Tribulation Force, pp. 56-59
I confess that I still can't make any sense out of what Nicolae Carpathia is supposed to be trying to do in his dealings with Buck Williams. It doesn't help that I also can't figure out what Buck is trying to do in his dealings with Nicolae.
The trouble comes from the fact that Buck isn't very, very dead at this point. Or at the very least in some secret dungeon at the United Nations* being tortured for an explanation as to how he managed to resist the AC-mojo brainwashing.
Let's review this relationship. Initially, it seemed the Antichrist was grooming the GIRAT to be his go-to friendly reporter. The arrangement would work the way these things always do, as an exchange of access for cooperatively fawning coverage. Neither Buck nor the authors would admit it, but he was quite useful in that role throughout the first book, providing invaluable assistance in helping Carpathia to suppress stories about Stonagal and Cothran and their role in the deaths of two of Buck's friends and of one of his rivals.
Buck was then hand-picked to be the sole witness to the birth of the New World Order -- the only journalist present at the meeting in which the form and the leaders of the One World Government were established, with 10 princes or lieutenants or whatever they're to be called put in charge of 10 vaguely defined regional divisions of the globe. This is where Nicolae's plans for Buck seem to have gone awry. Buck proved immensely helpful when it came to burying stories, but of little actual use when it comes to reporting them.
In all of the confusion surrounding the double homicide and the subsequent brainwashing in that U.N. conference room, it's possible at first to overlook the other, vastly more significant news to come out of that blood-shortened meeting. The bigger story went wholly unreported -- by Buck or by anyone else -- and still seems, days later, to be wholly unacknowledged and unnoticed. Buck sat there with a front-row seat as Nicolae Carpathia rebuilt, restructured and restaffed the government of the entire world. As that happened right there in front of him, as Nicolae worked his way around the table, elaborately swearing in each of his new potentates, assigning to each a tenth of the globe, Buck failed even to take notes on what he was witnessing. How hard would it have been to jot down, at the very least, the names and titles and jurisdictions of each of these new world leaders? That's Journalism 101 -- the sort of thing any intern sent to cover a school board meeting would have done as a matter of course. But not our Buck.
This was, please note, a huge story. Every political boundary and border on earth has been redrawn. Every constitution nullified. Every economy fundamentally altered. No matter who you are or where you live, the leader of your country is no longer the leader of your country. Your country is no longer your country. (Except, of course, for Israel, which is allowed to remain autonomous so that it can enter into a 7-year peace treaty with everyone else and then get destroyed after 3 1/2 years.)
Yet several days after this happened, no one in our story even seems aware that it did. Bruce and Rayford haven't gleaned a hint of it despite all of their CNN-watching. Even poor President Fitzhugh is apparently still sitting there in the Oval Office, not realizing that the USA is merely one regional district in the Global Province of Canamico and that he now is merely a ceremonial figure with less clout than, say, Prince Charles.
Buck Williams, the only reporter present at this epochal event, has yet to mention this reinvention of all nations to anyone, let alone to file a story on it. The equally incompetent Steve Plank and Nicolae Carpathia apparently forgot to mention it at their post-meeting press conference, and the 10 new world leaders themselves have evidently remained silent and anonymous. Even the authors themselves seem to have forgotten this occurred, spending the early chapters of this book, instead, on Buck's office politics, his fumbled flirtation with Chloe and Bruce's sense of being burdened with burdensome burdens.
This tectonic remaking of the world would seem to be the second biggest story of all time. Just quickly consider some of the lesser implications. Taiwan is politically unified with mainland China. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are joined together as one. There are no longer two Koreas, Germany has once again absorbed the Sudetenland and Poland, and the Balkans are united as part of a single political entity. The world has been redrawn, with the outlines of something like the Ottoman and Holy Roman Empires reappearing on the map. And those vast, astonishing changes are, again, some of the lesser implications of what Nicolae has just done.
And yet, due to the distraction from the death of a couple of bankers, nobody noticed. What if we threw a New World Order and nobody came? If a OWG falls in the forest ...?
This launchpad collapse of the NWO suggests that none of the actors involved is capable of doing their job. Buck, Steve, Nicolae, the 10 princes and the authors themselves should all be fired for incompetence over this.**
Confronted with yet another bizarre impossibility, we readers are once more forced to concoct elaborate and implausible theories in an effort to account for the things the book has told us which cannot be so.
So here's mine. I'm going to account for this unnoticed remaking of the globe by accounting for another lesser, but still impossible, impossibility: The fact that Buck Williams is still alive.
Buck was the lone journalist at the table for the 10-princes meeting because Nicolae needed him to perform a job. He failed at that job and thus became unuseful and potentially dangerous. Several days later, Buck has vastly exceeded the life expectancy of people whom the Antichrist finds unuseful and dangerous.
The idea was to lure Buck to the meeting with the promise of exclusive access to the second biggest story in history. His presence there would mean that Nicolae would have a credible, disinterested and skeptical-but-convinced witness to brainwash into supporting the official double-suicide explanation of Stonagal and Cothran's deaths. It seems inexplicable, but in LB-world, Buck does have a reputation for being an independent and truth-telling journalist, so he'd be a useful guy to have on hand, allowing Nicolae to say, "Even if you do not believe my word or the testimony of those who work for me, listen to Mr. Williams and he will verify our account of what happened."
