#how difficult and frightening everything becomes when he views the world through the lens of 'what if i lose someone again'

[the-knife-consumer]

"Yona was just added bc Nintendo wants people to stop shipping sidlink!" Literally what the hell are you talking about

[kasprzaks]

EVERYDAY EVIL IN EDDIE’S BAD BREAK

At the core of Eddie’s Bad Break is Eddie’s intense closeness with everyday evil. Though the nature of It revolves around the supernatural and the horror of it through this eldritch horror landing in derry in the 1700s and waking up every twenty-seven years thereafter to wreak havoc, this Eddie centric chapter delves much deeper into its titular character’s psyche and what he truly fears outside of a killer clown through lending itself more to the exploration of the mundane of Derry, Maine, and how the everyday can be more frightening and actually usually is, than a fantasy monster. A killer clown is a great thing for a reader to fear for a little while, though for it to truly ring true for someone climbing into and wrapping themselves up in this story, there must be more. Sometimes people and what is already there gives more to fear.

POINT OF VIEW

Pulled in from the moment Eddie enters Mr Keene’s office and not given a break as readers until he leaves, for what is a moment of horror for Eddie becomes horror for the reader. Immediately put into his head to feel his world view come crashing down first hand through the implementation of his thought process into prose and implying what he cares for by what he focuses on, and, at times, through glimpses into the exact thoughts he’s having at that moment; the horror in Eddie’s Bad break is not only to do with the subject matter that Mr Keene is discussing (though it is a great deal), but through the intensity in which we see it through Eddie’s eyes.

Realistically, not much happens in part two of Eddie’s Bad Break, and though what happens is of great importance in the story, it isn’t a scene that should go on for very long. Eddie speaks only in short bursts and shy mumbles as Mr Keene baits out Sonia’s big secret that Eddie is not really ill at all and implies that this has been a ploy to control him, and Mr Keene barely speaks long enough for part two to be as long as it is. Eddie’s discomfort physically as well as emotionally, however, has a magnifying glass hovering over it that we’re left to squirm under with him, and the lengthening of what should have been a short scene by focusing on his internal and jumping back and forth between memories allows the moment to become as long as Eddie lives it. Prolonged, feeling every moment of hurt and discomfort. As readers, we live it with him.

Eddie’s character is one that lingers, he does it on near enough everything, and whose thoughts and feelings overpower anything physically happening in a scene. He has a full and vivid inner world. The entirety of the section in Eddie’s Bad Break that takes place in Mr Keene’s office solidifies this concept. Instead of addressing the difficult situation he is in directly (and difficult is an understatement), Eddie continually buries himself in his brain and lives in his internal reactions, and that fact is integrated into the prose in such a way that we really feel like we’re living in his head despite the third person gap we have to cross to get there.

The specific things chosen to focus on in this part through Eddie’s eyes remain mostly trivial things, such as the ice cream sundae (pictured above), though through the lens of Eddie becomes a thing that brings about great horror and amplifies the genuine terror that he feels under Mr Keene’s adult authority as well as the already troubling subject matter at hand. While another narrator may not even mention it, Eddie zeros in on the cherry in an over the top amplified way to turn something so simple into something much more than it is. The comparison of the cherry being a blood clot at a crime scene is not an even slightly traditional line of thinking, but the guilt Eddie has grown up with and the adult authority we see him suffering under from Mr Keene that we even see at the beginning of this chapter (Eddie seeing a NO SHOPLIFTERS sign and immediately feeling as if he’d done wrong despite never doing anything along that line in his life) projects itself onto his world view. Throughout Eddie’s chapters, words are chosen carefully by him, more so than other characters. While he is a character that has a constantly running inner monologue which may make it seem as though he’s looped back around from the initial worry to every other trivial thing that means little to him, the words are still chosen with purpose, as are the sections where he intensely describes into something more than it is. The blood clot is only really the beginning.

THE TERROR OF MR KEENE AND ‘ADULTING’

Though Mr Keene firmly believes he is trying to help Eddie, his character becomes a central antagonist in this chapter. His treatment of Eddie under the guise of ‘just helping’ sets up the concept of adult authority and how it can be used as a force for evil, simply through the authority age gives, and contributes greatly to the horror Eddie is subjected to. Childhood is already something that leaves the person’s (i.e. Eddie in this case) perception and reliability as something obscure and questionable. Eddie takes most of what Mr Keene is saying to mean he is crazy, and Mr Keene does little of the sort under his power as an adult to offer out a kind hand to reassure Eddie. Again, this is a massive abuse of his adult authority. A realisation comes in this part of the chapter that informs what follows and changes Eddie. The Eddie that stepped foot into the pharmacy is not the same Eddie that walks out, a questioning more doubtful and suspicious one does.

Throughout the chapter we see little inklings of meanness coming from Mr Keene. Though since we are reading this through Eddie’s eyes, some parts may be read and retold a little skewed (the point of view is very much what makes this chapter after all), the general consensus and writing of this scene sets us up for an unsettling interaction. Mr Keene inviting Eddie into his office on his own and offering him an ice cream sundae if complies is an image that already seems familiar, one that reads as ugly and sinister, and purposely written that way by King, making the uncomfortable way of Mr Keene’s interaction with Eddie actually seem a lot more in place (and almost a relief until he starts talking).

