the cold equations

[cellio]

A recent conversation brought to mind an SF story called "The Cold Equations" (by Tom Godwin), considered a classic by some. I had heard of the story but had not read it (had the title slightly wrong and no author). It turns out to be Googlable; that's probably a copyright violation. But now I've read it. Interesting story (no spoilers here; I make no promises about comments).

I had previously been under the impression that one of the pivotal characters was a child (of perhaps nine or ten), not an eighteen-year-old. I found that this affected my enjoyment of the story; the character makes a mistake with consequences (not following directions, in a really big way), and when I thought those mistakes were being made by a child I had more sympathy. As it is, it's hard for me to really appreciate this character's angst. The story is also somewhat a product of its time (the 50s); the other main character makes a point of saying he would have handled things differently if it had been a "man". (Aside: she's a "girl".) It's still a good story, but I liked it better with my mistaken impressions. :-)

There was a Twilight Zone episode based on the story (the series from about a decade ago, which I mostly missed due to not having the right cable channels available). I'd kind of like to see that.

Comments

[siderea]

I disagree. Even of the culture of the time, that character could, unlike a little child, actually be expected to know better than to do what she did.

It's actually one of the things that I appreciate about the story -- that that character isn't wholly sympathetic, based on her personality. I think that gives the story more bite, because we wind up being sympathetic to her not because of who she is and what she's like, but because of her basic humanity. We look at the consequences of her act, and are appalled at the price she has to pay. We want to be able to blame her for her predicament, but it's hard to blame her that much.

Had the character been wholly sympathetic, the audience would be, essentially, reacting to the suffering of that particular character -- "Oh, what a terrible thing to happen to such a nice girl". Because she's not wholly sympathetic, we are forced to confront her as everyman, and react to the essential humanity of her -- "Oh, what a terrible thin to happen to anyone"

I just realized all this just now; your saying that sparked the spark-plug of my mind, and I suddenly saw the parallel between this story and Vis' recent interpretation of King Lear. As I wrote elsewhere, he had Lear start out as an unsympathetic character, in precisely the same way: he does stupid things out of self-centeredness. But by the end of the play, you're going "Yeah, he was a total bastard and an utter fool, but he doesn't deserve this. This is too much. No one deserves this."

[cellio]

It's actually one of the things that I appreciate about the story -- that that character isn't wholly sympathetic, based on her personality. I think that gives the story more bite, because we wind up being sympathetic to her not because of who she is and what she's like, but because of her basic humanity.

I agree (and had not previously noticed either). At several times I wanted to whap the character with a clue-by-four and shout "stop sniveling as if he can wave a wand and make it better!", but in the end I was still sad for her.

"Yeah, he was a total bastard and an utter fool, but he doesn't deserve this. This is too much. No one deserves this."

I've had similar thoughts during recent B5 viewings. :-) (Londo, of course.) I agree; this kind of storytelling has the potential to work really, really well. (It's also easy to screw up, of course.)