r/AfterTheRevolution • u/xSPYXEx Big Jim's Hangin Hog • Jul 07 '21
Chapter 16 (Manny)
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u/Allisontrans Don't Have To Explain Shit Pipe Jul 07 '21 edited Jul 07 '21
"It's not a talent," Manny said, "it's a survival skill. Grow up in Texas, and you either learn fake what you need to fake, or you learn to fight."
That line hit harder than I thought it would, being trans and neurodivergent from the same area.
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u/TiaJay Jul 07 '21
I am also trans and neurodivergent (ADHD), not from that area but I do live/work in a rural area. This line also stuck out to me.
But I've been out 100@% for a few months now and it's gone a lot better than I would have expected. To be fair, it has NOT been easy. But it's far better than I thought. I sincerely hope you are able to live as yourself, if you aren't already. Much love sib! ♥️♥️
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u/Allisontrans Don't Have To Explain Shit Pipe Jul 07 '21
I've been out for about a year, and have since moved away from there. It does get easier when you're not hiding who you are.
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u/thisguynamedjoe Roland Jul 07 '21
I escaped a cult church in California by moving to... Texas, where I wound up being stationed for around 8 years. I volunteered for two deployments from Texas to get away from it. Afghanistan was a nice escape, but Iraq wasn't. All of the religious mind control techniques are well and accurately represented.
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u/Side-Complex Jul 09 '21
Growing up Cuban in Miami lol. I was a republican and a member of the NRA at 17. Oh how things have changed.
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u/Roedom Jul 07 '21 edited Jul 07 '21
The not so subtle racism of the HK is so well written.
The fact that their drill seargent expected them to be in the "Storming Batallion" so they'd be the first wave and more likely to die....the fact that the lone black man in their platoon was isolated by the rest of the martyrs.
Even the fact that the black man (Jonathan?) Bought into all the bullshit and recognized the racism but still thought that he just had to try harder.....
Its all so well done. Bravo Robert.
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u/Wldyoukindly Jul 07 '21 edited Jul 07 '21
Ngl dude I felt bad for Jonathan & Manny but worse for Jonathan because he actually believes. If the higher ups in the HK consider his fellow white battalion members as little more than cannon fodder, imagine what they must view him as. As someone who was often the only non-white person in the room growing up in the south it’s a strange feeling. You try your hardest to find acceptance even though it inevitably leads to self hatred and an even greater sense of misplacement. Glad I decided to stop pandering to peoples expectations of me later in HS and especially in college! Fantastic writing Robert really amazing about how you have that ability to resonate with so many different peoples experiences!
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u/Roedom Jul 07 '21
Yea, there was definitely something very tragic in Jonathan telling Manny that they just have to try harder and their reward will come.
Like....dude they will never accept you no matter what you do....at best you'll be treated as "one of the good ones" but the underlying racism will never go away.
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u/VideoPuzzleheaded720 Jul 26 '21
I’m a bit late to the party here but felt like “operation human shield” from the South Park movie in the 90’s
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u/SpudDiechmann Jul 07 '21 edited Jul 07 '21
This chapter really helped my run this morning. Manny bumping into Sasha happened at exactly the right time, in a near perfect way. I just began to anticipate it/realise it was about to happen when it did.
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u/ShatterZero Jul 07 '21
I like how it doesn't feel like a bullshit coincidence because there's literally one restaurant in town and we've been set up about that for like 8 chapters.
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u/SpudDiechmann Jul 07 '21
Exactly. It also feels like you could have started from that point and opened up the back story. It is a coincidence, it's meant to be one, but it's not contrived and is totally natural and believable.
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u/EmpireandCo Jul 07 '21
I enjoyed the reference to storming battalions. Thats how a number of Latin American countries (looking at you Argentina and Chile) reduced their black populations yet won wars of independence.
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u/CaptainNapoleon Jul 07 '21
Where can I learn more about this? Couldn’t find anything on google or Wikipedia.
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u/EmpireandCo Jul 07 '21
Actually here is an article by Henry Louis Gates that details afro argentians better: https://www.theroot.com/true-or-false-there-are-no-black-people-in-argentina-1790876367
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u/southoutwest Jul 07 '21
There's that good Ol fashion Christian bigotry. The one thing I felt the HK was missing. Growing up black in the deep south I've experienced alot of it.