As Mr Keene continues unnecessarily (torturing) teasing Eddie, his realisation begins, and while he leaves the office not yet completely settled on any concrete conclusion, it informs the rest of the chapter and the events that follow. After facing It later on, Eddie has the strength and information to realise that what is much scarier than the unimaginable (now that he had seen it with his own two eyes in form of a leper and a dancing clown that was eating the town’s youth) was right in front of him his entire life. It is what he’s suffered under his entire life starting at the hands of his mother and continuing to near enough every adult after that: adult authority. The most frightful and correct conclusion he can come to is how the adults in his life continually disappoint and actively harm him emotionally. From Sonia’s consistent abuse to the lesser but still harmful force in which Mr Keene keeps Eddie in the office no matter the discomfort he is clearly in to give him the information he has decided to impart without Eddie’s consent (and again and again does Eddie tell Mr Keene he wants to leave which of course is refused), it is all down to the authority that age gives that Eddie does not have and leaves him in this vulnerable position.

Still, this concept is planted only in the form of a small passing thought planted in his head here while talking to Mr Keene. It does, however, give him strength he needs later on. The unnerving and calm revelation of ‘grownups are the real monsters’ is quietly revolutionary. As he recognises this, he can move forward. 

BOWERS GANG AND SUBVERSION OF ADULT AUTHORITY

Part three of Eddie’s Bad Break is easily the most horrific or at the very least the most graphic of the parts. While up until now, the horror has remained as this elusive and non-physical force, a very physical truth comes and lands hard when Eddie is battered by the Bowers gang outside of Costello Avenue Market on his way home from the pharmacy in a vile and bloody ordeal. The entirety of this section is violent, it’s uncomfortable, and we don’t even need Eddie’s particular world view lens to see that. The actions themselves of the gang are enough to create this horror that’s very real no matter how unfortunate and unpleasant it is.

While older than Eddie, the Bowers gang still do not fall into the category that benefits from adult authority as they are still minors. Their power over Eddie comes entirely from brute force and physicalities whereas the adult power in Eddie’s life is shown to be emotionally based, and although the power they possess is usually overshadowed by adult authority whether it be through a day in day out school routine with constant adult supervision or just the everyday of adults being present, the summer this chapter takes place in allows the Bowers gang a thrive under the unconventional: a total lack of adults. 

The absence of this usual power that gives some hierarchy or sense of order to children’s lives and protects them from the reign of the Bowers gang vanishes. They catch Eddie at an unfortunate time when there are no adults in sight, no one there to protect him (this follows on greatly from Eddie’s recent revelation of adults being ‘the real monsters’ – their inability to protect him here when they should backs this up). He is hit, pushed to the ground, and has gravel shoved into his mouth and rubbed over his face. It is only when Mr Gedreau comes out and orders the gang to stop do readers feel that the adult absentee summer spell may wash away for this fleeting moment to spare Eddie from more harm and that adult authority may actually do some good. The expectation is for the gang to flee, from both readers and the established Mr Gedreau, but the gleam in Henry Bowers’ eye suggests something more than just a total cruelty is being done and is mentioned multiple times. Bowers denies the adult’s orders when previously known to flee once an adult shows face. He lunges at Mr Gedreau, threatens him, and this is when Mr Gedreau senses this difference in Bowers, what we see as the beginnings in a change of his character as he is starting to become influenced by It. Mr Gedreau himself flees the scene and leaves Eddie helpless.

The difference between this moment of the Bowers gang successfully inflicting a kind of torment and them not is nothing to do with the adults around. While their presence may have stopped them before, it certainly doesn’t in this moment, even when an adult takes a hard stand trying to defend Eddie. Here, the supernatural is what allows them to subvert this adult authority and push on through with their cruelties. While Eddie gets away during this distraction and runs for the hills, he is caught again moments later when he trips over a neighbourhood kid on a bike and in a moment of pure evil does Henry Bowers break Eddie’s arm to the absolute horror of the rest of the gang (par Hockstetter who is delighted by it) with no remorse. He goes farther than too far.

Though this is a through and through traumatic moment, one that buries itself deep in Eddie’s memories so that he can retell it years later, this moment frees Eddie in a way, just as the quiet revelation of the abuse of adult power does when Mr Keene spoke to him. Eddie laughs. This is the first real pain he’s felt, and he survives despite what he’s been told his entire life. Henry’s supernatural spell of pure evil is shook by the reaction and though he perseveres, trying to hurt Eddie more, Eddie’s sheer disrespect for Bowers in this moment when he talks back and calls him crazy, just like his father, breaks the spell altogether and allows caution to enter back into him. Police sirens ring and the gang flee the scene, Eddie lays there unable to move for the pain he is in and imagines he sees a turtle floating up above. He’s whisked away in an ambulance and here we feel this miraculous sense of peace with Eddie, even when he opens his eyes and imagines he sees Pennywise the dancing clown in the drivers seat peering back at him.

