The End of the World As We Know It - A1 Prologue

[tehta]

It might be a little too early for this (as we haven't covered Iceland yet), but I just realized that the comments contain filks for all the prologue sections: here! I decided to post the link before I forget.

Still nothing to say about the Swedes, their dog, or their most boring of the prologue cats. Ho-hum. Well, maybe a question: are any of these people supposed to have Emil's classical nose?

[Jitter]

In page 37 comments, Eich seems to have met Róisín on a flight! He writes: “I ended up with a very interesting neighbor. I was sitting next to nicest woman on the planet. She was old, and she had been everywhere, and done everything, at some point in her life. The whole trip was just us talking...

She certainly helped get my mind off of the whole "absolute terror" thing going on in the back of my head. “

[thorny]

Jitter, I had the exact same thought about that comment!

[Róisín]

Giggling hard here! I have not had the privilege of meeting Eich, though I would certainly like to. I understand he sings as well as being an interesting person?

[wavewright62]

Like many of you, I had difficulty warming up to the Prologue Swedes.  Ulrika I get, because she is stressed beyond endurance.  But Stig and his parents?  The emotional whiplash is real.  The blank newspaper is not realistic to me - from my publishing days, I remember having a whole stock of filler material on hand to fill out blank spots in pages, including ads we'd upsize or re-run for free.  The pages were printed in multiples of 4 for our layout, so it was regrettably necessary sometimes to run 3-3/4 pages of scattered filler, but such was life.
Mia and Bosse were cute, although I thought the days of letting kids sitting unrestrained in the back of a station wagon were gone in the 70s.
To answer tehta's question: Urlika has Emil's nose.  (Stig looks like Eino, to be honest.)  Mia has his hair.

[Jitter]

Page 42 comments linked to this song:

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Ylvis is Norwegian, but many Finns have cabins like this

Also first hint at magic in Lalli’s character portrait! And several questions whether it is indeed magic. I wonder what he’s doing? Cause it looks like he’s summoning something with tentacles!

[tehta]

Hey, Swiss chalets can be like that too! Except it's not 'park and walk for forty minutes', it's 'get off the cable car and climb 300 meters'.

And please don't force me to write about inappropriate uses of Finnish magic AGAIN.
But I wonder if that portrait doesn't imply that Minna thought Lalli would be doing more zappy combat magic? Or summons, as you say?

[Jitter]

Or, he could be doing protective magic, as his hands form a “roof” that closes the tentacles underneath, so maybe the tentacles appear out of their own volition and he’s defending against them?

[lwise]

The blank newspaper is not realistic to me - from my publishing days, I remember having a whole stock of filler material on hand to fill out blank spots in pages, including ads we'd upsize or re-run for free.  The pages were printed in multiples of 4 for our layout, so it was regrettably necessary sometimes to run 3-3/4 pages of scattered filler, but such was life.

I'm imagining the only people healthy enough to put together the paper are a couple of teens, just go-fers, who just stuck together what articles they found, leaving the rest blank because they don't know where to find the filler material.

[JoB]

Author's comment below page 36 (first page of the Sweden part of the prologue):

And time for the last piece of base-building in this vein, except I guess it'll be a little bit less happy-go-lucky feelings for this final streak of the prologue...

I wonder what "pieces" she was subdividing the prologue into, if Sweden and Iceland / V/S Þór count as one (the last) piece?

Page 37: Are fuel pistols really that long in Sweden ... ? And we learn that Minna totally is Tuuri when riding in a train.

Page 39: How short are those Västerströms!? I know a lot of people who cannot get the headrests up to the position they'd need them, but all four (almost) failing to go down far enough for the passengers ... !

Hey, Swiss chalets can be like that too! Except it's not 'park and walk for forty minutes', it's 'get off the cable car and climb 300 meters'.

Also, "there's a 'basement'".

Or, he could be doing protective magic, as his hands form a “roof” that closes the tentacles underneath, so maybe the tentacles appear out of their own volition and he’s defending against them?

Calamari ustionati alla noita.

[Jitter]

Iceland. Badness/sadness! Again impressive storytelling, she doesn’t really show much but enough to leave a very unpleasant feeling. Partially because I agree with the Icelandic on this.

There’s also a comment on how there could well be some non-white characters. Minna brushes it off, but at least she doesn’t get upset. Still, she didn’t take it to heart either. I fully understand how she wanted to have a main cast she enjoyed drawing, but the background characters have some nice diversity, and then no diversity at all.

[dmeck7755]

This is one of the saddest arcs.  It still saddens me that they blow that family out of the water. 

I know that the early days of the illness brought on hysteria and the Iceland prologue definitely shows that.  I'd be like Árni having nightmares forever.

[tehta]

Yeah. Sadness. I have reread this section, including the comments, and I am not sure I want to discuss it in much depth.

One thing I might say is that I don't understand how some commenters are confused as to why the ship was 'hunted' -- I think it's clear that the other Coastguard ships run patrols and spot 'problems', and Thor si the gunship that comes and solves these problems.

Another is that, because I am dealing with the aftermath of this in a story I am writing, I have spent some time thinking about various members of the crew might react to this part of history. So far, I have Reynir react much like his ancestor. But I think that someone like e.g. Lalli might accept is as necessary (both because he knows exactly what happens when infection sneaks into your home, and because he has been trained in the military from such a young age.) And I worry that this will make him unsympathetic to readers.

[Jitter]

Readig the comments seems weird now, because we know all, and really ALL people who weren’t both thoroughly cut off and extremely lucky, died in the Rash. Readers at the time didn’t. By month 3 the Icelanders would know exactly just how bad things were. It’s not just all of their loved ones wither, from their current point of view it’s the entire human race.

There were some good points in the comments too, such as perhaps the Icelandic coast guard is at this point supported by a few warships from other nations. Ships and submarines that were long at sea by the time the Rash event started would be somewhat safe so that Iceland may have approved them. And they have their supplies, so may actually still be hanging around Iceland by month 3 hopeping to be cleared eventually. Firepower would have been needed. This small boat is easy to sink but there likely had been many others before.

Also there’s some great poetry here!

[Jitter]

A couple more thimgs on the last Y0 pages. I love the Rash-whales and the transition at the bottom of p 55. And there are comments about how seeing “Braidy” with sheep would be mind-splittingly cute! And this  happened. And cuteness was everywhere! And also that Braidy will be bored of shepherding and want to escape farm life and will unwittingly bumble into the main team. Good guesses there