Shadowed: Chapter 36, Part 2 and Chapter 37: Part 1: Bia’s Big Lie
Okay, so during Ranold’s crappy conversation with C.C., C.C. reveals that Roscoe Wipers is probably not dead. How he would know this, I don’t know, unless we’re to assume that C.C. is sympathetic to the zealots, and thus knows they would never kill anyone. (Unless they did it through their thug-god, or unless they were European and had captured a cop, but I don’t think we’re supposed to worry about those contingencies.)
(Also also, did Jenkins forget that Paul really, really wanted to murder Wipers?)
Anyway, Ranold concludes from this little tidbit that Bia lied to him about Wipers. Honestly, this is a bit confusing to me: the zealots fake-executed Wipers before they knew Bia was on the road to being a believer. Hell, Paul wasn’t called by Bia until ten chapters after the fake execution.
But suddenly, this little piece of information has become a big deal. I’ve skimmed back through the book, and I freely admit I may be missing something, but I don’t think there was a single conversation about Roscoe Wipers between Bia and Paul, or between Bia and Ranold.
But suddenly, it’s important to Ranold that Bia lied to him. And given the amount of space Jenkins now devotes to the issue, it’s important to Jenkins as well. Ranold calls Bia, awakening her from her Jesus-induced slumber, and asks her about Wipers. She pulls the old “chchchchch…sorry…shshshsackack…bad connec—chchchchch—” trick, thus buying her time to call Paul for guidance on this moral quandary:
“[Ranold’s] going to push me to the wall,” she said. “Do I just flat out lie to him?”
“Why not?” Paul said, hoping her answer would tell him more than he asked.
What an unbelievable prick Paul is. I mean, we all know this already, but still. Bia could be imprisoned. She could be killed, and all Paul is concerned about is giving her a Christianese test.
“Because I’m one of you now. I’m not supposed to do that, right?”
“That’s the question of the ages, Bia. But let me be the first to welcome you to the family.”
“Seeing as how I was also the first to bar you from the house, after all.”
Bia claims that she knows how to “dodge, to bob and weave.”
(Probably how to dip and duck, too. Har.)
But Paul takes a page of dialogue to sorta nudge her in the RTC-ian direction that Jerry Jenkins loves so much, where you fudge direct questions but not quite telling the whole truth.
Oh, and on top of it all, Paul concludes this whole exchange (which, again, is life and death for Bia) by bringing it back to himself. Again.
“I’m trying to draw the man out, Bia. I want a face-to-face.”
Okay, Paul has officially snapped. He is the one who is hiding, literally underground. And Ranold, as interim head of the NPO, could not be more out if he tried. Hell, he’s sleeping in his own bed, in his own house, every single night, Paul. Go ahead and get you some, if you think you can.
Putz.
Posted on September 22, 2015, in Shadowed. Bookmark the permalink. 14 Comments.
RubyTea
Heathen Critique 
So, the Atheistopian government has been keeping a very tight lid on the Christian underground (a lid that is only blown when Paul says HEY! WE CAN GET GOD TO MASSACRE EVERYONE! Says something that nobody in the underground thought of that until he piped up with it…) for years.
Raids, interrogations, executions, performed by a professional secret police in an age where brain implants are routine enough that they’re used as phones.
Against a group that has the oddest compulsion about lying (but not genocide by proxy).
And we’re supposed to think that NOBODY figured out this compulsion, and took advantage of it?
Atheistapo interrogators should have a handy little 20 question checklist to walk someone through by now, that only allows three answers, “yes”, “no”, and “BANG!”
At least Ranold seems on the way to going Frank Castle on these people.
Also, what has the new World President (or is it World First Lady, since it’s a woman with woman parts) been up to? Shopping and makeup, probably….
For that matter, almost two thirds – at least more than half – of the male population died. Globally.
Yet the writing doesn’t show this in any way. Minor and incidental characters remain largely male.
Actually, one of the major plot points of the second book was that the World Government did in fact figure that compulsion out, and were planning on instituting a worldwide loyalty/atheism pact everyone had to sign that left absolutely no room for ambiguity. Leaving the RTCs with the option to either not sign and out themselves, or *gasp* lie to the oppressive government hunting them down.
