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?
I actually agree with you. One thing I didn't like about many heroic novels was that the hero would just get out of situations by luck and it seemed unrealistc. Like I couldn't really connect with the hero because it felt like they weren't doing anything themselves, they just got lucky each time.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether "luck" is a realistic or unrealistic element in a fictional story. Maybe it's like a glass-half-empty or half-full question--if you're an optimist, you see luck as a real force in the world and "luckiness" as a virtue. If you're a pessimist, you see it more as a fictional wish-fulfillment thing.
ReplyDeleteWhat we're calling "luck" here is maybe what the Ancient Greeks called "the gods." Athena smooths the way for Telemachus in a number of ways, and if we were unaware of her interventions, we'd call him "lucky." (Just as Odysseus is "unlucky" because Poseidon is mad at him.)
I feel like heroes need both luck and skill -- a lot of really dramatic scenes (which are often the meat of stories) require some luck -- you referenced the underwater bit. Howey holds the tension out until basically the last minute, and of course you're going to need luck.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's a hero story where the hero is just completely lucky and they have no skills -- you're not going to read a story where the protagonist is dumb as rocks but still succeeds in everything. Another dramatic scene that comes to mind (I'm guessing you don't remember much about HP but whatever) is the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire. There's a lot of luck there (that web-y dead people thing that Harry had no idea would happen) but Harry's still got to figure out what to do when Voldemort is trying to kill him (the fact that he does anything and isn't just frozen by fear is skill) and make a run for the portkey. Pretty much every scene has to have both luck and skill for the protagonist to succeed.
You are correct in assuming I don't really remember much about HP, but I do remember that graveyard situation as a great example. Voldemort and his cronies should have had the upper hand on Harry, and he really relies on his luck here (as well as skill I suppose).
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