History YMMV / EarthAbides

* AmbiguousDisorder: The nature of Evie's mental disability is a mystery even to the characters. Ish seems to think Evie had been born like this, but the children suggest that her handicap resulted from lack of nurturing after her family died in the plague. As none of them had known Evie before the apocalypse, they cannot be sure either way.

* FairForItsDay: While traveling across the newly-depopulated United States, Ish meets some black sharecroppers who survived the pandemic while their white bosses perished. He has some mildly insensitive thoughts about them but they're not portrayed in a mean or stereotypical way. He ultimately sees their newfound freedom from the wage slavery of sharecropping as a positive development and commends them for liberating themselves. He reflects that he could take advantage of his whiteness by ordering them to obey his commands but concludes that it'd be cruel and unfair to do that ([[WhatYouAreInTheDark even though there'd be no one to hold him accountable for it]]). He also observes that they're much better prepared to survive the apocalypse than any of the white survivors he meets because they're familiar with agriculture and can grow their own food (which Ish and his tribe have trouble figuring out decades later). [[spoiler: The tribe of black southerners briefly shown at the end of the book are implied to be the post-apocalyptic descendants of these sharecroppers, meaning they did alright for themselves at the end of the day.]]

** More ValuesDissonance in the chapter "The Year 22", specifically about the business involving Charlie and Evie. It's wrong for Charlie to target Evie sexually because he's got what one character calls "Cupid's diseases", and may spread them into the rest of the community. It's wrong in Ish's eyes because Evie is mentally handicapped and is bound to produce "a lot of little half-witted brats". But nowhere, not once, by ''any'' character, is it suggested that it's wrong because ''what Charlie is doing is rape'' -- Evie is incapable of giving or denying meaningful consent.

* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: Once Ish wises up to what things he needs to teach, his first lesson is to teach the kids how to make and shoot a bow and arrow. Several generations later, the tribe crafts arrowheads from pennies. That lesson had stuck with Ish's students, and they went on to teach it to the next generation and so on.

*** There's a bit of ValuesDissonance in the moment where Ish suddenly adds up all the clues about Em's ethnicity: "brunette complexion, dark liquid eyes, full lips, white teeth, rich voice, ''accepting temperament'' ... "

** There's a bit of ValuesDissonance in the moment where Ish suddenly adds up all the clues about Em's ethnicity: "brunette complexion, dark liquid eyes, full lips, white teeth, rich voice, ''accepting temperament'' ... "

* FairForItsDay: While traveling across the newly-depopulated United States, Ish meets some black sharecroppers who survived the pandemic while their white bosses perished. He has some mildly insensitive thoughts about them but he ultimately sees their newfound freedom from the wage slavery of sharecropping as a positive development. He reflects that he could take advantage of his whiteness by ordering them to obey his commands but concludes that it'd be cruel and unfair to do so ([[WhatYouAreInTheDark even though there'd be no one to hold him accountable for it]]). He also praises them for being the best-equipped out of all the people he meets to survive, as they already know how to perform agriculture (something Ish and his tribe have trouble with decades later).

** The "horrible secret" that Ish's love interest has been hiding is that she's mixed race, specifically that she has black ancestry. To his and his [[FairForItsDay creator's credit]], Ish isn't bothered by this revelation at all. He chuckles and tells her not to worry about it, privately reflecting that the old racist fears over miscegenation have no place in the post-apocalypse.

*** There's a bit of ValuesDissonance in the moment where Ish suddenly adds up all the clues about Em's ethnicity: "brunette complexion, dark liquid eyes, full lips, white teeth, rich voice, ''accepting temperament'' ... "

* {{Heartwarming}}: Once Ish wises up to what things he needs to teach, his first lesson is to teach the kids how to make and shoot a bow and arrow. Several generations later, the tribe crafts arrowheads from pennies. That lesson had stuck with Ish's students, and they went on to teach it to the next generation and so on.

** There's a bit of ValuesDissonance in the moment where Ish suddenly adds up all the clues about Em's ethnicity: "brunette complexion, dark liquid eyes, full lips, white teeth, rich voice, ''accepting temperament'' ... "

** The "horrible secret" that Ish's love interest has been hiding is that she's part black. To his and his [[FairForItsDay creator's credit]], Ish isn't bothered by this revelation at all, merely chuckling and telling her not to worry about it.