SUPERNATURAL + THE DEFEAT OF SONIA KASPBRAK: MOTHERING TO DEATH

Each part in this chapter ends with a mention of It, or at the very least an allusion to the supernatural after spending time and suffering with Eddie’s everyday evils. After talking to Mr Keene, Eddie briefly considers throwing his aspirator to the sewers for It to have; after being beaten senseless by the Bowers gang, he sees Pennywise driving the ambulance; later Eddie seeing the eyes of his mother in the lepers in Neibolt; in the hospital he, again, sees Pennywise dancing in the waiting room and kissing his mother on the cheek. There is a constant with this new power of the supernatural tangled in amongst the mundane and contrary to the rest of the book, does not come across near as villainous as it does outside of this chapter. There is a sense that is is more akin to Oh, There’s That Clown Again. Oddly enough, the horror that is terrorising Derry’s youth seems to be a sort of breath of relief after spending time at the pharmacy being faced with the truth that your life is a lie and laying in agony on the ground with a mouth full of gravel. It’s almost this thing of escapism where readers are tricked into being glad to be back in the trauma of such a horror.

Pennywise is without a doubt a villain, through and through, but the supernatural force behind It isn’t. It is powered by whoever harnesses it and how they go about using it, as it goes with Stephen King supernatural: no inherent good or bad, only what is done. Its influence on Henry Bowers is entirely different to what happens when something akin to a moment of the shine happens with Eddie: a moment of clairvoyance where Eddie dreams It acting through his mother and sending the rest of the losers away when they come to visit him, telling them Eddie doesn’t want to see them anymore. He wakes up and finds it to be true. Despite his mother being the pinnacle of adult authority in his life, controlling him his whole life and holding him close through his various ‘illnesses’ and perceived innate weakness, the revelation Eddie had at the beginning of Eddie’s Bad Break that continued to inform his reception to every other event, he calls it the final straw. As the Bowers gang forwent the influence of adult authority when Mr Gedreau tried to make them scatter and leave Eddie be, Eddie uses this force greater than himself to disobey Sonia in a way he never had before for the greater good (i.e. to fight It with his friends later on).

...

In the grips of this unnamed thing, with this force behind him to drive him to fulfil his and the loser’s path to fight, Eddie becomes unrecognisable… frightening, really (at least to Sonia) and eerily calm the whole way through his own manipulation in agreeing to take his aspirator despite knowing the truth to appease his mother’s control on the terms that he can continue to see his friends as it is a vital necessity.

CONCLUSION

Pennywise awakening and starting the cycle again and coming after the losers is not even close to the start of Eddie’s horror. He has been subjected to evil his entire life and this chapter dedicates itself to that fact. Starting with Mr Keene interfering (even if it is in Eddie’s assumed best interest) and keeping him hostage, forcibly giving him this information by the power that being an adult and children having to obey your orders because of what that status affords him, he is cruel with the power and Eddie thinks it himself; the Bowers gang attacking Eddie and breaking his arm in broad daylight and no one helping him; Sonia’s manipulation and refusal to allow him to see his friends again, more intent on keeping them away from Eddie than pressing charges against Henry Bowers, the one who put him in hospital. These are the things in his life that he sees and receives some variation of every day and they are more terrifying than the vision he has of the killer clown driving away in an ambulance in the same chapter. The cruelty and abuse of power adults have, his relentless and abusive mother, the violent bully… they are so much more terrifying than the supernatural force that wants him dead because this is his every day and has been since he was born just because he was unlucky enough to be born as himself.

The overarching theme of adult power and the oft abuse of it in this chapter and throughout Eddie’s (as well as most other children in the book) life as a whole is challenged and is written so well for it in Eddie’s Bad Break. The untraditional external power of the supernatural tied hand in hand with the awareness and information is what brings power to inform and change the way life is experienced, especially when it is experienced as cruelly as it is to Eddie. He comes out changed, bettered, more aware and ready to take on what he has to. Eddie Kaspbrak takes the horror and melds it into what he needs to defeat it.

[kfc-official]

an essay i wrote only for myself and my obsession with eddie kaspbrak and what i think is one of the best chapters ever, eddie’s bad break. (3k words under the cut)

EVERYDAY EVIL IN EDDIE’S BAD BREAK

At the core of Eddie’s Bad Break is Eddie’s intense closeness with everyday evil. Though the nature of It revolves around the supernatural and the horror of it through this eldritch horror landing in derry in the 1700s and waking up every twenty-seven years thereafter to wreak havoc, this Eddie centric chapter delves much deeper into its titular character’s psyche and what he truly fears outside of a killer clown through lending itself more to the exploration of the mundane of Derry, Maine, and how the everyday can be more frightening and actually usually is, than a fantasy monster. A killer clown is a great thing for a reader to fear for a little while, though for it to truly ring true for someone climbing into and wrapping themselves up in this story, there must be more. Sometimes people and what is already there gives more to fear.

