Empress Theresa: Chapter Eight Analysis

Okay. Whew! The story’s back on track. No more interviews or BBC montages to fill in exposition. Here’s a tip for anyone who decides to write a story with a first person narrative: the entire story happens from the perspective of the narrating character. This means that there’s no room for exposition to fill in any blanks that the character might not know about. Theresa even says at the beginning of the story that she doesn’t know how some things happened because she wasn’t there, even though the last few chapters were spent filling her in about what happened.

Welp…Theresa wakes up the next morning and finds out that the entire world has willfully shut down so that they would do nothing that would make news and interrupt the glorious story that is Theresa. In real life, bad people would see this as the most opportune time to do more bad while everyone else is worshipping their beloved Theresa. Actually, the rest of the world would keep doing what they could do, instead of fawning over her.

Everyone has only nice things to say about Theresa when asked. Her only detractors are possible terrorists and politicians. But politicians won’t dare say a word against her after what happened with the former US president. In fact, if anyone says anything against her, they would be thrown from a building! Now the current US president, Veronica Stinson, makes a statement where she compares Theresa to other leaderly people, such as Hitler, Lenin, Napoleon, and Senator McCarthy. That is not a joke or exaggeration. That actually happens in the book and those are the names used. Theresa then learns that her husband is coming to see her, and she worries if he’s going to divorce her now that she’s super special.

A doomsday clock is started, which counts down the days until food runs out for people to eat, since crops can’t be grown without the wind. Two hundred-twenty eight days until we run out of food, people! Let’s take some action! And it looks like Boutin has decided to start actively pushing back against his critics, because it turns out Theresa has a bunch of trolls who have pointed out the scientific inaccuracies and inconsistencies involving dark matter and gravity. They are treated like skeptics who just don’t understand that Theresa works in mysterious ways. Besides, Theresa knows best. Her husband is a physics major. And she tells us so in a long and unnecessary info-vomit.

Boutin then has Theresa namedrop a bunch of books that he’s only learned the base summary of, which has no bearing on the story. It’s just there to convince any trolls that he’s well-read. We then get some insight into Theresa and Steve’s romantic lives before they met each other. Steve was a sweet nerd who didn’t go to his senior prom. Theresa was so pretty and popular that no boys dared ask her out for fear of being rejected. But they’re so compatible with each other.

Theresa gets taken to a safehouse where she is to meet the Parker family. Naturally, the magnificence of their house is conveyed with numbers. The Parker family is barely even mentioned by name , then they disappear for pretty much the rest of the book after this chapter, leaving only their house staff to take care of Theresa.

Steve arrives! Theresa spends an emotional half page reunion with him, before the two of them formally meet the Parker family. That’s Monday.

Tuesday, nothing interesting happens.

Wednesday, we get numbers about guards stationed around the Parker estate and how big it is, including the forest in the back.

Thursday, Theresa gets a lot of fanmail that people are afraid may be rigged with poison, letterbombs, or other traps. Officers screen each envelope, which are all safe. Theresa tries to crack the code of how to make HAL work for her while Steve reads the mail that was sent to them. Several people have sent money, just because (say it with me) Theresa is so great. 

By the following Monday, Theresa seems to remember that she has parents back home, and writes to them. She seems to forget that she has a sister, however. By this point, people begin to question if Theresa is the right person for the job. It seems that faith in their savior is dwindling. We might have a crucifixion on our hands here. Nope. Blair assures everyone that Theresa is morally pure, the smartest around, and has so much potential because she’s so young. People keep throwing their criticisms, and Blair just assures them that Theresa is great.

This chapter is over now, and it meant nothing! This entire chapter could have been swept clean without any ill effect on the story or the plot! Don’t have too high hopes for the next one either.