Empress Theresa: Chapter Four Analysis · 5:10pm Apr 7th, 2023
This is the one, people! The author has promised that this is the chapter where it hits the fan and something finally happens!
So, Theresa’s married now. She’s doing good at college. Her family loves her. Everyone loves her, except for the people who she specifically hates. She’s driving the long way to the supermarket, because the narration tells us in a very roundabout and convoluted way that there’s almost no traffic on that route. This proves to be a mistake (and the first instance of competent plot construction) as it is the optimal place for an ambush. Numbers of cars stop Theresa and numbers of men get out and pull guns on her. They order Theresa into a van which has numbers of bench seats and more numbers of men in it. Theresa complies with them, instead of using her super strength or power to radiate fatal temperatures from her body to escape.
She’s then taken to a helicopter where she learns that she is to be taken to an aircraft carrier, where she will be executed, seemingly just for existing. As readers, we all say, ‘Thank you, merciful Norman!’ But first, Theresa must gripe about how she’s too pretty to die. Seriously, that’s the line. She talks about how she’s at the peak of her beauty, and must now die. Since she’s so emotionally strong, she doesn’t express any fear or sadness at her imminent demise. Just stoic anger. Because she is such a strong female character.
Another quick aside from me, but I’ve seen enough people (specifically male creators) in the animation industry talking about how strong and amazing the female characters they’ve created are, only for them to be the same ‘strong’ female archetype as the rest. I assume this is because their fractured little brains can’t conceive a well-written female character. These guys also always (and I do mean always) turn out to be total creeps with a complete disregard and disrespect for women on a personal level.
So, Theresa wins the admiration of her captors with her stunning bravery in the face of her impending doom. She also learns that she’s going to be blown up by being locked in a plane with an atom bomb. You read that right. Straight out of Tex Avery and Looney Tunes. Wile E. Coyote couldn’t have come up with a better plan to trap the Roadrunner. And this was a plan hatched by the United States president, who fears Theresa’s power!!
Theresa reflects on her life and points out how perfect it was, without mentioning how unrealistic it was to never have any illnesses, car accidents, bad relationships (she’s clearly forgotten about Jack, just like us). The worst things that happened were she was charged by a barking dog, which ruined her opinion of dogs forever, and that she witnessed a car crash. She then arrives at a military base and is taken to a cafeteria where she eats number amounts of food and drinks number amounts of sodas. Strangely, she keeps the bottles and manages to somehow keep them hidden for the rest of her journey. She gets taken to her barracks where she gives us a recap of the time she first met Steve just a few pages ago. Such a recap is completely unnecessary, since we had just read about it. Suddenly it’s morning and Theresa is led to a car.
It’s clear that Boutin wants us to believe he is some sort of intellectual, and has Theresa compare her ordeal to when Socrates was in prison awaiting his execution. He’s already failed long before this chapter. For reference, Socrates’ crime was to not acknowledge the political system of Athens, instead favoring the system of Crete and Sparta, which was considered heresy against the patron goddess of Athens. He was then forced to drink poison. Quite different from Theresa’s situation. Theresa then recites a prayer, just to remind us that she’s Christian.
They arrive on an aircraft carrier. But not the one where she’s going to get nuked. That’s a different one. Their plane is just there to be refueled. So they take off again after sharing meaningless words. On the next aircraft carrier, there are specifically three female officers. Theresa touches all of their soft, feminine hearts just for being a woman too. One of the female officers uses her phone to record Theresa’s last words, which is a quote by Tecumseh, just so Boutin can demonstrate more of his pseudo-intellectualism.
Nobody questions the garbage bag full of soda bottles that Theresa brought with her as she’s stuffed into the plane and strapped into her seat. Once she’s sealed inside, the automated plane takes off so that it may blow her up and end this story.
This is where Boutin clearly begins to try and emulate those exciting scenes from thriller movies like ‘Speed,’ ‘Air Force One,’ ‘Collateral Damage,’ or anything else in that vein. However, he fails to create any kind of suspense or excitement or any kind within this scene.
You’d think that someone with superhuman strength would have little trouble breaking out of a simple seatbelt. We already know that nobody but her pastor knows about her super strength, so the government wouldn’t have made a special seatbelt just for her. We then get an overly long explanation of what happens next, so I’ll give you the short version: Theresa stuffs those empty soda bottles beneath her clothes to make a crude life vest. This is all that had to be said, but it goes on for about a page and a half of explanation of how she does it. And again, this kind of logic and ingenuity is worthy of Wile E. Coyote.
Theresa’s not afraid to die because she knows she’s bound for Heaven. A regular Joan of Arc, that girl. Still, she busts out of the plane’s canopy and falls toward the open ocean in a scene that should be thrilling and suspenseful. Instead, we just get a description of the number of clouds she passes, the number of feet until she hits the waves, and the temperature. It ends when she hits the water and goes unconscious. Maybe she should have applied that Looney Tunes ingenuity to make a parachute out of those soda bottles instead.
Let’s take a moment to talk about genre-appropriate content. When you’re trying to make a serious, exciting moment in a book that you’re at least trying to aim at a sci-fi/drama/young adult audience, what seems like a good option? Perhaps when your character breaks out of the plane and plummets toward the ocean, the superpowered alien being inside of her could make her fly? Cause an updraft to slow her descent? Phone home to others of its species for help? Instead, we get a solution that wouldn’t look out of place in something like ‘The Naked Gun’ or anything by Mel Brooks. There has been nothing in Empress Theresa to suggest any comedic overtones or undertones. This whole soda bottle thing is completely out of place.
Anyway, she regains consciousness, knowing somehow (because she’s amazing?) that she’s in the South Atlantic and is south of the equator. And then she passes out again. I bet you feel like you could too, so I’ll give you a break until the next chapter.
There's something else in there that I feel is worth bringing up. Not only is the USS Ronald Reagan in the wrong ocean (the ship is assigned to the Pacific Fleet in real life) but the aircraft being used for the assassination is an F-22 Raptor-which is not a carrier-based fighter and is not compatible with catapult gear. Boutin was writing the book between 2009 and 2015, so it would make far more sense to use an F-18 for this, as that was the standard carrier fighter model in that time frame (and form the bulk of the aircraft on the Reagan anyway).
5722017
I didn't even think about that! I was too fixated on the sheer absurdity of a single person being executed by nuke! The only thing I've ever heard that's even close was on an episode of Metalocalypse where Nathan Explosion decided to execute every inmate in a prison by launching them into the air on rockets and blowing them up with a laser cannon that was mounted on the back of a giant spider robot!
5722290
Boutin attempted a patch by claiming the F-22 just took off under its own engine power. A raptor needs 3000ft to take off successfully (the flight deck of the Reagan is only 1000ft). It would have made far more sense to just shoot Theresa and be done with it.