Recommendation: 4 short stories of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017

Last year I bought the book The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 edited by Charles Yu. I have never read many short stories before and almost never for fun. That changed with my discovery of this book in one of our local stores. I enjoyed it immensely, not only because science fiction and fantasy are two of my favorite genres but also - and more importantly - because the stories collected where so varied and different from each other. It is still the case, that most novels that land on store shelves are written by white men. This is not to say that novels by white men aren't worthwhile or shouldn't be read or bought, far from it. It's just to say that reading stories from a variety of perspectives is good and fun since it not only broadens your horizon but also introduces you to ideas and themes and writing styles that you might not have read about before.

Anyway. Because this is my blog and I'd like to pretend that my opinion on things matters, I will recommend to you four of my favorite stories from the 2017 collection (I'm currently reading the 2016 collection and might do a recommendation for that as well). The recommendation is not based on any objective standard but rather on my own feelings and impressions. And anyway, I'd actually recommend reading the whole book because even though not every story resonated with me, they are all worthwhile.

1) My absolute favorite story of that collection is N.K. Jemisin's The City Born Great. It is high-key poetic and just made me feel very emotional. A homeless teenager living on the streets of New York meets a mysterious stranger who talks a lot of apparent nonsense about living cities and the role the teen still has to play. Its a both melancholic and passionate meditation on what makes a city, but at the same time it's a very human look into the everyday life of a teenager that has been cast out and away. All of this meshed with just a bit of cosmic horror to set the stage.

2) Catherynne M. Valente's The Future is Blue probably appeals to me because it's set in a bleak post-apocalyptic world whose protagonist goes about her day in a relentlessly optimistic way. In the future when the whole of earth is one big ocean a pocket of society lives on and in and with a swimming mountain of trash. The story is told piece by piece in flashback subchapters titled with insults people call the outcast protagonist who takes it all in stride because she knows that even the possiblity of hope is what keeps her society alive. Not only is the construction of the post-apocalyptic society wonderfully unique and imaginative (and utterly believable), the main character's thought and decision-making processes are a joy to read.

3) I like Everyone From Themis Sends Letters Home by Genevieve Valentine because it sets up a mystery that even after its conclusion keeps the story rolling. There are scientists on a research station going about their days, recording notes and mission reports and writing to friends, family members or superiors that they left at home. However, something's not quite right with either the station or the people and whatever it is, it's definitely going to be a problem in the future. Apart from enjoying the beautifully executed plot twist (if you can even call it that since it develops so organically), I greatly enjoy the story's themes of responsibility and consequences.

4) Brian Evenson's Smear is a quiet horror story that pulled me in and didn't let me go. There's a man on a ship and there's something wrong with it, he just has to figure out what it is and he'll be fine. I can't really say much more or I'll ruin the story for you which would be a shame, since its ominous narrative that feels like danger building is just very good. The ending, however, is what really sells it for me.

As you can see, these stories can be accessed on the internet, so you have a chance to enjoy them even without buying the book. If you are able to, though, buy the book, because it was very hard for me to pick just these few stories since they're all so very different and valuable.

Satori over and out

Good Films Don't Have to Be Good

Look. Here’s the thing. In the world of instant information and information exchange, opinions can become collectivized in a way, that is to say that sites like Rotten Tomatoes, for example, collect reviews and in the end produce a seemingly correct score for a particular movie. Popular opinions are repeated because they find agreement and attention. 

But does it even matter what the majority thinks? Does it matter what well-respected movie critics think?

I’d argue that no, it does not. Because popular or ‘objective’ quality assessments don’t dictate how much enjoyment or pleasure you derive from watching a movie or how much it moves you or sticks with you. Of course, taste has always been subjective. Different people like different things and are attracted to different narratives and aesthetics. Still, there’s a subtle expectation that you have to respond positively to high quality movies and ‘low quality’ movies are deemed ‘guilty pleasures’ as if you have to feel bad for liking them. 

