Promiseland

[Fetian]

Video games' preoccupation with realistic physics is just as detrimental as the preoccupation with realistic graphics

[Fetian]

Well! Between physical pains and mental health stuff (caused at least in part by body pains), I completely lost a couple weeks. But I've finally pulled myself together enough to start doing my physical therapy exercises again, so with luck I'll also be pulling my body together enough to get it to knock all of this off for a while, and with that maybe my brain will start cooperating again, too.

When I wake up later, I need to set up the microphone back in the guest room and actually record the arcadia scenes I owe; I need to finish shaving -- I attempted to do that earlier and my shaver died on me halfway through so it's been charging all night -- and shower; I need to clean my room. I need to walk to the store at some point, and it's supposed to heat up over the week so I should ideally do that earlier than later, but also I don't think it's happening tomorrow with everything else that needs doing

I intended to go to sleep at a reasonable time tonight, but despite being in bed I ended up reading, and then writing the post that's going to follow this one, instead. I'm honestly not super tired, so I may just stay up for a while, get some things done, and then sleep for a bit in the middle of the day and go to bed on time this evening

[Fetian]

I finally finished Blindness tonight, after putting it down for a month I ended up finishing it in like twenty minutes of picking it back up. It was less pessimistic than I thought it would be, especially once it hit the final act where everyone has gone blind and there's no seeing people in positions of authority to be abusing that authority. I have some complicated thoughts about the whole thing, and would really have preferred basically any other narrative convention than the one actually used in the book -- either a much more restricted narrator who gives us a very close, personal experience with one of the characters (or the group the narrator follows), or a much more omniscient narrator who tells us what's going on in the world at large. We distantly follow the Doctor's Wife and get her viewpoint on everything that's happening, but I want to know how reliable that viewpoint is, separate from her biases. Because as it is, the book kind of skirts into ableism -- how much of the helplessness of the blind people is reality and how much is her projecting and assuming?

I'm also a little fascinated by the takeaways other people have had from this book because everyone else I've seen talking about it has talked about like, the cruelty of humanity and whatever -- they have a much more violent view of the city inhabitants than I think actually is in textual evidence. My takeaway is that once they left the asylum, things got honestly pretty chill, with people generally avoiding confrontation and just kind of wandering around looking (heh) for food. The actual characters the Group comes across are a woman who is (rightfully) suspicious of them but lets them move through her home unimpeded (to gloss over other events in that section); and a person amicably squatting in one of their former homes, who is like "I mean, if you want it back I can't really stop you" and who they let continue living there. There is death everywhere, but no real evidence that it's caused by anything other than starvation, illness, or accidental injury due to everyone being blind. My interpretation is that the author's view of humanity is that humans will do cruel and inhumane things when left to suffer in cruel and inhumane conditions, or when given power over people they are afraid of -- and otherwise? Chill

Anyway, my main question during the whole thing is where the fuck are all the people who started off blind? There's the one in the asylum, who exists as a boon for a group at odds with the protagonists', not so much a character in his own right -- but it sure seems like blind people would be, like, doing pretty okay during all this? Not great, what with general services like shipments and utilities not running anymore, but, like, better than people who just went blind last week?

And like, I know this is counter to the entire point of the novel but there are just so many better ways to deal with an epidemic of blindness than by locking the afflicted people up in an abandoned building, alone, and leaving them with the military to guard them. Like! For example! Hiring some already blind people to oversee (heh) the asylum?

But that's what I'm talking about with the not being sure the book is ableist-ish or the characters are, because certainly I could buy that simply not occurring to anyone who could suggest such a thing, since blind people are of course helpless and incapable of functioning without a sighted person managing everything for them, and of course once everyone has gone blind it is impossible for anyone to have adapted to the blindness in any way except to stumble around until they chance upon food, or they fall into a hole and starve

(You could suggest such a thing, and have no one accept the job because they're afraid the Blindness disease could have effects other than blindness, and have them even be offended that you would assume that a person could be so disposable just because they're already blind, and that would fit very well in the tone and theme of it)

I want to read the sequel, I believe it touches a bit more on the larger ramifications of the event, but I also suspect it's going to, have that not-quite-realism that's not working for me with the first one. I also want to watch the movie, though I have strong suspicions that that is where people get the "violence, disease, and despair threaten to overwhelm human coping" version of the third act, because I also strongly suspect that the movie took some liberties in that direction. I'll find out when I see it

