this turned out way longer than expected, bear with me :)
in the credits of tsftl, wifies mentions that “Hell is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang was a big inspiration to the final scenes with hummer, and after reading i think the parallels are definitely super interesting
HitAoG is a short story focused around 3 characters
(side note for the world-god, heaven, and hell exist. you get to heaven by loving god genuinely, angels often visit and can grant miracles but can also cause destruction.)
—Neil Fisk, whose wife Sarah was killed by an angels visit. she bled out in a painful death and ascended to heaven because she loved god. Fisk doesn’t love god, but is determined to find a reason to so that he can rejoin his life.
—Janice Reilly, who became a notable speaker after being born without legs due to an angels visit to her mother. she regained her legs in another angels visit later in life, and her respect as a speaker dwindles after this event
—Ethan Mead, who had an angel visit him but had no outcome, positive or negative. he dedicated his life to trying to figure out the meaning of the visit
there’s this thing called heavens light which is seen when an angel enters or exist their world. people who see heavens light apparently go to heaven, no matter their love of god previously, because heavens light shows them all the glory and beauty and stuff that makes them love god with a deeper understanding than any other living person
there’s also this thing called light seekers who purposefully follow angels to try to see heavens light. they often die in the process and their deaths are considered suicide, and all suicides lead to hell
Janice, Ethan, and Neil follow an angel in an attempt to see heavens light. Neil crashes his truck and ends up fatally injured, and as the angel leaves, Neil and Janice see heavens light. Ethan does not.
Neil dies, and Ethan watches as his soul ascends toward heaven before plummeting to hell. Neil, at last, understands how to love god, but it is too late. hell, for Neil, is the same as earth, but without god. and because Neil has been exposed to the truth of god, a world without god is hell (in other words, hell is the absence of god)
imo there’s some pretty clear parallels hear.
just like how you have to truly believe in levi to see it (i’m sorry for the nicknames but i’m not typing all that 😭 wow guys maybe i was hummer all along), you have love god to reach heaven.
in the same way that wifies doesn’t believe in levi, but he believes in hummer; neil doesn’t love god, but he loves his wife enough to want to love god
light seekers trying to reach heaven will never attain it in the same way that people searching with potions won’t find levi—because they’re not genuine in their efforts
god in this story is cruel. even after neil is worthy of heaven, as his soul is actively ascending, he is cast down to hell. it parallels how determined hummer was to find levi, so close to following wifies, but couldn’t (presumably bc of the potion)
hummer couldn’t follow wifies because in levi’s eyes he didn’t believe, and neil couldn’t follow sarah because he was a lightseeker, not someone who truly loved god, even if he did in his final moments.
“believe” for tsftl is “love” for hitaog
but what’s interesting is that earlier, i compared wifies to neil. but this doesn’t really work. yeah, they both struggle with their faith, but neils efforts are in vain. wifies explicitly works. he gets to the dimension that people have been posting about. his belief was genuine. and who was he believing in? HUMMER. he’s drowning, and while hummer looks around presumably for any sign of levi, wifies won’t take his eyes of this one dude.
more strength for my theory that hummer is levi >:)
logically, it works. neil didn’t love god, he loved sarah. if sarah were god, or synonymous with it, he would have ascended.
this also explains why the final scenes between wifies and hummer had so much tension if they are parallels for a married couple
god in this story isn’t your typical idealized god. it and its angels actions are ruthless, nonsensical, and seemingly random. it’s eerie; it doesn’t seem like a god that deserves worship. for every story of a miracle there is a story of injury, for no particular crime.
hummer acts the same way. he sounds like a crazed conspiracy theorist, his actions don’t make sense, he never stops to explain himself.
neil accepts hell and rejects god because it is rational, in the same way wifies struggles to believe in a creature that probably doesn’t even exist
the people who have seen levi can be equated to those who have seen heavens light. they become devout believers/lovers/whatever
these parallels were super fun to talk about and i can’t wait to see how tsftl progresses and if it keeps taking inspiration from this hitaog
anyway, the story is available to read online. i highly recommend you read for yourself as it’s only about 20 pages, and i really wanna hear other people’s opinions!
