Ozark thoughts

[unixronin]

cymrullewes and I have talked a couple of times recently about the Ozark books by, well, ozarque, and in particular the dual roles of Responsible and Troublesome.  I'd always had problems articulating why they just didn't work for me, but I woke up this morning with part of it nailed down.  Not necessarily why the writing in the books just doesn't do it for me, but why the Responsible/Troublesome angle doesn't work for me.

As I understand it, the basic idea is that Troublesome and Responsible, both of whom pop up as "incarnations" (so to speak) in every generation, are sort of personifications of opposed moral forces.  Troublesome goes around doing all the evil for evryone else so that other people don't have to be evil, and Responsible goes around fixing Troublesome's messes to keep things in proper balance, or something along those general lines.

And you know, to me, it's just another kind of religion-like argument, like the one about "If god is omnipotent, why is there evil" ... "Well, god allows free will to choose good or evil" ... "Well, if he's omnipotent and want people to do good, then why did he set us up with so many people predisposed to evil, then punish them for being true to the nature he gave them?"  In this specific implementation, there's two ways it can go.

You see, one possibility is that Troublesome and Responsible are manifestations of something that has some kind of complete control over the distribution of evil, and can make sure that, since Troublesome is doing all the evil for everyone else, everyone else really does give it a miss and leave it to Troublesome.  But if you have that kind of complete control over who's doing evil, then why do you need anyone doing evil at all?  On the other hand, if you DON'T have the kind of control that it takes to make sure that evil-doers leave their evil-doing to Troublesome, then what's to stop them from going ahead and doing their evil anyway?  That mean kid who's always wanted to see what happens if you nail a sheep to a tree and set it on fire isn't going to leave the sheep alone because Troublesome will probably do it sooner or later but probably not anywhere he can watch.  He wants to find out for himself.

Now maybe I'm missing something about the whole Troublesome/Responsible axis.  I probably am, because as I said, I just couldn't get into the books.¹  Nothing about them drew me in.  But, well, it just doesn't work for me, any better than the idea of original sin does, or the idea of a god who loves everyone and shows it by creating people flawed and then punishing them for being true to the nature we're told he gave them.

[1]  On the other hand, I am going by my best understanding of ozarque's personal direct explanation of the Troublesome/Responsible thing on her journal.

Comments

[fatcook.livejournal.com]

I really don't see Troublesome as doing all the evil or even most of it. In the books there is more than enough evil going around in the persons of the Travelers and generally nastiness with the Smiths. I won't even being to cover the Magicians of Rank, who's surety of self lead to so much trouble.
I see it more as cautionary tale, of not bothering to worry about your actions or of being so sure that you are right that you cut off your nose to spite your face. These are adult opinions, when I was younger, then were just a wonderful story (with several very strong female leads, very important to a young girl).

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

The Magicians of Rank still bother me. The South has always known that the women are the ones who make things happen. Did the Magicians of Rank think that because they moved off Earth that they'd suddenly get to be in charge again?

I've been offline for a few days

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

But I do want to point out that in general, nobody much like Responsible any more than they like Troublesome.