I’m not saying there isn’t a way to determine a movie’s quality that’s a bit more objective. You can judge narrative structure and integrity, character building and development, cinematography, scoring, costuming, acting, cutting and post-production according to somewhat objective standards. Naturally, film studies isn’t an exact science and for nearly every assessment there could be a counter argument. But nobody’s disputing that some movies are just qualitatively better than others. However, the point I’m trying to make is that quality alone doesn’t determine a movie’s merit for you personally. 

I’ll illustrate it with a few examples. Interstellar is a movie of high quality. Critics agree, Nolan fans obviously agree and yes, I, too, agree. Nevertheless, I have absolutely zero desire to see it again. I probably wouldn’t even watch it if someone asked me to. It was fine, it was good, but there’s no reason to watch it once more. Now, Jumper on the other hand, a movie of questionable quality, is something I like to watch again and again from time to time. I enjoy the teleportation and the resulting action sequences, the banter and Jaimie Bell’s character in particular. Its ‘objective’ quality is much lower than Interstellar’s but I like it a lot more. 

Another example, this time two movies that are from the same genre: I like Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy just fine. I recognize that The Dark Knight is a high quality movie and that Heath Ledger’s performance is iconic. There’s a DVD boxset sitting on my shelves. Nevertheless, I love Thor, one of the more mediocre Marvel movies, a lot more. It’s such an enjoyable movie to me that I always think fondly of it and rewatch it for the purpose of cheering myself up. 

Often you can’t even articulate why you like some movies more than others. Sometimes it’s just how it is and that’s okay. There’s no need to conform your tastes to an objective standard that doesn’t even exist (not to mention that this ‘objective’ standard tends to be biased in favor of white male creators and stories). Just like what you like. There’s no need to feel guilty for liking silly romance movies, for example. If it makes you happy and harms no one, it’s all good. Liking high quality things and hating on popular blockbusters doesn’t make anyone smarter or better. You can enjoy one or the other or both or neither, because the enjoyment derived from consuming media is why we are all doing this.

Satori over and out

The case of Cersei Lannister or why being a bad woman is unforgivable

Warning! Mentions of rape and abuse

In honor of the new (and last!) season of Game of Thrones, I’ll talk about something that bothers me a lot about the show and the books as well. Almost everyone in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels exists in a sometimes lighter sometimes darker shade of grey morality. The show cleaned that up a bit and made certain characters more likable and heroic. Usually, however, characters are given a justification or at the very least an explanation for how they act. They are given redeemable traits and made more or less sympathetic, or at the very least partially relatable, especially if they happen to get a viewpoint. Cersei is not awarded that luxury.

Don’t get me wrong, her chapters are fun to read since she sees everything in the most negative light possible, but what started to bother me the more I read her chapters, is that GRR Martin grants her zero redeemable traits. Not even the fact that she loves her children is presented as a positive quality. To me that is absolutely maddening since even the violent rapists and killers from the iron islands are granted positive qualities.

(source: https://www.n-tv.de/leute/Nackte-Cersei-geht-ins-Geld-article13727041.html)

Most obvious is the difference in how the characters are treated in the comparison between Cersei and Jaimie. When we first read chapters from Jaimie’s viewpoint, he is still 100% obsessed with Cersei. Almost everything he has done in his life up until that point, has been out of a fixation on her. A fixation, that is btw, not healthy for either of them. Cersei is less fixated on him, or shows it differently. In these first few chapters, it becomes clear, that if he could, Jaimie would kill each and every person standing in the way of his ‘happy end’ with Cersei. In the novels Jaimie doesn’t really care about his children, only insofar as they make Cersei happy. The show toned his obsession way down (and also had him be caring at least towards Myrcella), possibly to make his development more believable since they didn’t have this much time (on the other hand, they had Jaimie practically rape Cersei next to their dead son and threaten Edmund with killing his newborn baby to get back to Cersei much later in his story, so maybe the showrunners just didn’t give much thought to that). Nevertheless, Jaimie commits atrocities in the name of love, like he says, or in the name of his fixation, which is more accurate.

