Patrick
asked
David Wong:
Thanks so much for answering! Okay, so maybe the events with Ted in particular are embellished, and maybe John saw the person behind the BATMANTIS??? gain control somehow instead? I feel so dumb trying to piece this together.
David Wong
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[You know how there are multiple scenes involving interventions, loved ones confronting someone about their addiction/illness/etc? Those are there for a reason. If you've ever been in that situation, trying to separate your loved one from the thing they become in their worst moments is the hardest part, especially if you perceive that they kind of like becoming that thing, that they're getting something out of it, no matter how destructive it is.
If you read it again and see the language they use when talking about the creature, how their strategy for dealing with it changes over time, it becomes clearer that this is the story of an intervention. The exact details of how it was resolved are less important than the fact that this is how they chose to handle it, right or wrong.
As for whether or not they truly killed the monster, well, the end of the main storyline conveys their feelings. Everything ends in a kind of uneasy truce and safeguards that may work and may not. But the conversation they had with Dave about his depression spells out the conflict, and the ultimatum she made. But they weren't JUST talking about depression there. (hide spoiler)]
If you read it again and see the language they use when talking about the creature, how their strategy for dealing with it changes over time, it becomes clearer that this is the story of an intervention. The exact details of how it was resolved are less important than the fact that this is how they chose to handle it, right or wrong.
As for whether or not they truly killed the monster, well, the end of the main storyline conveys their feelings. Everything ends in a kind of uneasy truce and safeguards that may work and may not. But the conversation they had with Dave about his depression spells out the conflict, and the ultimatum she made. But they weren't JUST talking about depression there. (hide spoiler)]
More Answered Questions
Chevy Rendell
asked
David Wong:
Your blog posts often caution against essentialism (for example, the idea that all of the people who voted for Trump are hate-mongers). In John Dies at the End (a deliciously ambiguous title) the reader's assumptions are untethered (how reliable, for instance, is the narrator?); resolution is subsumed by acceptance that things (people/events) defy essential categories. To what extent, if any, was this deliberate?
David Wong
5,715 followers
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