Formally inoffensive, but substantially emblematic of all of the series’ worst features, thoroughly paedophilic (and misogynistic) but above all elitist and classist, drenched in great-man theory and staunch hatred of revolution
Seems to build an analogue of capitalist society but with money substituted with physical power; but the thing is, capital has poisonous properties designed to coerce, to shut down its opponents etc, and it is around these that structures arise, layered hierarchies and covert empires of oppression. Physical power has none of this nuance, and so when the top 1% of power outweighs that of the bottom 99% there is no reason there should be these ideas of nobility, royalty, rank; on an individual level the story seems to place wiles and courage as a Vollachian quality of strength, but the disparity in intelligence between our world and there’s is nil, and cannot therefore scale with the disparity in physical power. What’s worse is this faulty understanding is specifically used to justify anti-revolutionary sentiment as if it is applicable to our system. Priscilla and Vincent simply ‘see the world differently’ because they’re part of the elite class, and somehow that makes them great strategists and born leaders, but they are circularly only that way because the other designed them so, their climate designed to push their lofty Ubermensch ideology. And somehow this fits snugly with the abject paedophilia of the book, a 50 year old falling in love with a 12 year old (oh, if anything there’s a *boldness* gap between her and the old man yes yes ok), a different 12 year old who *needs* to be naked for plot reasons and also gets described as erotic for being “undeveloped”; just nasty, nasty stuff. All in all it belies a grossly fascist view of the world, disgusting through and through