Despite all of this, Jaimie is a popular character in fandom and allowed a redemption arc that turns him into a hero in the source material. Have we collectively forgotten that he threw a young child out of a window with a smile on his face????

This is not to disparage Jaimie’s character or everyone who likes him. I like his character development and am looking forward to see where it will still lead. This is to make a point about the disparity about how he and his twin sister are treated by the author/showrunners and the fandom (hah, just like how they are treated differently in-universe).

And it’s not like Cersei’s backstory and the things that happen to her don’t provide ample material for justification. From the day she is born, Cersei is told she was lesser and less important than her twin brother who she regards as being otherwise utterly similar to her. She grows up with her father’s ambitions with the ingrained knowledge that this ambition can’t go anywhere due to the accident of her gender. When she is still young, she is sold to a stranger to be his wife. This stranger hates her from day one, because she isn’t who he wants. Over time he only resents her more and more and rapes and abuses her (why don’t we ever acknowledge that this abhorrent behavior is part of Robert? why do we see him as a silly drunkard but largely good?). Additionally, he openly disgraces her by sleeping with a plethora of other women. Her only solace is her brother and later the children she has with him. No matter how much solace they bring, a sword of Damocles hangs over her. She lives in fear of being discovered, a discovery which would entail imprisonment and death not only for her but also for her brother and children. If that isn’t a backstory that lends itself to justification then I don’t know what is.

Over the course of the show she loses that bit of solace, her children die, Jaimie is absent for longer parts and then leaves her. The Walk of Shame is such a traumatic experience that it would’ve been a perfect springboard to give her some character development and maybe give her some redeemable - or, you know, relatable - qualities. I’m not saying that Cersei should have a redemption arc, having a complex female villain is good and interesting, nor am I saying that her actions are excusable. She does some atrocious things fully aware of how atrocious they are. Again, my intention is to make a point about how her suffering is dismissed and her actions are portrayed and interpreted as inexcusably terrible, even though men’s horrific actions are ignored (Jaimie attempting to murder a child, Robert repeatedly raping Cersei, Stannis killing his little brother and having people - including his daughter in the show - burned alive, basically anything Khal Drogo does, and don’t get me started on how - at least in the novels - Tyrion murdering Shae is terrible*).

So what is it that makes her less deserving of sympathy in the eyes of the author/showrunners and fandom? First of all, we need to detangle the different perspectives that I have thrown together until now. On the one hand we have the creators, GRR Martin and the showrunners, who have influence over how to construct and portray a certain character. On the other hand we have the fandom who interprets a character and shares this interpretation until a somewhat collective opinion is formed. Fandom often isn’t kind to women. Women are sexualized or seen as disposable; their actions are scrutinized and the worst thing they can be is annoying. Compare the hate Lori and Andrea from The Walking Dead accumulate to the favorable view of objectively terrible people like Merle and Negan. Or, to use another example from GoT: the way the fandom hates Sansa for … being naive in the beginning?????
But it’s not like the fandom is fully to blame for their harsh treatment and unforgiveness of women. A lot of times a distaste with female characters stems from the simple fact that they’re just not written well. They’re too often flat characters that only exist to facilitate a man’s storyline as mother, daughter, sister or lover. It’s no wonder that the audience does not respond favorably to characters like this.
The case with GoT is a bit different, because I don’t accuse GRR Martin of being unable to write three dimensional women. The show’s somewhat worse in that regard but still nowhere near as bad as TWD for example. Nevertheless, GRR Martin had been fully capable of granting Cersei some positive - or relatable - qualities or moments even and decided not to. He decided to write her the way he did, and therefore influenced the fandom’s perception of her.

