Little Mushroom: Chapters 1-3 (EN) or 1-4 (CH)

[x_los]

Welcome to week 1's "Little Mushroom" (小蘑菇) discussion for English chapters 1-3 of Book 1 and Chinese chapters 1-4 (inclusive). This spreadsheet contains the schedule and concordances of the chapter endings across the Chinese and English versions. There's an associated Discord server (ask superborb for an invite if you'd like one), and we'll be running comment posts here.

This discussion will wrap up and next week's will begin on April 17th.

Chinese text
English text

SPOILER POLICY: I personally don't give a fuck or even like to give unearned credence to the concept, so since I'm writing the post, anything's fair game.

Comments

Chap 3 | EN

[satbiym]

I find it interesting + realistic the subtle ways in which it is communicated that when it comes to survival, the surviving humans are able to ignore their distaste for certain behaviors.

Like with Hosen. Vance hinted he knew what kind of crimes Hosen was capable of, how Hosen had picked out An Zhe and yet. He didn't do anything to prevent it from happening?? he even said "what did Hosen do? did he bully you?" and followed it with "his death was not unjust"

And Vance mentioned that were there any other options he wouldn't have chosen to work with Hosen

There is this sentiment of: when there are no choices, even the devil can become your comrade and also a kind of. pretending not to see what's right in front of you.

It's realistic in some ways. Because humans can adapt to anything when it becomes a matter of survival.

There is the obvious question of: if you let go of everything that makes you human, what is now worth preserving? and is your species's way of life worth protecting?