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u/Allisontrans Don't Have To Explain Shit Pipe Jul 07 '21
"There's no hate like god's love" I think is how the saying goes.
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u/maledin Jul 07 '21
I have a (maybe) dumb question, but isn’t Roland black? Are his feats of strength / skill enough for the rest of the martyrs to look past that?
EDIT: Duh, he changed his appearance for this mission… forgot about that for a sec.
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u/southoutwest Jul 08 '21
Lol Roland's in Whiteface. My headcanon is that it's really bad and he looks like the Wayans Brother's in White Chicks.
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u/theVillageGamer Jul 07 '21
Really like that the main characters are starting to meet up!
It's so unnerving to hear the trainers of the conscripts tell them that war crimes against civilians are A OK with the religious justification.
Did Roland kill Oscar and the other prisoner as a mercy? or did he just hit them hard enough to knock them out? That wasn't clear to me.
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u/ZarquonSingingFish Jul 07 '21
It was a mercy killing for sure. He knew there would be no way of getting them out, and he's nothing if not pragmatic.
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u/Lostman138 Jul 07 '21
I was hoping they were just knocked out. However, knowing Roland...
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u/shuzumi Jul 08 '21
no way the beatings would have stopped Roland did what he could gave them a quick death
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u/ZarquonSingingFish Jul 08 '21
The beatings were presented as some normal thing- either the prisoners would be beaten again and again until their execution, or they were meant to eventually be beaten to death that night. The one guy who jumps out of his seat so quickly to be the first to start the beating seemed new to it (his first hit wasn't super emphatic) but he clearly knew what was happening and what was expected.
I expect Roland realized that this is a ritual among the trainees, and knows that the HK teaches their people that anyone not part of HK is sub-human and deserving of pain and death. He knows that there's no chance for Oscar to make it out alive, and makes the decision to at least save him some of his suffering by hastening the end.
Manny, a relative sweet summer child to Roland's grizzled veteran, doesn't see all this, and is too shook to process a lot of it. He's aware enough to know that he can't blow his cover, though, and holds it together. There was a line about him managing to hold it together until he could get out of there. He's having to shove all his feelings down into a deep pit to make it through this situation, and I expect he's going to have a magnificent breakdown later. Probably when he has to tell Oscar's wife what happened.
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u/xSPYXEx Big Jim's Hangin Hog Jul 07 '21
It was definitely a mercy killing. I can't imagine what they would have done to the prisoners after the ritual beatings.
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u/_jericho Jul 08 '21
I don't think so. That'd mean that whole scene where Manny makes a promise to Aisha was written in for no reason, as was the line about the other prisoner being "familiar".
That just doesn't scan to me
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u/ZarquonSingingFish Jul 08 '21
It sets up a scene where Manny has to tell her what happened, and face that he couldn't keep his promise. It's bad enough to see a friend beaten and then killed, but made much worse when you feel guilt over not being able to do anything to stop it.
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Jul 07 '21
[deleted]
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u/poorest_ferengi Jul 07 '21
He can't react or he will die the same way, people have a way of compartmentalizing during traumatic events, I'm sure as soon as the adrenaline, fear, cortisol, and relative danger pass Manny will crash hard emotionally.
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u/chromane Jul 07 '21
I saw his immediate willingness to help Sasha as a short of salve for his pain over Oscar.
Manny's a decent sort, but he was looking to try and do some good after what he witnessed, and so jumped on t first opportunity that presented itself
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u/berry-bostwick Jul 07 '21
He will probably lash out at Roland. It won't be rational, but grief doesn't exactly lead to rationality.
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u/ShatterZero Jul 07 '21
The Oscar line and the Peron line are parallel, I think.
One surviving and one dying would make more sense as a book, imo.
Does Peron who challenges Manny survive, or does Oscar who Manny's promised to help as much as he could survive? For which one will Manny be unable to hold back?
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u/_jericho Jul 07 '21
I felt similar.