Carpathia double-checked everyone in the room to make sure the mojo had taken effect. God intervened directly to keep Buck from saying anything stupid just then, and Nicolae was, for the moment, fooled into believing Buck was brainwashed along with everyone else.
But then Buck blew it. He hadn't yet been made as a spy, but he abruptly stopped playing along and bolted, rushing off to his office to type up an account of what he had really seen. Once he revealed himself, ditching the police and the post-meeting press conference, Nicolae had to realize he had a rogue witness and a loose end.
This loose end called for a simple two-step solution. Step One: Apply a bit more brainwashing mojo so that no one remembers seeing Buck at the meeting, thus neutralizing any contradictory testimony he might offer as the rambling of a liar or madman rather than an eyewitness account. Step Two: Buck takes a one-way ride on the Staten Island Ferry or, better yet, his body is found the next morning in his apartment, the apparent victim of an autoerotic asphyxiation mishap.
Step Two is non-negotiable, I'm afraid. Sure, Nicolae may suspect that Buck, being Buck, won't bother to do anything or to tell anyone about what he has learned, but he can't afford to take the chance. When Buck ran out of that meeting, demonstrating his mojo-resistance, he signed his own death warrant.
Yet here he is still alive after several days -- carefree days during which he hasn't taken the slightest precautions to protect himself from the supreme global ruler, a man he knows will not hesitate to kill those who have knowledge against him.
My theory doesn't account for Buck's behavior. From the moment he fled that meeting, he must have realized he had only two options*** for staying alive. He could fake his own death and go into hiding, or he could arrange a meeting with Nicolae and beg for his life, offering to report or not report whatever he was told in exchange for being allowed to live. In the last book, you'll recall, when it was merely Cothran who wanted Buck dead, he chose both of those options in turn, so we know that Buck knows how this works and what's at stake.
Instead of either of those things, Buck flew to Chicago under his own name, leased a condominium, bought and registered a car -- all while maintaining his usual heavy schedule of regular phone calls to his known associates. He is restless and obsessively second-guessing himself, but only over whether or not he should call Chloe again so soon when she's still dealing with the death loss of her mother and brother and is probably, like him, wondering if the Apocalypse is the most opportune time to start a relationship.
So instead of potentially suspenseful passages involving half-glimpsed figures lurking in the shadows outside of Buck's condo and the palpable sense of impending doom that comes from his knowing that the attack could come at any moment, instead of that, we get a lot more of this:
But maybe she had phoned when he was with Bruce that morning. ...
Several more pages of that, actually. And it's hard to read those pages without resenting Nicolae for killing Buck like he ought to have done several days and chapters ago.
Buck is distracted from this mooning reverie by a voicemail message from Steve Plank, of which I'll offer only an abbreviated sample because, despite the fact that we know Steve has e-mail, he's still the kind of guy who thinks it's appropriate to play phone-tag while leaving book-length voicemail messages:
Tell you the truth, Buck, the newsman in you would have wanted to be there and should have been there. ...
Bailey tells me you're putting the finishing touches on the theory article. If you can get with Carpathia soon enough, you can include his ideas. He's made no secret of them, but an exclusive quote or two wouldn't hurt either, right? ...
The only reassuring thing about that message is that Steve doesn't seem aware that his boss is using him to lure Buck to his death, yet Buck doesn't seem terribly worried. He spends the next two pages weighing the pros and cons of Nicolae's invitation. On the one hand, it's quite an opportunity "to interview the leading personality in the world on the eve of the delivery of your most important cover story." On the other hand, you know, Antichrist.
This is why Bible-professor Bruce couldn't fulfill his duties as Mr. Exposition and explain to Buck "what he was dealing with." There's a kind of weird integrity at work here. L&J concede that there's nothing in the Bible "that specifically outlined the powers of the Antichrist." They seem to share Buck's disappointment over this omission, but they are unwilling to go beyond what they believe the Bible teaches about the Antichrist prophecies. Those prophecies are, themselves, a fevered collage of inventions, fantasies, misquotations and virulent eisegesis, but the authors have mostly convinced themselves that those prophecies are really present in a simple and straightforward reading of the text and they won't go beyond that self-deluding imagined reading to offer a list of Antichrist superpowers that isn't there. LaHaye would say, I'm guessing, that the Bible tells us about the outcomes of the Antichrist's actions, but not about the powers he uses to produce those outcomes. (The exception would be Nicolae's brainwashing mojo, which seems to come from LaHaye's "literal" interpretation of passages saying that "many will be deceived" by false messiahs.)
Clearly, Nicolae had tried to cover himself by making everyone else forget Buck was there. If such a move was supposed to make Buck doubt his own sanity, it hadn't worked. God had been with Buck that day.
Again, the idea couldn't have been "to make Buck doubt his own sanity," but to make him appear insane to everyone else and thus not a credible accuser when he described the murders he witnessed.