POINT OF VIEW

Pulled in from the moment Eddie enters Mr Keene’s office and not given a break as readers until he leaves, for what is a moment of horror for Eddie becomes horror for the reader. Immediately put into his head to feel his world view come crashing down first hand through the implementation of his thought process into prose and implying what he cares for by what he focuses on, and, at times, through glimpses into the exact thoughts he’s having at that moment; the horror in Eddie’s Bad break is not only to do with the subject matter that Mr Keene is discussing (though it is a great deal), but through the intensity in which we see it through Eddie’s eyes.

Realistically, not much happens in part two of Eddie’s Bad Break, and though what happens is of great importance in the story, it isn’t a scene that should go on for very long. Eddie speaks only in short bursts and shy mumbles as Mr Keene baits out Sonia’s big secret that Eddie is not really ill at all and implies that this has been a ploy to control him, and Mr Keene barely speaks long enough for part two to be as long as it is. Eddie’s discomfort physically as well as emotionally, however, has a magnifying glass hovering over it that we’re left to squirm under with him, and the lengthening of what should have been a short scene by focusing on his internal and jumping back and forth between memories allows the moment to become as long as Eddie lives it. Prolonged, feeling every moment of hurt and discomfort. As readers, we live it with him.

Eddie’s character is one that lingers, he does it on near enough everything, and whose thoughts and feelings overpower anything physically happening in a scene. He has a full and vivid inner world. The entirety of the section in Eddie’s Bad Break that takes place in Mr Keene’s office solidifies this concept. Instead of addressing the difficult situation he is in directly (and difficult is an understatement), Eddie continually buries himself in his brain and lives in his internal reactions, and that fact is integrated into the prose in such a way that we really feel like we’re living in his head despite the third person gap we have to cross to get there.

The specific things chosen to focus on in this part through Eddie’s eyes remain mostly trivial things, such as the ice cream sundae (pictured above), though through the lens of Eddie becomes a thing that brings about great horror and amplifies the genuine terror that he feels under Mr Keene’s adult authority as well as the already troubling subject matter at hand. While another narrator may not even mention it, Eddie zeros in on the cherry in an over the top amplified way to turn something so simple into something much more than it is. The comparison of the cherry being a blood clot at a crime scene is not an even slightly traditional line of thinking, but the guilt Eddie has grown up with and the adult authority we see him suffering under from Mr Keene that we even see at the beginning of this chapter (Eddie seeing a NO SHOPLIFTERS sign and immediately feeling as if he’d done wrong despite never doing anything along that line in his life) projects itself onto his world view. Throughout Eddie’s chapters, words are chosen carefully by him, more so than other characters. While he is a character that has a constantly running inner monologue which may make it seem as though he’s looped back around from the initial worry to every other trivial thing that means little to him, the words are still chosen with purpose, as are the sections where he intensely describes into something more than it is. The blood clot is only really the beginning.

THE TERROR OF MR KEENE AND ‘ADULTING’

Though Mr Keene firmly believes he is trying to help Eddie, his character becomes a central antagonist in this chapter. His treatment of Eddie under the guise of ‘just helping’ sets up the concept of adult authority and how it can be used as a force for evil, simply through the authority age gives, and contributes greatly to the horror Eddie is subjected to. Childhood is already something that leaves the person’s (i.e. Eddie in this case) perception and reliability as something obscure and questionable. Eddie takes most of what Mr Keene is saying to mean he is crazy, and Mr Keene does little of the sort under his power as an adult to offer out a kind hand to reassure Eddie. Again, this is a massive abuse of his adult authority. A realisation comes in this part of the chapter that informs what follows and changes Eddie. The Eddie that stepped foot into the pharmacy is not the same Eddie that walks out, a questioning more doubtful and suspicious one does.

Throughout the chapter we see little inklings of meanness coming from Mr Keene. Though since we are reading this through Eddie’s eyes, some parts may be read and retold a little skewed (the point of view is very much what makes this chapter after all), the general consensus and writing of this scene sets us up for an unsettling interaction. Mr Keene inviting Eddie into his office on his own and offering him an ice cream sundae if complies is an image that already seems familiar, one that reads as ugly and sinister, and purposely written that way by King, making the uncomfortable way of Mr Keene’s interaction with Eddie actually seem a lot more in place (and almost a relief until he starts talking).

As Mr Keene continues unnecessarily (torturing) teasing Eddie, his realisation begins, and while he leaves the office not yet completely settled on any concrete conclusion, it informs the rest of the chapter and the events that follow. After facing It later on, Eddie has the strength and information to realise that what is much scarier than the unimaginable (now that he had seen it with his own two eyes in form of a leper and a dancing clown that was eating the town’s youth) was right in front of him his entire life. It is what he’s suffered under his entire life starting at the hands of his mother and continuing to near enough every adult after that: adult authority. The most frightful and correct conclusion he can come to is how the adults in his life continually disappoint and actively harm him emotionally. From Sonia’s consistent abuse to the lesser but still harmful force in which Mr Keene keeps Eddie in the office no matter the discomfort he is clearly in to give him the information he has decided to impart without Eddie’s consent (and again and again does Eddie tell Mr Keene he wants to leave which of course is refused), it is all down to the authority that age gives that Eddie does not have and leaves him in this vulnerable position.

