Stuff I Read – Pluto Vol 6 Review
Well, volume six has arrived and by the end I am left wondering what the heck is going to happen next. A lot of rather strange and huge things have happened in this volume, and I get the sense that in many ways this is a harder ending than any of the previous six volumes have been. And, not having read the story that this is based on, it completely blindsided me by the ending. I suppose my questions about what they’re going to do after this are more justified after this volume, because really there doesn’t seem to be much left. Another of the robots is destroyed, and the series throws the curve by having that robot be Gesicht himself. It was quite jarring for me, because I had grown so fond of the character, but I suppose it makes sense given the fact that his arc was pretty much wrapped up following the last volume. In this volume he is more fully realized, free at last from the ignorance forced on him by the government that created him. And he is at his most human, choosing compassion over hatred and in the end falling victim to the misdirected rage of one human.
When I say that this is a harder ending than in any of the previous volumes, I do mean that. The story at this point has tied up most of the plotlines that have been moving throughout the story from the beginning. All of the most powerful robots on the planet have been destroyed except for Epsilon at this point, and it seems as though because he stayed out of the war that Epsilon isn’t a target. Of course, that might change going forward, but for now it seems like that has been wrapped up. Pluto has won, except that a few of the human targets are still alive, thanks in large part to the actions of Gesicht. And really, this volume seems to be about bringing a close to his story, because Gesicht has been the main character now for six volumes and deserves a proper send-off. And this final volume is largely successful at showing how far he has come from a robot in the sense that he did what he was told and didn’t feel to a man trying to do what was right and being loyal to his family, trying to escape the cycle of violence.
But I suppose the main thrust of this series is that you can’t really escape the cycle of violence, and no matter how hard you try there are crimes that will always come back to haunt you. For Gesicht he was involved in the war, and more than that learned hatred and murdered someone. And despite the fact that he has grown beyond that, has grown to be able to live with that knowledge, it doesn’t make him any less guilty, and so his retirement, his vacation, his life with his wife in peace cannot be allowed. He has to pay his own price. And for him that seems almost the only option. It did seem like he was aware of what was going to happen and was merely getting his house in order, telling people were he stood before his death. It was no mistake that his last actions were telling his wife that she was more important than his work and saving the life of the man he looks at as a father.
And the mystery involving Pluto is largely solved in this volume, revealing the man behind the attacks and showing a bit of what Pluto was before he was used as a weapon. Again it comes down to men using robots as weapons. The villain himself is a man who has become mostly robot, further reinforcing the idea that by using robots as tools to kill humans are losing a gripe of what makes them human, and robots, by witnessing what they are forced to do, are becoming more human. It is an interesting statement and one that is, time and again, brought up in this series. We are shown numerous times how these robots seem more human than the humans around them, more compassionate than the men trying only to punish others or protect themselves. There is a new sort of morality emerging, a robot morality, which is being created separate of and in reaction to human morality. It is an interesting idea, and further plays with that question of what it is that makes us human.
And at the end of the day this is probably the strongest volume to date in the seires, because of the strange tragedy of it, the sadness and yet completeness of Gesicht’s journey in this investigation. He ends redeemed, a good man and robot, and with his eyes open to the atrocities that both men and robots are capable of. More than that he shows his belief that robots are not beyond redemption, and tries to help Pluto, tries to save him from those who are using him for violence and hate. There is, in the end, more to life than hatred, and though Gesicht is himself capable of hating, he chooses to try for something better, proving himself a better person than most of the characters in the series. And for that, as well as everything else, this volume earns a 9.25/10.