I read the trilogy on a whim last week, and just to be sure I followed the basic plot lines since there’s so much stream of consciousness and abstract contradictory personal thoughts going on, I looked at plot summaries after I read each book.

I had fun just floating in the weird world in annihilation, but authority and acceptance didn’t really add anything to the story for me.

What did you guys think? What was this trilogy about? Why was it a trilogy?

And why was the ::: spoiler spoiler time travel important except as a device to tell us the narrative of the biologist’s lifetime(which was ax sequence I did enjoy). :::

Was everything fun psychometric fluff? Was there something that hit you differently?

  • Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.de
    3·
    1 year ago

    Been a while since i read the southern reach trillogy, but i guess the biggest theme for me was human hubris, to think that we are actually in control and understand this huge world we live in.

    Other than that, it’s also a damn beautiful horror trip.

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      I thought the first one was a good horror trip, but the second and third were a bit of a slog for me.

      Thanks, hubris was definitely in the mix, if largely notable because of its absence in the main characters.

      • Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.de
        2·
        1 year ago

        It’s absent in the biologist sure, she is driven by curiosity, and the loss of her partner.

        But the Director? She saw numerous highly skilled people enter the are without returning, but still thought she could somehow make a difference and ultimately understand what area x is.

        Lowry still thinks it’s something he could, and only him could deal with, so he keeps messing with the missions and has everyone brainwashed.

        Control atleast starts out thinking he has the reigns in hand, but he atleast begins to understand how ununderstandable the situation is to him.

        But to be honest, i found it really hard to get anything from the books where i could say: “yeah, that’s definitely something this is about” it has many themes and layers and it’s just so thoroughly weird that i am not really sure about anything i experienced reading it.

        • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksOP
          2·
          1 year ago

          I get what you’re saying, but to me the director assumed she wouldn’t be able to solve anything and the most she could do was figure out if there was anything to figure out, but she quickly gave that up as soon as she experienced area x.

          She’s the only one I could say thought that she could do anything for a brief moment.

          Lowry is basically Whitby, and it’s very clear that the only reason he is in the position he is is because he survived and people are treating his survival as an achievement.

          But it’s pretty clear to me he lost his mind immediately and was only biding his time back on the other side of the border until area x swallowed everything. I don’t think he was ever trying to figure anything out or solve anything, he was just kind of pulling a Whitby and sitting in the corner gnashing his teeth waiting for the end of everything.

          And control, his entire personality is defined by how he can’t do anything, and how he accepts that he can’t really do anything because of that huge mistake he made about being ineffective at his function that then defined his whole life.

          I can’t see any hubris in any of the characters, but I can see maybe an understandable but misguided faith that the world they were living in was their world, when it so clearly wasn’t.

          Abstract Galilean hubris, but no personal hubris.

          And I guess center of the universe hubris also connects to their being a southern reach research facility as well. Grace and Cheney probably thought they could do something, but Cheney had never experienced area x and Grace also immediately changed her focus to surviving rather than overcoming anything when she entered area. X.

          But the fact that so many characters have basically zero self-confidence from the top to bottom of the food chain does add a piece to the puzzle I think.

          Maybe Jackie would explain things if she was given some more time or contacts than the novel. I always thought she was the key, but I didn’t know what the hell any of her passages were about, although I only read them once.

          I can’t help but feel like this trilogy grew long in the tooth real quick.