imply a quota of any sort, not necessarily one of "one child per job." |
| 125 | ** I don't know exactly how you're saying the math is not working out. If you're saying that the numbers say there should be a lot more children born every generation, then it's worth considering that they Release infants for ''pittances.'' Gabe would have been Released because he had trouble sleeping through the night. There might be a significant number of babies Released before they are given to families. Gad, how Squicky. I need some SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel right now... |
| 126 | ** Also confirmed during the Ceremonies: Jonas notes during the Ceremony of One that there would be fifty per cohort, if none were Released as newchildren. Presumably having all fifty kids make it to One is uncommon. |
| 127 | ** What bothers me more about the numbers is how the community won't die out if every mother is only allowed to have two children. |
| 128 | *** No, each mother having two children is exactly how many you need to keep the population stable. |
| 129 | *** That's only with a 100% survival rate to reproduction, which they clearly don't have. There are accidents, infanticide, suicide and executions that set the replacement rate somewhat higher than 2.0. |
| 130 | ** Ok see, there are 50 Birthmothers, all of which have a child a year for 3 years. Not 3 children in one year, which isn't possible unless there are triplets. |
| 131 | ** The math only works if an average of 16.6 new Birthmothers are assigned every year, since for any given year, there are only three years' worth of active Birthmothers; all the ones who were assigned more than three years ago have already filled their quota (this assumes that the birth-giving years are consecutive). It's at least [[StealthPun conceivable]] that out of 50 children, 16-17 girls could be selected for the exclusive purpose of being human broodmares, but nothing in the book suggests that the number is anywhere near that high. Not to mention that the whole concept is almost unspeakably [[{{Squick}} squicky]]. |
| 132 | *** Here's a solution coated in FridgeHorror. The official word is that birthmothers are selected at age 12, given three years of training to prepare their bodies for motherhood (good nutrition, fitness regimens, and the like), followed by one baby a year for three years, and then they work as laborers until age 65 or so. What if that's a lie, given that it's highly suggested that everyone is authorized and even required to lie when asked questions about their jobs. What if, the birthmothers have a baby every year starting not at age 15, but at age 12? Then you'd only need eight or nine girls a year, rather than 16-17. You can reduce their number further by having them conceive every ten months rather than once a year. |
| 133 | *** Most girls aren't ready to carry a pregnancy at 12. Their bodies just aren't grown enough. It's too risky. I'd highly doubt they'd risk it. |
| 134 | *** Not waiting the proper amount of time between pregnancies also puts both the pregnant person and the child at risk. I believe doctors actually recommend about a year between pregnancies. It takes that long for your body to recover, and restore your depleted resources (as a fetus will use whatever it needs from your body during pregnancy, even at the detriment of your body). |
| 135 | *** Claire gave birth to her first child at age 14. |
| 136 | *** So, I'd guess it's possible that Birthmothers having children before 15 isn't ''common'', but certainly ''happens'' more than we'd be led to believe. 12 is unlikely, but 13 may even be possible for some of them. |
| 137 | ** There are several possible explanations for this that this troper thought of the last time she read the book. Granted, this is all just guessing on my part, but here we go: Firstly, remember that Jonas kind of stopped paying attention after he was skipped over at the ceremony, so it's possible that there ''were'' other girls assigned to being birthmothers, and he (and therefore, we) just didn't hear them. Also, he could have just been mistaken about there only being one birthmother from his year anyway; as a boy, he probably just didn't care or didn't get much info on birthmothers as [[CaptainObvious it's a job he can't have anyway]]. As for the numbers overall, given how some families apparently have to wait quite a while before getting their second child (IIRC, his two friends got their siblings that year or the year before), it's possible that some years there are less birthmothers than other years. And there's always the possibility of fraternal twins/triplets being born in years with fewer birthmothers, or even in other years for that matter (presumably that would [[spoiler:not break any rules, because fraternal twins/triplets wouldn't cause "two identical people to be running around" or however it was phrased]].) |
| 138 | *** If the birthmothers are impregnated via IVF, fraternal twins or triplets could be produced intentionally. IVF would also allow the Community to genetically screen/engineer embryos for a greater degree of Sameness. |
| 139 | ** It would make a lot more sense if birth mothers were birth mothers for more than 3 years. The longer they stay birth mothers, the less new birth mothers you need every year. If it were for say ten years, only 5 new birth mothers are needed per year. |
| 140 | *** According to "Son", Birthmothers don't become pregnant again immediately after giving birth. After a birth, a Birthmother goes through a 6-month recovery/waiting period before being available for pregnancy again. So say 15 months, times 3, gives us 45 months. That's closer to 4 years, not counting the training period. |
| 141 | ** I just took it that it was just something to demonstrate how the Community's way of doing things was unsustainable. Considering how the elders had to consult the Giver over whether they should increase the birthrate, they obviously don't have a clear idea on how reproduction rates work. Also, it might actually be possible that the Giver manipulated the elders into lowering the birthrate below sustainable levels to eventually destroy the Community. |
| 142 | ** For what its worth, ''Son'' mentions that at least one other girl in Claire's age group also got assigned to Birthmother. So the exact numbers are still unclear, but this does confirm that multiple girls per year can be assigned to the role. |
| 143 | |
| 144 | * What the Hell happened in the ending? Did he die? |
| 145 | ** Canonically, it's ''strongly'' implied that Jonas survives and is a secondary character in the lesser-known and far more Marty Stuish ''Messenger'', the final book in the trilogy. ''That said'', don't write that in a book report, or your teachers will have unkind words with you. |
