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/lit/ - Literature

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20919795 No.20919795 [Reply] [Original]

Why did Hal transformed into an animal at the end of the novel?
Or was it a metaphor and it totally flew over my head?

>> No.20919798
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20919798

Yes

>> No.20919801

>>20919795
It was his karma for betraying Pemulis.

>> No.20919804

DMZ psychosis combined with marijuana withdrawal and reliving the trauma of finding his decapitated dead father in Quebec to try and get the master entertainment fucked him up and gave him mild psychosis
what happens next after he's been hospitalized is up to the reader's interpretation

>> No.20919806

>>20919795
He didn't, he became his Father. Himself lost the ability too communicate as well, remember? What caused that too happen for him? same things caused it to happen to Hal.

>> No.20919809

>>20919806
oh my god not you again

>> No.20919814

>>20919809
>everyone with the same view is the same person

>> No.20919818

>>20919814
oh my fucking god dude you're literally reiterating the same point while writing in the same style in the last thread about what happens to hal
we had a huge argument about the relevancy of DMZ and you made the bewildering point that it was a red herring

>> No.20919822

>>20919818
ok.

>> No.20919831

>>20919801
>betraying Pemulis.
did he betray him or abandon him?

>> No.20919842

>>20919831
Neither, Pemulis thinking Hal would help him undo fucking himself over by attempting to blackmail Avril shows fairly well what sort of person Pemulis is, not that we are all that short on evidence.

>> No.20919847

>>20919842
if you're trying to say that pemulis is coded as being an emergent sociopath I agree. he does seemingly have an empathetic reaction to Otis p lord becoming horribly injured at eschaton though

>> No.20919870

>>20919804
Call of the Crocodile reference?

>> No.20919892

>>20919847
I would say he is just a narcissistic teenager who thinks he is invincible because he has never had to face any consequences for his actions yet. He was the smart kid in a poor neighborhood like Tiny Ewell so he could get away with most anything but then he went too ETA where most everyone was smarter than him but he was too stupid to realize that. We do see a more human side of him from time to time like at the Port Washington meet with the weak stomach and his not being insufferable about his "win" because he is starting to realize that he is not as smart as he thinks he is.

>> No.20919898

>>20919892
I mean he did listen to his brother get horribly raped by their dad every night, who then became a street walking tranny heroin addict.

>> No.20920162

>>20919898
It seems to me that to view it that way goes against what the book has to say on the topic of the parent/child relationship, why should we view Pemulis as unique?

>> No.20920165

>>20920162
Don't really know what that's supposed to mean but you sound autistic

>> No.20920188

Hal can't feel anything and speaks beautifully and knows every word in the English language because he's memorized the dictionary. Then he takes the DMZ and starts to experience an inner world that's very deep and perceptive (see the opening chapter). It's ironic--Hal goes from being empty and eloquent to outwardly becoming someone who can't speak but can feel lots of things. I guess it's kind of a metaphor for the relationship between him and Gately and Himself, because all of them end up being unable to speak (Gately with the tube down his throat and Himself only being able to communicate telepathically as the wraith)

>> No.20920201

>>20920188
I don't remember any of this shit, I just remember the guy who tried to catch cats after alc anonymous

>> No.20920234

>>20920165
It is pretty simple, he really beats this into your head by going into the upbringing of probably 75% of the characters and probably at least 100 pages worth of analysis of the subject by the narrator, did it ever occur to you to question why he spent so much time on this? The basic pattern that DFW follows for the characters is that for each character we got a few other characters to fill in possible paths for their future, with Pemulis the main two are Tiny Ewell and the prolix AA speaker with a step father who has a thing for diddling his disabled daughter, his life is an equal mix of both of their lives before they gave into chemicals. The characters in IJ are designed to be used to analyze the other characters and through this DFW shows how we fuck ourselves over and implies a solution.

Not to suggest that IJ is just about how families fuck each other up and how we let them because life is easier if you have somewhere to point the finger, he brings in politics and society as well and shows how they all feed off of each other.

>> No.20920771

I still agree with Aaron Swartz take, give or take a few minor details:
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend

The whole book is about Himself trying to communicate with his weird son who got fucked up on fungal mold. The Entertainment and everything else is all because of this one childhood tragedy.

Through Himself's machinations, Hal goes from an empty person who can communicate to a "full" person who cannot. Basically, Himself fucked it up repeatedly because he is a genius and a failure in everything he touched.

>> No.20920874

Animorph tribute

>> No.20920878

IT'S NOT A METAPHORRRRR

>> No.20920912

Pemulis is the true hero of the ETA side of the story. I'm writing a sequel about him saving the world.

>> No.20921494

Life is unfair

>> No.20921540

>>20919795
Did you even read the book.