Still, this concept is planted only in the form of a small passing thought planted in his head here while talking to Mr Keene. It does, however, give him strength he needs later on. The unnerving and calm revelation of ‘grownups are the real monsters’ is quietly revolutionary. As he recognises this, he can move forward.

BOWERS GANG AND SUBVERSION OF ADULT AUTHORITY

Part three of Eddie’s Bad Break is easily the most horrific or at the very least the most graphic of the parts. While up until now, the horror has remained as this elusive and non-physical force, a very physical truth comes and lands hard when Eddie is battered by the Bowers gang outside of Costello Avenue Market on his way home from the pharmacy in a vile and bloody ordeal. The entirety of this section is violent, it’s uncomfortable, and we don’t even need Eddie’s particular world view lens to see that. The actions themselves of the gang are enough to create this horror that’s very real no matter how unfortunate and unpleasant it is.

While older than Eddie, the Bowers gang still do not fall into the category that benefits from adult authority as they are still minors. Their power over Eddie comes entirely from brute force and physicalities whereas the adult power in Eddie’s life is shown to be emotionally based, and although the power they possess is usually overshadowed by adult authority whether it be through a day in day out school routine with constant adult supervision or just the everyday of adults being present, the summer this chapter takes place in allows the Bowers gang a thrive under the unconventional: a total lack of adults.

The absence of this usual power that gives some hierarchy or sense of order to children’s lives and protects them from the reign of the Bowers gang vanishes. They catch Eddie at an unfortunate time when there are no adults in sight, no one there to protect him (this follows on greatly from Eddie’s recent revelation of adults being ‘the real monsters’ – their inability to protect him here when they should backs this up). He is hit, pushed to the ground, and has gravel shoved into his mouth and rubbed over his face. It is only when Mr Gedreau comes out and orders the gang to stop do readers feel that the adult absentee summer spell may wash away for this fleeting moment to spare Eddie from more harm and that adult authority may actually do some good. The expectation is for the gang to flee, from both readers and the established Mr Gedreau, but the gleam in Henry Bowers’ eye suggests something more than just a total cruelty is being done and is mentioned multiple times. Bowers denies the adult’s orders when previously known to flee once an adult shows face. He lunges at Mr Gedreau, threatens him, and this is when Mr Gedreau senses this difference in Bowers, what we see as the beginnings in a change of his character as he is starting to become influenced by It. Mr Gedreau himself flees the scene and leaves Eddie helpless.

The difference between this moment of the Bowers gang successfully inflicting a kind of torment and them not is nothing to do with the adults around. While their presence may have stopped them before, it certainly doesn’t in this moment, even when an adult takes a hard stand trying to defend Eddie. Here, the supernatural is what allows them to subvert this adult authority and push on through with their cruelties. While Eddie gets away during this distraction and runs for the hills, he is caught again moments later when he trips over a neighbourhood kid on a bike and in a moment of pure evil does Henry Bowers break Eddie’s arm to the absolute horror of the rest of the gang (par Hockstetter who is delighted by it) with no remorse. He goes farther than too far.

Though this is a through and through traumatic moment, one that buries itself deep in Eddie’s memories so that he can retell it years later, this moment frees Eddie in a way, just as the quiet revelation of the abuse of adult power does when Mr Keene spoke to him. Eddie laughs. This is the first real pain he’s felt, and he survives despite what he’s been told his entire life. Henry’s supernatural spell of pure evil is shook by the reaction and though he perseveres, trying to hurt Eddie more, Eddie’s sheer disrespect for Bowers in this moment when he talks back and calls him crazy, just like his father, breaks the spell altogether and allows caution to enter back into him. Police sirens ring and the gang flee the scene, Eddie lays there unable to move for the pain he is in and imagines he sees a turtle floating up above. He’s whisked away in an ambulance and here we feel this miraculous sense of peace with Eddie, even when he opens his eyes and imagines he sees Pennywise the dancing clown in the drivers seat peering back at him.

SUPERNATURAL + THE DEFEAT OF SONIA KASPBRAK: MOTHERING TO DEATH

Each part in this chapter ends with a mention of It, or at the very least an allusion to the supernatural after spending time and suffering with Eddie’s everyday evils. After talking to Mr Keene, Eddie briefly considers throwing his aspirator to the sewers for It to have; after being beaten senseless by the Bowers gang, he sees Pennywise driving the ambulance; later Eddie seeing the eyes of his mother in the lepers in Neibolt; in the hospital he, again, sees Pennywise dancing in the waiting room and kissing his mother on the cheek. There is a constant with this new power of the supernatural tangled in amongst the mundane and contrary to the rest of the book, does not come across near as villainous as it does outside of this chapter. There is a sense that is is more akin to Oh, There’s That Clown Again. Oddly enough, the horror that is terrorising Derry’s youth seems to be a sort of breath of relief after spending time at the pharmacy being faced with the truth that your life is a lie and laying in agony on the ground with a mouth full of gravel. It’s almost this thing of escapism where readers are tricked into being glad to be back in the trauma of such a horror.

