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medievalcat · 6 years

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ok. I finished Children of God (sequel to The Sparrow), and while I was able to follow it better than when I first read it (I think I was really distracted a few years ago, and had trouble focusing).....I didn’t like it as much as the first one, which I’m aware isn’t an unpopular opinion, even though I didn’t hate all of it. Here are my thoughts on why it didnt work imo and what I did like about it.

The Sparrow would naturally be a hard act to follow, and I get that sometimes sequels do different things than the first installations. book one is about Emilio and book two is about Rakhat. Okay. I think there’s a lot of interesting material that could have been made of Emilio, John, and all the new guys visiting Rakhat years after the first expedition. It’s what the author did- and, really, this was present in the first book as well, and one of the first book’s issues, but here it’s really one of the main points of the story and far more prominent than ever before- that didn’t succeed. It’s the story of Rakhat....but given how Rakhat is written, maybe it shouldnt have been. This book honestly ranged from “enjoyable” to “disappointing” to “implicitly or explicitly expressing horrible views”.

It’s one thing to make an oppression storyline in a fantasy setting- FMA for example does this. But in that, the victims are humans. In this, not only does the story do an oppression narrative about fantasy creatures, which is already a very difficult thing to pull off, she repeatedly draws comparisons between nonhuman aliens and things like the Holocaust and genocide and oppression of Native Americans. She even has her one native character draw this comparison and *stay behind on another planet instead of going to earth* for some “reservation” plotline at the end. This is a good example of why when we criticize media sometimes we have to focus specifically on the writers who choose to make these events happen, who choose to write certain stories and who choose to frame them in certain ways. I’m kind of glad this book doesn’t have a fandom, really, because tumblr types would focus on which aliens’ side is “right” and not on the fact that the author chose to write some fantasy creature oppression story with incoherent imperialism commentary while trivializing real genocides. I remember a really uncomfortable paragraph in the first one that implied the Ottoman Empire was some kind of safe haven for all ethnic/religious groups as well as a line (keep in mind these were written in the 90s) about how Bosnia is violent because of ............ “blood feuds”. Many people have said this story is weak because it focused on these new alien characters and the Rakhat storyline so much. This, for me, is the main reason why that storyline was so weak.

One thing I liked was some of the new characters. I liked Danny and Joseba and Nico and Sean and Gina and Pope Gelasius. I think this book kind of did a “later season of Vikings” so that there were suddenly all these new people but few of them got good development. So that was a weakness but I didn’t mind many of the characters in and of themselves and enjoyed these new additions. Sure they weren’t like the people in the first book but that’s okay. They added new perspectives. Danny had a lot of interesting stuff about forgiveness that I liked. I also liked initially how Sofia was revealed to be alive but....she was shafted. We barely see her in favor of her badly offensively written written son (I know this was written 20 years ago but. the way he and his disability are portrayed as like...literally “alien” even though ths is supposed to be a “positive”.... is honestly....why the living fuck did she do this....) and Supaari’s daughter who he CONCEIVED FROM RAPE and we’re just supposed to be ok with that bc the author very conveniently wrote the victim to be as unsympathetic as possible and because “uwu miracle of life!! yay children!” I’m supposed to buy that Sofia, a child trafficking survivor, is allies and friends with a man who not only is a rapist but sold a person she loved into sex slavery.......after the narrative called to attention how similar Sofia and Emilio’s experiences were, and the first book was an imperfect story but a deep introspective exploration of the effects of SA.....lol ok. And then she gets killed off at the end offscreen in a single sentence.

There’s also....I really doubt she intended some of this but it’s clearly in the story .... it really has bad implications, that the only relations between men are abusive in both books. there are literally no other relations between men, even though there is a gay character (who I understand is a celibate priest, and having a gay priest is cool!) but....it just doesnt have good implications that relations between men are only ever presented as bad. especially because the thing that truly “heals” Emilio is being with a woman and I think in our society (and thus our media) we have a real problem with thinking that “healing” as a sexual abuse victim means having sex with a man if youre a woman and with a woman if you’re a man, and that male sa victims of men are only really victims if they like women (and, of course, women sa victims in general just have to like men). Of course there is nothing wrong with Gina, I loved her, and nothing is wrong with writing an sa survivor who is able to have a relationship after. But MDR killed her off for no good reason. The other crew members dying in the first book, those were well written character deaths. and how many times did she do the “this woman died but thats whatever narratively, because she has a kid uwu miracle of life” thing in this sequel. I think MDR is like GRRM in that she has good intentions clearly, and has such good sff works/characters and takes oh the Human Experience and everything, but doesn’t always know how to handle issues in a responsible way and it’s really glaring even if there are obviously worse people in media. To be honest (and again, here Im glad there’s no fandom, because people are so weird about this stuff) MDR should have just had Emilio and John be together. “Your friendship should have been proof enough of God” ???????? hello?????? Their relationship was one of the things that actually was well fleshed out in the sequel until John and all the other guys who weren’t in the Camorra just.....stayed on Rakhat forever.

