Empress Theresa: Chapter Three Analysis · 5:58pm Apr 5th, 2023
Instead of anything interesting, we are dragged through Theresa’s time at college. Boston College, to be exact. This is in alignment with the author’s Christian beliefs, Boston College being a Jesuit institution. We are then treated to a whole page’s worth of infodump about BC which Boutin seems to have gleaned from the introductory paragraph on the college’s wikipedia page. There is no reason for us to know any of this, unless the story concerns exactly the number of how many undergrads there are at that school. Which it doesn’t.
She goes through the usual college stuff of trying to fit in with the other girls, but we learn who none of the other girls are. We do learn that Theresa is used to boys flirting with her by this point in her life, and she has already attracted the attention of two boys who are so unimportant and bland that they are introduced to us as Mr. Intense and Mr. Fastmove. These names were not given to them by their exes. Theresa called them that for their intense staring, and propensity to take action first respectively. We then learn that their respective names are Steve Hartley and Jack Koster. Instead of talking to either boy to learn their names, where they are from and what they are into, we get some very unnecessary info-vomit about how she cyberstalks them safely from her dorm. Theresa is apparently an antisocial creep. If either boy knew this, they’d move on from her.
Theresa begins dating Jack, who is only described as a nice guy. In real life, people who are described like that are usually only nice to women so that they can garner sexual favors by using niceness as currency. Such a concept is lost on Boutin. She also keeps catching glances of Steve, who is creepily watching her whenever she’s with Jack. Even though Theresa can tell that she and Jack aren’t a compatible couple and never wants to commit, she decides to keep dating him because he’s fun to be around. There’s a word for this, but it isn’t coming to me at the moment.
Whatever, right? Through the magic of numbers, Boutin describes how Theresa gets called to the campus police office where numbers of campus police are waiting for her. Also there is the college president, Father Walter Haynes, who has caught two mysterious men who he noticed were shadowing Theresa. Not nearly the hundreds that we were explicitly told before. Just two this time. Father Haynes seems to think Theresa is very interesting and reveals to the audience that the Holy Father himself has paid for her college scholarship. Understand that? The pope thinks that a small town baseball pitcher is extraordinary enough to give a scholarship to! Oh, the humanity!
This scene exists only to show how special Theresa is to more people by getting one of the watchers to call his boss, who calls the president, who talks directly to the ‘senior cop’ in the room, who tells everyone that the situation with Theresa and the watchers is confidential. Theresa then acts smug about her own self-importance and leaves the room.
Would it not be more interesting if it were all a ruse? What if the cop who led Theresa to the office was one of those watchers, and his buddies jumped her when she was isolated in the office, then whisked her away to some government facility? It couldn’t be so, because Theresa is the quintessential Mary Sue.
Sometime later in October, Theresa makes a date to go to a movie with Jack. When she goes to meet him, it turns out that he’s with his ex, Ginny. Ginny had ‘dropped in by surprise,’ and doesn’t seem to know what’s going on between Jack and Theresa. Now, a normal woman would most likely do one of two things. The first is that she would confront her duplicitous boyfriend and tell the other woman what had been going on, resulting in an angry blowup that would publicly humiliate the man. The second is that she would quietly (but probably very angrily) cut the bastard out of her life, which would privately humiliate the man. If you’re not normal and have superpowers like Theresa does, the woman might chuck a fire extinguisher at his jaw from across the room. Theresa does none of these things…
Remember that Norman Boutin is Catholic and so is Theresa. She is completely sober and does not drink, nor has she ever done any drugs. She has also learned how to cope with emotional distress because of Mrs. Whats-Her-Name from high school who taught her how to deal with trolls. This means that Theresa is in her perfectly right mind when she decides to get a dress that is referred to as a ‘little black nothing,’ and is described to us using numbers to convey how slutty it’s supposed to be so that she can seduce Jack into liking her. Since we know she’s sober and that she’s supposed to be a role model for young girls, and that she can’t experience any emotional crises and have a dark moment, we can only assume that this was done for the author’s *ahem* ‘self-gratification.’
Instead of going to find Jack, or waiting for him in his room, or looking for another man to be seen publicly with, she waits for Jack in her own room. Clearly she is expecting Jack to come crawling back to her because she is so amazing. We also get a bunch of useless information about another movie Boutin might have watched (‘The Caine Mutiny’), and a book that he seems to have at least heard about (The Robe). Theresa rationalizes that she didn’t take any inaction when confronting Jack. She just let other people figure out what was going on. Realistically, nobody would give a damn about the affairs of those two, because they would have lives beyond the affairs of two strangers.
Even though she started the chapter by talking about all the friends she had made because she’s so awesome, she’s lonely now because she has no friends. But then there’s a knock on the door and in walks Steve Hartley. In a stunning display of a lack of any kind believable humanity, Steve robotically and specifically explains Jack and Ginny’s relationship, and surprisingly doesn’t throw in any numbers to his explanation. He doesn’t even notice the dress she’s wearing, which was supposed to be the whole point of Theresa wearing it.
The two of them watch the BBC series, Victoria, and stay up all night watching that. The next morning at breakfast, Theresa is still wearing her ‘little black nothing,’ and begins rumors about what she did with Steve last night. The two become an official couple after this. Somehow, their dating segways into a lesson about Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson and how their working relationship somehow parallels Theresa and HAL. Remember HAL? He hasn’t come up for a while because he’s taken a backseat to Theresa’s love life.
Speaking of Theresa’s love life, she and Steve get married a month later. This is the kind of thing that only happens in the movies during a bad night in Las Vegas. In this book, it’s because they say that they, ‘Can’t wait four years to do it.’ Rushing into a marriage like this is also one of the surest ways to get a divorce or even an annulment. At her wedding, Theresa charms everyone by showing her shoulders and cleavage. When she described her wedding dress before, she barely mentioned her cleavage, but she made special mention about how she covered her shoulders at first so as to not be scandalous. Normal people would find cleavage much more scandalous than shoulders. I promise you that much.
It’s not over yet. We get a nauseatingly ineloquent paragraph that conflates Henry David Thoreau’s philosophy of introspection with sex. Read it yourself. I’m done here.
Interestingly, the 'little black dress' bit was an element of the story Boutin was criticised for when he posted some of Chapter 3 for proofreading. The main problem was it showed Theresa was the exact opposite of the 'good Catholic girl' she supposedly is.
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The only reason that we know Theresa is supposed to be a 'good Catholic girl' is because the author said so. Within the story, there's no evidence to suggest any kind of discernible, consistent character trait, besides being too perfect. Just wait for the next two chapters to see how amazing and perfect Theresa really is.
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Show, don't tell is not a concept to Boutin.
I have read the book, but yes. This story is about to come flying off the rails.