* Heartwarming: Once Ish wises up to what things he needs to teach, his first lesson is to teach the kids how to make and shoot a bow and arrow. Several generations later, the tribe crafts arrowheads from pennies. That lesson had stuck with Ish's students, and they went on to teach it to the next generation and so on.

* ValuesDissonance: The "horrible secret" that Ish's love interest has been hiding is that she's part black. To his and his [[FairForItsDay creator's credit]], Ish isn't bothered by this revelation at all, merely chuckling and telling her not to worry about it.

** More ValuesDissonance in the chapter "The Year 22", specifically about the business involving Charlie and Evie. It's wrong for Charlie to target Evie sexually because he's got what one character calls "Cupid's diseases", and may spread them into the rest of the community. It's wrong in Ish's eyes because Evie is mentally handicapped and is bound to produce "a lot of little half-witted brats". But nowhere, not once, by ''any'' character, is it suggested that it's wrong because ''what Charlie is doing is rape'' -- Evie is incapable of giving or denying meaningful consent.
*** The Tribe's sentencing Charlie to death is therefore RightForTheWrongReasons, although when this troper read the scene where the vote was taken he got the impression that the main characters were ''thinking'' this even if they didn't want to outright state it (hence the unanimous vote). We are only working with Ish's inner monologue as a point-of-view, and he sees things quite differently from the rest of the Tribe. Consider that there was initial dissent in the deliberation: George in a rare moment of insight theorizes that Evie may not be mentally disabled at all, but 'put crazy' by losing her entire family as a very young child and being left alone for an indeterminate amount of time before Ezra's clan found her--genetically she's fine. Still, whether she's actually mentally handicapped or insane due to childhood trauma, Evie cannot give consent to Charlie.

* ValuesDissonance: The "horrible secret" that Ish's love interest has been hiding is that she's part black. To his and his [[FairForItsDay creator's credit]], Ish laughs at the thought that this would seriously be a problem.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Ish has become this for many more recent readers, partly because of ValuesDissonance in his common attitudes. Some readers claim that Ish is an InsufferableGenius who views everyone else in the tribe as below him on the intelligence scale. Others, while acknowledging his Jerkass nature, see him as a JerkassHasAPoint as he is the only one that seems concerned with rebuilding civilization and preserving information that will enable future generations to survive.

*** The Tribe's sentencing Charlie to death is therefore RightForTheWrongReasons, although when this troper read the scene where the vote was taken he got the impression that the main characters were ''thinking'' this even if they didn't want to outright state it (hence the unanimous vote). We are only working with Ish's inner monologue as a point-of-view, and he sees things quite differently from the rest of the Tribe. Consider that there was initial dissent in the deliberation: George in a rare moment of insight theorizes that Evie may not be mentally disabled at all, but 'put crazy' by losing her entire family as a very young child and being left alone for an indeterminate amount of time before Ezra's clan found her--genetically she's fine. Still, whether she's actually mentally handicapped or insane due to childhood trauma, Evie cannot give consent to Charlie.

* UnfortunateImplications: Set in around the black sharecropper settlement in the South, who immediately are wary of and defer to Ish during his stopover on his trip across country. In the far future they're stated to still be raising cotton for their long-vanished landlords. Apparently not even the complete collapse of civilization and the near-extinction of the human race is enough to end Jim Crow.
** Ish has absolutely no compunctions about accepting supplies from them, and paying them in cash money he knows to be utterly valueless.

* ValuesDissonance: The "horrible secret" that Ish's love interest has been hiding is that she's part black. To his and his [[FairForItsDay creator's credit]], Ish laughs at the thought this would seriously be a problem.

* UnfortunateImplications set in around the black sharecropper settlement in the South, who immediately are wary of and defer to Ish during his stopover on his trip across country. In the far future they're stated to still be raising cotton for their long-vanished landlords. Apparently not even the complete collapse of civilization and the near-extinction of the human race is enough to end Jim Crow.