(source: https://www.concierto.cl/2019/02/actriz-game-of-thrones-troll/)

But we still haven’t answered why her crimes are seen as so much worse? It’s not the murder, because that doesn’t distinguish her from her male villainous or even heroic counterparts. Is it the way she kills? Through scheming and intrigue? What I gathered is that some people blame her for not controlling Joffrey and excusing his actions and for not loving Jaimie as much as he loves her and for “cheating” on him (which are both ridiculous - and ridiculously gendered - explanations). But mostly, I think, it’s because she’s a bad woman. And by that I don’t mean that she’s villainous. Bond’s lady villains for example are largely accepted. It’s more to do with “unlikability”. Not being perceived as likeable is such a grievous crime for fictional women (and to a degree for real life women, too) that everything they do is interpreted much worse.

Before anyone misinterprets what I’m saying: I don’t want there to be no "unlikable" women in media. Women are people and are therefore able to be unlikable and audiences need to get used to seeing women they deem unlikable (that are often simply women with attributes they don’t like). There is, however, a difference between writing an authentic woman that is deemed unlikable by fans for whatever reason, and writing a woman that has zero relatable character traits whatsoever especially when you grant a comparable male character a redemption arc.

In conclusion, while I think Cersei’s actions are largely abhorrent, I always feel kind of protective about her as a character because of my frustration with how she is presented in canon and fandom. I honestly believe there is such a promising basis for her and am so disappointed that no one decided to do anything with it,

Satori over and out


*You know what, I’m gonna say it anyway. It makes me so mad that Shae’s “betrayal” of Tyrion is portrayed and interpreted as much more horrible than Tyrion murdering her. In the novel, Shae is a teenager and it’s clear that while she does like Tyrion, she is mainly here because she’s a prostitute. It's heavily implied that her testimony at Tyrion’s trial was coerced out of her with threats and violence. Like. I know the show made her older and somewhat changed their relationship, but still.

A different kind of zombie movie - The Girl with All the Gifts and what does a happy ending even mean?

Look, I’ve wanted to read the book for quite a while. I’ve had it in my hands a few times while browsing at my local bookstore and actually read the first 10 or so pages. I was in a dystopia/apocalypse mood (as if I have ever not been in a dystopia/apocalypse mood) and the book seemed interesting. I never actually did get around to buying it, though, which is how I saw the movie before I read the book. So, this review/analysis-thing concentrates on the movie.

If you watch The Girl with All the Gifts without knowing anything of the story beforehand, the first few minutes you could easily assume that it was about children with superpowers being locked up by people afraid of them (like my dad did). In these first few minutes the movie made me cry twice. First at the sad life these innocent, friendly children lead and then at Melanie (Sennia Nanua), the protagonist, reading out a story she wrote, where a girl - it’s her obviously - saves a beautiful woman - the teacher (Gemma Arterton) - from a monster. It was so beautiful and sad and both the teacher and I cried.

 (Quelle: https://www.flipthetruck.com/2017/02/09/the-girl-with-wll-the-gifts/)

Pretty soon, it becomes clear that the children aren’t superpowered but some form of zombies. A military man purposefully triggers the zombie in them to show the teacher that they are inhuman. The struggle between the deliberate dehumanization from the military people and the intrinsic humanity the children feel and exude is a theme of the movie. What is perceived as humanity itself is subject to change.

The teacher sees and treats Melanie as human from the start, even when she exhibits monstrous characteristics, and protects her from those that would harm her, for example, putting herself between her and guns. But even the military personel begin to regard her as a living being - if not fully human. The more time they spend with her in a destroyed and zombie-ridden London, after their base has been overrun, the more they treat her like a child. In the end the commander (Paddy Considine) even attempts to save her from zombies, knowing full well that they won’t hurt her.

In London they find a gaggle of children like her. They have created a small society, are able to make and use tools and weapons and employ trickery in their hunting. And while they do not speak human language - nobody to teach them - they do communicate with sounds and words that they use like their own language. They are mostly feral, primed for survival, but clearly capable of emotions.

