Empress Theresa: Chapter Nine Analysis · 8:18pm Apr 17th, 2023
We're getting two chapters in one day because the last chapter was so damn pointless.
Remember that MISSION IMPOSSIBLE file that mysteriously showed up at Theresa’s interview? She’s finally going over it. Apparently she had tried to use mathematics to communicate with HAL, similar to the communication with the aliens in the movie, ‘Contact.’ Unfortunately, Boutin seems to have not understood why signals sent in prime numbers were used in that movie, because he compares it to when Theresa saw an animal handler successfully train a rhinoceros to walk on a tightrope. Theresa seems to have applied all that math to figure out that she will train HAL by trying to telekinetically move coins and rulers.
A whole week has passed since the doomsday clock began. Two hundred-twenty one days until extinction! Theresa better step it up. Instead, she and Steve are delighted to find that people have sent them over a million dollars in the mail, just for being so amazing. Theresa then decides quite explicitly that she is too famous to get a job. Everyone just sends her money, and she wouldn’t want to bother her poor employer with her mobs of adoring fans. That would be bad. That is the absolute peak, the apex, the acme of hubris and entitlement.
Steve decides to do what he can by helping out with physics. He goes to the Cambridge library to acquire exactly fifteen books about physics, and is asked why Theresa doesn’t appear on television anymore while he’s there. Steve’s answer? ‘People wouldn’t like her. She’s too perfect.’ That is his word-for-word answer. Boutin, without any hint of self-awareness, states that Theresa is too perfect. She is so great that she can’t appear on TV without people hating her for her awesomeness! There are even background checks done on Theresa to make sure that she’s a good girl! She’s flawless, apparently! No dirt can be found on her! She’s not human! She’s reached sainthood at this point! Father Donoughty even calls her a miracle that can’t be defeated! My guess is that this is Boutin’s justification for criticisms of Theresa’s character.
Here’s a tip for all you aspiring writers out there: acknowledging, or lampshading, or really trying any attempt to deflect a reason why a character is unlikeable is not going to make a character more likeable. Integrating those unlikeable traits into the character even more is just going to make the audience hate that character more. A good example of this is Wesley Crusher from ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation.’ If the audience seems to hate the character, you might want to make some changes to your writing, no matter how much that character is meant to represent yourself. Because, seriously, that’s usually the case with characters like this. They’re just idealized versions of the author.
Since there’s nothing controversial about Theresa, people begin to lose interest in her, despite the fact that they just loved her for simply knowing she existed a few chapters ago. Ten days pass, and Theresa has made no progress moving those coins. But she does get a poster in the mail of herself wearing her green dress from that interview where she performed indecent conduct to the entire world. But she’s so proud to be a pinup girl now. If you’ve seen the cover of the book, you’ll know that Theresa is not pinup material, unless Boutin thinks everyone else is as into lazy-eyed, slack-jawed, lank-haired, dead-armed, pasty-skinned Mary Sues as he is.
Three weeks pass. Planetwide extinction draws nigh. The only girl who can save us all…goes on a vacation to Paris!! Theresa packs up her husband and the two of them wear the most generic disguises so that they can go on vacation and allow the author to explain in monotonous and deathly uninteresting detail about the Parisian landmarks he looked up on Google! Even then, neither of them is very impressed by Paris, and they miss the chipmunks from back home. Gee, all this culture to experience, and all these pig-headed Americans can think about are chipmunks…This is why we Americans get negatively stereotyped, people!
Speaking of clueless American stereotypes, Boutin is completely clueless as he writes how Theresa and Steve simply walk into a fancy restaurant without making reservations, do not even meet the dress code, botch a feeble attempt at speaking french, which they clearly haven’t even practiced speaking before coming to Paris (Steve should have said ‘bonsoir’ instead of ‘bonjour,’ as it is currently evening), and they can’t seem to figure out why the staff and the other patrons are being rude to them. In fact, Theresa and Steve are so offended at the French being offended by their behavior that they throw off their disguises and make everyone sorry for being mean to them. Instead of basking in her importance and glory, Theresa decides she’d rather go to Ireland next.
The next morning as they leave for Dublin, the French news media talks about how very sorry they are for offending their precious Theresa, even though she was the one behaving badly and disrespecting the rules of the restaurant. Really!? They’re treating Theresa like she’s the biggest American celebrity to come to France since Jerry Lewis! And she hasn’t even done the one job she’s supposed to do, which is find a way to save the world!
Despite making a big deal of Theresa’s Irish heritage, Boutin shows that he did even less research on Ireland than he did on France by simply having Theresa engage in some traditional dance. For anyone who doesn’t know, traditional dance is considered a sport in Ireland, and judging can be very harsh. Theresa just seems to breeze through it without any practice.
They go back to the Parkers’ mansion, and there is an animal enclosure being constructed for chipmunks! Steve called about it after their night in Paris, and work was started right away! The world is falling apart, and Theresa doesn’t care that Steve has hastened its destruction by introducing an invasive species to another continent! She’s already wasted almost a week by travelling to other countries, and now she’s being completely counterproductive to her cause! Forget it. Just read about the next chapter.
Or Starlight Glimmer.
5724979
Also an excellent example. She should have stayed a villain. Just like Discord, she had no place getting redeemed, and was only written as a hero because a tiny portion of naive bozos took the message of love and tolerance way too fucking seriously. Since they expressed this loudly enough, the spineless writers kowtowed to them. This is another problem that's prevalent in fiction as of late, where if the audience likes a villain enough, the villain suddenly becomes a hero. Just look at every major villain in the MCU. Loki is the most egregious example I can think of off the top of my head. It's like the writers don't think that a character can be likeable as a villain. I know that they can be, because people love the villains that I have written. And they don't get redeemed. They just recur.
5724990
Would you say Sprout belongs in this category?
5724993
I can't say, because I shamefully haven't watched that movie yet.
5724995
No hurries.