L.B.: That beats all

Left Behind, pp. 326-328

Buck Williams and Steve Plank have been watching the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11 on CNN. They don't wear sackcloth and they don't shoot fire out of their mouths, but two guys who tried to kill them tripped, fell over and died, then one of them claimed to be the Messiah before they both settled back into chanting that Jesus was the Messiah. CNN's Dan Bennett, bored already with the chanting, signs off, promising to record anything else that happens and to report on it after the fact.

Marge and a few others on the staff had drifted into Steve's office during the telecast. "If that doesn't beat all," one said. "What a couple of kooks."

If you ever met someone, in real life, who talked like the characters in Left Behind, it would become a story you told for the rest of your life. "No, for real," you would say to your friends, who had heard this story a dozen times, but still enjoyed it while half-doubting that it really could have happened. "It was six years ago, at the airport, and the guy actually said, 'If that doesn't beat all, what a couple of kooks,' just like that. And then he said something about 'coming on like gangbusters.' ..."

Buck decides to stick up for the kooks:

"... What a couple of kooks."

"Which two?" Buck said. "You can't say the preachers, whoever they are, didn't warn 'em."

Actually, you can say they didn't "warn 'em" because they didn't warn 'em. Instead, they started out with a lethal little object lesson -- kill the first two and the others will get the idea. It was only after killing those two that they informed the rest of the crowd that this is what would happen to anyone who tried to harm them. That's a rather vivid warning, but it came a little late for those first two dead guys.

The authors have gotten confused here. They have read Revelation 11:5, which says of the witnesses that "anyone who wants to harm them must die." That warning seems to be what they have in mind when they have Buck weirdly assert that the preachers "warned" their attackers that they would be devoured by flame and/or trip and die. But the authors seem to forget that Buck and Dan Bennett and, most importantly, the two trip-and-die guys, have not read Revelation 11:5 and thus were not privy to this warning. Here, again, was Bennett's play-by-play description of the video Buck has just seen:

"The one wielding the knife surges forward first, displaying his weapon to Moishe, who had been speaking. Eli, behind him, immediately falls to his knees, his face toward the sky. Moishe stops speaking and merely looks at the man, who appears to trip.

Moishe "merely looks at the man." Does that sound like a "warning" to you? No? Then what on earth is Buck talking about?

Here's my theory. Despite never having read the passage himself, Buck is suddenly aware that Rev. 11:5 says that anyone who tries to harm the witnesses will die. Buck realizes that the only way he could know this is because he, as a character, has been granted full access to the thoughts and knowledge of the omniscient narrators. If that's true for him, he has to assume it's also true for all the other characters in the book, including the trip-and-die guys. Therefore, Buck says, "You can't say the preachers ... didn't warn 'em." And then, turning to Steve, Buck added, "Remind Jerry that Tim's secretary needs all of his travel receipts by the end of the week." (Not really, obviously, but it wouldn't be any more absurd than what he just said.)

Or maybe the authors are just bad writers who forgot what the previous page said. But my theory does fit in well with LaHaye & Jenkins' theology. They think of themselves as characters in some grand divine novel, watching God's preordained plotline unfold before them. And like Buck in my theory, they believe that they have access to the secret thoughts of the author. (Still, bad writing is probably the likelier explanation here.)

"What's going on over there," someone else asked.

"All I know," Buck said, "is that things happen there that no one can explain."

Two weeks ago, Buck's co-workers would have been impressed by that comment. A year before, you'll recall, Buck had been "over there," in Israel, when the Ruso-Ethiopian Air Force launched a full-scale, doomsday nuclear assault, concentrating its entire arsenal on that tiny country. And no one was killed. No one was even hurt. And Buck was right in the middle of it, watching this According to Hoyle miracle unfold before his eyes. Buck had seen something happen "that no one can explain." Two weeks ago, that made him special.

But that was two weeks ago. He's not special anymore.