There’s a doctor with the group (Glenn Close) who insists that it would be possible for her to develop a vaccine that might cure the zombie-infection. To do this, however, she would have to kill Melanie. Back at the base, she had already experimented on the brains and spinal cords of the children which is presumably the purpose for which they kept them in the first place. The teacher is vehemently against the idea from the beginning, even threatening the doctor. The doctor sees her objection against killing the children as a failure on her part to internalize that the children aren’t human. Later, it becomes clear that the doctor does consider the children to be people, she just considers the possibility of a vaccination to be more important than the life of a single being. The commander on the other hand questions the procedure as soon as he begins to consider Melanie a person. To reach her goal anyway, the doctor drugs them and attempts to kill Melanie. When she wakes up early, however, the doctor tries to convince her that her sacrifice is necessary.

Melanie almost seems swayed. But she has a last question for the doctor. “Do you consider us to be people?” (Or something like that, I watched the movie in German.) The doctor confirms that, yes, she does think that the half-zombie children are people. Melanie has struggled with her own humanity the whole movie. She has moments where she sees herself as the monster from the story and denies herself the humanity that has been withheld from her all her life. The doctor’s confirmation that she is a person and the other children are too, triggers the end of the movie.

The end of the movie also being the end of the human race (at least in the greater London area). Melanie sets the plants, that spread the zombie-infection, on fire, causing the seeds to open and everyone who breathes the pollen in to turn into a zombie. It kills the commander who left the safety of the lab to save Melanie and the doctor who left the lab to stop her. The teacher survives in the lab and spends her days teaching the feral half-zombie children and the ones from the base that Melanie presumably rescued.

 (Quelle: https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-girl-with-all-the-gifts-racebending-means-so-much-m-1792786423)

Well, that’s unexpected.

Zombie movies (of the apocalyptic variety) tend to end on a more hopeful note, with some form of vaccine or cure or at the very least, the protagonists in a safe place. But is this ending really that hopeless? That depends if you consider the half-zombie children to be people or not. I’d argue that it is in fact a happy ending.

While the seeds of the plans that spanned some of London’s skyscrapers were robust, one day they would’ve opened anyway. Furthermore, the movie suggests that the zombies are in the process of overrunning the remaining military bases. Not only the one the protagonists came from but also the bigger one they thought would be their safe haven. Even if the doctor would have been able to make a vaccine - something which is put into question by the fact that apparently she has been saying that she’s just short of creating a vaccine for a while - there would have been no way to distribute it and the zombies still would have been around. In the ending Melanie creates, the half-zombie children get to learn and grow up and - as it is implied - built a new small society, sure in their inherent humanity.

Also, it’s a fun reversal that in the end the teacher is the one who’s locked up.

Now, it’s not a new idea to present zombies as something other than mindless eating-machines. Warm Bodies featured a zombie protagonist and eventually a zombie/human love story that ended with the cure to the zombie-virus being love. It sounds incredibly kitschy - and it is - but the movie has some original ideas and funny moments. Horror themed children’s cartoons regularly present zombies as just another form of supernatural creature. The Girl with All the Gifts, however, is different in the way it actively questions what it means to be human and if there is a line between human and ‘monster’ and how blurry that line can get.

The movie surprised me and I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe because its themes of otherness and discussions of humanity are some of my favorites.


Satori over and out


(Oh, by the way, not related at all to the discussion at all, but I’ll be damned if I don’t mention it: the sound design in this movie was atrocious to me. The discordant noises and background music were too loud and overpowering and instead of setting me on edge or providing an atmosphere, they just made me wish they would stop.)

(Also not really related to the discussion: I love that the zombies are in stand-by mode when they’re not actively hunting food. On the one hand it makes sense for them to conserve the little energy they have and not waste it on shambling around unnecessarily, on the other hand it’s also such a funny picture to see them just standing there softly swaying and not doing anything.)