Pennywise is without a doubt a villain, through and through, but the supernatural force behind It isn’t. It is powered by whoever harnesses it and how they go about using it, as it goes with Stephen King supernatural: no inherent good or bad, only what is done. Its influence on Henry Bowers is entirely different to what happens when something akin to a moment of the shine happens with Eddie: a moment of clairvoyance where Eddie dreams It acting through his mother and sending the rest of the losers away when they come to visit him, telling them Eddie doesn’t want to see them anymore. He wakes up and finds it to be true. Despite his mother being the pinnacle of adult authority in his life, controlling him his whole life and holding him close through his various ‘illnesses’ and perceived innate weakness, the revelation Eddie had at the beginning of Eddie’s Bad Break that continued to inform his reception to every other event, he calls it the final straw. As the Bowers gang forwent the influence of adult authority when Mr Gedreau tried to make them scatter and leave Eddie be, Eddie uses this force greater than himself to disobey Sonia in a way he never had before for the greater good (i.e. to fight It with his friends later on).

...

In the grips of this unnamed thing, with this force behind him to drive him to fulfil his and the loser’s path to fight, Eddie becomes unrecognisable… frightening, really (at least to Sonia) and eerily calm the whole way through his own manipulation in agreeing to take his aspirator despite knowing the truth to appease his mother’s control on the terms that he can continue to see his friends as it is a vital necessity.

CONCLUSION

Pennywise awakening and starting the cycle again and coming after the losers is not even close to the start of Eddie’s horror. He has been subjected to evil his entire life and this chapter dedicates itself to that fact. Starting with Mr Keene interfering (even if it is in Eddie’s assumed best interest) and keeping him hostage, forcibly giving him this information by the power that being an adult and children having to obey your orders because of what that status affords him, he is cruel with the power and Eddie thinks it himself; the Bowers gang attacking Eddie and breaking his arm in broad daylight and no one helping him; Sonia’s manipulation and refusal to allow him to see his friends again, more intent on keeping them away from Eddie than pressing charges against Henry Bowers, the one who put him in hospital. These are the things in his life that he sees and receives some variation of every day and they are more terrifying than the vision he has of the killer clown driving away in an ambulance in the same chapter. The cruelty and abuse of power adults have, his relentless and abusive mother, the violent bully… they are so much more terrifying than the supernatural force that wants him dead because this is his every day and has been since he was born just because he was unlucky enough to be born as himself.

The overarching theme of adult power and the oft abuse of it in this chapter and throughout Eddie’s (as well as most other children in the book) life as a whole is challenged and is written so well for it in Eddie’s Bad Break. The untraditional external power of the supernatural tied hand in hand with the awareness and information is what brings power to inform and change the way life is experienced, especially when it is experienced as cruelly as it is to Eddie. He comes out changed, bettered, more aware and ready to take on what he has to. Eddie Kaspbrak takes the horror and melds it into what he needs to defeat it.

[ecotone99]

[SF] ‘The greatest secret in the world’

As you might imagine, everything changed when the aliens came. They shut down all the corrupt governments and ended the eternal cycle of sectarian violence plaguing mankind. They solved world hunger and eliminated diseases in just a few weeks. Then these mysterious visitors from outer space taught humanity how to harness an endless source of untapped power. That eased a myriad of problems facing humanity by extending our natural resources. Despite these amazing actions, there were still plenty of people who didn’t trust them. That might be a natural instinct but it was hard to argue with monumental acts of kindness.

Several underground resistance organizations tried to undermine or topple our new global authority but one-by-one, they failed. The aliens were infinitely more astute than us. They saw the sedition plots coming and put a stop to them. It was the first time in history our world knew universal peace but some stubborn individuals had a difficult time adjusting to it. The idea of ‘occupied benevolence’ left a bad taste in their mouth, even if it elevated our entire society immensely as a whole.

The aliens were somewhat aloof. That was theorized to be from the significant evolutionary distance between our species. Some didn’t care about it. After all, they offered us a wealth of positive experiences; with no expectation of reward or reciprocation. Despite the universal windfalls we received, there were still some highly vocal skeptics who suspected dark, unmentionable motivations behind their altruistic actions. It stemmed from a universal fear of the unknown.

With every major problem in the world eliminated, many would’ve assumed they were finished helping us. Instead, they doubled down and offered an unbelievable opportunity to experience fond memories again with pets we’d lost. A few years earlier the idea would’ve seemed utterly impossible but they had challenged the realm of possibility too many times. They offered to allow each of us the privilege so we could relive the love and affection we’d felt for them, one more time. What better way to convince the lone holdouts that they had nothing but the best of intentions?

With this amazing opportunity, came a very predictable outcome. Humans are greedy. Many asked if the same process could extend to dead humans. It seemed perfectly reasonable. We are all biological creatures, right? If they have the ability to resurrect a lost pet from yesteryear, why couldn’t they also raise our dead relatives and loved ones? Despite that rational logic, the forthcoming answer was a swift, firm, and unconditional ‘no’. Our extraterrestrial benefactors quickly denied the request. They even went so far as to forbid us from asking follow up questions about it. Human resurrection was ‘off the table’.