Last Monday, a third of the planet vanished faster than you can blink, without a trace, without an explanation. The entire world has seen something "that no one can explain." There are no more children anymore and no one knows how or why or what happened. Compared to The Event, even Buck's bona fide nuclear miracle seems a little less impressive. Compared to the confounding, incomprehensible, world-altering Event, a couple of guys tripping and dying scarcely registers on anyone's personal list of unexplainable happenings.

"If that doesn't beat all ..." No, you moron, it doesn't. Every child on the face of the earth simultaneously vanishing and no one knowing why beats all. With prejudice. All has been beaten, decisively, and all won't be coming back for Round 2.

The next thing Buck says is, "I've got to get to JFK." In the context, I at first took this to mean that he had decided to fly to Israel to check out these preachers for himself. (Buck likes to fly all over the world investigating stories. Someday weeks from now, if he finds time, he may even write something about one of them.) But what he meant was that he had to get to JFK to meet a flight attendant he spoke with once, briefly, for a few minutes, so that he can take her to meet the president of Romania in his hotel.

As he leaves for the airport, Buck doesn't give a second thought to any of the things that no one can explain. He's not thinking about the witnesses and the trip-and-die guys. He's not thinking about The Event, or about the international criminal conspiracy whose secrets he has promised not to reveal, or about his betrayal of his slain friend Dirk, or his likely complicity in the suspicious death of rival reporter Eric Miller, or about how he's well on his way to missing his second consecutive weekly deadline. He is thinking, instead, of the promotion he has just been offered:

Buck knew Steve was right. He was going to have to accept the promotion just to protect himself from other pretenders. He didn't want to be obsessed with it all day. Buck was glad for the diversion of seeing Hattie Durham. His only question now was whether he would recognize her. They had met under most traumatic circumstances.

Comments

[GailVortex]

Whee! LB Friday first thing in the morning. What a treat to go with my coffee and donut.

But, yowser--is this bad writing. I mean, World Class Bad Writing. My opinion of the sensibilities of my fundy relatives who are fans of the series is steadily plummeting. My dad wouldn't walk through the door of a house that was constructed equally sloppily.

Fred, I hope you're taking precautions to guard your sanity. Not enough so that you stop LB Fridays, though.

[trevor]

A quick back-of-an-envelope calculation indicates that, assuming twins are delivered on average 10 minutes apart from each other, and 0.3% of births are twins, there would be seven people on the planet unlucky enough to have been born a few minutes before the magic age-cut-off date, and left behind when their twin vanished.

Just think how this story could have been written if it was told through the eyes of someone trying to figure out the logic and justice in a situation where their brother or sister, nearly identical to them in every way apart from being a few minutes younger, had inexplicably vanished.

[patter]

Thanks to you, I've been reading schlocky summer novels with the "Fred Clark/MST3000" track running in my head: "Okay, we're supposed to believe our beautiful intelligent well-educated blonde lawyer-protagonist is too love-smitten to realize her hunky new husband and his creepy dad are felons? Particularly when we, the readers, got it somewhere around page 3??"

Thanks to you, Fred. Really. It ruins said SSnovels, but it's a great education.

[Alan]

"What's going on over there," someone else asked.
"All I know," Buck said, "is that things happen there that no one can explain."

Waitaminute. Is this from the same scene in the publisher's office? There are only four people in the room, and all of them have been named! Who the hell is this "someone else" that just piped up?

This book makes my brain leak.

[aunursa]

This is the most entertaining Left Behind post yet.

And then, turning to Steve, Buck added, "Remind me again, what day is it? I can't wait for Left Behind Friday on Slacktivist?"

[mmack]

Instead, they started out with a lethal little object lesson -- kill the first two and the others will get the idea

So Moe and Eli are working for the Mob?

[mmack]

Fred,

A word of warning, you may want to clean up the pron spam on that Ruso-Ethiopian Air Force link

[Vermic]

This book could not have been edited. Spellchecked, sure, but that's it. Any half-awake editor, when they got done with this page, would have left every inch of white space filled in with angry red notes. And then would have gone home and drank themselves to death.

