tiger_spot | Thoughts on Farthing

1. At a certain point, I looked at where the characters were, looked at how many pages were left in the book, and thought Crap. There's not enough room left for a happy ending.

And there wasn't.

2. One of the things that stood out to me was how useful it is for a fascist state to outlaw things that aren't wrong. If everyone has broken a law, then everyone fears the power of the state and can be controlled by the threat of arrest. This works even if you don't have innocent things outlawed, of course, but it's so very much easier and tidier-looking if you do.

Furthermore, the effects are improved if nobody ever talks about the innocent outlawed things, so that people can fool themselves into thinking nobody else does it, and they are uniquely vulnerable; or, alternatively, that since they don't do it and nobody they know does it (that they know of), anyone who does really is a loathsome criminal and ought to be locked up.

This left me with a really strong impulse to come out as publicly as possible about everything I've ever done that isn't wrong but is disapproved of or frowned upon, all the way down to reading smutty fanfiction[1]. I squelched the urge, because I'm fairly sure it isn't actually a good idea[2], but boy is it tempting.

[1] Not about the Farthing characters.
[2] This is an understatement.

Thoughts on Farthing

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