Nightmare Fuel / Babel, or the Necessity of Violence

• We begin the novel with a sick young boy being found in a house surrounded by the rotting corpses of his dead family members. We know that it’s going to be a difficult read.
• When Robin fails to attend one of his lessons, Lovell brutally beats him with a fire poker, all while showing no emotion.
• One night, a white Oxford resident begins to harass Robin and Ramy, and from his tone, it’s clear that he wants to fight. Being harassed on the street at night is a terrifying situation, but one all too relatable to many people of color.
• What happens if you fail your exams at Babel is terrifying in a close-to-home way for many students and academic types. First of all, everyone's results are read out, one-by-one, in front of everybody. And if you didn't pass? You are expelled on the spot, the vial of your blood that lets you enter the building is smashed in front of you, and then two of your former classmates throw you out while everyone watches. No matter how much you sob and beg for another chance, or what good reasons you may have had for underperforming, you are given no sympathy, no second chance, and no help figuring out what to do now. Bear in mind that most Babel students are basically raised from early childhood to attend this school and one day work in the tower; this is your whole life falling apart around you, with no clear path forward, and nobody bothers to comfort you, considering this a worthy punishment for coming up short and "squandering the opportunity." It's the classic "taking a test you didn't study for" nightmare but even worse.
• That lovely little expulsion method just described? It used to be worse. A footnote reveals that prior to a few years before the novel's start, students would discover whether they'd passed or fail by entering the tower... but those who had failed had already had their vials of blood destroyed. So you found out if you failed by seeing whether or not you set off the tower's Death Traps. Fortunately, the university phased this out when it was deemed to be too cruel even by their standards, but Prof. Playfair is said to try and bring the practice back every year...