| 146 | ** This could be a teachable moment in another way to. When you are asked to write such papers in English the idea is that you are writing an "argument" based on evidence and why you think the book ended that way. This works fine when there is no factual answer to the question presented in the narrative. While The Giver ends on that note, Lois Lowry did indeed later give a factual answer. By that people should not be assigning that as a question because there is no need for an argument or an opinion when the question now has a fact to answer. for historical perspective, this isn't the first time such an event happened. |
| 147 | *** This troper thought it was ''very'' strongly implied that Jonas was the leader in the third book, since he mentioned that he had a gift which manifested with an apple (the first thing Jonas saw in color was an apple), the leader had remarkable blue eyes, and there was something about his old community sending him books after he established the village (Jonas would have inherited the books from the Giver). There was also mention of a child named Gabriel who went to the school in the village. And why would a teacher mind thinking Jonas survived? This troper's teacher strongly encouraged her students to decide for themselves whether or not he lived or died and was the one who brought up evidence in later books that he survived. |
| 148 | *** I think what the troper meant by "...or your teachers will have unkind words with you" was that teachers want their students to consider the book on its own, not with its sequels. I had made that connection in something I wrote for 6th grade English, and my teacher said that he would have liked if I had considered only what happened in The Giver, not in either sequel (though both sequels were assigned to us for summer reading, before we even knew we would be reading The Giver). |
| 149 | ** Here is what WordOfGod has to say on the matter, from the interview at the back of [[http://elizabethcarroll.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/giverbook1.jpg this]] version: |
| 150 | --> '''Q. When you wrote the ending, were you afraid some readers would want more details or did you want to leave the ending open to individual interpretation?''' |
| 151 | --> '''A.''' Many kids want a more specific ending to ''The Giver''. Some write or ask me when they see me, to spell it out exactly. And I don't do that. And the reason is because ''The Giver'' is many things to many different people. People bring to it their own complicated beliefs and hopes and dreams and fears and all of that. So I don't want to put my own feelings into it, my own beliefs, and ruin that for people who create their own endings in their minds. |
| 152 | --> '''Q. Is it an optimistic ending? Does Jonas survive?''' |
| 153 | --> '''A.''' I will say that I find it an optimistic ending. How could it not be an optimistic ending, a happy ending, when that house is there with its lights on and music is playing? So I'm always kind of surprised and disappointed when some people tell me they think the boy and the baby just die. I don't think they die. What form their new life takes is something I like people to figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a different ending. I think they're out there somewhere and I think that their life has changed and their life is happy, and I would like to think that's true for the people they left behind as well. |
| 154 | ** Lowry also had the following to say at her [[http://loislowry.com/pdf/Newbery_Award.pdf Newberry acceptance speech]]: |
| 155 | --> ''Those of you who hoped that I would stand here tonight and reveal the "true" ending, the "right" interpretation of the ending, will be disappointed. There isn't one. There's a right one for each of us, and it depends on our own beliefs, our own hopes.'' |
| 156 | --> ''Let me tell you a few endings which are the "right" endings for a few children out of the many who have written to me.'' |
| 157 | --> ''From a sixth grader: "I think that when they were traveling they were traveling in a circle. When they came to "Elsewhere" it was their old community, but they had accepted the memories and all the feelings that go along with it..."'' |
| 158 | --> ''From another: "...Jonas was kind of like Jesus because he took the pain for everyone else in the community so they wouldn't have to suffer. And, at the very end of the book, when Jonas and Gabe reached the place that they knew as Elsewhere, you described Elsewhere as if it were heaven."'' |
| 159 | --> ''And one more: "A lot of people I know would hate that ending, but not me. I loved it. Mainly because I got to make the book happy. I decided they made it. They made it to the past. I decided the past was our world, and the future was their world. It was parallel worlds."'' |
| 160 | --> ''Finally, from one seventh grade boy: "I was really surprised that they just died at the end. That was a bummer. You could have made them stay alive, I thought."'' |
| 161 | --> ''Very few find it a bummer. Most of the young readers who have written to me have perceived the magic of the circular journey. The truth that we go out and come back, and that what we come back to is changed, and so are we.'' |
| 162 | *** I don't know anyone who found it a bummer actually. Well, now that this troper knows Lowry said that, he probably won't view the book with the "...this is pretentious waffle" view he had since he was required to read it in 8th grade and had grade points deducted since what he ''interpreted'' the ending to be ''wasn't the true ending''. (And no, he said that Jonas was free in the end.) |
| 163 | |
| 164 | * In my opinion, this book is so symbolic, I start to lose grasp of what is real and what isn't. Are memories, stirrings, colors, sounds, speakers, apples, even people, they all start to fade away into nothing. It sets up a decent Dystopia, lacking all individuality, but I personally think that Lowry could have done a better job hiding symbolism. |
| 165 | ** If Lowry hadn't made such heavy use of symbolism, the book would be a mostly forgotten obscure novel rather than the introduction to dystopias widely used in English classes today. As it is said "those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators." The latter is a much better indicator of the literary significance and lasting influence of a work. |
| 166 | ** ... I think we have [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Alternate Quote Interpretation]] going on there. A true author doesn't want ''commentators,'' s/he wants ''readers,'' people who will actually take the story to heart and remember it and love it. Writing obscurely has its merits, but reader is a much more desirable thing than commentator - which is a term of the intellect and reason, which is good, but it's not why we love to read. The genius of ''Literature/TheGiver'' is that the writing manages to be both clear ''and'' obscure: simple when it needs to be simple, subtle when it needs to be subtle. |
| 167 | *** ''Some'' authors want readers; perhaps even most. But some want to be remembered beyond the fad when their book was popular and write their books with more intellectual aspirations, and desire to have commentators and other people who will analyze their work. We've had [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=ty7nlqj0hp76d5qy9t0hty9k&page=2 a bit of discussion on this sort of thing in the forum]], actually. And yes, some authors try to balance the demands of obscure writing vs accessible and popular writing (another example being Literature/TheLittlePrince), but most tend to go for one or the other. |