The RTCs response to this proposal, of course, was to murder all of the firstborns. So it’s understandable that the NPO might be hesitant to try something like that again.
It was a good idea though. As the brave fearless Kim Davis proved, Real True Christians can be recognized by their utter unwillingness to have their names on documents that they don’t approve of, even under the threat of torture and death a midweek in jail and a lucrative book deal. She’s a survivor!
I never get the damn strikethrough tags right.
I had to update my math when we found out the plague only hit males with no older siblings of either gender – that takes it down to 1/(average family size) times %atheist. So if Atheistopia has a birthrate of 2.3, then about 43.5% of the male population died, less whatever percentage were secret believers.
Still devastatingly high, of course.
Yes, the NPO should really have a standing system of “If the next word out of your mouth is neither Yes nor No, then the second word out of your mouth will be screaming because I have shot you.”
Oh, this just in from Jerry Jenkins himself…
http://f3.to/quickgal/gallery.php?cmd=image&sfpg=KjE0NDI5ODYyMjh0aGUgaW50ZXJuZXQgaXMgZ29pbmcgdG8gc2VsZiBkZXN0cnVjdCBpbiAzIDIgMS5wbmcqMjFhOGRkNWU3MDA4Y2I5MjdhYjU0NjY5Zjg1Nzc0MWQ
I read a Writers’ Digest article by Jerry Jenkins. Spent the entire duration shouting, “Physician, heal thyself!” But like I keep saying, it’s easy to churn out best-selling novels quickly when neither you nor the audience that reads said books, gives a shit.
And of course, we get more instances of their weaseliness when it comes to lying. But like I’ve said in my posts, they’re kind of screwed when it comes to this sort of thing. They’ve steadfastly chosen to embrace Absolute Morality, despite the fact that Absolute Morality only works under incredibly strictly-controlled conditions, but if they admit that those Moral Relativists have a point, that sometimes in life it’s a choice of which option is the least bad rather than right and wrong…hell would break loose.
And I know Ranold will probably have a bridge dropped on him and given Jenkins’s attitude towards anyone who dare disrespects his Canon Sue, Ranold’s death will probably be done in a way that can only be described as incredibly mean-spirited and humiliating. Like he drowns in a vat of shit, while farting to death, and while doing so, the narrative makes remarks about his small penis. Because of course, he’d have a smaller penis than Canon Sue. But knowing Jenkins, he’d also want to factor in some dig about Ranold’s weight, because he comes from the Conservapedia school of debate, where if you want to win any argument, all you have to do is point and say, “You’re fat,” and run away. Because fat or ugly or fat and ugly people never have anything wise or insightful to say.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_obesity
Ah, loophole-lying. Jenkins may not have invented it, but he embraced it heartily. The temptation to be smugly self righteous and yet still proving your superior intellect by having your enemies be duped by your magnificent wit is just too much for him. That god’s character gets thrown under the bus is a small price to pay.
Judging by their love of Trolley Problems, the zealots seem entirely happy to kill people as long as their own fingers aren’t actually on the trigger/knife/whatever.
I bet they’d love the kosher light switch if it weren’t so, y’know, Jewish.
It’s actually those little loopholes that I love about Judaism, because of what they show… that people have genuinely thought about this religion. Not all of them, surely, but there’s a long history of “This isn’t allowed. Okay, then, what about this? How about this? Is this too close? If we can’t do this, can we do this?” rather than the habit in several branches of Christianity (and, again, not all of them, but a far too high amount, with far too much power) towards “This isn’t allowed. Okay! NO ONE MAY DO THIS OR ANYTHING LIKE IT.”
It’s not lying if you believe what you’re saying is true. If Bia honestly didn’t know Wipers was alive when she reported his death, then it wasn’t a lie. That’s her best defense, and it doesn’t require and ducking, or bobbing and weaving.
But then Jenkins couldn’t show off how stupid Ranold is when he falls for the loophole lying. Also, he’s fat, did we mention that?
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