ladybusiness | (Reply)

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Oh now THAT'S interesting. Vardy as most faith filled - I guess I discounted him because I see his faith as ending up so negative, while Dane's does look like the conventionally positive incarnation of faith (even if its still a little off balanced). What can I say, even with an non-believer parent, I absorbed a whole lotta Christianity through the "secular" school system that was around when I was little and I probably do still filter martyr characters whose death doesn't hurt other people through the Christ story. Sure his death looks fated, but like it doesn't do anything from an outside, literal perspective, but the idea is that his death saved humanity. I'm not a believer, but all that stuff is undeniably in my head.

I don't know if I feel like I'm meant to approve of what Dane does, or if we're meant to feel like he was nothing important(but then I feel like Dane is a fuller character than Billy by a long way, even though he's very mysterious and closed off from the reader's penetration in the present). When I finished I felt like I cared, but also wtf Dane, why? Like I had a kind of tired, sad reaction to what he'd done and the fact that he'd left new Billy to cope with all the feelings left from old Billy's relationship with Dane, but I had a reaction, like I still cared.

How do you feel about Billy being dead and made into new Billy, in connection with Dane's death? What do you think that does to the emotional impact of the book?