| 168 | ** And there's a fuckton of people who wrote... call it critic-bait, intellectual literature-type fiction and get forgotten five minutes later. Just as many people wrote popular fiction and are both beloved and anlayzed today. Like, say Dickens. Colleges and universities are full of people who are trying to write "literature," and even being successful at it. But no one is going to remember them, I can promise you. |
| 169 | *** This what we call the major problem with the society's attitude and education. Writing fiction is art, it is subjective. We need more teachers that actually paid attention to their English and Logic (if they actually took that one, i doubt many did) classes. Those classes have jobs to do and the people writing curriculum will obviously draw their own line as to where literature ends and pulp starts, no point calling spades out there, but if your curriculum is not teaching kids that many of those great books are where they are today because people actually wanted to read them for fun all those years ago enough to make arguments based upon them, you need to readjust your elitism. |
| 170 | *** Is it possible that BOTH styles have their merits, and that we don't need to put people down for writing how they want to write? |
| 171 | *** Both styles should have merits, but knowing which style any given author used is only on them to reveal, and then some of which say enough during their life to make their responses inconsistent. Works of fiction are meant to be art. So yes it can and should be enjoyed at face value, but we can also read a book and make critical thinking arguments based on, which is what you are taught to do in school. At no point should teachers discourage students from talking about the books at face value and at no point should people say you shouldn't be willing to use the book as text. As a society we should welcome people to do both as they please. In this age, these two sides should be able to find their separate corners and stop the boxing match already. |
| 172 | |
| 173 | * Why does everyone see the community as a dystopia? It may not be the perfect place to live, but the lack of violence, starvation, and oppression make it better than many parts of our world. |
| 174 | ** But everyone is also emotionally repressed and anyone who causes problems (gets too old, breaks the rules three times, is a twin, etc) is automatically euthanized. Heck, they tried to euthanize a baby for having problems sleeping at night, which a little extra attention could have solved easily! |
| 175 | *** ''Did'' solve easily, mind - Gabriel had minimal trouble sleeping and was meeting all his developmental criteria while he was housed with Jonas' family unit. It was only at the Nurturing Center, which presumably is a sterile, contact-free environment, that he couldn't cope. |
| 176 | ** It's not a {{dystopia}} -- it's a {{deconstruction}} of the {{Utopia}}, but the latter is eventually regarded as the former since they're both places you theoretically wouldn't want to live. |
| 177 | ** I don't know what your idea of violence is but I think murdering babies just because a family can't be found for them counts. Also, lack of oppression? The whole community is founded on oppression! There is literally nothing but oppression in the community! |
| 178 | |
| 179 | * If there are only 50 babies born per year who get assigned to parents and they're assigned the year they were born, how are the ones born toward the end of the year screened in case they don't fit into the Community like Gabe and are they then Released after being given to a family? And if, like Gabe a baby is not Assigned to due issues, does a family not get their child that year? |
| 180 | ** But remember, Gabriel could only sleep well at Jonas' family house because Jonas was there to give him soothing memories. The Nurturers seemed to be a kindly and perfectly contact-happy bunch (except for Releasing). And Gabe could not have stayed with Jonas' family, because having more than two children is against the Rules. Yes, the problem was solved fairly easily, but Gabe still was not compliant enough. |
| 181 | ** ''Not compliant enough?'' Gabe is barely a year old! Sometimes babies have trouble sleeping through the night in their first year. It certainly isn't justification for ''murder''. |
| 182 | ** That's the whole ''point.'' Besides, if a society is capable of killing a newborn for being the weaker twin, it can kill a newborn for not being compliant. |
| 183 | ** Presumably the birthmothers' artificial insemination is timed to avoid births that fall too near the year's end to allow for adequate screening. |
| 184 | |
| 185 | * There are no animals in the community. Kids assume the things their stuffed animals are modeled after are imaginary creatures, and the word "animal" is something that no one actually knows the definition of, and uses to describe something wild and savage. This I can understand. The community has ''meat'' and fish are once mentioned specifically. ''Where do they get this?'' |
| 186 | ** Supplies are delivered to the community in cargo planes. While they grow much of their own food meat could be an import. They do have a fish hatchery, but they might just regard fish as alive in the sense that plants are alive. |
| 187 | ** Having and eating meat doesn't necessarily entail knowing (and in particular ''everyone'' knowing) what meat ''is''. It's just a special type of food distinct from grain or fruit; its exact nature is probably only known to those who have to work with the feedstock directly, and they're probably given in their rules list a command like "You are prohibited from telling others in the community that animals are real; if asked, you may lie" or something of that sort. |
| 188 | ** Possibly they used a substitute meat. |
| 189 | *** Maybe the [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies meat]] comes from a source [[HumanResources closer to home]]. After all, it is never explicitly stated what happens to people's bodies after they are released... |
| 190 | |
| 191 | * It's understandable that Jonas freaks out when he finds out what "Released" actually means. But is it never addressed that people also die naturally? I may have missed something, seeing as it's been some time since I've read the book, but I don't seem to recall the Giver mentioning that if Elders are not Released, they will die eventually. |
| 192 | ** Apparently, all elders are released before they die. Death by another cause is referred to as a "loss", like the kid who drowned. |
| 193 | ** The book said that for people who are "lost," a ceremony is performed with many members of the community. They would all repetitively chant the person's name slowly, then speed up, then slow down again. |
