Empress Theresa: Chapter Thirteen Analysis · 5:57pm Apr 26th, 2023
Here we are. Unlucky chapter thirteen. First thing in the morning, Theresa decides that she’s going to raise fifty-six water columns at the North Pole. She calls upon everyone in the house to gather around and watch the show that’s being broadcast on TV. She even calls in the family that is hosting her, who is so unimportant that they haven’t shown up between now and since they were introduced to the story. They’re so superfluous that Theresa doesn’t even want them as part of her planetwide cheer squad!
Right. So she uses her plywood equipment to command HAL to use his phenomenal cosmic powers, and they get…jack squat! No matter how hard Theresa tries, she can’t get HAL to comply. She checks all of her usual parameters, and everything is the same as every other time she used HAL to create water spouts in the ocean. It is then suggested by Steve that HAL might know what Theresa is trying to do and is trying to stop it.
Finally! There’s a plot twist that’s relevant to the plot. And quite a serious and intriguing one too. HAL is becoming aware and is beginning to resist the commands of its host! What if it tries to control her instead!? What if it’s beginning to manipulate the events of the world to its whims!? What if it wanted those tsunamis from the last chapter to happen, before that plan was thwarted!? The suspense is practically killing me here!
Theresa assesses Blair about the situation when he arrives at the mansion. Blair’s grand, leaderly decision? Just wait and see what happens…Okay, the suspense isn’t killing me quite as much anymore. Since the room they’re currently in is a bit cramped, Theresa and company move their little production out to the living room where the same thing as before is tried again, which by the way is the definition of the word ‘insanity.’ But, surprise! The result is different this time! HAL cooperates and raises every one of the fifty-six water columns that Theresa had commanded! Suddenly, the suspense doesn’t even tickle anymore and the story becomes dull again. Not as dull as Theresa’s explanation, which is that HAL just needed to get some energy from the sun to get more power. How she figured this out is beyond anyone. Perhaps she watched one of the ‘Superman’ movies and got the idea from there.
Whatever. Nothing else that stupid is ever explained in this book. The real problem comes from how the even stupider stuff does get explained. And you can bet that the explanation is even stupider than that! Case in point, here’s what happens next:
Theresa keeps those water columns growing higher and higher until they reach into space. I’m no scientist, but I think the water would have frozen long before that. With all that solid weight on top of such an unstable foundation, the chunks of ice begin falling back to Earth, each landing with the force of an atomic bomb. Good thing Theresa set up those rocks to shield any tsunamis from happening, since she’d be creating hundreds of her own like this. Anyway, since I’m still not a scientist, I feel like I have to question the wisdom of using ice nukes on a polar ice cap.
Why do this, one may ask? It seems that Steve came up with the brilliant idea to strip all this water of its hydrogen atoms by having it burn up in the atmosphere so that it could bond with the oxygen in the atmosphere and create rain clouds. Everybody got that? Is there a meteorologist that we can talk to about this? Can we get a real physicist in the audience to explain this to us? Because somehow this causes worldwide rain! Even though there’s no wind! This is explained by how the hydrogen molecules are flung all around the world by this travesty of science! It’s a stupid explanation to a stupid situation, stupidly explained by a very stupid author!
A lot of you might think that I’ve been a bit harsh on Mr. Boutin. That my criticisms seem directed at him and his book both. Well, do you want to know something? Norman Boutin thinks that all of you are scum anyway for agreeing with any one point that I have analyzed. That’s right. If you find any one thing that might be wrong with Empress Theresa, you are the worst human being who ever lived in his opinion. He has also shown himself to be an egotist, sexist, racist, religious fundamentalist, antisocial, dumbass in general, and he directs that to his peers in the authoring community, and especially at his audience. For anyone taking notes, don’t be like Norman Boutin.
We’re still not done here. It seems that people are worried about what will happen during winter, since all of that rain will just turn to snow. Theresa, who knows more about geology than anyone in the world apparently, simply shifts the earth’s tectonic plates so that the poles change position and create a worldwide summer! I think I remember someone in my earth science class asking a question about what would happen if something similar to this happened. I don’t remember the answer exactly, but I definitely remember that it wasn’t that the world would be blessed with perpetual summer.
Naturally, Theresa is still amazing. Everyone knows it and still loves her. She’s just upset the balance of all things in the world because she decided in her infinite ignorance that the world doesn’t need winter. Let’s talk about just one of the reasons why this is incorrect (and it’s a very big reason). Winter is one of the most important times of the year because it’s when excess vegetation either goes into dormancy or withers away and dies. This prevents the planet from being choked by an overpopulation of plant life. Not to mention the ecosystems that rely on a cycle of cold and temperate climates! But Theresa knows none of this! She only has godlike powers without any of the godlike wisdom to use it!
And she’s still not done with her work. But that’s for the next chapter.
OK...why are you still reading this garbage fire of a book. Written by an author who just can't criticism whatsoever. There's even a "Down the Rabbit Hole" YouTube documentary vid that talks about it by Friedrik Knudsen.
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True enough, but I find that there's much more to glean as an author looking to improve his craft by actually diving in, instead of having it said to me. That and I made the commitment. You understand.
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Alright man. It's your funeral this train wreck of a novel is a real acid trip.😅
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I come from SoCal. This trip's just a dull buzz for me.
Boutin considers people pathetic idiots.
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That's the pot and kettle for you.
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I'm pretty sure Boutin's the type of person who is going to type the first paragraph of this unironically