After discussing Odysseus's character traits this week, I have come to conclude that Telemachus, Odysseus's son, is generally a much better hero compared to Odysseus (at least from a normal reader's perspective). There are many unlikable things about Odysseus's character. First of all, he is arrogant and is often quite full of himself. We can tell he cares quite little about his crew and often risks their lives for no concrete reason. Furthermore, he receives all the sympathy for his continuous misfortune, while his shipmates receive none. After all, aren't his shipmates just as eager to get home? In addition, Odysseus has a clear sexual double-standard. While he expects Penelope to be loyal, he sleeps with numerous women/nymphs/goddesses on his trip. While this may have been more normal in the day, it certainly seems like quite a despicable quality to the modern reader.

Telemachus, on the other hand is a much more likable hero (at least to me). While Odysseus has a rather personal goal, Telemachus steps up to defend his family and his household. While Odysseus sometimes cries and sometimes masterfully conceals his emotions, we see a more consistent personality in Telemachus. The reader witnesses Telemachus transforming from a helpless child into a more assertive prince. This transformation really helps sell Telemachus as a character, and we fail to see such a profound development in the character of Odysseus.

Lukas as a Bad Guy

Just writing a quick post about a misconception I had about Lukas. Before we saw Lukas's point of view, I was pretty convinced he was a bad guy. Not the main antagonist, but definitely not a good guy. I'm not sure why, but he really seemed quite suspicious to me. 

When Juliette first meets him, his initial tone seems a bit hostile. I thought he was trying to lead Juliette astray by sitting her down and teaching her stargazing. Honestly I was practically 99% sure that he was working for Bernard when he bumped into Juliette on her way down to IT to find Scotty. It seemed too coincidental. Besides, why else would Howey incorporate that passage, if not to give the readers a hint? Clearly, I was mistaken, but I'm wondering if anyone else thought the same thing perhaps? 

Luck

I know its getting a little late for the Wool posts, but I wanted to discuss something that I found interesting throughout the book. In almost any book, luck plays a huge role. In hero stories, however, at least for me, it is sometimes easy to forget about how big of a role luck plays, and to attribute the hero's success exclusively to the hero's talents and personality. Personally, I often get super irritated when the major plot events of a book boil down to luck. For this reason, I didn't really enjoy the Harry Potter books, because it felt to me that the whole plot was practically driven by luck alone Granted, some of these plot turns had "magical" explanations, which I didn't really appreciate either. Wool was not like this at all for me and I actually had to stop to remind myself that luck did indeed play a role.

Perhaps one of the reasons why I particularly appreciated this story is that Hugh Howey managed to make the luck in this story very discreet. For example, when Juliette learned about the screen and the program to generate images, she got lucky. Allison spent a long time researching this program, and she was led to conclude that the wall screen image was fake. Juliette even considers Allison smarter than Scotty. Had Scotty not worked out that the program was intended for a smaller screen, Juliette would, in all likelihood, have followed Holston and Allison outside for the exact same reason. Of course, this wasn't very obvious, but nonetheless was of quite substantial importance to the plot.

There are some more obvious places where Juliette has luck on her side (when she is breathing from the air pockets under the steps, or when she uses the metal pipe to open the airlock). Nonetheless, Hugh Howey sells these parts of his story very well because Juliette uses her cleverness and cunning to find these solutions. If those steps had been designed more like a grate or if that pipe had not been there, Juliette would have been toast, but that is not really the way it is portrayed. In fact, without thinking about it objectively, the reader has a hard time recognizing Juliette's luck.

In conclusion, I think Hugh Howey did a better job than most writers about making his plot seem less up to chance. Although Juliette is a very heroic character, who doesn't need a bit of luck on their side?