Annihilation (6 points)
This was a book that I had on my "to read" list for a couple years now because I watched a Youtube review of the movie and the premise sounded really cool. I study botany as a hobby and the idea of an eldritch horror based on wildlife sounded like it was so up my alley. After finishing, I was not disappointed by the way Area X felt so familiar and so foreign, kind of like the horrible sweet sickness in your mouth after vomiting. The Botanist was such an interesting character to be put into the mind of, she was very similar to me in a lot of ways and where she was different was as extreme an opposite as you could go. From my research, the book was published in 2014, so fairly recent. Because this book got so popular, being basically a modern classic from what I know, I think it shows where horror is going to go in the future.
There is currently a lot of political and social upheval going on in 2020; a culmination of many decades of negligence and willful naivete by those with power. Me and a lot of my peers are stuck between the fiery drive of wanting to change things and the dawning reality that we may never be allowed the chance to do so. In that, I think there is going to be a new wave of fatalistic horror, inspired greatly on modern social, economic, political, and environmental issues in a more blatant way than before. Despite all the tragedy, loss, and hopelessness, I think the uniqueness will be within the fact that there will always be a message of hope and love within. A message of: “yea, everything is literally on fire, but you will still have people who love you, and sometimes that is all you need to keep fighting.”
I see these elements a lot in Annihilation: area X’s allusions to increasing damage due to climate change, The Botanist’s emerging love for her husband being the sole driving force in her final thoughts, and the tragic acceptance she comes to when realizing that the Area will just keep expanding and changing.
(Also I have a crackpot theory that the whole world is stuck in a time loop (i.e. the Crawler’s endless task, all of the expeditions, how everything in the Area seems to have a cycle) and the Psychologists are the only one privy to it, trying to change fate every time they come to the Area.)
There is currently a lot of political and social upheval going on in 2020; a culmination of many decades of negligence and willful naivete by those with power. Me and a lot of my peers are stuck between the fiery drive of wanting to change things and the dawning reality that we may never be allowed the chance to do so. In that, I think there is going to be a new wave of fatalistic horror, inspired greatly on modern social, economic, political, and environmental issues in a more blatant way than before. Despite all the tragedy, loss, and hopelessness, I think the uniqueness will be within the fact that there will always be a message of hope and love within. A message of: “yea, everything is literally on fire, but you will still have people who love you, and sometimes that is all you need to keep fighting.”
I see these elements a lot in Annihilation: area X’s allusions to increasing damage due to climate change, The Botanist’s emerging love for her husband being the sole driving force in her final thoughts, and the tragic acceptance she comes to when realizing that the Area will just keep expanding and changing.
(Also I have a crackpot theory that the whole world is stuck in a time loop (i.e. the Crawler’s endless task, all of the expeditions, how everything in the Area seems to have a cycle) and the Psychologists are the only one privy to it, trying to change fate every time they come to the Area.)
Comments
Post a Comment