ladybusiness | (Reply)

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as he's the most faith filled person in the book?

I would argue this, actually. I would seriously go with Vardy here, although maybe in this light it's the absence of faith that overtakes him.

Part of the problem might just be Miéville's failure to build rounded characters because of everything else he was doing. Dane is part of this cult and a fanatic, but it only comes into play toward the end of the book when he decides diving off the cliff of mortality is the best defense and it just seemed so out of nowhere. If he was meant to be fanatic and wasn't characterized that way — get the squid, avert this apocalypse because it doesn't feel right, it's not his apocalypse — the end of the book to me feels like a huge waste. It brings up the question that bugged me: did he take the ink because it might actually help the fight? Or did he take the ink because he was a fanatic and wanted to be closer to his god at the end he thought couldn't be prevented? Did he give up?

I believe some narratives are made stronger with death and some aren't. Like Ana says below, it's how you handle it, right? Billy's death meant something to the overall narrative, but Dane's just felt like a waste. So was that on purpose? Is some kind of statement being made here, are we meant to not be sympathetic, because after all, he was just a cult member, are we meant to sympathize and go O HAIL DANE THE MARTYR, or are we meant to go what the actual fuck just happened here? It's like the book couldn't decide what to do with Dane at the end, living in the weird space between his cult and the rest of the world, represented by Billy, so took the easy way out for him and stomped all over my feelings.