(Explaining zombie-virus as a fungal infection is pretty cool as well.)

4) Green Room

(Quelle: http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/229182.html)

I only watched this, because Anton Yelchin was in it and I didn't have to pay. See, I don't like horror movies. For some reason I loved this one. It's tense, and gory, but it's not ridiculous like I feel most horror movies are. The escalation is believable and the villains aren't fantastical which makes them even scarier. A punk band has to fight for their lives against a gang of violent Neo-Nazis determined to keep their order. The protagonists aren't too stupid to live and the antagonists aren't inhuman monsters. The whole thing is just very unlucky, really.

Billy Russo and turning the conventionally attractive villain trope on its head

Warning! Mentions of sexual assault

Spoiler for the first season of The Punisher

 

Source: http://de.marvel-filme.wikia.com/wiki/Billy_Russo

There's this thing that fanfom often does with conventionally attractive villains (that are most often white guys). By virtue of their good looks their actions are excused*. They are reinterpreted as misunderstood and shipped with the respective hero. Some people hate this, some love it and I'm not here to discuss the merits of or problems with this trope. I'm here to talk about how the Netflix show The Punisher subverts it.

Meet Billy Russo (Ben Barnes). He’s attractive and he’s evil, so he could be a classic example.
His apparent attractiveness is not even something the fandom only constructed, the show itself constantly has other characters commenting on it. The show also doesn’t pretend that he isn’t despicable. After a misdirection in the first few episodes he is consistently presented as cold, uncaring and selfish. A sociopath who has limited to zero regard for other people and who fakes any empathy.
This, however, usually doesn’t deter fandom. No matter how abhorrent a character is, if they have a certain level of conventional attractiveness, people will woobify them (again, no judgement, I know there are reasons for this).

This show stops this process in its tracks by making it explicit. Billy’s not only conventional but exceptional good looks are constantly made obvious in the universe itself (nearly every episode someone calls him some variation of ‘pretty’). Furthermore, it is made clear that he himself uses his attractiveness as a weapon to appeal to people and to manipulate them. He, for example, sleeps with the Homeland agent investigating an issue he is part of to push her into a more comfortable direction and find out what she knows.

In the course of the show his attractiveness is deconstructed when it is revealed that he was sexually assaulted as a child, even mentioning the word ‘pretty’ (“when a grown man tells you you’re pretty, you know nothing good is coming”). So naturally, being called pretty is something he resents. He kills another Homeland officer, who has called him ‘pretty’ on more than one occasion, with the angry words “who’s pretty now”, even though he’s been shown to be a disaffected killer before.

Still, the show does not use his past as a justification for his actions (on the contrary, the character himself explicitly rejects the idea that he has just lost his way). His world revolves around himself, other people are only a concern insofar as to how they relate to him* (exemplified with the fitting line “This doesn’t serve me!”). Therefore, hurt he inflicts does not matter, since other people do not matter, but hurt he receives is a grievous offence that calls for retribution. Nevertheless, he is not needlessly cruel or malicious (going so far as to openly mock his boss for his bloodlust). Yes, he does torture and murder and kidnap, but it’s always a means to an end. For example: meeting Frank at the carousel where his family was murdered and wounding two innocents is not because he revels in pain and loves making Frank relive his trauma but instead those are tactical decisions to throw Frank off his game and give himself some edge.

All of this makes for an uncomfortable (but interesting) character.

In the end, his face is cut up to the point where it will definitely not be pretty anymore even if it heals properly. It’s done precisely to take his good looks away from him. Frank promised to make him suffer the way he suffered. Considering Billy never had a family and indeed does not have a single person who he cares about, this promise is not easy to fulfill. Frank finally decides that his looks are the one thing he can still lose - in addition to his reputation, his power, his money - that will make Billy feel the loss.

I’m just glad that the showrunners decided on this way to do their villain. And I haven’t even started to talk about the beauty that is his dynamic with Frank, our protagonist. That, however, is a talk for another time.