I think what's going on is that the text suggests they're dead {or that Manny THINKS they're dead} but the framing and subtext scream that they're alive. Frankly, it's just not super clearly written. It wasn't given enough narrative weight or enough time to land to be the death of these guys. It seems than Manny thinks they're dead, but he's not reacting in character enough for that to be true. He doesn't dwell, or agonize, or harp on his promise to Aisha. So I think it's an issue if the author knows he's not dead, so the character under-reacts. Hard to say.
Someone else pointed out that they tease the identity of the other man {probably DeShawn Clark} but it isn't revealed. From a writing standpoint it doesn't make any sense to tease something like that then immediately kill him without any paying it off. That more than anything convinced me they're alive.
Plus, Major Clark is too good a character for us to not see more of him.
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u/berry-bostwick Jul 07 '21
Can someone remind me whi Major Clark is?
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u/_jericho Jul 08 '21
Major Clark is the Warrior Poet from chapter 1 who they meet again, badly injured, in the base in chapter 4.
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u/jalapenopancake Jul 08 '21
I assumed that they were both dead and I assumed it was an act of mercy. Though, that would go against Roland's vow against killing people?
NGL wasn't expecting that to happen and low level regret listening to this chapter before work, that scene was brutal. Having a glimpse of hope for helping Oscar then...it's gone. It would have been cheesy and unrealistic for them to have saved Oscar but my brain did not want to accept that a brutal death was the outcome.
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u/runtodegobah70 Fondola Enthusiast Jul 09 '21
On the soldiers at the first checkpoint, Roland chose to break jaws, rip out tongues, bite off ears, and tear off limbs instead of killing them. And they were enemy soldiers about to blow their cover. Why would he choose to keep those people alive and kill Manny's friend?
I think Roland could smell any mods in both of the men and calculated the exact force needed to knock them out cold without killing them or causing irreversible brain damage. The crazy HK guy who brought them out would probably have stopped the beatings once they were knocked unconscious, there's no point in beating people if they can't feel it, unless your goal is to kill them. And they have a gallows for that.
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Jul 09 '21
[deleted]
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u/runtodegobah70 Fondola Enthusiast Jul 09 '21
I could write a whole dissection of the chapter where Sasha smuggles
herself out of AmFed that show very pointed authorial choices that work
well for ratcheting up acute and dramatic tension.I wish you would. I can definitely feel it, but I don't know what it is I'm feeling. I'd actually like to know more about those types of storytelling mechanics. I get that way with music, where I start analyzing the songwriter's choices to throw in a IV-major instead of the native minor, a V7th placed at a certain point in a progression, etc. I don't know any of that shit with fiction writing but I'd love to learn, especially if it was with a great story like this one.
I'll be honest, I find some of the dialogue to be a bit clunky and unrealistic. I definitely don't think I could do any better, though, and most of the dialogue is great, just sometimes it throws me off how awkwardly the characters phrase things. I think it's just Robert's first fiction novel and he's just gonna get better at it. The story itself is, obviously, incredibly engaging. Just like everyone else here, I'm listening to it as soon as I can when it's released and re-listening multiple times over the course of the day/week.
And yes, the fact that we're debating whether a character is dead based on the narrative perspective for that particular chapter is absolutely a testament to that writing skill.
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u/Albinoredguard Jul 07 '21
I'm super excited to see how this big clusterfuck all unravels. I need more of our Cocaine Terminator going apeshit in my life.
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u/UnfortunateSword Don't Have To Explain Shit Pipe Jul 07 '21
This chapter made me sick in the best possible way. The unspoken but everpresent racism, the steeping of violence in religious language, the othering, this shit all feels like a heavily armed evangelical summer camp and it’s TERRIFYING. Well done, Mr. Evans.
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u/ShatterZero Jul 07 '21
Do we think Torture Hype Man is Pastor Mike?
His Hitler style crowd frenzying seemed too polished for a mook.
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u/xSPYXEx Big Jim's Hangin Hog Jul 07 '21
There's no way Pastor Mike is anywhere close to the front lines. He's probably sitting pretty back at whatever city they call home base.
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u/ShatterZero Jul 07 '21
I honestly can't tell which would be worse: Pastor Mike being a true believer or Pastor Mike just being a grifter.
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u/MATlad Jul 08 '21
Perhaps Pastor Mike is sitting pretty in Langley, Virginia, just a stone's throw away from VMI, the pre-eminent military academy of the UCS?