It's also strange that Buck understands the meaning of the "glitch" in Nicolae's mind-control, but that he assumes Nicolae himself would not understand what this signifies -- that "God had been with Buck that day." Buck doesn't seem to appreciate that Nicolae must suspect that he has become a Christian or, as Nicolae would call him, a martyr-in-waiting.
Buck at least gets this much right:
This strikes me as an overestimation of his own importance and uniqueness. Buck assumes that Carpathia may suspect him, but doesn't know for sure that "Buck had not been tricked." He apparently thinks he's special enough that Carpathia is willing to put off having him killed until he confirms which is which. But he isn't that special -- he works for the Chicago bureau now -- and that isn't how evil tyrants usually operate. They tend to err on the side of lethal prudence and the mere suspicion of disloyalty is enough to get you killed. It's not like they'll lose sleep if they find out later you weren't actually disloyal -- they're evil tyrants, that sort of thing doesn't actually bother them much.
And but so, here's my theory.
Nicolae sat in his office at the Plaza, kicking himself over his botched roll-out of the New World Order. In retrospect, he realized, it probably wasn't a good idea to try to pull off such a major announcement at the same time he was using his mojo to make everyone forget what they had just seen. The whole thing was exasperating -- three days later and people in Antwerp still thought of themselves and Belgian, rather than as citizens of the Great States of Britain. It didn't help, of course, that the newly appointed prince of the GSB had actually gotten himself arrested while trying to move into his offices on Downing Street, hauled off by a bunch of goons from MI5 who mistakenly still thought there was something called the British government (and who also didn't seem to have gotten the memo about global disarmament).
He realized he was going to have to re-do the whole thing.
Well, almost the whole thing. Not the killing of Jonathan and Joshua, of course -- that part had gone off well enough. But the rest of it, all of it, was going to have to be done all over again. He would re-do it a thousand times if that is what it took, dammit, and nobody was going to go anywhere until they were all quite done dividing the world into 10 kingdoms and making sure everyone everywhere knew that it has been divided into 10 kingdoms. And if doing all that meant keeping Buck Williams alive for another week so that they could get him back here to report on this, then so be it.
OK, so it's not the best theory, but really, I don't know how else to explain the fact that Buck Williams, foe of the all-powerful Antichrist, is still breathing.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
* In the world of LaHaye and Jenkins, you just know the U.N. has secret dungeons, right there in Manhattan. And, probably, a network of tunnels connecting it to the subterranean bathhouse that's home to the headquarters of the dreaded IHA (International Homosexual Agenda).
** The authors here seem to be following the Rumsfeldian approach of ignoring difficulties in the hope that they will thereby not matter, all the while steadfastly ignoring that they are dis-proving everything they had set out to prove.
These novels were written to illustrate the near-future scenario that Tim LaHaye insists will happen. By vividly portraying what this scenario will look and feel like when it actually unfolds, he and Jenkins hope to convince readers of its reality -- to make us say, "My gosh, yes, this is so plausible and it all seems so real! This is obviously exactly where the world is headed. This is what the future has in store!"
Yet by setting down an endless string of ridiculous, inconsistent, contradictory and impossible events, they instead convince readers that LaHaye's prophesied future could never occur the way he promises that it must. Left Behind and all of its sequels disprove every tenet of premillennial dispensationalist mythology. They refute what they were meant to reaffirm.
This is one of the places where this self-refuting dynamic becomes so obvious that even the authors seem to have noticed it. Tim LaHaye teaches that, very soon, the whole world will be divided into 10 political kingdoms. He says the Bible teaches this, so it must be so, citing a "literal" reading of Revelation 13:1-2:
And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.
There is only one possible meaning to that passage, LaHaye insists. If you take the Bible seriously, he says, you must conclude that it foretells an Antichrist very much like Nicolae Carpathia appointing 10 princes to lead the 10 divisions of the OWG. He believes that this will and must occur rapidly, without resistance, and due to nothing more than the fact that the Antichrist will be an immensely charming fellow.
It quickly became obvious to the authors, however, that writing a fictional account of such a scene would be impossible. A realistic portrayal of such a thing is, like the thing itself, unimaginable. Close your eyes and throw a dart at a map of the world and it won't land more than a few inches from somewhere that such a rapid and voluntary obliteration of borders and national identities is simply inconceivable. Ireland, Tibet, Iraq, Kosovo, Sudan, Quebec, Kashmir, Vietnam, Korea, Texas -- from Afghanistan to Zaire, an atlas offers an alphabetical refutation of LaHaye's ridiculous prophecy. Such a thing cannot happen. Such a thing will never happen. And any attempt to describe it happening will only serve to reinforce that irrefutable fact and to expose Tim LaHaye for what he is: a false prophet and a buffoon.
Faced with the impossibility of providing even the sketchiest fictional account of the division of the world into this non-literal 10-headed creature, the authors balk: "And then the Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia divided the world into 10 kingdoms and ... OMG, look at Verna's shoes! What a castrating shrew, huh?" It seems unlikely they're even fooling themselves with such a transparent dodge.