| 194 | *** In reading "Son" it makes it clear that Clair at least understands death. She uses the word when referring to drowning. And others, such as the Fish Hatchery trainee understand death with regards to the fish. |
| 195 | *** Clair is kind of a special case since she wasn't receiving the emotion suppressing drugs the rest of the Community were taking. |
| 196 | |
| 197 | * They're making a movie of this book. Just... Why. |
| 198 | ** Because a lot of people like this, and because a lot of people like it, Hollywood will try to squeeze a movie out of it. Hell, they made a movie about Facebook, why not ''The Giver?'' |
| 199 | ** While this troper is personally excited about the movie, she wonders exactly ''how'' they'll do the color thing. In the book, you don't fully realize that Jonas's community can't see color until the point that The Giver explains it. In a movie adaption it would be a tad obvious if it started out black and white. |
| 200 | *** Simple: make the movie in "stylistic black and white" (like ''Film/TheElephantMan'' or ''Film/SchindlersList'') and then reveal that's actually how the people see it, and not just a presentation fancy. |
| 201 | *** They made a movie out of BATTLESHIP. They can make one out of this. |
| 202 | *** According to some of the trailers, some of the movie, likely for the first part, is going to be in color, and some of it, possibly beginning with the scenes when Jonas meets the Giver, is going to be black and white. [[NeverTrustATrailer However]]... |
| 203 | ** They've aged up Jonas. His actor is early twenties, and Taylor Swift is playing Rosemary. And the film is in full color. I am apprehensive. |
| 204 | ** Because YA dystopia movies are all the rage these days. The Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, [[MoneyDearBoy the reason is obvious]]. |
| 205 | |
| 206 | * Whose bright idea was it to read this to elementary school children? I'm all for children learning that not everything in the world is puppies and rainbows (pun unintended), but what kid is going to even understand [[spoiler: suicide, murder, and hormones?]] |
| 207 | ** Because everyone assumes that elementary schoolers have the intellectual capacity of newborns. |
| 208 | ** Fifth grade, (which is when this troper read the book,) is when most kids take their first sex ed class. I think it's safe to say they'll already know about death. |
| 209 | *** This troper read this around fifth grade. Around 5th grade is also when this troper started her period. This troper understood hormones in fifth grade because they wreaked hell on her life each month. |
| 210 | ** In this troper's days, we read it in 8th grade, but when I was graduating the age kids started to experiment with drugs and sex was as low as 6th (11-12 in age mostly) When I was young, we first got dare in 5th grade which by rebellious tactics helped usher more kids to try it then and sex ed in 6th grade. As witnessed these happen younger, so kids are obviously rebelling younger. However on a side note, even though I know of kids who did it that young, the earliest I ever saw someone pregnant in my schooling was 10th grade (15-16 in age mostly) |
| 211 | ** This troper remembers reading the book in sixth grade and concedes that a lot of the themes and implications went right over my head. Obviously everyone is different but the book does seem like an odd choice given how abstract it's execution is. |
| 212 | ** This troper's too old to have read ''The Giver'' in school, but in my day we were reading ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'' by grade 6. ''Giver'' '''is''' puppies and rainbows by comparison. |
| 213 | |
| 214 | * When I read this book in sixth grade, the book made it seem like after the Birthmothers give birth, the baby is just snatched away, like a child after a toy. Am I wrong? I mean, do the birthmothers actually get to hold their child, because after nine months of assigned pregnancy, I would want to hold my child. |
| 215 | ** I'm pretty sure they don't. And, in our world, that would be really sad, but I'm guessing that, like many other things in their community, they learn not to be bothered by it. |
| 216 | ** Jonas's father says that the birthmothers never get to see the children. It's probably to prevent the mother from forming any sort of emotional attachment, since the community works so hard to suppress and eliminate strong emotions. |
| 217 | *** And he even says this right after Jonas's sister says she wants to be a birthmother because she likes babies. |
| 218 | *** Nursing them, even once would cause a release of oxytocin, and considering that the community hates even the concept of people having or desiring sex (the other major cause for releasing oxytocin), they clearly want nothing to do with this. |
| 219 | *** Giving birth, in itself, is going to flood the body with more oxytocin than a ''week's'' worth of nursing would pump out. Most likely the birthmothers are kept semi-sedated for delivery, then given an oxytocin-inhibitor to quash any lingering emotional effects. |
| 220 | ** Confirmed in ''Son'' that they don't get to hold their baby at all. |
| 221 | ** The community effectively got rid of true, deep loss and grief as we know it. So most Birthmothers would not be any more attached to their newborns than Jonas's parents were to Gabe. They enjoyed Gabe, but it was only a small misfortune that he would be released. The Birthmothers would not have to live with the earth-shattering loss and life-long grief over a child they never knew, exchanging it for a few days of shallow sadness. It's nice, right? But they had to get rid of love to make it possible. |
| 222 | |
| 223 | * Why don't people in the other community (featured in the sequels) try to liberate this Naziesque, totalitarian society? Seriously. |
| 224 | ** Unlike most dystopias, most of the public in this one doesn't seem to want out of it. |
| 225 | ** Because there are a lot of sucky communities in the world of The Giver and Gathering Blue. The village of the broken people lives very close to another sucky town, and they don't do a thing about it except take in their runaways. They have strangers coming in from other places all the time. Why would they go months out of their way to take care of yet another sucky community where, at least, everybody is well-fed and as a place to sleep at night? (Heck, for some people that life would almost be a blessing, hence why they built it in the first place.) |
| 226 | *** In the end of the book, we see a happy town, presumably celebrating Christmas. So, there ARE good countries. |
| 227 | *** Then again, half of the readers have interpreted that scene as a DyingDream... |
| 228 | |
| 229 | * So other than fish, the members of the community are unaware that animals actually exist. It's been a long time since I read the book, so bear with me, but I gotta ask... What's the benefit in keeping all animals (save for fish) out of the community? |
| 230 | ** Predictability. Animals, subject as they are to instinct, can't be completely controlled. They will develop biases of loyalty and/or aggression. |