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u/jpw111 Manny Jul 07 '21
The voice Robert used for torture hype man is different than his Pastor Mike voice.
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u/felixpeppo Don't Have To Explain Shit Pipe Jul 07 '21
ugh, i feel so much for manny
god damn what a rough chapter
but finally glad to see the heavenly kingdom for what it is. an extremely reactionary, sexist, racist state that tucker carlson would have wet dreams about
fuck them and i hope sash gtfo
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u/berry-bostwick Jul 07 '21
Tucker Carlson doesn't believe a word he says, so he would probably hate it there. It seems like more of a Ben Shapiro wet dream, if only it weren't most certainly stinking of antisemitism, too lol.
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u/charmingcactus California Republic Jul 07 '21
He thinks he'll be OK as "one of the good ones." People in Shap's family have shunned him. I'm surprised he stayed in LA as long as he did.
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u/HubbleWho Jul 07 '21
At the end of the chapter, Manny sees Mr. Perón. I can't remember who that is. Where have seen him?
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u/DrQuestDFA Jul 07 '21
He was the father of one of Manny's friends growing up and seemed to be a very positive father figure at that. He was with the militias and was able to get Manny and Reggie on some transport early on when the HK offensive kicked off.
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u/thisguynamedjoe Roland Jul 07 '21
Since Manny had his deck ripped out, I would have liked at least a cursory explanation of how Roland's is totally different so not detectible using the backwater tech the Heavenly Kingdom hillbillies use. I mean, I can assume pretty easily, and so far the only tiny hole I can identify in the story so far.
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u/Dingis_Dang Jul 07 '21
I can't remember if this was stated in story or if I just assumed but with all the high grade military tech Roland has I'm sure he has screens or devices to block detection. I can't imagine that the military would not install that. Especially because post-humans are viewed with such disdain.
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u/thisguynamedjoe Roland Jul 08 '21
It very well could be that all of the pointers that none of Roland's wetware is normal, we're supposed to draw the conclusion. While listening on my way to work this morning however, I noted it with confusion because I'm used to Roberts writing being fucking outstandingly excellent. I could also have been reaching for a 'aha' moment.
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u/thisguynamedjoe Roland Jul 08 '21
I mean, if he has more than one heart, and neither is in the normal location speaks to a level of obfuscation that would want to put his deck somewhere very different, or maybe his deck isn't a specific spot, but connected by all the nanobots, like an aggregate of cloud computing instead of a central processor.
edit: I, like fucking shapiro, have a tendency to run on like mad.
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u/poorest_ferengi Jul 07 '21
Roland got rid of his years ago
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u/thisguynamedjoe Roland Jul 08 '21
The storyline talks about him disconnecting it, not getting rid of it.
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u/damom73 Jul 08 '21
Right. So if they rely on the connection to detect the deck's existence, then they wouldn't have picked anything up.
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u/aStonedTargaryen Human Salsa Jul 07 '21
I’m seriously on the edge of my seat with every chapter, can’t wait for Friday!
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u/Few_Translator_8174 Jul 08 '21
I get the plot has brought everyone into the Kingdom. The setting in the HK is so on the mark it's sickening and makes me kinda angry - i want to leave as much as the characters. I miss focus on the post humans and rolling fuck. Wish there was a counter narrative there, maybe from Topaz.
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u/jpw111 Manny Jul 07 '21
Manny's list of people to save just keeps growing.
The 4 Post-humans
Oscar (assuming he survived)
Mr. Perron
Assumedly some of the other SDF prisoners like Hamid and Clark
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u/pcounts5 Jul 07 '21
Great chapter, hurts to listen too in all the right ways and will listen to it a few more times but miss all the drug fueled fun from earlier…ugh
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u/Fair-Feed-4964 Jul 08 '21
I really like the three protagonist story format William gibbon used in his sprawl trilogy being an enthusiast for cyber-punk stories I very much love this it really gives it a nice pace
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u/MazzW Jul 08 '21
I worry that Mr. Peron is going to recognise Manny, and - reasonably thinking he's betrayed him - call him out, leading to him getting far too much attention.
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u/YoDarthMeow Fondola Enthusiast Jul 07 '21
“Yay God!”