*** He would have had a third if he'd bothered to do his job and had taken notes at that meeting. The names and shapes of the 10 kingdoms and the names of their leaders still haven't become public knowledge. By showing that he knew those things, Buck could prove that he had been at the meeting and could thereby present a compelling case that Nicolae was both a murderer and a brainwasher. He'd probably still have to fake his own death, dye his hair, grow a beard and move to Paraguay, but at least he'd have been able to get a parting shot off first.
Secret Dungeons! Yes! Yes!
Posted by: Elmo | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:09 PM
Global Province of Canamico
Given your previous reference to James Orin Incandenza, you just missed a perfect opportunity to reference O.N.A.N.!
Posted by: Adrenalin Tim | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:24 PM
"Buck had half expected to hear from Chloe. He thought he had left it with Rayford that she would call at her convenience. Maybe she was the type who didn't call men, even when she had missed their call."
Huh? Even when she had missed their call? Is that an old fashioned idea that L & J have about women? Please enlighten.
OTOH, I guess Chloe never had guy friends.
Posted by: Catherine | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:24 PM
**************ATTENTION. The following post is dedicated to my Slacktibuddy Karen.**********
My Mom just got back from a trip to the Galapagos Islands. While telling me about her vacation, she started describing certain blue-footed seabirds that danced, but she was having a hard time remembering what they were called. Summoning Ninja-like self-control that I never knew I had, I actually managed to keep a straight face as I asked, "Are you talking about boobies by any chance?"
Posted by: Raj | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:27 PM
**************ATTENTION. The following post is dedicated to my Slacktibuddy Karen.**********
My Mom just got back from a trip to the Galapagos Islands. While telling me about her vacation, she started describing certain blue-footed seabirds that danced, but she was having a hard time remembering what they were called. Summoning Ninja-like self-control that I never knew I had, I actually managed to keep a straight face as I asked, "Are you talking about boobies by any chance?"
Posted by: Raj | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:28 PM
UN dungeon crawl! I'll be the cleric!
Posted by: Grenadine | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:29 PM
>>And it's hard to read those pages without resenting Nicolae for killing Buck like he ought to have done several days and chapters ago.
So, shouldn't that read "...without resenting Nicolae for not killing Buck..."?
Posted by: cmr | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:29 PM
I just figured it was a secret OWG to play into the rabid conspiracies of a current secret OWG.
Posted by: Michael | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:39 PM
I swear, the Rainbow Raider is a better supervillain than Nicky of the Alps.
Dibs on the fighter!
Posted by: damnedyankee | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:44 PM
See Chloe is a nice girl and not a filthy whore. Therefore she will not call a gentleman she is not married to. You do that and you might as well start giving blowjobs behind the dumpster at Taco Bell. I mean really, were you people raised by (secular humanist) wolves or something?
Posted by: JessicaR | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:45 PM
This whole think reads like someone who's spent their entire life in a prison cell, with nothing to read but Tom Clancy novels that have been run through Babelfish several times each, trying to write a conspiracy thriller. None of the bits make sense. They're just thrown in because they're Conspiracy Thriller Scenes, with no evidence of thought about how and where they fit into the plot.
Posted by: ako | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:53 PM
Official Bruce Barnes Death Countdown: 389 pages
Posted by: Ruby | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:56 PM
Here's a handy-dandy dating tip. It's short, so you could jot it down and keep it in your wallet next to the Trojan:
If you have "no idea about the customs and mores" of someone else's "generation", then you are TOO OLD FOR HER.
Posted by: stinger | Jun 19, 2009 at 07:58 PM
I mean really, were you people raised by (secular humanist) wolves or something?
Secular wolfists?
Posted by: Sniffnoy | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:13 PM
Buck doesn't seem to appreciate that Nicolae must suspect that he has become a Christian or, as Nicolae would call him, a martyr-in-waiting.
Whereas Gharlane of Eddore had no trouble whatsoever in realising that, when his attacks on apparently normal humans failed, there must be something equally as powerful as himself protecting them - and from that postulating the existence and powers of the Arisians even before he'd overcome the memory blanking that had occurred millennia past.
But then Gharlane had a mind of power, and Nicky - well, no.
Posted by: jamoche | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:17 PM
Okay, so remember the scene in Alien^3 where the alien has Ripley trapped and is about to kill her, but then turns away and leaves her alone? And later we learn that Ripley is carrying a queen embryo, and that the alien is trying to protect her?
That's right.
I'm saying Buck is pregnant with Nicolae's child.
Posted by: Vermic | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:19 PM
He would have had a third if he'd bothered to do his job and had taken notes at that meeting. The names and shapes of the 10 kingdoms and the names of their leaders still haven't become public knowledge. By showing that he knew those things, Buck could prove that he had been at the meeting and could thereby present a compelling case that Nicolae was both a murderer and a brainwasher.
What? No he wouldn't. Reporting this plan he allegedly heard at a meeting everyone knows he never attended would make him sound like an lunatic conspiracy theorist, because the plan is completely nonsensical.
Once it gets announced no one will care, but we have to assume that prior to Nicky announcing the plan in his soothing, Robert Redfordesque voice and then repeating the announcement in Inuktitut and Urdu, a casual listener would find it to be utter gibberish, as we do.
