Empress Theresa: Chapter Seven Analysis · 5:45pm Apr 14th, 2023
We get a bunch of meaningless information about the room where Theresa is interviewed and the people in it with a whole bunch of numbers. You might be thinking that I’m fixating on those numbers. That’s because there are more of them in the narration than actual page numbers!! Blair’s in the bathroom at the moment, which Theresa sees as a moment to ‘shine on her own.’ She clearly did none of this when she was a star pitcher, model student, and was basically better than her sister. Where the hell has her sister been, anyway? Nobody’s mentioned her since chapter one. I bet Theresa’s forgotten that she even has a sister at this point. She must be really boring or something.
Okay, we got Theresa by herself before an interview starts, yet the cameras are all on. Anyone who has done interviews before usually spends their time preparing by anticipating what questions may be asked, rehearsing a general way to answer so that they can improvise, working yourself into a relaxed state, make sure you look okay, go over a few notes, maybe even engage in some minor recreation (such as reading) before showtime. Theresa sees fit to begin flirting at the cameras. She begins flaunting(?) her supposedly perfect body. She even teases them by saying that they should see her ‘little black nothing,’ as if they’d know what that means. Just remember that everyone in the world is watching her. Even little kids. Boutin disregards this, as he can only think of his whacking his limp and incontinent little weasel to his waifu OC. Sorry if I’m vulgar, but I feel the need to call this one like I see it.
Blair mercifully enters the room and interrupts the scene. All Theresa can think about is how many people are watching her and how many celebrities are jealous of how famous she is.
The interview begins with a very stupid question about what HAL is made of.
Dark matter, Theresa guesses.
The next question is much more sensible: how does anyone know that HAL really exists, since Theresa is the only one who’s seen it?
We then get an inept explanation about how dark matter forms galaxies in a tangent that sounds like the early stages of dementia. It’s a little scary if you know what that’s like.
What holds HAL together?
His own gravity and dark matter of course.
Somehow the press guesses that HAL grants her superhuman strength and aiming assistance, because they too have read the script apparently. Oh, and did I mention before that HAL makes Theresa’s hair grow thick and voluminous? Well, it does. There is also information that contradicts HAL’s exact arrival on Earth. It used to be a few years before Theresa was born. Now it’s been here before the dinosaurs. Just because Boutin forgot his own lore. We then get a slog of some of the stupidest back and forth Q&A ever committed to the written word.
Apparently Theresa thinks HAL wanted her mother as a host at first, but thought the rake she was holding was an extra appendage. Since HAL could never have possibly seen a human raking leaves in all those millions of years, it assumed she was hideously disfigured and waited until it saw Theresa. Or maybe it thought her mother was a tree? It’s not entirely clear. Frankly, that fox probably would have been a more likable character. Probably would have gotten a lot more done than Theresa too.
The interview is given a break, and an hour and fifteen minutes later, Theresa has decided that she knows what HAL is. It’s some byproduct of the big bang, which attaches itself to living creatures in a symbiotic relationship to give them powers. This sounds strangely like a satire of scientology, but I doubt Boutin is intelligent enough to do that intentionally.
Now, a good author shows a scene as it happens instead of telling everyone a play-by-play. This is done as a way to immerse the reader into the story. Instead we are simply shown that Boutin knows nothing about biology, or how to twist it to make it sound believable in a sci-fi setting. If he had any clear plan to write a sci-fi novel, that is. However, Theresa concludes that HAL thought that she was supposed to fly, but couldn’t because of the wind when she was falling out of that plane. So it stopped all the wind in the world. She concludes that she needs to do something to make HAL reflexively turn the wind back on again. I forget who it was who said, ‘That is not a plan. That’s a goal.’ There is nothing about this goal that makes any sense, even when you read the actual pages.
Naturally, nobody but Theresa understands her explanation and she ends the interview. She watches her interview on television and nobody around the world seems to understand her any better than we do, or the whole debacle with HAL. If it seems like I’ve skimmed over a lot of information, it’s because literally entire pages of infodump could be removed without any consequence to the story. Everything that you’ve read up to this point is the brass tacks! This information is the only stuff that’s important out of all of these 300+ pages, of which we’re only about ninety or so deep!
Not wanting to watch her own interview anymore, Theresa changes the channel to CNN, which she calls the ‘biggest international media circus of all.’ Apparently all the world’s countries want Theresa and her awesome power. Theresa then lectures Nancy about how these people have no heart and don’t know who she actually is. This does nothing but make Theresa sound like some imitation brand Disney princess.
The French Prime Minister thinks Theresa is too powerful for one person to control and wants to hide her away where a thousand assassins couldn’t find her. I say good riddance. But Theresa and Blair go back to the interview again and Theresa stirs up fear in everyone by saying that if she dies, HAL will find a new host, and that the new host could easily be the next Hitler. She shows the first hint of responsibility, stating that if she stays alive that she will only do good with her power. She then shares a warm hug with Blair.
I should point out how odd it seems for an American author to idolize the British government so much. Boutin always has presented himself as a red-blooded, flag-waving American who made his Mary Sue an American because he believes that Americans have better values than people in other countries. It would take a smarter man than I to fathom this.
I almost forgot. Theresa’s MISSION IMPOSSIBLE equation is there. How could I not mention this? Because it’s only mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, and has absolutely no bearing besides just being there. This whole chapter has no bearing where I’m concerned. See you in the next one.
That our Boutin was afraid of incurring the wrath of Tom Cruise's lawyers.
May god grant you mercy for all the suffering you have had to go through.
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Quite the contrary. It's fascinating. I'm partially looking at this through the lens of psychoanalysis to try and get an idea of what's going on in the author's (clearly malfunctioning) headmeats. For example, the guy's definitely a movie buff, but doesn't understand what makes the scenes from the movies he watches work. This means he's either watching them while distracted, or is cognitively impaired. He also wants us to believe that he's a feminist. However, he shows no understanding of how to write a female character and portrays them all on the same bland way. Steve is obviously a mouthpiece for his support of women, but in real life a guy like Steve would be seen as just a friend to any woman in his life. Any romantic attempt he would make would only come off as unnerving to the target of his affection.
So it's not all bad.
5723051
How many people has Tom Cruise successfully sued, by the way? Come to think of it, has Travolta sued anyone?
5723145
My point being that the Church has a reputation for being trigger happy with lawsuits. In many cases it doesn't matter if they win or not; if you tie your critics up in lawsuits it shuts them up. Look at the recent furore over Billy Mitchell and Karl Jobst for an excellent example of this in action.