Buck was glad for the diversion of seeing Hattie Durham. His only question now was whether he would recognize her. They had met under most traumatic circumstances.

It's a little late in the game for Buck to realize that he actually doesn't know Hattie very well at all. But to be fair, she is pretty hot, and the dating pool is a good deal smaller than it was a week ago.

[Geds]

I need to find a way to work that quote about how "all" is so beaten it's never coming back in to something...

Meanwhile, I'm surprised that I've taken this long, seeing as how I'm a huge J. Michael Straczynski fan and all, but I'm finally getting around to watching Jeremiah. It's kind of the opposite premise of LB, but the show takes place 15 years after everyone older than the age of pubery died off from some sort of super virus.

In the pilot there's one part where a group of people are sitting around discussing a rumor that the dead people in Chicago aren't actually dead, but they wake up at night and wander around the city, looking for their lost children. Later on, the main characters pass a group of people standing silently at the side of the road. They stop and ask what's going on. One of the people says, "We're waiting." Jeremiah (main guy) asks what they're waiting for. The guy says, "A call." The camera pans and you see they're standing under a telephone pole.

Things seem to get worse from there, too, although I'm not that far in yet. It's chilling and creepy and, y'know, all those things that Left Behind isn't. And this is even with Luke Perry and Malcolm Jamal-Warner as the main characters. Jason Priestley even pops in and plays a convincing megalomaniac with a god complex.

Anyway, it's on Netflix and out on DVD. I recommend it.

Ending derail...now...

[cjmr's husband]

Nah, the dating pool hasn't changed. All the raptured women Buck's age were properly submissive housewives.

[Geds]

Oh, and, wow. "pubery" = "puberty." Go me.

Also, I spelled the word correctly while attempting to repeat the misspelling. Oy.

[Ursula L]

Nah, the dating pool hasn't changed. All the raptured women Buck's age were properly submissive housewives.

I doubt that Buck is the type of guy to date women his own age. He's the icky forty-something who goes to college bars to pick up 19 year old students. It goes with his general self-delusion about his greatness - that he can be GIRAT without writing, etc.

[Gabriel]

Trevor noted:
"A quick back-of-an-envelope calculation indicates that, assuming twins are delivered on average 10 minutes apart from each other, and 0.3% of births are twins, there would be seven people on the planet unlucky enough to have been born a few minutes before the magic age-cut-off date, and left behind when their twin vanished.

Just think how this story could have been written if it was told through the eyes of someone trying to figure out the logic and justice in a situation where their brother or sister, nearly identical to them in every way apart from being a few minutes younger, had inexplicably vanished."

You're thinking in a godless pro-choice manner. In the world of Left Behind, life begins at the instant of conception. However, this does mean that any naughty sperm which did their deed the millisecond after the rapture would result in some children who just missed the bus.

Of course, in the world of Left Behind, no one cares about any of those children, because anyone left behind is a godless baby killer. Preganacies only exist to keep Planned Parenthood in business through abortions, remember?

[histrogeek]

"He was going to have to accept the promotion just to protect himself from other pretenders."
OTHER pretenders?! Well at least they got that right, within their tone-deaf vocabulary. I believe the actual word they were looking for is "poseur". But credit where it's due, they recognize that Buck is not the GIRAT, he's just a sad, little "pretender" with no imagination, brains, or courage.

[daniel]

CNN's Dan Bennett, bored already with the chanting, signs off, promising to record anything else that happens and to report on it after the fact

Not only report on it after the fact, but he'll make sure to announce that he's "live from Jerusalem".

[Jos]

I think they meant 'pretender' as in 'pretender to the throne'.

But you probably got that.

Anyways...

[Buck]'s the icky forty-something who goes to college bars to pick up 19 year old students.

He can't be. If he was one of those guys, he'd never become a proper RTC and marry a proper wife like Chloe, the young... college... student...

Uhm...