Satori over and out


*Tvtropes calls this “Draco in Leather Pants” - and while yeah, this page does paint female fandom negatively and is quite judgy while pretending to be neutral, it’s still useful as a collection of instances of what I describe in the beginning.

*It’s the same thing I that I mentioned in my Peter Pan post. And while that comparison - Billy Russo is like Peter Pan - might seem completely out there, it does make sense. Hear me out. Billy never really had a childhood - abandoned by his mother, the assault, the horror of the foster system - and thus, he’s never able to properly grow up at least not in any normal or healthy way which makes him retain a child’s narcissistic Peter-Pan-like worldview.

Peter Pan was wrong

aka never growing up turns you into an amoral, self-centered person that only cares about instant gratification

(Source: Disney's Peter Pan)

I’ve just now read Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. Of course I know the story already. I have seen the Disney movie and a theater play, so I know what’s going on. The story is universally regarded as a fun and whimsical tale of childish imagination. Never having to grow up and instead spending your days having adventures on the island of Neverland seems to many a dream come true. Shirts with the slogan “Peter Pan was right” are worn, because being an adult isn’t all that /it’s cracked up to be/ and really being a child had been so much nicer and simpler and thus, Peter Pan was right in refusing to grow up.

What struck me in reading, however, is the way in which Peter is portrayed. Because he isn’t portrayed to be the friendly and playful fun guy he is in the movie (and in pop culture). It already begins when he leads the Darlings to Neverland. He has absolutely zero regard for their safety or comfort, they matter to him so little, that he momentarily forgets they’re even there. It is mentioned that Wendy is scared for their lives, because they are utterly at Peter’s mercy here.

When they reach Neverland the disconcerting instances and descriptors of Peter’s behavior continue:

• The most obvious unsettling aspect is that he’s super murder happy. Adventures for him often mean killing people (or animals) and he rejoices in a kill with glee. “He might have forgotten it [an adventure] so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went out you found the body” “‘There’s a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us’, Peter told him. ‘If you’d like, we can go down and kill him.’”
• While the children admire Peter as their leader, it is clear that they are also very scared of him. He demands complete obedience and punishes disobedience. He is unpredictable in his moods and his judgements. The lost boys are willing to kill for him without a second thought and after making a mistake one of the boys actually expects Peter to kill him for his failure. Furthermore, he always wants to be the best in everything and does not allow for competition.
• Something more subtle that I found very unsettling is that make-believe is real for him and he for example does not need to eat because if he pretends he’s eating he will get nourishment from it. The boys, however, don’t. So, they often go hungry. Everything is a game to him, even the things that genuinely scare and hurt the children. It’s obvious that he doesn’t care for the children where they don’t concern him, because he does what he wants and what he feels like doing without any regard for anyone else. He has apparently no concept of time and his memory is unreliable at best. Later, after Tinkerbell dies, he even forgets she ever existed.
• Even when Peter does something heroic, it is made clear that his motives are mostly selfish. When he comes to rescue the children from the pirates, he doesn’t really do it because he wants to save them, but because he wants to kill Hook once and for all.
• The following sentence is to me one of the most unsettling: “The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out” Not only do the children Peter snatches up regularly get killed on the island, the sentence implies that Peter himself kills them when they get older.  

In the end we follow Wendy as she grows up and has a daughter of her own. Peter Pan comes to take her daughter away to Neverland and her daughter after that and so forth. He stays exactly the same but has forgotten most things he did before like he has forgotten Tinkerbell’s existence. The children in the real world grow up and change and make new experiences and learn new things and build a character and a life while Peter can do none of those things. He comes to the window from time to time to take a girl with him to be his mother for a while until they leave to live their lives. He stays lonely, moving from one exciting adventure to the next, because that’s all he can do. While the end is written in a much happier tone than that, it still makes me sad.

Over and out

P.S. The Honest Trailer of the Disney movie mentions some of this as well.