Maybe Nicky is leaving him alive because it's funny? After all, he knows Buck can't do anything to stop him- he's read the back cover. Villains only have to be pragmatically lethal when the exposure of their crimes endangers their plans. Nicky's destined to win for seven years, whatever Buck decides to do. So Nicky can sit back and let him squirm. If it gets boring he can always off another one of Buck's buddies and watch Buck come running to lick his boots again- that should be a laugh.
Posted by: Spearmint | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:20 PM
The trouble comes from the fact that Buck isn't very, very dead at this point. Or at the very least in some secret dungeon at the United Nations* being tortured for an explanation as to how he managed to resist the AC-mojo brainwashing.
Script Immunity for the Author Self-Insert.
Just like Eragon and Bella.
This was, please note, a huge story. Every political boundary and border on earth has been redrawn. Every constitution nullified. Every economy fundamentally altered. No matter who you are or where you live, the leader of your country is no longer the leader of your country. Your country is no longer your country. (Except, of course, for Israel, which is allowed to remain autonomous so that it can enter into a 7-year peace treaty with everyone else and then get destroyed after 3 1/2 years.)
Yet several days after this happened, no one in our story even seems aware that it did.
This is something that has always bugged me about PMD End-of-the-World choreography. All this totally off-the-wall shit happens in rapid succession (Check! Check! Check!), segueing into clearly high-powered supernatural shit (Plagues, Trumpets, Vials...Check! Check! Check!) and NOBODY NOTICES ANYTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY. EVERYTHING IS PERFECTLY NORMAL; THE SUN IS BLACK, THE MOON TURNED TO BLOOD, FLAMING MOUNTAINS OF WORMWOOD CRASHING INTO THE OCEANS, DEMON LOCUSTS RAMPAGING ACROSS THE WORLD STINGING EVERYBODY, AND EVERYONE'S SKIN ERUPTING IN BOILS -- JUST ANOTHER COMPLETELY ORDINARY DAY!
When I was listening to PMD/RTC radio in the Age of Hal Lindsay, the radio preachers would always blow off this objection with the proof text "God Shall Send Them Strong Delusion, That They Shall Believe a Lie".
So instead of potentially suspenseful passages involving half-glimpsed figures lurking in the shadows outside of Buck's condo and the palpable sense of impending doom that comes from his knowing that the attack could come at any moment, instead of that, we get a lot more of this:
"As-you-Know" idiot conversation over the telephone.
No, not conversation: As-You-Know one-way messaging over the telephone.
After all, This Is Left Behind.
OK, so it's not the best theory, but really, I don't know how else to explain the fact that Buck Williams, foe of the all-powerful Antichrist, is still breathing.
Again, Script Immunity for the Author Self-Insert.
The authors here seem to be following the Rumsfeldian approach of ignoring difficulties in the hope that they will thereby not matter, all the while steadfastly ignoring that they are dis-proving everything they had set out to prove.
Not "Rumsfeldian", Slack. Self-deception and wishful thinking is a Stupid Human Trick, NOT just a Stupid Republican Trick. I expect a lot of what President Obama is expected to achieve will be proven with time to be just as much a case of wishful thinking.
These novels were written to illustrate the near-future scenario that Tim LaHaye insists will happen. By vividly portraying what this scenario will look and feel like when it actually unfolds, he and Jenkins hope to convince readers of its reality -- to make us say, "My gosh, yes, this is so plausible and it all seems so real! This is obviously exactly where the world is headed. This is what the future has in store!"
All you have to do is BE-LEEEEEEEVE!
And if that still doesn't work, just BE-LEEEEEEEEEVE Even More!
This is one of the places where this self-refuting dynamic becomes so obvious that even the authors seem to have noticed it. Tim LaHaye teaches that, very soon, the whole world will be divided into 10 political kingdoms.
You mean the Ten Nations of the European Common Market? (Hal Lindsay, 1973)
Posted by: Headless Unicorn Guy | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:21 PM
stinger: If you have "no idea about the customs and mores" of someone else's "generation", then you are TOO OLD FOR HER.
OMG. That's awesome.
I want to thank Ruby for the Bruce Barnes Countdown. Can we make a widget or something? I need that on my desktop. Some days, I think it's the only thing that keeps me sane.
Raj: I absolutely can't believe you had enough self-control for that. I'd have been shrieking, waving my hand in the air, practically jumping up and down in my chair like a little 3rd grader know-it-all, screaming OMG OMG, I KNOW I KNOW IT'S BOOBIES!!!!!!
Posted by: Jessica | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:21 PM
"And then the Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia divided the world into 10 kingdoms and ... OMG, look at Verna's shoes! What a castrating shrew, huh?"
I just went shopping and waiting at the cash register I couldn't help seeing all the headlines full of Brad and Angelina. It seems to me there is a fair amount of people who would react just like that, turning their attention from political events they might not quite comprehend and don't feel any power to change anyways to the always present and easy problems of fashion, gossip and whom to exclude from their own private circles.