| 231 | *** Animals are pretty predictable, but I think they would be kept out, just because they want to keep out everything they can, so people don't know about much. |
| 232 | *** Not everyone wants to have a pet. So if some families have pets and some don't, that messes up the Sameness. Different animals, with different temperaments and sizes, have different needs. That messes up the Sameness. And so on. |
| 233 | *** Because this is a society with no concept of sex. Animals would ruin that. |
| 234 | ** Answered in ''Son'': a healthy diet didn't include mammal, so they're gone, animals detracted from the efficiency of the community, and there's no need for pets because nobody is lonely in the Community. |
| 235 | |
| 236 | * If Sameness is the governing philosophy of the community, why do they object to twins? How exactly would that undermine community stability or Sameness? If anything, the Sameness philosophy should look favorably on twins as a model for all of society (see ''Literature/BraveNewWorld''.) |
| 237 | ** It might be because twins being born at all is relatively abnormal (at least to the community). |
| 238 | ** Jonas makes the point in-story: It would undermine community stability inasmuch as nobody would be able to tell which twin was which. Remember, they'd have been placed with separate families (since each gets only one child of each gender) yet have identical clothing, haircuts and largely behavior. There'd be constant small misunderstandings, which in this context is a huge embarrassing deal. Never mind what might happen if the children themselves turned out to have a mischievous streak... |
| 239 | ** "Sameness" is also relative in this context. While there must be some differences to know who is who exactly how limited things are to all be the "same" is very much a limited phrase. We could all have the "same" house and that could mean we all live in caves or all live in castles. This is a frustration for some with the movie, where they picture sameness as some bland generic Mayberry town, where it could very well be a futuristic world the whole time. The standard of what is the "same" can mean so very many different things. In Western society though where it's is often indoctrinated such things as sameness is bad an oppressive, such alternatives are not really taught much. |
| 240 | ** Also, this is a society that has destroyed the biological family unit and any loyalties associated with it. They probably realize that twins would be curious, gravitate towards each other and form a different, closer relationship than they would with other children. Biological family bonds would threaten their entire basis for the family unit and for social interactions in general. |
| 241 | ** None of which explains why, if twins looking too much alike is the problem, they couldn't just give each baby a different nose-job or whatever, then never tell their respective family units that they were twins. It's not as if the kids in different units aren't going to look alike from time to time anyway, due to sharing the same birthmother or sperm donor; so long as there's ''some'' distinguishing trait, it'd be fine. |
| 242 | ** Perhaps it's also not allowed because it would increase the amount of births. |
| 243 | *** Even with superior artificial insemination and obstetric techniques, they can't possibly have 100% control over how many babies are born, even if twins never happened at all. Guaranteeing that a given zygote will develop to full term simply isn't possible, so some years will have fewer babies and other years will have more, whether or not twins are involved. It'd be simpler to adjust how many pregnancies are initiated ''next'' year to compensate for higher or lower baby-counts than to try to regulate that count ''just'' by culling excess twins. |
| 244 | |
| 245 | * So are the Receivers specially bred/enhanced for their futures and have light eyes as a label, or are people with the gene for blue eyes just special? |
| 246 | ** I don't think it was ever made clear in the books, but this troper thinks that people with the gene for blue eyes are just special, rather than having been specifically bred for it. It was strongly implied (read: practically outright stated) that the Community citizens were being bred to all look the same, after all, so I doubt they'd actively try to get someone with differently-colored eyes. |
| 247 | ** Given where the sperm for babies comes from is still left unknown, perhaps the receiver of memory is one that is selected as sperm donor with hopes they will pass on their gift to another person to take the mantle? |
| 248 | ** I always thought this was the case, due to my teacher encouraging us to fill in the blanks on our own. Even encouraged us to explore the idea that Rosemary, Jonas, and Gabe were all half-siblings fathered by the Giver, or that their Birthmother was from the same gene pool (like coming from the same Birthmother as the Giver, i.e., the Giver's biological sister). Lily's line suggesting Jonas and Gabe had the same Birthmother could imply that Birthmother's don't always have babies one after the other. Meaning it's possible the community had multiple children with the potential to be the Reciever of Memory without actually having the job because the current Reciever is still able to hold the position. This teacher also suggested the idea that Rosemary ''could'' still be alive, just escaped, as the Giver didn't actually see the injection, so make of that what you will. |
| 249 | ** That Jonas and Gabe might have the same Birthmother is only Lily's conjecture, we see from Son that she's wrong about how long Birthmothers have children. |
| 250 | |
| 251 | * So... Gabriel was [[spoiler:going to be released for not meeting his development goals]], so he was allowed to stay with Jonas's family until the next Ceremony of One. However... in the age ceremony at the beginning of the book, I believe it mentions that all the newchildren born that year are there, even the ones who are just a couple months old as well as the ones that are actually almost a year old. My question is, how in the world would they know if those few-week/month old Ones would be able to be adjusting well into their new families or not? Gabe was having trouble adjusting despite the fact that he technically would have been almost two [[spoiler:had he actually gotten to be with the next group of Ones]], so why would they allow the youngest children to be added into a family unit? Or did I just miss something, and the most recent ones were actually going to the ''next'' ceremony like Gabe would have? |
| 252 | ** No, you didn't. Most likely, if Gabriel had been born at the end of the year, he would've gotten a free pass. Or maybe they release children even after being parceled out to families if they are really very slow. |
| 253 | ** In ''Son,'' it's mentioned that births are timed very carefully so that by the time the Ceremony comes around, the very youngest babies are at least a couple of months old, and the most intensive caring period is over. |
