I’m back again. Pearson tried to address the “Maybeck being the computer guy” thing in book 6.
Honestly it makes me sad since the reason Philby became the computer guy is because Maybeck didn’t get a lot of opportunities to.
Interesting. The word “shirked” seems to imply that Maybeck neglected that responsibility rather than wasn’t given opportunity (at least within the text, not from an authorial perspective), so it makes me wonder if Maybeck’s interest in computers was only a brief phase or something. Maybe he thought it messed with the whole cool-guy thing he has going on? I could see it. Either way, it does show that Wayne isn’t entirely omniscient, and his assessment of the kids isn’t always 100% correct.
I’ve been meaning to make a post about this when I’m a little further in my reread, but aside from Finn, who is a textbook reluctant-leader type, the rest of the group are all standard high school archetypes that have been flipped in some way. Like, for example, Philby is the “nerd,” but he’s also very athletic. Charlene is the cheerleader, but she’s not a dumb one, she’s smart about very specific things and her gymnastic ability comes in handy. Maybeck is the cool tough guy, but while Pearson originally went with him having a hidden nerdy side (computers), he clearly thought it worked better to pivot and give him an artistic side as well—which I think did work better in the long run. The only one I feel like he dropped the ball on was Willa, but I’ll talk about her in another post when I’m further in my reread.
I agree with this assessment. I'm currently rereading as well and I found it interesting how Philby is not the computer guy in book one, he's definitely super smart from minute we meet him. Maybeck is skeptical about the Keepers in book 1 and 2 so I feel like it makes sense with his character that he didn't take up being the "tech guy" instead we see him lean into his strengths as the confident one, he's the one that takes a lot of risks and goes with his gut in KK1 and KK2.
Out of all the wild inconsistencies in this series I feel like this one makes a small amount of sense.