There was no explanation offered but the severe reaction was more unsettling than the disappointment of the denial itself. It was in stark contrast to their overwhelming willingness to help us previously. Their emotional response raised more than a few eyebrows. Those puzzled by their extreme reaction eventually came to the dismissive conclusion that ‘they operate in mysterious ways’.

It wasn’t smart to bite the hand that feeds.

Naturally, millions of people eagerly took advantage of the unusual offer. There was a limit of one animal resurrection per person. Another stipulation was that the pet had to be deceased for at least 5 years before the process could take place. Their ‘official’ explanation was that since we only receive one ‘renewal’, a mandatory waiting period insured that we would be satisfied with our choice.

Those who received this ‘second life’ gift from our extraterrestrial hosts were ecstatic. They verified the aliens had definitely brought back their beloved pet. There was no question since the resurrected animals bore the same loyalty and loving personality traits as before. Of course in time the ones brought back would live out a full lifespan and then die again. This time, it was permanent. There was no recourse. The idea was to give humanity one more chance to bond and spend time with their beloved ‘buddy’ before saying a final goodbye. Even they couldn’t offer eternal life.

Private discussions among the curious fixated on possible reasons for the alien’s baffling reaction to the request to resurrect the dead. Was it a logistical or resources issue with having too many humans alive if they brought back everyone’s loved ones? Was it a technical matter of it not being possible? Was the idea distasteful or unethical to them to reanimate dead humans? None of those possibilities seemed like it would be an issue for such an advanced race.

They had expanded food production nearly twenty-fold. They had easily reanimated hundreds of millions of lower mammals and pet reptiles for our enjoyment. From a creative standpoint, human beings were not much more biologically advanced or complex than cats and dogs. Lastly, it didn’t seem like their blanket refusal was related to ‘taste’ or ‘ethics’ since they didn’t appear to view life through the same social lens we do. It was something else, totally unknown and even those who never question the motives of our benevolent rulers, were starting to feel uneasy.

Just as they had intercepted many misguided plots to resist their rule, the aliens also became aware of humanity’s growing discomfort over the big ‘no’. It was the focal point and rallying cry of the resistance. In a mystery I never expected to learn the justification for, I was summoned to their headquarters to act as an ‘ambassador and go-between’. Like everyone else, I had found the solitary refusal to be very curious, but I had never dwelled upon it, and I had never conspired against them. Perhaps they knew that.

“We understand that there is a growing wave of discussion about our decree to forbid requests about bringing back deceased human beings. We have studied your inner thought patterns and recognize that you trust our benevolence. We wish for you to exhort to your species that our reason for this refusal is in the best interests of humanity to accept without further question or suspicion. We understand that human beings are naturally curious creatures and that the only thing we will not grant you, becomes the most tantalizing. Despite this ‘Pandora’s box’, we need you to convince your peers to accept it.”

I was stunned, honored, frightened, and even more perplexed. It was ‘good’ to be regarded highly by the de-facto rulers of the planet, but they were also asking me to accept things on blind faith. I was just as curious as everyone else. I just accepted that if they didn’t want us to know their reasons, we would probably never know.

“May I ask a few questions to better prepare for the daunting task you have assigned me?”

The alien who addressed me earlier nodded in affirmative.

“I realize you haven’t shared your justification for this decision, for complex reasons that you obviously do not wish to share. That being said, if I could have some greater level of clarity, I would be able to understand why my blind acceptance is necessary. From that, I can form a plan to help others accept it too.” I waited for some form of encouragement but received none.

“Are you protecting our society from a deeper truth that you feel many of us could not handle?”

The alien speaker nodded slowly. It was a start. I worried that I might not be able to handle the details they revealed to me either. Through dense apprehension, I soldiered on. My next question cut deeper into the real meat of the matter.

“Is resurrection of human beings even possible as they have been for our pets?”

Their representative shook his head. The implications were devastating. It implied that not only could they not bring the dead back, but those people who had died (and everything they had ever been), was completely lost, forever. It really was a terrible thing to learn from a species far in advance of our own. I inhaled deeply and pondered my next question. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know any more. Confirmation of eternal nothingness was far worse than not knowing for certain.

The alien seemed to be analyzing my thoughts. They possessed a certain level of clairvoyance but no one knew how much. It was difficult to read his expressionless face but I sensed an almost human level of empathy and compassion. Before I could summon the courage to ask another question, he addressed me.

“The reason we must avoid this request is because humans who have died aren’t ‘dead’ in the same sense your pets are. They transition into another life-form which most of you wouldn’t recognize or accept. We... are your dead. After passing on, our spirits are drawn to another realm. This is the eternal form we take. In my past life, I was your uncle. Humanity has such a strong perceived notion about the afterlife that we felt you were not ready for the undiluted truth. In ancient times we were promised to inherit the Earth. We came back to fulfill that destiny and transform mankind to the next level. To be successful, it must be undertaken with a steady hand.”

“Uncle Raymond?”; I choked out the bittersweet words in disbelief. My mind was filled with emotion. Tears welled up in my eyes and I fought back the awkward urge to fling my arms around my favorite ‘alien’ relative. Everything was going to be alright. I vowed to work diligently with ‘them’ to help ease humanity through the difficult transition into our next phase. In time, they could accept the whole truth. Until then, I had to keep the greatest secret in the whole world.

