When I first read PHM I couldn't help but feel like Grace's memory/opinion of Stratt was incredibly biased. Not just from the standard First Person sense (side note, you always always have to remember that first person is biased), but from a deeply personal place. She always came off as cold, but when he's talking with the other project members, they thought he was sleeping with her.
Something was there. A softness he refused to return to. That he couldn't see. She couldn't possibly be so cut throat towards him while everyone else thought they were an item.
So I never believed Grace's retellings of the cold, calculating, cruel Stratt. Not fully.
She did her job and she did it with incredible efficiency. But she had to. She very clearly talked about how much she really didn't want to do what she did. She actually entertained the possibility of calling in the alternative before realizing that nine days was a total pipedream.
That's what I tell people time and time again. They didn't change Stratt for the movie. (In my opinion.)
That's the more honest version of herself. Without Grace's internal bias clouding our judgement.
And then you look back at the book and it just hurts all the more. To think that she betrayed him so badly in his eyes, that he can't even remember what she likely was in reality.
Efficient, responsible, and above all, human Eva Stratt. The world's whipping boy.
Yes, she did many things that people see as monstrous. But she's a very smart woman. If she didn't send Grace, there was a significantly higher chance that the mission would fail. You have the foremost expert, you send him.
He makes threats to scuttle the mission, you know he's fundamentally a good person but you can't rely on that. So you ensure temporary memory loss. (Sidenote, I don't believe Yao's gun ever got on the ship. The second that Grace threatened the mission, she would have found a believable excuse for it to be removed.)
You are tasked with saving the world at all cost...but you're still human under it all.
We will probably never know the true Stratt. And I think even she would rather be remembered as the villain. Because she likely thinks of herself just like Grace does.
And she knows this is the case. Hearing her tell Grace that she believes him is so much more heartbreaking when you consider how much she knows this. How much she wants him to just hate her.
Anyway, I'm very passionate about Stratt, could you tell?
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
titsay
gracieabrams
areudirty
2087
