#tkonlg

[littlebug-boy]

heyyyy gangggg..... I'm re reading chaos walking :333333 I forgot how un normal I am about things

[yournoisekeepsmeawake]

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[thesweetnessofspring]

hiiii,

i just wanted to say that i recently-ish finished the first book from the chaos walking series, and it completely blew me away!!! it was SO gripping!! the amount of times I almost felt too stressed to read on is a little embarrassing honestly 🙉

but beyond it being incredibly fast-paced it is soooo thematically rich and emotionally harrowing at times (u were right I did cry - rip Manchee 😔). also, idk why but todd really gave me finnick vibes... (more on that when I figure out a way to explain myself, but i'm leaning heavily on the exploration on what it means to be a "Man" that is very prevalent in this book...)

anyway... i'm going on holiday for a few weeks and I've already got the second book locked and loaded!!! thanks for the recommendation 🫶, i'd love to hear some of your thoughts on the books :))))

First I want to apologize for how long it's taken me to get to this. 😭But yay I'm so glad you enjoyed the first book!!!! It's one of those edge-of-your seat reads that also says a lot and draws really interesting and layered characters and the next two in the series only get deeper with characterizations as you get to know the other characters (which you might already know as you might have read the other two by now).

I wouldn't have really connected Todd to Finnick before! I'm interested to hear your thoughts on it.

Part of the reason I delayed answering this is because I wanted to read the 2nd and 3rd books again before giving my thoughts, only my copies of those are buried in my parents' garage and they're renovating so things are a mess but I wanted to respond sooner than I'll get around to digging them out and rereading. It's been on my mind especially with the week we've had. Spoilers and long rambling below

So of TKONLG, what really stood out to me this past read was initiation into being a man by Mayor Prentiss, what Todd discovers. That they take a 13-year-old boy and make him kill a man trying to escape their hellhole of a town, or else pick someone they simply don't like, and make everyone else watch. How Ben and Cillian had to be so careful with their Noise to try and save Todd and set him loose with only a dog and a knife (and perhaps getting Manchee when Todd was 12 wasn't so accidental).

I've especially thought about it this week with the election. That boys are told to be a "man" by putting their pride in front of the lives of others, to the point they were the ones doing the killing. Psychologically, that's an intense ritual bonding them into a cult and letting it change them, especially as trying to leave puts them in the position to be the one who gets killed. And that's not to include the way they'd murdered all of the women in town before that. Prentisstown created scapegoat after scapegoat.

I think most of the boys must have been told that it was they kill or be killed to get them to comply. A few like Davy were probably happy to prove themselves a "man". Todd fought the most, and it was only Viola being threatened that gave him enough anger that he could have killed Aaron. Aaron, whom he never liked and didn't have family or anyone that would ask for justice for his death and wanted to be the sacrifice. Todd still fought it, even though in the end, Aaron had to be killed.

Would killing Aaron have made Todd a man? Did Todd become a "man" when he killed the Spackle before? Did Viola spare him, or are they both "guilty"? Is there an exception for the kind of ruthlessness in which Todd was pursued to complete this mission? I like that these are questions Ness poses instead of telling us. And the plot only gets juicier from here!

[snap-fyre]

Sometimes I get annoyed with rants I see about the show adaptation of the pjo series complaining about how it’s not book accurate but then I remember how I felt when the trailer for the Chaos Walking movie came out and the changes they made to Todd and Viola and Manchee (my boy’s first line was iconic and they silenced him) and then I understand.

[tyrramint]

If I had a nickel for every time I read a book with a mayor who was an absolutely horrendous person and had the last name of Prentiss, I’d have two nickels—which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice

[lindensea]

Just watched Chaos Walking and I have some thoughts

- WHY didn't they make it into a show instead? The first book alone is way too long for a movie-length plot. And it's told pretty episodically, so I feel like tv would be the more natural choice.

- if they weren't gonna include best boy Manchee's thoughts (stupid move, really), why didn't they at least have him around through most of the movie and give him something helpful to do?

- there was no emphasis whatsoever on The Knife...I guess that might be part of the reason the name was changed, but still. No real emphasis on how manhood =/= violence, no discussion of innocence, no nothing

- why wasn't Todd southern? :(

- making Todd continually have romantic thoughts about Viola was soooo unnecessarily awkward and undermined the integrity of his actions.

- character development??? Where??? Todd's character development seems to be that he was willing to help Viola leave??? Kinda gross, Movie!Todd.

- they made Aaron, scary villain Aaron, the only black man in town....

There are a lot of things wrong with the movie, but I feel like these were the easiest to avoid.

[counting-stars-gayly]

I KEEP CRYING THINKING ABOUT THAT SCENE IN MoM WHEN VIOLA REALIZES SHE WAS WRONG AND REGRETS HER PREVIOUS FIGHT WITH TODD WHERE SHE TOLD HIM SHE DIDN’T RECOGNIZE HIM ANYMORE BECAUSE THEY’RE WHOLE THING IS “DON’T DECEIVE ME. OH, NEVER LEAVE ME.” AND THAT’S ALL THEY FUCKING DID FOR MOST OF THAT BOOK. IT WAS CONSTANT LIES, DISTRUST, AND LOSING FAITH IN ONE ANOTHER LIKE BITCH STOPPPP

[snorlaxlovesme]

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

can u believe the movie took two characters with such good chemistry and decided to have todd constantly sexual harass viola with his thoughts instead