Posted by: Angelika | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:25 PM
Spearmint: Maybe Nicky is leaving him alive because it's funny? After all, he knows Buck can't do anything to stop him- he's read the back cover. Villains only have to be pragmatically lethal when the exposure of their crimes endangers their plans. Nicky's destined to win for seven years, whatever Buck decides to do. So Nicky can sit back and let him squirm. If it gets boring he can always off another one of Buck's buddies and watch Buck come running to lick his boots again- that should be a laugh.
As far as leaving Buck alive, it is very clear that Nicolae has never read the Evil Overlord List (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html).
Rule #11: I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
Rule #46: If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
Posted by: Ruby | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:29 PM
Also, back in the big confrontation in LB, didn't we decide Nicky knew Buck was faking it and let him live so he could lead the Forces of Evil to the Tribulation Force? There's no reason for Nicky not to let Buck keep doing that forever.
It's unimaginable that Buck would conduct some effective resistance against the new regime; hell, he can't even be bother to deprive Satan of souls by sharing the Good News. He's not going to do any damage if Nicky lets him live. Buck can go on being the Judas goat (the Judas buck?) forever and provide Nicky with the means to keep an eye on the Resistance, on the off chance some of them are actually competent. If they're all being led by RTCs it's not much of a risk, but you never know.
Posted by: Spearmint | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:33 PM
The bigger story went wholly unreported -- by Buck or by anyone else -- and still seems, days later, to be wholly unacknowledged and unnoticed. Buck sat there with a front-row seat as Nicolae Carpathia rebuilt, restructured and restaffed the government of the entire world.
Yeah... I dunno. I could actually buy this, if only it had been intentionally crafted as satire. Every world government abolished at a meeting and the entire media+youtube fixate solely on "4 1/2 minutes into the video, Carpathia swats a fly". That sounds about right.
Posted by: mcc | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:35 PM
So the UN has a secret dungeon connected to the gay bathhouse? I'm sorry, but the potential for making some sort of joke about S&M fetishes is just so tempting. Especially given the comments about Buck being forced to lick Carpathia's boots...
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:38 PM
Rule #46: If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
But this isn't a man, this is Buck. Those are the sort of precautions you need to take when your plucky rebel adversaries are actual human beings (or goblins or Bajorans or whatever.)
A craven, soulless nebbish like Buck is never going to be a threat to anyone- Buck had his chance to expose the conspiracy, and he went running to Nicky for protection. Nick has the measure of Buck's character; he knows it's safe to keep him around for the lulz.
Posted by: Spearmint | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:40 PM
Okay, so remember the scene in Alien^3 where the alien has Ripley trapped and is about to kill her, but then turns away and leaves her alone? And later we learn that Ripley is carrying a queen embryo, and that the alien is trying to protect her?
That's right.
I'm saying Buck is pregnant with Nicolae's child.
This would be the best plot twist ever. It's not that Buck actually wants to get it on with a girl young enough to be his daughter, it's his nurturing instincts telling him to find an appropriate female mate to help care for his Antichrist baby.
Posted by: Seiber | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:43 PM
his body is found the next morning in his apartment, the apparent victim of an autoerotic asphyxiation mishap.
I can just picture the scene.
The police find him, phone cord wrapped around his neck, one hand holding the receiver to his ear, the other inside his Fruit of the Looms...
Posted by: Not Really Here | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:48 PM
Well, now I can picture the scene too, NRH. And I will never, ever forgive you for that.
Posted by: Vermic | Jun 19, 2009 at 08:54 PM
Is it cool to offer Fred corrections about his posts? I hate to be a meddler but I'd like to help where I can. Plus there are only two possible mistakes that I could find.
First: "And it's hard to read those pages without resenting Nicolae for not killing Buck like he ought to have done several days and chapters ago."
Second: "The whole thing was exasperating -- three days later and people in Antwerp still thought of themselves as Belgian, rather than as citizens of the Great States of Britain."
And now back to reading the footnotes.
Posted by: Abelardus | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:05 PM
You know, since Nicolae is the Antichrist, would it even matter if Buck dyed his hair, changed his name, and moved to Paraguay? Do Nicolae's mind-mojo powers have distance limits? I don't think we've been given any indication either way, so who's to say Nicolae couldn't mind-whammy Buck into killing himself in Paraguay just as easily as in Chicago without even leaving his office in the U.N.? And tricks such as dying your hair, growing a beard ect., probably won't be much of a deterrent to a telepath.
Posted by: Isis-sama | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:10 PM
@Vermic-Well, now I can picture the scene too, NRH. And I will never, ever forgive you for that.
You're welcome.
Isis-sama- I think that accepting Jesus as his Personal Lord and Savior rendered Buck immune to Nicky's mind-mojo. Of course, that doesn't mean that Nicky's multitudinous minions wouldn't be able to track him down and kill him, or capture him and lock him in a dungeon until he agrees to marry Nicky, or somesuch.
Posted by: Not Really Here | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:18 PM
I don't think we've been given any indication either way, so who's to say Nicolae couldn't mind-whammy Buck into killing himself in Paraguay just as easily as in Chicago without even leaving his office in the U.N.?
