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The Chrysalids

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TiggersAreGreat Since: Mar, 2011
#1: Sep 6th 2012 at 5:06:51 AM

The Chrysalids is a book that I was assigned to read way back in high school. It was pretty interesting to read, but there were a number of things about it that I had a hard time understanding.

Thankfully, TV Tropes has done such a good job in explaining a number of details about the book, and for that I am grateful!

I agree that the ending does seem to be quite jarring, especially with the Broken Aesop of racism being bad. I liked how one review pointed out how the author seems to think "Survival of the fittest" is the same as "Might Makes Right", which it isn't. I guess some people think they know what "Survival of the fittest" means, when they don't.

Still, it was interesting how one theory stated that the author deliberately set out to make the Broken Aesop. It could be said that John Wyndham truly believed that tolerance between groups is a good thing, but he was cynical enough to realize that different groups will still try to kill each other. So maybe he was trying to show that it would be nice if people just got along, but it's just not going to happen!

Oh, and by the way, back when I had to read the book, several notes I got stated that the character Uncle Axel essentially functioned as the author's mouthpiece. What would TV Tropes call this kind of character?

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!
WarriorEowyn from Victoria Since: Oct, 2010
#2: Sep 6th 2012 at 7:46:54 AM

I've reread it recently, and am pretty sure that the woman from Zealand is not intended to come across as completely right. The fact that they really don't care about people with non-psychich mutations is one of the clearer indicators of this. The telepaths are escaping from a dystopia into something that is better, but imperfect - neither utopia nor dystopia. Which is more realistic than them escaping to a utopia.

I didn't get a "might makes right" sense from Zealand, though. Their argument for the use of violence against normals wasn't "we're stronger, so it's okay" but "they want to kill us all off" (which is true), combined with the conviction that telepathy is humanity's future.

edited 6th Sep '12 7:51:17 AM by WarriorEowyn

pagad Sneering Imperialist from perfidious Albion Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Sneering Imperialist
#3: Sep 6th 2012 at 12:44:05 PM

I haven't read this book since I was in school, so I could be wrong; but doesn't the Zealander helicopter deploy non-lethal weaponry against the "normals" pursuing the protagonists? Some kind of technological net, IIRC.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.
tricksterson Never Trust from Behind you with an icepick Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Never Trust
#4: Sep 6th 2012 at 2:18:47 PM

The ironic thing is that it could have been non-lethal. It's basically a web spray that could have been portrayed as simply immoobilizing people. Instead IIRC it constricts and strangles the people in it. Even when I first read it in the 3rd grade I thought that was a bit nasty

Having read other books by the author (Was it Wyndham? I forget but anyway he also wrote The Midwich Cuckoos) he was very fond of the idea, which was pretty popular in the 50s and 60s that any species competing for the same nich, by necessity would be in a life or death struggle. I suspect that "species" was being used, in both works, as a metaphor for race.

edited 6th Sep '12 2:21:58 PM by tricksterson

Trump delenda est
WarriorEowyn from Victoria Since: Oct, 2010
#5: Sep 6th 2012 at 6:46:04 PM

Yes, the "web" deployed by the Zealand helicopter tightens every time a person entrapped in it moves, leading to it eventually strangling them. Which, as noted, is weird because it would be just as easy if not easier to coat the net with a short-term paralytic for nonlethal effects.

TiggersAreGreat Since: Mar, 2011
#6: Sep 8th 2012 at 4:25:55 AM

A bit of Fridge Logic that's occurred to me...Uncle Axel confesses to David about murdering Alan. He explains that the Jerkass beat information about the telepaths out of his wife Anne, which makes him a Domestic Abuser. Um, how would Axel know that? Was he there? Was he spying on them? That kind of stuff is usually private and occurs behind closed doors, where nobody can witness it! surprised

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!
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