Author Topic: EP528: Divided By Zero  (Read 12157 times)

NoMeDigas

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Reply #25 on: July 28, 2016, 12:12:19 PM
I'm curious that a couple of commentators read the story as the sister hating her brother. I didn't get that feeling at all. And re-reading the story again I still can't see it.

Rivalry maybe. Envy maybe. Sadness maybe. Distance maybe. But hatred? That's an awfully strong emotion that doesn't come across to me in the story at all.

Writing as someone with a complicated relationship with my sibling, to me the hatred came across very well. Maybe I was filling in  gaps with my own experience, I'm not sure. It's the kind of hatred you feel when un-even rivalry has hardened to resentment and resentment eventually hardens into a hatred. And, like the protagonist felt, it's not necessarily even a conscious hatred, and it's certainly not comfortable. Especially when the brother doesn't seem to be a jerk at all, and it's not really his fault that the mom favors him, that everyone likes him better... especially when we don't have hard proof that everyone's preference for the brother is not, if not imagined, at least exaggerated in the protagonist's head.

I don't usually listen to Escape Pod - I mostly listen to Pod Castle and Lightspeed - but this story drew me in and I'm glad I listened to it!



CryptoMe

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Reply #26 on: November 21, 2017, 07:44:39 AM
I felt the protagonist was justified in her belief that the mother loved her less than her brother. "No, not you, I don't want you! I want Jamie!" the mother says at one point. I think that is a clear indication of her preference for him.

Also I thought the protagonist's disability was physical, not an inability to feel connected. "I could not use my legs" she says at one point.

My take was that when she finally does something her brother couldn't she is free to stop competing with him and just appreciate him, even though it is too late.