| 254 | *** But Gabriel's issues didn't arise until he was almost One, so that seems a bit too early to be given to a family, in case they have trouble like he did. |
| 255 | |
| 256 | * Very minor, but Lily's comfort object wasn't taken away upon becoming eight. |
| 257 | ** It likely was, but her and Jonas's parents were just easy on her and let her keep it a little longer rather than taking it away more suddenly. Though I do think you're right that it was never outright said whether it was taken away or not, but the book focuses less and less on Jonas's family (besides Gabe) in the later chapters, so it's unclear if Jonas even noticed whether Lily's comfort object was taken away. |
| 258 | ** Comfort objects were taken at nine. Although it is just before her Ceremony of Eight that Lily's mother says she should start practicing sleeping without it, she would still have it for over a year. |
| 259 | |
| 260 | * Jonas and the Giver had a great plan for his escape, which was all screwed up because of Gabriel's impending release. But why didn't Jonas tell everybody the truth then? Maybe mixed in with a little blackmail? "You can't release him, I've given him LOADS of memories, and if you DO release him I'll never train a different successor!" Or, barring that, at least go to the Giver so PART of the plan could be carried out in the same way. |
| 261 | ** Presumably, Jonas still had way more memories left than the ones he gave to Gabe. He might not have thought that the memories Gabe would have released would have has as big of an effect as all the ones he had. Plus, Jonas was panicking anyway so he probably hadn't even thought of that. |
| 262 | ** Weren't the memories he gave Gabe specifically supposed to be calming, comforting memories to help him sleep better? I know that any disruption, even a positive one, is a disruption. But as desperate threats go, making everyone have dreams of sunshine for a few days is probably not going to seem like the most useful plan. |
| 263 | ** Because Jonas panicked, IIRC, so he wasn't thinking clearly enough to go to the Giver like he was supposed to. All he was thinking of was getting Gabriel out of there. Besides, it kind of has the same effect anyway, because leaving the Community still means that Jonas's memories are released. |
| 264 | |
| 265 | * How would Rosemary, a twelve-year-old with no medical training whatsoever, be able to do an intravenous injection (on herself, no less)? She'd never be allowed to do that, either. Plus, with the poison most likely being very strong, she might not be able to inject the entire lethal dose before losing consciousness. Her "releasing" herself may be a powerful image in the story, but from a medical perspective, it's pretty ridiculous. |
| 266 | ** I thought it was said that she asked to be "released", as in she went and requested that someone else do it for her. |
| 267 | *** She did, but she asked to inject herself rather than letting the worker inject her. And she did. |
| 268 | ** Maybe the kids do receive some medical training that wasn't mentioned -- some first-aid and other medical care. |
| 269 | ** It is mentioned that they do volunteer work before becoming 12, so maybe she volunteered at a medical place and could do that sort of thing? |
| 270 | ** Receivers of Memory have access to books, so perhaps she read medical literature to teach herself to do it in preparation for her suicide. She may have also received memories from a nurse or doctor or other professional who would know how to do this. |
| 271 | ** Syringes are quite small and thin. (Think of the ones for vaccines.) Doctors inject those things really fast. It's not a stretch to think that Rosemary asked the Releaser where to stick the needle, and then just quickly emptied it in herself before succumbing after a while. |
| 272 | |
| 273 | * The Community has speakers monitored by someone, that can't be turned off (well, except for the Giver's), then why didn't Jonas's dad get in trouble for learning Gabe's name? |
| 274 | ** Perhaps the Community lets citizens get away with tiny infractions to give the illusion of being less oppressed. This troper also got the idea that the speakers were rarely actually monitored. . . just the idea of never being able to be sure that no one was listening, except for the Receiver, was enough to make the point. |
| 275 | ** Reinforcing the above idea, it actually ''is'' mentioned that looking up the newborns' names is a fairly minor infraction. Jonas's mom is one of the justices, [=IIRC=], and she doesn't seem to care, so... as long as nobody says anything about it, then Jonas's dad could get away with it. |
| 276 | |
| 277 | * In this utopia, the population is kept unaware of certain negative concepts, they are supposed to be blissfully unaware of what a crappy place the world used to be. Yet, for some reason, they're still taught the meaning of words that have an inherently negative meaning which ''does not apply to their perfect world and are only useful for exposition''. This is only problematic because it takes place in dialogue, which destroys the illusion of these people being naive. A good example is a boy says "I'm starving!" and an adult over hears this and scolds him harshly, because the boy should've said "I'm hungry" instead. The same adult then informs the boy (and us) that starvation will never exist in the perfect world. Well, whose bright idea was it to introduce the concept of starvation to the children AT ALL. Knowing this word implies a harsh reality, and the people are defended against this at all costs. Another example happens later in the book, when Jonas feels love for the first time and asks his family if they too love him. They respond that love is inappropriate and they only deeply care for him. Who taught these people what love was? The appropriate response should've been "Jonas, what is love? I don't know what you mean." Since Jonas only understands love through the gift of memories. |
| 278 | ** Knowledge of words referring to negative concepts: A result of propaganda. "Our community is so much better than communities in the past, where people were starving and miserable. You're so lucky to have a life full of [such wonderful things] with no [bad things]. Your job is to ensure [all these good things] happen for our Community; if you fail or do anything different [bad consequences like starvation] will result." |
| 279 | *** Without the knowledge of starvation, how can the people be warned of it? If the Giver tells them not to increase the birth rate because of the possibility of famine, and thus starvation, they will understand what this means. If they have little knowledge of it, or are only introduced to it as a concept of 'maybe this will happen' and not 'this did happen', they might ignore his advice because they don't truly understand the consequences. |
| 280 | *** Exactly this. Even if the people in the community never directly experienced starvation, the Giver(s) could always explain it as "people won't have enough food to eat" or something similar. There's no reason why they wouldn't know ''about'' it, at least. |
