History Headscratchers / SnowCrash

* Why do so many people on the internet describe Y.T. as a "valley girl?" Throughout the book, she shows little to no interest in fashion, make-up, or shopping, and she spends most of her time skating in the dirty streets and raving at rock concerts. Yes, she does say "like" and "totally" a lot; but that's part of her skateboarder-punk slang.(She says "dude" and "yo" about as much as the first two words). Y.T. is plenty feminine. But a valley girl?
** "Y.T. is not fond of boxes. Y.T. establishes her space on the pavement by zagging mightily from lane to lane, establishing a precedent of scary randomness...makes them react to her, instead of the other way around." This sounds more like the description of a teen who would, if anything, be at odds with the "valley-girl" types.
** Not only is there no mention of Y.T. having interest in make-up and fashion, but she often expresses bafflement when she sees other women or girls done up with excessive make up or "pointless femininity." Does "valley girl" now mean "any teenaged girl with an attitude," or did the people who call her this not even read the book?
** I could be wrong, but I believe she actually lives in the Valley, such as it is. Perhaps people are thinking of this and getting weirdly confused about the various stereotypes that she ''does'' embody.

** "Y.T. is not fond of boxes. Y.T. establishes her space on the pavement by zaggine mightily from lane to lane, establishing a precedent of scary randomness...makes them react to her, instead of the other way around." This sounds more like the description of a teen who would, if anything, be at odds with the "valley-girl" types.

** I don't think Raven really cares to thinks that far ahead. Even if he does care enough to take precautions to avoid nuking his deathbed, I doubt he'd tell anyone how to disarm the device until he's on his deathbead for fear they might betray him or get tortured for the info. With a little luck, they'll either find a deep enough hole (or strong enough rocket) to get rid of the nuke before that happens.

*** Option A: He faces a BolivianArmyEnding where he's captured alive and kept unable to activate the bomb. Eventually he either negotiates a way out by voluntarily disarming it, or someone like uncle Enzo finds a good enough bomb-squad and/or nuclear technician and/or deep enough hole to get rid of the bomb. Raven is then auctioned off among the people he's pissed off to recoup the losses. What happens to the he bomb is anyone's guess. It may have been used in a way damage was minimal to the world at large, or permanently disabled, or is now someone ''else's'' insurance. Pray he doesn't choke on a chicken bone.

*** Option C: Raven is killed, or suffers an honest to god accident, and the bomb goes off. With the state of the Snowcrash world, a nuke going off anywhere won't be too disastrous unless it were in one of the few functioning countries or an agricultural breadbasket.

* What became of Juanita's teenage pregnancy? When Juanita wanted to study human facial expressions for her work in the Metaverse, she told Hiro a story about how she became pregnant as a teenager (so she could examine his face as he reacted to her story). This pregnancy is never mentioned again. There is no mention of her having a child while she and Hiro were in college, or when she married [=Da5id=], or now durring the present. Hiro knew Juanita well, so if she was raising a child, he'd know about it, and would not have been surprised by her story. So, it seems her pregnancy did not result in her becoming a mother. What happened then? Did she put the kid up for adoption? Did she have a miscarriage? An abortion (doubtful, given her religion)? Was the story just a lie that she told Hiro, in order to see his reaction?

* So, Y.T.'s mom is questioned by the feds about her daugher. Later, Y.T. is kidnapped by the feds. Yet later we learn that the feds work closely with Rife. We also know that Y.T.'s mom is under heavy surveillance even on a normal day. Why is it then that the feds did not tap in the call Y.T. gives her mother after fleeing and send a team to recapture her? It's not like they couldn't know about her fleeing as she escaped from a helicopter that had the president in it.

*** Option F: He can deactivate the DeadManSwitch at will, as we hear nothing of a nuclear explosion when he takes it off to kayak to The Raft. If he did take it off while activated, he would be at the center of the blast, so it is safe to say it has an off switch.

* What became of Juanita's teenage pregnancy? When Juanita wanted to study human facial expressions for her work in the Metaverse, she told Hiro a story about how she became pregnant as a teenager (so she could examine his face as he reacted to her story). This pregnancy is never mentioned again. There is no mention of her having a child while she and Hiro were in college, or when she married Da5id, or now durring the present. Hiro knew Juanita well, so if she was raising a child, he'd know about it, and would not have been surprised by her story. So, it seems her pregnancy did not result in her becoming a mother. What happened then? Did she put the kid up for adoption? Did she have a miscarriage? An abortion (doubtful, given her religion)? Was the story just a lie that she told Hiro, in order to see his reaction?

* What is the symbol in the middle of Da5id's name? Is it the number five, or the Hebrew letter Lamed? (It is implied that Da5id is Jewish.) How the heck is his name pronounced, anyway?
** Although Hebrew would make sense, given his religion, it seems like he's referencing the Latin alphabet/number system. V is both a letter and the symbol for 5- thus, Da5id is pronounced the same as David.

* Hiro's father was in WorldWarII. L. Bob Rife was at school in TheSixties. The book was written in 1992. Just what year is the present day, and how did the US government etc fall apart so fast that the post-national world is now seen as the norm?

** circa 2005

** Well, unless WordOfGod said otherwise, it was pretty much implied that Uncle Enzio killed Raven (the last we saw of both of them was Raven disarmed and Enzio coming at him with a straight razor). This was at the end of a series of events which involved him having to remove the nuke (since he had to kayak to The Raft, and the warhead would have been too heavy). So, presumably, the nuke was left either unattended, or with the Orthos.

*** This troper agrees that abortion is unlikely. When Jaunita was younger, Hiro said she was a rather devoted Catholic, who normally come down hard on the anti-abortion side (unless it is different in that alternate future). Juanita was likely gauging Hiro's reaction more than anything, as YT informs Hiro, Juanita wants who is grown-up and knows what they want. Hiro wasn't mature enough at that point, and he reaction told her so.