[Ursula L]

You're thinking in a godless pro-choice manner. In the world of Left Behind, life begins at the instant of conception. However, this does mean that any naughty sperm which did their deed the millisecond after the rapture would result in some children who just missed the bus.

Fraternal twins, where there may be some time between the two conceptions - one child conceived shortly before the magic cut-off date for being raptured due to infancy, the other shortly after. So you have older children where one twin disappears, and the other doesn't.

[Ursula L]

Or, for identical twins, if one gets the soul of the original conception, and the other gets a new soul after the embryo divides?

[Gabriel]

Ursula L said:
"Fraternal twins, where there may be some time between the two conceptions - one child conceived shortly before the magic cut-off date for being raptured due to infancy, the other shortly after. So you have older children where one twin disappears, and the other doesn't."

Sorry about that. I forgot about them. I guess it just sucks to be them.

[Jos]

I guess it just sucks to be them.

In this particular version of the universe, it sucks to be anyone. There are, at best, varying degrees of utter suck.

[Geds]

Of course, if the issue isn't some magical age, but the onset of puberty, one twin could be slightly ahead of the other in the development process. That would handle the situation, too. And it would give all of those godless, non-raptured scientists a test population to work with...

[Gabriel]

Jos wrote:"In this particular version of the universe, it sucks to be anyone. There are, at best, varying degrees of utter suck."

Amen. :)

Oh, hi everyone. I've read the the Slactivist's Left Behind chronicles for a while now, and its something I look forward to every Friday. First time poster, though.

[Jos]

Geds:

That might work, but Left Behind doesn't work that way. The magical age is 12. Be older and you're screwed. Be younger and you're screwed as well, of course, aging more than 20 years in an instant, but you might be less screwed.

[twig]

I can't remember if I said this before, but what the hell it bears repeating - you gotta play Bioshock, or if you don't have the necessary equipment hanging around, go to YouTube and watch some playthrough videos.

It's good stuff, good storytelling. Everything L.B. can't do. An Ayn Rand utopia gone wrong, 1940's art-deco style.

[Tonio]

"If you ever met someone, in real life, who talked like the characters in Left Behind, it would become a story you told for the rest of your life."

In telling the story, I would speculate that the person had been raised in a vault filled with 1930s B-movies. Do you suppose LaHaye and Jenkins watch only old movies out of a belief that newer movies lead to temptation?

[cjmr's husband]

Re: Twins

I think Trevor was referring to the specific case of fraternal twins that were conceived twelve years plus/minus five seconds prior to the rapture, not the ones that were conceived DURING the rapture.

As for the Souls of Identical Twins: was that one of the arguments used during the great theological debate on test tube babies? Just think, all those "soulless monstrosities" are in their 20s now...

[Salamanda]

mmack:So Moe and Eli are working for the Mob?

Well, I know it's been touched on in other threads, but if you've ever sat through a tithe sermon, especially one that rips Malachi 3 out of its historical context and expands it to an overarching spiritual principle applying, you'll know that God is the ultimate mob boss.

"Look, I'm not saying He's gonna smite yehs or nothin'...I'm just sayin', there's devourers out there, yeh know? And, well, things happen sometimes..."

I believe the metaphor popularly used is "stepping out from the umbrella of God's protection". You have nobody to blame but yourself for getting rained on.

[Jesurgislac]

Oooh, now there's a thought: in the LB universe, do babies conceived in vitro have souls? And if they don't, does that mean that they are the only children left in the world?

(The fraternal twins separated by the Rapture is a good one, too - there would presumably be about two dozen of them.)

[Geds]

Jos:

Yeah. I just keep trying to find some way to make rational sense out of the LBverse. I should have learned better by now, but I'm kind of stupid...

I do like the, "It sucks to be anyone," thing, though. My initial response was that it would suck to be the left behind people living in the most topsy-turvy world ever. Then I realized it would suck to be the newly-make RTCs (having lived in that world it takes little imagination. I still have a hard time figuring out how to do things without feeling guilty). Then I realized it would suck to live in the neutered, lobotomized post-return world for a thousand years, then I realized it would suck to be a lion who suddenly has to digest vegetable matter. Then I...