| 281 | ** Knowledge of words referring to unknown concepts: The words have a different connotation in their society. When Jonas' parents laugh at his question of whether or not they love him, they don't tell him, "The concept of love is stupid"; they tell him, "The word 'love' means nothing." They know the word but not the concept of love as we know it. They probably only use the word "love" in the sense of "I love this type of food" or "I love this weather" or "I love my job" but never to refer to a person. As ''Literature/HarryPotter'' explains, forbidding/outlawing words gives them power; if they lose their meaning, the words themselves are harmless. People can use the word "love" all they want -- they've forgotten the original, potentially dangerous meaning of the word, which is all that matters. |
| 282 | ** It's unlikely Jonas was taught the word "starving" as a Four, but he may have overheard it somewhere. Since Jonas's instructor was so shocked by what he said, it doesn't seem like mixing up "hungry" with "starving" was very common. It may have signaled Jonas as potential Receiver, if he knew a word he had not been taught, and was able to use it so intuitively. It could also have something to do with Rosemary's memories, which had only recently come into society. The Giver specifically says he gave her memories of hunger, so when those were released, maybe more children became prone to making that exaggeration. Either way, it explains why Jonas received such a serious lecture over the error. |
| 283 | |
| 284 | * What exactly do these children study in school? I could see them studying math because math is pretty much unchangeable, but nothing else makes sense. If the kids don't know anything about race, color, war, family, and so forth, how would they study literature or any of the humanities? How would they study history without knowing about war, government, and so forth? Science wouldn't even work because the teacher would have to explain how Sameness came about, which would mean introducing concepts the kids are shielded from. |
| 285 | ** One thing I remember was explicitly stated to be taught is language. With all the focus on clear language and the borderline doublespeak going around, it's very possible most of the school time is spent in refining their communication skills. |
| 286 | ** Most likely the curriculum is restricted to basic communication like reading, writing, and language, as well as hard sciences and trade skills necessary to keep the Community running. |
| 287 | ** The curriculum includes language and communications, commerce and industry, science and technology, and civil procedures and government. |
| 288 | |
| 289 | * (Disclaimer: I've only read "The Giver" (in Russian translation, at that) and none of its sequels.) I'm a bit confused as to the nature of the Giver's parenthood. At first, I thought that when he said [[spoiler: Rosemary had been his daughter]], he meant one of two things: [[spoiler: either that she was given to him, the way babies normally are in the Community, or that he had come to love her as his own daughter. But people here seem to say that she was his ''biological'' daughter. Um... how would that be possible?]] |
| 290 | ** This is still unknown because within all the books where the sperm for babies comes from is never addressed. It's possible the Receiver is selected as a sperm donor with hopes he will pass on his gift to another future receiver? |
| 291 | |
| 292 | * It's been about seven or eight years since I read the Giver, but I only now just realized something. How do the people in the community know Jonas has blue eyes if they're all colorblind? I mean, it could be explained by the Giver simply taking a look at the prospects or something, but I feel like this is implying everyone knows something is strange, or at least some of the Elders. How do they even know that someone has the ability to 'see beyond' if they don't even know what color is? Even with the Giver/Receiver explaining it to another party, it would be completely lost on them regardless. How do you try to explain color to someone who has never witnessed anything besides black and white; someone who cannot physically notice or perceive it? How would they have any knowledge, understanding, or context of it to even come to such a grandiose conclusion as him being able to 'see beyond'? It might just be Elders taking the Giver/Receiver at his word, I don't know. Again, it's been a long time since I read it and I might be missing a note here or there, so any explanation is very appreciated. |
| 293 | ** I don't think they know his eyes are blue, exactly, but Jonas's eyes are often described as "light." So even if the community doesn't know what color is, they can still tell that there's ''something'' different about him. |
| 294 | *** Okay, that makes much more sense now. Thanks. |
| 295 | ** If it was really necessary to distinguish "blue" eyes from other sorts of "light" ones - say, if ''only'' truly blue-eyed people are potential Receivers and gray-eyed ones won't do - they could always use an optical spectrometer to check the eye color's wavelength. It'd report a number that would match that of other blue eyes, even if the person using the device can't see the distinction. |
| 296 | ** I'm now imagining someone with "light" eyes, say green accidentally getting Selected as the Receiver who doesn't actually have the power to See Beyond. |
| 297 | *** I guess that ''could'' happen, but it seems unlikely? The thing with Jonas seeing that the apple was red happened before the selection ceremony, if memory serves. So if the Elders found out about that somehow, it probably contributed to him being selected as the receiver. They probably monitor all of the light-eyed kids to see if they go through anything similar to that. |
| 298 | *** First, the current Receiver could easily pick out potential successors as infants because he can see color. Second, there's nothing to imply that all Receivers need to have blue eyes, or that everyone with blue eyes can be a Receiver. The selection is a pretty stringent process as described by the chief elder. Light eyes are just something they tend to have in common. |
| 299 | |
| 300 | * If there are several light-eyed children per generation (Jonas and a female Seven if I recall correctly, for example) who are only a few years apart and not timed to be the next Receiver, does that mean that they're just hoping one will come along at the right time? What happens to others with light eyes who aren't selected? I'm imagining they're like Muggle-born wizards who are never told about their power and can do things people can't explain, since no one seems to know exactly what the Giver/Receiver can do. |
| 301 | ** Cases like the female Seven are probably seen as "backup" (so if say, Jonas hadn't turned out right, she'd be selected as the next Receiver instead). I don't think it meant that she'd be chosen as Jonas's successor, or something like that. The idea of the "extras" simply not being told makes the most sense to me, though it does make for some great FanficFuel to imagine what their lives would be like. |