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Thinking about aliens could help us beat climate change

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Thinking about aliens could help us beat climate change

Astrophysicist Adam Frank sees climate change through a cosmic lens. He believes our present civilization isn’t the first to burn up its resources — and won’t be the last. Moreover, he thinks it’s possible the same burnout fate already might have befallen alien worlds. That’s why he says the current conversation about climate change is all wrong. “We shouldn’t be talking about saving the planet, because the Earth will go on without us,” he said. “We should be talking about saving ourselves.”

A professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, Frank says viewing climate change in the context of astrobiology — the study of life in a planetary framework — raises important new questions that could better define our destiny in a warming world. All civilizations increasingly deplete their assets as their populations grow, altering environmental conditions along the way. Climate change shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, he says — it’s the inevitable result of a civilization reveling in its own success.

“This is a big universe, and I don’t know how long civilizations last,” Frank said. “We’re just one of them. Some of them almost certainly burned themselves out. Life has driven profound changes in climate a number of times in Earth’s history, and we’re the one that’s happening now. We should have expected climate change knowing what we know about how climate change works. Any civilization will drive their planet into an Anthropocene,” he said, referring to an age when human activities have a profound influence on climate and the Earth’s ecosystems. “Knowing this changes entirely how we should frame climate change, and how we talk about it.”

First, the denial and finger-pointing must end, he said. “We have to stop the blaming and the human-hating, because the Earth will just move on, with or without us,” he said. “We didn’t trigger climate change on purpose. It was an accident. Any technological civilization that evolves on any planet cannot help but trigger climate change. Climate change is not our fault. Not doing something about it — that will be our fault.”

If we accept that life on Earth as we now know it is an experiment of the biosphere, then allowing climate change to destroy us will only enable another experiment to take its place, he said. When all the dinosaurs died more than 65 million years ago, for example, other species evolved and moved in — including us. That’s how the biosphere works.

“After the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, your ancestor mammals survived,” Frank said. “Earth just filled all the niches. We’re here because of it. The biosphere has run a lot of experiments, and we’re just the latest. Humanity is what the biosphere is doing right now. If we don’t make it, we become the agent for the next round of the biosphere’s experiments. What we have to figure out is how to still be what the biosphere is doing thousands of years from now.”

Frank and his collaborators — including Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback, a senior computational scientist at Rochester, Marina Alberti of the University of Washington, and Axel Kleidon of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry — developed a series of mathematical models to illustrate civilization’s potential responses to the dangers of climate change, and what could happen.

They designed their models based in part on case studies of extinct civilizations, including the story of the inhabitants of Easter Island, a Chilean island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. People began to colonize the island between 400 and 700 AD, and the population grew to 10,000 sometime between 1200 and 1500 AD. By the 18th century, however, after residents used up their resources, the population plummeted to about 2,000 people.

“This is an island in the middle of nowhere,” Frank said. “They overused their resources. Once they did that, they couldn’t go anywhere. If you’ve cut down all your trees, you can’t build canoes and leave.”

Their work appears in the journal Astrobiology. Also, Frank has authored a new book — Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth — which draws upon this study and explores the dimensions of climate change in a vast universe.

In their study, the authors lay out four possible scenarios:

Die-off. This is when the population and the state of the planet — its average temperature, for example — increase rapidly. Eventually, the population peaks, then drops quickly as temperatures make it more difficult to survive. The planet reaches a steady population level, but it represents only a fraction of the peak. “Imagine if seven out of ten people you knew died quickly,” Frank said.

Sustainability. Here, the population and the temperature rise, but both eventually reach steady levels without catastrophic consequences. Once people realize the bad effects of using high-impact resources, such as coal and oil, and switch to low-impact resources, such as solar energy and other renewables, everything stabilizes and life goes on with no further harm.

Collapse without resource change. This occurs when people don’t act. The population and temperature both rise rapidly until the population reaches a peak. Then the population drops precipitously. Civilization collapses, although it is unclear whether the species dies out completely.

Collapse with resource change. The population and temperature increase. People recognize the potential catastrophe and make the switch — but it’s too late. Civilization collapses anyway.

“The last scenario is the most frightening, although we can be an example of any of them,” Frank said. “As to what is the most likely for us — at this point, I have no idea.”

It’s important to be mindful of the broader perspective, he says, that past civilizations outside our realm, but similar to ours, might have endured for several centuries before succumbing to the climate change they created. “Most planets have climates, most planets have atmospheres,” he said. “Knowing what we know, we should expect climate change. Any civilization will drive their planet into an anthropocene.”

Thus, “if we are not the universe’s first civilization, that means there are likely to be rules for how the fate of a young civilization like our own progresses,” he added. “Any young population, building an energy-intensive civilization like ours, is going to have feedback on its planet. Seeing climate change in this cosmic context may give us better insights into what’s happening to us now — and how to deal with it.”

Marlene Cimons writes for Nexus Media, a syndicated newswire covering climate, energy, policy, art and culture.

Written By Marlene Cimons