Nicolai can't mind-whammy Buck into anything, because Buck found Jesus in the bathroom. Which means any killing of Buck would have to be done by someone else (either willing or mind-whammied, and not protected by Jesus-mojo). Someone who has to go through all the trouble of finding Buck and killing him. This is noticeably harder to do when it's a thirty-year-old man of uncertain description somewhere in the world, than it is when he agrees to walk into a specific room at the designated time and shows his ID before being let in the building.
Posted by: ako | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:20 PM
First time post here so please be kind. I'm going to postulate on stuff that Fred's raised a long time ago and offer my own odd perspective.
You've got to remember that in the LaHaye-Jenkins universe, the UN already supercedes national authority and the Secretary General is an absolute monarch, therefore all he needs to say it "Let it be written, let it be done." and it is so.
Oh and going way back to Nicolae's "speech" to the UN, that makes sense too to me. he wasn't making a speech he was casting a spell. Names have power and he was invoking them to gain control. Which raises me to answer fred's objection about L&J switching genre's from the real world (or at least the real world as they see it) to one of magic and Jedi mind tricks. You see they *do* believe in such things (as a pagan and practicing magician so do I but that's another story and I won't mind when you poke fun at me for it). It's part of the whole Satanic Conspiracy thing. Satan grants power to his followers not just in some future end-of-the-world scenario but right here and now. To them The Occult isn't a matter of delusion, it's very, very real.
Posted by: Tricksterson | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:25 PM
So the UN has a secret dungeon connected to the gay bathhouse?
This being LB-world, it seems logical to assume that the UN's only method of
tortureextreme interrogation is to force its hapless prisoners to attend the commitment ceremonies of an endless succession of loving couples."Still won't tell us where the Tribulation Force is, will you, Williams? Then say goodbye to the foundations of Judeo-Christian society!"
Posted by: Yoder | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:35 PM
"...probably won't be much of a deterrent to a telepath."
Are we sure that Nicky is telepathic? If he can read people's minds then why did he find it necessary to go around asking each one what they had seen after he mind-whammied them?
Posted by: GBM | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:37 PM
All I have to say is, thanks to my eight year old cousin whose obsession with phones shows no signs of abating, I've been thinking about this series a lot.
I wouldn't be surprised if L&J once carried on the same unabating, "I found a phone in the drawer! Whose phone is this? I turned it on and it made a noise. See, when I turn it on it makes a noise. I found a charger! The charger goes with the phone. I'm charging it. Can I have the charger? Why can't I have the charger? What other phone do you need the charger for? I'm charging the phone!" routine, though, if so, I'd be surprised that they survived to adulthood.
Anyone have any good techniques for keeping oneself from throwing a child out a window?
Posted by: Dahne | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:47 PM
Yeah, I'd forgotten momentarily about RTC immunity to Antichrist powers, sorry about that. Though in the real world, Buck's behavior since his conversion would probably have canceled out any protection he might have received by now. But in the Left Behindverse, apparently just saying the magic words gets you into heaven forever no matter how much you might sin afterwards, just as long as you don't renounce your faith.
As for Nicolae reading minds, I'd sort of figured that went in the whole process of mind-whammying, otherwise how would he even be able to do so in the first place? If he couldn't read thoughts at least in the process of mind-whammying he would have no idea if the thoughts he was erasing and/or modifying were even the right ones, and possibly ending up making his subjects forget several years of their lives - sort of like a blind man trying to follow a paint-by-numbers kit. And Nicky's mind powers have been depicted so far, if not consistent, at least as precise.
Posted by: Isis-sama | Jun 19, 2009 at 09:50 PM
He realized he was going to have to re-do the whole thing.
Okay, now I have a vision in my head where the Antichrist gets caught up in a "Groundhog Day"-like time loop where he keeps having to repeat step one of his evil plan over and over again.
It's better than anything LaHaye and Jenkins came up with.
Posted by: Mnemosyne | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:00 PM
NRH: This is begging for a Right Behind entry.
I'm saying Buck is pregnant with Nicolae's child.
Of course! How could we forget the most obvious explanation for Buck's mysterious survival? Nicolae/Buck 4EVAR!!!111!!! (We all know that's the real reason Buck has no sympathy for Hattie's plight; she stole his man.)
Anyone have any good techniques for keeping oneself from throwing a child out a window?
Stay on the ground floor- that way if you're forced to defenestrate her there won't be too much damage done.
Or you could just threaten to throw the phone out instead.
Posted by: Spearmint | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:08 PM
Spearmint, the greatest of evil overlords know that the useless, annoying twerps can be the mightiest of foes, and that your chances are usually improved if the enemy must return from the dead to stop you. Unless Nicky's worried buck will pull a "my death is but the beginning." He might figure that anyone who can fight off his mind whammy can't be as useless as Buck seems, and probably prepared for Nicky's obvious responce.
Posted by: rikalous | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:15 PM
@Vermic: I can't wait for the scene in which Nicky C.'s hellspawn tears through CamCam's abdomen and screeches at the horrified Tribulation Force.
@NRH: And you know CamCam would totally wear tighty-whities.
@Tricksterson:
That would make sense, but the authors ought to give hints that Something Weird is going on -- like, for instance, having witnesses remember the impression of a wonderfully inspiring speech, but lack details when pressed. There should be some notification to the reader after, and preferably during, the event that we're not just to take the scene at face value.