| 302 | |
| 303 | |
| 304 | * What happens to the bodies of those who are Released or otherwise die? |
| 305 | ** Well, in the case of Releases, I'm pretty sure it's mentioned that [[spoiler:the baby Jonas's dad released was put through a chute]], so it's likely that they're taken out and buried somewhere outside the community? It's possible something similar happens for "normal" deaths, too, though it's not mentioned. |
| 306 | |
| 307 | * If an adult with a family is Released for breaking the rules, do they get a replacement to harmonize everything, like they do when they give a replacement child when one is Lost by accident? |
| 308 | ** That's... actually a good question, though I'm not sure if it would actually happen. It works with children since the replacement would still be a child, keeping everything even, but getting a child to replace an adult would screw up the numbers. Maybe if ''two'' (or an otherwise even number of) adults get Released, then the spare adults could be paired up accordingly? They also might be able to make an exception for Laborers, since those would be "extra" adults floating around. Pairing up people whose partners got Released seems more likely, though. |
| 309 | *** Why would Laborers be "extra adults floating around"? There's no indication anywhere in the book or movie that Laborers aren't allowed to have families the "normal" (for the Community) way. |
| 310 | *** The night laborers at the nurturing center, at least, are said to not be assigned to family units. So at least some laborers aren't getting spouses ''at first'', but exceptions could then be made if someone ''does'' need a new spouse. |
| 311 | ** In addition to the adult/child differential, the book mentions that Release is different than Loss, so giving the family a replacement wouldn't be part of the picture. It's unclear if a person would be allowed to request a second spouse (or required to do so if there are children) in the event that the first was Released, but if that's the case they would probably just be paired up with someone else who is requesting a spouse. Not everyone takes a spouse (it's not a requirement), so presumably there's a little flexibility there. They probably wouldn't be paired up with other people whose Spouses were Released, though, unless one or both has no children or if one happens to have only a girl and the other happens to have only a boy, as that would mess up the "one boy and one girl" family structure. As for the larger community, the balance isn't so fragile that one less person will throw everything off; even a system as rigid as the Community wouldn't create a system that's that vulnerable, especially if that system also uses Release as a form of punishment. |
| 312 | * At the end of The Giver, Jonas has been traveling for a few weeks or so. He thinks he hears music from the Community, meaning the Giver has been Released. Wouldn't the Community want to keep the Giver around much longer, since they're probably in chaos dealing with all the memories? |
| 313 | ** He probably has memories of music, so it's possible he could figure out what music is that way. |
| 314 | * In the film, what is the purpose of the hedge/fountain? If privacy is frowned upon it seems like a silly thing to put in the park. |
| 315 | * Gabriel is labeled as "Uncertain" because he has issues sleeping through the night. The births are timed so that even the youngest are a few months old by the Ceremony of One. But many issues do not arise until the child is a bit older. Does this mean that if there is an issue after they are assigned to a family, then they are Released? |
| 316 | ** Quite likely, yes. Gabe was ''still'' going to be released even after Jonas's family started taking care of him because he still wasn't sleeping well outside of Jonas's room. If the issues were really severe enough, it seems likely that the child could get Released for it. |
| 317 | * It seems that even after getting assigned their job at Twelve, children live with their families until their training is over. Does this mean that Jonas will live with his parents for years until he has all the memories? |
| 318 | ** It'd probably be until however long it'd take the Giver to finish training him, yes. So it could be up to a few years, or just a few months if they really sped through the process. |
| 319 | * How the hell did the community manage to get rid of sunshine? I don't really think it's possible to get rid of the sun. Sure, you could block out the sun, but I don't think you could block out the heat. |
| 320 | * How did Jonas get picked to be the Receiver? Sure he has light eyes, but how would anyone know that he could See Beyond? |
| 321 | ** Yes, he hoarded the apple, but that didn't occur until he was Eleven, so did they wait that long to decide that he would be the Giver's successor? And there didn't seem to be any other incidents that Jonas could have told anyone about. |
| 322 | *** The community is very tightly monitored, remember. There are speakers everywhere, so it's extremely likely they heard Jonas telling Asher about how "strange" the apple was. If they told the Giver about this, he could take it as (at least some of) the evidence he needed. |
| 323 | *** Also, given that "light" eyes are tied to the ability to give and receive memories, it's possible that the Community (or at least the Elders) know about this. And if not, well, the Giver would certainly know, and since he can tell that Jonas's eyes are blue on top of that, he could've easily told the Elders that Jonas had the potential to be a Receiver. |
| 324 | * Jonas asks about Rosemary and learns that her name was never to be used for a newchild again. His internal monologue explains that this is because it is a name Not-To-Be-Spoken. Are all those who were Released because of a transgression designated thus or just Rosemary? And what other crimes would lead to this designation? |
| 325 | ** It probably depends on what exactly they were released for. Rosemary is a special case, given what exactly her Release did to the community. People who were released for comparatively "minor" things may have their names used again. Probably anything else that would cause a ''really'' big disturbance would also get that designation. Maybe if the pilot at the beginning had actively crashed his plane into a building, or something like that? |
| 326 | * If only the Giver can turn off the speakers in his office, then wouldn't whoever is on the other end hear Jonas leaving his house with Gabe? |
| 327 | ** It depends on how much noise they made, I guess. Jonas himself was probably trying to be as quiet as possible, and he's shown giving peaceful memories to Gabe to help him sleep better, so it's likely that he just overloaded Gabe with calm dreams to make sure he didn't cry on the way out. |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Headscratchers / TheGiver
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