Well, you get the point.

[Salamanda]

that was supposed to be "applying to you" on the end there, but then I had second thoughts and deleted that little bit. But not completely, it would seem.

As for the "who TALKS like this?" subject, that was one of the things that actually did occur to me when I read these in high school. I noticed they'd introduce a new vocab word, and then, seeming to forget that they'd used it, use it again (often several times) within the next few chapters until a new vocab word was picked up. I remember seeing "tantamount" being dropped in a casual phone conversation, thinking "well that's a bit awkward", and then seeing it at least once more not long after. It irritated the hell out of me. Too bad nothing occurred to me about the theology back then. Ah well.

As for corny-ass phrases, I spent a lot of my tender formative years with my great-grandma, and picked up a lot of phrases I would later learn were not normal. I still remember the day in kindergarten where I muttered "Sakes alive t'Josephine!" at the acting-up bathroom sink, and incurred the giggly contempt of a couple of second graders. :)

[hapax]

but you might be less screwed.

I thought the whole point of Kingdom Come is that nobody gets screwed at all?

(personally, after all the steaming and butter drenching, I'd be up for a nice orgy. But really, when is it a bad time for an orgy?)

[damnedyankee]

An Ayn Rand utopia gone wrong, 1940's art-deco style.

I'm boggled just by the idea of an Ayn Rand utopia going right.

(And if that doesn't draw the ScottBot out from under his bridge, then nothing will.)

[aunursa]

That might work, but Left Behind doesn't work that way. The magical age is 12. Be older and you're screwed.

I don't recall L&J identifying a specific age.

Of course, if the issue isn't some magical age, but the onset of puberty, one twin could be slightly ahead of the other in the development process.

I believe that's what L&J were thinking. Not indicated is whether the cutoff is based on physical maturity or emotional maturity If the latter, then it's ironic that the more emotionally mature twin would be screwed.

[aunursa]

What would happen to conjoined twins? (Or, for the politically incorrect, Siamese twins?)

[damnedyankee]

"If that doesn't beat all ..." No, you moron, it doesn't. Every child on the face of the earth simultaneously vanishing and no one knowing why beats all. With prejudice. All has been beaten, decisively, and all won't be coming back for Round 2.

Probably my favorite quote of the post. And it helps to remind us that the world's attention - one week after what would be considered the greatest catastrophe ever to his humankind - the media's attention is on two street preachers in Jerusalem. At the risk of reiterating a point Fred made on a previous LB Friday, that's a bit like all of the world's cameras focusing on one of those guys who sells bootleg DVDs in downtown Philadelphia: So common that no sane media outlet would even consider it newsworthy.

Awful, awful books.

[Geds]

But really, when is it a bad time for an orgy?

Visiting grandma at the nursing home? LAN parties? Right after accidentally stumbling in to a NAMBLA chapter meeting?

What would happen to conjoined twins?

Wow. That's one of the most insane possible unintended consequence questions I've ever heard.

I initially dismissed it with a, "Well, they'd either both go or both stay," but when you parse that with the fraternal twins question and the fact that we don't actually know the mechanics of the situation, it gets much more complicated. Then, of course, if we work from the premise that there could be conjoined twins who are "of age" and only one is an RTC...

I'm going to go take an Advil now. Thanks, aunursa. I really needed a head explosion this morning.

[Ursula L]

What would happen to conjoined twins?

Syfr (who also posts here, and who's office I'm sharing) says:

Given how cruel and evil the LB god is, half the body gets raptured, gets all the good organs and any missing stuff fixed, and the other half left to bleed to death.

[Tonio]

"The magical age is 12."

This suggests that L&J see puberty is part of Original Sin. I'm a parent and I know damn well that little kids play with themselves - wouldn't that make them ineligible for the Rapture? Or am I trying to use too much logic in parsing L&J's beliefs?