Part of the handling of Sofia seemed like a broader pattern of the plot being completely forced. Everything happens for some sake of The Plot- this is something later seasons of GOT have been criticized for. This plot in particular, in addition to the alien oppression metaphor, seemed to want to make everything about the story in particular its end be some kind of “bookend” to mirror the first book. Sofia dies (for real this time. honestly....her death in the first one was good writing!), Emilio and his unlikely escorts go home, no one else gets to go home, there’s a huge societal upheaval on Rakhat because of the humans, a huge reveal about Rakhat’s “divine” music. I have nothing against this kind of narrative device but when it’s this forced to the point where the story is blatantly constructed for the sake of this......it didn’t work. The “music” plot twist was like..............really??? All of that? They’re staying on this planet? If they had all gotten more time in the story (because this book is the same length as the first book but has far more different subplots and far longer of a timespan and far more narrators) we might find that more plausible. I don’t think everything needs to be spelled out for us. In the first book when everyone is stranded, it’s clear that they think this is tragic, but they are trying to make the best of it because they all love each other and are together. In this one they don’t all have that kind of bond and it’s dependent on the long-winded and incoherent Rakhat political storyline. Because a lot of it isn’t even that well developed in addition to the earlier addressed things. We go between random one-off characters. So much is about the war but it’s written so anti-climatically. Sofia broke down in the first book when she learned they were stranded, and now she doesn’t care at all about returning back to Earth because the Runa are “her people” now, but how much of that is really what she tells herself to cope with what she lost- and what she experienced on earth in her youth? we don’t know. The Pope just....sent Emilio who became probably the most infamous person on Earth, back into space, and it wasn’t a big deal for the Church or at all? And all it took for it to happen was a handful of Camorra men with Vatican connections, who were just adapted so well to space travel and extended time on a new planet that initially made the people in the first book sick when transitioning into life there? And let me reiterate we’re supposed to accept that the divinely ordained reason all this happened was because Isaac wrote music inspired by human and alien dna and it sounded wonderful?

This just felt very forced. “Emilio never wants to go back to Rakhat so obviously this book has to be about how he goes back there and accepts that it actually happened for a Good Reason bc of some music, and music was the way they found it in the first place.” How about how he accepts that it happened and comes to terms with what happened to him without either hating himself for his actions or thinking it was all For The Greater Good Actually, because you cant undo the past, aka what the first book was building up to and culminated in? idk. the first book was all about how bad things happen and that this doesn’t mean we have to give up our faith even if we question our faith. this was more like “every cloud has a silver lining lol”.

There were many nice things- Emilio’s friendship with Nico, many of the moments with Sofia towards the end and her reuniting with Emilio, John getting more to do, the new Pope, Celestina ending up having an important job as a theater and leaving a trail of men in her wake lol. I don’t want to say don’t read this. But if you like the first book you might not like this one, and if you’re considering reading the first book, it.....works best as a standalone.

#i say things #book blogging #given that this talks about uh certain Things i'd prefer no reblogs lol

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wingheadshellhead · 7 years

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Hi, I love your blog! So I've been reading a lot of 616 stevetony lately, and I've noticed that in both canon and in a lot of fiction, Steve seems to really dislike Extremis (even before superior iron man). Why do you think that is? Even without looking at this with shipper goggles (which I always am), I think it's really strange that Steve has so much disdain for something that essentially saved one of his best friend's lives.

(THIS HAS TAKEN ME 5 BILLION YEARS BUT HERE IT IS FINALLY)

i used to be in the same boat and automatically assumed steve’s dislike of extremis was one of those fandom headcanon things that was so commonly accepted it’d basically become fact, but it’s really, actually, all 100% canon. but the comics that deal with it happen right before civil war so i think many ppl have simply forgotten or skipped over that part of tony’s timeline.

execute program is the 6-issue arc that comes right after extremis and it’s the main thing i tell everyone they have to read if they’re putting themselves thru the ringer that is 616′s civil war. it is so so important to understanding tony’s headspace and where he’s at before the events of civil war occur.