Posted by: ShifterCat | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Hello Tricksterson!
You see they *do* believe in such things (as a pagan and practicing magician so do I but that's another story and I won't mind when you poke fun at me for it).
I don't know if you've been reading the comments for any of the previous threads before deciding to join in on this one, but you may like to know that there are a few practicing Pagans and Wiccans among the regulars here. We've had some interesting discussions on people's different experiences with "magic," "spells," "prayers," and the like, so feel free to jump right in with yours (if you don't mind the skeptics and materialists among us jumping right back at you).
---
Abelardus: Is it cool to offer Fred corrections about his posts?
See previous thread. Fred's the man who not only fixed an Abominable Apostrophe when it was pointed out to him, but named it. How cool is that?
/Slacktivist-cheerleader
----
As for the ten world regions, they've already been established, through collusion between the United Nations and the Ford Foundation, and apparently nobody noticed.
"the Rapture is nigh, nigh, nigh!"
Posted by: Amaryllis | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:22 PM
There's plenty of people like that RIGHT NOW. I'm one of them most of the time. If even HALF of the doomsayers are correct about things like global warming, miscellaneous ecological catastrophy, the ever-widening political polarization in America, or the ongoing collapse of our hollowed-out economy, we are all screwed on so many levels that giving up and playing videogames until I black out starts to look like sensible coping behavior.
====
Given Nicky Olympus' apparent obsessive-compulsive personality, that would be totally appropriate.
====
...I hate you SO MUCH. :D
Posted by: Consumer Unit 5012 | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:29 PM
Fred's the man who not only fixed an Abominable Apostrophe when it was pointed out to him, but named it.
I noticed that very apostrophe; it made me look twice in disbelief.
Posted by: Abelardus | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:30 PM
This
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/07/lb-chekhovs-gir.html
seems to support that Nicky can read minds, or sense remotely, or something.
Posted by: interleaper | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:38 PM
The exception would be Nicolae's brainwashing mojo, which seems to come from LaHaye's "literal" interpretation of passages saying that "many will be deceived" by false messiahs.
In Book 10 demons summoned by Nicky take the form of messiahs and lead the unsaved astray.
Yoder: This being LB-world, it seems logical to assume that the UN's only method of torture extreme interrogation is to force its hapless prisoners to attend the commitment ceremonies of an endless succession of loving couples.
In Book 11, upon being captured by the Global Community and refusing to divulge information about her fellow Tribbles, Chloe is forced to listen to the GCNN news ... followed by a repetition of the "Hail Carpathia" anthem ... all night long.
Posted by: aunursa | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:46 PM
I must see this secret underground bathhouse. If the dungeon crawl will have me, I call Ninja! What? Okay, Rogue.
Okay, theory time. Suppose Nicolae's also wondering why he just can't kill Buck? Suppose Satan knows how useless and self-defeating Buck is as an RTC and wants the guy to stick around doing his work in the world? Nicolae's fuming because his boss is forcing him to let this squirming little maggot live--no, worse! Forcing him to fawn over this worthless creature and treat him as a friend, offering him unparalleled access for... for what? What purpose could it serve? He already knows Buck will never use the access constructively. Nicolae's almost starting to wonder if his boss doesn't hate him.
He does, of course.
As for Buck being pregnant, giving birth as a man sounds awkward. So when Carpathia Jr. is ready, does Nicolae have to tear it out with his magical Antichrist teeth? Then eat the afterbirth? Then settle down with the Trib Force for an eternity of soulless sparkling pretty perfection? Well, okay, seven years of soulless sparkling pretty perfection before an eternity of flaming torment?
Posted by: El Durazno de la Muerte | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:50 PM
Posted by: Temporarily Anonymous | Jun 19, 2009 at 10:52 PM
I don't know if you've been reading the comments for any of the previous threads before deciding to join in on this one, but you may like to know that there are a few practicing Pagans and Wiccans among the regulars here. We've had some interesting discussions on people's different experiences with "magic," "spells," "prayers," and the like, so feel free to jump right in with yours (if you don't mind the skeptics and materialists among us jumping right back at you).
Yeah. I'm likely to question, and doubt, and probably go "But the material explanation with mistaken perception somewhere in there just sounds more plausible to me!" until it drives you nuts, if we really get into a conversation about that. But I'm not likely to mock or dismiss. Most of the pagan stuff I've heard doesn't sound any weirder, more implausible, or more ridiculous than Christianity or any other religion. Not necessarily better, either. I grew up in a town heavy on pagans and wiccans and I know none of those religions are immune to scary dogmatic jerks. But I don't think pagans or people who believe in magic are exceptionally ridiculous or deserving of mockery.
Posted by: ako | Jun 19, 2009 at 11:08 PM
I would love to do a dungeon crawl through an underground gay bathhouse. Especially if the loot came in the form of pretty poolboys. And then the party could set out in search of the Lost Island of Bishounen.
@Temporarily Anonymous: well, when they actually are tighty-whities they're not so bad. Problem is that they rapidly become grungy-looseys.
Posted by: ShifterCat | Jun 19, 2009 at 11:12 PM