[Ursula L]

Or am I trying to use too much logic in parsing L&J's beliefs?

It is impossible to not use too much logic... Hence our fun!

[Geds]

Or am I trying to use too much logic in parsing L&J's beliefs?

L&J are logic's abusive spouses. Reason shows up, tries to discuss things and come to an accord and ends up getting hurt. It's a vicious, recurring cycle.

[Gabriel]

What if the pilot of the airliner disappears and no one on board knows how to fly? Sucks to be them. God has ordained fiery death and eternal torment in hell for all the passengers.

What if a bedfast person's sole caregiver is a BAC and is raptured away while they are not? Sucks to be them. God has decided they can die in their own filth and burn in hell for it.

What if your taxi driver is a BAC, and is making a turn at the edge of a cliff at the moment of the rapture? Well, it just isn't your day, and the afterlife is going to be worse.

What if a child is in that taxi and passes the magical age of accountablity after the driver disappears but before the car hits the ground and everyone dies? Too bad, so sad.

[damnedyankee]

What if a child is in that taxi and passes the magical age of accountablity after the driver disappears but before the car hits the ground and everyone dies? Too bad, so sad.

What just went through my head: "Say, I'm getting this funny feeling in my stomach when I think about that one girl in my class. I wonder if-"

*twinkle*

SCREEEEEEEEE!

CRASH!

[Ursula L]

What if a child is in that taxi and passes the magical age of accountablity after the driver disappears but before the car hits the ground and everyone dies? Too bad, so sad.

They all disappeared in the same instant - so if the child passed the age after that instant when the driver goes, the child would have gone with the driver. If the child past that age the instant before, CRASH!

[Rozzen]

@Gabriel : I think all that stuff happened, hence the chaos of the Event which Buck and Rayford walk through harldy noticing, and certainly not helping.

The case of the siamese twins is great though ! But to think of it you'd have to know a bit about biology, conception and stuff so no RTC (L&J in particular) would notice the problem. Also, you'd have to think.

Is "Siamese Twin" politically incorrect now, or is it the anti-politically-correctness police that want to make us think that ?

[Geds]

See what I mean about the logic and reason thing?

Gabriel's questions have all come up repeatedly in one form or another over the course of this little expedition. They the implications of those situations remain ghastly and the universe doesn't get any less horrible. In fact, I think it gets worse every time they come up.

[Gabriel]

Ursula L said:"If the child past that age the instant before, CRASH!"

That's more or less what I meant, but my fingers felt like typing something else.

[Geds]

Rozzen: Is "Siamese Twin" politically incorrect now, or is it the anti-politically-correctness police that want to make us think that ?

[derail]

Look up "Politically Incorrect Guide" on Amazon. There's a whole series of them and they're basically the Dummies books, but written by people who live in a utopia where the South was completely right in the Civil War and all of the gays and liberals and Jews are wrong about everything and trying to take over the world.

The reviews are priceless, all about how "revisionists" are ruining our history...

[/derail]

[Ursula L]

Gah! I had it backwards.

Child passes age before the moment - it is overage at the moment - CRASH!

Child passes age after the moment - it is underage at the moment - TWINKLE!

[aunursa]

The questions posed by Gabriel were considered by L&J and answered in the opening chapters of the book. Numerous airplane crashes, car accidents, and other mayhem. Fortunately for the Left Behind heroes, neither they nor any of their loves ones were victims of unfortunate timing.

In one of the LB spinoffs, a woman watches in horror as her son is clinging to a rooftop. He loses his grip and falls to the earth, but he disappears in midair, and his clothes drift to the ground. Talk about fortuitous timing!

[John]

patter @ 9:22:

well-educated blonde lawyer-protagonist is too love-smitten to realize her hunky new husband and his creepy dad are felons

Sounds like the plot of a novel someone "left behind" on a flight I took recently. The cover made it look like one of those popular thrillers, but it was really a romance novel. I didn't make it past the wedding flashback.