READ EXECUTE PROGRAM. a) bc it’s absolutely crucial to tony’s side of civil war, b) the follow-through from the extremis arc is just… amazing, virtuosic. i really genuinely think it is a fascinating, excellently-written arc, c) when it gets gay it gets very gay. truST ME you do not need your shipper goggles for this at all bc guess which of the following things are canon: the sound of steve saying his voice being the only thing that snaps tony out of (likely a dissociative episode) trying to murder a villain that nearly kills peter, dyeing his hair blond when he’s going on the run, tony stopping his heart to save steve’s life. all of them !!! all canon !!!!!!

extremis is, basically, terrifying. to the average human being, hell even the average superhuman. it’s p much unfathomable the sheer level/magnitude/scope of extremis. extremis allows tony to access and control any piece of technology on earth and even in earth’s atmosphere, he can hear satellites. it’s like having the singularity as a superpower.

so part 1, iron man vol. 4 #7 (2006), opening issue and we have tony stopping a villain with lethal force, all while counting down the milliseconds and bidding on priceless artefacts.

now, avengers don’t kill. and tony doesn’t, he stops the man’s heart, then restarts it, basically performing defibrillation.

and then we get this conversation:

and after tony jets off leaving the new avengers to sort out the aftermath, we get this disturbing reminder:

a proper reread might prove me wrong but i don’t think the writers ever clarify whether this transformation in tony’s personality is due to extremis or outside manipulation (which is the culmination of execute program’s arc as i’ll go into in a bit). but when your brain is literally a machine and you Have Become more machine than human, this is the natural progression of tony’s humanity – the aspects of compassion, empathy, etc. – fading into the background to accomodate for extremis.

extremis brings out everything about tony that steve (and possibly the world) fears most. it makes him cold and calculating, and with a brain like tony stark’s elevated by the superhuman capacity to think and react at the speed of a machine, he’s unstopppable.

part 2, iron man vol. 4 #8, we have tony nearly straight up burning a man alive for almost killing peter and laughing about it.

he’s so deep in Destroy Mode that he doesn’t even register steve’s warning, and here i think he acts entirely out of instinct –– like extremis is thinking for him rather than his brain prompting him to do this.

extremis is also the cause of tension between tony and the newly-formed new avengers (one of my favorite line-ups!!), he almost gets into a fight with logan and jessica has to break them up. it turns out tony is missing time in his memory, which is extremely worrying for someone w/ his level of power…

what’s so fascinating about extremis, and why we have so much to thank warren ellis for (the writer of the extremis arc), is that it is the perfect and the most logical climax of the modern iron man story. tony’s worst villain, as we’ve known since the very beginning really, has never been anyone else but himself. and in the case of extremis, it’s a highly technologically advanced version of himself that can do and be everything he’s ever dreamed of being able to achieve vs. him.

the question extremis asks is at what cost? at what cost does technological advancement, bleeding-edge breakthroughs, and the spirit of human innovation come at? how far would tony go to become the Ideal version of himself that he sees as superior in every way? what would he sacrifice for that?

extremis represents basically the pinnacle of sci-fi tech in iron man comics, it’s why even god awful superior iron man used a 3.0 version of it as the foundation for tony’s sins. it’s the farthest point he’s ever reached, and it’s also the lowest in terms of the damage and fallout that comes from it. because ofc, tony stark can’t have nice things like this, but also bc the hubris + nature of extremis allowing its host to play god can’t exist without there being negative consequences. really b ad consequences.

huge respect to danial & charles knauf, the authors of execute program, too, because they find a way to perfectly bring the arc full circle as ellis did with his extremis. the central villain plot revolves around ho yinsen’s son. the kid hacks extremis and uses it to control tony, sending him to subconsciously assassinate a bunch of people on his kill list, i.e. a list of all the men involved in yinsen’s death. i mean like, HOLY SHIT, an iron man plot where a literal ghost from tony’s past – a direct victim of events tony was involved in, the son of the man that sacrificed his life so iron man could be born and so tony stark could live – shows up, weaponises tony’s own body + technology and uses him to murder people who are scheduled to participate in a peace summit despite the blood on their hands and the human cost of their involvement in the weapons industry.

DRAWING PARALLELS BETWEEN YINSEN’S LIFE’S WORK AND TONY’S LIKE DEATH AND DYING WOULD BE KINDER. again bc of my memory or even regardless due to constant retcons + reruns of the iron man origin story, i don’t know if it’s ever been explicitly stated before that yinsen also got into the weapons industry in order to get the funding necessary to support his other revolutionary work. but his son literally conflates yinsen with tony here, blending them into one + the same with that final panel and it becomes very obvious that at least a small part of him blames father for entering into weapons design. if he hadn’t, he might never have been captured by the the terrorist group that wanted him and tony to build them missiles.

also, yinsen + villains involving yinsen are a recurring theme in iron man history but can we talk abt the fact that tony has never ever let himself forget the man bc jesus christ

yinsen’s kid is killed by a SHIELD sniper, activating the dead man’s switch and unleashing all the peackeeping units tony built that are now compromised. now, tony’s no jean grey or wanda maximoff but if this arc shows anything it’s not to underestimate him bc intentional or not (lmao) if he put his mind to it there’s literally no limit to the damage he could do.

we see various heroes fighting off the peacekeeping units, and the new avengers are at the peace summit fighting a hulkbuster.

and here it is people !!! the 23989485th time tony kills himself so steve can live.