I want to jump back for a minute to interpreting that third act myself, because not only do I see an absence of evidence of people being dicks (the way it's described, I expected roaming gangs of sadists who had adapted to their blindness to the exclusive ends of finding ways to hurt people in spite of it) -- but I'm thinking of scenes of characters gently bathing each other, of huddling together to tell stories and pass the night, of leaving almost-strangers food from their own limited stores. These are mostly between and among the group of protagonists, but the woman in the apartment shows them as much kindness as she is able, the squatter invites strangers inside and shares his art with them. There's no scenes of feral humans snapping at the protagonists for approaching them, no scenes of people trying to chase them out of their territory. People just, exist, as well as they can, and seem content to let everyone around them do the same

The more I think about it the more I'm convincing myself that the thesis of this book is that systems are evil, and humans are good. When stripped of everything that could create a hierarchy, when forced to start everything from scratch, when prevented from amassing a hoard of resources, humans are good.

I was a little confused by the contrast between the asylum and the city, but I think now that that's the actual point.

[Fetian]

I have some complicated thoughts about the whole thing, and would really have preferred basically any other narrative convention than the one actually used in the book -- either a much more restricted narrator who gives us a very close, personal experience with one of the characters (or the group the narrator follows), or a much more omniscient narrator who tells us what's going on in the world at large.

"I would have preferred this allegory be less of an allegory and more of a narrative"

[Fetian]

(I do however personally enjoy a headcanon that the doctor's wife perceives everyone as helpless and vulnerable because her group is, but because they have come to rely on her sight, and meanwhile everyone else is just getting on with things)

[Fetian]

Did go to sleep; when I woke up I took my walk around the pool, recorded 3/4 of what I owe for Arcadia (wrapping up 4/4 tomorrow), shaved, showered, and watered my flowers. By then ash was home with dinner, so we ate dinner and watched a Taskmaster, an Um Actually, and a Make Some Noise, then we went to our rooms for the night

Aiming for an early night, naturally. I've been back to Breath of the Wild and will probably play a bit of that while I watch videos for a couple hours, then get ready for bed

Would like to stop having to fight my brain at all times

[Fetian]

I also want to watch the movie, though I have strong suspicions that that is where people get the "violence, disease, and despair threaten to overwhelm human coping" version of the third act, because I also strongly suspect that the movie took some liberties in that direction. I'll find out when I see it

Sort of. In a way it's the opposite of the book -- you see brief examples of cruelty (also sort of -- theft, not rape or murder) and the absence of the kindnesses illustrated in the original.

Not a great movie -- very faithful to the broad strokes, made some minorish changes mostly to no effect but occasionally to the detriment of it. Felt like it lost interest after the asylum and rushed through the rest of it, and if the point of the whole thing is 'systems are bad, humans are good' as I posited, then it missed the point. But it has a different point it's making, though I'm not really sure what that point is

It's one of those faithful adaptations with beats that would absolutely have confused me if I hadn't read the book, and as a person who read the book I'm also not really impressed with it as an adaptation, so it doesn't really have an audience and I'm not surprised it's poorly rated

Special shoutout to the reviewer who criticised the "orgy scene" because having seen the whole thing now they were definitely referring to the rape scene and what the fuck. I hope I never meet you.

[Fetian]

There was basically one person in the movie who was descent at acting blind (Glover) and I strongly suspect it was because he could barely see with the cataract contact they had him wearing anyway. Would have been nice for the movie about an entire society going blind having literally any actual blind people involved in its making but I can as yet find no evidence that there were.

[Fetian]

[Mark Ruffalo] wore a layer of makeup to appear older and also wore contact lenses to be blind while having his eyes open. The actor said of the experience as a blind character, "At first it's terrifying and then it's frustrating and then it gets quiet... we're tormented by our eyesight... you don't know this until you go blind... As an actor I suddenly felt free."

Wow.

[Fetian]

Don McKellar said about adapting the story, "None of the characters even have names or a history, which is very untraditional for a Hollywood story.

"None of the characters even have ... a history"
??????

So what I'm getting from this is he somehow managed to avoid reading the book