JUST. THE LOOK ON HIS FACE. AND THEN THIS ABSOLUTE LACK OF HESITATION:

so, yes. extremis was traumatising for pretty much every single person involved. steve has extremely good reasons for HATING extremis, even in the early stages or even if a fic is taking place before the events of execute program.

if you read the full arc, you’ll see tony running himself into the ground with his new abilities (world’s greatest multitasker can now multitask 192483958 things at once? ofc he’s going to use and abuse and exploit that), you see him spiralling and losing his grip on reality (mainly because he’s actually having dissociative episodes and losing time due to being remotely controlled to assassinate ppl but also bc of the Effect extremis is having on him). i brought up wanda and jean earlier as a casual reference but like, to put it in that kind of perspective, people just weren’t made to have this much power.

on a smaller scale, apart from eating up all of tony’s time and attention and mental health in a really bad way, it just Distances him from everyone. especially from the team. it’s Isolating, having this much going on in his brain and no one else in the world to fully understand it.

and on steve’s side, you also have the fact that tony’s genius is both one of the things he loves and lowkey resents most about him. he has this deep-set anxiety about tony with all his brilliance and intelligence leaving him behind in the dust, or worse, laughing at him and how outdated and dim-witted he is in comparison. this is steve’s version of tony’s “i’m never going to be good enough for him”, a sentiment summed up in a quote from him as early as tales of suspense vol. 2 (1995): “yes, tony stark, a man of today and tomorrow is the man i’ll never be.” he’s so afraid of being abandoned + alienated by tony’s mind and the future that tony’s worked so tirelessly to build that might render him irrelevant. he’s scared of a future where he has no purpose, but more or just as importantly, he’s scared of becoming obsolete in tony’s life, of not being needed by tony anymore. one of the things that endeared him so much to tony, and which laid the foundations of their lifelong friendship, was the fact that from Day One (1), tony made him feel At Home. he never let him feel ashamed or isolated as The Man Out Of Time, he actively worked to make steve feel comfortable and to give him the things he needed to acclimatise and to fit himself into this brave new world.

extremis undoes all of that. it propels tony so far and so fast into the future that it makes tony untouchable to steve. all of the ‘i can hear satellites’ stuff renders steve helpless and even more out of his depth than usual. it presses all of steve’s secret buttons and then some.

to sum this all up, and to finish my extra rambling abt tony bc u asked me about extremis and i couldn’t not finish with this:

here we have, ladies and gentlemen, everything u need to understand abt tony going into civil war. and it’s not on any of the official civil war fucking reading lists which really pisses me off because whether or not they did it on purpose the knaufs basically wrote all of execute program as the perfect precursor and characterisation groundwork for an antebellum tony stark.

a tony stark who was just very recently manipulated against his will into assassinating people and causing a world-threatening incident that could have resulted in the deaths of thousands, including his own friends and teammates (and the love of his life), is a very different tony stark to the one ppl see in civil war #1.

what happens in stamford was an accident, too. no one meant for that to happen. tony knows first fucking hand what that means and what it feels like to carry that responsibility and guilt. his position in civil war supporting the SHRA is not only to protect the potential lives that could be lost in another stamford incident but also to protect superhumans and superheroes from ever being exploited against their will by villains to kill and hurt and destroy.

superheroes are inherently susceptible to being used, it’s just part of the narrative convention –– a superhero is brainwashed or mind controlled or otherwise forced against their will to do something awful. and even if it’s not their fault there needs to be accountability for the victims. both the victims that suffer directly because of superhuman incidents but also the superheroes that become victims of ppl who abuse their powers. it’s abt protecting superheroes not just from civilians but from themselves. and if u’ve read a single comic u kno that this kinda shit happens way too often and way too easily.

sO YE S T hIS iS W HY. AND IT Ex PL AINS SO MUC H AND i j UST WISH P PL WOULD GODDAMN REA D THIS. LIKE EVERYONE WHO EVER WANTS TO SAY ANOTHER A GODDAMN THING ABOUT TONY STARK IN CIVIL WAR NEEDS TO FIRST READ EXECUTE PROGRAM FIRST OR PAY ME $10

anyway…………… one last time, i’m so so so sorry this took forever to get to. hope the wait was worth it!

#mod: answer #averageapplepie #stevetony #stony #extremis #text: meta #universe: 616 #comic: iron man v4 #original: meta #i'm so sorry u had to wait so long like #i should warn ppl that ever ask me a meta question that i might take half a yr to reply #......not to deter u tho bc i promise that my answer will be as well thought-out and in-depth as i can make it

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